The Crimson Petal and the White (20 page)

But this is as much as God is willing to tolerate. A bell tolls, making her jump.

‘Come in, Letty,’ says Rackham, but he’s wrong: it’s Clara again. What
are
these servants playing at? Has the house descended into utter chaos while he’s been toiling here? But then he remembers: he himself has sent Letty on an errand to the stationers, fifteen minutes ago.

‘I suppose Doctor Curlew has arrived?’

Wrong again. Clara explains to him that there is no sign yet of Beatrice and the good doctor, but that, instead, Mr Bodley and Mr Ashwell have come to visit. They are (quotes Clara with conscientious disdain) challenging him to a duel, acting as each other’s seconds, and demanding that Rackham choose his weapon.

‘I’ll see them shortly,’ he says. ‘Bid them make themselves at home.’

If there’s one thing that Bodley and Ashwell can be relied upon to do, it’s to make themselves at home. When William reaches a natural breathing-space in his work and goes downstairs, he finds them sunk deep in the smoking-room armchairs, languidly kicking each other’s feet in competition for the privilege of resting them on the bald head of a stuffed tiger skin.

‘
Ave, Rackhamus
!’ hails Ashwell, the old school greeting.

‘By God, Bill,’ exclaims Bodley. ‘Your eyes look worse than mine! Been fucking all night?’

‘Yes, but I’m turning over a new leaf,’ William volleys back. He’s ready for this! On a day like today, whatever God may send to frustrate him – lack of sleep, burnt fingers, Agnes on the floor, a mound of dreary documents to plough through, the wit of his bachelor friends – he will not allow his glow of triumph to be overshadowed.

It helps that in Bodley and Ashwell’s company, he is forever an honorary bachelor. As far as they’re concerned, Agnes does not exist until William mentions her. Admittedly, here in the Rackham house, her existence is more difficult to deny than in of London or Paris, for there are reminders of her everywhere. The antimacassars on the chairs were crocheted by her; the tablecloths are adorned by her embroidery; and under every vase, candle-holder and knick-knack is likely to lie some finely wrought doily or place-mat beautified by Mrs Rackham’s handicraft. Even the cedar cigar case owes its little embroidered jacket (in five colours of thread, replete with silken tassels) to Agnes. But (‘Cigar, Bodley?’) William is so accustomed to his wife’s rococo icing on every exposed surface that he has become blind to it.

In a sense, this policy of Bodley and Ashwell’s – of denying Mrs Rackham’s existence – is considerate rather than callous. It tactfully lets the marriage rest for as long as it needs to, like an invalid whose recovery cannot be hurried. William is grateful to them, really he is, for their willingness to act the part of the three wise monkeys (well, two), seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and… well, he doesn’t know if they speak evil of Agnes when they’re in other company. He hopes not.

‘But you must tell us,’ says Ashwell, after they’ve been chin-wagging and smoking for a few minutes. ‘You must tell us the secret of Mrs Fox. Come now, Bill: what
are
her virtues? – besides Virtue, I mean.’

Bodley interposes: ‘Can a woman who works with prostitutes be virtuous?”

‘Surely the prime requisite, hmm?’ says Ashwell, ‘for a woman thus employed?’

‘But contact with Vice corrupts!’ protests Bodley. ‘Haven’t you found?’

William flicks his cigar into the hearth. ‘I’m sure Mrs Fox is proof against all evil. God’s deputy in a bonnet. That’s the impression Henry gave me, from the day he first met her. Well, not
the
actual day, I suppose, since he doesn’t visit me very often.’ William leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling, the better to read any bygone conversations that might still be floating up there. ‘“She’s so
good
, William”– that’s what he kept saying to me. “So very good. She’ll make some lucky man a saint of a wife.”’

‘Yes, but what does he think of her rubbing shoulders with whores?’

‘He hasn’t told me. I can’t imagine he likes it much.’

‘Poor Henry. The dark shadow of Sin comes between him and his love.”

William wags his finger in mock disapproval. ‘Now now, Bodley, you know Henry would be horribly offended to hear that word used in connection with his feelings for Mrs Fox.’

‘What word? Sin?’

‘No no, Love!’ chides William. ‘Any suggestion that he’s in love with Mrs Emmeline Fox …’

‘Agh, it’s as plain as the nose on his face,’ scoffs Ashwell. ‘What does he imagine brings them together so often? The irresistible charm of debating Scripture?’

