A Passionate Girl

by Thomas Fleming

  The other ladies all nodded vigorously. One of them added that as long as Ireland was beneath the British heel, it made the Irish in America feel ashamed of their names and blood. It was why so many Irish changed their names to English ones. Casey to Case, Harrigan to Harrison. Ireland’s degradation was the reason so many Irish in this country were treated badly. This was all new and startling doctrine to me, awakening once more my sense of a gulf between the Irish and the Irish-Americans.

  But I had no time to worry about that now. I was busy putting on petticoats and a gray taffeta dress complete with a hoop skirt. “How do I look?” I asked. Everyone assured me I looked lovely. My only unhappiness was the whalebone corset, which threatened to strangle me. I thought it was superfluous for me, though it was no doubt vital to keep some figures in place. But Mrs. Roberts insisted I had to get used to it. Every fashionable woman wore one, no matter what her age.

  When we returned to the sitting room of our suite, the champagne was flowing, but Patrick Meehan was looking more disgruntled than ever. Everyone was standing in groups of two and three, reading newspapers. “The Herald put out an extra for you,” Meehan growled. “Listen.”

  He led me to the window. Above the noise of the traffic on Broadway rose a newsboy’s cry. “Read about the Fenian girl!”

  “What does it say?” I gasped, my head beginning to spin with the upheaval of the day.

  Michael handed me a copy of the paper. I saw myself sketched on the edge of the cliff at Priest’s Leap. It was a fairly good likeness of me. Pickens had gotten that much from his shipboard visit. But I was aiming a revolver at a charging British soldier, shooting him at point-blank range while Dan and Michael cowered behind me on the precipice. It was hard to tell which was Dan, but one of the men was wounded and was being carried by the other man. This apparently explained why I was wielding the revolver.

  Pickens’s story was a romance. It told how I had grown angry at defending my virtue against the constant assaults of the British soldiers stationed in my village and had taken a vow to strike a blow for Ireland. Secretly I had sworn the Fenian oath, which I found in my brother’s room, and waited my chance. When Dan McCaffrey was captured by the British, I had gone to the jail, shot the sentry, and freed him. My brother, Michael, had joined us, and together we had assisted the battered victim of British injustice—an American citizen tortured by the English in utter indifference to his rights—to flee the country. The climax was a desperate struggle on the cliff while the Manhattan’s boat waited to carry us to freedom. Not one but six British mercenaries had fallen before my deadly aim.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, flinging the paper aside. “None of that is true. I’m no more a heroine than—than your wives here. But there is a hero in this room. He stands there.”

  I pointed to Dan McCaffrey.

  “I saw him—and my brother will attest to it—I saw him fight a dozen, then a hundred men, singlehanded. We told this reporter the truth. Why didn’t he print it?”

  “Because we’ve decided it’s better policy to make you the heroine, my dear,” John O’Mahoney said. “Major McCaffrey needs no public adulation. It must be enough for him to know we appreciate his courage. But he’s had the misfortune to fight on the losing side in the civil war just ended. It will be hard to make a hero of any Confederate officer for a long time to come. But you, my dear, with your beauty, your grace, your poise—you’re a dream come true for us. You can portray Ireland both suffering and heroic.”

  “Exactly,” said Patrick Meehan. “Exactly, Mr. Head Center. But where the hell do you get off giving her story to the Herald? It was supposed to be my story.”

  “The Herald is the most important paper in the country. It has a circulation ten times as large as the Irish-American’s,” John O’Mahoney said.

  “Who authorized you to do that? Did you confer with any of the council?” Meehan cried.

  “I’m not under obligation to confer with the council on every small decision,” O’Mahoney said.

  “You will be from now on,” Meehan said.

  “Now lads, now lads,” Colonel Roberts said. “This is supposed to be a celebration. We’ve won a victory over the British with this story, as important as the American triumph at Trenton in the Revolution.”

  “Colonel Roberts is right,” O’Mahoney said. “Let’s forget our quarrels until tomorrow.” He raised a glass of champagne. “Here’s to our Irish heroine.”

  Defiantly, I raised my glass to Dan McCaffrey. “Here’s to my Irish-American hero.”

