The Spoils of Sin Read online

  Fanny’s head was spinning. She thought of the staid matrons of Providence and the rigid morality they upheld without mercy. ‘I fancy there are no such writers in America,’ she ventured.

  ‘In the east, perhaps not. But here in the west – which is like a wholly different country – we might live with greater liberty. Do you not think so? Is it not in fact your own experience?’

  ‘Our gentlemen are all unmarried,’ said Carola slowly. ‘They have their bodily needs, and certainly, it is a pity for them to lack opportunities to release their …urges. We are confident that our services bring no harm, and in general carry benefit.’

  ‘Of course!’ Matilda interrupted eagerly. ‘Of course they do.’

  ‘But you and Jeremy are lovers in a much wider sense,’ Fanny put in. ‘It is about your feelings for one another beyond the bedchamber. Am I not right? The comparisons are faulty.’ She flushed. ‘I mean no disrespect. It is wonderful that you do not treat us with contempt. It is just that…you seem to regard us as pioneers in some way, and I do not believe that is right.’

  ‘Perhaps I do. But then, is everyone here not a pioneer of some kind? But it is more the case that I see you as independent in a way I find extraordinary. Such very modern young ladies.’

  Fanny met Carola’s eyes and was relieved to find a matching bewilderment. Matilda’s enthusiasm was unsettling. It arose from some theoretical line of thought that remained impenetrable. Jeremy came to the rescue. ‘We are somewhat starved for conversation,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it overwhelms you?’

  ‘It is…unaccustomed,’ Fanny admitted. She bit back an urge to add that it was as if these people had invited her and Carola to strip naked and dance before them. There was a nagging sense of transgression, which was surely perverse under the circumstances. Would she have preferred to present herself as a modest daughter, somehow separated from her family by mischance and travelling with a cousin to provide mutual chaperonage? Strangely, the answer came back in the affirmative. Approval from these odd intellectuals was as uncomfortable as it was unaccustomed.

  ‘But why travel so far?’ Carola broke in. ‘Could you not find the same liberty to make a fresh start in Africa or the Indies? Why the need for such a very long journey?’

  ‘That, my dear, is where Uncle Isaac comes in,’ smiled Jeremy, as if waiting for this very opening. Before Matilda could stop him, he was launching into a lengthy tale. ‘He was my father’s much older brother, born in 1752. Almost a century since. He crossed the Atlantic at the age of twenty in a small sailing ship and married a girl from Boston. Together they settled in the Mohawk Valley in the northern part of New York State. Every detail of their lives is recorded in journals kept by Aunt Sarah. They survived the years of the War of Independence, though they lost both their children to Indians during a terrible attack.’ He quoted sections of the journals from memory – the exact description of their cabin, the cow and dogs and crops and equipment. The courageous return to begin again after the war was over. The birth, after all hope was gone, of a final child in 1795. ‘My cousin Jacob,’ he added. ‘We met him in Boston last year. He is a fine successful fellow.’

  ‘To cut things short,’ Matilda interrupted, ‘it is Uncle Isaac’s example that we follow now. He is our inspiration and our encouragement. He died at the age of ninety, still in full possession of his wits.’

  ‘And yet, we are nowhere close to him in spirit. The courage and persistence he showed puts us to shame. We are living in a golden age, by comparison to him.’

  The association in Fanny’s mind came quickly. ‘Golden indeed, if the stories are true,’ she said. ‘They are digging up gold this very day in California, are they not?’

  Jeremy waved a careless hand. ‘Hysterical madness,’ he said. ‘A sickness that must not be allowed to engulf the whole nation.’

  ‘Really?’ Fanny frowned. ‘Has it not already gone too far for that? As we left Chemeketa, there was yet another man arrived with his saddlebags laden down with gold. He left seven weeks ago and has made his fortune in that short time. And there are waves and waves of them to follow. Since the president confirmed it, the excitement appears to be unstoppable.’

  ‘Many will fail,’ Jeremy Hastings predicted. ‘And many will die in brawls and drunken stupors. More will gamble their gains away.’

