A Passionate Girl

by Thomas Fleming

“I’m afraid men who think on this scale—in terms of national destinies and the part they can play in shaping them—don’t worry too much about such things.”

  “You’re one of those men, aren’t you?”

  He sighed and stared into his brandy. “I’m afraid I am.”

  “Would you do the same thing if you were in his place?”

  “Probably. You Irish aren’t really part of this country. You’re international flotsam. As a piece of national flotsam, I recognize our kinship.”

  I put my brandy aside. It suddenly tasted like worm-wood. “You’ve poisoned my pleasure this time, I fear.”

  “Remember you’re talking to a disappointed politician. Isn’t it wisdom to be prepared for the worst?”

  “There’s something about being Irish. Just hearing the worst seems tantamount to it happening.”

  “It’s happened so often in the past?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s only one way to avoid it. Wait. Do nothing. You have your guns. Let Seward and Stanton sweat. Maybe Johnson will wake up and throw them out. Maybe Connolly and Tweed will pull off their big play and land their woodenheaded Mayor Hoffman in the White House. Maybe next year this old war dog will be able to help you.”

  “Here in Washington?”

  “In New York. I’m coming back to go another round with Tweed. There are people who think I could take Tammany Hall away from him. He’s scaring a lot of people with his sloppy, greedy style.”

  I suspected this was only a dream. I brought Fernando back to reality, to Washington, D.C., with a practical question. “Robert Johnson. Is he still worth my time?”

  “Less and less. He’s become the biggest souse in the city. Falling down drunk in the street. When he’s on a real bender the president has to lock him in the White House. It’s too bad. He could have been the adviser outside the cabinet that the president needs so badly.”

  I told Fernando about my encounter with Robert in New York. For a moment the disappointed politician lost his serenity. He sprang up and walked around the table and placed his hand against my cheek. “I feel responsible for that. It makes me ashamed of the whole male sex.”

  It was time to go. I rose and kissed him softly on the mouth. “Don’t talk of shame. You’re the only man with whom I’ve felt none.”

  Downstairs in my room I bathed again and waited for Red Mike. I heard him open his door and called to him. He reeled into my room clutching a fistful of greenbacks. “Look at that, will you?” he said. “I called the turn four times running. With that kind of luck, how can we fail to conquer the whole blithering world?”

  I told him what I had heard from Fernando Wood. It sobered him momentarily. “Ah, Bess, why do you want to think about it now? Let’s go get drunk and worry about it in the morning.”

  “What you heard is just as bad?”

  “Worse,” he said. “None of the congressmen or the generals take us seriously. They think it’s all Irish moonshine.”

  “Which gives Stanton and Seward a completely free hand.”

  “The crown prince was there, losing a fortune. Before he got too drunk to make sense, he swore the president was still behind us. He begins to think now the Fenians are his best hope to steal a march on the Republicans and distract the country from the South and the Negroes.”

  “Jesus,” I swore. “When I think of how often they call drink the curse of the Irish.”

  Everything we heard in the next few days confirmed our original gloomy information. In Congress there was nothing but rant and more rant about Southern perfidy and the rights of the Negro. The newspapers printed shocking stories about President Johnson, calling him as big a drunkard as his son, accusing him of taking bribes from Southerners, of being a traitor to his oath of office, the Union dead, the martyred Lincoln.

  Johnny Coyle, head of the National Intelligencer, the one true friend we had among the capital’s newspapermen, was inclined to agree with almost everything Fernando Wood said and added a few pessimisms of his own. “They’ll risk no war with England till they’ve got the South well in hand. There are some of them in Congress who’d like to grab Canada, but they’ve small enthusiasm for letting the Irish do it. You can be sure they’ll be against tryin’ it while the South remains defiant. They’ve gone too far with their rage for punishment to get a man from the South to fight England. It might well be the other way around.”

