The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [78]
“What happened to him?”
“He was a Protestant. He didn’t accept the doctrines of the Church, and he wouldn’t compromise his beliefs. They put him in prison, and condemned him to death for heresy. He should have been burned to death for refusing—in his own words—to bow down to images of clay. He died in the Bastille, tough as ever. He was seventy-nine. I will lend you Professor Morley’s book, you can read it in there.”
Philip said he was afraid that would be no use. His reading was not up to it. He added, reddening, “It’s not up to much, to tell the truth. I can make out simple words, that’s all.”
“That won’t do,” said Fludd. “That’s no good. Imogen shall teach you to read.”
“Oh no—”
“Oh yes. She hasn’t enough to do. You won’t get far if you can’t read. And you’d like to read about Palissy.”
• • •
Docile Imogen agreed to give Philip daily lessons in reading. She said she had never taught, and did not know how to teach, but would do her best. She sat with him at a garden table in the orchard, or in the kitchen if the wind was blowing in from the Channel. She wore the same two or three lumpy linen dresses, with uneven necklines and embroidered lilies and irises, on whose petals Philip could feel the tiny spheres of blood from pricked fingers. He noticed—he was young and male—that she had a strong and well-proportioned body under the sacklike folds. He thought with the tips of his potter’s fingers about the contours of her breasts, which were round and full. He did not notice any female atmosphere around her—no scent in the hair, no hint of the smell of her skin, no hidden damp, breathing—and he was too young to know how odd this absence was. He did think, as she sat with her head of heavy hair bent over the pages, that she resembled some of the ceramic madonnas in the Museum. Sweetly calm. That was not quite an accurate way of putting it.
For the first two lessons she wrote words on a paper pad in flowing calligraphy. Words like “apple” and “bread,” words like “house,” “studio” and “garden.” She then decided Philip would do better with joined-up stories, and brought out a handsome book of fairytales, illustrated with line drawings by various artists, including Burne-Jones and Benedict Fludd. The stories were an eclectic collection from the Grimms and Andersen, from Perrault and the poets, including Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott.” The illustrations calmed Philip’s sense that he was being asked to read something babyish. This was the world of the Dream scenes enacted at Todefright. He was experimenting with modelling clay snakes and dragons to make handles for pots and he was impressed by Fludd’s wicked imps. He read “Cinderella” and “The Sleeping Beauty,” “The Princess in the Glass Mountain” and “The Princess on the Pea,” “The Little Tailor” and “The Constant Tin Soldier,” and finally “The Lady of Shalott” and “The Snow Queen.” He practised writing—which he was good at, since he was already precise with pen and pencil. He practised drawing imaginary persons, following the flowing lines of Burne-Jones’s garments and hair.
This was not quite what he had wanted. This wasn’t his style. Fludd had illustrated “The Snow Queen.” His Queen had a long, sharp face and a sad smile in a whirlwind of snowflakes over a lake of ribbed ice. She was attended by deformed imps, and tiny Kai was curled at her feet, like a sleeping snail. The pattern of lines was mesmerising and frightening. Philip wanted to learn from it, and do something different.
The stories—for better or worse, for insight or danger—gave him ways of describing the people around him. Imogen was the Sleeping Beauty, she had pricked her finger and was sleepwalking. He alternated this image with a half-dream image