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.
Johnnie was so given over to sensation that he could barely talk and he certainly wasn’t thinking. He lay with his mouth in her neck, breathing in the warm, musky scent of her skin as he fondled her pretty titties, or lifted a hand to twist his fingers in the tangle of her thick hair, watching with fascination as the sunshine touched it with tiny strands of wine red and shining gold. From time to time he raised his head to kiss her, but kissing was both acute pleasure and acute pain, and he was soon straining with frustration and had to stop to regain his breath and his control. For once he wasn’t begging her to let him go further. It was enough – or almost enough – to be here with her and to enjoy those liberties he had. He loved her too dearly to distress her. It puzzled him that she was lying beside him with her eyes shut and only opened them to look at him when his kissing stopped but they were the most loving looks and that was what mattered. She returned his kisses, her body was welcoming. It was enough. Or almost enough.
In fact, even as she kissed him back, Betsy’s mind was spinning like a top, round and round over the same unmoving ground. She’d been thinking all afternoon, turning that poem over and over in her mind, remembering what Mrs Blake had said, trying to decide what it was she truly believed. After seventeen years of Sundays at St Mary’s, she could hardly be unaware of what the Reverend Church thought about such things and, until Johnnie kissed her, she’d agreed with what he said, in a vague sort of way and without thinking about it very much. Yet, standing in Mr Blake’s workroom with that extraordinary poem under her fingers, she’d been quite sure she agreed with him too, and she couldn’t believe two opposite things at once. ‘Tweren’t possible. Either the vicar had the right of it and what she was doing was fornication and sinful, or Mr Blake was right and ‘tweren’t sinful at all but loving and natural. His words sang in her head. ‘Love! Sweet love! was thought a crime’ ‘And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, and binding with briars my joys and desires.’ No matter what the vicar said, that felt true, lying here in the warm hay with Johnnie’s lips rousing her to such pleasure. But she was remembering other things too, that it might hurt, the way Molly said, or that she might fall for a baby like Sarah Perkins. And what her mother would say if that happened she simply couldn’t bear to imagine. Look how she’d gone on about the cloak. Cross as two sticks. And then she remembered the sight of his long white legs on the beach, so white when his face and forearms were so brown. He was so loving and so handsome and she loved him so much. Her dear, dear Johnnie. Oh what was she going to do?
He turned towards her again, brushing her mouth with his lips, teasing her into pleasure, and she put her hands on either side of his head to draw him into greater and better pressure. ‘Dear, dear Johnnie,’ she said. And he groaned.
The little involuntary sound made her heart swell in her breast. She could feel it changing, enlarging, full of pity and heavy with love for him. The decision was made, there and then, and instinctively. ‘Tweren’t right to keep him waiting so long, when he loved her so much and had been so patient. ‘Yes,’ she said, gazing straight into his ardent eyes. ‘Yes. Go on my dear, dear Johnnie. I wants ’ee to.’
It was a clumsy fumbling affair, for they were both virgins and nei
ther of them had much idea about what should go where, but after several ignominiously stabbing attempts it was finally managed. There was little pleasure in it for Betsy. The sheer strangeness of it saw to that. But at least it didn’t hurt her and she could see just by looking at him that it had made Johnnie supremely happy. He lay panting beside her, head thrown back, eyes closed, sweat filming his wide forehead and smiled like a seraph. ‘I shall love ’ee for ever,’ he said. ‘You’re mine now an’ I shall love ’ee for ever.’
I’ve sided with the poet, Betsy thought. An’ ’twas the right thing to do. Wasn’t it?
Chapter Nine
The Fox Inn Felpham, Wednesday 21st April
My dear Annie,
I have been here for six days now and I have to admit I am beginning to feel a little disheartened. It is bitterly cold, the wind is blowing a gale, the reporter in Chichester has yet to answer my letter although I have written to him twice, and although I have heard a variety of stories about our Mr Blake no one has a word to say about his trial and I am no nearer to unravelling the mystery of Johnnie Boniface than I was at the beginning. It is very frustrating. There must be somebody hereabouts who can tell me what I want to know. It is not as if I am asking for anything other than a little information. You will tell me that a biographer must needs be patient and that it takes time to winkle out the truth, even in a court of law, all of which is true, as I know from education and experience, but my impatience grows notwithstanding.
