The Wayward Muse (25 page)

T
HE
Fleshly School of Poetry and Other Phenomena of the Day,’” slurred Rossetti. He had drunk too much wine with lunch. “Accusing me of immoral desires. As if the senses are immoral. Weren’t they given to us by God?”

“It’s only one review among many,” said Jane.

“But of course one must discount the positive reviews as so much bunk, and believe the scathing critic as the only honest one in the bunch.”

“If he were honest wouldn’t he identify himself?” said Jane. “I am sure Thomas Maitland is not his real name.”

“Always so practical,” said Rossetti. “Can’t you let me wallow in my irrational ravings?”

“No,” said Jane.

“That is why I cannot do without you,” he said.

“And the book is selling so well,” she said. “The controversy probably helps it.”

“I will put it from my mind,” said Rossetti, “and concentrate on painting, which is what I do best, after all.”

But he continued to drink. At dinner he didn’t stop drinking until he fell asleep. Sometimes he fell asleep at the dinner table, sometimes in the sitting room afterward. Sometimes he fell and hurt himself trying to climb the stairs to bed. Sometimes he became maudlin and cried that he was being persecuted. Sometimes he gave long, self-pitying speeches that usually ended with glass breaking and furniture being knocked over.

Then Rossetti found out that Thomas Maitland was the pseudonym of Robert Buchanan, whose poetry Rossetti’s brother had criticized some years earlier. To Jane that made the criticism personally motivated and not worthy of consideration, but Rossetti didn’t see it that way. He began working out a response. They all thought it was unwise. Jane advised him to let the matter drop. People quickly forgot about such things. But Rossetti could not forget. His response was titled “The Stealthy School of Criticism.”

All through the winter, when he wasn’t at the workshop or down in the showroom, Morris was looking for a house. He was very particular about what he wanted, and it took many trips to the countryside before he found Kelmscott Manor, in Gloucestershire. He sent a note to Rossetti, who went to see it several days later and agreed that it was perfect.

“It’s a large stone manor house,” Rossetti wrote to Jane. “The original part was built in 1571 and has a medieval plan, while the addition, from 1670, gives it a pleasing asymmetry. There are stone barns and large gardens and orchards that lead down to the Thames. It’s near Lechlade, a charming village, but not too near, and lovely old trees shield it from the road. I think you will be happy there.”

Jane wanted to ask Morris what he thought of it, but he seldom spoke to her about anything but the quotidian. he worked late every day, and most weekends he went to the country to supervise the renovation and decoration of the house. At the same time, he prepared for his trip to Iceland.

At last it was June. Everything had been packed and the carriage was waiting downstairs to take them to the train station. The girls were fearfully excited and were running up and down the stairs, shouting to their parents to hurry. May tripped over Jenny and began to cry. Somehow they all made it into the carriage. Husband and wife had not been so close to each other in many weeks. They had Jenny between them and Jane held May on her lap. Still, the proximity was alarming. The children kept up their excited chatter, but whereas in the past one or both of them would admonish the girls to be quiet and behave, now they secretly welcomed the din. It meant that they did not have to speak to each other.

“Will I have to buy a ticket?” asked May. “I only have fourpence. Is that enough?”

Jane smiled. “The tickets are already bought, sweet pea.”

“Good,” said May. “I was concerned. I’ve never been on a train before, you know.”

“Yes you have,” corrected Jenny. “When we left Red House we went on a train, didn’t we, Papa?”

“Yes, you did,” said Morris, “but I’m surprised you remember it. You were very little.”

“I remember it was very dirty. And loud. And a man dropped his suitcase on Mama’s foot.”

“You do remember!” exclaimed Morris.

“As do I,” said Jane. “My foot was bruised and swollen for a week. Remember, I had to wear that ugly slipper?”

Once on the train the girls did not want to stay in their seats but ran up and down the aisles annoying the porters. Morris called them back and pulled them both onto his lap.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said.

“Is it about ponies?” asked May, who was besotted with them.

“It’s about the house we are going to,” Morris said. “It was built long ago, in 1557, in fact. Do you know who was king in 1557?”

“Henry,” guessed Jenny.

“Not quite,” said Morris. “It was a trick question anyway, because Bloody Mary was queen in 1557.”

“Why do they call her that?” asked May.

“Because she liked to chop off people’s heads,” said Morris, drawing his finger across her throat.

“William,” said Jane. “They won’t sleep tonight.”

