Men of No Property

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “Very peculiar indeed,” Delia said. “Did you know he was a Negro?”

  “No,” Vinnie said quietly, “I didn’t.”

  Delia smiled then and hooked her arm in his. “There,” she said, “I didn’t think you knew it. I just learned it myself from a most reliable source.”

  Vinnie, thinking about the man’s features, realized it might be so. “Part Negro, I should say.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Delia said blithely.

  “I see,” Vinnie said.

  “We won’t tell Stephen a word about it. He’s got enough on his mind now.”

  Quite enough, Vinnie thought.

  Stephen prevailed upon Mr. Finn and Vinnie to stay on to supper. The remains of the buffet made an ample feast.

  “We should have asked Mr. Robbins to dine with us, Stephen,” Delia said, and to Vinnie: “He’s an old family friend, you know.”

  “I dare say he had many calls yet to make,” Stephen said. “Some houses receive until ten.”

  “Gracious! I’d be entirely undone by then,” said Delia.

  “You must be weary as it is, my dear,” he said, and added to his guests: “It’s Delia’s way to give of herself unsparingly.”

  “I do think you’re describin’ yourself, Stephen Farrell. There’s no end to the things he does for people—always gettin’ himself taken advantage of.”

  Stephen shifted uneasily in his chair and cleared his throat as though to hold off further conversation until he found an appropriate subject. “Do you know Robbins?” He addressed Mr. Finn.

  “Only by hearsay. An affable gentleman.” It was faint praise, Vinnie thought. Robbins was one of the few men present he had not met.

  “He’s very well thought of down home—for a Northern man,” Delia said, folding her napkin.

  Mr. Finn looked up. “Do you think so ill of us, Mrs. Farrell?” He would never call her Delia, Vinnie thought. Nor would she ask it of him.

  “I do think it’s the other way about, Mr. Finn, and we Southerners have a way of reciprocatin’. It’s human nature, I suppose, though sometimes I do wonder whatever human nature is, all the things men do and call it that.”

  Mr. Finn merely nodded.

  “That was a strange chap you took up with, Vinnie,” Stephen said. “Did you invite him?”

  “No,” he said, and then because he wished it known that he was not ashamed of the association he added: “But I might have. That was Jabez Reed, Mr. Finn.”

  “Was it? An excellent painter. Vinnie presented me with a landscape of his this holiday. It was that you admired this morning, Stephen.”

  “Indeed,” Stephen murmured. “A remarkable sense of color.”

  Vinnie covered with a cough a strong impulse to laugh.

  “I do believe I’ll retire if you gentlemen will excuse me,” Delia said. “It’s been such a marvelous day.” They arose from the table with her. “I want you to come to tea real soon, Vinnie…and you too, Mr. Finn, if you can spare us the time…”

  Upon Delia’s withdrawal Stephen launched into such an account of her virtues that Vinnie and Mr. Finn needed to avoid each other’s eyes. Had Vinnie liked Delia Farrell a great deal—and he scarcely liked her at all—he should still have been embarrassed. Stephen gave off as abruptly as he had commenced. “Well, Vinnie, shall we toast it instead of telling it? Will you have a brandy with me?”

  “Thank you,” Vinnie said, and when Stephen brought the glasses, the boy proposed: “To the charming and lovely Delia.” And she was both lovely and charming, he thought.

  “Drink deeply,” Mr. Finn said, and dropped his eyes upon his folded hands.

  “The Citizen will go to press within the week,” Stephen said presently. Then, finding his guests’ enthusiasm less than he had hoped, he said: “You must not judge John Mitchel too severely. He knows but one mission for any Irishman—to save Ireland.”

  “Well enough,” Mr. Finn said, “but I think he would be well advised to—ah—withhold his sentiments on certain peculiarly American problems.” Mitchel made no secret of his pro-Southern sympathies.

  “He does not realize the acuteness of our sensitivities these days,” Stephen said. “And you must understand, Jeremiah, how easy it is for some of us to find similarities between the North and England. I do not believe that a pinch of pious cant sweetens a full measure of exploitation. I must confess myself to an affinity with the Southern dream.”

  “And what, Stephen,” said Mr. Finn, “do you consider the Southern dream?”

