The Virgin Cure (25 page)

“If a gentleman won’t wait for you, then you must show him his mistake,” Missouri said, throwing Cadet a haughty look behind his back. “Next time, stand outside the door and watch until he’s through. If no apology is offered, then he’s not worthy of your time.”

I hadn’t minded what had happened, even if it was a mistake. My cheeks were flushed with something more than embarrassment, and as far as I was concerned Cadet had done more right than wrong.

Although Mae and Alice had already mastered the art of walking in such attire, they’d been asked to come to the parlour to act as models and walking companions for me. Ushering them into the room to join us, Missouri announced, “We’ll practise strolling first. Mae and Alice side by side, Ada following behind.”

I tried my best, but found it difficult to match their steady strides. Not allowing enough distance between us, I came far too close to Mae, catching the back of her skirt with the toe of my boot.

“Twice wasn’t enough?” Mae groused the third time I tripped her up.

“Sorry, Mae,” I apologized.

Turning from me, she resumed her promenade with Alice, her chin thrust high.

When I began to step after them again, I was overcome with nervous laughter, the picture of Mae’s prideful strut jerking to a halt playing over in my mind.

Alice, too, fell into a fit of giggles. Holding our sides, we both stopped short while Mae continued strutting around the room. Afraid of being sentenced to promenade the house for days on end, I’d wanted to do well, but Mae’s arrogance over the simple task of walking had made a comedy of the whole affair.

“Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate walking with a pail, Mae?” Missouri requested, trying to bring things back to the lesson at hand.

“I’d be happy to,” Mae replied.

Three pails, the size of the growlers Mr. Bartz used for serving beer at his shop, were sitting on a table along the wall, each one half-filled with water.

Throwing a mean look at Alice and me, Mae went to the table, lifted one of the small pails and placed it on her head. As she took her hands away from the pail and began to move, Miss Everett came into the room.

“Alice, please join Mae,” she said, taking the place next to Missouri on a nearby settee.

Mae whispered to me as she went past, the pail trembling. “This is how it’s done.”

Alice came next, moving more slowly than Mae, her cautious gait keeping her pail steady and straight.

“That’s how it’s done,” Miss Everett said, leaning over to me.

I’d known a woman on Chrystie Street who could dance while balancing her laundry basket or a bucket of suds on her head. She called herself Aunt Chickory. She’d been a slave in Georgia and her skin was as dark as a roasted nut. Every morning, she’d dance through the slippery muck-strewn alley, all the way to the back court.
“I’m gonna take the cake,”
she’d sing as she went,
“Master’s missy’s gonna say I’m the best.”

One morning when I’d stared at her too long, she grabbed me by the arm and made me dance with Mama’s egg basket perched on my head. My admiration for her along with my fear of what Mama might do if I broke her eggs made me a fast study.
“Take the cake, child. You gotta take that cake.”

Without being told, I went to the table now and put the last pail of water on my head. I walked a slow circle around Mae, shrugging and grinning like Aunt Chickory had taught me to do.

Arms folded and staring at me with disapproval Miss Everett brought my fun to an end. “That’s all for today,” she said. “Change out of your suit, Ada. You’ll want it fresh for your outing tomorrow.”

The next morning began with a visit from Dr. Sadie. It had been over a week since I’d seen her and I took a great deal of satisfaction in the look that came over her face when she saw me again. She actually let out a small gasp, staring at me as she made her way from the door to where I was sitting on my bed.

Placing her physician’s bag next to me she said, “I hardly know you, Miss Fenwick.”

She wore the fine but plain dress she’d worn when we first met, and she went about doing things much as she’d done then. She washed her hands, donned her apron, and asked me to “open wide” so she could inspect my mouth. The only thing she didn’t do this time was request I spread my legs.

There was a softness about her if you were careful to look for it. She had a pair of modest pearl earrings in her ears and her hair was arranged in a neat, perfect twist. It was evident that she cared about the way she looked, her gaze flitting to her reflection in my dressing table mirror every so often, as any other lady might have done.

