The Wayward Muse (6 page)

“You’ve failed with this one,” he was saying to Rossetti. “It’s too schooled, too orderly. Even the brushstrokes seem to all flow in one direction. Think of Tintoret. The earthy exuberance, the seemingly casual composition. Think of Tintoret as you paint, and you will do better.”

Jane stole a glance at the painting, and saw the image of the knight asleep that she had seen a sketch of the very first day. Only now it was rendered in clear, bright colors, ruby and lapis and emerald, like the medieval enamel work in the church treasury. She thought it very beautiful and could not understand why the gentleman complained.

“How can it be too schooled when I’ve never been to school?” snapped Rossetti. “I’m the original savage, remember?”

“You say that, but I know you study,” said the other man, trying to soothe him. “I am saying that you are studying the wrong things.”

“I haven’t looked at another man’s work since I left London,” said Rossetti. He saw Jane and tried to smooth the grimace that was contorting his face. “My dear,” he said. “I would like you to meet our patron, John Ruskin.”

“And friend,” said Ruskin quickly. “I am also a friend.”

“How do you do,” said Jane.

Ruskin studied her.

“She has quite a foreign look, much like the women you see at the port in Marseilles,” he said, as though Jane were not there. “She will lend authenticity to your tableaux. She can play a Semite, a Greek, an Italian, any number of characters for whom the usual English rose won’t do. Yes, I like her very much.”

“So do I,” said Rossetti, smiling apologetically at Jane.

Ruskin at last spoke to her. “Are your parents English?” he asked.

“As far as I know.” Jane tried to smile, but she felt very uncomfortable with the question.

“I wouldn’t doubt that if you trace your family tree, you will find some Gypsy blood.” The thought seemed to excite him. Jane felt a flash of rage. She wanted to tell him that he was very rude, but she was afraid of him, and of offending Rossetti.

“I must get back to work,” said Rossetti curtly.

“And I must see what the others are about,” said Ruskin. “After all, I want to get my money’s worth.”

When Ruskin had gone Rossetti flung the offending canvas from the easel. Then he came very close to Jane and drew the curtain of her hair back from her ear. “I am so sorry,” he whispered. His breath tickled her throat and Jane forgot to be angry.

“Who is that?” she asked dreamily.

“He’s disagreeable, I know,” said Rossetti. “But he’s very rich. He quite loves the Pre-Raphaelites. Especially me, now that Millais has defected.”

Jane did not know Millais, but a defection sounded interesting.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Never mind,” said Rossetti, abashed. “Let me arrange you; we’re already late, thanks to him.” A couch had appeared next to Rossetti’s easel and he eased Jane onto it.

“Drape your hand across the back,” he said, “like so. And fling your head back over the arm.” As he instructed her Rossetti took her arm and then her head in his hands and gently guided them. Jane tried to breathe, but it was if she had put on a corset that was much too tight.

“Close your eyes,” he said, his breath on her cheek. She thought he was going to kiss her. She waited, and then felt the cool breeze as he walked away.

“That’s perfect,” he said from the easel.

I must have him, Jane thought. I don’t care what I have to do. She thought she must be transparent, that Rossetti must be able to read her thoughts, but when she peeked at him from under her lowered lids, he was hard at work and seemed to notice nothing.

At tea Jane asked Miss Lipscombe about John Ruskin.

“His books are quite famous,” she said. “But all anyone talks about now is his marriage.”

“What happened?” asked Jane.

“It was annulled,” Miss Lipscombe said. She leaned close to Jane. “On account of impotence!”

Jane would not have imagined the other girl knew such a word. She heard it often enough on Holywell Street, as an epithet shouted by drunk women at their drunker husbands. But it was shocking to hear it of a gentleman.

“They were married for six years and never…,” said Miss Lipscombe meaningfully.

“She didn’t want to?” asked Jane breathlessly.

“It wasn’t her, it was him,” said Miss Lipscombe. “They say he had imagined that a woman would look like a Greek statue”—here she lowered her voice to a whisper—
“down there,
you know, and was shocked to see that Effie wasn’t.”

