Devil Dance

by Len Levinson

  “Actually, she already was married . . . and so was I.”

  Colonel Lee frowned. “With all due respect, Captain Barrington, I don't think this is a suitable subject for a child.”

  Nathanial replied, “This child has witnessed more in her short life than you and I together, and there's nothing she can't comprehend. In fact, she's a profound thinker and something of a philosopher, I'll have you know.”

  Colonel Lee and Nathanial looked at the little girl, to hear whatever pearl of wisdom she might impart. “Do you think they might have ice cream?” she asked.

  Meanwhile, McGee arose, holding his wallet. “There's twenny dollars missin'! Somebody stoled my money!”

  Patrons glanced at each other in mutual accusation, then gradually their eyes turned to Nathanial. McGee waddled toward the drunkard who had found the wallet under suspicious circumstance and said, “You sure you didn't lift twenny dollars, afore bringin’ the wallet to me?”

  New Yorkers of Nathanial's class did not respond to such language, so he turned coolly from McGee and raised the whiskey to his lips.

  “Hey—I'm talkin’ to you!” bellowed McGee.

  “Sit down, mister,” replied Nathanial softly out the side of his mouth, “or I'll knock you down.”

  “Like hell you will.”

  McGee charged as Nathanial propelled his fist forward, smacking him solidly on the jaw. McGee flew over a table, then landed on a spittoon, which tipped over, flooding the area with vile liquids.

  Nathanial stumbled toward the bar. “Another bottle, if you please.”

  The bartender replied, “Perhaps you'd best have a drink of coffee, suh.”

  McGee struggled to rise from the puddle of gunk produced by the upended spittoon. “He's a damned crook—'at's what he is. I want my money back!”

  “I never took your damned money,” replied Nathanial vehemently.

  “Then who did?”

  Nathanial glanced at little Gloria, who sat pale and unmoving at her table. “Could have been anybody,” he said.

  McGee pointed at him. “It was you, but you was afraid you'd git caught.”

  “I don't need your damned money,” said Nathanial thickly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins and paper money.

  It was a bad move, because McGee yelled, “Thar's my money!”

  While this discussion occurred, McGee's friend Tulley was circling toward Nathanial's back, but no one paid attention to such a nondescript, stupid-looking fellow, who, as he drew closer, lifted a bottle off the bar.

  “Look out!” shouted Gloria, first to spot the ploy.

  Nathanial spun around in time to receive the bottle across the side of his head. It shattered, the edge cut into his scalp, and the shock combined with the whiskey he'd drunk, drove him to his knees, where McGee crowned him with a chair. Nathanial dropped onto his face, and McGee slammed him once more, to be sure of unconsciousness.

  There was no sheriff, judge, jury. McGee searched Nathanial, finding the Colt .36, which he raised in the air. “He's a crook, probably a-plannin’ to kill us all. I orter blow his brains out.”

  McGee cocked the hammer, aimed at Nathanial's head, and closed one eye.

  “Just a moment,” said a cultivated Southern drawl.

  All eyes turned to the colonel from the Second Cavalry, who aimed his service Colt at them.

  “Mind yer business,” said McGee. “We ain't in the Army.”

  “But you're in America, and I'm placing the both of you under arrest.”

  “That's what you think,” said a voice behind Colonel Lee, and he was Harold, another traveling companion of McGee's, wearing a lopsided cowboy hat and holding a Colt Dragoon. “Drop it.”

  Colonel Lee's Navy model Colt fell to the floor, then he raised his hands. McGee took aim once more at the still unconscious culprit. “It's the only way to treat a crook,” he said.

  “Please don't kill my uncle, sir!” implored the voice of a child.

  Everyone turned to the well-dressed girl as she advanced demurely into the circle of light, clutching her clown doll. “He didn't steal your money, because my Uncle Nathanial is a rich man. Our family owns most of New York City—we're the Barringtons.”

  “What was he doin’ with my wallet?”

  “He found it—like he said.” She hugged the doll with her left arm, while her right hand fumbled at its back. “He was doing you a favor, and this is how you thank him?”

