The Wages of Sin

by Kaite Welsh

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When I woke, my head pounded and my mouth was unpleasantly dry. I scrabbled around for the small wristwatch I had tossed on my nightstand and squinted at it, frowning. Six thirty in the morning. Once, I would have turned over and gone back to sleep, but that was an indulgence no medical student could afford.

  One thing was certain—I could have consumed twice as much laudanum and been unconscious but alive. If Lucy had committed suicide, she had spent a pretty penny on the tools of her self-destruction, more than I imagined a girl who sold her wares in a Grassmarket brothel could afford.

  The sky was still dark when, with my gaze fixed on my boots, I murmured “Amen” along with the servants. I had missed morning prayers once this month already and if I was going to prove that I was a reformed character, I had to mend my ways. My aunt smiled at me approvingly, and I felt an unexpected rush of pleasure. It had been a long time since someone had looked at me with such undisguised affection.

  Still, I doubted that her delight in my new behavior would last if she knew that I was headed to one of the rather less salubrious parts of Edinburgh to interview a brothel keeper.

  I believe I was the most diligent student in the faculty that day, until an incident derailed our studies and gave me the opportunity to slip away that I had been looking for.

  As we wound our way through the corridors to the large, draughty lecture hall—far too spacious for the twelve of us and one professor—I noticed that our peers either studiously avoided our eyes or smirked at us. Doubtless The Student, a rag written by undergraduates, had produced yet another flattering caricature of our number. Even The Scotsman had carried mocking artwork to accompany its scathing editorials. Well, if all they could criticize was our appearance, I wasn’t going to worry about it. My deepest fear was that somehow the ill-kept secret of my disgrace would wind up on the front page, since the thing was little better than a scandal sheet most of the time, although its writers fancied it a vehicle for intellectual debate.

  We carried on, heads held high, and swept into the lecture hall as though it were the finest drawing room in the country. Our deportment teachers would be proud, I thought to myself with a smile. I could have carried the contents of the Playfair Library on my head without dropping a single volume. Our pride was short-lived, however. Edith was the first to notice, when her arm brushed the wooden seat as she rummaged around in her reticule for pen and paper. She yelped as she saw her wrist was covered in fine red powder that, when she moved to brush it off, stained her gloves as well.

  “It’s all over the seats!” she cried out in dismay. “A sort of powdery ink.” Leaping to her feet, she discovered that her skirt was similarly ruined. One by one, we stood and examined the damage to our clothing. Ugly red dye marred each and every feminine backside, and no amount of spit and scrubbing would erase it. Our distress was so intense that when Professor Baldwin entered, no one noticed until the loud boom of his voice echoed.

  “And what precisely is the meaning of all this commotion?” he demanded. “I was under the impression that you were ladies, not common fishwives. Sit down this instant!”

  “Look at our skirts!” He stared in horror as Julia turned to show him the damage. “It’s on all of us!”

  His voice, when he finally managed to speak, was strangled. “Miss Latymer, may I ask you to desist with this indelicate display at once. If it is true that you are all somehow . . . indisposed, as I believe to be the case when a number of women are too much in each other’s company, then you have no place coming to lectures and displaying your . . . ah . . . condition, let alone flaunting it in this disgusting manner!”

  I wondered if perhaps he had gone completely mad, until Moira informed him, in a deathly quiet sort of tone, “Professor Baldwin, this is red dye.”

  I realized, with a flush of humiliation, what he believed had occurred. Professor Baldwin opened and shut his mouth, in a manner more closely befitting a goldfish than a medical doctor teaching at the university, before saying rather weakly, “I beg your pardon?”

  As though speaking to a person who was somewhat deficient of wit, Moira explained: “Some of our fellow students—your pupils, Dr. Baldwin—have evidently come to the conclusion that it would be a merry jape to cover the seats of our bench in a sort of powdery red dye. The color was presumably chosen to give the impression, to which you have so readily jumped, that we are all menstruating.”

