The Virgin Cure

  Mae grinned at me, amused by my distress over the lover’s play below.

  She was well on her way to becoming more beautiful than Rose, Missouri and Emily put together, and made no secret of her desire to surpass them all. “I intend on having ten times their lovers and becoming ten times richer than them as well.”

  My dreams of owning a house like Miss Keteltas’, with the softest bed money could buy, a pair of lovebirds in my parlour, and two pug dogs at my feet, seemed woefully ordinary compared to Mae’s. Still, I was determined to do whatever it might take not to go the way of poor Eliza Adler—or Miss Nellie Lynch, a girl who let Chrystie Street roughs take her into dark cellars for a nickel.

  Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Mae and I ran into our room and shut the door. Alice was at her dressing table, rolling rags in her hair before bed.

  “Tie the back for me, won’t you, Ada?” she asked, waving a piece of flannel in the air.

  I took the rag and began twirling a strand of her wet hair with my finger.

  “I always have trouble with the last bit,” Alice said.

  Mae sprawled on her bed and flipped through the pages of the Evening Star. “Anyone up for blind man’s bluff?” she asked, raising an eyebrow over the edge of the paper.

  “What—you’re not sneaking out?” Alice asked.

  Ignoring her, Mae proposed, “I say we play in the dark.”

  I knew from watching children play the game in the streets that it called for at least three players, or “the more the merrier.” I had never been asked to play, even when Eliza was part of the group. I didn’t blame her for leaving me out. The one thing the mothers of Chrystie Street seemed to agree upon (all except dear Mrs. Riordan) was how they felt about Mama. They’d go on and on, saying she was nothing but a deceiver, a seller of false hopes. Even those who believed in her magic (when they needed it), the ones who came to our door begging for charms and advice, would sneer behind her back and call her witch if it served them to do so. Mrs. Kunkle, as wide as she was tall, was the worst of the lot, often serving out her judgment of Mama on me. “The child of a Gypsy is the Devil’s child too,” she’d hiss, squinting at me through the space where her sheet dipped between two clothes pegs. “Stay away from me, girl. You’re bad luck.” She’d set her son Thomas on me, and laugh as he chased me down the street.

  “I’ll be It first,” Alice volunteered, taking a scarf that was hanging off the side of her mirror and tying it over her eyes.

  Lamp smoke drifting through the room, Mae began to spin Alice around in circles. “No hands,” she commanded, before setting Alice free.

  I moved on tiptoe, put my back against the wall and held my breath. The sounds of the house came up the stairwell—creaking floorboards, muffled laughter, the ticking of a clock.

  Alice stumbled around, her hands clasped in front of her like she was praying. Feeling her way with her elbows, she bumped into one of the beds and nearly tripped headfirst over a pair of Mae’s shoes.

  “Trying to kill me?” she asked, hoping to fetch laughter.

  Mae called to her, “Right behind you in the corner, by the window,” then scurried across the room in the other direction.

  “Gotcha!” Alice trapped me against the wall with her arms. Nuzzling my neck, she took the ribbon from my fan between her teeth and said, “Eeee-dah.” As she lifted the scarf from her eyes she exclaimed, “I knew it was you!”

  “Ada’s It,” Mae sang out.

  “Help me get Mae,” I whispered to Alice as she tied the scarf around my eyes.

  Mae insisted on spinning me several times more than she had Alice. By the time she was through, I was so dizzy I thought I’d fall over. Forgetting the rules, I reached out, fingers spread to find my way.

  “No hands,” Alice scolded from somewhere across the room.

  I heard footsteps, both heavy and soft. Voices whispered all around me.

  Ada

  Ada

  Ada Ada

  Stumbling towards where I thought I’d heard Mae, I ran straight into someone else.

  “No hands,” Mae’s voice warned from behind me.

  Rubbing my cheek along the person’s front like a cat, I felt the scratch of a wool waistcoat, smelled the distinct scent of bootblack. Cadet.

  “Let me kiss you,” he whispered, taking hold of my arms so I couldn’t get away.

