Gates of Paradise (10 page)

William waited until his patron was ready to continue his tour. He knew that further commissions were unavoidable if he was to earn a living here, but he had hoped they would take time to arrange. Even though he'd sat up late into the night and worked by candlelight, very little of his poem had been written. As they resumed their inspection he smothered a sigh. This man might walk with a limp but he rushed at everything he did like a bull at a gate. ‘I would be honoured to visit your friend,' he said diplomatically. ‘When would you wish it to be?'

‘Why Tuesdays and Fridays of course,' Mr Hayley told him. ‘I breakfast with the lady on Tuesdays and Fridays. You will find her the most agreeable company. The most agreeable. I have no hesitation in saying that of all the ladies who live in this county, she is the wisest and most agreeable.' They had followed the path to the extreme end of the vegetable garden. ‘I am glad that is settled,' he said. ‘I shall expect you at six o' the clock tomorrow morning and we will ride over together. You shall have Bruno. He was Thomas's pony and you couldn't want for a better ride.'

William didn't complain until he was back in the cottage with Catherine. But then he opened his mind at long and bitter length. ‘How am I to work when he crowds my life with visits and commissions? Is it not enough that I toil in his library and slave over his portraits every hour of the day? Am I now to be required to breakfast with
him, too? His demands are endless, Catherine. He acts as though he were an emperor, and I his slave. Now I am to ride horseback through the village and be made mock of, for I never rode a horse in my life and will fair badly at it. I tell you truly, I wish we had never come to this place.'

Just as he'd predicted, he found that first ride to Lavant very difficult and very uncomfortable, even though the pony was the gentlest animal alive. It stood still and patient while he struggled to mount, which he did with stomach-fluttering anxiety, feeling envious of his patron, who swung astride with irritating ease, despite his limp and the fact that he had a large black umbrella hanging over his left arm. They set off cheerfully and Blake was relieved to find that the pony plodded amiably along the bridle paths without need of a prodding heel or the slightest tug of the reins. Even so, he was ill at ease, aware of his lack of horsemanship and afraid that he would be mocked for it. To make matters worse, the dawn was only just beginning so it was cold out there in the fields, and the emanations that rose from the sleeping earth were dark and disquieting and writhed like serpents. He was glad when the sky developed streaks of pink and orange cloud and watched with relief as they lengthened and brightened until the sun finally blazed above the distant downs. He remembered the vision of angels he had once seen clustered about the risen sun and was heartened by the memory.

‘We make good time,' Mr Hayley said to encourage him. ‘Another half an hour and we shall see the house.'

And suddenly as they rode over the brow of a low hill, there it was, a large square red brick building with stabling to the north of it and well-tended gardens all around it, a rich, imposing, classical house, as fine as anything that Blake had ever seen. It was no distance from the inn where the London stage changed horses and he and Catherine had said goodbye to his sister. He'd noticed it then, but hadn't imagined he would ever be visiting the place.

They rode their horses up to the front door like princes, dismounted by means of a mounting block, for which Blake was heartily thankful, and handed them over to a groom, who doffed his cap and called them both ‘Sir'. Then Mr Hayley gave the iron bell-pull a tug and a footman in full livery and with a white wig, no less, opened the door and admitted them into the wonders of the house. They were led up a curving stairway and ushered in to an elegant reception room where they stood, Blake awkward and Hayley beaming, as the lady of the house rose from her seat in the wide bay window and walked forward to greet them.

She moved with the total ease of one born to money and position, her propriety and grace as natural as breathing. She looked intelligent and was plainly kind, completely at ease and beautifully dressed, her brown hair unpowdered, curled above
her forehead and caught up in an elegant Grecian bun above the nape of her neck, her hands long, white and unsullied by anything as unseemly as housework. Her day-gown, which was in pink silk and the very latest fashion, whispered as she walked across the room, the air that wafted before her was full of the scent of flowers. She had pink satin slippers on her feet and a kerchief of fine blonde lace about her neck. She emanated golden hospitality, a lady to her elegant fingertips, which Mr Hayley bent to kiss.

‘My dear William,' she said to him. ‘How very good to see you. And you have brought your friend, I see. How delightful!'

