The Crimson Petal and the White

by Michel Faber

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

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

  ‘It was advertised in all the newspapers.’

  ‘How odd that it escaped me … Are you sure you don’t mean the show at the Theatre Royal, that little mechanical man, what was its name –Psycho?’

  ‘Psycho was a glorified hoodwink, a puppet for children,’ sniffs Mumford. ‘This was more like the Great Exhibition, except solely for automata!’

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

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

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

  He glances discreetly at each of the guests as they spoon their soup: they’re perfectly at ease, a paradigm of civilised fellowship. He could be perfectly at ease too, he could take his place within their paradigm — if only he didn’t see before him the spectre of Agnes, at just such a dinner party two years ago, accusing the hostess of serving a chicken that was still alive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  William inclines his head solemnly, unsure if he’s being mocked or praised. (Still, that Bagnini fellow in Milan would seem to be as efficient a distributor as he claims to be …)

  ‘It’s really quite a rum thing,’ continues Lord Unwin, ‘to be standing in a shop in a foreign country, pick up a cake of soap, and observe, “Ah: so William Rackham has grown a beard!” Don’t you think that’s a rum thing,

  William?’

  ‘The wonders of the modern world, sir: I can be making a foolish exhibition of myself in Venice and Paris, while doing the same here.’

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

  ‘Of course, in the provinces,’ Clarence Ferry scoffs on the other side of the room, ‘they haven’t a hope of spelling it, let alone understanding it.’

  ‘But they enjoy it, do they?’ suggests Edwin Mumford wearily, his roving eye catching William’s, in the hope of rescue. ‘Oh yes, in their own way.’

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

  ‘See here now, Bill,’ he says, creaking forward in his chair. ‘I’ve heard how Agnes is going, and it’s no surprise to me, I can tell you. She always had bats in her belfry, even as a child. I could count the sensible things she ever said on the fingers of one hand. D’you understand me?’

  ‘I daresay,’ says William. In his mind there glows a memory of Agnes as she was only a few hours ago, her hair fluffed out on her pillow, her lips swollen with stupefaction, her eyelids fluttering, as she kicked her legs under the bed-sheets and murmured ‘Too hot … too hot …’

  ‘You know,’ the old man confides, ‘when you asked me for her hand, I did rather think you’d end up with less than you bargained for … I should’ve warned you, man-to-man, but … well, I s’pose I hoped that giving birth might put her right. But it didn’t, did it?’

  ‘No,’ concedes William glumly. If there’s one thing that did his wife’s mind no good at all, it was giving birth to Sophie.

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

  William squirms, sucking so hard on his cigar it makes him cough. How unforgiving is the spread of ill fame! This incident to which Lord Unwin refers happened so very long ago …in the Season of 1873, perhaps, or even

  1872! How unfair the world is, that a man can spend a fortune advertising his perfumes in Sweden, and a month afterwards, no Swede appears to have heard of him, while the momentary indiscretion of a hapless woman behind closed doors on a certain evening in 1872 travels effortlessly across seas and national borders, and remains on everyone’s lips for years!

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Women, eh?’ he grunts.

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

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

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

  ‘The best, sir,’ the steward assures him. ‘The very best.’

  All of Mitcham, indeed most of Surrey, lies deep in snow, and William takes the opportunity to stroll unaccompanied though his fields, savouring the immaculate whiteness under which next year’s harvest lies dormant. Incredible, how once upon a time his future was invested in abstruse poems and unpublishable essays, instead of this vast and comforting tract of land, this irreducible, fertile, solid-underfoot foundation. He tramps towards the line of trees which serves as a windbreak for his lavender, his galoshes sinking deep into the snow. By the time he reaches it, he’s sweating liberally inside his sealskin coat and fur-lined gloves. He leans against the nearest tree bough, puffing clouds ofsteam into the chill air.

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

  He reads and re-reads the words, flabbergasted. He has no wish to find out which of his hirelings is such an idler as to have spent valuable time carving this joke. All he can think about is that his wife’s insanity is common knowledge of the most shop-soiled kind. Even farm-hands discuss it amongst themselves. He might just as well be a cuckold, with all the sniggering that surrounds him!

  A breeze agitates the crepery-papery vestiges of the tree’s foliage, and William, knowing he’s being absurd, but unable to resist, peers up into the branches, in case Agnes may be up there after all.

  In the Rackham house, there’s an embarrassing surplus of angels, far too many to fit onto the Christmas tree. Sugar, Rose and Sophie have been pottering around downstairs, looking for spots not already festooned with decorations. Loath to admit defeat, they’ve fastened their fragile-winged fairies onto the unlikeliest surfaces: window-sills, clocks, the new hat-stand, the frames of prints, the antlers of a stuffed doe-head, the lid of the piano, the antimacassars of seldom-used chairs.

  Now it’s the morning of Christmas Eve, and time for the finishing touches. Outside, the snow whirls and flusters, an eerily silent storm. The mail has just been delivered and, through the fogged and frosted parlour window, the hunched figure of the postman can still be glimpsed disappearing into the milky gloom.

