The Virgin Cure Read Online Free PDF

low, her mouth agape. Our footsteps echoed on the wooden floor, but she didn’t stir.
    “That’s Caroline,” Nestor said. “She cooks and keeps house.” Shining the light in the far corner of the room he added, “And that’s your bed, Miss Fenwick. Good night.”
    “Good night, sir,” I said, sighing in relief.
    After he was gone, I lay down on the mattress, still in my clothes, holding fast to Mama’s old pillowcase. I could feel the lonely arm of my ragdoll through the thin cloth. So many times I’d patched her up, plumping her again with sawdust and peanut shells I’d gathered from the doorstep of a beer hall, sewing her together with thread made from my hair and the needle I kept hidden in her belly.
    Staring at the shadow where the slant of the roof came down to meet the floor, I put my nose to the pillowcase, breathing through the cloth like a baby nuzzling the sleeve of her mother’s dress. It smelled of rosewater, Dr. Godfrey’s cordial and money-drawing oil. Mama had taken to anointing herself with the latter, believing that the musty-smelling concoction would bring customers to our door.
    Before taking me away, Mrs. Wentworth had placed a small, velvet bag in the middle of Mama’s fortunetelling table. Tied up with a drawstring, its contents had sweetly jangled as it came to rest. It was Mama’s payment for letting me go, a sum of good faith.
    I wondered what the weight of the bag would feel like if I held it in my hand, and if any coins had spilled on the floor when Mama untied the string. Had a penny rolled into a crack between the boards, causing her to curse? Had she put the coins to her face to feel their coolness on her cheek?
    By the age of five, I was stealing buckets of coal and bundles of sticks for Mama’s tiny, rusted stove. I’d pumped bucket after bucket of water in the middle of our muddy, stinking courtyard, scrubbed other people’s clothes and hung them up to dry—all the while hoping I’d wake up one morning to find my father had come back to us and Mama had turned into the lady on the side of the Pure and True Laundry Flakes box. She was a round-faced mother dressed in calico, with a clean white apron around her waist. Her eyes smiled as she puckered her lips, forever kissing the top of her little girl’s head. Along the hem of her skirt a slogan was written: Mother, if you love her, you’ll keep her clean .
    Mama must’ve had an amount in her head she wanted for me, a sum she considered right and fair—more than she’d got for my boots or her tortoiseshell combs or the trinket she wore around her neck, enough to buy the largest bottle of Dr. Godfrey’s Mr. Piers had locked away in the old sea chest he strapped to the back of his cart.
    How much did you get for me, Mama? I whispered in the dark.



I woke to see Mrs. Wentworth’s housekeeper, Caroline, pouring water from a pitcher into a deep, waiting bowl. She glanced at me when she heard me stir, but didn’t say a word.
    Setting the pitcher aside, she stared at her reflection in a mirror that was hanging in front of her on the wall. The silver backing was cloudy and pitted, so that one half of her face—her neck, her mouth, her nose—was a streaky blur. One eye, steely and clear, blinked back at her, one cheek blushed ruddy in the morning sun that shone through the room’s narrow skylight. The calico kerchief on her head wasn’t nearly as fetching as the silk scarf Mama always wore, but the field of tiny cornflowers suited her, their cheerful blue petals making a welcome halo of softness around her stern countenance.
    Thin-lipped and flat-chested, she bore all the signs of a woman whose labours had added to her years. Her hands were wrinkled, her nails ragged, her neck veined with impatience.
    I watched as she scrubbed her face, as she slipped a drippy sponge under her skirts and up between her legs. After she finished, she gave a short nod in my direction indicating my turn at the basin.
    “Thank you,” I