The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay

Author:Ami McKay
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2011-10-24T22:00:00+00:00

French imported male “safes” (made from skin or India rubber) are a vast improvement over onanism, yet often shunned by men at the moment of need. Preventative powders are another solution to undesired conception, primarily made of Pearlash or corrosive sublimate. A woman must, however, find the proper moment to implement them (the sooner the better). In the end, womb guards are, perhaps, the most discreet way for a woman to prevent conception.

As we entered the pharmacy, I looked over the items on Miss Everett’s list. Preventative powders, toilet vinegars, lavender water, Macassar oil, sea sponges, smelling salts, Bouquet de Rondeletia, extract of patchouli, Grosvenor’s Tooth Powder, cherry bounce, anisette. They were the trappings of women, and in this case, of whores. Seeing the list didn’t bring on thoughts of my impending fate—that day still seemed far-off, almost unimaginable. The note did, however, hold a notion I hadn’t yet considered. With the correct choices, it seemed a girl might have success in bending anyone’s will (stranger, friend, or foe) to her own.

Camphor rub, quinine, milk of roses, love-drawing oil—every useful potion you could think of was lined up on the shelves of the pharmacy, set between yellowed globes and maps of the world, exotic beetles with pins stuck through their shiny middles and bowl after bowl of gold-speckled fish swimming around in circles.

Mr. Huber’s name was on the shop, but Mr. James Hetherington was the apothecary who ran it. Mr. Hetherington was smart and proper looking, with a short spade beard and eyes so blue it seemed as if their colour had been dropped into them from a twilight sky. The part in his hair was messy and honest, not like the false, straight lines that ran down the centre of so many men’s heads, splitting them in two.

Aside from the bottles and jars of remedies, soaps and liniments he had for sale, countless shelves and shadow boxes were crowded with colourful dead spiders and butterflies. I figured that maybe Mrs. Hetherington, if there was one, didn’t want the things he’d collected cluttering up her house.

Wearing a long crisp apron, his shirtsleeves rolled up just past his wrists, Mr. Hetherington nodded to Cadet. Greeting Mae with a smile he said, “Miss O’Rourke, how may I assist you?”

Mae motioned for me to hand Mr. Hetherington the list, and said, “The usual, if you please.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he replied as he took the list from me. “And who might you be?” he asked.

“Miss Ada Fenwick,” I said, giving him an awkward smile.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Fenwick,” he said.

“And I’m pleased to make yours as well,” I replied, returning his kindness as Miss Everett had instructed me to do.

Cadet headed over to study one of the apothecary’s globes.

Mae hummed a tune as she spun a lazy Susan of perfume oil samples that sat on the countertop. She looked back and forth between me and the whirl of the vials as they went round. “Lavender, no. Cardamom, no. Neroli, no. Hyacinth—yes.

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