The Crimson Petal and the White

  ‘Oh, I’m sure God won’t mind if you spend just a few more minutes walking with me in the sunshine,’ she replied, playfully, for he was in a grim mood that day, and she hoped to jolly him out of it.

  ‘How I despise my idleness!’ he lamented, deaf to her charms. ‘I’ve so little time left!’

  ‘Oh but really, Henry,’ she said. ‘What a thing for a man of thirty to say! You’ve a virtual eternity to achieve your ambitions!’

  ‘Eternity!’ he echoed mournfully. ‘What a grand word! I take it we aren’t Reincarnationists, believing ourselves to have as many lifetimes as we please.’

  ‘One lifetime is enough,’ she assured him. ‘Indeed, in the opinion of some of the wretched creatures I meet in the course of my work, one lifetime is intolerably long …’

  But once Henry was started on this subject, he was loath to stop; the evils of procrastination inspired rhetoric in him worthy of the finest sermons, and boded extremely well for his future as a churchman.

  ‘Yes, time is experienced differently,’ he conceded, ‘by different people: but God’s own clock runs with fearsome precision. When we’re children, each minute of our lives is crammed full of achievement; we are born, learn to walk, and speak, and a thousand other things, in a few short years. But what we fail to grasp is that the challenges of maturity are of a different order from the challenges of infancy. Faced with the challenge of building a new church, we may feel just as we did when we built our first sand-castle, but ten years later the first stone may still not be laid.’ (How strange, thinks Emmeline, to be recollecting these words while she sits on a sandy beach, watching little boys build sand-castles!) ‘And so it is,’ Henry concluded, ‘with all our grand hopes, all our ambitions to achieve what this poor world is crying out for: decades flow by, while we trust in Eternity!’

  ‘Yes, but for goodness’ sake, Henry,’ she strove to remind him, ‘no single Christian can achieve everything. We can only do our best.’

  ‘Precisely!’ he cried. ‘And I see what’s your best, and what is mine, and I’m ashamed!’

  Basking in the golden sun of Folkestone Sands, Emmeline smiles at the memory of Henry’s serious face on that afternoon; his dear face, contorted with the passion of idealism. How she would love to kiss that face, to stroke the wrinkles of earnestness from his brow, to pull him into the here-and-now with an embrace as strong as her enfeebled arms can muster …

  But to return to the subject at hand: marriage.

  If she and Henry did marry, why should their friendship suffer any change? Couldn’t it remain just as it is now, except that they’d live in the same house? (It would have to be her house, though, not his; they couldn’t both fit into his!) He could have the bedroom next to hers, if he wouldn’t mind clearing the mess out of it (When is Mrs Lavers going to come and collect those bags of donated clothes? And will those men from the African Bible Society ever return?) In her current state, having a man about the place would be rather practical — as well as delightful, if that man were Henry. He could bring the coal in, for a start, and help her with her correspondence. And, if she was dog-tired at bedtime, he could carry her up the stairs and, with the utmost gentleness, lay her …

  She smiles ruefully at the sheer persistence of her ignoble cravings. This illness of hers, whatever it is, has failed to bring her any closer to God, despite all those pretty engravings she’s always seeing, of consumptive females lying in haloed beds with angels hovering overhead. Maybe it’s not consumption she’s got, but some sort of hysterical affliction? To put it bluntly, is she on the road to Bedlam? Instead of floating towards the ethereal portals of Heaven, she seems to be growing ever more gross, like an animal, coughing blood, sprouting pimples on her neck and shoulders, sweating profusely from every pore and, whenever she rouses from a daydream of Henry Rackham, finding herself in need of a good wash between the legs …

  Disgraceful! And yet, she’s never been terribly good at feeling shame. Faced with a choice between self-flagellation and making amends, she’ll always choose the more constructive course. So … what if she and Henry were to cleave together as man and wife? Would that be such a terrible thing? If Henry’s fear is that his ministry would be derailed by fatherhood, well then, she’s barren, as the childlessness of her marriage to Bertie proved.

