Men of No Property

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “Go in, Dennis, and rouse them while I wet the tea,” said Norah. And when he was gone she explained: “He’s as restless now as a cat on a clothesline, but the doctor won’t let him go back to work yet.”

  “Will he go back to city roundsman?”

  “Indeed he will not. He’s openin’ two markets at once in the spring, the one in the Catherine again and another in the Essex Market.”

  “There’s a distance between them,” said Peg.

  “He has his own horse in the stable below.”

  Peg gathered her gloves. “Norah, you might be interested in my acquaintances this year, too. I’ve been seeing a great deal of Stephen Farrell.”

  “Have you,” Norah murmured. “I would love to see him myself. I ever thought he was a fine man.”

  “In spite of the bishop?” And in spite of Dennis, she thought, though she did not say it.

  “To my way of thinkin’,” Norah said carefully, “it was a matter of politics and I was never much for the clergy in politics, even a bishop.”

  Peg caught Norah’s hand and squeezed it. “We’re sisters truly. I don’t think I’ll wait now to see the children. I want to see Vinnie and Mr. Finn.”

  “Not even for a cup of tea?” said Norah. Peg shook her head. “Well, I’m glad you come home first with your news.”

  Home must have been where she wanted to come, Peg thought, but once here she could not wait to be off again. “You’ll come to the theatre?”

  “If needs be with a midwife!” Norah threw back her head then and laughed at her own boldness.

  “You should do something about your teeth before they all need pulling,” Peg said. “Bid Dennis God-prosper-him for me.”

  “He forgets to come back when he’s with the childer’,” Norah said, and then as they reached the door: “In what way are you acquainted with Mr. Farrell, Peg?”

  Peg smiled. “I suppose you might call it a passing fancy. God bless!”

  What a week of confusion followed upon that day for Peg. What she did, she did by instinct with scarcely a thought to prompt her. She saw Stephen but once and he swore he would stay to see her debut if she did no more than carry a pitcher upon the stage. She told him nothing of Gallus Mag, not even the name or her nature. Why she did not tell him more, she could not say, refusing to think about it even were she mistress of her own thoughts. Norah had carried the news to Mary Lavery, and Kevin’s wife to her good friend, Mrs. Riordon, who pretended a knowledge of it already rather than confess herself surprised by one of her girl’s fortunes. Peg came home that day to find herself moved from the attic nook to the second-floor front with a canopied bed and lace curtains on the window. Mrs. Riordon stood at the door of the room, near shooting her teeth in smiling pride.

  “Are you to be a star, Mrs. Lavery tells me you are?”

  Peg screamed at her in rage. “Put me back in the rookery! By what right do you move my things without my permission?”

  For once Mrs. Riordon did not feel herself in command of her own house. “I’ll not charge you more until you can pay,” she said. “I thought you’d like it and need the room for your practice, they tell me.”

  “Who tells you?” Mrs. Riordon shrugged helplessly. “Well, I’ll tell you,” Peg shrieked. “I’ll do my practice now upon the stage, and precious little I could have done here to get upon it. Bring up my things!”

  She ran from the room and up the trembling steps to her old nook. There she flung herself upon the naked mattress and spent her wrath in tears. Was nothing familiar to be left her at all? Was the world she knew to crumble beneath her before her foot was steady upon another?

  She was fresh from the tears when Mrs. Riordon appeared in the door with a cup of broth. “Here, this’ll steady your nerves. You must be under a terrible strain they tell me…a terrible strain it must be to be under.”

  Peg laughed aloud at the woman’s attempt to break a habit to please her. Mrs. Riordon fled her as she would a madwoman. “Never mind my things!” Peg called after her. “I’ll move down after all.” Why not? What was treasurable here or in any part of her past to cling to? Home? What was home but sleep? She sipped the broth and wondered what kind of teeth Gallus Mag would have. She might blacken out one or two in the front.

