Opium and Absinthe: A Novel

by Lydia Kang

  Elenora squawked again and flew onto the table this time, her emerald-green feathers brilliant against the ivory linen. She nibbled at Tillie’s uneaten crust. The maid once again brought Elenora back to her perch.

  “Sweet Elenora!” Grandmama said, smiling benevolently. “So, Mathilda. No more outings. Understand?”

  “But Ada already comes with me everywhere.”

  “To bookstores, or so I’ve heard.”

  Tillie dropped her fork, which clattered onto her plate. Elenora chirped with alarm at the noise. She flew to the floor this time and was again brought back to her perch.

  “I believe,” her grandmother continued, “that is where she left you alone. In a store. With a young man. That shall stop immediately. Isn’t that right, Ada?”

  Ada curtsied in the corner of the dining room. She looked at her feet guiltily.

  “Ada,” her grandmother said, “go fetch me some scissors.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ada scurried away.

  Tillie felt a tangle of anger in her stomach. Their home suddenly seemed so very tiny, despite its enormous space. She was trapped.

  “Go and write that letter. If he shows up one more time, we’ll call the roundsman and have him arrested. It’s time we returned to some normalcy. After Lucy’s mourning period, some things will change here. No more visits to the library every day. No more childishness, with your books. I was married with a child on the way before I was twenty-one. Lucy would have been, too, if she had behaved herself.”

  “Behaved herself?”

  “Yes. If she had been proper in all the ways a lady ought, she’d still be alive and readying herself for a marriage.”

  What on earth did that mean? That Lucy had misbehaved her way into the arms of a murderous vampire? It made no sense. Her grandmother was still talking.

  “You need to find a match, Mathilda. And find one you will.”

  Tillie looked helplessly at Ada, who had returned to place a set of silver shears at her grandmother’s elbow.

  “Are they sharp?” her grandmother asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ada shrank into the corner of the room, nearly quaking.

  “But what about Lucy?” Tillie asked.

  “What about her?” her grandmother asked.

  “What is being done to find the vamp—” Grandmama’s eyebrows rose so high Tillie thought they might detach and fly to the ceiling. “I mean, to find the attacker?”

  “Never mind that. It’s out of our hands.”

  “But . . . if he’s not caught, he might hurt someone else. I’ve been thinking about what happened, and why, and I have so many questions!”

  At the increase in her volume, Elenora shook her scarlet face, chirped, and flew off the perch yet again. Her grandmother shot out a hand with a swiftness that belied her sixty years. Tillie watched, stunned, as the bird screeched and pecked at her grandmother, helpless against the gnarled hands that grasped her without flinching. Grandmama flipped the bird over, pulled a wing out onto the table, took the shears, and trimmed a half inch of emerald feathers off. She repeated the process on the left wing with a swift, snicking cut. Finally, the glistening scissors were put down and the bird released. Elenora flopped uselessly, unable to rise into the air. Eventually she waddled to the edge of the table and attempted to fly back to the safety of her perch. She fell with a soft thud onto the dining room carpet.

  “Good bird!” her grandmother said, beaming. She turned to her granddaughter. “We’ll not speak of this again, Mathilda,” she said with a lethal, low quietness. She stood and left the room.

  Tillie scrambled across the floor to where Elenora sat like a tiny chicken. She extended a hand, offering to bring the bird back up to the perch, but Elenora bit Tillie’s thumb instead, a ratchety, angry crow yelling her protests at all humans in the vicinity.

  Tillie didn’t blame her at all.

  The maids fussed over the parrot while Tillie sat, wondering over her grandmother’s words: “We’ll not speak of this again.”

  Did that include Lucy?

  Four weeks. Four weeks of mourning, and then she would attend drawing rooms and soirees and theaters and Sunday promenades. Her throat went dry. There would be a wedding. Children. Nurses for the children. Summers in Newport or on the North Shore of Long Island. Planning more balls, soirees, suppers with the best and wealthiest on the island. Dorothy, gossiping with and about her. Some nameless man next to her, retiring to a library with other men to smoke their expensive cigars, drink their crystal tumblers of brandy. At some point, the children would be grown. Her faceless husband would die. She would, black clad, relegate her time to an appropriately benevolent society for helping those less fortunate and worry over the marriages of her children and grandchildren. She would ruthlessly clip the wings of her very own exotic South American parrots.

