Light, Descending

by Octavia Randolph

  William stood holding his battledore, waiting for one of them to cast the shuttlecock to him. Neither of them did; they played as if they were alone. They staggered backwards or pivoted to the side, scrambling to reach and then return the object of their attention with a violence bordering on the vengeful.

  Effie was no longer laughing and clapping, cheering them on. When John at last let the shuttlecock drop to the floor she was relieved to see Everett immediately resume his good nature.

  He sprung forward and plucked the battered missile up to save John the effort of doing so, and thrust out his hand to receive his beaten opponent’s congratulations.

  John wrote his father nearly every day, with letters in return just as often. His father was concerned with the expanding length of the Highland holiday, and wanted John to get back to work on the next volume of Modern Painters. Mr. Ruskin had early signalled this as his son’s defining masterwork and was impatient with the interruptions caused by John’s architectural books, and now the lectures he was writing. As their stay in Brig o’ Turk lengthened John needed to ask for more funds, which he hated doing. The Millais brothers paid for themselves of course, but even in so homely a place there were expenses to meet. He sent along a packet of drawings Millais had made of Effie, assuring his father that they were worth several pounds each.

  Mr. Ruskin had sent up some bottles of Amontillado to supplant the harsh and undrinkable whisky which was the only spirit available to them. And the gentlemen complaining that the entire summer was passing without the eating of a single strawberry had caused Effie to write to Bowerswell to have a few delicacies sent them. William and Crawley both proved avid fishermen, and provided them almost daily with trout, and to that was added fresh peas, blackcurrant puddings, butter, and even champagne to augment their dinners.

  After dinner she and the Millais brothers walked until dark along the stream course, telling stories and listening for nightbirds, while John retired to the sitting room to further his index or work on the architectural lectures he was to give in Edinburgh when they left here. Effie felt in no hurry to return to the hideously furnished house on Herne Hill––next door to John’s boyhood home––where they were now obliged to live. The Park Street townhouse had been replaced by Mr. Ruskin with a dowdy suburban house decorated in so garish a manner that even John could not defend his father’s taste. The lovely brougham was gone, and to get into town Effie had to ask use of the Ruskin’s carriage, allowed her only once a week. Here, back in the verdant dells of her homeland, Effie put this out of her mind. She felt stronger and fitter than she had in many months. Despite the dismal weather she had not spent so much time out of doors since her girlhood. They even took their plates down to the rocks and ate their dinners by the swollen stream.

  If the perpetual rain limited painting time it fuelled other activities. For the sheer challenge of building something John and William rolled up their trouser legs and set to work deepening a channel through the stream. They cut saplings to use as pries and Effie laughed, disloyally perhaps, at the whiteness of her husband’s bare legs and his determination at their task. She and Everett sat together upon the bank under a large umbrella, sketch books on knees, lifting their heads to check the construction efforts. Everett was giving her drawing lessons, and praised her growing ability with every new attempt at fern or flower. Knee deep in the water before them, pry in hand, John spoke of each type of stone they encountered, not just the geological history, but its allegorical significance. Much of it was fascinating but some of it seemed sheer nonsense. Overhearing John’s continuous commentary with its digressions and contradictions made the two sketchers on the banks smile.

  At night Effie and Everett sat in the little sitting room and quietly drew side by side while John worked on his lectures. She found a tiny child’s bubble pipe one day and blew bubbles about the room in silent delight, breaking into laughter only when one landed on either of the surprised men. Spurred by John, Everett began drawing designs for new Gothic-inspired churches; columns crowned with heavily foliated vegetation, and huge arched windows in which embracing angels, all bearing Effie’s face, held each other. When John was ready to quit his own work Everett read aloud. He had brought Tennyson’s new “In Memoriam” with him, and read this poem of grieving with affecting feeling.

  “I envy not in any moods––The captive void of noble rage––The linnet born within the cage––That never knew the summer woods...I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost––Than never to have loved at all...”

  Effie was watching Everett’s face as he read. His voice had dropped in pitch at this last line. Their eyes met for just a moment, and she lowered her head over her embroidery.

  The rain made progress on John’s portrait excruciatingly slow. Some days the midges were dreadful too, and Effie draped a veil over her wide-awake to protect herself. Everett took to tying a fabric sack over his head, with just cut-outs for eyes and nostrils, and then made fun of himself in a drawing showing himself so attired working at his sketchbook. He built a tent on the rocks, just large enough to shelter his easel and paint-box and himself from the wet. From it he could continue work on the trees, water, and rock-wall background of John’s portrait. On a day when John was standing for it Everett asked the nature of the rocks on which he stood.

  “I’ve always thought the undulations of the strata of gneiss to be a symbol of perpetual fear,” John answered. “A sort of perpetual monument, if you will, to the infancy of the rock, folded in and upon itself while soft, through tremor and tremendous pressure.”

