The Wayward Muse (15 page)

J
ANE
now had many worries, foremost among them what she would wear to meet Rossetti. It had been two years since she had last seen him. Of course she wanted him to think that she was even more beautiful than before, but she didn’t want him to think she was still in love with him and trying to impress him. Which of her new dresses would strike just that note? She tried and discarded the poppy red taffeta, the aubergine wool, and the lavender bombazine. Finally, she decided upon the Aegean blue brocade. It had a brilliant sheen to it but was simply made and trimmed with only some dark blue braid. It suited her. Morris would say it was too bright, but she would ignore him.

As she looked in the mirror, she wondered if Rossetti would find her changed. But no, she looked exactly the same: same pale skin and unmanageable hair, same lugubrious expression, same luminous eyes. She was still tall and regal. The only difference was that she was better dressed. She was also his friend’s wife.

The carriage ride seemed interminable. A cart had overturned on the street, ahead of them, and vegetables were strewn everywhere. The driver was arguing with a policeman.

“Are you all right, my dear?” asked Morris as they waited for the road to be cleared.

“I’m afraid Lizzie won’t like me,” Jane confessed. She did not want her husband to guess the real reason she was anxious.

“You must be very kind to Lizzie,” said Morris. “She is still far from well.”

“Will she be kind to me?” asked Jane.

“Of course,” said Morris doubtfully. “Once she knows you. I’m sure Georgie has painted a glowing picture.” Jane wondered what, if anything, Rossetti had said to Lizzie about her.

When the door opened it seemed for a moment that everything but Rossetti was blocked from her vision. She had wondered if he would be the same, and he was: his eyes were as black and penetrating as before. He seemed to be looking straight into her heart. He paid no attention to Morris, but came straight toward her. He stood a little too close, and brushed her cheeks with his lips three times.

“Guinevere,” he whispered. Jane did not trust herself to say anything, but she tried to smile. Only when Rossetti stepped away from her was she able to discern the person standing behind him. Lizzie was not at all what Jane had expected a libertine to look like. She was not as tall as Jane and seemed dwarfed by Rossetti. Her skin had the dull pallor of someone who sleeps and eats very little, and her heavy eyelids made her look tired. She had eyes the color of amber. Next to her skin her hair glowed a golden red. Jane thought her very plain. This was the great beauty she had been so terrified to meet?

Lizzie’s grip was surprisingly strong. “How do you do?” she said in a darkly colored alto. Their eyes met and Jane quailed at Lizzie’s expression. She knows everything, thought Jane.

Somehow they passed through the hall and into the parlor. Rossetti’s house was as he had described it to her so long ago: dark and richly decorated, masculine and strange. Jane sat on an ornately carved wooden settee, across from a row of Rossetti’s drawings of Lizzie: Lizzie brushing her hair, Lizzie asleep, Lizzie petting the cat.

“There were some of you on the wall,” said Lizzie, following Jane’s gaze, “but I pitched them out of the window.”

No one knew what to say to that.

“That settee used to be a church pew,” said Rossetti, breaking the awkward silence. “A place in Hackney that burned. It’s quite medieval, don’t you think?”

“It would be perfect if you hadn’t put that awful red cushion on it,” admonished Morris. “So common. And a green tablecloth. Really, Gabriel!”

“Yes, it’s far too fashionable,” agreed Rossetti, “but without the cushion it would not be fit for your lady to sit on. But you must know,” he said to Jane. “You must have sat upon many like it during your tour of the cathedrals.”

“Yes, I did,” admitted Jane.

“It must have been very tiresome,” said Rossetti. “Did you make poor Jane crawl out onto the flying buttresses and examine the gargoyles’ teeth?”

“She enjoyed it,” retorted Morris. “Especially Chartres.”

Rossetti winked at Jane. “I’m sure. What was your favorite part?”

“But I don’t think any of your sketches did justice to her eyes,” Lizzie went on as though no one had spoken. “They are such a lovely ocean gray color. And you never quite captured the expression in them. Your Jane often looked somber, but not quite so observant and keen as the real Jane does.”

