The Crimson Petal and the White (44 page)

‘More fool him.’

‘A whole life, gone like a piss in an alley.’ In the sickly yellow light, and with all the sweat on Elizabeth’s cheeks, it was difficult to tell if she was weeping. ‘I tried, Shush. I did my best to stay out of God’s bad books. Even
after
I was a whore, I did my best, in case I got a second chance. Pick any day from the last twenty years, see what I tried, and you’d have to admit I didn’t give up easy.’

‘Of course not. Everyone understands that.’

‘Nobody’s come to see me, you know that? Nobody. Except you.’

‘I’m sure they’d all come if they could. They’re frightened, that’s all.’

‘Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure. And that’s the biggest cock I ever saw …’

‘Do you want a drink?’

‘No I don’t want a drink. Are you going to put me in your book?’

‘What book?’

‘The book you’re writing.
Women Against Men
, wasn’t it called?’

‘That was years ago. It’s had about a dozen titles since then.’

‘Are you going to put me in it?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘Never mind what I want. Are you going to put me in it?’

‘If you want me to.’

‘Christ Jesus, Sugar. Don’t you never blush?’

Sugar stands up from the writing-desk and walks to the French windows, to shake off the memory of Elizabeth’s clammy, grasping hand. Nervously she clenches and unclenches her own, imagining the dying woman’s sweat on them still, though she knows it’s her own perspiration prickling in the cracks of her leathery palms. She holds up her hands, angles the palms so that they’re lit up by the sunlight. Her skin has been frightful lately, despite the fact that she’s been salving her hands with Rackham’s Crème de Jeunesse nightly. Oh, for a jar of bear’s grease such as was always in supply at Mrs Castaway’s – but she can’t imagine where she could buy bear’s grease in Marylebone.

Glancing downwards, she notes that the stains on her dress have expanded and merged into a very big blot indeed; she’d better change into a fresh dress in case William comes. She closes the untidy pages of her manuscript inside its hard covers. The phalanx of crossed-out titles stares up at her; the first few are densely inked, obliterated beyond recall, but the later ones are cancelled perfunctorily with a single line drawn through.
Women Against Men
is still clearly legible, as is its successor,
An Angry Cry
from an Unmarked Grave.
The most recent,
The Fall and Rise of Sugar,
is a mere scrawl, tentative and thin. She opens at page one, and reads ‘
All men
are the same …’
and the twenty, fifty words that follow, in a single glance. How peculiar, the way a passage that’s been read many times can be read so fast, while something new must be read laboriously, word for word. This whole first page plays almost automatically in her mind, like a barrel-organ ground by a monkey.

My name is Sugar
–
or if it isn’t, I know no better.

I am what you would call a Fallen Woman, but I assure you I did not fall

I was pushed. Vile man, eternal Adam, I indict you!

Sugar bites her lip in embarrassment, so hard she draws blood.

Two hours later, having stowed her novel away in its drawer and read the latest
Illustrated London News
instead, Sugar is in the bath again. Half her life nowadays seems spent in the bath, preparing herself in case William should visit. Not that she regards him as worthy of such fuss, you understand; not that she doesn’t despise him, or, if that’s too harsh a word, at least strongly disapprove of him … It’s just that, well, his interest in her is a valuable commodity, and she ought to keep it alive for as long as she can. If she can make his affection last – his love, as he called it – she has a chance – a once-in-a-lifetime chance – to cheat Fate. Under Rackham’s wing, anything is possible …

Of all the nooks in her Priory Close suite, it’s this black-and-mustard bathroom, this glazed little chamber, that she’s most at home in. The other rooms are too big, too empty; the ceilings are too far away, the walls and floors too bare. She wishes they were cosy and cluttered with her own furnishings and bric-a-brac, but she’s been too timid to buy anything, and she can’t imagine what. Only this small bathroom, for all its eerie sheen, feels snug and finished: the ribbon of black wallpaper is perfect for staring into, the wooden floor glows in the light from above, the towels on the bronze rails are soft and plush, and all the little bottles and jars of Rackham produce are cheerful as toys. Most reassuring of all is the humid haze of steam that hangs above her tub, swirling back and forth with the slowness of cloud.

