Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Ms. Jessamina Delaney pushed open the front door of her house with more force than usual and nearly ran old Ms. Marian (her household’s maidservant) over.

“Oh, pardon me, Ms. Delaney,” she mumbled as she haphazardly curtsied.
“No matter, Marian. I’m quite fine,” she said. “I’ll be in my bedchamber should anyone look for me.”
“Actually, miss, your Mother requested that she have a word with you as soon as you returned. She’s in the drawing room.”
“Really? Well, thank you, Marian.”
“You’re welcome, miss. Supper will be served in two hours time.” Marian curtsied again and hurried into the kitchen.

Without knowing what her mother could possibly have to discuss with her, she knocked on the door to the drawing room.
“Come in,” Mrs. Delaney said in a tired voice. Jessamina opened the door and stood at the foot of the sofa.
“Marian told me you wanted to see me, Mother?”
“Yes dear. Please, sit down next to me.”
“No, thank you. I’d much prefer to stay standing.”

Ever since her husband had dies, Mrs. Delaney felt a constant need for human contact. This often led to smothering Jessamina in her embrace and patting her head for hours as she cried.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, ever since her father died, Jessamina despised being touched in any form or manner. It was as if all capacity to feel and to love had been shut down the moment he was gone. This led to Jessamina keeping a safe distance from her mother at all times.

“Very well then. If you must feel the need to be uncomfortable, so be it. Jessamina, I think it’s time you got married.”
“What?”
“It’s been far too long since you’ve been to any sort of social engagement since--”
“Since Father died?”
“Well, yes. Darling, I know that you’re still mourning him.”
“As should you! He’s only been gone for three years, Mother.”
“And the proper amount of time for a daughter to mourn her father’s passing is only a year.”
“Oh, so I’m simply supposed to stop caring about him because a year has passed? Wait twelve months and then move on?”
“That’s not to say that you should stop caring about him--”
“But his death should no longer affect my life? How can you possibly say that, Mother!”
“Darling, I won’t be around much longer to provide for you.”
“You’re only fifty-something, Mother, and you have no health problems. Edmund’s told you so.”
“Yes, but first your father dies, then Mr. Wiloughby? That isn’t merely a coincidence, you know! I’m sure to be next!”
“Mother, Father was tortured and murdered. That wasn’t a natural cause.”
“Fine then. But Mr. Wiloughby?”

Jessamina thought it wise to remain silent on the subject of Mr. Wiloughby’s cause of death.

“Jessamina, all I’m saying is that if something were to happen to me, natural or not, you would have no one to provide for you. You have no other relatives. You’d be an unmarried spinster at the age of twenty.”
“And what if I don’t want to get married?”
“Jessamina,” Mrs. Delaney gasped in horror. “What a horrible thing to say!”
“It’s true. I’m much happier being alone than I ever would be with any man.”
“There must be someone--”
“No, mother. There isn’t. No one.”
“Love grows over time. You don’t have to love someone before you get married.”
“Mother, I promised Father that I would only marry for love, and never to better my circumstances. And although under your rules, I should forget all about him--”
“That’s not fair, Jessamina--”
“I won’t. If there’s one thing I won’t do, it’s betray a promise to Father.”
“Yes, well, when you made that promise to him, he probably didn’t think you’d wait this long!”
“He meant for me to wait as long as I want, Mother. And that’s exactly what I intended to do, whether you like it or not.”
“Jessamina, I’m begging you to see reason and rejoin society as the respectable young lady you are! At least go to a few parties and balls this season. You never know who you might meet there.”
“Those parties are filled with idiots, Mother. All they do is stand around and gossip make petty conversations about the weather and horse races. Nothing there could possibly interest me.”
“Just one.”
“No, Mother. And that’s all I have to say about the subject.”
“I’m your Mother! You must obey me!”
“Supper will be ready in two hours, Mother. I suggest you start getting ready.”

She exited the drawing room and headed up the staircase and across the hall to her own bedchamber.

