when she saw my name among the dead.
“But you’ve had no real schooling?”
“We moved too often for me to attend a regular school.”
“No doubt to keep your whereabouts a secret from me. It
wasn’t until my detective saw your name listed among those
who had died in the fire that I even knew you were in New York.
Imagine, a granddaughter of mine working at a shirtwaist factory with common laborers!”
I bristled at this, thinking of Tillie and all the other girls I’d
worked beside. “It was honest work,” I said, “and the other girls
I worked with weren’t common at all. Some of them were quite
extraordinary.”
Mrs. Hall jerked her chin back, surprised as I was at my outburst, but then a faint smile appeared on her face. “Ah, I see
you’ve caught the reformist fever. Just like Evie! I only meant
that I would never have willingly let my daughter and granddaughter live in poverty. Is that what your mother told you?”
“No, she never spoke of you at all,” I said quickly—too
quickly to think what effect my words would have on her.
I watched as the color leached out of her cheeks and her lips
thinned. She looked shrunken, suddenly, and as lifeless as the
carved Moor at her feet.
“Well,” she said at last, “well. I always did teach her that if
one doesn’t have something pleasant to say, one shouldn’t say
anything at all.” She laughed a dry, bitter laugh. “So Evangeline
did heed my advice about something . Did she speak of her past
at all?”
“She spoke very fondly of Blythewood,” I replied, wracking my brain for some shred of comfort I could offer up. I had
always assumed that it had been my grandmother who had severed ties with my mother, not the other way around. I knew my
mother could be sensitive—and proud. In recent years she’d
become suspicious and fearful, and in the last few months of
her life her eyes had taken on a hunted look. Perhaps the fault
hadn’t all been on my grandmother’s side. And so I added, “I’m
sure she was very grateful that you sent her there.”
Her face froze as if she were Medusa and Perseus had just
held up his shield to freeze her with her own reflection. In the
silence that followed even the carved Moor seemed to shrink
lower into his crouch, and the ormolu clock on the mantel
seemed to miss a beat.
“If she had been truly grateful,” Mrs. Hall said at last,
speaking through a clenched jaw, “she wouldn’t have disgraced
me by leaving as she did.” She lifted her lorgnette, regarding
me though its crystal lenses as if I were a rare species of insect.
“Perhaps you shall do better there. But we shall speak of that
later.”
She raised her gloved hand, palm out, as she had before, to
forestall the questions bubbling up inside me. “Here’s Agnes,
come to show you to your room. Let us hope you are right about
being the same height as your mother so you’ll find something
in her closet to wear—and let us hope it is the only trait you
have in common with her.”
z o Z
I left the drawing room feeling as though I had been drained of
every ounce of vitality. Agnes steered me up the grand staircase
and down a long hall lined with portraits of stern-looking men
and women who glared at me with disapproval.
The room we entered woke me up. Unlike the dim and cluttered drawing room, this one was light and airy, its walls papered in a yellow floral print, the furniture and bedstead painted white, the windows lightly swathed in white lace and open
to an interior courtyard with a pretty garden. A book lay open
on the window seat as if its reader had just lately left the room.
I picked it up and saw it was open to Tennyson’s “The Lady of
Shalott,” my mother’s favorite poem.
“Mrs. Hall kept the room just as Evangeline left it,” Agnes
said, picking up a framed photograph from a grouping of many
on the desk.
I looked at the photographs. Girls in white shirtwaists,
long dark skirts, and straw boaters
“But you’ve had no real schooling?”
“We moved too often for me to attend a regular school.”
“No doubt to keep your whereabouts a secret from me. It
wasn’t until my detective saw your name listed among those
who had died in the fire that I even knew you were in New York.
Imagine, a granddaughter of mine working at a shirtwaist factory with common laborers!”
I bristled at this, thinking of Tillie and all the other girls I’d
worked beside. “It was honest work,” I said, “and the other girls
I worked with weren’t common at all. Some of them were quite
extraordinary.”
Mrs. Hall jerked her chin back, surprised as I was at my outburst, but then a faint smile appeared on her face. “Ah, I see
you’ve caught the reformist fever. Just like Evie! I only meant
that I would never have willingly let my daughter and granddaughter live in poverty. Is that what your mother told you?”
“No, she never spoke of you at all,” I said quickly—too
quickly to think what effect my words would have on her.
I watched as the color leached out of her cheeks and her lips
thinned. She looked shrunken, suddenly, and as lifeless as the
carved Moor at her feet.
“Well,” she said at last, “well. I always did teach her that if
one doesn’t have something pleasant to say, one shouldn’t say
anything at all.” She laughed a dry, bitter laugh. “So Evangeline
did heed my advice about something . Did she speak of her past
at all?”
“She spoke very fondly of Blythewood,” I replied, wracking my brain for some shred of comfort I could offer up. I had
always assumed that it had been my grandmother who had severed ties with my mother, not the other way around. I knew my
mother could be sensitive—and proud. In recent years she’d
become suspicious and fearful, and in the last few months of
her life her eyes had taken on a hunted look. Perhaps the fault
hadn’t all been on my grandmother’s side. And so I added, “I’m
sure she was very grateful that you sent her there.”
Her face froze as if she were Medusa and Perseus had just
held up his shield to freeze her with her own reflection. In the
silence that followed even the carved Moor seemed to shrink
lower into his crouch, and the ormolu clock on the mantel
seemed to miss a beat.
“If she had been truly grateful,” Mrs. Hall said at last,
speaking through a clenched jaw, “she wouldn’t have disgraced
me by leaving as she did.” She lifted her lorgnette, regarding
me though its crystal lenses as if I were a rare species of insect.
“Perhaps you shall do better there. But we shall speak of that
later.”
She raised her gloved hand, palm out, as she had before, to
forestall the questions bubbling up inside me. “Here’s Agnes,
come to show you to your room. Let us hope you are right about
being the same height as your mother so you’ll find something
in her closet to wear—and let us hope it is the only trait you
have in common with her.”
z o Z
I left the drawing room feeling as though I had been drained of
every ounce of vitality. Agnes steered me up the grand staircase
and down a long hall lined with portraits of stern-looking men
and women who glared at me with disapproval.
The room we entered woke me up. Unlike the dim and cluttered drawing room, this one was light and airy, its walls papered in a yellow floral print, the furniture and bedstead painted white, the windows lightly swathed in white lace and open
to an interior courtyard with a pretty garden. A book lay open
on the window seat as if its reader had just lately left the room.
I picked it up and saw it was open to Tennyson’s “The Lady of
Shalott,” my mother’s favorite poem.
“Mrs. Hall kept the room just as Evangeline left it,” Agnes
said, picking up a framed photograph from a grouping of many
on the desk.
I looked at the photographs. Girls in white shirtwaists,
long dark skirts, and straw boaters
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