The Wages of Sin

by Kaite Welsh

  Sighing, I opened my books and settled down to my studies. Everything else could wait until tomorrow, I told myself firmly. My family, Miles, the constant nagging guilt whenever I thought of Lucy. I had a future of my own to secure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Uncle Hugh was late down for breakfast. I had finished my eggs and was jiggling my foot anxiously before Aunt Emily scolded me for “unladylike behavior.” Channeling my nervous energies into an extra portion of toast and marmalade—equally unladylike, in Aunt Emily’s extensive and exacting book, but on the basis that it stopped me from talking, she let the infraction slide—I kept glancing anxiously at the dining-room door. Eventually, he slumped into the room, bleary-eyed and scowling, and grunted at the parlormaid to bring him coffee and the rapidly cooling bacon. He ate torturously slow, lingering over every mouthful, and I wondered if he was genuinely enjoying the fact that I would be late.

  Eventually, he swigged down the last of his coffee and indicated in monosyllables that we should be off, gruffly as though I were the reason for our tardiness in leaving the house. The traffic on Princes Street was inevitably chaotic, and it took us nearly half an hour to reach Bristo Place. I could have arrived there sooner by walking, even in a corset and boots that pinched. I raced through the Gothic arches of the entrance, to the tutting and irritated shouts of the pedestrians I passed, coming into perilously close contact with more than one bicycle, and clattered into the square of the medical school.

  To my surprise, my fellow students were standing outside. There were raised voices, and a crowd had gathered.

  I inched my way through, wondering what on earth could be detaining them.

  “At least this one has the decency to dress like a woman,” one of them said, laughing with his friend, noting my appearance. I realized the meaning of his words as I made my way to the front of the crowd.

  “I have been given the strictest instructions not to admit any student wearing inappropriate dress,” the porter announced firmly for what was clearly the hundredth time, as he stood in the doorway barring the way.

  “What utter nonsense,” a trouser-clad Julia said. Some of her coterie agreed, but most looked uneasy or simply tired of the whole charade and impatient to enter and begin the day’s work. For once, I felt sorry for her. “I am no more improperly dressed than these fine gentlemen,” she said, waving her arm in the direction of her audience.

  “But you aren’t a gentleman, are you?” the porter said wearily. “And the rules strictly state that ladies”—here he uttered the word with heavy irony—“are only to be admitted on the proviso that they are wearing correct dress—that is, a dress .”

  “Oh, give it up, Julia,” Alison grumbled. “It’s freezing out here, and you’re making us miss our first lecture. I swear, if I plow the December examinations because of you, I won’t be held responsible for my actions! Look here,” she appealed to the porter, “can’t those of us who did bother to finish putting on our clothes this morning go in? It isn’t fair that we should all suffer because of Latymer’s sartorial principles.”

  A few of the other girls agreed with her, but Moira Owen whirled around in a blaze of fury.

  “Do you not see what they’re doing here?” she snarled. “Trying to halt the wheels of progress! Why shouldn’t we dress for comfort as men do?”

  “There’s nothing comfortable about a morning suit,” one of our watchers called out merrily. “And should you care to try out a top hat, my lady, be my guest—the things are damned heavy!”

  She shot them a withering gaze and sniffed contemptuously.

  “For all the fuss you people make about ‘doctors in petticoats,’ you’d think that they’d be delighted to have one of us show up in trousers!”

  “And yet I don’t see you making the effort for the cause, Owen,” I muttered. She caught wind of that all right, and turned to me with a nasty smirk.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to sacrifice your vanity for political freedom, Gilchrist. You’d wither and die without male attention!”

  There were whoops and cheers from the male students, and the odd chuckle from at least one lecturer, and I wished passionately that I could either sink down through the cobblestones through an act of providence, or dash her brains out on them.

  Realizing that the commotion risked getting out of control, the porter raised his voice above the crowd.

  “Those ladies who have arrived in proper attire may enter the building. Those of you who are wearing . . .” He trailed off, not sure what to call the garment clothing Julia below the waist.

  “Bloomers,” she supplied crisply. “After Amelia Bloomer—bicyclist, champion of women’s rights, and erstwhile leader of the rational dress movement.”

  “Aye, well,” he said, clearly too embarrassed to attempt the term himself. “Anyone wearing those is not permitted to come inside, d’ye ken?”

  Moira raised a fist in the air, in a gesture clearly intended to look political rather than a little bit ridiculous. “Friends and sisters,” she cried out in tones that rang off the stone walls that encircled us. “If you value freedom of expression and champion equal rights for women, then you will stand outside with us and make a statement to the university authorities that we will not accept this treatment!”

  To her credit, Julia looked annoyed and more than a little embarrassed at her friend’s enthusiasm. I suspected that given the chance she would have walked back home and changed into something more universally acceptable before continuing her day’s classes. But since she could hardly back down in front of what appeared to be half the medical school, she called out in a slightly weaker voice:

  “For those of you who agree with us that women have a right to dress in clothes that are comfortable and modest, rather than with corsets designed to exaggerate the feminine figure to attract the attention of the opposite sex”—here she shot me a nasty look—“I am calling an emergency inaugural meeting of the Women Students’ Morality Union tonight at seven o’clock in the tearooms on Nicholson Street!”

