Lizzie Siddal

by Lucinda Hawksley

  Toward the end of May, Rossetti visited for a few days, where he spent time closeted with Dr Acland in great hopes of the mystery of Lizzie’s health finally being revealed. As far as medical diagnosis went, Acland could find no physical signs of ill health, except for the obvious fact that she was very thin. When pressed he said that if Lizzie’s lungs were affected they were only slightly so, and his final diagnosis was that Lizzie’s constant illness was due to “Mental power long pent up and lately overtasked”. He suggested a few months of travelling abroad, to escape the rigours of a London winter, as well as a few months of abstention from any form of work. Her poor health, he seemed to suggest, was largely in her mind. It seems Lizzie took exception to the diagnosis or that she found the Aclands’ interest patronizing because for some reason her behaviour in Oxford was not exemplary and her actions infuriated Mrs Acland. Ruskin had to write her an apologetic letter, in which he attributed Lizzie’s behaviour to “artistic temperament” and made excuses for her being an invalid and therefore unwillingly temperamental. If Lizzie was not in the mood to be charming, she was sullen, petulant and uninspiring. Mrs Acland obviously found her so.

  In his attempt to soothe her indignation, Ruskin wrote:

  I don’t know exactly how that wilful Ida has behaved to you. As far as I can make out, she is not ungrateful but sick, and sickly headstrong – much better, however, for what Henry has done for her … The geniuses are all alike, little and big. I have known five of them – Turner, Watts, Millais, Rossetti, and this girl – and I don’t know which was, or which is, wrongheadedest.

  It is unlikely that Ruskin genuinely believed Lizzie was in the same league as Turner, Watts et al; he was elevating her in order to placate Mrs Acland. He was, however, fervently sure that she had “genius”, having already written letters to her and Rossetti about how he felt. When first trying to persuade her to accept his allowance, he had written to Lizzie assuring her he was doing so for her own sake, because he believed in her as a great artist, and not because he was a friend of Rossetti’s:

  The plain hard fact is that I think you have genius; that I don’t think there is much genius in the world; and I want to keep what there is, in it, heaven having, I suppose, enough for all its purposes. Utterly irrespective of Rossetti’s feelings or my own, I should simply do what I do, if I could, as I should try to save a beautiful tree from being cut down, or a bit of Gothic cathedral whose strength was failing. If you would be so good as to consider yourself as a piece of wood or Gothic for a few months, I should be grateful to you.

  Mrs Acland was obviously sorely affronted and Rossetti also felt the need to apologize for Lizzie’s lack of manners. Before leaving Oxford, Lizzie had given Dr Acland one of her watercolour designs for We Are Seven to thank him for his treatment of her. By way of an apology for his “pupil”, Rossetti also sent one of his own paintings, this time addressed to Mrs Acland, with an effusive letter of thanks for everything she and her husband had done for Lizzie.

  Although she had not proved a general success among the spires of Oxford, Lizzie did, however, make one new friend in the city. This was a Miss Pusey, whose family were foremost Tractarian Christians.57 Miss Pusey determined that Lizzie needed some time away from Oxford before returning to London and suggested that the two sisters visit a small seaside health resort on the Bristol Channel. Clevedon, which is along the coast from Weston-super-Mare, had recently become famed as the home of Arthur Henry Hallam, the doomed friend of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and whose death had inspired Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam”. Having been largely ignored in Regency times, it became a popular health resort in the later nineteenth century, increasing in popularity toward the end of Victoria’s reign. Around the same compact size as Hastings – far more manageable than the bustle of Brighton – and with similar inducements, it was an obvious recommendation for Miss Pusey to make to an ailing friend. The coastline and countryside around Clevedon provided Lizzie with inspiration for her painting. The background for her 1857 painting, The Ladies’ Lament, from the ballad “Sir Patrick Spens”, was based on the town’s picturesque coastline. “Sir Patrick Spens” is one of Walter Scott’s reclaimed ancient ballads; the story of Sir Patrick, a favourite of the Scottish king, who nobly agreed to set sail and carry out an urgent royal mission – even though he was being haunted by a presentiment of disaster. His premonition proved correct and his ship was wrecked, resulting in the deaths of all on board. Lizzie chose not to illustrate the most obvious choice – the shipwreck – but to imagine what it must have been like for the wives, lovers and children of those who had set sail with Sir Patrick. Lizzie’s command of drawing the female form is not as marked in this painting as it is in drawings such as Pippa Passes, suggesting she found the art of painting her sketches quite troublesome. This is unsurprising as she only began using paints around the time she met Rossetti, whereas drawing and sketching were arts she had practised since childhood. Although the women’s bodies appear stiff and slightly awkward, their facial expressions are cleverly painted, evoking a stunned, dull acceptance of their men’s fate and the internal misery of heartbreak and fear.

