Ophelia's Muse

by Rita Cameron

  “Lizzie, Lizzie!” they cried. “Will you read aloud to us? Oh, please?”

  “Hush!” Her tone was serious, but her smile was affectionate. “I can’t read to you now! Don’t you see that we have company?”

  The children glanced up at Mrs. Tozer, but, not recognizing her, they paid her no mind. The noise, however, brought Mrs. Siddal into the parlor. One quiet word from her and the children made a quick bow and curtsy before scampering back the way that they had come. Mrs. Siddal strode forward to greet her visitor.

  “Mother,” Lizzie said, “allow me to introduce Mrs. Tozer.”

  Mrs. Siddal nodded her head in greeting and gestured for Mrs. Tozer to take a seat in front of the fire. If she was surprised to find her daughter’s employer in her parlor, her face did not betray it. “To what do I owe the great pleasure of your visit?”

  Mrs. Tozer made herself comfortable and regarded Mrs. Siddal with interest. She had the same fine manners and impeccable dress as her daughter, and her hair, though somewhat faded, was of the same hue of golden red. Only her hands, the skin red and cracked, betrayed the hard work that it took to maintain appearances.

  “Mrs. Siddal, so lovely to finally meet you. Lizzie has been such an asset to our shop. Her work is of the first order, and I can always depend on her to show the new girls their way about the workroom. She is a very talented seamstress.”

  A slight frown passed over Mrs. Siddal’s face, and Mrs. Tozer paused. It was clear that Mrs. Siddal’s pride weighed more than her purse, and that she was ashamed that she had to put her daughter out to work. Mrs. Tozer summoned up all of her saleswoman’s powers of persuasion and started again: “What I mean to say is that I’ve taken a particular interest in your daughter, and in her prospects. She’s obviously a girl of many fine qualities, very much apart from her talent at millinery.”

  The new tactic worked, and Mrs. Siddal instantly warmed to Mrs. Tozer. “She is indeed a girl of good qualities. Of course, she’s had no formal education, but I tutored her myself. Lizzie can recite poetry, speak a little French, and draw. I raised all my girls the way I myself was raised.”

  Mrs. Tozer saw her opening. “Her artistic accomplishments are quite obvious in her work. That’s why I’m so anxious for Lizzie to be further exposed to such . . . artistic elements.”

  Lizzie watched the exchange with barely suppressed excitement. Mrs. Tozer’s words had done their work; Lizzie was beginning to see the opportunity as an adventure, rather than a sordid way to make a few extra shillings. But despite her growing excitement, she kept her eyes down and her head bowed. If she looked too eager, her mother would be suspicious.

  “It will come as no surprise to you,” Mrs. Tozer continued, her voice smooth and flattering, “that Lizzie has caught the eye of a painter who wishes to paint her portrait.”

  At the first mention of the painter Mrs. Siddal began to shake her head. “An artist paint Lizzie? No, no, I’m afraid that it’s out of the question.”

  “What I meant to say is a gentleman artist. A graduate of the Royal Academy Schools. I would hardly bother you with such a request if I had any doubt that the situation would be advantageous to Lizzie. I feel strongly that this could be an opportunity for her to be introduced into a very genteel circle.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Siddal said. “But I’m well aware of what sort of women pose for artists, and I won’t have my daughter counted among them. Really, Mrs. Tozer! I’m surprised that you would allow such goings on among your girls!”

  Mrs. Tozer gave a tight smile. She often said that she could sell a bible to a bishop or a sinner alike, and Mrs. Siddal was no different than any reluctant customer.

  “You’re right, of course. The respectability of my girls is of the utmost importance to me. As is their social advancement, when possible. I’ve had my eye on Lizzie for some time, and I’d like to see her introduced to some better society. Mrs. Deverell, the painter’s mother, could be a great ally to Lizzie if she finds her agreeable.”

  “Of course I want the best for Lizzie. But a thing like this could do real harm to her reputation. If there were to be any improprieties. . .”

  “Please, Mother,” Lizzie broke in, unable to contain her excitement. “You always say that if only we had the right introductions, we would make the most of them.”

