The Crimson Petal and the White (43 page)

‘Do you … do you have any sisters?’ he asks, awkwardly. ‘Or brothers?’

She shakes her head, burying her face in the soft cloth, regaining her composure. ‘Alone,’ she says, hoping that her tears have not entirely washed away the subtle brown pigment with which she defines her pale orange eyelashes. ‘And you?’

‘Me?’

‘Do
you
have any sisters?’

‘None,’ he says, with obvious regret. ‘My father married late, and lost his wife early.’

‘Lost?’

‘She disgraced him, and he cast her off.’

Back in control of herself now, Sugar resists the temptation to pry into the facts of the matter, judging that she’ll be granted the answers to a greater number of questions if she probes less boldly.

‘How sad,’ she says. ‘And your wife Agnes: has she a large family?’

‘No,’ replies William, ‘smaller even than mine. Her natural father died when she was a young girl, her mother when she came out of school. Her step-father is a lord: lives abroad, travels a great deal, has married a lady I’ve never met. As for siblings, Agnes
should
have had three or four sisters, but they all died in childbirth. She herself barely survived.’

‘That’s why she’s sickly, perhaps?’

William’s eyes flash with pain, as Agnes’s voice, hoarse with demented hatred, yells
You make me sick!
inside his skull: ‘Perhaps,’ he sighs.

Sugar strokes his hand, insinuates her fingers up his sleeve, pressing her rough flesh against his wrists in a motion she knows arouses him – if he’s to be aroused at all.

‘I do have one brother, though,’ he adds briskly.

‘A brother? Really?’ she says, as though William must be awfully clever or resourceful to have furnished himself with such a thing. ‘What sort of man is he?’

William falls back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. ‘What sort of man?’ he echoes, as she lays her head on his chest. ‘Now there’s a question …’

‘’Ello, sir,’ the prostitute calls, in a friendly but offhand manner, as though eager to please but just as content to be refused. ‘Want a nice girl – not expensive?’

She is pretty, and in much better condition than the freckled girl who, weeks ago in these same streets, told him her hand was his for a shilling. Yet, to Henry’s great relief, his response to this smart little temptress is no different from his response to her shabbier counterpart: he feels pity. The longings that plague him when he walks side by side with Mrs Fox are far from his mind now; he desires only to make a good account of himself, and learn as much from this poor creature as he learned from the grizzled man.

‘I wish … only to talk with you,’ he assures her. ‘I am a gentleman.’

‘Oh, good, sir,’ affirms the woman. ‘I don’t speak to any man as ain’t a gentleman. But let’s speak in my ’ouse. If you’ll come with me, sir, it ain’t very far.’ Her speech is common, but not Cockney: possibly she’s a ruined maidservant from the country, or some other victim of rural circumstance.

‘No, stay,’ he cautions her. ‘I meant what I said just now: I wish only to talk with you.’

Mistrust, absent from her face while she took him for a partner in crime, now creases her brow.

‘Oh, I ain’t very good at talkin’, sir,’ she says, casting a glance over her shoulder. ‘I’ll not keep you.’

‘No, no,’ Henry remonstrates, guessing the reason for her reluctance. ‘I’ll pay you for your time. Whatever is your usual fee, I will pay.’

She cocks her head quizzically then, like a child who has been promised something she’s old enough to know is improbable.

‘One shillin’, please,’ she proposes. Without hesitation Henry puts his hand into his waistcoat pocket, produces not one but two shillings, and holds them out to her.

‘Come along then, sir,’ she says, folding the coins into her small hand. ‘I’ll take you where we can talk to our ’earts’ content.’

‘No, no,’ protests Henry. ‘Here in the street is quite satisfactory.’

She laughs, raucously and without covering her mouth. (Mrs Fox is right: there is no mistaking a fallen woman.) ‘Very well, sir. What do you wish to ’ear?’

He draws a deep breath, knowing she thinks him a fool, praying for the grace to transcend foolishness. She has clasped her hands behind her back, the better to show him her body no doubt. She is bosomy, but thin in the waist – very like the women used in advertisements for shoe polish, or his brother’s perfumes for that matter. Yet she is nothing to him but an unfortunate in peril of perdition. His heart beats hard in his breast, but only with fear that she’ll use her pretty tongue to mock his faith or his sincerity, and leave him stammering in the wake of her scornful departure. Apart from his heartbeat, he is unaware of his body; it might as well be a column of smoke, or a pedestal for his soul.

