The Bartered Virgin (2 page)

New York City, 1902

“But what if Winnifred doesn’t want to marry Lord what’s-his-name?” Mary Percy set her teacup down on its saucer with an indignant clatter, a sign which usually signaled annoyance. To Zachariah Percy the noisy ring of china was a hail of victory.

He inhaled off his cigar, creating a bright orange flare at the end, and blew out a thick column of smoke before answering. “Now, Mary, we’ve been through this before. David Knightsbridge is a young man of excellent character, breeding and education. You’ll see what I mean when he comes for dinner tomorrow evening. A shame his noble father died almost penniless.” He shook his neatly oiled gray-and-silver head. “Must have been quite a blow to David to have to quit school midsemester and return home to settle his father’s estate. I was only too glad to defer my fee to help him with Knightsbriar. But I think I shall be rewarded in kind.” He drew another puff and smiled, self-satisfied. After all, he was the man of the house and always knew what was best. “Besides, think of what our daughter having a title will mean to the firm. Other English nobility will want to give us their business. David’s father, the late Lord Wolshingham, was quite influential despite his, er, vices. Perhaps we may set up an office in London. Mark my words, Mary. Winnifred could do worse.”

Mary wrinkled her nose at the cigar smoke and stifled a cough. “You mean
the firm
could do worse. It was very generous of that late client of yours, Madame Louise something-or-other, to leave all her money to Winnifred. She only met our daughter once and we weren’t even here. I think it was very improper to let Winnifred spend time with a complete stranger.”

“Obviously Winnifred must have made quite an impression on Madame Desjardin.”

“But Zachariah, Winn was just a child and Madame Desjardin was only here for a couple of hours.”

Zachariah patted his wife’s hand. “It’s as I’ve always said, dear. Those people in New Orleans are a strange bunch. Has something to do with all those fevers that visit the city every year.”

He kept a sharp eye on Mary as her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply. Her frown furrowed slightly. “Yes, of course. How could I have forgotten?” She snatched up a paper fan and recovered herself with a few brisk flicks of her wrist. Seconds later a poignant smile returned to her face. “And yet such blessings can come from bleakest of moments. Still, it’s a shame I never had the chance to meet Madame. Her life seemed so surrounded by mystery. A rich woman, traveling the world without a husband or chaperone. Where was it she died, dear?”

“Persia.”

“Oh, how exotic!”

Zachariah didn’t tell her that the letter he received alluded to Louise passing away in bed while entertaining a wealthy sultan. Some things one did not disclose to one’s wife. “Pish tosh, Mary. She was a valuable client who might have lived longer had she the sense not to travel into foreign lands. There’s the proof that it’s not healthy.”

“But what of Winnifred, moving away to England to some drafty castle? Oh dear.” Mary picked up her handkerchief and gently dabbed her eyes. “I come onto a faint just thinking about it, and her being such a delicate child.”

Zachariah moved out of his leather smoking chair and joined his wife on the settee. He put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. “There, there, Mary. They have telephones and horseless carriages in the English countryside just as they do here in Manhattan, I’m sure. I’ll buy her a phonograph for a wedding present and we can send all the latest recordings. She won’t feel so homesick and she certainly won’t be bored—not with all the shops and balls and country outings, not to mention the duties she’ll have as the lady of Knightsbriar. Believe me, dearest, our little wallflower will come out of her shell once she’s a married woman. It’s a bully arrangement, simply bully!” Zachariah never missed a chance to quote the favorite expression of the president.

Mary smiled into her husband’s face. “We can send Woodrow to visit her. He wants to see Oxford and Cambridge.”

“Hrumph! That boy of ours. Expelled from Harvard, indeed. It was only a minor prank. Still, maybe sending him abroad is a good idea. Perhaps some of Winnifred’s docility will rub off on him.”

Mary hung her head. “My poor heart. I get palpitations just thinking about what’s to become of him.” She pressed her hands on her bosom in emphasis.

“Now, Mary. Mustn’t worry. Winnifred will do her duty and marry David, and Woodrow will come back from England and finish school. What could go wrong with such a bully plan?”

“Give me your trousers, Tippy, or I’ll smack you bloody!”

“Oomph! Get off me, Winn, I’m warning you. Just because you’re my baby sister doesn’t mean I won’t hit you back.”

“Your trousers, Tip.” Winnifred dug her knee harder into her brother’s back, heedless of his grimaces of pain.

