Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

Rain beat against the windows. The world was a watery blur beyond.

  She looked about the room. They had rented a small furnished cottage near Hampstead Heath. The sitting room was overcrowded with dark mahogany furniture. Lace antimacassars on the backs of the over-stuffed chairs. A fly-spotted portrait of a young Queen Victoria on the wall.

  Lizzie wished they could find a nicer place to live. It was disheartening being left alone all day while Gabriel went into the studio at Blackfriars to paint. She wanted a house with a garden and a studio attached, so that she could keep an eye on him.

  She laid her hands on her stomach. It felt uneasy below her hands, as if her inner sea was troubled by storms. A bucket was close to hand, for almost anything could trigger a wave of nausea. She could not bear the slightest whiff of cooking, nor could she walk past the butcher’s shop with its gutted rabbit carcasses hanging from hooks.

  The doctor had told her that a child was growing in her belly, and that was the cause of her constant queasiness. Lizzie had been afraid that it was a return of her old madness, and she had seen the same fear in Gabriel’s eyes. But the doctor assured her that it was normal to feel so ill. It was the baby drawing upon her strength and vitality. It will soon pass, he promised her. She just had to endure these first few months.

  The doctor had called her Mrs Rossetti. It felt strange but wonderful to be addressed so. Sometimes Lizzie practised writing her new name. Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti. It sounded so grand.

  She did not feel like herself anymore at all. The girl she had been was gone. Now she was Mrs Rossetti, a mother to be. She could spend her days writing poetry and drawing and painting, if she had the strength. And at night, she slept pressed close to the warmth of Gabriel’s body, her cold feet tucked between his.

  Lizzie was almost sure her husband no longer saw any of those brazen models of his. Annie Miller was thought to have become the mistress of an aristocratic rake; and Gabriel had told her that Fanny Cox had married, which surprised her. Lizzie had thought Fanny a street-walker. Not that it mattered. Fanny was married and gone out of Gabriel’s life. He was working on a painting of Lizzie as the Queen of Hearts; there was no shame in modelling for him when she was his wife.

  Lizzie picked up her pencil again and made a few desultory marks on the page, but she could not concentrate. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, then took up the little bottle that always sat beside her and measured out a few more drops. Bless that kind doctor, who had told Gabriel that laudanum was the best thing to counteract her morning sickness.

  Soon the bittersweet liquid worked its usual magic, and Lizzie drifted away on a stream of disconnected thoughts. A bairn on the way. No red hair, she hoped. Or freckles. Gabriel’s dark curls, Gabriel’s beautiful voice. A little Gabriello to lift up chubby arms to her. Calling Mamma, mamma. She’d be a better mother by far than her own. She’d love that little mite with all her heart. Grazed knees, falling down stockings. She’d laugh and swoop him up in her arms and kiss him. Best mamma in the world.

  She thought of her father. His face and hair and coat covered in fine silvery glitter after the day’s work. His cough, as he bent over the grinding stone. He was dead now, gone to his grave thinking her a worthless whore. If only he had known Gabriel would marry her in the end. Would he have forgiven her?

  She stood and went to the window, the blanket wrapped around her. She could see her face. Thin and white. Hollow-eyed. It made her think of that strange painting Gabriel had worked on when they were in Paris, on their honeymoon. He called it his bogey painting. A couple, walking in a gloomy wood in the gloaming, met their own doubles, exact in every respect. The man – who looked just like Gabriel – drew his sword but could not find the strength to wield it. The woman – who looked just like Lizzie – swooned. Their doppelgängers stared at them indifferently, hallowed with unearthly light.

  Omen of death to come.

  Lizzie dragged the curtains shut with a rattle, then rushed from lamp to lamp, lighting the wicks with fingers that quivered. She stoked up the fire and stood close to it, trying to warm herself.

  Where was he? Why was he so late?

  She had to stay calm. Lizzie knew her flash points. She tried to read. But the words swam. She clenched her fists, shut her eyes, and tried not to listen to the strident voice of suspicion within.

  The gate squeaked, then clanged shut. Lizzie rearranged her skirts, tidied her hair, pretended to be engrossed in her book.

