Gates of Paradise (9 page)

She was touched and humbled. ‘Oh Johnnie,' she said again. And as her expression was so soft and welcoming, he dared to kiss her again. And again. And again.

They walked back to the house in a daze of arousal with their arms round each other, their lips ruddy with kissing. ‘We'll walk out again tonight,' he said. It wasn't a question. He was sure of himself now. He'd spoken and been accepted. They would walk out whenever they could.

That night was impossible because Mr Hayley had one of his dinners and kept his entire household on the run until well after midnight, but the next evening they stole away as soon as the servants' supper was over, put on all the clothes they possessed so as to keep warm, and walked down Limmer Lane in the moonlight, bundled and happy until they reached the shore. It was very peaceful away from the village and very dark, with the beach shrouded in snow and a full moon dropping a pathway of shimmering white scales across a sea so black that they couldn't see the horizon.

Betsy shivered. ‘D'you think them ol' Frenchies'll invade us?' she asked, ‘like everyone says?'

‘I couldn't tell you,' he admitted. ‘There's no knowin', is there.'

‘My Pa thinks they will. He don't say nothing but he's got a cart all a-ready for me an' Ma to run away in.'

He held her close, all bundled up in her nice warm cloak and her two day-gowns and her three thick petticoats. ‘I shall love you for ever,' he said. ‘No matter what happens, if Boney invades, or the sea freezes over, or the moon falls out the sky, no matter what.'

‘Idiot!' she said. But it was sweet to hear such things. ‘Why would the moon go an' fall out the sky? Aren't it fixed up there?'

He remembered a nursery rhyme. ‘
The man in the moon came down too soon and asked his way to Norwich
.'

‘Tha's poetry,' she said. ‘That don't mean nothin'. Not poetry. You can't count that.'

‘You'd better not say such things back at the house,' he teased, ‘or you'll have Mr Hayley after you for blasphemy. He says poetry's the highest form of human endeavour.'

‘Tha's on account of he's always writing the stuff,' she said sensibly. ‘Why are we talking about Mr Hayley when we could be kissing? I'm getting' cold just standin' here.'

So naturally she had to be kissed warm again.

* * *

In the next few weeks the snow gave them plenty of reasons to kiss one another warm but achingly few opportunities, for the cold weather increased the amount of housework that had to be done. Meals had to be served piping hot, fires stoked high, slush-smeared floors scrubbed clean, and such washing as could be done had to be dried in the scullery, which was a damp and inconvenient business. All of which meant less time for walking out, even after church. But they endured it patiently, telling one another the cold snap couldn't last for ever.

In February the snow finally thawed, but only because it was blown away by gales and piercing rain. The moon didn't fall but Nature seemed determined to keep them apart with too few chances and too much clothing. Johnnie ached to hold her in his arms without the layers of wool and heavy cotton that now lay squashed and pungent between them. He yearned to kiss her neck and stroke her pretty arms and fondle her remembered titties but there wasn't even the faintest chance of such delights with all that cloth in the way. He yearned for the spring, but what was the good of yearning? Nothing ever came of that. He would just have to bide his time, kiss when he could, dream of better things and be patient. But when you're eighteen and lusty, patience is impossible.

February kept his senses in a perpetual roar, cold though it was, March brought agonies of temptation, until one joyful Sunday, on a day of strong winds and bold blue skies, they spent nearly
an hour in the shelter of the barn, and after kissing her until he was aching with frustrated desire, he persuaded her to allow him to put his hands under the warmth of her cloak ‘on account of they're turnin' blue. Look at 'em.' For a well-behaved and warming interval they stood with his cold hands at her back, stroking and caressing, while he kissed her neck, which was a delight to them both and lifted him into such straining excitement that his member was as taut as a bowstring and it was a wonder it didn't spill into his breeches. But then, warmed and too strongly tempted to resist, he moved one tentative hand until it was cupping her breast, her lovely warm welcoming breast, and as she didn't scold, he began to fondle.

She sprang back from him as if she'd been stung, pushed his hands away and wrapped her cloak around her, pulling it tight for protection. ‘No,' she said. ‘No, Johnnie. You mustn't.'

He was baffled. ‘Why not?' he said. ‘We aren't doin' nothin' wrong.'

She stood before him, shielded by her cloak, her face flushed but stubborn. ‘We are.'

‘Who says?'

‘The Reverend Church for a start.'

‘He's the vicar,' Johnnie said, dismissing him with a sniff. ‘He would. That's what vicars are for, to tell you off an' say you're sinners an' everything. You don't want to pay him no mind. Anyway, 'tis none of his business. Tha's just atween you an' me. Private like.'

He was persuasive but she was still worried. ‘I shall get a reputation,' she said. She knew very well what happened to girls who got a reputation. They were outcasts. They couldn't get work and people talked about them and said they were no better than they should be and they'd come to a bad end. ‘Is that what you want?'

‘No, you won't,' he said, lovingly, ‘on account of I won't tell no one. I'd never do nothin' to hurt you, you know that. I won't tell a living soul.'

That was reasonable and what she'd half-expected him to say, but she was still bristling. ‘No,' she said, ‘you won't, on account of we won't do it.'

That made him smile. ‘What never? How about when we're married?'

‘It's different when you're married.'

‘No,' he said, trying to convert her with argument, ‘'tis the same thing, married or single. There's no difference.'

‘When you're married you're allowed.'

He'd opened his mouth ready to argue on, but she was walking away from him. ‘Time we was gettin' back,' she said. The set of her shoulders was all straight-boned determination. There was no more to be said. At least for the moment.

