“Oh dear, sister, I’m afraid I quite forgot to ask the young lady’s name!”
“Mrs. Fletcher,” said Daisy, taking a seat on the sofa without waiting to be invited. She had been summoned, after all. “How do you do.”
“British,” observed Miss Genevieve, not with unalloyed approval.
Before Daisy could respond, a small boy in hotel liveryscurried up to them—Stanley, the bellhop, familiarly known in England as a “buttons.” Miss Genevieve ordered fresh tea, and more sandwiches, cookies, and cake. Whatever her opinion of the British, she did not let it abate her enthusiasm for a proper afternoon tea, Daisy was happy to see.
While Stanley took Miss Genevieve’s order, Daisy studied her hostesses. They both wore knit frocks with tatted collars and cuffs, beautifully made (by Miss Cabot?) but unflattering to their portly figures. Miss Cabot’s dress was rose pink, Miss Genevieve’s navy blue. Miss Cabot’s hair, drawn back into a bun, escaped vigorously in all directions from its pins and nets. Miss Genevieve’s, equally grey, was trimmed in a short, severe bob.
Daisy wondered whether they were chance residents or had some connection with literature or the arts. Then she caught sight of a ruled notebook in Miss Genevieve’s ample lap, with a pencil tucked into the spiral binding. The top page was half filled with what appeared to be shorthand.
“You are a writer, Miss Genevieve?” Daisy enquired.
“Why, yes!” The old lady’s surprise, and evident displeasure, suggested that she was more accustomed to interrogating than to being interrogated.
Daisy pressed her advantage. “May one ask what you write?”
Miss Genevieve frowned, but Miss Cabot put in eagerly, “Such nice knitting columns. For the women’s magazines, you know. I expect you have them in England, too? I invent new patterns and Genevieve writes them down. Then she adds a bit of friendly chat, you know the sort of thing, I’m sure, so clever, I could never do it.”
“Tripe!” said Miss Genevieve.
“Oh dear! The patterns are really quite nice, sister. We do get such a lot of letters, such nice letters, from all over the country. But I’m afraid Genevieve doesn’t consider it real writing,” she confided to Daisy. “Even the gossip columns are preferable.”
“Gossip columns?” Daisy could not quite see the sisters mingling with the sort of high society which provides grist for the gossip columnist’s mill.
“Literary gossip,” Miss Genevieve growled grudgingly.
“ForWriters’ World,” explained Miss Cabot.
“This is the perfect place to collect information,” Daisy said.
“Many writers visiting New York do stay at the Hotel Chelsea. I manage to speak to most. I find most writers are eager to talk about themselves, even that obnoxious specimen who marched through Ernestine’s knitting.”
“Oh dear, no serious damage, no stitches dropped, and I can sew the ends in so that they won’t show, sister.”
“I dare say.”
“Who is he?” asked Daisy, who considered “obnoxious specimen” an excellent description.
“His name is Otis Carmody and he is a muckraking reporter. A necessary breed, no doubt, with a necessary brashness, but I’d have thought a more conciliating manner might serve him better.”
“I dare say he moderates his manner when necessary.”
“Possibly. I do write about more literary figures, too.” Miss Genevieve sounded defensive. “I drop in at the Algonquin when I can, but I don’t get about much these days and anyhow, Franklin Adams writes about the Round Table crowd in theWorld. Besides, Dorothy Parker and Benchley and friends are poseurs, witty, perhaps, but nothalf as clever as they like to think. Not one of them could tackle the job I used to do.”
Daisy judged that a question about the Algonquin and the Round Table crowd would not be well received. “What job was that?” she asked.
“I was a crime reporter.” Miss Genevieve warmed to Daisy’s interest—or succumbed to what Alec persisted in describing as her “guileless blue eyes.” “The first woman crime reporter in New York, and the only one yet, as far as I know. Eugene Cannon was my byline. Of course, in those days there was no question of using my own name. They wouldn’t even let me use a female name, as Lizzie Seaman did a bit later.”
“Lizzie Seaman?”
“Nellie Bly, she called herself. Now, there was a girl with a talent for self-advertisement. Around the world in eighty days, my foot! Not that I wanted the limelight, mind you. All I asked was the opportunity to do a good job of work.”
Miss Cabot sighed, her needles continuing to click busily. “At least you succeeded in escaping from home, sister.”
“Yes,” said Miss Genevieve, her tone grim, “but the life would not have suited you, sister.”
At that moment a waiter arrived. As he unloaded his tray and reloaded with the Cabots’ empty teapot and becrum-bed plates, Daisy glanced around and caught Mr. Lambert watching her. He immediately averted his gaze. There was something odd about that young man, she decided.
