Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

  Georgie was caught between giggles and gasps at his rudeness. She noticed that Lizzie did not laugh, but watched him closely, almost suspiciously.

  Yet if Gabriel went wandering off with one of the other men, Lizzie grew restless and unhappy. She looked out for him constantly, her fingers twisting the end of the ribbon that bound her narrow waist. When he came back, she seemed to relax, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm and smiling once more.

  Afterwards, Georgie and Ned went back to Gabriel and Lizzie’s rooms at Hampstead. Gabriel and Ned were deep in a conversation about the poet Dante, and so Georgie went up to the dark little bedroom with Lizzie to take off her bonnet. The sun was just setting over the Heath, a few low red rays striking in through the lattice window. It made Lizzie’s hair gleam like a freshly polished copper kettle.

  ‘Gabriel tells me that you have been taking art classes with Bruno?’ Lizzie asked with warm interest. ‘I’ve heard he’s a brilliant teacher.’

  ‘Yes,’ Georgie replied eagerly. ‘He’s so kind and I’m learning so much.’

  ‘Do you know that I paint too?’ Lizzie asked. ‘I’m working on a drawing now. Would you like to see it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please.’ Georgie came forward with a rush, as Lizzie drew out a drawing from between some boards. It was crowded with figures, most with shadowy faces. A knight in dark armour knelt by the side of a young man, who appeared to be dead or fainting. A woman with a crown on her head had turned away her face in grief. She looked a lot like Lizzie. Georgie could see it was about something tragic.

  ‘I call it the Woeful Victory,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘It’s very good. So much feeling in it. And it looks like an old medieval woodcut. I just love that look. That’s what I’m trying to learn to do.’ Georgie hesitated, then confided shyly, ‘I’d like to write and illustrate a collection of old fairytales. You know, the Sleeping Princess in the Wood, and Cinderella, and so on.’

  ‘That’s a fine ambition,’ Lizzie cried. ‘Perhaps we could work together. Like Gabriel did with Johnny Millais and the others with those Tennyson poems.’

  ‘Oh, I’d like that,’ Georgie said.

  Lizzie smiled at her. ‘Let’s do it then! Why let the men have all the glory?’

  Georgie went home in a joyful daze, her head filled with dreams of creating something beautiful herself.

  12

  Red House

  Summer 1860

  It was a house out of a fairytale.

  Janey walked through the garden, marvelling at the steep-roofed building set amongst its apple trees as if it had always been there. Wild roses, sweetbriar and honeysuckle clambered over the trellises, and tall hollyhocks and lilies grew from a tumult of daisies. The air was full of the scent of lavender and rosemary, and birds sang in the flowering crabapple. It had rained that morning, but now the sun had come out and all the leaves shone as if they had been polished with lemon oil.

  The house itself was made of red Kentish brick, with sharply pitched irregular roofs and gables of red tile, topped with tall chimneys. The arched front door was hidden within a deep porch, with white sashed windows in a tall gothic-pointed recess above. Jasmine climbed up one wall, filling the air with its heady fragrance.

  ‘Come and see the well and the rest of the garden before we go inside,’ Topsy said, pulling at her hand.

  Smiling, Janey followed him around the side of the house to a small, enclosed garden basking in the late summer sunshine. Sitting in the corner of the two wings of the house was the quaintest well she had ever seen, topped with a conical roof like a witch’s hat.

  ‘Oh, Topsy, it’s beautiful!’ she exclaimed.

  He beamed. ‘I knew you’d like the well.’

  ‘It’s like something out of a story book.’

  ‘That was the feeling I wanted.’

  Nothing matched anything else. One wall had three round windows in a row, another wall had two traditionally shaped sash windows set above an open archway, and yet another a tall narrow window like a medieval arrow-slit, set in a gothic arch. Behind the well was a stair tower topped by a simple iron weathervane. Janey shaded her eyes with one hand, trying to make out the pattern.

  ‘It says W. M. 1859.’ Topsy sounded very pleased with himself.

