Gates of Paradise (14 page)

Catherine was surprised and pleased. ‘Well, bless my soul,' she said. ‘If that's the case you'd best come in and let me see what progress you're making. I shall be interested to see what you make of them, indeed I shall.'

So the fish pails were left in the kitchen and the two women walked through into William's workroom.

Once again Betsy had the curious feeling that she was in a church. There were more paintings in the room than there'd been the last time, bright against the whitewashed walls, and one, that looked half finished, was set up on an easel where the light from the shaded window could reveal it more clearly. Betsy recognised the subject at once.

‘Tha's Jacob's dream, isn't it?' she said. For there was Jacob, lying fast asleep at the foot of the painting, although it wasn't a ladder that spiralled into the starlit sky above him but a set of wide stone steps that led up and up to a huge golden sun, and were thronged with people. Some of them were angels with great folded wings on their shoulders. For a man who never came to church he painted some very religious subjects.

‘That's Jacob's dream,' Catherine confirmed.
‘'Tis for our dear friend Mr Butts and should have been completed these many months – would have been if he'd not had so much work to do for Mr Hayley. All those engravings over there are for Mr Hayley.'

But Betsy was looking for the poems, her heart jumping because she hadn't expected to be put to the test quite so soon and was worried in case she couldn't read them after all. There were three lying on the table, all beautifully printed in glowing colours, with trees and flowers curved around the words as if they were protecting them and little figures in the margins. One was called ‘The Garden of Love' so naturally that was the one she chose. It was painted in greens and blues as you would expect for a poem about a garden, but the three figures drawn above the words didn't seem to have anything to do with gardens at all, for they were kneeling in a churchyard in front of a grey tombstone, a man and a woman and a priest with a book in his hand. Intrigued, she began to read.

‘
The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love

And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst
,

Where I used to play on the green
.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
,

And Thou shalt not, write over the door;

So I turn'd to the Garden of Love
,

That so many sweet flowers bore
,

And I saw it was filled with graves
,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be;

And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds
,

And binding with briars my joys and desires
.'

‘Do you see what he means?' Catherine asked, as Betsy raised her head.

‘Yes,' Betsy said and as Catherine's expression encouraged her, she went on, speaking her amazement aloud. ‘I think 'tis about how the priest says love is wrong unless you're married. The Reverend Church, he's always on about it. Sunday after Sunday. Thou shalt not, like the poem says. He calls it the sin of fornication. He says we'll sweat in Hell if we – what's the word he uses? – succumb to it. But if I've took his meanin' – an' I might not have – Mr Blake don't think he's right. If I've took his meanin' he says love is a garden, what grows natural. He don't see it as a sin anyways.' Any more than Johnnie does. Now there's a thing.

‘No, he don't,' Catherine said, smiling at her. ‘He don't see things as good or evil and no more do I. We know that's how the Church thinks and what the Church says but the Church is wrong. We believe we are all composed of contraries, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, meekness and anger. Every human quality you can think of has its contrary and we need them both if we are to be whole. Anger can be cruel and hurtful. We all know that. But used to good purpose it can be strong and cleansing too. Love can be cruel and
selfish as well as tender and forgiving and unselfish. It depends on how 'tis used. Thinking in terms of good and evil is a nonsense. Sin and virtue are not opposites. They are contraries within our natures and we must acknowledge them both. If we condemn one and praise the other, we split our natures in two.'

It was such a liberating idea that Betsy could feel her brain swelling to accommodate it. What if Mr Blake and Johnnie were right and the vicar was wrong? What if there really was no such thing as sin? What if she was holding out against something natural and proper?

‘But how are we to know if we're a-doin' right or wrong if we aren't told?' she said.

‘We don't learn by being told,' Catherine said. ‘Any child in school could tell you that. We learn by experience. If a thing is right we know it. Likewise if a thing is wrong.'

Betsy's brain was still spinning. She stood with the poem in her hand gazing down at it, deep in disturbing thought.

‘Well, then,' Catherine said at last. ‘Do you agree with the Reverend Church or William Blake?'

