Gates of Paradise (17 page)

‘I do,' he yelled at her. ‘I do. It's just you will keep on so.'

‘I don't keep on so.'

‘You do. Look at you now.'

‘Oh, so it's my fault. Is that it?'

‘I didn't say that.'

‘Yes, you did. You just did. This very minute.' And she began to cry. ‘You don't love me no more.'

Her tears washed him from anger to remorse in an instant. ‘Don't cry,' he begged. ‘Oh, please Betsy, don't cry. I didn't mean it. Truly.' And he tried to put his arms round her.

She shook him off, distressed to hysteria. ‘Don't you touch me,' she cried. ‘If I aren't to talk, I aren't to be touched. Nor kissed neither. You don't want to kiss me, anyway. ‘'Tis all show. Tha's all. An' I'll not have that. Not when you don't love me no more.'

His hands fell to his sides, limply as if they didn't belong to him. He was lost and drifting. He couldn't even keep her face in focus. It was as if she was disappearing, her features filmed by shifting clouds. ‘I
do
love you, Betsy,' he said, blinking back his tears. ‘I do. More than anythin' in the world. I shouldn't have said what I said. I wish I hadn't. Oh, please don't cry. I can't bear it.'

At which she fell into his arms and they wept together.

‘The truth of it is we should be lovin' not talkin',' he said, when they were calmer.

But she wasn't listening. ‘Hush,' she said, putting her hand over his mouth. ‘There's someone a-comin'.'

There was a dark shape scuffling towards them along the path towards the stables. Not the coachman, nor Mrs Beke, which was a relief, and not the butler either, not that he was ever out in the grounds at night. Someone smaller and slighter and approaching them slowly, as if he weren't quite sure he should be there. Then the clouds rolled away from the moon and there was enough light to see that it was Eddie, the new stable lad. It was a considerable relief for he was an amiable boy, newly hired to muck out the stables and groom the horses, thirteen years old, pug-nosed, straw-haired, hardworking and no harm to anybody.

‘Evenin',' he said, shyly. ‘Tha's nippy out.'

They agreed that it was and Betsy wiped the tears from her eyes, as surreptitiously as she could, and hoped he wouldn't notice.

It was a vain hope because he noticed everything about her. He'd fallen in love with her the first time he saw her and, although he'd never had the slightest hope that she would notice him – after all she was a beautiful young woman of seventeen and he was just the boy who mucked out the horses – he'd loved her quietly ever since. He soon found out that she was as good as engaged to Johnnie Boniface and after that he'd followed their love affair with vicarious yearning. She was a goddess to him and, as she turned her face towards him in the moonlight, her tears smote him like glistening swords.

He spoke to her before he could stop to wonder
whether it was proper. ‘You all roight?' he asked. ‘Oi mean, there's nothin' up or anythin' is there?'

‘We're cold,' she told him, and added with moon-touched honesty, ‘an' there's nowhere we can go to be alone together. Tha's all.'

He stood before them on the dark path, scruffy in his stained breeches, his fustian shirt and his dirty waistcoat, smelling of ale and horses. And he thought of the words he'd just heard Johnnie saying and understood her perfectly and galloped to her rescue.

‘You could come up the stables, if you'd loike,' he suggested. ‘'Tis warm there. Or warmer, anyways. What Oi means to say is, 'tent so nippy as out here. You'd be more than welcome.' He was blushing but they wouldn't notice, would they? Not with only the moon to light him.

They were touched by his offer. “Tha's uncommon kindly,' Johnnie said. ‘Onny we got to be gettin' back or Mrs Beke'll have somethin' to say an' we can't have that.'

He was abashed to realise that he'd been so clumsy they'd misunderstood him and rushed to explain. ‘No,' he said. ‘Oi don't mean now. Not tonoight. What Oi means ter say is, you could come in tomorrow maybe, or sometoime when you wants…' No he couldn't say that. He was blushing so deeply he knew they must see it this time. ‘What Oi means ter say is, when you needs a place for to…' Land sake's he was makin' it worse. He plunged into another explanation, speaking so
quickly the words tumbled over one another. ‘Oi got a little room over the hosses. You goes up a ladder. 'Tis quite safe. There's only ever me an' the hosses on account of Mr Turnball's got his cottage. What Oi means ter say is, Oi wouldn't mind, if you was to go there sometoimes. Oi never gets ter bed afore twelve on account of Oi goes to The Fox most nights with Mr Turnball an' he stays all hours.'

They were surprised and touched. ‘Tha's real kindly,' Johnnie said. ‘But we couldn't do it. What if they was to find out? We wouldn't want to get you into trouble or nothin'.'

But Betsy was looking hopeful and Eddie was thrilled to be playing Cupid and anyway risk was part of the game. ‘No fear a' that,' he told them. ‘You'd need to be pretty slippy but loike I said, Oi'm in The Fox most nights. Mr Turnball he treats me to a pint a' porter an' then I plays shove ha'penny. An' you'd be more than welcome.'

So two nights later, when their work was finally done, and they'd watched Eddie ambling off to the inn, they took possession of their second love nest. It was a small cramped space above the stables, smelling strongly of horses, and just big enough for a straw mattress and a cane chair with its legs cut off. There was a shelf nailed to the wall where Eddie kept his candle and a hook next to the shelf where he hung his breeches and the ceiling was so low that they couldn't stand up once they'd climbed through the trap door. But what of that? Why would they want to stand up? They had a small
semicircular window at floor level through which they could see if anyone was approaching, it wasn't exactly warm but it was private and, as Johnnie was quick and happy to say, looked like the perfect place. They flung themselves down on the straw and tumbled into one another's arms. Let it rain, let the wind roar, let battles rage, let the whole world go hang, they didn't care. They were alone and hidden and could do as they pleased.

