The Lady of Blackwood House

New York, 1892. When Lady Adesina Okafor first saw Manhattan from the deck of the steamer, wrapped in a plain charcoal coat while gulls wheeled above the harbor and smokestacks smeared the pale morning with soot, she decided almost immediately that she liked the city, not because it was beautiful—for beauty, she thought, was something New York occasionally stumbled upon and then promptly built a warehouse beside—but because it possessed the particular arrogance of a place convinced that history had begun only after it arrived. Beside her stood Miss Eleanor Vale, attorney-at-law, heiress to a modest Boston fortune and, for the past eleven months, the most useful woman Adesina had encountered on either side of the Atlantic. “You understand the documents?” Adesina asked quietly. Eleanor adjusted her spectacles. “You own one hundred and forty-seven acres north of the city, a three-story stone house, stables, a carriage house, two cottages, woodland, a private road, and enough furniture to embarrass a duke.” “And the seller?” “Believes you are the widow of a West African merchant prince.” Adesina smiled. “I have never been married.” “I know.” “And there was no merchant prince.” “I know that too.” “And yet you signed everything.” Eleanor glanced at her, hesitated, and then smiled with the serene devotion of a woman who could no longer entirely remember why refusing Adesina had ever seemed possible. “My dear Lady Okafor,” she said, “I would sign a deed transferring the Brooklyn Bridge to the moon if you asked pleasantly enough.” Adesina laughed. “That,” she said, “is precisely why I hired you.” Blackwood House stood beyond the noisy reach of Manhattan, hidden behind iron gates and ancient trees, its stone walls pale beneath the moon, and when Adesina arrived there three nights later she found the women who had crossed the ocean before her waiting in the entrance hall: Amara, who had managed her household for almost thirty years; Nkiru, who could prepare a banquet for twenty or silence an intruder with equal efficiency; and young Folake, whose grandmother had served Adesina before Folake’s mother had been born. Amara embraced her without ceremony. “You took too long.” “There was paperwork.” “You have survived emperors, missionaries, soldiers, fever, and three shipwrecks.” “Four.” “Then how did paperwork defeat you?” “It was American paperwork.” Amara considered this. “Ah.” The servants laughed. None feared her. They knew what slept beneath Adesina’s calm expression, knew why she never appeared downstairs before sunset, knew why mirrors occasionally seemed reluctant to acknowledge her, and knew what happened when hunger sharpened her eyes to amber; but Adesina had never fed upon any woman under her protection, and she paid wages better than any household they had encountered in London, Lisbon or Paris. “My home,” she reminded them that evening over supper, though she drank only wine, “is sanctuary.” “And the city?” Nkiru asked. Adesina looked toward the distant glow beyond the trees. “The city,” she said, “is hunting ground.” The following evening Lady Adesina Okafor vanished. In her place appeared Addie Cole, a supposedly penniless Black woman in a worn brown coat, inexpensive gloves, scuffed boots and a hat bought secondhand near Five Points. She walked Broadway carrying a small leather folder containing forged references, genuine qualifications, and absolutely no expectation that anyone would read either. At a fashionable employment office a clerk looked at her papers for perhaps three seconds. “You read French?” “Fluently.” “Accounts?” “Yes.” “Music?” “Piano and violin.” The man pushed the folder back. “Kitchen work might be found.” “I am not applying for kitchen work.” He finally looked at her. “I know.” Outside, Adesina stood beneath the awning while rain glittered on the street and smiled very slowly. A woman leaving the office brushed past her and said, “You people ought to be grateful for whatever is offered.” Adesina turned. The woman was richly dressed, wrapped in sable, diamonds glittering at her ears. “You are correct,” Adesina replied pleasantly. “Gratitude is terribly important.” The woman frowned, uncertain why the answer made her uncomfortable. For almost two weeks Adesina played the game. She allowed hotel managers to tell her that guests might be “uneasy,” ladies seeking secretaries to discover suddenly that the position had been filled, and shop owners to explain that a Black woman standing behind the counter might discourage respectable customers. She never argued. She merely remembered. Then she met Mrs. Constance Pembroke. Constance was forty-two, enormously wealthy, twice widowed, beautifully dressed, and possessed of that particular confidence produced by money surviving every mistake its owner made. She interviewed Adesina in a drawing room overlooking Madison Square. “You are very pretty,” Constance said. “That was not listed among my qualifications.” Constance laughed. “Oh, I like you.” “I am relieved.” “You speak beautifully too.” “So I have been told.” Constance leaned closer. “I require a companion some evenings. Theatre, supper, conversation; nothing terribly complicated.” “And the wages?” Constance named a sum five times the ordinary rate. Adesina raised an eyebrow. “That is generous.” “My tastes are occasionally generous.” There was something in the woman’s smile that made the meaning unmistakable. Then, with astonishing casualness, Constance added, “I have always wondered what it might be like to spend an evening with a woman such as you.” “A woman such as me?” Constance waved one jeweled hand. “You know perfectly well what I mean.” Adesina studied her. For one fleeting moment the ancient hunger inside her was joined by something colder. “Yes,” she said softly. “I believe I do.” Constance leaned