  Denmark Hill August 15th 1853

  My dear John

  I am not sure you have read the sermons I send I think you have not––glancing over it it seems to me even more admirable than it did when I heard it preached...Mr. Gray of Perth mentions that you have some purpose of giving a course of Lectures in Edinburgh. I cannot reconcile myself to the thought of your bringing yourself personally before the world until you are somewhat older and stronger perhaps superstition may have something to do with it. I do not say to your father anything about it but I should be better satisfied if you continued to benefit the public by writing until you are turned forty two––pray do not let anything I write about this annoy or irritate you...I would rather be your Mother than the mother of the greatest Kings or Heros past or present––you know how all you say or do think or feel interests...My kind regards to Mr Millais I think of you always and pray for you always My love and best blessings to you both––how does Effie keep her health are your throat and eyes better ever My Dearest John

  Your Affect Mother M Ruskin

  Effie finished bandaging Everett’s hand.

  “I think you have had quite enough activity for the day, Mr. Millais,” she said, but without reproach. His left thumb was badly mashed, and although he denied it she knew from the whiteness of his furrowed brow that he was in throbbing pain.

  “Yes, my lady. That is likely the last time your humble servant attempts stepping stones for the Countess.” They had all been down by the stream, and at one of its widest, shallowest points he had thought to take a page from John’s book and build something. He was laying stepping stones so she might cross over dry-shod when one of the heavy rocks, slimy with growth, slipped and fell upon another. The left hand was crushed between them and he had screamed before he knew it.

  “Thankfully it is not your painting-hand,” John had remarked when they had all examined the damage.

  Effie had walked with him back to the cottage, watching him wince as he held the hand before him, squeezing it at the wrist like a dying thing. Their landlady had brought her a basin and linen, and she had bathed his hand in warm water and gently bandaged each finger. All were abraded, but the thumb was truly injured.

  “I’ll lose the nail, for sure,” he said, when she was done.

  “Yes, you will,” she said, “but it will grow back even stro
nger.” She smiled at him, and the corners of his mouth turned up in return. She almost had to laugh, and keep herself from tousling his hair.

  “You really have had quite the day,” she said again. His nose was swollen, and a fresh cut lay across the bridge. In the morning while bathing in the deepest part of the stream he had struck his face against an underwater outcrop. He had been with William and they returned with both their handkerchiefs and Everett’s shirt red with blood.

  He looked down at the bandaged hand in his lap and shook his head. “I’ve felt seedy for a while,” he admitted. “What with Hunt planning to leave for the Holy Land–– I’ll miss him awfully. And my friend Deverell, who can’t sell a painting because the public hasn’t any eyes, is ill; and now the rain...”

  She sat down next him, perfectly quietly, and waited to see if he would go on.

  “If you were not so delightful, I would not stay,” he told her. When she moved to stand he put out his injured hand imploringly.

  “No, please, I’m so sorry.” She paused and he made light of it by a new beginning. “Countess––I beg your royal pardon.” She sat down again.

  “It’s just that...all the rain, the delay, the slowness of the work...” He stopped and then found a train. “Hunt, who I love like William––perhaps more as he’s such a good man, God forgive me––is truly heading to Syria, and I just don’t think I can bear his going. And Walter Deverell––you met him once I think, at Gower Street––who supports his young brothers and sisters––there’s something wrong, gravely wrong, with his kidneys, and I think he shall die. And he can’t sell a painting, but I’ve written to Hunt and we ourselves will offer ninety guineas for one. And Hunt himself––blast him––forgive me––has sold just enough work, and now got a £20 prize from Liverpool Academy to boot, so he’s off at last to the East to paint his religious subjects. He’ll be gone years, and since he will be a runaway I’m begging him to let me join him next year. Three friends of mine have died since I’ve been here, my mother’s letters tell me, and I’m having a hard time sleeping at night and I just––I just wish there was some sort of monastery I could go to.”

  Effie stood once more, and questioned him in a voice softer and graver than she had yet used with him. “Would that help––going away?”

  It was at this point a rhetorical question, for Euphemia Chalmers Ruskin, née Gray, had known for several weeks that she was loved by John Everett Millais. He looked helplessly back at her.

  “No, it wouldn’t help,” he answered, and left.

  William had to leave to return to London, and Everett moved out of his little “crib” and back into the hotel. But after a few nights there he asked to return to the schoolmaster’s cottage with Effie and John. Then he moved back to the hotel, and then returned yet again. His painting tent washed away in a torrent. The air grew sharply colder. Progress on the portrait was dismally slow, but he vowed to stay on and complete as much of it as he could; she and John must soon be leaving for Edinburgh. There was no way Millais could complete the figure of John, that would have to be done in his Gower Street studio, and despite the increasing chill he worked steadily on the trees and rocks surrounding his subject.

  October 18 1853

  My dear Mother

  ...I wish that the country agreed with Millais as well as it does with me, but I don’t know how to manage him and he does not know how to manage himself. He paints until his limbs are numb, and his back has as many aches as joints in it. He won’t take exercise in the regular way, but sometimes starts and takes races of seven or eight miles if he is in the humour: sometimes won’t, or can’t eat, any breakfast or dinner, sometimes eats enormously without seeming to enjoy anything. Sometimes he is all excitement, sometimes depressed, sick and faint as a woman, always restless and unhappy. I never saw such a miserable person on the whole...

