The Wages of Sin

by Kaite Welsh

  That was Alison in a nutshell—so keen to think well of everyone that she could only conceive of the smallest of slights. As I watched in horror at the solution—which had, I was forced to admit, contained a little too much sulfuric acid—eating away at the bench, I decided against mentioning that his grievance was because I had accused him of murder.

  It was with considerable relief that I exited the laboratory, Professor McClory’s admonishments still ringing in my ears. Any hope I had of a moment to wolf down a sandwich and treat the small burn on my left index finger evaporated when Julia and Moira shepherded us all into a deserted side corridor.

  “Ladies, our mission last night was less than successful,” Julia began. There was muffled laughter from the ranks. “But one thing is clear—if we want to challenge the immorality on our streets, we need to take our crusade to the hallowed halls of academia.” We stared blankly, sleep-deprived to a woman and at least one of us having inhaled noxious gas not ten minutes earlier. “Anthony Hardy, the one who was boasting about visiting brothels! I saved some pamphlets, and I think it’s about time we paid him and his reprobate gang of chums a visit. He had a cadaver dissection this morning and he normally spends luncheon in the common room, so if we follow this corridor, we should meet him coming up the back staircase.”

  “I don’t see why you’re expecting this to work, when last night was such a disaster,” I grumbled.

  “That’s because you don’t possess my moral rectitude, Gilchrist,” Julia said. “Perhaps if you listened more and criticized the Morality Union less, you might learn something.”

  Luckily, the object of our hunt arrived at that point, whistling a jaunty music hall song.

  “Our pioneering would-be doctoresses! What a charming sight. Well”—he grinned—“most of you, anyway.”

  Rolling her eyes, Julia blocked his path. “There’s nothing charming about your behavior, Hardy. While we spent last night in the freezing cold, trying to save the souls of the poor girls in the Grassmarket bawdy houses, I hear you have been leading them further into degradation.”

  Hardy, who I already suspected of matriculating because of his father’s seat on the Royal College of Surgeons board rather than possessing even the sense God gave a flea, paused for a moment to parse Julia’s argument.

  His face lit up with comprehension. “Oh, you mean visiting tarts? Well, all work and no play makes a gent terribly dull, you know. I’ve always wondered, how do you girls blow off a little steam . . . ?” His sentence trailed off into an anguished squawk as Julia stamped on his foot.

  “Do dignity and honor mean nothing to you? You took an oath to save lives, not to endanger their immortal souls!”

  “Now, steady on there—I haven’t technically taken any oaths yet. You don’t do that until you graduate, see. If you graduate.”

  Any sympathy I had felt for Hardy being press-ganged by a marauding Morality Union vanished at his implication.

  “So you don’t deny visiting Ruby McAllister’s establishment on Mackenzie’s Wynd?” I demanded.

  “Not you too,” he groaned. “Merchiston has already hauled me over the coals and threatened to have me sent down. As though that miserable scarecrow was some beacon of morality!” He snorted. “At least I’ve never been tried for murder.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I felt as though all the air had escaped from the room.

  “Didn’t know about that, did you, Little Miss Know-It-All?” He smirked. “Just ask Andrew Blair—his fiancée’s father is a QC in Aberdeen, and he says there was the most frightful scandal when Merchiston came to work here.”

  “But surely if he was acquitted . . .” Julia stammered.

  “But that’s the thing—he wasn’t. The best they could do was not proven.” Off my blank expression he explained, “Oh, it’s some Scots legal nonsense. When they can’t find the evidence to make the crime stick but they’re pretty sure you’ve done it, they judge it not proven. The Scotch verdict, they call it—probably because no other country would be so petty-minded as to clear you while still implying you’re guilty.”

  He paused, realizing that he was outnumbered by Scotswomen. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Moira’s mouth purse in patriotic offense.

  “Who was he supposed to have murdered?”