  The very word made him look queasy, and I wondered how on earth he coped in his chosen profession if bodily excretions, albeit uniquely feminine ones, horrified him so greatly.

  “I cannot imagine,” he said, “that any of our students—who are, might I add, fine, upstanding young fellows to a man, and have never engaged in the sort of disruptive behavior to which some of you I am afraid to say are sadly prone—would play such a juvenile and disgusting prank.”

  “Really?” Julia demanded. “Because I can believe it quite readily, Dr. Baldwin. In fact, I am only surprised that they have taken so long to carry out a malicious trick of this nature.”

  “It is a prank,” Dr. Baldwin said. “A joke, Miss Latymer—friendly roughhousing between fellow students, nothing more. Certainly nothing to get so emotional about.” He spat the word out as if it appalled him as much as our monthly cycles did.

  “Oh, so you’ve chosen to believe it, then?” called Moira. “Well I’ll tell you one thing, Dr. Baldwin, washing ink stains out of dresses doesn’t come cheaply. Shall I send the bill to the university or to you?”

  He scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous, young lady. If you cannot bear silly student jokes with equilibrium, then I am afraid you have made a grave error in choosing to join their ranks. Now really, you cannot honestly have been expecting these young gentlemen to accept your presence within their hallowed halls—which, until you arrived, only admitted women as patients for their education—without a little playful protestation, surely?”

  “I can,” Moira said hotly, “and I do.”

  “If you insist on wasting my time with a discussion about domestic affairs, then I hope that you will forgive me if I return to my rooms and prepare my next lecture for students who actually have an interest in what I have to teach them.”

  Although we gaped openmouthed at him, it was clear that we had reached a stalemate. Grudgingly, and with some vociferous complaint, we moved to the third and fourth rows, where the benches were unmarked, and began the lecture, seething in silence.

  After Dr. Baldwin quit the hall with one final withering comment about our distress at the state of our clothes being further proof that women’s brains were too frivolous for matters as weighty as science and medicine, we clamored to speak.

  “It’s outrageous!” Alison gasped. “How dare they do something so . . . so . . .”

  “Hateful?” Julia supplied, her dark eyes flashing with fury. “Quite easily, I imagine. Oh, some of the more enlightened ones might believe in women’s access to higher education in an abstract sort of way, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that we’re accepted here. They’ve quieted down since the first few weeks, but they were biding their time, and we let them lull us into a false sense of security!”

  “Then what do we do?” Caroline Carstairs asked. “If we retaliate, we won’t receive anywhere near the leniency they do. We’ll be sent down if we cause any trouble, and that will be it for lady doctors at Edinburgh. To hell with the law, they’ll find a loophole and bar us for good.”

  “What choice do we have?” I asked. It was rare that I would involve myself so directly in the concerns of my fellow students, since the majority of them made no bones about the fact that they wished me elsewhere—preferably somewhere very far away—but the prank had made me feel part of the group for once. “We take the moral high ground, act as though nothing has happened, and in the meantime wear our outdoor coats for the rest of the day.”

  “Well of course you’d give in to the first bit of intimidation.” Julia sneered.


  “I’ve had rather a lot of practice lately.” I smiled sweetly. “And let me remind you, Julia, I’m still here. I won’t be frightened off by threats and intimidation, no matter where they come from.”

  She backed down, but I saw her flash a look of surprised respect in my direction once no one was looking.

  “I agree with Gilchrist,” Alison said. “I’m not giving a single one of those brutes the satisfaction of knowing that they’ve ruined my dress or that they’ve . . .” She trailed off. “You know, that they have upset me,” she said with a note of surprise. “I’m not distressed or weepy or any of the other stupid, girlish words that old windbags like Baldwin use whenever we’re frustrated. I’m . . . I’m bloody furious!” she finished, laughing. Moira sent up a cheer, and we all joined in, stamping our feet and banging on the narrow desks in front of us.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Caroline, normally a little mouse despite her flaming-red hair, said fiercely. “I’m going to work until I drop, and best every single one of them in the December examinations.”

