The Crimson petal and the white

CATEGORY 1: WHOLLY

1 Cat (currently held in custody by our selves, please advise) 1 Stove 1 Kitchen cabinet with 4 drawers Divers kitchen implements, pots, pans amp;c Divers kitchen goods, condiments, spices amp;c…

William flicks through the pages, noting odd items here and there:

Divers framed prints, namely,

"A Summer's Day" by Edmund

Cole

"The Pious Ragamuffin" by Alfred

Wynne Forbes

"No Apparent Title" by Mrs F

Clyde

"The Wise and Foolish Virgins" by John Bramlett, R.a…

Books, 371 in number, mostly on

Religious subjects (full list supplied on request) World globe, mounted on brass stand (slightly singed)…

At the sight of this, William utters a helpless snort of pity and exasperation. A singed world globe! What is he, or anyone else for that matter, to do with a singed world globe? In the turmoil that followed the news of Henry's death, he thought he was showing good sense in calling the salvagers in, to prevent Henry's house being looted by the undeserving poor, but, having averted that disgrace, what now? Where is he to put Henry's worldly goods? If he can't have his flesh-and-blood brother alive, what use is it to possess his stove or his wash-basin?

William tosses the list onto his desk, and rises from his chair to stand at the study window. He peers across the grounds of his property, to the street beyond, where Agnes claims she sees angels walk. Only drab pedestrians walk there now, all of them shorter and less upright than Henry.

Ah, the tall and upright Henry! William wonders if he's a hypocrite to be grieving, when his brother annoyed him insufferably while alive? Maybe so, but blood is blood.

They were children together-weren't they? He makes an effort to retrieve memories from their shared childhood, when Henry was too young yet to erect a barrier of piety between them. Very little comes.

Vague pictures, like botched photographs, of two boys playing games in plots of pasture that have long ago been transformed into streets, all evidence buried in the foundations.

Of Henry in later years, the memories are not fond. William recalls his brother at university, walking purposefully across the sunlit lawn towards the library, half a dozen books pressed to his breast, affecting not to hear the jovial shouts of William, Bodley and Ashwell as they sprawled picnicking. Then, jumping ahead, he recalls Henry's poky little house, packed to the rafters with the paraphernalia of religion, devoid of cigars, cushions, strong drinks, or anything else that might encourage visitors. He recalls Henry stopping by the Rackham house almost every Sunday, to pass on all the fine and thought-provoking things his brother had missed.

With effort, William travels farther back in time, and sees before him the twelve-year-old Henry reciting, after family prayers, a discourse of his own composition, on the correlation between temporal and spiritual labour. How the servants fidgeted in their hierarchy of seats, not knowing whether (when it was over) they should applaud or keep a respectful silence!

"Very good, very good," pronounced Henry Rackham Senior. "What a clever boy I've got, eh?"'

William becomes conscious of a pain in his right hand, looks down, and finds he is pressing his fist against the window-ledge, bruising the skin against the wood. In his eyes, tears of childish jealousy. Echoing in his ears, the words of the firemen who assured him that Henry was undone by smoke long before he was taken by the flames.

Wiping his face on his sleeve, he feels a convulsive tickle in his upper chest which threatens to develop into a fit of sobbing, when he's interrupted by another knock at his door.

"Yes, what do you want?"' he calls hoarsely.

"Excuse me, sir," replies Letty, opening the door a slit. "Lady Bridgelow is here. Is you or Mrs Rackham at home?"'

William yanks his watch from his waistcoat pocket to check the time of day, for he's never known Lady Bridgelow to visit outside the hours appointed by convention. Indeed she hasn't: rather, it's his own internal sense of time that's awry.

Lord, he has lost hours in daydreaming and melancholy reminiscence! He'd thought he was indulging himself for a few minutes only, but he's been doing it all morning, and here he stands, his eyes wet with tears of jealousy for an act of fatherly favouritism eighteen years past! Is this how madmen and hypochondriacs occupy themselves during the long hours of an idle day? Lord Almighty! Sadness has its place, but ultimately someone needs to grasp the nettle of responsibility; someone needs to keep the wheels of life turning.

