The Spoils of Sin (2 page)

‘While you carry all the marks of a flirtatious Southern belle,' she replied. Her own boldness pleased her; it had been in abeyance for far too long.

Afterwards, Fanny could not have said just how the two girls moved so quickly to a mutual understanding. Their talk was circumspect, but its meaning in no doubt. There were glances at solitary men riding down the street, a wiggle of Miss Beaumont's hips and a shrill laugh from Fanny. They made arrangement to meet again, and within the month had formed their outrageous plan.

‘And where will we find the money?' they asked each other, neither one in possession of more than a few dollars of her own. Fanny's plan was to set up in a simple rough shack somewhere and work upwards to something more grand.

‘Oh, no,' said Carola, with a firm shake of her head. ‘That way lies disease and disgrace. From there, we would find no way to go but down. Trust me, Fan. This is something I know. Appearance is all, and until we can provide cleanliness and quality, we must bide our time.'

So money had been made in the only way they knew. With infinite prudence and fierce insistence on secrecy, they passed the next half-year in fresh-built barns and lofts, in stables and woodsheds, giving carefully-rationed favours to the bachelor brothers and uncles on the homesteads in exchange for ready cash. Every man believed he was the only recipient of this service, so grateful that he settled for half measures, the touch of a hand or a mouth, the willing acceptance of his shameful functions. The girls mendaciously asserted their virginity, emphasising its value and guarding it jealously. A dollar a time, they charged, and by the spring of 1848 they had accumulated a hundred bucks apiece – more than enough for timber, furniture and one or two handsome rugs.

Passers-by eyed the new building curiously, unsure as to its purpose. The builders – quite reasonably - themselves had wanted to know exactly which room was intended for what purpose. If it were to be a store of some kind, then a large front window would be required to display wares. The girls discussed at length the tricky question of how to declare themselves in the face of these questions, whilst maintaining maximum respectability amongst the decent citizens. Not every store boasted a large display window. ‘It would reduce the space necessary for storage,' said Carola to one of the builders, when she rejected the proposal. She and Fanny had concluded that they had no alternative to obfuscation, at this early stage. If the men knew the truth, they might refuse the business altogether. Only when it was too late did it become clear to everyone in town just what this building was.

The position of the new ‘boudoir' was neither central nor tucked away, but modestly sited at the end of the main street, adjacent to a barber shop which had been erected only weeks before their own establishment. ‘He will bring us custom,' said Carola, ‘if we treat him well.'

Fanny savoured the notion of freshly-shaven men, astringent from the lotion applied to their faces and free from infestations that went with long dirty hair. Some kinds of dirt were acceptable, but others were not. ‘We really need a bathtub,' she said wistfully. ‘Where we could make them wash before they soil our sheets.'

Carola wrinkled her nose. ‘We'll find a way,' she promised. Piped water had been a given, back in the east. Here in Oregon, the niceties of indoor plumbing were still a long way in the future. But a steady stream of luxury goods was arriving by ship from China and Japan, delivered to the many small towns springing up all over Oregon. Women were rapidly returning to the fashions and fripperies they had known back east, admittedly in a reduced form. Even in San Francisco, the famous town many miles to the south, civilised living had yet to be properly established.

Questions and problems had multiplied through the months of preparation. What would they tell their families? Carola's brothers might be glad to see the back of her, but Fanny was needed to work the land and tend the stock. Her parents and brother would resist any attempt to depart for a new life, unless it be with the official sanction of a wedding ring. How would they travel, either back to see their folks or to make purchases in other towns? They had no money for a horse and buggy.

Solutions came sporadically. The organisation of the living space fell easily into place. The third upstairs room was not yet needed for business since there were only two of them. In time, another girl might be found to take a share of the work and use that room, but meanwhile, it would serve as a joint bedroom for Fanny and Carola. They put a large bed in there, and admitted to liking the idea of dozing through the small hours and into the mornings, after the last customer had gone. ‘We might not rise before noon,' said Carola. ‘Imagine that!'

