Ophelia's Muse

by Rita Cameron

  The studio was small but comfortable, with good light and a warm fire. The walls were hung with sketches that showed bodies in various poses and states of motion, and intricate studies of faces, hands, flowers, and trees. Deverell was sitting with his back to them, dabbing at a canvas on a large easel. When he heard the door open, he turned and jumped to his feet.

  Lizzie recognized him from the shop. She saw that he was handsome, and not much older than she. His face had not yet lost its smooth, boyish aspect, and he had bright, curious eyes. He gave Lizzie a slight bow, and his dark hair fell playfully over his eyes.

  Mrs. Deverell made the introductions, and they nodded shyly to each other, their greeting made stiff by Mrs. Deverell’s presence.

  “And this,” Mrs. Deverell said, “is my daughter, Miss Mary Deverell.”

  Lizzie turned to see another girl, about her own age, whom she had not at first noticed. She was petite, with dark hair and eyes like her brother, and a sweet smile.

  “Call me Mary,” she said, taking Lizzie’s hand. “I hope that we’ll be friends. I’m quite grateful, you know, that you’re to sit for Walter. That’s usually my job, and now I’m free to work at my own poor little sketches instead!”

  Lizzie returned the smile. “And you must call me Lizzie. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  Mrs. Deverell returned to the house, and the three young people were left alone. Deverell stared at Lizzie for a full minute, and Lizzie shifted uncomfortably on her feet, unsure of whether she should meet his eye. She took his silence for disappointment, and wondered again if he had made a mistake in asking for her, or if she had somehow failed to prepare herself properly.

  Finally he broke the silence. “You will make a perfect Viola,” he declared. “Do you know the play? You are Viola, living and breathing.”

  “Viola? Yes, I know the play.” Her cheeks burned. Twelfth Night had never been one of her favorites. She liked the tragedies, with their great romantic roles and heartfelt speeches. When Mrs. Tozer told her that she was to sit for one of Shakespeare’s heroines, she had pictured herself as Juliet or Ophelia. Not Viola, who spends the better part of the play disguised as a lowly pageboy. It made sense to her now that Mr. Deverell had asked her to model, and she felt foolish for imagining that she was suitable to sit for anything more romantic. Mr. Deverell was still staring at her, so she tried to mask her disappointment. “I’m happy that I can be of some service to you,” she murmured, looking down at her hands.

  Mary saw Lizzie’s discomfort and came to her rescue. “Walter! You’re embarrassing the poor dear. Come, Lizzie, I’ll show you where you’re to dress while Walter gets his paints ready.”

  Mary took Lizzie’s hand and led her over to a screen, behind which hung a pair of boy’s britches, stockings, and a bright red tunic.

  Lizzie looked at the clothes. “I’m to wear britches? Is that . . . is that something models often do?” Lizzie didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. She’d traveled across London, but it felt as if she had crossed into another world, where everything was topsy-turvy and she couldn’t quite get her bearings.

  “Didn’t you know, my dear?” Mary laughed. “Oh my. Walter is painting Viola in her disguise as a page. You know the story? If not, Walter will tell you all about it—one of those things about the course of true love never running smooth and all that. Walter had me sew the clothes myself to his specifications.”

  Lizzie looked at the tunic and trousers with resignation. “It’s just that I didn’t realize that I had to wear a costume. I’ve never worn boy’s clothes before.” She swallowed hard, thinking of the satin gown that she had worn in her dream, and fighting her disappointment.

  Mary was still smiling at her, and so Lizzie picked up the clothes, not wanting to appear unsophisticated by refusing. She stepped behind the screen, and for a moment she stood very still, fighting the urge to run from the studio and board the first omnibus back to Southwark. Daydreaming about sitting for an artist had been one thing; she had imagined herself lovely and serene, in a flowing gown. But now that she was actually here, she just felt embarrassed. It had seemed too good to be true, and it was: Deverell hadn’t chosen her because she was beautiful, but rather because she would make a decent pageboy.