  Tillie rubbed her face as if the action might smear away her thoughts and rose to go to the drawing room. Ada delivered two casually written letters for her, stained with brown blots from who knew what. Sitting at the Queen Anne escritoire, with its tortoiseshell inlay, she read them hungrily.

  Dear Miss Pembroke,

  Say, how are you? Have the police been by?

  It’s been a week.

  Ian

  Dear Miss Pembroke,

  That butler of yours looks like a monument to one-way conversation. Why does he sound like a Frenchman and a German had a fight and got stuck in his throat?

  Are you done yet? Any news on your sister’s murderer?

  Dip the quill, if you will. You know where to send it.

  Ian

  So few words. Such rudeness! And yet, he felt the same burning curiosity she did over the death of her sister. So unlike Dorothy or James or her family. They’d all just accepted it and moved on, but how could Tillie do that?

  As improper as the notes were, the ease of his words made her ache for that casual familiarity they had shared at the bookstore. No airs. Just two people without expectations of duty or societal rules of conduct. It had felt at the time like Tillie had been leaning perpetually on a fence and that it had broken in Ian’s presence, sending her flying sideways.

  She dipped her mother-of-pearl pen into the gold inkwell but paused with the nib over the paper. She’d promised her grandmother she’d get rid of him, but she needed to give the book back. She could mail it to him, but no. She wished to speak to him again. She could not speak to Ada or Dorothy or Hazel or James or her family about vampires.

  But how to see him without anyone knowing?

  During the day, she could not leave without permission. Perhaps she could ask Ian to plan a chance meeting as she purchased a new hat or gloves. But Ada would tell Mama.

  Perhaps she could slip out at night. But how to get about without the carriage? And the new watchman would surely be patrolling their grounds. She would not be able to come or go unseen.

  After a moment’s more thought, she redipped the quill and began writing.

  Dear Mr. Metzger,

  I am doing better, but the broken bone still hurts.

  I am finished with the book and am ready to give it to you, but I am hoping to get another turn in a few weeks. Please meet me in five days on the corner of 5th Avenue and 66th Street at 12:30 in the morning.

  Also, my grandmother will have you arrested if you keep coming to the house.

  Sincerely,

  Miss Tillie Pembroke

  That would give her five nights to figure out how to leave the house without anyone knowing.

  If only she had an idea of how to do that. For Lucy’s sake, she had to think of something.

  Perhaps another letter was in order. She dipped her quill again.

  Dear Mrs. Seaman (Nellie Bly),

  I hope that name works all right for you.

  It occurs to me that my first letter may not have made it to you, so I will send a copy of this letter to each of your homes, in the Catskills, in Murray Hill, and your home on the Hudson.

  My siste
r died recently. No—that assumes she left this world under the pretense of accident or illness, which is not the case. She was murdered, you see, and I’m not altogether sure if the killer is human or not. As fantastic as this seems, I assure you, this letter is no joke.

  Never mind my earlier inquiry regarding elephant odors.

  I am not sure what to do anymore. You know how to find out things. I should like some advice, if you please.

  Kindly respond.

  Yours,

  Miss Tillie Pembroke

  CHAPTER 7

  Water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.

  —Count Dracula

  That very afternoon, she met Mr. John O’Toole.

  He arrived at the house on Madison looking as he ought. His clothes were neat and clean but not fine enough to be confused with those who lived there. He had a brown beard speckled with gray, neatly trimmed, and nice brown eyes. His eyebrows were permanently in the angry position, squashing the expanse between them into a narrow crease. He appeared in an odd twilight of age, neither young nor old. He lacked that lithe elasticity seen in younger men, but his biceps stretched out his jacket as a fleshy warning to everyone that his punch could fracture a jaw. A pistol was at his hip, and his voice was low, serious. When he introduced himself to Tillie, he did not smile. He only bowed slightly and made no pleasantries about the weather or the trolley strike repercussions in the news that day.