  Hardy shrugged, as if that wasn’t of the faintest importance. “I haven’t a clue. There was a woman involved, I think. Isn’t there always when a chap finds himself in trouble? Anyway, there’s no use looking at me like I’ve desecrated a village of virgins. I didn’t get past the parlor—the old cat who runs the place threw us out as soon as she heard we were students. I told her our money was as good as anyone’s, but she was having none of it. So it’s back to Mrs. Palm and her five friendly daughters for me.” He adopted a hangdog expression. “I’m practically a eunuch.”

  “You’re a disgusting pig,” Julia said sweetly.

  He snorted. “Christ, you’ll have to toughen up if you want to practice medicine. If you’re going to act like men, Miss Latymer, you’d better develop some balls.” He winked at me. “Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a diagram in your textbook.”

  Had he not sauntered off when he did, there might have been another murder blighting the hallowed reputation of the University of Edinburgh. As it was, Moira was left hissing like an angry cat and Julia swore profusely under her breath.

  “I can’t believe we missed lunch for some ridiculous gossip,” Alison grumbled.

  I shook my head. The thought of what Hardy had done after being evicted from Ruby’s establishment was far too vivid in my mind. “I’m never eating again.”

  “Perhaps we should stand outside Mrs. Palm’s next,” Caroline Carstairs offered helpfully.

  A strangled yelp came from Alison’s direction, and even Julia was blushing.

  “That isn’t a real place,” I explained gently.

  “Well then, what did he mean?”

  “Don’t,” I groaned. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to. Please, just live in blessed ignorance.”

  “Can we return to the original point?” Julia whispered. “Professor Merchiston was tried for murder! I’d say that was a little more disturbing than Hardy’s onanism. Oh, for God’s sake, buy a dictionary, Carstairs!”

  “At least he wasn’t guilty,” Edith said, not sounding terribly reassured.

  “Everything but!” Moira said. “I read about a woman who was found not proven and she went on to poison her next three husbands!”

  “Don’t underestimate how a good reputation will protect a man,” I said grimly. “Men like Merchiston, their innocence rests on their good name, not on what they have or haven’t done. If a man like that causes you harm, you’d better hope you’re wealthy, titled, and male or the law will cast you aside like rubbish.”

  Moira blinked. “A bit bleak, Gilchrist.”

  “It’s the truth,” Edith said quietly. “A man like Professor Merchiston can shrug off a little scandal, but for a woman—”

  “We all know what scandal does to women,” Alison finished pointedly. Everyone tried very hard not to look at me.

  “Murderer or not, he’s still teaching here,” Moira said firmly. She glanced at her wristwatch. “In fact, he’s probably waiting for us now. Under the circumstances, I don’t ever want to be late for one of his lectures again.”

  With a murmur of agreement, we began to move as one through the corridors. Julia turned to me as though she wanted to say something. Not wanting to hear whatever new taunts she had thought up, I hurried away.

  It was not, of course, the first time I had sat in one of Professor Merchiston’s lectures and examined him for any trace or hint of unreasonable violence. But, as I glanced around, I felt an odd sense of camaraderie seeing my fellow students doing so as well. That I was not alone in my suspicions should have soothed me—instead, my thoughts were jangled and confusing.

  If he noticed our inattention—which surely he did, his lips
pressed thinner than usual; his manner even brusquer—he overlooked our muffled yawns and the occasional wrong answer. His lecture was pitched lower than normal, as though his thoughts too were elsewhere, and together we all plodded on until our hour was up.

  “For an alternate description, I recommend you search out Raybourn’s Notes on Pharmacology ahead of your examinations. You can find it at James Thin the booksellers, or in the library, if you prefer your copies dog-eared and ink-splattered—” He broke off. “Miss Carstairs, is there a problem? Or are you telling fortunes like a gypsy at the country fair? Because if so, I was under the impression that you’re supposed to read other people’s palms.”

  Caroline was staring at her hand with revulsion. Experimentally, she flexed her fingers into a circle and shuddered.

  She caught my gaze with an expression of horror, and I nodded apologetically. Innocence didn’t last long here for any of us, it seemed.

