Opium and Absinthe: A Novel

by Lydia Kang

  “Tillie! There’s a dear!”

  Tillie saw Dorothy and Hazel through the crowd. Dorothy’s bloom was on full display in a deep-pink dress with white floral accents. Hazel wore a pearl-gray dress, muted but elegant.

  “We’ve missed you!” Dorothy said, grabbing her arm. Her bad arm. Tillie winced but bore it, as one must bear many things around Dorothy. They accompanied her to the quietest corner, where a servant in white gloves and a black swallowtail coat brought wine, and Tillie could sit on a pouf and exhale for the first time since she’d entered the mansion.

  “How have you been since that scandalous article came out?” Dorothy asked. Hazel touched Dorothy’s arm, shaking her head. “What? Can I not ask my best friend how she fares?” She turned to Tillie, eyes wide. “I hear he stole a diary of Lucy’s from you and lied all about it! What a terrible man!”

  “He’s not terrible, Dorrie. He’s trying to help.”

  “But insinuating that James had anything to do with it? Ridiculous. James, kill his own fiancée? The perfect Lucy Pembroke? Why would he do such a thing?”

  “Perhaps because she wasn’t as docile as he liked,” Tillie said, sipping her wine. The wine warmed her stomach and relaxed her. Her head felt slightly detached from her body. An odd sensation and not terrible. “You said it yourself.”

  “I was with him that day, you know,” Dorothy said. Again, Hazel touched her friend’s arm in warning. Dorothy suddenly began waving at someone past Tillie’s view, and she stood up. “It’s Charles Potter. We danced a few quadrilles in Newport last summer. I’ll be right back.”

  Hazel smiled wanly at Tillie, both of them used to being left behind in Dorothy’s wake. Apparently, Hazel’s mother had also been a lady’s companion to Dorothy’s mother.

  “Are you quite all right, Tillie?” she said solicitously. “You seem out of sorts.”

  “I’m fine.” She frowned at Hazel. “Dorrie was with James that day? Why?”

  “Not alone. We all saw each other in Union Square, is all. Just a passing hello.” She glanced out at the ballroom and then back. “I apologize for Dorrie’s behavior. Running off like that. She’s getting anxious these days.”

  “About her safety? I can imagine, after Lucy—”

  “Oh no. Not about that.” She lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “She’s twenty-eight.”

  Tillie looked over at Dorothy, who was shamelessly flirting with Charles Potter. Charles seemed more taken with another woman nearby, Margaret something or other, who appeared barely sixteen.

  “Twenty-eight,” Tillie said.

  “You have a decade of good years to find a match,” Hazel said. “Dorothy, not so much.” She frowned, and then her face lit up. “Oh. I have something for you. I’ve been meaning to deliver it, but Dorothy has kept me so busy . . .” She pulled two very small bottles out of her reticule. “Opium tinctures. A stronger concoction than you were taking before, so you can carry it with you.”

  “Oh! The doctor ordered injections, so I may not need it, but thank you.”

  “It’s always good to be prepared. You’ll never believe how many things I carry for Dorothy. Lip salve, aspirins, smelling salts, peppermints.”

  “You’re a regular walking pharmacy,” Tillie said, smiling.

  “I have so many pockets in my dress—it’s practically a closet.” They laughed together. The wine was dancing with the morphine in Tillie’s blood, and she felt wonderful. Absolutely wonderful, except for a nagging drowsiness in her core that said, If you quiet down for a second, I’ll bury you. Just give me one minute of your time.

  Not now, not yet, Tillie thought. “Can I borrow your smelling salts? If I get drowsy, I might need them.”

  Hazel nodded and handed a tiny vial over. “Oh. There’s James,” Hazel said. “Put all this away before someone sees it.” Tillie dropped the vials into the pearl-beaded reticule hanging from her wrist. As soon as she looked up, there was James, parting from his crowd and coming toward her. Everyone seemed to be watching.

  “Darling. You must be so tired from all the fuss. Are you well?” he said in earnest. He looked so contrite, so concerned. “If I had known that gentleman was to treat you and the memory of Lucy so ill, I would have called the watchman on him directly. Shameless, these yellow journalists.”