  Rossetti joined Lizzie in Clevedon and they spent their few days together walking in the nearby countryside, wandering along the banks of the River Yeo, strolling on the beach and visiting Hallam’s grave. From a coastal path now known as Poets’Walk, one can see across the Severn Estuary to the Welsh mountains. The path came by its name because it was said to have been a walk taken by the many artists and poets who spent time at Clevedon Court, home of the literary patron Sir Charles Lamb. Among those who walked this route were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Lizzie and Rossetti also meandered along Poets’ Walk seeking inspiration from the views that had so impressed their literary heroes. Lydia presumably made herself scarce from many of these outings. In a cosily domestic moment, the lovers spent an afternoon picking wild plants together, which Rossetti took back with him to London to plant on his balcony as a reminder of their short, romantic holiday.

  Lizzie’s appearance created quite a stir in the small seaside town, her red hair once again proving intriguing. One day she was taking a donkey ride along the beach when a little boy, perched on a nearby donkey, asked her if there were any elephants where she came from. He was so enchanted by her unusual looks that he told her he knew she must come from somewhere very far away and from a place as exotic as the land that was home to the giant animals he had seen the previous year when a visiting circus had come to town.

  Lizzie went back to Oxford at the beginning of July, where she was once again examined by Dr Acland, who gave a favourable opinion of her progress. One hopes that his wife had been suitably mollified by the present of Rossetti’s painting by the time Lizzie returned. On July 13, the day on which Effie Ruskin married John Everett Millais in a quiet ceremony in Scotland,58 Lizzie took a train back to London, full of plans to travel to the Continent for the winter and with a renewed fervour to paint and be creative.

  A letter from Ruskin to Lizzie suggested that she need not necessarily go abroad, telling her that what she needed was not foreign travel but “to be kept quiet and idle, in good and pure – not over warm – air”. He mused over ways in which she could be persuaded not to exert herself but also how to prevent the dangers of becoming bored, and ended with, “You inventive people pay very dearly for your powers.”

  Lizzie was not interested in the prospect of being quiet and idle at the Ruskins’ peaceful home, or in Wales, as he suggested in one letter, or in yet another sleepy seaside town on the English coast. She had been offered a chance that, until recently, she could not have dreamed would be offered to her and she was determined to grasp it. The idea of going abroad provided her with the vitality she had been lacking. It was a purpose she could look forward to and, instead of sitting at home moping and feeling unwell, she began to plan her trip with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Rossetti was thrilled to have her back in London, and in such a vital frame of mind, an
d they began a joint project, planning together architectural designs commissioned by another Oxford friend of Ruskin’s, a Mr Woodward from the Oxford University Museum. Woodward had been hoping that Rossetti would not just come up with the designs but would go back to Oxford and carry out the work. Rossetti declined the offer.