For the next two weeks they loved whenever they could. Their only problem was that there was so much work to do in the house that it was only on rare occasions.

‘I could do without so many a' these silly dinners he will keep havin',' Betsy complained, as they walked round the empty dining room setting the table. Mr Hayley's dinner parties were a weekly occurrence now that the celebrated poet had his new prestigious ‘Life' to read to his friends, and they required a lot of effort from his staff. Every servant in the house, with the exception of the coachman and the gardener, was commandeered to cook, serve, fetch and carry. Even Eddie had to do duty replenishing coal scuttles and feeding fires and Betsy and the other kitchen maids were kept scouring the dirty dishes until well after midnight. ‘There's too much of it altogether if you asks my opinion. It's not needful.'

But their master was in his element, declaiming his great work as he stood before the fire, with all his well-fed guests listening attentively, or at least
with polite approbation, and ready to applaud when the reading was finished. It lifted his spirits to be acclaimed and especially on days when he had received yet another blast of disapproval from Lady Hesketh. She really was excessively difficult to please and she seemed to have taken against poor Mr Blake so thoroughly that he was afraid he would have to tell the poor chap he couldn't continue with the portraits and that would never do when he'd gone to so much trouble with them. Her last letter had been quite vitriolic.

‘
I have to say I have
very serious doubts,' she'd written, ‘
as to Mr Blake's abilities and I am not the only one. Those of my friends with pretensions to
Taste
find
many defects
in his work
.'

‘We progress,' he told his friends when their applause had died down. ‘My dear lost friend is a subject of the most affectionate interest to me and I am sensible of the honour I have been done by being chosen to write his life. I labour day and night.'

‘What a blessing that you have a secretary to assist you,' Mr Cunningham said. ‘And to provide the illustrations, what's more. Are they progressing, too?'

‘Oh, indeed,' Hayley lied. ‘Yes, indeed. Everything is progressing most admirably. You would be amazed to see how patient he is and how open to suggestion.'

‘A good fellow,' his friends agreed. ‘He is lucky to have such a patron.'

‘I am thinking of teaching him to read Greek and Latin,' Hayley confided. ‘I believe it would afford him some amusement and might furnish his fancy with a few slight subjects for his inventive pencil, without too far interrupting the more serious business he has in hand, of course. The ‘Life' must continue, as I am sure he understands. That takes precedence over everything else. But to study these languages of an evening would make a pleasant diversion. I shall mention it to him tomorrow.'

The mention was greeted with such a long, stunned silence that for the blink of a second Mr Hayley wondered if he had offended his good friend in some way. ‘You are surprised, my dear fellow,' he said kindly, ‘and cannot find the words to thank me. Have no fear. I do not look for thanks. That is not in my nature. 'Tis enough that I am able to provide you with suitable employment and to put some slight but, I may say, well-earned reward in your way. Let us start as soon as possible. Would this evening suit?' And he waited happily for his reply.

Blake was still too stunned to speak. To be offered the chance to learn Latin and Greek was such a wonder he could barely take it in. He'd yearned to know these languages for so long, and always felt that his way to them was barred and would remain so. And now this amazing offer had been dropped before him. If he applied himself well he could read the gospels in their original Greek, he
could read Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Ovid in the purity of their original languages, unsullied by translation. It was a gift of incomparable, unlooked-for richness and offered at the very moment when he'd been angry with this man for dominating his time with trivial nonsense. ‘I'm beholden to 'ee,' he said at last. ‘This evening would suit me very well.'

The Fox Inn, Thursday April 22
^nd
am
.

My dear Ann
,

It is seven of the clock and your letter has just been delivered. I must say your rebuke was both unexpected and surprising. I have not yet washed and dressed, in fact the day is scarce begun, but I feel I must I hasten to send you a reply, for there truly is no need for your concern. I have no intention of losing my temper on my next visit to Mr Boniface, as you put it. We may have been married but a short time as yet, but you should know me better than that. I may be angry from time to time – who would not when confronted by so much positively bovine intransigence as I have had to endure in this village? – but I am perfectly capable of keeping my feelings under control. You must understand that when a man is on a mission – as I have been ever since I saw our Blake's wonderful illustrations of the Book of Job in that dingy print shop – he will feel all matters pertaining with some passion. I knew then, and am sure now, that I had discovered a genius and that it was my business – nay, my life's work – to reveal that genius to the world. So is it any wonder that I react with passion when I hear yet another foolish person castigate him as ‘mad'. What is madness? Do
not prophets and heroes invariably seem ‘mad' to the respectable mob
?

On a happier note, I must tell you that, in the same post as your missive. I received an answer from the reporter who tells me he would be agreeable to see me tomorrow morning at ten of the clock, and will answer such questions as he can. This morning I have arranged to see an old lady who was taught to draw by William Blake. So much may come of that
.

I will write again this evening by which time I should be in a better humour. AG
.

William Blake spent a lot of his time teaching drawing that winter and enjoyed it far more than the mere copying he had been required to do until then. It earned him an extra wage, which was undeniably welcome, good invariably came from good teaching and true learning was a rewarding occupation. How well he understood
that
. Now that he was learning to read Greek and Latin, the very flavour of his life had changed. After the labours of their day, he and Mr Hayley spent as many evenings as they could in the scholarly seclusion of the library, where he astounded his patron by the speed of his learning, and on the rare occasions when they paused from their studies, felt bold enough to commiserate with him for the truculence of the formidable Lady Hesketh.