  “An agrarian civilization…enough leisure for thoughtful men to distill the best in government—in philosophy…”

  The very backside of the truth, Vinnie remembered his words that morning. Delia was not homesick, but Stephen was.

  “Government by distillery,” Mr. Finn said slyly. “Forgive me a bad play upon your words, but we have quite enough of that.” He sat back in his chair. “Oh my, Stephen, you have described the Jeffersonian ideal—but fifty years have changed the world. Commerce was not to be denied. Manufacture will not be confined to the mechanic’s shop. Nor is the agrarianism of the South at all today what Jefferson proposed. He envisioned a nation of self-supporting farmers—and nothing is further from self-support than dedicating the land to one crop.”

  “God forbid I should be blind to that,” Stephen said, “when the potato has so cursed Ireland. It is the truth you tell. I know it. I run from it but I cannot escape. But I wonder if John will see it. He was wiser once than all of us as to the true relationship between man and the land. He would have made that the issue of the rising, and at least have had a rising for it. Well, we must see where he will go now. The Citizen will be a lively paper—and an independent one.”

  “Independent of whom?” Mr. Finn said, and the same words were on Vinnie’s lips.

  “Of the Church,” Stephen said. “Something novel in Irish letters.”

  “I asked merely because you mentioned it,” Mr. Finn said.

  “Stephen,” Vinnie said, and without sufficient forethought, “is Mr. Robbins supporting The Citizen?”

  “No more than certain other gentlemen who will go its bond until it is self-supporting,” Stephen said slowly. “Do I infer censure in your question, Vinnie?”

  There was nothing for it then, Vinnie realized, but to spill out his conversation with Jabez Reed, Reed’s account of George Robbins.

  “’Tis true,” Stephen said coldly, “all true. Our clientele are largely Southern planters and more honorable gentlemen, by and large, Vincent, than the eminent hypocrites with whom they must trade. These Yankees wheedle, maneuver and squeeze for their profits at both ends. Then they donate a pittance to a home for destitute workers and a public subscription to Abolitionism.”

  “I expect John Mitchel will make his policy independent of his investors as well as of the Church,” Mr. Finn said by way of conciliation, for Stephen was plainly angry.

  “You may be sure of it—just as you may be sure, Vincent, that because I am in the firm of George Robbins, I do not necessarily subscribe to his politics.”

  “I’m sorry, Stephen, if I’ve angered you,” Vinnie said, although the issue to his mind remained unanswered: why George Robbins was so interested in The Citizen.

  “You are perilously close, my lad, to catching that abomination called a New England Conscience.”

  It was Vinnie’s turn to be stung to anger. What he was defending he was not certain—his school, his fellows there, something to which he felt quite as loyal as to his Irish origins. “I’d prefer that,” he blurted out, “to sharing ideals with Simon Legree.”

  “Oh my, oh my,” Mr. Finn said immediately. “How righteous are the young!”

  “What in the name of God did you mean by that?” Stephen said to Vinnie, ignoring Mr. Finn’s aphorism.

  “Just this morning, Stephen,” Vinnie cried, “you said you didn’t like practicing law with a politician! You said it…”

  “This morning I was given to sentiment
ality,” Stephen said—and oh, how great the distance he put between himself and Vinnie with the words. “It is a weakness in which I do not often indulge.”

  Vinnie had not said at all what he intended. Nor would he have got the opportunity had he found the words and been healed enough to say them. For by Mr. Finn’s earnest endeavors the conversation was turned to matters of no controversy and held upon them until their parting could be accomplished at least in quiet temper. But at the door while they shook hands, Stephen said with sadness: “How strange to have won the day against recrimination with the house full of mere acquaintances—only to lose it in the presence of my friends.”

  “If the day was lost,” Mr. Finn said, looking from one to the other of them, “surely not the friends.”

  When they reached the street, the sounds of the city were muffled in snow, the clopping of horses’ hoofs, the runners and wheels of late conveyances all near noiseless save their scraping on the occasional cobble worn bare. Little bells tinkled on the harnesses, and from far down the street came the off-tune songs of late carousers, thin and lonely sounds in the vastness of the whitened night as though even in song men could not keep together. Not even a whore was upon the street to coddle the desolate for a shilling—and Vinnie remembered—was it but the night before? Not even a match girl, nor a vendor of three-penny logs. Never was there such a peace upon the city, nor one so ominous, he thought.

