Gates of Paradise (11 page)

‘You are a fine poet, Mr Blake,' she said, when the last word had melted into the warmth of the room. ‘Do you not agree, Mr Hayley? A very fine poet. You follow the precepts of Mr Wordsworth and Mr Coleridge, I see. Your simplicity pleases the ear as theirs does and the sentiments you express are as profound as any I have ever heard. How true it is that love can be both unselfish and selfish, soft and yielding as a humble clod of earth or hard and unforgiving as a stone. “
To build a heaven in Hell's despair
” is very fine. And all written in such a rhythmical style and with such balance. I congratulate and applaud. Are there any more of such lyrics that I may hear?'

He promised her another three by their next breakfast together.

‘An exceedingly pleasant visit,' Mr Hayley said as they trotted away from her great house. ‘I always say good news is the best condiment to a meal. What excellent fortune that we had such exceedingly good news to tell her. Dear Paulina. She is a first rate
hostess. Quite first rate. She deserves no less. Did I not tell you you would find her the best of women? Oh quite, quite the best. She finds a good word to say of everyone. Many another would not have listened to your verses at all, you know.'

Blake turned his head sharply to look at him, aggrieved that his work should be so belittled, and as he did, a small sharp rain began to fall. It distracted him enough to make him glance at the sky instead, that being a safer target for his ill humour. A smoke-blue cloud was skimming across the downs towards them trailing tatters of rain like the fringe on a shawl. They were in for a shower. The pony twitched his ears, Blake tried to turn up his collar with one hand, but Hayley laughed and flung the reins over his left arm so that he had both hands free to deal with his umbrella.

‘'Tis as well I was prepared,' he said and opened the umbrella with a crack like a pistol shot. It was so loud it reverberated through the hills and the suddenness of it frightened his horse, which reared onto its hind legs. The movement was precipitous and Hayley was off balance. He was tossed sideways into the air, rose as if he was flying and landed on his back with the open umbrella upturned beside him.

For a stunned second, Blake sat lumpily on his pony, uncertain what to do. He knew he ought to dismount and go to his patron's assistance but what if he got down and then couldn't get up again? What if Hayley was injured? Where would he go for help?
The horse had galloped off into the field, pranced a little, slowed to a walk and stopped and was now placidly cropping the grasses, as though that was what it had intended all along, but it would probably gallop away again if he were to try to approach it, and what would he do then? Fortunately, as he dithered, Hayley sprang to his feet.

‘No cause for alarm,' he called. ‘I am unhurt, as you see. Quite, quite unhurt.' He picked up his umbrella, held it over his head and went limping off across the field to collect his horse. There was some fidgeting and snorting, for this was a spirited creature, but eventually it allowed him to remount. ‘All is well,' he called. ‘No harm done.' And set off at a gallop to prove his opinion.

Blake clicked the pony into a trot and did his best to follow, thinking what an extraordinary man his patron was. The rain had set in now and was stinging his ungloved hands and casting a gloom across the sky and his spirits. And they still had at least five miles to ride. Then he became aware that there was a cart approaching and he drew his pony aside to make room for it. The driver was a fair-haired young man, who tipped his hat to him by way of thanks, and as Blake nodded in return, he realised who it was. The boy called Johnnie, the one who'd delivered Mr Hayley's message on his first morning in the village, the one he'd seen working in the garden with Mr Hosier. And with a very pretty girl sitting beside him in a scarlet riding cloak.

* * *

‘Who's that?' the very pretty girl wanted to know when they were safely past.

Johnnie gave her a kiss before he enlightened her. They were out of sight of both men and there was no need for caution. ‘Tha's that ol' engraver feller,' he said. ‘You know, the one what painted the pictures in the library.'

‘He aren't no horseman,' she laughed, ‘an' tha's a fact. He ride poor Bruno like a sack a' potatoes an' he don't look like a careful man neither, not with all that paint down his sleeve, but he got a good face.'

‘You should see inside his cottage,' Johnnie told her. ‘There's paintings everywhere you look in there, an' tools an' paintbrushes an' ol' rags an' every thin'. 'Tis a real sight.'