This morning I visited Turret House. It is an elegant building and stands in large well-kept grounds with a covered walkway leading to the house, a fine lawn, a shrubbery and several neat gravel paths curving prettily between the trees, but the visit was a disappointment. Blake’s portrait heads are all gone and the present owner knows nothing of Mr Hayley and less of William Blake. All she said when I tried to tell her about them was ‘Fancy that.’ I was so cross. Fancy that. What a foolish thing to say. I suppose I must have revealed my feelings, although I did all I could to control them, for she suddenly changed her expression and offered that her gardener was an old man and might know something. So even though I felt she was offering me a consolation prize, which made me crosser than ever, I set off into the grounds to find him.
He turned out to be a very old man, with the most weathered skin you ever saw, brown as a gypsy and with a shock of wild white hair, but friendly and forthcoming. He greeted me by name and seemed to know exactly what I’d come to ask him. ‘You’re the lawyer feller what’s been askin’ after Mr Blake,’ he said. And when I told him I was surprised by how well-informed he was, he said nothing went on in ‘a village our size’ without the world and his wife knowing about it. So naturally I asked him about Blake and the trial. This, as far as I can remember, is what he told me.
First of all, he said he’d been a stable lad at The George and Dragon when Blake lived in the village. ‘Turn a’ the century so ’twas,’ he said. ‘He come here around September time in the year eighteen hundred. They was terrible times. Mr Gilchrist sir. Terrible. We had ol’ Boney Part a-sittin’ on the other side a’ the Channel, ready for to invade us – which he would have done if it hadn’t been for Lord Nelson – an’ soldiers everywhere you looked, an’ three bad summers in a row, rain, rain, rain all the time, and the crops so poor you wouldn’t believe. He chose a bad time to come a-visitin’.’
‘But the villagers thought well of him, I believe,’ I prompted.
‘He was a good man,’ he said. ‘Mad a’ course. But he couldn’t help that.’
I pressed him to tell me more, asking him what evidence he had for saying the man was mad, for truly I find the constant repetition of this myth more and more disturbing. He was perfectly at ease about it. ‘Oh, he was mad right enough, Mr Gilchrist, sir.’ he said. ‘Never made no secret of it. We all knew he was mad. Used to see things you see. Angels an’ fairies an’ prophets an’ such, large as life and twice as handsome, walkin’ about in the garden so he said. But he was a good man, like I said, despite the angels. Honest you see, sir. Worked as hard as any man in the village, paid his bills regular, allus gave you the time a’ day, a good neighbour. Must ha’ been or we wouldn’t have stood up for him the way we did.’
At that point I truly felt that I was on the edge of discovery. ‘Would this have been when he was brought to trial?’ I asked.
His expression changed at once. It really is quite extraordinary how mention of that trial makes them close their mouths. ‘Well, as to that sir,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t say.’
I was annoyed with him by then and pressed him to tell me whether he meant that he couldn’t say or whether it would be more accurate to tell me that he wouldn’t say.
His face was still closed but he thought about it for a while and then said. ‘There’s some things ’tis best not to talk about, an’ specially to a lawyer.’
‘You have a poor opinion of us I fear,’ I said.
‘Not of you personal, sir,’ he said ‘Just lawyers in general so to speak. That was the root a’ the trouble last time, talkin’ to lawyers. To tell ’ee true, there’s times I wish I didn’t know what I knows.’
That was too good a lead not to be followed. ‘And what do you know?’ I asked.
But he wouldn’t be drawn. ‘Well, as to that Mr Gilchrist sir. I couldn’t say. I’ll tell ’ee one thing though. What happened to Mr Blake was on account of that soldier an’ his bad mouth.’
‘But what of the trial?’ I said. ‘What do you know of the trial?’
