The Virgin Cure

by Ami McKay

  “I took the liberty of filling the kettle for the lady’s tea,” Nestor informed Caroline before lifting his bowl to his lips. “It should be plenty hot by now.”

  “That’s fine,” she replied, bringing out a silver tea service and placing it on a tray at the other end of the table.

  I waited for a moment when I might be of use to her. This, however, only caused more trouble. The next time she turned around we were nose to nose and I could see by her scowl that my persistence had angered her. She brushed past me in a huff, and I gave up, taking one of the remaining bowls of bread and broth and sitting down across from Nestor. His eyes crinkled into a smile as I settled in my chair.

  Free from my hovering, Caroline glided between table and cupboards, artfully arranging delicate bowls and plates, filling them with sugar and milk, grapes and pears. Now that there was distance between us, I could see she had a sense of grace about her. Like the tiny wooden woman who inhabited the cuckoo clock in the window of the jeweller’s shop on Second Avenue, her waist was constantly moving in sympathy with her skirts, turning round first this way, then that.

  “Where’d the lady get to last night?” she asked Nestor as she snipped at the stems on a bunch of grapes with a small pair of scissors.

  “Chrystie Street, I believe,” he answered, looking to me for confirmation.

  I gave him a nod before taking a sip of broth. It tasted of beef, rich with salt and onion, so good I forgot myself. Gulping and slurping, I carried on until every bit of the bread had slithered down my throat.

  “Went slumming again, did she?” Caroline asked, one eyebrow arching. “You think she would’ve learned, after the last one …”

  Staring at Caroline, Nestor tipped the edge of his bowl against the table with his finger. The last of its contents spilled out from it, running in a stream, straight towards a folded, white napkin that the housekeeper hadn’t yet placed on the tray.

  “Chrystie Street,” she muttered as she scrambled to rescue the napkin. “Never heard of it … sure hope it’s better than Ludlow.”

  If she’d bothered to ask me, I would’ve said with great confidence that it was. I would have told her that the people on Chrystie Street were a cut above, that everything they did was a matter of pride, and that if she’d never been there, she was all the poorer because of it.

  I would’ve been lying, of course. While Ludlow and Chrystie streets both had their share of falling-down tenements, Ludlow had sewers and Chrystie Street had none. All slums are not created equal.

  When Caroline turned away, Nestor nicked a pear from the bowl of fruit sitting on the tea tray. Cutting it into slices with his pocket knife, he offered me a piece. Made bold by Caroline’s disdain, I took it.

  The fruit was sweet and juicy in my mouth, not like the mealy, past-ripe pears sold on street corners or at Tompkins Market. Those pears floated in buckets of syrup for weeks at a time, young girls selling them with false promises of “fresh firm fruits from the farm—just picked today …”

  As Nestor’s long, sly fingers came towards me with another slice, I thought of my father. He, too, was a thief. Mama always swore that he’d stolen both her and a horse from right under my grandfather’s nose in broad daylight. “Stealing a horse from a Gypsy is no easy feat,” she’d say, closing her eyes in bliss and sadness whenever she brought the memory to mind. I’d supposed all kinds of things about my father when I was young. In my dreams, he never appeared on Chrystie Street. Instead, he was always dancing around the apothecary’s pear tree, pouring sugar from Mama’s silver bowl down between the tree’s roots. “I like my pears sweet,” he’d say just before he would disappear.

  As I reached to take the last slice from Nestor, I caught sight of Caroline’s hand coming towards me, a wooden spoon clenched in her fist. Before I could move, she smacked the spoon on the table, so hard it made me jump. “Damn fly,” she said, staring right at me.

  Nestor let out a nervous chuckle and said, “Poor thing never had a chance.”

  Sour-faced, Caroline had opened her mouth to scold him, when she was interrupted by three sharp rings coming from a row of bells strung along the wall by the stairs. Each of the bells had been labelled for a room in the house—parlour, study, dining hall, foyer, master’s chamber, bath, library, conservatory … When the ringing came again, I saw that it was from the bell marked lady’s chamber.

