by David Ashton
Forgetting she was a whoremistress and whores do not cleave to pleasure. Supply and demand is their trade.
‘Is all this true, Lily?’ she questioned, moving her lips slowly so the girl could understand. She received an ashamed nod in answer.
All the magpies watched Jean as she closed her eyes in apparent thought, then she reached forward and twitched the cloth away from Isabel’s face.
She took out a fine linen handkerchief from her coat pocket, and with care, like a man of medicine, wiped at the cut.
Obviously the stiletto was a fine-quality blade, it had left a thin line clean as a whistle, from the back of the cheekbone, down past the front of the ear, to the jaw.
This had drawn blood, but it would heal quickly and Isabel’s thick hair would hide the slender scar till then.
‘You’ll live,’ she said to Isabel, then turned to Annie who was waiting with some trepidation for a heavy reprimand, but Jean could not blame the woman and where the hell was Hannah Semple?
However, it was not the moment for that question to be asked aloud because it might lead to justified accusations about neglect of duty.
‘You deserved this,’ she flung over her shoulder to Isabel, and then winked at Annie Drummond and threw her the bloody cloth. ‘Take this creature away, Annie, put on some ointment, patch her up and get her back here. She’s a working girl.’
‘But mistress!’ wailed the wounded woman. ‘Whit about my catastrophe?’
‘As I said. You deserved it,’ replied Jean crisply. ‘We’re headed for a busy night and who knows, one of the clients might prefer a treacherous scratched hizzie; now on your way, Isabel Tasker.’
There was some laughter as the grumbling Isabel was led out of the salon but a measure of tension remained.
Jean turned to the tightly strung Francine and carefully folded up the linen handkerchief, which was spotted with Isabel’s blood.
‘One of you other two will have to go,’ she pronounced. ‘And I am afraid that I have too much money invested in you, Francine, those whips have cost me a fortune.’
She walked past the stunned Frenchwoman and confronted the little figure on the divan.
Above Lily Baxter was Jean’s favourite painting in the Just Land, ‘The Woman with the Octopus’; she had personally hung that work on the wall of every bawdy-hoose she had ever owned; it was a depiction of a woman being dragged under to the depths by a big slimy sea monster, most of the clothes ripped off her and a horrible fate in store.
As well as gingering the clients, it normally and perversely cheered Jean up no end, but not apparently this evening as she gazed with regret at Lily.
Again she mouthed the words slowly.
‘Lily Baxter, you must leave this fine house. I will give you enough money to last a few weeks and after that, you are on your lonesome.’
A cry of anguish came in answer but not, of course, from Lily. It was Francine who rushed forward to clasp the other protectively to her leather bosom.
‘No, the fault is mine!’ she declared to the octopus above. ‘I have been evil in my nature because it is so cold in that bastard of a cellar.’
‘You have a stove,’ Jean pointed out. ‘In your side room.’
‘It lacks impetus,’ was the proud reply as Francine hugged Lily all the more tightly. ‘But I drive Lily from me because of my bad words and she has gone to have comfort in another place. It is all my fault.’
A tearful Lily had watched Francine’s lips and put up a single finger to touch upon them at the end of all this; whether in agreement or sharing the blame was not clear to Jean but she had, as anticipated when the threat was made, got exactly what she wanted.
Authority established, now follows clemency.
‘Get back to your hidey-hole the pair of you, before I change my mind and sell you on to the slavers.’
This flat statement sent Lily scrambling to the door though Francine had, as she followed, a touch more sang-froid.
As Lily shot down the stairs like a hare, Francine turned to survey the company of frail sisterhood. Any smiles were hastily hidden but then Jean Brash pinned her with a hard look.
‘This ends now Francine. No vengeance taken.’
The Frenchwoman nodded.
‘Isabel is not worth my candle,’ she responded.
That mixed message gave Jean an idea.
‘When he’s done with the horses, I’ll get Angus to bring you down a brazier and some coals. It will provide additional heat and, who knows, you may find other uses for it.’
Francine’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, then she nodded and left.
Jean turned to her girls, on the lookout for any trace of rebellion or insolence, but they were all as good as gold.
A strangled noise from the hall as one of the Dumfries men blew his nose into a flannel hankie reminded her that these two outside were but forerunners of the stampeding herd.
‘Best get yourselves ready, ladies,’ she murmured. ‘A busy night, one market over, the other begins.’
There was some laughter, indeed the farmers were wont to prod and pressure as if sizing up a heifer but they were in the main a good-natured lot, generous with their money and, if you ignored the odd barnyard odour, easy to satisfy.
Perhaps not much in the way of trade for Francine, for men of earth and animals had no great need to be whipped up into a froth, but she and Lily would be falling in love all over again in the side room with the stove.
Love is the very devil.
Then Jean noticed the absence of one other.
‘Where is Rachel Bryden?’ she asked.
No one knew, no one had seen the pale creature for a while, but the Dalrymple twins, Maggie and Mary, remembered jointly that a note had been delivered to Rachel not long ago at the door.
