Authors: Elizabeth Hickey
Jane blushingly lowered her eyes again. “I wish I could read Byron or Shelley,” she whispered to herself. But Rossetti had heard.
“When you come to my house in London, you shall read them to your heart’s content,” he said, and Jane thrilled at the way he assumed that she would come one day.
Jane was taking tea with Miss Lipscombe when Morris approached her, carrying a small bundle.
“Your costume,” he said abruptly, and would have walked away, but Miss Lipscombe stopped him.
“How very unfair of the others, to make you their messenger!” She flashed Morris a flirtatious smile. “Don’t you think, Jane?”
“I don’t mind,” said Morris gravely. “I like designing the costumes nearly as much as painting them.”
“Dear me, and do you sew them as well?”
“Mr. Rossetti says you have designed the knights’ armor,” Jane interposed, hoping he was not too offended by Miss Lipscombe’s insinuating tone.
“I’d have forged it myself, too,” said Morris, eagerly, “but the Oxford Union is not equipped for such an undertaking. I had to go to a blacksmith in town. Though he let me temper the steel and hammer it out, so I was able to learn the process. Next time I’ll make my own suit of armor.”
Jane thought it was a very odd life, to have even one occasion for making a suit of armor, much less two.
“How do you know what to draw?” she asked. “How do you know what a chain-mail gorget would have looked like?”
“There are illustrations in medieval texts,” he answered, looking pleased that she had asked. “I have a good memory for things of that kind.”
Miss Lipscombe was bored with the turn of the conversation.
“Let us see the dress, Mr. Morris,” she said. She nodded to Jane. “And then I’ll show you where to change.”
Morris held the package out toward Jane and she reached for it. At the moment of transfer, however, Morris leaped back, as if she were infected with the plague, and the package fell to the floor. Blushing and apologizing, Morris picked it up and set it on the table, then practically ran to the other side of the room and his own easel. Jane unwrapped the package and saw that it held a moss green velvet dress, straight and loose, with gold embroidery on the sleeves, and a cape of peacock feathers, tied with teal silk ribbons.
“It’s lovely,” said Jane. “Where on earth did he find real peacock feathers?”
“He’s clever that way,” said Miss Lipscombe. “He might know a gentleman in London who owns a trimmings store, or he might have plucked them from the tails of the birds at his mother’s park. Whatever he needs, he figures out a way to get it.”
Jane’s opinion of Morris rose.
She put on her Guinevere gown and cape in the office that was used as a dressing room. She noticed that the velvet was made of fine silk and that the smocking on the bodice was impeccably done. Morris must have spent a fortune on this dress, Jane thought. Though no measurements had been taken, it fit her perfectly, and she could tell by the eyes on her when she walked to Rossetti’s easel that it suited her.
Jane stepped into her place and clasped her hands to her breast. She lifted her face to the ceiling and closed her eyes. She waited for the muttering and the sawing sound of pencil on paper, but there was silence.
“Is something wrong?” called out Jane nervously. She did not see Rossetti turn and catch sight of her, but she heard the intake of his breath.
“My God,” he whispered. “It is Guinevere.”
Jane opened her eyes and found that Rossetti was staring at her with a terrifying intensity. In his expression she saw admiration, and awe, and a little bit of fear. It said that she was the only woman in the world.
In a moment he had her by the shoulders and was pushing her toward the changing-room door.
“What is it?” asked Jane fearfully. “What are you doing?” Rossetti didn’t answer. Jane stumbled backward as she looked around. Was anyone watching? But all eyes in the room seemed to be on their own work.
When they were inside the changing room and the door was shut behind them, Rossetti took her face in both his hands and kissed her, knocking her backward, into the rack of costumes. Fervidly she returned his kiss. Coats and gowns were torn off their hangers and fell to the floor.
“Forgive me, Guinevere,” he breathed. He grasped the bodice of the beautiful dress and for a moment she worried that he might tear it. “I’ve tried to contain it but it will not be contained.” He kissed her again and all thought disappeared. His body pressed against hers was solid and insistent.
“This is wrong,” he gasped. He pulled away to look at her. He pushed a lock of her dark hair out of her face and held it in his hand.
“I don’t care,” Jane said. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him harder. It didn’t bother her that he had called her the name of a mythical figure from long ago.
“Rossetti,” they heard Faulkner call. “I’m lifting the last scone to my lips, and if you want it you’ll have to fight me for it.”
As if released from some magical enchantment, they broke apart.