  Tillie’s usual desire to disappear in the shadows was eclipsed by anger.

  He had hit her sister. She could not ignore that truth.

  “Yellow or not, Ian seeks the truth,” Tillie said crisply. “As do I. Lucy was unhappy before she died. Unhappy with you, James.”

  James recoiled but recovered quickly. “She was. Lucy wanted so much to work with those poor orphans, but it nearly killed her. She caught typhus, for goodness’ sake! I tried to tell her to stop the work and help them in a way that would preserve her health, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  Tillie stood up, and Hazel, wisely, moved away to give them privacy. Her pulse raced, making her slightly dizzy. “Lucy said—she wrote that you hit her, James. What have you to say about that?”

  James’s face contorted and settled into a pained expression. He looked utterly deflated, a strange mien for such a man. He actually looked sad. “But it’s untrue. You must believe me. We did have a few disagreements, but by God, I would never strike a woman. Never.” He extended his hand. “Please, I owe you an explanation. And I have something to show you, which I think you would appreciate. But you can’t see it if you’re sulking and angry in this corner.”

  “I’m not sulking!” Tillie said, a little too loudly. At the sudden turn of heads in her direction, she cowered.

  “Please,” James said. “I wouldn’t wish ill between us. You and I have had a loss in our lives we shall never forget. We should not be enemies. So let me explain, since Lucy has already had her word in the matter. I was perhaps not a perfect fiancé, though I’m sure you were a perfect sister.”

  Again, that contrite expression. James looked younger than his thirty years—almost Tillie’s age, for a moment. And for a moment, she felt sorry for him. Especially given that Tillie had been anything but a perfect sister. She’d been too ensconced in her books and dictionary and library to pay much attention to her sister, who swam in attention ever since her engagement. It wasn’t fair to imagine that everyone else was perfect.

  From afar, Dorothy and Hazel whispered to each other. Dorothy caught Tillie’s eye, and she waved her hand a little bit, as if to say, What are you waiting for? Go with him! Shoo!

  Tillie hesitated. James leaned forward and whispered near her cheek.

  “And I do have a surprise to show you. Consider it a little gift.” He paused expectantly. “It has to do with fangs.”

  Tillie’s eyes widened. “What? Fangs? Tell me!” She nearly jumped in place from excitement. She wouldn’t take his hand but matched him step for step through the ballroom. The electric lights made the parure sets on the women sparkle as if stars had come to earth to rest on their necks, earlobes, and fingers. Tillie’s mother was speaking in earnest to James’s parents near the door, and they looked with cool approval when she and James passed them. “Are these the fangs?” Tillie asked. “This society has plenty of teeth between them.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mathilda. We all have the capacity to bite. It’s only our good breeding that prevents us from being the animals that much of humanity is.”

  “Good breeding?” Tillie spoke louder than she realized; several people stared. “If most of these people were at risk of losing their fortunes, they would become rather savage, I believe. They’d bite down and never let go.”

  James didn’t chide her or shush her, as she expected. Instead he said affectionately, “You have more cleverness than anyone gives you credit for. You know, I loved your dear sister so very much, but I always was entranced by your spirit, Mathilda.”

  Tillie blushed. She wobbled a little, and James steadied her. He put her arm over his, and she allowed it.

  Down a dark hallway, away f
rom other ears, James paused and turned toward her.

  “Now, hear me out. It is true that Lucy and I disagreed. And the day before she disappeared, we had the biggest disagreement we’d ever had.” He closed his eyes and swelled his already broad chest. “I’m sorry to say—Lucy struck me. It wasn’t the other way around. When she tried to hit me a second time, I held out my arm to block her, and my hand hit hers away. I’m sure it hurt, the way she was thrashing against me. But I did not strike her first. I absolutely promise you this. Surely, you could imagine in the fury of a moment, she might see it differently. Have you ever been in such a state that your memory wasn’t accurate?” Tillie considered this. She must have still looked unconvinced, because James added, “Do you remember everything from your fall, when you broke your bone? What I said to you when you fell?”

