The Crimson petal and the white

THIRTY-FOUR

There is no name written on either of the two envelopes that Sugar finds slipped under the door of her bedroom the following day; one is blank, the other marked "To Whom It May Concern".

It's half past twelve in the afternoon. She has just returned from the morning's lessons in the school-room, where Sophie let her know from the outset that there must be no disruption, distraction or idleness to spoil the serious business of learning.

Yesterday was all very interesting, but today must be different-or rather, today must be the same as any other day.

"The fifteenth century," recited Sophie, with the air of one who has been entrusted with the responsibility for saving that epoch from slatternly neglect, "was an age of five principal events: printing was invented;

Consternople was taken by the Turks; there was in England a civil war that lasted thirty years; the Spaniards drove the Moors back to Africa; and America was discovered by Christopher… Christopher…" At which point she looked up at Sugar, wanting nothing more nor less than the name of an Italian explorer.

"Columbus, Sophie."

All morning, despite being tempted a dozen times to burst into tears, and despite the steady leak of blood into the makeshift chauffoir pinned to her pantaloons, Sugar has been the perfect governess, playing the role exactly as her pupil required. And, in a fitting conclusion to the morning's business, she and Sophie have just shared a meal of sieved vegetables and milky rice pudding, the blandest lunch they've yet been served, evidence that someone must have informed the kitchen staff of Miss Rackham's distressed digestion. The disappointed look that Sugar and Sophie exchanged when Rose put this steaming pap in front of them was by far the most intimate moment they've shared since the day began.

Now Sugar returns to her room, anticipating the blessed relief of removing the blood-stained cloth from between her legs and replacing it with a clean one. Last night's washtub, sadly, has been removed, although she could hardly have expected Rose to leave it sitting there, a body of cold water with a glutinous red sediment on the bottom.

Postponing her creature comforts for a minute, she stoops clumsily to pick up the envelopes.

The unmarked one, she expects, is a note from Rose informing her, in case she hadn't noticed, that the window is unsealed. Sugar opens the envelope, and finds a bank-note for ten pounds and an unsigned message scrawled on plain paper. In a majuscule, childish script that might have been written left-handed, it says:

It has come to my notice that you are with child.

It is therefore impossible for you to remain as my daughter's governess. Your wages are enclosed; please be prepared to leave your room, with all belongings and effects, on the first of March of this year (1-3-76). I hope the Letter of Introduction (see other envelope) may be of some use to you in the future; you will note I have taken a liberty re your identity. The fact is that in my opinion, if you are to get anywhere in life, it is necessary to have a proper name. So, I have given you one.

Further discussion of this matter is out of the question. Do not attempt to come and see me. Kindly keep to your room whenever the house is visited.

Sugar re-folds the sheet of paper in its original order of creases and, with some difficulty, for her fingers have become cold and numb, she replaces it in its envelope. Then she opens the lavender-tinted envelope marked "To Whom It May Concern", sliding her thumb along its flap to avoid tearing its formal integrity. The sharp edge of the paper cuts her flesh, but she doesn't feel it; she worries only that she'll stain the envelope or its contents. Balanced on her crutch, licking her thumb every few seconds before the hair-fine line of blood has a chance to well into a loose droplet, she extracts the letter and reads it. It is written, with care, on Rackham letterhead, and signed with William's name, as neatly as any of her forgeries.

To whom it may concern.

I, William Rackham, am pleased to introduce Miss Elizabeth Sugar, who was in my employ for five months from November 3rd, 1875 to March 1/, 1876, in the capacity of governess to my six-year-old daughter. I have no doubt that Miss Sugar discharged her duties with the greatest competence, sensitivity and enthusiasm. Under her management, my daughter has blossomed into a young lady.

Miss Sugar's decision to leave my employ is, I am given to understand, due to a close relative's ill-health and in no way derogates from my satisfaction with her abilities. Indeed, I can hardly recommend her too highly.

Yours,

William Rackham This letter, too, Sugar re-folds along its original creases, and returns to its envelope.

She sucks her thumb one last time, but the cut is already healing. She places both letters on top of her dresser, and hobbles over to the window, where she transfers her weight from the crutch to the window-sill. Down in the Rackham grounds, Shears is happily pottering, fussing around saplings that have survived the winter. With a snicker-snack of his metal namesake he severs a loop of twine that was holding a slender trunk aligned with a stake: it needs no such mollycoddling anymore. Visibly proud, he stands back, fists poised on his leather-aproned hips.

Sugar, after some consideration, decides that driving her fists through the glass of the window-panes would land her in terrible bother and give her only momentary relief from her anguish.

Instead, she fetches pen and paper and, still standing, with the window-sill serving as a writing-desk, she forces herself to be reasonable.

Dear William,

Forgive me saying so, but you are mistaken.

I was briefly afflicted with a painful swelling, which has since passed, and I now have my monthly courses, as you can discover to your own satisfaction if you come to me.

Your loving Sugar She reads and re-reads this missive, listening to its tone reverberate in her head. Will William take it the right way? In his state of alarm, will he interpret the phrase "as you can discover to your own satisfaction" as argumentative, or can she rely on him to perceive the bawdy suggestion behind it? She draws a deep breath, counselling herself that of all the things she has ever written, this must not fail to hit the mark. Would the saucy humour be clearer if she inserted the word "perfect" between "own" and "satisfaction"? On the other hand, is sauciness what's needed here, or should she substitute a more soothing, blandishing tone?

Within seconds, she realises she's far too agitated to write a second message, and that she had better deliver this one before she does something foolish. So, she folds the paper in half, limps out onto the landing, proceeds straight to William's door, and slips the letter under it.

In the afternoon, governess and pupil perform arithmetic, check that the achievements of the fifteenth century are not already forgotten, and make a start on mineralogy. The hands of the clock advance fraction by fraction, as the map of the world is lit up, little by little, by the progress of the sun through the sky. A window-shaped beam of sunlight glows on the pastel seas and autumnal continents, clarifying some, obscuring others in shadow.