“Wait here,” whispered Rossetti. “I’ll slip out and in a few minutes you do the same. No one will be the wiser.”
“I’m unsheathing my sword,” he called to Faulkner, “and I vow on all that is sacred that the scone will be mine!” He kissed Jane once more and then, opening the door just a crack, squeezed through and joined his friends.
Jane waited for her breathing to slow and the beads of sweat on her forehead to evaporate before she left the costume closet and returned to her place in front of Rossetti’s easel. If any of the other gentlemen noticed anything, they remained discreetly silent.
T
HAT
afternoon, Mrs. Burden eyed Jane suspiciously as she carefully counted her pay. She might not have been able to read a train schedule, but she never miscalculated by a penny.
“He hasn’t taken you out, has he?” she asked sharply. “Mrs. Harris’s son is a porter at the union and he told her…You haven’t gone anywhere with him, to the river, or out the Iffley Road to pick violets, have you?”
Jane shook her head dreamily, imagining lying on the bank of the river with Rossetti, watching the herons and swans glide by in the placid water. Her mother saw her smile and was beside her in a second, her tanned, muscular hand digging into the flesh of Jane’s upper arm.
“Mind what you let this gentleman do with you,” she said in a low undertone. “There are worse things than marrying someone you don’t care for, you know.”
“I don’t understand you,” Jane stammered.
“I think you do,” said her mother. “But that’s all I’ll say about it. Thanks to him we’ve got extra chickens and a new cooking pot. Another week and Jamey can have a new pair of boots. The old ones are more holes than leather.” She had never said thank you, but Jane did not expect her to.
“How does he court you, with all of those other gentlemen around?” whispered Bessie as they lay in bed that night. “I would think it would be quite awkward.”
“He doesn’t give me presents, if that’s what you mean,” said Jane, thinking about the kiss. “And he doesn’t flirt.”
“Has he ever written you a note, or a poem?” asked Bessie. “Has he ever spoken to you of his feelings?” Jane had to admit that he had not.
“I don’t think I’d like it to be just unspoken knowledge,” said Bessie. “I wouldn’t like to think I’d misjudged.”
Jane only laughed. Rossetti knew something that the people of Holywell Street did not. He knew she was a fairy queen. She was a princess taken from her royal position at birth and placed with a lowly family for her protection, he said, and she had almost begun to believe it herself. She basked in the romance of this secret; she gloried in this new idea of herself. Her silence was now called dignity and condescension rather than stupidity. Her height and her skinniness were regal rather than ugly. It was no wonder that Jane glowed, or that her mother suspected she was doing something she shouldn’t. Jane felt a little sorry for Bessie now, with her sights set on a very thin, very homely shop assistant.
The next day Jane went to the studio and immediately changed into her costume. When Rossetti came in, though, he did not want to sketch.
“Come with me,” he said, taking her hand. “I want to look at the wall where I’m to paint. Plan things out.”
“Up there?” asked Jane with alarm. “Are you sure it’s quite safe?”
Rossetti laughed. “As safe as being on the ground. Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall.”
So with Rossetti behind her to catch her if she slipped, Jane lifted her encumbering skirt with one hand and held on for dear life with the other. She tried not to look at the hard marble floor below her.
Once on the platform, she felt better. It was penned in by a rough wooden fence and it would have taken some doing to fall over the side. Through the slats she could see the tops of the artists’ heads, but they seemed very far away.
“Which part of the wall is yours?” she asked, feeling dizzy. She saw that some of the others had already begun their frescoes.
“Here,” Rossetti said, pointing to the white space between stenciled flowers by Morris and a completed scene of Merlin by Burne-Jones. But he did not look at it. Instead he caught her around the waist.
“Kiss me, Guinevere,” he said. “My heart’s desire.”
“Here?” she said between kisses. “Are you sure?”
“Why not?” he said. “No one can see us.” He was making alarmingly quick work of the slippery velvet-covered buttons on the front of her dress. She wriggled free of him before he disrobed her entirely.
“Won’t they hear us?” she asked, rebuttoning as fast as she could.
“Morris!” Rossetti called to the man below. Morris did not look up. “You see?” he said, crawling toward her once again. But Jane was still uncertain. Her mother’s words came to her, unbidden. There are worse things than being married to a man you dislike.
Rossetti had opened her dress again and was sucking at her breast in a way that made Jane gasp. “Mr. Rossetti!” she cried.