  How, though, do marriages come to be proposed? What, exactly, is the procedure for crossing the line between courteous nod and nestling together in a warm bed, till death us do part? Poor old Bertie went down on his knee, but he’d been pursuing her since her schooldays. Ifmarriage is the farthest thing from Henry’s mind, he’s not likely to propose it, is he, and she can’t very well propose it, can she? Not because it would offend convention (she’s so tired of convention!), but because it might offend Henry, and make him think less of her. To lose his respect would be a crueller blow than she could bear, at least in her frail condition just now.

  ‘Then I must wait,’ she says aloud. ‘Until I’m better.’

  At the sound of her voice, the seagull runs off, leaving the last crumbs behind, and Emmeline allows her head to fall back against the grassy knoll, knocking her bonnet askew, so that the pins prick her scalp. All of a sudden her skin is crawling with irritation, and she tears the bonnet from her head. Then she settles back, crooning with relief at how snugly her bare, damp skull fits into the warm hollow behind it.

  The decision she’s made about Henry spreads through her body like the effects of a medicine or a hearty meal, all the more satisfying because neither medicine nor food has had much effect on her lately. What a superb restorative firm resolve is! The weariness is already draining from her limbs into the sand beneath her.

  The seagull, reassured that her squawk was an aberration, walks back and resumes pecking at the sandy cake. He lifts his head while jerking a crumb farther down into his gullet, as though nodding in agreement with her decision. Yes, she must wait until she’s better, and then … and then take her life into her hands, by offering it to Henry Rackham.

  ‘And will he say yes, Mr Seagull?’ she asks, but the seagull spreads its wings and, leaping up from a fluster of sand, flies off towards the sea.

  In another part of Folkestone Sands, propped up against another rock, Agnes Rackham yelps in fright as a loudly clicking wooden bird crashes at her feet. She pulls her legs in, crushing the lady’s journal she’s been reading into her lap, and gathers her skirts tight around her.

  Clara, who, unlike her mistress, has not been engrossed in the study of ‘The Season: Who Shone Brightest, When, and Where’, saw the projectile coming, and merely blinks when it hits the ground. Calmly, without fuss, as if to rub her mistress’s nose in her own nervous debility, she reaches over and picks up the bird by one of its plywood-and-paper wings.

  ‘It’s only a toy, ma’am,’ she says sweetly.

  ‘A toy?’ echoes Agnes in wonder as she uncoils.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ affirms Clara, holding aloft the bird, whose clicking wings have by now wound to a stop, for Agnes’s inspection. It’s a flimsy construction, with carelessly painted features, animated by a brass key and a tiny metal motor. ‘There’s a man selling them from a cart. We passed him on the way.’

  Agnes turns to look in the direction Clara indicates, but sees only a small boy of six or seven, dressed in a blue cotton seaside suit and a straw boater, capering around the cliff’s curve. He skids to a halt in front of the strange lady and the servant who holds his toy in her hands.

  ‘Please miss,’ he pipes. ‘That’s my flying bird.’

  ‘Well, then,’ scolds Clara, ‘you should take better care where you throw it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ pleads the little boy, ‘but it won’t fly straight,’ and he nervously scratches at his left calf with his tightly-laced right shoe. The servant is glowering at him, so he prefers to look at the lady with the big blue eyes, who’s smiling.

  ‘Ach, poor lad,’ says Agnes. ‘Don’t fret; she won’t bite you.’ And she motions to Clara to hand
her the toy.

  Agnes is rather fond of children, actually, as long as they’re not babies, and as long as they are someone else’s, and as long as they’re administered in small doses. Small boys in particular can be charming. ‘Does it really fly?’ she asks this one.

  ‘Well…’ frowns the lad, reluctant to besmirch the bird’s reputation. ‘The man who sells ‘em made one fly very well, and said they all could do the same, but I’ve one, and my brother has one too, and neither of them flies much. We throw ‘em as high as we can, but as a rule they fall imme’atly to the ground. May I go now, ma’am? My Mama thought I should return directly.”

  ‘Very good, young sir,’ smiles Agnes. ‘Honestly spoken. Here is your toy.’

  A child made happy: how simple it is! She sends the lad on his way with a benevolent wave, and no sooner has he gone than she turns to Clara and says,

  ‘Go and buy me one of those birds. And a sweetmeat for yourself, if you fancy.’

