Beauty in Thorns

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Why, Papa?’ Margot asked.

  She heard his brush pause in its work. There was a long silence.

  ‘Because I have been much hurt, I suppose.’

  Margot opened her eyes and looked at her father. For months, after seeing her father and Madame Zambaco together, she had felt so sad and hurt, wounded by his betrayal of her mother and for the rupturing of her own childhood innocence. Slowly, against her will, she had found herself forgiving him. He was still her dear old whimsical father, filled with strange fancies and fears, who painted love as an angel with fiery wings lost in a blue mist. She wanted to try to understand.

  ‘Who hurt you so badly?’ she dared to ask.

  He did not answer for a long time, and Margot worried that she had broken the moment of confidence. Then slowly he began to paint again.

  ‘A woman … I loved her very much …’

  ‘But she hurt you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I hate her,’ Margot burst out with such vehemence she surprised herself.

  She was remembering her father with his lover, his cries as if he were in pain.

  ‘Do not hate her, Margot,’ he whispered. ‘Some things are beyond our understanding. Hurricanes and tempests and billows of the sea. Love is one of them. It is why … oh, it is why I hope to keep you safe. I could not bear for you to be so hurt.’

  I would not mind, Margot thought. I’d rather love with all my heart and be hurt than to never know love at all.

  She thought of Jack. It had been a long time since she had seen him. She wondered where he was, and if he still wrote poetry, and if he had married that girl with the golden hair and had the children he wanted. The thought hurt her, like a fragment of something sharp pressing into her heart.

  When her father was packing away his brushes and paints for the day, Margot rose from the studio bed and walked back to the house through the garden. It was autumn, but heavy-headed roses still bloomed here and there, petals loose and shaking free in the evening wind. She gathered a few, wincing as their thorns snagged in her skin. All the time she was thinking of what her father had said.

  She took the roses into the kitchen, looking for a vase. Her mother was busy helping the cook prepare supper.

  ‘What lovely roses, darling. They’ll soon be finished for the season. It’s always so sad to see the last petals blow away. How is the painting coming along?’

  ‘He’ll be finished soon,’ Margot said. ‘If nothing happens to upset him.’

  ‘The closer he gets to the end, the more easily he’ll be upset,’ Mammy said. ‘He’ll grieve for it when it’s done.’

  Margot busied herself arranging the flowers in the vase. ‘Mammy, have you ever wondered why Mr Mackail doesn’t come and visit us anymore?’

  She said it lightly, as if on a passing whim, not looking at her mother.

  Her mother laid down her wooden spoon.

  ‘I didn’t know that you cared to see him. You were always so … so cool.’

  Margot bit her lip. ‘Was I? I did not mean to be. It was just … well, he always seemed more interested in talking to Papa than me, anyway. I just thought … Papa must be missing him.’

  Mammy picked up the spoon again. ‘Indeed, yes. I think your papa has been lonely these past few years, with Topsy so busy with his new causes, and so many old friends moved away or died. Perhaps I should write and ask Mr Mackail to tea.’

  ‘I think Papa would like that.’ Margot carefully slid another rose into the vase.

  ‘I’ll write this afternoon. I’m sure he’d be interested to see how the Sleeping Beauty paintings are coming along.’

  The next day, a letter arrived from Jack thanking them for the invitation and arranging a time. Margot felt flushed and feverish all day. She did not know what to wear. She put on her best dress, then thought better of it, and put on an old frock, only to change again. In the end she settled on a loose pale dress with a blue sash that brought out the colour of her eyes.

  Papa was very pleased to see Jack, and the talk ran merrily between them all tea-time. Margot found herself without a word to say. She caught him looking at her once, but he looked away and did not speak to her. Margot looked down at her tightly entwined fingers. Perhaps it was too late. Perhaps he had never cared for her.

  As Mammy began to clear away the cups and saucers, Jack said, ‘I’ve a hankering in me to see the garden. It must be looking so beautiful. Miss Jones, would you mind …’

  Papa looked up. ‘Oh, I can do that. We can stretch our legs and have a smoke.’

  ‘I need you here for a moment, Ned,’ Mammy said.

  He looked cross. ‘Oh, but … why? Not when we have guests, Georgie.’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute, dear. And I’m sure it’ll do Margot good to stretch her legs too.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ Papa said. ‘I will take you down to the studio in just a minute, Mr Mackail.’ He followed Mammy into the house.

  Side by side, so close that her sleeve sometimes brushed his, Margot and Jack walked into the garden. She could think of nothing to say, and so they walked in silence. They came to the mossy spot under the oak tree where dozens of crosses made from sticks marked the graves of small animals.

  ‘Buried any mummies lately?’ Jack asked.

  Margot had to laugh. ‘No! Will you tease me about that forever?’

  ‘I hope so.’ His voice was grave.

  She looked up at him in surprise. There was an intent look in his grey eyes, and his jaw was stiff with tension.

  Margot did not know what to say. She took a deep breath and tried.

  ‘What about you? Are you still writing poetry?’

  ‘I’ve not had much to inspire me recently. Perhaps poetry is only for the young and naïve.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I think we need poetry whatever our age. Perhaps we need it more when we get older.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ve just not had the heart for it.’

