The Crimson Petal and the White Read Online Free Page B

Maybe one day the bottom-most steps will catch fire while she’s on her way down and the stairwell will suck up the flames just like a chimney, the rest of the house remaining undisturbed while she and the spiral of dark stairs shoot out of the roof in a gush of smoke and cinders! Good riddance, some might say.
    The first thing Caroline sees when she emerges into the light of the entrance hall is Colonel Leek seated in his wheelchair. Though he is berthed very near the foot of the stairs, he faces the front door, his back to Caroline, and she hopes that this morning he might, for once, be asleep.
    ‘Think I’m asleep, don’t you girlie?’ he promptly sneers.
    ‘No, never,’ she laughs, though it’s far too early in the day for her to be a convincing liar. She squeezes past the Colonel and lets him examine her for a moment, so as not to be rude, for he never forgets an insult.
    Colonel Leek is the landlady’s uncle, a pot-bellied stove of a man, keeping the warmth in with overcoats, scarves and blankets, stoking up on gossip, and puffing out smoke through a stunted pipe. Concealed under all the layers, Colonel Leek still wears his military uniform complete with medals, though these have a handkerchief sewn over them to prevent them catching. In the last war he went to, the Colonel accepted a bullet in the spine in exchange for a chance to take pot-shots at mutineering Indians, and his niece has cared for him ever since, installing him as her ‘tollcollector’ when she opened the empty rooms of her house to prostitutes.
    Colonel Leek performs his job with grim efficiency, but his true passion remains war and other outbursts of violence and disaster. When he reads his daily newspaper, happy events and proud achievements fail to capture his interest, but as soon as he comes across a calamity he cannot contain himself. It often happens that Caroline, hard at work in her room, must suddenly croon more loudly in a customer’s ear to cover the noise of a hoarsely shouted recitation from downstairs, such as:
    ‘Six thousand Tartars have invaded the Amoor Province, wrested fifteen years ago from China!’
    Now the Colonel fixes his bloodshot eyes on Caroline, and whispers meaningfully: ‘ Some of us don’t sleep through disaster. Some of us knows what goes on.’
    ‘You mean that cab this mornin’?’ guesses Caroline, well accustomed to his turn of mind.
    ‘I saw ,’ the Colonel leers, trying to raise himself up off his perennially festering rear. ‘Death and damage.’ He falls back on the cushions. ‘But that was only the beginning . A small part of what’s afoot. The local manifestation. But everywhere! everywhere! Disaster!’
    ‘ Do let us go, Colonel. I’ll drop if I don’t ’ave a bite to eat.’
    The old man looks down at his blanketed lap as if it were a newspaper and, raising his forefinger periscopically, recites:
    ‘Disastrous overturn of train at Bishop’s Itchington. Gunpowder explosion on the Regent’s Canal. Steamer gone down off the Bay of Biscay. Destruction by fire of the Cospatrick , half-way to New Zealand, four hundred and sixty lost, mere days ago. Think of it! These are signs . The whirlpool of disaster. And at the centre of it – what there, eh? What there?’
    Caroline gives it a couple of seconds’ thought, but she has no idea what there. Alone of the three women who use Mrs Leek’s house as their lay and lodgings, she’s oddly fond of the old man, but not enough to prefer his demented prophesies to a hearty breakfast.
    ‘Goodbye, Colonel,’ she calls as she swings open the door and sweeps out into the street, closing him in behind her.
    Now prepare yourself. You have not much longer with Caroline before she introduces you to a person with slightly better prospects. Watch her bodice swell as she inhales deeply the air of a new day. Wait for her to plot her safe passage through Church Lane, as she notes where the dung is most densely congregated. Then watch your step as you