"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 I 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 mysef 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 as 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."

"'Every 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 curiosity, 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.

"'Every 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. 'Every 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."

"Please, not for my sake," says Sugar, eyeing the meagre pile of fuel in the wicker basket. "It's a waste of wood if… if you're going out directly."

But Caroline is squatting at the hearth already, stocking it with quick and practised hands. "I've got me customers to fink of," she says.

"Can't 'ave 'em runnin' away, sayin' the room's too cold, can I? That gets the Colonel paid, but it don't pay me."

"As long as it's not on my account," says Sugar, immediately regretting this mercenary turn of phrase, and hoping only that Caroline is too obtuse to notice. Irritable, wishing she'd made her escape sooner, she hides the beaker of cocoa under the chair. (well, it's gone cold now: why should she force herself to drink cold cocoa-cold nasty cocoa? Honestly, it tastes like rat poison…) But her humiliation isn't over yet.

Caroline's skill in lighting the fire sets a chastening example, reminding Sugar of her own method: to sacrifice great quantities of kindling, handful after handful of delicate dry virgin wood, until sheer attrition sets the larger chocks aflame. Caroline builds a frugal edifice, with tattooed slivers of packing crate and splinters of old furniture, andwitha single lucifer makes it crackle and fizz into life. With her back still to Sugar, she resumes their conversation.

"So, what's it like to be old man

Rackham's mistress, then?"'

Sugar flushes hot red to the roots of her hair. Betrayed! But by whom? The Colonel, probably… His vow is worth nothing, the old pig…

"How did you find out?"'

"I'm not daft, Shush," says Caroline wryly, still coaxing the flames through the wood.

"You told me you was kept by a rich man; and then my poor parson said 'e could find me work with Rackham's; and today you tell me you knew my parson too… And o'course I know one of the Rackhams got burnt to death in 'is house not long ago…"

"But how did you know that?"' persists Sugar.

Caroline's not a reader, and the sky over Church Lane is so palled-over with foulness that the whole of Notting Hill could burn down without anyone here noticing the smoke.

"Some misfortunes," sighs Caroline,

"I can't 'ancelp but 'ear about." She points theatrically downwards, through the floor, through the woodwormy honeycomb of Mrs Leek's house to the parlour where the Colonel sits with his newspapers.

"But why do you call my… my companion

"Old Man Rackham"?"'

"Well, 'e's ancient, ain't 'e? Me own mother 'ad some Rackham's perfume, as I recall, for special occasions." She narrows her eyes at a memory as distant as the moon.

"One bottle lasts a year"!"

"No, no," says Sugar, (making a mental note to advise William to expunge that vulgar motto from Rackham advertising) "it's not the father, but the son I'm… kept by. The surviving son, that is. He took the reins of the business only this year."

"And 'ow does 'e treat yer?"'

"Well…" Sugar gestures at the abundant skirts of her expensive finery.

"As you can see…"

"Clothes don't mean nuffink," shrugs Caroline. "'Every might beat you with a poker, or make you lick 'is shoes."

"No, no," says Sugar hastily. "I -I've no complaints." Nagged all of a sudden by the need to empty her bladder, she yearns to be gone (she'll piss outside, not in here!).

But Caroline, God bless her, hasn't finished yet.

"Oh, Shush: what mighty good luck!"

Sugar squirms in her seat. "I wish every woman's luck could be the same."

"Don't I wish it too!" Caroline laughs. "But a woman needs graces and 'complishments to rope in that sort of fortune.

Sluts like me, now… we ain't got what it takes to please a gentleman-except on '.ere" (she pats the bed-sheets) "for a short spell." Her eyes go slightly crossed with pleasure, as she realises she's thought of something genuinely clever to say. "That's the word for it, ain't it Shush: a spell, like a magic spell.