  After several more glasses of champagne, we descended to Sweeney’s dining room, and I encountered my first American dinner. I never saw so much food set on one table in my life, nor such eating of it. Mrs. Roberts attacked an entire roast duck and demolished it to a few fragments. Her husband had steak, a veal chop, a lamb chop, and a battalion of side dishes ranging from vegetables to soup. Mr. Sweeney insisted we refugees should begin with gumbo filé, which he said was the favorite dish of General Winfield Scott, the conqueror of Mexico. It consisted of thirty or forty oysters with their accompanying liquor, cooked in powdered sassafras leaves within the gut of a boiled chicken. It was so rich, I could not eat a bite of anything else, which caused all the Irish-Americans to remark that my stomach must have shrunk from my years of starvation in Ireland. I replied that this was an insult to my father’s reputation as a farmer, but no one paid me the slightest attention.

  We returned to our rooms, Dan and Michael groaning like women in childbirth from the food they had stuffed down their gullets. John O’Mahoney came with us. He sat down in the parlor of our suite and talked to us like a father to his children. He told us the story of his life—how he had been deceived into committing himself to the Revolution of 1848 and found himself virtually alone in the field against the whole might of Great Britain. He became a fugitive, then an exile, and he vowed that the next time Ireland would have a thorough revolution or none at all. He would never deceive others as he had been deceived into risking their all without a united national front to sustain them.

  “Yet you see me here in America, practicing deception. I can see the question on your young faces. You’re asking, is this old man a double hypocrite or a fool? My only answer is the peculiarity of our situation here in America. Our movement lives on American money. But the money is not forthcoming unless there is hope—dramatic evidence offered that Ireland is ready to revolt. So I must ask you not only to forgive me for the deception but to join me in it, for the sake of the cause.”

  He told me I had to be ready to sustain my role as the Irish heroine that Pickens depicted. Dan McCaffrey must teach me how to shoot a gun. “You must be ready to tour the country giving demonstrations of your prowess, to raise the money we need,” he said.

  He also talked frankly to us about the divisions within the movement. He was being criticized by Colonel Roberts and Patrick Meehan, who styled themselves “the men of action.” They wanted to do something quickly, while the enthusiasm of the Irish-Americans was high. O’Mahoney insisted that it was wiser to wait and begin the fight only when we were reasonably sure of success.

  We thanked him for his candor, and I told him that I was ready to do anything he asked of me. He kissed me on the cheek and said my story—the true one—had renewed his faith in the cause. Men with Dan McCaffrey’s courage were what Ireland needed most of all. Dan reminded him of those lines from a favorite poem.

  “Yet trust me friends, dear Ireland’s strength, her truest strength is still

  The rough and ready roving boys like Rory of the Hill.”

  The Men of Action Take Charge

  Head Center O’Mahoney left us in an overfed, disillusioned daze. We were revolutionists, but we were also actors; we were conspirators both against England and against Irish-Americans who were supposed to be our shock troops. This was only the beginning of my American discoveries.

  The next morning reporters swarmed to see us. Dan and Michael were ignored. They wanted to talk
to no one but the Fenian girl. Patrick Meehan insisted that his man, a scrawny little redheaded fellow named Mike Hanrahan, be seen first. Hanrahan wore a green-and-white checked suit and a tilted derby and had a dead cigar in one corner of his mouth. His puckish face had the wisdom and not a little of the weariness of the world on it. He listened with barely concealed boredom as I labored through the tale Pickens had constructed for me.

  “Do you expect anyone to believe that story when it’s plain you don’t believe it yourself?” Hanrahan said.

  I almost burst into tears. “Ah,” Hanrahan said. “You don’t like being a professional liar?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You must see yourself as an actress and the whole thing as a performance. All the world’s a stage, remember? Fate has handed you a juicy part. ’Tis up to you to play it well.”

  “I’ll try,” I said halfheartedly.

  “You’ll do more than try, you’ll succeed,” he said. “Because you have Red Mike Hanrahan as your director and coach. Now. You can’t drone out your tale. You must live it. You must take each of these penpushers with you, from the first line to the last. Those blue eyes of yours must flash with anger, defiance. Those rosy lips must tremble with fear and anguish, curl with scorn. Believe me, Bess, you’ll charm them out of their socks. Now let’s have a rehearsal.”