  “Why?” Vinnie cried. “Why did he marry her?”

  Mr. Finn lifted his face from out the collar of his greatcoat. “Alas, many matches are ill-made in the hour of discontent, Vincent.”

  “But,” Vinnie said, “it’s forever!”

  “Oh, indeed it is. Forever and ever he will love and cherish her.”

  “But he doesn’t,” Vinnie said. “I don’t think he does. I don’t think he believes all those things he said about her at all.”

  “You are wrong, Vincent. What you do not understand about Stephen is that he will always believe what he must believe. If that were not so, I should fear greatly for him tonight.”

  Vinnie did not go to tea with Delia. And within the week he returned to school without again seeing Stephen.

  7

  THE WINTER OF 1854 was severe in many ways. Ice crackled frequently under foot and tempers were as brittle. Many men were unemployed and Uncle Tom’s Cabin sometimes played in two New York theatres at once. At Washington, Senator Stephen A. Douglas in his bill for the organization of the Nebraska Territory threatened not merely to upset the Compromise of 1850, but in effect to repeal the Missouri Compromise as well, the law which since 1820 had prohibited the extension of slavery north of latitude 36˚ 30´.

  Mr. Finn had often commented to Vinnie in conversation and letters on the mediocrity of men in public office since the Great Compromise. Better, he wrote now, mediocrity than this. Better a timid man than a rash one. Douglas was called far worse than rash by many of Mr. Finn’s persuasion who, like Finn, were forced to reexamine their political alliances for the second time in half a decade.

  “I feel too old for this,” he wrote in February, “but I must get out and canvass. My ballot is no longer loud enough to speak for me. I am a poor speaker, but I dare say I shall manage. I even fancy myself a relief to an audience after, say, the haranguing of our friend, Valois. Well, the bill must be defeated at all costs.

  “I must tell you Stephen is not displeased at the agitation. He sees in it a distraction from Nativism. Likely he is right. Valois has found a new cause certainly. I have not heard him curse the Irish for a month. But oh my, what cynicism in such an attitude. It becomes European despotism better than American democracy. Tyrants have always made wars abroad to distract from bankruptcy at home. As you can see, I am greatly distressed. Stephen’s wife is extremely partisan. I find I cannot go there often. I must be the only acquaintance of the house ill at ease with her. Yet, I quite admit her to be as charming as Stephen believes. Her father is said to be one of the powers behind Senator Douglas, and more canny than Douglas by far, pushing him into a position far beyond that he contemplated. All with flattery and promises of Southern support in the next election.

  “The Democracy, so-called, is behind him for reasons of their own. I cannot help but wonder if they know or care the difference between Nebraska and a bottle of Sarsaparilla. He has Young America also who would like to see our boundary extended to include Spain no less, and Ireland of course. If that meant war with England, so much the better. Perhaps I exaggerate, but truly my notion of them is no more exaggerated than their own. This Manifest Destiny business has always turned my stomach. And now these armed filibusters in Cuba! That falls nicely into the Southern scheme of things—more black people to bolster their infamous institution.

  “John Mitchel’s paper has picked up a strange assortment of friends. And lost a host of them early. That wish of his for a good plantation well stocked with healthy slaves damaged him sorely among respectable circles. Even Delia Farrell was repelled by it! (‘Why, Mr. Finn, that’s not even civilized, you know that!’)

  “Dennis, I understand, has been chosen an elector for his district. Much of that neighborhood is Whiggish so I suspect Tammany is testing him, for what I don’t know exactly. I should like to think he was testing Tammany. They are still behaving themselves, which is in itself cause for alarm. The home of reform. They have said it so often some people believe it, perhaps even themselves. It is my own feeling that when every door in the city is open to reform, Tammany fires its locksmith. As you see, I am again a man without a party. Where I shall turn, I know not. Perhaps Abolitionist if I am pressed too hard, but I am a moderate man.