Gone were the days when her room was a comfort to her; ever since her father died, the room just reminded her of how dark her life was. She had covered all the window with thick brocade curtains that blocked nearly all sunlight from her room. This was because she had trouble sleeping (although she didn’t ever admit it to anyone, she often had dreams of witnessing her father being murdered while she was tied to a chair and forced to watch the ordeal) and even the smallest amount of light made her toss and turn for hours. Her yellow bedsheets had faded over the years into a bone white, and the sheets were now scratchy against her skin. She pulled from under her pillow her a well-worn brown leather journal that was wrapped several times with a white ribbon. She made sure her door was closed (for Marian, although a very sweet maid was very nosy) and undid the ribbon. She flipped through the pages until she got to one about half way through the book. On that page were a list of names: Mr. William Faunley, Mr. Thomas Ullman, Mr. Jayne Williams, and Mr. Bradley Effingston. She took out her fountain pen from its holder (a gift from her father), and filled it with ink. Once she had finished that process, she took a deep breath, and with a satisfactory sigh, crossed of Mr. Wiloughby’s name from her list as well.
Jessamina only crossed off names from her list once she was sure the funeral had taken place. This protocol had taken affect following a unlucky event involving one of her men waking up from a coma and running to tell the police about her. Fortunately, he hadn’t seen enough of her face in order for the police to identify her, and he was known for his drunkeness and outlandish conspiracy theories, so she was able to properly commit the deed a few weeks later. Nevertheless, she never wanted to get her hopes up again, so she waited until he was certain to be silent forevermore.

Each of these names had been crossed off of her list of people to rid the world of, and she had crossed their names off gladly. Now, however, she had one more name untouched by any pen marks. It stood boldly on the page, as if daring her to cross it. Vincent Blackhorne. Even the name sounded sinister, like one of those villains who ties up the heroine to the railroad tracks and laughs maniacally as he twirls his mustache. She imagined a horrid looking man, with a grotesque nose and stinking breath. He is incredibly tall and built like a wrester, impossible to take down with physical attacks, but easily tampered with neurologically. All she had to do was catch him with his guard down, and make her move. In her experience, no man was immune to death, and no man was untraceable, even Mr. Blackhorne.
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[Sorry, this part hasn't been written yet! But, I know it's going to be about the secret society, and how it facilitates illegal trades between England and America]
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She would find him and make him pay, for although all of the men she had killed were guilty, no one had more blood on his hands than Blackhorne. She flipped to another page further in the book, where she had written all the information thus collected on Blackhorne, and any speculations she had about his whereabouts. So far, all she knew was that he was a weapons collector, and had ties with the scotland yard. And, unlike all her other targets, he had never been a customer at the apothecary shop, at least not under his real name. She also knew that he had a house on the very outskirts of London, and was very rich. That was information she found by reading a newspaper article about an art auction in which Mr. Blackhorne had spent 10,000 pounds on an original painting by Pablo Picasso.

But other than this, her page was black. Mr. Blackhorne had done a very good job of keeping his private life private. No newspaper had ever mentioned where he liked to dine, or whether he was married or divorced or widowed. Jessamina had never been more stumped by a case, because she had nothing of any real value to help her.

Then, suddenly, the answer came to her. If anyone could tell her more information about Mr. Blackhorne, it would be Marian. She was the most gossipy woman this side of the Thames, and would easily be able to spout for hours about minuscule details that might help her find a way in. She would have to wait until dinner, when she could get Marian alone. Otherwise, she would be too easily distracted with trying to get supper organized. If there was one thing that her mother was adamant about, it was having supper on time and exquisitely cooked, which led to much panic around five in the afternoon. She decided that she would as Marian to help unpin her hair that night, and in the process, casually asked if she had ever heard of Vincent Blackhorne before. She couldn’t be too persistent, for fear that Marian might suspect something (although Marian wasn’t really the brightest girl to begin with), but she had to make sure that no detail was left unmentioned. This unfortunately meant that Jessamina had to take on the persona of the gossipy young women like Alexis Dubose that she so hated, but it was worth it if it meant finding the man who killed her father.