Not Quite Dead

by John MacLachlan Gray

  In recent weeks, however, the first cracks had begun to appear in what had been a solid partnership, along the fault line between pragmatism and idealism. Whereas on the surface the ambitions of the two men meshed nicely, their inner reasons for attaining their objectives were as different as Ribbonmen and Orangemen.

  For Finn Devlin, the imminent American tour of the eminent British author rekindled deep, ancient grievances that could not possibly be satisfied other than by the violent and painful death of its object.

  Lieutenant O’Reilly on the other hand, as in the case of the late Henry Topham, had begun to see in the Dickens matter a material advantage to himself—although in this case the victim must remain live and kicking.

  After all, O’Reilly had lost an eye for America, and the debt would be paid in full.

  A man’s ambition is binary in nature. One part seeks immediate satisfaction, the other part focuses on more lofty goals. The two objects are not simultaneous, however. For the fulfillment of the highest ideals, much depends on a good horse and a full stomach.

  The immediate goal the lieutenant had in mind was simple. He wanted fifty thousand dollars. With that amount in his possession, a man could afford to keep a carriage, to display sufficient turnout to be invited to the better homes. Political influence would follow, higher purposes and greater advancement—witness McMullin, leader of the True Blue Americans, who took over the Moyamensing Hose Company and was about to run for office in the Fourth Ward.

  O’Reilly regarded Devlin’s idealism as a dangerous asset, to be watched carefully. Having squandered his young life in a doomed battle for an imaginary Ireland, the younger man could not be trusted to act in his own interest. At the same time, it was Devlin’s grand foolishness that lent him his silver tongue—the grand crack that it takes to move men, that would one day talk O’Reilly into a position of political power.

  As every businessman in Philadelphia knew, the easy money, gained through ownership of land and slaves, had been swallowed up by the great families; such was the level of competition today that no man could achieve advancement and remain entirely within the law. Ownership of a public servant had become essential to long-term success.

  In Philadelphia County the American dream was still possible. Any man, no matter how low his birth, could attain success and honor and a house in the country—as long as he had an assemblyman in his pocket.

  In the long term, Devlin would be the making of O’Reilly by attaining political office. Even in the short term, the man’s mouth earned a good dollar, though the purse remained well short of O’Reilly’s fifty thousand.

  For the present, therefore, it was essential that their philosophical difference remain out of sight. This was not an impossible task, for Devlin remained so absorbed in his political preoccupation that he barely noticed the opinions of others. The mere fact that O’Reilly was of Irish ancestry, in Devlin’s mind, meant that the work of the Irish Brotherhood proceeded purely out of their shared aspirations for Ireland, their hatred for the imperial beast.

  For O’Reilly, the challenge lay in restraining Devlin from undertaking suicidal, symbolic acts, destroying symbolic buildings and symbolic people. (Mayor Swift, having caught Devlin’s early notice as a Whig on an antiriot platform, escaped assassination only by the black of his nail.)

  “You say Dickens was invited to a party with the president?” said O’Reilly with feigned outrage. “Scarce is the American author who has received such an honor.”

  “Oh, you can be sure that there is more to it than that,” said Devlin.

  “In what way are you thinking?”

  “D’ye not see? Negotiations have taken place in secret rooms. Negotiation between nations always begins in the realm of ‘universal’ ideas. Once established as sentimental allies, reciprocity will follow, then reunification, and Britain will have it all, box and dice. And what then of the Irish in America? Will there be more coffin ships? And to what New World will we sail?”

  “Be serious, man,” replied the lieutenant. “Britain and America are on the cusp of war as we speak.”

  “A distraction,” said Devlin promptly. “You may be certain of maneuvers behind the scenes, in the map room.”

  “If that is true, it is a bad picture you paint for certain,” said O’Reilly.

  “It cannot go unheeded or unanswered,” said Devlin.

  “Indeed, you can turn it into a fine speech.”

  “A speech? Do you not see what is at stake?”