  Tillie thought. She could remember James’s face but could not remember a single word. “No. I don’t remember.”

  James looked contrite. “I said that your sister would be furious with me for not looking after you. I was angry, mostly at myself. Do you recall now?”

  She shook her head, and her shoulders sagged. “I suppose it’s possible Lucy remembered things differently.”

  “Then please let my behavior now speak for itself. For example—” He strode forward, pulling her along, then pushed aside a curtain to a narrow hallway. “Ah. Here we are.” The walls were covered in paintings of wild animals. Cheetahs, lions, lush pink flamingos. Several racks of antlers hung above eye level.

  She loved the offering and could not hide it.

  “Musk ox, water buffalo, kudu, oryx,” Tillie said, naming them one by one. “The paintings are wonderful,” she admitted.

  “But that’s not what I wanted to show you.” The hall was dimly lit, and at the end was a set of french doors. He opened them, and Tillie gasped.

  It was a menagerie. Somewhere in the back of the mansion was this room—an octagonal space with a glass ceiling. The night sky beyond was impeccably clear, the half moon shining through the northern panes. A large aviary contained tiny multicolored birds fluttering here and there. Without the light on, it gave the impression that Bradley Martin had been in the habit of imprisoning beating hearts.

  James searched for a light switch, and the wall sconces came alive with a snap and a slight sizzle. Stuffed beasts and their valued parts were everywhere—on the floor, on mounted shelves that filled the walls. There were orangutans, elephant tusks, a fierce baboon with fangs nearly five inches long.

  It was marvelous. Tillie turned around, eyes adjusting to the light. “Oh!” she said. There was a lady seated in a chair by the aviary, staring at her with piercing eyes.

  James turned in surprise, too, then exhaled in relief. “Lady Remington. Why, whatever are you doing in this dark room?”

  “What does it matter? You’ve shocked the fruit bats into submission, you have. Congratulations.” She spoke with a decidedly British accent.

  “You’re welcome,” James said grandly. Lady Remington snorted and rolled her eyes.

  “What are you doing hidden back here in the menagerie?” Tillie asked.

  “Like most of God’s creatures, I dislike stuffy gatherings where one’s purpose is to show off, especially when one is no longer a breeding candidate. And it is always breeding season in New York.” She was a stout woman nearing her seventies, with white hair in a neat knot atop her head. Her dress was a simple black satin, with an enormous pearl the size of a robin’s egg hanging from a golden bar pin at her throat. Her left dress sleeve and skirt looked smudged with dirt, as if she’d been lying on the ground recently.

  “Mathilda Pembroke, this is Lady Jeremina Remington. She’s been helping to gather specimens for the new Bronx Zoological Exhibit.”

  Tillie curtsied. Lady Remington took out a cigarette. She waved James away with irritation when he offered to light it; she lit it herself from a taper near the fire.

  James had promised fangs, and here they were. Tillie turned in a circle.

  Now she could see there were live animals, too, not just the variety of canaries. A cage hung with several dark lumps housed the irritated and shy fruit bats. A large glass box held a python nearly as thick as Tillie’s thigh, coiled and staring unblinkingly at all of them. A bird of paradise, with gold-and-brown feathers and an emerald throat, bobbed up and down in a separate cage. A large cat that appeared to be a smaller version of a leopard—an ocelot—paced an iron enclosure behind them, next to a fossilized skull of a saber-toothed cat. Tillie touched the long fang of the fossil and then the teeth of the lower jaw, then twisted her head to investigate the very tips of the fangs.

  “A curious one, I see,” Lady Remington observed.

  “She has a particular interest in biting animals,” James said.

  “Biting animals? Or being bitten by them?” Lady Remington said.

  “How they bite. How they eat,” Tillie murmured, still investigating the skull. “And in particular, animals that feed on blood.”

  “Ah.” Lady Remington exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Hematophagy,” she said.

  “What’s that?” James said.

  Lady Remington ignored him. Tillie had stooped down, the aubergine silk pooling about her. The ocelot saw the lace on the edge of her hem nearing the cage, and he softly approached and sniffed it.

