Blake's Wife
By Janet Warner

Blake's Wife tells the story of Kate, who fights for her identity in the shadow of William Blake's genius and his visions. A tapestry of fact and fiction, it chronicles her turbulent relationship with her husband and her struggles to find her place in their circle, during times of political and personal turmoil.

Detail from The Book of Thel, Copy H, plate 7 (The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress) used by kind permission of the editors of The William Blake Archive.

PROLOGUE

From the Birthing Notes of Mrs. Sarah Goodhouse, Midwife:
London, June 10, 1788.

I was called to attend young Mrs. Blake at 28 Poland Street. It was a tall, narrow dwelling near the Public House, where all the artists gather. She was already in hard labour, which surprised me, as her husband had come only an hour earlier to say her water had broken and the pains were just beginning. She lay on a simple wooden bed with clean linen, which soon enough needed replacing. She was breathing unevenly and her forehead was damp, but even so you could see she was a beautiful girl with her black eyes and dark curls. Her husband, William, the Engraver, was very kind to her and continually stroked her brow, saying over and over her name, Kate, Kate. He was a good-looking man, not tall but powerfully built, with intense eyes.
When I placed my hands upon her belly, I could soon tell that something was amiss. The babe in the womb was not placed properly, and was presenting its shoulder to the opening, not its head. I spread the mother's legs, and probed inside as gently as I could; all was as I feared. However, in my experience it is possible to deliver a Babe so placed, and I immediately set about my task.
I told William to boil some ginger-root, which I gave him from my supplies, and with the water I placed compresses on the mother's belly, and oiled and massaged her privy parts. When she breathed a little easier, I gave her some tea, brewed from my secret herbs, which is an Opiate that never fails. This having calmed her, so that when her pains came she did not panic, I undertook the difficult business of turning the child .
At first the vigorous massage of the mother's belly seemed to work, but caused Mrs. Blake so much pain that I could not continue. For God's sake, stop--I cannot stand it. William, make her stop. Pity overcame me; I knew time was running out because with my ear-horn I could tell the babe's heartbeat was irregular. Only one hope remained: I felt inside Mrs. Blake and with my two hands inside her almost above the wrists, I violently turned the child. The mother's screams filled the room, and she became unconscious, but at last the babe's head was visible. Dear God, let it be alive, I prayed as the labour continued, with the mother becoming weaker and weaker as each wave of pain washed over her. At last, the child slid into my waiting hands, all streaked with blood. It was a girl, perfect, but alas, dead.

*******

From Kate's Notebook:
Wednesday, June 11,1788.

Silent as the womb
Empty here I lie
From my lips will come
No lullaby.

Though I in secret cry
Revenge against the years
From my eyes will fall
No tears.

Tulips swell and die
A Rose fades in the wild
At my breast will sleep
No child.

*******

The Child:

Translucent I came to the River where I saw others walking in the pure air and I said to the Lily of the Valley at my feet where do I belong where should I go and she said stay here and be clothed in light but I heard my Mother's spirit say Come I am waiting and I went on till a bright Cloud said you too will shine in that other realm and I heard the voice of my Mother again saying Come now and a wave of the River bore me down but a scream came through the watery depths and I saw in a Vision my own grave-plot and smiles of deceit and shapes of trembling fear and in those red depths I paused turned away and refused to be born.

*******

William:

William Blake, poet and engraver, who has seen visions almost every day of his 31 years, watches in despair the labour of his wife and the birth of their stillborn daughter. The child, long awaited, could have made up for the disappointment Kate felt at her failure to conceive early in their marriage, six years before. They had both wanted a child, although until recently they had been exceptionally happy in each other's company alone.
Yet it had been a difficult few years: first his print shop failed and he'd fallen out with his partner, James Parker; then only last year, his beloved younger brother Robert had died--Robert, whose spirit rose through the ceiling clapping its hands for joy. Blake grasps tightly in his hands the notebook which he keeps constantly beside him, the book which belonged to Robert, but is now his, and in which he makes small sketches and writes lyrics and epigrams as imagination takes him.
Only a short time ago he sketched a picture of Kate and himself in their bedroom: he sitting on the edge of the four poster bed about to get dressed in the morning, while she sleeps a little longer. Underneath he had written: When a Man has Married a Wife / he finds out whether / Her knees & elbows are only / glued together. Kate laughed at that. She is now lying in the same bed, in the same room.
Blake wonders if she will ever laugh again, or he either, for that matter. It was not only the heartbreak of the baby. His visions have deserted him in the last few weeks; and he and Kate have been quarrelling about Mary. Jealousy, that shadow which poisons all bliss, had entered their lives. Could he have expected any other reaction from Kate in her seventh month of pregnancy? It was not as if they had never had the discussion before, but this was the first time anything had actually happened. A flower was offered to me, he had written in the notebook, Such a flower as May never bore.
Blake takes a deep breath and watches Mrs. Goodhouse, the midwife, wrap the little body in a white cloth, and lay it beside Kate, who has become extremely quiet. Blake puts out his hand and touches the cheek of his tiny dead daughter, who--he suddenly knew-- had chosen to be forever innocent. While Kate sleeps, he picks up his pencil and begins to write:

O life of this our spring! Why fades the lotus of the water?
Why fade these children of the spring? Born but to smile and fall...

*******

Janet Warner is a retired professor of English from York University, Toronto, and is author of Blake and the Language of Art (1984) and numerous essays on Blake. She lives in the Fraser Valley near Vancouver, B.C., Canada.