Chapter Nine

The Fox Inn Felpham, Wednesday 21st April

My dear Annie,

I have been here for six days now and I have to admit I am beginning to feel a little disheartened. It is bitterly cold, the wind is blowing a gale, the reporter in Chichester has yet to answer my letter although I have written to him twice, and although I have heard a variety of stories about our Mr Blake no one has a word to say about his trial and I am no nearer to unravelling the mystery of Johnnie Boniface than I was at the beginning. It is very frustrating. There must be somebody hereabouts who can tell me what I want to know. It is not as if I am asking for anything other than a little information. You will tell me that a biographer must needs be patient and that it takes time to winkle out the truth, even in a court of law, all of which is true, as I know from education and experience, but my impatience grows notwithstanding.

This morning I visited Turret House. It is an elegant building and stands in large well-kept grounds with a covered walkway leading to the house, a fine lawn, a shrubbery and several neat gravel paths curving prettily between the trees, but the visit was a disappointment. Blake’s portrait heads are all gone and the present owner knows nothing of Mr Hayley and less of William Blake. All she said when I tried to tell her about them was ‘Fancy that.’ I was so cross. Fancy that. What a foolish thing to say. I suppose I must have revealed my feelings, although I did all I could to control them, for she suddenly changed her expression and offered that her gardener was an old man and might know something. So even though I felt she was offering me a consolation prize, which made me crosser than ever, I set off into the grounds to find him.

He turned out to be a very old man, with the most weathered skin you ever saw, brown as a gypsy and with a shock of wild white hair, but friendly and forthcoming. He greeted me by name and seemed to know exactly what I’d come to ask him. ‘You’re the lawyer feller what’s been askin’ after Mr Blake,’ he said. And when I told him I was surprised by how well-informed he was, he said nothing went on in ‘a village our size’ without the world and his wife knowing about it. So naturally I asked him about Blake and the trial. This, as far as I can remember, is what he told me.

First of all, he said he’d been a stable lad at The George and Dragon when Blake lived in the village. ‘Turn a’ the century so ’twas,’ he said. ‘He come here around September time in the year eighteen hundred. They was terrible times. Mr Gilchrist sir. Terrible. We had ol’ Boney Part a-sittin’ on the other side a’ the Channel, ready for to invade us – which he would have done if it hadn’t been for Lord Nelson – an’ soldiers everywhere you looked, an’ three bad summers in a row, rain, rain, rain all the time, and the crops so poor you wouldn’t believe. He chose a bad time to come a-visitin’.’

But the villagers thought well of him, I believe,’ I prompted.

‘He was a good man,’ he said. ‘Mad a’ course. But he couldn’t help that.’

I pressed him to tell me more, asking him what evidence he had for saying the man was mad, for truly I find the constant repetition of this myth more and more disturbing. He was perfectly at ease about it. ‘Oh, he was mad right enough, Mr Gilchrist, sir.’ he said. ‘Never made no secret of it. We all knew he was mad. Used to see things you see. Angels an’ fairies an’ prophets an’ such, large as life and twice as handsome, walkin’ about in the garden so he said. But he was a good man, like I said, despite the angels. Honest you see, sir. Worked as hard as any man in the village, paid his bills regular, allus gave you the time a’ day, a good neighbour. Must ha’ been or we wouldn’t have stood up for him the way we did.’

At that point I truly felt that I was on the edge of discovery. ‘Would this have been when he was brought to trial?’ I asked.

His expression changed at once. It really is quite extraordinary how mention of that trial makes them close their mouths. ‘Well, as to that sir,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t say.’

I was annoyed with him by then and pressed him to tell me whether he meant that he couldn’t say or whether it would be more accurate to tell me that he wouldn’t say.

His face was still closed but he thought about it for a while and then said. ‘There’s some things ’tis best not to talk about, an’ specially to a lawyer.’

You have a poor opinion of us I fear,’ I said.

‘Not of you personal, sir,’ he said ‘Just lawyers in general so to speak. That was the root a’ the trouble last time, talkin’ to lawyers. To tell ’ee true, there’s times I wish I didn’t know what I knows.’

That was too good a lead not to be followed. ‘And what do you know?’ I asked.

