The Crimson Petal and the White (62 page)

‘Yes, Letty,’ he says, after clearing his throat. ‘Tell Lady Bridgelow I
am
at home.’

The following week, Agnes Rackham writes:

Dear Mrs Fox
,

Thank you for your letter, to which William has asked me to reply
.

I am so glad that you have decided to take possession of Henry’s effects, as
am sure they should have been sold off in a most shabby fashion otherwise. I have
elected to care for Henry’s puss until you come out of Hospital. William says that
the other things have already been conveyed to your house, and put where ever a space
could be found. William says it is rather a small house, and that the men complained
of how difficult their task was, but I urge you not to take the complaints of ill-bred
workmen to heart
.

Is it very unpleasant in the Hospital? I was struck down myself with an awful
Affliction last week, but it has passed
.

I am relieved to read that you deplore the fuss of Mourning as much as I do.
Isn’t it tiresome? I am to be in crape for three months, in black for two, and then in
half mourning for another month after that. What about you? I confess I am not
sure what rules apply to your case
.

Do not mistake me, dear Mrs Fox; I had a love for Henry that I had for no
other man, and even now I shed tears for him each day, but
how I suffer in Mourning!
I cannot ring for a simple thing to be done, like the opening of a window or the
placing of another log on the fire, without receiving a dismal aparition in black.
When I go out in Public, I must appear as an inky creature, and although the Peter
Robinson’s brochure tries to make the best of things by stating that Spanish lace is
very stylish and that black gloves make one’s hands look wonderfully small, I remain
uncomforted. I am blessed with small hands anyway!

Black, Black, all is Black. Every letter must be written on this horrid black
-
bordered Mourning paper. I seem to be writing on it
constantly
,
for we are getting
an endless flow of cartes pour condoler, and William would have me reply to them
all on his behalf, saying that I must understand he is in no state to do it. However
,
I am not sure that I
do
understand: perhaps he merely means that he is too busy.
Certainly Henry’s cruel fate does not haunt him as it haunts
me
.
I shudder and
sometimes let out a cry when ever I think of it. Such a terrible end … To fall asleep
in front of a fire and be consumed by it. Often enough
I have fallen asleep with a
fire still burning, but I always had Clara to put it out for me. Perhaps I ought to
have given Henry a little servant as a present. But how could I have known?

Black, all is Black, and I am lonely as the day is long. Is it a sin to crave
company and distraction at such a sad time? If no one may visit us but kin and close
personal friends, what comfort does that offer to such as I, who have hardly any of
either? The delightful Acquaintances I have made in this past Season cannot visit
me, and I cannot call on them. They will surely forget me now that I am shrouded
in Darkness. It’s all right for William –
his three weeks of mourning are already
over, and he can do any thing he pleases, but how am I to endure the months ahead?

Cordially,

Agnes Rackham
.

PS: Henry’s puss is perfectly contented, and much enamoured of cream, quite
as if she never had it until now
.

*

Church Lane, St Giles, not a long journey eastwards as the crow flies. Grateful to be given something warm, Sugar curls her hands around the steaming beaker of cocoa, smiling awkwardly at her host. All around the pale glow of her flaxen-yellow dress, the unlit room is drab and dirty grey, and Caroline, returning to her seat on the bed, almost vanishes into the murk. By contrast, given pride of place in the room’s only chair, Sugar pictures herself luridly bright, an exotic bird flaunting its finery at the expense of a common butchery-fowl. How she regrets wearing this dress, which looked so modest in her own rooms!

Caroline – tactful soul that she is – has declared how very much she enjoys Sugar’s ‘fancy rigging’, but how
can
she, when she’s condemned to wear such dreary unfashionable things? And what about Caddie’s grubby bare feet, dangling over the side of the bed? Are they like an animal’s, impervious to the elements? Sugar raises the beaker to her lips but doesn’t drink from it, preferring to feel its steam on her face and to nurse her palms against the hot earthenware.

‘Your ’ands ain’t
that
cold, are they?’

Embarrassed, Sugar laughs and takes an unwanted sip of the inferior brew.

