Riot (2 page)

(serious)

Both of you keep your eyes open!

ROBERT and PRISCILLA are at the door of the Peacock.

PRISCILLA

Ta-ta, Lady Claire.

CLAIRE

Ta-ta, my dear.

ROBERT and PRISCILLA exit. CLAIRE starts to put away the sewing.

ELLEN

Do you think Priscilla’s really sweet on Robert?

CLAIRE

She’d marry him tomorrow if she could get him from under his mother’s thumb.

ELLEN

A man that’s under his mother’s thumb needs to stay there until he can wiggle out himself.

CLAIRE

Priscilla’s ready to give him a tug. She thinks his mother doesn’t want to let him grow up. Like all mothers.

ELLEN

Nonsense. I can’t wait until you’ve hopped
from the branch and tried your own wings.

CLAIRE

And you’re supposed to be teaching me the rest of the song about the black rosebud. Did you forget that?

ELLEN

And you have a sweet voice. I’d tell Mum that if she were still alive. It’s the Irish in your heart that makes your voice so sweet. Let’s hear you sing.

CLAIRE

(singing)

The Erne at its highest flood,
I dashed across unseen,
For there was lightning in my blood,
My dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
Oh, there was lightning in my blood,
My dark Rosaleen!

ELLEN

Oh, and you do have such a sweet voice. If your feet weren’t so big, I could marry you off before the weekend!

(kisses CLAIRE’s hand)

CLAIRE

Ma, why is this girl coming this afternoon?

ELLEN

Liam’s friend? Because I can’t do all the cooking and cleaning and everything that’s to be done in this place. You know that, Claire. And your father wants you to continue school. Get something beside daydreams in that pretty head of yours.

CLAIRE

Mother, you know what I mean…. If you’re going to hire someone to work in the Peacock, then why not Priscilla? She loves the children in the orphanage, but there’s not a lot for her there.

ELLEN

(sits at the table with her daughter)

The Peacock is quite a lovely business, Claire, and you know it. Your father and I want to buy it one day. We’ve been talking with Mr. Valentine—

CLAIRE

I don’t care about Mr. Valentine.

ELLEN

Well, I do, and your father does as well. We’re trying to convince him to sell us this place. It has a good reputation—

CLAIRE

He’s been letting it run down. We’re giving it back its reputation.

ELLEN

And so we are, colleen. This place has been here for a while and people know about it. But he wants it to be a place for a high-class clientele. We don’t want to open some place like the Gallant Frog down the street, do we? Oh, is that ever a hooligan haven.

CLAIRE

He means a place for
white
people?

ELLEN

There’s nothing wrong with white people, Claire. And seeing that I am one of them, I’m hoping that you can understand that. We’ll have all kinds of people here if your father and I have anything to do with it.

CLAIRE

In two months, this war will be over. Then there won’t be any more slavery and then it won’t matter if any of us are white or black.

ELLEN

Did the Good Lord himself tell you that, Claire? Because if He did, I’m very much impressed. The last person I know who heard the Lord talking back to him was your great-uncle, and that was only when he had a few pints in him.

CLAIRE

So we can’t hire Priscilla because Mr. Valentine wants white people working here?

ELLEN

Your father says that once we get the place going, we can have anyone we want staying here and working here. Do you think your father, a black man, would turn away his own people?

CLAIRE

When we do own this place, I’m going to have the fanciest lace curtains you’ve ever seen. And I saw the absolutely perfect chandelier in that shop on Broadway. The
moment people walk in the front door, they’ll know they’re in a place of quality. But—and this is important—I’ll have different sets of curtains for different days. Some gleaming white and others just a little off white—maybe ivory—with those little designs that you see in the fancy shops.

ELLEN

Is it an inn you’ll be running or a palace?

CLAIRE

It’ll be an inn but so fine that people will come to New York just to visit us. And we’ll steal that sour-faced little cook from Fraunces Tavern.

ELLEN

You’ve got your dreams neatly lined up, haven’t you?

CLAIRE

They’re better dreams than Mr. Valentine will ever have and I’ll thank you for knowing that, I will. And now I’ll be off to fetch the milk for this afternoon’s tea.

ELLEN

You’ll be doing no such thing. There’s too
much afoot out there. Your father was about this morning and he said it’s not just the roughnecks out there. It’s a mob of people and they’re in an ugly mood. They’ve even torn down some telegraph poles on the East Side, although I don’t see how that does very much for them.

CLAIRE

Father said they’re protesting against the draft. They don’t want to fight in the war.

