The Crimson petal and the white by Michel Faber

TWENTY-SIX

"Christmas," declares Sugar, and pauses.

Sophie hunches over her copy-book, in the grey light of early morning, and inscribes the exotic word at the top of a fresh page. Even upside-down, and from the corner of her eye, Sugar can see that the t is missing.

"Holly."

More scratching of Sophie's pen. Correct this time.

"Tinsel."

Sophie looks to the glittering silver and red barbs on the mantel for inspiration, then dips her pen in the inkwell and commits her guess to paper:

"tintsel". Sugar resolves to make light of this error, combining humour with an educative purpose: The poor little t from your Christmas has gone wandering, Sophie, and blundered into the tinsel…

"Mistletoe." She regrets this one as soon as it's off her tongue: poor Sophie's frown deepens as she must relinquish her last hope of a perfect score. Also, the word unexpectedly brings to Sugar's mind a vision of Agnes's accident: once again, the spade slices through the white flesh, and blood spurts.

"Misseltow," writes Sophie.

"Snow," says Sugar, to give her an easy one. Sophie looks up at the window and, yes, it's true. Her governess must have eyes in the back of her head.

Sugar smiles, content. This Christmas that she's soon to spend with the Rackhams is, in a sense, her first, for Mrs Castaway's was never the most festive of places. The notion that there will soon be a day that's guaranteed to be special regardless of what Fate brings is a novelty, and the more she tries to caution herself that December 25th will be a day like any other, the more expectant she grows.

There's something different about the Rackham house lately, something more than can be explained by its garnish of holly, tinsel and ornamental bells.

The fact that William still loves her is a tremendous comfort, and the thought that they will face the future together, collaborators and confidantes, helps her resist the poisonous murmur of foreboding. But it's not even William's love that fuels her hopes; she detects a change in spirit, all through the household. Everyone is friendlier and more familiar. Sugar no longer feels as if she's haunting two rooms of a large and mysterious house, hurrying past closed doors for fear of provoking the evil spirits inside. Now, with Christmas coming, she goes everywhere with Sophie in hand, and is welcomed as part of the proceedings.

Servants smile, William nods in passing, and no one need mention what's understood: that Mrs Rackham is safe upstairs, snoozing the days away in a chloral stupor.

"Hello, little Sophie!" says Rose, as the child proudly produces yet another basket of freshly-made paper streamers. "Aren't you a clever girl?"'

Sophie beams. She'd never expected so much admiration in her life, and all for cutting strips of coloured paper and gluing them together in chains, exactly as her governess has instructed her!

Perhaps the business of making one's way in the world is not as arduous and thankless as Nurse led her to believe…

"Where shall we hang these, Letty?"' calls Rose to her upstairs counterpart, and the servants do their best to pretend there's still an urgent need for more streamers, despite the fact that they're hung everywhere, including the banisters, the smoking-room (pray God those men are careful with their cigars!), the scullery (they're limp with moisture already, but Janey was awfully pleased a thought was spared for her), the piano, and that odd little room which used to smell faintly of linen and evaporated urine, but is now empty.

Only a matter of time, then, before the stables and Shears's glasshouses are approached.

The holly man visited yesterday, and was relieved of three large bundles, two more than the Rackham house took from him last year. ("Rich pickin's 'ere, ducks," he winked at a young mistletoe seller he met in the carriageway on his way out.) And indeed, the Rackham house is sparing no expense to expunge the memory of Christmas 1874, which was "celebrated"-if that word will stoop to being so misused-under a cloud. This year, let everyone be assured-from lords and ladies to the lowliest scullery maid-that William Rackham's festive provisions are the equal of any man's! So: Holly? Three bags full!

Comestibles? The kitchen groans with them!

Streamers? Let the child make all she wants!

When she's not making streamers, little Sophie loves to make Christmas cards. Sugar bought her some expensive ones from a hawker whom William permitted, after some hesitation, to cross the Rackham threshold and lay out his wares in the parlour for the servants to peruse. Apart from the usual depictions of firelit domestic bliss and charity to the ragged poor, there were comical scenes of frogs dancing with cockroaches, and pompous squires being bitten on the arse by reindeer-a great favourite with the kitchenmaids, who expressed regret at not being able to afford them. Sugar bought the dearest cards on show: the ones with moveable parts and trick panels, in the hope of inspiring Sophie to similar inventions.