‘You are … a prostitute,’ he confirms.

‘Yes, sir.’ She clasps her hands tighter, and stands straighter, like a schoolgirl under interrogation.

‘And when did you lose your virtue?’

‘When I was sixteen, sir, to me ’usband.’

‘To your husband, you say?’ he replies, moved by her ignorance of moral science. ‘Why, you didn’t lose it, then!’

She shakes her head, smiling as before. ‘I weren’t married to ’im then, sir. We was married in shame, as they say.’

Is she making fun of him? Henry squares his jaw, resolved to demonstrate he knows a thing or two about prostitutes. ‘You later left him,’ he suggests. ‘Or were you cast out?’

‘You might say as I was cast out, sir.’ E died.’

‘And what is it that keeps you in this life? Would you say it was bad company? Or Society’s door being closed to you? Or … lust?’

‘Lust, definitely, sir,’ she replies. ‘The lust to eat. If a day goes by an’ I ain’t ’ad a bite, I crave it, sir. Food, that is, sir.’ She shrugs, pouts, and licks her lips. ‘Weak, that’s me.’

Henry begins to blush: she’s no fool, this woman – cleverer than he, perhaps. Is there a future for a clergyman whose wits are duller than those of his parishioners? (Mrs Fox assures him his brain is as sharp as anyone’s and that he would make a wonderful vicar, but she is too kind …) Surely, for a man with a mind as run-of-the-mill as his to be any use at shepherding a parish, he’d need to be blessed with exceptional purity of spirit, a divine simplicity of …

‘’Ave you finished with me already, sir?’

‘Uh … no!’ With a start, he returns his attention to his prostitute’s eyes – eyes which (he notices suddenly) are the same colour as Mrs Fox’s, and very nearly the same shape. He clears his throat, and asks: ‘Would you leave this life if you had work?’

‘
This
is work, sir,’ she grins. ‘’
Ard
work.’

‘Well, yes …’ he agrees, but then, ‘No …’ he disagrees, ‘But …’ He frowns, dumbstruck. That old cynic MacLeish (he now recalls) once spoke of the futility of arguing with the poor. ‘More education,’ MacLeish declared, ‘is precisely what they
don’t
need. Already they can outfox philosophers and do circus tricks with logic. They’re too clever by half!’ But Mrs Fox refuted him, yes she did … What was it she said?

The prostitute cocks her head and leans closer to him, in an effort to see through the dreamy sheen in his unfocused eyes. Impishly, she waves her tiny hand at him, as though from a distant shore.

‘You’re a strange one, ain’t you?’ she says. ‘A ninnocent. I like you.’

Henry feels a fresh rush of blood to his cheeks, much more copious than the last. It throbs across his entire face, even reaching the tips of his ears – what an ass he must look!

‘I–I know a man,’ he stammers, ‘a man who owns a business. A very great concern, that’s growing larger as we speak. I … I could arrange …’ (for hasn’t William been saying he needs more workers and quickly?) ‘… I’m sure I could arrange for you to be given employment.’

To his dismay, her smile vanishes from her face and, for the first time since they met, she looks as if she despises him. All at once he’s afraid of her; afraid like any man of losing the approving sparkle in a woman’s eyes; afraid, simply, of letting her go. He yearns to convey to her the glad tidings of God’s generosity in times of need, to inspire her with proof of how the grimmest circumstance can be lightened by faith. The desire chokes him, but he knows that words are not enough, especially
his
feeble words. If only he could transmit God’s grace through his hands, and galvanise her with a touch!

‘What sort of work?’ demands the prostitute. ‘Factory work?’

‘Well … yes, I suppose so.’

‘Sir,’ she declares indignantly. ‘I’ve ’
ad
work in a factory, and I know that to earn two shillin’s like these’ (she holds up the coins he has given her) ‘I should ’ave to work many long hours, breakin’ my back in stink and danger, with never a minute to rest, and ’ardly no sleep.’