But he wouldn’t be drawn. ‘Well, as to that Mr Gilchrist sir. I couldn’t say. I’ll tell ’ee one thing though. What happened to Mr Blake was on account of that soldier an’ his bad mouth.’

But what of the trial?’ I said. ‘What do you know of the trial?’

‘If you wants to know about that,’ he said, ‘the best person to ask is Harry Boniface. His brother Johnnie was very thick with the Blakes one time. Him an’ Betsy both. She was on visitin’ terms, or so they say. Many’s the time I seen her a-talkin’ to Mrs Blake. Ask old Harry. He’ll tell you. Now I got to get on or the tatties won’t get planted. You’ll excuse me, sir.’

I had to let him go for I could see that was all I was going to get out of him. But halfway down the path he turned back and called out to me. ‘I’ll tell ’ee one thing, sir. He was a brave man, your Mr Blake. He could ha’ gone back to Lonnon when ’twas all talk of invasion, but he never did. He stuck it out with the rest of us.’

I could not bring myself to answer him. To offer me a snippet I could have worked out for myself when he knew very well how much I wanted to hear about the trial was truly annoying. Is it not the most aggravating situation for a biographer to be in? Now I suppose I shall have to try another approach to the reluctant Harry.

This from your most loving but undeniably angry husband,

Alexander.

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Autumn 1801

William Blake was putting the finishing touches to his engraving of the horse and the defiant mother, while his wife and sister worked in the kitchen, scouring the dishes. It had been an excellent meal and the two Catherines had talked to one another quite amiably so he was feeling easier than he’d done for several days. Making a decision had settled his mind. Even the need to produce a set of illustrations every month for the next year didn’t seem so much of a burden now. And tomorrow he would be visiting Miss Poole again. I shall take her ‘The Garden of Love’ he decided. ’Twas a risky poem to choose but he believed she would understand it even if she might not agree with his opinions. Despite the rain and the damp this was a good place to live and if he applied himself for two more years he could earn sufficient to keep him in London for long enough to write a good deal of his own poem. He’d started it that very evening, while his wife and sister were setting the table for supper, and he knew that what little he’d done was good. Now, he thought, as he contemplated his finished engraving, tomorrow morning I shall test Mr Seagrave’s opinion of this.

Will Smith the ostler was grooming a pretty pair of carriage horses when he passed the stable yard the next morning. ‘Mornin’ Mr Blake,’ he called. ‘You got a good day for it.’

‘Yes,’ William agreed. ‘Indeed I have.’ The rain was over, the sun was warm, his work was going well, and in an hour or so he would be taking breakfast with his dear Miss Poole. All was well with the world. ‘That’s a fine pair of horses.’

‘Pair a’ beauties,’ the ostler agreed. ‘Goin’ home this afternoon though, more’s the pity of it.’

‘You will miss them.’

‘I shall miss my earnin’s more like,’ the ostler said ruefully. ‘These two’s the onny hosses I’ve had this season. People don’t come a-visitin’ when there’s talk of invasion. An’ if they don’t visit, I don’t earn.’

Blake considered. The ostler was a hard-working man and it was miserable to be short of earnings, as he knew only too well, and here I am, he thought, too busy to do the digging and, for once in my life, earning enough to hire a gardener for an hour or two. ‘Should you ever have need of an extra job,’ he said, ‘you might consider working for me. There’s a deal of work to be done in my garden and I haven’t the time for it.’

The ostler’s face was instantly wrinkled with smiles. ‘Thank ’ee kindly Mr Blake, sir,’ he said. ‘When would you like me to start?’

‘Tomorrow?’ Blake suggested.

Tomorrow it would be. They shook hands on it.

‘And now I must be off,’ Blake said, ‘or I shall be late for Mr Hayley.’

That gentleman was already mounted and waiting for him, his handsome face pink with excitement, but instead of calling out that they must hurry or they would be late for their breakfast with Miss Poole, he waved his umbrella in the air and shouted, ‘Such happy news, my dear chap! You will be astounded. We have a new commission, my dear friend, and such a commission. I simply cannot wait to tell you of our good fortune. My dear Lady Hesketh has suggested to me that I write a biography of my dear friend William Cowper, who was her nephew, as I dare say you know. Such an honour, is it not? She will kindly provide me with any information I might require and I have persuaded her that you are the man to engrave the illustrations. Such an honour. It is a first rate commission and good will come of it, for Cowper was a truly magnificent poet and his life, however sad, will be worth the telling. I shall set to work at once, this very afternoon.’

