The Crimson Petal and the White (34 page)

Henry leans back in his chair, apparently exhausted. ‘You have done it already, William, merely by listening to my ravings. I know I am a fool and a hypocrite, trying to dress my sins up as virtue. You see, I was on my way to St Giles today – instead, I stopped here.’

William grunts, nonplussed. All things considered, he would rather Henry had pursued his original inclination, and left his overburdened brother in peace. This visit has swallowed up valuable time. The freshly signed contract with those damned Jewish jute merchants, which seemed such a good idea up in Dundee, is looking less advantageous the more he thinks about it, and he needs every spare minute to reconsider it before those damned crates of sacking start arriving on the damned wharf.

‘Well, I’m glad to have been of some use to you, Henry,’ he mutters. Then his glance falls on Henry’s bulbous Gladstone bag, which has been sitting at his brother’s side, stuffed to bursting like a burglar’s swag. ‘But what, if you don’t mind me asking, is all this?’

For one last time before he leaves, Henry blushes. Wordlessly, he unfastens the bag and allows its jumble of contents to protrude into the light. A Dutch cheese, some apples and carrots, a loaf of bread, a fat cylinder of smoked sausage, tins of cocoa and biscuits.

William stares into his brother’s face, utterly baffled.

‘They always say they’re hungry,’ Henry explains.

Later, much later, when brother Henry has gone home and the sun has long since set and the first draft of an important letter has been written, William lays his cheek on a warm pillow – a pillow with just the right amount of firmness, just the right amount of yield. Sleep follows inevitably.

A gentle, feminine hand strokes his cheek as he nuzzles deeper into the cotton-covered mound of duck feathers. Even in sleep, he knows it’s not his mother. His mother has gone away. ‘She’s turned into a bad woman,’ Father says, and so she’s gone, gone to live with other bad people, and William and Henry must be brave boys. So who is this female stroking him? It must be his nurse.

He burrows deeper into slumber, his head penetrating the shell of dreams. Instantly the room where he lies sleeping expands to a vast size, encompassing the whole universe, or at least all the known world. Ships sail into the docks, groaning with jute bags he doesn’t want: that’s bad, and the gloomy sky overhead reflects this. But, elsewhere, the sun is shining on his lavender fields, which this year are bound to surrender a juicier crop than they ever did in his father’s time. All over England, in shops and homes alike, the unmistakable ‘R’ insignia is on prominent display. Aristocratic ladies, all of whom bear a remarkable resemblance to Lady Bridgelow, are perusing Rackham’s Spring catalogue, uttering discreet sounds of approval over each item.

A loud snort – his own snore – half-rouses him. His prick is stiff, lolling aimlessly under the blankets, lost. He turns, huddles against the long hot body of the female, fitting himself against her back, comforting himself against her buttocks. With one arm, he hugs her close to him, breathes the perfume from her hair, sleeps on and on.

In the morning, William Rackham realises that this is the first time in six years he has slept all night with a woman at his side. So many women he’s fucked, and so many nights he’s slept, and yet so rarely the twain have met!

‘Do you know,’ he muses to Sugar, before he’s even fully awake, ‘this is the first time in six years I’ve slept all night with a woman at my side.’

Sugar kisses his shoulder. Almost says, ‘You poor thing,’ but thinks better of it.

‘Well, was it worth the wait?’ she murmurs.

He returns the kiss, ruffles her red mane. Through the fog of his contentment, the cares of his diurnal existence struggle to surface. Dundee. Dundee. A wrinkle dawns on his brow as he recalls the freshly penned letter he brought to show Sugar last night.

‘I should get up,’ he says, raising himself onto his elbows.

‘It’s an hour at least before the post gets collected,’ remarks Sugar calmly, as if, for her, reading his thoughts is the most natural thing in the world. ‘I have stamps and envelopes here. Rest your head a little longer.’

He falls back on his pillow, befuddled. Can it really be as early as that? Silver Street is so noisy, with carts and dogs and chattering pedestrians, it feels like mid-morning. And what sort of creature is he in bed with, who can hold in her head the fine print of his contract with a firm of jute merchants, while stretching her naked body like a cat?

‘The tone of my letter …’ he frets. ‘Are you sure it’s not too fawning? They’ll understand my meaning, won’t they?’

‘It’s clear as crystal,’ she says, sitting up to comb her hair.

‘But not
too
clear? They can make trouble for me, these fellows, if I get on the wrong side of them.’

