Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The very moment the Delaney’s carriage arrived back at their house, Jessamina was out the door again.

“Where else would I be going, Mother? The office, of course,” Jessamina said when her Mother asked where on God’s green earth Jessamina could be off to at such an hour.

There was no place on earth more comforting that her father’s physician’s office. Ever since she was a little girl, she loved to sit on her father’s counter and watch him expertly create the potions and tonics that cured the men and women of London of their ills. Sleeping draughts, stomach potions, headache cures; her father was the best physician in all of London, and the only one who also created his own medicines, rather than leaving the task to a third-party. He was both a physician and an apothecary, and he truly loved the work he did. Some con-men would try and sell their homemade patents, but Mr. Delaney was outraged at such abuse. His well-worn but clean hands would ease the spirits of dozens of customers a day, and he treated each one with the same amount of respect that he would treat a member of the royal family, which was the same level of respect that he treated his own.

Each time Jessamina opened the old wooden door that led to the back room, she was met with a satisfying medley of scents: menthols, herbs, flowers, and tobacco (Mr. Delaney was the only one who ever smoked inside the shop, but Jessamina’s mind made her believe she could still smell it). Often, when Jessamina was troubled, she would simply stand in the doorway and inhale as many of the wonderful aromas that she could. This eased her mind enough to be able to face dinner with her mother, or to make calls to her mother’s friends. But that day’s events, especially little Madeline’s unexpected embrace, had shaken her usually well-composed self, and she felt she needed more than just one of her senses to be stimulated.

She stepped inside and closed the door gently, as to not attract any attention. While it wasn’t against any laws to be in her deceased father’s old place of business, it wasn’t completely fine for her to be milling about in the back room. But, from the cacophony of voices she heard from the front room, she knew that no one would be disturbing her for a long time.

She sat down at her favorite workbench and lay her head against the cool, smooth marble surface. She closed her eyes and just listened to the ticking of the clock and the humming of the machines.

When she felt as though she had regained her composure, she sat back up, and smoothed her jacket. But she noticed something strange: her cameo brooch that she wore with every outfit had been pried open slightly. After some searching as to what could have caused this occurrence, she guessed that Madeline had clutched the brooch with such fervishness that she had damaged it. She removed the brooch from her jacket to inspect the damage more carefully. Thankfully, Madeline had simply moved one of the gold bands out of place, a repair that could easily have been made with any pair of delicate pliers.

She went about trying to find some pliers in the back room (for surely any place that needed repairs as often as her father’s old office did would have a pair) but try as she might she could not find any. And while Mr. Shelby, her butler, would be able to fix the problem far faster than Jessamina could, she could not entrust her beloved cameo brooch to anyone else.

For her broach contained a secret so important that if its full value were to be discovered, her pastime might be exposed.

**********************************

Birthdays were joyously celebrated in the Delaney household, especially by Jessamina’s father. He loved having any excuse to give little presents and trinkets to his loved ones, and there was no better one than a birthday. The moment he heard about any event that may have involved gift-giving, his steel blue eyes would crinkle up and his dimples would be more prominent than ever. He snapped his suspenders in glee when his friends tried to guess what delightful treats he had in store, for even in their wildest dreams could they not imagine what he was planning to give them.

Jessamina’s 16th birthday was no exception to his gift-giving rule. After sleeping till well past noon (something her mother never let her do except on special occasions), she awoke to her room filled with beautiful and fragrant yellow flowers. She chuckled at her father’s sense of humor, for she knew that these flowers were none other than her namesake.

Jessamina had always been told that for the two weeks after they made their solemn vows, her parents honeymooned in America. While visiting the southeastern portion of the country, they came across a beautiful field of yellow flowers, and quickly sought the owners of this field. When they stumbled across a friendly farmhouse, the owner told them that the flowers were called jessamine flowers, and they were native to that region.

“That’s bloody brilliant!” Mr. Delaney exclaimed.
“What is, my dear Mr. Delaney?” said Mrs. Delaney.
“You can call me Charles now, you know. After all, we are married,” he teased.
“Oh, Charles,” she giggled (for you see, she was still in that honeymoon stage where she found everything he said to be funny. This would soon wear off in a matter of weeks.) “Why on God’s green earth did you exclaim so? You gave me quite a fright!’”
“Well, my darling, just that I think that Jessamina would be an excellent name for our first child. Here we are in this beautiful country, and surrounded by these fantastic flowers, and the name just... just... sounds so elegant! Do you not agree, my dear?”
“Certainly, my love,” she replied (for you see, she was still in that honeymoon stage where she agreed with everything he said. This, too, would wear off in a matter of weeks). “But how do you know that our first child will be a girl?”
“I can feel it,” he replied with a wink.