  “So we must wait,” I said, thinking of what Fernando Wood called the Irish in America, international flotsam. There was a bitter truth to it. We and our rage and our woes were not in step with America’s history. We marched to our own grim drumbeat, and it was easy to see why the clashing rhythms could cause disaster.

  “Wait,” Coyle agreed. “You must lie low, and maybe Stanton and Seward will hang themselves with the rope they’re trying to loop around the president’s neck.”

  My impatience, my hunger for victory, vengeance, would not permit me to accept this advice. Fighting against it, I decided to overcome my repugnance and risk another meeting with Robert Johnson. I could think of no one else. There was no hope of getting to see the president, nor much point to it. A twenty-year-old Irish girl could hardly convince the ruler of a great nation that his two most trusted advisers were ready to betray him and ruin his chance of winning four million devoted Irish followers.

  Each Monday night, Johnny Coyle had parties of friends in for supper, drinks, and cards. Most of them were congressmen. Because the Intelligencer supported President Johnson, Robert Johnson had been a guest in the past, before his drinking became unmanageable. Coyle agreed to risk ruining his party by inviting him again. I was to be the surprise guest of honor.

  The party began well. The congressmen were all from states where the Irish vote bulked large—Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. They toasted me and vowed they were ready to do brave things on Ireland’s behalf. It was political hot air but pleasant listening. The party was well along, and supper was about to be served, when Robert Johnson appeared. He was thoroughly oiled and made straight for the sofa where I sat chatting with Coyle and a congressman from New Jersey. With the skill of a born host, Johnny instantly drew the congressman away and let me deal with the crown prince alone.

  “Bess,” he said. “How’s my old girl?”

  “If you think I’m old, you need glasses,” I said. “If you think I’m your girl, you need a doctor, because you’re on the verge of lunacy.”

  “What in hell are you talkin’ about, Bess?” he gasped.

  No one had treated him this way since his father became president. He had enjoyed a full year of uninterrupted adulation.

  “I’m talking about you. It’s the last time I’ll talk about you, or to you, until you convince me that you’re a gentleman. Now please go away.”

  All this was said in a quiet voice that attracted no attention from anyone else in the general babble of two dozen voices.

  “I was a little rough with you, I guess, but I was sorta sore at the world, that night, Bess. You know what happened.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know what happened. I learned to despise a man about whom I had cared a great deal. I learned to loathe a touch that had once aroused me as few other men have done. Now leave me before I begin speaking in a voice loud enough for the world to hear.”

  He reeled off in total disarray from these thundering lies. He stayed at the party only a few more minutes, conversing abstractly with one or two congressmen, glaring across the room at me the while. The next day he appeared at my table while I was having lunch at the hotel with Mike Hanrahan. Robert was hopelessly drunk, but he babbled his devotion to me and swore he would never again abuse me.

  “Love you, Bess. Love Irish girls,” he said.

  “I will believe you only if you prove it by escorting me in public like a gentleman and acting in private like a man of sensibility,” I said. “You can’t do either when you’re drunk.”

  “I ain’t drunk,” he mumbled.

 
“You’re stupidly drunk,” I said. “Come back when you’re sober and we’ll talk.”

  He crept away like a chastened child. “By God,” Mike Hanrahan said. “You’ll make me swear off if you keep it up, Bess.”

  “It’s the faro table that you must swear off,” I said, like a true termagant.

  Two days later, Robert Johnson reappeared at the hotel, his hands trembling, his lips twitching, to vow he had not had a drink in twenty-four hours. We went for a ride along Rock Creek in his chaise. It was a lovely day in late April. The trees were leafing; the wisteria and Spanish bluebells were in bloom. Robert breathed deeply and said he felt like a new man. I deserved all the credit. “I’ll tell you the truth, Bess,” he said. “I never thought anyone cared that much about me. I mean, I could have gotten sore, could have turned into an enemy. You cared enough about me to take a risk like that. It means a lot to me. It really does.”