‘But you wouldn’t be damned!’ blurts Henry in desperation. No sooner is the word ‘damned’ past his lips, than he receives his own punishment: the prostitute looks away and irritably thrusts his coins into a slit in her skirts, obviously deciding she’s given him as much time as he deserves. Fixing her gaze on the far end of the street, she remarks, ‘Parson’s tricks, sir, just parson’s tricks, all that.’ She glances back at him suspiciously. ‘You’re a parson, ain’t you?’

‘No, no, I’m not,’ he says.

‘Don’t believe you,’ she sniffs.

‘No, really, I’m not,’ he pleads, recalling Saint Peter and the cock crow.

‘Well, you ought to be,’ she says, reaching forward to touch, gently, his tightly-knotted necktie, as if her fingertips could conjure it into a clergyman’s collar.

‘God bless you!’ he cries.

There’s a moment’s pause while his ejaculation hangs in the air. Then the prostitute bends forward, resting her hands on her knees, and begins to giggle. She giggles for half a minute or more.

‘You’re a character, sir,’ she wheezes, shoulders shaking. ‘But I must go …’

‘Wait!’ he implores her, his head belatedly crowded with vital questions, questions he could not forgive himself for failing to put to her. ‘Do you believe you have a soul?’

‘A soul?’ she echoes incredulously. ‘A ghost inside me, with wings on? Well …’ She opens her mouth to speak, her lips curved in mockery; then, observing his plaintive expression, she swallows her spite, and softens the blow. ‘Anything
you
’ve got,’ she sighs, ‘I’ve got too, I’m sure.’ She smooths down the front of her dress, her hands sliding over the contours of her belly. ‘Now, I must be goin’. Last question, gentlemen, please!’

Henry sways on his feet, horrified to find himself in the grip of Evil. Only a few minutes ago, he was in the Lord’s hands: what’s become of him now? His self-possession is gone, and he might as well be thrashing in the clammy grip of a dream. One last question his pretty prostitute will answer; one last question, and what shall it be? Aghast, he hears his voice speak:

‘Are you … are you hairy?’

She squints in puzzlement. ‘Hairy, sir?’

‘On your body.’ He waves his hand vaguely at her bodice and skirts. ‘Do you have hair?’

‘Hair, sir?’ she grins mischievously. ‘Why, of
course
, sir: same as you!’ And at once she grabs hold of her skirts and gathers them up under her bosom, holding the rucked material with one hand while, with the other, she pulls down the front of her pantalettes, exposing the dark pubic triangle.

Loud laughter sounds from elsewhere in the street as Henry stares for a long instant, shuts his eyes, and turns his back on her. His upbringing makes it almost impossible for him to turn his back on a woman without first politely concluding the conversation, but he manages. Head aflame, he stumbles stiffly down the street, as if her sex is buried deep in his flesh like a sword.

‘I only wanted an answer!’ he yells hoarsely over his shoulder, as more and more of Church Lane’s elusive and subterranean voices join in the laughter without even understanding its cause.

‘Jesus, sir!’ she calls after him. ‘You ought to get
summat
for your extra shillin’!’

‘So there you have it,’ says William, as Sugar strokes her hands through the thick fur of his chest. ‘As different from me as night from day. But not a bad fellow all the same. And who knows? He may yet astound us, and seize his destiny.’

Sugar pauses in her encouragements to William’s growing manhood. ‘You mean … seize Rackham Perfumeries?’

‘No, no, that’s mine now, forever; no one can take it away,’ he says – though his erection, unnerved by the thought, falters and requires reassurance. ‘No, I meant Henry may yet seize … I don’t know, whatever a man of his sort wishes to seize, I suppose …’ He groans as Sugar mounts him.

This is the safe course, she’s found. Through all the years, with all the men, this is what she’s learned: a wilted man is an unhappy man, and unhappy men can be dangerous. Sheathe them in a warm hole, and they’ll perk up. Whenever the cockstand is uncertain, whenever strong drink has taken its toll, whenever sadness or worry lie heavy on a man’s heart, whenever doubt attacks his soul, whenever he glimpses his own nakedness and finds himself ugly or absurd, whenever he sees his manhood and is struck by the morbid fear that this may be the last time it rises from its patch of hair,
then
the only safe course is to cultivate its growth so it can sway unsupported for an instant – just long enough for it to be stowed snugly inside. Thereafter, Nature takes over.

