by Ami McKay
How can I forget?
S.F.
Miss Everett chose to take me on. “You’ll do fine,” she’d said, putting her hand on my shoulder after the doctor was done with me. “I’m sure of it.”
At first blush, life in the house seemed near perfect. Vases filled with pink buds of affection graced every room. Boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine sat crowded together on a marble table at the bottom of the stairs, the cards attached to them addressed to Miss Sutherland, Miss Mills, Miss Duval. Even the house’s cook, Mrs. Coyne, was everything a girl would want her to be, friendly and warm—the opposite of Caroline. She welcomed me with a bowl of chicken stew and a hearty “Pleased to meet you, miss,” the minute I sat down for the first time at her kitchen table. The stew, made from the better parts of a bird, fresh carrots and peas, wasn’t quite as tasty as the dishes Caroline had served Nestor and me, but it was still far above anything I’d ever gotten at home. I tipped the bowl to catch the last drops of broth in my spoon, not wanting to leave them behind.
“Save something for the rag-woman’s pot,” Miss Everett scolded, suddenly appearing at my shoulder.
I dropped the spoon in the bowl, handle clattering against the rim. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Bristling at my clumsiness, she reached out to take the bowl. “Manners over appetite,” she chided. “Grace knows no hunger.”
Mrs. Tuesday was the rag-lady who’d come knocking at Mrs. Wentworth’s kitchen door once a week. The hunched-over woman collected leftovers and rags in exchange for the buttons and spools of thread she carried in her two-wheeled cart. Her rig was pulled by a pair of Swissy dogs wearing collars of bells that jangled as they walked. On Tuesdays, Nestor took care to save the bones from Mrs. Wentworth’s plate so he could give them to the woman’s dogs. In good weather, he and Mrs. Tuesday would share tea on the basement steps. Before leaving, the rag-lady would sing a song for him, her voice rising up the bricks of the house and over the roof, filling the air with sadness and despair. I wondered if the woman who came to Miss Everett’s back door could sing like that.
After I’d finished my meal, a young man came into the kitchen carrying a basket filled with boots. The pungent scent of blacking came with him. When he saw Miss Everett he set the basket down and pulled the faded soldier’s cap he was wearing off his head. “The girls’ boots is shined, Miss Everett,” he said. “Anything else you need?”
His voice was strangely rough compared to his clean-shaven, soft-looking face. His brows, thick and dark, shaded large eyes with long lashes. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his sinewy arms hung down at his sides, their length putting his age somewhere between boy and man.
“Draw a bath for Miss Fenwick in Rose’s room, won’t you, Cadet?”
“Yes, Miss Everett,” he responded. Taking two buckets from hooks on the wall, he set to work.
A tin washtub near the kitchen door was what Miss Everett said would normally be used for my bathing, but for my first bath in the house I was to use Miss Rose Duval’s copper tub. “It was a gift from her lover,” Miss Everett explained with pride, “delivered as a surprise for her seventeenth birthday.”
I lost count as Cadet carried bucket after bucket of water from the heated boiler attached to Mrs. Coyne’s stove, his hands turning red as he gripped their rope handles. His hair fell in his eyes and sweat dripped from his brow, and I felt terrible about the effort he was making on my behalf. If I’d had the courage I would’ve asked Miss Everett to tell him to stop, that surely he had carried enough hot water, but I was afraid to question anything she said for fear she might turn me back out onto the street.
Rose’s room was warm with the glow of fire and lamplight when we arrived. There was a bouquet of red roses on her dressing table along with a collection of perfume bottles and a silver brush and comb. Gilded mirrors—round, oval, oblong and square—covered an entire wall, reflecting the image of the plump-lipped, dark-eyed beauty waiting to greet me. With her dressing gown open at the neck and her dark hair spiralling around her shoulders, I could see why she’d thought to be an actress. Even half dressed Rose was something of a star.
“I’ll leave Miss Fenwick to you,” Miss Everett said to Rose.
“Certainly,” Rose replied. Shutting the door after the madam had gone, she turned to me and said, “Right this way.”
“Thank you, Miss Duval.”
“Please, call me Rose.”
Taking a small blue bottle from her dressing table, she pulled the stopper and shook a few drops of lavender-scented perfume into the bath. “Don’t be shy,” she said with a sweet smile. “Modesty makes the water turn cold.”