  For a good hour, while other reporters growled and grumbled outside, Red Mike put me through my lying paces. He pointed to holes in my story and gave me answers to probable questions. Where had I learned to fire a pistol? I told of stealing my father’s gun and retreating to a wooded glade in company with my brother. How did I feel about killing a man? A pause. My eyes grew stormy, my brow furrowed. If he was a British soldier, I did it without a qualm. Ghengis Khan could not have sounded more bloodthirsty.

  At last, the other reporters were admitted, and I performed under Red Mike’s approving gaze. There was not a single hostile question. I answered the friendly ones, all anticipated by Mike, without a blink of hesitation. This prepared them to swallow my really gorgeous lying about the Fenian legions in Ireland. They were a host, waiting only for arms and ammunition from America. Given these, they would rise like an irrestible tide and sweep the British into the sea. There were Fenians everywhere, in the schools, the army, the constabulary, even the priesthood. The reporters believed every word of it and it was in the newspapers the next day.

  In spite of Red Mike Hanrahan’s clever reasoning, I found myself inwardly sickened when I read my lies in print. It was demoralizing to see them embellished by even more fantastic lies from the imaginations of the reporters. One had me dueling saber to saber with a British cavalryman. There was simply no absurdity to which they would not stoop, especially when it made a good illustration. I grew to wonder what purpose was served by the amazing number of American newspapers, beyond the entertainment of their readers.

  The next day was absorbed by Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Meehan, who took me shopping for a wardrobe. Most of this we acquired in A. T. Stewart’s new uptown store, at Astor Place. I was properly amazed at the dimensions of the building. At its center was a vast arcade over a hundred feet high, with a glass roof through which the sun streamed. Surrounding it on all sides were six tiers of counters and shops, each of which specialized in selling a certain item, such as shawls.

  It was a vertical village within the city, in which all the beauties of the world of cloth seemed assembled. I could not believe the endless variety of colors, weaves, fabrics. Gloves, hats, jewelry, stockings, everything a woman needed to become a bird of paradise was there, with the prices clearly marked. I was staggered by the lavishness with which Mrs. Roberts laid out money. A dozen pairs of stockings when a half dozen would have been ample. Material for a half dozen summer and a half dozen winter dresses, an exquisite fur-lined damask cloak and a silk pelisse, two pairs of unbelievably soft black kid boots. We stopped in a notion shop and bought rouge, powder, and macassar oil for my hair and fragrant soaps for the bath. It all must have cost several hundred dollars, but Mrs. Roberts never ceased handing out the greenbacks. When I wondered if there was no end to them, she laughed and said it was all being paid for by the Fenian treasury.

  Back in the hotel, the ladies showed me how to apply the macassar oil to my hair, to get the sheen that I noticed and envied last night. A seamstress was summoned from one of the side streets off Broadway, a smiling gray-haired Irishwoman who took my measurements and myriad instructions from Mrs. Roberts and departed with the cloth we had bought at Stewart’s.

  A short time later, Dan and Michael arrived with Red Mike Hanrahan. My fellow refugees were wearing readymade clothes, which they had bought at a store not far from the hotel. They did not fit too well, but both considered it a marvel that you could walk into a store and find shirts, coats, and suits, all sewn together and ready to wear. Mike Hanrahan said the manufacturer was a man who had made uniforms for the Union Army during the war. “I warned these lads that their pants may split up the back as mine did at Bull Run. The crook never made an honest garment for a soldier in the whole war, and I can’t believe he’s starting now. Shoddy was his middle name, the thieving Yankee swine.”

  “I told Mike maybe somethin’ else made his pants split at Bull Run, like runnin’ too fast,” Dan said.

  “You Confederate blackguard, do you dare to insult the honor of the Fighting 69th?” Mike said. “Defend yourself now.”

  He began dancing around Dan like a terrier around a mastiff. Dan stood with his hands on his hips. Mike hurled a punch, which struck Dan in the chest. “Jesus God, it’s broke,” Mike cried, stumbling back, clutching his fist. “The man’s made of metal.”

  I laughed heartily, but Mrs. Roberts did not approve of such disorderly conduct. “I hope you took them to my husband’s tailor,” she said. “To make sure they will be properly dressed.”

  “We spent a good two hours there,” Mike said. “The man serves the best Irish whiskey in New York while you wait. About this time of day, though, he has trouble threading a needle.”

