by Kate Forsyth
Topsy was there already, of course, but he paid Georgie as little attention as he had the first time he had met her. He was looking pale and drawn, she thought, and remembered that Ned said he had fallen head over heels with a girl he had met in Oxford. ‘Being in love doesn’t suit Topsy,’ Ned had remarked mournfully. ‘He’s in the devil of a temper.’
Georgie had a taste of his temper a little later in the evening, when they all sat down to supper. The maid Mary had made them roast beef, which was rather dry and leathery, followed by plum pudding, which she had boiled in a bag in the old-fashioned way. It was rather small, Ned not having had much money for ingredients. Morris was furious. He impaled the pudding upon his fork, waved it about and bellowed at the top of his voice, ‘Mary, do you call that a pudding?’ When Mary popped in, wiping her damp hands on her apron, he hurled the offending pudding at her. She ducked, and the pudding crashed into a jug and smashed it to the ground.
For a moment there was a stunned silence, then Ned began to roar with laughter. Most of the men joined in, though Miss Maria and Miss Christina looked horrified, and Emma stared blearily into her punch glass.
Mary straightened up, picked up the hot pudding with her hands protected by her apron, and said cheerfully, ‘It’ll be fine if I dust it off. An’ an extra serve of brandy custard will help fill up the corners fer you, Mr Morris. I know ye’re a hungry feller.’
‘He is indeed,’ Ned said and slapped Topsy’s belly.
Gabriel had not arrived in time for supper, but he came soon afterwards, dressed in his old plum velvet jacket with a purple scarf knotted loosely about his throat. His eyes were shadowed, and he seemed in an ill humour too. Called upon to admire the grand medieval chair, he said merely that it looked as if it were sturdy enough to bear Topsy’s weight without breaking, then asked whether the odd box at the top was meant for keeping owls in.
Georgie played on a piano hired for the evening, then she and Alice sang old French songs. Everything passed off swimmingly, with Topsy’s temper much restored by the extra-large serving of pudding and brandy custard.
As everyone was gathering up their coats and hats, ready to depart, Bruno took Gabriel’s arm and shook it, asking gruffly, ‘Well? How is Lizzie, old man? Could you not have brought her for the evening?’
Gabriel’s face darkened. ‘She’s been ill, Bruno, terribly ill. The doctors are in a quandary. She just can’t seem to keep any nourishment down.’
‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear that,’ Bruno said.
‘So when are you two going to tie the knot?’ Emma demanded, her words slurring just enough to be noticeable.
‘It has been a while,’ Bruno said apologetically.
‘Four and a half years,’ Emma said.
‘Yes,’ Gabriel answered after a moment. ‘It has been too long. Far too long.’
‘Maybe in the spring, then?’ Bruno asked. ‘When Lizzie is feeling better.’
‘Maybe.’
Bruno flashed a smile at Ned and Georgie. ‘Don’t take a leaf out of Gabriel’s book, Ned, and leave it too long! Marry this pretty lass just as soon as you can. You’ll love being a married man, I promise you that.’ He gave Georgie a flicker of a wink, then supported his wife’s tottering steps out the door.
Gabriel scowled, thrust his fists into his pockets, and went out after them.
Georgie was blushing and smiling. Ned took her hand. ‘I knew that they would all love you. Old Bruno was so interested in your wanting to paint. He said you can go to his studio and have lessons if you like. Isn’t he a grand old fellow?’
Georgie agreed, in a little glow of happiness.
Ned drew a little closer, bending to whisper. ‘And I’ve started to get a few commissions now, Georgie. I do so look forward to the days when we can be together and learn everything there is to know about art and life and love …’ His voice dropped on the final word, and he coloured. ‘I imagine us living in some round tower by the sea, you and me, and maybe Topsy, and Louie … painting and singing …’
He moved even closer. Her heart pitter-pattering, Georgie daringly lifted her face for his kiss.
6
I Cannot Paint You
Winter 1857–58
Janey grieved for Gabriel with all of her heart.
