by Tom Murphy
“I know a bit about dreaming.”
“I guess you do.”
“The Fleur de Lis is only the doorway to my dream. When my dream truly begins, the Fleur de Lis—and all I have done here, and before—will end.”
“And me? Will I end too, Lily, my Lily, my darling?”
He kissed her and she closed her eyes so that she would not have to look at him when she answered. “We will have to see about that, my dear, when the time comes. Won’t we?”
Lily knew that she would never be able to give a true, fair answer to Stanford Dickinson, or to any other man, until she felt herself free, free of the Fleur de Lis, free of this hateful whoring, free from the blackmailing of odious bullies like Chief O’Meara. That day was coming, and soon, for now Lily felt her very life depended upon it, let alone her happiness. If there ever will be happiness for me in this world. There it lay, shining in the far distance, her freedom! But what she would be in that magical place, or how she would feel, Lily could not and would not say. And if that caused sorrow for Stanny D., he would have to bear it, for it was nothing to the sorrows she had borne for years, and still bore, every day and every night.
Lily slowly began to feel that her real life hadn’t happened yet, that everything she had done and all that had happened to her were only a prologue, a catalog of events that had happened to someone else, another girl, and in another time. The orphan, the servant girl, Jack’s mistress, whore—these were other people. The glamorous, wicked Lily Cigar was not the real Lily either. The real Lily had yet to be born, and the years up to now were only a preparation.
By thinking thus, Lily insulated herself from the reality of what she was doing, of how she appeared to the unsmiling eyes of the world. In the meantime, there was the Fleur de Lis to keep going, and Kate to love, and her growing concern about Fergus.
In the excitement of finding him again, Lily managed to forget what Fergy’s character had been in the past, and to overlook some quite obvious failings that had grown into his personality as a man.
The first thing Lily saw in Fergy was his charm. If the devil was in him—and she often sensed that Fergy did give house room in his soul to dark forces—then they were devils of delight, devils who could charm the apples down from the tree. He’d grown into a fine-looking figure of a man, had her Fergy. Tall he was, and lean, and wide of shoulder and quick to smile. That smile could ever melt Lily’s heart, and her brother seemed to know this instinctively. He used the smile like a weapon, and he used her love for him as a ticket on one long free ride to hell.
Fergy did what pleased Fergy, and all other considerations took second place, be they the business, his sister, or the laws of God, man, or nature.
Only slowly did Lily learn how much her brother was drinking. Fergy’s capacity for whiskey and brandy and wine stretched far beyond Lily’s comprehension. He almost never looked drunk or acted drunk. Yet Fergy put away glass after glass of straight bourbon whiskey, or champagne if the mood was on him, or brandy. Once Lily watched him drink half a bottle of whiskey before supper, the other half afterward, and two bottles of good French red wine in between, and never slur a word or stagger a step. His eyes would glaze a bit, and his words would come out slower. And in this condition, often as not, Fergus Malone ran the biggest gambling operation in California, the gaming parlors of the Fleur de Lis.
Drinking was a man’s business, or so Lily saw it. For herself, she choked at the taste of anything stronger than wine, and she drank even wine sparingly, by sips, to be companionable. San Francisco was a hard-drinking town, and many a time had Lily seen grown men roaring drunk in the gutter at ten in the morning, in from the mining camps and on a spree, shooting and shouting and falling-down, sloppy drunk and not caring who knew or what became of them.
But Fergy’s drinking was a quieter thing, more subtle, more poisonous in its effects. It affected his temper. Fergy was like sunshine itself most of the time, when sober. But when the whiskey got in him, he could turn nasty fast, and against anyone, even Lily herself.
She feared his anger, for anger might drive him away from her, and Lily felt she could not bear to have that happen, not now, not after the miracle of finding him alive and well again after all those years.
But the miracle had holes in it, and one of them was the whiskey. Lily smiled and chose not to mention his drinking, out of fear that, by mentioning it, she might inspire his temper, or even make him drink more out of spite.