Blake was crushed by the news. ‘I brought the engraving for your ballad of the horse,’ he said. ‘Are we not to take it to Mr Seagrave this morning?’

‘Oh, that must wait,’ his patron told him airily. ‘All other work must be set aside. This is far too important. We must not disappoint my dear Lady Hesketh. That would never do. She ain’t a lady to endure disappointment. Well, come along then, my dear fellow, make haste. We’ve a deal to do today and the sooner we’re about it, the better.’

William mounted his pony and gathered the reins ready for his long ride. The joy had gone out of the morning. There seemed to be no end to the work this man required him to do. But he couldn’t refuse it. He had to earn a living, especially with a sister to entertain and a gardener to employ. Ah Jerusalem, he grieved, when will you ever see the light of day?

Out in the fields beyond the pound, the reapers were at work, scythes sweeping in unison, gathering their delayed harvest. They’d been hard at it since daylight, so they were glad to stop for a minute and take a sip of ale and wave to the two poets as they passed. ‘Mornin’, Mr Hayley, sir. Mornin’ Mr Blake.’

‘’Twill be a poor crop, I fear,’ Mr Hayley said, pointing his umbrella at it, ‘but what of that. A poor crop is nothing compared to the great work we are about to undertake.’

Blake thought of his own and greater work that would now have to wait even longer thanks to this man’s benevolent stupidity and he opened his mouth ready to say that a bad crop would mean high prices and that many would starve in consequence. But Mr Hayley wasn’t listening. He was riding ahead and in the full flow of his self-congratulation. ‘What joy it is to have such a commission!’ he called. ‘Deserved, of course, for it was entirely due to my endeavour that the dear man was given his pension and I think I may safely say that I knew him better than any man living. And loved him dearly, of course. What a perfectly splendid morning we have for our ride to Lavant! Are we not the most fortunate of men?’

The harvest was bad that year, but contrary to Blake’s expectations, it didn’t put up the price of corn. That stayed low for the third year in succession. But there were reports of more bread riots in London, where leaflets were distributed claiming that the soldiers were taking bread from the very mouths of the poor, and the men who farmed in Sussex were miserably out of pocket. Rough weather in the Channel had kept Napoleon at bay but it had ruined the corn. ‘Seems we can’t have peace an’ a good crop together,’ they said. ‘There’s no justice in the world.’

That was William Blake’s opinion too. He’d come back from his breakfast with Miss Poole in a towering temper. ‘Just, when I was prepared to illustrate a ballad a month for him and I’d made up my mind to it,’ he complained to Catherine, ‘and bought the paper, what’s more, which was a considerable expense to me, as he well knows, £30 being a much greater sum than I should have spent in any quarter. More than I should have spent in a year. However ’tis done now and complaint is useless. Though all the more reason to keep to our plans. But no, that is not the way Mr Hayley does business. Just at the very moment when all is prepared, when we were due to ride into Chichester and show my work to Mr Seagrave, what does he do? He decides to turn everything topsy-turvy so that he can write this life of Cowper. I try to be grateful for all the help he’s given us but this last is insulting, insupportable.’

Catherine did her best to comfort him but his bad temper growled for days and that displeased his sister. ‘It’s no good going on about it, William,’ she said. ‘What’s done is done. You earn good wages here.’ And when her brother cast his eyes to heaven ‘Good enough to employ a gardener at any event, which is more than I ever could. I see he’s in the vegetable patch again this morning. Be glad of your good fortune.’

‘Write to your brother James,’ Catherine suggested. If he grumbled on paper his sister wouldn’t hear it. ‘You owe him a letter and Catherine can deliver it when she goes back home.’

But William was in the grip of his old enemy, nervous fear, and knew that he couldn’t trust himself to speak or write on personal matters without giving way to black fury. ‘I shall work on Cowper’s portrait,’ he said. ‘The sooner ’tis done, the better.’