  ‘Yes ma’am, thank you ma’am,’ says the servant, and hurries off on her errand, the bustle of her navy-blue skirt shedding sand with every step.

  Agnes waits until Clara’s out of sight, then reaches across to the book Clara has left lying on a blanket, curious as to what a servant might read. Ah: it’s a novel: Jane Eyre. Agnes has read this one herself, from Mudie’s, despite Doctor Curlew’s injunctions against it. To see this dog-eared volume in Clara’s possession gives Agnes a chill, for there’s something very wicked about a lady’s-maid savouring this horrid tale of a wife driven mad by illness and shut up in a tower by her husband while he attempts to marry another woman. With a twitch of her lips she replaces the book on the blanket.

  As she straightens, the pain returns to her head, throbbing behind her left eye. How strange that this evil sensation has the gall to persist, when so many of Mrs Gooch’s pink pills have been sent to quash it! All the way from London in the train, she’s been swallowing them, while Clara sat dozing. Now she fondles her reticule, tempted to take a swig of laudanum from the little bottle that’s pretending to be lavender water. But no, she must save it for when she’s absolutely at her wits’ end.

  Think sweet, light thoughts, she urges herself. Heavy cogitation, she’s found, makes the pain worse. If she can clear her head of worry, and let nothing remain inside her brain but cheerful memories and a sense of what the Hindoo mystics call ‘Nirvana’, she may yet snatch relief from the jaws of wretchedness.

  So much in life to be thankful for …A highly successful Season …A coach and coachman of her own …A guardian angel who will risk God’s censure to defend her from harm … The end, at last, of her terrifying issues of blood …A long-overdue reunion with the True Religion of her childhood …

  As the pain mounts, Agnes tries to picture herself attending Mass, sitting in the candle-lit hush of the old church listening to dear Father Scanlon. It’s difficult, with so much distraction from laughing children, the roar of the waves, and the gruff entreaties of vendors, but she manages it, if only for a moment, by wilfully mishearing the gabble of the donkey-ride man as a Latin chant. Then a barrel organ starts up and the spell is broken.

  Poor misguided William …If he’s so concerned about her health, he would have done her more good, instead of sending her to the beach to bake like a biscuit, to ensconce her for a week in church – her church, that is. How content she is whenever she’s nestled in that cosy sanctuary! And how dreary it is on those alternate Sundays when, to avoid gossip, she must sit among Anglicans and endure a sermon by that insufferable Doctor Crane … He’s always railing against people she’s never heard of, and there’s no music in his voice at all, and he sings the hymns quite out of tune — honestly, what sort of nincompoops do they allow to become clergymen these days? It’s high time she publicly declared her return to the True Faith. Surely she’s wealthy enough now to get away with it? Who’d dare lay a hand on her and say no? Especially now she has a guardian angel looking out for her …

  She peers along the bright seashore, shielding her eyes with one hand, hoping against hope that amongst the children and the donkeys and the rows of bathing-machines she may spy the tall apparition of her Holy Sister walking towards her. But no. She was foolish to wish for it. It’s one thing for her Holy Sister to slip out of the Convent and rendezvous with her in the labyrinths of London, into which even God must have trouble seeing; quite another for Her to visit Agnes on Folkestone Sands, where there’s no escaping Heavenly surveillance …

  Ach, why didn’t she bring her diary? She left it at home, for fear of getting it wet or some such nonsense …If she had it here with her, she could flip through the pages and be comforted by the marks of her Holy Sister’s fingers. For, each night, while Agnes sleeps, her Holy Sister reads her diary, by the light of Her own supernal aura, and leaves faint fingerprints on the pages. (Not that her Holy Sister’s fingers are in any way unclean, of course: it’s Her inner power that causes it.) (And no, she’s not imagining it — for sometimes she goes to sleep with the diary closed, and wakes to find it open, or vice versa.)

  How long has William arranged to keep her here, anyway? She doesn’t even know! The hotel manager knows, but she, the person concerned, is kept in ignorance! She’s not the ‘strong-minded’ sort, but this is a flagrant abuse of the rights of women. Is she expected to sit by the seashore for weeks on end, while her complexion darkens and her supply of medicine dwindles to nothing?