Blake was introduced, the footman ushered them into chairs at the round table that filled the space of the bay window, the teapot was laid reverently before her, a dish of milky coffee was provided for Mr Hayley since that was his preference, covered dishes were carried in, emitting succulent steam, and their meal began.

At first Blake sat quietly eating bacon and eggs, sampling the three kinds of bread provided and listening to his patron as he described the ‘immeasurable improvements' he had made to his library. ‘Ten of my eighteen portrait heads are completed. Mr Blake has done the most excellent work. The library is transformed. Quite, quite transformed. It looks exceptionally fine. You must visit me, dear lady, when 'tis all done, and see it for yourself.'

She turned to smile at her silent guest. ‘Are you pleased with your work, Mr Blake?' she asked.

‘'Tis not everything I would wish, ma'am,' Blake said diplomatically. It was easy to be diplomatic in the company of such a lady. ‘But I believe I have executed the commission to the best of my ability.'

‘There speaks a true artist,' she said.

The talk and the meal continued gently. The used dishes were discreetly removed by two footmen in white gloves. A dish of fruit was quietly provided. Mr Hayley, declining any further sustenance, offered to read his latest work, and took up his pose by the window ready to declaim. He made a fine figure, with the sunlight snow-dazzling on his grey hair, his maroon coat princely, his stock immaculately white and well folded, and the rolling countryside spreading behind him like a backdrop to his eloquence. ‘Epitaph to a departed friend,' he boomed.

Blake listened with apparent politeness but now that he'd satisfied his appetite, his mind was busy taking in the detail of his surroundings – the silver teapot and patterned china, the expensive curtains, thick carpet, duck-egg blue walls with their large oil paintings, the row of chairs set neatly against the skirting boards, the high ceiling with its elaborately carved coving, even the number of new wax candles set about the room, ready to be lit that evening. It was, as he saw through all his senses, a well-ordered, comfortable home where this lady lived lapped in every luxury, and although he envied her
good fortune, he acknowledged that it was probably deserved for she was gentle and kindly. It was a new experience to find himself admiring someone in the ruling class, for his usual angry view was that the riches of the great had been gathered at the expense of a half-starved workforce. But this woman was almost making him reconsider his views.

The talk turned easily from Mr Hayley's poetry and the trivia of domesticity to national and political events. ‘I hear they have plans afoot for much building hereabouts,' the lady said. ‘There are to be towers raised all along the coast to warn us of any approaching fleet and an army barracks outside the north gate in Chichester, not very far from here. The duke was telling me only the other evening. There are renewed fears that the French may invade.'

The emanations were sudden, dark and full of foreboding. They rose like black fire clouds, acrid and thickening, pierced by scarlet flames, bringing the sight and smell of blood, the screams of battle, twisted agony, unnatural death. The very light in the room was darkened by oncoming horror.

Mr Hayley spoke at once to reassure them all. ‘Fear not, dear lady,' he said. ‘I cannot imagine we shall ever see fighting upon British soil, not while we have Nelson and the Channel to protect us.'

‘'Tis thought likely this time, notwithstanding,' Miss Poole told him, ‘and we should take cognisance of opinion.' She smiled at him and began to tease. ‘You are like to have soldiers
billeting upon you in Felpham, so I am told, or to lose your servants to the militia.'

‘Arrant nonsense,' Mr Hayley said, stoutly. ‘I defy any man to deprive me of my household and there's an end to it. If any come asking I shall send 'em packing.'

‘I have always held it unwise to argue with any man who has a pistol in his hand,' the lady teased. ‘I have seen how brutal soldiers can be, on many occasions, when they have been called to restore order to the streets of London, and highly unpleasant it was. You must have seen something of it too, Mr Blake, for you lived in Lambeth I believe before you moved to healthier climes.'

Blake admitted that she was right in both matters, having once seen a soldier shoot an apprentice boy through the head, but that was hardly a fit subject for a lady's breakfast table. ‘I saw the Gordon riots when I was bound apprentice to Mr Basire,' he told her. ‘The rioters ran down Long Acre as I was walking to his shop in Great Queen Street. I was caught up in the rush and swept on to the very gates of Newgate.'

‘So you saw the riot itself,' Miss Poole said, looking at him with increased interest. ‘Not a thing you would easily forget, I'll be bound.'

