Gates of Paradise

by Beryl Kingston

  Johnnie was embarrassed by all the knowing glances he was given but he tried to appear unconcerned. There was bound to be a bit of teasing, that was only to be expected. But when Susie looked up at him, she had such a scurrilous expression on her face that he blushed furiously before he could stop himself.

  ‘Ho-ho,’ she said. ‘You’re a dark horse an’ no mistake, Johnnie Boniface. We all knows what you was up to last night.’

  ‘What’s no concern a’ yours,’ he said, trying to speak lightly. ‘Where’s Mrs Beke?’

  ‘Upstairs with Mr Hayley, takin’ instructions for dinner,’ Susie told him. ‘Oi’d ha’ thought you’d’ve been asking where Betsy is.’

  ’Well, she aren’t here,’ he said. ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Run off,’ Susie told him.

  His heart contracted with alarm. ‘What d’you mean run off?’

  ‘Took her cloak an’ gone,’ Nan told him. ‘We don’t know no more of it than that. Took her cloak an’ rushed off.’

  He stood before them, one earth-stained hand on the cabbages, thinking hard. Off in a temper, that much was obvious, so she must have been scolded. Oh, my poor dear darling, he thought, knowing how she must have felt, imagining her running from the room, tears streaming from those dear blue eyes. She could never stand a scolding. I should have been here to protect you and tell them ’twas all my fault. I should have come straight here the minute I finished talking to Mr Hosier and stood up for you. Too late now. The damage was done. But where would she go? Not to her mother’s. That’ud be the last place. Nor to the mill neither. If her father knew he’d tell her mother, sure as fate, for he wasn’t a man to keep secrets. The Blake’s maybe. That was likely. I’ll get through my work as quick as I can and go down and see.

  Catherine Blake was pleased to see him because she thought he’d come with a message from Mr Hayley but as he stood before her, awkwardly shy in his muddy boots and his stained apron, she realised that there was no message and that something was amiss and invited him in. ‘We must be quiet,’ she warned, ‘for William is at work.’

  They sat by the fire in the kitchen and he told her what had happened, speaking frankly but as quietly as he could. ‘I’d ha’ married her long since,’ he said, ‘onny she wouldn’t agree to it. An’ now she’s gone, an’ I don’t know where she is, an’ I don’t know what to do, an’ that’s the honest truth.’

  Her advice was quiet and practical. She hadn’t been out of the house since yesterday afternoon, so she hadn’t heard anything about anybody, but she promised to see what she could find out. ‘Someone’s certain to know something in a place this size,’ she said, ‘and if she’s still here, which I’m sure she is, she’ll come to church on Sunday, now won’t she? Bound to. Everyone goes to church of a Sunday except us and Mr Hayley. So you’ll see her then if not before.’

  ‘But that’s four days away,’ he protested. How could he wait for four days when anything could have happened to her?

  His distress was endearing. ‘You could be back together long before then,’ she reassured. ‘Meantime I shall listen to the gossip and if I hear anything, I’ll come straight up to Turret House and let you know. Take heart, she’ll not have gone far.’

  ‘I will find her,’ he said, as they parted on the doorstep. ‘Never fear.’ But he was comforting himself, not reassuring her, and they both knew it.

  The next three days were the most miserable he had ever spent. In what little spare time he had, he walked about the village in a harsh rain, seeking out old friends and neighbours and talking nonsense to them until he could find the right moment to wonder if they’d seen Betsy about. None of them had and most were surprised to be asked.

  ‘Oi thought you was walkin’ out,’ old Mrs Taylor said. ‘Now don’ tell me you’ve been an’ gone an’ quarrelled for that Oi won’t believe. Not when Oi’ve seen ’ee so lovey-dovey. Though I has to say tha’s been a bad ol’ year for spats an’ argyments. I never seen a worse one.’

  Naturally he assured her that they hadn’t quarrelled. ‘I wouldn’t quarrel with her for the world.’ But it hurt him to have to admit that he didn’t know where she was.

  ‘You’ll see her Sunday,’ Mrs Taylor promised. ‘She won’t miss church, now will she. What would her mother say?’

  But Johnnie was beginning to feel he would never see her again and had nightmares about her, perched aloft on the London stage, her red cloak flapping in the wind, stony-faced, as she drove away from him. And Sunday took an eternity to arrive.

