Ophelia's Muse (17 page)

Millais's compliments helped Lizzie to forget the ugly gossip that she'd overheard, and soon she was laughing and gossiping with Emma as if nothing had happened. As the clock approached midnight, the older guests left and the revelries became more spirited. Lizzie watched the men pass around long black pipes, and the room filled with opium's sweet, sticky smoke. Faces and jeweled hands seemed to float unattached in the mist, and the figures before Lizzie moved slowly, smiling and laughing at everything and nothing.

Voices echoed from the tiled walls in crescendos and diminuendos of sound, like waves crashing against the shore and receding back into the fold of the ocean. A high voice pierced through the din, and the guests turned as a singer began a slow, haunting song that wound its way through the smoky air and filled the room with long and eerie notes. A drum and guitar provided a spare accompaniment. As the tempo quickened, an oboe joined in, followed by a tambourine.

Without warning, the music stopped and the room went silent. The lights dimmed and a murmur went through the crowd.

Suddenly, the tambourine started again, high and fast. Two kohl-eyed servants threw open a curtain in the wall to reveal a beautiful woman with her arms raised above her head and her hips thrust to one side. The band started up again and she began to dance, swirling through the room, her gold-threaded skirts floating around her and the bells at her ankles and wrists keeping time with the music.

More dancers appeared at the door and made their way into the crowd, drawing the guests into an impromptu dance and filling the room with twirling couples. Even Lizzie allowed herself to be pulled out onto the floor by Rossetti, and together they danced across the room as the music urged them on.

They no longer seemed to be in London, or in any real place. The night was a mad dream, and it would be remembered as dreams are: in shards of light and color, the echo of a whispered aside, a haunting scrap of melody. Lizzie spun in Rossetti's arms, letting her hair and dress fly around her. Annie Miller danced past her, moving her hips as expertly as the dancing girl and trailing a wide-eyed Hunt behind her. But amidst so many wonders Lizzie hardly noticed. She pulled closer to Rossetti, abandoning herself to the call of the strange and intoxicating music.

 

It was nearly morning when the last guests took their leave. Rossetti stumbled a little on the path. “Should we walk?” he asked. “I need to clear my head.”

Holland Park was quiet, populated only by servants and deliverymen who scurried up to the back doors of the grand houses before the families awoke. As they drew closer to the river, however, the streets narrowed and came to life. Poverty kept no hours, and in these crowded alleys the poor moved like wraiths through the morning's long shadows.

Children were everywhere: collecting rags to sell, or sitting bundled in doorways with younger babes asleep in their arms. Glassy-eyed men stared at Lizzie and Rossetti, gauging whether they might have anything worth taking, and women in cheap gowns called out to Rossetti as they passed, paying Lizzie no mind.

She pulled in closer to Rossetti's side. She was not afraid—she was used to such scenes, had passed them countless times outside her own door. But it was shocking to see so much suffering after the splendid excesses of Lord Lamberton's house. She felt for a moment that she had lost the physical presence that pegs a person to time and place, as if she were a falling leaf that could either ascend to the heavens or drift down to settle in the mud, depending on the breeze. She buried her head deeper into Rossetti's shoulder, wishing to pin herself to something real. But as she turned to him, the sight of a woman in a doorway brought her up short.

The girl was crouched on the step, her head tipped back to rest against the door and her arms crossed. Her dress, once grand, was dirty, and her skin and hair were the sallow color of moth wings. She stared out at the street, but she didn't call to passersby like the other girls. The girl's eyes caught Lizzie's attention. They were an unusual shade of pale blue, watery but still distinctive, and Lizzie thought that she would know them anywhere.

She broke away from Rossetti and went over to the girl, motioning to Rossetti that he should wait for her in the street.

“Bess?” she asked, suddenly unsure. The girl looked like a milliner from Mrs. Tozer's shop, but her face was badly wasted, and on closer inspection Lizzie thought she might have made a mistake. “Elizabeth Bailey? Is that you?”

The girl in the door stared at her for a moment. “Lizzie Siddal? My God, I'd never'ave thought to see you'ere.” She looked Lizzie up and down. “But you look very well. What are you doing out here?”

Lizzie glanced back at Rossetti, who was still standing in the middle of the street. “No, no. I'm not . . . I'm just . . .” She trailed off. She couldn't think how to explain to Bess why she was walking in the street in the middle of the night with a man who was not, in fact, her husband.

Bess reached out and fingered the strand of seed pearls around Lizzie's neck. “Well, anyway, it looks like you've done very well for yourself.”

Lizzie blushed, but she was too worried by Bess's state to feel much shame at her own situation. “Bess, you don't look well.”

“I been ill since last month. I went to the hospital but they was short on beds and sent me off. The gentlemen won't have me looking like this, but if I don't work, I don't eat.” She looked down at the ground and then back at Lizzie with a smile that was more like a grimace. “It's a far cry from Mrs. Tozer's, where I've found myself, ain't it?”

“Lizzie?” Rossetti called. She glanced back at him and held out her hand, asking for one more moment.

“You'd best be off. You don't want to keep your gentleman waiting. But it warms my heart to see that one of Mrs. Tozer's girls has made good for herself.”

