The Wayward Muse Read Online Free Page B

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