‘It’s exactly right,’ she assures him, dragging the metal teeth in slow rhythm through her tangled orange halo. ‘All it needed was a softer word here and there.’ (She’s referring to the changes he made, on her advice, before they went to bed.)

He turns on his side, watches her as she combs. With every flex of her muscles, the tiger-stripe patterns of her peculiar skin condition move ever-so-slightly – on her hips, on her thighs, on her back. With every sweep of her comb, a luxuriant mass of hair falls against her pale flesh, only to be swept up again a moment later. He clears his throat to tell her how … how very fond he is growing of her.

Then he notices the smell.

‘
Paghh
…’ he grimaces, sitting bolt upright. ‘Is there a chamber-pot under the bed?’

Without hesitation, Sugar stops combing, bends over the edge of the mattress, and fetches out the ceramic tureen.

‘Of course,’ she says, tipping it sideways for his inspection. ‘But it’s empty.’

He grunts, impressed by her masculine continence, never guessing that she slipped away from his side during the night, performed a number of watery procedures, and disposed of the results. Instead, preoccupied with the task at hand – at nostril – William continues his search for the true source of the stench. He stumbles barefoot out of the bed, following his sensitive nose from one end of Sugar’s bedroom to the other. He’s embarrassed to find that the stink emanates from the soles of his own shoes, lying where he kicked them off the night before.

‘I must have stepped in dog’s mess on the way here,’ he frowns, disproportionately shamed by the stiff sludge he can neither clean nor endure. ‘There aren’t enough lamps out there, damn it.’ He’s pulling on his socks now, looking for his trousers, preparing to take his disgraced shoes away with him, away from Sugar’s immaculate boudoir.

‘The city is a filthy place,’ Sugar affirms, unobtrusively wrapping her body in a milk-white dressing-gown. ‘There’s muck on the ground, muck in the water, muck in the air. I find, even on the short walk between here and The Fireside –
used
to find, I should say, shouldn’t I? – a layer of black grime settles on one’s skin.’

William, buttoning himself into his shirt, appraises her fresh face, her bright eyes – the white gown.

‘Well, you look very clean to me, I must say.’

‘I do my best,’ she smiles, folding the creamy sleeves across her breast. ‘Though a little of your Rackham’s Bath Sweetener wouldn’t go amiss, I suppose. And do you have anything to purify drinking water? You don’t want to see me carried off by cholera!’

Bull’s-eye
, she thinks, as a shudder passes through him.

‘I wonder, though,’ she goes on, in a dreamy, musing tone. ‘Don’t you ever get fed up, William, with living in the city? Don’t you ever wish you lived somewhere pleasanter and cleaner?’ She pauses, ready to feed him specifics (‘like Notting Hill, perhaps, or Bayswater …’) but biting her tongue on the words in case he should come out with them first.

‘Well, actually, I live in Notting Hill,’ he confesses.

Sugar allows her face to light up with the merest fraction of the joy she feels at this triumph in winning his confidence.

‘Oh, how agreeable!’ she cries. ‘It’s the ideal place, don’t you think? Close to the heart of things, but so much more civilised.’

‘It’s all right, I suppose …’ he says, fastening his collars. ‘Some might call it unfashionable.’

‘I don’t think it’s unfashionable at all! There are some grand parts to Notting Hill; everybody knows that. The streets between Westbourne Grove and Pembridge Square, for example, have a reputation for being awfully desirable.’

‘But that’s precisely where I live!’

At this, she throws her head back and chuckles, a rough low sound from her long white throat. In all things (says that chuckle) William Rackham can be depended upon to choose the best. ‘I ought to have guessed,’ she says.

‘You guess damn near everything else,’ he retorts ruefully.

She examines his eyes, weighs his tone, confirms he isn’t angry with her, merely impressed. ‘Feminine intuition,’ she winks. ‘I feel it, somehow.’ (Her hands caress her bosom, stray down to her abdomen.) ‘
Deep
inside me.’

Then, judging she must let him go, she swings off the bed and walks over to the escritoire, from which all her own papers have been removed, leaving nothing but William’s letter to the jute merchants. ‘Now, we had better get this ready for the post.’

Fully dressed but for the shoes, William joins her at the writing-desk. Sugar stands demurely at his shoulder and watches as he re-reads the letter, watches as he judges it satisfactory, watches as he folds it into the envelope she hands him, watches as he addresses it and, without attempting to obscure her view, writes his home address on the reverse. Only then does she close her eyes in satisfaction. What so recently were the fruits of stealth have now been given to her freely. Nothing now remains for her to do but sink her teeth in.

‘
Mercy,’ he pleaded once more
.