  The Chalmers’ house was a cocoon of warmth banishing the late-afternoon chill from my bones, and I gulped the coffee Elisabeth had poured for me with relief. A plate of her cook’s very best biscuits lay on the table, a fire roared in the grate, and, best of all, my fingers no longer smelled of formaldehyde despite an hour and a half spent with a scalpel and a deceased frog.

  It would have been a lovely scene—The Bluestocking and Her Companion, an artist would call it—had I not once again turned the conversation to darker matters and Gregory Merchiston’s role in them.

  Elisabeth’s exasperation was increasingly evident. “Sarah, this is becoming quite the vendetta! Suspect the man by all means, but if it gets out that you’re blackening his character to the wife of one of his colleagues, you’ll be sent down. I agree that his behavior has been . . . well, somewhat unorthodox, but I know the man and I simply don’t think—”

  “Did you know he was accused of murder?” I interrupted. Elisabeth flinched. “Oh God, you did! And you never said anything. Why?”

  “It was a mistake,” she said firmly. “His sister had found herself into some trouble and the man responsible was found dead. Gregory had been seen arguing with him a few days before, and the police jumped to conclusions. He was acquitted, Sarah! I know you have little faith in the law, but even you have to respect that.”

  “He wasn’t acquitted,” I bit out.

  Elisabeth looked confused. “He was found not guilty—”

  “The charges were not proven,” I corrected. “A slap on the wrist from a judge who couldn’t or wouldn’t convict him. You’re so eager to believe him innocent, to trust a man simply because he’s dined with you, that you’re blind to the facts.”

  “Randall told me about it, it’s true,” Elisabeth confessed. “He didn’t want me to hear it from a student or another faculty member spreading malicious gossip.” She looked at me pointedly and I sank further down into my chair. “But he told me that Gregory was found innocent.”

  “He probably thought that explaining the detail of Scots law would be too much for your feeble female mind,” I muttered.

  My friend glared at me. “I may not be studying for a medical degree, Sarah, but I’m not a complete fool. And may I remind you that it is Randall you women have to thank for being here at all? He has championed your cause, defended you to your detractors, and made sure the miscreants who played that ghastly prank on you all with the red ink were found and punished. He deserves better than that, and if you want to ask him about it—”

  “Ask who what?” the subject of our conversation asked collegially, if not grammatically, as he entered the room. “Miss Gilchrist, a pleasure as always. Darling, tell me that we’re eating early; I’ve been arguing with the bursar all afternoon and I’m absolutely famished.”

  “It seems that rumors about Gregory and that dreadful court case have reached the first-year students,” his wife said grimly.

  “Well, it was only a matter of time,” Chalmers said ruefully. “Although I was hoping that the female students might be spared the gossip. Bad enough half the lecturers don’t want you here at all without hearing that one of them was once questioned in connection with a murder.”

  “A little more than questioned, I believe,” I prompted. Elisabeth sighed audibly,

  “It was five years ago,” Chalmers began, “The girl, his sister, was barely more than fourteen. Gregory was recently widowed and paralyzed with guilt over not having been able to save Isobel and William. She’d run off with her schoolmaster, who abandoned her as soon as he realized that Gregory wouldn’t pay for their upkeep. There were some unpleasant words—enough that when the bast—ahem, the blackguard, was found dead, his acquaintances all pointed the finger at Gregory. The judge knew that it was a fool’s errand from the start but there was no denying that Gregory had the motive and the strength to crush the man’s windpipe like that.” Elisabeth gave a cry of horror. “My love, I’m sorry. I forgot myself. Anyway, no one believed he could have done it, and after a little grumbling from the higher-ups he was hired by the university. You can’t hang a man on no evidence, and Merchiston’s reputation spoke for itself.”

  “And his sister?” Elisabeth asked, her eyes wide with concern. “I didn’t even know he had any family, he’s never mentioned them.”

  A spasm of pain flashed over Chalmers’s face. “Not every story has a happy ending, my dear.”

  We were all silent for a moment, the only sound the pop and crackle of the logs in the grate.

  “We’re just having something light this evening—poor Sarah has just come from a dissection.”

  “No frogs’ legs then?” He chuckled.