Jane had never seen engravings of Greek statues with their smooth, hairless pudendum, but she nodded as if she understood.

“So he wouldn’t,” Miss Lipscombe said. “Imagine, she’s the prettiest little thing, but he was completely revolted by her. She was a perfect angel about it, but he was just beastly to her, never letting her go out, making her stay with his horrible parents, who just rule his life. No woman could stand it. He took John Everett Millais on a trip to Scotland with them so he could paint his portrait. Millais paint Ruskin, I mean. And Millais and Effie fell in love. She left Ruskin and sued for an annullment. He tried to convince everyone that she was crazy, but no one believed him, of course.”

Jane stared at Ruskin, who was standing behind Rossetti and pointing at something in his drawing. Rossetti was scowling and looked ready to fling his easel at the other man.

“How horrible,” said Jane. “What became of Effie?”

“She married Millais and they are happy as can be. What’s strange is, Ruskin tried to stay friends with Millais, but of course Millais can’t stand him, after what happened.”

“I should imagine not,” said Jane.

After tea the couch was gone.

“Ruskin says you should be standing off to the left,” said Rossetti, looking harassed and irritated. “Guinevere is at the window, helplessly watching the advance of Mordred and his men.”

“How do I stand?” asked Jane.

“Put your hand up, like this, as if you were pulling back a curtain,” said Rossetti. “I’ll have a curtain tomorrow, but for now just pretend. Turn a little bit away from me so I can sketch you in three-quarter profile. And tilt your head, as if you were listening intently for the arrival of your doom.”

Rossetti mumbled to himself as he worked. Across the room Jane could hear Miss Lipscombe laughing. Jane wished she could say something to Rossetti, that they could laugh and joke easily, but she couldn’t think of anything to say that would interest him. She knew nothing about Italian painters, French Gothic cathedrals, or medieval literature. She had not read
The Stones of Venice
and did not subscribe to
Blackwell’s Magazine.
She would have liked to ask him more about Ruskin, but such gossip was inappropriate for mixed company. All she could do was watch him watching her.

“This isn’t right,” Rossetti said after a few minutes. Jane froze in dread. Perhaps all of his compliments were meaningless. Perhaps he was really dissatisfied with her. He was thinking that hiring her had been a mistake. It might be her last day in the studio and she had barely spoken. For the hundredth time she berated herself for being so awkward and stupid.

“The composition is out of balance,” he said. “Not to mention that putting Guinevere over in the corner like that hardly does justice to your supreme gorgeousness. Let’s change it around.” He removed the sketch from his easel and taped up a fresh piece of paper. “Now then,” he said, turning to her, “I want you to stand as straight and tall as you can, and then turn that lovely neck of yours up to the sky.” She did as he asked, feeling distinctly vulnerable with her throat so exposed. She closed her eyes.

“Genius,” said Rossetti. “That curve of your neck, that vulnerability, contrasts perfectly with your impervious air. And with the eyes closed, that’s exactly it. It’s as if you’re saying a last, desperate prayer. But you must turn your face just slightly toward me,” Rossetti said. “Let me show you.” She heard him coming toward her and then he was gently touching her jaw. Jane thought she might collapse in a faint. She felt him brush the hair away from her face. Then he took both of her hands in his.

“Put them here,” he whispered, and brought her hands to her throat. He could have been telling her he loved her, his voice was so soft and gentle. “Keep that serious expression. You look almost anguished, which is exactly right.”

Jane knew she was trembling but she hoped Rossetti did not notice. Or if he did, that he would think she was merely cold.

“I’ll put your women on the right, in the back, weeping,” said Rossetti to himself as he walked back to his easel. “Launcelot will be on the left, guarding the window, his sword at the ready. This is much better.”

“I’m ready to begin painting you at last,” Rossetti said late in the afternoon. “You’ll wear your costume tomorrow.”

“My costume?” said Jane, somewhat bewildered. “But I was never fitted for a costume.”