“Don’t call me that,” he said, panting a little. “Call me Launcelot.” He pulled her onto the hard wooden planks and pinned her arms above her head.
Jane tried but found she couldn’t say it. “Sir,” she said instead, “I’m sorry but I cannot do this.” She was beginning to be frightened.
Rossetti released her hands and sat up. Jane held the bodice of her dress closed with her hand.
“Of course you can’t,” he said, looking down at her mournfully. “It’s just…I thought I would never find you. You’re like some kind of miracle, emerging from the mist, from the darkness.”
“I know what you mean,” said Jane, thinking of Holywell Street.
“You do?” His eyes held her fast. He took her hand. “Well, then. How many people find that? How many people die searching for it? I can’t just relinquish it, not if you feel the same. I won’t!”
His kiss was gentle this time, beseeching. Before Jane knew what she was doing, she was pulling off Rossetti’s waistcoat and tugging at his shirt. His body was cool and smelled of bergamot and anise. She let him fold back her skirt and pull off her petticoat and pull down her knickers, shuddering as he touched her. The pain when he pushed himself into her combined with the fleeting thought that he was taking her virginity, ruining her prospects and perhaps her life. But she could not be sorry. There were worse things than giving yourself to the man you loved.
He moved above her and she watched his face until she, too, was forced to close her eyes. “Yes,” they said together. The starlings that had flown in through the transoms and gathered on the ceiling beams startled and wheeled away with a cymbal crash of wings.
J
AMEY
was waiting for her at the gate, his hands in his pockets, his cap pulled low. His empty messenger bag dangled from his shoulder. As soon as he saw her, he started walking and Jane had to hurry to catch him. Jane felt her heart swelling with love for her brother.
“How was your day?” she asked sweetly.
“Nuh,” he grunted.
Jane felt serious, almost prayerful. She knew that her life had irrevocably changed and she thought she should commemorate it in some way. They passed St. Michael’s Church and she thought about going in to light a candle, but she would never be able to explain that to Jamey.
Jane was not innocent of how children came into the world. She also knew what happened to the unmarried girls who were with child. Somehow, though, she was not worried. She knew everything would come right.
The next day it was raining sideways and she was soaked and chilled when she arrived at the Union, but she didn’t care. There would be a fire in the studio and Rossetti would stand beside her and talk to her while she dried herself off. He would make her tea and toast.
Morris answered the door. She nodded a greeting, walked past him to Rossetti’s place, and began removing her wet coat and hat and gloves. It appeared that she and Morris were the first ones there. Rossetti was nowhere to be seen, but she thought that perhaps he’d gone out for supplies. He would need drying out and warming up, too, when he got back. Morris had followed her across the room, she noticed with annoyance. He was standing behind her clearing his throat.
“Miss Burden?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Rossetti was called back to London on urgent business. He sends you his most heartfelt apologies.”
Rossetti’s easel was exactly as he had left it. The drawing from the day before was still pinned to it. The charcoal he had dropped was still under his table.
“Is he all right? Is he ill?” Jane did not understand.
“He’s quite well,” mumbled Morris, looking at his feet.
“What is it then?” she said with growing alarm. “Someone in his family? His father?”
“No,” Morris said. “They are all fine.”
“When will he be coming back?”
The pause before Morris spoke was practically unendurable.
“He has no plans to return in the immediate future,” Morris said. He held a crumpled letter in his fist and now he began to nervously tear it. The white pieces floated to the floor like chips of paint. “In this note he asked me to pack up his supplies and bring them back with me when I’m finished. The last two of his murals will have to remain unpainted. Perhaps we can fill in the space with some sort of stenciled decoration.”
Jane scarcely heard Morris talking about the murals. She no longer saw the hall. She had receded to a still point in her mind where her own voice repeated, “Rossetti has gone.”
“You’re very white,” she heard Morris say. He sounded miles away. Jane did not feel his hand on her trembling shoulder when he led her to a chair and sat her down in it, and went to find dry clothes and hot tea. In a few moments a warm robe was placed over her shoulders and a steaming cup was in her hand.
“I didn’t know he was leaving either,” said Morris miserably. “I found the note when I came down to breakfast.”
“Rossetti has gone,” said Jane stupidly.
“Shall I send for the doctor?” asked Morris, looking alarmed. With difficulty Jane roused herself.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said, placing her cup carefully in its saucer. “As I am no longer needed, I will go home. Thank you for your kind attentions.”