Ever since then, her father would give her something related to her special flower. On her seventh birthday, he gave her an embroidered pillow, on her tenth, a handkerchief, and on her fourteenth, a bottle of perfume pressed in America and shipped overseas. Her father had really outdone himself this time though; there were jessamine bouquets in several vases around her room (when she counted them later, she realized that there were exactly sixteen of them), jessamine garlands, and jessamine wreaths on every available surface. There was even a little jessamine crown waiting on the pillow next to her.

She finally fought off her overwhelming urge to just lay in the golden glow of her room all day. She got out of bed, dressed herself in her favorite dress (a pale blue muslin with a green sash that her father had gotten for her the year before), and pinned the crown of flowers upon her head. She heard her father playing piano in the drawing room and flounced downstairs to meet him.

“My darling little flower! Awake from her slumber, I see!” he laughed with his booming voice.
“Father! Thank you so much for the flowers! They’re absolutely delightful!” she exclaimed.

“And they cost us a fortune,” Mrs. Delaney cut in. “I can’t imagine how your father thinks we can afford it!”

“As I’ve said for the hundredth time today, Eleanora, I have a friend who is an importer of American goods, and we got them for a steal,” he winked.

“Honestly, Charles, we aren’t made of money you know. Especially since you seem so keen on giving away your services for free. Honestly, do you even realize how much income we lose by your charity?” Mrs. Delaney scolded.
“Yes, I do know, Eleanora, considering I am the only one in the house who holds a job.”
“How do you expect me to have a job, when I am here all day receiving visitors and making calls? A woman has to keep up her appearances.”
“Yes, how horrible it must be for you to have to entertain in this comfortable house, while men and women who work in the factories from dawn till dusk are still too poor to afford basic medical care! Really, Eleanora, you sometimes act as though you are a selfish little child. Besides, it was actually my waiving of my office fee that allowed me to procure these flowers today. My American importer friend was so thankful for my ‘charity’ that he told me he would be honored to give me some jessamine flowers. Sometimes, kindness begets kindness, Eleanora.”
”Yes, well, you can’t rely on your little friends forever. Soon your favors will run out, and we’ll be left with simply nothing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go see how dinner is coming along.” She turned to Jessamina. “I have asked Mr. Shelby to cook all of your favorites, but you’ll have to wait and see what they are later.”
“Thank you, Mother.”

Mrs. Delaney gave her daughter a thin-lipped smile, and with a rustle of fabric, she disappeared.

“Jessamina, come sit by me. I have one more present to give you,” Mr. Delaney said.
“Another one? Father, you really don’t have to--”
“Jessamina, I made this gift for you myself, and it didn’t cost me a single cent.”
“You promise? If you are lying to me, I will be very cross with you,” Jessamina warned.
Mr Delaney chuckled. “I promise.” He pulled from his pocket a small velvet box tied with a yellow ribbon and handed it to her. “Happy Birthday, my darling.”

She delicately untied the ribbon and set it aside. Then, with great anticipation, she opened the box.

Inside was a little cameo brooch with her silhouette on it. The brooch itself was made of ivory, and her profile was engraved into the ivory and filled in with dark india ink. Embedded into the ivory were little flecks of mother of pearl, and the whole brooch was encased in a gold band.

“Oh, father!” Jessamina whispered.
“You do like it, don’t you? I know you do not often like to wear jewelry, but I felt that this was something unique.”
“Father, it is simply lovely! It is the most exquisite thing I have ever seen! How on earth did you manage to do this yourself?”
“What, this? No, the outside of the brooch was made by a jeweler. When his daughter was very sick last year and he didn’t have enough money to pay me for the medicine, I let him have it for free, and told him he needn’t worry about paying me back. Because of this, he said he would be honored to make something for me one day. So three months ago, I gave him that paper cut we had made of you last christmas, and told him to make a cameo brooch.”
“So then you didn’t make my gift!”
“No, I didn’t make the outside of the brooch my dear. But I did create what’s on the inside.”

Jessamina was understandably puzzled by her father’s statement. “The inside?”
“Do you see, on the side of that pin there, a small little lever?”

She inspected her gift. “What, that little clasp?”
“Yes, but it is not a clasp. You see, if you were to press down on that lever -- and don’t do it now -- but if you were to press down on that level, a little puff of powder would come out of it. And that powder is in fact a powerful sleeping draught that I made in order to sedate even my most hysterical patients instantly.”

“But why would I ever need to use it, father? I don’t think I will ever need to knock myself unconscious.”

