Ophelia's Muse (32 page)

“Indeed it was Helen,” Ned said. “Although at that time, she was Helen of Sparta, for Paris had not yet stolen her from her husband and carried her back to Troy. Annie, you've been Helen of Troy, and now you must play Aphrodite.”

“Annie as the goddess of love,” Ford chuckled. “Now that's appropriate.” Both Hunt and Rossetti shot him nasty looks, and Ford quickly changed the subject. “But who will judge?”

“Ruskin should be our judge,” Ned said. “He is, after all, known for his good judgment in art.”

“Oh, no,” cried Ruskin. “Like Zeus, I'm far too clever to choose among three such lovely women. I'm confident in my judgments on the beauty of art, but that is a far easier thing than the judgment of real beauty, which is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Why don't we make a sport of it?” proposed Emma, standing up and smoothing her dress. “Go into the labyrinth ahead of us and hide the apple in the maze. Whichever of us finds it first will be judged not only the fairest, but also the cleverest.”

“A fine idea!” agreed Rossetti. “I want to see the maze before we lose the light. The rest of us can be mythical creatures, and act as snares and traps. We can try to turn the ladies around and distract them from their purpose.”

“I'll play the minotaur,” said Ford. He searched around in the grass and came back with two small branches, which Emma helped him to attach to his head as his bull's horns with a ribbon from her hair.

“Ned should play our honorary Eris, since he will hide the golden apple,” Rossetti said. “And I will be Pan, and lure the ladies away from their task with the playing of my flute.” He whistled a short tune and laughed.

“Are you sure that your flute is the only thing that you use to lure the ladies?” Ford asked. He began to laugh, but stopped when Emma shot him a withering look.

“And I'll play Ares, god of war,” Hunt declared, looking irritably at Rossetti, “and make battle with anyone who crosses my path.”

“And Ruskin?” Lizzie asked. “What role shall he play?”

“Why, none other than Zeus!” said Ruskin. “I'll roam the maze and make sure that the game is played in accordance with my law.”

“Then we're set,” Ned said. “Let the game begin.”

The party gathered at the entrance to the maze, which was formed by dark green yew hedges that stood ten feet high, planted in a winding series of paths. It had stood on the palace grounds for more than a hundred years, but it seemed to breathe an even more ancient history, recalling the labyrinths of ancient Greece.

Ned went into the maze to hide the apple of discord, and Ruskin, Hunt, and Ford went with him to take up their positions. Rossetti stayed with the ladies to ensure a fair start.

Lizzie leaned heavily on Rossetti's arm. The wine and the laudanum made her unsteady, but she didn't want to miss out on the game. She was determined to find the apple before Annie could get her plump pink hands upon it. They would never hear the end of it if Annie were to win.

After a few minutes Ned's voice rose up over the tops of the hedges: “The apple has been thrown!”

Emma and Annie laughed and entered the maze. Rossetti whispered in Lizzie's ear: “The key to the maze is to always keep your hand on the hedge to your right, and follow where that leads you. No doubt Ned has hidden it at the center.” Then he surprised Lizzie by dropping her arm and racing off into the maze without another word. He ran down a long corridor of hedges, turned at the first corner, and disappeared. Lizzie wasn't sure if he'd gone in the same direction as Emma and Annie or not.

She stared after him, dismayed, and then entered the maze herself. The walls of greenery rose up steeply and engulfed her. All was silent; the hedges muffled any sound from outside. Lizzie felt unsure of herself without Rossetti's arm to lean on, but she pressed ahead, not wanting Annie to get too far of a lead on her.

At the first fork, she followed Rossetti's advice and held to her right. The path ahead of her was empty, and seemed darker and more foreboding than it had at the entrance. She thought of going back and taking the other path, but when she glanced behind her she was confused over which way she had come. She looked up and saw that the sun must be very low in the sky; it was no longer visible above her, and the light in the maze was a hazy violet.

She heard the sound of two sets of running feet very near her, as if someone was being chased. She peered up and down the path and then realized that it must have come from the other side of the hedge. She listened closely, and thought that she heard the sound of low whistling, but she could not be sure.