Jane thanked God her mother was gone for the day, sitting with a neighbor who was in childbirth. She sat in front of the fire with her sewing basket in her lap, but she did no work at all. Rossetti has gone, she said to herself. He has no plans to return.
Why would he leave so suddenly? Even if he didn’t care at all for her, why would he leave his work unfinished? Why, if some emergency called him away, could he not attend to it and then come back? Why didn’t he say goodbye?
There was something Morris was not telling her. Jane turned over in her mind all that she knew about Rossetti, but she couldn’t figure it out. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she stood, spilling her sewing basket on the floor. She did not stop to pick it up. Morris might not be willing to tell her what he knew, but Miss Lipscombe would.
“Lizzie Siddal,” Miss Lipscombe said, handing Jane her cup. She had evinced no surprise when Jane appeared at her door, nearly in tears. She had greeted Jane quite cordially and ushered her into a comfortable sitting room.
“She was found in a hat shop,” the young lady went on. “Can you imagine that?” Jane cringed, but Miss Lipscombe didn’t notice. “Somewhere called Cranborne Alley, off Leicester Square. She was working there. It wasn’t Mr. Rossetti who found her, it was one of his friends. He’d accompanied his mother there. Such a funny story. And then Mr. Rossetti went back to see her and convinced her to model, and not long after they got engaged. That was, I think, six years ago. I can’t think why they haven’t married, though I’m sure they will now. Of course, Lizzie might die. They say she’s always been delicate, but she may have full-blown consumption this time.”
Impeccable timing, Jane thought in spite of herself. It was as if Lizzie knew Rossetti was slipping away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she reproached Miss Lipscombe.
The girl looked truly penitent. “I didn’t think,” she said. “It didn’t seem as if you liked him. Is your heart quite broken?”
Jane could only stare into her cup, the tears falling off her cheeks into her tea. “Can he really love her so much, if they’ve been engaged for six years and never married?” she choked.
“Well, I don’t know,” evaded Miss Lipscombe. “They say that almost all of his paintings and drawings are of her.” Jane realized that she had never seen any of Rossetti’s paintings and drawings, other than the ones of herself. Despite her questions and Rossetti’s loquacious answers, she really knew nothing of his life in London. Chatham Place and armadillos, that was all she knew. Even if she’d wanted to go to London, she would not know how to find him.
Jane knew it was wicked, but she fervently wished that Lizzie would die. Then Rossetti would be free. But if he loved her…
“Let me think, what else do I know about it?” said Miss Lipscombe. “They say Lizzie wants to be an artist herself and is quite good.”
“Is she very beautiful?” asked Jane.
“Like an angel,” confirmed Miss Lipscombe.
They were not married. That was some comfort. But what she had heard spoke to Jane of a shameful illicit relationship. Though she supposed if Rossetti had asked, she would have done it, just as this delicate, possibly dying Lizzie had done. But he had not asked. He had left, and he had not even written her a note!
Jane dreaded going home, but it was already dark and she was late. Miss Lipscombe had things to attend to, though she pressed Jane’s hand sympathetically as she left.
“Don’t think of him again,” she said. “He’s a beast. All London men are. They’re great fun for flirting, but when the time comes I’ll marry an Oxfordshire man.”
When Jane got home her sewing basket had been picked up and was sitting on the kitchen table. Her mother was there, pulling the innards from a chicken. Blood dripped from her hands and the smell made Jane feel faint and nauseated.
From the look on her mother’s face, Jane guessed she had been talking to Mrs. Harris again. “So your Italian gentleman has gone,” Mrs. Burden said with satisfaction. “Back to his wife?”
“Yes,” said Jane. There was no point in explaining. It would only make things worse.
“We’ll have to arrange for a meeting with young Tom’s family then,” said Mrs. Burden. “We can’t waste any time. If your reputation’s not already ruined from posing for those gentlemen. And if we didn’t make the Barnstables too angry, calling it off the last time. It may be that even Tom won’t have you now.”
Now Jane stayed at home. After her time at the studio, Holywell Street seemed even bleaker and more desolate than before. She prayed desperately that Rossetti would send her a letter. Even if he told her that he loved her but could never be with her, that would be something. She could live on the memory of him, if she had to. But nothing came.
A week later Tom and his parents came to tea. It was a dismal affair. Tom looked as unhappy with the arrangement as she felt. Tom’s mother looked at her as if she were a piece of livestock. “She looks strong,” Mrs. Barnstable said.