  “And how shall I introduce you if it gets around that you are posing for an artist?” Mrs. Siddal snapped. “It won’t matter whether he’s a gentleman or not, people will assume the worst. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lizzie, but it will be said that a girl who will take money to sit for a painter will take money for other things as well. I’m only trying to protect you.”

  “But who would know?” Lizzie asked. “The people around here wouldn’t know the Royal Academy of Art from the Royal Stables. And besides, I don’t think that it’s so bad as you say. Many young ladies pose for portraits, and so long as they have a proper chaperone, no one thinks anything of it! Please, Mother, I long for some little adventure. What’s the point of speaking French and learning to draw, if I’m going to spend all my days in a workroom with girls who can barely speak the Queen’s English?”

  Mrs. Tozer raised her eyebrows, but chose not to reprimand Lizzie for her slight to the shop. Instead she turned to Mrs. Siddal. “You have my word, madam, that Lizzie will be properly chaperoned at all times.”

  Mrs. Siddal looked at her daughter and her face began to soften. “I’ve done my best with them, you know,” she said, so quietly that it was almost as if she were speaking to herself. “But all of my plans, and all my little economies, have come to nothing so far. It seems that fine manners are worth very little without fine connections in society.” She seemed to make up her mind and nodded once, very slowly, just as Lizzie had. Mrs. Tozer, who had not been blessed with any daughters, must have felt a twinge at how alike they were.

  “Oh, Mama!” Lizzie cried, leaping from her chair and embracing her mother. “Thank you! I promise that I’ll make you proud.”

  “But not a word to your father,” Mrs. Siddal warned. “He’d be scandalized . . . I hate to even think of it.” She glanced at Mrs. Tozer, who smiled back, no doubt thinking of the late Mr. Tozer, who, God rest his soul, was no longer around to stick his nose into her business decisions.

  Mrs. Tozer rose to leave. “After all,” she said, “it’s only for a few days. And perhaps it will put Lizzie in the way of fortune . . . or who knows?” Mrs. Tozer spread her hands and raised an eyebrow. “She may even wind up possessed of her own fortune.”

  The thought of prosperity elicited a smile from Mrs. Siddal. She had raised Lizzie the best that she could—now it was up to her to go out and make something of herself.

  CHAPTER 4

  Ophelia ran down the forest path, her satin gown sweeping over the mossy ground with a soft whisper. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, and looking up she saw the familiar turrets of Elsinore rising above the treetops. The light was dying, and she started again, anxious to reach the castle gates.

  The fog that slid between the trees played tricks, forming into ghosts and turning twisted branches into castle gates. She reached out her hand, but the mist shifted to reveal that the castle was still far ahead.

  A single purpose drove her steps: She must find her noble prince. Some whispered that he was mad, but she paid them no mind. For if he was mad, then so too was she, for giving herself to a madman.

  At last she reached the gates and heard his voice, more clearly now, calling to her: “Ophelia, Ophelia!”

  The words sent a shiver of pleasure through her, and her hands, prickly with cold, felt the warm sun upon them.

  “Ophelia!” She heard the voice call again, and it was suddenly odd—familiar, but not quite right.

  She glanced around, perplexed, and in her confusion she lost the path and slipped. The ground disappeared beneath her, and her crown of flowers slipped from her head, leaving a trail of columbine and rue in her wake. She cried out, afraid that she
was slipping into oblivion.

  But just as the shadow threatened to engulf her, a hand reached out and pulled her to safety.

  Through the haze of sleep, she heard a voice: “Lizzie! Lizzie! Wake up!”

  She opened her eyes and, still half dreaming, looked around. She blinked, surprised to see a cozy bedroom where she expected a dark wood. The shutters of her room were thrown open, and her younger sister, Lydia, stood over her, laughing and shaking her by the shoulder.

  “What nonsense you were talking! Come on now, get up! You’ll be late to sit for your artist!”