  The door opened. Gabriel came in, streaming wet, taking off his hat and shaking back damp curls. He was carrying a pot from the local cookhouse. The fug of it filled the room.

  ‘What a day! Look at me. I’m wet to the skin.’

  ‘You’re so late. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Trying to get home. All the buses were packed.’

  He’s lying, she thought but did not say.

  Gabriel tossed his wet coat and hat on to a chair, and came to put the pot from the cookhouse in the ashes to warm. Then he sat down and unbuttoned his shoes, kicking them off and setting them to dry on the hearth. He pulled off his stockings and wrung them dry.

  She set the table and Gabriel began to serve up the stew. Lizzie could not say that she was not hungry, or that the smell made her feel sick. It would only upset him. She sat down, pretending to be eager to eat.

  As always, Gabriel watched her closely. She cut her meal into neat squares, and chewed each mouthful twenty-five times. Then she ate only twenty-five bites. It was the only way she could manage to eat without being overcome by panic. When she had eaten the right number of mouthfuls, she laid down her fork and pushed her plate as far away from her as she could. Then she concentrated all her will on keeping the food down.

  Lizzie wanted to be well. She wanted to make Gabriel happy. She wanted this tiny being within her womb to grow as he or she should. That meant Lizzie had to eat, as much as she disliked it.

  ‘Look, I can pluck an apple just by reaching my hand out the window!’ Georgie caught hold of an apple, bringing it into the house in a little shower of leaves. She bit into it with triumph.

  ‘It is the beautifulest place in the world,’ Ned said.

  ‘See how I’ve contrived a minstrels’ gallery for us.’ Topsy climbed up the rungs of a ladder that had been built on the side of a tall sideboard. ‘What jolly parties we shall have!’

  ‘Is Gabriel coming down?’ Ned asked eagerly.

  A shadow darkened Topsy’s face. ‘No. Mrs Gabriel is still unwell.’

  ‘I wonder what is wrong with her?’ Georgie said. ‘Gabriel said the doctors are sure now it’s not consumption.’

  ‘She is very delicately made,’ Ned said. ‘She looks like a puff of wind would break her in two.’

  Georgie picked an apple and threw it to Janey, laughing. ‘I’m sure Lizzie would be well if she only came down here! Who could not be well down here in the country, with that sweet wind blowing and an apple a day to keep the doctor away?’

  ‘It can’t be good for her, living in London,’ Ned said.

  The two men wandered off to look at the ceiling of the studio. Georgie followed Janey into the garden.

  ‘Look at those sunflowers! Don’t they make the garden look cheerful?’

  ‘Topsy loves sunflowers,’ Janey said. ‘He likes the way they all stand an’ face the east.’

  She showed Georgie the sunny little porch which Topsy called the Pilgrim’s Rest, in honour of Chaucer’s pilgrims to Canterbury who were thought to have passed nearby. It looked out onto the garden and the well with the red conical roof like a dunce’s cap. Topsy had built rose-covered trellises to enclose the lawn, creating the feel of a medieval walled garden.

  ‘Oh this is delightful!’ Georgie cried. ‘Let us sit out here and enjoy the sunshine.’

  The two women fetched their sewing baskets and books, and made a little camp out in the porch with cushions and quilts. It became their habit to retire there each morning, sewing and talking and laughing, while the two men pa
inted kings and queens and knights and damsels upon the drawing-room wall, all with the faces of their friends.

  After lunch every day, the two women went out driving in the quaint little wagonette, sitting under a chintz canopy, stopping to pick blackberries, rosehips, haws and sloes. Janey knew a lot about what grew in the hedgerows and meadows.

  As the sun slanted through the autumn-yellow leaves, the two young women took their laden baskets back to the kitchen, to turn the fruit into jams and jellies and tisanes and teas. Georgie found it interesting that Janey was not content to leave all the work of the house and garden in her servants’ hands. She wanted to make her own bread, and grow her own vegetables, and spin her own wool, just as if she was a medieval lady and not a modern-day middle-class woman with staff. At first Georgie thought Janey just wanted to gratify Topsy, but she came to believe that Janey took fierce pleasure in keeping her house spotless and sweet smelling, and presiding over a table laden with the fruits of her own labours.