  Travelers gazed accusingly at McGee and his friends, then at the innocent-appearing babe.

  “Where'd the twenny dollars go?” asked McGee.

  “How d'we know you didn't spend it?” asked Gloria.

  McGee lost his patience. “Out of my way, you little whelp, or I'll shoot you, too.”

  Gertie the gutter rat set her teeth on edge as she raised the Colt pocket-pistol and fired at a range of three feet. An expression of panic came to McGee's face, the weapon fired, and the bullet struck McGee's rib cage. He was thrown backward by the force of the blow, but before he hit the floor, Colonel Lee took advantage of the confusion to deliver a solid punch to the face of Harold, while three other travelers jumped on Tulley. In moments the gang was subdued. The proprietor contributed a coil of twine, and the ruffians were bound tightly.

  Colonel Lee and Gloria rolled Nathanial onto his back, while the proprietor's wife emptied a basin of cold water over his head. Nathanial opened his eyes.

  “You have just demonstrated,” explained Colonel Lee genially, “why an officer should not imbibe alcoholic beverages, particularly among strangers. You really must set a better example for your niece, Captain Barrington.”

  She smiled innocently, holding the smoking gun in the air. “You taught me good,” she said, then rushed forward impulsively, kissed Uncle Nathanial's cheek, and said, “I love you.”

  ***

  By the time Clarissa reached Charleston, she knew precisely what pleased an audience. She dared nothing new, because inspiration might produce disastrous results before an audience of finely tuned listeners, many of whom had seen the great Jenny Lind.

  She had little time for relaxation during rehearsals, social calls, and interviews with reporters, but managed to squeeze in the carriage tour of Charleston provided by the poet William Gilmore Simms.

  As they rode down Broad Street, she noticed Charlestonians staring at her, because everyone wondered who was the young lady accompanying the distinguished poet, and when they learned she would be performing at the Dock Street Theater, they rushed to buy tickets, for such are the benefits of a famous artist's admiration.

  Charleston was like New York City, a long narrow promontory with rivers on both sides and the ocean beyond. The South's leading Atlantic port, its wharves were laden with stacks of cotton bales awaiting shipment to European destinations.

  “You will notice,” said Simms, wearing a taupe-colored stovepipe hat and white kid gloves, “that the economy of the South has not been as affected by the Panic as severely as the North, because the southern economy is based on cotton, which is a real commodity with a dollar value, while New York has been constructed on the shabby foundation of stocks and bonds. There are those who believe that southern culture, which you northerners castigate with such vehemence, is superior for this very reason.”

  Clarissa would not argue slavery south of the Mason-Dixon line, particularly with an artist as gracious as William Gilmore Simms. She'd always been attracted to older men, although youth possessed certain undeniable assets as well. Clarissa contemplated having a romance with Simms, for in the theatrical world, everybody slept with everybody else, even men with men and women with women, and she saw no reason why she should not be liberated from her narrow, puritanical upbringing.

  Meanwhile, Simms regaled her with tales of old Charleston, how the celebrated Dr. David Ramsay had been shot to death on Broad Street in 1815 by a tailor named William Linnen, whom Dr. Ramsay previously had declared legally insane. Clarissa relished the company of Sim
ms, who had a bon mot for every occasion.

  “How did you become a poet?” she inquired.

  He replied, “The poet is called as Samuel in the nighttime, by a voice whose summons he does not understand, but dares not disobey. It is the voice of his own nature—of a special endowment which tasks him wholly. It demands not only all his obedience, but all his faculties. I imagine it's similar to playing the piano.”

  “Sometimes I become tired of performing,” she confessed, “but one cannot quit in the middle of a tour.”

  “At least you don't have to worry about copyrights, because in the absence of an international copyright law, foreign publishers are free to print cheap editions of my works and sell them here for less than my American publisher. Naturally, I receive not a penny.”

  “But you have your art, which is priceless,” replied Clarissa. “What is mere wealth to a true artist?”

  “Everything,” replied William Gilmore Simms.

  He was almost good-looking, despite his comical beard and air of mock gravity. Yet there was kindness in his eyes, congeniality in his smile.