  “I went up briefly to the opening of the newest Eight O’clock Market. In the Jefferson Place. A lick of candy free to every child and a square of tobacco for the men. The women, presumably, will turn out without inducement. A canny business man, our Dennis.

  “Now dear boy, in your last letter you blamed yourself for not having written to Peg. If it has become a matter of conscience that you write her, do not do it, and ease your mind on it. She herself would not want such a letter. And it is not a matter you can help. I do believe it a most remarkable thing that you remembered her with such affection for so long. And on the whole, I rather think it well that this image you held of her has faded. You have changed. She will have changed. (So far as I can ascertain, by the way, Foley’s company has reached St. Louis and is doing very well there. This pleases Val, occupied as he now is with the Nebraska affair. I fear for his disposition if the bill should pass. But then I fear for much more than that if it passes.) To get back to Margaret for a moment, you will renew an acquaintanceship and if you are to have a relationship at all it will be based on what you have become quite as much as on what you were. I wonder if you understand?”

  Vinnie, re-reading the last paragraph, thought he understood it very well and certainly he was relieved by it. He had almost reached the place where he dreaded meeting Peg. By Mr. Finn’s calculation, she must feel the same. It wouldn’t be so bloody bad if she expected in him a changed man. He glanced through the rest of the letter again and tossed it to his roommate. Mr. Finn’s letters always did him credit. Furthermore he and his roommate, a lad by the name of Alexander Taylor, shared most everything, having become fast friends.

  “Say-oh, Taylor,” Vinnie said, “do you know a painting chap named Reed—Jabez Reed?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Next time in I’ll take you by to meet him. He bloody well knows what the world’s about and don’t need the politicians to tell him.”

  8

  DENNIS’ OPENING IN THE Jefferson Market was the fifth of his shops, and all of them prospering. As the poor expanded uptown, so did Dennis Lavery. His stores no longer opened at the regular closing hour, but they bore in common with the first Catherine Street venture the slightly stale character of the merchandise and the cheap price for which it sold. Nor were the Eight O’clock Markets limited to produce any longer. They carr
ied dry goods and cutlery and even a little hardware. A poor man, for example, thinking to repair his own house, might buy used nails at a penny a pint measure. The manner in which Dennis had come by the first batch of such nails was typical of his enterprise: an urchin picked them up in the ruins of a fire, scraped them clean, and offered them for sale to Dennis. Dennis proposed to buy as many as he could supply and it was not long until the arab had several of his own kind at work for him. Thus it came about that many a man who had never met Lavery and who certainly had not traded in his markets, would remark, seeing a youngster poke through char and ashes: “He must be going in business with Lavery.”

  While the poor blessed him for selling at a price they could afford, the well-to-do admired him for his acumen, and all of them admitted him an honest man. It was small wonder then that his favor was sought by politicians on all levels.

  For his own part, Dennis determined that having started at the bottom in business, he had no need to start there in politics. Furthermore, thinking over what he wanted out of politics, he knew it was not to be found at the bottom. He wanted no more than to better the lot of the Irishman, his own and that of fifty-odd thousand others in the city. Wherever he went, whether to the docks to bargain for damaged cargo or to a ward meeting, he enquired if anyone knew of a job for a man he could recommend. The jobs were rare for Irishmen even on Lavery’s recommendation, and it was looking to the improvement of this cursed situation that he agreed to serve on the Democrat General Committee should the Softs be able to seat him.

  Dennis pondered and puzzled their reason. He had not declared himself a Hard or a Soft, but a Democrat only, and perhaps that was their why. To win the city elections in November, there damn well needed to be neither Hards nor Softs, nor should there be room even for Whigs and Reformers; it needed to come down to Democrats against the Natives. On the whole, his tastes within the party ran to the Softs. He had first fallen in with them the night he fell out with Mulrooney. They were younger men and it didn’t tear out their guts to make a change. That, by his notion, was the difference between the Democrat factions: the Softs were willing to compromise if need be, but the Hards wouldn’t budge from conservatism. There was, of course, what amounted to a third faction: Free-soilers, who had split from the Softs and were now the anti-Nebraska men, but their power within Tammany was negligible, and by the autumn it was expected, the Kansas-Nebraska issue would be forgot, and they would come home to vote if the Hards and Softs could reconcile.