‘I'd like to,' Betsy said, but then he started to kiss her with rather more passion, because they were trotting between two conveniently high hedges where they couldn't possibly be seen by anyone, and being kissed was so delightful, even in the rain, that she forgot about painters and painting and simply gave herself up to sensation.

It wasn't until two weeks later that she remembered her curiosity. Mrs Beke had made one of her pigeon pies for dinner that evening and Mr Hayley had sent it back to the kitchen without taking so much as a mouthful. She was very put out. ‘Bein' abstemious is all very well,' she said, crossly, ‘but this is downright wasteful. An' 'twas one of my best too. I shall throw it on the compost heap if that's all he thinks of it.'

Betsy was aghast at the thought of such a waste. The pie was too small to be shared among the servants but that didn't mean it should be thrown away. ‘Why not send it to the painter feller instead?' she suggested. ‘He'd love it, I'm certain sure. I could take it down for you if you'd like me to.'

‘Do what you will with it,' Mrs Beke said. ‘'Tis all one to me.'

So Betsy warmed a pudding cloth, wrapped the pie in it, very carefully, and bundled it onto a hot tray. Then she set off along the winding path to see what she could discover.

The cottage was very quiet but there was a light in the little western window and smoke rising from the central chimney, so she walked through the wicket gate into the little garden, balanced her tray on one hand and knocked at the door. The woman who opened it smelt of onions like a kitchen maid but she greeted her politely. ‘Good afternoon.'

Betsy explained her errand and held up the pie. ‘'Tis pipin' hot, ma'am,' she said. ‘I been a-burnin' my hands bringin' it down to 'ee. I hopes you'll be pleased to accept it.'

Instead of being pleased, the lady seemed annoyed. ‘Well, you'd best come in and set it down afore you get burned any further,' she said, but her voice was ungracious and her spine was stiff and she was looking away with the oddest expression on her face.

She thinks 'tis charity, Betsy understood, and hastened to put the matter right. ‘The missus made
it for Mr Hayley,' she explained, ‘an' then he sent it back without so much as a mouthful took, an' she was so cross she was all for throwing it on the compost heap, an' I said not to waste it. If he was such a fool as to turn his nose up at such a fine pie, there'd be others who wouldn't.'

The lady looked at her quizzically. Then she threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘So that's the way of it,' she said. ‘We're better than the compost heap. Is that what you're sayin'? 'Tis just as well Mr Blake is over in The Fox filling our jug for supper or dear knows what he'd say. Well, come along in and let us see this offering.'

She led the way into the room to her left and Betsy followed her. What else could she do? The place smelt of damp and onions, but that was only to be expected. Most cottages were damp, especially after a wet winter, and they all smelt of cooking. It was scantily furnished too, with just a table and two wooden chairs, but that was usual as well. There was a good log fire in the hearth and the table had been set for two, with bread on a board and a slab of cheese and two fat onions peeled and quartered on a dish beside it. There was ample space and obvious need for the pie and Betsy set it down, glad to be relieved of its weight.

‘Let's see this culinary masterpiece then,' Mrs Blake said. And she unfolded the pudding cloth. The smell that rose from the uncovered pie was so savoury that both women sniffed appreciatively.

‘Well, she's a fine cook, your Mrs Beke,' Mrs
Blake admitted. ‘I'll give her that.'

‘She got a bad temper, that's all 'tis,' Betsy explained. ‘She can lose her rag as quick as blinkin', an' then we has things throwed about an' all sorts.'

‘'Tis a common fault,' Mrs Blake told her, bending to sniff the pie again. ‘But this is wholesome, I must say. 'Twill make good eating.'

She'll take it, Betsy thought. She aren't a-goin' to refuse. And having satisfied herself that her errand was completed, she began to look round for the paintings.

‘Is there something you lack?' Mrs Blake asked and her voice was sharp again.

Betsy blushed, for she knew she shouldn't have been gawping at the room. It was ill mannered to pry. But since the lady was obviously waiting for an explanation, she mumbled something about paintings.

