Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Go an’ have a dram an’ a pipe at the pub,’ Bessie suggested. ‘Mr Whittaker ain’t there, his missus would be glad o’ a bit o’ company.’

  Annie brightened at once. She had lost her job at the pub, having turned up to work drunk once too often, but the publican’s wife was an old friend and could be relied on to turn a blind eye to Annie’s unpaid bills.

  A steady stream of people made their way to the old gymnasium. Most were local workmen and their wives, but there was a smattering of more genteel people, the women dressed in silk crinolines and the men in top hats and fringed white scarves. There were also a great many young men, moving in packs, and ogling the girls. Most were university students, but there were others in rough tweeds and flat caps as well. Janey and Bessie kept close together, hurrying from one gas-lamp to another, until they were safe in their seats in the gallery.

  The lights had been dimmed and the curtains drawn back to show a scene of a country village, with a windmill and a church and various rose-covered cottages. A gypsy was walking along with a parcel tied up in a handkerchief, while a young man pretended to pitchfork straw.

  At that moment, two young men began to push their way along the chairs lined up in front of Janey and her sister.

  ‘Pardon me, did I tread on your toes? If you could just let us through.’

  They collapsed into the seats directly in front of Bessie and Janey.

  ‘That was close,’ one said.

  ‘I would’ve been annoyed if we’d missed the show, Gabriel. Why must you always be late?’

  Janey recognised both the voice of the second speaker, and the name that he pronounced. It was the slender young man with the floppy hair that she had seen in the pub’s yard. He looked to be around twenty-two, and was wearing a pair of purple velvet trousers and a dark coat with darned elbows. The man named Gabriel looked around thirty, and had black hair that curled over his collar. His coat was rich plum-coloured velvet.

  His voice had been beautiful. Deep and musical. It had just a hint of something foreign about it. He looked foreign too. His skin was as swarthy as Janey’s, and his hair as dark. His eyes were shadowed, with a deep horizontal dent between them as if he was always frowning in concentration.

  On stage, the young man with the pitchfork had begun to sing.

  ‘Good God, Ned, what have you inflicted upon me?’ Gabriel cried. ‘It’s a music hall number.’

  ‘Sssh!’ said the woman in the feathered hat.

  ‘Sorry, Gabriel,’ Ned said with a laugh. ‘It’s the only show in town.’

  ‘Why, oh why, did I leave London?’ Gabriel mourned. ‘To think I could be worshipping at the feet of Miss Herbert at the Royal Strand right now.’

  ‘There might be a stunner in this show too, Gabriel. Look, there’s a girl come on now.’

  Janey returned her attention to the stage. A plump girl in a print frock and a frilly little apron had come on stage, coyly twisting a strand of her improbably golden hair. She carried a long-handled feather duster in one hand, and was singing as she dusted the roses.

  ‘I’ll lay you a monkey that’s a wig,’ Gabriel said.

  Janey laughed, then pressed both hands over her mouth.

  He turned and looked at her. Janey tucked her hands together in her lap and pretended not to notice him. ‘But here’s a rare beauty under my very nose,’ he said. ‘How did I not see you before?’

  Janey coloured hotly, sure he was mocking her.

  Ned had turned to look too. ‘That’s the girl we saw today, at the inn. I knew you’d adore her, I told the others so. What a coincidence to find her sitting right behind us in the theatre!’

  The woman in the big hat made more shushing noises, and the old gentleman said coldly, ‘Excuse me, sir, if you would be so good …’

  ‘I endeavour to be good as little as possible,’ Gabriel answered.

  ‘Quiet, sir! Watch the show,’ another man said.

  Gabriel shrugged and returned his attention to the stage, but every few moments he would steal another glance at Janey. Bessie grinned and dug her sister in the ribs. ‘Wait till he sees what a Long Meg ye are on yer feet,’ she whispered. ‘He won’t think ye’re such a looker then.’

  ‘Sssh,’ Janey said.

  On stage, the girl with the golden hair was singing:

  Whenever you marry, soon you get sorry

  When poverty hasn’t a pound,

  Hearts’ll be sinking when no money’s chinking,

  And love soon fall to the ground.

