The Spoils of Sin (20 page)

‘No need to ask for my permission,' said Carola.

Two more weeks took them into the full glory of springtime. New orchards put out blossom and birds filled the dawn with their songs. Society shifted and jockeyed, as new businesses appeared, to supply forgotten needs. Wives seemed to be in competition as to who could produce the greatest number of children. Deliveries went badly at times, the grim descriptions circulating widely. Men without wives remained in the majority, impatiently wishing the new baby girls would make haste to grow up. There was open discussion as to the advisability of marrying an Indian squaw, or even from sending across the ocean to China for marriageable young women. It all kept the boudoir busy.

Fanny was slow to notice that she was servicing more than her share of their customers. Invariably, if a man came in alone, Carola would contrive to send him upstairs with ‘Miss Francesca'. And if another came in, an hour later, it was again accorded to her to take the business. Carola was somehow always engaged on some task that could not be laid aside, such as collecting logs for the stove or totting up a column of figures. Eventually, in the early days of May, she remarked, ‘It seems strange that you have found so much occupation during the hours when we are supposed to be awaiting custom. It has become a habit with you to bring sewing or accounts into the evening boudoir, to the point where it has become obvious that you use such activities as an excuse not to work.'

Carola avoided her eyes, glancing away into a corner. ‘You object to earning the lion's share of our income?'

‘The income is divided equally. You know that.'

‘Indeed it is not, Fanny. I have made sure you receive proper dues for the work you do.'

‘Then you have altered our usual agreement.'

‘And you have not remarked it until now.'

Fanny's mood had been cautiously buoyant since her encounters with Paul Merryman and the wise old trapper. She had learned a middle way with the men, which generally served quite well, developing a light banter which plainly told them she would be pleasant but not intimate with them. She would assist on the rare occasions when their bodies failed to respond to the situation, and she would speak sharply to any that threatened to cause her pain. Her own body, which she continued to treat with care, gave satisfaction every time. She discovered there were muscles that she could contract around a man's member, bringing additional pleasure. By using these muscles daily, she had strengthened them to a point where she felt almost proud. One man gasped, and exclaimed, ‘Just like a virgin you are!'

The same man paid two dollars in excess of the normal fee, and recommended that they raise their prices, with so much wealth filling the western states. She forbore to tell him that they had done so only a few weeks earlier.

But Carola was plainly not her usual self. Fanny put it down to the horrid experience with the sodomite. They had spoken of it only once since it occurred, during which Carola had hesitantly posited that she believed it must be the practice referred to in the Old Testament, attributed to the men of Sodom. Their ignorance was paralysing. There was nobody they could ask, and the delicate subject was embarrassing to speak of. Carola was perhaps still sore, and understandably apprehensive that the same could occur again.

When she thought back and calculated the number, Fanny could not find more than four instances in which Carola had worked, in as many weeks. Two had been boys, barely eighteen years old, one a timid man, blind in one eye and with a painful limp. The fourth was no more than a shadow in Fanny's memory. A colourless middle-aged failure of a figure, she thought. A person nobody would glance at twice. Such men would drift into town now and then from outlying homesteads where they were tolerated in return for menial work. They would be a brother or nephew, for the most part. So self-effacing were they that barely a word would be exchanged, as they spent themselves in a joyless coupling. Fanny found them depressing, only with difficulty persuading herself that she was bringing at least a few moments of contact and warmth to a lonely outcast. One man of this sort managed to confide in her that he had been expelled from his family for a shameful act with a horse. In a mumbling halting voice, he had tried to explain – probably for the last time in his life. ‘She was my best friend, my most beloved,' he whimpered. ‘I was never going to hurt her. But my sister caught us and screamed like a banshee.'

Fanny was intrigued as to the mechanics of such a performance. ‘Did you have to stand on a box?' she asked in fascination.

He recoiled like a snail into its shell and gave her no reply. Fanny was sorry, but the image of the naked man a-tiptoe on a box, thrusting into his darling filly, remained with her for some time. His shame spilled over onto her, too. It ought to arouse disgust and condemnation, instead of the flicker of excitement she actually felt. Humanity was self-evidently vile, and that was all there was to it.

