The Wayward Muse (9 page)

A few days later there was a sheaf of papers waiting for her when she arrived at the studio. She could not imagine what they could be. She picked them up and read from the topmost page, “Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery,” by William Morris.

“It is my own poor poem,” Morris said. “I am a little bit ashamed to show it to you, but I hope you’ll be generous and not despise it.”

“I’m sure I won’t,” she said, not sure at all. How would it compare with the lines Rossetti had recited to her? Rossetti’s poetry had always seemed to flow effortlessly from him, fully formed and perfect, as if received from the gods. She had never seen any of them written down like this, words crossed out and ink blots marring the page.

“I am putting together a book of poems,” Morris said. “It occupies me at night when I am not at the studio.”

Jane suddenly saw Morris’s evenings, so full of the thoughts in his own head, so starved of human companionship. No wonder he did not know how to talk to her.

She read Morris’s poem that night. It was not so ecstatic as Rossetti’s poetry, but she liked the story. In it the knight Galahad voiced his jealousy of Palomydes and Launcelot because they had fair ladies, and bemoaned his own loveless state. She thought she recognized the parallels between Galahad’s sorrow and Morris’s own. Burne-Jones could easily be Palomydes, wallowing in the self-sacrifice of a distant love and a lengthy engagement. Of course Launcelot was Rossetti, so merry and gallant, with everything coming so easily to him. Then Galahad has a vision of Jesus and is told that to love and serve the Lord is much more important and lasting than earthly love. Jane wasn’t sure she liked that, although she knew Morris was just following the tale as he had read it.

“It is not finished, you know,” Morris said nervously when she arrived the next day. “It is meant to be a long poem and I have only gotten as far as what I gave you.”

“I thought your poem was quite good,” she said. She saw Morris’s face relax in relief. “It’s a familiar subject, of course, but I thought your perspective was original. I really feel as though I understand Galahad in a new way.”

“Thank you,” Morris said. “Of course I hoped to be able to do that, but one never knows if one has succeeded or failed. Most often I fail. But if you gained even a small measure of pleasure from it, then I have been sufficiently rewarded for my effort.”

“I only wondered,” said Jane, “if you really believe that heavenly love is to be sought and valued over earthly love.”

Morris stared at her for a moment, as if not sure how to answer. “Not really,” he said at last. “It’s something loveless people often say to give meaning to their loneliness. Of course I am not Galahad, nor Mallory, for that matter.”

“You have portrayed him so convincingly, I am not sure where the author ends and the character begins. But then I have never known a poet before,” said Jane, not quite truthfully. She was thinking of Rossetti. “You will have to teach me.”

“I’m honored that you think me a poet,” said Morris. “If it does not trouble you too much, would it be all right if I showed you more of my poems?”

Jane was torn. She did not want to give him the wrong idea, but reading his poem had been a wonderful treat. The thought of a new poem, to read in secret every night after her family was asleep, was almost better than the lavish Oxford teas. But how to explain this to Morris?

He was waiting nervously for her answer.

“Of course,” she finally said.

Having overcome her worst nature in relinquishing Rossetti, it was somewhat deflating to receive another letter from him, praising her scruples and declaring his continued affection. She did not reply. She occupied herself with reading Morris’s poems and sitting for his painting. She was amazed by Morris’s prodigious energy. He seemed to write a new poem each night, and to attack the painting each morning with determined zeal. There was something utterly prosaic about him, but Jane found it comforting after her experience with Rossetti. His obsession with knights and chivalry notwithstanding, there was something very solid about him. Rossetti had been a dream: magical, ephemeral. He had made her believe in fairy tales, if only for a moment, and for that, she thought, she would never forgive him.

