by Ami McKay
“Remember Mrs. Deery?”
“Yes, Mama, I remember.”
“Remember what happened?”
“Yes, Mama.”
Mrs. Deery was dead. Mama said it was because the woman’s sister got angry with her, stole her hair and gave it to a bird. The bird flew off to a hole under the roof and then set about weaving Mrs. Deery’s hair into its nest. While the bird sewed the hair round and round, back and forth, between sticks and spiderwebs, Mrs. Deery fell into madness. She got so she couldn’t think straight anymore. She was sure that everyone was out to get her. She walked the streets, turning in circles and forgetting her name.
One day she spun herself right off the curb and was hit by a delivery wagon. There was nothing the driver could do. As barrels of fish tumbled off his cart, Mrs. Deery cried out from under the wheel, “She put a curse upon me! She wished for me to die …”
Whenever Mama’s receiver got too full, she’d take the hair and use it to fill her pincushion. It kept her needles and pins shiny and free from rust. When that hair got old, she’d take it out of the cushion, recite a charm over it and throw it into the fire.
Mama’s hair was so black it was almost blue. She could’ve sold it to Mr. Darling the wigmaker over on the Bowery and gotten enough money to last us a good month or more. Even when our bellies growled so loud they kept us from sleep, Mama refused to give up her hair.
Once, when we’d gone three days without eating, I begged her to let me go see Mr. Darling.
“Go on, if you like,” she’d said, shrugging and rolling her eyes. “But when you’re mad with not knowing who you are, don’t expect me to remind you.”
Hungry and out to prove myself, I went straight to Mr. Darling’s door. I was sure it was Mama’s vanity, rather than Mrs. Deery’s ghost, that kept her from parting with her hair. She’d leave one long curl dangling down past her cheek whenever she went to see Mr. Piers, or when she knew Mr. Cowan was coming to collect the rent. Twirling her hair with her finger, she’d stare at them with crazy eyes as if she meant to hold them under a spell. Sometimes, if she caught me watching, she’d give me a sly wink as if to say, This, Moth, is how it’s done.
I wished Mama hadn’t felt she had to conjure up poor Mrs. Deery to get me to behave. I loved her, I wanted to please her any way I could, but most of all, I wanted her to trust me with the truth.
Standing outside Mr. Darling’s shop, I watched the women come, then go, scarves wrapped tight around their heads to hide their sacrifice. One woman, after catching her reflection in a shop window, began to tug at what little hair was left on her head. She pulled it from under the sides of her scarf and then smoothed the short wisps down in front of her ears. Crowning glory gone, by magic or necessity, she’d been defeated.
I didn’t let Mr. Darling take my hair. I went behind the stalls at Tompkins Market and showed my ankles to Mr. Goodwin instead. For two bruised apples and half a loaf of stale bread, I let him rub his bristly beard against my leg.
I went home, handed the bread to Mama, and said, “I’m not a child anymore.”
Soon after Mrs. Wentworth rang the bell, Nestor came rushing into the room. “You called, ma’am?” he asked, then frowned when he spotted the blood that was dripping from my hand to the floor.
Slipping my braid inside her desk, Mrs. Wentworth motioned for Nestor to approach and spoke to him as if she were sharing a confidence. “As you can see, there’s been an accident. The girl has made an awful mess. Take care of her, won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nestor answered, bowing politely before turning his attention to me.
“And tell Caroline I wish to speak with her immediately,” Mrs. Wentworth added. “There’s much work to be done.”
“Of course,” Nestor replied. Placing his hand on the small of my back, he said, “Come along, Miss Fenwick.”
Once we were on the other side of the door, I began to sob.
“Shh, quiet now,” Nestor whispered. “If she hears you, it will only make things worse.”
After leading me to the kitchen and sitting next to me at the table, Nestor rinsed my hand in a bowl of water. I watched the blood cloud and swirl, turning everything red. I feared, any moment, that Mrs. Wentworth would come tearing down the stairs, scissors in hand, ready to slice my dress open and cut out my heart.
“Dry your hand,” Nestor instructed, offering me a clean, white tea towel. “Hold it fast to the cut until the bleeding stops. Then I’ll dress it for you.”
I nodded to him but didn’t speak. Unsteady without the rudder of my braid nagging at my neck, I felt there was nothing left for my head to do except wobble. I had no weight for it to carry, no purpose or pride.
“It looks like we’ve reached the end of Chrystie Street,” Caroline announced as she came into the room. She’d been to the parlour and back, no doubt returning with a long list of orders from Mrs. Wentworth.
“Hush, Caroline,” Nestor scolded as he began to tear a piece of linen into long, thin strips. “There’s no need for that.”
Sulking, she went to the cabinet where she kept all her spices and pulled out a large, brown bottle. “Soak the cloth in Foucher’s before you put it on,” she said to Nestor as she set the bottle on the table. “It’ll keep the wound clean and help it heal.”
Nestor caught her by the arm and smiled. “Why, Caroline, how kind,” he teased. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
She put her hand on her hip and scowled. She looked as if she were about to let loose on him, but catching sight of the towel I was using to soak up the blood, she stopped herself. “There’s no sense to it,” she muttered as she turned to go back to her chores. “No sense to it at all.”
Unable to bear the thought of facing Mrs. Wentworth again, I whispered to Nestor, “Help me get out of here. I’ll do anything you ask.”
“I will, but now is not the time.”
“She means to kill me,” I told him, my voice now shaking. “I know it.”