  As her husband led her through the garden, he pointed out what rooms were hidden behind the windows. Janey’s head whirled with it all. A studio and dining room. A library and morning room. A kitchen, fitted out with a range and a pantry. A buttery. Three water closets! She could hardly take it all in.

  Kitchen gardens had been laid out on the far side, with bees humming happily amongst the pea flowers and the lavender. Pear trees espaliered against the wall were already showing tiny green globes of fruit.

  ‘You must’ve planted the garden while the house was still being built,’ Janey exclaimed.

  ‘Of course I did,’ her husband answered, looking surprised. ‘Nothing makes a house look so new as not having a garden.’

  On the west face of the house was a long lawn where Topsy planned to play bowls, overlooked by a funny little window standing on a slim brick pillar. Topsy told her it was called an oriel window, then led her back round to the front door again.

  ‘May my lady be pleased to enter her castle?’ Topsy opened the door with a deep flourishing bow.

  Janey clasped her hands together, stepping past him into a great entrance hall. Then she stood, gazing about her, almost overcome. Never could she have expected she would live in such a grand house.

  The floor was tiled in deep red, the walls whitewashed. Ahead was a broad oak staircase, its posts carved like something out of a cathedral. A huge wooden cupboard was pushed against one wall, with a low seat below.

  ‘Here’s the dining room.’ Topsy showed her to the right, into a long room with a red brick fireplace built with a dramatic medieval-shaped hood. Against one wall was a wooden plate dresser painted a vivid ox-blood red. ‘I asked our architect to design that for you. See how high it is? He built it so you would never need to stoop to fetch the plates.’

  Janey blinked away tears. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said again.

  ‘I’m having two long tables made, so we can have feasts here like a medieval king and queen,’ he told her.

  As she was led from room to room, Topsy proudly showing her each unique feature, Janey thought that she had never seen a house like it. Everything was grand in size but utterly simple in design. There was none of the heavy ornamentation seen in most houses she had visited. Even the roof beams were left exposed in the stairwell.

  ‘It feels like a church,’ Janey said.

  He cast her a quick look of approval. ‘That’s it! That’s what we wanted. Houses for people can be just as beautiful as houses for God.’

  ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted,’ she said huskily. ‘A home of my own.’

  Topsy said eagerly, ‘I know it’s very bare and plain at the moment, but I have such plans. I thought we could paint murals on the walls. Ned and Gabriel will help me. And we’ll make some tapestries for the bedrooms. Look. I thought this room could be the nursery.’

  He led her into a small room, with a lovely view out over the garden. Janey smiled. Unconsciously her hands moved to press against the gentle swell of her belly. Topsy stood behind her, putting his arms about her and laying his big hands over hers.

  ‘Are you pleased, Janey?’

  She slid her hands out so she could lay them over his, pressing them more closely about her. ‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered.

  Janey’s new life was full of trials.

  Meeting so many new people. Giving orders to servants. Worrying about household accounts when she had never been taught to reckon.

  The greatest ordeal, though, would be seeing Gabriel again.

  She knew it could not be avoided. Topsy loved and admired Gabriel as much as ever. His name was mentioned a dozen times a day. Now he was married too, and everyone was full of curiosity about his new bride.

 
One day in early autumn, Topsy told her they had been invited to a party at the house of Gabriel’s mother and sisters. Janey nodded, though her chest tightened at once. It was some comfort to know that Ned and Georgie would be there. Janey felt that she and Georgie were growing to be friends, the first she had ever had.

  ‘We’ll not be able to stay long,’ Topsy said. ‘I’d like to catch the evening train back to Kent.’

  She nodded again. Topsy knew that she did not like London. The red glare on the horizon, the black smoking chimneys, the stench of sweat and cinders and sewage, the clank and rattle of carriages and cabs, the shriek of trains and steamboats, the shrill insistent cries of the costermongers, the roar from the public houses on every corner, the shove and tumult of the footpaths, the desperate neigh of horses whipped beyond endurance, the beggars and prostitutes on every corner.

  Janey could not bear it.