And so it has come to pass. Sophie, to judge by her delight, has never possessed a toy more luxurious and fascinating than the Christmas card in the shape of an austere-looking Georgian house which, when the paper tab is pulled, parts its curtains to reveal a colourful family enjoying a banquet. Lacking the word "genius", she describes as "master-clever" the person who conceived this extraordinary thing, and she frequently consults the card and pulls its tab, to be reminded how sublimely it works. Her own efforts to draw, paint and assemble Christmas cards are crude, but she perseveres, and makes a succession of cardboard houses with tiny celebrating families hidden inside them. Each one is better than the last, and she gives them away to whoever will accept them.

"Why, thank you, Sophie," says the Cook. "I shall send this to my sister in Croydon."

Or, "Thank you, Sophie," says Rose, "This is sure to bring a smile to my mother's lips."

Even William is glad to receive them, for, despite his unusual dearth of relations, he has no shortage of business associates and employees who'll be charmed by such a gesture, especially if it appears unique.

"Another one!" he says in mock astonishment when Sugar escorts Sophie up to his study to deliver the latest card. "You're turning into an industry all by yourself, aren't you?"'

And he winks at Sugar, though quite what this wink is supposed to mean she can't guess.

After these brief encounters with her father, which are always terminated by William's inability to think of a second sentence, Sophie is liable to be fragile-tempered, passing from excited babble to fractious whimpers in a trice; but, overall, Sugar has decided it's good for Sophie to be noticed by the man who made her.

"My father is rich, Miss," the child announces one afternoon, just before making a start on the history, so far, of Australia. "His money is kept in the bank, and it's growing bigger every day."

More regurgitated wisdom from Beatrice

Cleave, no doubt.

"There are a great many men richer than your father, dear," Sugar gently suggests.

"He'll beat them all, Miss."

Sugar sighs, imagining herself and William sitting under a giant parasol on the summit of Whetstone Hill, sipping lemonade, gazing drowsily down on the fields of ripe lavender.

"If he's wise," she says, "he'll be satisfied with what he has, and enjoy his life without having to work so hard."

Sophie swallows this gobbet of moralism, but is clearly not going to be able to digest it.

She's already concluded that the reason why her own father is so very unlike the doting Papas in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales is that he is under strict orders from the Almighty to conquer the world.

"Where's your Papa, Miss?"' she enquires.

In Hell, my poppet. Mrs

Castaway's reply, once upon a time.

"I don't know, Sophie." Sugar strains to recall anything more about her father than her mother's hatred of him. But in the story as Mrs Castaway told it, the man who, with a single jerk of his pelvis, transformed her from a respectable woman into a pariah, didn't wait to find out what happened next. "I think he's dead."

"Did he have an accident, Miss, or go to a war?"' Males tend to get shot, or burn down in their houses: Sophie appreciates that.

"I don't know, Sophie. I never met him."

Sophie cocks her head sympathetically.

Such a thing could easily happen, if a father were sufficiently busy.

"And where's your Mama, Miss?"'

A chill goes down Sugar's spine.

"She's… at home. In her house."

"All alone?"' Sophie, coached in these matters by her sentimental storybooks, sounds at once concerned and hopeful.

"No," says Sugar, wishing the child would drop this thread. "She has… visitors."

Sophie casts a resolute glance at the scissors, paste and art materials that have been laid aside until Australia is dealt with.

"The next card I make will be for her,

Miss," she promises.

Sugar smiles as best she can, and turns away before Sophie sees the angry tears glimmering in her eyes. She leafs through the history book, backwards and forwards through its pages, passing Australia several times.

While she stalls, she wonders if she should tell Sophie the truth. Not about her mother's house of whoredom, of course, but about Christmas. About how the festival was never celebrated in the Castaway confines; how Sugar was seven before she understood that there was a communal occasion that made street musicians play particular tunes near the end of what she didn't know was called December. Yes, seven years old she was, when she finally plucked up the courage to ask her mother what Christmas was all about, and Mrs Castaway replied (once only, after which the subject was forever forbidden): "It's the day Jesus Christ died for our sins.

Evidently unsuc-cess-lly, since we're still paying for them."

"Miss?"'

Sugar is roused from a dream; she has the history book gripped tight in her hands, and the topmost pages have begun to tear under the pressure of her nails.

