The Wayward Muse (12 page)

“Cheltenham,” snorted Bessie. “That explains a lot. There, you’re buttoned, top to bottom. I’ve got to find my seat.” And before Jane could ask her to stay, she was gone. Jane was alone.

Her father arrived, sobered up, shaved, and dressed in a suit Morris had bought for him.

“I hope you’ll be happy, Janey,” he said doubtfully. He put his hands in the pockets, then pulled them out and began to clean his nails.

“If I’m not, I won’t be the first,” she whispered. The dress made it difficult to breathe and she thought that she might faint.

“No,” he agreed, “nor the last. But if you do as Morris tells you, and are a good girl, you’ll be all right.” He stopped, and Jane watched him struggle to find something else to say. Then the acolyte came to lead them to the narthex.

Jane heard the music start to play and the guests rise and turn to catch the first glimpse of her. A quick scan of the sanctuary revealed no sign of Rossetti. She could not decide if she was relieved or disappointed. Perhaps he is late, she thought to herself. Perhaps he is hidden behind a column.

Jane had never seen Morris in fine clothes and she halted in the middle of the church in panic when she saw his blue frock coat and quilted waistcoat.

I can’t do it, she thought wildly. I have to leave.

“Come on,” her father hissed, dragging her forward. A few steps more and she recognized Morris, though he was freshly shaved and his hair was successfully plastered down with a copious amount of hair oil. His face glowed with happiness and delight.

Jane’s father pushed her toward her groom and left to take his seat.

Morris’s friend Dixon, looking very young and slightly ridiculous in his ebony vestments, gave Jane an encouraging smile as he began the service.

“‘Dearly beloved,’” he began. “‘We are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony…’”

Jane recovered her nerves as he spoke and looked out into the sanctuary. Her mother was in the front row, smirking. When her eyes met Jane’s, she gave a little wave of her handkerchief and pretended to cry. Bessie appeared to actually be crying; she was bowed over the church rail, her head buried in her arms. Her father was deep in conversation with her brother about something. She caught sight of Burne-Jones, and Brown, but after scanning every face she had to acknowledge that Rossetti had not come.

“‘I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful.’”

Jane’s hands began to shake and she nearly dropped her
Book of Common Prayer.
For she did know a reason they should not be married. Her heart belonged to another. Would she be struck down at the Day of Judgement for marrying Morris anyway?

She heard Morris say, “I will.”

“Mary,” Dixon intoned, turning to her, “‘wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’”

Jane wasn’t sure what to do. Had anyone else heard the mistake? Should she say something to correct him? If she was married under the wrong name, was she really married?

Everyone was waiting. Morris began to look pained.

“I will,” she finally said.

The congregation exhaled as one and there were scattered claps. The triumphant music began and Morris led Jane proudly down the aisle and out of the church.

As they stood on the steps shaking hands with their well-wishers, Morris whispered that they must go back inside.

“I have to show you all of the stained-glass windows. I imagine you weren’t able to get a good look at them before.”

“No,” said Jane. “But won’t everyone be waiting for us?”

“They can wait a few minutes,” said Morris. “Come with me.”

They stood before the altar as they had done a few minutes before, but now Morris pointed to the stained-glass medallions above it. “Here is the oldest stained glass in Oxford,” he said. “It dates to 1290.” He waited for Jane to say something.

“It’s very pretty,” she said.

“The techniques of the time were far superior to those we have now,” said Morris. “It’s the fault of Protestantism, really. Stained glass was purged, and clear glass came into fashion. You see how the colors are so clear and true? They used natural compounds in ways that are now lost to us.” Next he took her into the lady chapel to show her a fifteenth-century window of Christ crucified against a lily. He showed her how the design of the window was different from the one done two hundred years before.

“You see how the shading on the figure of Christ is so much more elaborate?” he said. “They had developed new ways of painting by this time, stippling and matte shading. You should read Charles Winston’s
Hints on Glass Painting.
He has a whole section on painting techniques. But I don’t like this window nearly as well as the other, do you? The pieces of glass are larger, true, but the colors look washed out.”

It was endearing, really, Jane thought. He was like a small boy at a fair.

“Dixon called me Mary during the service,” she said to him.

“Did he?” Morris laughed. “So that’s why you took so long to answer. I was beginning to be afraid you were going to say ‘I won’t.’”

