The Wayward Muse (13 page)

Jane wanted to cry, but could not. With Rossetti it had been terrifying, but it had not been ridiculous. She felt invaded, and mis-handled. She felt empty, and very lonely.

When she was sure Morris was asleep, Jane crept across the room in the dark and found her hatbox. She stabbed her middle finger with a hat pin, wincing. When she knew she had drawn blood, she stepped carefully toward the bed and slipped under the covers. She wiped the blood onto the sheet. Then Jane tried to make herself very small in the bed so as not to touch her husband. It was hours before she finally fell asleep.

I
N
the morning they went to breakfast and pretended nothing had happened. Jane hoped that the night’s excitement would be enough to satisfy him for a few days at least. The seas were rough crossing the channel and it was easy to feign seasickness. Jane had never been on a ship before and would have liked to walk the deck and admire the view, but then Morris would have realized that she was not sick after all. He might have expected something. From the porthole in her cabin, she could glimpse a bit of railing and then the gray sea behind it, the same hue as the slate-colored sky.

Their first day in Paris they spent at Chartres.

“The first of the High-Gothic cathedrals in the Île-de-France,” said Morris. “It is fitting that we begin here, although we will have to skip back in time when we go to Notre Dame, which is Early Gothic.”

“What is the difference?” asked Jane. In the daylight she found she liked her husband, who gamboled through the sacred space like a St. Bernard puppy.

“The High Gothic is taller, and lighter, not as massive. The builders had learned how to support the building with less heavy masonry, using flying buttresses. If we walk around the perimeter of the cathedral, I can point them out to you.”

Morris was encyclopedic in his knowledge and the lesson went on all day. He showed her which were the oldest parts of the church and explained how the various pieces had survived a series of fires. He expounded on the architect’s influences, the cathedrals of Laon and Saint-Denis. He elucidated the chronology of the sculptures on each facade, from the earliest, Romanesque-looking jamb statues of the west facade to the High Gothic figures of the north transept. They climbed the bell towers to see the vaulting up close and he even coaxed her onto the roof to examine the gargoyles.

“What is it with you artists and high places?” she complained good-naturedly.

“Perspective,” he said. “To see things in surprising ways, you have to extend yourself a bit.”

Jane had to admit that the view of the town and the surrounding countryside was lovely.

Their second day they spent at Notre-Dame de Paris. On the way there she looked longingly at the lace and linen shops they passed, but Morris didn’t notice. He was consulting one of his books to verify the dates of some of the statuary on the tympanum.

“Do you think we could have tea at that little place we passed, the one with the striped awning?” she finally ventured in late afternoon, when they had been walking for six hours.

Morris looked surprised. “We haven’t been to the crypt yet. If we leave now we won’t get the chance to see the tunic of the Virgin. It has been here since 1020.”

“I didn’t realize,” said Jane, trying not to sound tired.

“If you’d rather go back to the hotel, I can take you,” said Morris, looking longingly toward the massive gate in front of the stairs.

“Of course not,” said Jane. “I wouldn’t dream of missing the crypt.”

On the third night in Paris, he approached her again. This time it was not so awkward, but it was no more pleasant. Afterward, as they lay in the dark, he ventured to ask her, “And how was the experience for you?”

“It was fine,” she said, not sounding the least bit convincing.

“I’m glad,” he said, obviously relieved. They did not discuss it again.

As their return to London approached, Jane began to feel apprehensive. She had tried to forget what Morris had said that first night, that London society was talking about her, but now she lay awake at night and worried about what would be expected of her. She was sure she would make terrible, unforgivable mistakes and everyone would ridicule her. When she broached the subject with Morris, he just laughed and assured her that everyone would love her. But Jane was not convinced.

At the end of a month they sailed back to London, and at last Jane saw where she would live while the house in Kent was being built. It was a very fine brick town house in a fashionable district, so similar to what she had once fantasized about that she immediately sat down and wrote a letter to Bessie. She even had a key to the garden across the street. But the garden was closed in and shaded by the thick ivy that grew on the tall iron fences, and she didn’t like it much. She much preferred the open promenades.

The house was larger than anything Jane had known before she met Mrs. Wallingford, though by that lady’s standards it was oppressively small, having only four bedrooms. Jane now had a kitchen and a scullery and a larder, and a cook and a housemaid to go with them. She had a dining room and a parlor on the first floor, and a sitting room upstairs.

The furniture that Morris had made was arranged throughout the house, and Jane saw that her rooms looked very much like the one in the painting Morris had made of her. In the dining room stood a massive round table of unvarnished oak. Two large, throne-like chairs painted with red and blue stars and moons sat opposite each other. A heavy wooden sideboard had a scene from
The Song of Roland
sketched on it, though it remained unpainted. The walls of the parlor were hung with paintings done by Morris’s friends, and the furniture was draped with antique embroidered velvet.

“When all of the things we bought in France arrive, it will be perfect, don’t you think?” asked Morris, with pride, and Jane had to agree.

In the bedroom, most marvelous of all, was a brightly painted wardrobe, depicting the Virgin giving the Host to a small haloed boy.

“A wedding present from Ned,” said Morris. “You see the story is from Chaucer. It’s Sir Hugh of Lincoln.”

“Poor little fellow,” said Jane, reaching out to touch his glowing face. The surface of the wardrobe was glassy with varnish. She examined the painting carefully, marveling at the intricate detail of the work.

