The Poisoner's Game

Chapter 2

M.

Clifton, Bristol

One week prior...

"You're coming to London." Aunt Emily didn't look up from her needlework.

I almost dropped my basket full of freshly darned socks and Rose screeched loudly enough for the both of us.

"Mama, you can't mean it?" Rose glared at me. "It's my come out, I don't need her to ruin it. Mama!"

Aunt Emily gave Rose a look she usually reserved for me. "My word is final."

I watched them both with suspicion. Often, I spent spring and summer alone in the country while the family visited London for the sitting of Parliament and the start of the season. I cherished that time strolling through Durdham Down, picking lavender that dotted the road, and swimming in the pond about an hour's walk from the city. If I had been asked if I wanted to go to London the answer would have been no. But no one ever asked me. They never did.

Rose pouted, with tears tickling the corners of her eyes. Aunt Emily's face softened, and she cupped Rose's chin with her hand. "Don't worry, my cherub. Everything will work out for the best, you'll see."

She looked me up and down, her mouth curling as if she smelt something foul. "Your role will be to be as unobtrusive as possible and to cater to the families' needs. If you so much as breathe out of line, there will be severe punishment. This season is important for all of us, even you."

I said nothing for I had heard similar pronouncements all my life. Yet, for some reason, I felt particularly small at that moment.

With the sharpness of a hawk with its eyes on a field mouse, Aunt Emily turned to me again. "You're still here, Margaret? Don't you have work to do."

I straightened and bobbed a curtsy. "Yes, my apologies, Aunt."

Scuttling out of the room, I softly closed the door behind me and leaned against it. My heart thrummed in my ears. I knew better than to question Aunt Emily, which meant I had to begin packing my bags. In the servants' quarters, I dropped off my basket. From a hook near the door to the gardens, I grabbed my sunbonnet. Though Aunt Emily always said, it would do little to lighten my complexion. Rose had either been born with the desirable peaches and cream complexion, or Aunt Emily's early implementation of veils, bonnets, parasols, and gloves, all utilized with religious intensity against the sun, had done their trick. Aunt Emily, like me, had been disgraced by a tanned-complexion which she worked tirelessly to absolve whether by washing her face every morning with ammonia or chewing on arsenic complexion wafers. I had only ever tried zinc powder. It did nothing to transform me into the English Rose of my imagination. Instead, I found myself left very much the same with unruly dark hair, too tanned skin, and strange grey eyes.

I walked out of Berkeley Square, past the High Cross in the College Green, and across the Bristol Bridge to Radcliffe. Above me and heading in the opposite direction, a flock of seagulls caught the wind to the Mouth of the Severn River and the sea. On the horizon, grey clouds threatened another rainstorm. For a moment, I allowed myself to be sucked into the hum of the city as servants went about their tasks in the shadows cast by the towering white Georgian terraces and the faraway sounds of the docks. Past Somerset Square, I found the largely abandoned glass factory that had once produced the famous Bristol Blue Glass.

Using a key hidden beneath the numerous rose bushes, I pushed open the door. Sun shone hesitantly through the dusty windows. Hulking metal machines, which I had no name for, lay dormant on the factory's floor. Miriam's family, the Jacobs, had once been the most predominant family in glass-manufacturing in the area until her grandfather, Issac Jacobs fell on hard times. Her mother's marriage to Miriam's father, as a wealthy Jewish heiress from Amsterdam, had revived the family's connection with trade but they had never touched glass again. All except Miriam.

"Miriam?" I called.

"Over here!"

Miriam's head was bent over a delicate dessert bowl made of a royal purple glass and gilded with burnished gold on the rim. Before her, on a table, stood a copper engraving wheel. I only knew the name for the many times Miriam had tried to coax me into working with glass. I feared even touching the delicate works of art would cause them to turn to dust.

"What do you think?" Miriam asked as she held up the bowl for my inspection.

Like her grandfather and great-grandfather before her, Miriam had a way with glass. She had engraved a delicate rose pattern to the sides of the dessert bowl.

"It's lovely of course." I watched the light reflect on it as though it were a sprig of lavender and once again remembered that my summer had been ruined by my family.

"I've been telling Tate that we should re-open the factory. We once sold items like this to Queen Victoria." Miriam set the glassware on the worktable and sighed wistfully.

I scuffed my worn-leather shoes on the floorboards, twisting my dress in my hands. "I am going to London."

"What do you mean? Are you running away?"

The thought crossed my mind for the briefest of moments as it so often did. "No, the family has invited me." Invited seemed not at all like the correct word.

Miriam's face scrunched in confusion as she opened and closed her mouth several times. "Actually, this might be perfect."

"What?"

"Mame wants me to have a come out of sorts in London as well." Miriam pushed strands of white-blonde hair out of her blue eyes.

"I thought she wanted you to marry into the Alexander or Jessel family?" I asked slumping onto one of the stools.

"Yes, of course, but she knows I am not budging until I've seen more of the world. Even if the only world she'll allow me to see is London. It's so unfair that Lionel has traveled to the Far East and I can't even go to the docks."

Often, Miriam and I had talked about our yearning for adventure. Miriam taking the full-forced leap, while I stood two steps back. I wanted to be like her, but something always held me back.

"I doubt I will be having a come-out. It seems I am just to be the specter to their activities."

Miriam rolled her eyes and cleaned off the glass bowl with a cloth. "They truly are the worst."

I sucked on my cheeks as my nails dug into my palm. "I suppose so, but it could be worse. I should be lucky to have their Christian Charity."

"Cockamamie and you know it. They and their idol worshiping charity can toss themselves in the Thames when we get to London."

Tension eased from my chest and found its way out of my body in the form of a choked laugh. "I did sound rather too much like Aunt Emily, didn't I?"

Miriam imitated an overly-exaggerated shudder. She put away her tools, while I busied myself watching the street below. Across the way from the factory, I saw a man with a bowler hat. At first, it didn't concern me as he looked like one of the many men going about their business from the small factories to the shops that filled the street. However, he didn't look away and his eyes seemed to bore into mine.

"Miriam, do you see that man below?" I asked, turning to look at her. She came to my side and when we both returned our gaze to the street, he was gone. "Never mind then."

"Would you like to come to mine for Shabbat dinner?" Miriam asked as we left the factory. She held her precious glassware boxed and wrapped in cloth.

My stomach grumbled out a plea for agreement. "I would but we leave tomorrow and I need to pack."

"Bubbe made fresh gefilte fish and bought challah from the bakery."

Again, my stomach seemed to make out a mangled plea, but again I shook my head. I doubted I would be able to eat anyway as my stomach equally rolled with anxiety. I hadn't been to London since I was a small child during a time I didn't want to remember.