“Oh no,” said Jane. “I just didn’t feel right, saying ‘I will’ as Mary.”

“You can’t get away that easily,” said Morris. “You are Mrs. Morris whether your first name is Jane or Mary or Guinevere.”

When they had examined every piece of glass in the church, they took a short carriage ride to Jane’s house for the wedding breakfast. The feast of lamb, cold duck, chicken pie, tongue, jellies, and fruit was paid for by Morris. A few people from Holywell Street had been invited so that they could spread the word about the fine food at the Burdens’s. For what was the point of making an auspicious marriage if not to make one’s friends and neighbors jealous? The artists ate prodigiously, seemingly oblivious to the squalor of Holywell Street.

Jane’s mother sat beside her during the meal.

“You’ll send money home every month,” she said.

“Of course,” said Jane.

“You’ll visit every year.”

“If I can,” said Jane.

“Robert’s a good name for a boy,” her mother said. “For a girl I’m partial to Elizabeth, after Bessie. You could call her Beth, or Eliza, as you choose.”

Jane blushed and looked over at Morris to make sure he hadn’t heard.

“No need to be shy, girl,” blared her mother. “That’s what marriage is about, isn’t it? If you don’t like Elizabeth, I think Sarah is pretty, too.”

Jane tried not to think about Rossetti’s absence. Perhaps it had been too painful for him to come, she thought, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t true. Brown informed her that he was on holiday in Cornwall with Lizzie. In late afternoon a carriage came to take Mr. and Mrs. Morris to the train station. The train would take them on to London.

M
ORRIS
was rereading
Kenilworth,
and he turned to Jane every few minutes to read her a passage he thought particularly good, until she begged him to stop so as not to spoil the story. With her new husband quiet and absorbed, she occupied herself with looking out of the train window. The day, which had been bright when they left Oxford, became progressively grayer as they traveled east. When the first rows of brick houses appeared, Jane could barely make them out through the gloom. She thought they must be in London then, but Morris said no, they were in Willesden. London was still four miles away. It was astonishing to her that the terraced houses continued uninterrupted for the entire four miles. They passed shop after shop, the names flying past: Timmins’ Watch-works, Underhill Sundries, Hoyle and Marchmain Booksellers. They passed auction houses and jewelers and grocers and haberdashers. They passed tea houses and restaurants, solicitors’ offices and flower stalls. Everything was black with soot: the sidewalks, the windows of the shops, the iron gates of the many courtyards around which the grimy stone town houses were grouped. The lamps were lit and glowed dimly. Jane had never seen such crowded streets. Everyone seemed to be walking very quickly. Their clothes, she realized, were powdered with ash.

“Will it be so dirty where we are?” asked Jane.

Morris sighed. “Terrible, isn’t it? But it’s only for a few months, until the Kent house is finished.”

Jane did not like the idea of exchanging one kind of filth for another, but she supposed ash and coal dust were preferable to what she had left behind.

Paddington Station was terrifying. Suddenly Jane was in the crush of people that she had seen from the train. People were pushing every which way, and it seemed dangerous to stand still, so she blindly followed Morris, who held her elbow firmly. Everyone was very noisy, calling for cabs, cursing each other for being in the way, hawking newspapers and roasted peanuts. The conductor shouted that the train to Dover was leaving in two minutes, and there was a mad dash of people toward it. Porters banged her legs with heavy luggage as she passed them, and did not stop to apologize. Somehow Morris did not lose her in the crowd but pushed her into a cab.

“A bit overwhelming at first, but you’ll get used to it,” Morris said. He directed the driver to Claridge’s hotel. “Go by way of Bayswater Road,” he instructed. “I’d like my wife to see the park.”

“Exactly how many people live in London?” Jane asked. It was hard to imagine that she hadn’t seen most of them already.

“Around two and a half million, I believe,” he said, smiling at her astonishment.

“How will I manage with so many people?” she wondered aloud, thinking of tiny Oxford, where she knew every face and could walk anywhere she needed to go.

“For one thing, they won’t all be living with you,” Morris laughed.

Then Jane saw the open green expanse on her right.

“Kensington Gardens,” Morris said. “A little farther on is Hyde Park. When we come back we will go walking there on Sundays. It’s almost like being in the country.”

On a nearby rise she glimpsed a pond with a flock of geese afloat on it, and a little gazebo next to it. It was comforting, amid all of the oppressive stone and glass and smoke, to see the birds and the water.

