The Crimson petal and the white

TWENTY-EIGHT

But now, my dear Children-for that is how I think of you, blessed readers of my Book throughout the world-I have taught you all the Lessons I know.

And yet I hear your voices, from as far away as Africa and America, and as far removed as the Centuries to come, clammering Tell Us, Tell Us, Tell Us Your Story!

Oh, Ye of little understanding! Have I not told you that the details of my own case are of no consequence? Have I not told you that this Book is no Diary? And still you hanker to know about me!

Very well, then. I will tell you a story.

I suppose, if you have read all my Lessons and pondered them, you have earned that much. And perhaps a book looks better if it is not quite so thin-though I believe there is more substance in this little volume of mine than in the thickest tomes written by unenlighted souls. But let that pass. I will tell you the story of when I witnessed a thing that none of us is permitted to see until the Resurrection-but I saw it, because I was naughty!

It happened on one of the occasions I was transported to the Convent of Health for healing. I had arrived in a dreadful state, but after an hour or two of my Holy Sister's sweet attentions, I was much improved, and madly curious to explore the other cells of the Convent, which I was forbidden to do. But I felt so well I was bored. Curiosity, which is the desparaging name that men give to womens' thirst for Knowledge, has always been my greatest flaw, I admit. And so, dear readers, I left the confine of my cell.

I moved stealthily, as Wrongdoers do, and looked into the key-hole of the next chamber. What a surprise! I had always presumed that only our sex could be offered Sanctuary at the Convent of Health, but there was Henry, my brother in law! (i didnt mind in the least, for Henry was the decentest man in the world!) But I swear that I should never have looked through the key-hole if I had known he wouldn't be wearing any clothes! However-in a glimpse I had seen him. One of the blessed Sisters was at his side, tending to his burns.

I looked away at once.

In the hallway behind me I suddenly heard footsteps, but, rather than run back into my own cell, I took fright and hastened on ahead. I ran directly to the Most Forbidden Room, the one with a golden A fixed upon it, and passed inside!

How can I pretend to be contrite for my sin of disobedience? I could say a thousand Hail Marys, and still smile in bliss at the memory.

There I stood, dazzled with wonder at the Apparition in the middle of the room. A giant column of flame, for which I could detect no source: it seemed to issue from empty air a little distance off the floor, and taper to nothingness far above. I estimate-though I was never much good at calculations-that it was fully twenty feet high, and four feet wide. The flame was bright orange, gave off no heat and no smoke. At its heart, suspended inside it like a bird floating on the wind, was the unclothed body of a girl. I could not see her face, for she was floating with her back to me, but her flesh was so fair and free of blemish that I guessed her to be perhaps thirteen. The flame was so transparent that I could see her breathe, and knew thereby that she was alive, but sleeping. The flame did not harm her at all, it merely bore her aloft and made her hair swirl gently, all about her neck and shoulders. I nerved myself to extend one hand towards the glow, guessing that it must be something like the flame that issues from burning brandy. But it was more peculiar even than that-I was able to put my fingers quite inside it, for it was cool as water-indeed it felt just like water running over my hand.

I do not know why this should have startled me more than getting burned, but I cried out in surprise and snatched my hand away. The great flame was disturbed by the motion, and wobled irregularly, and to my very great alarm the girls body began to turn!

I was too awestruck to move an inch, until the floating body had turned entirely around, and I could see that it was-my own!

Yes, dear readers, this was my Second

Body, my Sun Body-utterly perfect-every mark that Suffering ever inflicted upon me, gone. So eager was I to see its flawless state, that I leaned my face right into the flame, a most delicious sensation.

I was most especially delighted with my bosom, so small and smooth, my lower parts, free of gross hair, and of course my face, with all the cares erased. I must say, I was relieved she was asleep, as I dont think I should have had the courage to look myself in the eyes.

Overcome at last with fear-or satisfaction-I left the room and ran back to my cell as fast as my feet could carry me!

Sugar turns the page, but this ecstatic episode was evidently as much of The Illuminated Thoughts and Preturnatural Reflections of Agnes Pigott as Agnes managed to write before arriving at her fateful decision to dig her old diaries back out of the ground.

"Well, what do you think?"' says William, for he's perched on the rim of his desk, and Sugar stands in front of him in his study, holding the open ledger.

"I-I don't know," she says, still trying to guess what his summons here this morning might have in store for her. Both she and William are mortally tired, and surely have better things to do with their fagged brains than dissect Agnes's ravings. "She… she tells a story quite well, doesn't she?"'

William stares at her in bafflement, his eyes smarting pink. Even as he opens his mouth to speak, his stomach emits a growl, for he's given the servants-those of them who were disturbed in the night-leave to sleep late.

"Are you making a joke?"' he says.

Sugar closes the ledger and hugs it to her breast. "No… No, of course not, but…

This account, it's… it's a dream, isn't it?

A record of a dream…"

William grimaces irritably. "And the rest of it? The earlier part? The…" (he quotes the word with exaggerated distaste) "lessons?"'

Sugar shuts her eyes and breathes deep, plagued by a temptation to laugh, or to tell William to leave his damned wife alone.

"Well… you know I'm not the most religious of people," she sighs, "so I really can't judge-"' "Madness!" he explodes, slamming the palm of his hand against the desk. "Complete lunacy! Can't you see that!"

She flinches, takes an instinctive step backwards. Has he ever spoken so harshly to her before? She wonders if she should burst into tears, and plead "You from-frightened me" in a tremulous voice so that he'll enfold her penitently in his arms. A quick glance at those arms, and the fists at the ends of them, dissuades her.