‘Yes, yes, precisely that!’ exclaims William. ‘You must remember they’re both
furiously
devout. Every whisper of reform or lapse in the Church, here in England or abroad, is of
unbearable
interest to them.’ (‘Then why don’t they want to hear about our new book?’ mutters Bodley.) ‘As for Mrs Fox’s work with the Rescue Society, the way Henry describes it, she does it all for God. You know: souls brought back to the fold …’

‘No no, old chap,’ corrects Bodley. ‘Souls to the
bosom; sheep
to the fold.’

‘As for Henry,’ perseveres William, ‘He’s still hell-bent on becoming a parson. Or is it a vicar, or a rector, or a curate? The more he explains the distinctions, the less difference I can see.’

‘Tithes,’ says Bodley with a wink, ‘and what proportion of ’em you can pocket.’

Ashwell snorts and produces from inside his coat a squashed clump of Turkish Delight wrapped in tissue paper. ‘It’s too absurd,’ he mumbles, after taking a bite and re-pocketing the remainder. ‘A fine manly specimen like Henry – best rower in our set, champion swimmer, I can still see him running around Midsummer Common stripped to the waist. What’s he thinking of, shuffling alongside a sickly widow? Don’t tell me it’s her snow-white soul – I know a man on heat when I smell one!’

‘But how can he stand the sight of her?’ groans Bodley. ‘She looks like a greyhound! That long, leathery face, and that wrinkled forehead – and always so
terribly
attentive, just like a dog listening for commands.’

‘Come now,’ cautions William. ‘Aren’t you placing too much importance on physical beauty?’

‘Yes but damn it, William – would you marry a widow who looked like a dog?’

‘But Henry has no
intention
of marrying Emmeline Fox!’

‘Oooh! Scandalous!’ mugs Bodley, clapping his hands to his cheeks.

‘I can vouch for the fact,’ pronounces William, ‘that my brother wants nothing from Mrs Fox but conversation.’

‘Oh yes,’ sneers Ashwell, removing his coat, warming to his theme. ‘Conversation. Conversation while they go on walks together in the park, or in cosy tea rooms in town, or by the sea, gazing into each other’s eyes constantly. I heard they even went boating on the Thames – in order to discuss Thessalonians, no doubt.’

‘No
doubt
,’ insists William.

Ashwell shrugs. ‘And this mad desire to be a parson: how long has he had that?’

‘Oh, years and years.’

‘I never noticed it at Cambridge – did you, Bodley?’

‘Beg pardon?’ Bodley is rummaging in the pockets of Ashwell’s discarded coat, looking for the Turkish Delight.

‘Father forbade the idea ever to be discussed,’ William explains. ‘So Henry wished for it in secret – though it wasn’t much of a secret from
me
, I’m sorry to say. He was always frightfully pious, even when we were small. Always lamented that we were a prayers-once-a-day family and not a prayers-twice-a-day family.’

‘He should’ve counted his blessings,’ muses Bodley. (‘He was counting his blessings,’ quips Ashwell.) ‘
We
had prayers twice a day in our house. I owe my atheism to it. Once a day fosters piety, and poor fools like Henry wanting to be clerics.’

‘It’s been a great disappointment to my father, at any rate,’ says William. ‘He assumed for so long that it would be Henry, his precious namesake, who took the business over. And instead, of course,’ (he stares them straight in the eye) ‘it will be me.’

Bodley and Ashwell are struck silent, visibly surprised to hear him talking this way about Rackham Perfumeries, usually another unmentionable subject. Well, let them be surprised! Let them gain an inkling of the change that has come over him since yesterday!

He longs to tell them about Sugar, of course; to sing her praises and (all right: yes) revenge himself a little for the last few years, when Bodley and Ashwell’s lives seemed always so gay in comparison with his own. But he can imagine only too well their response: ‘Well then, let’s try this Sugar!’ And what could he do then? Retract everything? Begin falsely dispraising her, like a stammering old peasant trying to persuade a pillaging soldier that his daughter isn’t worth raping? Futile. To such as Bodley and Ashwell, all female treasures are in the public domain.

‘So,’ he questions them instead, ‘have you heard anything more about that amazing girl you were describing to me?’

‘Amazing girl?’

‘The fierce one – with the riding crop – supposed to be the illegitimate daughter of somebody or other …’

‘Lucy Fitzroy!’ Bodley and Ashwell ejaculate simultaneously.

‘Yes, by God, odd you should mention that,’ says Ashwell. The two of them turn to each other and raise an eyebrow each, their signal to slip into alternating raconteuring.

‘Yes, damned odd.’