  Mike gave a funny imitation of a drunken tailor trying to sew on a button. This time he drew a smile from Mrs. Roberts, and Mrs. Meehan almost died laughing. Dan meanwhile was ordering champagne sent up. We were soon esconced in our sitting room like royalty, enjoying vintage Moët & Chandon.

  Looking back on those first days in America, I can only lament how childishly greedy we were. We thought there was no bottom to the Fenian treasury. We never stopped to ask where the money was coming from. Red Mike Hanrahan was telling us about his misadventures in the Civil War when a visitor arrived to disturb our complacency.

  There was a knock on the door. Michael opened it and backed away, temporarily speechless. A husky, solemn man in a black cassock edged with red strode into the room. On his breast glowed a small gold crucifix. He had the youngest, most innocent-looking face I had ever seen on a man. Although he was in his middle years, he seemed to have passed through the world without a taint of age or corruption, except for a strange patina of sorrow in his eyes. It made him look like he was on the verge of tears.

  “Archbishop McCloskey,” gasped Mrs. Roberts. She struggled to her feet, spilling champagne down her front, and fluttered across the room to kneel before the archbishop and kiss his ring. Mrs. Meehan swiftly imitated her. “I am Mrs. William Roberts,” she said. “My husband is Colonel William Roberts.”

  “I know who he is,” McCloskey said in a mild gentle voice. “I’m looking for the Fenian girl and her friends.”

  “You’ve found them,” I said, remaining stubbornly in my seat. I had never met a bishop before in my life, except at the altar rail when I received my confirmation, and I found myself disliking intensely the idea of kneeling before him to kiss his ring.

  “Hanrahan of the Irish-American,” Mike said. He bobbed to one knee and kissed the extended ring.

  “Michael Fitzmaurice,” Michael said, and repeated the obeisance.

  “Dan McCaffrey,” Dan said, sticking
out his hand. The archbishop shook it.

  “Are you a Catholic, my dear girl?” the archbishop said, fixing his sad eyes on me.

  “I was raised one,” I said.

  “Then you must know that you’re committing a serious sin, consorting with Fenians and recommending others to take the Fenian oath.”

  “My conscience does not admit to that sin, my lord,” I said, calling him by the name we gave bishops in Ireland.

  “No, I suppose not,” he said in his mournful way. “I’m not a lord, like bishops in Ireland. Over here, we’re merely called bishops. As Mr. Hanrahan will tell you, we’re sometimes called much worse. By our fellow Catholics. Fellow Irish.”

  Mike looked uncomfortable. “It’s a free country, Bishop,” he said. “Besides, most of those compliments were paid to your beloved predecessor, as you insist on calling him.”

  “He means Archbishop John Hughes. He died last year. Have you heard of him?” McCloskey asked, sitting down opposite me.

  “I met him when he visited Dublin in 1863,” Michael said. “He talked to a group of us students. He sounded more like a revolutionary than anyone we had heard in Ireland.”

  Archbishop McCloskey nodded and smiled ruefully. “He was speaking to you as Irishmen, not Americans. He was a very emotional man. He was born in Ulster. He knew what British oppression was like, firsthand. I can’t make that claim. I was born in this country. I can only tell you why I think the Fenians don’t belong in America. You’re in a different country now, with its own destiny—a great one, I hope and pray. But you’ll soon find out that the Irish are not wanted here. It’s a Protestant country.”

  “You can stick a pin in that,” Mike Hanrahan said.

  “Before the Civil War, there was a political party called the Know Nothings, who were determined to drive us out of American life. They beat nuns and priests on the street. They elected hundreds of candidates to state legislatures and Congress to pass laws against us. Here in New York, Archbishop Hughes had to station three thousand armed men in our churches on election night,” McCloskey continued in his mournful, almost apologetic way. “To overcome this kind of prejudice is not easy. We have to teach our people to save their money, to control their fondness for liquor, to work hard. The Fenians are distracting everyone with an impossible dream, a shortcut, the idea that freeing Ireland will give us instant respectability. This champagne you’re drinking. Do you realize it’s been paid for by poor servant girls and day laborers who might have given us the money to build schools and educate priests to get the next generation out of slums like the Sixth Ward?”