  Nestor stood and took up the tea tray. “Three bells are for the lady’s maid,” he said. “Come along, Miss Fenwick. That’s you.”

  My toes burned inside my boots as I got to my feet, making me feel as if the shoes had gotten even smaller in the short time I’d been sitting at the table. Caroline’s gaze followed me as I moved to join Nestor.

  “Good luck with Chrystie Street,” she called to the butler, still holding tight to her spoon as we went out the door.

  The elite do not wear the same dress twice. If you can tell us how many receptions she has in a year, how many weddings she attends, how many balls she participates in, how many dinners she gives, how many parties she goes to, how many operas or theatres she patronizes, we can approximate somewhat to the cost and size of her wardrobe. It is not unreasonable to suppose that she has two new dresses of some sort for every day in the year, or seven hundred and twenty. Now to purchase all these, to order them made and to put them on afterward consumes a vast amount of time. Indeed, the woman of society does little but doff and don dry goods.

  —George Ellington, Women of New York: or,

  Social Life in the Great City, 1870

  Mama’s bustle was an old flour sack stuffed with straw that she’d coax into shape whenever she was going out to see Mr. Piers. She didn’t have many dresses to choose from, but she always saved her best for him. It was cotton chintz, with a long row of buttons up the back. I loved seeing her bring it out, because it meant she would need me to help her dress.

  After I’d fastened the last button, Mama would take her cracked hand mirror and sit with me on the edge of the bed. Pointing to her reflection, she’d show me how a person’s eyes dart to the side when they lie. “Beware a woman who’s slow to smile, she’s sure to be holding a grudge.”

  I didn’t much care about what Mama had to say, I was just happy to be near her without thinking I was about to catch it, glad to look at her dark eyes and the sureness of her mouth. After a while she’d go quiet and stare at her face like it wasn’t her own. “See that spot there on my cheek? That mark was given to me when I was born. It means I was meant for something great.” Then she’d touch the spot with her fingertip. “It’s fading now,” she’d whisper. “I’m fading away.”

  Helpless to the whims of fashion, a true lady always requires assistance in dressing. She must have at her disposal (at the very least) a second pair of willing hands. A woman without the means to properly look after herself might as well withdraw from society, for she will never be “looked after” by her equals or by any self-respecting gentleman. One public gaffe, or ill-managed piece of attire and she is left to embarrassment, sentenced to make her way between parties and parlours, alone. Each new day, every new gown, presents the opportunity of elevation or disgrace.

  The daily grooming rituals Mrs. Wentworth undertook were to remain, as best as I could manage, invisible. “Still,” Nestor explained as we climbed the stairs to her bedroom, “if one observes carefully, you can see the subtle fruits of a maid’s labours displayed on her lady’s person. It’s in her visage, the confidence she carries on her face. If her hat never loses purchase on her head, it is a tribute to you. If her skirts brush the toes of her shoes without ever tripping her up, then you may rest easy at the end of the day.

  “Your role is quite simple,” he said. “Comb the lady’s hair, read to her, serve her tea, help her dress: be whatever she requires, whenever she requires it. You, my dear, are the foil behind the button.”

  I stopped short in the middle of the corridor, thinking I could never live up to such high expectations. Mama must have misund
erstood what it was that Mrs. Wentworth wanted in a girl. Had she known, I was sure she wouldn’t have sent me away.

  “Miss Fenwick?” Nestor said, turning back with a look of concern. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, palms sweating, feet aching. I’d assumed I’d be cooking and cleaning, not seeing after Mrs. Wentworth’s personal needs.

  “You’ll do fine,” Nestor reassured me. “Much better than the last girl, I’m certain of it. Miss Piggott she was called. The poor thing was always at a loss, even when it came to the simplest of tasks. I can’t blame Caroline for the cruelty she inflicted on that one. I assure you the child brought it upon herself. She put Mrs. Wentworth in a terrible state, making Caroline’s life even more difficult than it already is.”