“Patience wins the day, my dear,” he whispered back.
When he’d finished tending to my hand, he walked me to my room and told me to stay there until he returned. “I’ll come for you soon, I promise.”
I paced from corner to corner for the longest time. Reaching under my mattress, I fished out the charm I’d made to call Mr. Wentworth home and tore it to bits. My hand still hurt, but the dressing Caroline had suggested had soothed it enough that the pain was now a dull ache.
Three times I climbed on top of the wooden stand of the washbasin, trying to reach the skylight. Neither the stand nor the ceiling’s height ever changed, and no matter how I stretched, my hand never got any closer to the glass. I attempted to push the wardrobe across the floor, first with my shoulder and then my back, but found its weight too much. I’d hoped I might scale the thing to freedom.
When there was nothing else for me to try, no furniture left to move, I stood at Caroline’s streaky, pitted mirror and stared at the damage Mrs. Wentworth had done. I’d pulled my hair away from my face every morning for most of my life, but what I saw now was altogether different. Covered in bruises, I was boyish and ugly, so square-faced and lopsided I was sure even Mama wouldn’t know me.
Running the tips of my fingers through what was left of my hair, I turned my head one way and then the other. Even the lowest working girl—the thread puller, the pin maker, the scullery maid—can think herself pretty if she has the winding twist of a bun or a long braid at her neck. She knows that at the end of the day she’ll let it loose, tresses falling down around her shoulders, covering her breasts. She’ll comb her hair over the edge of her hand, imagining what it would be like for someone else to perform the task for her. Such pleasures would not be mine again for quite some time.
The room had gone dark with evening before Nestor returned. I ran to the door as soon as I heard his hand on the latch.
“I’m ready,” I said, holding the pillowcase Mama had given me when I’d left home. Everything I owned was
stowed safely inside it. Miss Sweet was snug in one corner so there’d be no chance of my losing her.
“Not yet,” he said, entering and shutting the door behind him.
I stepped away from him, guessing what he might be after. I feigned innocence, hoping to put him off a little while longer. “I know I should give back the dress,” I said, walking quickly to the wardrobe. “But there are at least a dozen more in here just like it, you can see for yourself … and this one suits me so well. I doubt my old one even fits anymore—”
“Quiet, Miss Fenwick,” he said, moving towards me.
Desperate to be free from Mrs. Wentworth, I’d planned on letting him have any favour he asked of me. Now that he was standing here, I wasn’t sure I could see my way to it.
“I’ve n-never …” I stammered.
“And you won’t,” Nestor said, shaking his head in dismay. “Certainly not by my hand. I should hope you’d think better of yourself and of me, Miss Fenwick.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, apologizing. “It’s just, I want so badly to leave, and when you shut the door, I thought—Please, Nestor, I want to go home.”
Looking to me with a grave face, he said, “Mrs. Wentworth has requested your company.”
“No,” I replied, tears coming to my eyes. “I can’t go to her. I won’t—”
“I’m afraid you must,” he said. Then he put his arm around my shoulder in a gesture of comfort. “She says sleep won’t come to her without you there. And I can’t set you free until she’s asleep.”
“Don’t make me …” I pleaded.
Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he handed it to me and said, “Dry your eyes and listen carefully. You must do exactly as I say.”
Hair Work! Hair Work! We cannot recommend this artistic pastime highly enough to all ladies. It is the only means by which the precious remains of a cherished child, husband, or mother can be indefinitely preserved. For, at the moment of a painful bereavement, what can be more piously kept than their hair? Enjoy the inexpressible advantage of knowing that the material of your handiwork is the actual hair of the loved and gone. The benefits of doing your own hairwork are many. Those who learn the craft for themselves are free from nightmares of body snatchers and anatomists (devils of the night who seek to turn profit from remains not long in the grave). Many believe the power of these personal effects has no limits. We have received several reports testifying that upon completion of a necklace, bracelet or watch chain, the spirit of a loved one was felt near – their strength, their vibrations, their life-force all present. Although we make no claims as to the veracity of these statements, it cannot be denied that, through these precious objects, something of a life that was lost belongs, once again, to the living.
Mrs. Wentworth was sitting at the tea table in her room when I arrived, concentrating on some sort of handiwork. A man’s top hat was perched on the edge of the table in front of her, long threads dangling from its flat surface, a handful of pins keeping them in place. Each strand was weighted with a wooden bobbin, the kind that grandmothers and legless men in dusty storefronts used to make lace. The bobbins clacked together as Mrs. Wentworth’s fingers moved, and stopped each time she checked her progress in the small book she was holding in her lap.
“Miss Fenwick,” she said, without looking up from her work. “Come see what’s become of your beautiful hair.”
Scared that she might be planning to lash out at me again, I moved towards her with caution, holding onto Nestor’s words for courage. You must hold back emotion, refuse impulse. Act according to plan.
This was not the first time he’d instructed a girl on how to break free from Mrs. Wentworth. According to him, there had been two other maids before me, one who’d been left with a scar on her cheek from Mrs. Wentworth’s signet ring, and another who had lasted only a week.
“Lovely so far, isn’t it?” she said as I came close. She was criss-crossing the strands of my hair to form the beginnings of a bracelet. Although it had been prepared in such a way that it now looked more like embroidery floss than my hair, it was all I could do not to tear it from her hands. “It’s this one, here,” she said, holding up the book and pointing to the page. “The Maiden’s Wreath.”
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.
My 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 impati
ently 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.
