A Passionate Girl

by Thomas Fleming

  I finally declared I must go. “A woman needs eight hours’ sleep to avoid wrinkles,” I said.

  “You’re a long way from them,” Robert Johnson said.

  Red Mike Hanrahan appeared with a fresh bottle in his hand to fill my glass and offer a final toast. “To the Irish Republic, whether we set it up in Canada, New York’s Sixth Ward, or Timbuktu. I just wired Bill Tweed and got him to lay a thousand dollars of the public’s money on you.”

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  “Down at Chamberlain’s losing what I won last night.”

  “If I have anything to say about it,” I declared, “there will be no faro banks in the Irish Republic.”

  “And to think I almost proposed marriage to you last night,” Mike said.

  Robert Johnson insisted on escorting me to the elevator. “When can I see you again?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’re waiting here, day and night, for an appointment with Mr. Seward. He appears to be elusive, or ill.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” he said. “Long as I know you’d like to see me again.”

  “I do,” I said. “I’m partial to men with beards. From Tennessee. Who live in the White House.”

  He laughed uproariously. “You’ll hear from me,” he said. “Good shootin’ tomorrow. I’ve got five hundred on you, just like Fernando.”

  I went to bed early and was soon asleep. Some hours later, I awoke with strange sensations. I was bathed in sweat. A nauseous storm gathered in my stomach. I seized my robe, stumbled to the bathroom, and lost my supper. Instead of feeling better, I grew worse. I retched and could bring up nothing. I had a raging thirst. A whine rose in my ears. I staggered to Dan’s door and woke him.

  “I think I’m dying,” I said.

  He listened to my symptoms and awoke Colonel Roberts. “It’s the hotel disease,” Colonel Roberts said. “Someone’s slipped it to her.”

  We did not know what he was talking about. He explained rapidly. Shortly before the Civil War, scores of Democratic politicians had been stricken by these symptoms at the National Hotel. Many people believed it had been an attempt by the Republican Party to poison leading Democrats. The National Hotel had been forced to close for several months and almost went out of business.

  Whether there was any truth to that story or whether anyone had slipped something poisonous in my food or drink that night, we were never certain, but our suspicions were heightened by a note slipped under my door in the early hours of the morning. How are you feeling, Miss Fenian? By our calculations you should be a little sick with fear by now. A cold sweat should be springing out on your pale cheeks as you think about the truth of the old saying, she who lives by the sword (or pistol) frequently dies of it.

  I remained horribly ill for the rest of the morning. Dan wanted to postpone the contest, but I refused. I knew that would give our enemies a chance to boast their brains out for days while they dodged another meeting. I dressed and asked Dan what was the best whiskey to steady nerves and stomach. He recommended bourbon, and I drank half a glassful before we set out for the President’s Park.

  “I heard this fellow Colby has been taking lessons from the best pistol shot in the army,” Colonel Roberts said as we rode. He had a talent for the lugubrious.

  We arrived to be welcomed by a crowd of several hundred, at least half of whom were women. As I stepped down from the carriage in the blazing sun, a swirl of blackness sent my head spinning. I clutched Dan’s arm and whispered, “Hold me up.”

  He fastened one of his strong hands on my arm above the elbow and held me erect until the spell passed. We advanced to where Colby, with his weasel face, was waiting. He smirked and made an elaborate bow. Colonel O’Neil conferred with Colby’s backers and returned to say that they insisted on three rounds of ten shots each. They were obviously hoping to wear me down.

  Fernando Wood and Robert Johnson strolled over to me. “You look pale,” Fernando said. “Are you nervous?”

  “The hotel disease,” Roberts said.

  “You’re dealing with a devious enemy,” Wood said.

  “Is his name Secretary Stanton?” I asked. “He’s certainly your enemy.”

  Fernando glanced at Robert Johnson and smiled inscrutably. “Anything is possible,” Wood said. “Good shooting.”

  I was asked how I wished to fire, first or second? I chose first, fearing collapse if I stayed too long in the sun. “In fact,” I said, “I would prefer to shoot my three targets in succession and let Mr. Colby better my score if he can.”