  She only ever came up to London reluctantly. They needed to furnish their house, however, so she and Topsy had spent a few days looking through shops and warehouses. Nothing felt right to them. Their house – so medieval in spirit – needed dressing to match. Topsy was full of plans for creating what they wanted themselves. Janey had found a length of serge that had been dyed a soft, warm indigo-blue that she thought would make a lovely wall-hanging. Topsy had sketched a quick design of wild daisies on the back of his railway timetable, inspired by one of his favourite medieval manuscripts. She was eager to get home to start work on it, with nothing but birdsong in her ears and the fresh, sweet country air in her lungs.

  But first she must endure the party in Albany Street.

  She was introduced first to Mrs Rossetti, a grim-faced woman in black with a white cap with long streamers. Her son William was a taller, gaunter version of Gabriel, with a high receding hairline and a serious expression. The two sisters sat either side of their mother, backs straight, hands folded, heads bent. Christina was the more attractive of the two, with a long face and pointed chin.

  Mrs Rossetti bowed her head and said, in the manner of one conferring a great honour, ‘Good evening, Mrs Morris. Welcome.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Rossetti. Please forgive me for not taking off my bonnet. My husband and I have a train to catch.’ Janey spoke carefully, aware of the sound of every vowel and consonant.

  ‘Of course. We are so pleased to have a chance to meet you both. Gabriel says your husband is a most talented poet. He has had a book of poems published, I believe?’

  ‘He has.’ Janey glanced at her husband who had gone red and was fidgeting with his watch chain. Topsy’s poetry had not been well received. Janey knew this hurt him, though he had never said a word. He had not tried to compose a verse since, however, nor showed anyone his little book.

  Christina had been gazing off into space, thinking of something else, but at the mention of poetry her attention quickened. She looked at Topsy with an intense and frowning gaze.

  ‘I write poetry too,’ she said, in a low musical voice.

  He nodded at her. ‘I know. I read your work in The Germ. Gabriel told me it was by you. It was very fine. That one called “Dream Land”. How did it go? “Where sunless rivers weep, their waves into the deep, she sleeps a charmed sleep …”’

  ‘“Awake her not,”’ he and Christina said together.

  Christina’s face glowed.

  ‘Very fine,’ Topsy said again.

  Christina bent her head in acknowledgement. It was clear she was pleased.

  ‘There’s Ned and Mrs Ned,’ Topsy said, pointing at the Joneses.

  At the sight of Janey, Georgie jumped up and held out her hands in greeting. She was so small, Janey had to bend down to kiss her. It was like embracing a child. As always Georgie was dressed simply, with no other ornament but her wedding ring and a little string of cheap wooden beads. Her dark hair was drawn back tightly, without a single softening curl or plait, but her eyes were so luminous and her dark lashes so long she was saved from plainness. Janey thought she had never met anyone with so much goodness shining out of her face.

  ‘Janey, this is Letitia Bell Scott.’ Georgie gestured to the short, dumpy woman to whom she had been speaking. ‘Her husband William is an artist who teaches at the government school of design in Newcastle-on-Tyne. Letitia, this is the new Mrs William Morris! Though Ned calls her Mrs Topsy, of course.’

  ‘Goodness gracious,’ Letitia said, looking Janey up and down. ‘Aren’t you tall. You make Georgie and I look quite diminutive.’

  Janey smiled, but did not know how to respond. Letitia did not need an answer. She rattled on, ‘And where are you from?’

  ‘From Oxford,’ Janey replied.

  ‘No, no, I mean your family. What country do they come from?’

  ‘England,’ Janey said.

  ‘I mean, originally.’

  ‘They come from England,’ Janey repeated.

  Letitia gave a little snort of polite disbelief. ‘Really? Where?’

  ‘Both my parents were born in little villages in the Cotswolds, but moved to Oxford for work. I was born there.’

  Letitia looked her up and down again, then said, ‘And so what does your father do, Mrs Morris?’

  ‘He’s an ostler.’

  As Letitia gazed at her in horrified amazement, Janey added, with just a glint of a smile, ‘You know. A man that works in the stables of an inn.’