The tub was near the fireplace, half hidden from the rest of the room by a tall, three-panelled screen. Decorated with scenes from the Orient, the screen reminded me of Mrs. Wentworth’s fan, the creatures painted on it staring at me with fierce, hungry eyes.
Handing me a cake of soap, Rose directed me behind the screen. “You can undress back there.”
I brought the soap to my nose and inhaled the strong, spicy scent of carnations. It had yet to be used—the cake’s edges were still square. The innocent lump of lye and fat seemed quite a luxury, especially compared to the slivers Caroline used to have me fetch from Mrs. Wentworth’s bath for us.
“I’m here if you need me,” Rose called from the other side of the screen.
I’d watched mothers dunk their babies into washtubs in the courtyard on the hottest days of the summer. The children would squeal from the shock of it, then giggle with glee. Mama had turned her nose up at the sight of them, so I was sure she’d never done the same for me. She had strict ideas about how to stay clean and tried her best to keep the water she used running like a river, according to Gypsy law. She only washed herself straight from the pump or with water poured from a pitcher over her skin, and never allowed the water in the shallow tub under her feet to collect past her ankles. “Baths breed sickness,” she’d say, shaking her head.
The tub was large enough for me to stretch my legs nearly straight. Sinking into the warm, steaming bath, I scrubbed the oily sourness of the city off my skin, and then slid down until I could rest my head on the smooth, rounded edge of the tub. Comfort, ease and hopefulness conjured by the water, I would gladly have spent half the night lounging there. Mama could keep her superstitions.
“This is for when you’re finished,” Rose said, as a dressing gown appeared over the top of the screen. “There’s no hurry, though. Mr. Chief of Detectives is busy keeping the peace tonight, so I’ve got the room to myself.”
Muslin clinging to my skin, I came from behind the screen to warm myself by the fire. I flinched when I spotted my reflection in Rose’s mirrors. The bath had caused my hair to spring into a curly halo that stuck out every-which-way from my head. It would be months before it would fall past my shoulders and I could plait it into one long braid.
“Come sit,” Rose said, patting the seat of the dressing table’s chair. “Let me see what I can do.”
Settling there, I watched as Rose took up a bottle of Circassian oil and poured a generous amount of the sweet-smelling liquid into her hand. The bottle’s label featured a winsome girl gazing at a bird in a cage. Her long, wavy hair, nourished and tamed by the magical lotion, flowed to the ground. After rubbing the oil into her palms, Rose stroked it into my hair, calming my curls.
“I swear by the stuff,” she said. “I use it morning and night.”
Opening a porcelain box that sat next to her brush and comb, Rose took out a rat of hair that had been fashioned into a sausage-shaped twist. “I had nits as a child and my mother cut my hair more than once. I save every strand now for fear I’ll lose it again.”
With combs and patience and the rat of her hair, Rose went about making it seem like my locks were as long as they’d ever been. No matter how I turned my head, it looked as if I’d simply chosen to pin my hair up into a sweet, lovely bun.
“I’ll take extra care with the rat, I promise,” I t
old her, touching her creation lightly to see that it was secure.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got others,” Rose said with a smile.
While I was certain Mama’s tales about Mrs. Deery’s madness had been more show than truth, I planned to do my best not to think any ill thoughts while wearing Rose’s hair on my head. It was the least I could do.
“You got a first name, Miss Beautiful?” Rose teased, as she watched me admire myself and her handiwork in the mirror.
“Moth.”
“Moth?” She shook her head. “Miss Everett’s never going to let you keep that. You’d better change it before she changes it for you.”
Thinking she was making a joke, I didn’t respond.
“I was Ruth before I was Rose,” she confided. “Miss Everett said Ruth was far too biblical. I can just guess how she’ll feel about a girl being named after a bug. She’ll turn you into a flower or a state without a second thought. If you don’t want to be called Iris or Georgia, you’d better find something to call yourself instead of Moth. That’s certainly not your real name—what was the one your mother gave you?”
“Oh,” I said, pausing to think. “It’s Ada.”
“Ada,” Rose repeated, stretching the name out, her mouth wide open. “Aye-dahh … I like it. It has appeal.”