"I'm sorry, Sophie," she says, hastily letting go. "I think I've eaten something that's disagreed with me. Or perhaps…" (she observes the child's perturbed expression, and is ashamed to have caused it) "Perhaps I'm simply too excited by the coming of Christmas.

Because, you know," (she draws a deep breath, and brightens her tone as much as she can without squeaking) "Christmas is the happiest time of the year!"

"My dear Lady Bridgelow," blurts Bodley, "although we all know that in a few days from now, a huge fuss will be made over the spurious birthday of a Jewish peasant, this wonderful party of yours is the true high point of the December calendar."

He turns to the other guests, and they reward him with a few nervous titters. So amusing, that Philip Bodley, but he does say some outrageous things! And without his more sober associate, Edward Ashwell, to restrain him, he's an even looser cannon! But it's all right: Lady Bridgelow has steered him towards Fergus Mcleod, who's more than a match for him -how effortlessly she keeps her soirees on the rails!

William stands well back from Bodley, wondering how the fellow can have the bad manners to arrive at a dinner party already drunk. Constance is handling the situation with effortless good grace, but even so… William turns on his heel, and notes that a servant is busy dampening the fire, to compensate for the fact that the number of bodies in the room is raising the temperature.

How extraordinary that the girl should know to do this, without needing to be told! It's the little things about Constance that are the most impressive-the way her household hums like a well-oiled machine.

God, she could teach his own servants a thing or two… They're well-meaning, most of them, but they lack a firm mistress…

This party of Lady Bridgelow's is a small affair of twelve persons only, most of whom William met for the first time in the Season just past, or never before. As usual, though, Constance has assembled an interesting mixture. She specialises in people who are slightly divorced from the staid old world but not quite beyond the pale: "the occupants of the Age-To-Come", as she likes to call them.

There's Jessie Sharpleton, fresh from Zanzibar, skin the colour of cinnamon and brain full of lurid tales of heathen barbarity. Also in attendance are Edwin and Rachel Mumford, the dog-breeders; Clarence Ferry, the author of Her Regrettable Lapse, a two-act play currently doing well; and Alice and Victoria Barbauld, two sisters who come in very useful at dinner parties for their decorative faces and their skill at playing short, tuneful airs on the violin and oboe. (as Lady Bridgelow often says, it's so difficult to find "musical" people who aren't a bore: the tuneful kind tend not to know when to stop, and the stopping kind tend not to be terribly tuneful.) The presence of Philip Bodley might have been awkward for William, given the rift that Agnes has caused between them but, thank God, Bodley is deep in conversation with Fergus Macleod, a High Court judge well known for his expertise in sedition, libel and treason, and is pumping him for all he's worth.

It's an amusing and convivial party, and the smell of the approaching food, being trundled through the corridors towards the dining-room, is mouth-watering. Still William isn't quite at his ease. He'd set off from home full of hope for Agnes's recovery (she looks so angelic in her slumbers, and when he's moved to kiss her cheek she murmurs affectionate pleas for indulgence… Surely what a woman says in her sleep is closer to the truth than what she says in wakeful anger!) But here at Lady Bridgelow's party, whenever the existence of his wife impinges on the conversation, people look at him with pity. How is this possible? He'd thought Agnes was so popular this Season! Granted, there were a few sticky moments, but overall her performance was excellent-wasn't it?

"The biggest exhibition of mechanical toys in the world, you say?"' he rejoins, struggling to keep up with Edwin Mumford's account of the Season's greatest triumphs. "I never heard about this!"

"It was advertised in all the newspapers."

"How odd that it escaped me… Are you sure you don't mean the show at the Theatre Royal, that little mechanical man, what was its name-Psycho?"' "Psycho was a glorified hoodwink, a puppet for children," sniffs Mumford. "This was more like the Great Exhibition, except solely for automata!"

William shakes his head in disbelief that he could have missed such a marvellous event.

"Perhaps, Mr Rackham," Rachel Mumford chips in, "your poor wife's illness distracted you at the time."

The butler announces that dinner is served. In a daze, William takes his seat, and chooses the rhubarb and ham soup, even though there's a consomm`e he might have liked better. But he's too confused to make such decisions. As the meal gets underway, and the dining table proliferates with bowls of broth, he's already chewing on something more substantial: the notion that his peers, far from blaming him for his wife's wretched state, might actually be waiting for him to hold up his palm and say "Enough".

