The Crimson Petal and the White (77 page)

Shivering, Sugar takes a swig of tea from the absurdly dainty cup. How strange she still finds it, this ritual of being served tea at the crack of dawn by a servant, instead of waking at ten or eleven with the sun beaming on her face. In an instant, she’s transported back in time – not to Priory Close, but farther still – to the top floor of Mrs Castaway’s, with the pigeons cooing in the rafters, the sun mercilessly golden, and little Christopher knocking for the dirty linen.

You should have taken Christopher with you,
a reproachful voice hisses in her sluggish brain.
Mrs Castaway’s is no place for a child
.

She bites her biscuit, spilling a flurry of crumbs on the breast of her night-gown.
He’s a boy child
, she tells herself.
He’ll grow into a man like all
the rest of them. And the world is made for men
.

She drains her tea, a mere swallow’s worth, barely enough to wet her dry tongue. Why is she so tired? What happened yesterday? The last thing she can remember, before falling into a long, confused dream in which a woman shrieked and wailed in a howling wind, is Agnes Unwin’s announcement that she’s engaged to marry William Rackham.

The diary has fallen shut in Sugar’s lap. She opens it again, thumbs its soil-stained pages, finds the part where she lost consciousness.

I am Engaged to Marry a man, writes Agnes, and I scarcely know Who he
is. How terrifying! Of course I am awfully well
aqcuainted
with him – so well
that I could write a book of all the clever things he says. But Who is he
really
,
this
William Rackham, and what does he want of me that he doesnt have already? O,
I pray I dont bore him! He smiles & calls me his odd little sprite – but am I singu
lar enough for a man of his disposition?

When I think of marrying, it is like thinking of diving into dark waters. But
do dark waters become any clearer if one stares into them for years & years before
diving? (Oh dear: perhaps I oughtnt to have used this comparison, since I am not
a swimmer!)

But I mustnt fret. All things are possible for two persons in love. And it will
be unutterably sweet not to be Agnes Unwin
anymore! I can hardly wait!!!

‘My Mama didn’t go to bed at
all,’
complains Sophie, befuddled and whimpery, as Sugar helps her into her clothes. ‘She was outside in the garden, shouting, all night, Miss.’

‘Perhaps you dreamed it, Sophie,’ suggests Sugar uneasily. The sheer effort of facing the day, of getting dressed and groomed by seven o’clock so that she can help Sophie do the same, has pushed her nightmare into the past; the tormented wailing has been muffled to a murmur. Now, when she tries to recall it, the woman’s voice is no longer solitary, but accompanied by others, male and female. Oh yes, and there’s a vague impression of a ruckus on the stairs.

‘Nurse says that weeping and making a fuss fools no one,’ Sophie remarks out of the blue, pouting like an imbecile as Sugar brushes her hair, teetering in her tight little shoes each time the comb snags her scalp. She’s not quite awake yet, that’s plain.

‘We all must do our best, Sophie,’ says Sugar, ‘to be brave.’

At half past nine, shortly after the day’s lessons have begun, the lonely privacy of the school-room is interrupted by a knock on the door. Normally, once the breakfast dishes have been removed, no one disturbs them until lunch, but here is Letty appearing in the doorway, empty-handed and solemn.

‘Mr Rackham would like to see you, Miss Sugar,’ she says.

‘See … me?’ Sugar blinks uncomprehendingly.

‘In his study, Miss.’ Letty’s face is benign, but not very rewarding to read; if there are any woman-to-woman confidences written on it, they’re written too faintly for Sugar to decipher.

Sophie looks up from her writing-desk, waiting to learn what turn the world will take next. With a nod and a hand gesture, Sugar signals for work to continue on the naming and drawing of musical instruments, having just convinced Sophie that her sketch of the violin with the droopy neck can stay, rather than be ripped out of her copy-book and portrayed afresh. Sophie bows down to her task again, pressing her ruler onto a half-drawn violoncello as if it’s twitching to slither from her grasp.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ says Sugar. But, as she follows Letty out of the room, her confidence in the promise suddenly wavers.
He wants me gone,
she thinks.
He’s found someone with French and German, who plays the piano.
Then, lurching from unwarranted dread to unwarranted excitement, she thinks:
No, he wants to kiss my throat and lift my skirts and fuck me. He’s had a cockstand
since he woke up this morning, and can contain himself no longer
.