“In any case, the house we’re going to was built for a prince, who was a Protestant and loyal to Mary’s sister Elizabeth, who was in the tower. The house is full of secret passages he used to sneak out to meet his friends, and bring them into the house without being seen. For they were being watched by Mary’s spies, and our prince was very attached to his head.”

“I thought it was built by a yeoman,” said Jane.

“Shhh,” said Morris.

“What was his name?” asked Jenny.

“Lord Pomfret,” said Morris. “Arthur Pomfret. And when Elizabeth became queen, he left Gloucestershire and went to Greenwich.”

“Was his head ever cut off?” asked Jenny.

Morris winked at Jane. “No, because Elizabeth ruled for forty-five years. He died when he was ninety-two, in bed, of influenza.”

“It’s too bad,” said May. “I like the stories where the heads are chopped off.”

After that Jenny pulled out a book and began to read. May fell asleep in her father’s arms. Jane gazed out of the window at the passing countryside. The way was familiar; it was the way she had come to London for the first time after she had married Morris. It was the end of the time for violets, but the snapdragons and hollyhocks were up in the cottage gardens, and the climbing roses were blooming. It made her a little sad, to think that in the thirteen years since she’d left Oxford she had never once gone to the fields to pick violets, not even when they lived at Red House. Things were changing along the road; new houses were being built, a factory that had not been there before belched steam in the distance. But the fields looked the same as they had when she was eighteen. It was she who was different.

After her experience at Mrs. Wallingford’s, Jane was worried that Kelmscott Manor, which was not many miles away, would be gloomy, but she was charmed by it immediately, as Rossetti had said she would be. Morris had seen to it that the inside had been repainted and was bright and clean. Her room and the room the girls would share had been decorated with Morris and Company wallpaper and bed hangings: Willow Boughs for her, Blackthorn for the girls. The housekeeper had placed an earthenware jug of hot pink peonies on her bedside table. She had a balcony that overlooked the river.

Morris brought in her bag and set it down beside the bed. He seemed reluctant to leave, and stood by the window, rearranging the folds in the curtains.

“What do you think of the house?” he asked.

“You know it is magic,” she said. “You have a knack for finding it, and making it, too.”

“You mean Arthur Pomfret?” he said, smiling. “John Turner the yeoman was just too prosaic a man and does not lend himself to tales. What do you think of your room?”

“The fabrics are lovely,” she said. “And the view.”

“The room gets quite a lot of sun,” he said. “I know that’s what you prefer.”

“Thank you,” she said. She said it to encompass everything, not just the room or the house but all he had done for her. It made him think of Rossetti, and his smile faded.

“When does he arrive?” Morris asked, as if he could not bear to say the name.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “His train is due at four o’clock.”

“I’ll return to London the following morning, then,” Morris said. “It wouldn’t do to leave before he arrives, but I have to be at Granton on the Firth of Forth in three days’ time.”

“And you sail from there for Iceland?” she asked. He had only spoken of his trip to her in the vaguest terms, which, considering how he used to tell her everything, was painful.

“If all goes well, I’ll be back in London September fifteenth, give or take a few days. If we are trapped by storms or ice, I could have to winter over there, though it’s not something I want to do and I’ll make every effort to avoid it. They say the winters are very difficult. But don’t worry. Reykjavik is a town of some size. If we have to wait there for the weather to clear, I’m sure we can find comfortable accommodations.” He caught himself. “Not that you’re worried, of course. I’m just telling you so that if anything happens, you can contact me. I’ll leave you my forwarding address, though once we head for the interior and the north, I’ll be unreachable. But my letters will be waiting for me there.”

“You’ll write to me?” said Jane, feeling inexplicably forlorn.

“If you like,” he said. “Of course I’ll write to the girls.”

“Of course,” Jane said.

The following afternoon Jane sent the girls to their room to read and one of the servants to meet Rossetti’s train. Then she went upstairs to find an appropriate dress to wear. They were in the country, so it could not be too formal. On the other hand, it had to signify the momentousness of the occasion. The jade green velvet was too sumptuous, the camel-colored wool with yellow braid too ordinary. In the end she put on the bright blue silk he had seen a thousand times before. It might send the message that nothing had changed, but on the other hand she did not want to seem like a stranger.

“You’ve worn our favorite dress,” observed Jenny when she came downstairs. Jane winced.

“It’s Uncle Gabriel’s favorite as well,” Morris said wryly.

“I don’t suppose it matters to him what dress you wear,” said May.

“That’s true,” said Jane. “But we want to show good manners and make him feel welcome, and that means putting on nice clothes.”

“I have on my new dress,” said May, lifting the skirt of her pink-and-white-striped pinafore.