But Carola was a problem. Another week or two passed by, and nothing changed. She took two more men upstairs, and came down looking pale and miserable. ‘Are you ill?' Fanny finally demanded. ‘Will you come for a walk with me, and tell me what it is that ails you? We can go down to the river with the dog, and enjoy the air.'

Outside it was mid-May and the sun was dancing with some fleecy clouds, now and then flooding the land with a golden promise of the summer ahead. So far as Fanny could see, the future was as bright as this Oregon sunshine. The warnings that had come her way had not been fulfilled. She was earning excellent money, eating well and dressing in the finest clothes that Chemeketa could supply. Her skin and lungs were clear of disease, her hair thick and her spirits buoyant. Why Carola could not feel the same mystified her.

‘If you insist. Perhaps it will do me some good.' The effort was palpable, and Fanny was irritated by it.

‘I can see no cause for such gloom.'

They walked out, nodding brazenly to the housewives they passed in the street and smiling at their husbands, who quickly looked away. In reality, they had not entertained one man known to have a wife. At least, a wife in the vicinity, and not waiting patiently back east for the summons to make the voyage necessary for a reunion. Despite this, it was amusing to tease them in the presence of their wives. ‘It could add a little spice to their lives,' said Fanny gaily.

Carola sniffed a soft laugh, thereby goading Fanny into greater efforts to be entertaining.

‘They might fear for their sons as much as for their husbands,' she carried on. ‘More, in fact.'

‘Sons are indeed something to be reckoned with. Sons and brothers.'

Something in her tone awakened Fanny to a more serious turn. ‘Oh?' she replied cautiously.

‘Find us a spot to sit by the river and I will enlighten you,' said Carola. ‘Just as I have myself been enlightened, barely two days since. You will know me for a great fool, then.'

Still Fanny had no premonitions, no ideas of calamity or change. She was loath to sit down so soon, having walked for barely fifteen minutes. Hugo was loping ahead of them, wading in the shallows of the river's edge, before swimming a little way and then shaking himself dry with great drama afterwards. ‘We will go as far as the bend,' she ordained. ‘Where I fancy there is a fallen tree we might use for a seat.'

Carola increased her pace and was waiting on the makeshift bench for Fanny, her expression a mixture of impatience and dread.

‘So – what have you to tell me?' Fanny asked, with the first stirrings of fear forcing themselves into her mind. ‘Are you about to spoil this beautiful day?'

‘Very likely I am. I shall tell it fast, leaving no opportunity for questions until I am done. No questions, and no expressions of scorn or chastisement, if you please.'

Fanny waved her on, casting her eyes skywards in a silent message of reassurance. Nothing could be so very bad, she was saying. Just a piece of female hysteria that might be expected from time to time.

‘I believe myself to be with child. If so, it must be the result of a single moment in a hay barn with your brother Reuben. I confess to a liking for him, and a pity for his poor shoulder. I allowed him to kiss me, and then put his hand to my naked breast. His excitement was prodigious, as you might expect. I did not have my sponges, so I forbade him ingress. But there was some contact, since he was so importunate and was unwilling to compromise in the usual fashion. He was under my skirts and next to my skin before I knew it. It was very pleasant, Fan, with the snow outside and the hay warm around us, and the breath of the beasts sweet in the air. I closed my eyes and shifted a little, purely to accommodate the injured shoulder, and somehow he was inside. It was as if an invisible giant had pushed us together. I swear he was as surprised as I was. The giant held us tight, working us like puppets, until the inevitable happened. Mostly it was spilt – I pulled away as far as I could when I sensed the moment upon us - but, I guess, there was some remaining. I have not had any courses since, and my stomach is all wrong. I cannot abide the touch of men.'

Fanny sat rigid, staring at the river, wishing she could stop her ears from hearing this shameful tale.

‘You may speak now,' said Carola. ‘The truth is told.'

‘You cannot be with child,' she said hoarsely. ‘It cannot be.'