  “Be that as it may,” the porter shouted over the noise, clearly wishing he had not started the entire fracas, “those of you not in breach of the university regulations had better go in at once before you miss any more time.”

  Politics and solidarity were one thing—missing precious hours of lecture time was something else entirely, and much to Julia’s and Moira’s irritation, only Edith lingered outside with them.

  As we slunk into the lecture theater, Professor Merchiston was standing in the empty room with a thunderous expression.

  “And what bloody time do you call this, ladies?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry, Professor,” Alison stammered, “but the porter refused to let Julia in, and well . . . it all got a little out of hand.”

  “Did he indeed?” Merchiston looked curious. “And was he within his rights?”

  “Technically,” Caroline said reluctantly. “But he at least could have let the rest of us in!”

  “Well I won’t penalize you nine,” he said. “I presume Miss Menzies and Miss Owen fell foul of his rulebook as well?”

  “They’re standing outside in solidarity,” I informed him, fighting to keep the smirk out of my voice. I may have disliked him, but that wasn’t going to stop me getting Moira into trouble after the way she had singled me out in the quad.

  His beetling brows drew together—an action that required little movement at the best of times.

  “Be that as it may, I now have forty minutes in which to impart an hour’s worth of information. I shall speak quickly, and I expect you all to keep up with me.”

  He kept his side of the bargain and we barely kept ours. By the time we exited the hall, my hands had cramped in agony.

  “I have a dissection tutorial with Dr. Turner now,” I groaned to Alison. “I don’t think I can hold the scalpel!”

  “I may never use this hand again,” she said in tones of equal despair, massaging her hand with a wince. “I may
have to become ambidextrous!”

  “I can teach you,” Caroline offered awkwardly. “I wrote with my left hand until my governess beat it out of me. All I’ll need is a ruler and some bandages to strap your other hand to your shoulder.”

  We stared in mute horror for a moment, before collapsing into a fit of giggles. The morning’s incident, coupled with the fierce intensity of our abbreviated lecture, had created an atmosphere of near hysteria that took very little to push it into the real thing.

  “Women,” one of the older students said in disgusted tones as he passed us in the hallway. “They’re constitutionally incapable of intellectual thought. Look, they’re half mad already!”

  The morning’s events had shattered our usual ability to concentrate. Normally we were twice as solemn as the men—and yet still seen as three times more frivolous—but for once we were relaxed to the point of giddiness, passing notes and whispers until more than one professor threatened to walk out. Professor Chalmers’s lecture was even more of a struggle for me than the others, but for very different reasons. Despite his usual jocular demeanor and the way he had welcomed me as his wife’s friend, I couldn’t forget what I had seen. It was worse, in a way, than my discovery of Merchiston’s indiscretions. I had respected the dour professor, but I had genuinely liked Randall Chalmers. Reconciling the man who hung on his wife’s every word with an adulterer and buyer of women was an uncomfortable task. But how much worse, I thought, would it be for Elisabeth?

  “Miss Gilchrist,” he called as we trailed out. “Elisabeth wanted to pass on her regards, to tell you how much she enjoyed meeting your aunt and uncle and to say that you must come to dinner one night next week.”

  I smiled queasily, wondering if that invitation would still be issued once I had revealed her husband’s nocturnal activities.

  In the hallway, my tormentor awaited me in fine form, more suitably attired.

  “My, my, aren’t we the favorite.” Julia sneered. “Are you sure that invitation was from Mrs. Chalmers, Sarah? Or is it Professor Chalmers you’re interested in?”

  “How dare you?” I said. “You may think that you can insult me, Julia Latymer, but don’t you dare bring Professor Chalmers or Elisabeth into this! They have extended me nothing but friendship—which, quite frankly, is more than any of you have done. I won’t have you dragging their names through the mud, you spiteful bitch!”

  She flinched, but her cruel smirk never slipped. “I’ve seen the way Professor Merchiston looks at you, Gilchrist. I won’t have the reputation of every other female student smeared by your behavior.”

  She turned on her heel and stalked away, the others trailing after her.

  In our next lecture, I took a seat a row behind her, far enough away that I wouldn’t be tempted to stab her with my fountain pen, and spent the time seething silently. Somewhere, a bell chimed and I realized that not only was it time for lunch but also that I was ravenous.

  “You were impressive earlier,” a voice said behind me. It was Alison Thornhill, looking considerably sheepish. “You do realize that the reason she hates you so much is because you’re the only one here capable of beating her to the top of the class?”

  “That’s not the reason, Alison, and you know it.”

  “No, it is,” she insisted. “Why, Julia fancies herself such a modern woman, she wouldn’t care if a girl took a dozen lovers.” It was on the tip of my tongue to protest that I hadn’t taken a damned lover at all, but Alison swept on. “She knows you’re a challenge, and she’d love to get rid of you, but whatever she says she doesn’t think you’re a . . .”

