The Dress Lodger

Gustine is a "dress lodger", a young prostitute who rents a beautiful dress from her landlord to attract a higher class of clientele. To keep her from running off with his gown, her pimp has a malevolent old woman, "the Eye", follow her through the back alleys of Sunderland. By day a potter's assistant, by night a courtesan of the streets, Gustine works to support her fragile child, born with a remarkable anatomical defect. Surgeon Henry Chiver has come to Sunderland to start a new life. He has a loving fiancee, an influential uncle, and an anatomy school that is chronically short of teaching cadavers. Doctor and dress lodger come together during the worst epidemic since the bubonic plague. Gustine secures bodies for the doctor's school, until Henry's greed and his growing obsession with her child challenge her loyalty to him. With cholera bearing down on the city, Gustine must turn to her mortal enemy, the Eye, in her battle for the life and afterlife of her child.