“What happened to the last pair you stole out of my wardrobe?”

“Never you mind.” In truth, they were buried under the coal chute, covered with mud from her fall off a rented bicycle, with a huge tear in the bum seam where she caught herself on the branch of the oak tree outside her bedroom window.

Woodrow—or Tippy as his Harvard friends had dubbed him for his ability to move silently through the halls after curfew—flailed unsuccessfully. Winn blessed the day Kitty Terwilligar’s brother taught her to wrestle.

“If you let me up, I’ll think about
loaning
you another pair.”

“And a vest, shirt and boater,” she amended.

“What? You’ll have me prancing around in nothing but my drawers if you don’t stop. Just the trousers. Now let me up.”

Winnifred considered the offer. She could always steal into her father’s wardrobe and borrow what she needed for her latest escapade. Tip was becoming far too nosy and uncooperative since he’d been home. Better he’d burned down the entire school instead of just his professor’s prized rubber tree, as she’d overheard him confess to Kitty’s brother, “Twig” Terwilligar. It put her in an advantageous bargaining position.

“Let me up, Winn, and I’ll tell you a secret.”

“About you and Twig down at the beer saloons near the docks?”

“How the devil did you know about that?”

At last Winn relented and climbed off his back. She helped Tip to his feet and they sat by the window. Winn settled on an ottoman while her brother collapsed into a leather wing chair. She always liked Tip’s room. It smelled of forbidden things like papa’s cigars, fruit liquors and Bermuda Bay Rum. Tip tossed her an apple and grabbed one for himself. He rubbed the fruit on his sleeve then took a bite. Winn polished her apple on the pocket of her silk wrapper.

“Do you remember David Knightsbridge, my roommate from Harvard?” he asked after a moment.

Winn tossed her loose hair over her shoulder and nodded. “That pale-looking fellow with the crow-black hair and prissy manners?” She took a huge bite of her apple, shoved the piece in the side of her cheek and extended her arm in a sleek exaggerated motion and mimicked, “My de-yah Miss Percy, ’tis a grand pleasyah to make yore acquaintance.” She giggled so hard she nearly choked. “What a dandy milquetoast he was. I’ll bet he wears lace drawers and has never seen a lady’s bosom in his life.”

“Winn! Where do you come up with such things? Kitty, I’ll bet.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, she was awake last week when you and Twig stumbled into their house at dawn. She heard you talk about some fast women you met from the docks. You took them to the burlesque show, bought them champagne and one of them had no corset under her shirtwaist. Or anything else for that matter. Twiggy said he paid almost all of his allowance to see her bosoms.” She jumped up and badgered Tip. “Did you see her bosoms, too? And do you have any money left from your allowance?” Winn strutted across to his wardrobe closet. “You don’t, do you? You’re broke and you need to borrow from me.” She opened the door and stood aside, waving him over with a flourish.

“Trousers, brother dearest.”

“Red-headed wretch! That’s blackmail. You deserve to be packed off to Knightsbriar!”

Winn stood with her back against the closet door, speechless. “Wha—what do you mean ‘packed off’?”

Tip slapped his forehead and cursed. “That’s what I wanted to tell you before. Father intends for you to marry him.”

She sagged against the door and started to laugh. “Oh, Tip. What a joshing! If you want money, then ask. Don’t make up horse drop to stir me.”

“Oh, Winn. I’m so sorry. I thought you knew. I told father David should ask one of the Morgan girls or that horsey-faced Tweedsmuir piece. They’ve got more money. But Knightsbridge has his cap set for you. Honest, I really had no idea. But don’t worry, David’s an awfully nice chap.”

Winn’s stomach suddenly knotted. She scrutinized her brother’s face. Tip had always been a poor liar…but this time he wasn’t lying. With sickening assurance she realized the truth. Winn felt her knees buckle and slowly slid to the floor until she settled in a heap at the doorframe. Tip must have thought she was going to faint as he rushed into his water closet to retrieve some cold water from a pitcher.

“Married?” she mumbled, clenching her fists in the folds of her dressing gown. “Me? I can’t get married.”

Tip knelt beside her and set the water pitcher on the floor. “Are you going to faint, Winn? I brought you some water and something else. Here, drink this.” He offered her a glass of pale gold liquid. Absently, she took a sip and immediately broke into a coughing fit.

“
Blech!
What is this?”