Jean, for some reason, felt a prickling at the back of her neck but she ignored it, promised herself to ask Annie Drummond about Hannah as soon as they had a quiet moment apart, went to the salon entrance and, before opening, looked back around the room.
It was a sight for sore eyes. Exotic, almost Persian carpets, which thank god were mostly red so that any blood spilt went undetected, plush armchairs, velvet curtains scarlet as sin, the polished piano in the corner, paintings on the wall of nymphs and shepherds in pastoral abandon, the harsh reality of the nearly naked Octopus Woman, and last but not least, the girls in tasteful décolletage, raring to have at you.
She opened the door and smiled at the two men who stood patient as cows in a bare November field just before milking time.
‘Come away in, gentlemen,’ Jean said winningly. ‘The ladies are waiting.’
Both men removed their hats, asked not a question about the previous caterwauling, and entered the portals of sin.
All was back to normal, well as normal as a bawdy-hoose ever gets.
Jean Brash had rescued a hazardous situation caused by her own carelessness. That would not happen again; lover or no lover, business was business.
All was well with the world, save for the prickling at the back of her neck.
All was well.
Some hours later, the place was heaving.
An impromptu ceilidh was in progress.
No sooner had the Dumfries men entered into the salon than the rest of the cattlemen arrived, breath puffing in the night, like a herd of bullocks.
There were two shepherds come with the well-to-do farmers, one of them, a wee border man with leathery skin, bow legs and bright blue eyes, had produced a fiddle.
The other was a tall cadaverous specimen with a hooked nose and big eyes that near popped out of their sockets at the sight of the girls in all their glory.
He had disclosed a Jew’s harp.
Neither had ever drunk champagne in their life and, after a few glasses courtesy of the house, launched into a fierce jig which set feet a’ tapping.
Big Annie Drummond’s eyes lit up and she sat down at the piano to show them what city folk could bring to the fair.
&
nbsp; As the notes winged their way back and forth, the wild exultation that such music brings began to stir in various female breasts for melody trembles women in the blood more than men and, at an approving nod from Jean, the carpets were rolled back, the furniture pulled to the wall, and then the dance began.
And what a dance it was; perhaps a release of tension after the incident of the drawn stiletto, perhaps a farmer’s celebration of a prize bull bought, manhood swinging between its legs at the thought of cows to cover, perhaps flashing glances between Annie Drummond and the wee shepherd, perhaps the beating heart of a primitive ancient monster sacrificed on the altar of civilisation an eternity before; but for whatever reason, boots crashed down upon the floorboards like meteors, while naked feet and legs slid like serpents in a whirling fury as the spirit of the dance took possession of one and all.
Had the great poet Robert Burns been on hand, he would no doubt have found a perfect illustration of his words from the epic Tam O’ Shanter,
The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies tae the wark,
And linket at it in her sark.
Of course Burns was describing a coven of witches rather than a healthy bunch of bawdy-hoose heifers but his eye would have been entertained and delighted at the amount of bare flesh revealed as the girls indeed, like the witches in the poem, sweated up a storm, did not reek however, but threw their coverings aside and went hell for leather at it in petticoats, sark-chemises, or less.
Even the farmers removed their jackets. Hot work.
The hook man twanged the Jew’s harp, his digit a blur of motion. More than one of the magpies made note of that fact. A fast finger may please the sugar almond.
Down in the cellar chamber, the unemployed whips, canes birches and battledores, juddered on their hooks in the wall. The tall thistles which provided a more natural source of scourging, rustled together impotently in the water of the long white vase that held and nourished them; even the Berkley Horse, a solid device of wood and leather upon which the rider would be lashed in all senses, shifted slightly on its moorings.
In the side room, Francine and Lily lay in each other’s arms, looking up at the ceiling, which shook in sympathy with events upstairs.
The fiddler had moved to ‘Lord Eglintoun’s Auld Man’, a Strathspey to give the company a breather, but with a wink to Annie he shifted pace again to another noble house, ‘Lord George Gordon’s Reel’, and off the dancers flew once more.
Isabel Tasker, wound forgotten, was a blur of motion as she hooked arms and spun, occasionally letting out a loud screech while a brawny cattleman from Stirling eyed her up and wondered what the possibilities of a different dance might be; he liked big noisy women, his own wife was silent as the grave, hardly reached the shoulder and ruled him with a rod of iron.
The Dalrymple twins, whose father Angus was absent on other business, were in the arms of the two Dumfries men and, by the looks of things, about to retire to another pursuit that fired the blood.
Jean watched it all with an indulgent eye but the prickling she had felt at the back of her neck was with her still.
She had questioned Annie and been informed that Hannah having muttered something about fresh air had donned her coat and marched off into the night.
This was not like the woman, Hannah was a fiend for airing the sheets but as regards personal intake, was not noted for poking her head out of the Just Land unless there was good reason; such as grumbling her way across the grass to bring a tray of coffee and sugar biscuits over to Jean where she sat, often with McLevy to hand.
It was her pleasure to then insult the inspector as roundly as possible then disappear back into the safety of the bawdy-hoose.
