Men of No Property

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  Vinnie clasped the hand offered him. “Thank you, sir. Good evening.”

  Mr. Taylor gave Vinnie a wink as their eyes met. He did not drink often but with a little spirits in him he was wonderfully expansive. Now, Vinnie thought, would be the proper time for Mrs. Taylor to plead Alex’ European cause with him. But, of course, her dignity would not permit it.

  “I’ve been waitin’ the whole blessed evenin’, Vinnie, to tell you what I meant about Priscilla.”

  Vinnie did not want to talk about Priscilla with anyone at the moment except Priscilla.

  “I’m very fond of her,” Delia went on, “and we’re the dearest of friends, I’ll have you know. I went abroad to school, too, you know.”

  “Were you a child then, Delia?”

  “Of course I was a child, but I didn’t think so.”

  “I don’t think Priscilla is a child,” he said. “She’s much more sensible than her sisters.”

  “But Vinnie, that was my very meanin’! She’s ever so much wiser than her years. One mornin’ when Jem was frettin’ I got up with him. Just dawn it was and I looked out the window. She was ridin’ in the mist like a spirit. Stephen was there and I woke him up to come see. I forget his words, just—a changelin’ of man’s heart, somethin’ like that. It just fit beautiful. A broodlin’. Oh, I’ve got it all mixed up and I thought I’d never forget it. I’ve had some champagne.”

  “Broodling,” Vinnie said, smiling. “I like that word.”

  “There’s no such, is there?”

  “Now there is,” he said. “Shan’t we dance?”

  She nodded and took his arm. “Tomorrow will you come to tea? Mr. Grisholm, the famous lawyer, is comin’ and Stephen says it’s important that you meet him.”

  Vinnie nodded. There was something about Stephen now that made him sad, something deeper than the change from law to politics, or maybe something very shallow: he didn’t like to see him as the king of hearts.

  “I also plan to ask Miss Priscilla Taylor,” Delia added.

  “Forgive me, Delia. I too, have been at the champagne. I was trying to remember if I had otherwise committed myself. I should love to come to tea, and I’ve not seen Jem and I’ve not seen Nancy.”

  “They’re both fat as pullets and twice as scratchy.”

  A hundred people went in to supper at once. Vinnie did take Priscilla. He had hoped that they might sit between couples absorbed in themselves only, but Mrs. Taylor followed as close as the sunrise dawn, and then having her husband seat her next to Vinnie, had the bad grace to proclaim it a charming surprise.

  “Look, Mother,” Priscilla cried across him, “gold plate!”

  “And golden birds,” said Vinnie, for as one set of attendants served those seated, another group paraded in the roasts to be carved for the next seating. “Don’t it make you feel like Midas’ daughter?”

  “I’d rather be a match girl,” Priscilla said. “Do you know how I hit upon the notion? I mean for this costume? I remember ever so often the night you told us about arriving in New York, going about the streets singing with Mrs. Stuart. It’s strange you know, but I always thought it a very sad story. And you were happy, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Vinnie said, “but that’s why it’s a sad story, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, I do, I do,” she cried, as though she had discovered the world’s wisdom.

  “What is it you do, child?” Mrs. Taylor queried.

  “Understand something Mr. Dunne said, Mother.”

  It was like sitting before a roaring hearth in a drafty room, Vinnie thought, sharing himself with these two: toasted on one side and frosted on the other.

  “How nice,” Priscilla said, for at that moment the king and queen of hearts came up and took the places opposite the elder Taylors, Delia with ever so slight a wink at Vinnie.

  Mrs. Taylor inquired after the senator. He would retire before the President, Delia said, if the President stayed up after midnight. The White House, however, was early darkened these days.

  “Old Buck will keep him up,” Mr. Taylor said. “There’ll be sociability in the White House when he’s elected.” And Vinnie first realized that he must plan to vote Democrat. That was something of a shock. But then a great many old time Whigs were going Democrat, in the hope of keeping peace—and prosperity.

  “Frémont will retire him early,” Vinnie whispered to Priscilla.

  “Mr. Buchanan is at least a gentleman,” Mrs. Taylor said then.

