The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay Read Free Book Online Page B

a muddy puddle. Both the sleeves had been torn as well, but aside from the mottled way the fine-checked gingham had faded, there was nothing that couldn’t be repaired. Much to Mama’s dismay, I’d filled it out nicely, my breasts looking like more than two knobby lumps, my hips almost round enough to rest a basket on when I walked.
    “You favour your mother,” Mrs. Wentworth said, still staring at me. “You have her lovely dark hair and eyes.” Trying to get me to look up at her she asked, “Tell me, who were her people?”
    The ladies who went slumming on Chrystie Street often asked the same question of me. Perfectly fashionable and modestly snobbish, they came from parish halls and ladies’ societies or on behalf of Miss Jane Clattermore’s Home for Wandering Girls to peer into our windows and our lives, one hand holding the front of a skirt, the other keeping a peppermint-scented handkerchief to the nose. “Poor little dears,” they called us children, as they dropped pennies into our hands, taking care not to touch us.
    I hated them almost as much as I hated the surly, knock-kneed boys who hissed at me and called me “dirty little Gyp.” They’d yell after me from down the street, telling me to wash the ugly off my face and go back where I came from. I’d run home feeling sad and angry, and scrub my face with salt until it burned, wishing that at least one of them would fall in love with me and that all the rest would die.
    “Just stay away from them,” Mama would say, throwing up her hands at my tears. “And stop stealing my salt. You’re never going to be a golden-haired Alice with a long neck and freckled skin. You’ve got the Black Dutch in you.”
    I’d liked the way the words had sounded coming out from Mama’s mouth, Black Dutch—rude and proud all at once, like her. The Jews and Gypsies and Swarthy Germans all claimed Black Dutch for themselves. It meant that however they looked, they could be whatever they liked, that they had good beginnings and acceptable blood.
    “Don’t be shy now,” Mrs. Wentworth urged. “You can tell me.”
    Mama’s voice echoed in my head, but the words that had once seemed so defiant, so sure, now felt like they had little to do with me. My skin and my heart were never the same as hers. They were fairer, perhaps even weaker, somewhere in between her Gypsy blood and my father’s unknown roots.
    “Black Dutch,” I answered. “My mother’s Black Dutch.”

Dearest Mama ,
I am doing my best to please Mrs. Wentworth .
I hope my wage proves to be enough .
Did you know I was to be a lady’s maid?
It’s better than serving in the scullery, but more
difficult than you can imagine .
I have much to learn .

I miss you .
I miss hearing my name .
Your daughter ,
Moth

M r. Wentworth’s portrait graced the wall of Mrs. Wentworth’s sitting room—a grand-looking likeness of the man, set to stare at his wife’s back while she was seated at her desk. The collar of his shirt was stiff and high, wrapped round with a tie so full it nearly covered his chin. What the tie couldn’t conceal (even under the careful hand of the artist) was the weary slant of Mr. Wentworth’s jaw. The dour-faced gentleman’s eyes were dark and searching and had far more to say about regret than accomplishment. Seated in a chair that was larger and more imposing than the one paired with his wife’s desk, Mr. Wentworth had a walking stick in his hand and an eager-faced hound at his side. Both the dog and its master were curiously absent from the house and Mrs. Wentworth’s life.
    The first time I entered the sitting room was to serve the lady her afternoon tea. I found Mrs. Wentworth standing and gazing at the painting. Before taking her chair she approached the portrait, touched the edge of its frame and said, “I’m waiting.” Her voice was steady, her lips not quite turned into a half-smile.
    Halfway through the hour, Mrs. Wentworth took up the fan that was dangling from