The night was hot, and sticky, and yet Katherine Morrison’s work was not complete.
“Just five minutes,” she pleaded through the half open door as she struggled to re-tie her corset in the sweltering heat. Her fingers fumbled as her eyes dragged themselves open, heavy with tiredness. “Five minutes, Madam, is all I need and I shall be quite suitable for another . . . guest.”
Corset finally tied, she sat up straight on the large double bed occupying the majority of the room, and her sweeping gaze took in the shoes untidily piled along one wall, the countless shawls hung over a chair in the far corner, and the five dollars her previous guest had left on the dressing table.
A whole dollar over her asking price, and Madam Nancy had not seen it yet. What were the chances? Katherine tiptoed across the room, expecting her last gentleman of the night at any moment, and slipped the extra dollar into a secret compartment behind the looking glass. You never know when you are going to need an extra dollar.
The movement drew her attention to the reflection, and she winced. The last five years had certainly not been kind to her; there were lines where laughter used to be, and the borrowed finery adorning her neck covered more than one bruise. Her lips curled downwards where they once sprung up into joy easily, and there was a darkness, a sadness furrowing her forehead.
“He will be with you directly!”
The voice didn’t seem to emanate from anywhere, but Katherine knew Madam Nancy was hollering at the bottom of the staircase. The old rickety house she made her place of business was three floors high, and the room allotted to Katherine was at the very top.
Katherine swallowed. She was sore from the night’s activities, and the last thing she wanted was another client. Surely she had earned peace and quiet?
“But five minutes rest, and I shall be ready.”
She should have expected the response from Madam Nancy, but Katherine had hoped – but not a chance. The loud footsteps echoed throughout the place, and instinctively she returned to the bed, placing herself on it with as much decorum as she could muster before the door was flung open.
“You are ready when I say you are ready,” spat the overweight Madam. “I did not take you in for nothing, my girl; you are here to work, not to lie about like a lady of leisure.”
Katherine swallowed, and then raised herself as though she had the importance she was attempting to portray. “I understand, Madam Nancy. I merely wished to undertake a short toilette, to ensure I was perfect for my next gentleman.”
The two women stared at each other; one, over fifty, sweltering unpleasantly in the heat of the night, dressed in the fashions of the 1820s with a slight rip along one sleeve; the other, vacating her teenage years and dressed in the most opulent of the modern 1840s fashions, silks and ruffles and pearls.
If anyone had been viewing this exchange, they would have guessed instantly which way the force of the argument would go, and they would have been correct.
“Very well.” Madam Nancy spoke curtly, but inclined her head as she dropped in a half curtsey. “I shall give you fifteen minutes – no more, mind. He is already downstairs, and he has asked for my best. Count yourself lucky you have remained the best on my books, despite that you have been here for three years. It is not 1838 no more, my girl. You may find that in 1841, you find yourself out of a situation.”
Skirts rustled as she tried to sweep out of the room dramatically, but she caught sight of the money on the dressing table, and scooped up four of the dollars.
“And be nice to him,” she added as she slammed the door behind her.
Katherine stared. Be nice to him? She was about to bare her body, bare her very soul to him, and her Madam advised her to ‘be nice’?
Shame, a common emotion for Katherine Morrison, flooded through her, and the heat of the night seemed to return with full force. To think she had come to this; a prostitute in a Madam’s house, scrabbling to save five or six dollars a day when her board cost her that much – and for what? Where did she think she could go?
And yet time had been afforded her now, and she took it. When your time, your body can belong to a man, any man who has four dollars, you start to appreciate the time you have alone.
The dressing table had a small basin with a ewer beside it, and Katherine sank into the chair before it and dipped the waiting sponge into the water. It held the cool of the night, and pressing it to her temples brought such calming relief, a smile nearly surfaced.
This was not the life she had imagined. A sad smile crept over her face as the memory of Mr Gilman swam through her mind. Goodness, but life could have been different if . . .
Unbidden, she flinched. Well, it was no matter. When an elopement ends badly, there is but one occupation for a fallen woman. Now she was too ashamed to return to her family, and too destitute to avoid the work that shamed her.
Oh, but she hated herself – hated what she had become. This was not the life she had been raised to, and her older sister no doubt had long moved on, making an excellent marriage herself. Sometimes, in the darkest of nights when a man had just left her with insults on his tongue and a raised fist, she thought about Elizabeth; she was probably living in San Antonio, with their grandparents. When Kitty Morrison wasn’t praying to God to deliver her, she was praying for the sister who seemed thousands of miles away. But though she placed her faith in the Lord, why would He save her from her own mistakes?
Footsteps. They were heavy, heavier than Madam Nancy’s. He was ready for her, and she had no choice but to accept him into her room, her arms, and her bed.
Lord God, deliver me.
Thomas Bryant swallowed, and the world before him spun slightly until he placed a hand to the wall. Then it righted itself.
The wall was brick, red and rough, and it grounded him. He had not expected the long walk across Nacogdoches to feel – well, this long. But then, a lonely walk always feels twice as long, and he was more lonely than all the creatures on God’s Earth.