  ‘Your father works in a stable?’

  ‘He does.’ A devilish imp prompted her to add, ‘We lived there when I was a child.’

  ‘In the stable?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Letitia seemed at a loss for words. Then she gathered up her skirts and withdrew a few steps, her nose pinched as if she was afraid Janey must still smell of horseshit.

  ‘Don’t forget our Lord was born in a stable,’ Georgie said in a cold voice. She tucked her hand into Janey’s arm, and said, ‘Come, Janey, there are so many other people I wish to introduce you to. Excuse us, Letitia.’ With a curt nod, she led Janey away.

  ‘What an unpleasant woman,’ she said, as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Perhaps I should make up a new history for myself,’ Janey said. ‘I could pretend I was a princess of the Ottoman Empire, hiding from assassins …’

  ‘Sent by your cruel uncle who wishes to seize your throne,’ Georgie said with delight.

  ‘Or perhaps, since I am so unfashionably tall, I can say I am descended from the giants of Zanzibar …’

  Then Gabriel came in.

  Janey could not draw enough air into her lungs. She turned away, fighting for composure, and saw Topsy glance at her. She could only hope her face did not betray her.

  ‘Oh, Lizzie’s not here! I did so want her to meet you,’ Georgie cried.

  Gabriel went to greet his mother, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry, Mama. Lizzie was not well enough to come.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Mrs Rossetti said, in a tone of polite disbelief.

  ‘She is most unwell,’ Gabriel said. ‘I should have stayed to care for her, but I wanted a chance to see Mr and Mrs Topsy.’ He looked across the room, straight into Janey’s eyes. There was something hard and mocking in his glance. Despite herself, colour flamed in Janey’s cheeks. She gripped her hands together, looking down at the ground. Gabriel came to their sides, shaking Topsy’s hand and clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Congratulations! Don’t things change? Who would have guessed we’d all be old married men so soon?’

  Topsy responded in kind. Then it was Janey’s turn. He shook her hand and said coolly, ‘Well, married life seems to be suiting you, Mrs Topsy.’

  She could not speak. One hand went instinctively to the curve of her belly, half-hidden by the swell of her gown. He saw the movement, and his face stiffened. ‘I see. So that’s why you are glowing. Congratulations to you both.’

  ‘And to you too,’ she managed to say.

  Then Gabriel was greeting Ned and Georgie, and the awful first moment was over.


  ‘And so tell me, how goes the Towers of Topsy?’ Gabriel asked them, after all the exclamations and explanations were done with.

  Topsy grinned. ‘It’s just as wonderful as I had hoped. Still rather bare. I say, you should all come down and stay with us. We’ve plenty of room.’

  ‘Oh, we’d love to!’ Georgie clapped her hands.

  ‘Come down as soon as you can,’ Topsy said. ‘The sunflowers will be out.’

  ‘Making your garden look just like your mural of jealous King Mark,’ Gabriel said. There was some kind of sly dig in his words that Janey did not fully understand. She saw Topsy flinch a little, and look at her. Then she remembered that King Mark had been the cuckolded husband of Iseult, the queen Janey had modelled.

  She slid her hand inside Topsy’s arm. ‘If we don’t go soon, we’ll miss our train.’

  ‘Yes, we must go,’ he answered in some relief. ‘So sorry we didn’t get to see Mrs Gabriel. Come down and see us soon!’

  As they made their farewells, Janey thought how strange it was that the men all called the wives by their friends’ first names. It was friendly and funny, but also somehow diminishing, as if they had no name or no existence outside their husbands.

  Lizzie, she thought. Her name is Lizzie.

  Janey had thought tonight would be the last of the great ordeals she had to face. But she still had not met the woman she could not help thinking of as her rival and her enemy.

  13

  Queen of Hearts

  Autumn–Winter 1860

  I have never been so happy, Lizzie told herself. Her thin hands worried at the knitted blanket that covered her, unravelling a loose thread. Gabriel will be home soon. It’s natural to feel a little low with such weather.