The carpets all along the landing are wet under her feet, and smell of soap and wet fabric; Letty, having discharged her summons, rolls her sleeves up and returns to her bucket and sponge, leaving the governess to face the master alone. The water in Letty’s bucket is pink.

Heart beating hard in her breast, Sugar knocks at the door of William’s study, his
sanctum sanctorum,
which, in all the weeks she has been in his house, she has never entered.

‘Enter,’ he calls from within, and she obeys.

Sugar’s first thought when she sees him at his desk, clouded in smoke, leaning wearily forward, elbows pushing aside two molehills of correspondence, is that he resembles a man who has spent the night in drunken debauchery. His eyes are red and puffy, his hair is plastered with moisture, his beard and moustache are uncombed. He rises from his chair to greet her, and she notes dark speckles of water on his waistcoat, spilt from the rude splashing he’s given his face.

‘William, you look … so terribly tired! Surely you’re working too hard!’

He crosses the room – his shoes and trouser-legs are smeared with dirt – and, seizing her shoulders so abruptly it makes her flinch, he pulls her against his chest. Even as she responds to his embrace, wrapping her long thin arms around him and pressing her cheek against his, she’s tempted to rebuff him as a good governess should; all sorts of daft remonstrances spring to her mind:
Unhand me, sir! Oh! Mercy! I shall swoon!
, and so forth.

‘What’s wrong, my love?’ she whispers into his hair, hugging him tight, straining to let him feel the sharp edges of her hips through the layers of clothing that rustle between them. ‘Tell me your cares.’ Scarcely less hackneyed phrases, she knows, but what else can she say? All she wants is for this untidy room, with its confusion of papers and tobacco-stained wallpaper and carpets the colour of beef stew, to melt away, and for the two of them to be magically transported back to Priory Close, where soft warm sheets would wrap themselves around their naked bodies and William would gaze at her in wonder and say …

‘Ugh, this is a rotten, hopeless business.’

She catches her breath as he squeezes her even harder. ‘The … perfume business?’ she prompts him, knowing full well he means something else.

‘Agnes,’ he groans. ‘She has me at my wits’ end.’

The likelihood of William’s wits being nearer their end than those of his poor wife seems small, but there’s no doubting his distress.

‘What has she done?’

‘She was out in the snow last night, in her night-gown! Digging up her diaries – or trying to. Now she’s convinced they’ve been eaten by worms. I ordered the cursed things kept safe; no one seems to have any idea where they are.’

Sugar makes an inarticulate sound of sympathetic puzzlement.

‘And she’s wounded herself!’ exclaims William, shuddering in Sugar’s arms. ‘It’s horrible! She’s gashed both her feet with a spade. Never dug a hole in her life, poor baby. And with no shoes on! Ach!’ He shudders again, violently, at the thought of those dainty naked feet being penetrated, in one clumsy thrust, by the blunt wedge of metal. Sugar shudders too – the first helpless spasm they’ve shared that’s genuinely mutual.

‘How is she? What did you do?’ she cries, and William breaks away from their embrace, covering his face with his hands.

‘I fetched Doctor Curlew here, of course. Thank God he didn’t refuse … though he’ll have his pound of flesh from me for this … Amazing how a man can be in his overcoat and night-shirt, stitching a screaming woman’s flesh, and still look smug! Well he can look smug all he likes; Agnes is staying here! Am I to condemn my wife to a living Hell because she can’t use a spade? I’m not a beast yet!’

‘William, you’re beside yourself!’ Sugar cautions him, though her own voice trembles with disquiet. ‘You’ve done all you can for now; once you’ve slept, you’ll be able to think with a clearer head.’

He paces away from her, nodding and rubbing his hands.

‘Yes, yes,’ he says, frowning with the effort of banishing illogic from his brain. ‘I have a hold of myself now.’ He focuses on her with a strange stare, his eyes agleam. ‘Can you imagine who could possibly have taken those damn diaries?’

‘M-mightn’t Sophie’s old nurse have taken them with her? Weren’t they dug up just before she left?’

William shakes his head, about to object that Beatrice Cleave regarded Agnes with barely concealed disdain; then it occurs to him that this is precisely why she might have relished the chance to cause trouble.

‘I’ll write to Mrs Barrett, and get her room searched,’ he declares.