  But, she told herself, if she left now, she wouldn’t have another chance. She could picture Mrs. Tozer shaking her head, and sending a note to Mrs. Deverell to apologize for Lizzie’s rudeness. Perhaps she would offer Mr. Deverell the use of another girl, like Jeannie, who wouldn’t have Lizzie’s qualms, but would be happy for the opportunity. And Lizzie would be back in the workroom, squinting at her needle and dreaming of knights and ladies.

  The thought of the workroom made up her mind. She unhooked her bodice and shimmied free of her tight sleeves and heavy skirts. She stood, shivering in her slip and trying not to think of Mr. Deverell standing just beyond the screen. Then with a shrug she pulled on the costume. When she was fully dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror and almost laughed: But for her long hair, she could very well have been a medieval pageboy. She was as tall as many men, after all, and the clothes hugged her slim frame closely. She did a quick turn, enjoying the freedom of britches. Then she pulled her hair into a loose chignon and stepped out from behind the screen.

  Deverell stopped setting out his paints. “You’re a vision! A heroine of Shakespeare brought to life.”

  Lizzie blushed again, sure that Deverell must be making a joke at her expense.

  “That’s enough,” Mary said, “or you’ll have poor Miss Siddal scampering back behind the screen.”

  “When I see perfection, I must speak. And I never saw a more perfect Viola in my life.”

  Mary turned to Lizzie. “When Walter’s on about a painting, there’s no accounting for him. He goes quite off his head and forgets his manners, all in the name of art and the pursuit of beauty, or so he likes to claim. But you really do look quite the part.”

  Lizzie allowed herself a small smile. She knew that flattery was cheap, but if Deverell was half as pleased as he appeared, then perhaps she didn’t look completely ridiculous. She admitted to herself how excited she was at the prospect of sitting for a painting, even if it wasn’t quite what she had imagined. In the end, after all, Viola did marry a duke, despite her humble clothes.

  Deverell offered her his hand. “Shall we begin? I’ll show you where you’ll sit, and we’ll start with a few sketches.”

  Lizzie followed Deverell to the end of the studio. He asked her to sit on a stool, with her elbows resting on a table and her hands clasped. He used his hands to position her head, and Lizzie held her breath and told herself that it was no different from modeling a bonnet in the shop. Her profile was angled toward him, and she leaned slightly forward, her eyes upturned.

  “Perfect.” Deverell went behind his easel and began to sketch, glancing up occasionally and humming quietly to himself.

  He seemed to be perfectly at ease, but Lizzie could not get comfortable. She tried to sit completely still, but she kept shifting, blushing every time Deverell looked up from the canvas. She was conscious that she no longer had a dozen layers of petticoats and skirts between her and the world, and she felt the absence of her high-necked gray work dress keenly. It was one of the few things that stood between her and the men who came to the shop to leer at the pretty girls. Now she was stripped of its shield, and she felt that not only her body, but her very self was on display, as if Deverell could read her every tortured thought.

  But as an hour passed, and then another, she forgot her embarrassment. Deverell tossed off page after page of studies, and he stopped often to give her an encouraging smile or word. His attention was flattering, and Lizzie began to think that the work of modeling was rather pleasant, and that the studio was not at all the sordid place she had imagined.

  A whisper from Mary Deverell recalled her from her thoughts. “Are you very uncomfortable? I always get so stiff when I’m sitting for Walter. He can draw for hours, and I do
n’t think he notices that the time is passing.”

  “I’m used to sitting still. I don’t mind. And I’d much rather sit in this lovely room than . . .” She trailed off. She didn’t want to talk about the shop, not today. “Besides, it’s so very interesting to me, to see an artist at work. I’ve never met a painter before.”

  “I also like to watch Walter when he’s painting,” Mary said. “My own watercolors owe so much to his instruction.” She was sitting at a small easel near Lizzie, and she turned the easel so that Lizzie could see her painting, a half-finished watercolor of an iris, which sat in a jar of water on the table.

  “Why, it’s lovely!” Lizzie saw that the lines were clean and sure, the petals a velvety purple and the leaves a crisp green.

  “Do you care for drawing?” Mary asked.

  “Very much. But I’ve had no real training.”

  “Then you must ask Walter to give you a lesson!”