She lay on her pallet, weeping till it felt as if her eyes would fall right out of her head. Days passed, and not even her mother’s kick in the ribs would rouse her.
Eventually she had to get up, if only to try to find some way to make some money. She took in some sewing, and helped the laundress next door with the washing.
One day, soon after Christmas, there came a great hammering at the door. Janey thought it was probably the bum-bailiffs come again. She wished them luck finding anything to sell. Her mother yelled at them to go away. The hammering came again, louder.
Annie got up, shuffled to the door and opened it, swaying on her feet. ‘Wha’ you want?’
‘I … I am looking for Miss Burden.’
Janey jolted upright. It was Topsy. Here in Hell’s Passage.
She scrambled up, pushing back her great mass of tangled hair. She rushed to the door, thrusting in front of Annie who yawned and shambled back to her bed and her bottle of gin.
‘Wha’ is it? Wha’ do ye want?’
He stared at her with shocked eyes. ‘I wondered why you did not come and sit for us anymore.’
She shrugged. ‘Gabriel’s gone. I didn’t think I’d be wanted no more.’
‘I want you,’ he said, very low.
She gazed at him with sombre eyes, afraid of his meaning.
‘I made a mess of my mural. Val said my queen looked like an ogress. I want to try again. With you.’
Still she did not speak.
‘I swear to you my intentions are honourable.’
After a long moment, she nodded her head. ‘Just give me time to get ready.’
As she quickly washed her face and pinned up her hair, Janey imagined Topsy standing in the alleyway, smelling the cesspit, hearing the wailing of the sick baby next door, looking at the ramshackle huts with their makeshift roofs and crooked chimneys, and the sad collection of rags hung out to dry on the washing strings. She was so ashamed she could not speak to him once she came out. She followed him back to his lodgings, her eyes hot, her head bent.
Topsy was as quiet.
He wanted to paint Janey in the rose brocade dress. Once again, she was pretending to be a tragic queen, in love with a man who was not her husband. Her name was La Belle Iseult. She wore a garland of rosemary and convolvulus on her head, and was in the process of clasping a golden girdle about her hips, as if she had just risen from bed.
Standing there, the golden belt in her hands, Janey was acutely aware of the sensuality of her pose. She felt the weight of Topsy’s gaze on her.
When Gabriel drew her, he had worked swiftly and surely, telling her old stories or quoting poetry to her, so all she had to do was stay still and listen, caught in a spell of enchantment.
It was very different being painted by Topsy. He cursed, he stamped about, he tore at his hair with his paint-stained hands, he groaned, he kicked over a brass jug, kicked it again. Sometimes he stood still for ages, trying to compose himself. When Janey said his name, he did not respond. It was as if he had slipped away to another place for a moment.
He could be rude and bearish at times, yet he was also unfailingly kind. He bought her an orange one day, after she had mentioned she had never tasted one, and peeled it for her. He passed her a small segment, bursting with juice. The taste of it was a revelation. Janey ate it greedily, then another, trying to think what it tasted like. Sitting with the sun on your back on a hot summer’s day. Orange hawkweed growing out of a crack in a churchyard wall. The sound of singing in a hayfield as women raked the mown grass into piles. The glint of a new sovereign.
Topsy watched her face as she ate, pleased. The next day he brought her half-a-dozen oranges in a string bag, and she was able to eat one whenev
er she wished.
He did not find painting easy or joyful. Janey thought he only painted because Gabriel had said all poets must paint. What Gabriel said was law for Topsy.
It was bitterly cold. Snow flumped down all over Oxford, making it seem pure and clean. The icicles in the trees gleamed golden with light from the gas-lamps, and the sound of angelic singing drifted over the college walls. Janey wondered why Topsy stayed in Oxford. ‘Ain’t ye got no family?’ she asked.
‘Gosh, yes,’ he answered. ‘Far too many of them.’
‘So don’t they want ye home for Chris’mas?’
He was silent for a moment. ‘I’d rather be here. But I will need to go soon.’
His words made Janey feel sad. She stood silently, the rosemary wreath on her head slowly withering.