  ‘You’ve been … unhappy?’

  He nodded, not looking at her.

  ‘I have also. I don’t know why. My mother calls it the slough of despond, and says our family has a fatal tendency to fall into it. My father says it is the Celt in our blood. Something wild and dark and fierce and always longing for something it does not have.’

  ‘Then I must have the same blood for that is what has been wrong with me.’ At last he met her eyes. Margot put out her hand and took his, drawing him to sit beside her on the little seat under the gnarled old apple tree.

  ‘Tell me.’

  His fingers twisted in hers, holding her fast. ‘I’ve found things hard. My father dying … having to try to make my own way in the world … wanting things I cannot have.’

  Margot’s heart began to beat faster. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like …’ He made a helpless gesture with one hand. ‘Well, like a house like this, with apple trees and roses and forget-me-nots in the garden, and tapestries of angels on the walls, and stained glass glowing with the light behind it, and old bits of furniture that have been loved and used for centuries. And a place where I might work, uninterrupted, at something I love … at something that makes the world a more beautiful place …’

  ‘Like poetry.’

  ‘Yes, like poetry! But poetry doesn’t sell, you know, and if I want the house of my dreams … and the girl I want … well, then, I must find some way to make money.’

  ‘Must you?’ she said wistfully. ‘Is that what she wants? The girl you want?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what she wants. That’s why … that’s why I’ve found things so hard. She’s like a princess in an old tale, and there’s no way through to her.’

  Her heart gave a weird little thump. Surely he could not be talking about some other girl, when his hand was holding hers so tightly and he was gazing at her with such a look in his eyes?

  ‘Perhaps she’s just an ordinary girl,’ Margot said. ‘Too afraid to open her heart.’

 
; ‘Margot …’ he said.

  He leant towards her. Greatly daring, she leant towards him. Somehow, their mouths found each other.

  His hand stole around her waist. She nestled closer, her arms linking behind his head. Closer and closer they entwined, till both were breathless and shaken.

  At last they parted. Margot dropped her head to his shoulder.

  ‘Margot … I need to tell you … I think I’m rather awfully in love with you.’

  ‘I know that I’m in love with you,’ she whispered.

  Jack caught her close. ‘Are you? Truly?’

  He kissed her again before she could answer. Margot could not get close enough to him. His hands traced the soft curves of her body.

  ‘We need to be careful,’ she whispered. ‘My father …’

  He drew away. ‘I assure you my intentions are entirely honourable,’ he said stiffly.

  She laughed. ‘I’m glad! I don’t think my father will be, though. He … he cannot bear partings. We will have to live close to him.’

  ‘I think we can manage that.’ Jack kissed her again.

  ‘And see him as often as we can.’

  ‘I’ll find us a house next door.’

  ‘And you’ll have to not mind if he hates you for a while.’

  ‘As long as you love me, he can hate me as much as he likes.’ Jack’s mouth pressed against the pulse beneath her jaw.

  Margot sighed. ‘And we’ll have to wait a while …’

  His mouth paused in his downhill journey. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘We need to wait for the painting to be finished.’

  ‘Really? Must we? I don’t want to wait.’ He resumed his exploration of her skin, his hand clumsily undoing a few buttons to help him slide lower.

  ‘It’s only for a little while,’ she whispered. ‘A few months. Maybe a year.’

  His head came up. ‘That’s too long!’

  She kissed him. The whole world faded away. There was only his mouth, his hands.

  Margot heard herself cry aloud in joy. It rocked her for a moment. So close to the sound she had heard her father make. For the first time she understood the delirium of love.

  ‘Margot …’ he murmured against her hair. ‘Don’t make me wait too long.’

  She caught his hands, kissed each palm.

  ‘I won’t,’ she promised.

  9

  A Premonition of Light

  Winter 1888

  ‘I have a very bad feeling,’ Ned said. ‘I shall die before I ever finish the Briar Rose paintings. Georgie, I need to make a will. I shall leave everything to you. My estate must be worth at least twenty-seven pounds, four shillings and three tuppences. It will all be yours.’

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ Georgie said, darning the heel of one of Ned’s socks. ‘But you need not worry. I shall not let you die anytime soon. I have plans for that fifteen thousand pounds you are owed.’

  Ned looked up from the stained-glass cartoons he was drawing. ‘Do you, indeed? And what may they be?’

  ‘I’d quite like to buy the house next door to ours in Rottingdean,’ Georgie said. ‘So we have room for …’ She had been about to say ‘Margot and Jack’, but caught herself up, saying quickly instead, ‘… guests’.

  Ned did not seem to notice her hesitation.

  He nodded and shrugged. ‘Why not? If we can afford it. Is it for sale?’

  ‘No,’ Georgie said. ‘I’m just thinking ahead.’

  ‘Well, I shall buy you a new hat,’ Ned said. ‘That old bonnet of yours is a disgrace.’

  Georgie shrugged. ‘It keeps the sun out of my eyes. Is that not what it’s for?’