  A target was tied to a tree by Dan and one of Colby’s party, who examined it carefully and declared it satisfactory. Advancing to a strip of cloth laid on the grass, I peered through the shimmering heat and for a moment saw three or four targets. I waited for them to coalesce, and fired.

  Steadily, calmly, following the instructions of my various coaches to release my breath, not to think, simply to aim and fire, I pressed off six shots, then handed the gun to Dan, who rapidly reloaded it and handed it to me. Four more shots and they examined the target. “Ten hits out of ten, three in the bull’s-eye,” Dan stated.

  I fired again, Dan loaded, and the next four shots completed the second ten. “Nine out of ten,” Dan said. “Two in the bull’s-eye.”

  The sun beat down. For a moment the swirling blackness gathered behind my eyes. I willed it away. A third time we repeated the performance. This time the count was ten out of ten, four in the bull’s-eye.

  My supporters cheered mightily. A four-man brass band, which I later learned had been hired by Fernando Wood, struck up “The Wearing of the Green.” I walked slowly back to the carriage, climbed in, and fell helplessly against the cushions. Another ten seconds and I would have collapsed on the grass. Robert Johnson sprang to my side, showing the most sincere solicitude. He ordered a black servant to race to the White House for some sal volatile as a restorative. “No,” I said. “Let us chat as if we were tête-à-tête, and pay no attention to Mr. Colby.”

  “Good,” he said, liking the game.

  “Tell me what’s happening,” I said.

  “Colby’s grin has faded to a sick smirk,” he said. “He’s usin’ an army Colt, the best gun we make. I don’t know how you hit anything with that popgun of yours. He’s obviously taken lessons, from the way he stands at the mark. He begins.”

  The crack, crack, crack of Colby’s pistol sounded ten times.

  “The tellers are consultin’ the targets,” Robert Johnson continued. “The score is—six out of ten, none in the bull’s-eye! You win. The skunk can’t beat you even if he hit ten out of ten in each of his next two rounds.”

  A cheering mob engulfed the carriage. They collected their money while the band played a reprise of “The Wearing of the Green.” Many imitated Fernando Wood’s example and gave me all their winnings. I soon had a pile of greenbacks in my lap. A good twenty celebrators joined Robert Johnson in the carriage, and the rest trooped behind it or clung to the carriages of several of the ladies who followed us back to the Willard. The men carried me into the bar and toasted me with the inevitable champagne. It was the acme of my pride as a woman and as a Fenian.

  I finally extricated myself and retreated to my room, where after a nap I awoke feeling weak but largely recovered from the hotel disease. It convinced me that some kind of poison had been administered to me.

  Colonel Roberts knocked on the door. He was exultant and not a little drunk. “Seward says he’ll see us in half an hour. He wants to meet you. Can you come?”

  “Of course.”

  We drove slowly through the inferno of the late afternoon. All the heat of the day seemed to gather itself and concentrate its force in the still air. The State Department was on 15th Street, next to the huge marble Treasury Department. It occupied a humble brick building, as unprepossessing as the War Department. Inside all was silent and calm. There was none of the bustle of the War Department office. Colonel Roberts and I comprised our party. Our Irish
soldiers from Tennessee would make no impression on this diplomat from New York. Besides, Roberts said they were getting drunk in Willard’s bar on my winnings.

  There was no time spent waiting. We were ushered directly upstairs to the secretary of state’s office. A small, smiling man rose from his desk to greet us. He was past middle age, with a balding head and a face that sloped downward from a broad brow past a prominent beaked nose to a diminished chin. His mouth had a play of humor about it, as if he had found the world a fairly amusing place. But the dominant impression made by his face was supplied by a raw ugly scar that ran from below his right eye in a curve down his cheek to join another equally awful scar on his neck. These were wounds inflicted by one of the group of assassins who had murdered President Lincoln and attempted to kill Mr. Seward and other members of the government.