  Advice I give to each fond lass

  Say ‘No’ to every man.

  ‘Excellent advice!’ Gabriel clapped loudly. The girl heard him and turned his way, smirking and dropping a little curtsey.

  The show rolled on, with sailors dancing with village maids, and an evil miller plotting to burn the hero’s ship and wreck his wedding. Gabriel kept up a running commentary that made Janey bite her lip so she would not laugh again. The people around him grew angry and flustered, but he had an air of supreme unconcern.

  At last the play ended, and the house lights came up. At once Gabriel twisted about in his chair.

  ‘You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. I must paint you,’ he said to Janey.

  She stared at him dumbly.

  ‘Will you come tomorrow to my rooms? We are staying at number 13 George Street.’ He took out a card and a little silver pencil from his waistcoat pocket, scribbled the address on it, and presented it to her.

  Janey’s face was burning. She ducked her head, twisting her hands in the cloth of her dress. After a moment Gabriel pulled the card back.

  ‘We mean no disrespect,’ Ned said. ‘We are artists, painting murals on the walls of the Oxford Union’s debating hall. Mr Rossetti here is one of the most famous artists in London. He needs models to sit for him … to be painted by him.’

  ‘I be mortal sorry, but I can’t,’ Janey whispered. They exchanged quick glances at the sound of her accent. Pulling Bessie up, she hurried away down the aisle between the seats.

  ‘Are ye crazy?’ her sister demanded, as they pushed through the crowd towards the street. ‘Ye might’ve got some stub out o’ them.’ She looked back towards the two artists, who were following them. ‘An’ one o’ them is right handsome.’

  ‘They didn’t want to paint me.’ Janey quickened her pace, tugging at Bessie’s hand.

  ‘O’ course not. Who would?’

  ‘I ain’t no dolly-mop,’ Janey said fiercely.

  ‘Ma’s right. Ye’re too nice. S’pose it was all that schoolin’. Well, ye’re a dummel. Bet he’d pay a tuppence for a quick screw in the alley.’

  Janey only tried to get through the crowd faster. Bessie was right, she knew. She was too nice. A girl like her had no call to go dreaming of love, and trying to keep herself clean for it. Once she started standing on street corners, though, begging gentlemen to take her up against an alley wall, she’d lose all chance of anything else.

  ‘Please, miss … just a moment!’

  Janey hurried on, but felt a hand catch at her sleeve. Bessie stopped and turned, pulling Janey around with her.

  ‘Ye’re wantin’ summat, gen’lemen?’ Bessie asked, hand on one hip.

  ‘Please don’t be afraid,’ Gabriel said. He stepped closer, his hand on Janey’s arm. She could feel the heat of it through the fabric. ‘I must paint you. You are a queen, a goddess.’

  Janey felt something shift deep within her. To have such things said to her!

  The other one said, ‘You need not fear that we will be too forward or risk your reputation in any way. We are both betrothed to be married.’

  Janey looked up quickly at that. Gabriel did not look best pleased at his friend’s words. He fixed his eyes on her. ‘Please let me paint you. I shall make your face the most famous in all of England.’

  Janey hesitated.

  ‘We shall pay for your time, of course,’ Ned said.

  ‘How much?’ Bessie demanded.

>   When they told her, Bessie dug her elbow into Janey’s side. ‘Lawks-a-mussy!’

  Janey was startled. For a moment, she was sorely tempted. It was a lot more money than she earned with her sewing and her scrubbing. But it felt too dangerous. She had seen desire in a man’s eyes all too many times before. Growing up in the same room as her mother and father, and spending her childhood begging on the streets, Janey had no illusions about sex. She had seen it and heard it and smelt it most days since she was a babe.

  But Gabriel was not like the men she knew. He came from a different world. She did not know the rules of that world. And Janey feared for her heart. Bessie might be happy to have a quick tumble in return for a threepenny bit, but Janey knew it would never be that easy for her. Since she was a little girl, she had always taken things hard. Why should love be any different?

  Janey shook her head. ‘I be mortal sorry,’ she said again. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘If you change your mind …’ Gabriel said, and offered her the card again. She took it, and pushed it into her pocket.