‘Cold hands, warm heart,’ she says, blushing invisibly underneath a layer of Rackham’s Poudre Juvenile. She knows very well why she feels so cold: it’s that she’s grown accustomed to having a generous supply of warmth from morning to night. She thinks nothing nowadays of having a fire blazing in every room, until the windows twinkle with steam and the rich hearth smell has penetrated every nook and cranny. Once a week – twice a week, lately – a man comes to her door with a sack of dry wood, and so distanced is she from penury that she can’t even recall what coin she gives him.

‘’Ow’s your Mr ’Unt?’ enquires Caroline, rummaging around for a hairbrush.

‘Mm? Oh, good. As good as he can be.’

‘The Colonel was in a wonderful humour, for days after meetin’ ’im.’

‘Yes, so I heard from Mrs Leek just now. It’s strange; he gave
me
the impression he detested the whole experience.’

‘’E
would
tell you that,’ Caddie sniffs, happy to find an ugly boxwood brush that’s furry with old hair. ‘Singin’,’ e was, as soon as ’e was back.’

The exhibition of Colonel Leek singing is too grotesque for Sugar to imagine, but no matter: she’s glad she can use him again. Maybe this time she’ll get him drunk
before
he reaches the fields, in case that improves his performance.

Caroline is carrying on with her toilet, examining the face reflected in her dresser mirror.

‘I’m gettin’ old, Shush,’ she remarks off-handedly, almost cheerfully, as she squints to find the natural parting in her hair.

‘Happens to us all,’ says Sugar. On her lips, it sounds like an arrant lie.

‘Yes, but I’ve been at it longer than you.’ And with that, Caroline bows her head low and brushes her hair down over her knees. Through the swaying brunette curtain, she speaks softly.

‘You know Katy Lester’s dead, don’t you?’

‘No, I didn’t know,’ says Sugar, taking a swig of cocoa. A lump of icy shame forms in her stomach even as the warm liquid passes down her gullet. She tries to tell herself that she
has
spared a thought for Kate every day – well, almost every day – since leaving Mrs Castaway’s. But thoughts are no substitute for what she was once so well-known for: sitting all night with dying whores, hand in hand, as long as it took. Despite her uneasy intuition, these last months, that Kate’s time must be very near, she couldn’t bring herself to visit Mrs Castaway’s again, and now it’s too late. Would she sit all night with Caroline, if Caroline was dying, and there was a chance to lie with William instead? Probably not.

‘When did she die?’ she enquires, as the guilt grows in her guts.

‘Can’t say,’ says Caroline, still brushing, brushing. ‘I lose count of days, when there’s more than a few. A long time ago.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Mrs Leek.’

Sugar feels sweat permeating her tight sleeves and bodice as she strains to think of another question –
any
question; something that would prove, with a few well-chosen words, the depth and the sincerity of her feelings for Kate – but there is nothing she’s particularly curious to know. Nothing, except:

‘What became of her ’cello?’

‘’Er what?’ Caroline lifts her head and parts her hair, slick from its attentions and the need for a wash.

‘A musical instrument Kate used to play,’ Sugar explains.

‘I expect they burnt it,’ says Caroline matter-of-factly. ‘They burnt everyfink she ever touched, Mrs Leek said, to clean the ’ouse of disease.’

A whole life gone, like a piss in an alley
, weeps a voice in Sugar’s head.
Eels’ll eat my eyes, and no one will even know I’ve lived
.

‘Any other news of … of the old place?’ she says.

Caroline is pinning her hair up now, in a rather slapdash fashion, without a mirror. An oily wisp swings loose, provoking Sugar to rude fantasies of seizing her friend by the shoulders and forcing her to begin again.

‘Jennifer Pearce is doin’ well,’ says Caddie. ‘Second in command, as Mrs Leek puts it. And there’s a new girl – I forget ’er name. But it’s a different kind of establishment now. Not so much of the usual, if you get my meanin’. More what you’d call a whippin’ den.’

Sugar winces, surprised by how much this bit of news disturbs her. Prostitution is prostitution, whatever the bodies do to one another, surely? Yet the prospect of Mrs Castaway’s familiar walls reverberating with screams of pain rather than grunts of pleasure has, for Sugar, the peculiar effect of casting a halo of nostalgia over carnal transactions she once regarded as loathsome. At one stroke, a man paying a woman a few shillings to relieve himself between her legs has acquired a melancholy innocence.