“Oh, Topsy takes care of all of those things,” said Rossetti carelessly. “He’s ingenious in that way. He sketched out your dress ages ago and had a seamstress make it up. He sketched out a helmet and visor, a chain-mail gorget, and a broadsword for Launcelot, too. No one can complain that my figures are implausibly dressed. In the meantime, let’s do one last preparatory sketch.”

With her eyes closed Jane could not watch Rossetti as he worked. She could only hear the sound of the pencil on the paper and Rossetti’s mumblings as he talked himself through, correcting mistakes, adjusting planes, moving things around. Again she tried to think of something to say, but could not. After a few minutes Rossetti broke the silence.

“Tell me about Oxford,” he said. “I find it too quiet. I can’t sleep without the soothing rattle of carriages on cobblestones and the clatter of commerce outside my window.”

Jane thought wryly to herself that he should come to Holywell Street, but she didn’t say so. “There’s not much to tell, sir,” she said.

“Tell me about your family then. Tell me about your mother. I hear she is terrifying. Burne-Jones could not speak for three hours after returning from your house.”

Jane laughed, and without thinking found herself telling Rossetti about the privy overflowing. Perhaps it was the fact that she could not look at him as she talked that created a sense of intimacy. She tried to make it a humorous story, omitting her mother’s rage and the threat of Tom Barnstable.

“Poor Jane!” he said when she had finished, but he said it merrily, not pityingly. “All that is needed is three wicked stepsisters and a pumpkin coach.”

“I didn’t mean…,” she stammered. She did not want him to think she was looking for sympathy.

“Once when I was growing up in London, I found a family of rats living in our flour bin. I was horrified, of course, and ran shrieking to my mother. Do you know what she told me? Throw them into the frying pan, they’re already battered!”

Jane gasped. As low as her family had sunk, they had never eaten rats.

“Did you do it?” she asked.

“Of course she wasn’t serious,” said Rossetti. Jane wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not. “No, I dusted them off and tossed them out the back door by their tails.”

“You miss London,” said Jane, emboldened.

“It is the most wonderful place in the world,” agreed Rossetti.

“Tell me all about it,” said Jane. “I want to imagine that I am there.”

“Before I came here I lived in a place called Red Lion Square, in three rooms on the first floor of a brick town house near Blooms-bury. The courtyard in front is quite wild with climbing roses and ivy-covered plane trees, and when I sit there I imagine I am in the country. I’ve left that place, though, and Topsy and Burne-Jones are going to live there. I’ve taken a flat at Chatham Place.” Jane had only the vaguest idea of London, and she didn’t know where Chatham Place might be.

“It’s a big white house,” he said, “made of sandstone blocks, with a large back garden in which I keep many pets. So far I have a raccoon, an armadillo, two parrots, three owls, and a woodchuck. I’m hoping to have a kangaroo shipped from Australia when I go back to London. Someday I’ll buy a wombat.”

“It sounds like a lot of work,” said Jane.

“Not really,” said Rossetti. “The animals are very independent and mostly take care of themselves. If they get sick my manservant Hobbes looks after them.”

“And the inside?” asked Jane.

“Oh, it’s wonderfully gloomy, full of heavily carved oak furniture, silk-paneled walls, velvet curtains that I never pull back, fantastic iron candelabra lit with church candles, and tables strewn with curiosities. I have a collection of starfish, a severed hand in formaldehyde, and mounted on the wall the head of a wild boar.”

Jane shuddered. “Sounds gruesome.”

“Doesn’t it?” said Rossetti cheerfully. “I didn’t shoot the boar, or cut off the hand, or collect the starfish. I like to visit curiosity shops when I’m out on my daily walks. I find things. I like to visit bookstores, too. I have thousands of books, poetry mostly, Spenser and Dryden, Byron and Shelley.” Jane glanced up, startled by the mention of such indecent authors. Rossetti winked. “I beg your pardon,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I shouldn’t even mention the names of such scandalous personages to a young lady.”