Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

  Papa liked him, she knew.

  Her father was hard at work on his big paintings of Sleeping Beauty, which he had been planning for so long. He had almost finished the first in the sequence. A young knight in black armour stood on the far left of the canvas, his bared sword in his hand, looking into the tangle of the briar wood where sleeping knights lay in enchanted slumber, their shields caught in the thorns. Papa had spent a long time researching and drawing the armour of all the sleeping knights, to show that each had come to do battle with the cursed forest at different times over the course of the hundred years.

  He was troubled by the thorns in the picture. Jack thought they were wrong. ‘I’ve never seen thorns so sharp and curved, Mr Jones,’ he said. ‘Are they realistic that way?’

  Papa clutched at his head. ‘Realistic! Realistic! Mr Mackail, this is the enchanted briar wood that surrounds the castle of the Sleeping Beauty. The thorns have been growing for a hundred years and no knight has ever been able to cut his way through. What does realism have to do with it?’

  Jack laughed. ‘Of course, you’re right, sir.’

  But the damage was done. Ned brooded over the thorns day and night, and went out and looked at all the roses that grew in the garden, and fretted himself half to death.

  A few days later, he announced at lunch, ‘I have written to Lady Leighton asking her to dig around in her garden and find me the thickest, thorniest, hoariest old monarch of the wild rose possible … one with stems as thick as my wrist with long, horrible spikes on it … so that I have evidence for my enemies that I am right and he is wrong.’

  ‘Mr Mackail is not your enemy, Papa,’ Margot said, her heart quailing within her.

  ‘All you young people are my enemy. You’re an unbelieving generation, and your disbelief infects this poor old believer and gets him all in a muddle.’

  Mammy laughed. ‘Never mind, Ned. I think you can make your thorns as thorny as you like.’

  ‘No, Mr Mackail is right. Everything has to be as real as possible, to make it seem as if the story of the Sleeping Beauty is true. How else will people believe in it?’

  ‘Well, I’m sure Lady Leighton will be delighted to assist you,’ Mammy said, with the sarcastic note that she got in her voice whenever she talked about one of Papa’s female admirers.

  A week later, a box arrived packed full of wild rose briars. Papa was delighted. ‘What use they’ll be to me! Look at this one, Margot. Have you ever seen a thicker and more terrible specimen? It is all my soul lusted for. I’ll invite that Jack Mackail over and wave it under his nose, I shall.’

  The thorns aren’t like what you drew, though, Papa,’ Margot pointed out. ‘They are not nearly as sharp and hooked and horrible.’

  ‘True,’ he sighed. ‘It’s a sad disappointment. I shall have to repaint all the thorns.’

  ‘But there must be thousands of thorns in the paintings,’ Mammy objected. ‘It’ll take you days.’

  ‘Weeks, more like. But it must be done. My honour is at stake, and more importantly, so is Sleeping Beauty’s.’

  So, slowly and laboriously, Papa repainted every thorn, though he took some pleasure in allowing the briars to be as impenetrable as he liked.

  The winter passed.

  Jack continued to come to the Grange every few weeks, always bringing books for Mammy and Papa, and a new toy for Frill, Margot’s cat, so the big Persian had something to play with apart from mice and birds. Sometimes Jack and Margot walked in the orchard, under the bare apple trees. He read her the poems he was writing, or talked to her about his decision not to accept a position at Oxford University, but to join the civil service. ‘I want to do some good in the world,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’ll be hard to marry and have a family on an academic’s income.’

  He had laughter in his voice, but his words made Margot sad. She wondered if he had someone in mind to marry. No doubt she’d be tall, and brilliantly clever, and have golden hair.

  Margot found herself sliding down into the slough of despond again that winter, and so too did her father. He was heartbroken at the news that William Graham, his most faithful patron, was dying of stomach cancer. Mr Graham was not just the most avid collector of Papa’s works, but he brought many other clients to his studio and then negotiated much better prices for the paintings they bought.

  In May, Mr Graham wrote to Papa to say that he had a dealer interested in buying the Sleeping Beauty sequence of paintings.

  ‘But I’ve only painted one!’ Papa exclaimed, his wispy hair standing up on end, his eyes filled with panic.