  “Whore?” I finished. Alison blushed. “She may not, but the rest of you do. You think I’m tarnishing your precious reputations by even daring to show my face here. You claim to want to advance the cause of women’s rights, but you’re hypocrites, the lot of you. I know what the men say about all of us behind our backs, and sometimes not even that. Having a woman say it doesn’t make it any truer. Are we to be nothing more than gossips, Alison? I thought we were trying to break away from those poison-filled drawing rooms, and those small lives that are only enlivened by inventing some scandal or other. Don’t we have better things to do? No wonder then that men hate us, no wonder they think we’re only capable of trivial thought. When have we ever proved them wrong?”

  I was surprised as Alison by my outburst, but oh, it felt good to say it!

  “You’re right, of course,” she said slowly. “And I’ve been as rotten as the rest of them—worse, even, because I never believed what they said about you, not once. But I still avoided you, because I didn’t want Julia to turn on me next.”

  “We’ve exchanged a tyranny of men for a tyranny of Julia Latymer,” I said lightly, trying to accept the apology she so tentatively offered without admitting how much her avoidance of me had caused me pain. “I think it’s time to end it.”

  “Friends?” she said softly, offering me her hand.

  “Friends,” I said, taking it. “Now, please, can we go and have some lunch? I think I’ve done enough shouting in public spaces on an empty stomach, don’t you?”

  As we left the building in the pursuit of luncheon, I tugged my coat tighter around me. The sky was heavy and slate gray, and the wind was even colder than before.

  “Our landlady said it was going to snow this afternoon,” Alison commented.

  I shuddered. “I wonder if the infirmary would miss me if I just went straight home to the fireside this week?”

  “Probably.” Alison laughed. “Dr. Leadbetter sounds like a martinet, I wouldn’t get on her bad side for the world! She seems to have taken a liking to you though.”

  “Well, you know how she champions the fallen women of the world,” I said with a laugh, trying to inject some humor into my grim social standing.

  Alison looked all consternation, clearly not sure if this was something she was allowed to laugh at or not.

  “You know, for all their supposed progressive beliefs, Latymer and her crew do behave like frightful old biddies,” she said finally. “George Eliot—why, she lived with a married man as if she were his wife, and society frowned on it but she got through it. So really, one oughtn’t be too parsimonious.”

  I had found that people accepted behavior from their writers and poets that was less welcome in a physician, but it was an apology of sorts and I squeezed her arm in silent thanks.

  “Did you go to their meeting?” I asked curiously.

  Alison snorted. “What, rational dress? Only out of curiosity.” Off my look, she added, “I don’t see why, just because we want to enter a male-dominated profession, we have to start dressing like them as well. I mean, really. Can you imagine me in a frock coat?”

  The image of my friend, who was considerably heavier than the rake-thin Moira Owen or even the pulchritudinous Julia, in a frock coat and top hat was incongruous, to say the least.

  “I’d be tempted, if only my aunt wouldn’t have a conniption at the very thought.”

  Alison grimaced sympathetically. “Are they so terribly strict?”

  “They’ve given me a freer rein of late,” I admitted. “But only because the prospect of some poor fool considering my hand in marriage means I need new dresses. I hope my parents are sending them a decent allowance for me,” I added, “because Aunt Emily has spent an absolute fortune at the dressmakers. Not”—I glanced down ruefully—“that it was on anything I can wear to lectures.”

  “I think it’s better to look a little dowdy,” Alison argued. “I think it makes the gentlemen respect us more if we don’t look like fashion plates.”

  “You see, this is where I agree with Julia.” I frowned. “Why should it matter what the gentlemen think, provided we are comfortable and happy with the way we look? I can just as easily dissect something in trousers as I can in skirts, and it would be a damn sight less restrictive.”

  Alison giggled. “Then you’ll be joining her society?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I doubt they�
��d have me. It’s bad enough my bringing shame on the entire university and the medical school in particular by my very presence, I suspect that polluting the environment of the University of Edinburgh Rational Dress Society might be a step too far for our self-appointed guardians of morality.”

  Alison leaned over confidentially. “I don’t think we’re missing much,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The fire crackled in the grate and I breathed in the scent of woodsmoke, tea, and toast. Of home. Elisabeth added a few idle stitches to her embroidery, humming to herself, while my anatomy textbook lay on my lap, open but unread. I had been freezing when I arrived, soaked to the skin from the few moments I had spent in the inclement weather between university and carriage, carriage and the house I had come to think of as my refuge. Now I was warm and dry, lounging in companionable silence and preparing myself to destroy Elisabeth’s safe, lazy comfort.

  “Is Professor Chalmers joining us for dinner tonight?” I asked finally.

  Elisabeth glanced up from her sewing. “I don’t think so. He told Mrs. Flanders he’d probably eat at his club.” She resumed the neat, perfect stitches on the hem of a gown for one of her fellow chaperone’s grandchildren. I could leave it there, let her enjoy her kind gestures, pretend I hadn’t seen her husband buying the favors of some poor wretch a few nights ago.