  Lizzie sat straight up in bed, sending an open book in her lap clattering to the floor. The excitement of sitting for Walter Deverell had made it impossible to sleep, and so she’d spent the better part of the night burning down candles and leafing through an old volume of Shakespeare, trying to guess which of his heroines she was to sit for the next day. Now she scrambled out of bed, clutching her nightgown around her. The room was cold and the floor beneath her feet was colder. They couldn’t afford to set fires in the bedrooms, unless someone was ill.

  Lydia picked up the book that Lizzie had dropped. It was a heavy volume, with a faded cloth cover and only a suggestion of the gold embossing that had once graced its spine. Lydia barely glanced at it and threw it back onto the bed. “Were you up all night reading your fairy tales again?”

  “They’re not fairy tales. They’re the works of the great playwright. . . oh, never mind.” Lizzie could see that Lydia couldn’t care less.

  Lydia hadn’t inherited the Siddal family’s taste for literature. And it was just as well, Lizzie thought, since they had so few books to begin with, and she had no wish to share them with anyone else. Lydia preferred to spend her free time at cards or embroidery, and she only laughed when Lizzie asked her how she could bring herself to take up a needle for pleasure after sewing all day at her position at a dressmaker’s. “It’s no harder on my hands than reading would be on my eyes,” Lydia said, ever practical.

  Though she was two years younger than Lizzie, Lydia often assumed the role of an older sister: She was sensible when Lizzie was dreamy, quick to help their mother with the housekeeping while Lizzie was off daydreaming, and, though Lizzie was tall for a girl, Lydia was an inch taller, and had a fuller figure. She liked to joke that she would have to go to the country and become a farmer’s wife, where a strong back was valued over a pretty face. But the whole family knew that she was really sweet on Robert Crane, the grocer’s son from down the street, and that he must find her pretty enough, as he always asked for her when he was making a delivery. Lizzie had no doubt that as soon as he took over the business from his father, he would ask for Lydia’s hand, and Lydia would move a few doors down, exchanging a small house above a cutlery for a small house above a grocery, and that she would be as happy with that as with anything. Well, that was fine for Lydia, but Lizzie wanted something different. And today, she hoped, might be her chance to see what a different life was like.

  Lizzie sat down in front of her mirror, staring hard at her features and trying to see what it was that had made the artist notice her. She pinched her cheeks and bit her lip, calling forth an angry rose tint beneath her white skin. But the added color did nothing to quiet her fear that her nose was too long and her eyelids too heavy. Mrs. Tozer was probably right—Jeannie Evans would have made a more fitting model for a painting.

  Lizzie turned to her sister. “What if this Mr. Deverell has made a mistake? What if, when he sees me again, he decides that I am not really what he needs after all? I would be too humiliated.”

  “Nonsense,” Lydia said. “Here, let me. I’ll brush your hair one hundred times for good luck.” She took the brush from Lizzie’s hand and began to brush her hair in long, regular strokes. Their faces in the mirror were variations on a theme; they had the same wide-set eyes, but Lydia’s were a warm brown to Lizzie’s pale gray, and she had dimpled pink cheeks instead of Lizzie’s dramatic cheekbones. Lydia hummed while she worked, as if she were soothing a child. When she was finished, Lizzie’s hair glowed like burnished copper. “There. You’re as pretty as a picture now.”

  Their toilet complete, the two girls clambered down the stairs and into the kitchen. Lizzie stood before the hearth to warm her fingers and toes. “Any tea?” She glanced at the pot on the sideboard.

  Lydia lifted the lid and looked in. “No,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Just the dregs. Father must have drunk it all and not refilled the pot. As usual.”

  They looked over at the table, where indeed their father had left an empty teacup and a pile of paperwork, some of it covered in rings where he had carelessly placed the cup on the papers, and none of it in too great of a condition to begin with. Lizzie could see that her father had been up early to look over the papers for his lawsuit.

  “That can’t be a good sign, can it?” Lydia asked.

  “No. He only drags out that old pile of evidence when business isn’t going well. What could be the problem now?”

  Lydia sighed. Then, trying to make light: “Well, just think. If we lived at Hope Hall, we’d have our own fires lit every morning, and a maid to bring us our tea in bed!”

  “And jam for our bread, and sugar for our tea,” Lizzie responded with a smile. “But until that happens, I’m afraid that we must hurry to work.”