The London house Morris had rented would not be ready until they returned from their honeymoon, so for their first night of marriage they stayed at Claridge’s. It was a very grand hotel. Morris told her that King William III of the Netherlands had recently stayed there. Despite having spent many months at Mrs. Wallingford’s estate, Jane was intimidated. She saw that the ladies taking tea in the lounge eyed her critically as she passed. She did not know if they thought her gown shabby or her cloak out of fashion, or if they were only wondering idly who she was, but it made her nervous. She wished she did not have to go down for dinner.

Their room was hung with coral pink silk and Jane pretended to inspect a portrait of a Lady Ogilvie so that she could surreptitiously stroke the wall. It was as slippery as soaped glass.

“It’s by Lord Leighton,” said Morris, and Jane quickly dropped her hand. “Academic, but not garbage. Someone has to paint their portraits after all.”

Lady Ogilvie had white hair that stood out from her head in a frizz, a severe mouth, and round black eyes. She reminded Jane of a sparrow. She wondered if Lady Ogilvie had looked like that, if the portrait had pleased her. Had she fallen on hard times? Was that why her portrait was now in a hotel?

“I think she disapproves of me,” said Jane.

“Impossible,” said Morris, tentatively touching her shoulder.

Jane ducked out of his embrace and went to the window. Their view was of a street of limestone town houses and a row of sickly plane trees.

“I hope it won’t be too loud,” said Morris apologetically. “They assured me that it wouldn’t be. If it is, we can change.”

“I think these curtains will block the sound,” said Jane, looking at the heavy brocade, the same color as the walls.

As she hung her dresses in the hulking armoire, with Morris across the room unfolding things from his trunk and putting them in drawers, Jane cast a nervous eye toward the tester bed. At last it seemed real to her: they were husband and wife. She would have to share this room with him, and this bed.

Did he already suspect that she wasn’t a virgin? Jane couldn’t believe that Rossetti would have been such a cad as to tell him. If Morris was as inexperienced and naive as she believed him to be, he might think she and Rossetti had exchanged letters, or touched hands, at most shared a kiss. If he realized that she was not a virgin, would he throw her into the street on the spot, or return her to her parents in disgrace? It made her sick to think of it.

“Would you like to rest before dinner?” Morris asked after a while. Jane started, not sure how to reply. “I could go downstairs to the lounge for an hour or two,” Morris added quickly, seeing that she was nervous.

“That would be very nice,” said Jane. “I am quite tired.”

“I’ll be back at seven,” said Morris, nodding at the brass pendulum clock next to the door.

After Morris had gone Jane found that she wasn’t tired after all. She spent the time looking through her clothes, trying to decide what would be suitable to wear to dinner. Judging from the jewels she had seen at the throats of the ladies taking tea, she had nothing grand enough. And what was a suitable color for a new bride? Something soft and delicate, no doubt, just what she hated. At last she settled on dove gray satin. She had no diamonds, but Morris had given her a necklace of amethysts set in white gold. As she tied up her hair, Jane thought that she caught Lady Ogilvie’s eye, which seemed to have softened. She would not be ashamed to go downstairs after all.

To Jane’s astonishment Morris ordered a dozen oysters as a first course. Perhaps his mother didn’t know everything about him after all. He told Jane she could have anything she liked. She could have mussels, and tenderloin of beef, and fish soup, and melon and raspberries. Morris watched her eat with delight.

“You are enjoying your meal?” he asked.

“It is the most delicious food I have ever tasted,” Jane said.

“It is good,” agreed Morris, “but there are half a dozen other places that are just as fine. I will take you to all of them: Sherry’s, the Dorchester. And then of course the food in France will put all of them to shame. I can’t wait for you to try the cheeses, and the game. When we get back we’ll engage a cook who can make all of your favorite dishes.

“It’s a shame you can’t see more of London before we leave,” Morris went on. “But when we come back, I’ll take you to the National Gallery to look at all of the paintings, and to the British Museum to see the artifacts brought back from Egypt. Of course we’ll have less time then, as I’ll be back at work and you’ll be busy setting up the house. But we can take outings on Sundays.”

“Yes,” said Jane. She hated how cold and laconic she sounded but she didn’t know what else to say.

“There is quite a stir about you here, you know,” Morris continued. “Everyone is dying to see you and to meet you. When we return from France, we will probably have a dinner invitation every night for a month.”