“And very nice it looks,” said Morris. “Uncle Gabriel will be pleased.”

“Papa, your vest is very dirty,” said Jenny. “Shouldn’t you change clothes as well?” Morris and Jane’s eyes met and they very nearly burst into hysterical laughter.

“I am the lord of the manor,” said Morris, winking at Jane. “I can do as I like.”

Jane heard the rattle of the carriage wheels before she saw it. And then the door opened and he was there, and she could barely look at him. The girls threw themselves into his arms, but Jane greeted Rossetti primly. Despite the fact that the three adults were under no illusions about the situation, it still seemed improper for Jane to show the joy she felt at seeing him.

“How was your journey?” Morris dutifully asked.

“Frightful,” Rossetti said. “I’ve a splitting headache. Do you suppose I could retire to my room until dinner?”

“Of course,” Jane said. “I’ll show you.”

Rossetti’s bedroom was on the first floor, next to the Tapestry Room, which was to be his studio. Jane’s bedroom was directly above. The children were in another wing and would not notice any comings and goings. Morris had made sure of that.

They had a quiet meal and retired early to their separate rooms. Morris left after breakfast the next day. He hoisted both of the girls into his arms in an expansive bear hug. He shook Rossetti’s hand and pecked Jane on the lips, but it was for show and they all knew it. Then he was inside the carriage and it was pulling away. May burst into tears and tried to run after him, but Jenny pulled her back.

“Don’t be a baby,” she said. “Father’s coming back.”

Jane was not so sure. It seemed to her, too, that they were saying goodbye forever. Perhaps this is a premonition, she thought. Perhaps he is going to die in Iceland. Or perhaps he is going to leave me, and the Iceland trip is just a pretext, a way of lessening the blow when it comes. She felt that May was right to cry.

“Who would like to introduce me to the river?” said Rossetti quickly. “I’ve been here twelve hours and no one has shown it to me.”

“I will!” shrieked May, forgetting her father immediately. Taking Rossetti’s hand she led him through the garden and down toward the water. Jenny lagged behind.

“Will you come too, Mummy?” she asked.

“Yes, I will,” said Jane, collecting herself. “I want to see this heron you’ve been telling me about.”

T
HE
house seemed very big and dark at night. Jane waited in her bedroom. She had plaited her hair and dabbed on the rosewater scent she had used since the night she met Rossetti. She felt it in her breasts and in the wetness and ache between her thighs. She needed him to come to her.

But an hour passed and then another and still Rossetti did not come. She unbraided her hair and let it fall to her shoulders. She went to the dressing table and brushed it out. She changed from a peach-colored pelisse to a violet one. But where was Rossetti? Finally she put on a scarlet satin dressing gown and went in search of him.

His light was on and his door was ajar. She slipped through the opening and into the room. He was asleep on top of the bedclothes, fully dressed. When she sat on the bed beside him, he smiled but did not open his eyes.

“I thought you’d never come,” he said.

“I was waiting for you to come to me,” said Jane.

“I thought you might not want me to,” said Rossetti. “With Morris just left, and the children here.” Jane leaned down and kissed him, softly at first and then fervently. He slipped the dressing gown over her shoulders and it slid to the floor.

Rossetti seemed content to kiss her and stroke her back. It was she who finally began to take his clothes off him, first his tie and then his shirt. Rossetti laughed at her.

“Aren’t you a bad girl,” he said. “I think you need to be punished.” He rolled onto her and pinned her beneath his weight. Then they were both pulling at her clothes and flinging them to the floor.

“The lamp,” she said.

“Leave it,” he said. “You think that now we are going to play husband and wife, I will become prudish and stodgy like Topsy? Blow out the lamp, indeed.”

He pinned her wrists with his hands and kissed her hard. In her struggle to free herself, Jane flung out a hand and knocked a bottle on the nightstand to the floor.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered. “Chloral. To help me sleep.” With a feathery touch he brushed her lips with his thumb. Slowly he worked his way down the length of her body, and when he reached her most sensitive place, she clamped a hand over her mouth so as not to scream and wake the servants or the children.

They slept late in the morning. The children had already eaten and were by the river collecting wildflowers by the time Jane came down to breakfast. The cook, who had come with the house, was excellent and her strawberry jam and plum preserves were the best Jane had ever had. The currant scones, lemon curd muffins, and Irish soda bread, too, were all delicious, and Jane ate heartily. Rossetti devoured so many eggs that the cook came out to scold him. As they quietly read the newspaper, they would look up every now and then, as if on cue, and Rossetti would smile at her or touch her face. How different it was from when Morris read the articles aloud to her whether she wanted him to or not.