Sugar has chosen the topic of mineralogy at random from Mangnall's Questions, judging it to be a safe, unemotional subject that will satisfy Sophie's need for orderly tangibles. She recites the principal metals, and has Sophie repeat them: gold, silver, platina, quicksilver, copper, iron, lead, tin, aluminium. Gold the heaviest; tin the lightest; iron the most useful.

Looking ahead to the next question, What are the principal Properties of Metals?, Sugar already wishes she'd prepared for the lesson as usual, and lets slip a small groan of exasperation.

"It will take me a little while to translate these words into language you can understand, dear," she explains, turning away from Sophie's upturned, expectant face.

"Are they not in English, Miss?"'

"Yes, but I must make them simpler for you."

A flash of offence crosses Sophie's face. "Let me try to understand them, Miss."

Sugar knows she ought to decline this challenge with a soft, tactful answer, but can't think of one just now. Instead, in a dry, oratorical voice, she reads aloud:

"Brilliancy, opacity, weight, malleability, ductility, porosity, solubility."

There is a pause.

"Weight is how heavy things are, Miss," says Sophie.

"Yes, Sophie," Sugar replies, contritely ready to supply the explanations that eluded her before. "Brilliancy means that they shine; opacity that we can't see through them; malleability that we can beat them into any shape we wish; ductility… I don't know myself what that is, I shall have to find it in a dictionary.

Porosity means that it has tiny holes in it, although that doesn't sound right, does it, for metals? Solubility…"

Sugar shuts her mouth, observing at a glance that this faltering, head-scratching variety of teaching is not to Sophie's taste at all. Instead, she skips ahead to the part where Mrs Mangnall cites the discovery of an inexhaustible abundance of gold in Australia, which allows Sugar to extemporise a description of a poor gold-digger, hacking at the hard ground while his hungry wife and children look hopelessly on, until one day…!

"Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?"' enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.

"One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie," says Sugar. "It saves time and paper." Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, "If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?"'

Sophie answers without hesitation.

"I would read a thousand million pages,

Miss, if all the words were words I could understand."

Back in her bedroom during the hiatus between the end of the day's lessons and dinner, Sugar is shocked to find no reply to her message. How is this possible? All she can think of is that William's mind has been put at rest but that, in his selfishness, he sees no urgency to let her know. Again she seizes hold of pen and paper, and writes:

Dear William,

Please-every hour I wait for your reply is a torture-please give me your reassurance that our household can go on as before.

Stability is what we all need now-Rackham Perfumeries no less than Sophie and myself. Please remember that I am devoted to assisting you and sparing you inconvenience.

Your loving Sugar Re-reading this communiqu`e, she frowns. One too many "pleases", perhaps. And William may not take kindly to the suggestion that he's torturing her. But, again, she hasn't the heart to compose another version. As before, she hurries to the door of his study and slips the letter under it.

Dinner for Sugar and Sophie consists of mercilessly sieved rhubarb soup, poached fillet of salmon and a serving of rather watery jelly; Cook is still worried, evidently, that little Miss Rackham's digestion has not yet recovered its equilibrium.

Afterwards, Rose brings a cup of tea to wash the dinner down-full strength for Miss Sugar, two-thirds milk for Miss Rackham-and Sugar, having taken one sip, excuses herself for a minute. While the piping-hot tea cools, she might as well check her room, to see if William has finally been jogged from his self-absorption.

She leaves the school-room, hurries along the landing, opens the door of her bedroom. There's nothing in there that wasn't there before.

She returns to the school-room, and resumes drinking her tea. Her hands are trembling ever-so-slightly; she's convinced that William is, or was, on the very point of responding, but that he's been delayed by unforeseen demands, or by the chore of eating his own dinner. If she can only make the next hour pass quickly, she'll save herself futile fretting.

Sophie, although more settled than she was at the beginning of the day, is not overly sociable now that the lessons are over; she has moved to the far corner of the room and is playing with her doll, trying, with the insertion of crumpled balls of paper under its skirts, to change the outmoded crinoline into a bustle. Sugar can tell, from her expression of earnest concentration, that she wishes to be left alone until bedtime. What to do, to make the time pass? Twiddle her thumbs in her bedroom?

Read what's left of Shakespeare? Prepare for tomorrow's lessons?

Suddenly inspired, Sugar picks up the dishes, cutlery and tea-cups, arranges them in as stable a stack as she can devise, and hobbles out of the room with them, leaving her crutch leaning against the doorjamb. She has plenty of time; no one will be watching how slowly she descends the stairs.

She grips the banister with one hand, resting her whole forearm hard against the polished wood; her other hand grips the dishes, pressing the sharp rim of the dinner-plates under her breast. Then, one stair at a time, she escorts her body downwards, alternating one painful swivel of the injured foot with a heavy painless step of the good one.

With each six-inch drop, the crockery rattles slightly, but she keeps the stack balanced.

Once she's safe on the ground floor, she advances carefully along the hall, pleased at the steady if inelegant rhythm of her progress.

Without mishap, she passes through a succession of doors until, finally, she crosses the threshold of the kitchen.

"Miss Sugar!" says Rose in great surprise. She's been caught red-handed eating a leftover triangle of toast and butter, her legitimate supper not being due for another few hours. Her sleeves are rolled up, and she leans against the great slab-like table in the centre of the room. Harriet, the kitchenmaid, is farther back, fashioning some ox tongues into the required shape for glazing. Through the scullery door the dowdy skirt, wet shoes and swollen ankles of Janey can be glimpsed as she scrubs in the sink.

"I thought I'd return these," says Sugar, proffering the dirty dishes. "To save you the trouble."

Rose looks flabbergasted, as if she's just witnessed a flamboyant somersault by a stark naked acrobat who now stands waiting for applause.

"Much obliged, Miss Sugar," she says, and swallows the half-chewed bread.

"Please, call me Sugar," says Sugar, handing the plates over. "We've worked together on quite a few things by now, haven't we, Rose?"' She considers reminding Rose specifically of Christmas, and the way they were both powdered up to the elbows in flour, but judges that this might appear a little fawning.

"Yes, Miss Sugar."

Harriet and Rose exchange nervous glances.