It took him longer than he expected because the sketch Mr Hayley had given him to copy was small, poorly printed and difficult to interpret, but it was done at last and taken up to Turret House with considerable relief. The celebrated poet pronounced it ‘Capital!’ and, after treating his ‘esteemed friend’ to a reading of the latest chapter of his new work, he sent the drawing and the chapter to Lady Hesketh for her approbation. ‘She will be delighted,’ he promised. ‘You can depend on’t.’

He was wrong. Lady Hesketh was very far from being delighted. Lady Hesketh was not pleased. The chapter had ‘omitted several matters of extreme importance’, which she corrected at length and with much underlining, but the drawing was worse. That sent her into a paroxysm of fury. ‘The Sight of it has in real truth inspired me with such a degree of horror,’ she wrote, ‘which I shall not recover from in haste! I cannot restrain my pen from declaring that I think it is dreadful! Shocking!’

Both men were upset but they covered their feelings, each in his own way, Blake by silence, Hayley by declaring that the lady had right on her side. ‘She was his aunt – we must take that into our considerations – and her sensitivities are extreme, as you would expect of such a lady. I will amend the text as she suggests and you will undoubtedly wish to comply with her wishes in the matter of the drawing, will you not?’

‘The lady is a fiend,’ William said, when he was back in his cottage and had recounted the whole miserable episode to the two Catherines, ‘worse than Satan and Beelzebub put together. She bullies and berates us as if we were foolish children and she was a schoolmaster or a stern father. ’Twas a monstrous letter. I could see the chastening rod in her hands. This will prove worse than the portrait of Thomas Alphonso.’

But however much he might rage against her, the lady’s instructions had to be carried out. The portrait was drawn three more times and rejected on every occasion. The rewritten chapters were criticised, yet again. It was painful work. And living with anger and anxiety made it worse.

There was altogether too much anxiety in Felpham that autumn, especially when moon and tide were propitious for an invasion. Even Jem Boniface took to watching the sea, and he was renowned as the most phlegmatic man in the village. Chichester was thronged with troopers; plans for the evacuation of women and children were circulated to all the churches; carts and horses specified to carry them away ‘in the event’; and to make matters worse, rain continued to clog the ditches and churn the trodden paths into quagmires, so that the sky seemed perpetually dark and every soul was cast into depression. It was quite the worst time to be courting.

Johnnie and Betsy made light of cold weather. They were young and strong and sure that a bit of rain never hurt anybody. They slipped away to their haystack for as long as it was there to welcome them and even when it was really too damp and cold to be used as a love nest, and had been diminished to a mere mound of straw which offered them no cover at all. What did such difficulties matter? Love was an increasing delight and love was all they thought of. They were caught up in the magic of it, living from one rewarding moment to the next, taut with desire for hours and hours and then so drowsed with pleasure they could barely summon up enough energy to walk back to the house. Their bad start was soon so far behind them they’d forgotten all about it. Now it was all new pleasures, new sensations, new experiments. When they’d first made love, Betsy had been afraid that she would fall for a baby like Sarah Perkins and had told him so, but now he’d learnt a new trick that he assured her would prevent such a thing. It was a difficult trick and at first it wasn’t easy, but soon he was playing it well, pleasuring her first before he fell away from her to groan into his own pleasure. Their working days crawled by, lightened by an occasional glimpse of one another and by the even more occasional chance to snatch a kiss as they passed in an empty corridor or found themselves alone together in an empty room.

But eventually it was plain that summer and autumn were over. The fields were swathed in such thick sea mist that Betsy shivered, even when she was wrapped in her red cloak, and as October shrank into November and all the leaves fell and the first frosts of winter broke the ploughed earth into an easy tilth, and even the most pessimistic villager was prepared to allow that Boney wasn’t going to invade that year, they too had to admit to an inescapable truth. It was much too cold to be courting out of doors. Soon they were miserable with chill weather and lack of lovemaking, feeling that they were doomed to celibacy until the spring came round.

‘Which aren’t to be endured,’ Betsy said, as the two of them walked in the rain-soaked garden at the end of their working day. ‘Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, my dear, darlin’ Johnnie, what are we a-goin’ to do? We can’t keep on like this, not nohow for I can’t abide it. What are we a-goin’ to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Johnnie confessed, sighing into her hair. ‘Except get wed, I s’ppose.’