“If he disturbs your sleep, we can move him into the hall,” said Morris.

But Jane wouldn’t hear of it. “It is the most wonderful gift,” she said, near tears. “I want it to be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.”

“I hope it’s not,” said Morris.

The next day he went to the South Kensington Museum to sketch, and from then on he was gone most of the day. Jane was sometimes lonely, but she wrote letters to her mother and her sister, she read assiduously from the many volumes Morris had collected, and she ventured out to the market and took walks in their neighborhood. She found that it was something of a relief to have Morris gone. When he was there she was nervous and tense, trying to please him, trying to do and say the right things. When he was gone she could relax.

When he came home in the evening, they had dinner and then sat together in the parlor until bedtime. Usually Morris read aloud while Jane sewed.

One night he did not seem to be able to keep his mind on his book. He kept losing his place. Finally he dropped the book in his lap and stared at her instead.

“What is it?” said Jane, feeling self-conscious.

“You sew very well,” he observed.

“I learned from my mother,” she said, “and then at school.”

“Not from Mrs. Wallingford?”

“Girls who are to go into domestic service are much more skillful with the needle than ladies who make samplers for their own amusement.” She thought it strange that he was so interested in her sewing. But then she remembered the dress he had designed for her.

“Do you use patterns?” he asked. She turned over her work to show him the paper grid that marked out the orchid design and the different colors to use.

“Do you like the patterns that are available?” he asked.

“Not always. I switched the colors on this one,” she said. “It was meant to be pink flowers on a grayish-green ground but I thought crimson and yellow would be better.”

“Quite right,” said Morris admiringly. “What will you do with it when you’re finished?”

“It’s meant for a wall hanging, for my sitting room,” she said.

“Could you make wall hangings for all of the rooms?” Morris asked. He fidgeted in his chair with excitement.

“Of course,” she said. “It will take time, though, especially if the hangings are large.” She did not see what the fuss was about.

“If I were to draw up a pattern for you, could you make it?” he asked.

“Certainly,” she said.

“I imagine a dark blue ground embroidered with yellow daisies. Maybe four feet by six feet. I could make it myself, if you would teach me. You’ll have to show me how it’s done and what will work.”

“I must warn you, I’m very strict,” teased Jane. “I make Mrs. Wallingford look like a cherub.”

“Be gentle,” pleaded Morris. He took her hand and kissed it.

“I’ll look for the cloth when I’m out shopping,” Jane said. “Then you can direct me on the embroidery. I’ll need embroidery silk, too.”

“Make it wool,” he said. “Silk is too fine. A skein of golden yellow, one of fiery orange, and one of spring green.”

“Rough wool embroidery thread is not very common,” she told him, knowing that the shopkeepers would think her crazy if she asked for such a thing.

“Nevertheless, that’s what we must have. Perhaps in a not so nice part of London it would be more readily available,” he said. “You should go to Cheapside tomorrow. If it can’t be found, we may have to spin and dye our own.”

The next day Jane came back from shopping with a very large piece of blue serge she had found, feeling pleased with herself for how little she had paid. Morris would like it, she felt sure. He would sketch out the embroidery for her and she could start work on it that night. It was very enjoyable, she reflected, to have a project that she and her husband could work on together. She couldn’t imagine her mother and father sitting close together night after night, engrossed in a piece of sewing. Perhaps her marriage would be a success after all.

Morris and Jane attended a party at Ruskin’s exactly one week after their arrival in London. Jane wore a violet wool dress printed with scarlet poppies. Now that her budget for gowns was virtually unlimited, she could indulge herself with the richest fabrics and embellishments. She discovered that Mrs. Wallingford had been wrong: Morris encouraged her to sew her own clothes and was proud of her talent for it. Discarding any pattern, she had sewn it loose and wore it without a corset. She hadn’t chosen the style to influence anyone or to set a fashion, but because she found that tight corsets hurt her back and made her faint. Her willowy figure meant she did not have to worry that the gently gathered material would make her look dumpy. The long, flowing lines suited her. And, since her features and coloring were already exotic, it made no sense to try to conform her looks to ordinary styles. The dramatic and the unusual suited her. It made her look mysterious. Not that Jane had thought about it so carefully. The changes she had made in her wardrobe had been gradual and instinctive.

When she arrived at the party, Jane at last understood what her husband had meant by “a stir.” She had hardly taken off her coat and greeted Ruskin when he began to recite, loudly enough for anyone nearby to hear:

he declaimed. He circled her as though she were a prize marble dredged from the bottom of the Adriatic.

“So far he has captured you very well in verse,” Ruskin said, continuing to scrutinize her. Jane was not sure if he remembered that he had met her before. “You do appear made of ivory, and sad, your hair is quite dark and dead. Let me see, how does it go on?” He turned to another guest, a fair-haired, handsome young man, and pulled him toward where Jane stood, frozen with embarrassment.

“You know the poem, Webb. What’s the next line?”

Webb carried on the recitation:

Another young man, dark and stocky, hearing them, joined their group, and soon there was a chorus of them, chanting Morris’s poem about her. Everyone at the party stared at her. She only wished they would stop, but they were having a wonderful time. It was clear that they intended to recite the entire poem, and there were sixteen verses to go. At last Morris, who had been across the room with Burne-Jones, heard them and came to her rescue.