The Wayward Muse (27 page)

No, unless she wrote a letter that contained only the blandest of generalities, it would be difficult to write to her husband at all. She put the cork back in the ink bottle and left her desk.

T
HE
day came, early in September, when word arrived that her husband had landed in Scotland. It would take him three days to reach Kelmscott.

“Have you thought about what we agreed?” asked Rossetti that night after the girls were asleep and the fire had burned down to glowing embers.

“You want to do it now?” she asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. As much as she was dreading Rossetti’s departure and the arrival of Morris, she was terrified at the idea of taking such a step. Could she really count on Rossetti? Would he be able to take care of her?

“Is there a better time?” Rossetti asked. “The girls will be all right with their nanny until Thursday. Morris will come back and find us gone. You can even write him a long letter if you like, though I’m sure explanations won’t be necessary.”

“Are you sure this is the right step?” said Jane. “Are you sure you won’t get tired of me, that we won’t quarrel and you won’t leave me at the foot of Mount Olympus or something?”

Rossetti smiled and patted her cheek. “I will never be tired of you as long as I live, no matter where we go or what we do.”

They were to leave in the morning. Jane stayed up very late packing her things. She was not asleep when Jenny came in the night to tell her that May was moaning in her sleep and seemed ill. Jane went to her and found her tossing and turning, bathed in sweat.

“She has a fever,” said Jane. “Wake Nanny and tell her to bring a basin of cool water and some towels.” Though she was worried about May, she felt dizzy and light-headed with relief. She could never leave the girls now. Not even Rossetti would expect her to.

The doctor came to examine May and did not think her seriously ill, but left some medicine and told her to keep a careful eye on the girl. He did not have to encourage Jane, who hovered over the bed all day, arranging pillows, bathing her with cool compresses, and feeding her anything she agreed to eat. After several hours of it, May became churlish.

“You’d think I was dying,” she grumbled. “I heard the doctor, I’m going to be jumping rope by the time Papa comes.”

Then Jane began to cry, thinking of how close she had come to leaving them, perhaps forever.

“I’m not dying, Mama,” said May, touching her hand. “I promise.” They both looked over at Jenny, who was reading on her bed.

“It’s because Papa’s coming, isn’t it?” said Jenny, wisely.

They were all in the garden when Morris arrived. The girls ran to the drive when they heard the carriage and squealed with delight when they caught sight of the thick-coated pony trotting along behind. Jane and Rossetti watched quietly as they threw themselves on the man who emerged from the carriage, hurling questions about the pony.

“His name is Mouse,” Morris said. “I bought him in Reykjavik and a very reliable traveling companion he was. Never stumbled.”

“Is he ours to keep?” asked Jenny.

“Can we ride him?” asked May.

“Yes, and yes,” said Morris. He lifted first Jenny, then May onto the pony.

“Grab hold of the mane,” he instructed. “You won’t hurt him.” He handed the lead to the carriage driver and turned to face his wife and her lover.

“Did you enjoy being up to your neck in ice, Top?” asked Rossetti, shaking his hand. “It certainly seems to have agreed with you.” He was indeed thinner, as he had said, and his face was tan.

“Thank you,” said Morris. He was not looking at Jane, or at Rossetti, but at the girls on the pony. “I’m quite exhausted actually. The train journey was much worse than any hardship I endured on the trail.”

“You’ll want some tea, I suppose,” said Jane finally. She had hoped that she could behave warmly and naturally, but she found she felt awkward and that as a result, her voice was colder than she would have liked.

“Just have someone bring a tray to my room,” said Morris. “I’m worn out. I may fall asleep in the middle of eating and I think that would set a bad example were I to do it at the table in front of the kiddies.”

“I’ll bring it,” said Jane.

“There’s no need,” said Morris. “Katie can do it just as well.”

Rossetti and Jane ate a rather silent supper.

“I’ll go tomorrow,” he said. “Now that appearances have been preserved.”

“Don’t go,” Jane begged.

“There’s nothing to stay for now. Everything is spoiled when he is here. No, I’d rather go back to Tudor House and draw and imagine that we are back here, alone together. That is how it must be, apparently, until next summer.”

“Aren’t I coming to sit for Proserpine next week?”

“Yes, but don’t you remember your promise to your husband? In London we must be friends only.”

Jane felt that she might dissolve at any moment into a weepy mass of despondency, but she tried to remain composed.

