Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

  Georgie’s knees weakened and she had to sit down for a moment. She could not look at the still white figure on the bed. A cloth had been flung over the mirror at Lizzie’s dressing table. The clock on the mantelpiece had been stopped, its hands set at a little after seven o’clock. Lizzie’s dress lay where she had discarded it, her gloves flung down on a chair like limp white hands.

  Georgie could hardly believe that Lizzie would never wear them again. She got up blindly, and stumbled from the room.

  Georgie had to get out her mourning dress, which she had last worn when Carrie had died. She could hardly bear the cold touch of the bombazine upon her skin, its faint smell of damp.

  A hearse was drawn up in the square, drawn by four black horses with feathers nodding from their brow straps. The coachman wore a tall silk hat. So too did the two mutes, standing by the front door, swathed in heavy shawls, holding tall staves elaborately wrapped and bound in black with a white riband. Their faces were set in expressions of deep melancholy.

  Georgie clutched Ned’s arm, as much to support him as to comfort herself, as they climbed the stairs.

  The drawing room was lit only by candles, the many drawings and paintings of Lizzie all turned to face the wall. White lilies stood in vases on the mantelpiece and table. Their scent did not conceal the faint smell of putrefaction in the air.

  Lizzie lay in the satin-lined casket, her hands folded upon her breast, her golden-red hair loose and flowing. Gabriel must have gone even further into debt, Georgie thought, to have paid for such a fine coffin. It seemed wrong, when the living were in need of such help.

  Gabriel stood by the coffin, dressed in black. His brother and sisters were by his side, Mrs Rossetti seated in a chair nearby. They all looked haggard. Georgie knew they would have shared in his vigil these past six days. A long time to sit by the corpse. Bruno said that Gabriel had refused to believe Lizzie was truly dead. He kept hoping she would wake and open her eyes and look at him.

  On the far side of the room stood another small group, many of them with red hair and freckles, which she guessed must be Lizzie’s family. Her mother was stone-faced, her sisters weeping into their handkerchiefs. Two young men stood by, looking uncomfortable in their stiff collars. One was moon faced and childlike, and kept asking, ‘Why is Lizzie sleeping? Why doesn’t she wake up?’

  Ned and Georgie shook hands with Gabriel and his brother, and muttered a few inadequate words. Gabriel nodded and thanked them quietly.

  Then they had to pass on, to look upon Lizzie in her coffin. Ned could not look; he clutched so hard at Georgie’s hand she was afraid he might break her fingers. Then he saw Topsy and Bruno by the window and went to them, his face working with emotion.

  Georgie joined Janey and Emma nearby, kissing their cheeks.

  ‘Isn’t it sad?’ Georgie had to dab at her eyes again.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s true. Poor Gabriel.’ Janey clenched her hands together, white-knuckled.

  ‘He’s not holding up at all well.’ Emma lowered her voice. ‘He says he sees her every night, standing at the foot of his bed, staring at him.’

  Georgie felt a cold prickle run down her. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Yes. Her ghost is unquiet.’

  ‘Her ghost? Her ghost is haunting him?’ Janey’s face was blanched of all colour.

  ‘The poor thing died before her time,’ Emma said. ‘And so she walks.’

  ‘Surely not,’ Georgie said. ‘It must be just a nightmare. Not surprising, really. Once she is safely buried in the ground, Gabriel will find things easier.’

  The undertaker had bent to whisper something in his ear. Georgie saw the men were standing ready to close the casket and carry it down to the hearse.

  Gabriel bent his head, all his weight borne down on his two hands which clenched the back of his mother’s chair. Then he straightened and drew a notebook out of his coat pocket.

  ‘My poems … I wrote them for you, Lizzie … they must go with you.’ He stepped forward and laid the notebook beside her cheek, cradled in her bright hair.

  ‘Gabriello, no!’ Bruno protested.

  William Rossetti held up his hand. ‘Let him do as he wishes.’

  Gabriel bent and kissed Lizzie’s cold cheek. The lid of the casket was hammered shut, and the undertaker’s men hoisted it high and carried it down to where the mutes stood waiting, ready to begin the long walk to Highgate Cemetery.