For Fergus Malone was capable of spite.
In some ways, Lily discovered, he was exactly the same boy who’d run away from St. Patrick’s orphanage. Fergy of the short-fused temper, Fergy who felt that the world owed him favors, Fergy whose attention span lasted for only as long as his own gratification could be fed by a situation.
How fine he’d been when they were first setting up the Fleur de Lis! How quick his mind, what great leaps his imagination could take when a thing appealed to him the way the Fleur de Lis had.
And how very quickly he grew bored and restless again.
Lily soon realized why he had been such a wanderer, making trouble for himself and moving on.
She soon discovered that no misfortune was ever to be considered Fergy’s fault. Fergy might have bad luck, the gods might conspire against him, but never, never did Fergy make a mistake or a miscalculation.
The strangest thing about the wild success of the Fleur de Lis was that Fergy couldn’t deal with it. He was, Lily sometimes felt, too well used to failing.
When he was on top, and in a situation of his own devising, Fergy must find a way to stir the muck a little, to make things tough for himself. Like so many gamblers, Fergy wanted to discover new ways to lose.
There were many, and he tried them all.
It was in November that Lily first noticed something wrong with the books. Every month, like clockwork, they went over all their expenses, income, mortgage payments, salaries, the girls’ share, everything that could affect the fiscal progress of the house.
Neither Lily nor Fergus took anything like a regular salary: they merely drew pocket money from the cashier, and little enough of that at first, since food, drink, and shelter all were provided, and extravagantly, by the Fleur de Lis.
When Fergy began dipping into the till, he didn’t even think to hide it.
“Something’s wrong here.” Lily spoke half to herself as she looked at the ledger for October. “Last month we cleared eighty-two thousand six hundred and fifty-three dollars and change, and the month before that a bit more, and this month we’re only ahead fifty-eight thousand and two hundred and something.”
He answered too quickly. “Beats flensing whales, I can tell you.”
“Fergy, we’re off nearly thirty thousand. Something’s wrong.”
“So, it was a slow month.”
“It was our busiest month ever.”
She looked at him then. There was something in his voice that rang oddly in her ears. His back was turned to her. He stared out the office window. Lily felt the tension gathering in him. Go softly, Lily, or you must surely lose him again.
“Tell me, Fergy, for I’ll find out anyway.”
He turned, grinning. The grin melted as he saw its lack of effect. “Caught red-handed. I confess, my sweet Lily. I had a bad day at the tables.”
“You took that much money—and lost it? Here? How could you lose to yourself?” Lily gasped, and paused for a moment, sickened, fearing for what she might say.
“Would that I had. Then at least it’d show up as profit. It was a private game, Lil. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry be damned. You’ll replace every penny of it. Fergy, that’s cheating my little girl, and I won’t have it. It’s one thing to enjoy yourself. If you want to take money out of the business, for some good reason, then you have my blessing. But this! This is madness, Fergy. It must stop.”
“Ah, Lily, you’re a fair sight when the Irish comes bubblin’ up in you. And can you not take pity on your poor idiot of a bro
ther, who lost his head and is truly sorry for it? Sorrier, too, because he has made his Lily angry.”
“This is a business, Fergy, and if we don’t run it as a business, we’ll end in the gutter. I’ve fought too hard, and sold myself too dear, to have you throw it all away with a toss of the damned dice or the turn of a damned card.”
“Well, now, aren’t we high and mighty? It’s my business too, you know.”
There was an edge to his voice now, and Lily could feel the anger in him. It was exactly the kind of scene she’d prayed to avoid. And still she would not back down. Lily had anger of her own, and if it came to the surface only seldom, it was no less the strong for that.