FIFTEEN

S
pring is here, and everyone who knows Agnes Rackham is amazed at how she’s come back from the dead. Such a short while ago she lay like a corpse in her darkened, airless room: now, dressed gaily, she’s brightening the house with her angelic singing voice as she prepares to meet the Season.

‘Open the curtains, Letty!’ she cries, everywhere she goes.

All day she’s practising: standing erect, turning demurely, smiling fetchingly, walking without the footsteps showing. There’s an art to moving as if on castors, and only an elite few can master it.

‘Lay the book on my head, Clara,’ she says to her maidservant, ‘and stand well back!’

Nor are Agnes’s labours confined to the four walls of the Rackham house: she’s been making frequent sallies to Oxford and Regent Streets, and returning with candy-striped parcels large and small. The Prince of Wales may still be on the Riviera, but for Agnes Rackham the Party That Lasts A Hundred Days has begun. She feels almost like a Débutante again!

Of course, it’s all thanks to her guardian angel. How encouraging it is to know there’s one creature in the world who loves her and wishes her well! What a relief to be truly, deeply understood! Her guardian angel appreciates that she has Higher Reasons for seeking success in the Season – no frivolous desire, but a contest of Good against Evil. Evil is what’s made her ill and done its utmost to rob her of a place in Society; Evil is what she’s banishing from her life now – with the help of her spirit rescuer, and those tiny rosy pills Mrs Gooch has introduced her to. Each pill no bigger than a sequin; each pill more than a match for the pains in her head!

Two dozen kid gloves have arrived yesterday. This will do for a start, though she expects to go through many more, as the silly things aren’t washable. (‘Honestly, Clara, I don’t know why there’s such a fuss about Great Advances in Knowledge, when we ladies are constantly having to replace such a simple necessity.’) Agnes has a pair of new kids on the glove-stretchers, to break them in, but the thumbs are still impossible to get on even with powder. Ridiculous! Her thumbs haven’t thickened, have they? Clara assures her they’re as slender as ever.

Gloves are just one of a hundred dilemmas. For example she must decide soon what scent to wear this Season. In past years she avoided all Rackham perfumes, fearing it would offend Good Taste to be a walking endorsement of her father-in-law’s business. However, the ladies’ journals are lately unanimous in their opinion that the truly refined woman restricts her perfumes to eau de Cologne and lavender water, and as these are the same from one maker to another, mightn’t it be all right to use Rackham’s? Only
she
would know, after all – making her choice purely a moral one. Also, should she wear her white silk dress on Croquet Day at the Carcajoux? The weather can’t be trusted, and her skirts might get muddy and wet, but white would go
so
well, and no one else will be wearing it. Of course she can instruct Mrs Le Quire (her new dressmaker) to add a
port-jupe
to the skirts, but would this solve the problem? Agnes foresees difficulties in attempting, simultaneously, to play croquet and hold her hems suspended on a chain.

Mrs Gooch’s visit, and her excellent advice about pills and friendly pharmacists (‘That old sourpuss Gosling will only give you a lecture, but the others – if you bat your eyelashes sweetly – are no trouble at all’) have made such a difference to the quality of Agnes’s life that she’s determined to receive, from now on, as many visits from as many ladies as possible. Send out the message for all to hear: Mrs Agnes Rackham is ‘in’!

She has thrown away all the calling cards she received during the dark times, the months of illness and pecuniary humiliations. New ones have taken their place – from new people, come to see the new Agnes Rackham.

Today, Mrs Amphlett called. The dear woman, in choosing to visit between four and five o’clock, rather than three and four, treated Agnes not as someone seeking to re-enter Society after an illness, but as a healthy human to whom an ordinary social call was due. How kind of her!

In the flesh, Mrs Amphlett differed remarkably from Agnes’s vague recollection of her, glimpsed across a ballroom two years ago.
Then
, Mrs Amphlett was (not to mince words) buxom and freckle-faced. Today, in Agnes’s parlour, she was thin as a reed, with a flawless white complexion. Of course Agnes, mad with curiosity, longed to sweep politeness aside and
ask
, but in the end, Mrs Amphlett volunteered the secrets, namely: (1) a diet of water, raw carrot and mouthfuls of oxtail soup, and (2) Rowlands’ Kalydor Lotion, with a little ‘finishing off ’ from a face powder.

