Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

  Margot’s bedroom door creaked open. She lay still, her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.

  ‘How are you feeling, little one?’ her father whispered.

  She did not answer. Papa bent and put his hand on her brow, smoothing back her hair. She did not respond. After a moment, he crept out again.

  Margot did not know how she was ever going to be able to forgive her father. Grief surged up in her again, leaving her throat thick and her eyes burning.

  She had not wanted to get out of bed for days now. The doctor had come, and told Mammy that she was suffering from green sickness. He had prescribed a brisk walk every morning, a diet high in meat, and a pint of dark beer each evening. But Margot did not have the strength to get out of bed, she would not eat the flesh of animals, and her mother never permitted her to drink alcohol, and so the doctor’s advice was of no use to them.

  Green sickness sounded somehow poetical and out of the ordinary, like she had been touched by fairies. Margot imagined her skin slowly being tinted green as her blood turned to sap, her hair writhing like tendrils of a vine, pale flowers blossoming from her pores. Would her father paint her as a dryad, entrapped within a tree?

  Looking back on her childhood, she understood so much she had never realised before. Why her parents often seemed so sad. Why Mammy never went on holidays with Papa. Why she had been so cross about Papa wanting almond blossoms out of season.

  Margot remembered her father writing to her from Paris the Easter before she had turned twelve: ‘We saw a punch-theatre in the Champs Elysees – we paid a penny and went into a ring of people and sat on chairs and saw such a funny play and laughed till we screamed – and wanted your Mammy and you with us to laugh too. I think we shall come back, or is it so nice for you two women without us that you don’t want us yet? Tell that dear Mammy that her hard-earned money flies so fast – I don’t know how – by the end of the day our pockets are quite emptied … I think next year I must bring you, and your Mammy must come – tell her she must make up her mind to travel and see bright things, else she’ll forget what the world looks like …’

  It made Margot feel a little better thinking about all the funny letters and drawings her father had made for her. Once he had drawn her a picture of her walking along hand in hand with an angel, and told her it was her guardian angel. She had a box full of his sketches – countless drawings of ducks, wombats, pigs, elephants, chubby babies and fat women in strong winds. She got her box out and looked through them again, smiling a little. But then she remembered how he had groaned as Madame Zambaco put her hand between his legs. Her stomach lurched. She pushed away all the drawings, not caring how they crumpled, and lay down again. She shut her eyes.

  The door opened softly again. Margot heard her father’s footstep, then felt a warm weight settle in the crook of her legs. Papa had brought in her cat. A lump in her throat. How she wished he would not be so thoughtful. It would be so much easier to hate him if he were not kind.

  The hours drifted past. Her cat purred and kneaded her leg with the tips of his claws.

  Margot tried to think of happy things.

  On her thirteenth birthday, her father had given her thirteen silver bangles, drawing them out one by one from where he’d hidden them in his bed. One in a fold of the counterpane, one under the pillow, one hidden by his side, one tucked inside his slipper, one inside the pocket of his dressing-gown. Margot had been delighted with just one bangle, and was amazed to see more and more pretty tinkling things conjured from everywhere. How her father had laughed at her face of astonishment.

  She remembered her first days at school, when she had cried because her mother always made her dress in such plain unfashionable gowns and bonnets. Her father had put his arm about her and drawn her close, saying solemnly, ‘There will always be people telling you how you shall think and act and dress, my little, and what you are to say and how you are to live, down to the tiniest trifle, meaning that you are to think and act and dress as they do; and some sort of penalty you must pay all your life for differing from them. But you must never bow to their tyranny. You must be brave, my bright blue girl, and stand up to them.’

  And so, for a while at least, Margot had thought herself most gallant, going to school every day in a shabby grey dress and a bonnet like a Quaker. She did her best not to long for a Dolly Varden dress and flower-trimmed hat like all the other girls wore.

  At least the Morris girls had been at school with her, although they were a few years ahead. Jenny and May had never worn a corset or had cherry-red ribbons in their hair either. And Margot had to admit the three girls could not have played so many wild games or climbed so many trees if they had been dressed the way little girls were meant to be dressed.