  I was touched and a little guilty. It was sad to see how vulnerable this man was to genuine feeling. He was not vicious. He was merely a stranger to true affection. The inner life of President Johnson’s family must have been a very strange affair. Robert talked about the trouble he had been causing his father, the worry and grief. Sober now, he regretted it. A kind of madness had come over him when he found he was only one among many presidential advisers. Now he thought he was ready to accept that condition. He would not forget who was responsible for bringing him back to sanity.

  We discussed the Fenians, and he reiterated his support of them. He declared that he now saw them as the one hope of his father’s embattled administration. The president was losing the struggle with Congress, step by inexorable step. Only some dramatic change of front, a counterassault from a new quarter, could break the momentum of events.

  We paused beside the rushing waters of Rock Creek, with a field of deep blue hyacinths nearby. “I hope you’ll stay in Washington and let me court you like you deserve,” he said. “Give me a month. I think you’ll see a Robert Johnson you might consider for a husband.”

  “Let me say only this,” I replied. “I’ll never marry until my country’s freedom is won. That accomplished, I would be ready to love you forever.”

  Of the many lies I told in politics’ name, this was the worst. But I thought I was close to a tremendous political victory. I could envision the gratitude of a president who saw his drunkard son miraculously reformed. I could imagine the energy with which this son’s love could beseech his father’s aid for a downtrodden people. For a week I saw Robert Johnson every day. He remained sober. The news of his reformation spread throughout Washington. Mike Hanrahan and Johnny Coyle reported the amazement of the White House watchers, the sense that something important was happening.

  On the tenth day—which happened to be the last day of April—came a reaction from one of the most important of these White House watchers. A note was delivered to my room. Mr. Seward hopes that the Fenian girl will give him the honor of escorting her to supper tonight. If agreeable, his carriage will await her at the hotel at 8:00 P.M.

  I signified my acceptance to the black coachman. It was May Eve. Exactly a year ago I had mounted history’s whirlwind and begun my ride. I was imbued with a sense of destiny. My pride was in the ascendance as I stepped into Mr. Seward’s carriage and began my journey through Washington’s dark streets.

  After thirty minutes of circuitous driving, designed to confuse me, we arrived at the house I expected—the one to which the secretary of state had brought me and Robert Johnson last summer. William Seward was waiting alone among the red gauze draperies. He rose to greet me with a bow and a quizzical smile. He had recovered completely from his injuries and wounds. There were only faint traces of the gashes left by the assassin’s knife on his face and neck. The wires were gone from his jaw. His helpless arm had been restored, as he demonstrated when he drew out a chair for me. Without such distractions, I was able to better study his smooth-shaven face. In spite of his smile, I did not like it. There was a calculating quality to the small, thin-lipped mouth. The high-crowned beaked nose gave him a bird-of-prey look.

  “A beautiful dress, my dear,” he said as he poured me a glass of champagne. “The Fenians are obviously prosperous.”

  I was wearing a faille silk gown with white taffeta drapery and pearl embroidery, the latest Paris fashion, bought just before I left New York.

  I laughed and said he looked ten years younger without his wounds. We dined lightly on cold chicken and ham. He talked carelessly about the pleasure of seeing me again. It had to be done this way, in private, because the British ambassador had begun to take the Fenians seriously.

  “But you don’t?” I said.

  He paused to sip his champagne. “We Americans know you Irish far better than the British, I think. We enjoy your love of words, your fondness for vast imaginary deeds. Your enthusiasm.”

  I struggled to keep my temper in the face of such condescension. “Mr. Secretary,” I said. “Two months ago I went to Ireland on a forged passport from your State Department. I stood before a man at about the same distance I am now from you and shot him dead. Do you think that is serious?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Fanaticism. It does not go with—it should be forbidden—beauty. Beautiful women.”

  He took me by the hand and led me through the red gauze curtains to the couch on the other side of the room. He sat me down on it and said, “Lean back, to the left. Drape your arm so.” He showed me. Then he slowly sat down in an easy chair and gazed at me with shining eyes.

