Gates of Paradise

by Beryl Kingston

  Catherine was in the kitchen, scouring the supper dishes and praying that the horse would be finished by Friday. She was keeping out of the way, providing food and drink at regular intervals but otherwise limping about her business in the rest of the house. When he set his own painting and writing aside and worked on a commission, he was very short-tempered and she knew better than to do anything to provoke him. Sometimes genius could be a prickly bedfellow and especially when it was put under pressure. There were so many commissions – twelve more ballads to illustrate, nine more poetic heads, a water colour of Jacob’s ladder for dear Mr Butts, to say nothing of the painting for Lord Egremont, which Miss Poole had arranged. That was a very important commission, which certainly couldn’t be refused, for Lord Egremont had a reputation as a connoisseur of painting and a country seat at Petworth, what’s more, which was quite close by and near enough to make other commissions a possibility. She knew it was kind of Mr Hayley and Miss Poole to find so much work for him and it was a relief that he was earning his living so well, but, even so, how would he ever find time for the real work he wanted to be doing when they made such endless demands on him? My poor William, she thought, no wonder you’re thinking of going back to London. It might be the best thing to do, especially if there’s to be an invasion, like they all keep on a-saying.

  While Mr Blake laboured, her father grew raucous with drink and her lover contemplated the sea, Betsy sat opposite Mrs Beke in her quiet parlour darning her woollen stockings while the housekeeper totted up the accounts. She held her work close to the candle so that she could see what she was doing, for Mrs Beke was very particular about neat stitching, but for all her peaceful appearance, she was thoroughly unhappy and her brain was spinning.

  Quarrelling with Johnnie had upset her terribly. It wasn’t like them to quarrel. They never quarrelled. But what could she do? It would be wrong to say yes. She knew that as well as she knew anything. She might fall for a baby or get a reputation. Anything might happen. And yet, she couldn’t go on sayin’ no forever. ’Twould be against human nature when he loves me so much. She’d have to say yes sooner or later. If only there was someone she could ask. Someone who’d know what she ought to do for the best. Because she did love him. In a perverse way, the quarrel had shown her that, if it had done nothing else.

  There was a rush of feet in the corridor, a rap on the door, and as if she had conjured him up by thinking about him, there he was, standing on the threshold, his face flushed and eager, asking for ‘Mrs Beke, ma’am’.

  ‘My uncle sends compliments,’ he said. ‘And to tell you there’s a good strong tide a-bringin’ the bass in and he’ll have some fine ones ready for you tomorrow one o’clock.’

  The housekeeper took one look at his glowing face and understood the situation at once. ‘And you want to work with him, as you did last time, is that the size of it?’ she said.

  If she was agreeable.

  Mrs Beke was in a benevolent mood. ‘’Twill make good eating for Mr Hayley when he comes home a’ Thursday,’ she said. ‘He’s partial to bass. Very well. Tell Mr Hosier I’m agreeable to you going and be sure you set aside six of the very best for me. Betsy can collect them, can’t you Betsy.’

  Oh, she could indeed.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Mrs Beke said and she smiled quite kindly at her young lovers. ’Twas good to indulge them when she could. They were only billing and cooing when all was said and done and there was no harm in that. Besides, fresh caught bass would make a tasty dish.

  Chapter Eight

  The wind had dropped by noon the next day, swung round and become a gentle south-west breeze. The rain had passed, the sky was summer blue and heaped with clouds whipped into a froth like white of egg, the air was salty fresh, the tide high. There was still a heavy sea running with waves strong enough to drag a man down if he wasn’t careful, but that was all part of the fun when there was bass to be caught, so there was quite a crowd on the beach come to buy the catch and to see how the two Bonifaces would fare. Betsy arrived with her pail even before they took the nets out, and sat on the pebbles where she would have a good view. And after a few minutes her friend Mrs Blake came limping across the shingle to join her.

  ‘They got a good day for it,’ she said.

  ‘They have, ma’am,’ Betsy agreed. Johnnie was removing his waistcoat and taking off his shoes and stockings ready to push the boat out and the sight of such careless undressing was making her feel amorous, just as if he was kissing her. Oh, their quarrel was over, wasn’t it? She did hope so. Then he looked up, saw her, and came leaping up the beach, to drop his discarded clothes at her feet.