Putting a finger to my chin, I looked in the mirror and tried pouting like Mae had done with the oyster man. Moth. Moth Fenwick. Miss Fenwick. Miss Beautiful. Miss Ada Fenwick, beautiful girl. For the first time in my life I actually felt pretty.
“You’ve done wonders, Rose,” Miss Everett said as she came into the room, catching me still staring at myself in Rose’s mirror.
“Ada made it easy,” Rose replied, giving me a wink.
Coming to my side, Miss Everett whispered in my ear, “Careful with your pride, dear. You’ve still a ways to go.”
My face fell.
“That’s better,” she said, smiling. “Much better.”
A girl had one month’s grace before Miss Everett expected her to lie down with a man. “Give or take a week, depending on your willingness,” Mae explained. “If your training goes bad, or Miss Everett loses interest in you, then it’s back to the street.” If a girl did well, then the clothes and anything else she’d been given (so long as the bounty paid by the gentleman who took her maidenhood covered the cost) were hers to keep. As far as pocket money was concerned, Miss Everett didn’t pay a girl a penny until after she’d been had by a man.
Running a brothel wasn’t a lawful occupation, but Miss Everett and the other madams of the city had the advantage of numbers on their side. Manhattan was bursting with businessmen from near and far with large bank accounts and even larger appetites. Those who ruled the city from the private rooms of Tammany Hall turned a blind eye to their cravings. Boarding house matrons who catered to the needs of Mr. William Tweed and his friends were not only favoured by the mayor’s office but rewarded for their efforts with protection by (and from) the law. Rose’s ongoing affair with the Chief of Detectives was proof of that.
“She all but told me she’s leaving to be kept by the Chief,” Mae announced to Alice and me as we sat talking in our room a few days after my arrival. Primping in front of her dressing table mirror she added, “After Rose is gone, her room will be open for whichever girl’s next.”
There was overwhelming confidence in Mae’s voice, in her posture and her attitude. She was certain that she was going to be the next girl. With only space for three full-time whores in the house, most girls who got their start at Miss Everett’s didn’t stay in her employ. They went on to work at brothels (of equal standing or better), their services bought by madams who hadn’t the ability or patience to deal with the delicacies of brokering a girl’s first time.
“Missouri Mills says sometimes Miss Everett will double up girls in a room if she thinks they merit keeping,” Alice chimed in. “There might be room for all of us.”
We three near-whores, Mae, Alice and I, shared the upstairs quarters—the room where Dr. Sadie had examined me. There was teasing and rivalry of course, and sometimes sharp words, but, in the short time I’d been there, there’d been more kindness than cruelty. We were sisters of a sort—with Miss Everett acting as our strange, sly mother.
Mae had been at the house three weeks, Alice, half that. It had only been five days since I arrived, and already I’d been given three sets of undergarments, several pairs of stockings, two day dresses with petticoats, a pair of boots, a soft bustle and a corset. I’d accepted the clothing without question, but after Mae made it clear how things worked, I’d begun to keep a list of everything Miss Everett put in my hands. Recording each item in the margins of an 1868 Harper’s Bazar I found under my mattress, I was determined that my accounting would match Miss Everett’s, line for line.
No matter how things added up, I was glad to be a pampered girl without a care. Miss Ada Fenwick had nice dresses, a full belly and a soft bed. Better than that, she had prospects and a chance at a life I’d never known.
My biggest trouble so far had been adjusting to my corset. Made from English leather and lined with muslin, it featured a system of buckles woven around it to supply added strength to the laces down the back. “You’re to wear it day and night, until further notice,” Rose had said as she fitted the stays to me, tightened the buckles one by one, then pulled hard on the laces.
Excited by the comeliness of my reflection in her many mirrors, I’d said “yes” to her pulling the laces ever tighter. The crush of the corset around my ribs was stifling, but I kept my shoulders back and my body upright in an effort to cooperate with the garment rather than struggle against it. I wasn’t about to let something that had seemed so simple for Mrs. Wentworth defeat me.
“Here, Ada,” Alice said, coming over to where I was sitting on my bed, “shall I let you loose for the night?”