  “You know, most of the benches are still quite heavily powdered,” I mused aloud. “I don’t suppose we have time to clean them before the next lot of students come in, do we?”

  “No,” Caroline said, grinning wickedly. “I don’t suppose we do.”

  By the end of the day, a piece of paper was tacked to every noticeboard in the medical school informing students that due to an error on the part of the university servants, dye had been left on the benches of one of the lecture halls and if any students required their clothing laundered, the university would foot the bill. No mention of the culprits was made, but Moira informed us all with glee a few days later that a group of normally rowdy second-years had been seen on hands and knees, scrubbing the dissection hall with Lysol soap like charwomen. It was a minor victory, but a victory all the same. Most of all, the incident provided the perfect chance to excuse myself on the pretense of going home to change, but instead of hailing a cab, my steps took me across the street in the direction of the cramped and dirty Cowgate.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When I entered Ruby McAllister’s brothel, I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. I had never really imagined the inside of a house of ill repute before, but it wasn’t like this. I was shown into what looked like a terribly ordinary drawing room—provided one didn’t examine the features too closely.

  I sat down tentatively on an overstuffed horsehair sofa, and tried not to look at the pictures on the walls. Out of the corner of my eye, none of the figures in the paintings looked clothed. I glanced at the bookshelves that lined one wall of the parlor, and decided that the books there were to be similarly avoided. I heard an odd, rhythmic thumping from upstairs, and when it dawned on me exactly what the room’s occupants were doing, I blushed to the roots of my hair. The maid brought me a cup of tea, too sweet and milky for my liking, but I sipped it politely while trying to reassure myself that not once in my studies had I come across the transmission of syphilis by teacup.

  I didn’t have to wait long in the end—a portly woman with salt-and-pepper hair entered, giving me a suspicious look.

  “There’s nae rooms free, if that’s what you’re after,” she snarled. Her fetid breath told me she had been eating liver and onions recently.

  “Not even the one Lucy had?”

  She flinched but didn’t break my gaze. I wondered if it had been she who found the body. “She’s been gone since Friday night, hen.” She eyed me appraisingly. “So who is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Your young man. And before you go accusing me of anything, my girls are clean. We have a doctor round here regular, so whatever lover boy’s given you, he didnae get it here.”

  “I don’t have a young man,” I explained, wondering if she could really be as innocent of her former charge’s fate as she seemed. “Mrs. McAllister, Lucy’s corpse was delivered to the university for dissection a few days ago. Dr. Leadbetter mentioned your . . . establishment as her place of residence, and I thought she might have had some family you could inform.”

  “Why d’ye care?” The woman’s voice was gruff, but whether from emotion or permanent surliness I couldn’t tell. “What’s she to you?”

  “A patient,” I said, although it wasn’t strictly true. “She came to the infirmary in a certain type of trouble. I believe she was hoping that one of the doctors would . . . well.”

  “Get rid of it?”

  I was shocked at her matter-of-factness, although I supposed I shouldn’t have been.

  “Aye, there’s few customers for a girl in her condition once she’s started to show, and gin and a hot bath dinnae always do the trick.”

  “N-nevertheless,” I stammered, “I thought someone should know. Mrs. McAllister, I don’t know who cared for Lucy while she was alive, but they should know that she’s dead! I asked the porters to keep hold of her body, in case you wanted to arrange a burial.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Now why would I want to do that?”

  “Mrs. McAllister, she was in your care! If you don’t want to bury her, then surely you know someone who does.”

  She seemed to falter, then shook her head with a withering sigh at my obvious naïveté. “Girls who come through my door, they’re not the sort with families. Leastways, no family that will spare a ha’penny for them. If they did, d’ye really think they’d be here?”

  To my horror, my eyes pricked hotly, and I pinched my lips tightly together to stop myself from crying.

