by Rita Cameron
“Is that so?” Lizzie had assumed that all the young men in their circle were well off, or at least had good expectations. “But he chooses to paint, rather than take up some more steady profession?”
“That was unkind of me. I shouldn’t have spoken so of a friend. Rossetti’s family is very respectable. I didn’t mean to imply that he would leave any debt unpaid.”
Lizzie nodded, feeling reassured. It didn’t occur to her that a respectable family might, like her own, be hanging on by a thread to pretensions that their accounts could only barely support.
Deverell stepped back from his canvas to get a better view of his work. As he did so, he winced and grunted with pain.
“Are you well?” Lizzie rose to her feet. Deverell’s face was pale, and his cheeks burned as if he had a fever. “I’ll get your sister.”
“No, no, please don’t bother, I’m fine,” Deverell muttered, making his way over to a sofa and lowering himself gently into a seat. “I’m just tired. I’ve spent too many hours this week bent over the canvas.” He looked at the painting and then out the window, to the garden beyond. “It’s very important to me that it be accepted for the Royal Academy Exhibition this spring. I think that it might be my first really good painting. And of course, I have you to thank. I wouldn’t have had my Viola without you. I hope that you will accept my humble thanks, and come to sit for me again soon.”
“I would love to. These last days have been the most pleasant of my life.”
As Deverell rose to fetch Lizzie’s cloak, he winced again. “I’d better go lie down. Please, allow me to call you a cab. It’s late, and I know that you have a long ride home.”
Deverell rose from the couch and took Lizzie’s arm, escorting her to the front of the house and calling for a hansom. When the cab pulled up, he handed Lizzie up onto the seat and paid the driver. Lizzie turned to wave, and Deverell stood on the curb and watched her go.
It was her first ride in a cab. The expense had always been too much for her, but tonight she was one of those lucky women being spirited through the streets in ease and comfort. She drew the blanket over her lap as the cab raced through the darkening streets of Kew, passing quickly down its broad avenues.
As they drew nearer to the city, the streets narrowed and filled with carriages and carts. The London fog lay thicker here, and coal smoke swirled outside the windows of the cab, leaving only the dark outline of rooftops visible against the sky, and rendering the figures that darted past in the street little more than their own shadows. But Lizzie was safe and snug inside the cab, a bubble of luxury impervious to the cold night and the crowded streets. It was quite a change from the omnibus, where one was pinched in among so many other travelers. It was, Lizzie knew, just another small extravagance of which some in London thought nothing.
Lizzie’s cab traveled swiftly toward Blackfriars Bridge and clattered over the muddy cobblestones of Kent Place. When the driver opened the door, she saw that she was in luck: Her father had closed up the shop early, and there would be no questions about where she had come from, and how she had been able to afford a cab.
She found her father and several of the younger children gathered before a warm fire. The room was tidy, with flowers in a vase and bits of lace over the tables. But the furniture was shabby, and the walls were blackened by smoke that had never quite come clean, despite repeated scrubbing. She knew that it was her eyes, and not the room, that had changed, and that she should be grateful for what they had. But her feeling of distaste clung stubbornly, like the soot from the fire.
She could hear her mother and Lydia preparing supper in the kitchen, and she put on an apron and went in to help. Neither woman looked up at her as she entered. Mrs. Siddal threw an oilcloth over the table and Lydia set out the dishes, banging them as she put them down.
Lizzie was still giddy from Deverell’s compliments, and from the unexpected treat of the cab ride. She hummed as she helped Lydia to set out the dishes. “It’s certainly dreary in here tonight! Are we preparing for a funeral or for supper?”
“Lizzie!” her mother scolded. “Such crassness may pass for conversation at the Deverells’ house, but it certainly will not be tolerated here.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean anything by it.” She paused and looked at Lydia, who avoided her gaze. Something wasn’t right—there were no smells of cooking, and her mother’s face looked pinched and white. Lizzie walked over to the stove and peered in. The coals weren’t lit. “I thought that we were going to use my extra earnings this week for a roast! We’ve had nothing but toast and drippings all week.”
“There will be no roast.”
Lizzie looked back into the parlor and frowned as she watched her father read to the children. “Why is Father home early? I thought that he took on extra help for the order from the wharf house. Why isn’t he in the shop?”
Her mother sighed and sat down at the table. “He lost the order. And with it the money for our rent. And there are bills, solicitors’ bills . . .”