‘No, no, my love,’ says Sugar, alarmed by how easily her soiled and ill-gotten secrets could, if his suspicion turned to her, be hauled out from under her little bed. ‘If she did it for mischief, she’ll have thrown them in the nearest river. And besides, is a pile of old diaries what Agnes needs just now? Surely she needs rest and tender care?’

He paces back to his desk, opening and shutting his hands nervously. ‘Rest and tender care. Yes, damn it. If only she could sleep until her injuries have healed! I’ll get something from a doctor – not Curlew, damn him – a pill or a potion … Clara can make sure she’s given it religiously, every night … No excuses. No excuses, d’you hear!’

His voice has warped from acquiescence to rage in the course of a few seconds. Sugar rushes to his side and lays her rough palm against his contorted face.

‘William, please: your anguish is blinding you to who I am. I’m your Sugar, don’t you see? I’m the woman who has listened to your woes, advised you, helped you write letters you dreaded writing … How many times have I proved there’s nothing I won’t do for you?’ She snatches his slack hand and guides it to her bosom, then down to her belly, a gesture she hopes will rouse his desire, but which he condones with dumb bemusement, as if she’s using him to make the sign of the cross.

‘William,’ she pleads. ‘Remember Hopsom’s? The long nights we spent … ?’

Finally his expression softens. His overheated skull, it seems, is filling with the cool balm of remembered intimacy: the way she helped him sail through a stormy patch in Rackham Perfumeries’ growth when bad counsel might have sunk him.

‘My angel,’ he sighs, contrite. To Sugar’s great relief, he leans forward and kisses her full on the mouth; his tongue is dry and tastes of brandy and dyspepsia, but at least he’s kissing her. Taking courage, she strokes his hair, his shoulders, his back, breathing quicker, almost wanting him, wanting him to want her.

‘Oh, by the way,’ he says, breaking free of her again. ‘I have something to show you.’ His prick is bulging up through his trousers, but it’s not that; no, he isn’t quite ready for that. Instead, he rummages in the chaos of papers on his desk and pulls out a folded copy of
The Times
.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen this?’ he says, rapidly leafing through it – past the news, past the weddings and engagements, until he’s found the page he wants to show her. There, prominently placed in the midst of small advertisements for blood purifiers and homoeopaths, is a large announcement featuring an engraving of William Rackham’s face circled by a wreath of holly.

A Merry Christmas Season,
Anticipating A Most Happy New Year
FROM
RACKHAM’S
A PURVEYORS OF FINE PERFUMES AND TOILETRIES

Sugar reads the greeting several times over, racking her brains for compliments. How strange it feels to be shown one of William’s ideas as a
fait accompli
, without having been consulted beforehand!

‘Very striking,’ she says. ‘And well-worded. Yes, awfully good.’

‘It’s a way of getting my Christmas greeting in the newspaper well in advance,’ he explains, ‘before my rivals put theirs in, you see?’

‘Mm,’ she says. ‘They’ll be wishing they’d thought of it, won’t they?’ Flaring in Sugar’s imagination, over and over, is the sickening picture of Agnes thrusting a filthy spade downwards in the dark, and the blade gashing into the pale flesh of her feet.

‘No doubt they’ll be wise to me next Christmas,’ William is saying. ‘But this year, the advantage is mine.’

‘You’ll think of something even cleverer next year,’ Sugar assures him. ‘I’ll help you.’

They kiss again, and this time he seems ready to proceed. She slides her hand inside his trousers, and his cock is stiffening even as she gropes for it.

‘When are you going to put me out of my misery?’ she purrs into his ear, managing to modulate a tremor of hysteria into a trill of lust. Yet, when she lifts her leg to climb onto him, she’s surprised to feel how wet her sex is. William is behaving like a brute, it’s true, but he’s deranged by worry, and his heart’s in the right place, she’s sure, and – thank God – he still desires her. If she can only fuck him now, and hear his helpless groan of surrender as he spends, everything can still be all right.

Her pantalettes are around her ankles, she’s lowering her arse into his lap, she gasps with relief as the head of his prick nudges into her – when suddenly there’s a sharp rap at the door. Without a moment’s hesitation she catapults off his body, yanking up her drawers even as she regains her balance. William is busy likewise. Their mutuality, their synchronicity, as they straighten their clothing and rearrange their bodies into decorous poses, is as instinctive and fluent as any act of eroticism.