Now it was Rossetti whose gaze was upon Jane. “I see what you mean,” he said. “It has something to do with the outer corners, the shadows there, and also the brow.”

“You should make some more sketches,” said Lizzie. “I’m sure Jane wouldn’t mind coming to sit for you, would you, Jane?”

Jane glanced helplessly at her husband.

“Come see what I’ve been working on,” said Rossetti, springing from his seat. So the party got up and went to Rossetti’s studio on the other end of the house.

“I read about your style in the
Times,
” said Lizzie as they walked down the hall together. “They made it sound so shocking! But the way you wear it is completely natural.”

Jane could not detect a barb in this. “It’s just what suits me,” she said warily. “I had no idea I would be caricatured.”

“And copied!” said Lizzie. “I saw three ladies last night with Indian shawls on their shoulders and bits of ribbon tied ’round their waists. Everyone wants to be Jane Morris.”

“Not the girls with sense,” said Jane.

Lizzie laughed in surprise. “You’re unhappy with your marriage already?” she asked. “Some might consider you ridiculously fortunate.”

“Oh no,” said Jane. Lizzie seemed determined to misconstrue everything she said. “I just meant that it would be silly for a really pretty girl to use the techniques I employ to conceal my flaws.”

“Quite right,” said Lizzie, with a startled look. “Well, you’re not vain, I’ll concede that.”

In the studio Rossetti pulled the sheet off his canvas with a flourish and Jane saw with amazement that the figure of Beatrice was herself. Her face was unmistakable: her nose in profile, her eyes and hair. In the left-hand panel, she and Dante gazed at each other as they passed, and in the right-hand panel, Beatrice removed her veil to reveal herself directly to the poet.

“I had been modeling for it, but then Gabriel decided that Beatrice must be dark,” said Lizzie matter-of-factly. “I’m right for the good old British angels, but I certainly don’t look the least bit Italian.”

“I had so many sketches of you done already,” said Rossetti to Jane, “it was easy to work from them.”

“Until they flew away, like little birds,” laughed Lizzie.

“The first panel is more like her,” observed Morris. “You’ve got the light in her eye just right, and the curve of her upper lip. The second is more of a faded copy.”

“How is your painting going, Topsy?” asked Rossetti bitingly.

“Not well,” admitted Morris. “The painting I did of Jane is the only good thing I’ve ever done and it’s better than it has any right to be.”

“Jane is going to become vain with too much praise,” said Lizzie.

“I doubt that any amount of praise could spoil Jane,” said Rossetti admiringly.

Lizzie leaned against the wall and coughed into a handkerchief. Immediately Rossetti was at her side. She slumped into his jacket, and though her whole body shook, the sounds were muffled.

Jane was alarmed.

“Shall I call a doctor?” asked Morris.

“I’m fine,” choked Lizzie.

“It’s the London air,” said Rossetti. “The doctors tell us to go back to Bath, but we were so bored there.”

“Italy,” said Lizzie, her face mottled and red but otherwise composed. “I’d like to convalesce in Rome.”

“If you are a good girl, I’ll take you there,” said Rossetti, smoothing her hair.

Morris took Lizzie in to dinner and Rossetti took Jane. She held her arm out for him to take, expecting him to grasp it lightly. Instead he pulled her in very close to him.

“You sorceress,” he whispered. “I thought I could exorcise this passion I have for you by painting you, but now that you’re here, I see that’s impossible.”

“Shh,” said Jane frantically, “they’ll hear you.”

“Don’t tell me that you love Morris,” hissed Rossetti, tightening his grip on her arm. “You can’t possibly.”

Ahead of them Morris laughed at something Lizzie said. Jane could not think of what to do.

“You’re not going to say anything?” he asked. “Have you become so timid? So conventional?”

“Gabriel, please stop,” Jane begged. They entered the dining room and Rossetti tucked Jane into her place, poured her a glass of wine, and took his seat.