  “The British beast again, is it? The theme has gone over well in the past, yet I fear it is wearing thin.”

  “The coming of Dickens is a deeper provocation and must receive a resounding reply.” Devlin’s hand shook as he handed over the bottle.

  “Well, me auld segotia, aren’t you the quare hawk? Revenge must be taken calmly, you must surely know that as an educated man.”

  “I would be the calm man to see Mr. Dickens come away from his levee with the president stretched out on a board. And he would be calm as well.”

  Inwardly appalled by the thought, O’Reilly strove to keep his objections on a practical level. “Such a feat would take more than the work of a shillelagh. It would take guns at the least and I do not think we have the marksmen for it.”

  “A levee is a public occurrence, is it not? The smooth, confident bugger, out with the president on the lawn, mingling with the toadies. It would take no great skill to sidle up with a pocket iron and put one into him. Or better yet, there could be an explosion …”

  By the far wall, forgotten in the intensity of the discussion, sat Sister Genoux, sandwiched between the stove and a small wooden table pulled up to one side. From this position she could stir a pot of stew while engaging in her primary occupation as a cigarette roller. With methodical smoothness she cut papers and Virginia plug, rolled shredded tobacco into the papers to form a tube, then glued them together with paste. With tobacco and papers prepared beforehand, she could complete the entire process with one hand, by the dozen, and smoke a cigarette herself while doing so—and stir a pot of stew besides. Later she would trim the ends and put them in a box and sell them to the shops on Chestnut Street.

  It was said that she came from a family of Jacobins and that her grandfather had accompanied Paine on his return from France. Though there was no way to tell whether or not this was true, with such a revolutionary pedigree she had impressed Devlin mightily.

  “There will be no explosion,” said the lieutenant, firmly. “The president led the Buena Vista charge. We will do no harm to Old Rough and Ready.”

  “The president is a Whig. I’ll hold that he is overdue for it.”

  “Be sensible, man. Such an action would come down very hard on the Irish, something so bold and bald. Churches would burn in the Catholic wards everywhere, and there would be lynching for certain. Such a thing is hard to countenance just for one’s own satisfaction. It might even serve the opposite purpose by making a martyr of the very man you despise.”

  This produced a thoughtful silence, which relieved the lieutenant somewhat.

  “You could kidnap him,” said Sister Genoux.

  Supper being an afterthought after an afternoon of fighting, O’Reilly had overlooked the presence of Sister Genoux. Had he kept her in mind, he would not have allowed the conversation to proceed so far in this direction, since the woman could stir up Devlin’s radical passion like her pot of mutton stew.

  “Kidnap him?” asked Devlin, and met her gaze with his beautiful blue eyes.

  Petite, dark, solemn, with a doll-like regularity of features, Sister Genoux was the youngest of the Women of the Wilderness. Though she had to be at least a decade older than the Irishmen, she retained the form and complexion of a marriageable woman. O’Reilly knew from Devlin that she had learned cigarette-rolling from her father, against the objections of her mother, who smoked a pipe.

  The lieutenant was about to quiet the sister with a retort, then thought better of it. Though he distrusted her i
nfluence on Devlin, O’Reilly was a practical man, prepared to accept wisdom from any source, and he knew instantly that her notion had merit.

  To kidnap Dickens under the flag of the Irish Brotherhood. Surely there would be a goodly amount of ned to be made by such a gesture, perhaps a profit not unadjacent to fifty thousand dollars.

  A pretty thing indeed.

  “What do you think?” asked Devlin, sensing interest in the lieutenant’s hesitation. The sister too observed carefully, in the way that one might evaluate two horses up for auction.

  “I think the notion bears thinking over. D’you wonder how much he might be worth? With the threat of war what it is, one side might pay as well as the other, to avoid a bad business.”

  “That is possible,” replied Devlin, “but it cannot be simply a matter of making ned. There is a message we must carry to the people.”

  “Quite so,” replied the lieutenant, keeping his thoughts to himself. Lighting his cheroot, he gazed at the puff of smoke like an idea made visible.

