A Curious Beginning

“Why do you hesitate?” he asked.

“I suppose I have a keen appreciation for anticipation,” I said lightly. “But I do not expect you to understand.”

“Oh, it isn’t that difficult,” he replied. “Before you open that packet all things are possible. It might contain any secret at all. It might be the Casket Letters, or the baron’s laundry list, or the revelation that your mother was a Russian princess.”

“Precisely,” I said with a small smile.

He rummaged in my bag a moment and returned with two of my slender cigarillos. He lit them from the fire and passed one to me. “Then let us enjoy our moment of anticipation to the fullest,” he said.

“Thank you for not lighting your appalling cigars,” I told him as I savored the sweet smoke.

He grunted by way of response and we sat for a little while in companionable silence.

“Sometimes it is better not to know,” he said suddenly. He lifted his gaze to mine. “Sometimes it is better for secrets to be left alone.”

“If I am not mistaken, that is the voice of experience.”

“It is.” He dropped his gaze to his hands, the cigarillo clasped lightly in his fingers. A slender stream of blue smoke rose, curling sinuously. He fell silent then, and I did not have the heart to pry.

“We do not even know this packet has information about me,” I pointed out. “It might be something else altogether.”

“Quite,” he told me. He reached forward and ground out the last of his cigarillo on the stove. He took mine and did the same. “Very well. As Arcadia Brown would say, ‘Excelsior!’” he proclaimed, lifting a mocking brow.

The ribbon seemed to protest at being untied. It hesitated a moment, then gave way under my insistent fingers. There was a drift of papers onto my lap, letters and newspaper cuttings, and I plucked one at random. It was from an American newspaper, a photograph with a small notice.

I read aloud, my voice suddenly hoarse. CELEBRATED IRISH ACTRESS LILY ASHBOURNE BEGINS AMERICAN TOUR, the headline ran. I read the rest of the piece, a brief description of her triumphs on the English stage, and studied the photograph. I handed it to Stoker without comment, but his was brief and to the point.

“Bloody hell.”

“This cutting is from 1860. I was born in 1862. Twenty-first of June, to be precise. She must be my mother,” I said, my voice tight. “Don’t you think?”

A fleeting smile touched his mouth. “She couldn’t be more like you if you had been twins,” he assured me. I looked again at the elegantly resolute face, the ripple of black hair, the eyes with their curious expression of challenge.

“There is something audacious about her,” I said.

“I should imagine so,” he agreed. “Stage actresses are not known for their reticence.”

I picked up another piece of paper. “This looks like a letter to the baron—it is addressed to ‘Dearest Max.’”

“What does it say?”

I skimmed the prose quickly, noting the looping scrawl of the handwriting, the pale violet ink, the heavily underscored words. “It is from Lily. And—oh God.”

He put out his hand and I gave him the letter.

“‘Dearest Max, I hardly have the words to thank you for your kindnesses to me and to Baby. I was so low when you came to see us, and your assurances have revived my spirits. You know he will not receive my letters; my only hope lies with you. You must make him see his duty to me—and to our child. I shudder to think what will become of us if he persists in casting us off so completely. And you must not think I care about money or anything else. I want him, Max. I know he loved me once, and I believe he loves me still, in his heart of hearts. If only he would come to see me, to see his child, I know he would find the strength to defy his family. If he goes through with this marriage, I do not know what I will do. He cannot marry her, Max—he must not. It will be my destruction, and he will carry that for the rest of his life.’”

He broke off. “The letter is dated 20 February 1863.”

“I was eight months old,” I calculated.

“And your father was not doing his duty, either by you or your mother.”

“So Max was acting as intermediary, consoling my mother and reminding my father of his obligations even as he planned to marry another woman. I wonder if he went through with his wedding.”

Stoker had picked up another cutting, and as he read it, his face paled. “I suspect so.”

“What is that?”

His expression was apologetic. “Your mother’s obituary. Dated 20 March 1863.”

“Less than a month after sending Max that letter saying she did not know what she would do if my father married another woman.” I did not take the cutting from him. “Stoker, did she—”

He shook his head. “I cannot imagine how. Not if she was buried in this cemetery,” he said, reading off the name. “Our Lady of Grace. In Dublin.”