  It was a dank brooding day and the sky was cold and colourless. The sun rose reluctantly, white as whey and giving little light and no heat, and below it the village was mud-smeared and waterlogged, paths puddled, bare branches oozing oily moisture, thatches dark with damp, doors and gates wet to the touch. As he walked the few hundred yards from Turret House to St Mary’s church, Johnnie had to will himself not to shiver.

  There were very few people waiting by the porch, it was too cold for that, only Reuben Jones, who was chewing his gums, and his wife, who was stamping her feet, and Mr and Mrs Haynes, who nodded at him but didn’t speak. He loitered just inside the porch, out of sight of his neighbours but near enough to see his darling if she came along the path.

  And suddenly, there she was. He’d know that red cloak anywhere, even if it was moving in an unfamiliar way. It hurt him that she wasn’t tripping up the path the way she usually did, bright and happy and looking about her. Now she walked wearily with her head bowed and her hood hiding her face. Oh, my darling love, he thought, and stepped forward to greet her. But her mother was before him and her mother was so loud with accusation and concern that he stepped back inside the porch again and kept out of the way.

  ‘Where on earth have you been, you bad girl?’ she said. ‘We been worried out of our lives. Look at the state a’ you, hair all anyhow, filthy dirty, an’ look at the state a’ your hands. What’ve you been a-doin’ to yourself?’

  ‘I been milkin’ cows,’ Betsy said, flatly. ‘Don’t fuss, Ma. I had words with Mrs Beke but tha’s all done with. I got mesself a new job up Middleton way. I’m doin’ all right.’

  ‘You don’t look all right to me,’ her mother said, holding her by the shoulders. ‘You look half starved. What dairy? Not one that feeds you seemingly. Nor one what has water for washin’. I never seen you in such a pickle. This is what comes a’ buying that dratted cardinal. I knew we’d have trouble the minute I saw it. Didn’t I say so, Father?’ But as her daughter’s lip was trembling she stopped scolding and became practical. ‘Ah well,’ she said. ‘Least said soonest mended, I s’ppose. Let’s get this service over an’ done with, an’ I hopes he don’t bore us with a long sermon, that’s all, an’ then we’ll go home and I can feed you up. Good inner lining, that’s what you need, an’ a salve for your poor hands.’ And she tucked Betsy’s chapped hand in the crook of her arm and walked her towards the porch, moving so quickly that Johnnie only just had time to dart inside and hide himself on the pew next to his father.

  It was an excruciatingly long sermon and he watched her through every boring word of it, aching to comfort her and tell her he loved her. But she kept her head down all through the service and didn’t even look up when she was singing the hymns and when the final blessing had been given she left the church with her mother and father walking like guards on either side of her. He watched them until they’d left the churchyard, feeling bereft.

  ‘What’s up wi’ your Betsy?’ his mother said, coming up behind him. ‘She don’t look herself.’

  He told them as much of the story as they needed to know, that she’d quarrelled with Mrs Beke and got herself another job working in a dairy, that she’d gone off ‘a bit sharpish’ and hadn’t told anyone where she was going.

  ‘Oi did hear somethin’ a’ the sort from ol’ Reuben, yes’day,’ his father remarked, ‘onny I thought ’twas one of his tales. Must ha’ been a bad sort a’ quarrel.’

  ‘Tha’s been a bad year for qu
arrellin’ altogether,’ Annie said, and seeing how miserable her son looked decided to rescue him. ‘How’s that ol’ garden a-goin’?’

  He escorted them back to their cottage and talked gardening all the way, which was a relief. Then he gloomed back to Turret House and his Sunday dinner. It was a difficult meal, all meaningful glances and no talk, for Mrs Beke and the butler were watchful as hawks and listening to every word and, to make matters worse, Sam was determined to be the centre of attention and told endless tales of all the difficult horses he’d had to handle when he was working in Bersted and how well he’d managed them.

  ‘Ent a crittur born Oi couldn’t master,’ he bragged, sneering at Johnnie. ‘Men nor hosses. ’Tis all one to me. Oi got the measure of ’em.’

  Johnnie glared back at him, feeling miserably impotent but thinking, you just wait, Sammy Porter. I’ll catch you one night on your way back from The Fox and I’ll punch those grinning teeth right down your throat. But for the moment there was nothing he could do or say and he was glad when the meal came to an end and he could excuse himself and go back to the clammy clay of the garden, even if there wasn’t any work to be done there.