She shouldn’t be bathing this often, she knows. It’s bad for her skin. That’s why her hands are sore and cracking; it’s not Crème de Jeunesse or bear’s grease she needs, it’s to spend less time immersed in hot soapy water! Yet, despite knowing this, every day, sometimes
twice
a day, she fills the tub and allows herself to slide in, because she loves it. Or, if love isn’t the right word, then … it comforts her. She’s awfully disconsolate lately, shedding tears for no apparent reason, suffering fits of anxiety, dreaming of childhood horrors she’d thought she’d forgotten. She, who only recently was the sort of woman who could hear a man say, ‘What is there to stop me killing you now?’ and disarm him with a wink;
she
seems to be turning into a girl who couldn’t endure the sound of a lewd whistle in the street.

‘You’re going soft,’ she says to herself, and her voice, so ugly and unmusical compared to Agnes Rackham’s, reverberates in the steamy acoustic of the bathroom. ‘You’re going soft,’ she says again, trying to raise her tone as the words pass through her throat. A lilt, she must try to speak with a lilt. She succeeds only in lisping. ‘You sound,’ she says, tossing her sponge at her toes, ‘like a sodomite.’

Her right hand stings like the devil; squeezing the sponge out has insinuated soap into the cracks of her palms, the tender, almost bleeding fissures in her flesh. In this sense at least, she’s undeniably softer than she used to be.

‘Oh, William, what a lovely surprise!’ she rehearses, trying for the lilt again, then laughs, a harsh sound against the tiles. A fart swims up through the bathwater and breaks the surface with a damp puff of stink.

William, she knows, is unlikely to come today. The Season is at hand, and (as he regretfully explained to her, on his last visit) he’s going to be wretchedly busy, pulled from one dinner party to the next, shepherded ‘by force’ into theatres and opera houses.

‘Who’ll force you?’ she dared to ask. ‘Agnes?’

He sighed, already out of bed, reaching for his trousers. ‘No, I mustn’t blame her. This elaborate game we play, this merry dance we must conform to whether we like it or not … its rules are set by grander authorities than my little wife. I blame …’ (and, apologetic for his hasty leave-taking, he spared a moment to stroke her freshly-washed hair) ‘I blame Society!’

In Agnes Rackham’s bedroom, on Agnes Rackham’s bed, dozens of cards are laid out in the shape (more or less) of a human being.

‘Do you know what this is?’ asks Agnes of Clara, who has just entered and is contemplating the display with a frown of puzzlement.

Clara looks closer, wondering if her mistress is playing a joke on her, or if she’s merely mad as usual.

‘It’s … invitations, ma’am.’

Indeed, the mosaic-like shape with the unnaturally small waist and big head is fashioned entirely from
cartes d’invitation
– all requesting the pleasure of Agnes’s company in the Season ahead.

‘It’s more than that, Clara,’ says Agnes, encouraging her servant to develop a latent appreciation of symbolism. Again, the poor menial suspects she’s being gulled and, after a long pause, Mrs Rackham puts her out of her misery.

‘It’s forgiveness, Clara,’ she says.

The servant nods, and is relieved to be excused.

Yet, unbeknownst to Clara, Mrs Rackham is quite right, and not mad. To many of the ladies and gentlemen seeking to participate in the Season, the month inaugurated by Fool’s Day is one of galling humiliation, as they discover they’re among the Unforgiven. The invitations they sent out for dinner parties and other ‘occasions’ to be held in May have harvested a mound of replies inscribed
Regret Not Able To Attend
, and no reciprocal invitations have come. Thus the lengthening April evenings find men sitting up late by their dying firesides, staring with the stoniness usually reserved for bankruptcy or a wife’s infidelity; women shed tears and plot impotent revenges. One can be almost sure, if Lady So-and-So’s ball is to be held on May 14th, that not to have received a lace-edged
carte d’invitation
by April 14th is a decree of exile.

Not that social ruin is wrought all at once: few of those who shone in the better constellations one year are utterly cast down the next; more often, in order to identify themselves as fallen, fiendishly complicated calculations must be made in the mathematics of rank. For Agnes Rackham no such calculations are necessary; doors are opening for her everywhere.

It is rather to Henry and Mrs Fox that the April mails have brought no joy. Each received a few invitations – more than none, but less than ever before.