  “Eating blood,” Tillie explained to James, who stiffened at the definition. Tillie fished about in her silk sacque and pulled out the smelling salts. She uncorked it near the cage, and the ocelot sniffed it, before grimacing over and over again, the volatile ammonia salts irritating his senses.

  “Look at that. His canines, the way they fit perfectly with the lower jaw. And the lower canines are large too. Not as big as the upper set.” She pulled the tiny notebook out from her sleeve and began scribbling.

  “And what is the significance of that?” Lady Remington noted. “Most canids have smaller canines on the mandible.”

  “Lower fangs would leave a mark during a bite, don’t you think?”

  “They would, unless it were a viper. Why this peculiar line of questioning, my dear?”

  “Well, if . . . in theory . . . an animal bit a person, would there not be marks from both sets of teeth?”

  “There ought to be, yes. But it might be too bloody a mess to notice. Canines are built not just to puncture but tear. Here.” Lady Remington pointed to the soft area under her jawline. “And here.” She pointed to her belly.

  “But some bite with poison. The fangs of this animal are hollow, are they not?” Tillie walked over to where the python sat next to a skeleton of a viper. The taxidermist had set up the skeleton so it looked as if it were about to strike.

  “The python is not poisonous,” Lady Remington said, annoyed.

  “Oh. I know. I was speaking about the viper. It doesn’t bite to exsanguinate. It bites with poison. How would an animal bite, with the purpose of drinking blood?”

  “Well, for that you would want to observe the vampire bat.”

  James leaned quietly against the wall in the shadows. He watched them parry, lighting a cigarette and seeming rather entertained. They discussed how the bats would bite small wounds on cattle, then lap up the blood. How the venom of certain snakes would make the blood of humans pop—exciting Tillie, as she thought that perhaps the human victims had been poisoned, until she realized that hemolysis, or the bursting of the red blood cells, would not have rendered them bloodless. Just dead. And then there were bloodsucking butterflies, the ones that would search for liquid and minerals in any place, such as a mud puddle or a patch of sweat or a bloodied limb. Tillie crammed her notebook with details, but she was still left with several lingering questions.

  Animals, and theoretically vampires, bit their victims to kill, but most fangs were not made for neat puncture wounds and clean drinking afterward. And hollow fangs were never for sucking blood but for delivering venom. But perhaps a vampire was unlike any normal creature in the natural world? One thing was for
sure. She needed to learn if any humans existed with the length of canine needed to puncture a neck, yet not leave a bite mark from below.

  “This was altogether so very enlightening. Thank you, Lady Remington.”

  “You’re very welcome, my dear. I say, when our zoological park opens, please do visit. In the meantime, I believe you would make an excellent graduate student in the program up at Oxford. Have you considered it?”

  “I haven’t gone to college,” Tillie said, lowering her head.

  “One thing all of us so-called civilized creatures have in common with the most basic leech: opportunity. If you chance upon it, don’t let it go.”

  “I don’t think my grandmother would allow it,” Tillie said.

  “That is a shame,” James said, finally speaking. Tillie had almost forgotten he was there. “I think everyone needs an occupation.”

  She stared. Was this the same James whom Lucy had complained about in her diary? The one who was angry that she seemed preoccupied by helping others?

  As they left the room, Lady Remington fished out a card from her person and said, “Contact me if you wish to discuss your education. A woman’s mind is ever in need of being uncaged.”

  Tillie curtsied and departed the menagerie—reluctantly so; she would have wished to watch the animals, investigate the drawers of specimens that Bradley Martin had acquired over the years, and to discuss it all with Lady Remington, but they had already been gone too long. She dreaded the looks and whispers directed toward her when she returned, the snickers over Tillie’s inevitable gaucherie. Oh, how she wished Lucy were here!

  Tillie took to the lady’s retiring room to freshen up and relieve herself. Behind a silk screen, she removed one of the vials of opium that Hazel had given her and studied it. Two to three drops was the normal dosage. She decided on eight and plopped the bitter liquid under her tongue. The bitterness meant potency. Good.