When she was finished, she sat on the end of the bed, her modest bustle pressing awkwardly against the small of her back. “You’re still committed to Miss Everett’s plan for you?” she asked, frowning.

“Yes,” I answered, wishing she’d leave the subject alone.

“If you’re having doubts—”

“I’m not,” I insisted.

Dr. Sadie’s kindness was well intended, but if a place in a house of refuge was all she had to offer, then she must have known I’d turn her down. Working long hours at a factory or spending my days bent over a sewing machine was not what I wanted.

Smoothing a wrinkle in my skirt I said, “I’ve no wish to leave.”

“The Children’s Aid Society runs an orphan train that matches homeless children with couples who are eager to start a family,” she continued, placing a hand on my knee. “Most people are looking for healthy boys to help out on the farm, but there are others who long for a girl to make their lives complete. I could inquire at the Society on your behalf,” she said. “I know someone there who travels with the children on the train. He’d make sure you got into a good home.” Before I could reply she added, “Perhaps you and Alice could be placed together. Miss Everett mentioned the two of you have become quite close.”

It was true—the more I’d gotten to know Alice, the more I liked her. She was kind and quick to smile, and good company at mealtimes and at the end of the day. Even if she hadn’t possessed such qualities, I also could see that Miss Everett was starting to favour her somewhat over Mae, and I’d thought it best if I did the same.

“Alice wants to leave?” I asked.

“I don’t know for certain,” Dr. Sadie answered as she got up, removed her apron and tucked it away in her physician’s bag. “But I thought if you both were having second thoughts, then perhaps the two of you might be better off somewhere else.”

The idea of leaving New York made my stomach turn. It was one thing to have escaped Mrs. Wentworth, but it would be quite another to be stuck in a lonely pasture with nowhere to go. People in the city often thought of country folk as hayseeds, ignorant bodies made from naïveté and corn, easily parted from money and sense. I saw them differently. To me, they were the shadowy figures dotting the canvas of the painting in Miss Everett’s front parlour, strong enough to push a terrible-looking blade through the earth, hard creatures who could withstand the heat of a punishing sun.

“Thank you, but I’m fine,” I told Dr. Sadie. “Put it to Alice if you like, but I know my mind.”

Looking defeated she said, “As you wish.” Then she picked up her bag and headed out the door.

Alice had been especially nervous that morning, as she was to have her first luncheon date.

“It’s only tea and sandwiches in the parlour,” Mae said as a pink blush crept up Alice’s neck, threatening to turn to hives. Any talk of accepting an invitation to meet with a man seemed to send her from fret to itch in a matter of minutes.

Smitten with the notion of falling in love, she could never be like Mae. I worried over Alice the way I’d worried about Mama, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that love was the most dangerous thing on which to pin your hopes.

“You’ll do fine.” I gave her a quick hug and an affectionate peck on the cheek.

With Alice otherwise engaged, Miss Everett paired me with Mae for my first outing. The thought that Cadet was to accompany us, that I’d be so near him on our walk, had caused me to toss in my sleep.
Stay away from boys
, Mama’s voice had hissed the moment Cadet had entered my dreams.

The paths Miss Everett had her girls take on their outings were chosen with care. Mueller’s Bakery, where the madam had a standing order for tea cakes and
madeleines
was three doors down from a gentlemen’s club. Members of the club reserved the front window on Wednesdays at noon, fully aware of the schedule Miss Everett’s girls kept. “It’s a regular pastime for some,” Mae said with laugh. “You should see them lowering their papers to stare. I can’t smell the scent of baked goods without thinking of well-groomed men.”

My first public outing was to a pharmacy at Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue. We were to walk all the way to Fourteenth Street first, pass by a cafe on the corner, and then stop in at the pharmacy and collect whatever items Miss Everett had on her list of ladies’ necessities as we made our way home. It was a brisk but bright day, and I was glad for the cloudless sky, since I didn’t wish to brave rain or puddles in my new suit.

“Let’s catch a horsecar,” Mae suggested when we got to the Bowery. “I’ll pay.”