  Valois did not abandon her. There were times she wished he would. “There is but one way to cope with the inevitable,” he said. “Accept it.” And having said that, he set about making his own analysis of Gallus Mag. He was not long about it when he came up with a complete grotesque: the pitiable toy of the depraved who would bray her lines like an idiot. Seeing his notion of the role, Peg could understand his horror of it; but she was not strong enough in experience to fight him. She scarcely knew how to express her own concept, and his was easier by far. And often the line between them blurred. Yet at the end of every torturous day with him, she tried to remember her first feelings for Mag: pity that a woman so needed love that she took it as a street bawd; and she was “gallus” because she was gallant, gallant and uncomplaining. If she could but cling to this concept until she was called for rehearsal, then with Mr. Richards’ help, she might save something of it.

  She lay one night, near fevered with the thought of it, and rose to stand before the open window, the cold wind sluicing her body. In the morning she awoke with a chill and a head giddy with cold. Mrs. Riordon came up when she failed to appear for breakfast, and soon had a doctor in to attend her. In her first comfortable moments Peg took comfort in the illness itself. Assured of recovery on staying a few days in bed, she knew she was free of Valois until rehearsal commenced.

  7

  THE GREEN ROOM WAS crowded with players for the cast of the play was enormous. It might well be the corner of Broadway and Chambers, so motley were the costumes…tall-hatted gentlemen of Wall Street, bowlered toughs from The Points, campaigners from the Mexican War, whalers, clerks, firemen, dustmen; ladies of fashion and women of none, sewing girls, matchgirls, and the wistful peddler of hot corn. Small camaraderie there was amongst the actors beyond a nod or a wink. Instead of a greeting, you got a man’s lines in your face, or a bit of business tried on your humor. For Peg, the moment she left the dressing-room, her hair done in straggles over her bare shoulders, the part was in straggles as well. She could remember her lines but in snatches and her business not at all. She was not out of the fever by any means, she thought, and the doctor was mad to have called her well. She lost her way to the Green Room and was shooed by the prompter like a cat through the scenery. Better by far he had shooed her into the street. Her mind was a-churn with the shame of rehearsals, the titters and bawls at her ignorance. She could see Val’s face, phosphoric as the devil’s whenever she closed her eyes, or the Richards cigar pumping smoke like a railway engine. That it must be which was choking her now, for she hadn’t the breath to quiver a cobweb.

  A party of newsboys rushed in, hired from the streets at sixpence a head. A wall rose between them and the actors and its substance might as well have been mortar. Peg lept over it, let the players think of her what they might. The boys were like Vinnie when first she knew him, and like Vinnie, they made her a welcome. “Where’s yer slung-shot, Mag?” cried one to her. Mother of God, they knew her for the part she’d play! She pulled from the folds of her ragged skirt the stocking knotted at the toe with a potato in it and whirled it over their heads. “Gallus!” they cried. “My eyes, ’Tis her!” they cried till the players hushed them and shushed them down. A little bell rang at the door; another was ringing on stage. In a moment the curtain would rise on Mrs. Haversham and her lover. The call boy appeared in the doorway, taking the uppermost sheet from his fistful of papers. “Miss Trueheart, you are called,” his small soprano sang out. He stood a moment, his eyes contemptuous upon the newsboys before he disappeared. The newsboys brayed after him like donkeys until Peg stilled them. Miss Trueheart left the Green Room, the players sharing her scene in her wake. The stage manager came to instruct the newsboys again; they would come on with Gall
us Mag. Small need had they of such instruction. “A fine house,” the manager told an actor, “but cold. They’re sitting on their hands to warm them.” Peg shook off her thoughts of the house. Better think it empty, or peopled only with strangers. Her hands were wet and her throat was dry and her knees no stronger than jelly.

  “Gallus Mag, you are called.”

  The newsboys made a rush for the door, contriving to trample his highness, the call boy, and carrying Peg on their drive. Otherwise she’d have never got on. But once hell-bent for the stage, she took command of the boys and held them, bear cubs in her power. Gallus Mag’s been called, she said over and over to herself, and damn her eyes but she’ll answer! At the prompter’s cue she unleashed the boys, and they whooped and hollered sweeping onto the stage where a muss was being enacted, Yankee Nolan thumped into a pulp by Killer McVey. “Gallus Mag’s a-comin’,” the newsboys heralded, “Mag’s a-comin’, Killer, beware!”

