Gates of Paradise (26 page)

My very dearest Annie
,

This to you in some haste for I have much work to do and a mere five minutes before I have to catch the postman. This office is a treasure house, where I believe I have found the material evidence I have been seeking all week, not hearsay or gossip this time but written records. There are two reporters here who have offered to help me – uncle and nephew and both knowledgeable – and I have already seen a list of the jurymen who served at Blake's trial and – which is even better – discovered the names of the villagers who gave evidence on his behalf, and there are more papers to come. By the end of the day I feel sure I shall have reached the truth about this trial and possibly solved my mystery into the bargain
.

I intend to travel home tomorrow on the morning coach and shall be with you by evening, when I will tell you everything I have discovered. No time for more now, the postman is walking through the door
.

Your most loving husband, AG

Life in Felpham was revolutionised by the arrival of the 1
^st
Royal Dragoons. Within twenty-four hours the troopers had taken over the village, swaggering about in their red jackets, flirting with every female in sight, or galloping off to some manoeuvre or other, in a thunder of well-shod hooves and a clatter of accoutrements.

On their third day in residence they gathered on the beach at low tide and staged a full cavalry charge. Half the village went down to the beach to watch and very exciting it was, for a trooper's horse is an extraordinary and mettlesome animal, capable of breathtaking speed, able to stop dead at full gallop, and to wheel or fall to its knees on command. Their exploits made the village draught horses look like mules and the panache of their riders took the village maidens by storm. ‘Fancy ridin' a hoss loike that,' they said to one another. ‘Moi stars! Aren't that a soight for sore oiyes.'

Even Mrs Haynes was impressed. ‘I wouldn't like to be on a battlefield on the receiving end of that lot,' she said to her daughter.

And Betsy, who should by rights have been busy in the village doing Miss Pearce's shopping, looked at Johnnie, who had contrived to stroll down to The Fox at just the right minute to meet her and was now standing beside her on the sand, and said they frightened her half to death. Which was true, for in her present too-tender state, the arrival of so
many eligible and attentive young men made her feel vulnerable, as if she was about to be besieged. She was being very careful not to give Miss Pearce any cause to rebuke her, had been so guarded with Johnnie and so distant to every other young man, that it alarmed her that these gaudy newcomers could spoil it all with their swagger and the way they would keep talking to everybody. Well, let 'em try, she thought, I shall be more than equal to them.

Within a week she was the only girl in the village who hadn't acquired a military admirer. Plenty had offered, as she'd feared – for even in her present excessively sober mood she was much too pretty to be ignored – but her answer was always the same.

‘I got my livin' to earn,' she told them, when they stopped her in the street and tried to pass the time of day. ‘'Tis all very well for the likes a' you. You may talk to anyone you please, you got a job so long as you wants it, an' come the winter you'll be off an' away again, but if I was to be seen so much as sayin' “good morning” to a young man, I should be out on my ear wi' no job an' no earnin's. My missus is most partic'lar. We aren't allowed to have followers an' tha's all there is to that. So good morning to 'ee an I'll trouble you not to stop me no more.'

Her severity rapidly made her one of the most attractive girls in the village. ‘I been talking to the Ice Maiden,' hopefuls would report. ‘Dashed pretty gel.' And their older companions would mock them, ‘You been trying more like. Bet you never got
no answer. I'd try elsewhere if I was you, you won't get no joy there.'

There was plenty of joy elsewhere. Betsy's old companions at Turret House strolled about the village sporting cherry red ribbons in their caps and making eyes at every soldier they passed and it wasn't long before they had two admirers apiece. Mrs Beke was
not
pleased.

‘There is nothing to be gained by spending time with a soldier,' she warned them. ‘Soldiers are all the same, here today and gone tomorrow, with no more responsibility than a gadfly. And when they go they leave you with a reputation and ruined into the bargain, as like as not. You would be well to steer clear of them. You don't want to end up like Betsy Haynes.'

The two maids exchanged looks and couldn't wait to report what they'd been told to Betsy herself. Which they did the very next morning when they were out in Limmer Lane, taking the air for a few minutes in the hope that their beaux would come along and meet them.

‘She says you got a reputation,' Nan said. ‘What d'you think a' that?' She was feeling quite pleased with herself to be scoring such an easy victory but then Betsy turned to glare at her with eyes as fierce as an owl's and she was alarmed and hastened to change tack. ‘Tha's not what we says, mind. 'Tis what ol' Ma Beke says. We jest thought you ought to know.'

Betsy drew herself up to her full height. Wasn't
this just exactly what she'd been afraid of? Wasn't this why she'd been so careful not to talk to anyone? Wasn't this why she'd even kept poor Johnnie at arm's length? And hadn't she been right? ‘Well you can jest go straight back to your Mrs Beke,' she said, ‘an' tell her I got no followers of any description. Not a single blamed one, nor likely to have. I don't talk to soldiers an' I don't talk to any a' the young men in the village neither. I keeps mesself to mesself, always, an' if I got a reputation that's what 'tis for.'

‘But you talks to Johnnie Boniface, surely,' Susie said and it was only just a question.

‘No,' Betsy said firmly. ‘I partic'ly don't talk to Johnnie Boniface. An' I aren't walkin' out with him neither, to save you askin'. Tha's all over an' done with, thanks to her cruelty t'wards me. You tell her that. If you walk out you gets called names, like slut an' trollop an' I don't know what-all, an'
nobody's
a-goin' to call me names like that
ever again
. Now you'll excuse me. I got work to do if you haven't.' And she left them, walking with great dignity and her head held high.

‘Shall you tell her?' Nan asked her friend.

‘Who?'