“Unless…,” Rossetti said. “Unless you change your mind and leave with me tonight.”

“I can’t,” Jane said. “The girls…”

“Of course,” said Rossetti, not looking at her. He stood up from the table. “My train is very early tomorrow. I’d better say good night.”

“Gabriel,” she pleaded.

He bowed and walked away.

When Jane awoke, Rossetti was gone. Everything seemed drained of color: the bed curtains in her room were dingy; the sky outside her window was hazy and gray; the face in her hand mirror was pallid. She went to the garden to read but the blush roses were white and wilting.

She had been staring at the same page for an hour when her husband emerged.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, feeling ridiculously polite and formal.

“Like the dead,” he said. “I hadn’t realized how much I missed a feather bed. Though I must be careful, now that I’ve toughened up, not to go soft. I may have to sleep out here, or perhaps in the boat. That sounds chilly and uncomfortable.”

“When are we returning to London?” she asked. Morris frowned.

“Are you so eager to leave? Do you not enjoy it here?”

“I love Kelmscott,” she said. “I was only thinking the girls must resume their lessons.”

“In three weeks,” Morris said. “But if you are set on leaving, we’ll go tomorrow.” He paused. “I hope that the summer was satisfying?”

“It was lovely,” said Jane.

“You didn’t write to me,” Morris said.

“I didn’t know what to say,” said Jane.

“It’s a shame that everywhere I look, I see you and Gabriel together,” he said bitterly, “because this really is a wonderful house. So elegant in its Tudor solidity.”

“It’s been idyllic,” said Jane. “Thank you.”

“Where are the girls?” he said, standing up.

“Down by the river,” said Jane. “They have run completely wild this summer. They will be sorry to go back to London.”

“I think I’ll go to them,” he said. He left her there alone.

T
HE
fall and winter had passed quietly. Morris had been busy with the Firm and came home only to sleep. Jane and her husband had seldom gone out together because it was too awkward to pretend. As a result she had seen Rossetti socially very infrequently, though she still modeled for him regularly. But through all of the gray days, when the icy winds blew the rain against the parlor glass and Jenny practiced the piano and May sang slightly off-key, Jane had thought about Kelmscott. She thought about Rossetti’s touch, and about the peonies in the garden, and the willow herb and mugwort that grew on the banks of the river. She thought about the neighbor’s dog that had been rescued in the flood, and about the cook’s strawberry preserves. Sometimes it seemed impossible that she could wait out the days and the months until it was time to return.

Now it was May, and the summer was only a few weeks away. Jane went to Tudor House to model, as usual, but Rossetti did not answer the bell.

Finally she pushed on the door and discovered that it was not locked. She went inside, calling his name, but there was no answer. At last she found him in bed, an empty quart bottle in the covers with him, a glass of whiskey on the bedside table. For a moment her heart stopped. Had he decided to join Lizzie? Then he groaned and jerked his head. Jane removed the bottle, covered him properly, and went downstairs to wait.

She paced the studio and examined Rossetti’s work. He was about to begin his painting of her as Proserpine and there were sketches pinned everywhere of her holding a pomegranate. There were drawings of the pomegranate alone, its flesh open to reveal a cross section of seeds. There were several drawings of just her hand holding the pomegranate. There were pastel drawings of just her eyes, and of the ivy that was to curl behind her head. Jane reflected that it was strange she could find these studies so compelling, when looking at Morris’s sketches never failed to bore her.

After an hour she went back to Rossetti’s room. His eyes were open but he had not moved.

“What has happened?” she said, sitting on the bed beside him and taking his hand. He gestured toward the table. She had not noticed, in her horror at the sight of the chloral, the pamphlet that was lying there. It was by Buchanan. Jane flipped through it and saw that it was an expanded version of the original article attacking Rossetti.

“You see he will not rest until I’m destroyed,” Rossetti said. “He and the others.”

Jane was afraid. “That’s madness, Gabriel dear.”

“Is it? Or are you in league with them?” He clutched her wrist tightly and pulled her to him. Her face was very close to his and she smelled his sour breath.

“I love you,” she said, kissing the hand that held her fast.

“I know,” Rossetti said mournfully, releasing her. “It’s just that I didn’t sleep last night. That’s why I took the chloral. The words of the pamphlet kept ringing in my head, attacking me, mocking me, laughing at me for my poor pathetic poetry, which isn’t good for anything. I should have left it to rot with Lizzie.”

