Ophelia's Muse

by Rita Cameron

  CHAPTER 8

  After the success of their evening at the Exhibition, Lizzie knew that it would be madness for her to steal off to see Walter Deverell behind Rossetti’s back. After all, Rossetti had made it perfectly clear that he objected, and why shouldn’t she honor his simple request? It wasn’t unreasonable—he might need her at any moment to sit for one of his own drawings. And if they were going to be married soon, it really wasn’t proper for her to sit for other artists. And yet, despite all the reasons why she should not be on the omnibus to Kew, that was exactly where she found herself on a brisk September morning.

  If Rossetti had been less insistent, less sure of her affection, she may have let the matter drop. But several months had passed since the night of the Exhibition, and Rossetti had not mentioned their talk, or the possibility of their engagement, again. He seemed happy to let things go on as they were, and Lizzie was losing patience. It didn’t help that her mother peppered her with questions about his intentions whenever she could get Lizzie alone, and that even the usually imperceptive Mr. Siddal seemed to suspect that Lizzie was up to something other than making bonnets at Mrs. Tozer’s. Lizzie wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that she was modeling from her father forever, and when she did tell him, she wanted the news to be cushioned by the announcement of her marriage. Rossetti’s refusal to give her any real promises in return for her obedience was maddening. She had all but given up her position at the millinery for him, and now he was preventing her from sitting for other painters.

  Her old obstinacy, tamed only in part by her desire to please Rossetti, resurfaced. Didn’t Rossetti allow himself to be carried along by every impulse and romantic notion that crossed his mind? Why shouldn’t she enjoy the same liberties?

  When, at the beginning of September, Rossetti went to Birmingham to meet with a new patron, Lizzie seized on his absence as a chance to visit Deverell without deceit or explanation. If she was guilty of anything, she told herself, it was only of an omission, and a small one at that. She wasn’t going to sit for a painting, after all, but only a few sketches.

  The studio in the garden was just as pleasant as she remembered, though now its cheer came from vases full of early autumn blooms, rather than the fire that had first greeted her. Through the door she glimpsed Deverell at work at his easel and Mary sitting nearby. Lizzie tapped on the glass and then let herself in. Deverell rose at the sound of the door, and Lizzie was brought up short. He was pale, his face almost white, and the skin below his eyes was as dark as a bruise. His wan face was not the only change—his eyes, once bright, now seemed faded, though no less kind, and his hand trembled slightly as he held it out to her.

  “You’ve been ill!” she exclaimed. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  Deverell stepped closer and took her hand. “Nonsense. I haven’t been well, it’s true, but I’m fine now. When I received your note, I knew a visit from you would be just the thing to restore me completely.”

  Lizzie was relieved to hear that his voice was still as she remembered it, low and hearty. She glanced at Mary, who carefully avoided the question in Lizzie’s eyes, instead rising to embrace her.

  “It’s so good to have you here, Lizzie. Walter and I were a drab pair without you! I’ll just run up to the house to fetch some things for tea, and then you have to tell me everything that’s happened since we last saw each other. I heard that you made quite an impression at the Exhibition.” Mary bustled out of the studio and Lizzie and Deverell were left alone.

  “I am glad that you’re better,” Lizzie said, “and glad to be here.”

  “So Rossetti has come around?” Deverell asked. “I thought I’d have to give you up, after that little scene at the reception. He seemed determined to keep you to himself.”

  “Dante’s away on business, and can’t possibly need me today. I couldn’t see any harm in coming to see an old friend.”

  Deverell’s smile faded, and the coldness of his next words surprised Lizzie. “You came here behind his back? I wouldn’t have thought you capable of such artifice.” He paused and frowned. “What hold does he have over you?”

  Lizzie thought that there must be some very great change in Deverell, or in herself, for him to speak to her this way. “Please, you must not think ill of Dante—it’s only that he’s so serious about his work, and he never knows when inspiration might strike. It makes him easy to know that I’m there if he needs me. And I hope you won’t think ill of me, either. I’m a free woman, after all, and I may come and go as I please.”