  Gabriel stood alone, his head bowed. Unable to bear it, Georgie went to him and pressed his arm between both of her small hands.

  He said, more to himself than to her, ‘I cannot believe it. I cannot believe she is dead.’

  No winter had seemed so long.

  First Ned was sick, then baby Phil. Georgie hurried from one to the other, falling exhausted into bed every night.

  John Ruskin came to their rescue. He wanted to take Ned to France and Italy, to see great art and great cathedrals. Georgie was torn in two. On the one hand, she had never been outside England, and could not bear the thought of Ned being away from her for so many months. On the other hand, Phil was so small and frail. She hated the thought of leaving him behind.

  ‘Just leave him with Mama,’ her sister Alice advised. ‘It’d do her good to have something new to fuss over.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Georgie looked down at the little dark head nestled in the crook of her arm. ‘I’m afraid he’ll fret for me.’

  ‘He’s only a shrimp; he won’t even know you’re gone.’

  So, with a heart full of mingled excitement and misgivings, Georgie had left her baby boy with her parents in early May and crossed the Channel with John Ruskin and her husband, headed towards France.

  Paris was a troubling city. On the one hand, it was so beautiful. Napoleon III had built grand avenues lined with chestnut trees that were bursting into bloom in the spring sunshine. The Seine ran like a golden satin ribbon under arched bridges, past great palaces and cathedrals with soaring spires. At dusk, the allumeurs made their rounds, carrying long poles hung with a little lantern, to light the tall black gas-lamps. Soon the boulevards along the river were illuminated with strings of light, and the Arc de Triomphe was crowned with fire.

  Yet behind the parks and palaces was a vast maze of dirty medieval streets infested with beggars and rag pickers, who swarmed out at dawn to rummage through the piles of garbage dumped outside every house. The Seine stank. The night was made awful by the clatter of wagons arriving at the marketplace at Les Halles, and each dawn Georgie was woken by the raucous calls of the street vendors.

  Mr Ruskin took them to the Louvre, which had once been the royal palace of the French kings but had been turned into a museum during the French Revolution. The Emperor, Napoleon III, had spent millions of francs restoring the museum and stocking it with new treasures from all over the world.

  Walking the vast echoing halls, with their marble floors and gilded cornices, their ceilings painted with frescoes, their walls hung with huge paintings of kings and queens and popes, heathen gods and goddesses, satyrs and bare-breasted nymphs, Georgie felt herself very drab and insignificant in her plain blue dress, sturdy boots on her feet, much-darned cotton gloves on her hands, and a plain straw bonnet on her head. Everywhere she looked was something to put her to the blush.

  Silently she followed Ned and Mr Ruskin through hall after hall, overwhelmed by the grandeur and magnificence she saw on every side, the vanity and pride and lust, the ambitions and passions and appetites displayed with such wantonness.

  A little spurt of anger kindled in her breast.

  No wonder, she thought, the French rose up and dragged down their kings.

  The next day, she did not go with them back to the Louvre. Her feet ached, and she had seen enough. Mr Ruskin smiled and said, ‘Of course, you’ll want to go shopping. I know you women.’ Georgie did not know how to explain to him that the unnecessary expenditure of money on frivolities was not something she enjoyed. She walked in the park, fed bread to the pigeons,
then sat in the shade writing in her diary.

  As she walked down the Rue de Rivoli to their hotel, she saw a gypsy girl kneeling on the ground, tattered skirts spread out about her, hair hidden beneath a knotted scarf. Her nails were dirty and broken, her bare feet blackened with filth, her face bruised. She held out two hands in a begging gesture. On the rug beside her was a thin kitten, mewling in hunger.

  Georgie gave the girl all her money.

  She knew it was foolish. She knew Mr Ruskin would reprimand her if he knew. She did not care.

  A few weeks later they came down the pass into Italy.

  ‘I say!’ Ned pointed to a young woman with bare feet and masses of heavy dark hair, a basket of oranges on her head. ‘Look at that girl there. Doesn’t she look like a spoiled study of Mrs Topsy?’

  Georgie knew just what he meant. As striking as the Italian girl was, she could not hold a candle to Janey. As always, Georgie tried not to mind. She knew caring about one’s looks was vanity. Far better to care about one’s soul.