‘More than two months gone.'

‘That is not so long. Is there no remedy? There are herbs…we must find Marybelle or a woman of her kind, and enquire.'

‘You would murder your own little nephew? Or niece?'

‘Nonsense!' Fanny was suddenly angrier than she could remember being in her life. ‘It is a brat that could spell the ruin of our business.' She imagined a grubby-faced infant, staggering around the house, crying and demanding attention, defiling the atmosphere and bringing a far deeper shame on them than anything else could do. ‘If it is born alive, you must send it away. There will be families willing to take it as their own, perhaps.' Urgently, her mind flew from one solution to another. ‘That is, if you will not take steps now to put things right.'

Carola grimaced. ‘I had not expected this – at least not so instantly. You see the child as an obstacle to your own intentions, as a nuisance to rid yourself of. But what of me, Fan? It is inside
my
body, and already I have feelings for it. It would be different if I had no notion of its father's identity. That would perhaps be a brat, as you say. This is the child of your own brother, a good man of good family. I dare say he deserves to be informed of his paternity - do you not believe so?'

Fanny frowned and gritted her teeth. ‘You intend to
marry
him, do you?'

Carola heaved a long sigh. ‘That is never going to be permitted. But I do not deny I have thought of it.'

‘He would be glad to have you. He would be proud, indeed. And my father and mother would have no objection. What is there to prevent it?'

‘You, Fanny. There is you. I have no right to abandon you here. You could not continue without me. Whatever that Hastings man might say, I believe myself to have a pronounced bump of fidelity. Loyalty – call it what you will. I could not leave you, Fanny. As I trust you could not leave me, if the position were reversed.'

‘Then what?'

‘I cannot think. I can see that your reaction is rational, even obvious to someone on the outside. But it carries great hazard, in a number of ways. The law would call it murder. The methods are barbarous. The success of infusions is very uncertain. I have heard tell of infants born malformed or idiots, after such attempts failed. And, Fanny - ' she looked her friend straight in the eye ‘I am sorry to say that I do not believe I could do it. I would be haunted for ever by dreams of what I had done.'

‘You say nothing of the laws of God, I note.'

‘The laws of God have been flouted by us both for a considerable time now. I have no confidence that God regards me as one of his children any longer.'

Fanny nodded. She had come to much the same conclusion herself. ‘And yet there are missionaries in town who might have something to say to us.'

‘You think they have anything to offer us?'

‘They could arrange an adoption,' said Fanny faintly. If she had understood her friend correctly, she was unlikely to accept this as an option.

‘They could,' said Carola tonelessly. ‘I never imagined myself as a mother. Small infants have never appealed to me in the least. Something is taking place inside me quite independent of my rational thoughts. I am afraid and nauseous, and yet, somewhere far down, I am happy. Can you believe that?'

‘You have not seemed happy to me for very many weeks.'

‘I believed myself to be sick, perhaps with a disease such as Marybelle has. I was slow to see the truth. It came, at least in part, as a relief.'

‘And when was that, pray?'

‘Two days since. I told you.'

‘And you have entertained all these thoughts, and feelings and intentions in that short time?'

‘And very many more. Time does not appear to be a factor in situations such as this.'

‘And yet –' said Fanny, thinking that time was very much a factor, with a child inexorably growing and thrusting its existence on the world. Even if they might somehow find a way to prevent it, Carola would most likely be ill and miserable for months ahead. The future, which had looked so rosy just an hour before, was now ominously grey.

Carola read her thoughts. ‘It will be born in the early winter, December, I expect. I can conceal it for some time yet. I will make a greater effort to take my share of the men. They seldom notice one's belly, anyhow.' She laughed, a little more heartily than before. ‘It is a great relief to have told you, Fan.'

Not for me
, thought Fanny, wishing she could put the clock back to the point before she had been burdened with the news. But she forced herself to stand in Carola's shoes, reversing their roles, and could do nothing less than clasp her friend's hand and give it a little shake. ‘We will manage somehow,' she said. ‘You are not the first one to have this happen to her.'