  Peg dangled the slung-shot from her wrist as a lady might her parasol, put her chin in the air and made her entrance. Silence fell on the scene as had been directed while Gallus Mag strolled on. As relaxed as a kitten she came, her shoulders swaying a little, her hips a little, defiance in every step. The footlights made a curtain. Beyond them might lie a graveyard, and the only life in the world waited its start with her words when she reached the prone man on the stage. She stood a moment and looked down at him and then raised her eyes to Killer McVey. “I’m feelin’ mighty lovin’ toward that man,” she said, and with a twist of her wrist brought the slung-shot up and felled the Killer with it. They had worked for hours on the timing and the Killer went down as though he’d been caught on the chin with a rock.

  There was no other word for the sound from the audience then but a roar. It started in the pit and echoed in the gallery. Wave after wave of cheering and stamping. The boys recognized their Mag and gave her welcome. Nothing she had ever known was like this, Peg thought. Her feet seemed clamped to the floor. The manager was waving from the wings. She could not guess his meaning. The Killer got to his feet then. “You’d better turn ’round to them, Mag,” he said, smiling. “It’s you they’re cheering, not me.” But she caught his hand and as she turned pulled him into the bow with her. Even the actors joined the applause, and the newsboys jumped up and down with glee. The house would not be quiet. Mr. Richards gave up his pantomime from the wings and came on the stage. “We’ll take it again from Mag’s entrance and play through,” he said, then herding the newsboys off the stage.

  The play went on and oh, the challenge Peg met to convey the true Mag after so broad an introduction; but meet it she did, and even some men in the audience wept when Mag in the end, and according to the legend after which the scene was fashioned, goes a little mad upon the death of her lover and is carried to the door of the asylum van reciting: “The quality of mercy is not strained…” Gallus Mag, the story had it, was an actress who fell upon hard times in the wake of scandal, and set herself to scourge the city.

  8

  MR. FINN MADE A supper party that night to which were invited Peg’s family, friends and theatre acquaintances. Vinnie was charged to bring the guest of honor. It was a weeping Peg he found in the dressing-room when he was allowed to go down. Most of the cast had departed, yet the crowd outside was hanging on for a sight of her.

  “Are you watering the flowers, Peg?” the boy said from the doorway. The drab little room was crowded with great vulgar clumps of them.

  “Oh, Vinnie,” she wailed, throwing her arms around him. “I feel so lonesome.”

  “You won’t when you see the crowd outside. I’ve got a carriage waiting you, and everybody’s at Mr. Finn’s.”

  “Are they?” said Peg, changing from tears to smiles. She turned to the square of looking glass and from the table took a string of pearls out of a case. “Look, Vinnie.”

  “They’re cracking,” he said in awe as she fastened them about her neck. They fell like a circle of snowdrops on the dark red velvet of her bodice. “Are they from Mr. Farrell?”

  She nodded. “Just before curtain a messenger brought them. Will he be there, too?” She had hoped it might be Stephen when Vinnie came to her door.

  “I don’t know,” the boy said. “He was invited, so was Mr. Valois, and Dennis and Norah and…”

  Peg laughed. “A prince’s mixture! Poor Val, he’ll be swimming again in Irishmen. Vinnie…” She grew serious then. “Was I really good?”

  “I thought you were wonderful.”

  “Everybody says it. Wait till I tell you who all was in. Even some critics, Vinnie. ’Tis very unusual.” She caught his face between her hands and pulled it down, kissing him gently on the mouth. “Here,” she said, getting up and gathering one bouquet of flowers which she put in his arms to carry. “These are the only ones I’m keeping. Remember?” He nodded, for these were the flowers he had sent her. “I’ve left word for all the rest to be sent to the Cathedral.” She flung her cloak about her shoulders. “Oh, Vinnie, be proud and happy for me!”

  “Peg,” he said, “I love you.”

  She hugged him. “Then carry me off, for I love you, too.”