The kitchenmaid doesn't know whether to stand to attention with her hands folded across her apron, or continue moulding and pinioning the ox tongues, one of which has unrolled and threatens to stiffen in quite the wrong shape.

"How hard you all work!" remarks Sugar, determined to break the ice. "Wi-why, Mr Rackham can scarcely imagine, I'm sure, how constant your labours are."

Rose watches with widening eyes while the governess limps all the way into the kitchen and lowers herself stiffly into a chair. Both Rose and Harriet are only too well aware that their labours have been far from "constant" since the death of Mrs Rackham and the total cessation of dinner parties; indeed, unless the master marries again in the near future, he must soon come to the conclusion that he's employing more servants than he needs.

"We've no complaints, Miss Sugar."

There is a pause. Sugar looks around the kitchen in the harsh mortuary light. Harriet has folded her hands, allowing the ox tongue to do what it will. Rose is folding her sleeves down to her wrists, her lips pursed in an apprehensive half-smile. Janey's rump gyrates as she scrubs dishes, the haphazard pleats of her skirts swaying to and fro.

"So," Sugar pipes up, as companionably as she can manage, "what are you all going to have for supper? And where's Cook? And do you all eat here, at the table? I expect you get interrupted by bells at the worst possible moment."

Rose's eyes go in and out of focus as she swallows this indigestible quadruple spoonful of questions.

"Cook's gone upstairs, and… and we'll have some jelly, Miss. And there's roast beef left from yesterday, and… And would you like some plum cake, Miss Sugar?"' "Oh yes," says Sugar. "If you can spare it."

The plum cake is fetched, and the servants stand by and watch the governess eat. Janey, finished stowing the dishes in the racks, comes to the doorway to see what's going on in the wider world.

"Hello, Janey," says Sugar, in between bites of plum cake. "We haven't seen each other since Christmas, have we? What a shame it is, don't you think, the way one part of the household is hidden from the other?"'

Janey blushes so red that her cheeks almost match the colour of her lobsterish hands and forearms.

She half-curtsies, her eyes bulging, but utters not a sound. Having landed in mischief twice already for incidents involving members of the Rackham household with whom she oughtn't to have had any intimacy-first Miss Sophie, on the day she got a bloody nose, and then poor mad Mrs Rackham, on the day she barged into the scullery offering to help-she's determined to stay out of trouble this time.

"Well," says Sugar brightly, when she's consumed her last morsel of plum cake and the servants are still staring at her in mistrust and bafflement. "I suppose I must be going.

Sophie's bedtime shortly. Goodbye, Rose; goodbye, Harriet; goodbye, Janey."

And she heaves herself to her feet, wishing that she could ascend through the air, painlessly and instantaneously, like a spirit whisked away from the scene of its own corporeal demise; or else that the kitchen's stone floor could open up and swallow her down into merciful extinction.

On her return to her room, there's a letter from William after all. If "letter" is the right word for a note saying simply:

No further discussion.

Sugar crumples this note in her fist, and is again tempted to smash windows, scream her lungs raw, hammer on William's door. But she knows this is not the way to change his mind. Instead, her hopes shift to Sophie. William has reckoned without his daughter. He has only the vaguest conception of the loyalty that's developed between governess and child, and he'll soon find out.

Sophie will change his mind for him: men can never stand to be the cause of female weeping!

At bedtime, Sugar tucks Sophie in as usual, and smooths her fine golden hair evenly over the pillow until it radiates like a picture-book illustration of the sun.

"Sophie?"' she says, her voice hoarse with hesitation.

The child looks up, aware at once that a matter more momentous than the sewing of dolls' clothes is being raised.

"Yes, Miss?"'

"Sophie, your father… Your father is likely to have some news for you. Quite soon, I think."

"Yes, Miss," says Sophie, blinking hard to keep sleep from claiming her before Miss Sugar arrives at the point.

Sugar licks her lips, which are as dry and rough-textured as sackcloth. She's loath to repeat William's ultimatum aloud, for fear that this will give it an indelible reality, like writing in ink over pencil.

"Most probably," she flounders, "he will have you brought to see him… And then he will tell you something."

"Yes, Miss," says Sophie, puzzled.

"Well…" Sugar presses on, summoning courage by taking hold of Sophie's hands. "Well, when he does, I… I want you to tell him something, in return."

"Yes, Miss," promises Sophie.

"I want you to tell him…" wheezes Sugar, blinking against tears. "I want you to tell him… how you feel about me!"

For answer, Sophie reaches up and embraces her just as she did yesterday, except that this time, to Sugar's astonishment, she strokes and pats her governess's hair in an infantile approximation of a mother's tenderness.

"Good night, Miss," she says sleepily. "And tomorrow: America."

There being nothing more she can do but wait, Sugar waits. William has retreated from a firm resolution before-many times. He has threatened to tell Swan and Edgar to go hang; he has threatened to travel to the East India docks and grab a certain merchant by the collar and shake him till he gibbers; he has threatened to tell Grover Pankey to use better elephants for his pots. All bluster. If she leaves him alone, his tumescent resolve will wilt and shrivel to nothing. All it requires from her is … superhuman forbearance.

The morning of the next day passes without incident. Everything is exactly as normal. The Pilgrims have landed on American soil, and made peace with the savages. Homesteads are being built from felled trees. The luncheon, when served, is less bland than yesterday's: smoked haddock kedgeree, and more of the plum cake.

On Sugar's return to her room at midday, she finds a parcel waiting for her: a long, thin parcel, wrapped in brown paper and string. A conciliatory gift from William?

No. A small carte-de-visite is attached to the end with string; she fetches it close to her eyes and reads what it has to say.

Dear Miss Sugar,

I heard about your misfortune from my father.

Please accept this token of my good wishes. It needn't be returned; I find I have no use for it anymore, and I hope that you will very soon be in the same position.

Yours truly,

Emmeline Fox Sugar unwraps the parcel, and brings to light a polished, sturdy walking-stick.

On her return to the school-room, keen to show Sophie her new tool, which allows her to walk with a much more dignified gait than the crutch, Sugar finds the child huddled over her writing-desk, sobbing and weeping uncontrollably.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?"' she demands, her stick thumping against the floorboards as she limps across the room.