‘I should never have recognised you!’ Agnes complimented her.

‘You are too kind.’

‘Not at all.’

(In truth, lovely though Mrs Amphlett looked, Agnes was just the
slightest
bit discomposed by the way the dear woman made several references to ‘the baby’ and ‘motherhood’, as if under the delusion that this were a fit topic for discussion. Might it perhaps be a little too soon after her confinement for Mrs Amphlett to be back in Society just yet? Agnes did wonder, but laid the thought aside, in a spirit of generosity. An ally in the Season is not to be sniffed at!)

‘And
you
, Mrs Rackham; you do look most terribly well. What’s
your
secret?’

Agnes merely smiled, having by now learned her lesson not to mention her guardian angel to persons she wouldn’t trust with her life.

Now Agnes stands at her bedroom window, wishing that her guardian angel would materialise under the trees, just
there
outside the Rackham gates. Her hand itches to wave. But miracles are not for the asking; they come only when the stern eyes of God droop shut for a moment, and Our Lady takes advantage of His inattention to grant an illicit mercy. God, Agnes has decided, is an Anglican, whereas Our Lady is of the True Faith; the two of Them have an uneasy relationship, unable to agree on anything, except that if They divorce, the Devil will leap gleefully into the breach. So, They tolerate each other, and take care of the world as best They can.

Moving to the mirror, Agnes examines her face. She is almost half-way through her twenties, and the spectre of senescence looms. She must take the utmost care to preserve herself from injury and decay, for there are some things that sleep cannot undo. Each night she travels to the Convent of Health, where her heavenly sisters soothe and tend her, but if she’s in too bad a state when she arrives at their ivy-crested gates, they shake their heads and scold her gently. Then she knows that in the morning when she wakes, she’ll still be in pain.

She is in pain now. An illusion of falling snow twinkles in front of her right eye, and a pulse beats behind. Could it be that the last little rosy pill she took was disgorged, unnoticed, when she had the mishap with the chicken broth? Perhaps she should take another … although the mishap has left a bitter taste in her mouth and she would rather take a sip of Godfrey’s Cordial instead.

On her left brow, almost invisible inside the crescent of golden hairs above her eye, is a scar, incurred in a fall when she was a child. That scar is permanent, an indelible flaw. How terrifying is the vulnerability of flesh! She frowns, then hastily unfrowns, for fear of the lines etching themselves permanently into her forehead.

Closing her eyes, she imagines her guardian angel standing behind her. Cool hands, smooth as alabaster, are laid against her temples, massaging tenderly. Spirit fingers penetrate her skin and sink into her skull, insubstantial and yet as satisfying as nails against an itch. They locate the source of the pain, tug on it, and a clump of Evil comes away from Agnes’s soul, like a web of pith from an orange. She shivers with pleasure, to feel her naked soul cleansed like this.

She opens her eyes, and is puzzled to find herself on the floor, sprawled supine, staring up at the slowly revolving ceiling and the worried upsidedown face of Clara.

‘Shall I call for help, ma’am?’ the servant enquires.

‘Of course not,’ says Agnes, blinking hard. ‘I’m quite well.’

‘That Doctor Harris seemed a nice man,’ suggests Clara, referring to the physician who attended Mrs Rackham’s previous emergency. ‘Not a bit like Doctor Curlew. Shall I … ?’

‘No, Clara. Help me to my feet.’

‘He was ever so concerned about your collapses,’ the servant perseveres, as she hauls her mistress up from the floor.

‘He was young … and handsome, as I recall,’ pants Agnes, adjusting to verticality with a giddy sway. ‘No doubt you’d enjoy … seeing him again. But we mustn’t waste his time, must we?’

‘I’m only thinking of your health, ma’am,’ insists Clara, nettled. ‘Mr Rackham has said we’re to tell him if you’re poorly.’

Agnes’s hold on Clara’s arm spasms into a claw-grip.

‘You’re not to tell William of this,’ she whispers.

‘Mr Rackham said—’

‘“Mr Rackham” doesn’t have to know everything that goes on,’ maintains Agnes, inspired, as if by a tongue of fire, with the means to reassert control over Clara. ‘For example, he needn’t know where you found the money to buy that corset. It suits you terribly well, but … we ladies are entitled to
some
secrets, yes?’

