by Ami McKay
I thought of the night Mrs. Wentworth came to Chrystie Street and the small purse she dropped on the table for Mama. The question of how many coins it contained had stayed with me all this time. No matter Miss Everett’s reasons for not sharing Mr. Wentworth’s offer with me, I wasn’t about to be left wondering.
“I won’t go with him unless you tell me,” I said, challenging her.
“Don’t be foolish, Ada. Knowing that he’s willing to pay what I think you’re worth should be enough.”
“Please, I want to know.”
She finally said, “It’s more than Rose fetched, and until now, her bounty was the highest prize I’d ever been offered for a girl’s first time. Don’t you dare mention this to anyone else.”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll never fetch this much again in one night, but if all goes well, he’ll favour you and there will be gifts and perhaps a future with him, and that will make it all worthwhile.”
Two weeks after Alice was attacked, a chancre appeared where Mr. Samuels had forced himself on her. It blossomed into a shiny button of a sore. Wearing rubber gloves, Dr. Sadie applied a calomel salve to help it go away.
“I’m afraid things will only get worse from here,” she confided to me. She’d been expecting a chancre might appear and was now certain a fever would soon follow. “She’ll break out in a terrible rash that covers her whole body, even the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet.” Dr. Sadie had been stubborn about Alice’s care from the start, coming nearly every day to bring her medicine, comfort and sympathy. “There’s not much more I can do.”
Christmas came soon after that, and Miss Everett, in an attempt to return a sense of rightness to the house, made certain that the day was not forgotten. She postponed all regular business and turned the front parlour into a banquet hall, everything sparkling from top to bottom. Even the fruit on the table—the apples, pears, grapes and persimmons—glittered with sugar and candlelight.
Rose made a surprise visit from the Fifth Avenue Hotel, dressed in sable and diamonds, and both Missouri and Emily fawned over her, begging for the details of her new life. At dinner, Cadet, being the only gentleman in the house, sat at the head of the table, carving knife in hand.
Alice took it in with wide-eyed wonder, her eyes welling up with tears.
The day after Christmas, Miss Everett and Dr. Sadie went round and round about what should be done with Alice. Dr. Sadie had wanted to take her to the infirmary on Second Avenue, but there were no beds there for those with such diseases. The madam complained that she’d already let Alice stay at the house longer than she felt she should. She was worried that if anyone were to get word of the girl’s condition, her business would be ruined. In the end, Dr. Sadie dressed Alice in cloak and veil and took her from the house in the middle of the night, escorting her on the long trip to Charity Hospital on Blackwell’s Island. Cadet went along to say his goodbyes.
I was not allowed to go with them, so I bid Alice farewell at the door.
“Take care,” I said, my own eyes wet.
“Be well for both of us,” she replied.
Dr. Sadie accompanied me the following day on a walk to the pharmacy on Thirteenth Street.
“She’ll live, won’t she?” I asked her.
“Yes, most likely.”
“Will she ever be well?”
“No, not completely. You remember Miss Tully, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered, wanting her to leave it at that.
In an attempt to cheer me, she took my arm and told me that Mr. Hetherington had a new perfume oil I might like to try.
“And have you seen his fish?” she asked. “If you haven’t, you really should.”
Mr. Hetherington and Dr. Sadie lingered, chatting at the counter of the shop for at least an hour. He explained the qualities of this oil or that powder, while Dr. Sadie perched on a stool, listening raptly. I stood quietly looking at a fish as the two of them moved on to talk about how much each of them liked to think about thinking. Mr. Hetherington said he did his best thinking after. “After the bolt’s been thrown in the door … after I’ve turned the sign in the window so the world’s closed and I’m open.”
Dr. Sadie said she was much the same, and that every evening she’d ponder such things as recipes, measurements and infusions, honesty, and good scientific practices. “I believe every thought, like the leaves of a plant, holds the essence of truth somewhere inside it.”
Mr. Hetherington beamed at her. “Of course, sometimes I think about things too much and that leads to terrible trouble in my brain. I’ve had to stop going to the Sunday afternoon magic shows at Mr. Dink’s Palace of Illusions because every time I go there, I come away feeling crazy over some trick I’ve seen. I stay up for days at a time, struggling to figure out how it’s done.”
Pulling a jar from under the counter, he presented it to Dr. Sadie. “But lately I’ve been thinking about your carbolic problem and how you said it leaves your hands so dry …”
Dr. Sadie looked at her red fingers and blushed.
“You should give this a try,” he said, opening the jar and holding it out to her. “It might help.”
I could smell the scent of the salve from where I was standing. It reminded me of the cakes from Mueller’s bakery that Miss Everett piled high on her tea cart in the afternoons.
“Thank you,” Dr. Sadie said, dipping her fingers into the jar and then rubbing some of the mixture over her hands. “I’m afraid being devoted to Dr. Lister’s antiseptic practices does take its toll.” She stopped for a moment to examine her skin and then nodded to Mr. Hetherington with approval. “This is wonderful. It’s making a difference already. What’s in it?”
“Almond oil,” he whispered as if to keep it a secret between them. “And calendula and beeswax as well. Working the ingredients together was something of a challenge, but I think it came out all right, don’t you?”