Cadet didn’t argue with the idea, but I wasn’t so sure about it. The streetcars that ran down the length of the Bowery and all the way up to Central Park were rattling, dirty transports, pulled along by burdened horses. They were generally filled with gentlemen and roughs, strangers from the country, and a few doubtful women. Mama had refused me permission to board one, ever. “Nothing waiting there for you but a groping,” she’d said.

Remembering what Alice had said about Mae having her heart set on buying a coffin plate for her mother, I asked, “Don’t you think you ought to keep your money?”

“It’s a long way there and back, and if your feet don’t hurt now, they will.”

Mama’s warnings aside, I didn’t want some rough to step on my skirts. “I don’t know—”

“You’re not scared, are you?” Mae bullied.

Arms folded, Cadet let out a snort.

“No,” I said, feeling my resolve turn in my gut like a worm.

Mae arched an eyebrow, knowing she was close to getting her way.

“Fine,” I said with as stern a face as I could muster. “We’ll ride the car there, but if my suit gets soiled, I’m walking back.”

When the streetcar arrived, Mae took three nickels out of her pocket and handed them to Cadet to give to the conductor. The sight of the coins passing from her hand made my heart twist with envy. She was so at ease with it, just as she’d been the day she’d taken me to Graff’s for oyster stew.

B
EWARE OF
P
ICKPOCKETS
, read a sign above the step.

“For me and the two ladies,” Cadet told the conductor, gesturing towards Mae and me.

The man let Cadet go by, then leered at Mae as she boarded the car, his gaze going up and down the length of her. “I believe there’ll be a seat towards the back there for ya, miss,” he said, reaching out to touch the small of Mae’s back in an attempt to guide her along.

“Thank you,” she said, briskly shouldering her way among the standing passengers.

The conductor tried to do the same with me, but I stuck close to Mae, reaching out to hold her sleeve. I’d lost sight of Cadet in the crowded car and was determined not to be parted from Mae as well.

The smells of pipe tobacco, liquor and sweat mingled with the occasional waft of horse dung from the bottom of a working man’s boot. As the car began to move, I took hold of the pole nearest me. Grabbing a spot too high for my reach, I stood on tiptoe, hoping to keep my skirt clean.

A man wearing a sack coat took the spot to the other side of me. His grey beard was streaked with tobacco stains, and I watched, helpless, as he closed his eyes and put his face near my hand, the scent of my perfumed glove sending him somewhere else, someplace he longed to be.

The businessmen on board were spending a great deal of effort to make as little contact with the other passengers as possible. It was an absurd kind of dance, and Mae, giving smiles and flirty glances to the men around her, looked quite happy to be in the middle of it.

As the streetcar slowed for the next stop, she stumbled into the embrace of a handsome young man. He was wearing a smart-looking hat and frock coat, his long, sleek sideburns pointing like arrows to the corners of his wide, red lips. There was a mole to the right of his nose, so perfect and round you’d swear he’d painted it there himself. Mae’s face brushed his shoulder as he slipped his arm around her waist to steady her. Knowing how Mae felt about Mr. Chief of Detectives and the other men who visited Miss Everett’s house, I was certain she’d made a point of singling the young man out from all the men on the horsecar.

Clearly enthralled by Mae’s charms, the young man puffed his chest out like one of the birds in Miss Keteltas’ parlour.

The next stop was his, but Mae wasn’t about to let him get away without giving him a sign of her interest. Glove to the side of her mouth, I heard her whisper, “Personal.”

When we got off at our stop, Mae rushed to Cadet’s side and slipped her arm through his. “Why, there you are,” she said with innocent eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.”

He let her take his arm, but the sour look on his face said he didn’t care much for her company. Happy to see this, I paid little attention to the windows of the café or the gentlemen seated there. It wasn’t until we reached the pharmacy that I really took in my surroundings.

B
RUNSWICK
A
POTHEKE
, the shop’s window read, in large, painted letters. M
R
. W
ILTON
H
UBER, PROPRIETOR
.