‘Ah!' Mrs Blake said. ‘You wish to see his paintings. Is that it? Very well. Why should you not? 'Tis great work and should be seen by the world.' And she took a taper from the pot on the mantelpiece, lit one of the tallow candles that were standing in their pewter candlesticks on the table and led her visitor out of the room, trailing black smoke and a strong smell of grease. She continued past a steep staircase and into a second room of such a very different kind that it made Betsy catch her breath.

There were paintings and engravings on every one of the whitewashed walls, some in bold reds
and golds, some in misty blues and greys, some in greens and browns, pictures of angels with huge soaring wings and men who looked like statues, pictures of trees like flames and flames like flowing hair, and laid out on a trestle table, a row of little printed pages with pictures twined in and around the words. She stood in the midst of them too overwhelmed to speak. It was like being in church.

‘You like them,' Mrs Blake said, and now her face was plumped with smiles and pleasure.

‘Oh, yes ma'am,' Betsy whispered. ‘Very much.'

‘I would that all the world could see with your eyes,' Mrs Blake said. ‘He is a great artist and a great poet, but there are few who appreciate his worth.' She led Betsy to the round table at the far end of the room and held up the candle so that she could see the papers that were lying on it. They were covered in handwriting, not neat and flowing like the writing she'd seen on Mr Hayley's papers in the library, but crowded and crabbed together, with words crossed out and other words written in the margins. Oh, Betsy thought, if only I could read like Johnnie. I should so like to know what he's written.

But there was no time to piece out even a few of the words, which she could have done if she'd had a chance to think about them, for she knew how to sign her name and could make out the words in the prayer book. But her dinner would be waiting back at Turret House and no servant was ever late for dinner.

‘If you please, ma'am,' she said. ‘I got to be goin'
now or I shall be late at table an' Mrs Beke'll
really
have something to say.'

‘Well, well, we mustn't have
you
thrown about,' Mrs Blake said. ‘Tell her we are glad of her pie and thank her for her kind thought.'

‘An' thank you for lettin' me see the pictures,' Betsy said, as she was led to the door. Then, the formalities having been observed, she pulled her red cloak about her, and set off for the short walk back to the house. But although she knew she should have been hurrying, she dawdled back in a dream, for her head was so full of swirling visions of saints and angels that she couldn't have walked fast even if Mrs Beke herself had been there to nag her. Who would have thought to see such amazing things in Felpham?

‘Johnnie,' she said, as she sat down beside him at the kitchen table, ‘you must teach me to read.'

Betsy's reading lessons continued all through the summer and, although decoding letters was harder than she expected, difficulties only made her more determined. If Johnnie could pick up
The Times
of an evening and understand everything that was written there, then so would she. She'd keep on and on until she could walk into Mr Blake's cottage with a pie or a pudding and read whatever was lying about. Within a week she'd mastered over fifty words, within three she could read a short sentence and had discovered how to judge the moment when Mr Hayley would finish with the latest copy of the paper and put it into the canterbury. From then on, as soon as she heard his limping step, either on the stairs or retreating into the bedroom, she crept up the backstairs into the library to purloin her precious reader before anybody else could get their hands on it. Then she sneaked it away to the kitchen and hid it in the dresser until she had time to resume her battle with the print.

‘Tell me what it says, Johnnie,' she would demand, pointing to any word that baffled her. And when she'd been told, she pondered it carefully, pronouncing it and considering it until it was fixed in her brain.

In the fourth week, she discovered that politicians speak in a language of their own. ‘Yesterday in the Commons, Mr Pitt said these neg…ot…' she read. ‘Now what's all this Johnnie?'

‘These negotiations are of the utmost delicacy and must be pursued with patience and perseverance if we are to achieve our objective,' Johnnie obliged.

The words meant nothing to her. ‘I can't make head or tail a' that,' she complained. ‘Why don't he speak English?'

‘He does,' Johnnie told her. ‘Tha's just
his
English, tha's all. Tha's the way they goes on in Parliament.'

‘But what do it mean?'

He did his best to translate. ‘They're trying to get a settlement with the Danes and the Swedes,' he said, ‘and 'tis a tricky business seemingly. He says they got to be careful what they says and how they says it, otherwise they won't get what they want. Leastways that's my readin' of it.'