  As Ada was perpetually nearby, she was introduced next.

  “Ada Clancy,” she said primly.

  “Miss.” John nodded, and his eye twitched. It almost looked like a wink that he had reeled back in at the last moment.

  Tillie looked at Ada. To most people, her maid was forgettable, but today Tillie saw her through this gentleman’s eyes. A woman in her early twenties, round of waist, with a bosom and hips that were well proportioned—“tidy,” as Mama was wont to say when commenting on those whose figures were more generous than she thought entirely proper. Ada’s persimmon-toned hair was coiled in a low bun, maid’s cap neatly perched on top. She blinked quickly and dropped her eyes to stare at her plain dark shoes. But her cheeks!

  Ada was feverishly blushing.

  The butler, Pierre, whose real name was Friedrich Fenstermacher, welcomed Mr. O’Toole with his odd accent—“like a Frenchman and a German had a fight and got stuck in his throat,” as Ian had put it. French servants were expected in the very best homes on Fifth Avenue, and Friedrich wasn’t going to let his heritage impede him.

  Pierre showed John about the house, introduced him to the servants, showed him which bathroom to use in the servants’ quarters toward the back of the house. Tillie went upstairs, and Ada seemed to drag her feet, clinging to the distant words the men spoke.

  That was when Tillie got herself an idea.

  “So John is to patrol the grounds every night,” Tillie said to Ada.

  “Yes. Miss, why are we in Miss Lucy’s room?”

  “Look. There’s Pierre showing him around.” She pushed the drapery aside, and together they peered down at the grounds behind the mansion. There was neatly manicured shrubbery; the large conservatory under glass, where hothouse irises and roses were grown; and the plot of the cook’s herbs and Grandmama’s favorite vegetables. There was no carriage house to look over, as their horses and carriages were kept farther up on Seventy-Third Street with others, where the smells wouldn’t disturb the mansions by Millionaire’s Row.

  John and Pierre walked the perimeter, pointing out the iron fence (fashioned after Cornelius Vanderbilt’s, of course), the Fishes’ large marble house to their north, the Grants’ mansion to the west, and round the side where the Havemeyer family lived. The Pembroke property took up a full third of the block.

  “Come! They’re going to the front!” Tillie said. Ada fairly ran after her, her cheeks still flushed.

  They looked down from Tillie’s room to the front of the mansion, where a narrow garden of myrtle bushes flanked the short walk to the door. John looked up at the windows, and Ada and Tillie pulled away quickly, afraid to be seen.

  “He’s handsome, isn’t he, Ada?” Tillie said, nudging her maid’s elbow.

  “Oh, stop that, Miss Tillie.”

  They continued to watch John until he had disappeared inside. He was set to meet with her grandmother, who would go over the particulars of the job.

  That night, after Grandmama had presumably finished her pipe in her bedroom, and while her mother was bathing her face in buttermilk up at her vanity, the electric lights in the house went dark. Ada had gone to sleep. Tillie went straight to the window. The watchman rounded the house in a regular fashion. He stood on the southeast corner of the property and took a wide look around, up to the windows where thieves might quickly scale the indents of the limestone-and-brick facade, and then he perused the street, searching up and down for anyone coming or going. At this time of night, there was only a distant clip-clopping of horseshoes. Then he would glance amongst the bushes and cherry trees by the street, then head to the northeast corner, where he enacted a similar process. Tillie went first to the north bathroom, then to Lucy’s room to watch him make his rounds at the far reaches of their property.

  Four minutes, around the house.

  Well, perhaps he would grow tired and sleep quietly against the fence somewhere. Perhaps not. The only way to know would be to stay up all night.

  So she did.

  Tillie walked the triangular path between her room, the bathroom, and Lucy’s room to watch the watchman. She found out some interesting things.