"Look-look at these!" he rages, pointing to a precarious stack of books and pamphlets on his desk, all of whose covers are concealed under curious hand-made jackets of wallpaper or cloth. He snatches up the topmost, yanks it open to its title page, and loudly, jeeringly recites: "From Matter to Spirit: The Result of Ten Years' Experience in Spirit Manifestations, with Advice for Neophytes, by Celia E. De Foy!"

He flings it from his hand like an unsalvageably soiled handkerchief, and snatches up another.

"A Finger in the Wound of Christ: Probings into Scriptural Arcana by Dr Tibet!"

He flings that away also. "I searched Agnes's bedroom, to remove anything she might use to cause herself a mischief. And what did I find? Two dozen of these vile objects, hidden inside Agnes's sewing-baskets!

Solicited from as far afield as America, or stolen-yes stolen-from a spiritualist lending library in Southampton Row! Books that no sane man would publish, and no sane woman would read!"

Sugar blinks dumbly, unable to appreciate the point of this tirade, but shaken by its vehemence.

The stack of books and pamphlets, as if likewise unnerved, suddenly collapses, spilling across William's desk. One tract falls onto the carpet, a hymnal-sized little thing snugly clad in lace.

"William-what do you want of me?"' she asks, straining to keep her voice innocent of exasperation. "You've called me in here, while Sophie sits idle in the school-room, to look at these things of Agnes's you've… confiscated. I agree that they're proof of… of a severely muddled mind. But how can I help you?"'

William runs a hand through his hair, then grabs a handful of it and squeezes it hard against his skull, a fretful gesture she last saw him exhibiting during his dispute with the jute merchants of Dundee.

"Clara has told me," he groans,

"that she absolutely refuses to give Agnes any more… medicine."

Sugar bites her tongue on several replies, none of them very respectful to men who wish to keep their wives doped to the gills; she breathes deep, and manages to say instead: "Is that such a calamity, William? Agnes was walking fairly well, I thought, when I escorted her back to the house. The worst of the danger is probably past, don't you think?"' "An incident such as last night's, and you suggest the danger is past?"' "I meant, to the healing of the wounds in her feet."

William lowers his gaze. Only now does Sugar detect a furtiveness in his bearing, a dog-like shame she hasn't observed in him since he first lifted her skirts at Mrs Castaway's and entreated her to submit to what other whores had refused. What does he want of her now?

"Even so," he mumbles, "Clara-a servant in my employ-has openly defied me. I instructed her to give Agnes that medicine until… until further notice, and she refuses to do it."

Sugar feels her face beginning to contort with reproach, and hastily smooths it as best she can.

"Clara is Agnes's maid, William," she reminds him. "You must ask yourself, how can she possibly fulfil that function if Agnes doesn't trust her?"' "A very good question," remarks William, with a portentous nod, as if it's only too clear to him how untenable Clara's employment has become. "She has also refused, point-blank, to lock Agnes's door."

"While she's attending to Agnes?"'

"No, after."

Sugar tries to insert this wedge of information into her mind, but it's just a little too big to fit through the aperture. "You mean, you want-uh, the plan is… for Agnes to be kept a…" (she swallows hard) "locked up in her bedroom?"'

Face burning, William turns away from her; he waves one arm indignantly towards the window, his stiff fore-finger stabbing the air. "Are we to be fetching her out of the coach-house, or from God knows where else, every night of the week?"'

Sugar hugs the ledger tighter to her breast; she wishes she could put it down, but feels she'd be unwise to take her eyes off William even for an instant. What does he really want?

What act of extravagant submission would deflate the anger from his pumped-up frame?

Does he need to batter her with his fists, before exerting his remorse between her legs?

"Agnes seems… very placid just now, don't you think?"' she suggests gently. "When I brought her in from the cold, all she talked about was how much she was looking forward to a warm bath and a cup of tea. "Home is home," she said."

He glowers at her in stark mistrust. A hundred lies he's swallowed; lies about the superior size of his prick to other men's, the erotic potency of his chest hair, the inevitability of Rackham's one day being the foremost manufacturer of toiletries in England; but this-this he cannot believe.

For a moment she fears he'll seize her by the shoulders to shake the truth out of her, but then he slumps back against the desk, and wipes his face with his hands.

"How did you know where to find her, anyway?"' he enquires, in a calmer tone. It's a question he didn't get around to asking hours ago, when he arrived back at the house at dawn, soaked to the skin, wild with worry, only to discover his wife tucked up and dozy in her bed. ("My goodness, William, what a state you are in" was Agnes's sole comment before letting her eyelids droop shut again.) "I… I heard her calling," Sugar replies. How much longer does William intend to keep her here? Sophie is waiting in the school-room, rather distractible and peevish today, craving the familiar routine of lessons, yet resisting it… There'll be trouble-tears, at the very least-if normality isn't restored soon …

"It's… exceedingly important," declares William, "that she doesn't run away in the next few days."

Sugar's self-control cannot bear the weight any longer, and she snaps. "William, why are you telling me this? I thought you wanted me to have nothing to do with Agnes. Am I to be her warden now? Is she to sit in a corner of the school-room while I teach Sophie, to make sure she behaves?"' Even as the words slip out of her lips, she regrets them; a man requires constant, tireless flattery to keep him from turning nasty; one careless remark can make his fragile forbearance shrivel. If a girl's going to be sharp-tongued, she's better off making a career of it, like Amy Howlett.

"Oh, William, please forgive me," she implores, covering her face with her hands.

"I'm so very tired. And so are you, I'm sure."

At last he crosses the floor to embrace her: a hard clinch. Agnes's ledger falls to the floor; their cheeks collide, bone against bone.

Each of them squeezes harder as the other responds in kind, until they're quite breathless.