  To increase his woes, Mr. Seward had his jaw wired almost shut, the result of a fracture received in a fall from a carriage, some days before the assassination attempt. He had also broken his right arm, which dangled uselessly at his side. In spite of these injuries and the recent death of his wife, he was remarkably cheerful. He congratulated me on my triumph over the Chronicle’s reporter. The paper had become overweeningly arrogant since the war had ended in victory, and Colby was one of the most offensive of its reporters. “The newspapers like to give the impression that without their help we never could have won the war,” he said. “Politicians fear them. They can ruin a man. So we’ve let them escape without contradiction. In actuality they’re the greatest charlatans in the country.”

  And you’re looking at one of their creations, I thought. We were soon into the inevitable discourse from Colonel Roberts on the plans of the Fenians. Seward listened with none of Stanton’s impatience. He was used to being bored. It was one of the requirements of a politician’s profession.

  “The president has told me a good deal about it,” Seward said when Roberts finished. “I told him that there was one overmastering consideration, if we are to support you. Can you deliver the Irish vote to the party we’re attempting to form behind the president? It will be neither Republican nor Democrat. The National Union Party is what we called it in the last election, and that’s what we shall probably call it in the difficult months to come.”

  “If the Union Party takes a stand on Ireland’s freedom, you’ll have every Irish vote in America,” Roberts said.

  “What if we don’t take a stand? Let’s be realistic. There are a great many people, Democrats and Republicans, who don’t give a tinker’s damn for Ireland or her freedom and don’t like you Irish very much. In some quarters you’re less popular than the Negroes, if that’s possible.”

  “You mean we must stand by you,” I said.

  “Precisely, my dear,” Seward said, eyeing me in his quizzical way. He returned to Roberts. “I’ve heard from people in New York that you’ve been consorting with William Marcy Tweed. I doubt if he’s interested in doing business with a Union Party or we with him. Can you separate the Irish vote from Tammany?”

  “Why do we have to do that? Give them what they want in New York and Tammany will back you heart and soul.”

  Seward shook his head. “An alliance with Tammany will cost us every moderate Republican vote in upstate New York,” he said.

  “We can’t break Tammany,” Roberts said. “I’d be a fool to say we could. But we can take enough votes away from them to make a difference in a close election.”

  “Fair enough,” Seward said. “Now, you want guns, you want ammunition, supplies for an army. You must get those things from Mr. Stanton. What does he think of this scheme?”

  “He worries about the kind of government we’ll create in Canada—whether it will be loyal to Washington—and whether the British will start a war with America to regain Canada, once we accept the invitation to join the United States.”

  “I think we need not fear a war,” Seward said, “if we could engineer a plebiscite showing a majority of Canadians in favor of joining us. You’d have a million Irish votes as a head start. Everything would depend on how swiftly you could crush armed resistance. Until that happens, we’d be unable to defend you against British retaliation from abroad.”

  “Give us belligerent status, as the British and Canadians gave the Confederacy—let us buy guns and supplies on credit—and we can deal with anything the British throw at us,” Roberts said. “Our plan is to pin down thirty thousand of their troops in Ireland. We have agents in India who’ll make trouble for them there. Our generals estimate we can conquer all of Canada that matters, from the Atlantic to the western border of Ontario, in sixty days.”

  “Then you must rule a restless populace for perhaps another year and possibly fight off a British expeditionary force, while we get the legalities of bringing you into our government through Congress. You’ll remember it took ten years of argument to annex Texas. I think we can do it faster, but there could be resistance from Radical Republicans and from Democrats, both of whom might see your votes in Congress as a threat to their parties’ chances.”

  This was said in a musing, speculative tone. It was fascinating to watch this man’s cool mind at work, exploring the risks, the problems, the possibilities of our plan. He speculated on the advantage of bringing the various Canadian provinces into the American union as separate states. Their chief value would be their presumed loyalty to the National Union Party. It would give the new party enough strength to counter the Radical Republicans.

  “I like this,” Seward said. “With all its risks, the more I think of it, the more I like it.

  “I like this young lady, too,” he added. “There’s a reception tonight at the Russian Embassy. Would she deign to let a doddering invalid escort her there?”