  ‘Well, it’s a very beautiful one,’ Mammy soothed him. ‘And if you had a buyer for all four paintings, you’d be more likely to actually settle down and finish them all.’

  ‘But I have so much else to do! So many paintings to work on!’

  ‘Yes, I know, my dear. But think how lovely it would be for you to finish some of them. And it would make dear Mr Graham so glad, to know he’s managed to secure some kind of financial security for you. It would relieve his mind very much, I think.’

  William Agnew – the most powerful art dealer in London – came to visit the studio in early May. Mammy insisted on cleaning up the studio, which was in its usual state of dirt and disorder, and picked flowers from the garden to put in vases on the table and the mantelpiece. She and Margot cooked raspberry sponge cake and made piles of chicken and walnut sandwiches for afternoon tea. Mammy even made Papa put on a clean painting smock and comb his hair.

  ‘Indeed I do hope this Mr Agnew loves the painting,’ Mammy said to Margot, as they set the table out in the garden. ‘For I must admit Mr Graham is not the only one to worry about our finances. If only your father was not so particular! He paints so slowly and worries so much. And he exhibits so rarely! How are we to find new patrons when he is so fussy about what he exhibits, and where?’

  ‘He wants his paintings to be perfect,’ Margot said.

  ‘Yes, but perfection is not possible. We live in an imperfect world.’

  Margot nodded. ‘I know. And he knows too. But you’ll never persuade him to stop trying.’

  Mammy’s face softened. She gave Margot a little caress on the cheek. ‘Yes, I know. I know all too well. Oh dear, let us just hope this Mr Agnew is not one of those fellows who heaps criticisms on a thing in order to try to drive down the price. If he is, Ned will be devastated and never want to look at it again. I do have to say, Margot, that I have high hopes for these pictures! The story has always been very special to me.’

  ‘He wants me to sit for his princess,’ Margot said anxiously.

  ‘I know. That is one thing that makes me hopeful. Ned paints most beautifully whatever he loves most deeply, and you are the dearest thing to him in the world, Margot.’ A look of sadness crossed her mother’s face.

  All went well. Mr Agnew seemed to like the painting, and asked a great many questions about when Papa was likely to be able to finish the other three in the sequence. Papa showed him all his drawings and studies, and the work he had already done on the paintings he called The Council Chamber and The Garden Court.

  ‘My daughter Margaret is to be the model for the sleeping princess,’ Ned said.

  Mr Agnew smiled at Margot. ‘Then I am sure it will be most beautiful.’

  A few weeks later, it was Margot’s nineteenth birthday.

  Papa gave her a moonstone ring. ‘So that you may never know love and stay with me always,’ he told her. It was a joke, but like so many of Papa’s jokes, it revealed the very true feeling behind it. Margot tried to smile, but it was hard. She wanted to be loved so badly. Papa put his arm about her and said, ‘It is rather wonderful to look at, isn’t it? So cold and desolate, like looking at the moon.’

  Every time Margot looked at the ring, it made her sad but she could not bear to hurt her father’s feelings by not wearing it.

  The next day, Papa was having a nap on the sofa in the drawing room when a loud ring came at the door. Soon a servant came to say t
here was a man wanting to tell Papa that he had been elected to the Royal Academy.

  Mammy was annoyed. ‘That’s an unkind joke,’ she told the man. ‘I will not have my husband disturbed over such a trick.’

  He protested, but Mammy showed him out. ‘I wonder who it could be, playing such a trick,’ she said to Margot. ‘If Gabriel was alive, I’d have suspected him. He did love a prank, and of course he was always at logger-heads with the Academy. He used to call Sir Joshua Sir Sloshua, and the Academy “fogey-dom”.’ She sighed, looking sad, as she always did when she spoke of Uncle Gabriel.

  In the morning a letter came from Lord Leighton:

  ‘Dear Ned, an event has just occurred which has filled me with the greatest satisfaction and with real joy. A spontaneous act of justice has been done at Burlington House – the largest meeting of members that I ever saw has by a majority elected you an Associate of the Royal Academy, I am not aware that any other case exists of an Artist being elected who has never exhibited, nay, has pointedly abstained from exhibiting on our walls. It is a pure tribute to your genius.’