  ‘Look after them for me,’ he said, smiled into her eyes just long enough to make her breathless, and ran back.

  ‘Isn’t that your young man?’ Mrs Blake asked.

  Betsy went on watching him, as he and Jem began to push their dinghy into the waves. The first wave it met made it rear like a horse and it took both of them to hold it steady. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said breathlessly. ‘He is.’

  ‘He’s very handsome.’

  He was also very wet, for the wave had slapped against the side of the boat and broken all over him. Now his shirt clung to his chest like skin and his breeches were soaked and it was making her tremble to look at him. Oh, Johnnie, she thought, my dear, darling Johnnie. You’re right. I can’t keep saying no to ’ee.

  The dinghy was launched at last and the two men rowed out until they were about a hundred yards offshore, took their bearings from the white mill and Turret House, turned the boat around and dropped the net. Then Johnnie rowed back through the choppy waves while his uncle paid it out and secured it in the shallows. It had taken less than a quarter of an hour.

  ‘They’re quick,’ Catherine said. ‘Now what happens?’

  ‘We wait,’ Betsy told her.

  Which they did, along with everyone else on the beach. But not for long. It seemed no time at all before Jem began to pull in the net and a matter of seconds before they saw what a fine catch he’d made. The two women could see the fish wriggling, silver-blue in the sunlight, and watched as the two fishermen disentangled them from the meshes, working carefully out of respect for their sharp fins. And at last, Jem looked up and called, ‘Bass for sale’ and there was a rush to the water’s edge.

  Betsy took six large bass and a handful of smaller ones and added a few herrings to make weight, Catherine asked for a bass large enough to feed three and was given a fine fat one for which she paid fourpence and which she declared a bargain, and Johnnie was so excited by the thrill of the catch and the freedom of the open air that he caught Betsy up in his arms and gave her a long damp kiss, right there on the beach with everyone looking. Oh, they certainly weren’t quarrelling now.

  She tried to remonstrate with him. ‘Johnnie put me down for pity’s sake do. What are you a-thinkin’ of?’ but it was all play and her shining eyes and happy smile gave the lie to the words: How can I deny him, she thought, when I love him so dearly? It aren’t natural. Oh, my dear, darling Johnnie!

  A love match, Catherine thought, admiring them. How quick and tender they are with one another. And she remembered the moment when she’d first seen her dear William, standing before her in the half-light of her father’s impoverished room in Battersea and how she’d listened as he told her how shabbily he’d been treated by some heartless girl. She’d known even then that she loved him and would love him for ever. ‘Do you pity me?’ he’d asked. And she’d answered ‘Yes, indeed I do.’ How well she remembered it. And he’d looked straight at her and said, ‘Then I love you.’ She’d run from the room for fear of fainting because she was so happy. And now here was this girl, with the same flush on her cheeks and her blue eyes shining, caught in the same passion, loving and being loved in return. How rich our lives can be.

  She picked up her pail with its writhing burden and they walked together towards the cottage, thinking much and saying little. ‘He’s a fine young man,’ she said at
last, ‘and loves you truly, if I’m any judge.’

  Betsy was surprised to be spoken to so openly but she agreed that Johnnie was a good man and that, yes, he did love her. ‘Or so he says, ma’am, and I got no reason to doubt it for he’s been larnin’ me to read, an’ it’s not many men would have done that.’

  ‘William taught me to read,’ Catherine confided, ‘and to write. When we married I could do neither and had to sign the book with a cross. ’Tis a great blessing to be able to read, as you will discover.’

  They’d reached the wicket gate and Catherine had already turned towards it ready to enter her garden. Was another confidence possible? Betsy wondered. And decided that it was. ‘I hopes you won’t think me forrard if I tells ’ee something, Mrs Blake,’ she said.

  ‘If you tell the truth,’ Catherine said, ‘you cannot be forward and I believe you are a girl who would tell the truth no matter what might come of it.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I believe I am.’

  ‘Well then?’

  It was time to confess. ‘I’m a-larnin’ to read, ma’am,’ Betsy said, ‘so’s I can read some of Mr Blake’s poetry. I been larnin’ ever since I seen ’em on his table that time when I brought you the pie.’

  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.