The Poisoner's Game

Chapter 36

M.

I woke up with sandy eyes and matted hair. I looked to my right in the large canopy bed and saw Miriam's limp form hanging partially off the bed. I untangled myself from the sheets and crawled over to her. Slipping off the side of the bed, I pushed her torso back onto the bed.

"Ugh," Miriam moaned as she rolled over. She opened one eye squinting at me with heavy eyelids. She looked around the room, covered in hats, shawls, gloves, and any number of accessories strewn across the floor. "What time is it?"

"It's about half-past nine, I believe," my voice came out scratchy and rough.

Miriam moaned again covering her eyes with her arm. "How late were we up last night?"

"Too late," I responded. Her room looked like a hurricane barreled through it.

"We probably shouldn't have eaten that whole box of—what are they called again?" Miriam yawned, clenching her stomach.

"Seafoam taffy?"

"No, I don't think that's it. Atlantic City taffy? No, that's where it comes from." Miriam sat up.

"Ocean wave taffy?"

"Definitely not. Why do the Americans have to have such peculiar names for things?" Miriam swung her legs out of the bed and slipped into her slippers. She shuffled to a little rope hanging on the other side of the bed.

As Miriam pulled the rope, inspiration struck me. "Wait. I remember. Saltwater taffy."

Miriam turned to me, a smile growing on her face. "Yes, that's it." She walked over to the discarded box. Pieces of the taffy still stuck to the wax paper in muted pastels. "Papa will most likely be mad we ate it all in one sitting. He found it quite by accident this year when he was visiting Atlantic City in New Jersey. One of the stalls selling taffy had their entire stock soaked by a flood of seawater."

"It's too good to be an accident," I sighed, sitting on the bed. "Do they sell it here yet?"

"I think they only sell it in America as of yet, and maybe even solely Atlantic City," Miriam replied, putting on her wrapper.

"I'll have to go to America then." We laughed together.

A knock sounded on the door and Miriam moved to open it. From the doorway, I heard: "How may I serve you, miss?" A woman dressed in an upstairs maid's uniform executed a curtsy.

"We would like two breakfast plates, and make sure that a carriage waits in front at eleven o'clock," Miriam said to the woman.

The woman curtsied again. "As you wish, Miss Jacobs."

Miriam closed the door behind the woman and sat on a chair. I bounced a little on the bed. "Are we having breakfast in bed? How afternoonified."

Miriam laughed, leaning gracefully back in the chair, in complete opposite form to her sleeping state. "What are you going to do about Lord Alexander?" she asked with false disinterest.

I had told her little about him. "Never see him again. And if I am so unlucky, run in the opposite direction."

"Margaret..."

"No." I shook my head. "Don't spin fairy tales in my direction."

"Dearest," Miriam sat up straight, "I would not be so callous as that. But you've always told me it's better to leave without pain attached."

"Who said I was in pain?" I asked with false assurance.

Miriam rolled her eyes at me. "Someday what you're hiding from, will catch you when you least expect. I, for one, cannot wait."

I shuddered, afraid it already had.

"I think I have an idea how we might be able to find out if you have Jewish heritage," Miriam spoke after a long and strained silence.

"How?" I asked with a mouthful of scone.

"Where did your grandfather live?"

"Baker Street in Marylebone," I responded, swallowing the dry scone without chewing, only to be rewarded with a fit of coughing.

Miriam handed me some tea. "There are several synagogues in the area. My family and I attend the Central Synagogue, but since your family might be Sephardic, I believe we should first look at the West London Synagogue because they cater to both Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions."

"Will they have records then?" I asked.

"Perhaps, or a cemetery."

Cemetery. The word sank to the pit of my stomach like a lead weight. Words etched into a stone—finite evidence to my past, my heritage, and my future.

After breakfast, promptly at eleven, Miriam's family carriage stopped at the bottom of the stairs to the townhouse. Miriam wore a stylish wide-brim white hat, covered with large pink flowers and pink ribbons, which matched her dress. On her hands, she wore white lace gloves. I sported my green traveling costume from the day before. A footman came to help each of us into the carriage, but Miriam stopped on the landing.

"Blast it all," she muttered under her breath. "I forgot Mama wanted me to visit the poor in Stepney for the Ladies' Conjoint Visiting Committee. Will you be all right on your own? We can go another day?"

"No, I'll be fine," I said with false confidence. "I need the information."

She'd never have let me go off on my own if she knew the extent to which the Poisoner hunted me. I, knowing the full of it, should have stayed within the safe confines of brick walls.