  Rossetti and Lizzie also collaborated on a picture, Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail, which is thought to date from this period. One of the preliminary drawings depicts a fearful-looking Sir Galahad, who is visited by two female angels while kneeling in prayer. They show him the coveted Holy Grail, the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper. The angel on Sir Galahad’s left bears a resemblance to Lizzie. According to legend, the Holy Grail was brought to England, after Christ’s Crucifixion, by his patron, Joseph of Arimathaea. Many medieval knights set out on the quest to find it, but they failed because they were flawed in character. It was said that the chalice could only be found by one who was chaste and pure in heart. Sir Galahad was, according to legend, the noblest and purest in heart of all King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. The story, immortalized by Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (1485), was brought to prominence again in the nineteenth century and became a popular subject for the Pre-Raphaelites.

  That summer was sociable, with both Lizzie and Rossetti in high spirits. Ford Madox Brown recorded a group of the friends visiting a stately home together in early August and of Lizzie appearing “beautifully dressed for about £3, altogether looking like a queen”. In mid-August, the stench of the river drove Rossetti and Lizzie away from Blackfriars to presume upon the hospitality of the Madox Browns. Their home was small and, whenever the couple came to stay, Lizzie had to sleep in Ford’s bedroom, while he slept in the sitting room and Rossetti stayed at a local inn. The thoughtless twosome seemed to have had no conception of how irritating their extended presence was to Ford. His diary of the time shows that Rossetti and Lizzie fast outstayed their welcome, an irritation exacerbated by Rossetti throwing a heated tantrum one morning on discovering that Lizzie had gone out shopping with Emma and he would not be able to see her for several hours. His unexpected fury illustrated a growing and unreasonable anger felt by Rossetti about the two women’s friendship. He resented Emma, begrudging her any time she spent alone with Lizzie and accusing her of trying to poison Lizzie’s mind against him. His anger had no real substance as Emma had always been a good friend to him and Lizzie. He was aware, however, that Emma obligingly cleaned several of the Pre-Raphaelites’ studios and was therefore privy to gossip he did not want Lizzie to hear. He was also suffering pangs of guilt because he had not made an “honest woman” of Lizzie, as Madox Brown had done for Emma. He knew that the two friends discussed his reluctance to marry Lizzie – and knew that he could never emerge from such conversations in anything but an unfavourable light. Refusing to accept this problem was of his own making, he turned his anger against Emma, leading to ructions in his own friendship with Emma’s husband.

  Despite presuming on the Madox Browns’ hospitality on many occasions, Rossetti was not at all gracious when it came to returning the favour. In mid-September of the same year, while paying a family visit to Chatham Place, Ford was taken suddenly ill, resulting in him, Emma and their new baby Oliver – “Nolly” – needing to stay in Blackfriars until he was well enough to travel.59 Being encumbered by the presence of three extra people – including a fractious small baby – was not how Rossetti had anticipated spending his last precious days with Lizzie before she left for several months abroad, and he made his friends feel ostentatiously unwelcome. Madox Brown later recorded in his diary that Rossetti also fought with Fred Stephens, who visited the studio while Madox Brown was recuperating there. Rossetti was bearing a grudge against Stephens, whom he had heard had been “speaking irreverentially” about Lizzie, and refused to talk to him. The relief when Madox Brown was well enough to travel home was tangible. A week later, Ford’s diary related that Christina Rossetti had arrived to stay with the Madox Browns for a few days. She had been fighting with Dante because “there is coldness” between her and Lizzie. Dante’s family and many of his friends were counting down the days until Lizzie was safely on the boat train and on her way to the Continent.

  Around this time, Lizzie’s health, which had seemed so much better, began to deteriorate once again. It was unfortunate timing, because Mrs Rossetti had thawed enough to show willing to accept her son’s “pupil” by offering to take Lizzie to see their own family physician, Dr Hare. On September 17, Dante wrote to his mother explaining that Lizzie was too ill, and her face too swollen with toothache, to allow her to make the journey into central London and thence to the doctor. The offer was seemingly never made again. Lizzie’s ill health (real or imaginary) prevented her from accepting the olive branch and Frances Rossetti was not inclined to proffer it again.