“This business is founded on my body, on my shame. That’s what we sell here, Fergus Malone, don’t ever forget it. You sell your own sister as though she were a black slave for the taking. There is no way to put a price on what I do or have done, and if you don’t understand that, we had best part company now. The one hope and the one consolation I have is that someday soon I’ll be able to put all this behind me, Fergy, and every penny you toss away postpones that day a bit longer. I won’t have it, Fergy. I just…won’t…”
Lily’s words choked off in rage and suppressed tears.
Fergy came to her, and took her in his arms, and kissed her cheek. “Ah, there, there, Lil. This is your Fergy you’re talkin’ to, not some rascal off the streets. This is your Fergy who loves you, Lil, who wants all the best for you. I’m a poor excuse for a brother, Lil, well I know it, and an even poorer excuse for an uncle of that dear little girl out there. But I do try, Lil, and I will try to be good, to be worthy of bein’ your brother. And I’m sick with the shame of it, of taking your money and throwing it away. ’Twas plain criminal of me, I’m just good for nothing, nothing at all. Sometimes it gets so bad I just feel like going down to the harbor and…I don’t know what all.”
“Don’t! Don’t even think such a thing.” There was panic in Lily’s voice now, overriding her anger. He couldn’t leave her! Not now and not ever. She clutched him like a drowning woman. “I understand, Fergy, really I do. It’s just that I’ve got to get myself out of this life, and soon, and that means saving every last penny.”
“We’ll do that, Lil, and I will replace what I lost. You’ll see. I’ll be a whole new Fergy for you, if that’s what you want.”
Lily smiled, knowing he believed this, knowing it could never be true, and knowing too that an unreliable Fergy was much to be preferred over no Fergy at all.
“The old Fergy is just fine, thanks.”
“I’ll do better, as God is my witness.”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore.”
“You’ll see.” He kissed her again, and left.
Lily sat looking at the door for a moment after Fergy passed through it, and it seemed as though every limestone block of the Fleur de Lis was bearing down on her with a crushing weight, a destructive pressure that she could never escape, twist though she may, scream though she might.
Fergy, dear brother, you’d sell me and gamble away the profits, and smile and do it all over again, knowing I’ll love you anyway, and indeed I shall. But how long, how long, how long?
30
The bitterness of the bleak December afternoon seemed to seep into the elegant drawing room on West Eleventh Street. A fire glowed and crackled in the black marble fireplace and the gas chandelier had been lit to ward off the early dusk. But Brooks Chaffee felt a chill deeper than winter as he read the article in the Times. Caroline, strangely silent, sat on a low bench near the fire holding a flower-painted teacup as if she had forgotten why it was in her hand.
Brooks began to read aloud. “‘I, John Brown, am not quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will ever be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, mainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.’”
He sighed and folded the paper. Brown’s desperate raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October had ignited all the worst suspicions in the fearful, hostile South. Brown’s mad scheme to lead a slave revolt had failed, instantly suppressed by Robert E. Lee. In fact, only four men died in all of it. But the ripples spread, intensifying the fear, building the hatred, consolidating positions.
“His last words, the monster?” Caroline spoke softly, as one whose thoughts are far away.
“His last written words, found after they hanged him.”
“After we hanged him.”
“Yes, of course, we. Any word from your father?”
There was a gentle clink as Caroline Chaffee set down her untasted tea. “He won’t do it, the fool. He won’t sell out and come north. I guess I never really thought he would.”
“But at the least, my darling, you tried.”
“The news is worse and worse. The boys are coming home from college, the ones at Yale and Harvard and Dartmouth. They’re even leaving West Point. They’re getting themselves ready, Brooks. They are getting ready for blood.”
“We all are.”
“Well, I am not. I will never be ready for such a thing, however inevitable it may be. To see the whole country calmly preparing to destroy itself over such nonsense, pretending it just has to happen, the way a rainstorm happens, I cannot credit such stupidity.”
“War is always stupid, my darling.”
“Then why, why must it happen? When we could all be living in peace, having a good time, being happy?”
“Are the slaves happy, Caroline?”
“I declare, there’s more happy slaves than the wage slaves in your mills and factories!”