Downstairs, the doorbell rings.

"Who's that?"' gasps Sugar.

"Oh, tradesmen and spongers," he replies, "turning up for their Christmas boxes. They'll have to come back later, when Rose is ready to face the world."

"You're sure…?"' she asks, as the ringing persists.

"Yes, yes," he retorts irritably.

"Agnes is being watched by Clara just now-watched as close as I'm watching you."

"But I thought you said you gave all the servants leave to-"' "All except Clara, of course! If the little minx won't do what's needful for Agnes to sleep, and won't lock her up either, the least she can do is stay in the room with her!" The callousness of his own words provokes a twitch of mortification in him, and he adds: "But can't you see that this is no way for a household to be run!"

"I'm sorry, William," she says, stroking his shoulders. "I can only play my part as well as I'm able."

To her relief, this does the trick. He holds her tight, uttering little grunts of distress, until the tension begins to leave his body, and he's ready to confess.

"I need…" he whispers urgently, conspiratorially, into her ear, "your advice. I have a decision to make. The most difficult decision of my life."

"Yes, my love?"'

He squeezes her waist, clears his throat, and then the words come rushing out, almost in a gabble.

"Agnes is mad, she's been mad for years, and the situation is unmanageable, and the long and short of it is… well, I believe she ought to be put away."

"Away?"'

"In an asylum."

"Oh." She resumes stroking his shoulders, but he's so prickly with guilt that her momentary pause has already struck him like a slap to the face.

"She can be cured there," he argues with the passion of unconviction. "They have doctors and nurses in constant attendance. She'll come home a new woman."

"So… when have you arranged…?"'

"I've put this off years too long! The twenty-eighth, God damn it! Doctor Curlew has offered to… uh… escort Agnes to the place. Labaube Sanatorium, it's called." In a strangely cloying tone, he adds: "In Wiltshire."-as though mention of the locality ought to be enough to banish any doubt of the asylum's salubrious credentials.

"Then your decision is already made," says Sugar. "What advice did you hope to get from me?"' "I need to know…" He groans, nuzzles his face into her neck. "I need to know … that it's… that I'm not a…" She feels his brow furrow against her skin, feels the twitch of his jaw push through her clothing. "I need to know that I'm not a monster!" he cries, racked by a spasm of anguish.

With the lightest, tenderest touch, Sugar strokes his hair and cossets his head with kisses. "There now," she croons. "You have done your best, my love. Your very best: always, since you first met her, I'm sure. You… you are a good man."

He utters a loud groan, of misery and relief. This is what he wanted from her from the beginning; this is why he summoned her out of the nursery. Sugar holds him tight as he sags against her, and her heart fills with shame; she knows that no degradation to which she has ever consented, no abasement she's ever pretended to enjoy, can compare in lowness to this.

"What if Clara tells Agnes of your plans?"' It's a loathsome question, but she must ask it, and she's so steeped in perfidy already, does it really make any difference? There's a bilious taste of conspiracy on her tongue-the poisonous, lip-licking saliva of a Lady Macbeth.

"She doesn't know," William mutters into her hair. "I haven't informed her."

"But what if, come the twenty-eighth-?"'

He breaks their embrace, and begins immediately to pace back and forth, his eyes glassy, his shoulders hunched, his hands wringing each other in agitation.

"I'm giving Clara a few days off," he says. "I owe her Lord knows how many free afternoons, not to mention some good nights' sleep."

He looks to the window, and blinks hard. "And-and I shall be gone too, on the twenty-eighth.

God forgive me, Sugar, I can't bear to be here when Agnes is taken. So, I'll…

I'll attend to some business. I'm leaving tomorrow morning. There's a man in Somerset who claims he's invented a method of enfleurage that requires no alcohol. He's been sending me letters for months, inviting me to come and see the proof for myself. Most likely he's a fraud, but… Ach, I'll give him an hour of my time. And when I return… Well… by then it will be December twenty-ninth."

Sugar's imagination glows with two vivid pictures, side by side. In one, William is being led into the luridly lit lair of a leering mountebank, surrounded by beakers bubbling and frothing. In the other, Agnes is arm-in-arm with Doctor Curlew, the man her diary describes as Satan's lackey, the Demon Inquisitor and the Leech Master; captor and captive are walking like father and bride towards a waiting carriage…

"But… what if Agnes should resist the doctor?"'

William wrings his hands all the more nervously.

"It would've been so much better," he laments,

"if Clara hadn't been difficult about the laudanum. Agnes is wide awake and on the alert now. She tastes everything that's given to her with the tip of her tongue, like a cat …" And he casts a glance at the ceiling, recriminating whatever baneful power may lurk in the skies above, for sowing such mischief. "But Curlew will have men with him. Four strong men."

"Four?"' The vision of Agnes's wasted little body set upon by five hulking strangers makes Sugar's flesh creep.

William stops pacing and looks at her directly, his tortured bloodshot eyes imploring her to indulge just one more little outrage, to bestow upon him, with her silence, with her complaisance, just one more illicit blessing.

"Should there be any unpleasantness," he maintains, fumbling for a handkerchief to dab the sweat on his brow, "the extra men will only ensure that the event proceeds with… dignity."

"Of course," Sugar hears herself say.

Downstairs, the doorbell rings, and rings again.

"God damn it!" William barks.

"When I told Rose she could sleep, I didn't mean all day!"

A couple of minutes later, when Sugar returns to the school-room, all is not well.

She knew it wouldn't be, and it isn't.

