pocket. “I take it you had been up to a few stunts in your day, ma’am, that would make Miss Nellie Bly pale to puce by comparison. Mr. Pinkerton spoke of you often, with great regret, in that Europe and the performing stage had stolen away the best female agent he ever had.”
Irene stood also. “I am honored to be so remembered. Thank you for your assistance.”
“If you need anything more—”
“I will not hesitate to call upon you.”
With that our unexpected visitor picked up his sorry derby and departed.
“Ah!” Irene pushed her fists into her whaleboned waist and took a deep breath after he had gone.
“We already knew a good deal of Pink’s family history,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but from her alone. I find it intriguing that she still lives with—supports—her mother.”
“Intriguing? It is only daughterly duty. Had I a mother still living—”
“Yes, I know, Nell. You’d be a paragon of devotion. I can only thank fate that you were orphaned and available to provide such sterling devotion to my causes. Pink, though, is from a different tradition. She is young, modern, notorious, celebrated, and even more impressively, making inroads on her society. Why is she not courted? Why has she not a fistful of suitors? Why does she live, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, with her mother?”
“Not every woman,” I pointed out, “is so fortunate as to find a Godfrey.”
“But every woman in such a position would have at least found a Crown Prince of Bohemia or two, even if he were only a merchant prince in this most democratic land.”
Irene paced, then paused to extract her pistol from the silken evening bag and install it in the desk drawer. Only then did she root in the reticule and withdraw the elegant blue enamel case that held her tiny cigarettes and the lucifers that lit them.
“And why is she so intrigued by the notion of my forgotten mother?”
“Obviously her mother was more important to her than yours was to you.”
“For which she does not forgive me. One often requires others to respect the same obligations that oneself is tied to. Yet I must believe that there is more to this matter than a trifling disagreement about the importance of mothers.”
“What can we do to discover what it is?”
“For starters, we must meet her mother . . . and then I suppose we must contrive to meet mine.”
She grinned at me with an insouciance I would be sore put to summon were I about to meet my long-dead and utterly unknown mother.
“You could hardly think, Nell, that I would arrive here on an expedition into the most hidden areas of my past called by Nellie Bly without investigating her private affairs. You will recall her impassioned defense of her mother, testifying against her vicious stepfather at the age of fourteen. Perhaps it’s not so surprising that she supports and lives with her mother more than ten years later, or that the subjects of her newspaper stunts are the brutal lives of sweatshop girls and fallen women.”
“Yet her own life cannot have been that sordid.”
“No, but it was sorry enough in parts.” Irene gazed at the wallpaper as if it were a painting worth studying. “If you find me odd in not wishing to trace my antecedents, it’s because I know that all families have secrets. Family secrets are the most dangerous of all, and we are always the sorrier for finding them out. I don’t relish unearthing mine.”
I kept silent, meditating upon the one matter I kept from Irene at all costs. I could only be thankful that a dogged investigator like Nellie Bly had not the slightest interest in unveiling my secrets.
8.
Maternal Musings
You can live as many lives in NewYork as you have
money to pay for .
— THE DESTRUCTION OF GOTHAM , 1886
The city of New York was in those days the bustling, expanding, towering monument to American enterprise typified by the Statue of Liberty thrusting her torch into the very vault of Heaven itself.
I reminded myself that
Irene stood also. “I am honored to be so remembered. Thank you for your assistance.”
“If you need anything more—”
“I will not hesitate to call upon you.”
With that our unexpected visitor picked up his sorry derby and departed.
“Ah!” Irene pushed her fists into her whaleboned waist and took a deep breath after he had gone.
“We already knew a good deal of Pink’s family history,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but from her alone. I find it intriguing that she still lives with—supports—her mother.”
“Intriguing? It is only daughterly duty. Had I a mother still living—”
“Yes, I know, Nell. You’d be a paragon of devotion. I can only thank fate that you were orphaned and available to provide such sterling devotion to my causes. Pink, though, is from a different tradition. She is young, modern, notorious, celebrated, and even more impressively, making inroads on her society. Why is she not courted? Why has she not a fistful of suitors? Why does she live, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, with her mother?”
“Not every woman,” I pointed out, “is so fortunate as to find a Godfrey.”
“But every woman in such a position would have at least found a Crown Prince of Bohemia or two, even if he were only a merchant prince in this most democratic land.”
Irene paced, then paused to extract her pistol from the silken evening bag and install it in the desk drawer. Only then did she root in the reticule and withdraw the elegant blue enamel case that held her tiny cigarettes and the lucifers that lit them.
“And why is she so intrigued by the notion of my forgotten mother?”
“Obviously her mother was more important to her than yours was to you.”
“For which she does not forgive me. One often requires others to respect the same obligations that oneself is tied to. Yet I must believe that there is more to this matter than a trifling disagreement about the importance of mothers.”
“What can we do to discover what it is?”
“For starters, we must meet her mother . . . and then I suppose we must contrive to meet mine.”
She grinned at me with an insouciance I would be sore put to summon were I about to meet my long-dead and utterly unknown mother.
“You could hardly think, Nell, that I would arrive here on an expedition into the most hidden areas of my past called by Nellie Bly without investigating her private affairs. You will recall her impassioned defense of her mother, testifying against her vicious stepfather at the age of fourteen. Perhaps it’s not so surprising that she supports and lives with her mother more than ten years later, or that the subjects of her newspaper stunts are the brutal lives of sweatshop girls and fallen women.”
“Yet her own life cannot have been that sordid.”
“No, but it was sorry enough in parts.” Irene gazed at the wallpaper as if it were a painting worth studying. “If you find me odd in not wishing to trace my antecedents, it’s because I know that all families have secrets. Family secrets are the most dangerous of all, and we are always the sorrier for finding them out. I don’t relish unearthing mine.”
I kept silent, meditating upon the one matter I kept from Irene at all costs. I could only be thankful that a dogged investigator like Nellie Bly had not the slightest interest in unveiling my secrets.
8.
Maternal Musings
You can live as many lives in NewYork as you have
money to pay for .
— THE DESTRUCTION OF GOTHAM , 1886
The city of New York was in those days the bustling, expanding, towering monument to American enterprise typified by the Statue of Liberty thrusting her torch into the very vault of Heaven itself.
I reminded myself that
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