But Betsy Haynes hadn’t changed her mind about the wedded state. After the luxury of life in a big house, marriage would be a bad exchange. Marriage made you poor and kept you tethered to a damp room in a dark cottage, wearing shoddy clothes and living on cabbage and bacon, with children to look after. Much better go on as they were. ‘I don’t see why we should,’ she said. ‘Time enough when we has to.’

‘Least we’d have a bed of our own,’ Johnnie said. ‘That’d be somethin’.’ Even the thought of being in a bed with her was making him yearn most painfully.

‘We got beds of our own now,’ she pointed out, ‘onny we aren’t allowed to sleep in ’em together.’

‘Which we couldn’t, could we,’ he said, trying to be reasonable, ‘not when you’re in with Nan and Susie and I got Robert alongside a’ me. They would have somethin’ to say if we was to go climbing in together. P’rhaps we should get wed. I’m willin’ if you are.’

But she was sure that marriage wasn’t the answer, however often and however lovingly he might offer it, and as their celibacy continued, she said so over and over again. ‘We can’t Johnnie. What would we live on?’

That was a serious problem, for as a married couple they would have to manage on whatever wages they could earn and provide their own food and rent, to say nothing of work-clothes and boots and such, and even if he went on working for Mr Hayley and was fed and clothed, what would become of her? A gardener’s wage wouldn’t keep a wife. ‘I could take a job on one a’ the farms,’ he said, rather sadly, because he’d never wanted to be a labourer. ‘That’ud give us a cottage which’ud be something. Father’d find a place for me I daresay.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘you mustn’t. It aren’t right. Leave that to them as likes it.’

‘No one likes it,’ he told her. ‘They does it on account of they has to. ‘Cept ol’ Reuben, with those pigs of his’n.’

And binding with briars my joys and desires,’ she quoted bitterly.

‘What?’

‘’Tis that poem I read. The one Mr Blake wrote. The one I told you ‘bout. He don’t reckon to keepin’ lovers apart. He says love is right and proper an’ should be allowed. He’s a good man. I wager if we was his servants he’d let us sleep together. He’d give us the bed for it.’

Johnnie scowled. Poetry was a nonsense at the best of times and at this particular time it was just plain annoying. ‘But we aren’t his servants,’ he said, crossly, ‘so there’s no point a-thinkin’ about it. We works for Mr Hayley an’ there’s an end to it.’

‘So what are we a-goin’ to do?’

There was no answer. They were going round and round over the same hard ground, exhausting themselves and getting nowhere, like dogs in a treadmill. And as one frustrating day followed another, they began to quarrel.

‘Don’ keep on a-sayin’ such things,’ they shouted at one another. ‘What’s the good of it?’ ‘’Tis allus the same. It makes me fair sick to hear it.’

Finally on one dank, dark evening in early December, when they were walking pointlessly round the grounds, feeling cold and dispirited and unhappy, he lost his temper with her altogether and shouted at her that if she couldn’t find anything sensible to say she’d be better to keep her mouth shut.

She was mortally upset. ‘How can you speak to me so?’ she cried. ‘I thought you was s’pposed to love me.’

‘I do,’ he yelled at her. ‘I do. It’s just you will keep on so.’

‘I don’t keep on so.’

‘You do. Look at you now.’

‘Oh, so it’s my fault. Is that it?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Yes, you did. You just did. This very minute.’ And she began to cry. ‘You don’t love me no more.’

Her tears washed him from anger to remorse in an instant. ‘Don’t cry,’ he begged. ‘Oh, please Betsy, don’t cry. I didn’t mean it. Truly.’ And he tried to put his arms round her.

She shook him off, distressed to hysteria. ‘Don’t you touch me,’ she cried. ‘If I aren’t to talk, I aren’t to be touched. Nor kissed neither. You don’t want to kiss me, anyway. ‘’Tis all show. Tha’s all. An’ I’ll not have that. Not when you don’t love me no more.’