  As the sun set, the woods turned into a fairyland with millions of dancing fireflies. Georgie let herself be entranced. Had Ned not chosen her, out of all the women in the world? Was it not her arms he crept into, when at last they were alone in their bed? Were they not alive, when poor Lizzie was dead?

  The next few weeks were a blur of faces. Real and painted. Georgie knew how lucky she was, yet still she yearned for her baby. Looking at countless fat-cheeked cherubs, Georgie began to think about having another. Perhaps a little girl. Ned would love a baby daughter.

  Ruskin refused to go to Venice. Too many unhappy memories of his wife, Georgie supposed. Yet both Ned and Georgie badly wanted to go. It was hard to stand against Ruskin’s will when they were so beholden to him. Somehow Ned found the courage to insist.

  Georgie would never forget her first sight of Venice. Pale domes and towers rose out of a golden mist, casting long trembling reflections into the waters of the lagoon. Everywhere she looked was beauty and decay, as if the city was slowly rotting from its water-drenched foundations. The smell of the canals was so powerful that the women carried silver vinaigrette boxes or pomanders made of clove-studded oranges, to lift to their noses at need. Yet each turn of the cobblestoned alleys showed another cathedral or palace, built to glorify. Bare-footed tousle-haired children ran and played in squares where soldiers strutted in their gaudy Austrian uniforms. Women in simple peasant dress leaned out from windows to hang out ragged washing above canals where women in red satin gowns were poled along in black gondolas with high curved prows shaped like dragon heads.

  Georgie did not know whether to be fascinated or scandalised. It was such bliss, though, to be alone with Ned at last, that she forgave the city its pomp and splendour, and saw only its fortitude and grace.

  It was no hardship to spend all day looking at paintings when it was just her and Ned. He did not lecture her, or talk to her as if she was a child. One day she saw a little jewel of a painting tucked away in the corner of a dark church, and said, ‘Look at this, Ned. Isn’t it a nice little thing? It looks like that one you showed me yesterday by that painter called …’ She hesitated, then said tentatively, ‘… Bonnie-face?’

  Ned came to see, then caught her hand and squeezed it. ‘It is indeed a Bonifacio. You’re developing a good eye, Georgie.’

  She glowed with pleasure. If it had not been for her longing to see her baby boy, she would have been perfectly happy.

  Ned, however, was making himself ill again. Ruskin had told him sternly he was not to waste time painting all those myths and fairytales he loved so much, but to do nothing but copy the great works of the masters. It made Ned unhappy. He wanted to please his patron, but he found it so hard to spend each day copying the work of others when his brain was teeming with visions he wanted to bring to life on canvas.

  On their last day in Venice, Ned and Georgie were exploring the shadowy nave of a great church when they heard the deep sombre tones of a basso profundo. Georgie at once had to follow the sound, having never heard anything so deep, so sad. A red-draped coffin was being carried down the aisle, preceded by children in long smocks carrying candles and singing an eerie high accompaniment. Chills ran over her body.

  The coffin was followed by mourners, all dressed in black, the women veiled, heads bent in grief. Georgie put her hand in the crook of Ned’s elbow, wanting to hold him back, but he pulled against her grasp and followed the funeral procession out of the darkness of the church and into the sunlit square. Georgie had to follow. They watched as the coffin was loaded into a black gondola, with winged gilded angels and a red cross above the catafalque. More gondolas were lined up behind for the mourners, the gondoliers all dressed in black with red sashes.

  The coffin was lowered into the gondola and rowed away to the island of the dead, accompanied by the strange, melancholy song of the gondoliers.

  Ned stood, chest heaving, tears running down his thin face. Georgie could do nothing but press his arm between her two small hands and wish that his mother had not died, his father had not been so broken by grief, and that Lizzie still lived.

  ‘I’m glad to be home,’ Ned said, as they stepped over the pile of letters and handbills inside their front door.

  ‘So am I!’

  Their rooms smelt stuffy, so Georgie laid her little boy down on the rug and went around, flinging up the windows and letting the soft summer air flood in. Across the park the great pillars of the British Museum glowed golden in the evening sunshine. Horses clopped past, carriage wheels clattered, and birds twittered in the plane trees. A muffin man passed down the street, tinkling his bell and calling out, ‘Muffins. Hot muffins.’