  For the rest of the day he brooded in the grounds, walking up and down the covered way, round and round the lawn, standing among the vegetable plots, occasionally treading in the soil around the onions with a professional heel, or brushing the cabbages with a professional hand, as though he was testing their quality, lost in miserable thought. Something had got to be done. He couldn’t allow his darling to work at a dairy and only see her on a Sunday when she was too tired to talk to him. I’ll write to her, he decided, as the white sun sank and the colourless sky wrinkled towards darkness. I’ll find someone to give me pen and paper, there must be someone, Mrs Blake maybe, and I’ll write her a letter and tell her how I love her and how she must come back, and I’ll take it over to the dairy – there’s only the one in Middleton – and leave it where she’ll find it. That’s what I’ll do. The thought of taking action lifted him out of his melancholy and he went back into the house for his supper much cheered.

  Catherine Blake provided pen and paper willingly. ‘You can have a page from Mr Hayley’s ballads,’ she said. ‘They didn’t sell, for all his grand talk, and we bought the paper, so ’tis ours to do as we please with.’

  It took him a long time to compose his love letter but she didn’t hurry him. ‘Good writing is worth the effort,’ she said, ‘for the written word is powerful, as anyone who writes could tell ’ee.’

  Johnnie looked down at his careful handwriting and hoped she was right. I’ll take it straight to the farm now, he decided, and did.

  But whatever magic there was in his writing it didn’t move Betsy. She arrived at St Mary’s on Sunday looking as doleful as she’d done the previous week, holding her head down and not looking at him. This time he lay in wait for her when the service was over and stood right in front of her as she left the church so that she had to speak to him whether she wanted to or not.

  ‘I wrote you a letter,’ he said. ‘I put it in the dairy by the churns. Did you find it?’

  She looked at him briefly and so sadly he felt as if he had been punched in the chest. ‘Yes,’ she said, dully, ‘but there’s no use in writin’ letters. I works at the dairy now an’ tha’s that.’

  ‘No,’ he said, standing squarely in front of her and willing her to look at him. ‘That’s not that. I won’t let it be.’ Her mother was bristling at him but he couldn’t stand by and say nothing.

  Again that sad, flickering glance from her blue eyes. ‘I ’aven’t got time to walk out,’ she told him, ‘’tis all work in a dairy. On an’ on, no end to it.’

  ‘Then leave.’

  She shrugged her shoulders, hopelessly, looked away from him, stared into the distance. ‘I got a livin’ to earn,’ she said. ‘Like I told ’ee, tha’s that. Best ascept it. There aren’t a thing we can do about it, not now. ’Tis over an’ done. You’re at the house, I’m at the dairy. ’Tis over an’ done.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t let it be.’

  ‘’Tis no good ’ee goin’ on,’ Mrs Haynes said to him. ‘She’s much too down for argyment. Leave it, eh? That’ud be best.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t. Betsy…’

  But she was walking away, not looking at him, holding on to her mother’s arm, drooping with misery and defeat. She was at the dairy. Love was over.

  No, he thought, as he strode back to Turret House, hot with fury. No, no, no. I won’t let it be. Tha’s askin’ too much of me altogether an’ it aren’t to be borne. I love her. I can’t leave her in a state like this. ’Twould be cruel. He was torn with distress for the rest of the day, snarling at anyone who spoke to him and kicking the trees, and he slept extremely badly that night, dropping in and out of nightmare, but by morning he had decided what to do. He would go down to the Blake’s cottage again and see what Mrs Blake had to say.

  She listened to him in silence sitting in her chair with her hands folded in her lap. Then she left him in the kitchen while she fetched pen and paper. ‘A short letter this time,’ she advised, ‘and don’t leave it in the dairy, take it to church and put in into her hands. I will tell you what to write.’

  He delivered his letter next Sunday, offering it to Betsy as she left the church but saying nothing. And she took it and tucked it into her pocket and gave him a bleak smile. Then there was nothing he could do but wait.

  ‘I see he still writes to ’ee,’ her mother said, when they were back in her cottage.

  ‘’Twon’t do him no good,’ her daughter said sadly. ‘’Twas boy an’ girl nonsense, an’ now ’tis over an’ done.’ But she read the letter, because it was short and didn’t say much. ‘Go and see Mrs Blake. She will help you.’

  ‘Well, here’s a thing,’ her mother said. ‘Shall you go?’