On Candlemas Eve, everyone set lighted candles in their windows so that the city shimmered as if with fairy lights. Janey set a rushlight in the tiny window of her mother’s shack, imagining that she was lighting a beacon for Gabriel to find his way home to her. But the rushlight burned down to ash, the days kept slipping away and still he did not come.
Ye’re a dummel, she told herself. Just stop lovin’ him.
But she did not know how.
Topsy was brusquer and kinder than ever. For Christmas, he had bought her an illustrated copy of Tennyson’s poems, with woodcut drawings by many artists, including Gabriel and his friends Millais and Hunt, who Janey had not met. She thought it very beautiful and treasured it, though Topsy wondered why she would not take it home with her, leaving it in his rooms.
‘To keep it safe,’ she said.
Gabriel had given her a small pencil sketch he had drawn of her, dated and inscribed with what she thought must be Latin, as she had seen similar on the walls of old churches. She had kept it hidden away inside her mattress, afraid that her mother might burn it for warmth, or smear it with her dirty hands. She took it out now and slid it inside the book of poems, at a drawing by Gabriel of a woman on her knees praying, love letters scattered about her. Janey felt she knew what the woman in that poem felt.
Topsy had told her kindly that Gabriel was in Derbyshire with his betrothed. It was impossible not to wish that Gabriel realised he loved her instead, and came rushing back to sweep her off her feet and marry her. She even hoped, in her most secret heart, that Lizzie would die and release Gabriel. Janey was ashamed of these thoughts, and steadfastly pushed them away.
At least she had the memory of their brief time together to sustain her.
Spring came, and all the trees in the colleges budded with new leaves. The air was bright with birdsong. Janey was so restless she found it hard to sit still. Topsy took her out walking, telling her stories about his days in Oxford as a student, and how he had first met Ned. He did not ask about her childhood here. Janey thought he probably imagined it all too well.
One morning Janey went out to the forest to pick a bunch of sweet violets. She put them in a vase by the fire, in the sitting-room that was now as neat as a new pin, and smelt their delicate fragrance as she stood posing for him. She hoped that they masked the smell of the slum on her skin, which no amount of scrubbing ever washed away.
That afternoon she was making herself a new collar for her dress when Topsy stopped by her chair. ‘You should embroider some violets on that. It’d look pretty.’
‘I don’t know how to do that,’ Janey confessed. She had only ever been taught to do plain sewing. Hems and buttonholes and suchlike.
‘Here, I’ll show you.’ Topsy went into his room and, most surprisingly, came out with a little basket full of coloured silk threads, scissors, a fat pink satin pin-cushion, and a round wooden frame which he unclasped and fitted Janey’s linen collar within. He deftly threaded a needle with purple silk, put a dainty silver thimble upon his thick forefinger, and began to make tiny smooth stitches upon it. Slowly a small flower began to take shape upon the linen.
It made Janey smile to see the tiny needle in his big rough paw. ‘I ain’t never seen a man sewin’ afore!’
‘I like it,’ Topsy said. ‘It’s a dying art. The architect I worked for here in Oxford had an interest in old embroideries done for churches. His sister was a fine craftswoman. She taught me. Nowadays so many things are made badly by machines. I like the idea of making beautiful things, slowly, with the hand.’
He showed her what he had done.
‘I’d like t’do that,’ she said shyly. ‘Make beautiful things.’
‘Here, I’ll show you. The trick is to lay the stitches together as smoothly and closely as you can.’
Soon they were sitting side by side, heads bent close, Janey bursting with pride as a violet bloomed from the sharp point of her needle. The next day Topsy gave her a sewing basket of her own, filled with dozens and dozens of embroidery silks like a rainbow come to earth, and a book of embroidery patterns. Janey found that she loved nothing more than to sit quietly, carefully laying one colour down next to another, one stitch after another, till her cloth was alive with pictures.