Clara turns pale. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Now,’ sighs Agnes, smoothing the creases from her sleeves, ‘be a dear and fetch me the Godfrey’s Cordial.’

Intermittent, gentle gusts of wind, blowing through the French windows like the playful teasing of ghostly children, make the pages of Sugar’s novel flap. She has long ago put down her pen, and the breezes thrust the fluttering top sheet against the inky-nibbed instrument, creating an aeolian welter of nonsense. Sugar doesn’t notice, and continues to squint absentmindedly into the sunlit foliage of her little garden.

She’d hoped that by moving her escritoire very close to the open windows, close enough to breathe the fresh air of Priory Close and smell the earth below the rose-bush, she would be inspired to write. So far, nothing has come – though at least she’s still awake, which is an improvement on what happens whenever she takes the manuscript to bed …

Outside on the footpath above her head, where almost no one ever seems to walk, a couple of sparrows are hopping to and fro, gathering scraps for a nest. Wouldn’t it be nice if they built their nest in the rosebush just here? But no, the most interest they take in Sugar’s shady patch of untended greenery is to pilfer a twig from it, to house themselves elsewhere.

The wind-blown page flutters again, and this time the pen rolls off, clattering onto the desktop. Instinctively, Sugar jerks forward, but succeeds only in bumping the inkwell so that three or four big droplets of black ink are knocked free of the table, to splash onto the skirts of her jade dress.

‘God damn God and all His …’ she begins angrily, then sighs. This is scarcely the end of the world. She can try to wash the ink out – and if it doesn’t go, or if she can’t be bothered, well, she can buy a new dress. Another envelope from William’s bank arrived this morning, to add to the others in the bottom drawer of her dresser. His generosity hasn’t diminished, or perhaps he lacks the imagination to alter the instructions to his banker; whatever the reason, she’s accumulating more money than she can spend, even if she were to make a habit of spilling ink on her clothes.

She
must
finish her novel. Nothing like it has ever been published before; it would cause a sensation. If conceited fools like William’s school cronies can make a stir with their feeble blasphemies, think of the effect she could have with
this
, the first book to tell the truth about prostitution! The world is ready for the truth; the modern age is here; every year another report appears that examines poverty by means of statistical research rather than romantic claptrap. All that’s needed now is a great novel that will capture the imagination of the public – move them, enrage them, thrill them, terrify them, scandalise them. A story that will seize them by the hand and lead them into streets where they’ve never dared set foot, a tale that throws back the sheets from acts never shown and voices never heard. A tale that fearlessly points the finger at those who are to blame. Until such a novel is published, prostitutes will continue to be smothered under the shroud of The Great Social Evil, while the cause of their misery walks free …

Sugar stares down at the ink patterns the wind has made. It’s time she replaced them with something more meaningful. All the fallen women of the world are relying on her to tell the truth. ‘This story,’ she used to say to those of her friends who could read, ‘isn’t about me, it’s about all of us …’ Now, in her sunlit study in Priory Close, she begins to sweat.

‘I’m dying, Shush.’ That’s what Elizabeth said to her, on the last night she lived – the night before you met Sugar in that stationer’s in Greek Street. ‘Tomorrow morning I’ll be cold meat. They’ll clean the room and toss me in the river. Eels’ll eat my eyes.’

‘They won’t toss you in the river. I won’t let them.’ Elizabeth’s grip on her hand was damned strong, for such a wasted bag of bones.

‘What do you mean to do?’ Elizabeth wheezed mockingly. ‘Gather up my mother and father, and all my relations, for a fancy Christian burial, with the vicar telling them how good I was?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Christ Jesus, Sugar, you’re such a shameless liar. Don’t you never blush?’

‘I’m in earnest. If you want a burial, I’ll arrange it.’

‘Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus … what mullock you talk. Is that how you got yourself into the West End? Telling men their cocks are the biggest you ever saw?’

‘There’s no need to insult me just because you’re dying.’

The laughter cleared the air a little, but Elizabeth’s hand around her own was still tight as a dog’s jaws.

‘No one will remember me,’ the dying woman said, licking at the sweat rolling down her face. ‘Eels’ll eat my eyes, and no one will even know I’ve lived.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘I was dead already, the first time I opened my legs. “After today, I have no daughter” – that’s what my father said.’