His hands fell to his sides, limply as if they didn’t belong to him. He was lost and drifting. He couldn’t even keep her face in focus. It was as if she was disappearing, her features filmed by shifting clouds. ‘I do love you, Betsy,’ he said, blinking back his tears. ‘I do. More than anythin’ in the world. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I wish I hadn’t. Oh, please don’t cry. I can’t bear it.’

At which she fell into his arms and they wept together.

‘The truth of it is we should be lovin’ not talkin’,’ he said, when they were calmer.

But she wasn’t listening. ‘Hush,’ she said, putting her hand over his mouth. ‘There’s someone a-comin’.’

There was a dark shape scuffling towards them along the path towards the stables. Not the coachman, nor Mrs Beke, which was a relief, and not the butler either, not that he was ever out in the grounds at night. Someone smaller and slighter and approaching them slowly, as if he weren’t quite sure he should be there. Then the clouds rolled away from the moon and there was enough light to see that it was Eddie, the new stable lad. It was a considerable relief for he was an amiable boy, newly hired to muck out the stables and groom the horses, thirteen years old, pug-nosed, straw-haired, hardworking and no harm to anybody.

‘Evenin’,’ he said, shyly. ‘Tha’s nippy out.’

They agreed that it was and Betsy wiped the tears from her eyes, as surreptitiously as she could, and hoped he wouldn’t notice.

It was a vain hope because he noticed everything about her. He’d fallen in love with her the first time he saw her and, although he’d never had the slightest hope that she would notice him – after all she was a beautiful young woman of seventeen and he was just the boy who mucked out the horses – he’d loved her quietly ever since. He soon found out that she was as good as engaged to Johnnie Boniface and after that he’d followed their love affair with vicarious yearning. She was a goddess to him and, as she turned her face towards him in the moonlight, her tears smote him like glistening swords.

He spoke to her before he could stop to wonder whether it was proper. ‘You all roight?’ he asked. ‘Oi mean, there’s nothin’ up or anythin’ is there?’

‘We’re cold,’ she told him, and added with moon-touched honesty, ‘an’ there’s nowhere we can go to be alone together. Tha’s all.’

He stood before them on the dark path, scruffy in his stained breeches, his fustian shirt and his dirty waistcoat, smelling of ale and horses. And he thought of the words he’d just heard Johnnie saying and understood her perfectly and galloped to her rescue.

‘You could come up the stables, if you’d loike,’ he suggested. ‘’Tis warm there. Or warmer, anyways. What Oi means to say is, ’tent so nippy as out here. You’d be more than welcome.’ He was blushing but they wouldn’t notice, would they? Not with only the moon to light him.

They were touched by his offer. “Tha’s uncommon kindly,’ Johnnie said. ‘Onny we got to be gettin’ back or Mrs Beke’ll have somethin’ to say an’ we can’t have that.’

He was abashed to realise that he’d been so clumsy they’d misunderstood him and rushed to explain. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Oi don’t mean now. Not tonoight. What Oi means ter say is, you could come in tomorrow maybe, or sometoime when you wants…’ No he couldn’t say that. He was blushing so deeply he knew they must see it this time. ‘What Oi means ter say is, when you needs a place for to…’ Land sake’s he was makin’ it worse. He plunged into another explanation, speaking so quickly the words tumbled over one another. ‘Oi got a little room over the hosses. You goes up a ladder. ’Tis quite safe. There’s only ever me an’ the hosses on account of Mr Turnball’s got his cottage. What Oi means ter say is, Oi wouldn’t mind, if you was to go there sometoimes. Oi never gets ter bed afore twelve on account of Oi goes to The Fox most nights with Mr Turnball an’ he stays all hours.’

They were surprised and touched. ‘Tha’s real kindly,’ Johnnie said. ‘But we couldn’t do it. What if they was to find out? We wouldn’t want to get you into trouble or nothin’.’

But Betsy was looking hopeful and Eddie was thrilled to be playing Cupid and anyway risk was part of the game. ‘No fear a’ that,’ he told them. ‘You’d need to be pretty slippy but loike I said, Oi’m in The Fox most nights. Mr Turnball he treats me to a pint a’ porter an’ then I plays shove ha’penny. An’ you’d be more than welcome.’