Topsy’s poems were published a month later. He was tense and anxious and mad with joy all at once. He held the little brown book as tenderly as a child, turning the pages – frowning and smiling and tugging at his beard in turn – stroking its leather binding as if it was alive. At last he gave it to Janey to read. She curled up in her favourite chair by the fire, and read it through from first page to the last.
The poems shook her to her core. Spare, strange, urgent, full of passion and fear and longing and heartbreak.
Ah Christ! If only I had known, known, known;
Launcelot went away, then I could tell …
how all things would be …
moan, and roll and hurt myself, and long to die …
He had looked inside the secret chambers of her heart and seen what she had tried to hide.
Janey could not see the words for the tears that swam in her eyes. She took a deep breath, dabbed them away, and read on, Topsy in an agony of impatience.
She closed the book, trying to compose herself. Topsy gazed at her hopefully. ‘They’re beautiful,’ she whispered. Once again she did not know how to speak of her feelings. ‘Ye’re a great poet,’ she managed.
Topsy turned away. When he spoke, of something quite different, his voice was gruff. But Janey knew she had pleased him.
That afternoon, he asked her to pose for him again. She stood, the golden belt hanging heavy in her hands. Words had been scrawled across the back of the canvas. She took a step closer and bent to read them.
Topsy had written: I cannot paint you but I love you.
Janey had been nine the first time a boy had dragged up her skirt and thrust his cock inside her. She had been coming home in the dusk, the few pennies she had earned screwed up in her handkerchief for safekeeping. He had grabbed her and pushed her up against the wall, his arm across her throat. She had kicked him in the balls, as her brother had taught her, and managed to get a few paces away before he brought her down. He dragged her up, shoved her face into the wall, and had her skirt and chemise up about her waist in a moment. There was nothing she could do but endure, her face knocking into the rough stone again and again.
He was finished quickly enough. He wiped himself off on her skirts, then felt in her pockets till he came across the little hard knot in her handkerchief. He took it and strolled away, buttoning his trousers as he went.
Janey crept home, her face bruised and bleeding, fearful of what her mother would say about her empty pockets. Annie gave her a ringing blow on the side of the head and kicked her out into the night, telling her not to come home till she had got them something to eat. Janey had found herself a dark hole under a stoop and huddled there, crying. In the cold dawn, she had wandered the streets, begging, till someone took pity on her and gave her a ha’penny.
Janey tried to make herself invisible after that, but she was too tall and too arresting. Sometimes it was one of the slum bully-boys, wanting a quick rut. Sometimes
it was a customer at the inn, coming across her scrubbing a floor and thinking her fair game. Most often it was a fine gentleman thinking a girl selling flowers on a street corner was also selling her body.
Janey had never really felt safe, not anywhere.
She looked at Topsy. She could not speak.
He knelt before her, taking one of her cold, clenched hands. ‘I do love you most terribly. Won’t you marry me? Let me look after you?’
She shook her head.
He got clumsily to his feet, and stood at the window, looking out on to the courtyard. ‘He will not come back to you,’ he said, after a while. ‘He has been betrothed to this other girl for years now.’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t expect you to love me like I love you. I know that would be too hard.’
She swallowed, looking down at her hands. So rough and red they were. How could a swell like him want to marry a slum girl like her?
‘I cannot stay in Oxford any longer,’ Topsy went on, speaking to his reflection in the glass. ‘I’ve been here far too long as it is. But I cannot bear the thought of going away and not taking you with me. I couldn’t sleep at nights for worrying about you.’
He halted, and she knew he was thinking of Hell’s Passage. ‘If you were cold or hungry or in danger … don’t you see? If you married me, I could look after you. We could be comfortable together, like we’ve been these past months.’
They had been comfortable together. She had liked it very much, embroidering pretty flowers, listening to his poetry, drinking a glass of golden sherry with the pot roast he had ordered in from the landlady.
She wondered if he knew that she had given herself to Gabriel. It seemed impossible to tell him.
He had begun to pace, his hands clenched behind his back. ‘I’d build you a house … in the country, with a garden and apple trees and roses … maybe we could have children one day … little girls that look just like you …’