Morris was painting. Jane was looking toward the window, lost in her own thoughts. She was thinking about the patch of blue sky that was just visible over the top of the chapel across the courtyard. She was thinking about spring, not about Morris at all. She was imagining that Rossetti had come back. Miss Siddal had broken off their engagement after she got well. At first Rossetti had been brokenhearted, but then he said, “I was secretly relieved, Miss Burden, for it allowed me to return to Oxford to see you again. I can only hope and pray that you are still free.” She told him that she was, and he knelt before her and kissed her hand. He pledged his undying love and devotion in words she couldn’t quite work out. Of course they were poetic, much more poetic than anything she could concoct. Instead of focusing on the words, she imagined his eyes, so dark and soft, and his hand, so warm and strong in hers.

“Miss Burden,” Morris said. He had to say it several times before she emerged from her daydream. Jane felt very cross at being interrupted. When she turned to Morris, she saw an expression in his hazel eyes that frightened her. Then she realized that he had turned his canvas around to face her. For the first time she saw the work he had been laboring over all of these weeks. The figure, only in the vaguest sense her size and shape, was a crosshatched mess. The background was muddied with wide angry brushstrokes the color of silt and loam. The bottom of the canvas was still startlingly white, and on it Morris had written, in midnight blue: “I cannot paint you, but I love you.”

J
ANE
sat in stunned silence. Though she knew she had been encouraging Morris, she had hardly dared believe he would declare himself, and if she had imagined it, she would not have thought it would happen so abruptly.

“I am shocked, Mr. Morris,” she finally said. “I do not know what to say.”

“Say you love me as well,” he said. In contrast to his bold declaration, he could not meet her eye but stared down at the floor. “No, I know you cannot say that. Say that one day you might love me.”

“I do not know,” she said. Her head was still filled with Rossetti.

Morris looked encouraged that she had not refused him outright. “Then perhaps I may hope. I apologize for my conduct. I have frightened you, you look most pale. Sit down and I will bring you some water.”

While she sat and sipped the water, he told her, haltingly, how he had fallen in love with her.

“Of course I was overwhelmed by your beauty when I first saw you, as we all were, but I would never have thought of approaching you. You were, and are, perfect, like Aphrodite, high on Mount Olympus, completely untouchable. You were sent here for men to worship from afar, and I was content to do that.”

He paused to give Jane the opportunity to say something, but she couldn’t speak. No matter how much water she drank, her mouth still felt dry. He went on.

“But then I saw how horribly Rossetti had treated you, and how much you suffered. And when I found the courage to visit your home, I saw just what he had left you to. Someone like you should not be doomed to live a life of poverty. You should be celebrated by all. I hope you don’t take this to mean I intend to rescue you. In fact, you would be rescuing me from my loneliness and solitude. I know you understand, from the way you have talked about my poems. It was our conversations about poetry that made me think you might one day learn to care for me.”

“I love poetry, Mr. Morris,” she said helplessly.

“That is something we share,” he said. “I believe there are many other things we could share, if we took the time to discover them.”

“I don’t know,” said Jane, again. She could not believe what she was saying but with his ardor so nakedly on display, she was ashamed of herself for being so calculating. “We hardly know each other.”

“True,” said Morris, who was beginning to look rather glum now that the excitement of his confession was waning. “I apologize. I hope that my outburst will not prevent you from returning to the studio. I assure you such a thing will never happen again.”

“I am sure it won’t,” said Jane.

“Then you will continue to model for me?” pleaded Morris.

“Of course,” she reassured him.

Yet both knew that the matter was far from resolved.

Jane considered her feelings on her walk home, and realized that more than anything she felt guilty. She felt that she was betraying Rossetti by receiving the attentions of someone else. But that was ridiculous. Whether he loved her or not was immaterial. He was not free. She was betraying no one.

Of course she must marry Morris. He was not handsome, she had to admit. He was shorter than she, and plump. His thick curly hair refused to lie neatly, but was always sticking out all over his head. His eyes were small and deeply set. His whiskers were sparse and he seemed to have no lips at all.

On the other hand, he was not Tom Barnstable. He was not hideous or disfigured. His smile was pleasant and his eyes were kind. And he was rich.