  Georgie stood for a moment, listening in quiet pleasure. Their apartment was small and sparsely furnished, and nothing like the grand hotels in which they had stayed with John Ruskin. But it was home.

  She turned, and saw that Phil had crawled down the hall and was peeping in the doorway at her. Georgie flew across the room and caught him up, pressing kisses all over his beaming cheeks. ‘Oh, you clever boy, are you crawling now? I can see there’ll be no peace for me now.’

  She carried him down the hall to the studio, and found Ned sitting, reading letters. His face was pale and distressed.

  ‘I’ve heard from Topsy. Poor Gabriel’s moved away from Blackfriars. He says the place is haunted now. He’s looking for somewhere else to stay. Topsy says he is working like mad. So many debts …’

  ‘And funerals are so expensive,’ Georgie said. She remembered how crippling the costs had been for her father, with so many little coffins to bury in the earth.

  Ned nodded. ‘Topsy says the International Exhibition was a great success, and the Firm has dozens of new orders. That should help.’

  ‘Any work for you?’ Money was a constant worry for them too.

  Ned nodded. His hand reached out and found a pencil and a scrap of paper. ‘Mmmm-hmmm. A client is building a grand house in Surrey and wants to commission some tiles for his fireplaces. He wants a fairytale theme. I am thinking of Sleeping Beauty …’ He began to sketch.

  Georgie tiptoed away. He did not even notice she was gone.

  Over the next few days Ned was in the studio from first light till long after the gaslights had been ignited. One night, after laying Phil down in his cot, she went down the hall in her nightgown to try to entice Ned to bed.

  He sat at his table, painting away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Georgie put her arms about him.

  He was working on a design inspired by the Sleeping Beauty fairytale. A girl in a white nightgown lay on a bed, swirls of roses behind her. A peacock spread its gaudy tail on the far wall. The girl’s golden-red hair rippled out across the pillow. On his knees beside her was a knight with long dark curls, bending to kiss her.

  Beneath the drawing were pasted words in a flowing scroll, written in Topsy’s elegant scrawl. ‘Of a certain prince who delivered a King’s daughter from a sleep of a hundred year
s, wherein she and all hers had been cast by enchantment’.

  The next sketch showed the knight and the awakened maiden, hurrying through the castle on their way to their wedding. The knight looked like a young Gabriel, while the glowing-haired princess was the image of Lizzie before she grew so sick and sad. Georgie’s eyes dampened. She kissed Ned’s cheek. He put his hands up to cover hers.

  ‘If only she was sleeping,’ he whispered. ‘If only she could be awakened with a kiss.’

  Part III

  Beauty & Misfortune

  1864–1871

  Two things had tremendous power over him – beauty and misfortune – and far would he go to serve either.

  Lady Georgiana Burne-Jones

  Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, Volume I

  1

  Scarlet Fever

  Autumn 1864

  Afterwards, Georgie would marvel that she had felt no presentiment. Surely such grief, such pain, should throw back a shadow to warn you?

  If only she had foreseen what was to come. If only she had taken more care.

  It had been such a lovely summer. Ned and Georgie had taken their little boy to the seaside, in company with Topsy and Janey and their two little girls, Jenny and Mary, who everyone called May. Charley Faulkner came along too, and his mother and sisters, Lucy and Kate. Charley had known Ned and Topsy at Oxford and was one of the founding members of the Firm, while Lucy and Kate painted many of the tiles the Firm produced, including the beautiful Sleeping Beauty tiles that Ned had designed.

  The three families had taken lodgings at Littlehampton on the Sussex coast, and the days had been spent playing with the children on the brown-sugar sands and paddling in the water. Lucy and Kate had even tried swimming from one of the bathing machines drawn down to the water’s edge. Georgie was with child once more, and so spent most of her time sitting in the shade of a striped parasol, sewing little white garments and thinking of names. Janey kept her company, reading out loud the latest instalment in Elizabeth Gaskell’s serial Wives and Daughters and darning May’s stockings, which were always getting torn.