  At night, Georgie played the piano for them and sang, or sometimes they played silly childish games like blind man’s bluff. Friends came to visit them on the weekends, and sometimes the men wrestled together or pelted each other with windfall apples. One night they played hide-and-seek all through the house. Janey was the finder, and crept along the passages with her candle flame flickering in the draughts. When Ned leapt out at her, growling like a bear, she screamed and dropped her candle, as if expecting to encounter some kind of wild animal. It was all glorious fun, and Georgie hated the thought of having to return to London and their own cramped and damp-smelling lodgings.

  One morning in late September, Georgie sat beside Janey in the Pilgrims’ Rest, working away with her engraving tools on a little square of wood where she was attempting to cut out the shape of a wild rose. Georgie had been practising hard, and was growing more adept every day.

  ‘There,’ she said with a flourish, laying down her graver. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Very pretty,’ Janey said. ‘You’re clever with your fingers.’

  ‘So are you,’ Georgie replied, looking admiringly at the design of daisies flowering on the indigo-blue serge.

  ‘I can embroider well enough if I am given the pattern, but I am not so good at inventing the design.’ Janey smoothed her stitches with one finger. ‘While Topsy comes up with a dozen new designs every hour, but doesn’t have the patience to sit and sew it.’

  ‘Be glad he sits and sews at all,’ Georgie said. ‘I’ve ever known a man to do so before.’

  ‘He’s not your usual man.’

  Georgie looked at Janey quickly, for there was an odd note in her voice. But Janey’s face was as serene as ever. Georgie wondered again at the strange marriage of these two young people: Topsy so short and rotund and boisterous, and his wife so tall and beautiful and silent. Perhaps it worked because they were so different. And both seemed content enough, if always busy about their own concerns.

  Her hands were hurting from their work with the graver, so she packed her tools away and took up an edge of the serge to help embroider daisies. Then she saw, tucked away down in the bottom of Janey’s work basket, a soft new garment, made for someone very small.

  Her eyes flew up to Janey’s face. She was smiling as she sewed, her thoughts far away. Georgie smiled too, a little wistfully. Already everything was changing.

  Lizzie waited till Gabriel had gone out, then tiptoed into his studio.

  It smelt of turpentine and oil paints, making her stomach clench. She put her hands on her belly. Round and hard. Sometimes she felt an inexplicable flutter deep within. Like something somersaulting inside her. She wondered if it was her baby, groping its way around the confines of her womb. She could hardly imagine it.

  The studio was in as much disorder as ever. Paintings stacked against the walls, or propped up on easels. A table laden with drawings. Lizzie rifled through them. Hands, eyes, faces, hair. Lizzie did not think any were hers.

  Lizzie turned to the canvases. Carefully she leaned them forward, scrutinising each one before moving on to the next. The edges of many were furred with dust. She tried not to leave any pale incriminating fingermarks.

  The Queen of Hearts painting had not turned out well. Lizzie looked sick and green, her face dwarfed by the heavy masses of red hair. She stared at her own face for a long time. It was how she looked now, she had to admit.

  At least she had persuaded Gabriel that they should move back to Blackfriars. She could lie in their bed, resting, and hear him moving about in the studio next door.

  Lizzie had thought living at Blackfriars would ease the suspicion that gnawed at her. But it had not helped. Gabriel was often out, leaving her alone for hours. Sometimes he went to work at his friend Roddy’s studio. Other times she heard quick feminine steps and giggles coming from the studio. Lizzie would go and stand outside, leaning to press her ear to the door, only to hurry away at the firm approaching tread of her husband’s feet. He was working on some new commissions, she knew, but he was vague on the details.

  Some canvases on easels were shrouded with paint-stained cloths. Lizzie lifted one away. Beneath was a sensuous painting of a woman with masses of golden hair, a white rose tucked behind one ear, marigolds behind her. Her jacket was unbuttoned to show the white frill of her chemise, and her plump lips were slightly puckered, as if offering them up to be kissed.

  Fanny Cox. Though now she called herself Fanny Cornforth. It was not the last name of her husband. She had given herself a new name. As if hoping to start life afresh.