  ‘I am flabbergasted,’ Ned said, laying the letter down next to his breakfast plate. He said it again, with emphasis. ‘Flabbergasted!’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Mammy asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m utterly befuddled. To reject such an honour would seem churlish, don’t you think? But then, it is fogey-dom. Am I such an old fogey now that they’re willing to admit me when they’ve scorned me and my work for years?’

  ‘Perhaps they have grown wise enough to see your worth,’ Mammy said, folding her napkin and rising. She went and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. ‘Don’t fret yourself into illness over it, Ned.’

  But of course Papa did. Letters flew back and forth, between Lord Leighton and the members of the Academy, who begged him to accept, and all his old friends who thought he should scorn it. Uncle Topsy said, ‘I don’t see why they should force Ned into doing what he disapproves of,’ while Mr Graham wrote to Mammy, ‘He cannot surrender his independence, I know, and that he will ever feel in the humour to sing … in a gilded cage in Piccadilly, I don’t much credit. All the same I am very glad … that they have done it.’

  In the end, Papa accepted but the worry made him sick and melancholy for weeks, and he hardly painted a thing.

  On the last day of June, a letter came from Mr Graham. Papa was too nervous to open it, sure it would have news of the negotiations with the art dealer Mr Agnew. He sat at the breakfast table, his hands clenched in his lap, staring at the envelope as if he feared a snake was coiled within.

  ‘Do you want me to open it for you, dear?’ Mammy asked.

  ‘Yes … no … I don’t know …’

  She reached over and took the envelope, slicing it open with her butter knife.

  ‘Stop! I don’t want to know. What if it’s bad news?’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Mammy said, and took out the letter and read it.

  A look of astonishment crossed her face. She did not speak.

  ‘What does it say, Mammy?’ Margot prompted her.

  ‘Agnew hates it,’ Papa said with gloomy conviction. ‘He thinks it’s awful. He’ll never look at one of my paintings again.’

  ‘Mammy?’ Margot asked again.

  Mammy laid down the letter.

  ‘He loves it. He wants to buy it.’ Her eyes were glowing. ‘Oh, Ned. He’s offered fifteen thousand pounds for the four paintings. Fifteen thousand pounds!’

  Margot could hardly believe it.

  ‘It must be a mistake,’ Ned said. ‘You’ve misread the amount.’

  Mammy passed him over the letter. Ned read it, then read it again. He laid down the letter. ‘We’ll be rich,’ he said dazedly. ‘Oh, Georgie, what shall I do?’

  ‘Finish the paintings!’ she cried.

  8

  The Rose Bower

  Winter 1885–Autumn 1887

  As the days turned towards winter, Papa began to paint Margot as the sleeping princess.

  ‘I hate and loathe winter,’ he said, gazing out at the dead garden under a lowering thunderous sky. ‘I hate the rain, wind, cold, sleet, frost, fog, snow, slush, mud, I hate it all.’

  ‘But what about Christmas?’ Margot asked.

  ‘I hate Christmas too. I hate its beef, its balls, its parties, its mince pies, its puddings, its bon-bons, its crackers, all of it.’ He was silent for a long while, the only sound the flurry of brushstrokes. ‘My father was always unhappiest at Christmas,’ he said at last. ‘It’s hard to rejoice when the world is dead to you.’

  Slowly the painting of The Rose Bower grew. The sleeping princess lay on her bier, sweet-faced and innocent, dressed all in gauzy white, one hand resting on a green sash that bound her hips. Her face was turned away from the dangerous rose briars that coiled close about her. On the floor, a rug with a peacock motif, a discarded mirror, a crown overgrown with brambles.

  ‘Did you know,’ her father said, painting wild roses, ‘that God cursed the earth with thorns after the fall? They symbolise the pain of sin.’

  Margot lay still, her eyelids closed, listening.

  ‘That is what the tale means, I think. The Sleeping Beauty has an unawakened heart. She has not yet felt the pain of love, the thorn of sin.’

  I want my heart to be awakened, Margot thought. But when? When shall I be awakened?

  So the year passed.

  Margot felt as if she only half-lived. Her melancholy deepened day by day, till she found it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Another birthday passed. She was now twenty. A girl no longer. Her mother hovered anxiously, alternating between cajoling and commanding her.

  ‘Rise and shine,’ she’d cry, pulling open the curtains. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’

  But it was the day’s beauty that hurt Margot. She could not bear to look.