  “Oh, no,” Lizzie stammered. “I didn’t mean to suggest . . . it’s really just a hobby.”

  “I’m sure that he would be happy to critique your drawings. He never shies away from critiquing mine!”

  The girls both laughed, and Deverell cleared his throat. Mary gave her brother a contrite pout and then smiled at Lizzie, her eyes twinkling. “I’m not to disturb you. I shouldn’t be making you laugh. But don’t worry; I won’t let you be bored. I’ll tell you all about Walter and his friends while you sit. They’re quite a remarkable group—always coming up with schemes and grand ideas for paintings and literary magazines and the like. I’m sure that you’ll like them very much, as I do. Unless, of course, you find them to be too bohemian, as Mother does. Of course you’ll meet them before long. They pop in at all hours, and I can’t imagine that Walter is going to be able to keep a girl like you a secret for long.”

  “You’re too kind,” Lizzie murmured. She thought that Mary must have been flattering her to put her more at ease. But Mary was so sweet, Lizzie was grateful for her company and attention.

  Mary drew her chair closer and began to tell Lizzie stories, painting with her words a cast of characters that immediately sparked Lizzie’s imagination. There was a secret brotherhood of artists which Walter may or may not have been nominated to join—she wasn’t quite sure and he wasn’t telling; lady poets who wrote daring verses and published them under noms de plume; and late nights at the Cremorne pleasure gardens, where painters and poets mingled with the lowest sort of women and the wealthiest of the aristocracy, drinking champagne under the many-colored lights.

  The world Mary described was entirely new to Lizzie, and it didn’t seem to exist in the same London that she knew, and which seemed very drab in comparison. She didn’t care that her mother would have considered many of the stories shocking—she thought they sounded exotic and exciting. Here in Deverell’s studio a different set of expectations seemed to apply, and Lizzie was free for a moment to forget the stricter rules of the world outside.

  Mary wove her stories all afternoon. Deverell was intent on his work and hardly spoke, except to laugh or to utter an affronted disavowal of some rumor or other. But though he hardly spoke, Lizzie felt that she was beginning to know him through Mary’s affectionate descriptions. When he finally stood and stretched with a loud yawn, it took Lizzie by surprise.

  “I’ve done all that I can today,” he said. “You must forgive my silence. I didn’t want to waste a single moment. Would you like to see the sketches?”

  Lizzie walked over to the easel. Deverell had drawn her in intricate detail, his pencil shading each shadow and tendril of hair. The girl in the picture was at once more beautiful and more serious than what Lizzie saw in her mirror. Could her profile truly be so fine? Or had Deverell been kind? Her chin seemed less pointed, her nose not quite so long as she believed it. She smiled.

  “Are you pleased?”

  “They’re beautiful drawings. But I hardly recognize the girl in them; surely that girl is not me. She looks quite lovely.”

  Deverell laughed. “Haven’t I made a good likeness?”

  Lizzie knew that she had said the wrong thing—she’d insulted his work when she meant to do the opposite. “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply . . . I only meant that your drawings are so lovely, I fear myself a poor thing in comparison.”

  “But you’re wrong, Miss Siddal. It’s my drawings that suffer by the comparison. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful? I fear myself hardly capable of doing you justice.”

  Lizzie blushed and looked down, but Deverell gently raised her chin and held her eye for a long moment.

  “I’m sure you’ll try your best, Walter,” chimed in Mary, bustling over to the pair. “Now, we mustn’t keep Miss Siddal any longer, or she’ll be too tired to sit for you tomorrow.” She put a gentle hand on Lizzie’s arm and led her back to the screen. “Come, dear. I’ll help you with your dress.”

  “I leave you in competent hands,” Deverell called after them. “And I look forward to tomorrow.”

  “As do I,” Lizzie said, and it was the first time in as long as she could remember that she had something to which she could truly look forward.

  “Gentlemen!” Deverell cried out, bursting through the door of Holman Hunt’s studio. He slammed the door shut behind him, not noticing that the bang nearly upset a whole table of paints.

