Ophelia's Muse (34 page)

CHAPTER 21

Rossetti posted his letter to Lizzie, advising her to stay in Oxford for the time being, and sighed with relief, a great weight off of his mind. Then he hurried back to Chatham Place, where his newest model, Fanny Cornforth, was waiting for him.

Fanny Cornforth; what could be said about her that was not immediately obvious to the eye? Everything about her was large: her great head of rippling blond hair, her generous flesh, her full lips and wide yellow eyes. There was nothing hidden about her, no pretense or hint of secret longings or tragedies. She was simply beautiful, and her whole body radiated the promise of warmth and comfort.

Rossetti found her plump and cheery bearing refreshing. He was tired of painting wan women whose faces, though beautiful, projected nothing so much as their suffering. His studio was filled with scenes from Dante, images of the courtly love of restraint and suffering. He wanted to paint something new—images of love that did not deny sensuality, portraits that celebrated pleasure as a virtue.

When Rossetti returned to the studio, Fanny was waiting for him, still in costume. He sat at his easel and studied her, taking in every detail. Then he began to paint, filling the entire canvas with her face, her hair, her hands. Her golden hair was decorated with marigolds and jeweled pins. A black velvet robe was draped over her shoulders, and an intricate gold necklace encircled her white throat. He painted each detail, but he lingered over the execution of her lips, which were full and slightly parted. He called the painting
Bocca Baciata,
or the Mouth That Has Been Kissed.

The painting was based on a princess from the
Decameron,
who takes eight lovers before marrying her ninth, and who is hailed, rather than condemned, for her passion. Unlike his previous work, this painting didn't tell its story through symbols and sideways glances, and it didn't trade on hints of coded meaning. Instead, he had painted one pure idea: sensuality in the absence of shame.

Fanny couldn't have been a more perfect model; there was no better history of love than her look of frank and unconcerned desire. Rossetti was enthralled. And his passion wasn't limited to his painting. When he finished painting Fanny, he drew her up from her seat and let his lips reach for hers, kissing her deeply. The movement felt as natural as his new style of painting, and he led her to his bedroom at the back of the studio. He slipped the velvet robe from around her shoulders and let it drop on the floor. She stood before him without shame, smiled invitingly, and pulled him onto the bed.

 

Lizzie was exhausted by the time she reached Paddington Station, but she went straight from the station to Chatham Place. She was determined to follow Lydia's advice, and to put her case to Rossetti once and for all. She had waited quietly for far too long.

It was dark when she arrived, and there was no light at the top of the stairs to greet her. She lit a lamp and carried it into the empty studio.

There was a fresh canvas sitting on the easel in the center of the room. It was turned away from her, but she could see an inscription scrawled across the back. She held the lamp closer and read:
The mouth that has been kissed loses not its freshness; still it renews itself even as does the moon.

Lizzie hesitated for a moment before turning the canvas around. A silent prayer formed on her lips: Please, God, let me find my own image on that canvas. She touched her lips gently with her fingers. They were dry and cracked, and felt as thin as the rest of her. She shuddered, sensing that she wouldn't see her reflection on the canvas. She had grown frail. How could she hope to inspire a great artist?

But still, the flame of hope, the voice that refused to be silenced by the long years of waiting, made its well-worn plea: He does love you, you are his muse, do not give up hope. She turned the canvas around.

With that simple gesture, the little flame was at last extinguished. She saw the blond hair, the full cheeks, the rosy lips. Rossetti had forsaken her.

She turned away from the painting, unable to look any longer. She staggered over to the sofa and collapsed, nearly choking on all the words of love and entreaty that she had planned to put to Rossetti, words now trapped behind mute lips. Her chest was tight and her breath painful.

She reached in her pocket for her bottle of laudanum and cast the stopper aside. With the mouth of the bottle pressed to her lips, she drank hungrily, not bothering to measure out her dose in drops or teaspoons. Dr. Acland's warnings were a dim memory. She had only one goal: to ease the panic that pounded through her body, radiating from her heart and marching along her veins, an invading army on undefended roads.

It was only a moment before her breathing slowed and became less labored. The medicine washed over her like a warm sea, and for a moment she was confused: What was she doing here? Then she remembered, and the warm sea turned rougher and more treacherous. She felt as if she were sinking.

She gathered what strength she had and stood. She walked toward the bedroom and paused at the door, holding up the lamp. She drew in her breath sharply, and the two figures on the bed stirred. Rossetti sat up, and his face was white, as if he'd seen a ghost. He rubbed his eyes. “Lizzie? What are you doing here? I wrote to you to stay at Oxford.”