Sophie has left her desk, and now stands on a foot-stool facing the window, immobile, apparently unaware of her governess re-entering the room. She peers through her spyglass at the world outside-a world which consists of nothing very spectacular, just a leaden grey sky and a few flickering hints of pedestrians and vehicles through the camouflage of Shears's ivy on the Rackham palisades. To a girl with a spyglass, however, even these indistinct phenomena can be engrossing, if she has nothing better to do; for who knows how long her governess-despite solemn announcements about how much needs to be learned before the new year-means to leave her like this?

So, Sophie has turned her back on the promises of grown-ups, and is conducting her own investigations. Several odd-looking men have come through the gate this morning, rung the doorbell, and gone away again. Rose seems not to be doing any work today at all! The gardener came out and smoked one of those funny white snippets that are not cigars; then he left the Rackham premises and disappeared up the road, walking extremely slowly and gingerly. Cheesman has returned from his Mama, walking in the same peculiar manner as Shears-indeed, the two men narrowly avoided each other at the front gate.

The kitchen servant with the ugly red arms hasn't been out yet, to empty her buckets. There was no proper breakfast this morning-no porridge or cocoa-only bread-and-butter, water, and Christmas pudding. And what a muddle over the gifts! First Miss Sugar said the Christmas gifts should stay in the bedroom, so as not to be a distraction to the lessons, then she changed her mind -why? Which is right-the gifts in the bedroom, or the gifts in the school-room? And what about Australia? Miss Sugar was going to make a start on New South Wales, but nothing has come of it.

All in all, the universe is in a state of confusion. Sophie adjusts the lens of her spyglass, sets her mouth, and continues her surveillance. The universe may right itself any moment-or explode into chaos.

The moment she walks into the room, Sugar can sense these dissatisfactions emanating from the little girl, even though Sophie's back is turned; a child's disquiet is as potent as a damp fart.

But Sugar smells something else too: a real smell, pungent and alarming. Christ, something is burning here!

She crosses over to the fireplace, and there, smouldering on the livid bed of coal, lies Sophie's nigger doll, its legs already reduced to ash, its tunic shrivelled like over-crisped bacon, its teeth still grinning white as sluggish flames lick around its sizzling black head.

"Sophie!" cries Sugar accusingly, too exhausted to soften the sharpness of her tone; the effort of being well behaved with William has leeched every last ounce of tact from her. "What have you done!"

Sophie stiffens, lowers the spyglass, and turns slowly on her stool. Her face is disfigured by apprehension and guilt, but in her pout there's defiance too.

"I'm burning the nigger doll, Miss," she says. Then, in anticipation of her governess making an appeal to her childish credulity, she adds: "He's not alive, Miss. He's just old rag and biscuit."

Sugar looks down at the disintegrating little carcass, and is torn between the urge to snatch it up in her hands, and the urge to prod the horrid thing with a poker so it stops smouldering and burns properly. She turns back to Sophie and opens her mouth to speak, but she catches sight of the beautiful French poup@ee standing witness on the other side of the room, towering over Noah's ark with its plumed hat, its smug impassive face oriented directly towards the fireplace, and the words die in her throat.

"He came from a tea chest, Miss,"

Sophie continues. "And there was s'posed to be an elephant under him, Miss, that's missing, and that's why he won't stand up, and anyway he's black and proper dolls aren't black, are they, Miss? And he was all dirty and stained, Miss, from the time he got blood spilt on him."

The room is growing hazy with smoke, and both child and governess are rubbing their eyes, irritable, near tears.

"But Sophie, to throw him on the fire like this …" Sugar begins, but she can't go on; the word "wicked" just won't come. It burns in her mind, branded there by Mrs Castaway: Wicked is what we can't help being, little one. The word was invented to describe us. Men love to wallow in sin; we are the sin they wallow in.

"You ought to have asked me," she mutters, grasping the poker at last; they'll start coughing soon, and if the smoke seeps out into the rest of the house there'll be trouble.

Sophie watches the familiar contours of her doll being stirred into fiery oblivion. "He was mine, though, wasn't he, Miss?"' she says, her bottom lip trembling, her eyes blinking and shiny. "To do with as I pleased?"' "Yes, Sophie," sighs Sugar, as the flames grow brighter and the grinning head slowly rolls over into the body's ash. "He was,"

She knows she ought to put this incident behind her without delay, and return to the lesson, but a riposte comes to her in a belated flash, and she's too weak to resist it.

"A poor child might have wanted him," she says, poking the ashes with rough emphasis. "A wretched poor child that hasn't any dolls to play with."

At once, Sophie erupts into a fit of weeping so loud it makes the hair on Sugar's neck stand on end. The child jumps off her stool and collapses straight onto her rump, screaming and screaming, helpless in a puddle of petticoat. Her face, within moments, is a swollen lump of red meat, slimy with tears, snot and saliva.

Sugar stands watching, buffeted by the ferocity of the little girl's grief. She sways on her feet, wishing this were only a dream, and she could escape it simply by turning over in bed. She wishes she had the courage to embrace Sophie, now when she's at her ugliest and most detestable, and that such an embrace could soothe all the hurt and the despicable notions from the child's convulsing body. But she hasn't the courage; that bawling red face is frightening as well as repulsive; and if there's one thing that would shatter Sugar's nerve today, it would be a shove of rebuff from Sophie. So, she stands silent, her ears ringing, her teeth clenched hard inside her jaw.

After several minutes, the door of the school-room opens-presumably after an unheard knock-and Clara pokes her sharp snout in.

"Can I be of assistance, Miss Sugar?"' she calls over the din.

"I doubt it, Clara," says Sugar, even as Sophie's wailing abruptly reduces in volume. "Too much excitement at Christmas, I think…"

Sophie's hullabaloo ebbs to a hacking sob, and Clara's face hardens into a white mask of indignation and disapproval-how dare this beastly child, for the flimsiest of reasons, cause such a noise.