Lizzie dropped into the chair next to her. Her mother’s face was pale, and her usually perfect posture drooped, as if all the air had gone out of her.
“Oh, Mama,” Lizzie said, putting her hand over her mother’s. “What will we do?”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do first,” Lydia burst out. She opened the sideboard and gathered Mr. Siddal’s legal papers into her arms. Then she strode over to the hearth, ready to throw them in.
Mrs. Siddal jumped to her feet. “No! You mustn’t! Your father will be livid!”
Lydia stood irresolutely by the fire and looked at Lizzie.
“Don’t look at me to stop you. I say throw the whole lot in. They’ll do us more good as kindling than they will as a lawsuit.”
“That will solve nothing,” Mrs. Siddal said, regaining her composure. “Now, all’s not lost. We can use Lizzie’s extra wages for the rent, and the lawyers can be put off. But there will be no little extras, I’m afraid. We’ll all have to make do with what we have for a bit. I know I can depend on you.”
Lizzie bit her lip. She’d been planning to ask her mother for a few shillings for a new shawl. Now, as always, everything would have to be spent on the bare necessities. She thought of the tea she had just taken at Deverell’s studio. There had been a tiered tray of sweets and sandwiches, strawberry preserves and clotted cream for the scones, and a plate of fresh fruits. It had been enough for a dozen people to enjoy, and it had been served to just the three of them. And now there was to be nothing but toast and tea for the children for dinner. And they were lucky to have even that. Without Lizzie’s extra wages, it might have been worse. But there was nothing that she could do. “Yes, Mama,” she said with resignation. “You may depend on us.”
“Now, Lizzie, is there any chance of your sitting for Mr. Deverell again? He paid you very well.”
She sighed. “Not at the moment, I’m afraid. He’s all done with the picture.”
“And I don’t suppose,” her mother began, her tone delicate, “that he gave you any indication of wanting to see you for any other reason?”
She paused. The book of Tennyson was in her cloak pocket. But it was hardly a declaration of love—it could just as easily have been a parting gift as a sign of his affection. “No. He was very kind, but he gave me no reason to think that he wanted me for anything other than my red hair.”
Mrs. Siddal turned, but not quickly enough to hide her disappointment. “Well, there’s no reason to lose hope. He’s a gentleman, after all, and he could hardly be expected to make any declarations to you while you were under his employment.”
Lizzie didn’t have to guess what her mother was thinking: If Lizzie could make a good marriage, it would solve many of their problems. One daughter married well meant that the others could be introduced into good society, and make advantageous matches of their own. And well-married daughters didn’t need to be supported, and might even be depended upon to look after their parents. Lizzie was sorr
y that she didn’t have anything more hopeful to tell her.
“There may be another artist,” she said carefully. “I met him at the studio, and Mr. Deverell thought that he might ask me to model as well.”
“A different painter?” Mrs. Siddal asked. “Do you know anything of his family? We must be careful.”
“If the fate of the family is to rest on my shoulders,” Lizzie snapped, “I can’t very well turn down good work if a man’s family isn’t up to your high standards.”
Mrs. Siddal looked near to tears, and Lizzie regretted her tone. “I’m sorry. Please don’t worry, Mama. He’s from the Royal Academy, and a gentleman as well. But he hasn’t asked me to sit for him yet, so it’s hardly worth fretting over.”
“In the meantime, then, you’ll have to go back to Mrs. Tozer’s.”
“Yes, Mother.” But as she turned she muttered to herself, “But you might as well send me to a nunnery, for all the luck I’ll have finding a husband in the back room of a bonnet shop.”
When Lizzie returned to the shop the next morning, Jeannie Evans greeted her warmly, but the other girls stared at her and gave each other meaningful looks. Mrs. Tozer had done her best to keep Lizzie’s absence discreet, but in the midst of so many girls, it was impossible to prevent all gossip. As usual, Lizzie ignored them and focused on her work. She had just finished trimming a bonnet when she looked up to see Jo, the new apprentice, approaching her with a nervous smile. Jo cleared her throat, and the other girls stopped working and watched them, waiting to see what might happen.
Lizzie regarded the apprentice from under raised brows. The girl was nervous, and had obviously been put up to something by her friends.