Each evening Alice had taken pity on me and loosened my corset so I could sleep. She’d worn one since she was really young, and her torso was wonderfully curved, her waist small from years of training. Miss Everett didn’t require her to wear a corset at night, which, it seemed, made her all the more sympathetic to my pain.
“Yes, please,” I said, turning my back to her, anxious for relief.
Rather than getting ready to retire, Mae was donning a fresh dress, and adorning herself with her favourite hat and a drop of neroli oil behind each ear. She had plans to go to the Bowery Concert Hall, a nearby saloon that offered free admission to pretty young girls. They held dances there every night, including Sundays. Although Miss Everett had made it clear that we weren’t allowed to go out after dark, Mae, having climbed out of (and back into) the window the week before without being discovered, was determined to try her luck again.
“You’re going out again?” Alice asked, shocked at Mae’s behaviour.
“Amantes sunt amentes,” Mae declared in a flirty voice. “Lovers are lunatics, my dear.”
Alice shook her head and sighed.
“Stop fretting,” Mae scolded. “I’ll be home long before the house wakes.”
“If Miss Everett discovers what you’re up to she’ll put you out on the street.”
Taking Alice’s hand, Mae stared at her with wide eyes. “But she won’t find out, now, will she?”
Pulling her hand away, Alice muttered, “No.”
“I only want to dance with some pretty gents before I’m sent to Rose’s room,” Mae complained. “Have you seen Mr. Chief of Detectives?”
“Rose likes him just fine,” Alice argued. “He takes her to the theatre, and to Delmonico’s for steak and oysters, and to Sunday dinner parties at the Birnbaums’.”
“Mrs. Wolfe Birnbaum, on Clinton Street?” I asked, picturing Mrs. Birnbaum’s magpie squawking through her mistress’s parties, begging for cake.
“That’s the place,” Mae answered, giving me a curious look. “You’ve been there?”
“Only in the shop,” I answered, and said no more.
; Telling the truth about why I’d been at the Birnbaums’ might have gotten me some respect from Mae, but now that I’d chosen whoring over thieving, I didn’t want there to be any reason for Miss Everett not to trust me.
“Rose says Mrs. Birnbaum’s dinner parties are over-the-top affairs,” Alice said as she changed into her dressing gown. “Her tables are set with fine china, linens, silver and crystal, all stolen from the richest homes in the city.
“The sideboard’s crowded with sweets and pastries, wine flows from a fountain, and Piano Charlie, the best-dressed house thief in the city, sits at the keys, playing whatever Mrs. Birnbaum requests, all night long. There’s always at least one duke, princess, baroness, lord, lady or senator in attendance, as well as the finest safecrackers, jewel thieves and confidence men.”
Ignoring Alice’s prattling, Mae came to me and pointed to the ribbon around my neck. “Let me borrow it,” she said, gesturing to Mrs. Wentworth’s fan.
I shook my head. Though we’d begun to share things, trusting combs and hatpins to each other’s care, the fan was off limits. “You know I always keep it with me.”
“You owe me, Ada …”
“Then I’ll have to keep owing you.”
Alice intervened, trying to make peace between Mae and me. “It was her mother’s. It’s her good luck charm.”
Giving up and heading for the window, Mae said, “I don’t need it. I make my own luck.” Then she was gone.
“Don’t let Mae fool you,” Alice said after the other girl had disappeared into the night. “She’s as soft-hearted as you or me.”
I wasn’t sure that anyone could be as soft-hearted as Alice. At sixteen, she bore the innocent air of a much younger girl. Fate had dealt her a terrible blow—her parents and her sister had died from the tailor’s cough in the space of a year—but she hadn’t let it break her. She’d sold her family’s belongings (her mother’s silver spoons, her father’s pocket watch, her sister’s best dresses) in an effort to survive. When everything of value was gone, she went to work at Mr. Mueller’s bakery, fixing sugar roses and bows to cakes with pink apple jelly. One bow, one rose, one bow, one rose. It was simple work, and she understood how it should go, but haunted by hunger, she’d turned into a thief by the end of her first week. Crumbs on her cheek, icing sugar on her lips, she’d told Mr. Mueller she couldn’t help herself. “I understand,” the baker said, and then, slapping a rolling pin against his palm, he stood over Alice and told her that she wasn’t to return. That’s when Mae came to her rescue.
