Gates of Paradise

BERYL KINGSTON

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my dear, dear Roy, who lived with me lovingly for fifty-three years, eleven months and six days; who filled my life with laughter and talk, good food, good sense and magical music; who provided me with accurate research for all my books and finished work on this one six weeks before he died. You are achingly missed, my darling.

‘
Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice,
Such are the Gates of Paradise
.'

‘The Gates of Paradise'
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Acknowledgements

A Note on the Author

Also by the Author

My dearest Annie
,

I do believe I have stumbled upon a mystery concerning our William Blake. At the moment it is merely a suspicion, or perhaps it would be more honest of me to say a hope, since, as you know my dearest, my intention is to discover as many truths as I can about this unfairly neglected man, it being insupportable to me that such a blazing genius should have been given so little attention and so little public acclaim during his lifetime. It may well be that there are truths that have been kept secret and if that is the case I shall do all I can to reveal them, you may depend upon it. To write an honest biography demands no less
.

But to begin at the beginning. I arrived here in Felpham in good time and good order, and found it a very pretty place, quiet and rustic and sparsely populated. I can quite understand why Blake called it ‘Sweet Felpham' and said ‘all Heaven' was here. I have taken a room at the local inn, which is called ‘The Fox', not after the animal, as you might imagine, but after a coastguard cutter, a representation of which is painted on the inn sign. It is an old thatched building with a well in the garden and a pump by the
back door and uncomfortably old-fashioned, with all manner of unexpected nooks and crannies, uneven floors and a topsy-turvy staircase, which is not at all easy to negotiate by candlelight, as I discovered when I came stumbling up to my room, not five minutes since, after a supper of lamb chops and boiled potatoes washed down with plenty of excellent porter. Ah, you will say, he blames the state of the stairs for his lack of balance instead of the strength of the porter, and you may well be right. However, more to my purpose, and regardless of the strength of the porter, the inn is perfectly placed, for it stands opposite the very cottage where Blake lived for the three years of his stay here, and that is something which is not only opportune but also inspiring, for it is the first of his erstwhile dwellings that is entirely unchanged since the days when he was in occupation. The present tenant is a coastguardsman and not unfriendly. I have arranged to visit him tomorrow afternoon. So you see my dearest, I have wasted no time but have come straight to the heart of things
.

I spent this afternoon exploring the village, which is small but compact and consists of three winding tracks, which meander past farmhouses and thatched flint cottages until they reach the church. There are two windmills at the southernmost point of the village, close to the sea, and a row of unassuming houses at the northern end, which have been converted into shops. I found a butcher's and a baker's but no candlestick maker's, and there are
also stables, a saddler's, two smithies and a large dairy, which claims to sell milk, cream, butter and eggs ‘fresh daily'. We will return in the summer perhaps and bring baby with us. I think you would like it here
.

The landlord is a bluff but affable man and, mindful of the comfort of his guests, offered that he was willing to answer any questions I might ask. He told me that The Fox had changed hands several times since Blake was here, which is hardly surprising, and volunteered that the landlord in 1800 was a man called George Grinder, who, besides being the owner of Blake's cottage, also owned a hotel in the nearby hamlet of Bognor, and a plot of land in the village which is called Grinder's Mead to this day, and was, moreover, one of the witnesses at Blake's trial. That news encouraged me, so I asked him what else he knew aboat the trial but, to my disappointment, he said he had no knowledge of it at all and nor, I'm sorry to say, did any of the locals who came in to wet their whistles whilst I was eating my supper. The younger ones had no idea that a poet called Blake had ever lived amongst them and those who were old enough to remember him were – or so it seemed to me – peculiarly reticent. One or two recalled that there had once been two poets living in the village, a ‘celebrated' one, called William Hayley, who had lived at Turrent House, and a ‘mad' one, who had lived in the cottage, but other than that – their faces and memories were blank. However, just as I was beginning to grow weary of negative answers, one of their number – a farmer
called Harry Boniface – told me he could remember the day after Blake arrived and gave me a very clear description of him. It accorded so well with Linnell's portrait that I wrote it down as near word for word as I could
.