  ‘You have not been tempted to join the rush, then?’ asked Carola coolly. ‘We are well placed here in Oregon to reach the California goldfields ahead of those from the east. As we have just agreed, the journey is long, however you choose to travel.’

  ‘I am not tempted,’ the man agreed. ‘I have all I require, and the prospect of prospecting has little appeal.’ His play on the word raised only faint smiles. ‘Cold and wet, with uncertain reward and hostility from competitors. I am not fashioned for such an adventure.’

  He threw Fanny a very direct look, which gave her a hint of the adventure he did feel fashioned for. Her heart lurched. It was an expression she had observed on many men’s faces in recent months. She had no need to glance lower down his body to know what was stirring there. And yet – what could he have in mind? What would his woman say to any plan he might have? Surely the mere fact that they were a couple living contrary to the moral laws of England could not imply a wholesale debauchery such as seemed to be suggested?

  Before she could form further thoughts, a great wave of resentment rushed through her. For all his fine words and fancy wall charts, the man was no less of an animal than any other. He saw her and Carola as fresh meat for his appetites, and nothing more. The realisation came to her that she had viewed this trip as a holiday from work – and that meant no male fumblings for two whole weeks. No sweaty gasping and sticky ejaculations. No bruised breasts either. This was to be a time of recovery and normality. She fixed her attention on the bowl before her, in which a pottage of stewed apple and dried plums swam in a lake of cream. How to manage this unexpected development? Her mind suggested and dismissed half a dozen strategies.

  A low cough from her friend brought her gaze up again. The two girls exchanged a look which confirmed that Carola knew what was proposed as well as Fanny did, and was no more favourably disposed towards it. Her friend tilted her head quickly towards the little room and Fanny understood that they should adjourn for a quick discussion as soon as possible. She nodded with a feeling of great relief. Nothing bad could happen if the two were united.

  ‘This is most delicious,’ Carola told their hostess. ‘The cream? Do you make it yourself? I have seen no signs of a cow.’

  ‘It is produced by a neighbour,’ said Matilda. ‘We have an agreement whereby our river frontage is made accessible to his beasts in return for a weekly delivery of milk and cream.’

  ‘Has he no water, then?’ Fanny recalled enough of the division of land at Oregon City to know that every allocation included at least some running water for livestock, as well as the human settlers.

  ‘He has a hundred thirsty beasts trampling the banks of the river. It is preferable in every way if they can spread out and do less damage,’ said Jeremy. ‘He is upstream of us, and the resulting muck spoils our stretch of river if the beasts are too crowded. While it suits us, we are content to abide by the deal.’

  Carola frowned. ‘They have a hundred milking cows? Surely that is impossible?’

  Matilda gave a scornful laugh. ‘Seven milch cows, at the last count. The remainder are draught oxen, beef steers and youngsters. The homesteader has purchased a few dozen oxen from those arriving on the Trail from Wyoming and Kansas. He has good business sense.’ She finished on a careless note, as if the subject held little interest for her. Fanny had realised from the outset that her friend had merely intended a diversion from the dawning intention in Mr Hastings’ eye.

  ‘Well, now,’ said the man, leaning back in his chair. ‘A good meal, my dear. And the night is yet young. Might we provide a little diversion for our visitors? Something they might find suited to their talents.’

  Matilda gav
e him a long steady look. ‘For myself, I prefer not to participate,’ she said, with no sign of anger or reproach. ‘I shall remove myself to the barn and pluck a chicken for an hour or so. I dare say I might venture back after that time, and find coffee brewing?’

  The man reached out a hand to her, gripping her arm and lightly shaking it. ‘You are my angel,’ he told her. ‘A woman of such infinite understanding that you ought to be made immortal in the annals.’

  ‘Tush!’ she chided him. ‘It is of no consequence.’ She glanced from Fanny to Carola and back. ‘I have no doubt you will be adequately serviced. There is nothing so stimulating as novelty.’

  ‘For your sake, Mattie, I hope our next caller will be a young buck who finds your charms beyond resisting.’

  The couple laughed and Fanny felt the world spin madly around her head.

  ‘Sir,’ she began. ‘Your intentions are unclear…’ she faltered. ‘We have not anticipated any such business as this.’