  Gabriel took Janey’s hand, bowing low over it.

  ‘I will see you tomorrow, I hope.’ Then he turned her hand, peeled back her glove, and kissed the hollow of her bare palm. It shook her like a bolt of lightning. With a mischievous grin and a wave of his beaver hat, he and his friend disappeared into the crowd.

  Janey stood, motionless. Her palm was tingling.

  Bessie was agog. ‘What a swell. Ye’ll let him paint ye, won’t ye, Janey? If paintin’ is what he really wants.’ She giggled.

  Janey shook her head. She drew out the card in her pocket and, without looking at it, tore it into a dozen tiny pieces.

  3

  The Swell

  Autumn 1857

  It was too much to hope that Bessie would keep her trap shut.

  All the way home she sang: ‘Janey’s got a swell, Janey’s got a swell.’

  ‘Please don’t tell Ma,’ Janey begged, but her sister only tossed her head and said, ‘An’ why no’? She’ll be reg’lar raw to think o’ all that stub ye could’ve got.’

  ‘That’s why,’ Janey whispered.

  Bessie told their mother as soon as they got through the door. Annie gave Janey a back-hander across the face. ‘Ye think ye’re goin’ to get a better offer? Think again, ye numbskull! A girl like ye ain’t got that many chances. Ye think I got yer father by actin’ all coy? Nay! I had him in me bed in the first ten minutes I knew him, then had him to the church as soon as I had a babe in me belly.’

  ‘An’ look how well that turned out,’ Janey said.

  Her mother slapped her again. ‘Watch yer cheek! Ye ain’t too big to put over me knee …’

  ‘I think she is!’ Bessie gurgled with laughter, and earned herself a clip over the ear.

  ‘So listen up, ye dummel! Ye go an’ give that swell what he wants tomorrer an’ then ye bring back the stub to me, do ye hear? An’ ye do what ye can’t please the man, for I can promise ye now, there ain’t that many out there that’ll want a great hummocking lass like ye.’ Her mother gave her another sharp slap, for good measure, then lay back down on her pallet, in high spirits at the thought of all the money Janey would earn the next day.

  Her cheek and ear stinging, Janey took off her good dress and hung it on the peg, then unhooked her stays. Once she was dressed only in her chemise, she lay down on her pallet, turned her back and pulled her tattered quilt over her head. Bessie was humming one of the songs from the show as she unrolled her stockings. Janey pressed her fingers into her ears. Her eyes smarted with unshed tears.

  It was almost her eighteenth birthday, and her mother wanted her to mark it by selling her body to some foreign gent.

  Janey supposed she may as well start selling what some swells simply took for free.

  Janey washed herself as best she could in a bucket, and put on a clean chemise. She forced a comb through her heavy crimped hair and pinned it back. She needed a great many hairpins to keep it up. Then, dressed in her Sunday frock, she walked to George Street. Her steps lagged. She kept her arms crossed tightly about her ribs.

  It was another warm autumn’s day, with the domes and spires of Oxford gleaming in the sun. Pigeons hopped everywhere. When Janey was a little girl, she had often netted a pigeon for their dinner pot. In the darkness she would climb up the walls and creep over the roofs, looking for the birds roosting along the ridge. They would hear her coming and start to flap their wings and squawk. Janey would leap on them, seizing their warm bodies in her hands, trying to keep free of their raking claws. Their little hearts would drum frantically against her fingers. She would have to wring their necks, quick, before pity overcame her.

  Her heart was drumming that fast now.

  ‘Just make sure he pays ye!’ had been her mother’s only birthday wish for her.

  Janey’s steps slowed.

  ‘I say! It’s you.’

  Janey turned at the sound of the voice. It was Ned Jones, the tall young man with the floppy fair hair.

  ‘Gabriel will be so pleased to see you. He was gutted when you didn’t come. Gutted.’

  ‘I be sorry … ’twas my Ma. She was a-feared …’

  ‘I understand. I can’t tell you how many other mothers feel the same. We are always trying to reassure them we have no ill intent. Would you like me to come and speak to your father? I would not like him to be uneasy about you.’