“Oh yes,” she said, admiring the jar before setting it down in the middle of the counter.
Mr. Hetherington pushed the jar back towards her. “It’s for you.”
“I couldn’t.” Dr. Sadie shook her head.
“I insist,” Mr. Hetherington replied. “You were my muse, after all.”
She closed her eyes, her face flushing. She looked just like Mama did when she was remembering how my father had stolen her away on the back of my grandfather’s horse.
As soon as we were out of the shop I asked, “Why can’t you be with him?”
“Who?” she replied.
“Mr. Hetherington. It’s plain to see he’s the man you love.”
She didn’t bother to deny it. Standing under the awning, looking to where a few stray snowflakes had appeared in the sky, she said, “Mr. Hetherington has a wife.”
“Oh.”
She explained that Mrs. Hetherington had been ill for some time with consumption. Dr. Sadie had tried everything she could to help her, but it was a difficult case and the woman was wasting away a little more every day. She and the apothecary had first started spending time together in an effort to find ways to help his wife, but as time passed and her condition worsened, Dr. Sadie had begun to feel drawn to cure the sadness of the husband. It was a constant struggle for her and for Mr. Hetherington as well.
“There’s nothing to be done … for either of us,” she said.
“Perhaps when Mrs. Hetherington is gone …”
“Shh, Moth. That’s enough.”
Waiting at the corner till it was safe to cross the street, Dr. Sadie traced the edge of a low tree-stump with the toe of her boot. “I asked the old pear tree a question once, when it was still standing here,” she said.
“The pear tree?” I asked, my heart racing.
“My father brought me here to see it when I was young,” she said. “Mr. Huber was the apothecary then, and his kindness towards me was part of the reason why I chose to become a doctor. On the first Sunday in June, people came from all over the city, old
Dutchmen like my father, mostly, to tie their wishes to the tree’s branches. It was such a shame when the tree came down.”
When the leaves of a pear tree emerge in the spring, they bear much the same colouration as the fruit. Yellow-green, with a blush of pink around the edges, they serve as messengers of the sweet reward warm days and gentle rains are sure to bring.
All the times I’d pictured the tree, it was thriving, older and wiser than ever, still giving magic to anyone who dared to ask for it. I’d hoped one day to stand in the spot my father had stood in with Mama and ask it a few questions of my own.
“Did you get an answer?” I asked.
“I did,” she replied, and then said nothing more.
Crouching close to the stump, I hoped the tree’s voice might come up from the ground. People were passing by on all sides, busy with getting where they needed to go.
“I’m here,” I told it. “It’s me, Moth.” I wanted the dusty, worn-down stump to know me, to welcome me back, to tell me that my father was waiting for me somewhere.
“Come live with me, Moth,” Dr. Sadie said, now holding out her hand to help me up. “I’ll make room for you in my garret, and you won’t have to worry about a thing.”
If it had been her, instead of Mae, who’d saved me from Mr. Cowan, we might already be keeping house together, singing songs as we darned socks or telling stories in the dark at the end of the day. But I knew Miss Everett would make me honour my commitment to her, and I couldn’t ask Dr. Sadie to buy me out—how would she ever afford it? I had no choice but to follow through with Miss Everett’s plan.
In 1854 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, founder of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, went out to Randall’s Island and adopted a young girl named Katherine “Kitty” Barry. “When I took her to live with me, she was about seven and a half years old. I desperately needed the change of thought she compelled me to give her. It was a dark time, and she did me good. Her genial, loyal Irish temperament suited me.”
“I know what’s fair and right isn’t the same for everyone,” she continued. “And compared to the many other fates a girl in your circumstances might meet, what Miss Everett has offered you must seem better by far. But after everything that’s happened with Alice, I needed to put this to you, to offer my assistance once more. I can’t keep every girl from the terrible, dark things that happen in the city, but I could help you, I could see that you lead a happy, more forgiving life—”
“I can’t,” I said, stopping her from going on. “Miss Everett has made an agreement for me.”
“I see,” she said, frowning.
Looking to comfort her in some small way, I said, “It’s my best chance.”
“I hope it is, Moth,” she replied. “I truly hope it is.”
December 27, 1871
I have put poor Alice Creaghan in the Charity Hospital on Blackwell’s Island. There are more young girls there, in her same condition, than I dared imagine. Few doctors or hospitals will care for unmarried and fallen women, no matter their malady, and the island was the only place I could find for her.
It is sickening to find that with this disease, this great pretender, most physicians of note still swear it is an illness that only dwells among the morally corrupt. Girls from polite homes, bearing every symptom, are hidden away, their persecution never mentioned. Their parents point fingers at one another behind closed doors, but in the end, they settle on a story of “bad blood” that was passed on from some wayward relative through the family tree. Science be damned, social standing preserved.
Miss Everett was no less offensive in the way she handled the situation. When I suggested we should go to the police over it, she argued it would do no good. “Cadet took care of it in his own way.”
I asked her what good is it for her to pay for police protection and to cater to the Chief of Detectives if they can’t provide assistance when she most needs it, but she was adamant in her refusal. “The father of the young man in question is a valued client. It wouldn’t do for me to go after his son.”