  The summer was spent at Rottingdean, and her father worked away at his book of flowers.

  He designed five new pictures: Love in a Tangle, Witches’ Tree, Grave of the Sea, Black Archangel and Golden Greeting. The final little painting showed a red-headed woman bending out of heaven to embrace a dark-haired man on barren earth. ‘I wish Golden Greeting might be quite true,’ he said wistfully.

  Papa could not stay long, for he had many commissions to fulfil for the summer exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery. He was exhibiting a portrait of Margot as well as a large painting of The Garden of Pan and a picture of Perseus showing Andromeda the severed head of Medusa. It was an astonishingly beautiful painting of an awful subject, as so many of Papa’s paintings were.

  Papa had decided to add his middle name to his last name, so that he would be called Edward Burne-Jones, to help him stand out from all the other Joneses in the world. So that is how his name was printed in the catalogues.

  ‘I must admit Georgie Burne-Jones sounds much better than Georgie Jones,’ Mammy said with a laugh. Margot liked it too. Margaret Burne-Jones definitely had a more aristocratic ring to it.

  Papa wrote to Margot from London: ‘The garden looks lovely still – a little sad, except in the first morning hours when the autumn sun shines on it and makes it look divine, but in the afternoon it is given over to sadness and at twilight, it is haunted by spirits, not ghosts – wraith and spectre never entered this dear garden … I long for you back …’

  I am the dearest thing in the world to him, Margot thought. And because he loves me so, he will paint the most beautiful picture ever painted. It is going to make him rich and famous. But he will never be able to let me go …

  She felt as trapped as if thorns truly held her captive.

  ‘Why are there only four paintings?’ Margot asked her father one day. ‘Why don’t you show the moment when the prince finds the princess and awakens her with a kiss?’

  Papa smiled sadly. ‘I want to stop with the princess asleep and to tell no more of the tale. For that is the moment when all is about to change, when the spell is about to be broken, fo
r better or for worse. It’s the last moment of innocence, the last moment of the old world. Who knows what they will wake to find?’

  Again the world turned toward winter, and still her father laboured over the Sleeping Beauty. He painted the king asleep on his throne, his head sunk into his chest, his long silver beard growing past his lap. He held a quill in his right hand, an unsigned scroll unrolling over his lap, his scribe asleep at his feet with a book in his hand.

  The king looked just like her father. He was dressed all in pale colours like the sleeping princess. White, pearl-grey, silver, touches of softest gold.

  Margot wondered where the queen was in her father’s painting. He had painted the women of the castle sleeping at their looms and their spindles in the garden court. There were six women there, the briars twisted all about them, their dyed hanks of wool hanging above their heads just like they did in Uncle Topsy’s workroom. The women were all barefoot, their heads uncovered, their clothes simple.

  Perhaps the queen was the woman slumped beside the princess, her hair bound beneath a black hood, dressed in dark colours as if in mourning, a medieval lute cradled in her arm. She had Mammy’s chestnut-brown hair, her straight nose. But no crown, no jewels, no cloth of gold, no silver thread. She was as dark a presence as the prince in his black armour at the furthermost end of the paintings.

  The prince would need to step over the woman with the lute if he was to bend and kiss the sleeping princess awake.

  Margot watched her father paint, and wondered what it all meant.

  Slowly each day trickled past, unlike the sand in the king’s painted hourglass.

  Margot’s father liked to talk as he painted.

  So Margot lay still, her hands resting gently beside her, her face turned towards him, listening. He was a wonderful talker, her father. It seemed as if he remembered everything he had ever read, and that he had read anything ever worth knowing.

  One evening, he told her that a friend had offered to send him a copy of Anna Karenina. ‘But I begged him not to. I cannot afford to be made unhappy, and I suspect it would. It’s Russian, and so I know just what to expect. There would be a beautiful woman in it, with all the best in her of any woman, and she would be miserable and love some trumpery frip, as they always do, and she would die finding out that she had been a fool. It would be beautifully written and just like life, and I couldn’t bear it. These books are written for the hard-hearted. They are not meant for the poets but for stockjobbers, to wring iron tears from them for once. That is the use of sorrowful art, to penetrate the thick hide of the obtuse, and I have grown to be such a coward about pain.’