Lizzie could have cried. She felt that she had failed in some way, though she couldn't say how. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the few coins that she had, pressing them into Bess's hand. She was afraid that Bess might refuse her charity, but she didn't protest.

“Lizzie!” Rossetti called again, angry now. He started to walk over toward her.

“I must go, but I'll come back to see you.”

She turned and ran back to Rossetti. He looked at her, and his eyes had a strange sheen to them. “Who was that? Was that . . . a friend of yours?”

“Of course not,” Lizzie said, thinking quickly. She couldn't let him connect her in any way with that sort of girl—her position was already so precarious. “A charity case. A poor unfortunate I helped at the church. I'm afraid that she's not been reformed.”

When she looked at Rossetti again, his eyes were kinder, the light of suspicion extinguished. “You're an angel of mercy,” he said, pulling her close. “Let's get you home. The streets at night are no place for a lady.”

CHAPTER 10

Rossetti paced back and forth in his studio, glancing at his watch at every turn. What was keeping Lizzie so late? It was long past the hour when she should have stopped by on her way home from Millais's studio.

An image of Millais and Lizzie entwined on the sofa, the painting forgotten, came unbidden to his mind. Would Millais dare to take the liberties that Rossetti had, for the past year, denied himself? He tried to banish the thought, but it only grew more insistent. Finally he cursed and threw on his overcoat. He would go to Gower Street to check on her.

The January night was so cold that his back ached from shivering and each breath was painful. He flipped his collar up against the bite of the wind, but he had no defense against the creeping chill of his own thoughts. He imagined them, alone for hours on end, sharing the intimacy of jokes and compliments that should have been his.

In the two months that Millais had been painting Lizzie, Rossetti's jealousy had become constant, seeping up like bile and spoiling his taste for food and drink. He was too restless to paint and his verses sounded stilted to his ears. Worse yet was the thought that the Ophelia painting might be very good, and that Millais would then possess a part of Lizzie's beauty that Rossetti would never be able to regain, even if he were to possess her in other ways.

It had been a mistake to allow Lizzie to sit for Millais, but he had felt that he owed too many of his commissions to Millais's influence to refuse him the favor. And he hadn't been able to object on the grounds of propriety, since they weren't married. He ought just to marry her, he thought, and be done with it.

And why hadn't he married her? The question seemed always to be hanging between them these days. He could sense her expectations, like the drag of a current beneath the water's brilliant surface. But even when he gave himself over to the ecstasy of painting her, he always pulled back at the last moment, stubbornly resisting the tide that should have borne him along to the moment where he declared his love, plucked it down from the heavens and presented it to her like a gift in a silver box. And yet—why should he rob the heavens of that star?

He told himself that his love for Lizzie had nothing to do with the things of this earth; it was neither the feverish satisfaction of desire that he found in other models, nor the steady companionship of husband and wife. It was as pure as poetry and as delicate as a gossamer web; it could only be marred by human touch. How could he take such a love and lay it out in his mother's drawing room, to be handled and picked over by those who knew nothing of its secrets? To the outside world it would look cheap and tawdry, he an artist and she a model from the lower classes, and their judgment would make it so.

And so the question of marriage had remained just that: a question. But the answer could not be put off forever—he couldn't race out into the cold night like a lovesick schoolboy every time Lizzie was out of his sight. He knew he ought to give her the position that she deserved, and make sure that Millais's painting was the last one that she sat for, save for his own.

He arrived at the studio and saw that the lamps were still burning and Millais was at his easel, his brush poised over the canvas. Millais put one finger to his lips, indicating that Lizzie was not to be disturbed. “She's been in that position for hours,” he whispered. “She really is quite a skilled model. I can tell what you see in her.”

“Can you?” Rossetti shot Millais a wary look. Millais shook his head dismissively and turned back to the painting, and Rossetti joined him by the easel.

The painting showed Ophelia spurned by Hamlet and driven mad by his betrayal. She has raced from the castle and thrown herself into the weeping brook, but it has not yet pulled her to her muddy death. The stream is tranquil, the water smooth and dark, and field roses spill over its banks like a protective veil. In the midst of the calm water floats a girl, her face and hands just breaking the surface and her lovely features pale and still. It was a dream tinged with horror; the sublime beauty of youth and love preserved for one moment on the cusp of death.

Lizzie made a perfect model for Ophelia; her translucent skin and heavy eyes suggested a girl on the threshold of the next world. But most importantly, she was willing to indulge Millais in a rather unorthodox scheme, submerging herself in a tub of water every day for hours on end so that he could capture the exact look of a drowned girl and make his painting as true to nature as possible.

It was one of the guiding principles of the Brotherhood: A painting must reflect the truth of nature. In keeping with this principle, Millais had painted the background entirely in the open air, on the banks of a river in Surrey. But it was not practical, particularly at this time of year, to paint Lizzie floating in a real creek. He'd mentioned the possibility, but it presented far too many difficulties, not the least of which was the chance of his model drowning, just as Ophelia had. Instead, he'd painted her as she lay floating in an old tin bath filled with warm water. The studio could be cold, but he heated the water with oil lamps placed below the tub, and the lamps made the water just warm enough to keep Lizzie comfortable. It was awkward, to be sure, and the lamps had to be refilled with oil several times a day, but Millais was not one to sacrifice his artistic principles over a matter of mere comfort.