  Holman Hunt was standing at his easel, and Dante Rossetti was sitting with his feet on a chair and his arms flung back behind his head, a barely begun canvas forgotten beside him. He waved a lazy greeting to Deverell.

  “Deverell!” Hunt barked, glaring at the table of spilled paints. “Watch what you’re doing!”

  “I’m sorry.” Deverell righted a few of the bottles and left the rest to lie where they were. He was humming to himself, and he seemed distracted as he walked to the window, flung open the shutters, and leaned out, inhaling deeply. Then he abruptly turned and collapsed into a chair next to Rossetti, leaving the window wide open and the cold air spilling in.

  Hunt shut the window. “What on earth are you doing? There’s a cold wind.”

  “Is there?” Deverell asked. “I suppose there is. I hadn’t noticed.”

  Rossetti and Hunt looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

  “Out with it, then,” Hunt said. “You look like the cat that got the cream.”

  “Do I?” He stared dreamily around the studio. “I suppose that I have got the cream. You fellows won’t believe what a stupendously beautiful creature I’ve found. A stunner, Rossetti, a true stunner, as you would say. She’s like a queen, really. Nothing at all like the usual sort of girl—her features were made for painting, strong and true.”

  Hunt rolled his eyes, but Rossetti looked interested. “Does such a woman exist in London? Is she flesh and blood or goddess?”

  “Goddess! A Phidian goddess, come to life,” Deverell declared to laughter from Hunt and Rossetti.

  “We were wondering where you’d gotten yourself off to,” Hunt said. “I haven’t seen you around in weeks. Between you disappearing and Rossetti moping about and neglecting his work, I was afraid that our movement might be done for before it had even started. And where did you find this goddess?”

  “At a bonnet shop, of all places. She’s really a wonder, though. Her friends are quite humble, I’m sure, but she behaves like a real lady. And the thing of it is that she seems to have no idea what a beauty she is! One gets the feeling that she’s been passed over for commoner girls before. Most men in London wouldn’t know true beauty if it stepped off a Botticelli canvas and walked into Trafalgar Square. But she’s charmed me, all right. She has grace and skill quite beyond her class.”

  Hunt laughed. “I’m sure I know the sort.”

  “You may joke, Hunt, but you haven’t seen her yet. The sketches turned out perfectly, but I’m afraid that I’ve made a mess of painting her hair. The color is such a wonder, changing with the light, and paint doesn’t seem to capture it. She’s coming again tomorrow. You really oug
ht to see her.”

  “How could I resist?” asked Rossetti. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Rossetti’s enthusiasm seemed to break through Deverell’s dreamy state, and he began to backpedal. “Maybe another day would be better. I’m just in the thick of it now.”

  But Deverell’s reluctance only fueled Rossetti’s interest. “I won’t be in the way at all. I’ll just have a look at the painting. Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes will help.”

  “You can’t go tomorrow,” Hunt said. He looked at Rossetti’s nearly empty canvas. “What of your painting? You’re not going to be finished in time to submit for the spring exhibitions. If we don’t put in our best work, the Brotherhood will be thought of as a joke. I don’t intend to have my career as a painter become a footnote to the Brotherhood’s failure.”

  “All in good time, Hunt, all in good time,” Rossetti replied. “If Deverell’s new muse is as beautiful as he says, perhaps I shall have some work for her myself.”

  “But only after I’ve finished my picture,” Deverell reminded him.

  “Of course. I’ll just stop in for a moment. I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your work.”

  But it was clear that Rossetti was very much looking forward to getting out from under Hunt’s watchful gaze, and the promise of a beautiful woman was a welcome excuse. Rossetti smiled broadly, but his two friends both frowned, each worried for his own reasons.

  Lizzie had only been sitting for Deverell for a few weeks, but even in this short time she had begun to change, at first in small ways—her accent growing a touch more refined to match Mary’s soft speech, her head held a little higher as she walked down her street—and then the changes became more noticeable. If she had always possessed the necessary elements of beauty—a natural grace, a pale and lovely complexion—they had, as yet, somehow failed to coalesce into true beauty. But Deverell’s admiring gaze acted like the sun upon a rosebud, and under its power Lizzie’s beauty bloomed.