  I’d dreamed it, secretly planned how I might go about making it happen, even picturing myself alone with him in the kitchen, or sneaking into his room at night to steal a kiss while he was asleep. But those were only the brave notions of a girl’s imagination. In my dream world, I was Miss Ada Fenwick, fully formed, with beautiful breasts and long flowing hair. Standing here in the dark with Cadet so near, I was only Moth, my mother in one ear telling me to stay away from boys, my father in the other asking, “How could you let them take your name?”

  Cadet leaned in close and then his lips pressed to mine for what seemed a lifetime, our breathing shallow and warm, nose to cheek.

  Laughter came from opposite corners of the room, breaking the spell.

  Mae pulled the scarf off my head. Alice lit a lamp. Cadet was gone.

  The salt-sweet taste of him still on my lips, I didn’t hear a word Mae or Alice had to say the rest of the night. For the first time in my life, I understood what hips, thighs, breasts, sighs, touches and thoughts were meant for.

  “No man is allowed through these doors unless he’s a gentleman through and through,” Miss Everett reassured me the morning I was to make my first appearance in her “quiet room.” “He must have an honourable pedigree and an upstanding reputation. He must come with references in hand.”

  Gentleman callers weren’t allowed in the house before noon, except on Sundays. On Sunday mornings, at half past eleven, a handful of invited men filed through the doors to see Miss Everett’s near-whores take off their clothes.

  The idea was to raise a gentleman’s interest. If all went well, he’d request an invitation to meet. Chaperoned luncheons were then followed by an evening at the theatre, and after that, an offer for a private engagement. Miss Everett assured me it was an orderly process and that I’d be watched over every step of the way.

  There were two parlours in the house. The main parlour was the one at the front where Emily played the harp or the piano while Missouri and Rose read to each other from magazines and story-papers. Their gentlemen callers waited for them there, bearing flowers or a box of chocolates or some other gift. If they came empty-handed, Miss Everett sent them away.

  The second parlour—the one Miss Everett called her “quiet room”—could only be gotten to through a pocket door in the panelling on the far wall of the front parlour. Comfortable-looking chairs were lined up in a row, their seats and backs covered in deep red velvet.

  The chairs were placed up close to a latticework screen that ran the length of the space, dividing the room in half. On the other side of the screen was a low stage that had been set back a ways so that all the men could have a full view of it. It was wide enough to move about on without feeling confined. To the right of the stage was a large music box that worked by setting brass discs to spinning with a wind-up crank. It would plink, plink, plink out tunes, chiming along like rain on a roof.

  Although I knew I’d be far enough away from the screen that I wouldn’t fully see the men behind it, I was still nervous about them being there. Even if I could get past the notion that strangers were watching, I felt less than confident about the way I looked. I wasn’t nearly as developed (in the places that mattered) as Mae and Alice, and the traces of Mama’s Gypsy blood made me far less American-looking than them.

  “It’s just a matter of pairing you with the right man,” Miss Everett told me. “There are plenty of gentlemen who are seeking more exotic fare.”

  Alice had gone to the quiet room twice before and she could hardly bring herself to talk about it. “You might think if you can’t see them, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s … awful.” br />
  Mae acted like it was merely an inconvenience. Her month of training was nearly up, and she had other thoughts on her mind. She’d soon be going to the theatre, and then on to Rose’s room.

  “Ask Miss Everett to play ‘Beautiful Dreamer,’ ” Alice advised later that morning as she fixed a satin ribbon in her hair. “It’s the shortest of the songs. You can get away with making things go a bit faster that way, and then you’re done.”

  “Not too fast, mind you,” Mae warned, “or you’ll be standing there in your pantaloons for what feels like eternity.”

  I watched as Mae gazed at herself in the long mirror by the window, getting ready for her turn in the second parlour. Tending to a button on her waist that she’d missed, she was enviably calm about it all. Easy for her, I thought.

  Alice came at me with a tin of rouge in her hand. “To make you look as if you’re always blushing,” she said as she went about dotting it on my lips and cheeks.