So two nights later, when their work was finally done, and they’d watched Eddie ambling off to the inn, they took possession of their second love nest. It was a small cramped space above the stables, smelling strongly of horses, and just big enough for a straw mattress and a cane chair with its legs cut off. There was a shelf nailed to the wall where Eddie kept his candle and a hook next to the shelf where he hung his breeches and the ceiling was so low that they couldn’t stand up once they’d climbed through the trap door. But what of that? Why would they want to stand up? They had a small semicircular window at floor level through which they could see if anyone was approaching, it wasn’t exactly warm but it was private and, as Johnnie was quick and happy to say, looked like the perfect place. They flung themselves down on the straw and tumbled into one another’s arms. Let it rain, let the wind roar, let battles rage, let the whole world go hang, they didn’t care. They were alone and hidden and could do as they pleased.

For the next two weeks they loved whenever they could. Their only problem was that there was so much work to do in the house that it was only on rare occasions.

‘I could do without so many a’ these silly dinners he will keep havin’,’ Betsy complained, as they walked round the empty dining room setting the table. Mr Hayley’s dinner parties were a weekly occurrence now that the celebrated poet had his new prestigious ‘Life’ to read to his friends, and they required a lot of effort from his staff. Every servant in the house, with the exception of the coachman and the gardener, was commandeered to cook, serve, fetch and carry. Even Eddie had to do duty replenishing coal scuttles and feeding fires and Betsy and the other kitchen maids were kept scouring the dirty dishes until well after midnight. ‘There’s too much of it altogether if you asks my opinion. It’s not needful.’

But their master was in his element, declaiming his great work as he stood before the fire, with all his well-fed guests listening attentively, or at least with polite approbation, and ready to applaud when the reading was finished. It lifted his spirits to be acclaimed and especially on days when he had received yet another blast of disapproval from Lady Hesketh. She really was excessively difficult to please and she seemed to have taken against poor Mr Blake so thoroughly that he was afraid he would have to tell the poor chap he couldn’t continue with the portraits and that would never do when he’d gone to so much trouble with them. Her last letter had been quite vitriolic.

I have to say I have very serious doubts,’ she’d written, ‘as to Mr Blake’s abilities and I am not the only one. Those of my friends with pretensions to Taste find many defects in his work.’

‘We progress,’ he told his friends when their applause had died down. ‘My dear lost friend is a subject of the most affectionate interest to me and I am sensible of the honour I have been done by being chosen to write his life. I labour day and night.’

‘What a blessing that you have a secretary to assist you,’ Mr Cunningham said. ‘And to provide the illustrations, what’s more. Are they progressing, too?’

‘Oh, indeed,’ Hayley lied. ‘Yes, indeed. Everything is progressing most admirably. You would be amazed to see how patient he is and how open to suggestion.’

‘A good fellow,’ his friends agreed. ‘He is lucky to have such a patron.’

‘I am thinking of teaching him to read Greek and Latin,’ Hayley confided. ‘I believe it would afford him some amusement and might furnish his fancy with a few slight subjects for his inventive pencil, without too far interrupting the more serious business he has in hand, of course. The ‘Life’ must continue, as I am sure he understands. That takes precedence over everything else. But to study these languages of an evening would make a pleasant diversion. I shall mention it to him tomorrow.’

The mention was greeted with such a long, stunned silence that for the blink of a second Mr Hayley wondered if he had offended his good friend in some way. ‘You are surprised, my dear fellow,’ he said kindly, ‘and cannot find the words to thank me. Have no fear. I do not look for thanks. That is not in my nature. ’Tis enough that I am able to provide you with suitable employment and to put some slight but, I may say, well-earned reward in your way. Let us start as soon as possible. Would this evening suit?’ And he waited happily for his reply.

Blake was still too stunned to speak. To be offered the chance to learn Latin and Greek was such a wonder he could barely take it in. He’d yearned to know these languages for so long, and always felt that his way to them was barred and would remain so. And now this amazing offer had been dropped before him. If he applied himself well he could read the gospels in their original Greek, he could read Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Ovid in the purity of their original languages, unsullied by translation. It was a gift of incomparable, unlooked-for richness and offered at the very moment when he’d been angry with this man for dominating his time with trivial nonsense. ‘I’m beholden to ’ee,’ he said at last. ‘This evening would suit me very well.’