Awkward Moment 6, part III (I Dream of Genealogy)

A/N: This is the uber-speedy, "write it before bed" version while I have a chance.

"Mother! Mother!?" Angela called out as she entered the house.

"Angela, calm down. Do you think that yelling at Mona is the best way to get anythin' outta her?" Tony admonished. He'd been trying to calm her down during the entire drive back to Connecticut, but whenever he thought he'd made some headway, Angela's steam-like puffs of anger proved him wrong.

"I just cannot believe what Miss Morton told me today, Tony! I'm in shock. It's just so awful," she lamented.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad. Don't you think you're overreacting? Just a bit?"

"Tony, I am the progeny of a criminal and a common brothel prostitute. I think that entitles me to overreact as much as I want to," she huffed at him. The headache that had begun in Miss Morton's office was now a full scale migraine. The entire left side of Angela's head was throbbing in excruciating pain, and her vision was blurred. She wanted nothing more than to take some powerful pain medication and sleep until tomorrow. But first, she had to confront her mother.

"How about a drink? Huh? More gin?" Tony suggested.

Angela gave a weary nod and sat down. Her emotions had run the gamut—from the initial excitement of going to visit Miss Morton, to the wonder of seeing the old photographs and learning the names of her ancestors, then finally to the horror of learning who they were. She knew that Tony wasn't judging her, but she couldn't help but wonder how much her great-grandparents' blood determined who she was. She took the proffered glass of gin from Tony's hand and drank deep gulps to steady her nerves.

"Where's Mother?"

"I'll find her, Angela. Why don't you just put your feet up and relax, huh? Take it easy … this ain't an emergency. Nothing's changed since this morning. You're still the same person. Remember that." Angela looked at him but remained silent.

XXX

Up in Mona's apartment, Tony urged Mona to come downstairs. He'd recounted the events of the genealogical meeting to her and found her to be quite calm.

"I told Angela not to go poking her nose in her father's history," she said. "I had a feeling she'd react like this."

"So, you knew?"

"Of course I knew! Robert told me everything when we were married. He thought it was quite funny, actually. But his father, Jonathan Robinson, was a prim and proper stick in the mud. I think Angela takes after him. Anyway, he'd made his success as a banker and he didn't want his parents' history known. He went to great lengths to conceal it, even from his own son. Robert found out about his grandparents after his father's death, when he was sorting through personal effects. Jonathan had kept Ginny's journal. He adored his mother, and felt that he was protecting her by keeping her past a secret."

"Oh yeah, there's a journal?" Tony asked. He was intrigued now.

"It's in my safety deposit box, but I'll let Angela have a look at it … there's some pretty hot stuff in there!" Mona pretended to fan herself and let out a chortle. "Poor Angela, I knew she'd take it hard if she ever found out about Ginny."

"The resemblance was pretty striking, Mone. Except for Ginny having dark hair," Tony said.

"Angela does have dark hair," Mona replied with an eye roll.

"Mona, you're incorrigible!"

"Why thank you, Tony."

XXX

Later that evening, Mona returned home with a leather-bound journal. She handed it to her daughter with a stern warning, "Rip a page, dear, and I'll kill you."

"Mother, what is this?" Angela looked at the old journal with curiosity—its binding was falling apart and yellowed pages were spilling out, showing their faded ink. She instinctively pressed the book to her nose and took a deep breath. Um, vanillin and aged leather.

"Must you sniff every book you touch?"

"Yes, Mother, I must. What is this journal?" She gently opened the cover and gasped at the indicated date.

"It's Ginette Desrosiers' account of her love affair with Joseph Robinson. Read it and stop griping about the fact that the woman was a prostitute. It wasn't her fault, Angela. She had to do it to survive. Your great-grandfather fell madly in love with her and rescued her from that life. It was Whitechapel in the late 1880's! Ring any bells?"

"Whitechapel?" Angela thought for a moment. "Oh! Oh, Jack the Ripper was killing prostitutes during that time." Her hand flew to her mouth, as she regarded Mona with wide, shocked eyes.

"She was in danger and he saved her. It's romantic, Angela. Romantic! Now read the damned thing and find out about this couple. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. And even if you're not … who cares? They're all dead, Angela! Think about it." Mona left her daughter to gape after her.

XXX

Angela was up half the night reading her great-grandmother's journal. She'd taken potent painkillers to dull her migraine but the strain of reading was worsening the pain behind her left eye. Still, she was unable to put down the diary. Ginette's story both fascinated and entranced her. The writing so vivid that Angela swore she could hear Ginny's Parisian-Cockney accent. At about four in the morning, she read the last page and sighed. It was a sigh of satisfaction, of understanding, and of solidarity. "Ginny, you were amazing," she whispered to the journal. She gently put it down and went to the bathroom to search for more painkillers. 'Drat, I left them in the kitchen', she remembered. As she headed downstairs, Angela's thoughts were on Ginny's words, not on the stairs. She overstepped the last one and tripped over her own feet, landing at the bottom of the staircase with a thud. "Oh, merde and bloody hell!" she cried out in one of Ginny's oft-used expressions. Angela lost count of how many times she'd read that tonight.

As she struggled to stand up, she felt strong hands gripping her from behind. "Are you alright, Angela? Are you hurt?" Tony asked. He'd run down the stairs after hearing her fall. Tony was a light sleeper and always attuned to noises in the house in case one of the children needed him.

"I, I, I, uh, I have a headache," she replied. Tony pulled her up against him, so she sagged for a moment, relishing the feel of his powerful chest and shoulders.

"Did you hit your head?" he asked, confused now. "I thought you landed on your other end."

"I did. I have a migraine. I've been reading Ginny's journal and it hasn't helped the pain."