  1. He took a break approximately every hour, on the hour, to smoke a cigarette, but he stopped only to light the cigarette with a match before he continued his walking.

  2. He urinated every two hours in the northwest corner of the property. Tillie was embarrassed but forced herself to watch his habits. It took thirty seconds. His stream landed squarely in the yard of the Havemeyers’ property. Good man.

  3. He never slept.

  4. He never stopped his rounds about the house.

  This was a problem.

  How could she sneak out with only thirty seconds—perhaps a minute—to get through the gate noiselessly and down the street without being noticed?

  There was also another problem. Tillie had run out of opium that night.

  The next morning, she could hardly open her eyes. She slept much of the day, until her pain awoke her and her bowels felt like they were careening downhill and her arms were a field of gooseflesh. Avoiding Ada after tea, she went directly to the cook, slipped her fifty cents, and asked her to buy two bottles of whatever opiate drops she could find and leave them under her bed. She added a dollar to pay for her discretion.

  “One more thing. Make an extra plate of dessert every night, will you?”

  The cook frowned. “Every night?”

  “Yes, every night. Keep it aside in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, Miss Pembroke.”

  That evening, two brown bottles were found under her bed. Tillie took so much opium she slept fourteen hours, adrift in her very own Lethe. The next night, she took a more modest dose and executed her plan.

  “Ada,” she said quietly after dinner. “I cannot finish these butter cookies. They’re delicious, but I am absolutely full. Why don’t you bring them to John?”

  “John?” Ada nearly jumped in place.

  “Yes. I was up all night last night from my pain, and I noticed he doesn’t take a break. Not one! You ought to bring these cookies to him. It would be a nice gesture from all of us.”

  “Well,” she said, hesitating. “If you wish.”

  Tillie went to Lucy’s window and watched, a little while later, as Ada haltingly entered the back garden. John turned around, his face lighting with surprise. He took the plate of cookies, but Ada did not leave right away. Tillie saw them speak for at least three full minutes before the cookies were gone and Ada took the empty plate from him.

  Excellent.

  The next evening, sh
e showed Ada the extra custard cup the cook had set aside.

  “Ada. This is for John too. Could you bring this to him later? Around midnight?”

  “Midnight?”

  “Well, we don’t want sweets to make him tired so early in the evening. You’ll have to wake up to do so.”

  “Oh. Of course,” Ada said.

  Tillie noticed that whenever they spoke of John, Ada avoided eye contact. That night, Tillie stayed up to watch Ada deliver the custard. Once again, John seemed surprised but delighted. At one point, he offered Ada a spoonful, and she bashfully opened her mouth and allowed herself to be fed. John reached to wipe a bit of sugary whipped cream from her lower lip. Ada giggled. They spent at least ten minutes quietly chatting over the last morsels of dessert.

  The next night, Tillie was ready.

  Just before midnight, she took her medicine, then fetched a vial of cooking oil and a feather from the kitchen. She carefully painted the hinges of the front door, then returned upstairs and dressed in the light of the half moon shining through her window. She chose an inconspicuous brown poplin skirt and a simple shirtwaist and looped a scarf around her neck to use as a sling when her shoulder ached. Tillie hesitated before her gilt three-way mirror. She should wear black, for Lucy. Was this not a dishonor to her?

  “I’m doing this for you, Lucy,” Tillie murmured. Her heart still felt festooned in black crape. Lucy would understand. Her murderer was out there, and he might kill others. Lucy, who’d long volunteered at the Foundling Hospital amongst the orphaned children, had always had a soft heart for those at risk from life’s harsh realities.

  Tillie doubted she would be out of the house longer than an hour, so she didn’t bother to bring any medicine with her. She had noted that she felt her best when she could dose herself every three hours, but surely this meeting would be brief. She checked the time on the tiny brooch watch at her waist, then softly padded to Lucy’s room and waited by the window. Soon, Ada came outside, bringing a plate of delicacies to John. This time, they sat down on the stone bench by the back garden fountain.