For her to quit the place and not to return within the hour was, to put it mildly, out of character.
Hannah would not think the place could function without her watchful presence.
Had she done this to punish Jean for her neglect?
To show her what dereliction of duty might bring home to roost?
No. That was not Hannah’s way; she would stick her face into yours and give it both barrels.
And indeed Jean merited both barrels.
Once more her lover had informed her that he had business on hand, once more he had waved her a fond farewell but Jean instead of returning at once to the Just Land, in which case all of this trouble would have been averted, had instructed Angus to drive out along the Leith shoreline until they came upon a bleak outcrop where she had alighted, walked to the edge, gazed at the angry waves as they broke over the rocks below, and brooded over the tumult in her heart.
Despite her brave words, it was still there.
Like a knife in the gut.
She had to give this man up. He was bad for business. But the fault was hers. She was not in control.
What in God’s name was she going to do?
And where was Rachel Bryden?
And Hannah Semple?
Jean had sent Angus Dalrymple out to search the gardens but it was black as pitch outside and even with a flaming torch, there was a forbidding amount of ground to cover.
Of course, Hannah could be sitting in a tavern by the docks, cackling with glee over the trouble she was causing Jean, and if that was the case by God she would make the woman pay for the worms that were gnawing away at her insides. Make her pay.
The mistress of the Just Land shook her head; these were unprofitable thoughts and she prided herself that the confusion she observed in other minds was not ever part of her reasoning.
Straight. Clear. Clean.
That was Jean Brash.
Except for love.
Love was the very devil.
She had not even had the time to go up to her boudoir and change outfits, so her clothes were still charged from the aftermath of passion.
The very devil.
The Jew’s harp throbbed agreement as the fiddler brought the reel to an end with a mighty scrape of his bow, grinned at Annie Drummond and in the silence while the company took a gulp of air before the advent of more champagne and lust, Jean thought to hear a thump at the front door.
She slipped out into the hall and listened.
Again something thudded against the wood like a dead weight. Or a foot kicking.
The fiddler started another air, ‘Tam Lucas o’ the Feast’, a tune Jean remembered being played at a thieves’ wedding which had been rudely interrupted when McLevy came to arrest the bride, Catherine Bruce, for shoplifting.
Catherine and old Mary Rough had been the queens of that trade but that was a fair time ago.
This was now.
Why was she in such dread to open the damned door?
She did so to disclose the giant figure of Angus, a stricken look upon his face, holding the limp body of Hannah Semple in his arms.
This was now.
26
And he that strives to touch the stars,
Oft stumbles at a straw.
EDMUND SPENSER,
The Shepherd’s Calendar
The woman in the framed photograph looked at Mulholland with a severe exacting gaze. She wore dark sombre clothes as would befit the about to be dead wife of an insurance adjuster. A ribbon of black crepe hung round the frame to confirm continued mourning, the death in Victorian terms being comparatively recent, that is three years before.
Martha Forbes, mother of the beloved Emily, and could he see the daughter in the mother?
It was not an unpleasant face, just a touch … lifeless, though alive enough when the picture was taken because she was sitting in a chair with the window behind, surely they wouldn’t have stuck the corpse up and propped the eyes open, surely not?
But it was a solemn countenance: life a burden to be carried to the grave.
Perhaps the daughter was a fairy chil
d?
His Emily has darting mischievous eyes, white, even teeth, (the mother’s mouth was firm shut lest a morbiferous deadly infection enter), straight nut-brown hair, a clear skin, cherry-red lips and a little pink tongue that had licked its way round many a meringue as Mulholland watched indulgently on, a slab of Dundee cake sat solidly before him on the plate.
She was also fond of chocolate confections in the French style although like any well-bred young lady, she frowned upon many other things French.
But that little pink tongue knew its way around the intricate edifices of spun sugar that made up the mysteries of the Edinburgh tearooms.
The voice of Robert Forbes broke the icy silence during which the constable had, to escape the present predicament, allowed his mind to wander.
Forbes was sitting at the other side of a large desk in his study; above and behind a stag’s head protruded from the wall, possibly the beast had lacked sufficient cover; the books on his shelves, unlike Oliver Garvie’s, were worn with much use, maritime tides and currents, timetables of death and destruction, statistics relating to longevity or the lack of it, natural catastrophes, accidents and acts of God, all grist to the mill.
The frozen silence had been caused by the speculation that the constable had laid before the insurance adjuster.
It was also very cold in the room due to one of the windows being left open, but the older man seemed impervious.
‘Are you suggesting,’ said Forbes in clipped precise tones, ‘that I have made a mistake?’
Mulholland tore himself away from tearooms and tongues.
‘No, sir, not at all,’ he replied, meeting the baleful stare of Emily’s father with candid demeanour. ‘But in light of what has come to light, as it were. It may be as well for you to reevaluate your findings. As it were.’
Forbes’ eyes hardened.
‘It strikes me, constable, that you are the one in need of reevaluation.’
‘I beg pardon, sir?’
The insurance adjuster took a deep breath as if trying to contain mounting exasperation.