Fanny rubbed her head, as if trying to stimulate her imagination. ‘Even in Providence, we never did that,' she said.

‘Puritans! I knew it. Where I come from, the girls spend half their lives in bed.'

It would be a place of retreat and privacy with a stout lock on the door. ‘I fancy we shall need it,' said Carola.

The precise details of the southern girl's experience were slow to emerge. Fanny asked no direct questions, but it was clear there was a fund of knowledge to be drawn on, which Fanny herself lacked. Never once did either of them utter the word ‘prostitute' or ‘brothel' aloud. Eventually, part of the truth was disclosed.

‘I have an older cousin, by the name of Lilia Lamartine, in Charleston,' Carola began one evening. They had walked together to a shady patch of old trees, spared the axes and bandsaws by some miracle. Birds murmured in the branches, and the air smelled of dust and sap and the faintest far tang of the ocean to the west. ‘She invited me for a visit when I was seventeen, and revealed to me how she spent her time. I discovered that she was part of a group of ladies devoted to the pleasuring of men. When I expressed alarm, she assured me it was the finest possible life, given certain provisos. I asked some blunt questions – for which we should be thankful now. I did not understand at first that she was inviting me to join them, and when I did, I ran home to my mother in horror.'

Fanny blinked in surprise. ‘Indeed?' she said. ‘How greatly you must have changed since then.'

‘That was four long years since. Not a year later, my father urged me to marry a friend of his, widowed with five beastly children. The man pawed me when we were alone, his hands all over my chest and then my behind. He was a rich plantation owner, with fifty slaves or more. He had a squint and a dirty red beard.'

Fanny thought of her sister, who had married a man with two children and pox marks on his cheeks. Charity, to all appearances, was happy with her choice. ‘You refused?' she suggested.

‘I most certainly did. But it led me to thinking. I began to understand what men want most in life. I played a few games, teasing and leading them into that madness I'm sure you know for yourself. I found myself in a position of unexpected power, simply by letting them come close for a few seconds. I put it together with the things Cousin Lilia had told me, and arrived at some solid conclusions.'

Fanny gave a look of encouragement, well aware that there was a good deal more to the story. After all, Carola was no more a virgin than she was herself.

‘There was a young man betrothed to a French girl who was away in Europe for a year. He was mad with frustration. His breeches gave him away, every time I saw him. You could say I took pity on him. The truth is, he taught me more about my own body than I could ever have dreamed, or discovered for myself.'

‘My own experience was very much the same,' confided Fanny. ‘It was sheer good fortune that I found Abel Tennant. He was singularly accommodating.' She recalled a time when she might have giggled at her own words, but they no longer elicited such a reaction. Giggles were strictly reserved for flirting and fluttering in the presence of men. With another girl, such self-consciousness and embarrassment need not be simulated. Each one knew the extent of the other's knowledge and purpose, and already – before the true business had even begun – they felt the need to conserve an increasingly elusive effervescence.

There was another source of information that had fallen into Carola's hands. This was a small book entitled
The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk
which gave a chilling account of the life young nuns were forced to lead in a Canadian nunnery. She had read it many times, scandalised by the ‘disclosures' it contained. Priests would enter the building through a trapdoor and await the nun of their choice in her bed. Or they would commit all manner of sins with a nun during her confession. Many children had been conceived as a result, only to be strangled at birth and thrown into a lime pit in the cellar. Nuns who earned the disfavour of the priests and the mother superior were murdered. Obedience was enforced by various brutal tortures. Carola, a Catholic just as Fanny was, found the book both compelling and appalling. Neither doubted its truth for a moment. As Carola said, ‘How could such descriptions ever be invented?'

Fanny sat down one afternoon to peruse the book in its entirety. She emerged with a mass of complex feelings, the chief one being that she and her friend would be infinitely better off than these nuns. They would not be forced by any man; there would be no secrecy or shame; no disease if it could be avoided – and emphatically no babies.