“No, of course not; and it isn’t meant for you. In fact, if you ever use it, make sure you hold your breath for at least thirty seconds so that the powder can settle. And you will need to be less than an arm’s length away from them, or else it isn’t effective.”

“But father, I still don’t understand! Them? Why would I ever need to use this on other people?”

“Listen to me very carefully, Jessamina. While I may still call you my little girl, you are turning into a beautiful and elegant young woman. Next year you will be coming into society, and you will certainly be the talk of the town. But life will be different for you, and you will have to be a little more careful about who you choose to flirt with--”

“Father! I am not, nor have I ever been, a flirt! I’m not some little tart!

“No, no, of course you aren’t! But as you get older, it will be expected of you to dance, make conversation, and be friendly with the young men who are courting you. It is an unavoidable part of high society life. Now some of these young men will invite you out onto the balconies--”

“Father! I--”

“Listen, Jessamina! This is very important. They will invite you onto balconies, claiming that it is too noisy to hold a decent conversation, or that the stars are particularly bright that evening, or that he finds the chill of the night breeze invigorating. These are all, of course, excuses to be with you alone unchaperoned.”

“I promise you, Father, that I will never behave in such a manner as to spoil my reputation--”

“Jessamina, I am telling you that this sort of behavior is normal and to be expected! And because of this brooch, you’ll never have to worry about being compromised! If you ever feel like you are in some sort of danger when alone with a man, simply use the brooch to stun him and then make your escape. And when someone else finds him passed out, he will simply think that your gentleman friend had too much to drink, and the matter won’t be given a second thought.”

“Or, I could just refuse such advances.”

“In a year, when you come out into society, there will be a number of suitors waiting at your hand and foot. Some of them will be absolute scoundrels (like I was, at their age) and some of them will be fine, respectable young men with little to no personality. The vast majority of them will not be right for you Jessamina, and while your head may be telling you to accept their marriage proposal, your heart will protest against it. I want you to know that despite what your mother might tell you, you do not have to marry the first man over a certain income who asks for you hand. Marry someone you love, Jessamina, not someone you think you can grow to love over time. That is the most important piece of advice I can ever bestow upon you.”

“But you and mother married for love,” Jessamina retorted, “and you fight like cats and dogs constantly.”

“That’s certainly true. Your mother and I do have our disagreements. Mostly, your mother tends to jump to erroneous conclusions before I have told her the facts. But we agree on the important issues, like our religion, and our politics, and how we ought to raise our daughter. Jessamina, your mother and I knew from the beginning that we wanted our child to be well-learned, articulate, and unafraid of adventure. That’s one thing we’ve always agreed on, and we are so proud of the way you turned out.

“But your mother seems to think that money will make you happy, while I vehemently disagree. Nothing is more important than love. Jessamina, promise you will marry for the right reasons.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now, pin that to your dress so that I can see how it looks!”

She immediately obliged. The polished black and ivory engraving stood out against the soft blue fabric of her dress, and the gold band shone brightly in the sunlight.

“Beautiful!,” he said softly. “Just like you.”

***********************************

Mr. Delaney never got to see exactly how Jessamina would put that brooch to use. Instead of using it as a defense mechanism, she used it to immobilize her victims before injecting them. If she was able to, she would use the ipecac technique that she used on Mr. Wiloughby, so that she could ask them questions about her father’s death. If this wasn’t a practical solution -- if, for instance, they were far to strong for her to take the upper hand of -- she regretfully had to kill them off before getting any answers. She often would sneak out of house at night, dress herself in rags like an old hag, and wander around the seedier parts of London, looking for any clues as to where she could find her target. Then, once she found them, she would hide in the shadows, wait for them to exit whatever pub they were drinking in (they were always drinking in pubs, these men) and call out to them in the alleyway. The drunkards, thinking that some harlot was calling to them, would blindly stumble into the alley, where she would puff the sleeping draught into their eyes faster than they could blink. As soon as he was unconscious, she would turn on the steam-inoculator she had hidden under her skirt, and inject him with the very poison his society had tried to obtain had hoped to obtain. One taste of their own medicine, and they’d be gone from this world in less than two minutes. A simple and bloodless job. All she was doing was putting them to sleep. And while she sometimes felt guilty for not giving them the horrible treatment they deserved (and what she often dreamed about doing to them), she knew how easily she would be caught if she were too careless and vengeful.

Jessamina appreciated how easy her father had made it for her to deal with these villains, even if it wasn’t how he had intended. He had given her the perfect gift on that long ago birthday, she would always be grateful for it.