In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

The following evening the drawing room was filled with chairs and women started to arrive. Among the early arrivals was Maud Gonne, looking even more beautiful without her stage makeup. She embraced Grania and went around the room, shaking hands. I was introduced as a visitor from America and passed over without a flicker of interest. The room began to fill. I recognized the two bluestockings from the Gaelic League. Then Alice Wester came in. Alice's face lit up when she saw me.

“Miss Delaney—Mary. How delighted I am to see you here. We lost each other in the crowd at the theater the other night, and I was afraid you would have no way of hearing about our meeting. And now here you are. Let me introduce you to some of our sisters.” She slipped her arm through mine and led me around the room. It was all on a firstname basis and I had no way of knowing whether those were true first names or nicknames—noms de guerre, as Grania had put it. The two bluestockings were Maeve and Tara, both important names in Irish history. Then I was presented to a bevy of older ladies and recognized my protector from the Gaelic League—the severe-looking matron in black who had made room for me beside her and worried about my going home alone. Wouldn’t she be interested to hear that her fears had been justified, and I had been kidnapped?

“So you made it to our meeting,” she said. “Splendid. What was your name again?”

“This is Mary,” Alice Wester said. “She's visiting us from America. Maybe she can go home and start a chapter of our organization over there.”

“I believe we already have women working for the cause in America,” one of the other matrons said. “Don’t we, Mrs. Boone?”

“I believe we do,” my matron agreed. “I’m sure we could put Mary in touch with similarly minded women when she goes home, if she finds that she is attracted to the promotion of Irish culture and the improvement of women.”

“I’d certainly be interested,” I said, not at all sure that I was telling the truth, but wanting to be accepted at this point.

Grania clapped her hands for attention and introduced Maud Gonne. Maud gave a long, impassioned speech about heroines of Irish history and how we were all called upon to be heroines and to keep our history alive. One of the bluestockings followed with a speech on the shocking infant mortality rate in the slums and how we could help improve sanitary conditions there. Tea and biscuits were handed around. It was a very civilized evening, probably similar to evenings repeated in women's institutes all over the country. I half expected to be instructed on how to make pickles next. I looked from one earnest, innocent face to the next and found it hard to believe that some of these women hid guns, ran messages, and were on the front lines of the fight for freedom.

We were still in the middle of tea, biscuits, and gossip when Gra-nia's elderly retainer came in. “I’m sorry to disturb you, m’lady,” he said, “but you have visitors.”

“Visitors? Not my husband already?”

“No, m’lady. Your brother and his fiancee and Captain Hartley. I’ve put them in the library.”

I thought my heart might leap right out of my mouth. So my fears were justified. Sir Toby Conroy's fiancee was indeed one of the Hartleys and her brother was really my archenemy. I looked around the room, trying to see if there was anywhere for me to hide. There were heavy drapes at the windows. There was a piano in the corner, but I had thirty or so women who would notice one of their members crawling under a piano. My one hope was that I’d be overlooked amid a sea of female faces.

“Didn’t you tell my brother that I was otherwise occupied at the moment?” Grania said.

“I did tell him that you already had visitors, your ladyship, but Sir Toby asked me to tell you that they had just arrived in town and Miss Henrietta had set her heart on greeting you immediately and introducing you to her brother.”

“I see.” Grania looked around at us and raised her eyes in frustration. “This is so inconvenient. Please excuse me, ladies. My brother can be most tiresome. I sincerely hope they are not expecting to stay here.”

She swept out of the room. My heart was still pounding violently. If Sir Toby and the Hartleys were really going to stay in the house, then I was doomed. Grania would have no reason not to introduce me as a friend from America. My one chance would be to leave with the rest of the women. Maybe Alice Wester could put me up for the night, if I could give her a reasonable explanation for my desire to escape. I tried to think of one but my brain wouldn’t work.

“We should probably leave, ladies,” Maud Gonne said. “The meeting was almost over, wasn’t it, and I don’t want to deprive Grania of the chance of seeing her brother.”

She started to put on her cape. Others followed suit. I stood there, not knowing what to do. If I followed them out into the night, wearing no outer clothing, someone was sure to notice. But I couldn’t stay where I was either. My knees were weak at the thought that Grania, being of a social nature, might well bring in her brother and the Hartleys and introduce them to the group.