‘We got the news about her, oh, barely three hours after we told you about her in the first place, didn’t we, Bodley?’

‘Two and three-quarter hours, no more.’

‘The news?’ prompts William. ‘What news?’

‘Not a very happy tale,’ says Ashwell. ‘One of Lucy’s admirers took to her, apparently.’

‘Took to her?’ echoes William, his own feelings for Sugar causing him to construe the phrase benignly.

‘Yes,’ says Bodley. ‘With her own riding crop.’

‘Beat her very severely.’

‘Particularly about the face and mouth.’

‘I understand all the fight’s gone out of her now.’

Bodley, noticing his cigar has gone out, removes it from his lips and examines its potential momentarily before tossing it into the fire.

‘Well, as you can imagine,’ he says. ‘Madam Georgina doesn’t have high hopes. Even if she’s willing to wait, there will be scars.’

Ashwell, eyes downcast, is picking at the lint on his trousers. ‘Poor girl,’ he laments.

‘Yes,’ smirks Bodley. ‘How are the fighty maulen!’

At this, Ashwell and Rackham both wince. ‘Bodley!’ one of them cries. ‘That’s
appalling
!’

Bodley grins and blushes at the chastisement like a schoolboy.

Just then the door of the smoking-room flies open and Janey bursts across the threshold, panting and distressed.

‘I – I’m sorry,’ she says, tottering on tiptoes, as if a great filthy flood were surging against her back, threatening to spill past her into this smoky masculine domain.

‘What
is
it, Janey!’ (The girl’s looking at
Bodley
, damn it: doesn’t she even know which man is her master?)

‘Sir – if you please – I mean—’ Janey bobs up and down in a nervous dance, less a curtsey than a pantomime of needing to pee. ‘Oh, sir – your daughter – she’s – she’s all
bloody
, Mr Rackham!’

‘My daughter? All bloody? Good Lord, what? All bloody where?’

Janey cringes in an ecstasy of anxiety.

‘All over, sir!’ she wails.

‘Well … uh …’ flusters William, astounded that this emergency has landed in
his
lap rather than someone else’s. ‘Why isn’t … uh … what’sher-name …’

Janey, feeling herself accused, is almost in a frenzy. ‘Nurse ain’t ’
ere
, sir, she went to fetch Doctor Curlew. And I can’t find Miss Playfair, she must ’ave gone out too, and Miss Tillotson, she won’t—’

‘Yes, yes, I see now.’ Social humiliation burns on Rackham’s shoulders like Hercules’ fatal shirt of Nessus. Inescapably, there are too few servants in his house just now, and those that are left are the wrong kind for this emergency, and – more embarrassing even than this – he has a wife who, alas, does not function. Therefore – guests or no guests – he must step down and see to this matter himself.

‘My friends, I
am
sorry …’ he begins, but Ashwell, sensitive to William’s plight, takes the mood of the moment in hand and commands the sobbing Janey thus:

‘Well, don’t just stand there, Janey – bring the child down
here
.’

‘Yes!’ Bodley chips in. ‘This is just what’s needed on a rainy morning: drama, bloodshed – and feminine charm.’

At a nod from William the servant runs off, and yes,
now
they hear it: the animal wail of a child. Muted at first, then (presumably when the door of the nursery is opened) distinctly audible, even above the rain. Louder and louder it grows, heralding the child’s progress down the stairs, until finally it is very loud indeed, and accompanied by a descant of anxious whisperings and shushings.

‘
Please
, Miss Sophie,’ whines Janey as she escorts into the smoking-room William and Agnes’s only begotten infant. ‘
Please
.’ But Miss Sophie Rackham cannot be persuaded to scream any softer.

Despite all the din, you are intrigued: fancy William being a father! All this time you’ve spent with him, in the most intimate of circumstances, and you’d no idea! What does this daughter of his look like? How old is she? Three? Six? But you can’t tell. Her features are distorted and obscured by blood and weeping. There’s a bulge under her bloodstained pinafore, which Sophie cradles through the cloth with one bloody hand, to keep it all in, but two flaccid rag-doll legs have slipped out already, dangling their crudely stitched feet. Sophie clutches and clutches, trying to gather the legs up, shrieking all the while. Blood bubbles out of her face, dripping off her tangled mop of blonde hair, spattering the Persian carpet and her pale, bare toes.

‘What on Earth,’ gasps William, but Bodley has already sprung up from his chair, waved Janey away, and knelt before the gory child, cupping the back of her skull in his hands.