It was all Jane could do to follow the conversation. Rossetti drank champagne. Morris began to describe the scene at Ruskin’s.

“And they recited ‘Praise of My Lady’ to her, right there in the hall. They knew every line!”

“As they should,” said Rossetti. “It was the finest work of poetry I’ve read in many a year. You’ve completely eclipsed Shelley, in my estimation.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” scoffed Morris. “In any event, poor Jane was stupefied. I had to rescue her from their clutches.”

“Are you sure it was not they who needed rescuing?” asked Rossetti darkly.

“I wish you had come,” said Morris.

“We’re thoroughly sick of Ruskin,” said Rossetti. “Though not sick of his money.”

“Well, you know him,” said Lizzie apologetically. “He’s been very kind to us. But then he’s so pompous and controlling that it makes you want to throw the money back in his face.”

“Which you will never, ever do,” said Rossetti. “We need it too much.”

“You’re an artist, too?” enquired Jane.

“I draw a little,” said Lizzie. “But I hope one day to be really accomplished.”

“The sketches she’s done of me are remarkable,” said Rossetti proudly. “Lizzie’s a much better draftsman than I am. If she will only rest and regain her health, I have high hopes for her.”

“You know I’ll go mad if I can’t work,” said Lizzie. She turned to Jane. “He and Ruskin want me to stop drawing altogether,” said Lizzie. “I can’t think why anyone, much less an art critic and an artist, would tell someone else not to draw.”

“Because they are worried about you, love,” said Rossetti.

“You’re not worried about me at all,” said Lizzie. “You wish I were dead. It would make things so much easier for you.”

“Dearest!” Rossetti gasped. “You know that’s not true!”

Lizzie stood up and threw her napkin down on the table. “Someday, Gabriel, you just might get your wish.” Her chair knocked loudly against the wall as she ran past it and out of the room. There was a long silence.

“She’s not been well,” said Rossetti apologetically. “Her lungs are weak and it makes her feverish and tired.”

“I’ll go to her,” said Jane, glad for an excuse to clear her head. Lizzie’s volatile changes in mood were not unfamiliar. She had seen and heard much worse in Holywell Street. At least nothing heavy had been thrown, and no one had been injured. But she was still reeling from what Rossetti had said to her.

Lizzie was on the terrace. She had her sketchbook and pencils and was drawing her own left hand. She did not hear Jane come up behind her, so deep was her concentration. Jane saw that the drawing was delicately shaded, fragile and almost tentative but quite accomplished.

“You’re shocked,” Lizzie said. She put the pencil down and looked sorrowfully at Jane. In an instant Jane saw why Rossetti found her beautiful. “Please know that I’m not as vulgar as that argument makes me seem. It’s desperation. If I soften, even for a moment, he’ll be gone in a week’s time.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Jane. “I think he is besotted with you.”

Lizzie patted her hand. “You are not at all what I was expecting,” she said. “I hope we can be friends, in spite of everything.”

“I’d like to be,” said Jane.

“It must all be very strange to you,” said Lizzie, returning to her drawing. “Everyone talking, everyone watching. Your name on the society pages.”

“It feels as if they are talking about someone else,” Jane said. “A character they’ve invented called Jane Morris.”

Lizzie nodded. “After your upbringing…well, I got a wonderfully lurid description of the slum that is Holywell Street. It made me feel quite lucky in my millinery.”

Jane did not like to think about the past. “Have you always wanted to be an artist?” she asked, to change the subject.

“Not really,” said Lizzie. “I never knew I could be anything, other than a shop girl or something worse, until I met Gabriel. But he encouraged me to try, and I found that I liked it.”

“Do you ever paint?” Jane asked.

“I’ve tried a few times,” said Lizzie. “But I don’t feel my drawing is strong enough yet. I’d be wasting paint. Next year, perhaps, I’ll be ready.”

Lizzie was so serious and so determined that it made Jane feel very small and inadequate. “Do you hope to be a famous artist?” she asked.