“It’s brandy. Take another sip.” She did. This time the burning in her throat turned into a warm flow that ebbed through to her fingertips.

“I want beer,” she mumbled.

Tip chuckled softly. “And what would my little sister know about beer.”

“Plenty,” she shot back. “The trousers I borrowed—”

“Stole.”

“Okay, I
stole
yours and Kitty stole Twig’s. We snuck out and took the train car all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge, then the Flatbush Express to Kings Highway down to Ocean Parkway to Coney Island.”

“I can’t believe you got all the way down there without getting yourselves lost.” He shook his head as he listened to her adventure.

“We rode the Ferris wheel, rented a bicycle and went into a beer parlor to listen to a Negro boy play ragtime music on a piano. We bought a nickel beer for each of us. It was so much fun!” Tip stared at her in awe. Winn smiled, aware of the effect of her words. “Nobody knew who we were. No French tutors, no piano practice, no fainting lessons. Nothing but freedom.”

“Bloody hell,” he whispered. “Now I understand why you and Kitty have been spending so much time together.”

“We even saw bathers. Imagine, ladies in bathing costumes. It was positively scandalous. I wonder if Mother will let me buy one?”

“And let you prance around half-naked like Lillian Russell? I doubt it.”

Winn’s response was to stick her tongue out at him.

“Maybe it’s a good thing you’re getting married. Somebody needs to keep you out of trouble, although I don’t know how poor David will manage. I’m fetching a hack to meet him at Grand Central Depot this evening. He’s staying at the Fifth Avenue Hotel and dining here tomorrow night.” He gave her a warning glower. “Maybe I should warn him off you, after all. He’s expecting a proper young lady, not some ragtag Bowery floozy.”

Winn listened to her brother’s tirade. Most of it she dismissed between her ear and the wall. But something he said stayed with her. Perhaps this Knightsbridge fairy-fop should be warned. Maybe he wouldn’t want to marry her if he knew how much she enjoyed her furtive escapades. A tiny seed of a plan began to form in her mind. But, like all good plans, it must first be discussed with Kitty. They were best friends and had covered for each other for years. In the meantime, however, it was better not to raise Tip’s ire. He might tattle to Mother and Papa, then she’d be locked away until the day of her wedding with no chance of escape.

“You’re right. We might have been caught. Then Mama would have the swoons for weeks and Papa would be in a temper.”

“Think of the scandal, Winn. Papa’s firm would suffer if your reputation were called up across the boards. All his important clients, those filthy rich Astors and Morgans and such. Those men pay Papa to handle their business and Mama has to have tea with their wives. That was very selfish of you. And dangerous. You might have run afoul of some drunken wag who’d take your purse, or worse!”

“You mean something…indecent?” She almost giggled at the delicious thrill of the mere prospect. Imagine her, prim and proper Winn, flirting outrageously with the idea of scandal. “I’m sorry, Tip. Really. I won’t do it again.”

“Promise?”

Winn considered Tip’s stern countenance and thought before answering. She’d have to keep her promise to her brother, behave as she always had in front of her parents—meek, ladylike, the very epitome of the Gibson Girl. It might buy her some time to foil their wedding plans.

“All right, I promise.”

Tip helped her to her feet. “Good. Now go back to your room and finish getting dressed. It’s nearly noon and you’re not ready to help Mother receive.”

She nodded obediently and started to leave.

“Winn?”

“Hmm?” She turned and found herself facing Tip’s pleading blue eyes.

“Just a small loan. Please.”

Winn sighed. “Oh, all right. But no bosoms.”

At precisely two o’clock that afternoon, Winn joined her mother in the main floor drawing room. She wore a simple lace shirtwaist and seven gore skirt in cream batiste, her hair properly coiffed.

“Remember your needlework, dear. A proper young lady is never idle and your petit point reflects your delicacy.” Her mother placed a small wooden hoop on her lap. She inspected Winn’s hands and sighed. “Thank goodness that Dr. Watson’s paste Margaret mixed up took care of those freckles on your fingers.” She endlessly bemoaned the curse of Winn’s red hair and freckles, blaming the unfortunate occurrence on Papa’s ancestors.

Then she cupped Winn’s chin in her hands. “Such porcelain skin. Such fine cheekbones. Why, even Lily Langtry would be envious! Still as beautiful as the day of your coming out last year. Too bad your fragile constitution has not seen much favor in the young men from Long Island and Boston.”