‘I think,' Betsy said slowly, ‘I'm not sure mind, but I think Mr Blake's got the right of it. Reverend Church, he reckons love's a sin. He's always on about it. And Johnnie says how can it be right if you're married and wrong if you're not? 'Tis the same thing you're a-doin' whether you've a ring on your finger or no. Leastways, that's what he thinks.
An' that's what Mr Blake thinks too, aren't it? An' if Mr Blake is right, then so is Johnnie.'

‘Stay there,' Catherine said, ‘and I will find you something else to read.' And she left Betsy by the window and went to a chest of drawers where she retrieved another poem, this time written on paper in rather faded ink. ‘Read that,' she said.

So Betsy read.

‘
Children of a future age
,

Reading this indignant page

Know that in a former time

Love! Sweet love! was thought a crime
.'

‘One day,' Catherine said, ‘most people will share our opinion and love will be seen as it truly is, as a source of joy, as a bond between men and women, as something to be valued and treasured, not turned into a sin.'

Betsy still felt as though her head was swelling. 'Twas an idea of amazing proportions. She would have liked to talk on but Mrs Beke would be waiting for the fish. ‘I must go,' she said, and remembered her manners. ‘Thank you for letting me read the poems.'

‘You must visit again and read some more,' Catherine said, as she escorted her to the gate and she watched as she walked slowly up the lane, carrying her heavy pail. Dreaming of her true love if I'm any judge, she thought, and wondered what progress her own true love was making on his journey to Lavant. It was the first time she'd let him walk in to meet the coach alone and now she
regretted it, but truly her knees were too painful for a seven-mile trek. Never mind, she consoled herself, I've a fine supper for him, an' I'll do my very best to get along with Catherine this time.

At that moment, William Blake was enjoying the sunshine and the quiet of the open country. Walking was always a pleasure to him and peace gave him the chance to think. Having reached the halfway point, he was sitting on the grass beside the path, at the edge of a cornfield where the weeds grew high and rank, taking a rest before he completed his journey. Nettles clustered in stinging profusion beside him and there was a huge thistle a mere six inches from his face, its leaves grey with dust and its head thick with thistledown, white as an old man's hair. He watched it closely, sensing that there was more to it than mere weed, and it began to grow, swirling and elongating until it had become an old man in a long grey-green gown. He held a wooden stave in his right hand and a pen in his left, and his white hair was tangled by the breeze. He lifted up the stave like Moses bringing law to the Israelites and spoke in a slow sonorous voice, that ebbed and echoed as if he were speaking from a great distance.

‘Do not return to London,' he warned. ‘No good will come of it. You will starve if you go there. Your way will be barred.'

William said nothing, partly because he was overwhelmed by the vision and partly because there were now other figures crowding in upon him. His
brother Robert, long dead and so much loved, smiling and holding out his arms in greeting, William Cowper, Thomas Alphonso, friends and relations he had almost forgotten and beyond them a host of angels, singing sweet as skylarks, and devils, huge-winged and shining and brighter than the sun. And he turned his head to the sun itself and saw that it was spinning round and round, round and round, hurtling towards him in a ferocity of golden flames and he knew that it was Los, the emanation of the eternal creative imagination in which all things exist, Los the material manifestation of Urthona, the creator of the sun and the moon and the stars, Los the great spirit who brings human souls to birth and releases them into death. And he stood to defy him.

Their struggle was long and terrible for the heat and power of this dread emanation enmeshed him and the light was so blinding he could see nothing beyond the flames. But he strove with all the energy he could summon, wrestling the fiery figure, refusing to submit, panting and determined. And after an endless time, there was a rush of hot air and it was gone like a bubble burst and he was alone on the pathway, pale-faced and exhausted, with the thistle crushed beneath his feet. And he knew that his fourfold vision was intact and that he was not to return to London and that the great work stirring in his mind was destined to be written.

* * *

After his triumph on the beach, Jem Boniface called in at The Fox that evening to quench a long thirst by spending part of his sea-fall on Mr Grinder's strong porter. His arrival sparked off a celebration.

