The Crimson Petal and the White (56 page)

‘Oh, but he’s a thorn in my flesh!’ groans William, mock-despairingly, in Sugar’s bed that evening. ‘Why did he have to choose
me
as the victim of his intimacies?’

‘Perhaps he has no one else,’ says Sugar. Then, risking a touch of intimacy herself, she adds: ‘And you
are
his brother.’

They’re lying with the blanket thrown wide, their hot damp bodies exposed to the cooling air. Despite his concern over Henry, William is in rather a good mood, as confident as a basking lion surrounded by lionesses and a steaming recent kill. His trip to Yarmouth was a resounding success: he and an importer called Grover Pankey got along famously, smoked cigars on the beachfront, and struck a deal to supply Rackham Perfumeries with dirt-cheap ivory pots for the dearer balsams.

During the act (the act of love with Sugar, not the deal with Pankey), William was still full of his achievement, and it lent him a grace she didn’t know he could possess. He caressed her breasts with uncommon tenderness, and kissed her navel with the softest touch of his lips, over and over: at that, something inside her opened up, a hard, hidden shell that was hitherto closed to him. He’s not the worst man in the world, she thinks; he might even be among the least vicious – and he’s grown genuinely fond of her body, treating it like a living thing, rather than (as in the beginning) a void into which he angrily cast his seed.

‘I am his brother,’ sighs William, ‘and it pains me to see him so wretched. But how can I help him? Everything I urge him to do, he rejects as impossible; everything he does instead, provokes me to annoyance. I come back from Yarmouth, in high spirits and pleased as Punch to have missed another of Doctor Crane’s boring sermons, and within minutes Henry’s in my parlour, reciting the whole damned thing to me!’

To give Sugar the flavour of what he’s had to endure, William sums up the rector’s tirade against cremation.

‘And what does Henry think?’ says Sugar, when his two-minute précis of her own hour-long ordeal is finished.

‘Ha! Crippled with indecision, as usual!’ cries William. ‘His head, he said, is with cremation, but his heart’s with burial.’

Sugar represses the impulse to share with William the image that springs into her imagination, of a corpse being carved up by two solemn officials, whereupon one carries the severed head off towards a furnace, and the other bears the bloody heart away on a spade.

‘And you?’ she prompts.

‘I told him I’m a burial man myself, but not for any far-fetched religious reasons. What hoops the pious jump through to make simple things complicated! I’ve half a mind to write an essay on the subject …’ Hugging her closer as the sweat on their skins evaporates, he explains that the superiority of burial has nothing to do with religion at all, but with social and economic realities. Grieving friends and relations need to feel that the dead man is going forth from them in the body he had when they last saw him alive; his decay ought to be slow, as slow as the decay of their memories of him. To blast someone to a cinder when, in the minds of his loved ones, he’s still large as life, is perverse. And besides, what’s to become of all the grave-diggers? Have the cremationists thought of that? And what about the hearse-drivers, the funeral footmen and so forth? Burial generates more industry, and keeps more men gainfully employed, than most folk could imagine. Why, even Rackham Perfumeries would suffer if it were abolished, for there’d no longer be any call for Rackham’s scented coffin sachets, nor the cosmetics Rackham’s sells to undertakers.

‘And what did Agnes make of all this?’ enquires Sugar lightly, hoping to find out, without needing to ask, why Mrs Rackham wasn’t at church this morning.

‘Missed the whole thing, thank God. She’s at the seaside.’

‘The seaside?’

‘Yes, Folkestone Sands.’

Sugar lifts herself up onto one elbow, and pulls the covers gently up over William’s chest, trying to decide how brazenly she can pry.

‘What’s she doing there?’

‘Fattening herself up with cake and hokey-pokey, I hope.’ He closes his eyes and draws a deep breath. ‘Keeping out of trouble.’

‘Why? What trouble has she been in?’

But William is not in the mood to tell Sugar about Lady Harrington’s ball, and the spectacle of his wife being carried out of a crowded ballroom by two blushing young naval officers, leaving behind her on the burnished floor a long glistening trail of yellow vomit – not to mention a grievously scandalised hostess. He might have told Sugar if the incident had been a simple case of illness, but Agnes, in the minutes leading up to her collapse, said outrageous things to Lady Harrington, ignoring his whispered cautions. Even in the carriage on the way home, she was unrepentant, her speech slurred, her eyes wild and glinting in the dark, as she lolled back and forth on the seat opposite him.