  Looking at the floor, I tried to will the queasiness in my belly to stop.

  “Come now, Miss Fenwick, don’t worry,” Nestor said. “What Caroline put you through this morning was nothing but a test. She’ll come around, you’ll see. Besides, Mrs. Wentworth’s the one who put Caroline out of sorts, not you. In all the years that she’s served in this house, the poor woman has never once been considered for the position of lady’s maid. She gets passed over for the job every time, and it upsets her beyond belief. I’ve told her she mustn’t dwell on it, that it’s simply a matter of Mrs. Wentworth preferring to have a younger, more impressionable girl by her side, but she won’t hear it.”

  As we approached the door, Nestor lowered his voice and gave me a final list of instructions. “Be sure to add hot tea to her cup whenever she lets it rest for more than five minutes. Place her napkin in her lap, folded in half, tip to tip, the point facing to the ground. Mrs. Wentworth doesn’t approve of having it the other way around, she says it makes her feel like a dagger’s coming right for her. Always inquire as to how much sugar she’d like in her tea, even though her answer will always be the same—none. Assure her that Caroline is happily preparing her eggs just as she likes (poached, with an inch of moon around the yolk) and that there will be toast points to accompany them, and marmalade, and—”

  My face must have shown the trouble I was having in trying to commit Nestor’s words to memory, because he stopped mid-sentence. “Forget the marmalade and the toast points. Don’t fret, my dear, morning tea is easily pantomimed. The only thing you need remember is to have a bit of grace and common sense.”

  Mrs. Wentworth was sitting in a chair next to her tea table when I entered the room, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, her mouth set in a frown. The taffeta dressing gown she was wearing rustled with her every movement, echoing her impatience. “Place the tray on the stand,” she ordered. “I want only dishes on the table.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, following her directions as best I could.

  Like every other little girl in the world, I’d often played at tea-time and again, making a watery shoosh between my lips while pouring steaming make-believe brew out of thin air, or pinching the handle of an invisible cup between my fingers as I chatted about the weather with Miss Sweet and Mama’s iron dog doorstop.

  Like Caroline with her broth, I spilled no drops, made no mistakes. I smiled and bowed and spoke softly to Mrs. Wentworth, thinking all the while that if Caroline had been there to witness my performance, her hatred for me would’ve caused a bitter stream of words at least a mile long to issue from her mouth.

  The hardest task in it all was keeping my mind on my duties while standing in the most glorious place I’d ever seen. Mama’s rooms on Chrystie Street could’ve fit inside Mrs. Wentworth’s dressing quarters three times over. There was enough space in the bedroom alone for two fainting couches, a table with three chairs, a dressing table with a large, round mirror attached, and an enormous, canopied bed, with spiralling posts that soared clear to the ceiling. Dressed in every possible shade of pink—rosebud, blush, salt-water taffy, tip-of-the-tongue—the bed was laden with pillows and blankets of quilted silk and satin.

  Embroidered velvet curtains lined the room’s tall windows, the heavy panels pulled shut against the outside world. The mantel of the fireplace was decked with a row of twinned treasures: a pair of porcelain pheasants with clocks in their bellies, two matching ginger jars, two lamps with rose-coloured globes sparkling with the steady glow of gaslight. The whole room was filled with beautiful things, every last one of them perfect and right. If Mama had known about this place, she would’ve prayed every night for it to go up in flames, just so she could tiptoe through the embers and take whatever was left behind.

  “I’ve gone to the trouble of setting out my morning attire,” Mrs. Wentworth announced after finishing her tea. “I’ll do this with my wardrobe for the rest of today, but starting tomorrow, you’ll be responsible for my toilette in its entirety. Do you understand?”

  Still staring at one of the pheasants, I wondered what it would be like to wake up one morning and find your insides ticking away.