But they had bitten the apple and now they would be tempted every time they were alone together. At first he merely stroked her lovely straight back, since that seemed to be permissible, but on the next occasion, when the wind blew cold and he was allowed to put his hands inside her nice
warm cloak, he ventured to stroke her shoulders and her nice rounded arms, and the following Sunday, in a moment drowsed with desire and saturated with pleasure, he gentled his hands towards her breasts and was allowed to fondle them. This time she didn't push him away or make any protest. She hardly said a word, could barely keep her eyes open, she was so caught up in sensation. It was too sweet, too wondrous, too exciting to be a sin. The Reverend Church was wrong.

So their lovemaking continued and grew steadily bolder and was a joy to them both. They were careful not to touch one another when there was anyone around to see them and were pleased to think they were being so discreet. And the villagers told one another that young Boniface was sweet on Betsy Haynes and nodded with approval when they saw them walking out together.

Felpham April 20
^th

My dearest Annie
,

Your letter arrived this morning and made welcome reading. It is a great relief to me to know that my notes are being stored in such good order, particularly as I have no way of predicting which of them will prove to be significant when I come to write this biography. You are entirely right, my dearest, the only sensible way to deal with all the material I am gathering is to keep everything in a place where it is readily to hand
.

I have spent the morning being entertained – and that truly is the word I must use for it – by a garrulous old woman who admits to being the village gossip and says she once worked as a housemaid in Turret House in Mr Hayley's time. Her name was Susie Howe in those days, but now she is Mrs Farndell and was very proud to tell me so, for the Farndells are bakers hereabouts and held in high esteem, having been the very first to follow that trade in the village
.

She talked at great length about all manner of things and had a fund of stories to tell, most of them, I fear, apocryphal, but I wrote them all down and you will find them enclosed for what they are worth. My favourite is her assertion that Mr Hayley
had two wives and kept one of them chained by the leg to a tree in a wood near his house in Eartham. She kept saying
‘He was a poet
you
see, Mr Gilchrist, sir, so you have to make allowances. They aren't the same as us ordin'ry folk. 'Tis on account of bein' poetical you see.'

I pressed her to tell me what a poetical person was like, for I couldn't resist the chance to tease, but she took my request perfectly seriously and said
‘they look poetical, sort of noble and dreamy-looking'
and volunteered that Mr Hayley often sat in his library in his dressing gown until gone midday
, ‘thinking up his poems. I daresay.'
I asked her whether Mr Blake was poetical too but she said ‘not in the least' and declared that he was
‘a very
ordin'ry
man, funny looking, same as everyone else in the village'
although she had the grace to add that he was a
‘hard worker. I'll give him that.'
It is remarkable that all those who remember him here speak of him as a hard worker
.

Having hit upon the topic I most desired to pursue, I pressed her to tell me what else she could remember about him and she thought for a second or so and offered that he had a terrible temper
. ‘Many's the time I seen him storm out the house with a face like thunder.'
I questioned again to see if she knew the reason for it, but she simply said he and Mr Hayley didn't always get on, so I asked her whether she thought it might have been poetic rivalry, which made her laugh out loud
. ‘No.'
she said
. ‘How could there be rivalry atween 'em? Mr Hayley was a
celebrated poet know'd for it all the way to London, and your Mr Blake was just a journeyman. They wasn't equals.'
As we were talking so easily I asked her if she knew that Mr Blake wrote poetry too and she surprised me by saying that she'd heard of it
. ‘That don't make him poetical though.'
she said
, ‘do it. Not with a face like thunder.'
You see what prejudice there is against our William
.

However she was far more sensibly forthcoming when I asked her about the mysterious Johnnie Boniface and talked about him for nearly half an hour, waxing quite lyrical about how handsome he was (tall and fair apparently and ‘strong-looking' with the finest grey eyes you ever saw). If you had been here to hear her, my darling, you would have suspected a romance but apparently he was a one-woman man and only had eyes for another one of the maids, who was called Betsy. Naturally I asked her if Betsy still lived in the village but she said she'd gone away long since and she had no idea where she was
. ‘People comes and goes.'
she said, and then (I am not making this up, my dear, it truly happened) she closed her mouth and her face, as if some inner voice was warning her not to tell any more, and refused to say another word. It is such a pity, for I had begun to hope that she might tell me the present whereabouts of the handsome Mr Boniface. I cannot bring myself to believe that he is dead although I must accept the fact that it is a possibility. But whether he is or no, one thing is certain. This odd behaviour is one more reason to
believe that I have stumbled upon a mystery that keeps mouths shut all over the village
.

Meantime there is the newspaper office to visit, where I hope to learn more about the trial and I have arranged to call in at Turret House tomorrow morning, so there is much to keep me occupied
.

Write back to me soon and tell me what you think of Mrs Farndell's outpourings, for, if nothing else, I know you will be amused by them and I value your opinions
.

I am your most loving husband. AG
.

The poetical Mr Hayley was inspecting his garden, his long face turned towards the vegetable plot, his elegant head full of plans for his good friend and secretary, Mr Blake, now that the portraits were progressing so well.

‘I shall find other commissions for you when the heads are completed,' he said. ‘You will not be idle, I promise you. Not for a second. Have no doubt about that. And first you must come with me to Lavant and meet Miss Poole. That is imperative.' The long rows of beans and peas were already in place, the fresh cabbages set. ‘There are plenty of onions, I trust, Mr Hosier,' he said, pausing to address his gardener. ‘Young Boniface working well? Good. Good.'