‘I recall his first morning here as if it were yesterday. Bright and clear it was, with a strong tide running and the air smelling of sea-salt. Me and Father was off to plough the lower cornfield while the weather held, and as we passed the cottage I said to Father, “Father,” I said, “the gate's open.” That was odd, do you see, for I couldn't remember seeing it open before. I was only a little feller at the time. Well, no sooner was the words out of my mouth than out he came, our mad poet himself, with his wife following after, all pink in the cheeks and smelling of yeast on account of she'd been kneading the bread. We had a good fair view of them both. Middling sort of man he was, not over tall but stocky and sturdy looking, with bulging eyes like a hare and a bulging forehead to match. Always wore a wide-awake hat and a blue cloth coat and light brown breeches, with a clean white stock round his neck. He says “Good morning” all warm and friendly-like as if we'd been neighbours for years. So of course we said good morning back and he gave us a smile. Nice smile he had, with a trick of looking straight at you all bright and sharp like a bird. Then off he goes along the path through the field with his wife walking alongside, holding her hat against the breeze.'

I was much encouraged by this, as you can imagine, and ventured to ask him what he remembered of the trial. But then – and I swear to you I was not imagining things – there was such a change in the atmosphere it was as if a chill wind had blown into the room and frozen the words on his lips. He said he had no memory of it at all and then he looked round at all the men in the room and said he doubted whether I would find anyone else who could remember it either ‘after all this time', and at that there were so many meaning glances and so much nodding agreement that I got the strongest impression that they were warning one another to keep quiet. Have I stumbled upon a secret, do you think? Was there something extraordinary about this trial that the villagers want to keep hidden? Or was this simply evidence of a bucolic mistrust of strangers? I shall pursue it further, you may depend upon it. Meantime, I shall write up such notes as are needful and betake me to my slumbers
.

It is nearly midnight and my candle runs low. Take great care of yourself my darling. I will write to you on every occasion
.

This from your loving husband
,

Alexander
.

P.S. I wish I could discover where Mr Grinder is now, if he is still alive. I am sure he would have a tale to tell. A.G
.

Mr George Grinder, the landlord of The Fox Inn, had been waiting for his new tenants to arrive for more than two hours and he was beginning to weary of it. It was well past eleven o'clock and the regulars were long gone. He'd stoked up the fire in the bar so that he was plenty warm enough, but the candles were burning low and candles don't come cheap, not even when they're made of tallow. The potboys dozed in the shadows, Reuben Jones, the village gossip, slept in ‘his' chair with his chin sunk onto his chest, and Mr Grinder and Will Smith the ostler sat on the settles on either side of the fire, with their feet in the hearth, pipes in their mouths and beer mugs on the table before them, occasionally grunting to one another that time was getting on but otherwise absorbed in their own weary thoughts. It had been a long wait.

‘I'll give 'em another half hour,' Mr Grinder decided, removing the pipe from his mouth and pointing at the clock with it, ‘an' if they 'aven't come by then, I'm for my bed. There's no sense sitting up half the night or we shall be like dead things come the morning. They could ha' stopped along the way and we none the wiser.'

But Will was stirring, sitting up, looking towards the window, his sharp face alert. Wheels were crunching in the street outside and he could hear a pair of horses blowing. The tenants had arrived. Within seconds the lantern had been lit, Reuben
and the potboys had woken and all five of them were out in the cold of midnight, breathing in the rousing air as they trudged towards the cottage, ready to give a hand with the unloading.

Mr Grinder's new tenant sprang down from the post chaise as they approached. He looked as spry and lively as if he'd just woken up in the morning. You would never have guessed he'd just travelled nine and sixty miles through difficult country. The chaise had come to a halt beside the wicket gate and the horses were blowing hard, so Will went to their heads to attend to them. But Mr Grinder strode on to greet his tenants.

‘Mr Blake, sir,' he said. ‘I'm glad to see you arrived at last. We were beginning to despair of you. You had a bad journey I fear.'

‘No, no,' Mr Blake said cheerfully, handing his wife from the chaise. ‘'Twas pleasant enough. No grumbling. It took rather longer than we anticipated but 'twas all cheerfulness and good humour. My wife, sir. This is our landlord, Catherine my dear. And my sister, who is another Catherine. Catherine, Mr Grinder.'

‘We've had a fire a-burning for you since nine o'clock,' Mr Grinder told them. ‘Will here's been keeping it in. There's logs aplenty in the garden. You'll see the store. Your flour's in the larder, ma'am, an' you can get yeast from the brew house in the morning if you just comes across the road.'