ELLEN

Well, neither do I, but you don’t see me tearing down any telegraph poles, do you? All across Fourteenth Street! Of all the foolishness. We’d better all stay in until things grow quiet again. And the talk is that they’re attacking black people in the street.

CLAIRE

I don’t see why you have to be a black person or a white person. Why can’t you just be a person?

ELLEN

Well, if you’re a rose or a daisy, you’re still a flower. People see what they have a
mind to see. You were born a girl. Do you have a complaint about that, too?

CLAIRE

(pensive)

I’m not complaining.

When I was born, did you write to your mother about me?

ELLEN

Of course I did.

CLAIRE

Did you tell her I was black or white?

ELLEN

I told her you were a baby girl and that all of your parts seemed reasonably intact.

(tries to lighten the conversation)

Let’s see, you had one nose, as many toes as you were needing—

CLAIRE

And did you tell her that my dad is black?

ELLEN

I wrote that he was tall, dark, and quite the good looker. I let her imagine the rest.
The hard part was skirting around the notion that he wasn’t Catholic.

CLAIRE

Oh, you’re sneaky clever, Mrs. Johnson.

There is a knock on the door, and LIAM (17) and MAEVE (16) enter.

LIAM

Morning, Mrs. Johnson. Morning, Claire.

ELLEN

Morning, Liam. You’re looking handsome today.

CLAIRE

But why are you combing your hair straight back? You know I never like it that way.

LIAM

My friend thinks it makes me look older.

CLAIRE

(Glances at Maeve)

Does she now?

ELLEN

And does your friend have a name?

MAEVE

It’s Maeve, ma’am. And I’ve been sent by Father Donahue to see about the job you’d be having.

ELLEN

Oh, yes. Well, I’m glad the two of you aren’t running around the streets like madmen. Can you use a cold glass of lemonade?

LIAM

That I could, ma’am. I was telling Maeve how I worked here from time to time and how you were looking for a girl. She’s sort of my intended.

ELLEN

Well, sit yourselves down. Lemonade is as good sitting as it is standing.

(LIAM and MAEVE sit)

CLAIRE

I didn’t know you had an intended, Liam. And all this time I’ve had my hopes up.

LIAM

Go on with yourself, Claire.

ELLEN

How old are you to be thinking of marriage?

LIAM

Old enough if I can keep working steady. I’m doing errands for you, but I’ll shame the devil and tell you right out that I’m looking for something stronger.

MAEVE

My mother wasn’t but sixteen, same as me, when she got married.

ELLEN

Well, those were the old days—when you married coming down the gangplank. So tell me where you worked before.

MAEVE

For a gentleman who lived on Gramercy Park. He was an old man who needed looking after. I cleaned for him and sometimes made him tea. But he up and died in a sudden way and left me without a job and the week’s pay because his daughter said she didn’t know if I had been paid or not.

ELLEN

Which means you don’t have references?

MAEVE

No, ma’am. But I go to Mass on a regular basis and I give to the poor. I was in church when I seen Father Donahue.

ELLEN

We’re looking for someone who’s worked in a hotel.

MAEVE

(looking about)

I can pour pints, too.

ELLEN

Learn that at Mass, did you?

MAEVE

No, ma’am.

CLAIRE

Can you make square corners on a bed?

MAEVE

I don’t know. I never tried it. Are you working here?

ELLEN

When she’s not planning visits from the queen.

There is the sound of a disturbance outside, and we hear shouts and some cursing as a small group passes.

LIAM

(excitedly)

They’re headed uptown. I think I’m going with them.

(gets up to leave)

CLAIRE

Were you drafted?

LIAM

No, but I’m protesting! Miss Ellen, do you know what life is about in Five Points? It’s not pretty.

ELLEN

I know, but you’re such a darling lad. We’d hate to see you hurt, Liam. Wouldn’t we, Claire?

CLAIRE

(quietly)

He knows that.

LIAM exits
.

MAEVE

Oh, he’s all excited, he is. They were singing about going to Dublin and marching as gay as you please all the way down Mercer Street. And every time they came to the end of a line with a “Whack follol de rah” they would break out a window!

CLAIRE

That’s terrible. Why would anyone want to do that?

MAEVE

Well, it’s the Irish against the swells and the Coloreds. They’ve been pushing us around too long, they have. You can’t walk down the sidewalk without a swell pushing you off into the street or one of the Coloreds taking your jobs. I hear they have them by the hundreds in Jersey City just waiting to rush over to New York at the drop of a hat.

You won’t be able to find a scrap of work that they won’t do for half the money.

That’s how the Coloreds are. They’ll work for nothing until they chase us out and we’ll be the beggars and street sweepers.