Each of them has laid their invitations away in a drawer, and replied
Regret Not Able To Attend.
In Mrs Fox’s case, the reason is ill health: she’s no longer in any state to attempt all the standing, promenading, croqueting and so forth that the Season requires. Her well-being has faded so remarkably that strangers notice it at once and murmur: ‘Not long for this world.’ Friends and relatives are still half-blinded by the after-image of her former vigour, and whisper that Emmeline looks ‘under the weather’ and ‘ought to rest’. They advise her to enjoy the Spring sunshine, as there’s no better tonic for pallor. ‘And do you think,’ they ask her tactfully, ‘it’s good for you to be spending
quite
so much time in the slums?’

The second Sunday morning in April finds Mrs Fox and Henry Rackham, as always, walking together down an aisle of trees, after church.

‘Well,’ Henry pronounces stiffly. ‘I, for one, am not sorry to be excused from the coming revelry.’

‘Nor am I,’ says Mrs Fox. ‘But that isn’t what we’re fretting about, is it? We haven’t been
excused
; we’ve been
rejected
. And for what reasons, one wonders? Are we both such Untouchables? Are we
so
far beyond the pale?’

‘Evidently so,’ frowns Henry, walking slowly and dolefully. He has, as always, failed to notice the tongue in her cheek – one of his most endearing weaknesses, in Emmeline’s estimation.

‘Ah, Henry,’ she says, ‘we must face the truth. We have nothing to offer our peers. Just look at you: you could have been the head of a great Concern, but instead you refuse all but a meagre allowance, and live in a cottage the size of a labourer’s. No doubt the Best People have decided that if they let
you
in their door, who knows what human refuse will come knocking next?’ She observes Henry blushing. Och, why does he blush so? He’s worth ten of the ‘Best People’!

‘Also,’ she continues, ‘you’re a man who can’t tolerate God being made to stand aside for gaiety, and … well, you must admit that makes you rather a dull prospect at a party.’

He grunts, blushing darker. ‘Well, there’s a string of dinner parties to which I
was
invited – at my brother’s house. I asked to be spared.’

‘Oh but Henry, Mrs Rackham thinks the world of you!’

‘Yes, but at William’s dinner parties I’m always shoved opposite someone I can’t abide, and for the rest of the evening I’m condemned to the most tiresome intercouse. This year, I decided: no more. I run into Bodley and Ashwell often enough as it is.’

‘
Dear
Henry,’ smiles Mrs Fox. ‘You could have ignored them. They are jackals; you are a lion. A reticent and gentle sort of lion, I’ll admit, but …’

‘I did
not
ask William not to invite
you
.’ Anger is making him walk faster, and she must struggle to keep up with him, her dainty boots, so much smaller than his feet, trotting over the cobbles.

‘Ah, well,’ she says, lifting her skirts ever-so-slightly to ease her progress. ‘I shouldn’t imagine an unattractive widow is ever in great demand. Much less one who
works
. And then, if the work is reforming fallen women … well!’

‘It’s charitable work,’ declares Henry. ‘Plenty of the Best People do charitable work.’ Her description of herself as unattractive has made him walk even faster: he must outrun his desire to extol her beauty.

‘The Rescue Society
is
a charity, I suppose,’ concedes Mrs Fox. ‘In the sense that our labour is unpaid.’ (As she trots by his side, she fumbles in her sleeve, trying to extract a handkerchief she has stowed there.) ‘Though I’ve met ladies who presumed I
must
be drawing a wage … As if no woman would do such work unless she were in desperate want. Nobody quite knows, you see, if Bertie left me well- or badly-off. Ah, rumours, rumours … Do let’s sit down for a while.’

They’ve come to a stone bridge, whose bowed walls are low and smooth and clean enough to sit on. Only now does Henry notice that Mrs Fox is breathing laboriously, perspiration twinkling on her pale face.

‘I have marched you too fast again, big oaf that I am,’ he says.

‘Not at all,’ she pants, dabbing her temples with her handkerchief. ‘It’s a fine day for a brisk walk.’

‘You look weary.’

‘I have a cold, I think.’ She smiles, to reassure him. ‘A cold, now that the warm weather is here. You see? Contrary as always!’ Her breast rises and falls with the rapidity of a bird’s but, mindful of the impression she is making, she leaves room for a quick breath between clauses. ‘You look weary too.’

‘I haven’t been sleeping well.’

‘My father has very … effective medicines for that,’ Mrs Fox declares. ‘Or you could try warm milk.’