  Continued Devlin, “Once he is in captivity we might persuade him to put his name to any manifesto at all. And the papers will print it for certain.”

  Out of O’Reilly’s line of sight, the sister nodded agreement. “It is a wonderful thing,” she said quietly, “the eloquence of a terrified man.”

  Having struck an accord over the thrust of the matter, the two partners lapsed into their separate brooding silences, and ate their stew like men who had not taken food since breakfast. Soon after that, the lieutenant made for his bed, leaving Devlin and the sister alone together.

  “Take him for ransom is très bon” she said, as she fired a twig in the stove and lit a cigarette. “But I am thinking that you have something else in mind. Cut off his head, yes, that would cause a fuss, in America and Britain aussi. Is that what you are thinking?”

  “Aye, Sister Genoux. That is what I am thinking. Whatever the ransom, Mr. Dickens will never comb a gray hair.”

  “You are just like my father,” she said, with a bitter laugh and an outpouring of smoke.

  A MASSACRE OUT OF SHAKESPEARE

  Astor Place Riot Claims up to 40 Lives

  by Harlen C. Penny, The New York Tribune

  NEW YORK——As Britain and the United States edge ever closer to war over the Oregon border dispute, anti-British sentiment erupted in a frightful riot at the Astor Place Opera House yesterday, where as many as forty lives have been lost following a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by the British actor Charles Macready.

  As the angry crowd roiled, one window after another cracked, pieces of bricks and paving stones rained onto the terraces and lobbies, so that the Opera House resembled a fortress besieged by an invading army rather than a place meant for the peaceful amusement of a civilized community.

  The death toll to date stands at 31 civilians dead, some 30 or 40 wounded from gunfire, and more than 100 soldiers, police, and civilians injured by paving stones, clubs, and other weapons.

  Responsibility for the disaster points to a group of Nativist agitators led by the writer Edward Z. C. Judson, who goes under the pen name Ned Buntline. In print and in speech, Judson portrayed the rivalry between British MacReady and the American actor Edwin Forrest as a test of American vigor against a lingering imperial presence.

  Officials are not questioning the wisdom of proceeding with the much-publicized Charles Dickens tour, under such incendiary conditions …

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  * * *

  Baltimore

  Sir:

  Our mutual acquaintance is in terrible distress. I shall have accommodations reserved for you at the Swan in Norfolk. My coachman will collect you there. It is imperative that I see you.

  Sincerely,

  Mrs. Elmira Shelton (née Royster)

  As you might imagine, it was not out of concern for Poe’s welfare that I so eagerly booked the 4 A.M. steamer to Richmond, having secured a temporary replacement at Washington College Hospital.

  This latter arrangement proved an easy matter. I was no more popular with my peers than ever, nor would my few patients object, being for the most part semiconscious. Even Nurse Slatin made no protest over my abrupt departure, for in my sleepless condition I had become downright dangerous.

  The side-wheeler, part of the Old Bay Line, shuddered its way out of Baltimore Harbor and down Chesapeake Bay in the first light of morning. Soon we were chugging past the oyster boats and skipjacks (like plumed herons with their sharp, elongated prows), and gradually the odor of dead fish and sewage surrendered to an air that would cure the lungs of any ailment. As I leaned over the railing, suddenly a bluefish surfaced just below me; for a second my customary urge to jump overboard left me and I rejoiced at the sight, a sensation that settled into a mild exhilaration over the simple act of breathing.

  There could be no doubt Elmira Royster had been the cause of my sleeplessness, and my unfamiliar enthusiasm for life. Poe’s distress be damned: for the first time in years I looked to the future without becoming tired.

  Soon thereafter, seasickness came over me and I found myself leaning over the railing for another reason entirely. I was miserable for the next eight hours, and it came as a relief when the stink of dead fish and sewage returned, indicating that we were nearing the James River and Richmond. It seemed almost worth the misery of the voyage, that first step on dry land, the sheer luxury of treading a surface that did not move underfoot.