He was remembering it as she spoke, the dark hands swinging sledgehammers and pickaxes at the great barred gate, as flames leapt into the sky, roaring like beasts, the prisoners screaming in fear of being burnt alive, and crawling blackened and
terrified through the broken gate, iron fetters still fastened to their ankles.

‘I kept within doors on that occasion,' Miss Poole said, ‘discretion being the better part of valour, and I have endeavoured to be out of harm's way on every subsequent outbreak.'

Remembered terror still shook her guest, followed by remembered anger and then, close upon it, his familiar nervous fear, lest he lose control and say things to annoy or enrage.

‘They were sorry times,' Mr Hayley observed, ‘and no good has come of them. Which is all the more reason to oppose such folly now and refuse all talk of invasion and suchlike idiocies. 'Twas all talk of invasion the year before last and nothing came of it. 'Twill prove the same this year.'

‘Well, well, you may be right,' Miss Poole said soothingly. ‘We must await events. It may not come to it, as you say, but 'tis as well to be prepared and preparations are undoubtedly in hand.' She gave Mr Hayley the full bewitchment of her smile. ‘Such a sombre conversation to conclude your visit, my dear William! I trust 'twill not prevent you both from taking breakfast with me on Friday.'

They were happy to give their word to the appointment, Mr Hayley because he saw he was forgiven for a possible transgression of good manners in having spoken too harshly in front of her, Mr Blake because he had contrived not to speak at all and was delighted to be considered even a lesser member of her circle.

‘I am so pleased to have made your acquaintance, Mr Blake,' she said, when he bowed his farewell to her. ‘I saw your engravings to ‘Little Tom the Sailor' and thought them very fine. Now I shall see your watercolours when I visit with Mr Hayley. You are a man of many talents. Do you paint in oils, too?'

He admitted that he did not, but offered, feeling rather daring, that he did write poetry.

‘But how splendid,' she said. ‘You must bring some of it with you the next time you come to breakfast and let me see it.'

His elation carried him halfway home, even though he was decidedly saddle sore and still rather afraid of falling.

‘I have found a patroness,' he said to Catherine, when he was back in the cottage at last. ‘She wants to see my poetry. I thought I might print some of the songs from “Innocence and Experience”.'

Catherine rushed at him to kiss him and congratulate him and be told every last detail about this momentous meal. ‘Did I not always say you would prosper?' she said. ‘When do you see her again?' And being told it was in three days' time, ‘We must set to work at once.'

So the plates were found and the most likely poem chosen, which took a very long time for there were many that he was sure would suit. In the end they settled on ‘The Clod and the Pebble' and a copy was printed, painted and brought to perfection. Then there was still a day to wait in
fidgeting impatience before he could place it before his new friend.

But when they had been greeted and led to the table, he had to wait his turn with such patience as he could muster, for Mr Hayley was cock-a-hoop with good news. He'd been hinting at it as they rode through the fields but now it was the moment to declare what he knew. There had been a sea battle in the straits outside Copenhagen and most of the Danish fleet had been destroyed.

‘Such a victory!' he said. ‘Incomparable. They are ringing the bells for it in London, I believe. Did I not tell 'ee Nelson would come up trumps? There ain't a man to equal him. So much for Armed Neutrality, say I. They'll find it hard to enforce their will upon us without a fleet. No, no, the alliance will founder now, you mark my words. There will be a peace struck in no time.'

On Tuesday it had been all darkness and foreboding, now the sun shone upon them in all its heat and glory as if it were already summer. Blake took his painted poem from the hip pocket of his old blue jacket and laid it gently before his hostess, like the triumph it must surely be.

His hopes were not disappointed. She declared herself delighted with the illustration; admired his depiction of the ram and three sheep standing in line with a bull and a cow, heads dipped to drink at the stream where the clod and the pebble lay; enjoyed the contrast of the colours he had chosen – the clear blues of sky and water, the greens of tree
and grasses, the cream of the fleeces – and finally asked if he would be so kind as to read the poem for her, which he did, most proudly, sitting in his chair with the paper held up to the sunlight. She listened with complete attention, her chin propped on her white hand, the little finger touching her lips, while he sang the words in his usual way. Then he waited, strained with a quite painful anxiety, to hear what her judgement would be.