The Wayward Muse (3 page)

“I suppose you must be very rich,” giggled Bessie.

Rossetti ignored this and turned to Jane. “May I ask your name?”

“I’m Jane Burden and this is my sister, Bessie,” she said. “Why do you want to know?”

“I was wondering if you would be interested in being an artist’s model.”

Jane stared at him, incredulous.

“A fine gentleman like you, from London, has to come all the way to Oxford to make sport of a poor girl like me?” Jane was very angry.

Rossetti turned pale and his face looked more like a marble bust than before. “I assure you that is the furthest thing from my mind. Forgive my freedom in speaking to you, but I never stand on ceremony where beauty is concerned.”

“Beauty?” Jane thought that she must have misheard him. Or misunderstood in some way.

“You must know that you are very beautiful,” Rossetti said. Jane glared at him but could not detect any sarcasm in his tone.

“I do not enjoy being teased or ridiculed,” she said, and turned away.

“It’s completely proper and ladylike,” continued Rossetti to Bessie, who was nearly in hysterics now. “Young ladies in London, young ladies of good family, sit for me all the time. I’m looking for someone to pose as Guinevere, you see. You know the tale of King Arthur and Launcelot?”

“I have read it,” said Jane, turning back to him despite herself at the mention of one of her favorite stories. Her school had quite a good copy, and Jane had read it many times and pored over the engravings. Jane was sure, though, that Guinevere had golden hair and pink cheeks.

“I apologize again for my boldness,” said Rossetti, “but I must tell you that you’re the most beautiful girl in Oxford. Maybe in all of England. I have to put you in my painting.”

Now Jane began to wonder if instead of playing a joke, he was completely mad. She looked at Burne-Jones to gauge his expression. He was nodding vigorously and with apparent sincerity.

“We all think Jane quite ugly,” said Bessie, collecting herself.

“You are wrong,” said Rossetti, looking at her so sternly that she shrank, frightened, into the velvet curtain behind her. “You are as wrong as it is possible to be.”

“We must go,” lied Jane. “Our friends are waiting for us.”

“Will you come to the studio?” Rossetti begged. “I can’t finish my painting without you.”

“I have a lot of chores to do,” Jane said. She had still not made up her mind as to whether or not he was to be taken seriously.

“I’ll come,” Bessie said. She had recovered from Rossetti’s earlier rebuff.

“But it’s your sister I want!” said Rossetti callously. “Can’t you convince her to sit for me?” He stepped close to Bessie and it seemed for a moment he was going kneel before her. She drew back pettishly.

“You can’t convince Jane of anything she doesn’t want to do. She’s like an old mule,” Bessie replied.

“A mule!” said Rossetti. “More like a Greek goddess, or a Byzantine princess, or a Roman empress. A pagan queen. I could paint you as all of those things, and more. A biblical heroine! Judith, or Sarah, or Mary Magdalene!”

Rossetti was practically shouting. Jane thought that the people filing past them to return to their seats must be staring in horror.

“I will find you after the play is over,” said Rossetti, “and I will persuade you!”

He must be mad. The most beautiful girl in England! Jane gave up trying to follow the play and mulled over Rossetti’s words. It was, of course, a ridiculous thing to say. I suppose he could be a poor artist, she thought. But the one called Burne-Jones said he was very famous in London. Perhaps he specialized in painting ugly or deformed individuals. But was there any chance, even the smallest chance, that he knew something the people of Oxford didn’t? Did she dare to hope that he was right?

Of course not. She was the ugliest girl in Holywell Street. But still she could not get his words out of her mind.

After the performance she found him waiting in the same place. He was so handsome and so beseeching, she almost smiled.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll model for you.”

He laughed and she saw that his teeth were straight and white. She did not see him reach for her hand until it was enveloped in his.

Time froze. She couldn’t hear the crowd, her sister’s voice, or her own heart, which seemed to have stopped. She couldn’t see Mr. Burne-Jones or Mr. Rossetti. She couldn’t feel her own body in space. All she could feel was the paralyzing lightning strike of Rossetti’s skin against her own.

The instant he removed his hand from hers, her reason was restored and she stepped back, aghast. She glanced furtively around to make sure no one had seen. Theatergoers were rushing by, hurrying home, not paying the least bit of attention. Her heart was thundering, as if to make up for the beats it had lost, and she thought Rossetti must be able to hear it. She stared into his dark eyes and tried to think what to do. Should she rebuke him for taking such a liberty? Or pretend that it had not happened?

Burne-Jones was handing her a card. Without thinking she reached out and took it with her left hand, as if the one Rossetti had held was injured.

“Don’t dress up, don’t change your hair, don’t do anything to yourself,” said Rossetti, bowing. “Just come.”

After the two men had walked away, Jane looked at the card. It had a university address, the next day’s date, and eleven o’clock written on it. She showed it to Bessie.

Bessie tossed her hair. “I wouldn’t go if I were you. That Italian one isn’t right in the head.”

As they walked home Jane could still feel the place on her hand where Rossetti had touched it. What kind of man would take a strange girl’s hand? What kind of girl would allow him to do it? What was she getting herself into?

Their mother had fallen asleep at the kitchen table but woke up when they opened the door. Neither Jamey nor their father was home yet, which was to be expected. Sometime the following morning they were likely to stumble in, bruised, perhaps bleeding, covered with mud. In a foul temper and with a violent headache, Mr. Burden would yell at each of them, choose one to whip, and then sleep through his one day off from the stable.

“How’suh theeter?” Mrs. Burden said sleepily.

“Jane met a gentleman,” said Bessie. Jane immediately wished that she had sworn Bessie to secrecy. She had thought her sister would show more discretion, or at least more common sense.