  “You didn’t seem so free when I saw you at the Exhibition.”

  Lizzie blushed, hating to admit that Rossetti had given her no real reason to answer in the negative. She forced a laugh and tried to hide her embarrassment with light banter: “Oh, but I am free! No man can claim my obedience besides my father, and he takes little interest in such claims.” But the words rang hollow in the silence that followed. That sort of talk had no place between her and Deverell, with whom she had always felt at ease being herself. “My heart,” she finally said, “is not quite so free. You asked me what his hold was. I’m not sure if I know. But I love him. I feel as if I never knew myself until I knew him. When he paints me, I am a holy thing to him. What woman would forsake the chance to become a goddess?”

  Deverell started to turn away again, but then changed his mind and stepped closer. His next words were quiet, but their softness in no way detracted from their force. “Be careful, Lizzie. Rossetti is not a god, and he is certainly not a monk. He won’t always be content merely to worship at your altar. If he doesn’t keep you as his wife, then he keeps you as a pet, and you are far too fine a creature to be kept like a songbird in a cage, petted and kissed, when you should be free.”

  “Deverell, please don’t.”

  They stood in pained silence for a moment, and both were relieved when Mary returned with the tea tray.

  “Walter?” Mary asked, looking at Lizzie’s white face. “Why are you upsetting dear Lizzie?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing,” Lizzie said with forced cheerfulness. She moved past Deverell and began to help Mary with the tea.

  “I know you adore Shakespeare,” Mary said. “So you’ll be pleased to hear that Walter has planned another beautiful picture of you from one of the plays. I’ve looked over the sketches and they’re lovely.”

  “No,” Deverell interrupted his sister. “I changed my mind. I have something quite different in mind for Miss Siddal.”

  “Oh, well, of course, you’re the artist,” Mary said, surprised.

  “I’m happy to sit for anything you like,” Lizzie said. “But I’ll only be able to sit for a few sketches. I don’t know when I might be able to return again.”

  “It’s no matter.” He had decided, it seemed, not to quarrel with her. “I’m happy to have you here for however long you can stay. I have a painting in mind that will require only your spirit. For the rest—the hair, the cheek, and so on—Mary will do as well as any-one.”

  “Well! I’m glad that I’ll do for something!”

  “Mary, don’t listen to me. You’ll do quite nicely, is what I mean. And indulge me once more, darling sister, by being a dear and running up to the house to fetch your gray parrot for me. I need him for my picture.”

  Mary went up to the house for her parrot, and Deverell turned once more to Lizzie. “I’ll give you no reason to fear upsetting Rossetti. In fact, I’ll paint your hair as black as a raven, and no one shall know you, unless they guess by the fineness of the sentiment.”

  “Thank you.” Lizzie saw that Deverell understood, and that he would treat her with sympathy, rather than scorn. Her face brightened. “I almost forgot! I’ve brought you a little present.”

  She opened her small portfolio and took out a sketch, which she handed to Deverell. It was a drawing of a woman sitting at a loom. In it, the woman stares steadily out of her window, while behind her the threads of her weaving fly wildly from the loom and a great mirror on the wall cracks t
o pieces. “It’s my poor rendering of the Lady of Shalott, at the moment that she turns to see Lancelot through the window, and brings the curse upon herself by leaving off of weaving her magic web. I hoped it might serve as a remembrance of your kind gift to me of Tennyson’s poems.”

  Deverell examined the sketch and then smiled, his eyes regaining some of their brightness. “It’s very well done! You’ve made progress since I last saw your work. Has Rossetti been giving you lessons?”

  “You’re very kind. No formal lessons, I’m afraid, but of course I learn so much just being in the studio with him. And I always think of your encouragement, and practice whenever I have a spare moment.”

  The door rattled and Mary entered, carrying two wicker birdcages. “I’ve brought the gray, as well as the canaries. I hope that you don’t mind, but they could use the change of scenery. They drive Mother mad with their chirping and chattering all day in the drawing room.”