  The Swan Tavern, despite its prestigious location near the capital building, was nothing more than a glorified boardinghouse. A once-elaborate hotel in the latter stages of decay, it looked like a cake left out in the rain, or a setting in one of Eddie’s tales. It seemed obvious that Elmira Royster had chosen the Swan because it was Eddie’s customary lodging—being perpetually short of funds, and no doubt looking to her for a temporary infusion of cash.

  The carriage that collected me had likewise seen better days, as had the two horses with swollen hock joints and visible ribs, and the white-haired Negro at the reins, whose livery consisted of a long, ash-colored duster coat and a tattered straw hat.

  Inside, the carriage exuded the stale sweetness of mildew. The seat sagged, and had been worn right through in places so that the coarse hosshair cushioning poked through like stubble. Yet it was comfortable enough, and as the carriage clattered up Broad Street toward Church Hill I was treated to a short window tour of the city in which I grew up. How it had changed! The cholera outbreak of the previous summer having abated, the hustle and commotion of city life had returned to the hills overlooking the bright islands of the James River where I had wandered as a boy. As well, the city had acquired a new dignity—or pretentiousness, depending on your point of view—thanks to the new courthouse, built on what was once Town Back Creek, where once we would fish brookies. Predictably, the edifice was vaguely Greek, with a dome so white in the sunlight as to strain the eyes.

  Like most American cities, in Richmond the transition between urban and rural was a matter of blocks, not miles. Soon the road narrowed to a gutterway, as we overtook a gang of manacled slaves, recently purchased, on the march across the mountains to the Ohio River. A short time later we were trotting amid plantations of tobacco, flax, and corn, tended by brown, bent figures with sacks tied around the waist.

  Just as the faulty springs of my vehicle had become all but unbearable for the coccyx, the carriage abruptly turned down a gauntlet of enormous chestnut trees, whose branches all but met overhead. It is a characteristic of chestnuts that in autumn their leaves do not fall immediately, but remain on the branch for some time; the leaves above and beside me resembled little brown hands, rubbing in the wind, making a dry rattling sound, a sort of ghostly applause.

  The chestnuts soon gave way to enormous magnolia trees surrounding a family graveyard, to the right of the driveway and in front of the house—a single table-monument and four granite obelisks, surrounded by iron-lace fencing. In between these monuments stood a quantity of small
children’s gravestones, scattered in the overgrown grass.

  There was nothing grand or Gothic about the mansion itself, which resembled an institutional brick building—a small courthouse or library perhaps—with six deep-set windows and four plaster pillars in front, like sticks of dough, framing a set of front steps and a mounting block. Clearly the residence had not been created with the Virginia landscape in mind, but occupied the middle of the lawn as though dropped out of the sky. Behind the house and to the left stood a number of empty slave quarters made of brick, once whitewashed but now stained by water and fungus into a patchy green-gray.

  From this evidence I concluded that another plantation-owner had leased or bought the fields, leaving the original family to crumble along with the buildings.

  The elderly Negro who answered the door was easily as ancient as my driver. Along with the general condition of the house, this suggested an establishment on its uppers, in which the servants remained out of age and loyalty.

  “Yessa, Dr. Chivahs,” he said in an extraordinarily resonant baritone, extending the welcome one affords a bill collector. “You is expected, sah.”

  I followed the old gentleman’s surprisingly lithe frame down a wide hallway whose walls had been stenciled with abstract shapes. At the end of the hall we reached an almost empty drawing room, with two chairs and a tea table situated in the center of an oval Turkey carpet. There were no pictures on the walls, and the fireplace had evidently been cold for months. I began to wonder if anyone lived here at all— or was it a stage setting, created especially for our meeting?

  “Miz Royster will be with you in a moment. Would you care for a whiskey, Dr. Chivahs, sah?”

  “No thank you, sir, I am a Son of Temperance.”

  “As you wish, sah.” Nonetheless, he continued to hover about, as though expecting something further to develop, and rightly so.