William is gone, and Sugar sits at her desk, finishing the troublesome chapter at last.

I gripped the hilt of the dagger, but found I lacked the strength (the strength of
will, perhaps, but also the strength of sinew, for slaughtering a man is no easy
labour) to plunge the knife into this fellow’s flesh and do my worst. I had performed
the act so many times before; but that night, it was beyond me.

And yet, the man must die: he could not be released now that I had entrapped
him! What, dear Reader, was I to do
?

I put away my knife, and instead fetched up a soft cotton cloth. My helpless
paramour ceased his struggle against his bonds, an expression of relief manifesting
on his face. Even when I up-ended the flask of foul-smelling liquid into the cloth, he
did not lose hope, imagining perhaps that I was about to swab his fevered brow
.

Holding my own breath as if in sympathy, I pressed the poison rag to his mouth
and nose, wholly sealing those orifices
.

‘Sweet dreams, my friend.’

TWELVE

H
enry Rackham, unaccustomed as he is to ecstasy, is so happy he could die. He is in Mrs Fox’s house, sitting in the chair which must have been her husband’s, eating cake. ‘Excuse me just a moment, Henry’ was the last thing she said, before removing her exquisite self from the parlour. In his mind’s eye, she still stands before him, her ginger dress brightening the room, her gentle manner warming the air. The very atmosphere is reluctant to let her go.

‘More tea, Mr Rackham?’

Henry jerks, spilling cake crumbs into his lap. He’d forgotten about Mrs Fox’s servant, Sarah; she’d ceased to exist for him. Yet there she stands, inconspicuous against the papery clutter of Mrs Fox’s belongings, a stacked tea-tray on her forearms, a hint of a smirk on her face. In that smirk, Henry can see reflected what a moonstruck booby he must appear.

‘I have sufficient, thank you,’ he says.

All at once, his happiness has left him – or rather, he has pushed it to arm’s length, the better to subject it to scrutiny. What
is
this happiness, really? Nothing more or less than captivation by a member of the fair sex. And captivation is a frightening thing.

Granted, he’s not a Catholic: he could, if he wished, be both a clergyman and a husb
and
. Mrs Fox, for her part, is a widow: that is, free. But, leaving aside the unlikelihood of her wanting a dull and awkward fellow like him, there remains, in Henry’s mind, a religious obstacle.

This captivation … This infatuation … This
love
, if he dares call it that, in earshot of the Almighty … This
love
has the power to steal away so much time – whole hours and days – which might otherwise have been devoted to the work of God. Good works are frugal with time; love for a woman squanders it. It is possible to follow the example of Jesus on a dozen occasions in a single morning, and still have energy for more; yet dwelling upon the wishes – even the imagined wishes – of a beloved can swallow up all one’s waking hours, and achieve nothing.

Henry knows! Too often, the time that elapses between one meeting with Mrs Fox and the next is a dream, a mere intermission. She need only smile at him, and he cherishes that smile to the exclusion of all else. Days pass, life goes on, yet the best part of him is given over to the memory of that smile. How can this be?

Henry sips his tea, uneasy under the gaze of Sarah. She gazes too directly, he feels; there’s no hope of him picking the crumbs off his lap without her observing him at it. What’s wrong with the girl? Perhaps, when it comes to servants, the rehabilitated fallen can never be quite as discreet as those who never fell in the first place. Sweat breaks out on Henry’s forehead, explicable (he hopes) by the steam rising from his tea-cup. This girl – this protégée of the Rescue Society – is she essentially any different from the trollops he’s seen in St Giles? Underneath her dowdy clothing, a quantity of naked flesh is contained, a living, breathing vessel of sinful history. She’s not beautiful, this Sarah – at least, not beautiful to him. She is a provocative reminder of the female sex in its fallen state, but as an individual she leaves him unmoved. The thought of Mrs Fox’s gloved hand clasped momentarily inside his own is far more seductive than any fantasy this rescued wanton can give rise to. And yet she’s a similar age to Mrs Fox, a similar size, a similar shape … How is it possible for him to be entranced by the one, and indifferent to the other? What is God trying to teach him?

The servant walks away, and Henry attends to his trousers. What do the great Christian philosophers have to say on this matter? A woman, they remind him, flourishes and dies like a flower. A decade or two sees the passing of her beauty, a few decades more the passing of its beholders, and finally the woman herself returns to dust. Almighty God, by contrast, lives for ever, and is the author of all beauty, having shaped it in his hands in the very first week of Creation.