‘I didn’t think Mother would dare compete with Mrs Sanford in Circus Road,’ she says.

‘Ah, but ain’t you ’eard? Mrs Sanford’s givin’ up the game. An old flame wants to put ’er out to pasture in ’is country ’ouse. She’ll be waited on ’and ’n’ foot there, she’ll ’ave ’orses, and all she’ll ’ave to do is whip ’im with a silk sash, on days when ’is gout’s not too bad.’

Sugar smiles, but her heart’s not in it; she sees before her a vision of poor little Christopher standing outside her old bedroom, his spindly arms red and soapy from the bucket he’s carried up, while inside, a strange woman lashes the bloody back of a squealing fat man on all fours.

‘What’s … what’s new in
your
life?’ she says.

Caroline peers up at the mottled ceiling for inspiration, and rocks to and fro on the bed.

‘Aaahhmm,’ she ponders, a faint grin spreading across her lips as she reviews the men she’s known recently. ‘Well … I ain’t seen my ’andsome parson for ever such a long time: I ’ope ’e ain’t given me up as too wicked for savin’.’

Sugar looks down into the yellow lap of her skirts for a moment, while she decides whether or not to speak. Her knowledge of Henry’s demise is burning a hole in her heart; if she could pass it on to Caroline, the burning might stop.

‘I’m sorry, Caddie,’ she says, once she’s made up her mind. ‘But you won’t be seeing your parson again.’

‘Why not?’ laughs Caroline. ‘Stolen ’im from me,’ ave you?’ But she’s canny enough to smell the truth coming, and her hands clench in apprehension.

‘He’s dead, Caddie.’

‘Ah, no, fuck me, God
damn
it!’ exclaims Caroline, punching her knees. ‘Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.’ Coming from her mouth, it’s the bitterest cry of pain and regret, a chant of anguish. She falls back on the bed, breathing hard, her fists trembling against the sheets.

After a few seconds, though, she sighs, unclenches her fists, and folds her hands loosely over her stomach. Recovering from nasty shocks in two shakes of a dog’s tail is a faculty she’s had to hone over years of tragedy.

‘’Ow do you know ’e’s dead?’ she says, in a dull tone.

‘I … knew who he was, that’s all,’ says Sugar. The violence of Caroline’s response to Henry’s fate has rather unnerved her; she’d expected curios ity, nothing more.

‘So ’oo
was
’e?’

‘Does it really matter, Caddie? Except for his name, you knew him much better than I. I never even met him.’

Caroline sits up, flushed and puffy in the cheeks, but dry-eyed.

‘ ’E was a decent man,’ she declares.

‘I’m sorry to have told you he’s dead,’ says Sugar. ‘I didn’t know he meant so much to you.’

Caroline shrugs, self-conscious about being caught with tender feelings for a customer.

‘Ach,’ she says. ‘There ain’t nuffink
in
this world but men and women, is there? So you
got
to care about ’em, ain’t you, else what you got to care about?’ She rises from the bed, and walks over to the window, standing at the sill where Henry used to stand, looking at the rooftops of Church Lane. ‘Yes,’ e was a decent man. But I s’pose the vicar already said that at the funeral. Or did they bury ’im under a road with a stake in ’is ’eart? That’s what they did to me grandmother’s brother, when ’e did away with ’imself.’

‘I don’t think it was suicide, Caddie. He fell asleep in his sitting-room, with a lot of papers near the hearth, and the house caught fire. Or maybe he arranged it to appear that way on purpose, to save bother for his family.’

‘Not as silly as ’e looked, then.’ Caroline leans forward into the window, squints up at the darkening sky. ‘Me poor ’andsome li’l baby pastor.’ E meant no ’arm to anyone. Why can’t those as mean ’arm, kill themselves, and those as don’t, live forever, eh? That’s
my
idea of ’Eaven.’

‘I have to go,’ says Sugar.

‘Oh, no, stay a bit longer,’ protests Caddie. ‘I’m about to light some candles.’ She notes Sugar’s stiff posture, the hands still clasped around the beaker, the huddle of yellow skirts in the gloom. ‘Maybe even light a fire.’