‘Ol' Ma Beke.'

‘No fear,' Nan said. ‘She's tetchy enough without that. I shall leave well alone, that's what I'll do. Oh, look, there's my Frederick a-comin'. Coo-ee Frederick!'

* * *

There was considerable tetchiness at Turret House that summer. Demoralised by all the dashing young men who were now overrunning their village, the stable lad and Bob the boot boy had joined the pioneers by way of boosting their morale. It didn't do much for them because nobody took any notice except the butler who was annoyed to be told that they had to spend two nights a week away from the house, learning how to block roads and bridges in Slindon Woods.

‘And what good that will do I cannot imagine,' he said to Mrs Beke, ‘for I never saw a more gormless pair in all my life. Pioneers indeed!'

Mr Hayley took all these difficulties personally. ‘I see no reason why the proper running of my household should have to be disrupted,' he complained to Mrs Beke, ‘just because Napoleon Bonaparte is threatening to invade, which he won't do, you mark my words, Lord Nelson will see to that, nor why we should be overrun by the military. 'Tis insupportable, indeed it is. And while we're on the subject, why do you send that silly clumsy creature with my coffee night after night? Why doesn't young Betsy bring it?'

Mrs Beke explained, briefly and mildly, that young Betsy had taken a position with Miss Pearce.

That didn't please her master at all. ‘'Tis all so unnecessary,' he said. ‘Constant change is bad for the constitution – as is well known and understood – in exactly the same way as an excess of scarlet is harmful to the eyes. If this goes on much longer, we
shall all be irreparably damaged.'

‘Your prints have come,' Mrs Beke told him, endeavouring to change the subject, that being one change she felt he could handle. ‘Mrs Blake brought them up half an hour ago.'

He was still tetchy, even about that. ‘Then pray have 'em sent to me,' he said. ‘Why do you delay? You know how I wish to see them. They should be on my table already.'

Fortunately he was very pleased by all three prints and ten minutes later rang for Mrs Beke again to tell her that he thought he might stroll down to Mr Blake's cottage to tell him how much his work was appreciated. ‘We have been distant long enough, in all conscience,' he said. ‘With the threat of war daily in our ears and the entire village overwhelmed by the military, I feel it is time we artists made peace.'

So he took his gold-topped cane in hand, donned his new cloth hat and limped down the village street in the strong sunshine towards the cottage. He was impressed, despite himself, to find that the soldiers who thronged the little street stood aside to make way for him and that many saluted him.

If William Blake was surprised to see him he didn't show it. He and Catherine invited him into the cottage and said how glad they were that the prints were agreeable, and William showed him the painting he was working on. It had been commissioned by a local magistrate called Mr Poynz and should have been finished long since.
And Hayley said he'd heard of the gentleman and believed him to be a man of honour and one who would understand that a work of art should not be rushed.

‘I myself work slowly nowadays,' he confessed. ‘The new biography progresses but at its own pace. I am burdened by all this needless change. I was telling Paulina so, only the other morning. She was asking after you, by the way. She wished to know how your epic was progressing. I told her what I could, of course, but 'twould come better from you. I wonder you don't come visiting with me again. Why don't you? She would be delighted to see you.'

So, although Blake hadn't expected it, the Lavant rides were resumed and enjoyed and Miss Poole
was
delighted to see him. And on their return journey he and Mr Hayley spoke to one another like old companions and agreed that it was a pleasure to be out in the countryside and away from all the noise and nonsense of those dratted soldiers.

Village opinion about their enforced occupation swung from approval to annoyance all through the summer, following the tides. When the high tide made invasion more likely, and rumours of troop movements on the other side of the Channel were being reported daily and the farmers were rounding up their livestock and the millers loading up their corn ready for evacuation, the soldiers were welcomed and made much of, and particularly when they'd been down on the beach fighting mock
battles up to their waists in sea water or when they'd ridden down to the empty sands to practise yet another dramatic charge. But once the immediate danger had passed, everybody relaxed and the 1
^st
Royal Dragoons were seen warts and all. And none of them more clearly or with more disparagement than Private Scolfield.

He was a disagreeable man, tall and thin with a dark, sour, discontented face, renowned as an unrelenting fighter but given to mockery and practical jokes when he was sober, and belligerent and abusive when he was drunk. The story was that he'd once been a sergeant and had been demoted on account of being drunk and disorderly, and that was why he was so sour and hard-done-by and so quick to take umbrage. He'd quarrelled with old Reuben Jones on his very first evening in the inn.

Reuben had come strolling in to the bar with two of his workmates and they were so deep in conversation that at first he didn't notice that there was a trooper sitting in his seat in the chimney corner, with his long blue-clad legs sprawled in front of the fire taking all the heat. It didn't worry him unduly. Strangers had been known to occupy that seat from time to time but they always vacated it when the position was explained to them. He bought his pint of porter and, tankard in hand, ambled across to put the soldier right.

‘Evenin' to 'ee,' he said and tried a gentle joke. ‘Oi see you're a-keepin' moi seat warm for me.'

The soldier sneered. ‘Your seat?' he said. ‘Since
when has it been the practice for an old man to own a seat in a public inn?'

Reuben was taken aback by such rudeness but he answered kindly. ‘Oi don't know nothin' about practices,' he said, ‘but that there's moi seat. Has been ever since Oi first sat in it. An' 'twas my father's afore me, an' his father's afore him. Toime immemorial, so to speak. You ask anyone.' He looked round at his companions who nodded to show support.

‘Well, now you've lost it, aintcher,' Private Scolfield said. ‘For I'm sittin' in it this evenin' and it's mine by virtue of I'm sittin' in it.'