‘Lady Harrington will never forgive this, you know,’ he’d said, torn between the desire to slap her face so hard that it twirled three hundred and sixty degrees, and the longing to enfold her in his arms and stroke the wet hair off her face.

‘Ach, we don’t need her,’ Agnes sniffed. ‘She looks like a duck.’

This made him laugh, despite his mortification; and, in a sense, she was right, and not just about Lady Harrington’s appearance. Ever since the ascent of William’s fortunes to their current altitude, minor aristocrats – the sort whose own fortunes are ravaged by gambling and drink, and whose estates are covertly crumbling into ruin – have been tripping over themselves to court him.

‘That’s no excuse,’ he chided his wife, ‘for insulting one’s host.’

‘Host, host, host, host,’ Agnes coughed wearily, eerily, as the carriage continued to jingle through the dark. ‘Holy Ghost …’

‘William?’

The voice is Sugar’s, and she lies naked in the bed next to him, summoning him back to the present.

‘Hmm?’ he responds, blinking. ‘Ah … yes. Agnes. She’s not in any trouble really, in particular. Feminine frailty.’ He reaches for his shirt and, slipping out of the bed, begins to dress. ‘I’ve high hopes for her spell at Folkestone Sands, actually. Sea air is said to cure all sorts of stubborn ailments. And if her illness persists, I may follow the advice of Lady Bridgelow – a friend of mine – and send her abroad.’

‘Abroad?’ Sugar’s hazel eyes are wide. ‘But where?’

He pauses for a moment, his underbreeches half pulled up, his prick still wet with their love-making, his swollen scrotum dangling in the heat.

‘I’ll cross that bridge,’ he cautions her gently, ‘if and when I come to it.’

Even before the train begins to slacken speed in preparation for its arrival at Folkestone Station, the sharp smell of the sea is already drifting through the carriage windows, and the cries of seagulls can be heard over the staccato racket.

‘Ah now, madam, smell
that
,’ enthuses the servant, raising the window-blind by its tassel and sniffing deeply at the open window. ‘It’s a tonic, no doubt about it.’

Mrs Fox closes her book into the lap of her skirt and smiles.

‘It smells most agreeable, Laura, I’ll give you that. But then, so does roast pork, and that’s never yet cured anybody of anything.’

And yet, Mrs Fox can’t deny that the sea air is bracing. The salty breeze is opening tiny, hitherto-closed passages between her nose and her head, and the effect is so exhilarating she’s unable to read any more of her book. Before slipping it back into the basket by her side, she appraises the title once more:
The Efficacy of Prayer
, by Philip Bodley and Edward Ashwell. What a tiresome book it is! – wholly missing the point that prayer is not some magic spell through which one hopes to achieve ends without effort, but a way of giving thanks, after one has given one’s all to a worthwhile labour, for God’s companionship at one’s side. How like
men
– well, most men – is this finicky cynicism, this Socratic sleight-of-hand; how typical of them to gloat over statistics when outside their windows a million human beings wave in desperate need of rescue.

With a jolt, the rapidity of the steam-chugs decreases, and the grind of brakes announces the train’s arrival at the station. Colourful blurs flash past the windows. A whistle blows.

‘Folk-stooooone!’

Emmeline sits waiting in her carriage while the other passengers squeeze through the narrow corridor. Sad though she is to admit it, her health is now such that she wouldn’t dare insert her feeble body into such a crush of stronger ones. Ruefully she recalls how once, along with her fellow Rescuers, she pushed through a crowd of shouting, foot-stamping onlookers to a street brawl and, finding the brawlers to be husband and wife, pulled them apart with her bare – well, gloved – hands. How amazed those two looked, panting and bloodied – how strangely they regarded each other!

The carriage shudders under the heavy tread of porters on its roof, unloading bags and cases; the furious blasts of steam from the several engines mingle with the chaos of voices. In the crowd, fat cabbies race one another to the wealthiest-looking of the travellers, while porters limp and lurch with enormous suitcases in their hands and beach umbrellas under their arms. Children are everywhere: boys in felt caps and redundant overcoats, girls in miniature replicas of the previous decade’s adult fashions. Round and round their mothers and nannies they bumble and dance, made clumsy by baskets, buckets and spades. Emmeline sees one excited lass twirl into the path of a sailor and get bowled to the ground. Yet, instead of howling, the child scrambles to her feet, her joy too robust to be punctured by one small mishap. Ah, what a blessing, to be able to fall and get up again! Pricked by envy, Emmeline watches and watches.

