Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if I had another boy?’ Georgie said. ‘Then we’d have two of each to play with each other.’

  ‘They will all have such fun when you and Ned move down to Red House,’ Janey said, biting short her thread. ‘I am looking forward to it, Georgie. Topsy is finding the travel back and forth to London every day rather taxing, as you can imagine. He will get so much work done without all those hours on the train every day.’

  ‘He’s probably hoping he can drive Ned along a little faster,’ Georgie said. ‘I know he gets a little exasperated that Ned works so slowly, but indeed it’s worth it, Janey. You should see his cartoons for the “Good Women” hangings. They are just exquisite.’

  ‘I love that painting he did of Green Summer,’ Janey replied, laying each stitch neatly. ‘It just seems to sum up everything I love about Red House. The outlook onto forests and meadows, the wildflowers in the grass, friends …’

  ‘Family,’ Georgie added, smiling to think of her sisters who had modelled for Ned’s painting, along with Janey and herself. They had been quite reluctant to discard their crinolines to wear the loose medieval gowns that Ned had insisted upon. The effect, however, had been lovely.

  Georgie laid one hand on the roundness of her belly. The child within was lively, kicking vigorously at all hours. Georgie felt sure it was another boy, and joked that it would grow up to be either a morris dancer or a football player. ‘It will be wonderful to have more room,’ she went on. ‘Our rooms at Great Russell Street are really too small for another baby, and now Phil is racing around everywhere … well, he needs a garden.’

  ‘Plenty of garden at Red House.’ Janey laid down her darning to smile at her friend.

  The plan to build another wing at Red House had been suggested by Topsy, and he had asked his architect to draw up plans, allowing for separate entrances so that the two families could keep some privacy whilst still living side by side. Georgie was thrilled at the idea. She had never hoped to live in such a grand and beautiful place.

  ‘If only we could make room for Gabriel,’ she went on, thinking aloud. ‘I’m sure it would do him good, to get him away from London and all those sad memories.’

  Janey bent her head over her darning again. ‘By all accounts, Gabriel is managing to keep himself amused.’

  ‘Do you mean that woman … the one he’s installed as his housekeeper? Is it true she’s really his mistress?’

  ‘I have no idea. It wouldn’t surprise me.’

  Georgie said hesitantly, ‘Ned says Gabriel’s hard at work, painting all sorts of beautiful things. Of course, he’s still in such debt … and that new house of his must be costing a pretty penny.’

  Janey bit off the end of her thread with a decided snap. Georgie looked down at the water’s edge, where Ned was building sandcastles with Phil.

  ‘We haven’t seen much of him since the funeral,’ Georgie said wistfully. ‘Though, of course, he’s still in mourning and can’t attend supper parties. Have … have you seen him?’

  ‘No.’ Janey stood up. ‘Come, it’s almost teatime. Let’s round up those children.’

  Topsy had spent the day in London, looking after the business of the Firm, but he got back down to Littlehampton in time for supper. Every evening the three men played whist together and – lacking a man – had set up an artist’s lay dummy to play the fourth hand. It was Topsy’s dummy and so the very best of its kind, with a papier-mâché face moulded into human-like features, a stuffed leather body with anatomically correct musculature, and flexible, jointed limbs. So in demand was this dummy that one or other of the men were always hiring hansoms to ferry it from one studio to another, much to the alarm of the cab drivers.

  Ned and Charley had spent the afternoon devising a trick to play on Topsy. Somehow they had contrived to ensure the dummy had a splendid hand, so that it seemed Topsy must win gloriously, only to always somehow trump him. Georgie heard the roar of rage from her bedroom, and then – inevitably – the great explosion of laughter. She smiled to herself.

  The next day was hotter than ever, with the sun blazing down from a brazen sky. Everyone lingered on the beach, for it was their last day in Littlehampton and all would be returning to London the following morning. Georgie fanned herself with her book, and wished she had the energy to go and cool her swollen feet in the water, skirts discreetly raised. But she just did not feel capable of labouring over the broad stretch of burning sand. She could not concentrate on her book, either. The words seem to dance on the page. Her temples throbbed, and she thought longingly of her cool white bed in the lodging house on the hill.