“You need to sleep,” said Jane. “I’ll go.”

“Sit with me,” he said. “I’m afraid to be alone. It’s the voices.”

She stayed until he was asleep again, and went home with a heavy heart. She wrote to William Rossetti, but he didn’t reply.

Two days later she visited Rossetti again and found him with his head bandaged. He had accused his brother of being in league with Buchanan and had tried to physically remove him from the house. In the process he had fallen down the front steps and cut his head badly on the iron railing.

It was terrifying to see him in such a state. When the doctor came to examine his head, Rossetti screamed at him and had to be restrained. Several of the servants left. Jane was afraid to go to see him but also afraid not to. She could not abandon him when he was so obviously suffering, but neither could she talk him out of his delusions. He had an answer for every argument, whether it made sense or not. If she told him he was unreasonable or that his accusations were nonsense, he accused her of being Buchanan’s whore. Once he threw her from the house and locked all of the doors.

Then came the day when her letters went unanswered. For three days she tried to reach him but could not. Finally, in a panic, she asked Morris to go to Tudor House and find out what was wrong.

“His brother is there,” said Morris when he returned. “Gabriel’s raving. William’s keeping back your letters.”

“But why?” cried Jane.

“They blame you,” Morris said. “William and the doctors. They think the stress of your liaison has broken him down.”

“But it’s the chloral,” said Jane helplessly. “And Buchanan. You know it’s not my fault.”

“You triggered the change in him,” said Morris coldly.

“No,” said Jane, “it can’t be.”

“I don’t know,” said Morris wearily. “Perhaps the passion you inspire in him has unhinged his mind. He’s always been a little bit wrong, and then Lizzie’s death.”

“But they have doctors there?” asked Jane. “He will get well?”

“I don’t know,” said Morris.

The next day she received a letter from Rossetti, asking her where she had been and why she had not written. They returned to their usual routine without acknowledging what had occurred.

A month later she again went to Tudor House to model, but there was no answer. This time, however, when Jane went inside, Rossetti wasn’t there. Panicked, she went to William Rossetti’s house, then the doctor’s. No one was home at either place. In tears, she went home to Queen Square and found Burne-Jones having tea with Morris. It was he who told her what had happened.

“They’ve taken him to Roehampton,” Burne-Jones said. “A doctor’s house there. For a change of air and scene.”

“And company, I suppose,” sobbed Jane.

She wrote Rossetti letters, telling him to be strong and to think of his painting and of the time they would spend together in the summer, but she never received a reply. She knew William Rossetti was confiscating them, yet she continued to write. It was the only thing she could do for her lover.

She began to have nightmares. One night she dreamed that Rossetti had died and that his ghost had come to her and was standing next to the bed. Some days later she learned that he had swallowed an entire bottle of chloral and had been unconscious for thirty-six hours. It made her wonder whether his interest in séances was so foolish after all.

Morris took her to see Rossetti in Roehampton, before he was taken to Scotland to the home of his patron William Graham. When she went in he was very groggy. His body was slack from inactivity and very pale from spending all of his time indoors. At first he seemed not to recognize her. She spoke to him in a too loud, too cheerful voice about what she had been up to in London while he had been gone and how sure she was that he would be better soon. At last he took her hand and murmured, “My sweet,” and she began to cry. No one but Rossetti saw the tears. She went into his room calm and composed and that is the way she exited, leading his brother to remark that her heart was as cold as a cinder. But she didn’t care what the others thought. They didn’t know her. Only Rossetti mattered.

A few days later Morris accompanied her to Kelmscott Manor and returned to London for the summer. May chose to go with her and Jenny chose to stay with her father.

The cook had made plum jam and ginger scones, and the garden was riotous with apricot foxglove and sweet peas and corn-flowers, but neither Jane nor May could enjoy it.

“It’s quiet,” said May. “I remember it being noisy. And the house seems gloomy. Without Jenny here I won’t be able to put on any plays. Monologues are no fun. And I suppose you won’t let me go down to the river by myself, so I’ll be stuck in the house.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Jane, thinking that she, too, found the house gloomy and would be better off outside.

The very next day she took May canoeing, and they went to the spot of that first picnic, but although they saw a family of foxes, it failed to cheer them up. The next day May spent with her friend Alice Turnham and seemed to forget her complaints. But Jane did not have a friend to visit and the days continued to be sad and lonely.