  “To make you look more a whore and less a girl,” Mae added.

  But I am a girl.

  “There are men who chase after children,” Alice said with a shudder. “I’ve seen them watch the schoolgirls of St. Patrick’s skip rope and play tag down Prince Street. It’s as if they think that if they stare at the girls long enough, they’ll find a way to steal their joy for themselves.”

  Shaking her head, Mae said, “Emily had one of those. He brought her a schoolgirl’s dress to wear in her room for him so she’d look like she spent her days listening to nuns and carrying her books home in a leather strap.”

  “Did you know he was a priest?” Alice asked, her voice hushed.

  “Better Emily than a child,” Mae said.

  “Yes.”

  Yes.

  When Miss Everett gave the sign, I came into the parlour and took my place on the stage. After she started the music box spinning, she opened a curtain that was draped in front of the latticework. This was the sign that I was to take off my clothes. “Just like you would at the end of the day,” she whispered. “Very simple. Not too fast.”

  I could smell the stale cigar smoke on the men’s breath. From the sound of a few scattered coughs and their movement in their chairs, I guessed there were four, five, six of them, maybe more. I tried not to think of them. I knew they couldn’t touch me, and that Cadet was standing just outside the door, but it brought little comfort.

  My fingers numb with fear, I trembled as I began to undress.

  Miss Everett had requested I wear my walking suit for the occasion, so it was gloves first, then my hat, then I let loose the clasps on my tunic, and unbuttoned the buttons on my waist, starting at the collar, allowing it to come away from my shoulders.

  Shh, little sweetheart. Don’t be afraid, one of the men hissed through the screen. The other men began to talk to me too, their voices low. Take your time. Over here. That’s it. Good girl.

  I looked to Miss Everett, but her face was calm, as if she hadn’t heard a word of their rude coaxing. I couldn’t tell if she was standing too close to the music box to have noticed it, or if she was simply choosing to ignore it.

  I saw one man’s fingers curve through a space in the lattice, a gold band circling his ring finger.

  Tears in my eyes, I turned away.

  “The door stays closed until you’re done, my dear,” Miss Everett whispered. “You must face them and continue.”

  Your skirt should fall down to the floor in a frilly heap. Once untied and pushed past the hips, your petticoats will slide free to join the rest. All that should be left is your corset and pantaloons. I’ll be nearby to help if any tie has a stubborn knot or any clasps get caught.

  And so I turned towards the screen once again. I kept my eyes straight ahead and removed my clothing down to my undergarments. Then I stood there.

  When the song from the music box finally came to an end, Miss Everett closed the curtain, and ushered me from the room.

  “Let your dress go slowly next time, my dear,” she said. “And lower your eyes as well. I dare say that determined gaze of yours may have frightened the lot of them.”

  Putting a dressing gown around my shoulders, she added, “I’ve got wonderful plans for you, Ada. If all goes well, you might turn out just like Rose.”

  All that night I cried in my pillow.

  Alice came to the side of my bed and whispered, “You should pray. That’s what I do. Ask God to take your pain away.”

  Alice believed that when she got down on her knees, put her hands together and spoke to the air, angels came and took her worries straight to heaven. “I wouldn’t lie about something like this,” she said.

  I’d spent my whole life longing for someone to want me—for Mama to say she loved me, or for my father to reappear at the door. It seemed unfair that what went on in Miss Everett’s parlour was the kind of wanting I’d get instead. I doubted that I’d be any better off letting God know I was here.

  The body of an unknown woman was found yesterday floating in the East River off the docks at the old William H. Webb shipyards. By the Coroner’s observations, the deceased met with an accident and expired by drowning. Foul play is not suspected. Guessed to be between forty and fifty years of age, the woman was wearing a simple dress with a silk scarf still tied around her head. The deceased could not be identified, and, upon the Coroner holding an inquest, the body was sent to Potter’s Field for interment.