"You're going to be suh-suh-sent away," wails Sophie, almost accusingly.

"Was William-your father… here just now?"' Sugar can't help asking the question, even though she smells his hair-oil in the air.

Sophie nods, bright tears jumping off her glistening chin.

"I told him, Miss," she pleads shrilly. "I told him I luh-luh-love you."

"Yes? Yes?"' prompts Sugar, stroking her palms ineffectually over Sophie's cheeks until the salty wetness stings the cracks in her flesh. "What did he say?"' "Have-he di'nt suh-suh-say anything," sobs the child, her shoulders convulsing. "But he luh-luh-looked very angry with muh-muh-me."

With a cry of rage, Sugar pulls Sophie to her breast and kisses her over and over, murmuring inarticulate reassurances.

How dare he do this, she thinks, to my child.

The full story, when Sophie has been sufficiently calmed to tell it, is this: Miss Sugar is a very good governess, but there are a great many things that a lady needs to know that Miss Sugar doesn't know, like Dancing, Playing the Piano, German, Watercolours, and other accomplishments whose names Sophie can't recall. If Sophie is to be a proper lady, she'll need a different governess, and quite soon. Lady Bridgelow, a lady who knows all about these things, has confirmed that this is necessary.

For the rest of the afternoon, Sugar and Sophie labour under a suffocating cloud of grief. They carry on with the lessons-arithmetic, the Pilgrim Fathers, the properties of gold-with a sorrowful awareness that none of these subjects is quite what's required of a young lady in the making.

And at bedtime, neither of them can look the other in the eye.

"Mr Rackham asked me to tell you,

Miss," says Rose, standing in the door of Sugar's bedroom at supper-time, "that you needn't get up tomorrow morning."

Sugar grips her cup of cocoa tight to keep it from spilling.

"Needn't get up?"' she echoes stupidly.

"You needn't come out until the afternoon, he says. Miss Sophie is not to have any lessons in the morning."

"No lessons?"' echoes Sugar again.

"Did he say why not?"'

"Yes, Miss," says Rose, fidgeting to be released. "Miss Sophie is going to have a visitor, in the school-room; I don't know who, or when exactly, Miss."

"I see. Thank you, Rose." And Sugar lets the servant go.

Minutes later, she's standing outside William's study door, breathing hard in the unlit stillness of the landing. A glimmer of light is visible through the key-hole; a rustle of activity (or does she imagine this?) is audible through the thick wood, when she presses her ear against it.

She knocks.

"Who is it?"' His voice.

"Sugar," she says, trying to suffuse that one word with all the affection, all the familiarity, all the companionship, all the promises of erotic fulfilment, that a single whispered sound can possibly embody: a thousand and one nights of carnal bliss that will see him through until he's an old, old man.

There is no reply. Silence. She stands shivering, urging herself to knock again, to appeal to him more persuasively, more cleverly, more insistently.

If she yells, he'll be forced to open up to her, to keep the servants from gossiping. She opens her mouth, and her tongue squirms like that of a dumb half-wit selling broken china in the street.

Then she walks barefoot back to her bedroom, teeth chattering, choked.

In her sleep, four hours later, she's back in Mrs Castaway's house, aged fifteen but with a book's worth of carnal knowledge already written into her. In the midnight hush after the last man has stumbled homewards, Mrs Castaway sits perusing her latest consignment of religious pamphlets all the way from Providence, Rhode Island. Before her mother can become too engrossed in her snipping, Sugar summons the pluck to ask a question.

"Mother…? Are we very poor now?"'

"Oh no," Mrs Castaway smirks.

"We are quite comfortable now."

"We aren't about to be thrown into the street, or anything like that?"' "No, no, no."

"Then why must I… Why must I…"

Sugar is unable to finish the question. In the dream no less than in life, her courage falters in the face of Mrs Castaway's arch sarcasm.

"Really now, child: I couldn't permit you to grow up idle, could I? That would leave you open to the temptation of Vice."

"Mother, please: I-I'm in earnest! If we aren't in desperate straits, then why …?"'

Mrs Castaway looks up from her pamphlets, and fixes Sugar with a look of pure malevolence; her eyeballs seem to be effervescing with spite.

"Child: be reasonable," she smiles. "Why should my downfall be your rise? Why should I burn in Hell while you flap around in Heaven?

In short, why should the world be a better place for you than it has been for me?"' And, with a flourish, she dips her glue-brush into the pot, twirls it around, and deposits a translucent pearl of slime on a page already crowded with magdalens.

Next morning, Sugar tries the handle of a door she's never touched before, and, thank God, it opens. She slips inside.

It's the room Sophie once referred to as "the room that hasn't got anyone living in it, Miss, only things." A storage-room, in other words, immediately adjacent to the school-room, and crowded with dusty objects.

Agnes's sewing-machine is here, its brassy lustre dulled with the subtle powder of neglect.

Behind that, there are strange apparatuses that Sugar recognises, after some study, to be photographic in nature. Boxes of chemicals, too; further evidence of William's former passion for the art.

An easel leans against the far wall.

William's, or Agnes's? Sugar isn't sure. An archery bow hangs by its string from one of the easel's wing-nuts: a folly of Agnes's that she found herself too weak to pursue. A rowing oar inscribed Downing Boat Club 1864 has toppled to the carpet. Stacked on the floor, in front of book-cases that are too full for any more, are books: books about photography, books about art, books about philosophy. Religion, too: many about religion. Surprised by this, Sugar picks one off the stack-"Winter afore Harvest", or the Soul's Growth in Grace, by J. C.

Philpot-and reads its flyleaf.

Dear Brother, I'm confident this will interest you, Henry.

On the window-sill, covered with cobwebs, yet another stack of books: Ancient Wisdom Comprehensively Explained, by Melampus Blyton, Miracles and Their Mechanisms, by Mrs Tanner, Primitive Christianity Identical with Spiritualism, by Dr Crowell, several novels by Florence Marryat, and a large number of much slimmer volumes, among them The Ladies'

Hand-Book of the Toilet, The Elixir of

Beauty, How to Preserve Good Looks, and Health, Beauty and the Toilet: Letters to Ladies from a Lady Doctor. Sugar opens this last one, finds that Agnes has defaced the margins with remarks like: Not in the least effective!, No benefit whatso-ever! and Fraud!