  “I would be delighted,” I said.

  “It will be amusing to introduce you to the British ambassador,” he said. “I’ll call for you at your hotel—is it the Willard?—at seven.”

  Looking back, I see this now as the first step in a long series of bitter deceptions. At the time, I was too inexperienced and Colonel Roberts too stupid to see it as anything but another triumph.

  We rushed back to the Willard, and I bathed and put on my most splendid gown, a great hoop of pearl-gray silk, flounced and trimmed with silk of a darker hue and point lace.

  The secretary arrived in a carriage driven by a black servant. He drove us through the humid twilight to the Russian legation, a handsome building on 12th Street. Inside, servants in blue and gold livery stood stiffly at attention. Baron de Stoeckl, the Russian ambassador, a bulky, gray-haired man with bristling mustaches, stepped forward to greet the American secretary of state.

  “Good evening, Mr. Secretary,” he said with a heavy accent. “Who is this charming creature? I don’t have the honor of knowing her.”

  “Miss Elizabeth Fitzmaurice, an emissary from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, better known as the Fenians,” Mr. Seward said. “I’ve brought her along to show the British ambassador that the Irish are not uncivilized barbarians, as he claims.”

  “An admirable project, Mr. Secretary,” said the baron with a smile. “I am always interested in ways to instruct the British ambassador. Would that we could instruct his country to adhere to a civilized code of conduct. I fear John Bull understands nothing but the kind of lesson we taught him in the Crimea. Perhaps you will have to teach him a similar lesson.”

  “You see how many allies you have in your desire to thrash the Sassenach?” Seward said to me.

  “The Irish people cheered on Russia’s defiance,” I said, though I scarcely remembered the Crimean War myself, having been only eight years old when it began.

  “A pity so many Irish soldiers saw fit to serve in the British regiments,” the baron said.

  “That is the result of desperate hunger and want, Your Excellency,” I said. “A man who sees his wife and children starving before his eyes will take the king’s shilling, though his heart breaks within himself to think of serving his countr
y’s enemy.”

  “Yes, yes,” the baron said, “but it discourages those who think of helping your countrymen with guns and ammunition. Your leader, O’Mahoney, came to see me a few months ago. He claimed to have fifty thousand troops in Ireland. Yes, I said, but half of them are in the British army.”

  “What better place for them to be, when the call to action comes?” I said.

  “What do you think, Mr. Seward?” the baron asked.

  Seward smiled in his inward, secretly amused way. “The American consul at Dublin assures me that the British are in control of the situation in Ireland. The lord lieutenant told him the secret service has an informer in every Fenian center in the country—and almost as many in America.”

  “They’re the grandest liars in the world,” I said, but my heart sank with the possible, even probable, truth of those words. I thought of my sudden sickness last night, and my stomach curled ominously.

  “Well, we are not here to settle such matters tonight,” de Stoeckl said. “Let me get you some good Russian vodka. Or would you prefer champagne?”

  “Vodka,” said Seward. I accepted a glass of champagne but was wary about drinking it. The secretary of state tossed off his vodka in a flash and asked me if my abstemiousness was the reason for my triumph over Mr. Colby earlier in the day.

  “On the contrary,” said Robert Johnson, who we discovered was standing behind us. “She can drink champagne all night and shoot all day. She has the habits of a cavalryman, Mr. Seward.”

  “But not the looks, thank God,” Seward said.

  “No, sir,” Robert Johnson said, eyeing me approvingly. “Not the looks.”

  Diplomats from various South American countries, many of them dressed in uniforms dripping with gold braid, came forward to be introduced and to congratulate Secretary Seward on his remarkable recovery from his wounds. He nodded and introduced me and Robert Johnson, then let Robert talk about his father’s reconstruction plans while the secretary’s eyes circled the room like a hunting animal on the prowl. At length he seized my arm and drew me away from the ambassador from Argentina while he was in midsentence. Trailing me in his wake, he bore down on two men in close conversation. Robert Johnson hastily excused himself and followed us.