  But no: think sweet, light thoughts. How nice it would be to write a letter to her Holy Sister, and post it, and get a letter back. Is it too much to ask that her Holy Sister reveal to her the secret location of the Convent of Health? Yes, she knows it’s too much to ask. If she’s a good girl, she’ll be told in the end. All will be well.

  On Agnes’s tongue, a sudden bitter taste. She licks her lips, looks down at her hands, which are cradling the little bottle of laudanum. Hastily, in case Clara is near, she replaces it in her reticule. What naughty hands she has, to fetch out the precious liquid while she’s busy thinking, and feed it into her mouth so brazenly! How much has she swallowed? It really will be awfully bad if she’s lying unconscious on the sand when Clara returns.

  With a groan of effort, she stands up and tries to slap the sand off her skirts. How harsh the grains are against her palms — almost as sharp as glass — which is what sand is manufactured into, isn’t it, or was William gulling her when he told her that? She examines the soft pale flesh of her hands, half-expecting to see an intricate pattern of bloody grazes, but no, either William was lying, or she’s made of tougher stuff than she thought.

  A walk, she’s decided, will ventilate her head, and keep her awake. All this sitting in the sun is quite sleep-inducing, and has also made her far too hot under the tighter parts of her dress. She trusts that at the very edge of the sea (assuming the recipe of oceans hasn’t been changed since last she visited) the air will be damp with spray, like a cool, salty mist: that’s just what she needs.

  Agnes makes her way to the water and strolls along the brink of the tide, where the sand is wet and dark. Gracefully, as if she’s engaged in a courtly dance, she sidesteps each wave of silvery froth as it spills ashore, accustoming herself to the rhythm. But the sea is an awkward dancing partner, and starts to get its movements wrong, and before long the tide comes in too far. A shallow swirl of water surges over her boots, seeping into the thin leather, trickling through the eyelets, dragging at the hems of her skirts. No great calamity … There are two big suitcases of dresses and shoes waiting for her in the hotel. And the cold water between her toes is a not unpleasant shock that travels instantly up to her brain, pricking her awake — not that she’s asleep, you understand, for how can one sleep while dancing at the edge of the waves?

  However, just in case she should trip on a stone half-hidden inside the sand, and drown before she has time to appreciate that she’s fallen (for who knows how quickly such things happen?), Agnes starts walking away from the tide, back to … back to … back to wherever
it is she’s come from. Her waterlogged skirts weigh heavy, too heavy to carry far. The sensible thing would be to stop here, spread her skirts out on the sand, and walk again when they’ve dried.

  For an instant she shuts her eyes, and in that instant the world turns upside-down, earth and sky changing places. The ground — above her now –whips invisible tendrils around her, gathers her tight against itself, securely woven against its great warm belly so she won’t plummet into nothingness. She hangs suspended from the topsy-turvy terra firma like a moth on a ceiling, gazing down into a vast formless void of brilliant blue. She goggles, half-blinded, into the face of the deep. If the ground loosed its bonds and let her go, she would fall for all eternity, a rag doll plunging down a bottomless well.

  Dizzy and frightened, Agnes turns her head aside, and presses her cheek against the moist ground, nudging her cheekbone into the sand, closing one eye against the light. Slowly, mercifully, the universe begins to revolve again, righting itself, anti-clockwise. And, in the distance, a vision is advancing towards her, a vision of a nun in a black dress and a white coif and veil. With every step this woman takes, the landscape grows greener around her, and the glassy shimmer is diffused to a pastel verdancy. Moss spreads over the sands like a green blush and, leaf by leaf, a forest subtly materialises to cover the sky. The shrieks of seagulls and children grow softer, and metamorphose into the trilling and twittering of thrushes; the immense sound of the ocean is tamed, until all that’s left is the faint gurgle of a rural stream. By the time her Holy Sister is close enough to be recognised beyond doubt, Folkestone Sands has disappeared entirely, and in its stead is the far more familiar landscape of her dreams: the tranquil environs of the Convent of Health.

  ‘Oh, Agnes,’ declares her Holy Sister in affectionate exasperation. ‘Are you here again? What’s to become of you!’ And she steps back to allow a pair of shadowy figures to approach.