‘Best catch Oi ever 'ad,' he agreed as his neighbours crowded round to congratulate him. ‘That ol' sea was fair jumpin' with bass. We could ha' caught 'em jest by puttin' our hands in the water. Oi never seen so many at one toime in all moi loife.'

‘Shall you fish for 'em again tomorrow?' Mr Grinder asked, as he pulled the ordered pint.

Jem shook his head. ‘No need,' he said. ‘We got all we wants. Oi shall go after herrín' tomorrow. Let the bass live an' breed, tha's what Oi says, then we got plenty for the next toime they comes in.'

‘I see Mrs Blake on the beach waitin' to buy,' Mr Haynes said. ‘Sitting next to our Betsy. How d'you get on with
her
?'

‘'Andsome woman,' Jem told him, ‘an' not one to haggle, which is more than Oi can say fer some. Oi sold her a good fat bass for fourpence an' she paid up like a good ‘un.'

Others took up the praise of their new neighbour. ‘She been here nearly a twelvemonth now an' never a cross word to no one.' ‘Allus got the toime a' day.' And Mr Haynes volunteered that his wife was on ‘pertic'lar good terms' with the lady. ‘They goes in an' out a' one another's houses for a gossip, as it does your heart good to see. She give us a dish a' peas from her garden only last week an' we give her
some of our onions. Come up lovely them onions.'

‘Oi seen Mr Blake this marnin',' Reuben said. ‘Oi was up by the pound, an' he were off to Lavant to meet his sister off the Lunnon coach. He stopped to give me toime a' day so we stood an' talked fer a bit. He's a noice sort a' feller. Oi tol' him all about my piglets.'

That provoked laughter and some cheerful teasing. ‘Thought you didden like strangers, Reuben,' Mr Haynes said. ‘Thought you said they turned things contrariwise. Or wasn't that what you used ter say?'

‘Oi still says it,' Reuben said. ‘But Oi don't mean Mr Blake. He's a different kettle a' fish altogether. He fits in fine. I mean newcomers loike ol' Dot-an'-Carry with his great wall an' that darn tower an' all, keepin' hisself apart, all superior loike. Not our ol' engraver feller. He's more of a workin' man, if you takes moi meanin'.'

It was generally agreed that Mr Blake was a good neighbour and a hard worker. ‘He has to keep a-goin' all hours to satisfy ol' Dot-an'-Carry,' Mr Haynes said. “Parrently, he got some bee in his bonnet he wants ter write ballads an' sell 'em to his friends an' Mr Blake's got to draw the pictures for 'em. Up half the night slavin' over it, so his wife says.'

‘The light's on in his workshop till nearly midnight.' Mr Grinder offered. ‘I do know that. I've seen it many's the time.'

‘Well, there you are then,' Reuben grinned,
pleased to be proved right. ‘'Tis loike Oi says. ‘Nother half please Mr Grinder an' one more for my friend Jem. Where's that nephy a' yours Jem? Oi thought he'd be in tonight.'

‘Off with young Betsy Oi shouldn't wonder,' Jem told him. ‘Billin' an' cooin'. Oi never seen a boy so moony over a girl as that one. Wouldn't you say so Hiram?'

His brother put down his tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Tha's about the size of it,' he agreed.

‘They got the weather for it,' Mr Grinder said, looking towards the window. The sky was gentling from blue to lilac and there was such an effulgent tenderness about it that it made him yearn to be young again. ‘That's a rare ol' evening.'

Out in the fields to the north of the village the rare old evening gentled every copse and enriched every drying ear of corn. Blackbirds sang in the hawthorn bushes as if it were spring again, mice foraged busily in the hedgerows and Johnnie and Betsy lay with their arms around each other, snug and hidden in the mounded straw of last year's haystack. The farmhands had been carting the straw away to the stables all afternoon and they'd left a scooped out nest behind them that was completely dry and just the right size for a pair of close-cuddled lovers.