I'm sorry, Agnes, thinks Sugar, replacing the book on the pile. I tried.

A large wooden edifice like an outsize wardrobe, but backless and fastened directly to the wall, serves as a wooden mausoleum for Agnes's less frequently worn dresses.

When Sugar opens the doors, an aroma of lavender moth-repellent escapes. This wardrobe, Sugar's certain, is as close as she can get to the school-room wall on the other side. She takes a deep breath, and steps in.

The splendid array of Agnes's gowns hangs undisturbed and pungent. No moth could hope to survive within this wonderland of expensive cloth, this efflorescent interleaving of sleeves, bodices and bustled skirts, and indeed one such insect lies dead on the floor, inches away from a translucent bar of soap-shaped poison embossed, predictably enough, with the Rackham R.

All the Agneses Sugar remembers are here. She has followed these costumes-when they contained Agnes's compact little body in their silky embrace-through crowded theatre foyers, sunny gardens and lantern-lit pavilions.

Now here they hang; neat, incorrupt and empty.

Impulsively Sugar buries her nose in the nearest bodice, to exclude the dominant odour of poison in favour of some faint residue of Agnes's personal perfume, but there's no escaping the heady odour of preservative.

Released from Sugar's grasp, the costume swings back on its hook with a squeak.

Sugar steps deeper into the shadowy recess, and her feet are entangled in soft whispery cloth.

She bends down to investigate, picks up a voluminous jumble of purple velvet, is startled to find her own fingers poking through holes in it. The dress has been mutilated in ten, twenty, thirty places by scissors; cannibalised as if to provide fabric animals for a velvet Noah's-ark tableau.

The other dresses beneath it are similarly butchered. Why? She can't imagine. It's too late to understand Agnes now. Too late to understand anything.

At the very rear of the closet, Sugar lowers herself to a sitting position, her bad foot stretched out gingerly before her, her backside resting on a pillow of Agnes's ruined gowns, her cheek and ear leaning against the wall. She shuts her eyes, and waits.

Half an hour later, when she's nodding off to sleep, and almost sick from the reek of poisoned lavender, she hears what she's come for: a strange woman's voice from the school-room beyond, interspersed with William's.

"Stand straight, Sophie," he commands, benignly enough. "You aren't a…" A what?

Inaudible, this last word. Sugar presses her ear harder to the wall, presses so hard it hurts.

"Tell me, child, and don't be shy," urges the strange woman's voice.

"What have you learned all this time?"'

Sophie's reply is too soft for Sugar to hear any of it, but (bless her!) it's quite lengthy.

"And have you any French, child?"'

Silence for a few seconds, then William butts in:

"French was not one of Miss Sugar's accomplishments."

"And what about the piano, Sophie? Do you know where to put your fingers on the piano?"' Sugar pictures a face to match the voice: a sharp-nosed face, with crow-black eyes and a predatory mouth. So vivid is the picture that she imagines her own fist colliding with that sharp nose, snapping it into a bloody mash of splintered bone. "And do you know how to dance, child?"'

Again William speaks up, mentioning Miss Sugar's incompetence in this regard. Damn him!

How she would love to shove a knife into his-But what's this? He's coming to her defence after all.

He's venturing to enquire if Sophie is not perhaps a little young to be initiated into such skills as piano-playing and dancing. Aren't they useless, after all, until she's nearer courting age?

"That may be true, sir," admits the new governess sweetly, "but it is my belief that they have a virtue in themselves. Some teachers underestimate how much a child can learn, and how early she can learn it. I believe that if a little girl can be encouraged to flower a few years earlier than the rest… Why then, all the better!"

Sugar bites her lip and placates herself with fantasies of hacking this woman to gory fragments.

"Would you like to play a tune on the piano, Sophie? It really is simpler than you could possibly imagine. I can teach you one in five minutes. Would you like that, Sophie?"'

She's shoving herself forward, this woman: showing off everything she has to offer, begging to be the one chosen.

Sophie's reply is inaudible, but what else can the child say but yes? William, Sophie and the new governess leave the school-room, and descend the stairs. The pact has been made; there's no pulling out of it now; it's like the moment when a man takes a whore by the hand.

A minute later, Sugar stands at the door of the storage-room, listening for what happens next. She hasn't long to wait: an unfamiliar sound strikes up from the parlour: a simple two-finger melody. It's played first in a confident, deliberate manner, three or four times over, then copied, haltingly and imprecisely, by hands that must be Sophie's.

The tune? Well, it's not "Hearts of Oak", but it might as well be. As surely as Sugar used to know it was time to leave The Fireside when "Hearts of Oak" was sung, she knows that this melody Sophie is playing on the piano is her cue to leave the Rackham house forever.

Sugar returns to her bedroom and begins packing at once. What's the point of waiting until the first of March for the hammer to fall, when the minuscule hammers inside the parlour piano have already delivered the blow? Every hour that she remains offers William sixty opportunities to humiliate and torment her; every minute that she must teach Sophie under the looming shadow of their imminent separation is unbearable.

She'll survive, she'll find a way to keep off the streets. The ten pounds William gave her yesterday was an insult, a mockery of what she's done for his daughter, but hidden in her dressing-cabinet she has plenty of money.

Plenty! Crammed amid the jumble of stockings and underwear are the crumpled envelopes she accumulated during her sojourn in Priory Close. So generous was William then, and so disinclined was she to waste money on anything unconnected with winning his love, that she spent only a fraction of the wages that his bank, regular as clockwork, posted to her. Most of these envelopes, coming to light as she scrabbles them out from under frivolous unmentionables she hasn't worn in months, are unopened, and crackle with a fortune beyond the imaginings of servants. Why, even the loose coins she's carelessly tossed into these drawers amount to more than the likes of Janey would earn in a full year.