  When Margot was eight years old, Phil and Jenny had been thirteen and May a year younger. The four of them had formed a Secret Society. Phil had blacked all their faces and they had all sworn an oath to the Leader, who was, of course, Phil. He had given them all offices. Jenny was the Captain, May was the Secretary, and Margot the Standard Bearer. They made up a secret alphabet, and Phil wrote his orders out in invisible ink, which could only be read after the paper was held over a candle flame. The girls had to march up and down and carry out their Leader’s orders. Later in the day Phil had decided to dissolve the meeting and Jenny had said, forgetting her place, ‘Go to it, old fellow.’

  Phil had been most displeased. The next day, he stripped Jenny of her office and downgraded her to the rank of Standard Bearer. She had to suffer fifteen lashes from a whip made of a stick and six lengths of string, and then Phil locked her in the coal cellar for fifteen minutes.

  May went to the cellar door and whispered, ‘Shall we lock the leader out and mutiny?’

  But Jenny stayed loyal and reported her sister to the Leader. Phil only laughed, though, and said he had told Captain May to say those words to try to tempt her. Jenny had been most upset with both Phil and May. But then Phil rewarded her for her trustworthiness by restoring her to the role of Captain (though he insisted on adding a footnote that the title of Captain must never be confounded with that of Leader).

  The next time the Morris girls came to visit, the four children had hoisted the ladder to the attic and climbed up. It was a vast and gloomy space, filled with iron-bound trunks, wooden crates, unwanted furniture covered with dust sheets, a box of Christmas decorations, hobby-horses on sticks, and dirty dolls with broken faces.

  Margot had found a long wooden box shaped just like a coffin, which frightened her.

  ‘It’s the coffin of Uncle Gabriel’s dead wife,’ Phil whispered. ‘She died a long time ago and was buried in the graveyard, but then he had her dug up to get his poems. And she’s haunted Uncle Gabriel ever since.’

  Margot stared at the box in horror.

  Phil lowered his voice even more. ‘They say that when they dug her up, she hadn’t rotted away and lay there looking just like she was asleep instead of dead, and her hair had grown and grown till it wrapped her up like a mummy, and so Uncle Gabriel couldn’t bear to bury her again, and so they brought her coffin here and hid it in the attic, but she cannot rest, and so whenever you lie in bed and hear the floorboards creaking above your head it’s her walking up and down, up and down, dragging her hair behind her and trying to find a way to get out. One day she’ll find a crack or mouse-hole, and then she’ll creep downstairs and look for you so she can suck out all your blood …’

  ‘Rubbish!’ May said stoutly, and put her arm around Margot who was weeping with terror. ‘Don’t listen to a word he says, Margot, he’s just trying to scare you.’

  Phil went red with rage. ‘Insubordination!’ he cried. ‘I’ll lock you both up in the attic for punishment. And I’ll leave you there all night.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ May cried. ‘Because I resign from the Society right now. And so does Margot!’

  ‘You can’t resign!’

  ‘I can and I do,’ she replied. ‘Father says we have the right of fre
e will and so I’m exercising it. So is Margot and so is Jenny.’

  She marched back to the trapdoor, her arm around Margot, and took her down to the kitchens for hot milk and apples roasted in the fire. Jenny followed, after mouthing a silent apology to Phil. After a while he came down too, very red and very cross, but May said to him firmly, ‘You’re meant to look after your sister, not make her cry. She’s only a littley, you know.’

  ‘Too little to explore attics,’ Phil said sneeringly, but took the poker out of May’s hand and showed her how to hold it so the apple did not burn. The Secret Society was ended, however, and two years later Jenny got sick and their childhood games were over forever.

  Margot had never forgotten the coffin in the attic. She terrified herself many a cold, windy night by imagining the white-clad ghost in the attic, trying to get out. Sometimes she dreamt of it. The lid slowly creaking back. The figure within sitting up. Sometimes just bones and hair. Sometimes a ghoulish face and staring eyes. Hands reaching for her. Margot would scream with all her strength, but make no sound. She’d wake, heart thudding, sure someone stood over her in the darkness.