  ‘We can pay for the bed with money,’ said Carola. ‘As might be deemed more normal.’

  Jeremy Hastings guffawed loudly at this. ‘Forget “normal”,’ he told her. ‘In the land of liberty, normal is whatever a free man chooses it to be. Now, if you would kindly take out your hairpins and let your tresses fall free, I shall be obliged.’

  ‘Then let us retire for a moment to prepare,’ said Fanny quickly. She seized Carola and urged her into the small room. ‘Just a few minutes,’ she threw back over her shoulder.

  In the room, the girls examined each other’s alarmed faces. ‘The sponges,’ said Carola in a whisper. ‘We left them behind.’

  ‘Never mind that. This is an outrage. He sees us as playthings for his sport. He has no concern for our wishes. I have no intention of paying with my body, as he assumes. I am due my courses any time, too. I am aching and disinclined.’

  ‘Sshh. He can hear you,’ Carola warned.

  ‘I fancy he is in his own room, removing his clothes in preparation. This is an outrage,’ Fanny said again. ‘It is uncivilised.’

  Carola laughed and shook out her golden locks. ‘Tell that to the matrons of Chemeketa and Oregon City. Not one of them would defend us. And we have no defences of our own, Fan. We cannot leave and blunder off into the darkness. Take your hair down, as he asks.’

  ‘But what does he want? He has a woman living here. What more does he expect?’

  ‘You are not so innocent as that, I hope. Have you not been told in guilty whispers what it is that men dream of? Have they not suggested we both attend to them together? It is a common fantasy.’

  Fanny felt weak. ‘That too is uncivilised,’ she said coldly. The face of her prudish sister Charity swam before her eyes. Perhaps Fanny too had moral limits of her own. She would have valued the presence of her sister at that moment.

  ‘It will soon be over, at least. The woman is giving him an hour and no more. My anxiety is all for my sponge. I have no wish to return home with a big-headed brat inside me.’

  ‘They were so pleasant to begin with,’ mourned Fanny. ‘So accepting and with such an interesting tale to tell. I wish they hadn’t known who we are.’

  ‘I confess, I had no suspicion we were so well-known. Is it possible, think you, that your family might also have learned of your true calling?’

  Fanny shivered. ‘My sister Charity would not be surprised. I actually shared my ambitions with her, on the Trail. I have always wondered whether she married so quickly as a kind of protection against my sinfulness.’

  ‘Ladies!’ came a loud male voice. ‘I can afford you no more time.’

  ‘We should be thankful he gave us as much as he did,’ muttered Carola. ‘Such a chance must seem like a gift from heaven to him. Two experienced girls with no cause to resist his advances – he will be feeling much the same as the lucky gold prospectors.’ She squared her shoulders and opened the door.

  Fanny remained sitting on the bed, regretting the wasted time, but slowly removing the clasps that held her hair in place. They might have devised a plan for escape instead of merely bemoaning their fate. She felt much less resigned than Carola appeared to. She was angry at the presumption, and strangely offended.

  Chapter Seven

  In the main room, all was quiet. Then Carola gave a cry. ‘Oh!’ came a squeal, suggestive of amused amazement. ‘Fanny – come out,’ she called.

  Bewildered, Fanny obeyed. In the room, two chair had been drawn up to the table, side by side, and on the table sat a large human head, made of porcelain china. It was marked with lines and script and mirrored part of the chart pinned up on the wall. ‘You will have heard of the science of phrenology, I trust?’ Jeremy asked them.

  They both shook their heads doubtfully.

  ‘Extraordinary!’ he smiled. ‘I should inform you that I am an experienced practitioner of the science, and would be deeply grateful if I might examine the both of you, as part of my researches.’ He bent down and spoke low. ‘I have to tell you that I have never before had the opportunity to explore the cranial features of ladies such as yourselves.’

  ‘You – you wish to examine our heads?’ Fanny stared at him. ‘Then why…? Why did Matilda remove herself? Why let us believe…?’

  Carola nudged her sharply. ‘We are honoured, sir, to be of assistance,’ she said, with an exaggerated Southern drawl.