  Their landlady had not been feeling well that day however. A sore throat, a sick head. She had asked them to let her rest a while. So Georgie sat quietly, watching the children play, till the sun had set and the long summer twilight was fading.

  That night, Phil’s forehead was hot, and the little boy was restless and unhappy. A red burn spread down his cheeks and neck. Georgie drew him on to her lap, and he sat astride her legs, his scarlet cheek resting on the hard mound of her belly. ‘The sun has been so hot. It’s just a touch of heatstroke,’ she told Ned.

  Phil had an unsettled night, and Georgie was glad that they were catching the train back to London that day. He had had enough sun, she thought. Phil grizzled the whole way. Georgie felt she could hardly bear it, but Ned was busy sketching new designs in his notebook and she did not like to interrupt him.

  Topsy and Janey had invited them to Red House for the weekend, so they left Phil in the care of his nurse and went down to Kent, spending the day pacing out the dimensions of the planned extension and discussing where to put the water closets. But then a telegram arrived. Phil was much worse.

  Georgie sent word to call the doctor, and she and Ned caught the next train back to London. When they reached their rooms at 62 Great Russell Street, it was to find the doctor’s gig drawn up outside, a boy holding the horse’s reins. They hurried upstairs. They found the doctor waiting for them, looking severe.

  ‘Scarlet fever,’ he said.

  Georgie’s heart shrank. Scarlet fever. They said it killed more children than any other disease.

  Phil was lying in his cot, dressed in nothing but his white gown. The sunburn on his face and chest spread down his limbs, to places that the sun had never touched. His tongue was red as if he had been sucking a lollipop. Georgie hung over him, weeping, kissing his fevered cheeks. She could not believe that she had left him so blithely. Ned was frightened, but she had no time to soothe his nervous fears. Their son might be dying. When Ned grew too distressed, she snapped at him and banished him from the sickroom. It was like having another child instead of a husband, she thought angrily.

  The next few days passed like an awful dream. With the curtains drawn, night had no more meaning than day. Georgie slept when she could, her head resting on a pillow beside her little boy, one hand on his fever-restless body, the other cradling her swollen womb.

  Things seemed strange. Georgie heard trains rattling towards them. She tried to shield Phil. Ghost train rushing past. Sucking away the air. How her throat hurt. Like she had swallowed razors. She woke up to find that Phil was gone. She ran through the house, looking for him. Door after door opened into unfamiliar rooms. People she had never seen before turned to stare at her. Laughing at her distress. Georgie realised she was barefoot. In her nightgown. She ran on, desperate, scrabbling at door handles, unable to find her son. Now the rooms were empty. Abandoned. Windows stood open, doors creaked on their hinges, dust and leaves swirled in ever quickening eddies, changed into great black birds stabbing at her with their sharp beaks. She screamed and tried to protect herself. Blood ran down her face. The birds whirled about her, pecking at her, flapping their awful wings, screeching.

  She woke. She was so hot. She was lying in her own bed, but the room seemed strange, unfamiliar. The lamp was hidden behind a red shade. It made everything bloody.

  ‘Ssssh …’ Ned leant forward from
the darkness. ‘Lie still.’

  ‘Phil! Where’s Phil?’

  ‘He’s sleeping.’

  ‘I have to see him. Where is he?’

  ‘He’s asleep. No, Georgie! The doctor says you must stay in bed.’

  Georgie tried to get up. The room spun. Her knees buckled. ‘What … what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘You have scarlet fever too. The doctor says you must be kept quiet.’

  Georgie became aware that her head was strangely light and cold. She put up her hands. Bound in damp rags. She pulled them off. Her scalp was bristled. Her hair. Where was her hair? She turned clumsily, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her head had been shaved. Bald as a baby bird. Her face livid and spotted. Her lips swollen and inflamed.

  Georgie sank back to her bed, and buried her face in the pillow. She felt so bare, so vulnerable, so ugly. Ned lifted her legs and tucked them back under the coverlet. Her swollen belly a crucible of white-hot iron.