If I can catch 'em while their cock's stiff, they're in me power. Me voice sounds to 'em like music, me walk is like an angel on the clouds, me bosom makes 'em fink of their own dear Nurse, and they looks deep into me eyes like they can see Paradise through 'em. But as soon as their cock goes soft…" She snorts, miming the end of passion with one limp-wristed hand.

"My, but don't they take offence at me coarse tongue! And me slattern's walk! And me saggy dugs! And when they looks a second time at me face, don't they just see the grubbiest little trollop they ever made the mistake of touchin' without gloves on!"

Caroline grins in cheerful defiance, and looks to her friend for the same; instead she's startled to witness Sugar covering her face with her hands and bursting into tears.

"Shush!" she exclaims in bewilderment, rushing to Sugar's side and laying one arm over the girl's convulsing back. "What's the matter, what've I said?"' "I'm no longer your friend!" sobs Sugar, the words muffled inside her palms. "I've become a stranger to you, and I hate this place, I hate it. Oh, Caddie, how can you stand to see me? You're poor; I live in luxury. You're trapped; I'm free. You're open-hearted; I'm full of secrets. I'm so full of schemes and plots, nothing interests me if it doesn't concern the Rackhams. Every word I speak I look up and down twice before it leaves my mouth. Nothing I say comes from my heart…" Her palms roll into fists and she knuckles her rage into her wet cheeks.

"Even these tears are false. I choose to shed them, to make myself feel better. I'm false!

False! False to the bone!"

"Enough, girl," soothes Caroline, gathering Sugar's head and shoulders against her breast.

"Enough. We are what we are. What you can't feel… well, it's lost, it's gone, and that's all there is to it. Cryin' don't bring back maidenheads."

But Sugar weeps on and on. It's the first time since she was a child-a very young child, before her mother began to wear red and call herself Mrs Castaway -that she's wept like this on the bosom of a female.

"Oh Caddie," she snivels. "You're better than I deserve."

"But still not good enough, eh?"' teases the older woman, poking her sharply in the ribs. "See?

I can read yer thoughts, girl, read 'em right through yer skull. And I 'ave to say, without no lie"-she pauses for effect-"I've read worse."

In the darkening room, as the warmth from the fire begins to spread, the two of them keep hold of one another, for as long as it takes Sugar to regain her composure, and Caroline to get a sore back from bending.

"Ugh!" says the older woman in mock-complaint, removing her arm from the younger.

"You've done me back in, you 'ave. Worse than a man that wants it wiv me arse 'n' legs in the air."

"I-I really must go," says Sugar, the ache in her bladder returning with a vengeance.

"It's getting late."

"So it is, so it is. Now, where's me shoes?"' Caroline fetches her boots out from under the bed, innocently flashing Sugar a teasing glimpse of a chamber-pot. She slaps the dirt from her feet, and pulls her boots on. "But one more question," she says, as she begins to button them up. "I'm always finkin' to ask you this just after you're away. That time I saw you in that paper shop in Greek Street-remember? And you were buyin' all that writin' paper. 'Undreds 'n' 'undreds 'n' 'undreds of sheets. Now, what was that all about?"'

Sugar dabs her eyes, tender from weeping.

She could weep all over again, with a touch more provocation. "Did I never tell you? I'm … I was… writing a book."

"A book?"' echoes Caroline incredulously. "God's oath? A real book, like… like…" (she looks all around the room, but there's not a book to be seen, save for the tobacco-tin-sized New Testament her parson once gave her, now blocking a mouse-hole in the skirting-board) "like the ones in bookshops?"' "Yes," sighs Sugar. "Like the ones in bookshops."

"And what 'appened: did you finish it?"' "No." That's all Sugar has the will to say, but she can see in Caroline's expression that it's not enough. "But…" she improvises,

"I'm going to start a new one soon. A better one, I hope."

"Will I be in it?"'

"I don't know yet," says Sugar miserably. "I'm only thinking about it.

Caddie, I need to… use your pot."

"Under the bed, my dear."