  Deverell began to set his scene. He propped open the door to the studio, beyond which was a neat gravel walkway and border of boxwood and geranium. He hung the canary cage from the doorframe and placed the parrot’s cage just outside the open door. Then he opened the little gates of the cages.

  “Won’t they fly away?” Lizzie asked.

  Deverell shook his head. “No, they’re quite domestic. They’ve been fed by Mary’s gentle hand for far too long to dream of taking to the open skies. We call them lucky, of course. Their fine feathers and pretty songs have bought them comfort and ease, of a sort. Now, Lizzie, if I could ask you to pose in the doorway as well? With your profile toward me, and your attention on the canaries, as if you were feeding them. Or must I worry that you will fly away if I leave the door open?”

  Lizzie laughed. “No, I won’t desert you. I’m afraid that I’m quite as domesticated as these gentle birds.”

  Deverell drew his easel closer to the door and began the sketches. Lizzie cooed at the birds and they sang back to her. Mary filled a teacup with seeds for them, and Lizzie fed them from her fingers, laughing with delight when one jumped from its cage onto her shoulder and settled itself happily just below her chignon. She knew that she made a charming sight.

  Deverell’s sketches took the better part of the day, and he didn’t take a break until well into the afternoon. The weather was fine, and the days were still long, so they took a turn in the garden when they were done, not wishing the visit to end. When it was at last time for Lizzie to leave, Mary gathered the birds into their cages and returned to the house.

  “I hope that you’ll come again, if you can get away,” Deverell said.

  “Then we are friends?” Lizzie asked, holding out her hand to him.

  “Yes, of course we are friends. And I hope that you’ll remember that friendship if you’re ever in need of it. I feel some responsibility for you, you know.”

  They smiled at each other, and Deverell’s smile was tender, not like Rossetti’s, which dazzled her with its brilliance, but left her blind to everything else. Deverell’s friendship, on the other hand, felt like a real thing, something that she could put into a carved box and hide away for later.

  “Come,” Deverell said. “We’ll share a cab. I’m on my way into the city.” As they left the studio, he pressed some money into Lizzie’s hand. “Your fee, for your excellent work today.”

  Lizzie could tell, without looking, that it was far too much for a single day of work. “It’s not necessary. I came to you today as a friend.”

  “I’ll hear no arguments. Think of it as a present, and buy some pretty trifle. A woman of your beauty should have things as lovely as herself.”

  Lizzie smiled and slipped the money into her pocket. She could never resist a gift, and she knew exactly where she would spend it. “In that case, would you tell the driver to take me to Cranbourne Alley?”

  It was nearly six o’clock when Lizzie reached the doorstep of Mrs. Tozer’s Millinery. Deverell helped her down from the cab and made her an elegant bow, then jumped back in and rode on with a last wave of his hand.

  Jeannie Evans stood on the doorstep, greeting the last of the day’s customers, and she waved her hand and called out: “Lizzie! Is that really you? Why, the girls will never believe it!” She took Lizzie’s arm and led her into the shop.

  The girls didn’t have to believe it—a few of them had seen Lizzie through the window, and now they gathered around her, exclaiming over her dress and the glow in her cheeks. Even Mrs. Tozer joined them in their admiration. She held Lizzie out at arm’s length and looked her over, eyeing Lizzie’s dress with a seamstress’s practiced eye. “Just look at our Miss Siddal—it is still Miss Siddal, isn’t it? I suppose if it weren’t, you would have called on me to do the wedding bonnet!”

  “Yes, it’s still Miss Siddal—though perhaps not for long.” Lizzie blushed, touching off a wave of giddy laughter from the girls. Whatever they’d thought of her before, she was now worthy of their interest, and they had only to see whether she might also be worthy of their jealousy.

  “Now, now, girls,” Mrs. Tozer said. “Let her be. A lady hardly speaks of such things.” She smiled at Lizzie, as if the two of them were now of the same breed, with the other girls to be indulged only up to a point. “Are you here for a social call only? Or for a new bonnet to hide those blushing cheeks?”

  “You did say, Lizzie, that you would only come back here to order your new bonnets, as I remember!” Jeannie chimed in.

