Heroine Interview from Bees in the Butterfly Garden by Maureen Lang

» Posted on Jun 28, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on Heroine Interview from Bees in the Butterfly Garden by Maureen Lang

This week I’m hosting Beth Shriver with Annie’s Touch,  Trish Perry with Labor of Love from The Midwife’s Legacy, Maureen Lang with Bees in the Butterfly Garden, and Kim Watters with And Father Makes Three. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (July  1st) evening.

Heroine Interview from Bees in the Butterfly Garden by Maureen Lang:

1. Meg Davenport, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

I’ve been meticulously tutored at one of the most prestigious schools in New England. Just last year, in 1882, our school hosted British royalty! I’ve been taught many important social lessons, not the least of which is to show sincere and gracious interest in those around me rather than drawing attention to myself. However, I’ve also been taught to please my hostess and so I’ll break with all tradition and share with you the most interesting—and heartbreaking—fact about myself. My entire life is a lie. I thought I was the child of a successful, respectable businessman. Someone who wanted me to be raised a lady. A lady! Imagine my shock to learn he was really a thief, raised in the Bowery. The Bowery!

2.  What do you do for fun?

The definition of that word is drastically changing for me, now that I know my true heritage. All my life I’ve fought against what I really wanted to do. Well, my father is gone now. He can’t control me from the grave, so I’ve decided to prove to the world that he was wrong to have shut me out of his life and expect me to be something I’m not. That man, that Ian Maguire—he has my legacy, and I intend to force him to hand it over. I’ll make him teach me my father’s thieving ways, the way Ian learned from him. I’ll show them both I could have been a lot more use to them if I’d have been part of my father’s life than being shut away in a school for girls.

3.  What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Can I tell you a secret? I’ve been so insistent about being capable of taking up my father’s way that I believed it myself. Surely I’m capable of taking from others what they have too much of—after all, the plan is to steal gold from one of the richest families in New York City. They won’t miss a little of it, will they? But the truth is, as determined as I am to go through with this plan, I can’t really dwell on the right or wrong of it. Claire, that’s my old schoolmate and the daughter of this wealthy family—she trusts me. And she’s turning out to be a real friend, not just someone I used to know. I’m sure I’ll be able to go through with it, if I just concentrate on the job itself. And on Ian. As I said, Claire’s family will never miss whatever little bit of gold Ian and I conspire to take. Right?

4.  What are you afraid of most in life?

Of finding out my father was right to protect me from his way of life.

5.  What do you want out of life?

I have to admit I’ve wanted different things at different times of my life. When I was young I just wanted to be independent, to run away from a school with too many rules. When I finally realized I’d never get away, I accepted my fate and embraced the school. I even dallied with the idea of becoming the Head Mistress. But now that I know my heritage, all I can think of is proving I am my father’s daughter. I can be a thief . . . if my father could do it, if Ian can do it, so can I. Just watch me. I’ll show them all.

6.  What is the most important thing to you?

Proving my father wrong, even though he’s not here any more to learn such a thing.

7.  Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?

I never thought I’d say this, but I’ve recently been reading books of sermons—Claire, my old schoolmate, insists we read them aloud when we’re with her sister, because she wants to curb her younger sister’s wild ways. But do you know what? They’re marvelous. They talk about God in a way I’ve never heard before—about His love, and how He thinks about us and wants to spend an entire eternity with me. I never thought about God loving me before reading such books.

8.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’d somehow be able to fit together my heritage with the way I was raised. My father was wrong to have made sure I was raised a lady—now I don’t fit in either society: his, or the one which I was tutored to become part of.

9.  Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

Dogs, except for the sort that’s small enough to sit on one’s lap without leaving a lot of hair, should be kept out-of-doors at all times. Ian has the biggest, most slobbery and hairy dog one could imagine. I’m secretly afraid of it. You should see the size of its teeth! Why Ian loves that creature, I cannot imagine. Well, it does seem to wag its tail all the time, but that doesn’t mean he actually likes me. He must know I want nothing to do with him, so why does he come near me every time I’m around him?

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

I’d go back to the time my mother was alive, so I could meet her and so I could see my father with her. I’ve been told he wasn’t a thief back then, that he only took up his thieving ways to afford my schooling. As if it’s all my fault! Maybe somehow, if I could go back, I could convince him to raise me himself instead of sending me away and giving all his attention and love to an orphan like Ian. Didn’t either one of them realize that’s all I wanted? To be loved the way my father obviously loved Ian, as if he were his own child? Not me?

I’m so very grateful to have visited with you today, Mrs. Daley, and hope to have the pleasure of your company again in the very near future.

—Meg Davenport, Bees In The Butterfly Garden