  I winced, remembering the poor amphibian specimen and the mess I had made of him.

  The housemaid entered with a swift curtsy and informed us that dinner was being served in the dining room. I followed my friends in with a heavy heart and a troubled conscience. I had details, I realized, but I was no closer to an answer about Gregory Merchiston’s aptitude for murder than before.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The infirmary was in turmoil when I arrived. An overturned omnibus that afternoon had resulted in an influx of patients, and Fiona and her colleagues were struggling to keep up. I had barely deposited my coat in the cramped office when I was set to work carrying bedpans and sterilizing instruments and any other task that the rest of the staff had no time for. I was cleaning a particularly ugly suppurating wound an hour after I arrived, when I heard the commotion in the makeshift reception area. It wasn’t unusual for a patient to turn violent, whether through drink or fear or just frustration at their miserable lives, so I continued dabbing disinfectant on the pus-filled sore until Fiona’s sharp cry startled me.

  Fiona was pressed up against the wall, as the tip of a kitchen knife pressed against the hollow of her throat.

  “You bitch,” a girl of no more than fifteen gasped out through her tears. “You said you’d take care of it. You said you’d get rid of it.”

  “I said I’d help you,” Fiona said, fighting to keep her voice calm. “A family, perhaps, to foster the child while you find a more suitable occupation. But I won’t perform an illegal operation.”

  The knife stayed dangerously in place, but the girl’s voice softened. “Lucy said . . .”

  My breath hitched in my throat.

  Fiona spoke firmly. “Lucy said the same thing as you, and received the same response. God has sent you this child as a way out of your wickedness. Your time would be better spent planning for its arrival than arguing with me, trying to prevent it.”

  Matilda, the clinic’s anesthetist, pulled the sobbing girl away from Fiona, and the knife clattered to the floor. She cradled the child, murmuring soothing words and escorting her with the minimum of fuss to one of the examining rooms.

  Fiona stooped to pick up the knife, and I rushed to her side.

  “Thank God for Tillie.” Fiona laughed shakily. “I swear, she doesn’t need ether—she could just talk her patients into blissful unconsciousness.”

  I shud
dered at her clinical tone, wondering if I would ever be able to see the bodies as mere tools for scientific discovery, rather than the people they were.

  Her shoulders slumped, and I felt guilty for adding to her worries.

  “I’m feeling rather unwell after my recent experience, Sarah. I think you’d better escort me home.”

  Fiona’s lodgings were cramped but cozy, little more luxurious than those occupied by my fellow students. Still, next to the fire with a pot of strong, sweet tea on the table and muffins pierced precariously on toasting forks, it felt like heaven.

  “Thank you for inviting me,” I said shyly. “I know how busy you all are.”

  “Nonsense,” Fiona said. “It’s the least I can do to thank you. You’ve been invaluable these past weeks. I do hope you’ll consider staying on in a professional capacity once you’re qualified. If we last that long.”

  My heart leaped at the suggestion. I had whiled away many nights in London imagining what life as a doctor would be like. Sometimes my fantasies included ministering to the poor, as Fiona suggested, or traveling to Africa with the missionaries, a bustling hospital where I was recognized as a competent surgeon, or even simply a quiet practice where women could avoid the uncomfortable ministrations of a male doctor. The thought of a real future, independent of disapproving relatives or an unwanted husband, made me giddy with joy. But that possibility only lasted a moment.

  “Assuming I even graduate. My aunt has found me a prospective husband.” I laughed bitterly. “All this time I thought they were at least tolerating my studies, and it turns out they were just biding my time and waiting for a suitable candidate.”

  “Might he be sympathetic to your cause?”

  “I barely know him! That’s not the way the Gilchrists do things. He could be a staunch traditionalist or a male suffragist—all I know is his family has a lengthy entry in Debrett’s Peerage.”

  Fiona squeezed my hand. “I hope for your sake you can find a way out of it. There are some women who can combine medicine and a family life, but they’re the exceptions. Men can have a wife, five children, and a string of mistresses, but if you’re a woman, then you have to choose.”