When the sea of humanity has washed out of the great portals into the brilliant boulevard beyond, Laura picks up Mrs Fox’s suitcase and parasol, and waddles out onto the platform. Emmeline leans but lightly on her stick as she follows, for she’s been resting all the way from London; in fact she feels quite well, and it’s only the pitying stares of the railway guards that remind her how naked to the world her illness is.

Her father has reserved rooms in the hotel most nearly adjacent to the sands, and had sent medicines on ahead, to lie in wait for her at her unfamiliar bedside. As far as Emmeline’s nourishment is concerned, Laura has been instructed to eat as often as she fancies – oftener, even – so that Mrs Fox can be tempted to accompany her in a meal, whether it be purchased from a strolling vendor on the sands or from the bill of fare at the hotel’s dining-hall. The principal aim, however, is for Mrs Fox to rest as many hours as she can bear, reclining in a quiet spot near the sea. On no account is she to stray into the bathing areas and join those adventurous souls who actually wade in the water. If she grows
intolerably
bored, she may, with Doctor Curlew’s blessing,
watch
these daring women springing from their rented bathing-machines fully attired in their swimming-costumes, bound for the sensational shallows. But
she
is to remain among the dry majority, in that safe area where children build their castles out of the reach of the tide.

The dry majority is swelling in number every minute, proliferating in the hot sun. As Laura and Mrs Fox walk along the paved boulevard leading to the sands, they’re passed by scores of men and women dressed as if for a day at the races. Some carry collapsible chairs under their arms, others books or even writing-desks. There seems to be one hawker for every ten innocent vacationers. Dray-horses pull bathing-machines towards the ladies’ bathing area and, following on behind, a quartet of brass players toot hymns to the rhythm of a shaken coin-cup.

‘There’s a nice spot,’ says Laura when she and Mrs Fox have half-descended the great stone steps that eventually bury themselves in the sand, but Mrs Fox doesn’t raise her eyes, being too concerned with her footing and the placing of her stick. The challenge of walking on sand – not easy even for a well person – is beyond her unassisted capabilities, and reluctantly she accepts Laura’s arm. Hyperventilating the sea air, she begins to grow light-headed, and perceives the merry-makers and money-makers all around her as though they’re figments of a dream, liable to disappear as soon as she blinks, leaving her on an empty beach.

The last few yards to Laura’s chosen niche involve several near run-ins with heavily-laden vendors. One of them is selling parasols; another, toy boats; a third, wooden wind-up birds that he loudly claims can fly; and a fourth, slices of plum pudding wrapped in tissue paper, over which he furiously waves one hand, to discourage the audacious seagulls circling overhead.

‘This is the place, ma’am,’ says Laura, as they walk into the shade of a grassy knoll. Gratefully, Mrs Fox lowers her body to the ground, resting her back against the incline. The horizon tilts giddily, an untrustworthy boundary between a vast blue sky and an aquamarine ocean.

‘Leave me alone … for a minute,’ she gasps, with a fawning smile that promises good behavior.

‘Of course, ma’am,’ says Laura. ‘I’ll go fetch us something to eat,’ and before Mrs Fox can protest, she’s hurrying back towards the hurly-burly.

Later that afternoon, when a large slice of plum cake lies half-buried in the sand beside her skirts, and Laura has been persuaded to go and watch an exhibition of ‘Psycho, the Amazing Mechanical Man (Sensation of the London Season!)’ at the nearby Folkestone Pavilion, Mrs Fox lies staring up at the azure sky. The sound of children’s voices has long ago become indistinguishable from the cries of sea-birds, and all of it is swallowed up by the grand and soothing sound of the waves.

She didn’t want to come, no, she didn’t want to come, but now that she’s here she is content, for it’s so much easier here to
think
. The tortuous mazes through which her thoughts have been running lately are left behind in the polluted metropolis. Here, by the great eternal sea, she can, at last, think straight.

A seagull wanders cautiously towards her over the sand, attracted by the wedge of cake, but mistrustful of human wickedness. Emmeline picks up the sticky, gritty slice and gently tosses it at the bird’s feet.