"Without you looking at me." Sugar is blushing again, ashamed this time of feeling ashamed. In their early years together, she and Caroline were like beasts in a degenerate Eden; if ever the need had arisen, they could have lain shoulder to shoulder, naked, and spread their legs for the likes of Bodley and Ashwell. Now, her body is no one's business but her own-and William's.

Caroline gives her an odd look, but lets it pass. Briskly, she shifts from bed to chair, and continues buttoning up her boots while Sugar squats out of sight.

Silence falls, at least in Caroline's room: outside in Church Lane, life creaks and hoots and jabbers on; two men begin to quarrel, shouting in what sounds like a foreign language, and a harsh-voiced woman laughs.

Sugar strains and strains to let go, knees and fists trembling, but nothing will come.

"Talk to me," she pleads.

"What about?"'

"Anything."

Caroline ponders for a second, while outside, someone yells "Whore!" and the laughter disappears into an unseen stairwell.

"The Colonel wants more than whisky this time," she says. "'Every wants snuff."

Sugar laughs, and under her yellow canopy of skirt, thank God, a muffled trickle begins. "I'll get him snuff."

"It 'as to be Indian snuff, 'e says.

Dark, sticky stuff just like 'e 'ad in Delhi, durin' the mutiny."

"If money can buy it, I can get it."

Sugar stands up, tears of relief on her face and, having concealed the evidence, steals around to the other side of the bed.

"You know," Caroline prattles on,

"I'd like to be in a book. Long as it was written by a friend, o'course."

"Why, Caddie?"' "Well, stands to reason, dunnit: an enemy would make you out to be a right cow-"' "No, I meant why would you like to be in a book?"' "Well…" Caroline's eyes glaze over. "You know I always fancied 'avin' me portrait painted. If I can't 'ave that …" She shrugs, suddenly coy. "It's a crack at immortality, innit?"' At the sight of Sugar's face, she emits a raucous hack of laughter. "Ha! Didn't fink I'd know a word like that, did yer?"' She laughs again, then it fades to a sad, sad smile, as the last traces of Henry Rackham's spirit spiral up the chimney. "Learnt it off a friend o' mine."

To break the melancholy mood, she winks at Sugar and says, "Well, I must start work, dear, or the men of this parish'll 'ave nobody to fuck but their wives.

And with that, the two of them kiss goodbye, and Sugar descends the dismal stairs alone, leaving Caroline to select the finishing touches of her evening attire.

"Watch yer step!" the older woman calls. "Some of them stairs are rotten!"

"I know!" Sugar calls back, and indeed, she used to know exactly which ones could be trusted and which had had too many heavy men tread on them. Now, she clings to the banister and walks at the edge, tensed to catch herself if the wood gives way.

"The gathering storm," wheezes Colonel Leek, wheeling out of the shadows below, "of disaster!"

Safely on firm ground, or what passes for such in the Leeks' mouldering house, Sugar has no inclination to stand listening to the old man's ravings, or to be reacquainted with his unmistakable smell any sooner than she has to be.

"Honestly, Colonel, if this is how you mean to behave on your next visit to the farm …" she warns him as she squeezes by, gathering her skirts clear of his oily wheelchair. Far from being chastened, however, he takes umbrage and, with a groan of exertion, begins to follow her across the room. She quickens her retreat, hoping to leave him stranded, but he pursues her all the way down the passage, his elbows scuffing against the narrow walls, his chair's cast-iron framework rattling and squeaking as he wheels himself laboriously along.

"Autumn!" he barks at her heels.

"Autumn brings with it a rash of new calamities! Miss Delvinia Clough, stabbed in the heart by an unapprehended assailant, at Penzance railway station! Three persons in Derry crushed by a collapsing new building!

Henry Rackham, brother of the perfumer, burnt to death in his own house! Do you expect to escape what's drawing nigh?"' "Yes, you old wretch," hisses Sugar, annoyed at him for having exposed, unintentionally or not, her mysterious George Hunt as a fiction. "Yes, I expect to escape this minute!" Whereupon she wrenches open the door and runs out of the house without looking back.