‘If you wants to know about that,’ he said, ‘the best person to ask is Harry Boniface. His brother Johnnie was very thick with the Blakes one time. Him an’ Betsy both. She was on visitin’ terms, or so they say. Many’s the time I seen her a-talkin’ to Mrs Blake. Ask old Harry. He’ll tell you. Now I got to get on or the tatties won’t get planted. You’ll excuse me, sir.’
I had to let him go for I could see that was all I was going to get out of him. But halfway down the path he turned back and called out to me. ‘I’ll tell ’ee one thing, sir. He was a brave man, your Mr Blake. He could ha’ gone back to Lonnon when ’twas all talk of invasion, but he never did. He stuck it out with the rest of us.’
I could not bring myself to answer him. To offer me a snippet I could have worked out for myself when he knew very well how much I wanted to hear about the trial was truly annoying. Is it not the most aggravating situation for a biographer to be in? Now I suppose I shall have to try another approach to the reluctant Harry.
This from your most loving but undeniably angry husband,
Alexander.
Autumn 1801
William Blake was putting the finishing touches to his engraving of the horse and the defiant mother, while his wife and sister worked in the kitchen, scouring the dishes. It had been an excellent meal and the two Catherines had talked to one another quite amiably so he was feeling easier than he’d done for several days. Making a decision had settled his mind. Even the need to produce a set of illustrations every month for the next year didn’t seem so much of a burden now. And tomorrow he would be visiting Miss Poole again. I shall take her ‘The Garden of Love’ he decided. ’Twas a risky poem to choose but he believed she would understand it even if she might not agree with his opinions. Despite the rain and the damp this was a good place to live and if he applied himself for two more years he could earn sufficient to keep him in London for long enough to write a good deal of his own poem. He’d started it that very evening, while his wife and sister were setting the table for supper, and he knew that what little he’d done was good. Now, he thought, as he contemplated his finished engraving, tomorrow morning I shall test Mr Seagrave’s opinion of this.
Will Smith the ostler was grooming a pretty pair of carriage horses when he passed the stable yard the next morning. ‘Mornin’ Mr Blake,’ he called. ‘You got a good day for it.’
‘Yes,’ William agreed. ‘Indeed I have.’ The rain was over, the sun was warm, his work was going well, and in an ho
ur or so he would be taking breakfast with his dear Miss Poole. All was well with the world. ‘That’s a fine pair of horses.’
‘Pair a’ beauties,’ the ostler agreed. ‘Goin’ home this afternoon though, more’s the pity of it.’
‘You will miss them.’
‘I shall miss my earnin’s more like,’ the ostler said ruefully. ‘These two’s the onny hosses I’ve had this season. People don’t come a-visitin’ when there’s talk of invasion. An’ if they don’t visit, I don’t earn.’
Blake considered. The ostler was a hard-working man and it was miserable to be short of earnings, as he knew only too well, and here I am, he thought, too busy to do the digging and, for once in my life, earning enough to hire a gardener for an hour or two. ‘Should you ever have need of an extra job,’ he said, ‘you might consider working for me. There’s a deal of work to be done in my garden and I haven’t the time for it.’
The ostler’s face was instantly wrinkled with smiles. ‘Thank ’ee kindly Mr Blake, sir,’ he said. ‘When would you like me to start?’
‘Tomorrow?’ Blake suggested.
Tomorrow it would be. They shook hands on it.
‘And now I must be off,’ Blake said, ‘or I shall be late for Mr Hayley.’
That gentleman was already mounted and waiting for him, his handsome face pink with excitement, but instead of calling out that they must hurry or they would be late for their breakfast with Miss Poole, he waved his umbrella in the air and shouted, ‘Such happy news, my dear chap! You will be astounded. We have a new commission, my dear friend, and such a commission. I simply cannot wait to tell you of our good fortune. My dear Lady Hesketh has suggested to me that I write a biography of my dear friend William Cowper, who was her nephew, as I dare say you know. Such an honour, is it not? She will kindly provide me with any information I might require and I have persuaded her that you are the man to engrave the illustrations. Such an honour. It is a first rate commission and good will come of it, for Cowper was a truly magnificent poet and his life, however sad, will be worth the telling. I shall set to work at once, this very afternoon.’
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