  “And so I am,” Lizzie said, not bothering to keep the satisfaction out of her voice. She turned to Mrs. Tozer. “Do you still make the brown silk, with the ostrich trim?”

  “Certainly, and it’s a fine hat. But for you, my dear, something better is in order. Even in our little corner, we heard that Mr. Deverell’s picture caused quite a stir at the Exhibition—no doubt your beauty is being celebrated in all the best quarters! We must make something fit for your new position. And of course you can tell all of your new acquaintances where it came from.”

  Mrs. Tozer tugged at the chain around her neck and produced a key from her bosom that unlocked the cupboard where the finest materials were kept. She rummaged about for a moment and then pulled out a bolt of black velvet and a box of iridescent blue-green peacock feathers. She began to trim the feathers herself, separating out the most beautiful part, the eyes, and arranging them in a fan shape, which she held up just above Lizzie’s ear. In the mirror, the feathers shone brightly against her red hair.

  “That will do quite nicely,” Lizzie said, allowing a hint of imperiousness to creep into her voice.

  “I should say so!” Mrs. Tozer laughed. “They’re our finest trimmings.”

  Lizzie laughed, too, unable to mask her pleasure with indifference. While Mrs. Tozer wrote up the order, the other girls gathered around, asking questions so quickly that she could hardly answer one before the next was put to her. When Mrs. Tozer finished, Lizzie proudly placed her money on the counter. Jeannie gave a low whistle and shook her head. “You’ve really come up in the world. And there I was thinking that you was half mad.”

  “Yes, girls, our Lizzie is quite an example,” Mrs. Tozer said. “You could do worse than to cultivate yourselves in her style.” She turned to Lizzie. “Didn’t I tell you, my dear, that this was your opportunity to make something of yourself? Now mind, when it’s time to order your trousseau, you come straight to me. I can help you at all the better shops.”

  Lizzie blushed, thinking of the day—soon, she hoped—when she would be buying the things that she would take to her new home as a married woman. “I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.”

  When she was finally able to leave the shop, she did so with a light heart, pulling the door closed behind her with hands free of the ache of work. Jeannie was right: She had come up in the world. But a new gown and the means to buy a pretty bonnet were only the trimmings. As she walked down Cranbourne Alley, she promised herself that she wouldn’t come back until she came to order her wedding bonnet. It was only then th
at her new position would truly be established.

  CHAPTER 9

  Rossetti spent the next few days after his return from Birmingham in a state of high agitation. Whatever good cheer he’d found in his new commissions had been lost on his return to London, when he opened the papers to read the reviews of the latest exhibitions.

  “Just listen to this, Lizzie,” he bellowed, a newspaper clasped in his hands. “That underhanded bastard, Charles Dickens, writes here that we are nothing but a class of juvenile artists who, with the utmost impudence, style ourselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood! He says, and I quote, that we have an absolute contempt for perspective and the known laws of light and shade, and an aversion to beauty in every shape. And in a letter to the Times, no less!”

  Lizzie murmured sympathetically, knowing that Rossetti’s rage must wear itself out.

  “And all the while,” he went on, “Dickens is turning out populist drivel that is no more art than the lowest sort of comic. This is a disaster, Lizzie, mark my words. Who in London does not worship at the feet of the great Charles Dickens? There won’t be one among us who can get a commission to save our lives after this.”

  He threw the paper down and Lizzie picked it up and glanced over the review. She sighed. The paintings had been popular at the Exhibition, but in the end the critics had come down very hard on anyone associated with the Scandal of the PRB, as it was being called, and of course it was the opinion of the critics that mattered.

  Rossetti rose and began to pace. “The damned critics have rallied round the Academy, just as Ruskin said they would. It’s as if every English artist, upon receiving his first sketchpad, must swear his loyalty to God, the Queen, and the Royal Academy. No matter that the artists at the Academy turn out nothing but sentimental rubbish. The critics fawn over them, and then turn and cast insults at the first really interesting—the first really beautiful—paintings to be shown in decades. I despise them—they are nothing more than failed painters themselves, and they will not be happy until they drag us down to their own level!”