"And this time, you needn't bother to bring that… that old man," says William, when next they meet.

"Oh, but it's no bother," says Sugar.

"It's all arranged. He'll be a lamb, you can rest assured."

They are sitting together on the ottoman in the front room in Priory Close, fully clothed, as decorous as you please.

William has no time for fornication just now; on the carpet at his feet lie two small, crinkled sheets of wrapping-paper and half a dozen intricately purfled paper borders, and his final decision must be made in time for the next post. Sugar has advised him that the gold-and-olive trimming looks the best, and he's inclined to agree with her, though the blue-and-emerald has a fresh, clean appearance, and would be a damn sight cheaper per thousand wrappers. As for the paper itself, they're agreed that the thinner one hugs the shape of the soap very nicely, and they've experimented with handling it roughly, and found that it only tears under conditions to which no reasonable shopkeeper would subject it.

That's that decided, then; he need only choose the pattern of the trimming, and to this end he's looking away from the options for a minute, and trusting that his instincts will guide him when he looks again.

"No," he insists, "the old man can stay home."

Sugar sees the glint of steel in his eyes and, for an instant, fears what that glint might mean for her. Is this the beginning of a chill between them?

Surely not-only a minute ago he was telling her, with a crooked smile, that she's become his "right-hand man". So: if it's merely the Colonel that's in disgrace, what other men does she know who'd come to Mitcham with her, to lend her a whiff of respectability in the eyes of the workers?

In a flash, she reviews all the males she's known in her life: a dark void where her father ought to be; a couple of giant, angry-faced landlords who made her mother cry (in the very early days before her mother expunged tears from her repertoire); the "kind gentleman" who came to keep her warm on the night of her deflowering; and all the men since, an indistinct procession of half-naked flesh, like a carnival freak composed not of two conjoined bodies, but hundreds. She recalls a one-legged customer, for the way his stump banged against her knee; she recalls the thin lips of a man who almost strangled her, before Amy came to the rescue; she recalls a slope-headed idiot with breasts bigger than hers; she recalls shoulders thick with hair and eyes opaque with cataracts; she recalls pricks the size of beans and pricks the size of cucumbers, pricks with purple heads, pricks bent in the middle, pricks distinguished by birthmarks and welts and tattoos and the scars of attempted self-castration. In The Fall and Rise of Sugar, there are pieces of many men she's known, all butchered with the knife of revenge. Dear Heaven, hasn't she known any male she doesn't loathe?

"I-I must admit," she says, as she dismisses a fantasy of herself arm-in-arm with little Christopher, "I'm having trouble thinking of a suitable companion."

"Don't bother to bring any, my dear,"

Rackham mutters, returning his attention to the paper trimmings at his feet.

"Oh but William," she protests, scarcely able to believe her ears. "Mightn't that cause a scandal?"'

He grunts irritably, his mind once more preoccupied with gold-and-olive versus blue-and-emerald.

"I won't be held to ransom by petty minds, damn it. Let a few farmhands whisper, if they want to! They'll be out on their ear if they dare do more than whisper… God almighty, I'm the head of a great concern and I've just buried my brother: I've more serious matters to lose sleep over than the gossip of inferiors."

And, with a decisive forward lurch, he snatches up the olive-and-gold. "Hang the expense," he declares. "I like it, and what I like my customers will like too."

Dizzy-headed with delight, Sugar embraces him, and he kisses her brow indulgently.

"The letter, we must write the letter," he reminds her, before she gets too frolicsome.

She fetches paper and pen for him, and he dashes off the letter to the printer. Then, with ten minutes to spare before the last post, he stands in the vestibule and allows her to help him into his coat.

"You're a treasure," he says, the words clear despite the envelope clenched between his teeth. "Indispensable, that's the only word for you."

And, hastily buttoned up and dusted down, he's gone.