"Tell Mama I'm sorry!" snivels

Sophie.

Clara shoots Sugar a glance that seems to say Is it you who's putting such stupid thoughts in her head?, then hurries back to her mistress. The door clicks shut, and the school-room is once more full of smoke-haze and sniffling.

"Please get up now, Sophie," says Sugar, praying that the child will obey without further fuss. And she does.

The long remainder of the second day of

Christmas, the day of inexplicable turtle-doves and invisible preparations for journeys, passes like a dream that has, in its inscrutable wisdom, decided to stop short of being a nightmare, sinking instead into a state of benign confusion.

Following her tantrum, Sophie becomes calm and tractable. She devotes her attention to New South Wales and the names of different breeds of sheep; she memorises the oceans between her house in England and the continent of Australia.

She remarks that Australia looks like a brooch pinned onto the Indian and Pacific Oceans;

Sugar suggests that it more closely resembles the head of a Scotch terrier, with a spiked collar.

Sophie confesses she has never seen a terrier. A lesson for the future.

Normal function returns to the Rackham house as its servants rise from their beds and resume their work. Lunch is delivered to the school-room-hot slices of roast beef, turnip and potato, served at one o'clock sharp-and although the dessert is Christmas pudding again, instead of something reassuringly normal like suet or rice, at least it's hot this time, with custard and a neat sprinkle of cinnamon. Clearly, the universe is edging back from the brink of dissolution.

Rose is back to normal, too, answering the doorbell, which rings persistently, as those oddly dressed men who were disappointed before return for another crack at their Christmas boxes. Each time, Sophie and Sugar go to the window to look, and each time the child says, "Who's that, please, Miss?"' humbly trying to make amends for her earlier misdeeds.

"I don't know, Sophie," says Sugar about each man. The impression is forming, from these confessions of ignorance, that Miss Sugar may know a great deal about ancient history and the geography of far-flung lands, but when it comes to the affairs of the Rackham house, she's almost completely in the dark.

"Once my lessons are over, this evening," announces Sophie, during a lull in the afternoon when her governess's head nods bosomwards with weariness. "I shall read my new book, Miss.

I have looked at the pictures, and they have made me… very curious."

She looks up at her governess's face, hoping to see approval radiating from it. She sees only a wan smile on dry, flaking lips, and eyes that have tiny red lines scratched across the whites. Will those lines heal themselves, or are they etched there forever? And is it wicked to look at a storybook's illustrations before reading the tale? What else can she offer Miss Sugar, to make everything all right again?

"Australia is a very interesting country, Miss."

Alone in bed that night, Sugar lies awake, plagued by an anxiety that she may, on top of everything else, be unable to sleep. That would be the finish of her, the absolute finish. With a muffled curse, she shuts her eyes tight, but they spring perversely open, staring up into the darkness. There's a natural order to sleeping and waking, and she has sinned against it, and it's having its revenge.

And what if William should come to her, for one last debauch of reassurance before he leaves in the morning? Or perhaps he'll ask her, with that beaten-cur expression on his face, if she wouldn't mind forcing a dose of laudanum down Agnes's throat? Or perhaps he'll simply want to bury his face in his loving Sugar's bosom? For the first time in many, many months, Sugar feels disgust at the thought of William Rackham's touch.

She lies awake for what feels like an hour or more, then lights a lamp and fetches a diary from under the bed. She reads a page, two pages, two and a half pages, but the Agnes Rackham revealed in them is an intolerable irritation, a vain and useless creature whom the world would not miss for an instant if she were removed.

So what will you do when the good doctor comes with his four merry men? Sugar asks herself.

Take Sophie for a stroll in the garden while Agnes is manhandled, screaming for rescue, into a black carriage?

In the diary, Agnes is two years married, complaining about her husband. He does nothing all day, she alleges, except write articles for The Cornhill that The Cornhill doesn't publish, and letters to The Times that The Times doesn't print. He's not nearly as interesting in his own house as he was in hers. And his chin is not nearly as firm as his brother's, she's noticed, nor his shoulders as broad-in fact, his brother Henry is the handsomer man altogether, and frightfully sincere with it, if only he wouldn't dress like a provincial haberdasher…

Sugar gives up. She stows the diary back under the bed, extinguishes the light, and tries once more to sleep. Her eyes ache and itch-what has she done to deserve…? Ah yes.

Uneasy lies the head that conspires in the betrayal of a defenceless woman…

And William? Is he sleeping now? He deserves to toss and sweat in torment, yet she hopes he's snoring peacefully. Perhaps then, when he wakes fully rested in the morning, he'll recant his plans for Agnes. Unlikely, unlikely. Sugar knows from experience the face and the embrace of a man who's passed the point of no return.

All will be well, I promise. Everything will turn out for the best.

That's what she promised Agnes. But mightn't everything turn out for the best if Agnes goes to the asylum? Her wits are addled, without a doubt-couldn't they be… un'-addled, with expert care? This vision that's haunting Sugar, of a woman in chains, wailing piteously in a dungeon lined with straw-sheer fantasy, from cheap novels! It'll be a clean, friendly place, this Labaube, with doctors and nurses in constant attendance. And it's in Wiltshire… And who's to say the poor deluded Mrs Rackham won't fancy she's in the Convent of Health, and that the nurses are nuns?

Soon I will help you get away from here.

Soon, I promise.

That's what she said to Agnes, as she offered the terrified woman an arm to clutch. Ah, but what are promises in a whore's mouth? Nothing more than saliva to lubricate compliance. Sugar rubs her eyes in the gloom, loathing herself.