  “It is uncanny,” he said. “It’s like returning through the mists of time. When you sit that way, you’re Rose O’Neal. I told you about her. The woman I loved until fanaticism turned her mouth sour and drew the crow’s-feet of hatred around her eyes.”

  He went back and got us more champagne. “It’s for her sake—your sake—I’m here, as much as affairs of state. I dread what will eventually happen to you. The thought of a rope around your lovely neck—or a bullet between those young breasts. It’s too horrible.”

  “I know the risks I’m taking,” I said, struggling to remain calm in spite of those awful images, trying at the same time to divine his purpose.

  “You’ve made a notable conquest in the last two weeks. The president is tremendously relieved and grateful. For some time I’ve been advising him to get Robert out of Washington. I had arranged with the secretary of the navy to send him on a cruise aboard a warship, but now his miraculous reformation makes us think he might be better off in California. Providing that you went with him, as his wife. A private friend of the president is ready to contribute fifty thousand dollars to purchase a cattle ranch near Sonoma.”

  “Who is the private friend? Sir Frederick Bruce?”

  “How clever you are, my dear,” he said, with a fleeting smile. “In fact he’s an American, a railroad magnate.”

  “Who hopes to borrow fifty or a hundred million from the British.”

  “My dear, we politicians are only sailors who must trim our sails to shifting winds and waves. Winds that blow millions are difficult to resist. Why should we resist them? America needs the money. It will create thousands of jobs for Irish laborers. Let me advise you, from pure affection, from nostalgia for the love of the woman I tried in vain to save. Be a little stubborn, and another fifty thousand will be placed in a private account in a New York bank in your name. So if life in California with Robert becomes unpleasant, you have a refuge.”

  “I will not be bribed—”

  “My dear, we go through life bribing and being bribed. Sometimes the medium of exchange is money, sometimes it’s power, sometimes it’s love. Think for a moment, think seriously. Who are you now? A somewhat notorious Irish adventuress. I’m putting it in the light in which respectable folks see you. In one stroke you’re the wife of the son of a president of the United States. Let us hope for the best and assume that Robert conquers his weakness, with your help. There’s nothing to which he could not aspire, in Californ
ia, in the nation. With you at his side.”

  I thought of my sister Annie, drinking gin in her dingy room in Greenwich Village. Of my sister Mary, selling milk and whiskey to tourists in Killarney. It was true. I was nothing. William Seward was offering me—telling me—that I had in my grasp all that a woman supposedly wanted in life. But to take it was to betray those homely servant girls who spent a year’s savings on Irish bonds, to turn my back on those defeated, starving beggars who tottered beside the carriage on the road to Limerick; it was to abandon the men on the quay at Cork to endless years of sneers from the likes of Quackey; above all, it was to deny I ever loved or hoped to love a man named Dan McCaffrey, to let him and John O’Neil and the others march blindly to their deaths in Canada.

  Donal Ogue, when you cross the water

  Take me with you to be your partner.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do it.”

  The secretary of state shook his head. “Is there something in the Irish blood that loves defeat? I sat in this chair ten years ago and told your double why the South couldn’t win the war. Her answer was ‘You make me love them all the more.’”

  “Perhaps our hearts are not for sale.”

  He made a mocking sound. “Some of your hearts, perhaps. The true ones. But a lot of others are for sale. You’re honeycombed with informers. The British know your plans. They’ve spent at least a million to make sure you have no friends in Congress. The only friend you have left is in the White House.”

  “Perhaps that’s the only one we need to have,” I said.

  Slowly, without taking his eyes from my face, he shook his head. There was such certainty, such knowledge, in the motion, my breath caught in spite of all I could do to prevent it. “Mr. Secretary,” I said, “if we had a friend in the Department of State—”

  “The secretary of state is only a servant of the people. Which means he’s the servant of the representatives of the people, assembled in Congress.”

  “So we must all take our chances,” I said.

  “It will cause everyone needless pain. You, Robert, the president. He’s a decent man but utterly out of his depth.”