Scarcely has the door shut behind him than Sugar springs into motion, released from her shackles of demure behaviour. Squealing in triumph, she dances from room to room, pirouetting till her skirts twirl and her hair lifts from her shoulders. Yes! At last: she can walk at his side, and damn what the world thinks! That's what he said, isn't it? Their liaison can't be held to ransom by petty minds -he won't stand for it! Joyous, joyous day!

Her exhilaration is marred only by the thought that she must pay another visit to Church Lane, to inform the Leeks of the change of plan. Or must she? Inspired, she fetches a fresh sheet of writing-paper, sits at the escritoire and, trembling with nerves, dips her pen in the inkwell.

Dear Mrs Leek My outing this Friday has been cancelled, so I shan't be coming for the Colonel. (that's all she can think offora long while.

Then:)

There is no need to return the Money I gave you.

Yours faithfully,

Sugar.

For a further ten or fifteen minutes, well beyond the deadline for the next post, Sugar deliberates about a P.s., along the lines of Give Caroline my love, but not quite so effusive. There are, in English, only so many alternatives to "love". Sugar considers them all, but in the end, the chances of Mrs Leek being willing to convey an affectionate emotion to anyone, let alone one of her lodgers, seem remote. So, as the sun sets, and squally weather besieges Priory Close, Sugar resolves to save her love until she next sees Caroline in person, and seals the letter in its envelope, to be posted when the skies have cleared.

"At the ready!" shouts William Rackham to the fidgeting torchbearers. "Very well: start the bonfire!"

All around the towering pyre, batons tipped with flaming tallow are lowered onto the gnarled branches and grey leaves, and within half a minute the smell of lavender is mingling with that of burning wood. The men are all smiles, waving smoke away from their eyes: the privilege of wielding the power to start this destruction flatters their meagre pride and, just for the afternoon, lends a shine to their miserable existence working in these fields for ninepence a day plus free lemonade.

"This lot'll need a damn sight more torchin', I reckon," says one, wielding his flaming baton like a sword, and indeed the fire shows signs that, unassisted, it might die out rather than engulf the mountain of uprooted plants. A haze of smoke begins to rise into the heavens, adding obscurity to the lowering clouds.

"A hallmark of Rackham's high standards," announces William to Sugar.

"The bushes are slow to catch fire because they're not quite exhausted: they've life in them yet. But Rackham's doesn't try to wrangle a sixth harvest out of plants that aren't robust any longer."

Sugar looks at him, unsure how to respond. He's addressing her as if she might yet be the daughter or granddaughter of an elderly investor, wheeling an invisible Colonel Leek around the fields. There's a distance between them, not the arm-in-arm intimacy she'd imagined.

"I once witnessed," declares William loudly, over the babble of voices and crackle of burning wood, "a bonfire of plants which had been allowed to stand six seasons: it went up, whoosh!, like a pile of dry bracken. The oil distilled from that last harvest would have been third-class, I assure you."

Sugar nods, keeps silent, stares at the growing flames. Shivering from the cold wind that blows on her back, and wincing at the heat thrown into her face, she wonders if she's as well-suited to country life as she once fancied she might be. All around the perimeter of the fire, men are reapplying their torches, discussing the progress of the flames. Their accents are opaque to her; she wonders if she's grown too refined lately to understand them, or if they really are as thick as all that.

They are aliens to her, these workers; dressed in their uniform of rudely-cobbled shoes, rough brown trousers and collarless cotton shirts, they are like a common breed of creature, a hardy herd of bipeds troubled neither by the chill wind nor the hot flames.

Sugar is grateful they're so engrossed in their bonfire, as it means they're taking less notice of her, and she yearns to be excused scrutiny today. Her own choice of clothes is dark and sober, unlike the lavender plumage that drew all eyes to her on her first visit here. If she can't be hanging on William's arm, then anonymity is what she craves.