She's a fraud, a failure, she invents facts about Australia… and dear Heaven, the ghastly smile of that nigger doll, as the flames licked around its head…!

A new woman, she counsels herself.

Agnes will come home a new woman. That's what William said, and mightn't it be true?

Agnes will be cured in the sanatorium; she'll kiss the cheeks of the nurses as she's leaving, and shake the doctors' hands with a tear in her eye.

Then she'll come home, and acknowledge Sophie as her own daughter…

This thought, conceived as a reassurance, has quite the opposite effect-it sends a sick chill through her body. In the final waking moments before her soul lurches into sleep, Sugar knows, at last, what she must do.

It is the evening of the twenty-seventh of December, and William Rackham sits nursing a glass of whisky in a public house in Frome, Somerset, wishing he could be transported into the day after tomorrow.

He has travelled so far, and engaged in so many diversions (who'd have thought a tour of the town's old wool mill would fail so utterly to fascinate him!), and yet there are still thirteen, fourteen hours left to fill, before Doctor Curlew is due to arrive at Chepstow Villas… Anything could happen in that time-not least his own nervous disintegration… And with Clara absent from the house, and only Rose and that idiot Letty to keep an eye on things, there's an appalling risk of Agnes escaping… that is, of exposing herself to harm…

If only he could make contact with his household here and now, to confirm Agnes's safety. Only last week, he read an article in Hogg's Review, about a device very soon to be produced in America, a contrivance of magnets and diaphragms, which converts the human voice into electrical vibrations, thus making possible the transmission of speech across vast distances. If only this mechanism were in general use already! Imagine: he could speak a few words into a wire, receive the answer, "Yes, she's here and sleeping," and be spared this misery of uncertainty.

On the other hand, perhaps it's all tosh, this wonderful voice-telegraph, a tall story to fill space in a journal lacking worthier submissions. After all, think of what brought him here to Frome! The fellow with the new method of enfleurage was a fraud, of course, and not even an interesting fraud. William had expected at least to be entertained with bubbling gases, malodorous perfumes and hushed cries of "Behold!", but was instead invited to study the scribbled notebooks of a mere university student angling for a benefactor to fund his researches. God preserve us from fuddle-headed young men who want money for building cloud-castles!

"But I don't understand," William told the fellow, barely able to keep his temper. "If the process works, why can't you demonstrate it in action? On a smaller, cruder scale, with a few blossoms in a pie-dish?"'

To which the young man's response was to gesture helplessly at the meanness of his lodgings-implying that in such pauperish circumstances, even the most modest miracles are impossible. Balderdash!

But let the fellow stew in his self-pity; there's no chance of disabusing him of it anyway.

William promised to keep the fellow in mind, wished him well with his studies, and fled.

After this dismal encounter, and a desultory tour of the town's attractions, he returned to his lodging-house, and loitered for a while in his room.

Reclining on a strange, too-soft bed, he tried to read a treatise on the subject of civets and the practical obstacles, from a perfumer's point of view, to breeding them in northern climes, but he found it well-nigh impossible to take in, and wished he'd brought a novel with him instead.

Moreover, the lodging-house has had a most demoralising effect upon him. Its proprietress required the name "Rackham" to be spelled out for her when she was committing it to the register, and looked him square in the face without any notion that she might have seen that visage before.

And sure enough, in the bathroom, all the soaps were Pears'. Not one of them bore the impression of the ornamental R. Perched on the edge of that ugly blue-veined bathtub, William could have wept.

It's all clear to him now. All these months since he took hold of the Rackham reins, he's been pulled along by an engine of optimism; each month has seen his fortunes grow, and in those heady late-night conversations with Sugar in Priory Close, he was encouraged to believe that the future would fall open to him in submission, that the rise of Rackham's to the pinnacle of fame was an historical inevitability. Only now does he glimpse the truth, winking at him from the mists of the future.

He'll build up his heirless empire, grow old and, in his senescence, watch it crumble. He will be Ozymandias, and the despair will be all his, as the edifice of his business turns into a colossal wreck-or (worse) is snaffled up by one of his rivals. Either way, in a century or two, the name Rackham will have ceased to mean anything. And the seed of that humiliation lies here, in a soap dish in Frome, Somerset.

Unable to endure his own wretchedness, he fled his lodging-house and sought out a tavern-this tavern, The Jolly Shepherdess, in which he now sits nursing his glass of whisky. Far from being the convivial sanctuary he'd hoped for, it's melancholy and dim, with a sickly caramel-coloured wooden floor and a bar reinforced in fake marble. There's a blazing fire, but this is the beginning and end of its resemblance to The Fireside; an elderly, rheumy-eyed dog crouches near the hearth, whimpering and frowning in its half-sleep each time a cinder jumps. The human patrons are certainly not the lively provincials whose chatter he hoped would distract his mind; they drink quietly, alone or in huddles of three, occasionally lifting their torpid chins to ask for a refill. Two ugly matrons are busy with obscure chores behind the bar-too busy, evidently, to show the newcomer to a table.

So, William chose his own, in a shadowy enclave near the lavatory door.

The clock above the bar has stopped at midnight-God knows which midnight, how long ago-expired from the strain of chiming the maximum hour once too often. William pulls out his watch to measure how many hours he has to wait before he can go to bed with some chance of sleeping, and is promptly accosted by a disreputable-looking fellow offering to sell him a gold watch to replace his silver one. When William shows no interest, the fellow leers and says,

"Missis fond of rings or necklaces, sir?"'

William balls his fists on either side of his whisky glass, and threatens the fellow with police. This has the desired effect, though William finds his hands are trembling even after the man has scurried off. Frowning, he downs the rest of his drink and signals for another.