The woman beside him was awake now, too, and she wrapped the sheet around herself and walked out of the room, passing Lizzie. As she went by, she looked at Lizzie with what seemed like pity.

Lizzie stared after her for a moment and then turned back to Rossetti. “And who are you to tell me whether to stay or to go? My betrothed? No! You're nothing to me!”

Rossetti looked tired. “Lizzie, please calm down. I love you, you know that. Nothing else matters, does it?”

“You love only yourself, Dante, and your work. You've used me up in its service, and now you'll discard me, like one of your failed sketches. You're a monster.”

Lizzie began to sob, and to flail her arms about uselessly, as if she were fighting off some unseen adversary. Rossetti rose from the bed and grabbed her wrists, trying to calm her. “Lizzie! Calm down. You're not yourself.”

“No! At last I remember myself! At last I can see clearly. I've been blind, very blind, but you've been blind as well. You can't even see what you've done to me. You've never really been able to see me.”

Rossetti looked at Lizzie, at her wild eyes, and shivered. He pushed her onto the bed. “It's that damned medicine. You've taken too much. You don't know what you're saying.”

“I know exactly what I'm saying.” She knew that she was ranting, but the words poured out unbidden, and as she heard them, she knew that they were true. “You've never seen me as I really am. You never even tried. I'm not just the girl in your paintings, Dante. I'm not a reflection that requires nothing more than hope to feed upon. I've been making a meal of such scanty offerings for too long. I've forsaken everything for you, and you've given me nothing but false promises in return.”

Rossetti turned on her. “I've given you nothing? Have I not given you immortality? Have I not painted you as the most beautiful and sainted women who have ever lived? Is that nothing?”

All of the rage that had driven Lizzie up to this moment suddenly left her. “It's not nothing, but it's not enough. It's no more than you will give to that whore who waits for you in the studio, and no more than you've given other women in the past. I always wanted more.”

Rossetti was quiet for a moment. “I don't know what more I can give you, Lizzie. I must be allowed to paint, and to explore the things that give my painting meaning. I need love, passion, adventure. I thought that we wanted the same things, but I was wrong. I never should have given you my promise. It's a promise I can't keep. I'm sorry.”

Lizzie nodded and rose from the bed. Her legs were weak beneath her and she struggled to stand. Rossetti went to her side. “You aren't well. Don't try to stand.”

“No. I must go.” She stared at Rossetti, taking in every feature of the face of the man whom she had loved, and longed for. She saw that she wasn't the only one who had grown older. The years had also left their mark on him, and his face was already beginning to thicken, helped along by drink. His eyes, which had once danced with such mischievous joy and kindness, now seemed more guarded. But the life in them was still strong, and Lizzie could see that even as they looked at her, they looked beyond her, to the promise of tomorrow and the days beyond.

She turned away and with her last strength she pushed past him. When she glanced back, she saw that he stood several paces behind her, his hand stretched toward her irresolutely, in a gesture that was as familiar as his kiss. She turned and slipped through the door, down the stairs, and out into the street.

 

Chatham Place was nearly empty, and Lizzie stumbled down the street, hardly aware of where she was going. Nearby she heard the lapping of the Thames against its banks, and the water called out to her, offering its soothing, silent embrace. She paused at the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, listening to the water rush by the pilings and feeling its unceasing pull.

Blurry images tugged at her memory, but her thoughts were confused and her recollection indistinct. She tried to sort through them: the painful grip of a man's heavy hand around her arm, the heavy drag of a soaking gown as cold water swirled around her, the shock of recognizing her own image in the ghastly painting of a prostitute.

Lizzie shuddered, her whole body convulsing. She leaned over the edge of the embankment, testing the feeling of vertigo, and then, with a wrenching motion, she turned away from the river and fled into the twisting alleys of Southwark, which welcomed her back into their dark and obscure fold.

She remembered nothing until she arrived at the door of the house in Kent Place. Her feet must have carried her along her old route by instinct, her cloak of unhappiness shielding her from the reaching hands and hungry eyes that trailed after her. She knew that she was not welcome here, in her father's house, but she had nowhere else to go. Like a dying animal, she sought out a soft and familiar place to lay her head.

When she reached the door, the desperate strength that had led her there abandoned her. She knocked weakly, despairing that anyone would hear her in the slumbering house.

But the door opened, and Lizzie collapsed at the feet of her father. He stood in his nightshirt, a flickering candle in his hand.

“Good Lord!” he cried. “Lydia, come quickly! It's your sister, and she looks to be at death's door!”