Jane admitted that she did feel something for Morris. She was flattered that he cared about her, and grateful for the way he spoke with her about poetry, as if she were intelligent and could understand. She had come to enjoy their conversations. If Rossetti had not come, Jane might have convinced herself that these mildly warm feelings could easily be transformed into love, but now she was not so sure.

Of course she did not tell her mother what had happened at the studio, but though the full story never reached her, people were talking. Mrs. Harris’s son the porter was as useful as ever. In addition, Morris had accounts with many of the stores in town and an uptick in his purchases had been noticed. The lack of discretion among Oxford’s merchant class enabled Mrs. Burden to construct a fairly clear picture of Morris’s financial prospects.

“Seven hundred pounds a year,” she said that evening, apropos of nothing.

“What?” stammered Jane.

“Mr. Morris, he has seven hundred pounds a year,” said Mrs. Burden. “From some kind of mine. Copper, or something. Now that’s a good business. Not a fly-by-night thing like picture painting.”

“Mr. Morris is a painter, Mother,” said Jane.

“He’ll get over it,” said Mrs. Burden. “His prospects are very good. You’re not going to do any better. Though I ought to thank that Italian for drawing Mr. Morris’s attention to you. I doubt he’d have paid any attention otherwise.”

“Mr. Morris isn’t paying me any attention,” said Jane, lowering her gaze to her needlework.

“But he is going to propose,” Mrs. Burden said. “And you are going to accept.”

It was not an observation, it was a command. It was strange, Jane reflected, that while she had decided to accept Morris’s proposal, as soon as her mother spoke, she felt that she would rather die than marry Morris.

“I’m not,” Jane said.

Her mother, surprisingly, did not lose her temper but continued to sew placidly. “Just wait,” said Mrs. Burden.

“Do you think it’s wrong to marry someone you don’t love, if they love you?” she asked Bessie.

“How is it worse than marrying someone you don’t love who doesn’t love you either?” Bessie snapped. She could not forgive her sister for bewitching not one but two of the most eligible gentlemen either of them was likely to see.

“At least that’s honest,” said Jane. “At least no one will be hurt.”

Bessie thought Jane was being ridiculous. “Say you marry him,” she said. “You go to live in a fine house in London, with servants. You never have to do any real work again. You can eat delicious food, and go to the theater whenever you want, and buy books. Your dresses will be nice. Perhaps you’ll travel. Of course there will be the unpleasantness, but how often can that happen? Once or twice a month? You can easily feign illness or a backache.

“Then say you don’t marry him. You’ll marry Tom and move to a cottage down the street. You’ll work even harder than you do now, and you’ll still have the unpleasantness! And Mrs. Burden will come by for tea every day. Or say you don’t marry Tom. You’ll go to work for some lady as a housemaid. Perhaps it will be the new Mrs. Morris! Or at least someone very like her. You’ll wait on her hand and foot for a pittance, all the time knowing it could have been you sitting in her chair, if not for your scruples.”

Still, Jane hesitated. Each day she returned to the studio, determined to keep things neutral until she understood her feelings better. However hard she tried, though, Morris would not be put off. Now a present appeared for her every single day: apricot jellies dusted with powdered sugar, a picture postcard with an engraving of the cathedral at Amiens, a bag of pears, a volume of William Blake. An arrangement from the florist appeared at her house almost daily: iris and apple blossoms, daffodil and sweet pea, bunches of lilac. It was enough to turn the head of a girl much less deprived than Jane.

“You spoil me, Mr. Morris,” she said.

“I intend to be like the lover in ‘The Eve of St. Agnes,’” he said, and recited the lines from the Keats poem to her:

“Do you like dates?” he asked. “If you do I will bring some tomorrow.”

It was worrisome, Jane thought, how consumed he was by her. He said he was writing a poem about her, but that she could not see it until it was perfect. By day, he painted her, and by night, he wrote about her.

