The Crimson Petal and the White (92 page)

‘Time for your History rhymes, little one,’ Sugar announces, and Sophie’s face lights up. If there’s one thing she likes better than play, it’s work. She looks down at the ground, preparing to leap off the fountain-edge; it’s just a few inches farther than she can easily manage in her stiff clothes. What to do?

All of a sudden, Sugar rushes forward, scoops the child into her arms and swings her to the ground in one dizzying, playful swoop. It’s over in a couple of seconds at most, the space of a single breath, but in that long moment Sugar feels more physical joy than she’s felt in a lifetime of embraces. The soles of Sophie’s dangling feet brush the wet grass, and she lands; Sugar releases her, gasping. Thank God, thank God, the child looks tickled pink: clearly this act has her blessing to happen again sometime.

Lately, Sugar has been confounded, even disturbed, by how intensely physical her feelings for Sophie have become. What began, on her arrival in the Rackham house, as a determination to do her hapless pupil no harm, has seeped from her head into her bloodstream and now pumps around her body, transmuted into a different impulse entirely: the desire to infuse Sophie with happiness.

On this nineteenth day of January, standing in a public park on the morning of her twentieth birthday, her whole body still tingling from Sophie’s embrace, Sugar imagines the two of them in bed together wearing identical white night-gowns, Sophie fast asleep, her cheek nestled in the hollow between Sugar’s breasts – a vision that would have been ridiculous a year ago, not least because she had so little bosom to speak of. But her bosom feels bigger nowadays, as though an over-long adolescence has finally ended, and she’s now a woman.

Sophie begins to tramp slowly round the fountain, in a heavy-footed, ceremonial rhythm, and recites her rhymes:

‘William the First made the Domesday Book,

William Rufus was shot by a brook,

Henry the First rendered Aesop’s fables,

But to crown his daughter he was unable.’

‘Very good, Sophie,’ says Sugar, stepping back. ‘Practise by yourself, and come to me if you get stuck.’

Sophie continues to march and chant, adding her own instinctive melody to the words, so that the poem becomes a song. Her arms, stiff with crape, beat time against her sides.

‘Stephen and Maude waged civil war,

Until the end of 1154.

Henry, called Plantagenet,

Had troubles with children and Thomas B’cket.’

Sugar walks away from the fountain and takes a seat on a cast-iron bench about twenty feet farther on. The sound of the chant fills her with pride, for these rhymes are Sugar’s own invention; she devised them as a mnemonic for Sophie, who in her History lessons was finding it difficult to tell one scheming, bloodthirsty king of England apart from another, especially since so many of them are called William and Henry. These little verses, paltry though they are, represent Sugar’s first literary scribbles since she pronounced her novel dead. Ach, yes, she knows it’s pitiable, but they’ve ignited in her a candle-flame of hope that she may yet be a writer. And why
not
write for children? Catch them young, and you shape their souls … Did she ever seriously believe that any grown-up person would read her novel, throw off the chains of prejudice, and share her righteous anger? Anger against what, anyway? She can barely recall …

‘Coeur de Lion was abroad all the time,

Died of an arrow in 1199.

John was qua’lsome, murd’rous and mean,

But the Charter was signed in 1216.’

Sugar leans back on her seat, stretching out her legs and wriggling the toes inside her boots to discourage them from freezing; all the rest of her is warm. She lets the focus of her eyes grow hazy, so that Sophie tramps past as a black blur every time she rounds the fountain.

‘
Good
girl …’ she murmurs, too softly for Sophie to hear. How delicious it is to hear one’s own words, doggerel or not, sung by another human being …

‘Henry the Third reigned second langest,

But his mind and balth were not the strongest.

Edward Longshanks was almost wed,

Which might have saved the scots bloodshed.’

‘Why, it’s little Sophie Rackham!’ cries an unfamiliar woman’s voice, and Sugar is roused to seek out the person that goes with it. There, at the gate of the park, stands Emmeline Fox, waving madly. How odd, to see a respectable woman waving so hard! And, as she waves, her ample bosom swings loosely inside her bodice, suggesting she hasn’t a corset on. Sugar is no expert when it comes to the finer details of respectability, but she does wonder if these things can be quite
comme il faut …

‘Miss Sugar, unless I’m mistaken?’ says Mrs Fox, already crossing the distance between them.