“What shall we do today?” she asked when the dishes were cleared away.

“I hope to set up my studio this morning. Perhaps after that we should have a picnic,” said Rossetti. “We can row down the river until we find a nice spot.”

“Can you row?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “I may not have been to Oxford, but I know a thing or two about boats.”

“Who will look after the children?”

“They’ll come, of course,” said Rossetti. “They can pick berries or make daisy chains or whatever it is little girls do on picnics.”

While Rossetti organized his things and commandeered the gardener to help him move some tables and chairs, Jane conferred with the cook about the picnic lunch, and saw that the maid knew how to clean their rooms properly. Then she went in to tell the girls about the picnic and to make sure that they wore their oldest boots and brought rain slickers.

At half-past one the little group left Kelmscott Manor. Jane carried the enormous basket.

“How many meals are in there?” teased Rossetti. “Are we spending the night on the river?” They walked down to the boathouse while the girls skipped ahead and then doubled back, urging them to hurry.

“We only have four and a half hours of daylight!” wailed Jenny.

“It will be enough,” promised Rossetti. “And if it isn’t, we have forty-two days left in summer to have another picnic.” Rossetti pulled the boat from the boathouse and dragged it toward the bank.

“What about the oars?” asked May.

For a moment Rossetti looked confused.

“For rowing?” prompted Jenny.

“The oars, yes,” said Rossetti. “May, do you think you can carry them?”

They put in at a sandy spot just in front of the house. Jane went in first while Rossetti held the boat. Then Jenny stepped in, then May. At last Rossetti leaped in and nearly capsized the boat with his weight. The girls shrieked in excitement, but with a heroic effort Rossetti managed to steady the boat. May handed him the oars and he began to pull with them, but they spun in circles for several minutes.

“Use the left one alone to turn the boat,” instructed Jane. “When you set a course, use both with equal strength and we should go straight.”

“You think I don’t know how to row?” growled Rossetti.

“It doesn’t seem like you do,” giggled May.

“Would you like a turn?” Rossetti pretended to be very offended. May shrank back in her seat and shook her head, laughing.

“Would you like me to get us away from the bank?” said Jane.

“You three are my ladies and I am your knight,” said Rossetti. “You are not to do any work today, but to sit back and enjoy yourselves.” Just at that moment they crashed into some weeds and cattails on the bank, startling a family of ducks. The ducks honked indignantly and flew away with a great commotion. Rossetti pushed away from the bank with his oar, and at last managed to turn the boat in the right direction. They made their way downstream, “toward London,” Rossetti said.

The area around Kelmscott was stippled with fields of barley and corn. They passed a farmhouse built of sandstone, with a pretty cottage garden on one side. A boat was tied up at a rickety wooden dock on the bank below the house. A beagle saw them approach and began to bark furiously, racing toward the water.

“Do you think he can swim?” asked Jane, a little nervously.

“Not as fast as I can row,” said Rossetti.

“I’d like to have a dog like that,” said Jenny, as she watched the little dog recede. They glided past a few black cows drinking at the bank. The cows lifted their heads and looked at them curiously.

“I see a castle up there!” shouted May, pointing toward a distant hill.

“I believe that is the home of Lord Farnsworth,” said Rossetti. “We must be coming very close to the village.”

Now the farmhouses were closer together, and there were boats on the water ahead of them.

“Be careful,” warned Jane, “and stay close to the bank.”

“I am counting on the other boatmen to be much more experienced and to steer away from us,” laughed Rossetti. They were so close to the bank that the willow trees slapped their faces as they passed. Ahead they could see a long row of buildings on either side of the bank, and a pretty stone bridge.

“We must come to town soon,” said Jane. “It looks charming.”

“Good day to you, sir!” called Rossetti to a boy on the bridge with a fishing line as they passed under him. “You girls should learn to fish,” said Rossetti. “Think of all the money we could save at the butcher’s!”

“I shouldn’t like to be caught by the mouth with a hook and dragged into a boat, if I was used to water,” May said.

“Yes, that’s true,” agreed Rossetti, winking, “but a fish is not the same as a girl. A fish’s brain is very small and very primitive, like an ant or a grasshopper, and I’ve seen you step on them many times.”

“I would never step on a grasshopper!” said May, horrified. “But you’re right about the ants.”

“Well then, just think of a fish as a kind of ant,” said Rossetti. “A large, clammy ant.”

“Silly!” giggled May.