  Vinnie knew she was contrasting him with Douglas, not Frémont. So did Stephen, for he said: “I must protest that having shared the company of an English queen does not necessarily make a gentleman.”

  “In fact,” said Vinnie, “it’s been the unmaking of a few.”

  Even Mrs. Taylor laughed, and Delia, bless her, then took upon herself the distraction of Priscilla’s mother until the ices were served. What little things they talked about, he and Priscilla, but turning each one over discovering in it a charm, always a new and shining charm. Once when his eyes met Delia’s and she smiled at him, he thought she must be as happy as he was at the moment. Perhaps she was touching Stephen’s hand beneath the table—as he longed and dared not to reach for Priscilla’s. And God knows, he wished Delia happiness, he wished it upon all the world of men and women—such pleasure as this exquisite moment of discovery when hearing her first whisper his name, Vincent. It gave him such joy that he sat grinning, speechless.

  “Vincent,” she said again, “papa’s sending for the carriage.”

  Vinnie pushed away from the table, making a clatter that turned many eyes upon him. “Mrs. Taylor,” he said, and even his voice seemed to rattle. “May I ask Priscilla for a last dance before you leave?”

  She looked up at him, a trifle annoyed and obviously about to refuse him. Suddenly her face changed. Compassion, God knows what, but he could feel the muscles in his own face ease. “Why, yes, Vincent. You may ask her.”

  A waltz, he prayed, please Lord, a waltz, even a Verdi waltz. They stood, Priscilla’s fingers on his arm, poised at the ballroom door while the conductor tapped on his stand. “I’m rapping spirits,” Vinnie whispered. “I too,” she said. And the night was full of spirits all attending them. It was a waltz, a glorious spiraling waltz, traveling them far and soon and beyond the garden doors for a shadowed instant when he brushed her lips with his, a kiss as brief as a grace note and unsuspected by anyone save everyone whom their spirits touched that night.

  4

  “I SHOULD VERY MUCH like Priscilla to have it, Mrs. Taylor,” Vinnie said.

  “It is a lovely painting, but I should think you would want to keep it for your own home some day, Vincent. Didn’t it belong to your guardian?”

  “I gave it to Mr. Finn, and I should now like to give it again,” Vinnie said.

  “And he shall have it back, Mother, when he has—when he has his own home.” Priscilla blushed at having hesitated. But God knows, Vinnie thought, he would never call the bachelors’ boarding house he now lived in home.

  “In that case we shall ask your father if you may accept it,” Mrs. Taylor said. “It would seem that you two have already discussed it.”

  “We often discuss paintings,” Vinnie said. Not often enough did they discuss anything, however, and then almost always in her company or that of her other daughters.

  “Jabez Reed,” she read the signature. “Is he an American?”

  “He is,” Vinnie said. “I hope Priscilla will meet him this afternoon.”

  “So,” Mrs. Taylor said, having already consented to their attending the opening at the Academy of Design. “Where does he live, this Jabez Reed?”

  “I have no idea,” Vinnie said. “We shall be meeting him at the exhibit.”

  “I should certainly hope that’s where you were meeting him,” the woman said tartly. Vinnie knew that her inquiry had been directed toward discovering Reed’s measure of respectability by his address. Nor was he rebuffed by her tartness. Such exchange
s had become common between them, the warning fire by which they had come to respect each other’s strength. “And will you not have to return to the office today?”

  “Not today,” Vinnie said.

  “How generous of Mr. Grisholm. Mr. Taylor won’t allow himself a day from the office.”

  “I spent the morning closing out my guardian’s business.”

  “Oh. That’s very sad, Vincent.”

  “It was a matter which would have decided itself before long, and no more happily,” he said.

  “Perhaps you should have discussed it with Mr. Taylor—as a friend. But I suppose you had advice.”

  Vinnie had discussed it with Mr. Taylor, but if he had not mentioned it to his wife, Vinnie did not intend to.

  “And was there nothing you could salvage?” she persisted.

  Vinnie restrained himself from looking at his watch, wondering if she was purposely diminishing the time he was to have with Priscilla. “The property is valuable, and the people, the clerks and all.”

  “Surely they will find other employment. And you have kept them…how long is it?”

  “Three and a half years.”