‘Y-yes,’ says Sugar, rising from the bench. ‘And you are Mrs Fox, I believe.’

‘Yes, indeed I am. Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘O-oh, and I’m pleased to make yours,’ responds Sugar, two or three seconds later than she should. Mrs Fox, having strolled into arm’s reach, seems content to loiter there; if she’s noticed Sugar’s unease, she takes no notice of it. Instead, she nods towards Sophie, who, after a momentary pause, has resumed her marching and singing.

‘A novel approach to History. I might have disliked the discipline less myself, had I been given such rhymes.’

‘I wrote them for her,’ blurts Sugar.

Unnervingly, Mrs Fox looks her straight in the face, eyes slightly narrowed. ‘Well, clever you,’ she says, with a strange smile.

Sugar feels sweat prickling and trickling in the black armpits of her dress. What the devil is wrong with this woman? Are her wits cracked, or is it mischief?

‘I … I find that some of the books given to children are deadly,’ says Sugar, ransacking her brains for appropriate conversation. ‘They kill the desire to learn. But Sophie has a few good ones now, up-to-date ones that W— were bought by Mr Rackham, at my request. Although I must say’ (a breath of relief cools the perspiration on her brow, as she’s suddenly inspired by a memory) ‘that Sophie is still very fond of a book of fairy stories given her one Christmas, by her uncle Henry, who I believe was a dear friend of yours.’

Mrs Fox blinks and goes a little paler, as though she’s just been slapped, or kissed. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘He was.’

‘On the flyleaf,’ Sugar presses on, ‘he signed himself
Your tiresome Uncle
Henry.
’

Mrs Fox shakes her head and sighs, as though hearing a rumour made vicious by its passage from gossip to gossip. ‘He wasn’t in the least tiresome. He was the dearest man.’ And she sits heavily on the bench, without warning or formality.

Sugar sits down beside her, rather excited by the way the conversation is going – for she seems, after a shaky start, to have won the upper hand. After only a moment’s hesitation, she decides to kill two birds with one stone: show off her intimate knowledge of Sophie Rackham’s books, in case Mrs Fox should have any doubts as to her credentials as a governess – and pry.

‘Tell me, Mrs Fox, if it wouldn’t be prying: am I right to suppose that
you
were the “good friend” Henry Rackham referred to in his inscription? The friend who scolded him for giving Sophie a Bible when she was only three years old?’

Mrs Fox laughs sadly, but her eyes are bright, and they gaze at Sugar unwaveringly. ‘Yes, I did feel that three was a little young for
Deuteronomy
and
Lamentations
,’ she says. ‘And as for Lot’s daughters and Onan and all that business, well … a child deserves a few years of innocence, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Oh yes,’ says Sugar, a trifle hazy on the particulars but in full agreement with the sentiment. Then, in case her ignorance has shown on her face, she assures Mrs Fox: ‘I do read to Sophie from the Bible, though. The thrilling stories: Noah and the Flood, the Prodigal Son, Daniel in the lion’s den …’

‘But not Sodom and Gomorrah,’ says Mrs Fox, leaning closer, never blinking.

‘No.’

‘Quite right,’ says Mrs Fox. ‘I walk the streets of our very own Sodom several days a week. It corrupts children as gladly as it corrupts anyone else.’

What a strange person Mrs Fox is, with her long ugly face and her searching eyes! Is she safe? Why does she stare so? Sugar suddenly wishes Sophie were sitting here between them, to keep the conversation sweet.

‘Sophie can join us, if you like, since you’ve known her so long. I’ll call her, shall I?’

‘No, don’t,’ Mrs Fox replies at once, in a not unfriendly but remarkably firm tone. ‘Sophie and I aren’t nearly as well acquainted as you suppose. When Henry and I used to visit the Rackham house, she was never in evidence; one would scarcely have guessed she existed. I only used to see her at church, and then only at services not attended by Mrs Rackham. The co-incidence – or whatever is the
opposite
of co-incidence, I perhaps should say – grew very curious after a while.’

‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean.’

‘I mean, Miss Sugar, that it was plain Mrs Rackham was no lover of children. Or, to speak even plainer, that she appeared not to acknowledge the existence of her own daughter.’