  —The Evening Star, November 5, 1871

  From the time I was old enough to remember the number on our door, Mama had left me alone at night. She said she had things to do that she couldn’t do in the day and that it was just the way things had to be. Before she’d go out, she’d put me to bed and tell me to stay there. I’d sit in the dark, dreaming up a Good Mother to come care for me until Mama returned.

  My Good Mother wasn’t anything like Mama. She was fat and happy, with her flesh all round in rolls underneath her dress. When she put her arms around me I could hardly breathe for the warmth of her embrace. She wasn’t bothered by anything and her teeth shone white when she smiled, except for the hole where one was missing, right in the front. She’d whistle and hoot silly tunes through that little hole just to make me laugh. At the end of my pretending, my Good Mother would put me to bed, tucking Miss Sweet under the blanket with me. She’d wait with us, wondering, as I did, if this was the night Mama wouldn’t come home.

  Now she came to me, pushing at my shoulder while I was asleep.

  “Wake up, Moth.”

  But it was Miss Everett calling my name, wanting me to get out of bed. “Just wrap yourself in a quilt, dear. There’s someone waiting for you downstairs. It’s urgent.”

  I got up as she asked and followed her to the parlour, wiping sleep from my eyes.

  Mrs. Riordan was sitting on the couch, her lips set in a grim line. Clothes dingy and mismatched as ever, she made for quite a sight next to Miss Everett’s perfect, upholstered furniture. I greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. The last time I’d seen her was the day before Mr. Cowan cornered me in the alley. Mr. Bartz wouldn’t have told her where I was without good reason, so I knew that something must be terribly wrong.

  “I trust you’re well?” I asked.

  “Well enough,” she replied. Giving me a strained smile she said, “Mr. Bartz sends his apologies.”

  Miss Everett looked at me with sympathetic eyes from where she stood in the doorway. “Mrs. Coyne is in bed for the night,” she said. “But I’m happy to make a pot of tea for the two of you if you like.”

  “That would be much appreciated,” Mrs. Riordan said, answering for the both of us.

  Miss Everett nodded to her and then went off to the kitchen to fetch the tea.

  “My dear child,” Mrs. Riordan began, her voice weaker than I remembered it to be. “I have news of your mother.” Reaching out, she took my hand in hers and squeezed it tight. “She’s passed on, Moth,” she announced, her eyes watery and sad. “They found her drowned in the river not three nights ago.
A gang of boys fished her out from under the docks.”

  Tears burned my eyes. My heart hurt. I couldn’t help but think perhaps Mama was hiding somewhere, looking on to see if I still cared for her.

  “You’re … certain it was her?”

  She gave a solemn nod. “Yes.”

  Eight to twelve hours after death, post-mortem staining occurs. Skin forms new shapes, accentuating the body’s most prominent bones. Rigor mortis spreads over the body, muscle by muscle, and then retreats. Hence the saying “after the rigor, before the rats.”

  Word of Mama’s death had travelled mouth to ear, wharf to street, alley to stoop, by way of several different people, including Mrs. Kunkel and Mr. Bartz, to get to Mrs. Riordan. I could only imagine what they’d said.

  “Did you hear about the woman who got pulled from the river last night? They say she was a Gypsy.”

  “I know for a fact it was that fortune teller who sold away her daughter, the one who used to live on Chrystie Street.”

  “She was nothing but a thief and a liar. My guess is she got what was coming to her.”

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t find you in time to claim her body at the morgue,” Mrs. Riordan lamented. “She’s gone to Potter’s Field already.”

  I broke down, as visions of Mama’s sad, waterlogged body came to my mind. I’d been trying to forget her, wishing my memories away bit by bit, and now she was gone, almost as if I’d meant for her to die. All the love I’d had for her came back to me now, hand in hand with the sorrow of her sending me away. There could be no forgiveness between us and no goodbye.

  Lachrymatories, or tear-catchers, were worn by brides during the war. The women were to fill the bottles with their tears as a sign of devotion to their husbands while they were away. Many men never returned from battle, and thus their wives were left to pour their tears of loneliness on their husbands’ graves.