  “More consideration surely than they would have found at the hands of most heirs.”

  Vinnie met her eyes and gave her the answer she deserved, but he cloaked it in a question: “Any word from Alex?” Alex would go into his father’s office when he returned from abroad, a business into which it was expected he would take his children when that time came.

  “No, no word,” she said, having quite understood his meaning.

  “I do think that if Mr. Finn intended you to be a locksmith,” Priscilla said then, “he would not have sent you to law school.”

  Vinnie smiled. “And I do think you’re right.”

  “You will have Priscilla home at five, Vincent, and you may stay for dinner.”

  Always their first moments alone were raw with shyness, fraught with the agony of beginning again, and for Vinnie at least, of parting forever with something dear out of their last meeting so cherished and dwelt upon between times as to make its loss seem, however fleetingly, irreplaceable.

  This sense of loss hung the more heavily upon him that day. It had been a bitter morning. When Mr. Finn died the Emporium had been put under the management of Barrons, the chief clerk, with the understanding that he should have a partnership when Vinnie took over. The times had been good; as Mr. Taylor said: dangerously good, but the Emporium had deteriorated. Vinnie had been shocked at the time of Mr. Taylor’s pronouncement that if in this country a man is still a clerk at the end of ten years it’s because he wants to be a clerk. But that was the very thing driven home to him this morning. Barrons, who had taken up responsibility as though it were his due laid it down with abuse and recrimination: it had not been fair to expect him, a mere clerk, to take on a master’s responsibility. It deprived him now of a livelihood, him and another clerk, a locksmith, a journeyman and a sweep. His sudden concern for the others Vinnie found ironic. When Barrons first came to power and foresaw himself a partner, he suggested the economy of dismissing the other clerk, who had also been a lifetime employee of Mr. Finn’s. Still, he was right: there was a large measure of unfairness in it.

  “How cruel life is!” Vinnie exclaimed.

  Priscilla never had enough of driving, of watching the passing scenes. “Yes,” she said, apparently commenting on an observation of her own, “you can see it in people’s faces.”

  “After we’ve seen the exhibit,” Vinnie said, “we shall drive for a couple of hours.”

  “Can you afford it?”

  “No.”

  Priscilla laughed. “That will be lovely.”

  There were more than five hundred paintings exhibited at the Academy that year, representing the work of American artists at home and abroad, and more sculpture than ever before.

  “A sure sign of prosperity,” Jabez Reed said. “When artists can afford to paint, mechanics can take mistresses.”

  His tongue was as ribald as ever, his temper as acid, Vinnie thought, but he had prepared Priscilla for it and if she did not laugh, neither did she feign shock, as did some of the ladies within hearing. Indeed she among all of them, he thought, was interested in paintings.

  “Look at those hands!” she cried in a sudden enthusiasm. The portrait was of an old fisherwoman, her gnarled fingers laced together crookedly in her lap. “I do admire that.”

  “Chambreau,” Reed said. “Works nights in the New York Infirmary. I shouldn’t be surprised if he collects old hands.”

  “I should have guessed he knew anatomy better than most,” Priscilla said. “I wish I did.”

  Reed attended her then for the first time, Vinnie thought. He had acknowledged the introduction and then accompanied them through the gallery that he might have an audience. Next to painting, Vinnie suspected, he liked best to talk. Although it was a warm May day and the rooms were crowded, he wore still the scarf about his neck. But then, he might be missing a shirt. Suddenly the artist put his finger beneath Priscilla’s chin and lifted it. “Will you sit for me?”

  “Certainly not,” said Vinnie.

  “Why not?” said Reed, his eyes blinking in a mischievous pleasure.

  “Because you do abominable portraiture.”

  Reed jangled the skylight with his laughter. “Ah, my friend, the truth cannot always so oblige your humor. How’s the senator’s daughter and her poor lame husband?”

  Vinnie and Priscilla exchanged glances. “I assume you mean Delia and Stephen Farrell?” said Vinnie.

  “You may not see the limp,” Reed said, “but that boy’s hobbled for life. Now.” He rubbed his hands together. “I have nothing to sell. As you observed, my paintings have already been purchased. I have disposed of the fortune they brought me, and have now fulfilled my obligation to the trustees—an appearance without riot this afternoon. Where shall we go?”