An elderly couple passed him in a carriage, and though he tried to incline his head to them, as soon as his forehead dipped the world started to dance again, and so he desisted. Not that they had seemed to notice, anyway. His clothes, passingly respectable but with a little too much dirt ground in than was acceptable; his hair, a little too long to be a gentleman’s; and his face, pale despite the sunlight. Dawn had come, and it was a new day, and he hated it.
No. Hate was perhaps too strong a word. At least for this. As Thomas willed each foot to move before the other in an attempt to reach his sordid destination, he corrected himself silently. He didn’t hate the day; he hated himself.
The finery he had dressed himself in, the airs he had given himself when he had first moved to Nacogdoches – they seemed foolish now, and not even the letter burning a hole in his pocket was enough for him to return. What could he say to them, after all he had done? How could he possibly make amends?
A lady was coming towards him on the sidewalk, and he stopped, rather than accidentally fall into her. She glanced at him, and then sped up.
Thomas sighed bitterly and could not help but give a wry laugh. There had been a time when a woman such as she – any woman – would have slowed to see him better, and smiled coyly out of the corner of her eye, and perhaps dropped a handkerchief before him so he could retrieve it and present it to her.
No more. Now he was alone in the world, and he felt it with such strength, it was an ache in his chest.
Which was why, on the first day of June the Lord’s year of 1841, he had made a decision. It was not one he was proud of, but then Thomas Bryant had so little to be proud of that he barely knew what the feeling was. He was alone in the world, unredeemable, and tainted by his own choices. He could sink no further, and so he may as well give in to the last temptation that he had never allowed himself to linger on.
He was going to find himself a woman.
Now, like the other gentleman of the town, he knew Madam Nancy’s was the best place to go to, and as he was going to destroy his soul, he may as well do it properly.
This side of Nacogdoches was unknown to him but by reputation, and as his gaze slid across the pawnbrokers, saloons, and gambling bars, he could see why. The Thomas Bryant of old would never have come here – but that man was dead, and the one who walked in his place saw no reason to avoid it.
A door swung open to his left, and he stumbled as a woman, barely dressed and carrying a bottle of what appeared to be rum, laughed.
“Alright, deary? Looking for fun?”
Thomas blanched. It was as though simply by wishing it, a woman had been placed before him.
“No,” he said hurriedly, his deep voice making her stare in surprise. “Thank you.”
Her gaze darted up and down him, and a dirty smile rose across her lips. “Suit yourself. Might find it heals whatever ails you.”
She tripped back through the door from whence she had come. Thomas colored and continued on his way. It was surely a coincidence. After all, he was in the right district for just such a woman.
Madam Nancy’s was a street over and the door had a gentleman outside it, dressed smartly in a dark suit. He nodded to him.
“Sir.”
Thomas nodded back and tried to act nonchalantly. And failed. “I am going in, if you do not mind. For a moment. Not for long.”
The gentleman grinned, and Thomas took a step back when he saw a full set of gold teeth glinting at him. “Tis not for me to judge, young sir, but I warrant you would hope it will last more than a moment!”
For the second time in five minutes, a rush of heat moved to Thomas’ face. Ignoring the man completely, he pushed open the door and found himself in a hallway filled with incense, the windows covered with red and purple silken shawls.
The heady intoxication made his thoughts swim.
“Good morning, young sir.” A voice came out of the darkness, and a person accompanied it: Madam Nancy herself. He recognized the heavily made up face and the feathered hair from the saloon.
Thomas bowed. “Good morning.”
“And how may we be of service this fine day?” The woman smiled at him, but it was a wooden one, artfully practiced and thrown on as an old shawl would be, whenever one had visitors.
“Service. Service?” For some reason, despite feeling certain of his actions not an hour before, Thomas hesitated. Was this a good idea? There was still a way back, at this moment, but proceed much further and he would be committed far beyond what a noble man would be.
Madam Nancy took pity on him. “Our best young lady is four dollars, sir, and although it may seem steep, you will not find yourself disappointed.
Thomas hesitated, heart thumping, palms sweating, but the loneliness had not dissipated on his walk across town. He needed someone. Someone to hold him. Someone to be with him. Someone to make sure he was not the only man alive in the world.
And the decision was made.
Fingers scrabbled into his pockets and found four silver dollars. He offered them wordlessly to her, but she shook her head with a smile.
“Oh, sir, such things should not come between friends. You leave it on the side once you are done; Miss Katherine will show you. Up all the stairs, and on the right.”
Madam Nancy bustled away, and Thomas placed the money back into his pocket. This was it, then. He had not imagined it would be . . . well, simple.
The steps seemed to go on forever, and when he swallowed, there did not seem to be enough saliva in his throat. Eventually the door presented itself. A moment, a mere moment was sufficient to regain his breath, and then he opened it.
She was absolutely beautiful. For a moment, Thomas had to stand in the doorway and blink a few times to ensure the miracle before him was not a mirage. Petite with rounding curves that made him hot, dark curls pinned with pearls, and a soft and nervous smile that forced his heart to pound ever faster, she was entirely perfect. Regal. Majestic.
“Good morning, sir,” spoke her voice, and it was musical, and gentle, and the stars were crowding in on his eyes, and the world was dancing once more, and all he had to do was take three steps, maybe four, and he could console himself for the first time in a woman’s arms . . .
The loud slump that Thomas’ body made as he collapsed shook the room.