And yet, how much more difficult it is to love God with the passion that a beautiful woman inspires! Can this truly be a part of God’s plan? Are desiccated woman-haters like MacLeish the only men suited for the cloth? And what’s become of Mrs Fox? She said she’d only be a moment … the vision of her ginger dress has faded from the air in front of him, the warm traces of her voice have evaporated in the silence.

Henry smiles sadly, there in Bertie Fox’s chair. What is he to do? His desire to impress Mrs Fox is the only thing that may lend him the courage to take Holy Orders; yet, if he were to win Emmeline’s love, would he care a fig for anything else in the world? He was miserable all his life until he met her – could he resist the siren call of animal contentment if she were his? How shameful that he has always greeted the bounties of Providence with a heavy heart, but when given an opportunity to drink tea in the parlour of a pretty widow he feels such joy that he must suppress the urge to rock in his seat! God save from happiness the man who would better the world!

But what’s that sound? From upstairs, muffled by the floors and passageways of Mrs Fox’s little house … Is it … coughing? Yes: a horrifying, convulsive cough such as he has heard issuing from dark cellars in filthy slums … Can this be the same voice as he has grown to love?

For another couple of minutes, Henry sits waiting and listening, stiff with anxiety. Then Mrs Fox returns to the parlour, flushed in the cheeks, but otherwise quite well-looking and calm.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Henry,’ she says, in tones as smooth as linctus.

Agnes lowers the latest issue of
The Illustrated London News
to her lap, offended and upset. An article has just informed her that the average Englishwoman has 21,917 days to live. Why, oh
why
must newspapers always be so disagreeable? Have they nothing better to do? The world is going to the dogs.

She rises, letting the newspaper fall to the floor, and walks to the window. After checking the sill for dirt (the first flying insects of the season have been spawned, unfortunately, and one cannot be too careful), she rests her hands on the edge and her hot clammy forehead against the frigid glass, and looks down into the garden. The old poplar tree is pimpled with buds, but afflicted also with green fungus; the lawn below is clean-shaven and, here and there, scraped down to the dark soil by scythe and hoe. It makes Agnes melancholy to see what Shears is doing to the garden. Not that she wasn’t thoroughly ashamed of the Rackham grounds as they were before he came, but now that they’ve been brought to heel, she misses the bright daisies around the trees and the dark green sprouts of sword-grass among the paving-stones, especially as nothing has been put in their place yet. Shears is waiting, he says, for the grass to grow back ‘right’.

Agnes can feel one of her bouts of tearfulness coming on, and grips the window-ledge hard to suppress it. But one by one, the tears for the daisies and the wild grass roll down her cheeks, and the more she blinks the more freely they flow.

21,917 days. Less in her case, as she’s been alive for so long already. How many days are left to her? She has forgotten all the arithmetic she ever knew; the challenge is impossible. Only one thing is clear: the days of her life are, in the cruellest and crudest sense, numbered.

It wasn’t always thus, she knows. Women in the time of Moses lived spans unheard-of now, at least in England. Even today, in the Orient and the further reaches of the Empire, there are to be found wise men (and wise women, surely?) who have solved the riddle of ageing and physical injury, and survived unscathed for generations. Their secrets are hinted at in the Spiritualism pamphlets Agnes has hidden inside her embroidery basket; there are authenticated drawings of miracles – holy men emerging spry and smiling from six months’ burial, exotic black gentlemen dancing on flames, and so forth. No doubt there exist other books – ancient manuals of forbidden knowledge – which explain all the techniques in detail. Everything that’s known to Man is published
somewhere
– but whether Mudie’s Circulating Library will let a curious woman see it is another matter.

Oh, but what use is there in thinking about it! She’s cursed, it’s all too late for her, God has turned his back, the garden is ruined, her head aches, none of her dresses is the right colour, Mrs Jerrold scorned to reply to her letter, her hair-brush is always thick with hair, the sky darkens ominously when she so much as dares to set foot outside the house. Choking, Agnes slides the window open and thrusts her twisted face into the fresh air.

In the grounds below, Janey the scullery maid appears from a door directly beneath Agnes’s window, to fetch a bucket-load of rich soil for the mushroom cellar. Agnes can see the flesh of the girl’s back straining at the buttons of her plain black dress, straining at the white knot of her pinafore’s bow. All at once she feels a flush of compassion for this poor little drudge in her employ. Two heavy tears fall from her eyes, straight down at the girl, but the wind blows them away before they reach the already retreating body.

It’s only when Mrs Rackham draws back from the window-sill, and adjusts her legs for balance, that she appreciates she has begun to bleed.

