Free The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber Page A

that there should be no further mention of this fabled advent. But Clara doesn’t forget! And what about Tilly, the downstairs housemaid? Dismissed for falling pregnant, she has never been replaced, with the result that Janey is doing far more than should be expected of a scullery maid. Rackham says it’s only temporary, but the months pass and nothing is done. Good lady’s-maids like Clara may be hard to find, but surely downstairs housemaids are plentiful as rats? Rackham could have one within the hour if he was willing to pay for it.
    All in all it’s a disgraceful situation, which Clara handles to the best of her abilities – that is, by making her displeasure felt in every way she can think of short of outright insolence.
    Hence the pained expression she maintained on her face all the way into London on the omnibus, an expression which the miserable Rackham didn’t even notice until the horses pulled the vehicle through Marble Arch. Perhaps all members of the female sex are sickly, he thought then, guessing that the servant must be in some sort of pain.
    Perhaps (he tried to reassure himself) my poor sick Agnes is not so unusual after all .
    William has deliberately made an early start in the city, so that he’ll have plenty of time to study, on his return home, the long-avoided progress papers and accounts of Rackham Perfumeries. (Or at least take them out of the envelopes his father sent them in.) Then tomorrow (perhaps) he will visit the lavender farm, if only to be seen there, so that report of it may reach the old man’s ears. It would probably be as well to ask the farm workers a few pertinent questions, if he can think of any. Reading the documents will help, no doubt – if it doesn’t drive him insane first.
    Madhouse or poorhouse: is that what his choices have been reduced to? Is there no way forward but to… to sell a false image of himself to his own father, faking enthusiasm for something loathsome? How, in the name of … But he mustn’t dwell on the deeper implications: that’s the curse of higher intellect. He must meet the day’s demands one by one. Buy a new hat. Keep an eye on Clara. Go home and make a start on those papers.
    William Rackham does not imagine he will master the family business in a day, no: his aims are modest. If he shows a little interest, his father may surrender a little more money. How long can it possibly take to read a few papers? One afternoon wasted on it ought to be enough, surely? Granted, he once opined in a Cambridge undergraduate magazine that ‘a single day spent doing things which fail to nourish the soul is a day stolen, mutilated, and discarded in the gutter of destiny.’ But, as his recent haircut proves, the Cambridge life can’t last for ever. He’s made it last a good few years as it is.
    So, light-headed and blinking in the sun, legs still stiff from the long omnibus journey, William hurries along the Stretch. At his side, clutched in his gloved fingertips, swings the detestable hat; a few yards ahead of him walks his detested servant; and immediately behind him follows his shadow. Feel free, now, to follow him every bit as close as that shadow, for he is determined never to look back.
    There, up ahead, its grand mysterious interior glowing with a thousand lights, is the place where he’ll put an end to his misery. Buying a new hat should take no more than an hour or so, and Clara’s errand had better take less, if she knows what’s good for her. Straight in, get what’s wanted, then straight out, that’s how it’ll be. Back home by midday.
    William Rackham’s view of the enormous glass-fronted Billington & Joy emporium, unobstructed by the crowds through which he had to usher Agnes last time he was here, is panoramic. Dozens of display windows, huge by comparison with most shops’ humble panes, proclaim the store’s grand scale and modernity. Behind each of the windows is a showcase, offering for public admiration (the possibility of sale