He showed her his painting for the first time since the day he’d declared his love, and Jane saw with relief that it was much improved. Though her figure was still little more than a sketch, the background was now complete. The carpet, the curtains, the wall hangings, the bedclothes, all were richly colored and textured. There were oranges and a medieval prayer book on the painted chest next to the bed. In the bed slept a tiny dog. There was a copper jug at her feet and an angel with a harp behind her.

“I think I would like to have such a room someday,” Jane said. “Such rich colors and textures—I think I could be happy there, though Queen Guinevere is not, is she? But I suppose she’s used to it and takes it for granted.”

“I should like to have a room like it myself,” said Morris, looking at her meaningfully. “I intend to, someday, when I have my castle and my heart’s desire.”

Jane dropped her gaze to the floor. Morris saw that she was uncomfortable and quickly turned the conversation.

“Burne-Jones and I have designed some furniture for our flat in London,” he said. “A chest just like the one in my painting, in fact. We found that there was nothing to our liking in any of the shops, so we found someone to make us some heavy medieval things.”

“It’s unlike anything I’ve seen,” Jane said. She thought of the furniture at home, crude, unsanded and unstained pieces her father had made. “But I like it very much.”

Morris flushed with pleasure, but could not seem to accept the compliment. “I’m much better at painting objects than painting the figure,” he lamented. “I don’t know why that is. I try and try, as you know. How many times have I drawn you? A hundred? A thousand? And still your figure is all wrong. As for your face…I know I will not be able to do it justice.”

“I think the shadows in the folds of the drapery look very well.” She did not mean to be too kind, but she could not help trying to be sympathetic, he looked so discouraged and so disgusted with himself.

He shrugged. “Of course. That’s the easy part. A child could draw a drapery.”

“I know I could not,” Jane said.

“You’re too modest,” said Morris, still scowling at his work. “I knew that painting would be the most difficult thing I could endeavor to do, but I am determined. I will be a painter.”

“I believe you, Mr. Morris,” she said. “Anyone who works as hard as you do must succeed.”

With alarm she saw that she had at last said too much. With a sick feeling in her stomach, Jane knew that the moment had come. Morris came toward her and fell to his knees.

“Miss Burden, I cannot wait any longer. I must know if you will marry me.”

She found that when it came to it, she did not know what to do. “I am very honored, Mr. Morris,” she said. “May I ask for the favor of a few days’ consideration?”

“As long as you accept me at the end of that time,” he joked, trying to make light of the situation, but afterward they reverted to their earlier awkward silence. Jane was glad when the day’s work was over.

She wondered if Rossetti knew. Had Morris written to Rossetti of his intentions? It became her new daydream: Rossetti rushing to Oxford to put a stop to Morris’s attentions. He had not known, he told her, how strongly he felt about her until he heard that she might become another’s. Then he swept her into his arms as Morris looked on helplessly. Once she imagined a duel but discarded that fantasy as far too extreme. If Rossetti appeared Morris would abandon the field, she was sure of it. She thought of writing him a letter herself, asking him what she should do, but she could not bring herself to stoop so low.

The next day Morris showed her a letter he had received from Rossetti. It contained a drawing of Morris presenting a ring to Jane. In the drawing Morris’s nose was very long and his chin stuck out very far. He was as squat as a duck. Next to him, Jane gazed down at her hand, a hint of a smile on her lips. She looked pleased and pretty.

The drawing was quite kind to Jane and equally unkind to Morris, but she could not find comfort in it. Rossetti knew. And Morris, by showing her the drawing, was discreetly informing her that Rossetti knew, and that he would not come. He might disapprove, he might be jealous, but he would not stop it, he would not take her away.

That night, as if she sensed that the crisis had come, Jane’s mother sat her down.

“I’ve been patient with you,” she said, “but this has gone too far. You’re to marry Mr. Morris, and if you don’t there’s no place for you in this house.”