Stowing her hoard of cash into safe places-her purse for the coins, a pocket of an overcoat for the bank-notes-she appreciates for the first time that she's spent less since coming to live in the Rackham house than she spent in her first forty-eight hours in Priory Close. To the prostitute she was then, these sums seemed no great fortune, a flow of largesse which could be swallowed up any day by the purchase of a particularly sumptuous dress or a few too many restaurant meals. Now, looking at all this money through the eyes of a respectable woman, she realises it's wealth enough to launch her into any future she chooses, if only she's frugal and finds some work. It's wealth enough to take her to the ends of the Earth.

As Sugar packs, she wrestles with her conscience. Should she, can she, tell Sophie the truth? Is it merciful, or is it cruel, not to explain the circumstances of her departure? Will Sophie suffer terribly from being deprived of the chance to say goodbye? Sugar frets, half-convinced she's genuinely considering changing her mind, but deeper inside she knows she has no intention of telling the truth. Instead, she continues to pack as if by brute instinct, and the voice of reason is lost like a sparrow-cheep in a gale.

One travelling case is all she needs. The crates of clothes that William organised to be fetched from Mrs Castaway's are still in storage somewhere, in a place whose whereabouts he never did get around to telling her. Not that it matters: she doesn't want them now. They're whore's weeds, the lavish plumage of a demi-monde.

The dress she has on, and one or two others (this dark-green one, her favourite): that's all she needs. A couple of shifts, some clean pantalettes, stockings, a spare pair of shoes: a suitcase is soon full. Her wretched novel and Agnes's diaries she stuffs into a tartan bag.

She lifts the suitcase in one hand-her good side-and loops the bag over the shoulder of the arm that must lean on the cane. She takes three or four steps, shambling like a circus animal forced to walk on hind-legs at the threat of a whip.

Then she hangs her head, lowers her unmanageable burdens to the floor, and weeps.

"Let's have our afternoon lessons outside today," she suggests to Sophie, not long afterward. "The house is stuffy, and the air is fresh."

Sophie springs up from her writing-desk, visibly cheered by the prospect. She hastens to dress for an outing; education en plein air is what she likes best, especially if it involves a visit to the fountain, or a glimpse of ducks, rooks, dogs, cats, or indeed any breed of creature other than human.

"I'm ready, Miss," she declares in a trice, and so she is, needing only a small adjustment to the tilt and fastening of her bonnet.

"Go downstairs, little one; I'll follow on behind."

Sophie does as she's told, and Sugar lingers in the school-room for a little while longer, gathering together the necessaries for the lesson, and a few other items besides, which she shoves into a leather satchel. Then she descends the stairs, her cane clacking against the banisters as she goes.

Outside, the weather is windy, rather bleak, but not bitter. The sky is dim, steel-grey, imbued with the sort of light that makes everything, be it grassy lawn, cobbled street, iron fence or human flesh, appear as shades of the same colour.

Sugar would have preferred to walk directly out of the front gate, but unlucky coincidence has placed Shears there, hard at work transplanting a rose bush so that passers-by can no longer reach through the railings and steal the flowers of his labour.

He has his back to Sugar and Sophie but, being a sociable soul, he'll no doubt turn and speak to them if they try to pass him, and Sugar doesn't want that. So, with a gentle tug at Sophie's wrist, she makes a volte-face and they move around the side of the house.

"Are we going with Cheesman, Miss?"'

Sophie enquires, a logical question in view of the carriage-way looming up. The coachman and the horse are out of sight, but the unshackled coach stands in front of its little house, twinkling with soapy water, ready for another foray into the dirty, smoky world beyond the Rackham confines.

"No, dear," replies Sugar without looking down, her eyes fixed on the mews gate to the right of the stable. "This way is nicer, that's all."

The gate is bolted, but not locked; the padlock hangs open on its loop, thank God. Clumsily juggling her walking stick and Sophie's hand, Sugar removes the lock and slides the long iron rod out of its shaft.

"Good afternoon to yer, Miss Sugar."

With a violent start Sugar spins around on her good heel, almost overbalancing from the weight of her bags-the tartan Gladstone on one shoulder, the satchel on her other arm. Cheesman is standing very close, his stubbly face impassive except for an impudent gleam in his eyes. In the dreary light, and without the sartorial props of his greatcoat and hat, he looks shabby and thin; the chill breeze has blown several locks of his hair, stiff with stale oil, over his shining forehead, and there are circular tankard stains in the lap of his trousers.

"Good afternoon to you, Cheesman," Sugar nods dismissively, her voice vinegar.

"I'll open the gate for yer, Miss," offers the coachman, extending a thickly-haired hand and forearm, "if you and Miss Rackham would care to take yerselves to the carriage."

For an instant Sugar considers taking him up on his offer. A ride in the carriage would be easier than walking, and now that Cheesman has accosted her anyway, she may as well make use of him. He could deliver them to the nearest park, and they could proceed from there… Yes, for an instant Sugar reconsiders, but when she looks again at the man himself, she sees the dark grime under the fingernails of the hand he extends towards her, and remembers how he dug those fingers into her waist and bustle not so long ago.

"I shan't be needing you, Cheesman," she says firmly, gathering Sophie against her hip.

"We're not going far."

Cheesman retracts his arm and, positioning his palm on the back of his hairy neck in a caricature of bemusement, he appraises Sugar from head to foot.

"Big 'eavy bags yer got there,

Miss," he remarks, squinting at her misshapen Gladstone, "if I may say so.

'Eaps of fings in there, for a short walk."

"I've told you, Cheesman," insists Sugar, a quaver of anxiousness skewing the flint-edge of her voice. "We've just decided to stretch our legs a little."

Cheesman lowers his eyes to the level of Sugar's skirts and leers. "I don't see as your legs need any stretchin', Miss Sugar."

Anger lends Sugar courage. "You're impertinent, Cheesman," she snaps. "I shall speak to Mr Rackham about you immediately on my return."

But, much as she hoped he'd be cowed by this threat, Cheesman is unmoved, except for his eyebrows.

"Speak to Mr Rackham, you say? On yer return? And when might that be, exackly, Miss Sugar?"'

Cheesman steps forward, so close that she can smell the spirits on his breath, and blocks the gate through which she longs to pass.