Of Mrs Rackham’s subsequent behaviour her husband will soon be informed, but in those few minutes before it comes to the attention of the servants, William sits oblivious in his study, not having thought about Agnes for hours.

Although he has illness very much on his mind, it doesn’t happen to be his wife’s. A worry has been planted in his brain, and is growing there at an alarming rate – a weed of anxiety. Sugar’s innocent jest about cholera has reminded him of some grim statistics: every day, the diseases bred in the unhygienic conditions of inner London claim a certain number of lives – not least those of prostitutes. Yes, Sugar appears fresh as a rose, but by her own admission it isn’t easy; all around her is filth and damp and decay. Who knows what foulness her stable-mates bring into the house? Who knows what contagions hang around the walls of Mrs Castaway’s, threatening to seep into Sugar’s bedroom? She deserves better – and so, of course, does he. Must he tramp through a quagmire of dung to reach his lover? It’s clear what he must do – how simple the solution is! He has the funds, after all! Why, in the past two months, according to the books, sales of lavender water alone—An erratic knocking at his door interrupts his calculations.

‘Come in,’ he calls.

The door swings open, and an agitated Letty is revealed.

‘Oh Mr Rackham sir, I’m sorry sir, but, oh, Mr Rackham …’ Her eyes swivel about in their sockets, looking back and forth from William to the stairs she’s just run up; her body sways obsequiously.

‘Well?’ prompts William. ‘What
is
it, Letty?’

‘It’s
Mrs
Rackham, sir,’ she pipes. ‘Doctor Curlew has already been sent for, sir, but … I thought you might wish to see for yourself … we closed the door at once … nothing’s been disturbed …’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake!’ exclaims William, as exasperated by all this intrigue as he is unnerved by it. ‘Show me this disaster.’ And he follows Letty hurriedly downstairs, buttoning his waistcoat as he goes.

* * *

In Mrs Fox’s parlour, Mrs Fox is doing a rather impolite thing in plain view of her visitor. She is folding sheets of paper from a stack in her lap, inserting them in envelopes, and licking the edges, all the while continuing her conversation. The first time Henry Rackham witnessed this, months ago, he was no less taken aback than if she’d raised a mirror to her face and begun picking her teeth; now, he’s used to it. There are simply not enough hours in the day for all of her activities, so some must be performed simultaneously.

‘May I help you?’ Henry suggests.

‘Please,’ she says, and hands him half the stack.

‘What
are
these?’

‘Bible verses,’ she says. ‘For night shelters.’

‘Oh.’ He glances at a sheet before folding it. The words of Psalm 31 are instantly recognisable: ‘Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly …’ and so on, up to the exhortation to be of good courage. Mrs Fox’s handwriting is remarkably legible, given the number of times she’s had to transcribe the same few passages.

Henry folds, inserts, licks, presses tight.

‘But can the unfortunates in the night shelters read?’ he asks.

‘Destitution can come to anyone,’ she says, folding, folding. ‘In any case, these verses are for the wardens and the visiting nurses to read aloud. They walk up and down the long aisles of beds, you know, reciting anything they think might comfort the sleepless.’

‘Noble work.’

‘
You
could do it, Henry, if you wished. They won’t let
me
– they say they couldn’t guarantee my safety. As if that were in anyone’s hands but God’s.’

Silence falls, except for the whispery sound of their folding and licking. The wordless simplicity of this shared activity is, to Henry, almost unbearably satisfying; he would be happy to spend the next fifty years sitting here in Mrs Fox’s parlour, helping her with her correspondence. Sadly, there are only so many night shelters in Britain, and the envelopes are soon filled. Mrs Fox squints and licks her lips, miming her disgust at the acrid taste on her pink tongue – on his tongue, too.

‘Cocoa is the answer,’ she assures him.

* * *

Letty has led her master through passages he has not seen more than a half dozen times since taking on the house that bears his name; passages made for servants to scuttle along. Now she and William Rackham stand at the kitchen door. By dumb show she communicates to him that, if neither of them makes the slightest noise, and if they enter the kitchen with the utmost stealth, they’re likely to observe an extraordinary thing.

William, sorely tempted to cast aside this foolishness and shove on through, resists the temptation and does as Letty suggests. Noiselessly, like a stage curtain parting, the door is nudged open, to reveal not just the harshly-lit, high-ceilinged cell in which all his food is prepared, but also (when he lowers his eyes) two women engaged in an act which shouldn’t have shocked him in the least – had not one of the women been his wife.