Ophelia's Muse (35 page)

CHAPTER 22

The lodging house room was unbearably stuffy, and Lydia threw open the shutters to coax in the fresh sea air. The smells of the sickroom were stifling: the sharp scent of smelling salts, the untouched broth, and the one that Lydia hated the most, the sickly sweet smell of laudanum.

Their second trip to Hastings was not proving as successful as their first. Lizzie languished in the cheap lodgings. She didn't have the strength to leave her room for fortifying walks by the sea, or even to join the other invalids for tea in the sunroom. She lay night and day in her bed, too weak and indifferent even to speak.

Lydia was afraid to leave her, and so she spent the days pacing back and forth across the worn rug. She tried to get Lizzie to take some broth, and provided her with what cheer she could, reading letters and books aloud to her. But Lizzie was beyond such easy cures, and hardly seemed to care whether she lived or died.

The doctor came daily to take Lizzie's pulse and frown over Lydia's reports. At last the doctor drew Lydia into the hallway and delivered the news that she was expecting, and dreading. It was his opinion that Miss Siddal was failing, and that, as she wasn't able to eat without vomiting, and took very little water, she didn't have long to live. He advised writing at once to her mother and father, so that they might have time to make the journey.

Lydia left Lizzie in the doctor's care and went next door to her own room. She shut the door behind her and then sat down on her bed to sob, pushing her handkerchief against her mouth to dampen the sound of her cries, lest she do anything to disturb poor Lizzie.

When her sobs subsided, she rose and once again paced the room, which was far too small to contain her grief. The doctor seemed so sure that Lizzie was beyond hope, and Lydia could hardly argue with him. But she couldn't let Lizzie go so easily. She must do everything in her power, even if that meant calling upon the one man whom she loathed with all of her soul. She had written to him once before in a time of need, and he had come.

She sat down at her desk and pulled out a clean sheet of paper. But try as she might, she couldn't bring herself to write his name. After a struggle, she finally settled on writing to Lizzie's old friend, John Ruskin, instead. If John Ruskin thought that Rossetti might be of comfort to Lizzie, then surely he would be able to convince him to come better than Lydia herself could.

She wrote:

John Ruskin received Lydia's letter with shock and regret. He cursed himself for becoming so engrossed in his writing that he had neglected to enquire after Lizzie in the last months, and he cursed Rossetti, that monster of a genius, for allowing her to languish for years and then to discard her in her time of greatest need.

He called for a boy from the stable to take a letter by hand, and then dashed off a note to Rossetti while the boy stood waiting.

The train ride to Hastings was the longest of Rossetti's life. Nothing felt solid; the perspectives were wrong. His stomach lurched inside him and his hands felt fit for nothing but prayer and grasping, as if he were crossing a vast sea, rather than the gently rolling hills of Sussex.

He sat in silence, with no companion other than Ruskin's note of reproach. He read it over and over, staring at it as if it were the bottom of a teacup, trying to read some hint of his fortune in its leaves. Was it possible that he would be too late?

The thought acted as a bitter tonic, and Rossetti's vision cleared and focused, as if he were coming out of a fever. He saw everything in minute detail, so real that it felt like a hallucination: each glossy leaf of the trees that rushed past his window, the starched lace collars of the elderly women in his car brushing against their feathery necks, the speckles of orange and blue paint that he hadn't bothered to wash from his hands before rushing from his studio to the station.

He realized with a start that he hadn't seen so clearly since the first moment he glimpsed Lizzie, sitting in her page's shift in Walter Deverell's studio. He'd felt so sure of himself at that moment; sure of what he desired, and what he must do. He'd wanted nothing more than to be near her, to paint her and read poetry to her, to hear her laugh and touch her white skin, and her red hair.

Somehow he had lost sight of that truth, its simplicity obscured by a thousand trifling concerns. But he found that it was still there, like a half-finished canvas cast aside in favor of a new design. It still waited for him, ready to have its lines filled in with rich color, its promise fulfilled.

How foolish, how utterly foolish he had been. Why hadn't he married her when he had the chance?

He looked down again at Ruskin's note:
I would hate to be the man with that dear angel's death upon my shoulders.
He shuddered. If he were to lose her now, he couldn't account for the effect that it might have upon his mind. Could he even paint without his muse, his Beatrice? Or would her spirit haunt him, casting its shadow across his paintings and driving him mad? He'd been so callous. At this last moment, it seemed clear to him that she was what was important, not his work. But he couldn't think of Lizzie without thinking of his work; the two had never been separate. The artist and the muse, the poetry and the painted images: He saw them suspended like heavenly bodies, each dependent upon the others for its delicate balance. If one were to be extinguished, the rest might tumble from the sky, or spin off wildly into the unknown. He must get to Lizzie in time; everything depended on it. Ruskin was right: If he had to bear the weight of Lizzie's death, it would crush him. He willed the train on, praying for haste.

When they at last pulled into the station, Rossetti was the first to grab his case and leap from the carriage. He ran along the platform, past the station, and into the quiet streets of Hastings.

The streets were nearly empty. The invalids had retreated into the courtyards of their hotels. The sun beat brightly upon the town, and Rossetti looked scornfully at the cheerful façades of the hotels, behind whose whitewashed walls lay fear and illness and common tragedy.