  “Eleven o’clock call in the morning, Miss Margaret,” the doorman said. She had taken Valois’ advice and was billed under the one name.

  “Thank you, Tom,” Peg sang out. Streets was to play every night until further notice and the play must be cut in the morning.

  In the little alleyway to the stage door there were people waiting still. “Three cheers for Miss Margaret!” came the cry when she stepped through the door. She stood under the lantern a moment and smiled around. Then she plucked a few flowers out of Vinnie’s bouquet and threw them toward the ladies. The clapping of hands accompanied her to the carriage.

  She sat back in its quiet darkness and held Vinnie’s hand.

  “Peg, I lied to you,” the boy burst out when they had traveled a few blocks. “Mr. Farrell won’t be there tonight. He asked me to give you his regrets.”

  “Just that,” said Peg, after a moment. “Not a note? Nothing?”

  “That’s all,” Vinnie said.

  “When did you see him?”

  “When I was waiting for you.”

  “Vinnie, tell the driver to turn around. I want to go first to Bleecker Street.”

  “Peg, they’re waiting at home.”

  “Let them wait. Tell him, Vinnie, or I shall.”

  Vinnie tapped on the panel and instructed the driver.

  “He didn’t like me,” Peg said. “I suppose I knew from the beginning he wouldn’t like it. That’s why I never told him what the part was.” She gave a cold little laugh, her anger mounting. “He and Val, a pair! What fools! I degraded myself, I suppose. I should have minced upon the stage, a true Miss Trueheart…”

  “Please, Peg,” Vinnie pleaded. “Let’s not go all the way up there. I haven’t enough money for the carriage.”

  “I have,” she said, “and I shall have hereafter.”

  “But he mayn’t even be there!”

  “Ah, but he will. I know him. He’ll have gone home to brood upon his opinion.”

  And he was home. He came to the door at Peg’s ring.

  “May I come in?” she said. She went into the drawing-room where, by the signs, he had set himself up for contemplation before the fire. A glass of sherry had been poured and his pipe sat by the crock of tobacco. “Whatever your weaknesses, Stephen, I never thought you a coward.”

  “I should have written you tonight,” he said.

  “Why? To give me a letter—something to keep in remembrance along with tonight’s bill, my call sheet, a flower I should press in a prayer book, and maybe with these?” She took the pearls from about her neck.

  “Those were for you, Margaret. Not for Gallus Mag.”

  “Tonight I was Gallus Mag, and will be tomorrow night and as many nights as she is welcome on the stage. I’ve forgot the box they came in. I’ll send it round.” She laid the jewels upon the mantel.<
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  “You needn’t, for I’ll not be here to receive it,” he said in a sudden wrath of his own. “God in heaven, Margaret, why did you do it?”

  “Because I am an actress.”

  “Oh, you are, and a fine one. The part should never have been played.”

  “I did not write it.”

  “You gave it life as no playwriter could have given it.”

  “And well I might,” she cried. “I’ve had a lifetime to study her likes!”

  “And you’d have the world study it with you. There is not a magazine in the country, not a newspaper that doesn’t show the Irishman half-man, half-ape. Not a part can he play on the stage except to be their clown. When he wins the day it’s by chance as a child might and at the curtain’s fall he’s left scratching his head in wonder as to how he did it. That’s the legend they want of us: sluts, drunkards and braggarts, court fools at our best. That’s what you gave them tonight, a drunken slut who might have been a woman. She would not have been tolerated on the stage were she any race but Irish, and I say God damn you, Margaret, for playing it.”

  His words fell upon her like a lash and she lifted her head a little the better to endure them. When he was done she stood quite still for a moment for she could say nothing.

  “Oh, Margaret, Margaret,” he said finally, “you look like a queen standing there. And queens we have had in our history, Maeve and Deirdre, as proud as any reigned the earth. When will come the poets to remind us of them, to lead us out of this degradation?”

  Peg lifted her hand to the mantel and touched her finger to the pearls. “I think Gallus Mag is a queen,” she said quietly and turned to him. “Goodbye, Stephen.”

  “Take the pearls, Margaret. Please take them.”