Waves of smoke, teeming with the livid tadpoles of sparks and cinders, are billowing up into the darkening sky; the men are cheering and laughing at the incandescent fruit of their labours. But, as the fumes of lavender grow more powerful, there grows in Sugar a fear that she might be overcome-a very reasonable fear, given her physical state, which is underslept, underfed, and in the grip of a chill she blames on the visit to Caroline's unheated bedroom. Is it better to breathe deeply, getting as much fresh air as possible along with the fumes, or is it better to hold one's breath?

She tries both, and decides to breathe as normally as she can manage. If only she'd eaten something before coming here! But she was too giddy, even then, with anticipation.

"I'm not likely," says William to her suddenly, very near to her flushed face, "to call on you for some time." His voice is no longer that of the master of ceremonies, but of the man who lies against her naked body in the afterglow of love-making.

Sugar's beclouded mind strains to interpret his words. "I suppose," she says, "it's a busy time of year."

William waves at the men to step back from the bonfire, as it has no further need for their encouragement. The fumes evidently aren't having anything like the effect on him that they're having on her.

"Yes, but it's not that," he says, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, as he surveys the men's retreat. "There are affairs at home … Nothing is ever resolved satisfactorily … It's a hornets' nest, I tell you…

God, what a household…!"

Sugar concentrates with effort, thick-headed with perfume.

"Sophie's nurse?"' she guesses, aiming for a sympathetic tone, but sounding (she feels) merely bilious.

"You deduce rightly-as always," he says, daring to stand closer to her now. "Yes, Beatrice Cleave has handed in her notice, bless her fat heart. She's still convinced Sophie needs a governess, she's champing at the bit to move to Mrs Barrett's, and I'm sure she's not at all pleased to be in a house that's in mourning, either."

"And is a governess so very difficult to find?"' says Sugar, her heart beginning to beat heavily.

"Well-nigh impossible," he scowls.

"I have my work cut out for me, you can be sure, for the foreseeable future. Bad governesses are legion, and there's no way of weeding them out.

Offer a pitiful wage, and only the most wretched specimens apply; offer a handsome reward, and every member of the female sex is galvanised by greed. Tuesday evening my advertisement was in The Times, and I've had forty letters already."

"But can't Agnes be the one who chooses a governess?"' ventures Sugar.

"No."

"No?"'

"No."

Sugar sways dizzily on her feet, her heart pounding so much that she feels her rib-cage shudder, and hears herself say in a weak voice:

"William?"'

"Yes?"'

"Do you truly regret we can't live together?"' "With all my heart," he replies at once, in a tone not so much sentimental as wearily annoyed, as though the impediments to their perfect union were irksome trade restrictions or senseless laws. "If I could wave a magic wand…!"

"William?"' Her breath wheezes, her tongue feels swollen with lavender, the earth on which she stands is slowly beginning to revolve, like a giant piece of flotsam on an ocean too vast and dark to see. "I-I believe I have your solution, and… and our solution. Let me be your daughter's governess. I've all the necessary skills, I think, except music, which-which I could learn from books, I'm sure.

Sophie could do worse, couldn't she, than learning reading, writing, arithmetic a-and manners from me?"'

William's face is distorted in the firelight, his eyes reddened by the conflagration; his flame-yellow teeth are bared, in amazement-or outrage. Desperately, Sugar pleads on:

"I-I could live in whatever quarters

Sophie's nurse has now… No matter if they're plain; I should be happy, more-merely to be near to you…"

Her voice gives out on the final word, a feeble bleat, and she stands swaying, gasping in expectancy. Slowly, oh how slowly! he turns to answer her. Dear Heaven, his lips are curled in disgust…!

"You cannot possibly be-"' he begins to say, only to be interrupted by a gruff rustic voice:

"Mr Rarck'm, sir! May Oi speak wi'ye?"'

William turns to deal with the intrusion, and Sugar can stand no longer. A sickly hot flush shoots up through her whole body and, as the inside of her skull is flooded in darkness, she faints to the ground. She doesn't even feel the blow of impact; only-strangely enough-the cool blades of grass pricking the flesh of her face.

Then, after a measureless lapse, she has the distant sensation of being lifted up and carried, but to where, or by whom, she cannot tell.