“This happens every day, all over the city. It needs to be stopped.”
“It was a regrettable incident. We must leave it at that.”
Today I had the notion that I might still be able to convince Moth to leave Miss Everett’s house. She refused me yet again and I fear there’s nothing more I can do. In a desperate attempt, I went straight to Miss Everett and demanded to know what it would cost to buy the girl myself.
“You can’t afford her.”
“How much?”
“It’s not just her first time you’d be paying for, but the entire life of a whore.”
It was one of the few times I’ve regretted how far I’ve fallen out with my family. There is money enough in my mother’s jewellery box alone to buy Moth a thousand times over, yet I know if I went to her on the girl’s behalf she’d refuse to hear me out. Nothing upsets her more than talk of poverty and prostitutes.
I have informed Miss Everett that I will be excusing myself from her house once Miss Fenwick has gone through her first encounter. I’d hoped the threat of my departure might change her mind about the girl, but it did not. She ended our conversation with a curt “So be it.”
On the night in question, I will pick up the pieces for Moth as best I can. I will once again extend an open invitation to her, telling her that she may come to me whenever she may need to, but as for Miss Everett and the rest of the house, I am finished.
S.F.
For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,
Warranted virgin. Beauty’s brightest colours
Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven.
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,
Who bade on till the hundreds reached the eleven,
But when the offer went beyond, they knew
’Twas for the Sultan and at once withdrew.
—Don Juan, canto IV, verse 114, Byron
A pair of sisters moved into the quarters upstairs, Fannie and Jane Byrne from Boston. They’d been sent to Miss Everett by one of her former girls, a Miss Nadine Bix. Having started a house of her own in Boston’s North End, Miss Bix had requested Miss Everett train the Byrne sisters up to be proper whores for her. Miss Everett was to receive the bounty from selling their maidenhood and Miss Bix and the Byrne sisters would then reap the rewards of their having had a thorough education.
The day Mr. Wentworth was to make his return, Dr. Sadie came to examine the girls and to meet with me as well. “Have you any questions concerning the arrangement Miss Everett’s made for you?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, and I met her eye as steadily as I could.
“Please promise me you’ll look the man over as best you can,” she said, barely able to meet my gaze in return. “You know from Alice the signs of disease. If he shows any hint of illness or bears any indication that he’s using mercury to fight it, you must refuse him at once. Miss Everett is in agreement. Cadet will be waiting outside the door.”
“Don’t the men who come here give Miss Everett proof of their being clean?”
“You must be vigilant too,” Dr. Sadie said, reaching out to touch my wrist. “If a man is willing to pay a large sum for a girl who hasn’t been touched, then he’s certainly got enough money to pay whatever it takes to get a doctor to sign his bill of health.”
Miss Everett too had advice for me. “There’s an art to it,” she said as she readied me for the night, “especially the first time. There are rules to follow, expectations to be met, and, perhaps, if you’re lucky, enjoyment to be had. You can stumble a bit now and then, so long as you’re graceful about it—you’re young, after all. There will be time for knowing in your actions and your countenance later, your innocence is your greatest asset your first time out. He must have no reason to question it.”
Mr. Wentworth had sent a bouquet of roses earlier in the day, so I put them in a vase on the dressing table along with a brush and comb Rose had given me befor
e she left the house. I pinned my collection of cartes de visite on the wall next to the mirror. After turning the quilts down, I picked up a large box that had been delivered along with the flowers and I placed it on the bed. Tucked under the twine that was tied around the package was a note.
For my Gypsy girl.
The box contained a white chemise, a velvet hair ribbon and a skirt made from lavender-coloured gauze. The chemise had delicate gathers around the neck and when I slipped it over my head it sat gracefully on the edges of my shoulders and dipped low at my breasts. I looked at myself in the many mirrors on the wall as I tied the ribbon in my hair. While not nearly as long as it once had been, it had at last grown past my shoulders. Playing the part Mr. Wentworth desired, I would leave it down and put my combs aside for the night.
I took Mrs. Wentworth’s fan out from under my pillow and spread it open in front of my face. I imagined sitting with Mr. Wentworth, flicking the fan open and shut as I told him of his wife’s cruelty. “Let me tell you a story, Mr. Wentworth,” I’d begin. Then, in the middle of my tale about a poor girl held captive by a horrid woman, he’d recognize the fan, and promise to make amends and take care of me forever.
Touching the fan’s silk to my cheek, I had to admit to myself that I’d captured Mr. Wentworth by knowing when to leave the truth alone. Any justice I might gain would have to come that same way. The task of turning the tables in his house, if I ever found my way to it, would have to be done without my past being known.
He’d already chosen the order of our night from a list of services Miss Everett had presented to him. Upon his arrival I was to give him a delicate undressing, followed by a hot bath. Oil rubdowns were popular with many men, as were ticklings with feather fans. Although these things seemed to have been arranged for the gentleman’s pleasure only, Dr. Sadie had encouraged me to use them as an opportunity to get a look at Mr. Wentworth to make sure he showed no signs of disease.