  Indoors, the hearths blaze and crackle, so that the Christmas tree has had to be moved to the opposite side of the parlour, for fear of floating sparks igniting it. Sugar, Rose and Sophie crouch around the X-shaped wooden base, their skirts wrapped modestly around their ankles, as they replace the decorations that have fallen off. Rose is singing to herself,

  ‘Christmas is coming,

  The goose is getting fat

  Please put a penny

  In the old man’s hat …’

  There’s scarcely a clump of pine-needles that doesn’t sag with coloured thread, silver balls and matchwood sculptures, but the coup de grace is yet to come: Rose is an avid reader of the ladies’ journals, and has been inspired by a ‘tip’ for gilding an indoor tree with the ultimate Yuletide illusion. Following a simple recipe, she’s filled some empty Rackham perfume spray-bottles with a water-and-honey mixture, described as a harmless and effective ‘glue’ to hold a snowy sprinkling of flour. Armed with a bottle each, Rose, Sugar and Sophie now spray this sticky fluid onto the tree’s extremities.

  ‘Oh dear,’ laughs Rose nervously. ‘We ought to’ve done this before we dressed the tree.’

  ‘We shall have to sprinkle the flour very carefully,’ agrees Sugar, ‘if we’re not to make a dreadful mess.’ All this talk of we is delicious; she could kiss Rose for starting it!

  ‘I’ll know better next year,’ says Rose. She’s just observed Miss Rackham spraying water and honey directly onto the carpet, and wonders if she has the authority to forbid the child from participating in the flour-sprinkling. Flattered though she is that Miss Sugar is willing to work side by side with a housemaid, there’s always the risk that a trifling mistake will suddenly sour their relations.

  ‘Stand back, Sophie,’ says Sugar, ‘and be our adviser.’

  The two women take turns to shake flour into each other’s cupped palms, which they then allow to fall, as neatly as they can manage, onto the sticky branches. Sugar’s head is light with the triumph of it: to be a member of the Rackham household, virtually one of the family, sharing a rueful smile with Rose as they commit this foolishness together. No act between herself and another woman has ever felt so intimate, and Sugar has done many things. Rose trusts her; she trusts Rose; with their eyes alone they’ve made a pact to see this business through to its completion; they sprinkle flour into each other’s hands, and hope it will remain their little secret.

  ‘We must be mad,’ frets Rose, as the sifted powder begins to drift into the air and make them sneeze.

  Sugar holds out her hands, in whose dry flesh every crack and flake is clearly delineated with flour. But nothing needs be said; every woman has her imperfections, and Rose, now that Sugar sees her up close, is ever-so-slightly cross-eyed. They are equals, then.

  ‘If you haven’t got a penny

  A ha’penny will do

  If you haven’t got a ha’penny,

  Well, God Bless Tout’

  Another few sprinkles, and the deed is done. The flour has made an unholy mess, but that portion of it which adhered to the branches resembles snow quite as remarkably as the ladies’ journal promised, and the spills can be swept up in no time at all. This, Rose makes clear, is no task for a governess.

  While she sweeps, Rose sings ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, limiting herselfto repetitions of th
e first day. Her voice is a crude and quavery thing compared to Agnes’s, but the sound of singing really does lend good cheer, and no other voices are going to be raised. Sophie and Sugar regard each other shyly, each hankering to hum along.

  ‘On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …’

  Without warning, William walks into the parlour, a sheet of paper in his hand, a preoccupied expression on his face. He stops short, as if he’d meant to step into a different room altogether but took a wrong turn in the corridor. The Christmas tree, by now a rococo edifice of baubles, flour and folderol, seems barely to register on his consciousness, and if he notices that the two grown women are powdered up to their elbows, he doesn’t let on.

  ‘Ah … splendid,’ he says, and promptly retreats. Still dangling from his slack hand is a letter which, if Doctor Curlew’s handwriting were only ten times larger, might have been readable from across the room — not that Sugar could have made much sense of a message consisting simply of: As we discussed, I have made arrangements for December 28th. Tou won’t regret this, believe me.

  Rose heaves a sigh of relief. The master has had his chance to be angry, and hasn’t taken it. She bends to her dustpan and brush, and resumes singing.

  Once the spilled flour has been swept up, Rose, Sugar and Sophie replace the gaily-wrapped gifts under the tree. So many boxes and packages, tied with red ribbon or silver string — what, oh what, can be in them all? The only package whose contents Sugar knows for sure, is Sophie’s present to her father; the rest are mysteries. As she helps to arrange them attractively, stowing the smaller ones amongst the larger, the shapeless parcels on top of the sturdy cartons, she affects to be uninterested in the tiny labels inscribed with the recipients’ names. The few that she manages to catch sight of give her no satisfaction (Harriet? Who the devil is Harriet?), and with Rose and Sophie watching she can’t very well go probing, can she? Please God, she thinks. Let there be something for me.

  Upstairs, William opens the door of his wife’s bedroom as noiselessly as he can, and slips inside. Although he has persuaded Clara to leave the house for a few hours, he turns the key in the lock, just in case her vixenish instinct should lure her unexpectedly back.