‘Do we not have maids?’
The older woman spat out a peg and stuck up the corner of a sheet.
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘And you’re one. Watch wi’ that counterpane, you could be jiggin’ on it the night.’
She laughed raucously, her squat purposeful figure surprisingly agile amongst the flapping sheets.
Rachel thought to let the material fall and get dirtied on the ground, just out of spite, just to let the old bitch see that her delicate fingers were not made for such a mundane pastime, but she hesitated.
The other girls had warned her that Hannah was not to be crossed, so she had listened and obeyed. Surrendered even. But behind her composed, poised features, behind the passive creature she presented to the world, Rachel was wilful and hot-blooded. Only one other knew of her secret, and he would never tell. She would not stay here long. They had big plans. Big plans.
The thought of it and the dangerous game involved, sent a shiver through her. Then fired the blood.
‘Can we not send out to laundry?’ she asked, unable to let the subject die.
‘I like to keep my hands busy.’
‘I have better uses for mine.’
‘Uhuh?’
The old woman turned to meet the cool gaze. There was a measure of provocation in the air, but hard to nail down.
She had been observing this girl for a time now and still had not fathomed her out.
Hannah Semple knew that she was ugly. Pug-nosed, flat-featured, pock-marked and her teeth were nothing to write home about either. She barely rose to beyond five feet in height and Rachel was a good deal above, the long neck and pale blue evasive eyes hinting at a refinement the other would never possess.
But Rachel was also a harlot. An employee who was paid good money for wicked deeds … a franchised whore of the Just Land. That placed her under Hannah’s jurisdiction; ugly or not.
She smiled, but her eyes held no humour.
‘Listen girlie, just because the mistress has a soft spot for you doesnae mean I concur.’
Rachel cast down her eyes demurely.
‘I am sure the mistress knows best,’ she murmured.
Indeed it was true that Jean Brash indulged Rachel, claiming that she brought a different class of service that raised the tone and clientele in equal measure, but Hannah wasn’t sure if that was the only reason the girl had become such a favourite.
It puzzled Hannah but she was buggered if she would pay it too much mind.
She pointed to the wicker basket they had lugged out between them, still part filled with sheets.
‘Finish that. Peg them up and not another word out of you.’
‘What if I don’t?’
‘You’ll be sorry.’
‘And who will make me so?’
Rachel jerked her head back as an explosive movement from Hannah brought forth a cut-throat razor which unfolded in mid-air to lay its keen edge against the taut skin of the girl’s slender neck.
It was Hannah’s proud assertion that rarely she unveiled that razor without drawing blood. Nothing in her face contradicted the possibility at this moment.
She pulled Rachel down by the bodice so that their faces were level and shifted the blade so that the tip rested high on the girl’s face just beside the eye.
‘Don’t get cheeky,’ she said softly.
‘You wouldnae dare,’ gasped the other.
‘Why would I not?’
‘Because I’m valuable merchandise!’
Hannah suddenly released her hold and roared with laughter at the retort. She packed away her razor while Rachel tried to still the trembling in her legs and keep the fear inside from showing on her face.
‘That’s the style girlie,’ the older woman remarked amiably. ‘Stand up for yourself, that’s good. But the other thing is …’ and thereupon she dropped all of her pegs back into the basket, ‘do as you’re told by me.’
For a moment their eyes met, then Rachel nodded her head in acceptance. Let the old bitch think she’d won.
‘Now hang up the rest. On your own. By yourself. I put my trust in you to accomplish that task.’
With these sardonically delivered words, Hannah turned and made for the back door of the house without waiting to see if they would be obeyed.
As she turned the handle to enter in the house, Rachel’s voice sounded behind her.
‘What if I tell Mistress Brash about this?’
Hannah swivelled round.
Rachel was already hanging up the sheet, back presented, the remark thrown over her shoulder.
‘I shall inform her myself, girlie,’ said Hannah.
And she did.
Jean had opened her eyes to find that, rather than a lover looming over her bed, the dumpy purposeful form of her second in command stood there like Banquo’s ghost.
‘I knocked. Ye didnae answer.’
‘I didnae hear,’ muttered Jean.
‘That’s not like you.’
‘I was sleeping.’
‘That’s not like you either.’
‘I’ll try to assemble myself into something you recognise.’
This snippy rejoinder provoked a grunt of amusement from Hannah and then she related the incident of the razor.
While she did so, Jean, for some reason, refused to move, and lay prone upon the bed much in the manner of her previously imagined wife under it.
‘Was that not a wee bit harsh?’ she pronounced, looking up at Hannah and the peach surroundings.
‘Ye have to keep order.’
Both women were inclined to leave it there. Jean was aware that Hannah disapproved of her partiality for the tall figure of Rachel and it, to an extent, perplexed the mistress herself. Jean had experienced a few encounters with her own sex as she rose through the ranks, but she pinned her colours, for the most part, to the priapic mast.
And yet something about Rachel Bryden weakened her resolve to keep a professional detachment. Not good, and it went straight against the grain of her experience. This was the third and best-equipped brothel she had ever owned, a well-oiled machine of sliding sheets and compliant limbs.
But it had its own commandments. And one of them was that she never played favourites amongst the girls.
In the first bawdy-hoose, the Happy Land, which she had part-owned with Henry Preger until he had obligingly died, she had witnessed a savage knife fight between two of the whores over his malign patronage. One of the magpies had her face cut to ribbons and it was a point well made to Hannah at the washing line. Don’t damage the merchandise.
On her ownsome, once Preger had died in spite of himself, Jean had then managed the Holy Land, moving from tarry-breeks, stokers and dock workers, to randy young apprentices, the lower professional classes and the occasional man of the church. All denominations welcome.
This present establishment was her pride and joy. The Just Land. It was set discreetly in a respectable district, upon the high reaches of Leith, and catered for the ruling classes, judges, bishops, heads of government and local council. Bastions of respectability. Linked by a lustful bent. And there was no depravity that Jean could not deliver.
If, like a previous provost of the city, you desired to be dressed in swaddling clothes, then talcum-powdered, and pampered like a baby with three heavy-breasted milk nurses to hand, that could be magicked up directly.