  ‘Yes,’ Betsy decided, ‘I think I might.’ It would be a comfort to have someone she could talk to freely, someone who would understand what had happened to her and why it had happened. She’d kept her misery to herself for so long it was making her chest ache.

  She went that afternoon as soon as she’d finished her dinner. The dairyman could wait. After all, it was Sunday, and none of the other dairymaids ever got back early. They were all too glad of the rest. As it turned out he had to wait rather a long time and was none too pleased when she finally did return to her duties. But the visit had been just what she needed.

  She talked for nearly an hour. Mr Blake was out on one of his walks and wouldn’t be hindered by anything she said, even if she were to cry, which she did, for a very long time. It was a terrible outpouring of guilt and anger and loss. ‘It weren’t a sin,’ she grieved, ‘’twas natural an’ lovin’. Everythin’ we done was natural an’ lovin’. You know that, don’t you, Mrs Blake?’

  She did indeed.

  ‘Mrs Beke said I was a wicked sinner an’ a common slut, an’ I ought to be ashamed of mesself an’ I’d get a reputation an’ I don’t know what-all. I couldn’t stay there after that, could I?’

  She could not.

  ‘An’ now I’m working so hard in the dairy there’s barely time to sleep and ’tis all over ‘atween us an’ I’m so unhappy you wouldn’t believe.’

  That was clear from her face and her tears.

  ‘Why are they so cruel?’ Betsy wept. ‘I don’t understand it. Why can’t they leave us be? We shouldn’t ha’ been in the stables, that I’ll grant, but we wasn’t hurtin’ no one.’

  ‘There is much that is wrong in the world,’ Catherine told her. ‘We struggle against it endlessly, William and I, the cruelty of it. Dry your eyes, for he will be home presently, and I will find you a poem about it, that might be of some comfort.’

  It was a long poem and had a difficult title, which Betsy couldn’t read, so Catherine read it for her, ‘Auguries of Innocence’. It didn’t make much sense to her even then, because she didn’t know what the first word meant. Johnnie would have kno
wn if he’d been there and he’d have told her. But there was nothing to be gained in thinking about that now. She stood with the paper in her hand and began to read it.

  ‘We are printing off several copies for sale,’ Catherine said, ‘which is why I could find this one so readily. You do not have to read it now. You may have it to keep. Dip into it from time to time, that’s my advice to ’ee, take it in sips. There’s a deal of rage in it. When you’ve read it, come and see me again. Take heart. There is kindness in the world. Not everybody is cruel.’

  The words on the printed sheet danced before Betsy’s eyes, bright as jewels. She was touched by such kindness – and honoured. Oh very, very honoured. ‘Thank ’ee, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Thank ’ee kindly.’ And on a sudden grateful impulse, dropped a curtsey. It seemed the proper thing to do.

  She sped back to her mother’s cottage clutching the gift to her chest, her cheeks pink for the first time in weeks, as her mother was quick to notice.

  ‘’Twas a good visit seemingly,’ she said.

  ‘She gave me a poem, Ma,’ Betsy said, showing her mother the paper.

  Mrs Haynes wasn’t impressed. What the child needed was food in her belly and somewhere warm to sleep, not fancy stuff like poetry, but she said it was a kind thought.

  ‘The thing is,’ Betsy said, looking at her gift, ‘I can’t take it back to the dairy. It’ud get trod in the muck in no time an’ I’m not havin’ that. Do you think I could leave it here. I could read it when I come home of a Sunday.’

  And be fed at the same time, Mrs Haynes thought. It was a sensible arrangement and made a deal more sense than a line of words on a paper. So the poem was nailed to the wall above the dresser and left there as a Sunday treat, and Betsy walked back to the dairy, feeling cheered even though she knew she’d be scolded for being late.

  From then on her life settled into an easier pattern. Life in the dairy was still hard and the food still poor but now that she had something to occupy her mind it didn’t seem so bad. She thought of the poem at odd moments of the day, remembering the words as she ate her bread and cheese with the others, or stood to churn the butter, or sat on the milking stool with her forehead pressed against the flank of the cow and her chapped hands working automatically. ‘A Robin Red breast in a Cage/Puts all Heaven in a Rage.’ ‘A Horse misus’d upon the Road/Calls to Heaven for Human blood.’ There is so much cruelty in the world, she thought, but there is justice, too, or the hope of it.