“Really?” asked Jane in surprise. She did not know what he meant by “a stir,” but it sounded slightly ominous. She was already petrified at the thought that London society might laugh at her behind her back, mocking her manners and her looks as Mrs. Wallingford had done.

“Everyone in my circle has read ‘Praise of My Lady,’” Morris said. He had published a book of poetry,
The Defense of Guenevere,
that year, and it was filled with encomiums to Jane. “Between that volume, my letters, and of course Rossetti’s ravings, you’ve become the talk of London.” Morris beamed at her proudly.

“Who are these people who are talking?” she asked, trying not to wonder what exactly Rossetti’s “ravings” had been. “I thought I’d met most of your friends already.”

“Well, there’s Webb, of course, and Street. Georgiana. Millais and Effie, Swinburne, William Rossetti, Hunt, Boyce, Marshall…” Morris rattled off a daunting list of names.

“You have so many friends!” said Jane. She had become aware that she had finished her tarte Tatin and that soon they would have to return to their room.

“All eager to meet you,” said Morris.

Neither of them could think of what to say next.

“Is everything all right?” asked Morris finally.

“Of course,” said Jane. But she began to feel queasy and to wish she had not eaten quite so much.

At last they had no choice but to leave the table. By the time they had climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to their room, Morris was as silent as Jane and neither of them was able to look at the other. In her great anxiety about the marital act, Jane had forgotten that she would have to undress in front of Morris. She was not at all sure she could do it. The door shut behind them and they stood on either side of the bed, eyes averted.

“If we move the screen, perhaps you could…inhabit one side and I the other,” said Morris, reading her thoughts. They moved the gilt Chinese screen and Jane moved her valise to the sofa behind it. Slowly, acutely aware that there was someone else there, she began removing articles of clothing. There was a terrible moment when all she had on was her chemise, her stockings, and her shoes. Quickly she threw her nightdress over her head and covered that with a printed robe. She removed her shoes and stockings and replaced them with slippers. On the other side she could hear rustling and, once, a shoe dropping heavily to the floor.

“May I come out?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Morris, in a thick voice.

When she emerged he was already under the bedclothes, wearing a dark blue robe and reading a book. She slipped in beside him, but he did not look up. Jane took a volume out and pretended to read, but it was impossible. The words floated in front of her, meaningless. At last Morris shut his book.

“It’s been such a long day,” he said. “Perhaps we should retire early.”

“Yes, it has,” agreed Jane. Morris blew out the lamp. Jane lay back stiffly and waited for Morris to approach her. It took more than five minutes for him to work up the courage to touch her hand. When he did, it felt like a spider crawling on her skin and she almost jumped out of the bed. His hand retreated.

“Are you all right?” Morris asked. “Should I stop?”

Jane wanted to say yes, but she knew that if it didn’t happen tonight, it would happen tomorrow. It seemed better to get it over with.

“No, I’m fine,” she said. After a few moments his hand had returned. Now it was on her side, and began to awkwardly stroke her. It tickled and her muscles tightened. She wanted to guide his hands, but she could not. She tried not to writhe or giggle hysterically.

He was trying to push her nightdress up over her legs. Eventually he rolled onto his stomach and leaned on his elbows. He brought his face close to hers and kissed her on the mouth. His lips were slightly dry. His breath was coming fast now. The weight of his body on hers was oppressive. In the dark she could not see the expression on his face, and for his sake she was glad he could not see hers. He sat up and took off his robe. He hiked up his nightshirt. He tossed the bedclothes aside and finally managed to push up her nightdress.

He groped around between her legs for quite a while. He did not seem to know what he was looking for. More than once she felt a fleshy spike poke her belly and then again, much farther down. She was not supposed to know what to do, so she could not help him. He seemed to think it was her virginity that was making it difficult and he tried pushing very hard in various places. Her cries of pain drew whispered apologies from him. The procedure seemed to go on forever. Just as it seemed that he would never find it, that he would have to return her to her parents as defective rather than admit his own inadequacy, it slid in.

Now that he was there, Morris was both so astonished and so aroused that he gasped and shuddered and it was over. He stayed inside her for several minutes more, wriggling and tentatively thrusting as if he thought it would give her pleasure, and then he disengaged. He kissed her on the face and she tasted his sweat. He said nothing, and neither did she.