Jane knew that Rossetti was doing his best to convince his doctors that it was safe for him to come to her, but she didn’t know if he would be able to. She had no letter from him in June or July. She began to suspect that he was dead and no one was telling her. But Morris had promised that whatever happened, he would let her know. All she could do was wait.

In early September Morris came down to take them back to London.

“Any news?” she asked her husband.

“He is better,” Morris said. “They think he is out of danger. He still wants to come here, and his brother is thinking about giving in and letting him. You’ll be back in London, of course. William still thinks it best that you not see each other.”

“I’m not leaving here until I see Rossetti,” said Jane. “I don’t care what William thinks is best.”

“All right,” said Morris. “I’ll take May back, and you can write to me when you are ready to return home.”

When the carriage pulled into the drive, she ran out to meet it and could hardly believe that the man who emerged was her lover. He moved slowly, and needed help getting down. He was bundled to the eyes but she could see that he was very, very thin. His face was very pale and clean shaven, making him look much younger. But it was his eyes that alarmed her. They were empty. They did not shine with joy when he saw her. His face did not change.

“My dear,” he said flatly, without expression. “I am here.”

“I’ve been waiting,” she said.

They sat on the riverbank. Rossetti became cold easily now and wore his coat buttoned all the way to his neck and wrapped a blanket around his legs. She thought of the summer before, when he had rowed in his shirtsleeves and performed gymnastics for the children. She wondered if he was thinking of it, too, but his hat was pulled down low over his eyes and she could not see the expression on his face.

“What shall we do today?” she asked, hoping that the old Rossetti would jump up and proclaim that they should mow the hay-fields, or that they should go into Oxford and buy bookmaking supplies. But he said nothing. She wondered if he could have fallen asleep sitting up.

“My brother has always hated me, you know,” he said at last.

“William?” she said, her heart pounding. “No, Gabriel, that’s not true. He’s devoted to you.”

“Oh, that’s what he wants everyone to think. So devoted, everyone says. So kind to lend his brother money all the time, and to arrange things for him when he was unwell. He wants to make a prisoner of me. It’s what he’s always wanted. If he can have me certified as insane, then he can lock me up and control me forever.”

“He’s going to have you certified?” said Jane.

“It certainly seems that way,” said Rossetti grimly.

“How do you come to know this?” said Jane. “Have you heard something?”

“It’s nothing I’ve heard,” said Rossetti. “It’s what I’ve put together. It makes sense, doesn’t it? He’s always been jealous of me, since we were boys. He’s been biding his time, waiting for his moment.”

It certainly seemed to Jane that William should have been jealous of Rossetti, who of the two of them had inherited most of the talent, and who had been constantly cosseted. The sacrifices William had made for Gabriel might have made any man resentful. And yet he had never seemed so to her. When she had seen him at Roehampton, he looked haggard and frightened. She had no doubt that removing Rossetti from London had been a good-faith effort on William’s part to save his brother’s life. And with a sigh she realized that there was no reasoning with the man beside her.

“He seems to be genuinely worried about you,” she said, though she knew it would do no good.

“Treachery,” said Rossetti, and began to quote from
Othello.
“He’s not the only one against me, you know.”

“There’s someone else?” said Jane.

“I think you know who I’m talking about,” said Rossetti darkly. Jane said nothing. She waited instead for the mood to pass and lucidity to return, as it sometimes did. Some days Rossetti seemed almost himself, if less boisterous, and she could tell herself that he was recovering from an illness, like pneumonia.

“Perhaps we should go in and rest,” she suggested after a time.

“I am rather tired,” he said. “I have such terrible dreams at night that sometimes I’m afraid to go to sleep.”

She walked with him to his room, but he did not want her to come in. “I’m perfectly capable of getting myself into bed,” he said, shaking her hand off his arm. “I don’t need you to nurse me.”

Jane remained composed until she was in her room with the door closed. Then she threw herself onto the bed and succumbed to anguished sobs. How could he treat her this way?

Of course, she reflected some time later, after she had spent herself, God could not allow them to be happy, even if her husband could. This was the price she had to pay for the golden summer she had had the year before. She thought she could stand anything if she knew that Rossetti would eventually get well. William Rossetti, guided by the doctor who had treated his brother in Roehampton, was hopeful. They thought a change of air and rest might be all that was necessary.