The Virgin Cure (13 page)

Every injustice Mrs. Wentworth had ever heaped on me came to my mind—all the times I’d held my tongue, all the thoughts I’d had of striking out at her.
It will soon be over
, I told myself. I just needed to find the strength to wait a little longer.

“Would you like me to turn your bed down, ma’am?” I asked, hoping she didn’t have plans to complete the bracelet before going to sleep. Some evenings she’d stay awake for hours, poring over the latest
Harper’s Bazar
or
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News
. By the time I’d get down to the kitchen, Nestor would be dozing in his chair.

“Yes, of course,” she answered, waving me away with an air of irritation. “I just want to finish this portion so I’ll have a decent place to start when I come back to it.” She took the ribbon that had once tied my braid and placed it between the pages of her book.

Patience wins the day, Miss Fenwick
.

Despite not being allowed in Mrs. Wentworth’s sleeping quarters, Nestor knew every gem, bangle and ring that lay inside her jewellery box. He’d catalogued the trinkets in his mind, keeping track of his master’s generosity each time he’d presented his wife with a gift at home or sent her something precious from abroad.

With each maid’s departure, he’d instructed the girl to dip her fingers into the box’s drawers and take two pieces of jewellery—one for the girl and one for him. The items he chose were ones he knew Mrs. Wentworth had reserved for the social season later in the year. They were expensive pieces, laden with diamonds and other jewels, ornaments that looked best in the sparkling candlelight of dinner parties and winter balls. Mrs. Wentworth hadn’t yet noticed that other pieces had gone missing, and with any luck, she wouldn’t become aware of my thievery until long after I was gone.

“Miss Fenwick,” Mrs. Wentworth called after sliding herself under the sheets. “It’s been such a trying day. Won’t you sing me to sleep?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. She’d requested I sing to her on several occasions, ordering me to hold her hand until I was sure she’d drifted off. Out of all the chores I performed as her maid, this was the one thing that never felt like a bother. I liked knowing that my voice was the last sound in the room, that my footsteps, my leaving, would be unknown to her.

“What would you like to hear?” I asked, reaching for her hand.

Tracing the edge of the bandages that covered my wound, she said, “Anything is fine, so long as it’s not one of Mr. Pastor’s songs. His sentiments don’t sit well with me.”

So I sang “Tenting Tonight,” and then all the verses of “Beautiful Dreamer.” Finally, halfway through “Hard Times Come Again No More,” her hand went limp and her lips parted with dreaming.

“Why don’t I just take it all, Nestor, and you can leave with me?”

“Oh no, Miss Fenwick, that would never do. My dear Polly needs me to be wiser than that. I’m no good to her if I’m locked away in the Tombs. Besides, who would save all the sweet little girls like you?”

There’s a pale drooping maiden
Who toils her life away
With a warm heart whose better days are o’er:
Though her voice would be merry
,
’Tis sighing all the day–
Oh! Hard Times come again no more
.
’Tis a song, the sigh of the weary
Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more;
Many days you have lingered
Around my cabin door
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more
.

M
y going was much like my coming had been—footsteps echoing on the tile of the front hall, the sound of the clock ticking in the quiet of the night. I bid farewell to the cherub on the stairs, this time touching its cheeks, its wings and its toes while Nestor waited impatiently by the door.

The most troublesome aspect of stealing the jewels had been putting the key back without waking Mrs. Wentworth.

Be sure to return the key to where you found it. Touch wood, we’ll both be on to better things by the time she figures it out
.

Although she kept the box in the dressing room, she hid the key inside a small ginger jar that sat on the bedside table. I knew the whole of the room by heart, so even in the dark,
taking
the key was easy.

But afterwards, Mrs. Wentworth’s jewels stuffed deep inside my pockets, I moved too fast. The key slipped from my bandaged fingers and fell, jangling against the bottom of the jar. As Mrs. Wentworth’s breathing hastened, I froze, thinking for certain she’d wake. Thankfully, she only let out a sigh and turned in her sleep.

Nestor had wanted a collar of pearls and diamonds with a heart-shaped pendant. Sometime soon, he’d said, he’d take it to be fenced, handing it over to a shopkeeper on Clinton Street in exchange for cash. He’d add the money to the rest of the savings he was putting aside for Polly’s passage to New York. Caroline was to receive a share as well—a reward for being at the ready to distract Mrs. Wentworth if needed and to forget everything that had happened when all was said and done.

My reward was a heavy gold bracelet, coiled three times round and made to look like a snake. It had rubies for eyes and the length of its back was set with a line of brilliant green stones. “A token of affection from Mr. Wentworth,” Nestor had said. “Christmas 1869.” The couple had gotten into a terrible row that year over Mr. Wentworth requesting lemon tart instead of Mrs. Wentworth’s family’s traditional pudding. Mrs. Wentworth hadn’t worn the trinket since.

In the course of my seeing to her daily attire, I’d held several pieces of her jewellery in my hands, usually only long enough to fasten a clasp around her neck, or to slip a bangle over her wrist. Before I left her quarters that night, I loosened my sleeve and slid the bracelet past my elbow and halfway up my arm. It was then I understood why wealthy women demanded such ornaments from their lovers. It wasn’t about the way the thing looked or the number of gems that spotted it—it was how the gold felt on my skin. Even though I knew I’d have to give it up, for Mama’s sake as well as my own, feeling that precious metal turning warm against my flesh was a delicious victory all its own.

Without Nestor’s knowledge, I took something else from Mrs. Wentworth’s dressing room. He may well have supported me if I’d asked, but I wanted the thing so badly I didn’t dare risk his refusal. Fastening Mrs. Wentworth’s fan to a ribbon around my neck, I slid it under the collar of my dress and let it rest between my breasts. Whether I’d choose to sell it or keep it remained to be seen, but at least I could be sure it would never again be used for cruelty.