  That evening he sat in the front row during her performance, and all of Charleston's society was there. Clarissa provided a polished concert, calculated to please as she deftly fingered the keys. She'd discovered that an audience appreciated drama, so she'd give a toss of her little finger, or a delicate raising of her chin, when striking certain chords. If she decided Haydn or Mozart needed another crescendo, there existed no musical police to order her otherwise.

  As usual, the audience especially enjoyed her rendition of popular minstrel songs, perhaps finding it amusing to see a blond woman singing of life as a slave. Naturally, she omitted any ditties that depicted the soul-crushing drudgery of slavery, but instead focused on more neutral numbers, such as:

  Michael row de boat ashore, Hallelujah

  Michael boat a gospel boat, Hallelujah

  She backed the song with a full piano accompaniment, giving it a grandeur and majesty different from what one ordinarily heard on plantations, not that Clarissa ever had been on a plantation. Most of what she knew about slavery had been received second- or thirdhand.

  Her concert was yet another success, thanks in large part to the patronage of William Gilmore Simms, who escorted her to a gala party in her honor afterward at the home of a wealthy patron of the arts, for the poet's modest residence could not accommodate a crowd of well-wishers, and often he lacked the price of a good soup bone, never mind cases of champagne.

  The party featured an orchestra and dancing, while quiet corners offered opportunities for enlightened conversation. Simms introduced Clarissa to unending streams of people; included were a few gentlemen who played the naughty eye game, as if they wanted to seduce her visually, but adulation no longer moved her, although she smiled falsely as she made her way across the parlor. It was as if she had become a symbol of everything glamorous in the eyes of her beholders, but she felt like a charlatan, and distaste with herself surprised her, for this was the fruition of her greatest childhood longing.

  Jenny Lind had toured America extensively, because that was how she earned her living, but Clarissa didn't need to worry about money matters and was becoming weary of shaking hands like a trained baboon. What am I doing here? she wondered.

  She said she felt tired, and naturally Simms offered to see her home. He called a carriage as she said goodbye to the faceless throngs. A Negro servant placed a cloak over her shoulders, then Simms led her to the carriage. Soon they were headed back to her hotel, passing white-columned mansions and huge magnolia trees, the moon shining over the Ashley River.

  “You appear disconcerted,” he said, sitting opposite her in the carriage.

  “My concert tour, which began as pleasure, has become an ordeal, I'm afraid.”

  “But don't you realize what joy you have given tonight?”

  “They applauded because you have offered the endorsement of your good taste, William. If you had not spoken for me, the theater might well have been empty.”

  “But I spoke because you have touched me deeply.”

  “My performance was inexcusably vulgar,” she blurted. “I feel as if I have prostituted myself.”

  “Reminds me of a few lines I once wrote:

  When thou shalt put my name upon the tomb,

  Write under it, ‘here lies the weariest man

  That ever struggled with a wayward ban . . .

  She shuddered. “That's it exactly.”

  Simms gazed out the window at the half moon shining over the rooftops of Charleston. “But the true poet, and I include you in our sacred band, conducts us out of the present—she lifts us from the earth.” The carriage came to a halt before the Charleston Hotel, where Simms kissed her hand lightly. “Good night, my dear girl,” he said. “And if you're tired, rest. For you don't owe your audiences anything. Indeed, we are indebted to you.” Then he bounded out and held the door for her. As she descended, he whispered, “The artist must observe closely, think earnestly, and sing boldly, with resolute purpose. That is our only obligation.”

  She stared at him as he returned to the carriage, waved one last time, and was drawn away by the team of horses. In a daze, Clarissa walked through the deserted lobby, climbed the stairs, and entered her suite of rooms. She felt too fatigued to turn on the gaslight, so she collapsed onto the nearest chair and in the darkness reflected on what Simms had told her.

  Why can't I have the same unflagging dedication as he? wondered Clarissa. Perhaps I'm not an artist at all, but a dilettante. Yet that great poet said I had given him pleasure.