He glances discreetly at each of the guests as they spoon their soup: they're perfectly at ease, a paradigm of civilised fellowship.

He could be perfectly at ease too, he could take his place within their paradigm-if only he didn't see before him the spectre of Agnes, at just such a dinner party two years ago, accusing the hostess of serving a chicken that was still alive.

Sunk in reverie while he eats whatever's put in front of him, William recalls the early days of his marriage, recalls his wedding day, even recalls the drafting of the marriage contract with Lord Unwin. His recollection of Lord Unwin is particularly vivid-but that's hardly surprising, since Lord and Lady Unwin are, at this moment, sitting diagonally opposite him at the dinner table.

"Ah yes!" chuckles Lord Unwin, when Lady Bridgelow remarks how much his estate has expanded. "I try to keep it within reasonable bounds, but my neighbours keep selling me more damn land, and so the damn place grows and grows -like my stomach!"

Indeed he's a fat man now, bulging into old age, and his former vulpine expression has disappeared under jowls swollen by Continental pastries and cheeks reddened by liquor and sunshine.

"What's this? Sirloin? How can you do this to me, Constance? I sh'll'ave to be wheeled out of here in a barrow!"

Nevertheless, he betrays no difficulty consuming his steak, the sorbet @a l'Imperiale, a hunk of roast hare (he declines the offer of vegetables with an apologetic pat to his gravid belly), a second helping of roast hare ("Hell! If it's going spare!"), a quivering mound of jelly, some savoury forcemeats, a bowl of pears and cream and, to the exasperation of his wife, a handful of crystallised fruits and nuts from a bowl near the door.

Then he leaves the ladies to their own devices and limps with the men into the smoking-room, where a crystal decanter of port and six glasses stand ready.

"Ah, Rackham!" he exclaims. (before dinner, he was too jealously monopolised by the Mumfords to do more than exchange pleasantries with his son-in-law; now they have a second chance.) "When I said it's been years since I last saw your face, I was lying: I see your face everywhere I go! Even in the apothecaries of Venice I find your phiz, stamped on little pots and bottles!"

William inclines his head solemnly, unsure if he's being mocked or praised. (still, that Bagnini fellow in Milan would seem to be as efficient a distributor as he claims to be…) "It's really quite a rum thing," continues Lord Unwin, "to be standing in a shop in a foreign country, pick up a cake of soap, and observe, "Ah: so William Rackham has grown a beard!" Don't you think that's a rum thing, William?"' "The wonders of the modern world, sir: I can be making a foolish exhibition of myself in Venice and Paris, while doing the same here."

"Ha ha!" shouts Lord Unwin. "Jolly good!" And he pokes his cigar into the proffered flame of his son-in-law's lucifer, enveloping his face in smoke. He's only five-foot-eleven, William notes; six feet at the very most. The fearsome aristocrat whom he petitioned for Agnes's hand impressed him, at the time, as being nearer to six-and-a-half.

"Of course, in the provinces," Clarence Ferry scoffs on the other side of the room,

"they haven't a hope of spelling it, let alone understanding it."

"But they enjoy it, do they?"' suggests Edwin Mumford wearily, his roving eye catching William's, in the hope of rescue.

"Oh yes, in their own way."

Much later in the evening, when most of the other guests have reeled home, and the smoking-room is thick with alcohol-scented mist, Lord Unwin cuts short his anecdotes of Continental adventure and, as the inebriated are wont to do, turns abruptly serious.

"See here now, Bill," he says, creaking forward in his chair. "I've heard how Agnes is going, and it's no surprise to me, I can tell you. She always had bats in her belfry, even as a child. I could count the sensible things she ever said on the fingers of one hand. D'you understand me?"' "I daresay," says William. In his mind there glows a memory of Agnes as she was only a few hours ago, her hair fluffed out on her pillow, her lips swollen with stupefaction, her eyelids fluttering, as she kicked her legs under the bed-sheets and murmured "Too hot… too hot…"

"You know," the old man confides, "when you asked me for her hand, I did rather think you'd end up with less than you bargained for… I should've warned you, man-to-man, but… well, I s'pose I hoped that giving birth might put her right. But it didn't, did it?"' "No," concedes William glumly. If there's one thing that did his wife's mind no good at all, it was giving birth to Sophie.