In any event, only a few minutes elapse before he's accosted afresh-not by a thief this time, but a bore. The fellow-a lugubrious, beetle-browed creature in a tweed overcoat-asks William if they haven't met somewhere in the past-a horse auction, maybe, or a sale of old furniture-and hints heavily that if William should lack anything in those departments, it would be well worth his while to speak up. William is silent. In his mind, a seventeen-year-old Agnes is dashing across a sunlit expanse of lush green grass, in the grounds of her step-father's estate, chasing a wobbling hoop, her white skirts swirling.

"Oh dear, I must grow up now, mustn't I?"' was what she panted afterwards, alluding to her impending entry into the ranks of married ladies.

Ah God! The translucent flush on her face as she said it! And what did he reply?

"What's your line, then?"'

"Huh? What?"' he grunts, as the vision of his bride-to-be vanishes.

The boring man is leaning across the table at him, revealing, at close quarters, a subtle dusting of scurf in his liberally oiled hair. "What line of business," he says, "are you in?"'

William opens his mouth to tell the truth, but suddenly fears that the man will take him for a liar; that the man will poke his greasy nose into one of Frome's shops tomorrow and confirm that no such thing as Rackham produce exists.

"I'm a writer," says William.

"A critic, for the better monthly reviews."

"Is there good money in that, then?"'

William sighs. "It keeps the wolf from the door."

"What's the name, then?"'

"Hunt. George W. Hunt."

The man nods, discarding the name into a bottomless pit without an instant's hesitation. "Mine's Wray. William Wray. Remember that name, if you ever need a horse." And he's away.

William casts a furtive glance around the pub, dreading more unwanted company, but it seems he's experienced the gamut of the tavern's nuisances. Only now does he notice that, apart from the barmaids and the execrable oil-painting of the shepherdess above the front door, there's not a female face in the place. The barmaids are as ugly as sin, and the painted shepherdess has crossed eyes-not the artist's intention, surely? -and a vulgar toothy smile. Ach, Agnes's mouth is so small and perfect, her smile a rosebud blush on her peachy skin… although the last time he kissed her full on the mouth, five years ago or more, her lips were cold against his, like segments of chilled orange …

He raises his glass, to order more whisky.

He's never been much of a spirits man, but the ale here is of a quality that would provoke the likes of Bodley and Ashwell to spit it out with a pshaw of contempt. Besides, if he can only calm the churning of his mind with the opiate of strong drink, he can then retire to his lodgings and, despite the early hour, fall blissfully asleep. A crashing headache in the morning would be a small price to pay for a night of dreamless unconsciousness.

After two more whiskies, he judges that the alcohol has worked its magic on his brain, and that now's the time to be going. The clock above the bar still stands at twelve, and his watch is too much bother to extract from his waistcoat, but he feels sure that if he laid his head on a pillow now, he wouldn't regret it. He rises… and is suddenly convinced of the necessity of vomiting and urinating as soon as he possibly can. He lurches towards the lavatory, decides that the anonymity of an alley would be preferable, and stumbles out of The Jolly Shepherdess into the dark streets of Frome.

Within seconds he has found a narrow alley that already smells of human waste: an ideal niche for what he needs to do. Swaying with nausea, he fumbles his penis free and pisses into the muck; regrettably, he's not quite finished squirting and dribbling when the sickness overcomes him, and he must pitch forward and release a gush of vomit from his mouth.

"Oh, deary, deary," cries a female voice.

Still spewing, he looks up, and through the glimmering veil of his watering eyes he can see a woman walking towards him-a young woman with dark hair, no bonnet, a slate-grey dress striped with black.

"You poor man," she says, advancing on him, her hips swaying from side to side.

William waves dismissively at her, still retching, appalled at the rapidity with which scavengers gather round a vulnerable man.

"You need a soft bed to lie down in, you poor baby," she coos, close enough now for him to see the mask of her face powder and the beauty spot inked on her bony cheek.

Again he sweeps his arm, furiously, through the foul-smelling air.

"Leave me alone!" he bawls, whereupon-thank goodness for small mercies-she retreats.

But thirty seconds later, several pairs of strong hairy hands seize William Rackham by the shoulders and coat pockets and, when he tries to shrug them off, a savage blow to the head sends him plummeting into the abyss.

"All change!"

Shuddering to a stop, a train swings its doors open and spills its human contents into the tumult of Paddington Station. The hissing of steam funnels is overwhelmed almost at once by the greater din of voices, as those of the crowd who wish to retrieve their baggage from the top of the train struggle not to be borne away by the jostling multitude who wish only to be gone.

The thick of the crowd is composed of all categories of human: it swirls with the bright and bulky skirts of its women, set off against the funereal shades of the men, though there are many children too, buffeted in the lurch of bags and baggage.

How pretty children can be, if they're nicely dressed and well-cared for! What a pity they make such a racket, when they're badly behaved! Look: there's one bawling already, ignoring the entreaties of its Mama. Child!-listen to your Mama, you little imp; she knows what's best for you, and you must be brave, pick up your fallen basket, and walk!

The woman who stands watching this scene, thinking these thoughts, appears to be one of London's myriad unfortunates-poorly clad, companionless, and lame. She wears a rumpled dress of dark blue cotton with a grey apron front-a style no fashionable female has worn for ten years or more-a threadbare bonnet that looks ecru but began life as white, and a pale-blue cloak so roughened by age that it resembles the sheep's-fleece from which it was spun.

She turns her back on the commotion, and joins the queue at the ticket window.

"I should like to go to Lostwithiel," she tells the man at the counter when it's her turn to speak. The man at the counter looks her up and down.

