The Poets' Wives Read Online Free PDF Page A

spring forth and I raise my hand and am rewarded by his smile.
    Such a man as Mr Blake deserves and needs a child and I count myself blessed to be able to bring what he so desires into the world. Because now there are no doubts that the child grows inside me and my whole being feels gently nudged and quickened into a newness of life. And William talks of us as Adam and Eve, father and mother to a world that will be conceived without taint or stain because old things will have passed away and all things made new. In the little summer-house at the end of the garden in Lambeth there is a vine that grows which although rich in leaf never bears fruit and we like to sit in the summer warmth this place holds. Although I am uncertain at the start, Mr Blake tells me that art can never exist without naked beauty displayed and sometimes when we sit in it in our natural state and read Paradise Lost I feel truly as if I am in the Garden of Eden. One such day, freed from what he calls our ‘troublesome disguises’, I am startled by the approach of a caller but he tells me there is no need for embarrassment or apology because ‘naked we come into this world, clothed only in the Divine mercy’ and he welcomes the visitor to our heavenly garden as if nothing is amiss or strange. I tried not to blush but with no more success than I do now at the memory.
    The seed inside me has hardly started to grow no matter how often I look impatiently or brush it lightly with the encouraging palm of my hand and I am often sick and it makes me frightened that I shall expel the child from where it lodges in my womb. And I have started to talk and sing to her and tell her her name will be Eve. That summer is hot and it is difficult to stem the stench of the city. The heat coats everything with a sullen lethargy and even the river seems to idle, caulked in the stench of tar and oils and everything else that is inflicted upon it, and I keep as much to the house and the garden as is possible but there are times when the very smell of the paints makes me feel ill and so I cannot help him as much as I like to do. And now this moment must be coloured even though it prints itself sharp and more painful than almost any other page so I am in the summer-house and I let my fingers trace the softness of the vine’s leaves. And the colours in my head are pale and delicate – mostly yellows and lilacs with the future sky painted palest blue. I wonder too if the good angel has visited me when I was asleep or unawares and think how much of a blessing that would be to know of his ever-present care. I think too of Mr Blake and the brightness of his spirits as he is filled once more with ideas and plans and his belief that the sun will yet shine upon all his works and they will be brought into the light of day.
    I feel too hot, unable to read my Paradise Lost , and I take one of the vine leafs and rub its coolness across my cheek. William is working in the house more contented for the moment to be busy with commissioned work because it brings some of the money that we shall need. And I wonder if the skill of his hands might be able to fashion a crib for the daughter I bear him. It is in the hazy heat of that summer’s day that the first pain comes, so sharp that I drop the book and cry out, and the voice I hear does not sound like my own and then the pain comes in waves so I cry out even louder and I have to force myself to break free from its shock to make my lips form Will’s name. I scream it again and again and then my hand feels my wetness and I almost faint when I see my fingers stained in red. When he comes I cannot speak but hold up my red-stained hand and he bundles me into his arms and carries me to the house and our bed.
    A doctor is sent for but what need for someone to tell me what I already know? And at first Will’s care is all for me as I lie in the room that is always too hot and he strokes my brow and dampens it with a cloth. Below my window the city