  ‘It’s one of the things it’s for,’ Ned said severely. ‘But not the only thing. Things should be beautiful as well as useful, you know. Or so Topsy tells me. And if Topsy tells me a thing, I generally know that it’s true.’

  ‘It’s only a bonnet, Ned.’

  ‘Yes, but why wear an ugly bonnet if you could wear a beautiful one?’

  All adornment is vanity, Georgie’s father used to say. And the Devil finds work for idle hands. When she had been a little girl, if he had ever found one of his daughters unoccupied, he would insist on an impromptu prayer meeting. All the girls would be made to kneel on the ground around him, their heads bowed, their hands folded before their faces, as he prayed over their heads. ‘Nothing tries my temper more than to see anyone about me idle,’ he would say. ‘An idle person tempts the Devil to tempt him. We must rise early and be at our work till late, and always zealous about our duty, and doing the work of God so that the Devil cannot find a chink of time in which to whisper to you and lead you into temptation.’

  Georgie had long ago put away her father’s sermons and her mother’s homilies. She had not been inside a church for many years. Yet here she sat, defending her right to wear an ugly bonnet and darning socks when she could have been playing her piano.

  ‘You are right,’ she said. ‘I suppose that I have always thought I shouldn’t spend any money on something so frivolous, when there are always so many bills to be paid.’

  ‘Beauty is not frivolous,’ Ned said, carefully drawing angel wings. ‘I intend to spend the rest of my life loving beauty with all my heart. I shall have no time left over for hatred or unkindness or for trying to force people to do what they don’t want to do. I want people to like what they like.’

  Georgie put her needle into the heel of the sock, and put it back into the basket. ‘Wise words,’ she said, half-mockingly. She rose and went to her piano, and opened the lid.

  ‘You know what I have realised?’ Ned said. ‘People are like what they like. The splendid like splendour, and the glorious like glory, and the tender like tenderness, and the frozen like brass …’

  ‘I’d have thought you would say the frozen like ice,’ Georgie interjected, playing a few notes with one finger. It had been so long since she played.

  ‘No,’ Ned said firmly. ‘The frozen like brass, and the timid pretend they like brass. The nasty like nastiness, and the vague like vagueness, and the clean like cleanness, and the mean like worthlessness …’

  ‘And so what of you?’ Georgie pulled out her tattered old music books and began to ruffle through them.

  ‘I like beauty,’ he said simply. ‘I want to make things beautiful. I have no politics, and no party, and no particular hope. I only know that beauty is very beautiful, and softens and comforts and inspires and rouses and lifts up and never fails.’

  ‘You are missing Topsy,’ Georgie said.

  Ned looked sad. ‘Yes. I am. Those damned Socialists have their hooks in him and he has no time for art anymore. He wants to start a revolution, and fill the streets with rivers of blood.’

  ‘He wants to change the world for the better.’

  ‘I know.’ He drew a long sweeping angel feather. ‘I think I am afraid the world will be changed for the worse,’ he whispered after a while.

  Georgie took a deep breath. Perhaps this was the chance she had been waiting for, the opportunity to prepare him for the knowledge that his little girl had fallen in love and wanted to leave him. ‘Everything must change in time, Ned. It’s the nature of the world.’

  She thought of all that had changed since she had met Ned. Match-girls were striking against their employers, slums were being cleared, and all children had to go to school. Even girls.

  And women were now permitted to own property, and earn a living.

  The Queen had celebrated her Golden Jubilee. Fifty years on her throne, most of the last two decades spent in the slough of despond. Georgie wanted to shake her awake. Look out the window! Your people are restless. They’re throwing off the shackles, they’re demanding changes to the world. Women want the vote, the Irish are rebelling, India is no longer the stolen gem in your empress’s crown. Wake up, you fat old woman! Can’t you smell the fresh wind blowing?

  Ned mumbled something, his attention on drawing a perfect halo.

  Georgie tried again. ‘Without
change, there’d be no growth. Without winter, there’d be no spring. And without darkness, there’d be no light.’

  He looked up, his attention caught. ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  Without another word he put down his pencil, caught up his hat and coat, and went out into the snowy night, head bowed under the force of the icy wind. Georgie watched him anxiously from the back door until she saw the distant windows of the studio kindle with lamplight, and knew he was safe.

  Then she went to her piano and played till her fingertips were sore.

  Ned did not come to bed. The next morning she braved the snow and took her husband some hot coffee and fresh bread rolls for breakfast. He lay on his studio couch, asleep, looking so tired and thin she did not have the heart to wake him. She examined the paintings curiously, wondering what new inspiration her words had sparked. It took her some time to find the change.

  There was no sense of depth of perspective in any of the four huge paintings. The strong arabesques of the interlaced briars, the heavy looped curtains and the dark, shuttered windows all created a sense of almost stifling enclosure, as if no world existed beyond that of the enchanted castle. But Ned had, in the night, painted three small windows in the sleeping princess’s room, allowing just a glimpse of open air beyond the thick, guarding branches of thorns.

  A premonition of light.

  Still Margot said nothing to her father.

  Georgie wondered why she hesitated. To her eyes, it was clear that Margot was radiant with happiness. It was as if she had found the missing part of her soul. She could not understand how Ned had not guessed, as she had.