  She felt confused, doubtful, insincere. I was happy, but then this tour swept me away, and now I'm alone in Charleston, my child in New York with my parents, cared for by my maid, my marriage finished, and somehow I must smile continually to myriads of people whom I don't know and don't especially care about, and struggle to please them with cheap theatricality, which I despise. Moreover, Thorndyke is the most amoral man I have ever met, and an even bigger fraud than I. My whole life has been lived under the delusion that I'm an artist, but in truth I'm a pretender, a liar, a . . .

  Her mind clogged, she didn't know what she was. It was as if the floor had opened, and she was toppling through a dark, jagged chasm. Sorrow and self-loathing overcoming her, she covered her eyes with her hands and let out a sob.

  “It can't be that bad,” uttered a male voice on the far side of the room.

  A chill came over Clarissa, for she realized she was not alone. Indeed, she could make out the vague outline of a man rising from his formerly reclining position on the sofa. She reached into her purse, her fingers closed around the handle of her Colt .36, and she thumbed back the hammer.

  “I didn't mean to alarm you,” he said, “nor intrude into your private grief. Am I in the wrong room?”

  “Yes, and you'd better leave.”

  He struck a match and lit a gaslight protruding like the leg of a bird from the wall, while she took aim at his innards. Then he turned, bathed in golden light and sporting a black mustache, tanned regular features, and a winsome smile that broke into fragments when he saw the ugly snout pointed at him, an expression of determination in the eyes of its mistress.

  “You're not going to kill me, are you?”

  “Start walking to the door,” she replied.

  “This is no way to treat a harmless fool.”

  “How did you get into this room?”

  “Perhaps my key works in your lock.”

  “Perhaps you're a liar.”

  He sighed. “I confess—I wanted to meet you, so I bribed the cleaning lady rather handsomely. It was the only way to speak with you, since you're surrounded by so many admirers.”

  “Did it occur to you that I might not want to speak with you?”

  He appeared surprised that anyone would consider him uninteresting or not charming, and his every gesture bespoke the ease that only wealth confers. Moreover, he appeared witty and good-lookin
g in a swinish detestable way, but Clarissa always had been attracted to rogues, as well as older men, particularly when having slept alone for so long. She lowered the gun and said, “Don't you realize how cruel it is to invade a woman's home and frighten her half to death when she's in the midst of a crisis?”

  He smiled warmly as he replied, “But the crisis is over, because I am here. Name your difficulty, and I shall solve it. If you require money, I place my fortune at your disposal. You are an angel, and I would deem it an honor to assist you.”

  As he spoke these words, he seemed so ridiculous that she couldn't help smiling. And it was true—somehow the crisis had passed, thanks to his magical appearance. “The whiskey is over there,” she said, indicating the cabinet. “Kindly pour me a drink.” Then she sat on the sofa, thumbed forward the hammer of her Colt, and dropped it into her purse.

  He carried two glasses of whiskey, one diluted with water, into the sitting room. He was a tall, lanky fellow, obviously an utter blackguard, but amusing. “Permit me to introduce myself,” he drawled. “I am Tom Oglethorpe of what we call the ‘back country,’ the westernmost part of South Carolina. I'm in Charleston with a load of cotton, and someone told me you were the principal entertainment, so I bought a ticket, not expecting an artist so talented and even brilliant that I have . . . well, I know it sounds common to come out and say it, but I have fallen in love with you, although I don't know anything about you, and you may, in fact, be the most horrid woman in the world.”

  “Why is it that raving lunatics congregate around me?” she replied. “I am a woman of modest behavior, I try to be courteous, I have studied hard all my life—why me?”

  “Because your musical skill has moved the heart of a man considered heartless, calculating, and something of a rake.”

  “I have deceived you,” she replied. “What appears as artistry is merely my studied artificiality.”

  He sipped whiskey, gazing at her over the lid of his glass. “If it were merely artificial, you would not have enchanted the entire audience. No, you carry the magic spark, though you do not see it. Of course, I admit you do have a tendency to go overboard at times, but your talent far exceeds your silly mannerisms. If I could play like you, I'd sit in front of the piano all day and never get anything done.”