"Seems to me, Miss Sugar," he muses, folding his arms across his chest and peering up into the dismal heavens, "meanin' no disrespect … but it's sure to rain, any minute now I reckon. Them clouds…" He shakes his head mistrustfully. "Foul, wouldn't yer agree?"' "What are you about, Cheesman?"' demands Sugar, removing her hand from Sophie's shoulder lest, in her terror, she should squeeze it too hard. "Step out of the way!"

"Now, now, Miss," cautions the coachman, in a reasonable tone. "What would Mr Rackham say if Miss Rackham 'ere"-he indicates Sophie with an amiable nod-"was to come 'ome wiv a chill? Or ain't that likely, in your opinion?"' "For the last time, Cheesman: stand aside," commands Sugar, knowing that if he doesn't yield now, she won't have the strength to muster this imperious tone again. "Sophie's welfare is my domain."

But Cheesman is sucking his teeth reflectively, looking back towards the carriage.

"Well now, Miss Sugar," he says.

"I fink the uvver governess, what was 'ere this mornin', might not see eye to eye wiv you there."

Barely pausing to savour the effect of this statement, he raises his palms skywards and enquires dramatically, "Now was that a drop a' rain?"' He examines each palm with a frown. "I truly ask meself, would Mr Rackham want 'is daughter to be took out in the rain? And why's a governess that's 'avin' to be replaced for reasons of bad 'ealth so keen to do it?"'

Seeing him posed there, his palms open to whatever might fall into them, Sugar thinks she sees what he's angling for.

"Let's discuss this in private," she says, trying to keep the defeat out of her voice. Maybe if Sophie doesn't actually witness money changing hands she'll be none the wiser. "I'm sure we can come to an understanding that will benefit us both."

"I never doubted it, Miss," agrees the coachman cheerfully, bouncing away from the gate.

"Is be'ind the coach private enough for yer?"' "Stay here a moment, Sophie," says Sugar, setting her bags down but avoiding the child's gaze.

Once hidden from Sophie behind the carriage, Sugar hastily delves into the pocket of her overcoat and fetches out a crumpled bank-note.

"Seems we're beginnin' to unnerstand one anuvver now, Miss Sugar," murmurs Cheesman in bright-eyed approval.

"Here, Cheesman," says Sugar, pressing the money into his outstretched hand. "Ten pounds. A small fortune, for you."

Cheesman crushes the note in his fist and stuffs it into his trousers.

"Oh yes," he affirms. "This will buy a beer or two. Or three…"

"Good," sighs Sugar, turning to leave.

"Much joy may you-"'

"… but really, Miss Sugar," he goes on, laying a detaining finger on her shoulder,

"money ain't much use to me. I mean, Mr Rackham knows the wage 'e pays me, and 'e knows what it buys and what it don't buy. I can't very well turn up wearin' a fancy suit o' clothes, can I, or a gold chain on me watch? So, to me, ten pounds is… well… it's really only a powerful lot o' beer, don't yer see?"'

Sugar stares at him, weak with loathing. If there is one man she would wish to see shackled to the murderous bed of her novel's heroine, pleading for his life while she slices him open like a fish, it's him.

"You won't let us go, then?"' she croaks.

Grinning widely, Cheesman waggles his forefinger like a kindly demagogue chiding a thoughtless pupil.

"I didn't say that, now did I?"'

Ignoring how she bridles with fright as he seizes hold of her arms, he pulls her close, so that her cheek collides with the meaty shovel of his jaw.

"All I want," he says, speaking softly and with exaggeratedly clear diction, "is a little somefink more than money. Somefink to remember you by."

Sugar's stomach shrinks as if doused with ice-water; her mouth goes dry as ash. What do you take me for? she wants to rebuke him.

I'm a lady: a lady! But the first utterance that emerges from her tight throat is, "There isn't time."

Cheesman laughs and, guiding her against the wheel of his coach, gathers up her skirts in his hands.

Once the Rackham gate is shut behind them, Sugar and Sophie walk out of the house's sight unhindered and unobserved.

"Where are we going, Miss?"' says

Sophie as they hurry along the narrow passageway that connects the mews with the main road.

"Somewhere nice," says Sugar, panting as she hobbles, her Gladstone bag and satchel lolling to and fro, her walking-stick hitting the cobbles with such force that the end is beginning to fray.

"Shall I carry one of the bags, Miss?"'

"They're too heavy for you."

Sophie frowns, looks worried, looks back towards the house, but it's already lost to view. The skies have darkened considerably, and big raindrops are falling from the clouds, hitting the ground-and Sophie's bonnet-like small pebbles. Sophie examines the universe for further clues as to the wisdom or foolishness of this little outing. Although she hasn't the words to express it, she feels she has an instinct for cosmological messages that others fail to divine.

In a neighbour's back garden (can one refer to neighbours if one hasn't ever met them?) a man is digging a hole; he stops for a moment and waves to Sophie, his face lit up by a smile. A little farther along, the mongrel dog who has, on other occasions, barked at them, regards their approach with serene composure. These are good omens. One more such omen, and who knows?: the skies may clear.

An omnibus is rolling into view, advancing along Kensington Park Road towards the city.

"Walk faster, Sophie," says Miss Sugar breathlessly. "Let's … let's take a ride in the omnibus."

Sophie obediently quickens her pace, though it's doubtful Miss Sugar is capable of moving any faster herself. The misshapen bags on her shoulders are jogging and slewing most inelegantly as Miss Sugar stumps forward, fist trembling on the handle of her stick.

"Run ahead, Sophie, so the conductor sees we want to get on!"

Sophie scoots ahead and, an instant later, Sugar stumbles on a loose cobble and almost sprawls head over heels. The Gladstone bag falls to the ground, disgorging its contents all over the footpath: Agnes's diaries, tumbling in more directions than seems scientifically possible, opening their pages like the froth of milk boiling over, a spillage of wind-blown paper releasing a confetti of dried flower petals and faded prayer cards. And Sugar's novel, spewed out of its cardboard jacket all along the street for three body-lengths or more, its densely-inked pages whipped up into the breeze in unbelievably rapid succession.

For one second, Sugar jerks her hands towards the fluttering mess, then she reels round and lollops in pursuit of Sophie.