  Lizzie wanted to tear the canvas down, put her heel through it, slash at it with a palette knife, tear it to shreds. Instead she carefully covered it up again, and went back to the bedroom, curling up and clutching a pillow, weeping into it till it was wet through.

  She knew Gabriel had been lying to her.

  When at last her husband came home, Lizzie accused him, in a voice shaking with tears, of sneaking out to see Fanny behind her back.

  Gabriel stared at her. ‘I haven’t seen Fanny in months,’ he said flatly.

  ‘I saw the painting of her.’

  ‘I did that a year or more ago,’ he said. ‘My old friend Boyce bought it from me, but I’ve borrowed it back since my dealer wants another just like it. I’m having trouble with it, though. I need to see Fanny to get her down right, but didn’t want to upset you when you’re in such a delicate condition.’

  ‘Liar!’ She sat up and flung the pillow at him. ‘All you ever do is lie.’

  Gabriel turned on his heel and strode away, but she stumbled after him, hurling accusations at him. It was their worst argument since they had got married.

  The first crack in the ice.

  Lizzie wrote swiftly, covering the page with her sprawling handwriting.

  My Dear Little Georgie,

  I hope you intend coming over with Ned tomorrow evening like a sweetmeat, it seems so long since I saw you dear. Janey will be here I hope to meet you.

  With a willow-pattern dish full of love to you and Ned

  Lizzie

  She wanted Georgie there to help bolster her courage. Lizzie had not yet met Janey Morris, and she was very afraid that she would prove to be another rival for Gabriel’s affections. There had been something odd in the way he had told Lizzie that the Morrises were coming to supper. His face had been flushed, and he had not met her eye. It might have been the heat from the stove. It might have been her imagination. But Lizzie could not help being suspicious.

  She was greatly relieved when Topsy and his new wife arrived, bundled up to the eyebrows against the bitter November weather. Janey was tall as a man! Bushy black hair and eyebrows that practically met in the middle. And so angular and awkward. She barely said a word all supper, leaving the others to keep the conversation running along merrily. Lizzie relaxed. Gabriel liked confident, outspoken women with golden-red hair and easy manners. She did not need to fear this black-browed close-mouthed gypsy.

  Georgie and Ned wer
e full of the delights of Red House, urging Gabriel to come and join them in painting and decorating the bare walls and ceilings.

  ‘We’re painting the romance of Sir Degravaunt in the dining room,’ Ned said.

  ‘Which scenes?’ Gabriel languidly swilled his wine. ‘The one where he first sets eyes on the fair maiden Melidor and falls in love with her at first sight, le coup de foudre? Or the scene in which he does battle for her hand, not once, not twice, but thrice?’

  ‘I’ve had to start at the end of the story,’ Ned said. ‘With the wedding. Because of the light, you know.’

  ‘A wedding is not always the end of the story,’ Gabriel said. ‘Mrs Topsy, your glass is empty. Can I pour you some wine?’

  Janey held out her goblet, and Gabriel put one hand over hers to hold it steady. When he let go, Janey slopped a little wine on the tablecloth and mopped it up hastily with her napkin, mumbling apologies. Lizzie remembered she was the daughter of a stable hand; one had to forgive her any clumsiness.

  ‘What about the scene where Melidor’s serving maid smuggled Sir Degravaunt into her room?’ Gabriel asked. ‘Will you paint that?’

  ‘I was thinking more of the wedding procession. With minstrels and things, you know.’ Ned sketched with his hands in the air. ‘I’m drawing Topsy as King Arthur and Janey as Queen Guenevere. It’ll be so romantic.’

  Gabriel coughed violently into his napkin. ‘Sorry. A little gristle in my throat. What about you, Topsy? What are you painting?’

  ‘I’m pricking patterns into the damp plaster of the ceilings,’ Topsy said. ‘I’m putting stylised peacock feathers in the studio. To represent immortality.’

  Gabriel turned to Janey. ‘That’s an old belief, Mrs Topsy. It’s because they believed peacock flesh did not decay.’

  ‘I thought it was because the peacocks regrow new feathers every spring,’ Ned said. ‘Making them a symbol of resurrection and eternal life.’

  ‘I thought they were symbols of false pride and vanity,’ Georgie said. ‘You know, proud as a peacock.’