  After that, Phil loved to scare her with spooky tales of headless horsemen and demon dogs, cold hands that clutched your shoulder at night, ghost ships that sailed over the marshes, spinning wheels that turned with no hand or foot to guide them. Sometimes he would wait in the shadows at the top of the stairs, just so he could jump out and terrify her with clawed hands and sepulchral groans.

  Margot had been afraid of ghosts ever since, and scared of all dead things too. She wept if she ever found a limp mouse in the pantry, or a nestling fallen to the ground, and she and her father would bury their carcasses in the garden, chanting poetry over the tiny graves. She always hated the museum with its cloth-wrapped mummies, and bones and butterflies in glass cases. Soon it seemed as if life itself frightened her. She did not like to go too far from home, or meet too many strangers.

  She thought again of Maria Zambaco, and the way she had stood flaunting her nakedness in the bright lamplight. She looked like a woman who was afraid of nothing. Margot wished she had never seen her, or heard her father’s groan. She wished that she could turn back the clock and go back to being a child again, safe in her father’s arms.

  But it was impossible. Margot could not undo the past. She could not stop time.

  Burrowing deeper into her bed, Margot wished she could just disappear.

  4

  Stricken

  Spring 1882

  ‘Mother! Where are you?’

  At the sound of her daughter’s voice, Janey gave a little guilty start and hastily tucked away Gabriel’s letters.

  ‘What is it, May? Is it Jenny? Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, she’s fine,’ May said impatiently. ‘I just wanted to show you my design for Father’s book. Look. I’ve done a tree with crimson flowers on it, and the title on the scroll, and then acanthus leaves all around. I thought I’d do it on an indigo background, like your daisy hangings, only in silk, not serge.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. Your father will love it.’ Janey examined the sketch May had thrust under her nose.

  ‘I want to start work on it this afternoon. Shall we go and sit in the garden? The sun is shining for the first time in forever, and I think we should take advantage. I have lectures all week so it might be my only chance.’

  ‘As long as you wrap up warmly, I don’t want you taking cold. Where is Jenny? You didn’t leave her alone, did you?’

  ‘Mother, she’s fine. I’ve only left her for a moment. She’s writing a story.’

  Janey hurried out the door and down the corridor. ‘May, you must be more careful. You know you can’t leave her alone for a second.’

  May gave an exasperated sigh. ‘It was only for a moment.’

  ‘Even a moment is dangerous.’

  ‘Jenny hates everyone hanging over her and watching her all the time.’

  ‘It can’t be helped. Please, May. I must be able to trust you.’

  Janey rushed down the stairs and into the drawing room. Jenny sat at a little writing desk between the windows. She looked up as Janey rushed in, and her expression darkened.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, Mother,’ she said. ‘As you can see, I am quite fine.’

  ‘That’s good … I’m glad … you know I worry.’ Janey was a little out of breath.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  Jenny gave an exaggerated sigh, and turned back to her writing. May had followed her mother in, and now stood watching, her drawing crushed in her hands.

  ‘It’s a lovely day,’ Janey said. ‘May thought we might sit out in the garden.’

  ‘I’m quite comfortable here.’ Jenny did not look up from her page.

  ‘Oh. Very well.’ Janey sat down at a nearby chair and took up her embroidery.

  ‘There’s no need for you to stay inside. Go and sit in the garden if you want to.’ Jenny’s hand was clenched on her pen.

  ‘No. There’s no need. I’ll stay here.’ Janey set a careful stitch.

  Jenny threw down her pen. ‘Oh, all right then. Let’s go and sit in the garden. What does it matter anyway?’ Her pen left a large blotch of ink on her paper, obscuring the words she had been writing. Jumping up, she ran from the room. Janey quickly gathered up her sewing and made to follow.

