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his character. It is imperative that you present a true likeness, that you show his soulfulness, his nobility,his intelligence. It must be done again.’
    It was done again, and again, and again until William was crushed under the weight of so much criticism and disapproval. He wanted to please his patron because, however trying he might be, he had been extremely generous, but the longer this work went on the more impossible it became to do it.
    â€˜There’s not a single line in the entire portrait that he will accept,’ he said to Catherine wearily. ‘I shall still be working on it come the summer.’
    â€˜Paint one of the other portraits,’ Catherine advised. ‘Dryden perhaps. Or Cowper. And present them together. Perhaps you have concentrated too long upon one subject.’
    So Dryden was copied from the frontispiece of Mr Hayley’s collection of his poems and the two canvases were carried up to Turret House and set up for inspection side by side. The stratagem worked. Mr Hayley was delighted with the head of Dryden and pronounced it ‘quite capital’ and the head of Thomas Alphonso, whilst not entirely accurate, was ‘prettily done’ and would ‘pass muster’. And the next day when the Blakes went out to buy fresh meat and take the air, there was actually enough winter sunshine to warm their faces.
    â€˜There you are, you see,’ Catherine encouraged. ‘There are some good days, even in December.’
    â€˜But not enough of them,’ her husband growled.
    * * *
    That was Johnnie Boniface’s opinion too, for he was in an agony of frustration that was every bit as acute and painful as that of his poetic neighbour. After that first wondrous Sunday when he and Betsy had walked into the fields and exchanged their first gentle kiss, he’d lived in a fever of impatience until the next Sabbath and the chance to kiss her again. But despite deliberate patience and extraordinary self-control, he was disappointed.
    For a start the service was much too long, and then, when it was finally over, they walked out of the church into a stinging torrent of rain. Still hopeful, he suggested they might take a stroll, but Betsy laughed at him and told him it was ‘out of the question’ and to have some sense, which, as the rain was buffeting against them as if it meant to push them off their feet and everyone in the congregation was scurrying off home as fast as their legs would carry them, he was forced to do. And then, of course, once they were back at the house, they were caught up in the preparations for dinner and kept apart by hot soup and roast beef and a ridiculous assortment of vegetables.
    â€˜If it clears this evening…’ he hoped, as they passed one another on the way to the dining room, he bearing used dishes back to the kitchen, she carrying in the pudding.
    But all he got was a scolding. ‘Johnnie! Johnnie! How can you be so foolish?’ she said. ‘Look at it, for pity’s sake. ’Tis a-comin’ down cats and dogs. ’Twill be raining all day. An’ all night too Ishouldn’t wonder. There’ll be no walking for any of us, not while this holds. We shall all have to bide indoors an’ put up with it.’
    He was in a state of such painful desire that it was all he could do to walk straight and his yearning wasn’t satisfied by so much as a single kiss, or even the chance to stand and talk to her, for the rain continued all day, just as she’d forecast, and, as Mr Hayley would insist on going for his usual ride despite the weather and consequently came home mud-smothered to the thigh, by evening there was so much work to do cleaning the floors he’d trampled on and polishing his filthy boots and brushing his rain-soaked clothes and grooming his mud-spattered horse, that the entire household was kept at it until long past their usual bedtime and he didn’t even get the chance to wish