“Those wage slaves can come and go as they please, they can educate themselves, and no one sells them away from their wives, or children away from their parents.”
She looked up at him and smiled. It was a small, thin smile but better than the gloom and tension it replaced. “I am a selfish old creature, forever thinking of myself and my loved ones, not clever and a philosopher like you men all seem to be, knowing all the answers as you do.”
“I never claimed to know all the answers, my love.”
“What I see when I read the newspapers is this: I see our old house in New Orleans in flames, my daddy ruined, bloodshed, and wickedness. I see my husband going off to the war, maybe not coming back. And for what? For what?”
“For a just cause. To preserve the Constitution. To free those slaves.”
“All mischief is done in a just cause. The Confederacy is perfectly sure their cause is just, they are ready to die for it. And so’s the Union, right as rain they are, all God’s angels on their side. And I am in the middle, a simple woman, neither one nor the other. I hate it, Brooks, I hate it truly and deeply and with all my heart It is destroying my life, this stupid war.”
“We will survive this and worse. If it truly comes to fighting, it can’t last my dear. That’s the plain sad fact of the matter. Those wicked mills you mentioned will keep right on working, long after the Confederacy has used up its last ounce of gunpowder, its last stitch of thread, its last length of railroad track.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime life goes on.” He came to her, bent, and kissed her cheek. “Love goes on.”
She tossed her head impatiently, brushing off his kiss with it. “You men are so damned sure, aren’t you? You have every little bit of it all worked out, as though life were some clockwork machine that only needs to be wound now and then, and oiled a little, and everything’s just fine.”
She stood up, and her dark eyes flashed with dangerous fire. “One day you may have reason to remember, dear Brooks, what I’ve said today. Life isn’t as simple as you pretend to think: not politics nor love nor any of it.”
She turned away from him and stormed out of the room. Brooks followed her with his eyes and with his heart but made no move in pursuit of her body. How very right she is: life isn’t simple, not at all, and especially not the parts that involve Caroline. Such scenes as this one had been g
rowing more frequent lately, and Brooks had no idea why. He could feel the sands of his life shifting underneath him, and felt helpless to make them more solid, try as he might. The coming war had made the poor girl nearly frantic with fear for her family and friends in the South—that was plain to see—but there was more to this new, restless mood in Caroline than mere politics. Brooks would have given his life to make her happy if only he knew how. He sighed and turned back to the newspaper, wondering for the hundredth time that week what he could do to bring back the girl he married.
The sea breeze felt delicious on Lily’s face. She eased herself back against the bright blue-and-white-striped canvas pillows in the cockpit of Stanford Dickinson’s new racing sloop and tried to clear her mind of all troublesome thoughts as they skimmed across San Francisco Bay in the bright sunlight of mid-April 1860. The sun caressed her, the wind was cool and clean, and Lily’s mind danced like the waves, filled with excitement and bubbling with change. It was in the very air: all America seemed to be on edge as the presidential nominating conventions swung into action. And all San Francisco was thrilled with the success of the brand-new pony-express run, just ten days from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento! And Lily’s private life was churning too. Stanford’s sloop was whisking her across the bay to San Rafael to inspect a huge Mexican land-grant plantation that Stanford had located for her.
The old Velasquez hacienda it was, more than six thousand neglected acres rolling up from Tiburon to the hills, land gone to seed like the ancient family that owned it. The proud Velasquez clan had deteriorated to the point where the eldest, Tiberio, was a much-dreaded bandit with a price on his head—ten thousand dollars gold, dead or alive, for this killer, rapist, thief. Lily shuddered at the thought. The old place was in the hands of an aged uncle now, nearly senile, so Stanford said, whose only wish was to sell out and return to his beloved Seville to die. Lily thought of the land, and a new warmth filled her, for the land was what she wanted, with a deep and almost primitive longing. Even the neglect appealed to her, for there would be so much to do!