Each morning, Lizzie donned an antique wedding dress that had cost Millais a small fortune. Then she climbed into the tub, fully clothed, and lay back, letting her face and hands float just above the water. Her red hair fanned out, undulating like sea grass, and her gown, all silver embroidery and tiny seed pearls, floated around her like a shroud.

Rossetti needed to see the painting only once to know that it was a masterpiece. It was at once hauntingly dark and full of a radiant beauty. His first acute pang of jealousy was quickly overcome by admiration. “It's wonderfully like her. It gives me chills just to look at it. You've captured the sad, sweet moment of transcendence perfectly. Is Ophelia still among the living or not? The canvas doesn't tell. It's like a secret taken to the grave.”

“Thank you. It's coming along, but slowly, and I'm afraid that poor Miss Siddal must be soaked right through. I'll just be a few more minutes, and then I promise to release her to you.”

Rossetti looked at Lizzie lying silently in the tub, as still as a wax figure. Her face was tilted toward Millais, with her lips slightly parted and her eyes staring off into the distance, as if she were seeing her final vision. In her upturned palm she held a wreath of flowers, and he saw that it contained a single poppy, the bright scarlet flower of death and dreams.

Outside the studio, a high wind whipped down Gower Place. It tugged at the shutters, and one flew open with a bang, letting in a cold gust of air. The shutter beat against the wall and the lamps danced, casting their flickering lights over Lizzie's face. Rossetti watched in horror as the play of the light transformed her delicate features into a grotesque mask. Her cheekbones stood out in stark contrast to the dark sockets of her eyes, and the shadows ate away her flesh, revealing her skull. He shuddered and stumbled back, convinced that he saw some grim omen in her face.

The shutter banged once more and then the wind stopped, just as suddenly as it began. The lamps calmed and the shadows retreated to their corners, restoring Lizzie's youth and beauty. The studio was quiet for a moment, but it was like the eerie silence before a storm. Rossetti waited, his body tense, and when a terrible sob broke the silence, he jumped more out of reflex than real surprise. Lizzie sat straight up in the tub, her chest heaving and the water swelling violently around her.

He ran the few steps to her and tried to pull her from the tub. Her body was limp and heavy in his arms. “My God, man! This water is freezing! How long has she been in here?”

“I-I don't know.” Millais came over to help him. “I don't remember when I last filled the lamps. They may have gone out some time ago.” Together they lifted her, in her soaking gown, out of the bath and onto a nearby sofa. Rossetti held her cold hands in his warm ones, and pulled a shawl around her shoulders.

“Miss Siddal, why didn't you say something?” Millais demanded, clearly distraught. “It was madness to sit in that cold bath! You may have done yourself harm!”

Lizzie cupped her fingers together and blew on them. “I'm so sorry. I tried to keep still for as long as I could. You were so intent on your work, and I didn't want to disturb you. But I couldn't stand it any longer.” She looked at Millais with eyes filled with tears. “I must get into some dry things. I'm really very sorry if I've failed you.”

“Please, don't apologize; you haven't failed me in the least. Rather, I've failed you. Go change into something warm at once.”

 

Lizzie walked behind the oriental screen in the corner of the studio, her wet finery dragging behind her. Shivering, she started to undo the tiny satin buttons of the dress. Her fingers were numb, and she struggled to get them loose. On the other side of the screen, she heard Rossetti laying into Millais for neglecting the lamps.

At last she freed herself from the soaking gown. She threw it over a rack to dry and slipped into a dressing gown. Now that she was warmer, she felt tired. It would do little harm, she thought, to sit by the fire in her robe while she combed out her hair.

She stepped from behind the screen and Rossetti and Millais fell silent. She knew that they were looking at her, but exhaustion made her unmindful of her modesty. She walked unsteadily toward the sofa, and each step seemed to take a tremendous effort, as if she were walking through water. She felt hot, and she wanted to ask if they could open a window to let in some of the cool night air, but she couldn't form the words. She stood in the center of the room, staring blankly around her, not knowing, suddenly, where she was, or where she was going.

 

Rossetti watched as Lizzie emerged from behind the screen in a silk dressing gown that swirled around her ankles as she walked. Her skin was still pale and her eyelids were lowered drowsily, but the effect was mesmerizing. When she stopped before the fire, the light from the embers caused her copper hair to blaze like a flame.

He had the disorienting sensation of having seen this all before. The vision of white skin and red hair was intensely familiar, and yet it was not an image of Lizzie that tugged at his memory. He closed his eyes, and he saw the girl on the bridge, the red-haired beauty who had raced past him in the night, fleeing the unhappy scene.

It was Lizzie—she was the girl whom he saw that night last year, he was sure. And it was fate, he thought, that had led him back to her. Entranced, he walked toward her, his hand extended. But before he could reach her, she let out a soft sigh, looked around with unseeing eyes, and collapsed into a dead faint.