Sugar and Sophie sit inside the crowded omnibus, not speaking, only breathing. It's as much as Sugar can manage not to gasp and wheeze.

She dabs surreptitiously at her crimson, sweaty face with a silk white handkerchief. The other passengers-the usual miscellany of frumpy old women, benign schoolmastery-looking men in top hats, fashionable young ladies with pedigree lap-dogs, furry-bearded artisans, snoozy matrons half-buried under straw baskets, umbrellas, elaborate hats, bouquets, sleeping infants -behave as if Sugar and Sophie don't exist, as if no one exists, as if the omnibus is an empty conveyance rattling towards London for its own amusement. They keep their eyes on the newspaper, or their own gloved hands folded in their laps or, when all else fails, the advertisements posted above the heads of the passengers opposite.

Sugar raises her chin, fearing to look at Sophie. Above the feathery summit of a dowager's hat, printed in two colours on a pasted handbill, hovers William Rackham's face, framed between other bills advertising tea and cough lozenges.

Rain begins to pelt against the windows, turning the sky grey as twilight. Sugar seeks out a vacant interval between two heads, and peers through the rain-spattered glass. Out on the street, would-be passengers are hurrying through the silvery gloom.

"High Street Corr-nerrr!" yells the conductor, but no one disembarks. "Room for one more!" And he helps a half-drenched pilgrim aboard.

All the way along the Bayswater Road,

Sugar keeps her eye on any pedestrians who look as if they may be approaching the omnibus.

No policemen, thank God. Strange, though, how she's convinced-just for a second-that she recognises almost every upturned face she glimpses! Isn't that Emmeline Fox, trotting along under a parapluie? No, of course it isn't… But look there: surely that's Doctor Curlew? Again, no. And those two swells, punching each other roguishly on the shoulder-could they be Ashley and Bodwell-or whatever their names were? No, these are younger men, barely out of school. But there! Sugar's fists clench in fear as she spies an angry-looking man running towards her through the rain, his wayward, fleecy hair bobbing absurdly on his hatless head. But no: William's hair was shorn almost to the scalp long ago, and this man dashes across the street to the other side.

Farther along, between Hyde Park's riding promenades and St George's burial ground, a woman hurries to catch the omnibus, gliding along the footpath as if likewise mounted on wheels. Her head is obscured beneath her umbrella, but despite this, she impresses Sugar as the very embodiment of Agnes. Her dress is pink-perhaps that's the reason-pink as Rackham's Carnation Cream Soap-although the driving rain has discoloured the skirts with darker rivulets, giving them the appearance of striped confectionery.

"Are you with us, ma'am?"' yells the conductor, but this appeal to the lady to join the common throng seems to offend her delicate sensibilities, and she slows her pace, stops, and pirouettes in the opposite direction.

"Where are we going to have our lesson,

Miss?"' enquires Sophie softly.

"I haven't decided yet," says Sugar. She continues to stare out the window, avoiding Sophie's face as anxiously as she would avoid the edge of a precipice.

At Marble Arch, a man boards the omnibus, drenched to the skin. He takes his seat between two ladies, mortified to impose his sodden form upon their dry persons, bunching up in a futile effort to contract his tall, wide-shouldered body into a smaller physical space.

"Forgive me," he mumbles, his handsome face blushing bright as a lamp.

It's Henry Rackham, thinks Sugar.

All the way in to the centre of the city, the drenched man stares stonily ahead of him, his blush scarcely fading, his hands awkwardly patting his knees. By the time the omnibus reaches Oxford Circus, he can stand it no longer: his shoulders have begun to exude a subtle halo of steam, and he knows it. With another muttered apology, he lurches out of his seat and flees back into the rain. Sugar watches him disappear into the deluge and, despite her own state of anxiety, finds it in her heart to wish him a speedy arrival at his destination, wherever that may be.

"We must get out here, Sophie," she says a minute later, and rises to her feet.

The child does likewise, grasping a fold of adult skirt as Sugar limps out of the omnibus into a swirling great cloud of rain.

Is this a park they see before them? No, it isn't a park. Almost as soon as their feet have settled on solid ground, Miss Sugar has hailed a cab, called some instructions up to the driver, and hurriedly ushered Sophie into the cigar-smoky cabin. The cabman, though drenched to the skin, is a jovial soul, and he flicks the streaming rump of his reluctant horse with a whip.

"Make yer choice, you old nag," he jokes. "The knacker's yard, or King's Cross Station!"

"Will we be home for supper, Miss?"' asks Sophie, as the carriage jolts into motion.

"Are you hungry, dear?"' Sugar replies.

"No, Miss."

Feeling she can put it off no longer, Sugar permits herself to look at Sophie's face for just a moment. The child is wide-eyed, slightly bewildered, unmistakably worried-but not, as far as Sugar can tell, tensed for flight.

"Here, I'll give you your spyglass," says Sugar, and hoists the satchel up against her bosom, keeping it out of range of the child's vision.

She hunches forward to make extra-sure Sophie won't be able to see the satchel's contents-a history book, an atlas, clean underwear, the framed photograph of Miss Sophie Rackham signed Tovey and Scholefield, a higgledy-piggledy assortment of combs and hair-brushes, pencils and crayons, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the poems of Mr Lear, a crumpled shawl, a jar of talcum powder, a Manila envelope stuffed full of Sophie's own home-made Christmas cards, the book of fairytales donated with fond wishes by a "tiresome" uncle and, nestled in the very bottom, the spyglass.

"Here," she says, handing the metal cylinder down to Sophie, who accepts the object unhesitatingly, but lays it in her lap without looking at it.

"Where are we going, Miss?"' "Somewhere very interesting, I promise," says Sugar.

"Will I be home in time for bed?"'

Sugar wraps one arm around Sophie's small body, her hand cupping the swell of the child's hip.

"We have a very, very long journey ahead of us, Sophie," she responds, dizzy with relief when Sophie relaxes, wriggles closer, and lays her own hand on Sugar's belly. "But when it's over, I'll make sure you have a bed.

The warmest, cleanest, softest, driest, nicest bed in the whole world."