“Won’t she come after me?” I asked Nestor, after we’d left the house. I was worried that even if I got away, Mrs. Wentworth would rage down to Chrystie Street and force me to return.

“She’ll complain bitterly. She’ll say good help is hard to find and that charity is a useless endeavour best left to clergymen and nuns, but rest assured, by the day’s end she’ll have another girl to take your place.”

Closing my eyes, I wished the girl well, whoever she might be.

Nestor pointed to a horse and cart waiting down the street. “It’s not Mrs. Wentworth’s carriage,” he said apologetically. “The driver she’s been using isn’t a steady enough fellow for me. I don’t trust him.”

For a moment I thought that this would be our goodbye, but Nestor walked me to where the wagon stood. After a brief conversation with the man who owned the cart, he helped me to the driver’s seat and then hopped up and settled beside me, taking hold of the reins.

“Mr. Gideon Hawkes … now there’s a good man,” Nestor said, snapping the reins to start the horse moving and then nodding to the gentleman who was now walking away. “He delivers every kind of household item you can imagine in this rig—precious cargo mostly, statues, paintings, porcelain vases taller than you. He’s offered me a share in the business when I’m ready—Hawkes and Coates, movers, at your service.” Smiling at me, he asked, “How’s that sound to your ears?”

The houses were dark, the street almost empty. The only light came from street lamps that flickered along the sidewalk. Although I’d only been there a month, it seemed a lifetime since I’d been out in the air, outside the walls of that wretched house. Steam rose off the pavers—they’d seen rain within the hour. Leaves, wet and turning in the crease of the curb, heralded the arrival of autumn.

“Second Avenue will take us there,” I told Nestor after he’d inquired as to the best way to get me home. As we approached Miss Keteltas’ house, I asked him to go slow so I could look into the shadows of her garden. Even though I couldn’t see much, I imagined her birds at the window, singing to me, inviting me to crawl through the fence once more.

A shiver went through me as the cart’s wheels chattered over Houston Street. A group of men crossed in front of us, swaying this way and that, leaning on one another as they walked. I was sure they’d come from the Bowery, howling their way from dance hall to brothel to home. There were fires in barrels on the curbs. Boys and men crowded around them, their faces lit up with sparks and the glow of the flames. Two youths were picking up dried clods of horse dung in the street and pitching them at a barrel to feed their fire.

Then I could feel the wheels of the cart gumming up with Chrystie Street muck. Beggars and children were sleeping on steps, or huddled in storefronts. Lamps and candles lit up windows here and there, crooked panes of glass with red shades drawn. I rubbed my hands together and breathed warm air into them, my belly twisting.

Mama was sure to be angry with me. I only hoped she’d listen long enough for me to explain the reasons for my departure and to tell her that I’d found a better way for the both of us.

It had occurred to me, while picking through Mrs. Wentworth’s jewellery, that my actions, so long as they remained undiscovered, might be the start of something much bigger. The idea that I could get away with thievery (countless times perhaps) thrilled me to no end. My success at stealing would be my defence against the anger Mama was bound to show me. Stealing, I would argue, was the remedy for all our troubles.

She’ll come around
, I thought as the cart came ever closer to her door.
I just have to get her to listen
.

Mrs. Devlin James
, I would begin.
You’ll be like Mrs. Devlin James, Mama
.

Mrs. James lived over on Orchard Street and visited Mama from time to time to discuss matters of the heart. She had been married to Mr. Devlin James (a.k.a. Patrick Silver, a.k.a. Patrick Gold, a.k.a. Patrick Dymond, et cetera). The couple, unremarkable in their lives (he swept the streetcar tracks and hoisted bricks for masons; she made paper bags, folding the brown sheets, one, two, three, and creasing them with sticky, smelly glue), carried on much like everyone else, until the day Mr. James decided that he was going to make the most of the war.

The Union had kindly provided a way out for men who did not wish to serve. For the sum of three hundred dollars, a gentleman could be freed from his duty. The only catch was he also had to provide a substitute to take his place. As the war dragged on, bounties for substitutes soared, often reaching as high as a thousand dollars or more. Agencies specializing in the brokerage of such agreements set up shop throughout the city and across the whole of the North. Every other block soon boasted a substitute broker, a tintype dealer, and an embalming service, all for the sake of the soldier.

One morning in the spring of 1863, Mr. James kissed his wife goodbye and walked into one such office on Third Avenue. He signed the paper with an
X
, a document which promised him “sufficient consideration” for his service. He sent the bounty home to Mrs. James, who promptly stuffed the money inside her mattress. Over the course of the next six months, Mr. James repeated this same process several times over, slipping away before reaching the front line, disappearing from telegraph-line repair duty, getting captured by and escaping the enemy—while Mrs. James waited patiently at home.

Then, during one of Mr. James’ self-appointed furloughs in the city, he chose to visit a woman on Mott Street rather than going straight home to his wife. Mrs. James, in her scorn, became something of a patriot, and did not hesitate to turn her husband in for bounty jumping. “I know a man,” she announced to a policeman stationed at General Dix’s office, “who has deserted his country and his wife several times over.” Two weeks later her husband was executed by firing squad at Governor’s Island.

After crying over his body and making arrangements for his remains, Mrs. James took her mattress, moved to Ohio and changed her name. Within a year, she had become Mrs. Frederick C. Mills. Not long after, she sent Mama a letter to say that Mr. Mills had bought her a three-storey house with a mansard roof in a town called Cincinnati.