“Emma? Dante?” she called out, but no one replied, and she decided to go on. She ran as quickly as she could down the paths, always trying to turn to the right, though she found that it wasn't always possible. Or perhaps she was just confused; in the low light, and the fog of her own mind, she began to see false turns and shadowy figures lurking everywhere.

She was turning yet another corner, beginning to despair of ever finding the apple, when a real figure leapt out from the shadows. Lizzie gasped and stepped backward. Then she realized that it was only Ford, with his Minotaur horns. “Oh, thank God it's you, Ford. I thought I'd seen a ghost.”

“Halt!” he said in a booming voice, trying not to smile. “None shall pass through my maze without doing battle. I propose a game of wits.”

“Have you seen any of the others?” Lizzie asked, feeling too tired and confused for games. “I feel that I'm running in circles.”

But Ford kept to his role. “You shall not pass to the prize without answering my question. I am the mighty Minotaur of the maze!”

Lizzie sighed. “Go on then.”

“If you answer correctly, you may pass in peace. Here is your riddle: Without you, I am nothing, and with you, we are one and the same. If you look closely you can see my face, but I haven't got a name. What am I?”

Lizzie laughed. A face without a name was how she often felt, looking at herself in Rossetti's paintings. But it wasn't a painting that Ford was after—she had heard this riddle before. “Are you a mirror?” she asked.

Ford raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Correct. You may pass.”

Lizzie begged him once again to point her toward the others, but he stayed in his role, and merely moved aside to let her pass.

Lizzie ran on, thinking that she must be close. No cries of triumph had rung through the hedges. She was sure that the apple must still be unclaimed.

Now the light in the maze had grown so dim that Lizzie could barely see a dozen feet in front of her. Had the hedges grown closer together? She felt tired and short of breath. She reached for her laudanum bottle, and then remembered that she had left it with their picnic baskets.

She'd lost interest in finding the apple. Now all she wanted was to find her way out of the maze and into a comfortable seat in the carriage. She was about to cry out for help when she saw what looked like a familiar turning up ahead.

She hurried around the corner, but she was greeted by another empty corridor that seemed to lead nowhere. Tears of frustration sprung to her eyes, and through their blur, she saw a moving figure at the end of the path. Could it be Ned, with the apple of discord?

She ran forward, and was halfway down the path when she heard a low whistle and a high, girlish laugh. She saw that it was not one figure, but two: a man and woman entwined, half pressed into the wall of hedges. She heard the whistle again and as she walked toward them she saw that it was Rossetti, and he was with Annie Miller.

It's a mistake, she thought desperately, a trick of the light.

The hedges seemed to grow taller and close in over her head, and the path felt as if it were falling away before her. Almost against her will, she took a few more steps forward, feeling that she was stepping into an abyss.

Rossetti's face was buried in Annie's neck, and he didn't see her approach. But Annie must have sensed her presence, and looked up. She stared straight at Lizzie with no trace of shame, and a wide, scornful smile spread across her face. Then she tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed with pleasure.

She murmured something into Rossetti's ear, and he turned, startled, and faced Lizzie. She was rooted to the spot, unable to run or to speak. He spoke her name, entreating her understanding, but he was too late. The abyss had opened, and Lizzie tumbled into the oblivion, collapsing into a dead faint on the path.

 

The moments that followed passed in a blur. Ruskin heard Rossetti's cries and came running down the path. He stopped short when he saw Lizzie's body on the ground, with Rossetti and Annie standing over her, understanding at once what must have happened. Their eyes met, and Rossetti's face twisted with guilt.

Ruskin knelt at Lizzie's side. “Will you not be happy until you've killed her?” he muttered. Rossetti kneeled down beside Ruskin, Annie Miller forgotten for the moment. “I didn't know that she was there.” Annie, realizing when she wasn't wanted, shrugged and went off to find the others, to tell them that Lizzie had spoiled their game.