  ‘But … Phil …’ Georgie tried once more to rise. Her body failed her.

  ‘I’ve sent for your mother. She’ll be here soon.’

  ‘No … no …’

  Prayers on your knees, the smell of camphor, clocks stopped, dead children white as marble. Georgie refused. She pushed away with all her strength.

  Life became one long black screaming nightmare.

  The baby came too soon. Georgie tried to feed him. No milk. He was so hungry. Screamed all the time. Face purple as a plum. Little arms and legs clutching desperately at life. The doctor put leeches behind her ears, painted her throat with nitrate of silver. Her mother wept and prayed and shrieked. Ned sick and silent, wanting to clutch at her hand.

  The fever came in shining rattling sheets, a hail of steel nails.

  Such dreadful dreams. A graveyard full of dead silent children, beckoning her to join them. A boat made of paper tossed on a sea of lava. Spiders crawling over her, stinging her, wrapping her in icy silk, suffocating her.

  His thin mottled body lying so still. Great dark staring eyes. Lips blue.

  Nothing to be done.

  Georgie wept till she was wrung out of all tears.

  Later she heard how Ned had not slept for days, keeping vigil by her bedside, and how John Ruskin had had the street strewn with straw so the rattle of the carriage wheels would not hurt her ears. She did not care.

  Her baby boy had lived just three weeks. Ned named him Christopher. The little thing had borne such a heavy burden in his short life. He was buried in Brampton Cemetery. Not beside Carrie. He had a tiny grave all of his own.

  Georgie would not sleep in the room in which he had died. It was terrible to her. They had to move somewhere else, she told Ned. She could not stay here.

  All her thoughts were of Red House.

  Apples would be blushing on the gnarled and mossy branches, the hedges would be full of red rosehips and crimson haws, and the seed heads of traveller’s joy would be foaming in the verges. She and Phil could collect the silver coins of honesty and play at shops, and together they’d walk in the meadows and gather blackberries to make jam.

  But there was to be no new wing at Red House. Ned had not worked in weeks and weeks. Bills piling up. Commissions unfinished. And, as always, Topsy’s plans were grandiloquent. Ned simply did not have the money.

  Topsy cried, he said, when he heard the news. He had been sick too and unable to help Ned through his trial.

  It seemed like the end of all the happy times.

  Georgie could not bear her husband’s grief. It was a yoke of stone. She freed her fingers from his, she turned away from him in bed. She held her living son so tightly he struggled to be free, but would not let her husband creep close for comfort.

  Winter darkened the skies, and it seemed impossible spring would ever come again.

  2

  The Dolorous Gard

  Winter–Autumn 1865

  Misfortunes never come singly, Janey thought.

  First Topsy had come down with rheumatic fever and for a while, had been little better than a cripple.

  Then her father died. She had not thought it would sadden her so.

  Afterwards Bessie wrote, pleading to be given a home. I don’t want to go back to Ma’s.

  Janey could understand that. But she dreaded the thought of having her sister live with her. She knew Topsy would hate it. And surely the servants would snigger to see Bessie with her rough red hands and her working-class ways.

  She remembered two little girls, huddled on a dirt floor, their dresses little more than rags and patches, eating together from the same old tin bowl. Soup made from old dripping and blackened crusts of bread begged from the baker’s wife. Their hair matted, their faces grimy. Janey told Bessie a story of two sisters who made friends with a bear. ‘An’ they were never cold or hungry again,’ she had whispered.

  Janey could not fail to help her sister, when she had so much.

  So Bessie came to stay, with one small carpet-bag holding all she owned. She was overawed by the big house and so grateful and deferential to Topsy, she almost drove him mad. His temper was worse than ever that winter, exacerbated by his ill health and worries over money.

  Janey had never learnt to laugh at her husband’s rages. When he began to shout and stamp, every muscle in her body tensed like steel fibres stretched beyond their strength. Her jaw would be rigid. She could not speak. She simply could not understand how Ned and the others could tease him to breaking point, then roar with laughter as he smashed plates and threw puddings and wrenched his spectacles in two. In Littlehampton, she had lain in her bed, fists clenched, listening to him fume at the trick Ned and Charley had played upon him, wishing they would not provoke him so.