  Vinnie cast Priscilla a hopeless glance.

  “Perhaps Mr. Reed will have tea with us,” she suggested, and Vinnie hoped she did not feel as amiable about it as she sounded.

  “Coffee,” Reed said. “Pfaff’s then…if you’re as interested in artists as you are in art.”

  “If they are civil,” Priscilla said.

  “Civil but not servile,” Reed said, taking her arm to steer her out. “This is our day. We own New York, having bought it with guts and blood, and we sell it as cheap as Stuyvesant paid the Indians. We sell it and have it still, for next year at this time we’ll put it on the block again. There’s a riddle for you: what can you sell and not be shy of, what can you buy and not own?”

  “A soul,” Priscilla said.

  And that silenced Reed for the moment, Vinnie observed with delight.

  The smell of coffee and the sound of high good fellowship came up the cellar steps to meet them. Whatever else they owned or lacked, Pfaff’s was the artists’ domain. Vinnie was reminded of Peg’s Bohemia by the sea, and he wished that he had not brought Priscilla here, not yet. There was so much that he must tell her first. But her eyes were dancing and she nodded ever so slightly when Reed hailed his friends and they returned a hearty greeting. Neither snob nor boldling was she, and his own heart sang at the inviolate dignity she carried by her nature.

  They sat apart and ordered coffee. Reed cursed Buchanan for the worst president the country ever had: a Southern lackey, more their slave than any black man in their bondage. While his governor made peace in Kansas his cabinet made war upon the governor. For his part Vinnie swore he had last autumn made his first and last political sortie. “So swear we all the morning after battle,” Reed said, “and by nightfall count the price of peace too dear.” “Then it will take a greater man than Fremont next time to blow the horn on me,” said Vinnie. “Desperate times make desperate men reluctant heroes. What is greatness?” “I don’t know,” Vinnie said, “unless it is the lonely warrior.” “Who must inevitably be beaten. Would you say then the only great men champion lost c
auses?” “No. Nor would I say a cause is great because it’s lost or won. I would say that a great man is proud and steadfast even in defeat. And equally great I’d call the man who’s humble and yielding in victory.” “Say compassionate instead of yielding,” said Reed, “and I’ll sugar your coffee.” “Compassionate,” said Vinnie, “but no sugar.”

  On they talked, Priscilla half-attending while she filled her mind with faces, the tense yet often mobile faces, some beautiful, some grotesque. Vinnie had glimpsed them as he entered and purposely seated Priscilla where she might watch…the man with the whitening beard, the woman with red hair, the lean Winters, the handsome O’Brien, those he had recognized. He was aware suddenly of Priscilla’s eyes following someone who was approaching them, of her inclination to speak and then holding back. He was about to turn around when the woman behind him spoke, the voice husky and yet so familiar, once so dearly familiar.

  “Hello, Vinnie.”

  He rose and turned and spoke her name at once. “Peg! Dear Peg!”

  How changed that face. So many lines. The dark hair was threaded with gray. How hollow her cheek when he brushed it with his lips, and alas! the grog-tainted breath. Ah, but the eyes, warm and merry still.

  “Mrs. Stuart, may I present Miss Priscilla Taylor?”

  “I thought I was about to meet Miss Priscilla Taylor,” Peg said.

  “However did you know?” Priscilla said, having arisen and making now a little curtsy.

  “It may seem less than flattery to you,” Peg said, “but once Vinnie told me you reminded him of me.” Vinnie noticed that some of the brogue had returned to her speech.

  “More than flattery, Mrs. Stuart. I’m honored,” Priscilla said.

  Bless her, bless her, Vinnie thought, giving his chair to Peg, for the resemblance now was remote, and he noticed as Peg leaned forward to sit down, the scars beneath the veil at her throat and breast. Reed sat where he was, his chair tilted back, an amused expression on his face—a face it seemed then to Vinnie which was changing with the years from childlike to a weird agelessness, like something preserved at Barnum’s. Damn his lack of manners. When the world was Peg’s he had been welcome to it. “I assume you remember Mrs. Stuart,” Vinnie said to him coldly.