“What?” said Mrs. Burden, fully awake in an instant.

“He wants to paint her. He says she’s beautiful.”

In a single stride Mrs. Burden was in front of Jane, and slapped her hard.

“Foolish girl, he wants to make a whore of you,” she said.

Jane tried not to cry, but the blow made her eyes water. “It’s for the university,” she choked. “I’m to be Guinevere.” She held out the card to her mother, who took it and ripped it in two without looking at it.

“You’ll be nobody, which is who you are,” said Mrs. Burden. “You’ll not go to meet this gentleman, whoever he is.”

“He’s an Italian,” said Bessie helpfully.

“An Italian!” her mother roared. “Stupid, stupid child. Flattered you, did he? And why’d you believe him?”

The next day Jane woke up at dawn and crept into the kitchen. Her mother was asleep on the floor by the fire. She found a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper in the kitchen and scribbled a note of apology to Rossetti.

Dear Sir,
she wrote. She tried to remember the most elegant forms she had been taught in school.

When she was finished she looked it over and sighed. It looked poor and shoddy, not at all what she wished it could be. Still, her handwriting was very good and she thought it sounded well. She folded it carefully and placed it at the bottom of her brother’s messenger bag. She could only hope that he wouldn’t notice it until it had been mixed in with his mail for the day. She doubted he would abet her in sending a note to a man if he knew. Quietly she stole back into the bedroom. Bessie had not stirred.

Jane went to the window and stared out at the gray dawn. As she caught her own reflection, she saw the swollen mark on her face. I couldn’t model even if I was allowed to, she thought sadly.

She went about her day’s chores and tried not to think about it. When the appointed time came, she hoped to be able to slip out to the chicken coop and comfort herself by petting the birds, but her mother evidently thought she might try to sneak away, and made her sit close beside her and shell beans for two hours.

Well, she could think about Rossetti. Her mother could not take that away, at least. She recalled his amused expression when his eyes had met hers across the theater lobby. Amused, but not mocking. She felt that he had taken her measure, that in some way he knew her. But how was that possible? She was barely educated, she had never left Oxford, she had nothing, while he was a sophisticated and cultured London artist. Yet she could not shake the feeling that in his eyes she saw sympathy and understanding, and an invitation to join him in his wry detachment. It was an offer she burned to accept.

She wondered if she might run into Rossetti and Burne-Jones on the street and if she did what they might say to her. She was excruciatingly aware of having disappointed them. Even if her note was delivered, even if their day of work wasn’t ruined, as she feared, it would not change the fact that she had given her word and then broken it.

That night she dreamed about him. He pointed a brush at her and talked to her very seriously in what she supposed was Italian, but she couldn’t understand any of it. Then he dipped his brush in mud and painted the front of her house in thick, black strokes. Jane tried to stop him, but she was frozen in place. She shouted, but no sound came out. Then, exhausted with the effort, she woke up.

On Sunday, just as Bessie had predicted, Tom Barnstable found her after church and asked if he could walk her home. And though she wanted to say no, her mother’s eyes on her made her say, “That would be very nice,” instead.

As they walked she waited for him to begin a conversation, but he said nothing. After a few awkward moments, she pretended to look in the shop windows.

“The cowslips are pretty,” he finally said.

Since they were on High Street and there were never any cowslips there, even in the spring, she did not quite know what to say. “Yes,” she said. And then, “But I prefer roses. Though neither will bloom for several months yet.”

Tom had evidently exhausted all of his knowledge of flowers with his cowslip comment, and seemed stumped by the idea of roses. He began to tell Jane about a horse at the stable that had a peculiar boil on his forelock. Though she wasn’t especially fond of horses, Jane thought with relief that at least when Tom was talking, it wasn’t so uncomfortable. She could nod and smile intermittently, her mind far away with Rossetti, and all was well.

At her doorstep he paused in his story, and began to squirm. Jane thought with dread that he was going to ask to see her again.

“My parents,” he said, “would like to call on your parents. Would that be all right with you?”

“Of course,” said Jane with difficulty. “I shall enjoy meeting them.”

“Would Tuesday next be all right?”

“That would be fine. They can come for tea.”

“Then it’s settled,” he said, and smiled, horribly, Jane thought.

“Yes,” she said. She watched him saunter away and, when she was sure he was gone, ran as fast as she could toward the woods where she and Bessie liked to go and gather walnuts. She could not face her family just yet. Her mother would be sure to make suggestive comments and Jane did not think she could stand to listen to her.

She returned in late afternoon with three mushrooms, which mollified her mother somewhat. Still, all through dinner Mrs. Burden made references to “Jane’s beau” until Jane wanted to run to the well and drown herself in it.

That evening they were surprised by a knock at the door. Jane thought perhaps Tom Barnstable had come back, and her heart began to beat wildly. She did not allow herself to hope that it could be Rossetti. She looked at Bessie in a panic, hoping she would see her alarm and answer it, but Bessie was very nearsighted and her lap was full of mending. She made no move to get up. Mrs. Burden looked at Jane.

“You expecting a guest?” she asked.

Jane shook her head.

“Must be someone selling something. Not a very smart salesperson, to come here. I’ll get rid of them. Knowing you, you’d feel sorry for him and take out every penny of the egg money for his books or his shoe polish or his cutlery.” With a groan Mrs. Burden rose and went to the door.

“Pardon me,” said a voice Jane thought she recognized. “Might I speak with Mrs. Burden?”

Jane leaped from her seat and went to the door, but Mrs. Burden was blocking it with her body. Over her mother’s shoulder Jane could see Burne-Jones, looking gangly and uncomfortable.