"But listen, Bill," advises Lord Unwin, his eyes narrowing. "Don't let her cause any more trouble. This may surprise you, but news of her exploits has been known to cross the Channel. Yes! I've heard about her screaming fits as far abroad as Tunisia, would you believe? Tunisia! And as for her bright ideas as a hostess, well, they may be terrifically novel here, but to a level-headed Frenchwoman they don't seem so witty I can tell you. And that "blood-in-the-wine-glasses" fiasco: everyone talks about that! It's practically a legend!"

William squirms, sucking so hard on his cigar it makes him cough. How unforgiving is the spread of ill fame! This incident to which Lord Unwin refers happened so very long ago… in the Season of 1873, perhaps, or even 1872! How unfair the world is, that a man can spend a fortune advertising his perfumes in Sweden, and a month afterwards, no Swede appears to have heard of him, while the momentary indiscretion of a hapless woman behind closed doors on a certain evening in 1872 travels effortlessly across seas and national borders, and remains on everyone's lips for years!

"Believe me, Bill," says Lord Unwin, "I don't mean to tell you what to do with your own wife. She's your business. But let me tell you one more story…" He drains the rest of his port and leans even closer to William than before.

"I've a little place in Paris," he mutters, "and my neighbours are damn nosy.

They'd heard I was Agnes's father, but they didn't know I wasn't her natural father.

So, when they found out I had a couple more children with Prunella, they took me aside and asked me if they were "all right". I said, "What d'you mean, "all right"-"f'course they're all right." They said, "So they show no signs?" I said, "Signs of what?"." The pitch of Lord Unwin's voice rises as he re-lives his exasperation. "They think I father mad children, Bill! Now is it right that I, and my children, should be suspected of… of bad blood, only because John Pigott's feeble-minded daughter is still at large? No-o-o…" He slumps, the veins in his nose livid. "If she won't improve, Bill, put her away. It's better for all of us."

The clock strikes half past ten. The room is empty, apart from William and his father-in-law. Lady Bridgelow's butler pads in, bends to the old man and says,

"Begging your pardon, sir, but milady has asked me to convey to you that your wife has fallen asleep."

Lord Unwin winks heavily at William, and digs his liver-spotted hands into the upholstery of his chair, preparing to haul himself up.

"Women, eh?"' he grunts.

A most perturbing encounter, this, and one which William ponders for days afterwards. However, in the end, the thing that brings him closest to a decision regarding Agnes's fate is not the advice of his friends, nor the urgings of Doctor Curlew, nor even the corrosive words poured into his ear by Lord Unwin. No, it's something utterly unexpected, which ought not have the slightest authority to sway him, but does: the tree-carving talents of an anonymous field-worker in his own employ.

On December 22nd, William pays a visit to his farm in Mitcham, to oversee the installation of a lavender press which, come next summer, will eliminate, from one stage of refinement at least, the need for human labour. He's long been dissatisfied with the practice of employing barefooted boys to tread down the lavender as it's loaded for distillation; apart from qualms of hygiene, he's not convinced the lads are as cheap or efficient as his father thinks, for they're always hobbling away from their work, complaining of bee-stings.

Machinery, William is certain, will prove superior in the long run, and he surveys the new press proudly, although there's not yet any lavender to test it with.

"Splendid, splendid," he compliments the steward, while peering into a cast-iron cavity whose function is frankly mysterious to him.

"The best, sir," the steward assures him.

"The very best."

All of Mitcham, indeed most of Surrey, lies deep in snow, and William takes the opportunity to stroll unaccompanied through his fields, savouring the immaculate whiteness under which next year's harvest lies dormant.

Incredible, how once upon a time his future was invested in abstruse poems and unpublishable essays, instead of this vast and comforting tract of land, this irreducible, fertile, solid-underfoot foundation. He tramps towards the line of trees which serves as a windbreak for his lavender, his galoshes sinking deep into the snow. By the time he reaches it, he's sweating liberally inside his sealskin coat and fur-lined gloves. He leans against the nearest tree bough, puffing clouds of steam into the chill air.

Only after he's been standing there for a minute or two, catching his breath, does he glance sideways at the trunk that supports him, and notice the inscription crudely carved in the snow-flocked bark: