Renegade (4 page)

“William, you say ‘with the exception of Max’ as if he’s just a minor detail,” I pointed out. “He’s the most dangerous one of the group. I don’t wish to be too alarming, but wherever he is, he has not given up.”

We were approaching the Morris’s doorstep.

“Have you had any more … ” William’s voice was barely audible.

“Visions … ” I finished his sentence. I’d already decided that I was not yet ready to tell William of my latest vision. It seemed too out of place, too bizarre. I had to tell Simon first.

An unsettling feeling crept over me.

Quickly, I dropped my voice even lower: “Do Jane and William Morris know of the Conclave? None of the other Pre-Raphaelites, except for your father and Christina, knew of their existence. Am I correct?”

William shook his head. “My father was extraordinarily careful with the secret. Besides, Jane and William Morris are still alive, are they not?” He smiled darkly.

It was a good point.

I did not find Jane Burden Morris to be as extraordinary as William had portrayed her. It was true that her flaming red hair, made famous in her days as a portrait model, had only grayed a little, and she walked with the posture and strength of a much younger woman. She seemed well-read and articulate. But I became disappointed with her during dinner; her aura of conceit came out forcefully, and I failed to see why she dazzled William so.

Also, I did not like the way she gazed upon me. Her ex-pression, I sensed, was not entirely friendly. I knew that my mother, another muse for Gabriel, would have been Jane’s romantic rival; I sensed that she suspected or perhaps knew the truth of my parentage.

The chill between Jane and her husband felt icy and overbearing. Her string of lovers in her long-loveless marriage had made him apathetic, even bitter toward her. Although the couple conversed comfortably, reminiscing on the past, Morris said next to nothing else. When he retired to bed as soon as he’d finished eating, I thought William and I would depart soon as well. However, William seemed in no hurry to leave, and I quickly found myself, William, and Jane sitting in the study with tea.

“Do you remember your father’s pet wombats?” Jane asked William.

“How could I forget them? Those beasts had better places at the dinner table than I did.”

During dinner, I had begun to feel rising irritation as Jane and William discussed Gabriel and the other Pre-Raphaelites, some of whom were still living. Though I had wanted to hear such stories, I sensed that Jane was determined to make me feel like an outsider. So by the time we were sitting in the study, I had stopped trying to participate in the conversation. Instead, I scanned the walls, which displayed many of Morris’s sketches. Several were of buildings, often crumbling cathedrals. The bookcases were filled with volumes on subjects ranging from art, to architecture, to radical politics. William had once told me that while Jane was shut out from posh London circles due to her romantic affairs, Morris had been ousted as a result of his political beliefs.

I turned my attention back to William, where he sat by Jane across from me in the small parlor. I sighed in irritation, thinking that Jane’s politically controversial husband seemed marginally more interesting than Jane herself.

The sigh was too audible. William looked at me sharply.

At that moment, a realization came upon me with the force of a storm wind. I scrutinized the scene before me slowly, carefully. I watched Jane Morris’s hand rest on William’s shoulder. It was a maternal gesture … but not
entirely
maternal.

The truth suddenly became quite clear.

William instantly looked uncomfortable when he saw my expression.

I sat up in my seat suddenly, nearly slamming my teacup down in its saucer.

How could I have missed this?

Mentor. Friend in the years following Gabriel’s death.

“Arabella, are you unwell?” Jane asked.

“Abbie!” William stood up and rushed toward me.

“We must leave,” I replied curtly. “Thank you for dinner, but it is time for me to go home.”

It was near ten o’clock when we abruptly left, and the night had gone from chilly to cold. A volcano of emotion erupted within me. Grandmother’s warnings about the Pre-Raphaelites and their bohemian lifestyle flashed through my mind. Now, though, I actually gave weight to her words.

“Abbie … what is the matter?” William asked. He could see that I was furious.

I ignored him and kept walking, too hurt and furious to speak.

After several blocks, I stopped and faced him. I could see my breath puff out in the air.

“You never told me.”

He knew exactly to what I referred. Nevertheless, he stood silent, bewildered as to what he might say in these circumstances. I glared back at him for several more seconds. Then he spoke: “I did not think it was necessary. Why should I have told you? It was in the past.”

“Tell me everything. Now.”

He looked baffled. “You cannot expect … .”

“No, wait,” I said quickly. “Don’t.”

I turned, walking quickly away from him, then stopped, facing him again. “No, do—I mean, not the details.”

“It was a few years after my father’s death. Both Jane and I grieved for him. I was nineteen, busy in my studies at Oxford. But I was lonely. I had only my aunt when I returned home.”

My imagination became overwhelmed with images that I did not want to see. My mother had been far from conventional, and she had, unlike the manner of most mothers, never hesitated to tell me about basic life matters such as lovemaking.

“She’s old enough to be your mother!” I spat out. “And she was your father’s mistress. That’s revolting, William.”

“She was more experienced than I was at the time in such matters. You must understand, I was young—”

“Enough!” I yelled, cutting him off. “I’m going home.” I turned and began walking away. The tears warmed my face.

William rushed after me, panicked now.

“She is the only one I have been with.” He paused, blushing. “Other than Isabella, a friend’s sister, just after I returned to London from Oxford.”

“What?”

“But it was a brief affair. I had not yet met you.”

I had not even known William for an entire year, I reminded myself. I began to wonder if I had been mad for plunging headfirst into a relationship with a Rossetti. William’s unconventional deflowering bothered me. I worried that he might be more like his father than I had thought. And I could not stand the fact that he had known others in a way he had not known me. But then, how could I have been so naïve as to think that he had not? He was, after all, a man. Isabella, whomever she was, was forgivable. But the other affair … with his father’s married mistress … It seemed too much like something Gabriel Rossetti himself would do; it was so unorthodox, so bizarre. Furthermore, I felt such a jealousy toward Jane Morris. William had adored Jane almost as a mother, but now I knew that she had been more than that to him.

He laid his hand on my arm.

I shook him away. The shock of what I had discovered was still too much. I trembled in rage.

“I do not care how your father and his friends lived. I do not care even how my mother lived. But I am not going to remain with you only to end up, in thirty years, as Jane and William Morris are now.”

William looked as if I had struck him. “Why would you think we would be like that?”

Incensed, I continued, “But you have esteemed her so much in the past to me. And she is not only part of your past but part of your family’s history, beloved by your father. I can never be her, or live up to who you think she is, and you cannot love her or anyone else if you are going to be with me.”

“Abbie,” he replied softly. “Why would you think that my history with Jane would have any bearing upon us now?”

I did not know how to answer that question, so I said instead, “You certainly seemed to feel fondness for her tonight.”

He sighed. “Jane is still a dear friend, a friend only. I will never see her again if it will make you feel better.”

“But you have known her that way. You have done what we have not … ”

William looked almost amused. “Abbie, I was nineteen years old at the time. And I am a man, after all.”

It was the wrong answer. I flashed him a disgusted look before turning and running away from him to catch my own hansom cab. The exertion of running was somewhat soothing. Once I had left him and was safely in a carriage, my heart thudded within me on the ride back to Kensington. My thoughts remained shocked and scattered.

I let myself into Grandmother’s house, tearful, flushed, and perspiring. I flung off my coat myself, without waiting for Richard to take it. I hoped Grandmother was in bed, as I knew I looked and felt disarrayed.

“Abbie!” I heard my name shouted from outside.

William had followed me and was forcing himself through the front door just as Richard attempted to close it.

Hearing Grandmother’s and Ellen’s alarmed voices, I ran immediately to my right, to the parlor. William, close behind me, slammed the parlor door behind us. He was no longer panicked; he seemed angry.

“Abbie, you are being irrational. I am not Simon St. John. I never was.”

“No you are not,” I said, walking away from him toward the fireplace. When I turned to face him again, his expression was stony, unreadable. I blushed, ashamed of my desire to hurt him. But my anger, my jealousy, felt overwhelming. I had thought that he was mine alone, and that he had always been meant for me. It was a selfish—and even then I knew, a foolish—thought.

Also, new fears about William and his future constancy crept into my consciousness. Everything seemed irreparable.

“What we had together, William, must end,” I whispered. “Do not come back here again.”

He stayed where he was, near the door. He did not move toward me. “There has and never will be anyone that I love but you.”

I heard a step in the hallway, and I knew that Richard waited out there.

“How can this be about trust, Abbie?” William continued. “Can you tell me, honestly, that you have not withheld anything about your past life from me? About your earlier years, before you met me?”

Roddy. My friend Roddy
. I felt startled. I had never told William about Roddy. But that was different. Although I had begun to have stirrings for Roddy, I didn’t have a sexual secret. I pulled my mind away from that terrible day when I lost Roddy—that day I hardly allowed myself to think of.

“It doesn’t matter, William. But I can assure you that I have never been with anyone in that manner. And certainly, I have never slept with anyone who had been my parent’s lover! Who does that, William?”

No response.

My head throbbed. I touched my temples with my fingertips. “This night has to end,” I whispered. “Please leave.”

“Abbie, please, I will not let you go.” William seemed desperate as he started to cross the room toward me.

I felt furious. “Not
let
me?” I exclaimed. “I am not yours to keep!”

Before I could stop myself, I grabbed a porcelain shepherdess off the mantelpiece and hurled it toward him. William ducked just in time, and it smashed into the wall behind him.

Richard flung the parlor door open, concerned at how the argument had escalated.

“Goodbye, Abbie.” William straightened. He could not say more. But he remained where he was.

“Goodbye, William,” I said.

Richard cleared his throat, signaling to William that it was time for him to leave.

William bowed very slightly and left.

As I left the parlor, I felt a silly and awkward urge to hug Richard. But I held myself back; it seemed inappropriate. I had grown quite fond of Richard in the past year. I felt more endeared to him, most of the time, than to anyone else in the house.

I rushed past Grandmother and Ellen, who both stared wide-eyed and silent at the foot of the stairs. I knew they must have heard the argument, seen William storm past.

I could hardly believe what I had done, or the angry emotions that had exploded between William and myself. But what I knew for certain was that whatever had happened, it had emerged from my own entry into a swift and foolhardy relationship in which I let my feelings overrule good sense.