Much of the girls' enthusiasm for the project had been channelled into soft furnishings and discreet advertisement. Practical problems waylaid them almost every day. ‘Ought we to offer cigars?' Carola wondered. ‘In the Carolinas, all the men smoked cigars as a way of relaxation.'

‘The smoke would taint the drapes,' Fanny objected. ‘They would want more frequent laundering.'

‘And it would stain the ceiling,' Carola agreed. ‘But we must keep a few for those who insist. Cigar smoke has a fragrance of its own which many associate with happy times.' They had puzzled over how best to adorn the walls of their main room, finally selecting from shade cards in the newly-established emporium a rose-pink paint that spoke of feminine sensuality. Fanny had found a lad to apply it, laughing at the smudges on his skin at the end of the work.

They had taken weeks to arrive at the word
Boudoir
to describe their establishment. In Charleston the usual word had been
Parlour
, which Fanny quite liked. Carola had described the way it worked, with a senior lady in charge of the working girls, alternately protecting and controlling them. Her cousin had disclosed an ambition to become just such a madam in a few years' time. ‘She was aiming to keep half of all the money they earn,' she told Fanny, with a shake of her head.

‘No madam for us,' said Fanny firmly. ‘We're keeping all we earn.'

‘And we are not calling it a parlour,' Carola insisted. ‘It will be familiar to everyone from the east, who will bring some undesirable expectations as a result. A boudoir will appeal to their curiosity. I wager very few will understand its meaning.'

‘I scarcely understand it myself,' admitted Fanny. ‘And yet you trust they will find us?'

‘They will,' said Carola with confidence.

There were difficulties inherent in the absence of a madam. Who would watch over the men waiting downstairs while the girls worked upstairs? Who would prevent them from stealing or damaging the items in the main room? Who would close the door when the line of waiting men grew too long? ‘In the stories of harems, there is always a eunuch for such tasks,' noted Carola. ‘Perhaps we should make enquiries.'

For the hundredth time, Fanny felt disadvantaged, not just by her friend's knowledge, but by her boldness and wit. On the trail westwards, she had felt herself to be the boldest woman alive, with her discovery of bodily pleasures and her willingness to explore it. But here was someone who outdid her on all fronts, and occasionally she resented it. Even more unsettling was the question of which of the two was the more attractive. Carola was of middle height, with a refined jawline that Fanny suspected was quite beautiful from certain angles. It gave a squareness to her face that hinted at a stubborn nature, until she smiled. Then dimples would appear, and the bones beneath her eyes would seem to lengthen and soften. Her eyes themselves were a clear light brown, the lashes thick around them. Her abundant hair contained within it unexpected colours when she piled it onto her crown. Where the sun caught it, it suggested chestnuts and mahogany; but nearer her scalp it was darker – verging on black at times.

Fanny's own appearance was far less mysterious. Rounded cheeks, full lips and a long smooth neck were her best features. Her hair had a natural curl to it, which was seldom apparent unless she released it from its bonds. Her blue eyes were poorly supplied with lashes, and rather too small for her own satisfaction. All her life she had been the prettiest of the four Collins girls by some margin, inevitably coming to believe that this also applied to the wider world. Now she was beginning to understand that the truth was considerably more complicated.

She had, at the age of sixteen, only the dimmest of understanding as to how children were conceived, and the acquisition of this knowledge was inordinately difficult. Approaching eighteen, she was better informed. The most important fact was that such a disaster had to be avoided, steadfastly and perpetually. Abel Tennant had tried to explain, in a muddled way, and this combined with a study of her father's cattle, her sister's dog and another sister's sudden marriage and motherhood had enabled a patchy theory to develop, along with ideas on how to avert nature's efforts. The blessed discovery of Carola, who knew a thousand times more on the subject than did Fanny, came as a great relief. Ever practical, Fanny knew where her priorities lay, and this was undoubtedly Number One.

But the great day finally arrived, and all thought of competition between them was banished by other anxieties. They had fashioned a banner, announcing ‘Grand Opening Today!' and at five o'clock on the afternoon of July 15th, 1848, they hung it from the upstairs windows, and waited.