  ‘Forgive Matilda her failure as a chaperone,’ he said. ‘She finds the matter tiresome, I fear. The truth is, I made promises that I have been unable to honour, and she now regards the whole business as anathema.’

  ‘Promises?’ Fanny could make little sense of his words.

  ‘I was to make us a good living by reading the heads of the population of Oregon. It was the basis of many plans, but we were greatly disappointed in the general response. Mockery, I fear, was the most common reaction to my offered services.’

  There seemed to be nothing to say. Reading heads? Was the man insane? Had she been a complete fool, to make such a judgement of him as she had? If so, then Carola was equally at fault.

  ‘I believe I did hear tell of something of the sort, back in Charleston,’ said Carola, finally. ‘A gentleman visited my mother one time and afterwards she often mentioned her bump of benevolence. If I recall aright, that is.’

  Jeremy Hastings laid his hands on her skull as if unable to resist any longer. ‘Ah, yes,’ he breathed. ‘You have it too.’ His fingers pressed through her thick fair hair first a little way above her brow and then at the very crown of her head. ‘Firmness is prominent, also. And, I fear, acquisitiveness, just here.’ His touch had strayed over her ear on the right side. ‘In abundance, we might say. Your most active faculty, in short.’ His hands were moving, back and forth, up and down, until two fingers rested low down on the nape of her neck. He was murmuring a commentary as he went. ‘So we have acquisitiveness, firmness and benevolence as your primary faculties. That is less of a surprise than the underdeveloped faculty of amativeness.’ He chuckled. ‘One would have expected…well, perhaps things are never so simple.’

  Carola shrank under his touch. ‘Amativeness?’ she repeated.

  ‘Sexual appetite, my dear, to call it plainly. The indicator is here.’ Again he prodded her neck. ‘But, of course, it carries more logic than I first believed. For a person to conduct such a profession as yours, there can be little place for love. Attachment would be an impediment. How very interesting this is.’

  ‘Are you done?’

  ‘One is never entirely done – but I must be content with what I have. I shall make notes and read further in my Bible.’

  ‘Bible?’ Carola frowned. The reference seemed incongruous.

  He laughed. ‘I spoke in jest. I mean to say my George Combe. He has been my guide and teacher for many years.’ He stepped over to the shelves of books and removed one that had a tattered and bespeckled cover. ‘The Constitution of Man is a work of great genius. Through it, we can understand the workings of our mind in all its vast complexity.’
r />   Carola puffed up her flattened hair and fingered her own scalp. ‘It is a kind of fortune telling,’ she accused. ‘What is the value of informing people of their primary faculties? Do they not already know them?’

  ‘We have freedom of will,’ he told her. ‘Once we become aware of our weaker points, we might act to avoid giving them rein.’

  ‘You wish to read my head too?’ asked Fanny, feeling excluded.

  ‘Of course.’ He quickly let the book drop onto the table, and laid his hands on her head. ‘Oh my!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have here the most well-defined bump of self-esteem I have encountered for years.’ His fingers were towards the back of her head. ‘A very confident young lady, I believe. And now, let’s see…Friendship is well developed – and, oh my word! – amativeness enough for the two of you.’ He tapped the base of her neck with a light forefinger. ‘My, oh my,’ he repeated. Then he pressed and touched all the way up and around to her forehead, muttering, ‘Ideality, hmm, and Memory. Very good. Very interesting.’

  Fanny found the pressure and the probing strangely pleasant. His hands were warm and it was as if her hair had all been removed and he was touching her bare scalp. Never before had she been aware of the sensitivity of this part of her body. Once or twice it was as if he pressed a bruise and she flinched. She felt eager to replicate the action for herself, as a kind of massage, and could not resist locating the bump at the base of her skull where he had lingered and tapped. Sexual Appetite, he had said, was the ordinary meaning of ‘amativeness’. Since the day the migrating wagon train had arrived at Independence Rock in the summer of 1846, she could have told him that. Indeed, she remembered, her discovery of the pleasures of the body had taken place earlier than that. Her sister Charity had come across her and Abel Tennant in flagrant passionate congress that day – but it had not been the first.

  ‘You found amativeness?’ she asked. ‘In me, but not in my friend?’