  On the stairs they met their father, who was coming up from the shop.

  “As fresh as daisies, you two are!” he exclaimed, pinching their cheeks and leaving a smudge. He had an infectious smile, which had long ago charmed his young wife, and convinced her that he was a man with prospects. And it was that same smile that had later helped to smooth over some of her disappointment, when none of his plans had come to anything.

  He’d been at work grinding knives, and a light metallic dust covered his shirtsleeves and blue work apron. In a misguided nod to the style of his clientele, he wore a shabby top hat, perched at a ridiculous angle. It was no wonder that the neighbors were always asking him how he was getting on with his lawsuit, and then laughing at him behind his back, calling him the Country Squire. “You’d better be off,” he said, glancing at his watch, “or you’ll be late.”

  “Yes, I know,” Lydia said, annoyed. “It’s Lizzie. She was up all night reading again and couldn’t wake herself this morning. Apparently the works of the great playwright—yes, Lizzie, I was listening, I’m not quite so ignorant as you think—were more important than rousing ourselves for work.”

  “Up all night reading, were you?” Mr. Siddal’s eyes twinkled. “Like father, like daughter, I see.”

  “I should hope not,” muttered Lydia. Louder, she said, “If Lizzie is up every night thinking of poetry, she will lose her place. She needs her sleep.”

  “My Lizzie has more brains and beauty than any of Shakespeare’s heroines. I expect she’ll be fine. Let her be, Lydia.”

  Lizzie could not be angry with her father for long, but his flattery solved nothing. Beauty and brains were quite all right when you were a fine lady in a play, but they hadn’t proved of much use when you were a shopgirl from Southwark. She was tempted, for a moment, to tell him that she was going to sit for a portrait of one of Shakespeare’s heroines, but then decided against it. Any pride that he would take in the thought would be far outweighed by his dismay that she was going to be a model.

  “Goodbye, Father,” she said. “I’ll be late again tonight. Tell Mother not to wait up.”

  With that, the two girls brushed past their father and went down the stairs. They put on their cloaks and went out into the street. Before they parted, Lydia turned to Lizzie with some last advice. “Do be careful, Lizzie. And mind that there is always another lady present.”

  “As always, Lyddie, you’re completely practical. If only I had a bit of your good sense.”

  Lydia laughed. “From what I’ve heard, good sense is not the quality that painters look for in their models.” Then she became serious. “I’ve no doubt that they will be charmed
by you, Lizzie. But do be careful that you’re not too charmed by them. A painter is little more than a conjurer, after all. But you are so much more than a pretty girl in a painting. I don’t want to see you sell yourself for a handful of beans.”

  Deverell’s studio was situated in Kew, a green and elegant neighborhood west of the city. It was too far to walk, and the cost of a cab was well beyond Lizzie’s means, so she boarded a horse-drawn omnibus and wedged herself in among the other passengers.

  Anticipation made the trip seem longer than it was, but when she at last reached the house, her nerve almost failed her. It was an impressive redbrick mansion, three stories high, with white pillars at the door and a mansard roof. She checked the address twice before making her way up the path.

  She rang the bell, and a maid in a starched cap answered and took her name. The maid went to fetch Mrs. Deverell and Lizzie stood awkwardly on the doorstep, unsure of whether she should have followed the maid into the house—the girl hadn’t indicated either way.

  Before she could make up her mind to enter, Mrs. Deverell appeared at the door. She looked Lizzie up and down, reminding Lizzie of her own mother. “My dear Miss Siddal,” she said, in a voice that managed to be both solicitous and distant. “You are so very kind to sit for my son. I know that he is delighted to have your assistance. Please,” she said, “follow me, and I’ll show you to his studio.”

  Without ever having invited Lizzie into the house, Mrs. Deverell swept past her and went down the steps and onto the path. Lizzie followed her around the side of the house, her cheeks burning. Was she being shown to the servants’ entrance? But to Lizzie’s great relief, Mrs. Deverell proceeded past the kitchen door and through the garden to a studio set back from the house. She pushed open the door and gestured for Lizzie to follow her.