A Beautiful Poison

In the hallway, Ernie was pacing. “Jasper. I heard there was a to-do. I came as soon as I could. How can I help?”

For a change, Jasper felt relief at his overabundant enthusiasm. Within the hour, they decided to move Holly and Birdie to Ernie’s home. They’d had little interaction with Mr. Cutter or Lucy in the last few days, so no one felt it necessary to quarantine them. Andrew had been phoned, but he’d balked at having them both in his home—strangers to the rest of his family. Furthermore, he himself had a touch of the influenza and was weakened from head to toe. His bowels had become a torment, and he could do little himself to help. But Ernie could barely contain his enthusiasm to help.

“Won’t your folks mind?” Jasper asked.

“They might. But it doesn’t matter.”

Jasper watched him as he spoke to his driver and went to use the candlestick telephone in Mr. Cutter’s office. Ernie was taller than Jasper but had always given the impression of being smaller. Impish almost, and blurred at the edges from the constant need to please and attend to all. But suddenly having a purpose, he was centered. Authority crept into his voice. Jasper hardly recognized him.

Before long, a second chauffeur stopped in front of the Cutter house. Josephine accompanied Birdie in one car, where she was able to lie down in the backseat, and Ernie himself entertained Holly in the other car as they drove toward the Fieldings’ residence farther uptown.

Jasper took the next day off from work so he could visit Holly. He promised Dr. Gettler he’d work double shifts the next few days. At the large marble entrance on Park Avenue, he lifted the great brass lion knocker. One of the Fieldings’ maids answered.

“I’m here to see Holly Dreyer. How’s the pipsqueak settling in?”

“Oh, like a dream!” the maid said, unable to hide her rapture as she let Jasper in. “Such a clever thing. We haven’t had a little girl in this house for two generations! Mr. Fielding himself had a Raggedy Ann doll sent for, and he unearthed a whole trunkful of dolls in the attic. But she won’t touch them. She keeps asking for rides in the motorcar instead. What a duck!”

Holly ran straight into Jasper’s arms. She was wrapped in an oversized brown jacket, and a pair of old, gigantic driving goggles at least ten years old hung from her neck. “Look!” she intoned. “Goggles!”

“Yes, I see! Where is Ernie?” He turned to ask both the maid and Holly.

“He went back to the Cutter house this morning,” the maid reported.

“Ah. And how is Birdie?”

“She’s sleeping,” Holly told him. “She sleeps ever so much. I didn’t know that broken bones made you sleepy.” She settled onto an ottoman and explored the paper bag of candy that she’d cleverly fished out of Jasper’s left jacket pocket.

“It’s . . . very tiring,” Jasper explained warily.

Holly was silent. She counted the swirls and knots of colorful hard candy on her lap. Red, green, and yellow twisted within curls of white, like sculpted glass. It was hard to find sugar, let alone candy, during wartime, and Jasper had paid from the bottom of his trouser pockets for the treats. Holly chose a peppermint to share with him, but he shook his head, and she popped the confection into her mouth.

He loved how she was a plainer, brown version of the Dreyer women, with her dark hair in slightly dampened curls around her forehead, cheeks dusted with that satiny rose that boasted of health. She was pretty, no doubt, but held none of that ethereal exquisiteness that defined her sister. Jasper relaxed in Holly’s presence. They were made of the same earthly stuff, clay and dirt and such. Birdie was all cobwebs and moonbeams, and Allene . . . well, she was always poufed and rouged and covered in costly lace. Untouchable in another way.

“If she dies, will you marry me?” Holly asked him matter-of-factly. Jasper blanched before reddening. Holly’s face was all sincerity, and she stared up at Jasper with eyes prepared to wait an eternity for an answer. He suddenly remembered why children made him so uncomfortable.

“What makes you think she’s going to die, Holly?” he asked quietly.

“I know things,” she said.

He shuddered at her words. Afraid to ask more, he kept his mouth shut and pushed the bag of candy closer to her.

“Do you have a sister?” she asked, crunching.

“No. I had a brother once. He . . . died in the war,” he said. His eyes tingled with warning.

“Oh.” She swung her legs, and they knocked the chair legs. “Maybe you shouldn’t marry me, then.”

“Oh?”

“You can be my brother instead.”

Lord, this girl. He was getting the feeling that if she asked him for the world, he’d give it to her in a striped candy bag, whatever the cost.

“I accept.” Jasper leaned over to kiss her on the head. He’d never kissed anyone on the head in his whole life. He liked it. “But in the meantime, Birdie needs you. I promise to visit later, all right?”

She nodded. He left Holly in the care of the maids, who supplied her with glossy books and dress-up clothes pillaged from an old cedar chest in the attic, likely belonging to English countesses from years gone by. It felt too improper for him to visit Birdie, so he took the maid’s word that she was comfortable for the time being.

When he returned to the Cutter house, he was surprised to see Ernie leaving, white mask sagging just under his nose. His clothes gave off a stink of raw onion.

“Off to get more calomel and Vicks VapoRub and aspirin and Seidlitz powders and Epsom salts . . . Say, are you feeling all right?” he asked. Ernie had enough energy for a thousand electric lights and then some, but it exhausted Jasper just to exchange a few words. His tiredness must show.

“I’m well, Ernie. How are you?”

“Busy! Allene keeps trying to send me away, but I need to help. I’ve emptied out the druggist store on Madison of their influenza medicines.” He waved a list on a piece of paper. “Anyhoo—good-bye!” he chirped. Jasper could manage only to touch his cap.

Apparently, Ernie had been a stubborn fixture at the Cutter house in the last twenty-four hours. He’d visited multiple times a day and begged for an occupation, even after taking Birdie and Holly away—anything to help. So the maids sent him on constant errands to the druggist to keep him out of the house. It was hard enough to care for patients and entertain guests simultaneously.

At the Cutter house, the butler welcomed Jasper with a sedate, clouded expression. He motioned upstairs before he even had a chance to remove his cap.

“Miss Allene was giving Lucy a sponge bath—”

“Really?” He could hardly believe it.

“She won’t let anyone else touch her,” George admitted. “She ought to be done by now.”

“How is Mr. Cutter?”

“Well. He keeps to his bed. Miss Allene gives him an earful every time he attempts to leave.”

“Ah.”

“I believe the doctor is examining Lucy. If you wish to speak to him, now would be the time.”

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