"You've been readin' all night? What, you haven't slept yet?"

"No. Tony, I couldn't put it down. It was … she was fascinating," Angela said.

"I'm curious."

"Come on, I'll tell you all about it in the kitchen."

Tony followed Angela into the kitchen and watched as she poured herself some water and popped a few pills. She was going for the prescription stuff. He winced, knowing that she never used those unless her headache was horrific.

"So, tell me about her, Angela." He sat down and pulled out a kitchen chair for her. "What has you so fascinated?"

"Everything, Tony! Everything! She came to London from Paris when she was a little girl. Her mother was a courtesan." Angela sniffed and looked up at him. "Yes, that makes two prostitutes in my ancestral history, and for all I know, her mother before her and so on …"

"I'm impressed that you're taking it so well." Tony moved his chair closer to hers and put his hand on her arm.

"Ginette was a resourceful girl, Tony. Her mother died when she was twelve and she had nothing. I mean nothing! Everything that her mother had worked so hard for … their home and carriage, servants, nice clothes… everything was spent in medical bills. Her mother died a long lingering death, she had tuberculosis. During her illness she couldn't work and the bills simply mounted."

"That's horrible!"

"I know. I know. But Ginny rallied, Tony. She was beautiful and used it to her advantage as her mother had done. Unfortunately, a destitute and beautiful girl didn't have many places to go in late nineteenth century London. She ended up in a brothel because they took pity on her."

"At twelve?" Tony asked, shocked.

"Yes, but not as a prostitute. They gave her room and board and expected her to cook and clean. And to pay off her debt to them when she was old enough and able to, well you know."

"So, what happened to her?"

"She grew up there and when she was fifteen, they put her to work with the other girls. She had a five year contract to pay back what she owed Madame Malfaisante."

"I see and that was the contract that Joseph tried to buy out for her."

"Yes, but the Madame refused him. Ginny was bringing in a lot more money than what was simply owed. Madame Malfaisante was using her and she knew it. She wanted out of the life, especially after meeting Joseph. He wasn't a client, Tony. He worked in the nearby mercantile where Ginny did quite a bit of the purchasing for the brothel. They met at his shop and fell madly in love."

"Yeah? But what about ugly Ada?" Tony wondered about the barrel-shaped woman in Joseph's wedding picture.

"Ada, right. Ada was a bitch." Angela said that last word with venom on her tongue, while Tony could only stare at her slack-jawed.

"Angela, I've never heard you say that word before!"

"Perhaps it's never applied to anybody so well … except maybe for Joanne Parker." Angela replied with a wicked grin on her face.

"Whoa, being compared to Joanne Parker—it's gotta be bad! What did Ada do?"

"According to Ginny, Ada had a mad crush on Joseph and wanted him for herself. Joseph was in business with Ada's father, and together they owned and operated the mercantile. Ada's father owned it and Joe ran it. To make a long story short, Ada saw an opportunity to have the man she wanted. She lured Joe to her home after dark and brought him to the stables under pretense that something was wrong with her horse."

"So?"

"So, a young woman of upstanding pedigree could not be in a stable at night with a young man and not have a chaperone. Ginny wrote that Ada blabbed about it to everybody and insinuated that something had happened. She ruined her own reputation, knowing that her father would force Joe to marry her."

"That's despicable! She tricked him." Tony shook his head. Ada Harcourt would have been safe from any man's advances. The woman had a face like a Rottweiler.

"Tony, it was hard for them both. Joseph was trapped in a marriage to a woman he despised and Ginny was trapped by Madame Malfaisante. They both needed to escape." Angela was quiet for a moment before speaking again. "Ginny describes a love affair so intense … so all-consuming, Tony. She and Joseph didn't even become lovers until they arrived in New York. He wanted to show her that he loved her for who she was. She describes the look in his eyes—how she could feel his love and passion in the way he gazed at her. Yet, he never touched her—not once while they were in England."

"Didn't touch her, huh?" Tony knew all too well about loving a woman and not being able to touch her.

"No, he didn't want her to feel like a prostitute. He courted her. Isn't that sweet, Tony?"

"I doubt Ada thought so, but yeah, yeah, it's sweet, Angela."

"Eh, who cares about Ada? She wasn't my great-grandmother—Ginny was. Ginette Desrosiers, daughter of a Parisian courtesan, Whitechapel whore, and the woman that Joseph Robinson fell madly in love with. Tony, when I read her voice, it felt like she was talking to me. I … I know this may sound strange, but what she was saying sounded kind of familiar."

"Familiar?"

"Yes! The whole time I was reading her journal, I felt as though I was having deja-vu. Over and over again. I felt as one with her, Tony. Does that sound crazy?"

"Uh, yes. But … but … some people believe in reincarnation."

"I don't."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," she stated, but her doubtful expression betrayed her words. "Tony, maybe you'd like to have a look at that journal yourself tomorrow," Angela offered. She'd recognized aspects of Tony in Joseph Robinson-his optimism, easygoing manner and the way he'd bulldozed his way into Ginny's life, loving her with respect and friendship.

"You bet I'm gonna read that! And Angela?" Tony turned his dark eyes to hers and held her gaze.

"Yes, Tony?"

"You've got the blood of madcap lovers flowing through your veins. You're descended from brave, resourceful people. And that passion … that passion they had is inside of you. Personally, I think love and passion are better than boring hoity-toity blue blood, don't you?"

Angela maintained the connection between them—not wanting the spell to end. Her eyes, the windows into her soul connected with his. Her heart beat fast and she finally had to look away, overwhelmed by a powerful sense of deja-vu again. She had a sudden glimpse of Joseph, in full color, real as day and it knocked the breath out of her.

"I'll take passion over hoity-toity every time, Tony, every single time."