  Mrs. Wentworth cleared her throat and repeated her question. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, looking at the heap of clothing that had been carefully piled on one of the couches. I’d been able to make fair guesses with the tea, but all that tulle and lace was daunting. I wasn’t quite sure where to begin.

  “My corset,” Mrs. Wentworth ordered, taking off her dressing gown and revealing that she was already wearing pantaloons and a chemise. Lifting her arms above her head, she waited for me to fetch the thing and bring it around her body. I pushed at the stays from the sides, working to fasten the corset’s clasps up her front.

  Her breasts were huddled and heaving before I’d even tied the satin bow at the top, but when I turned to fetch the next piece of clothing, she scolded me and called me back to her. “You must tighten the laces,” she said, as she took hold of a bedpost for support.

  I went behind her and tugged at the laces one by one, working my way from top to bottom. A quiet creaking could be heard, the sound of shifting bone. I began to sweat, not knowing if the sound was human or whale, living or dead.

  “Don’t be so cautious, child,” the lady scolded. “You can go tighter, much tighter. I didn’t spend years corset training for nothing. Strict lacing afforded me this figure and I dare say my husband as well.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

  “Perhaps you should pick up the pace,” she complained. “I fear it will be supper hour before I get into my breakfast clothes.”

  Several mounds of ruffled cotton and silk still remained on the couch, all a prelude to her dress.

  “They aren’t choices,” Mrs. Wentworth said with an impatient sigh.

  As I picked up the underskirt that I thought should come next, Mrs. Wentworth shook her head, clucking her disapproval.

  When I tried again, but made yet another wrong decision, her face flushed and she said, “Your mother told me you knew how to dress a lady.”

  “Please, ma’am,” I said, taking up the last petticoat and clutching it in my hands. “I can learn.”

  Certain that I’d already disappointed her beyond a second chance, I waited for her to dismiss me and turn me out of the house. Instead, her gaze softened, and a gentle smile spread across her face.

  “Kiss my cheek and all will be forgiven,” she said as she bent towards me.

  Mama had never allowed me to kiss her. She said that kissing was something people took far too lightly, and that the genuine affection that was meant to occur when lips met flesh had long ago been lost. For a moment, I wondered if Mrs. Wentworth, like Caroline, was giving me some sort of strange test.

  “Go on, child, do as I say.”

  My lips touched her pillowy cheek, and I found myself inhaling the heady scent of flowers. It wasn’t like Mama’s rosewater or her lavender soap. This was spicy and strong, like nothing I’d ever known.

  Next to the broth Caroline had served, Mrs. Wentworth’s perfume was the only other scent that had gotten my attention since I’d arrived. The house seemed almost without sme
lls at all, pleasant or foul, leaving me to wonder if the upper class existed on a different sort of air from the rest of the world, a breeze piped into their homes from above the clouds, so clean you had to pay for it.

  As I made to move away from her, Mrs. Wentworth reached out and took my chin in her hand. “What a face you have,” she said. “So willing and so full of promise.”

  She fixed her gaze on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to return it. Instead, I settled on looking at the ribbon that trimmed the edge of her corset. The entire garment was adorned with pink lace and ruffles of a shade that matched the canopy over her bed. The longer I stared at it, the more I wished it were mine.

  While many women believe in the powers of the corset—to create a diminished waist, heaving bosoms, and an accentuated female form—science has proven that this insidious garment is no friend to the fairer sex. Constipation, indigestion, shortness of breath, and fractured ribs, are the least of the injuries caused by the device. Over time, it causes internal organs to become misshapen and displaced, greatly diminishing the volume of the lungs and pressing the liver violently upward, threatening imminent bisection.” —from Against the Corset, by Dr. S. Fonda (See figure 1.)

  I’d asked Mama a hundred times for a corset. “Even the kind with rope for stays would do,” I’d begged. But Mama knew as well as I did that a corset was the surest way to turn a girl into a woman before her time. It brings the body into a desirable shape, taking a girl’s breath away, causing her to dream of whirling around a dance floor or riding a galloping horse—her only chances to fly.