“Oh, she is,” agreed Mrs. Burden. “She can lift that heavy copper pot when it’s completely full. And she almost never catches cold, even when the rest of us are too feverish to get out of bed.”
“Can she read and write?” asked Mr. Barnstable.
“Well enough,” said Mr. Burden, who had stayed home from the pub for the event. Jane knew that her father had never bothered to find out if she could read, or how well, or if she enjoyed books. He gave the answer that he thought would most please Tom’s parents.
“But not too well,” lied Mrs. Burden, anxious to make sure the Barnstables knew that sitting for the artists had not made Jane think too highly of herself. Everyone but Jane laughed.
Jane contemplated drowning herself in the river. It wouldn’t take long, compared with a lifetime on Holywell Street. She wondered if Rossetti would ever hear of it, if she were to kill herself. Would he understand why she had done it? Would he feel remorse? But she stared too long at her reflection in the bottle green water and by the time she had made up her mind to do it, she was late to feed the chickens. Well, there’s always tomorrow, Jane thought as she ran.
That evening she began to bleed. As she pinned a thick cloth to her underclothes, Jane wept. She was not sure if it was with relief or with sorrow. Her only remaining link to Rossetti had been the child she could have been carrying. Now she had nothing.
The next day there was a knock at the door. Jane’s heart leaped with hope.
“Don’t imagine it’s the Italian,” said Mrs. Burden. “It’s most likely Tom. Mind you don’t stand up too straight when you’re walking. I think he’s not quite as tall as you.”
But it was neither Rossetti nor Tom. It was Morris. He looked very uncomfortable standing on their doorstep, and very much disgusted by the squalor all around him. He lifted one foot and then the other, as if to keep them from spending too much time in the dirt.
“Miss Burden,” he said when she answered the door. “You must help me. My Guinevere is all wrong. If you were to pose for me, I’m sure it would come out right.”
“And who is this one?” said Mrs. Burden, coming up behind Jane. “Not another foreigner, I hope.”
Jane made the introductions, and Morris addressed his request to her mother.
“And why should she, when the other fellow used her so cruelly?” Jane thought she would die of shame.
“Because I’ll pay her two shillings an hour,” he said.
Jane and her mother both gasped. It was twice what Rossetti had paid her. Morris was not as callow or as foolish as he looked.
“Can you come tomorrow?” Morris asked Jane.
“She can,” said Mrs. Burden.
All of the other artists had finished and gone, so when Jane stepped into the Debating Hall the next day, it was empty except for Morris and his easel. The paintings on the walls above her gleamed. She could not believe the transformation.
“You like it?” he asked, watching her.
“It’s like seeing the world through stained glass,” she said. She felt that she did not explain herself well, but he looked pleased.
“I understand what you mean,” he said. “Rossetti and his fellows are for making everything strictly naturalistic, but they are also partial to these jewel-box colors. I suppose it’s inconsistent, but it’s turned out well.”
The mention of Rossetti’s name made Jane feel sick. She tried to change the subject.
“Haven’t you completed your part of the ceiling, Mr. Morris?” asked Jane. “Why did you stay behind?”
“Rossetti gave me decorative bits to do,” he answered. He seemed unable to complete a sentence without mentioning his friend, oblivious to the pain it caused Jane. “Sunflowers in corners, things like that. But I wasn’t given any scenes. I wanted to do at least one monumental figure before I left Oxford.”
“I was up there once and saw your sunflowers,” said Jane wistfully. “They’re lovely.”
Morris showed her how to stand and then busied himself at the easel. They were both silent; she could hear the clap of Morris’s pencil against his paper. He made a humming sound that was not quite a tune under his breath. The windows were open and out on the street students called to one another. It was nearly spring and everyone was restless. The fields were too muddy for walking or playing, the Thames and the Cherwell were swollen with rain, and everyone was waiting for the air to warm and a few sunny days to dry things out a bit so that they could be outdoors again.
A newspaper rustled on a nearby chair, and then one after another the pages blew onto the floor. It was excruciating. Jane wanted to call to Morris to stop so that she could pick up the sheets and clamp them down with a paperweight, but he looked so fiercely focused that she hated to interrupt him. She tried not to think of Rossetti. It had been nine days since he’d left. She wondered if Lizzie Siddal had died. Perhaps she had recovered, and was even now convalescing in Rossetti’s Gothic parlor, wearing a carmine cashmere dressing gown while Rossetti spooned custard lovingly into her mouth. Jane shook her head to rid herself of the thought.