  Seeing this, Ruby softened, somewhat. “I’ll see what I can do. The university, you say?”

  I nodded, then, steeling myself, came to the real reason I had charmed my way into her parlor.

  “This is a difficult question, and I appreciate that you might want to protect the confidentiality of your . . . ah . . . customers, but did Lucy have any visitors who might have been, shall we say, less than gentle?” The madam remained impassive. “Anyone who might have hurt her, even without meaning to?” She shook her head, although I sensed that she was holding something back. “Lucy’s wrists and neck were bruised. That didn’t kill her, but before she died, she’d put up a fight.”

  “My girls can take care of themselves,” Ruby said, but she didn’t sound as though she believed it. “I cannae be everywhere at once.” She looked a little sad. It was no less than she deserved, I thought angrily.

  “You profited from girls like Lucy,” I said coldly, “and the girl upstairs.” I looked toward the ceiling, where the percussion had increased considerably. “You had a duty to look after her.”

  A lazy smile crawled across her face. “That’s no’ a girl upstairs, hen.”

  I swallowed. “Oh. Well. My point still stands. Someone hurt Lucy before she died, and I think you know who it was. I won’t waste any more of my time or yours, but if you happen to recall anything unusual about Lucy’s gentleman callers, then this is where you can find me.” I pulled out a notebook from my reticule and scribbled my address down, wondering if giving Aunt Emily’s address to a brothel owner was quite the best of ideas. I included a guinea as I passed it to her, and she glanced at it and nodded.

  “If I remember anything,” she said grudgingly. “You’ll best be on your way, lassie, before it gets dark.”

  I stepped into the entrance hall, nearly walking into a man who had come downstairs. Given his rumpled appearance and the silence from the room above the parlor, I suspected he had been one of the men upstairs but which, I couldn’t possibly imagine. I tried not to stare after him as he left, wondering what on earth had persuaded him to do what he had recently been doing—not to mention exactly what it was he had been engaged in. A few moments after the door slammed shut behind him, a lithe young man of around eighteen with a shock of black hair and a slightly pinched-looking face slouched downstairs. He glanced at me and smirked.

  “Another new girl, Mother McAllister?” he asked. I didn’t stay to hear her reply.

&nbs
p; I stepped into the street hesitantly, the twilight having given place to lurking darkness. Although the narrow, winding cobbled path was sheltered by tenements from the harsh November winds, it somehow seemed colder down here. Figures shoved past me, without a word of apology. I would be lucky to emerge with my purse, not to mention what little was left of my virtue. I couldn’t imagine living here, although people clearly did. Lucy had lived here, plied her trade here, and probably died here.

  I walked steadily onward, refusing to turn and flee back to the light, much as I dearly wanted to. There were knots of girls standing on the street, some with male accompaniment, but more without. There was one solitary flower girl, as bedraggled as the violets she was selling—and really, were they even the right color? Dyed, I suppose, to look more expensive. Had I looked closer, I would probably have seen her palms stained where the damp had leeched out the dye from the flowers, but this wasn’t a place where one could stop and stare in safety. Not for a woman, at least—more than one gentleman, if the term could be so applied, was staring at me with undisguised interest. It was clear they considered any woman walking alone through these streets to be fair game.

  Voices behind me made me pick up my pace, as Ruby McAllister turned away a drunkard. I heard his lurching steps in my direction, but before I could run, he had staggered into me. I turned, hoping to fend him off, only to see Professor Merchiston, black eye and all, swaying unsteadily in front of me. He opened his mouth, as if to speak. Instead, he heaved and vomited over me.

  I stared at him in horror as the hot stinking liquid cooled on my skirt and petticoats.

  “Madam, I am so sorry,” he slurred, attempting to place a conciliatory hand on my elbow. I backed hastily away, not trusting that his impaired motor function would land his fingers in the right place. He frowned, recognition dawning. “I know you.” His Scotch-soaked breath was hot against my cheek. “You’re the quiet one.”