  Janey did not know what to say. Nervously she dipped her head, and took him to the stables at the King’s Head. Ned said all that was proper, astonishing Robbie Burden whose daughters had been out working and begging in the streets since they were bairns. Robbie frowned, grunted something, and turned back to his work currying a fine bay with three white hocks. Ned looked startled, but took the grunt as agreement.

  ‘Well, then … I guess that’s all right,’ he said to Janey. ‘Gabriel’s at the Oxford Union now. It’s only a few minutes’ walk away. Will you come?’

  Janey nodded. Gripping her hands into knots, she followed him along the street. They turned at Cornmarket Street, and soon wended their way through to Frewin Court, where the Oxford Union had their debating rooms.

  ‘It’s sort of a place where fellows can go and argue about things you’re not allowed to talk about in the colleges,’ Ned explained. ‘An acquaintance of ours built the library there, and Gabriel thought it was just crying out for some paintings on the wall. So here we are. For most of us, it’s our first real commission. Well, sort of. We aren’t being paid. But it could lead to bigger things. And in the meantime, we’re having such a jolly time.’

  Ned gave Janey a smile of pure joy. She gazed at him in amazement. He seemed so young and so naïve. She wondered if her brother might have turned out like this, if things had been different. Will was a good four years younger than this lanky artist, but he looked much older and harder.

  They came into a sunny garden with a linden tree scenting the air sweetly. Ned gestured towards a grand building made of red brick, with a steep slate roof with windows shaped like flowers cut into it.

  Ned led her inside the front door, and into a long oblong chamber. It had a high vaulted ceiling, with scaffolding built up to it. Paint-stained dust sheets covered the floor and were draped over the lower walls. In the centre of the room was the most extraordinary fireplace Janey had ever seen. It was double-sided, with two hearths facing either half of the room, but it did not have a chimney. Janey could not think where the smoke could possibly go. The flat marble top was crowded with tubes of paint, empty soda bottles, teacups, and jars of dirty water stuck with paintbrushes.

  The upper wall was set with ten bays, each pierced with two flower-shaped windows. Janey could see shapes and colours had been laid in patterns in some of the bays, with here and there a figure or a face or tree taking shape. Tall double windows lined the far wall. It was gloomy inside, though, as the glass had all been whitewashed.

  Young men were busy mixing paint on their palettes, standing at
an easel and sketching, or up on the scaffolding, painting the ceiling. They had all been laughing and talking, but as Janey came in they fell silent, drawing close to look at her. She felt uneasy, and gripped her skirt with both hands.

  ‘Fellows, this is … why, forgive me, I do not know your name!’

  ‘Janey,’ she whispered. ‘Janey Burden.’

  ‘Miss Burden, let me introduce you to the fellows.’ One by one, Ned went around the circle, naming each of the artists.

  ‘This fellow with the grand beard has the equally grand name, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, to match his grand lineage. We call him Roddy, though. He is painting Sir Gawaine and the Damsels, and so he’ll be extra pleased to see you since he doesn’t have any damsels to paint.’

  Roddy bowed his head in greeting. He was a handsome young man, with a magnificent dark beard. His clothes were very fine, and he seemed older than the youthful Ned.

  ‘This is Val Prinsep.’ Ned indicated a tall, well-built youth dressed in a loose white cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow and revealing burly, brown arms. ‘He’s our ox, the one we call on to heave anything about.’

  Val nodded at Janey, his eyes bright with curiosity.

  ‘The one up on the scaffolding is John Hungerford Pollen. He’s helping out with some of the decorative work on the ceiling.’ A tall man with an austere face bowed to Janey, then turned back to his work.

  Ned then gestured to a smiling young man with abundant dark hair, eyes as bright as blackberries, and cheeks ruddy with good health.

  ‘This is Arthur Hughes. He’s the only one of us who really knows what he’s doing. He had his first picture hung at the Royal Academy when he was only seventeen, so he’s rather an enfant terrible … or rather, he was, for as you can see he’s quite old and stout now.’

  ‘My wife feeds me too well,’ Arthur replied, with a smile. ‘You don’t mind if I get back to work, do you, Miss Burden? For I have a hankering to get back to her as soon as I can.’