  Following the advice of both Acland and Ruskin (who financed the trip), Lizzie had decided to go to France for the winter, perhaps journeying on to other countries if the mood took her. Germany was renowned for its beneficial health spas and Ruskin was particularly desirous that she should visit Switzerland. He approved of her plan to go to the South of France, but told her in no uncertain terms that she should avoid Paris at all costs, as it would make her feel more weak and ill than she was already. In his opinion, Paris could be a dissolute place and one no innocent young Englishwoman should want to visit, let alone feel at home in – particularly not a woman as frail as Lizzie.

  The thought of travelling abroad was elating in the extreme to a woman who had never left England before. Until now the furthest extent of her travelling had been to Hastings, and now she was going to France and maybe to Switzerland or Germany as well. Obviously she needed a companion to accompany her on this grand trip and it was decided that Mrs Kincaid, a distant cousin of the Rossetti family, should go with her. Mrs Kincaid, the wife of a solicitor, was chosen because of her “superior knowledge” of France and of “Continental life”. She was a comfortable-looking woman in her late forties, prepared to look after the delicate, sickly younger woman in a maternal manner and to be a staunchly respectable chaperone. She came to Blackfriars to meet Lizzie in early September, and the two were pleased with their first impressions of one another – Mrs Kincaid was a welcome change to Lizzie from the rest of Dante’s disagreeable relations. The two women arranged to leave for the Continent at the end of the month.

  Rossetti expressed several concerns about Lizzie leaving England when her health was so poor, but she recognized this as an excuse to try and keep her with him. Uncharacteristically, she did not rise to the bait and ignored his attempts to stifle her enthusiasm for the trip. She was also quite happy to ignore Ruskin’s advice, regardless of the fact that he was paying for her to go abroad. Lizzie was not particularly bothered about visiting the South of France, but she was thrilled to the core at the prospect of seeing Paris. When Lizzie had moved in a world of milliners and dressmakers, Paris had been spoken of with the awe which churchgoers reserved for heaven.

  In that same September, five months after the disastrous tea party with Rossetti’s mother and sisters, Lizzie attempted to introduce him to her own family – these family meetings are the strongest indication that marriage was now being discussed in a serious manner. The couple arrived unannounced at 8 Kent Place one September evening, only to discover that Lizzie’s parents and brothers had gone out and would not be back until late. Rossetti was introduced to one of Lizzie’s sisters, with whom they sat and had tea, before heading home to Blackfriars. He was no doubt relieved at having escaped the need to answer any awkward questions from her father.

  It seems that the apocryphal stories of Lizzie growing up in a slum stemmed from her own comments. When they visited her home, Rossetti was surprised to see how comfortable it was. For the last five years he had heard stories of a deprived and impoverished childhood – tragic tales that had been repeated to Barbara Leigh Smith – but this brief visit made him realize that Lizzie’s stories about h
er origins were highly embellished. Lizzie’s tendency to make her childhood sound more impoverished and emotionally deprived than it was had been designed to make Rossetti feel the need to protect her. She preferred to be known as a romantically tragic figure rather than reveal the truth about her family’s shabby working-class respectability. A popular subject with the Pre-Raphaelites was the story of King Cophetua and the beggar maid – the myth’s romantic notion of a great man falling in love with a poor but beautiful girl was exactly what Lizzie hoped to inspire in Rossetti. King Cophetua had everything he wanted except a wife. He was thwarted in his quest to marry happily because all the women he met wanted him purely because of his wealth and power. While out riding one day, Cophetua saw a beautiful young beggar woman. She did not know he was the king, so when he started talking to her she answered him as an equal without affectation. This impressed him so deeply that he proposed – and she accepted. Tennyson’s poem “The Beggar Maid”, published in 1842, brought the fable into popularity.60 But Lizzie was no longer a beggar maid. She was now a woman with an income, a career and a patron who happened to be one of the most influential men in the London art world.