The two men worked to revive Lizzie, but she didn't stir. Her skin was white and waxy, and her breath was shallow. She made a pathetic sight, and Ruskin at last gathered her up in his arms and said that they had better take her back to the carriages, to see if there were any smelling salts. When he lifted her, he was shocked at how light she was, as if she were no more than bones beneath her gown.

“Her laudanum,” Rossetti said, still in shock and trailing behind Ruskin. “It's with the picnic baskets. That ought to revive her.”

Ruskin turned around with a frown. “And has she taken any regular sustenance besides her laudanum? She feels as if she could float away at any moment.”

“I . . . I don't know. Not much, I don't think. She hasn't been well.”

Ruskin let his temper flare. “You've let this madness with Lizzie go on for far too long, Dante. It's obscene for you to be living with her without marrying her, and at the same time bedding every model you bring into your studio. No wonder the poor woman is ill! Who wouldn't be sickened by such a display? She deserves better than this. Is she your muse, or your whore?”

Rossetti looked at the ground as they walked. “I'm not sure I know. I'm afraid that if I marry her, she'll no longer inspire me, and if I don't marry her, it will kill her.” His voice was sad, almost childish, as he made his confession. But then he added, churlishly, “I wouldn't expect a man like you to understand.”

“No, I don't understand. And I'm afraid that I've had some part in this unfortunate business. I've supported her in her work, and perhaps made it possible for you to delay doing right by Lizzie. Don't you see what a rare thing you have in her? She's a woman almost beyond this earth, a woman of artistic ideals and otherworldly beauty. She deserves protection from this world. You must not destroy her.”

Rossetti merely bowed his head, taking Ruskin's reproach as his due. When they reached the picnic spot, Ruskin laid Lizzie down on the blanket. Even before they put the dropper of laudanum to her lips, her eyes began to flutter. At last she was able to sit up, and she drank from a flask of water and asked, “Have I been dreaming?”

“You've been ill,” Ruskin said, leaving out any mention of the scene in the maze, in case she might have forgotten it. “Don't stir.”

Ruskin turned to Rossetti and spoke quietly. “Things cannot go on like this. Lizzie is very ill, and you seem to be neither fit, nor inclined, to look after her properly.” He sighed, as if he had been too hard on Rossetti. “And you must, after all, be able to paint. I know that Lizzie's illness must take a toll on your work.”

Rossetti nodded, and Ruskin turned to Lizzie. “Miss Siddal, I'm going to insist that you see another doctor, a personal friend of mine from university, Dr. Acland, at Oxford. Now, don't protest.” He held up his hand as Lizzie started to murmur something. “I really must insist, and I'll take care of all the expenses, so you can't object on that account. I know that Dr. Acland and his wife will be very glad to receive you, and I don't doubt that you'll find the society, and the country air, a pleasant change.”

“If you insist,” Lizzie finally agreed. “I don't mean to seem ungrateful for all of your kind help.”

“It will be for the best,” Rossetti said, relieved to have Ruskin take things in hand. “The air in Oxford will be better this time of year, and seeing as how busy I am with my work, it would be a relief to know that you're well cared for. And I'll be up in Oxford often, to work on the murals.”

Lizzie ignored him. “I'll go to see this Dr. Acland,” she said, addressing only Ruskin. “But I must ask something of you as well.”

“Anything.”

“The arrangement between us—your generosity in purchasing my work—must come to an end. I've been too ill to paint very much this spring, and nothing of quality. I can't hope to give you a good return for your generosity, and so I can no longer accept it.”

“Lizzie!” Rossetti said, before Ruskin could reply. “Don't be a fool!”

“I'm not a fool.” She finally turned and looked at Rossetti. “I'm only being truthful. The arrangement was purely one of business, as you said yourself, and I can't hold up my end of the bargain. I'm sure that Mr. Ruskin understands.”

Ruskin was nodding. “It saddens me for our arrangement to come to an end. But I do hope that when you're ready to take up the brush, you will look to me as a patron. I'll always be happy to purchase any of your fine works.”

“Thank you. I think that I hear the others returning, and just in time. It's very dark.” She turned to Rossetti. “Dante, will you walk me back to the carriage? I'm afraid that I still feel faint, and I want to settle down beneath a throw.”