  One day, at breakfast, Topsy looked up from his mail with a pleased smile.

  ‘Gabriello’s invited us for dinner. At his new house in Chelsea.’

  Janey’s heart gave a single hard painful thump. She laid down her knife.

  ‘I suppose his mourning period must be over. How long has it been?’

  ‘Two years and two months,’ Janey answered, then brought her cup hastily to her mouth, afraid of a betraying flush.

  She had not seen Gabriel since the day of Lizzie’s funeral. He had become a recluse, Topsy said, unable to bear seeing anyone who reminded him of his dead wife. Janey could understand how awful it was for Gabriel to come to Red House, to see her two little girls laughing and playing in the garden, when his own daughter had never even had chance to draw a single breath. It must be hard for him to see her and Topsy, living together in this grand house, working together as he and Lizzie had once done, while he had been left alone, in debt, wracked with remorse. Each richly decorated wall of the house, every green corner of the garden, was filled with memories of games and pranks and stories, in the midst of which Lizzie’s slim figure danced, laughing.

  Janey could understand why he would not come. But it hurt her, nonetheless.

  ‘Do you wish to go?’ Topsy asked, looking over the top of his spectacles.

  Still she did not speak, her hand clenched on her butter knife.

  ‘I know London is awful in April, but we can’t miss seeing Gabriel.’ His bearded face was eager.

  ‘We can go, if you’d like to,’ Janey said at last. She hesitated, then said in a low voice, ‘May we take Bessie? I think she’s finding things rather slow here.’

  Topsy sighed. ‘I suppose so. I will write and ask Gabriel if he can lay another place.’

  Janey made herself a new dress for the occasion, having found a length of silk with the iridescent blue-black sheen of a raven’s plumage. She cut it simply, with long full sleeves, and wore it with a doubled string of yellow beads. Knowing how much Gabriel loved wild roses, she cut herself a little bouquet and pinned it at her waist.

  They caught a train to London, and then hired a hansom cab to take them to Chelsea. Topsy very kindly ordered the cab driver to take them the long way, past Buckingham Palace and the Green Park Arch, with it
s huge statue on top of the Duke of Wellington astride his horse. Bessie hung out the cab window, her eyes rounded with amazement.

  ‘Do ye think we’ll see the Queen?’ she asked.

  Topsy snorted. ‘No-one’s seen the Queen since her poor dear Albert died. I heard someone even put up a notice on the railings of the palace, saying, “These premises to be let or sold in consequence of the late occupant’s declining business.”’

  ‘I wonder they dared,’ Bessie said.

  ‘They’ll dare a lot more if she continues in this way,’ he answered robustly.

  Janey did not enter the conversation. Her thoughts were all centred on Gabriel. She wondered if he still grieved for Lizzie, and if it was true that he had a mistress installed in his house. She wondered whether he would be pleased to see her.

  Their hansom cab drew up, and Topsy jumped to the ground, turning to hand out the ladies. Bessie clambered out eagerly, but Janey sat, smoothing her gloves over her wrists, stricken with sudden shyness.

  ‘Janey?’ Topsy asked.

  She took a deep breath, and climbed down into the street.

  Lights shone from a tall handsome brick house, with a white ornate turret built above the portico, set with rows of three-sided bay windows. High iron railings enclosed the front courtyard, with a tall filigree gate. The house looked out towards the Thames, cloth of silver under the moonlight.

  ‘Gabriello must be doing well for himself,’ Topsy said. ‘Bruno tells me he’s been working like a madman, poor fellow.’

  With her hand tucked in Topsy’s elbow, Janey climbed the stairs. Gabriel stood, a drink in his hand, in the crowded front hall. More people milled about in the two front rooms. Janey saw Ned and Georgie, William Rossetti, Arthur Hughes and his beautiful wife, Tryphena, and Algernon Swinburne, gesticulating wildly, his red hair standing on end.