  “Awey-yegoo,” Everett said as Effie set off with him for their evening walk. She laughed at his mimicking her Scot’s burr; it was a habit to say “away you go” when she said goodbye to anyone.

  The evenings were much shorter now, and they could not stay out long. Effie wore her brown jacket and he was wrapped in the tartan he wore against the cold. They walked in silence along the path, passing the place where he had painted her sitting on the rocks. The torrent was loud and they kept their silence until a little further on at the site where he had laboured so long on the unfinished portrait of John.

  He glanced at the bare rocks. “This stay has meant so much to me––I hardly feel like the same man I was in June.” They walked along the path until he spoke again. “With everything that’s happened––the rain, my silly accidents, the snail’s pace of my work––I’m grateful to you, and your husband, for asking me.”

  He had paused but she moved wordlessly ahead. He regained her side and she felt he was waiting for her to respond. If she did not speak now, perhaps she never would. She walked more quickly, again almost leaving him behind. He caught up once more and she feared he might begin to speak.

  “He is not my husband,” she said quickly before she could stop herself. They paused in the path and she turned to face him.

  He looked at her blankly and gave his head the slightest of shakes. She had no idea what to say, but felt of a sudden emboldened by the question in his eyes, emboldened even by his bewilderment.

  “He is not my husband,” she repeated.

  His eyes widened, his mouth worked wordlessly. “What then...” he began, but did not finish.

  She must, must tell him, speak the truth she could not confide to her own mother.

  “He has not made me his wife,” is what she said.

  “Not made you his wife...you mean that after all this time you––”

  So great was his confusion that Millais could not complete the thought aloud. His walks with Effie, and her trust in him; Ruskin’s oddness, and the sleeping arrangements. None of it made sense and all of it made sense.

  “Yes,” she said, wanting to spare him from saying it and her from hearing it. “I have never been, and am not now, his wife in truth.”

  She thought he might collapse; he seemed to sway. She knew her own body to be trembling, but had never felt so clear-headed and sharply aware.

  There was a stone wall near them and he sunk down upon it. She stood before him and waited for him to speak.

  He lifted both hands to his head and held them there. When he brought them away his face looked like that of child who had suffered a cruel hurt.

  “He is monstrous,” was what he said.

  Seeing the tears spring in his eyes forced her own to well. She had made her declaration and he had received it. Now she feared to speak more. Her slightest gesture might result in ruin for them both, and she would not further implicate or influence him.

  She moved well away from him, and when he raised his hands to her she thought her heart would break.

  “What am I to do?” he asked. But Millais knew. He must go as soon as he could, go away from her so that she might not be harmed. He could not stay another day now, knowing the truth as he did.

  At six o’clock on a late spring evening five months later, two gentlemen of the courts arrived at Denmark Hill and inquired after Mr. John Ruskin. He was in his study pulling books for a summer-long continental tour for which he and his parents were readying themselves. He had that day taken Effie to King’s Cross and put her on a train bound for a visit to her family in Scotland. What he did not know was that Mr. and Mrs. Gray were already secretly in London, and at the very first stop out of King’s Cross, at Hitchin, they had stepped on the train and found their waiting daughter.

  The gentlemen were very polite and after identifying themselves and ascertaining that he was Mr. John Ruskin, served him with an order of annulment proceedings concerning his so-called marriage to Miss Euphemia Chalmers Gray, falsely known as Mrs. John Ruskin.

  One of the gentlemen carried a packet which held a wedding ring, hou
sehold keys, and account book, all carefully kept by their former possessor. This they presented to John James.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Lamp of Life

  London: April 1855

  “Please to consider yourself a valuable object, something worth conserving.”

  Ruskin realised once it was out how awkward it must sound. “What I mean, Miss Siddal, is that if you were––let’s say––a majestic tree in danger of being cut down to no good purpose, or a cathedral to have its best bits of ancient ornament all hammered down––as I have watched to my distress throughout France and Italy––I should take all reasonable––and possibly some quite unreasonable––precautions to stop such barbarism. To have you continue to labour in a bonnet shop when you should be painting is tantamount to these acts.”

  Miss Elizabeth Siddal sat almost motionless in her wooden chair in the little projecting gallery that hung out over the Thames. Gabriel Rossetti, that gypsy-romantic whose house on Chatham Place, hard by Blackfriars Bridge this was, sat there too, leaning forward in a lumpy chair covered over in some vaguely oriental stuff. He was smiling at his guest. Miss Siddal remained still, and unsmiling.

  “What do you say, Gug?” asked Gabriel after some moments had passed. “Mr. Ruskin’s offer is unusual, granted, but what man amongst us wouldn’t be proud for such endorsement?”

  Ruskin looked at the object of his unusual solicitation and waited for her response. From the first time he had visited Gabriel in his unhealthy and eccentric “crib” he had been taken by this young woman’s work. She herself had been absent––he was uncertain where she actually lived, and frankly did not wish to know––but as soon as he saw the drawing upon the second easel he asked Gabriel about it. Gabriel could be slippery in his answers, and it took him a while to teaze out the story from different sources.