Every fiber of his being called him to Lizzie's side, but he couldn't go to her empty-handed. He knew how little his promises and words of comfort were worth. He walked quickly along the high street and ducked into the first church that he saw. He was in luck. The clergyman was in, and in a shaky voice, Rossetti made his application for a marriage license.

He paced the church impatiently while the papers were drawn up, and the clergyman smiled at him knowingly. “The girl must be very pretty, and you must be very much in love, to be in such a hurry!”

At last the license was signed, and Rossetti had the paper in hand. He paid his fee and dashed back out into the street. With a burning face, he thought of all the times that he had told Lizzie that he was setting aside this or that sum for their marriage license, and then, finding some other more tempting use for the money, how he had told himself that the matter was not pressing, and could wait.

The address of the lodging house that Ruskin had given him was in a less fashionable quarter of the town than the hotel where they had stayed in their happier days, when Lizzie's illness seemed to be on the mend and they had spent long days wandering along the beaches and bluffs. When Rossetti arrived at the door, he saw that the flower boxes in front of each window were empty, and that the parlor was dark, but not quite dark enough to hide its shabbiness. The landlady barely looked up from her book when he inquired after Lizzie, and waved him up the stairs without a word.

Rossetti took the stairs two at a time, but when he reached the door to Lizzie's room he paused. The terrible memory of Lizzie, lying cold and white in the tub in John Millais's studio, came unbidden into his mind, and he felt himself go cold with fear. He whispered a quick prayer—please, God, do not desert me—and pushed open the door.

The sight that greeted him was sadder than he could have imagined: Lizzie lay upon the bed, completely still. Even under a pile of quilts, Rossetti could see that she was terribly wasted. Her eyes were closed, and her face was without color, except for her large eyelids, which were as purple as fresh bruises. Lydia knelt at her side, holding her sister's thin hand to her cheek.

“Am I?” Rossetti choked, unable to get the words out at first. “Am I too late?”

Lydia looked up at him, startled, and dropped Lizzie's hand. Rossetti saw Lizzie stir—a faint movement, but a sign of life nonetheless. In two steps he was at her side, kneeling beside Lydia and taking Lizzie's hand in his own.

“My dove,” he murmured softly. “My little dove. I've come back to you, and I'll never leave your side again. Only, you must come back to me as well. Come, my little dove, and say a word to me, so that I know that you hear me.”

Lizzie's eyes fluttered open, and for a moment they seemed to fix on Rossetti's face before they dropped closed again. Rossetti once again feared that he had come too late. “Lizzie!” he cried. “Open your eyes!” He pulled the marriage license from his pocket. He knew that the gesture was desperate, but he couldn't help himself. He felt as sure as he had ever felt of anything that if he could only get Lizzie to the church, if he could only marry her as he should have done long ago, that he would somehow be absolved.

“Look, my love!” He waved the license before her half-closed eyes. “We will be married. Open your eyes and we will be married!”

Lizzie sighed and turned her face toward the wall, silent. She was, Rossetti saw, past caring. Her indifference stirred him. She was a stone saint upon her tomb, well beyond the earthly pleasures of love and desire, and at that moment, Rossetti perversely decided that there was no woman on earth more deserving of his love.

Lydia took pity on the hunched man by the bed, and pulled him to his feet. “Let her rest. You're not too late, but I'm afraid that there is nothing else to be done. If you could only talk to her, and give her some comfort, it might make it easier for her. . . .” Lydia could not finish the thought. “It might give her some final peace.”

Rossetti frowned and looked at Lydia, not understanding. “The only comfort that I intend to give her is the comfort that I should have given her long ago: that of marriage, and a home.”

Lydia shook her head. “Mr. Rossetti, I know that this is a great shock. But you must understand—Lizzie hasn't stirred from her bed for days. She can keep nothing on her stomach for five minutes altogether. Like you, I want nothing more in the world than for her to be as she was. Indeed, that's why I wrote to John Ruskin—in the hope that if you were to come, she might rally.... But I fear that it's too late. I'm afraid that I've called you here in vain.”

“Nonsense.” Rossetti surprised her by rising and beginning to bustle about the room, straightening the cups and cloths on the bedside table and throwing open the window. “I will nurse her myself. And mark my words: I do intend to marry her. I will not lose her again.”

 

Rossetti set about nursing Lizzie with all of the dedication that he usually reserved for his paintings. He saw at once that Lydia had not exaggerated; Lizzie's health was failing, and quickly. At first she hardly seemed to recognize him. Her state varied between a listlessness that left her too tired even to speak, and terrifying fits, which caused her face to enliven horribly as she screamed for aid. At such moments Rossetti would rush to her side, desperate to help her. He held the laudanum to her lips, feeding it to her like a child. It was the only thing that seemed to calm her and ease her pain.

He tended to her with a single-minded devotion. He was a pilgrim, trudging toward the holy land, borne along by faith and fear, love and guilt, long after the exhilaration of the journey has worn thin. He spoke to her constantly: reminding her of happier times, weaving plans for their wedding and honeymoon, praising her talent and speaking of the great works of poetry and art that they would create together as man and wife. He made little sketches to amuse her: caricatures of their friends and drawings of curious animals at play. Spoonful by spoonful, he fed her by his own hand: first water, then tea, and finally broth. And at last, ever so slowly, Lizzie began to improve.