back and regarded Adesina’s worn brown dress with an expression that was almost thoughtful. “You cannot possibly accompany me dressed like that.” Adesina glanced down at herself. “I was under the impression you were hiring my conversation rather than my wardrobe.” “Oh, don’t be difficult,” Constance said, ringing for her maid. “You are a beautiful woman, Miss Cole, but beauty requires presentation.” Twenty minutes later Adesina stood before the tall mirror in Constance’s dressing room wearing a black satin evening gown that fitted her perfectly, long gloves, and a small diamond brooch fastened at her throat. Constance walked slowly around her, visibly pleased with the transformation. “There,” she said. “Now you look quite extraordinary.” Adesina studied her own reflection. “How fortunate.” Constance smiled. “You should thank me.” Adesina turned her head and met her eyes. “Oh,” she said softly, “I expect I shall find some way.” That night Constance took her to the opera, where several acquaintances stared openly at the Black woman seated beside her, then to supper in a private room where champagne arrived in silver buckets and Constance spoke for nearly an hour about charity without once mentioning anything she had personally sacrificed. “My late husband believed poverty was caused by laziness,” she announced. “And what do you believe?” “That poverty is unfortunate.” “That is remarkably courageous of you.” Constance blinked, then laughed. “You are wicked.” “Occasionally.” Near midnight they returned to Constance’s townhouse. Upstairs, the servants were dismissed. Constance poured brandy. “You may stop pretending now,” she said. Adesina stood beside the fireplace. “Pretending what?” “That you don’t understand why you are here.” Adesina removed her gloves carefully, finger by finger. “And why am I here, Mrs. Pembroke?” Constance approached her, smiling with the confidence of someone who believed money had already negotiated consent on her behalf. “Because I paid enough.” The room became very quiet. Adesina’s eyes changed first. Constance stopped. “What—” “You wished,” Adesina whispered, “to know what it was like to possess a Black woman for an evening.” Her smile revealed the faintest edge of ivory. “Instead, Constance, you are going to learn what it feels like to be completely powerless.” Constance never screamed. Adesina caught her gently as the trance took hold, one arm around her waist, the other supporting her head, and when her fangs touched the warm skin beneath Constance’s ear the feeding was almost tender, slow enough that the woman’s fear dissolved into a strange drifting peace. Adesina drank deeply. But not enough to kill. Never enough to kill. And into the dreaming mind beneath her lips she placed something else. Not obedience. Not love. A need. A terrible, relentless awareness of every hungry child she had passed without seeing, every servant she had underpaid, every beggar she had dismissed, every charitable dinner where the cost of the flowers exceeded the donations collected. When Adesina finally lifted her head, Constance sighed contentedly and fell asleep in her arms. “You wanted an unforgettable evening,” Adesina murmured. Then she smiled. “Fortunately for me, you will remember none of it.” Constance woke shortly after noon. Her maid found her staring at the breakfast tray. “Take this downstairs,” she said. “Madam?” “All of it.” “You haven’t eaten.” “Then make another.” The maid hesitated. Constance looked toward the window, where a barefoot newspaper boy stood on the opposite corner stamping his feet against the cold. “Sarah,” she said slowly, “how much do I pay you?” The maid froze. “Madam?” “How much?” Constance heard the figure and went pale. “That cannot possibly be right.” “It is what you have always paid.” “Double it.” Sarah stared. “Madam?” “No, triple it.” By evening Constance had sent five hundred dollars to a settlement house, ordered blankets delivered to two churches, instructed her solicitor to establish a fund for impoverished widows, and personally marched into the kitchen demanding to know whether the scullery maid’s younger brother still needed a doctor. For the first time in her life, the suffering surrounding her had become impossible not to notice. And somewhere far uptown, Adesina laughed until Amara came to investigate. “What have you done?” “Improved a woman.” “Again?” “She required considerable improvement.” A black lacquered carriage waited for Adesina near Central Park shortly before dawn. She stepped inside still wearing Constance Pembroke’s expensive black evening gown, the little diamond brooch catching the carriage lamp as she settled against the cushions. Josephine Bell glanced back from the driver’s box. “I see the city was generous tonight.” Adesina touched the brooch lightly. “In more ways than one.” By the time they passed through the gates of Blackwood House, Lady Adesina Okafor had returned. Amara waited in the doorway. “Successful evening?” “A wealthy woman has discovered philanthropy.” “Tragic.” “I fear she may never recover.” They entered together. Upstairs, Adesina changed into a silk robe and settled beside the tall library windows with a glass of dark red wine, watching the first gray suggestion of morning creep over the grounds. Somewhere in Manhattan, Constance Pembroke was undoubtedly awakening another banker, lawyer or politician with an urgent demand that they finance a soup kitchen. Adesina smiled into her glass. America, she had decided, was going to be fascinating. “So,” Amara asked from the doorway, “are you going back tomorrow?” Adesina looked toward the distant city. “My dear Amara,” she said, settling deeper into the chair as dawn touched the trees, “I have been alive for a very long time, and I have learned never to rush an adventure.” She paused. “Tomorrow night will do perfectly.”