"No third class compartments on the Penzance line," he cautions her.

She produces a crisp new bank-note from a slit in her shabby dress. "I shall be travelling second class." And she smiles shyly, really quite excited by the adventure of such a novelty.

For a moment, the man at the window hesitates, wondering if he should call the police, to investigate how a woman in such embarrassed apparel came by a bank-note. But there are other folk in the queue, and there is something winsome about this poor starveling's face, as if, given an easier life, she might have blossomed into the sweetest little wife a man ever had, instead of being obliged to live by her wits. And anyway, who's to judge that a woman in a shabby dress cannot be the legitimate owner of a bank-note? It takes all sorts, after all, to make the world. Only last week, he served a woman in a frock-coat and trousers.

"Return?"' he enquires.

The woman hesitates, then smiles again.

"Yes, why not? One never knows…"

The man chews his top lip as he prepares the ticket with his fountain pen.

"Seventeen past seven, platform seven," he says. "Change at Bodmin."

The shabby woman takes the slip of paper in her tiny hands and limps away. She looks around, half-forgetting that she's alone, half-expecting her lady's-maid to be coming up behind her, trundling a suitcase of clothes. Then she remembers she'll never need a maid again; these poor rags she wears are her last vestments in this life, and serve no purpose but to cover her nakedness while she conveys her old body to its final destination.

One deep breath to summon courage, and she begins to weave through the crowd, moving carefully in case someone steps on her feet. She hasn't got very far before her progress is blocked by a matronly woman. They do a little pas de deux, the way two ladies meeting in a narrow doorway might, and then both come to a halt. The older woman's face oozes compassion.

"Can I help you, dear?"'

"I don't think so," says Agnes. She has been specifically instructed to ignore entreaties from strangers.

"New to London?"'

Agnes doesn't reply. Her recollection of her send-off this morning may be a little vague, given how dark and early was the hour when her Holy Sister's whisper roused her from her sleep, but if there's one thing she recalls with complete clarity, it's her Holy Sister's command that Agnes must reveal nothing to any person on her journey, however kindly that person may appear.

"I have a Christian lodging-house for ladies who are new to London," continues the matronly stranger. "Forgive me if I presume, but might you have been recently widowed …?"'

Again Agnes does not reply.

"Abandoned…?"'

Agnes shakes her head. A shake of the head is permissible, or so she hopes. Having obeyed her Holy Sister in every detail through all the trials of her escape-the shocking news of her impending betrayal; the donning of her disguise; the insertion of her sore feet into shoes; the stealthy progress downstairs, like a common thief in her own house; the dignified, wordless parting at the front door, nothing more than a single wave of her hand as she limped into the snowy gloom -yes, all these things she has faced every bit as bravely as her Holy Sister exhorted her to; it would be a tragedy if she weakened and sinned against Her now.

"You look half-starved, dear," remarks the stubborn Samaritan. "Our house has food aplenty, three meals a day, and a roaring fire.

And you don't need money; you can earn your keep with needlework or whatever you're good at."

Agnes, very much affronted by this suggestion that her physical form would be improved by the gluttony that has bloated the bulbous creature who accosts her, raises herself to her full height. With withering politeness, she says, "You are very kind, madam, but mistaken. I desire nothing from you, except that you step aside. I have a train to catch." The woman's face drops, its look of compassion vanishing into ugly creases, but she steps aside, and Agnes hurries on, steeling herself to walk as gracefully as if she were crossing a ballroom. The pain is dreadful, but she has her pride.

On platform seven, the station-master is ushering passengers into the Penzance train, gripping the clapper of his bell and pointing with the handle. "All aboard!" he cries, and yawns.

Agnes enters her appointed carriage, wholly unassisted, and finds a place to sit.

The seats are wooden, just like in church, without the sumptuously padded upholstery she's accustomed to, but everything's quite clean and not at all the stable-on-wheels she always imagined a second class carriage would be. Her fellow passengers are an old man with a beard, a young mother with a babe-in-arms (sleeping, fortunately!) and a sulky-looking boy with a bruised cheek and a satchel. Agnes, mindful of her Holy Sister's instruction, settles in her own spot by the window and closes her eyes at once, to discourage anyone making conversation with her.

In truth, she's suddenly so fatigued she doubts if she could summon the strength to speak; her feet throb from their punishment-the long walk through Notting Hill before she was rescued, at dawn, by a cab; the long wait for Paddington Station to open for business; the humiliation of being told to move along by a policeman; and being propositioned by a man delirious with drink.

All these ordeals she has withstood, and now she's paying the price. Her head aches terribly, in the usual spot behind her left eye. Thank God this is the last day she will ever have to suffer it.

"Any person not intending to travel on the train, please disembark now!"

The station-master's voice barely penetrates the beating of blood in her head; but she doesn't need to hear him, having heard him so many times in her dreams. Instead, it's her Holy Sister's voice that echoes in her feverish skull, whispering, "Remember, when you arrive at your destination and leave the train, speak to no one.

Walk until you are deep in the countryside.

Knock at a farmhouse or a church, and say you are looking for the convent. Don't call it the Convent of Health, for it will not be known by that name.

Simply insist that you be shown to the convent. Accept nothing less, tell no one who you are, and don't take "no" for an answer. Promise me, Agnes, promise me."

The train hisses and shudders, and rolls into motion. Agnes opens one eye-the one that doesn't feel as if it's about to burst-and peeks through the window, hoping against hope that her guardian angel may be there on the platform, to acknowledge, with a solemn nod, what a brave girl Agnes has been. But no, she's busy elsewhere, saving souls and tending bodies. Agnes will see her soon enough, at the end of the line.