Half an hour past the village they found an idyllic spot under a group of weeping willows and landed the boat there. Jane laid a cloth in the sun and spread out the lunch. There was cold chicken, smoked salmon sandwiches, corn salad, sliced tomatoes, and chocolate cake. They ate until they were thoroughly stuffed. Afterward Rossetti took out his sketchbook and began to draw Jane while she read. Jenny and May asked if they could explore the woods.

“Put on a sweater,” said Jane, pulling one for each of them out of the basket.

“It’s such a warm day,” said Rossetti, “do they really need them?”

“Take them,” said Jane. “And take care not to lose them.” The girls disappeared into the bracken.

“It reminds me of my own childhood,” said Jane. “No doubt they’ll collect a lot of acorns and insist on bringing them back.”

“Is that what you used to do?” said Rossetti.

“More like walnuts, to keep us fed,” said Jane. “They’ll never know that kind of life, thank God.”

When the girls returned, with twigs in their hair and their pockets full of acorns, they cuddled next to their mother while Rossetti told them a tale of an inquisitive frog. Halfway through they were both asleep, and Rossetti and Jane took a little walk into the woods where they could steal a few kisses. When the sun got low, they packed up their things, jumped into the boat, and rowed home.

Each morning Rossetti spent in his studio, sometimes sketching or painting Jane, sometimes drafting his response to “The Fleshly School of Poetry.” Even at Kelmscott, even when mixing colors or walking along the shore or skipping pebbles with Jenny and May, even when making love to Jane, Buchanan’s criticism was never far from his mind. In vain Jane tried to distract him, to soothe him, to make him laugh at the whole silly incident, but even Jane wasn’t fully aware of how much the article had wounded him.

If she was not modeling, Jane sewed or read until Rossetti was finished working. The girls spent most of their time out of doors. Their favorite activity was roof riding, climbing the house’s many steep gables. They made friends with a few local children and went, with the nurse Jane engaged the second week of their stay, to visit them often. It was only when the girls were gone that she allowed Rossetti to embrace her openly. She was adamant that they think of Rossetti only as the friend of her parents, and that they not suspect anything. She hoped that if gossip reached them someday, through one of their friends in London, perhaps, they would be able to honestly and innocently say that there was no romance between her and Rossetti. But when she was sure they were alone, Jane made no effort to hide her ardent feelings from the servants. They may have disapproved, but they were too well trained to say anything.

During the first days it was difficult for Jane to keep her mind on anything, so conscious was she with every nerve fiber of Rossetti’s closeness, and so aware was she that she could reach out and touch him if she felt like it.

In the afternoons they walked along the Thames. Jane found that her back no longer ached and that she could walk five or six miles without feeling weak or faint.

If the weather was inclement, there was always something pleasant to do in the house. It was so enormous that they spent the first week just exploring its many wings and shut-up rooms. It was the ideal place for hide-and-seek, and the games could last several hours. They all enjoyed charades, and tag. In the evenings they roasted apples in the fire and told stories. Rossetti’s were often scary, Jane’s romantic and sentimental, Jenny’s laced with duels and poisonings. May’s most often involved a pony named Roy.

Sometimes Rossetti gave the girls instruction in drawing, but it was never regimented or strict. Instead, he gave the girls paper and oil crayons and told them to draw whatever they felt like. Jenny was serious and tried to copy from life, and Rossetti encouraged her as he pointed out things she had not seen. May drew imaginative renderings of ponies and the people in her family, and Rossetti was as excited about these as he was about the work of his friend John Everett Millais.

Jane found that with Rossetti she was something of a child herself. There was none of the dour quiet of her London home. Nothing was serious at Kelmscott, nothing was urgent or upsetting or alarming. If the groceries did not arrive when they were supposed to, they ate bread and jam for dinner. If it rained, they put on galoshes and walked by the river anyway. If May fell on the stairs and bumped her head, Rossetti made faces at her until she laughed instead of cried. Jane had never laughed so much. She had never enjoyed herself so much.

“It is time to go fishing,” announced Rossetti solemnly one day.

“Finally!” exclaimed May. “I thought you had forgotten. Shall we put on our boating dresses?” These were simple gray cotton pinafores that Jane had made. They were impervious to mud, brambles, brackish water, anything the girls might find themselves dirtied by.

“Go on,” said Jane. “And wear your second-best boots.”

Rossetti was now quite skilled at rowing, and they glided down the river sedately.

“A gentleman in town told me about a spot where the fish are always biting, just across from the sheep meadow,” he said. “It will take about twenty minutes to get there.”