  ‘She feels like she’s a prisoner,’ May said, picking up her embroidery hoop and basket of silks.

  ‘What choice do I have?’ Janey said wearily. ‘She’d feel more like a prisoner if she was committed to an asylum, wouldn’t she?’

  Janey had feared, at one point, that she would lose everything because of her love for Gabriel.

  Topsy had separated from her, renting her a small house at Turnham Green while he stayed at Queen Square, only coming on weekends to see the girls. He had thrown Gabriel out of Kelmscott Manor, taken control of the Firm, and resigned from his father’s old company. It was as if he had made some decision about what he was prepared to put up with. Janey feared he meant to divorce her. It would be the ruin not only of her, but of her daughters too.

  Janey was still seeing Gabriel whenever she could, but he would not give up the chloral for her. His need for it was greater than his need for her. He had showed her the rows of empty chloral bottles that he had drunk, and she had thought he must be making grim fun of her. Worst of all, he washed it down with whisky, gulping down a glassful as soon as he rose from bed in the morning.

  Janey hated a drunkard. Her mother had been one and her father too. She could not bear the smell that rose from his skin, or the blast of his breath when he coughed, or the way his words slurred. She begged him to stop.

  He would not.

  And Janey knew that he was still supporting his mistress in town. She suffered agonies of jealousy, and would not believe Gabriel when he said, ‘I love only you.’

  He painted her as the goddess Astarte. Six foot tall, her arms and shoulders bare, her dark hair loose and heavy on either side of her thin face, her red lips swollen as if with rough kisses. One golden belt encircled her hips, and another was bound just under her breasts. Her strong hands toyed with each, as if she was about to untie them and step forth naked. Gabriel wrote a poem to accompany the painting. ‘Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon of bliss …’

  Then Gabriel painted her fourteen-year-old daughter May as the angels standing behind her, faces upturned to the sky in ecstasy, carrying torches whose swirling smoke created the shape of a heart.

  It was powerful, challenging and exceedingly erotic. Gabriel sold the painting for over two thousand pounds, the most he had ever been paid. Janey felt uncomfortable. It was impossible, she felt, for any man to gaze at that painting and not feel a frisson. She remembered stories of Gabriel’s clients hanging his paintings in private rooms, for private viewings with other gentlemen. She imagined such gentlemen, gazing at her and her daughter, perhaps sliding a hand inside their trous
er pocket.

  So Janey had broken with Gabriel.

  Gabriel did not believe her. He thought she had been listening to lies about him.

  ‘You cannot leave me, Janey,’ he had said, clasping both her hands. ‘Not now that we have finally found each other. Please don’t leave me.’

  She had tried to tear herself away.

  He had caught her. ‘Tell me you do not love me, and I’ll let you go.’

  But it was not true. Janey loved him with all her heart. She could only shake her head and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  Gabriel thought she would come back to him, once he was well again. But he had only got sicker.

  Then, like lightning out of a blue sky, everything had changed.

  And Janey knew she could never go to Gabriel again.

  Jenny had always been a bright, curious child.

  She had her nose in a book all the time, and loved to write stories. For a while, she had edited a homemade magazine called The Scribbler which contained a range of writings from her and May, and the Jones children, and their cousin Rudyard, and other literary-minded friends. She studied so hard her teachers talked about her trying for a university degree at the new women’s college that had recently opened in Cambridge. Janey was filled with wonderment at her clever daughter. To think that Janey’s mother could not write her name, and yet Janey’s daughter would go to university.

  Then, one bright summer’s day, Topsy and Janey and the two girls had gone for a picnic by the river. Jenny was fifteen, and May a year younger. They had hired a boat and rowed about on the Thames, throwing bread to the swans and fishing with hand-held lines. The sun had dazzled on the water, so that Janey had to hold up a parasol to shelter her eyes. Jenny knelt on the wooden seat, leaning forward to see what May was dragging up from the depths. Suddenly Jenny lost her balance and fell forward, striking her head on the gunwale. She toppled into the water and sank at once, her limbs flailing the water into brown foam.