‘It’s not for me to judge what went on in Mrs Rackham’s head,’ says Sugar. ‘I saw little of her; she was already unwell when I came into the household. But …’ (Mrs Fox’s raised eyebrow is an intimidating thing: it suggests that any governess professing ignorance of the facts must be either stupid or lying) ‘But I do believe you are right.’

‘And what about you, Miss Sugar?’ says Mrs Fox, laying her hands on her knees and leaning forward, in an attitude of getting down to business. ‘
You
like children, I trust?’

‘Oh, yes. I am certainly very fond of Sophie.’

‘Yes, that’s easily seen. Is she the first pupil you’ve had?’

‘No,’ replies Sugar, her face composed, her mind spinning like a catherine wheel. ‘Before Sophie I took care of a little boy. Called Christopher. In Dundee.’ (William’s long-running battle with the jute merchants has branded plenty of names and facts about Dundee on her memory, should she be challenged to quote them; God forgive her for claiming to have done anything for Christopher, when, far from nurturing the poor child, she’s left him in the lion’s den … )

‘Dundee?’ echoes Mrs Fox. ‘What an awfully long way for you to come. Although you don’t sound like a Scotchwoman – more like a Londoner, I’d say.’

‘I’ve lived in quite a few places.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you have.’

There follows an awkward pause, during which Sugar wonders what on earth became of the upper hand she thought she had. The only way to regain it, she decides, is to go on the offensive.

‘I’m so pleased you decided to go out walking on the same morning as Sophie and me,’ she says. ‘I believe you were recently in very poor health?’

Mrs Fox tips her head to one side and smiles wearily. ‘Very poor, very poor,’ she concedes, in a sing-song tone. ‘But I’m sure I suffered less than those who watched me suffer. They were convinced I’d die, you see, whereas I knew I wouldn’t. Now here I am’ – she waves an open hand, as if signalling an invisible queue of people to pass ahead of her – ‘witnessing a pressing crowd of unfortunates blunder to their graves.’

But you don’t understand: Agnes is alive!
thinks Sugar, indignant. ‘A crowd?’ she demurs. ‘I admit it’s awful, two members of the same family, but really … !’

‘Oh no, I didn’t mean the Rackhams,’ says Mrs Fox. ‘Oh dear now, I do apologise. I thought you would know that I work for the Rescue Society.’

‘The Rescue Society? I confess I’ve never heard of it.’

Mrs Fox laughs, an odd throaty sound. ‘Ah, Miss Sugar, how crestfallen, how
mortified
, some of my colleagues would be to hear you say that! However, I shall tell you: we are an organisation of ladies that reforms, or at least
tries
to reform, prostitutes.’ Again the mercilessly direct stare. ‘Forgive me if that word offends you.’

‘No, no, not at all,’ says Sugar, though she feels the heat of a blush on her cheeks. ‘Please go on; I should like to know more.’

Mrs Fox looks theatrically to heaven, and declares (wryly or in earnest, Sugar cannot tell), ‘Ah! the voice of our sex’s future!’ She leans still closer to Sugar on the bench, inspired it seems to even greater intimacy. ‘I pray a time will come, when all educated women will be anxious to discuss this subject, without hypocrisy or evasion.’

‘I-I hope so too,’ stammers Sugar, longing for Sophie to come to her aid, even if it’s with a wail of distress following a fall. But Sophie is still marching around the fountain, by no means finished with the kings of England.

‘
… Wat Tyler’s mob and Wycliffe’s Scripture,

We find in the reign of the second Richard.
’

‘Prostitution is certainly a terrible problem,’ says Sugar, keeping her face turned towards Sophie. ‘But can you – can your Rescue Society – really hope ever to stamp it out?’

‘Not in
my
lifetime,’ replies Mrs Fox, ‘but perhaps in
hers.
’

Sugar is tempted to laugh at the absurdity of the notion, but then she sees Sophie stamping into view, singing,

‘
Henry the Fourth slept with his crown

While Arundel put the lollies down,
’

and suddenly catches such a strong whiff of innocence that she’s half-convinced Mrs Fox’s dream might yet come to pass.

‘The greatest obstacle,’ Mrs Fox declares, ‘is the persistence of lies. Principally the foul and cowardly lie, that the root of prostitution is women’s wickedness. I’ve heard this a thousand times, even from the mouths of prostitutes themselves!’