“Miss Siddal,” she said. “Is it true that you’ve been married to one of the customers? That you . . . eloped?” She giggled and shot a glance back at the other girls to see if they were watching, which they were—work in the shop had nearly come to a stop.
Lizzie was shocked, but she let out a short, derisive laugh and leveled her haughtiest stare at the apprentice. Then she very deliberately reached for her bonnet frame and began to check the shape. She would not engage the impertinent girl. No good could possibly come from adding grist to the rumor mill.
“Well, that’s what’s been said, anyway,” Jo continued. “That you ran off with a bloke and now he’s left you, and you had to beg Mrs. Tozer for your place back.”
At this, several of the girls began to giggle, their mouths hidden behind their hands. When Lizzie still didn’t reply, Jo turned and walked sheepishly back to her seat, as if she suspected that she might somehow have become the object of the joke.
Lizzie kept her face calm, but she was breathing rapidly. If one of the new girls felt that she could treat her that way, the rumors must have been bad. Lizzie was worried. A reputation was such a fragile thing, and the other girls were bound to talk, as much out of boredom as out of any real viciousness.
“That’s not it at all,” said another one of the milliners, the plump girl who had never taken to Lizzie. “I have it on good authority that Miss Siddal ’as been sitting for an artist.”
“Who told you that?” Lizzie snapped, surprised.
“It’s true then, is it?” The girl looked up from her work with a smug smile. “I’d be very careful if I was you, Lizzie. Once a girl starts taking off ’er clothes for money, there’s not a long way to go before she’ll take money for anything. And I, for one, don’t fancy working alongside that sort of girl.”
All of the color drained from Lizzie’s face. She had sat for Mr. Deverell as chastely as if she were his own sister, but her mother was right: It didn’t matter what she did, only what people said. “I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about. But you ought to pay more attention to your work.” Lizzie pointed at the bonnet that the girl was working on. “You’ve made the seam crooked.”
They stared at each other coldly, but said nothing further. The other girls, who had followed the exchange as high entertainment, turned back to their work when Mrs. Tozer appeared at the door, looking flushed.
“Miss Siddal!” she said, her voice high and strained. “Please come out to the counter at once. There is a customer here who wishes to speak with you.”
At this the girls resumed their giggling. This was very unusual; Mrs. Tozer never fetched a girl by request. It was known that she didn’t mind a little flirting in the showroom—it was good for business. But she was adamant that the young men not treat the shop like an open hunting ground. It was unseemly, to say the least. At the moment, however, a very insistent young man was at the counter, demanding to see Miss Siddal. He would not be put off, and Mrs. Tozer could not permit an unpleasant scene in the shop.
Lizzie stood and smoothed her dress and her hair. Surprised by her own agitation, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Perhaps Mr. Deverell was not finished with his painting after all, and had come to ask her to sit again. Her excitement outweighed the embarrassment that she felt at having the other girls’ suspicions confirmed.
She went into the shop and looked around expectantly, but she saw no sign of Deverell. Instead, standing at the counter with his face full of expectation, was Mr. Rossetti.
“Good day, Miss Siddal,” he said with a slight bow.
“Mr. Rossetti.” She nodded and tried to keep her voice even. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I rather thought that it might be Mr. Deverell.” But she was not disappointed.
Her pleasure in their meeting was marred, however, as she watched him look around the shop. When they met in Deverell’s studio, she had been able to imagine herself, if not exactly his equal, then at least a person of elegance and interest. She had, after all, been sitting for a portrait. But in the shop the modesty of her position was clear.
Rossetti, however, noticed nothing of Lizzie’s discomfort. If he thought at all of her position, it was only that her noble features stood out all the more so in the humble setting of the shop. She had been on his mind constantly as he labored over his translations of Dante’s sonnets. In his imagination she had grown more beautiful, and more modest, with each passing day. Now she appeared like a shining saint tending to the poor, or as the lovely Beatrice herself, promenading through the crowded streets of Florence. If her dress was simple, it only set into relief the delicate modeling of her face and her large gray eyes. She needed no adornment—her rich auburn hair was her crown. Such beauty spoke to him of inner depths of virtue and poetry—it must be only the blossom of an intricate and flawless system of roots. Though he had hardly met her, he felt that he already knew her.
Rossetti wanted to reach out and brush a loose curl of hair away from her face. He wanted to take her hand and lead her away from the shop without another word. But he resisted, denying himself this impulsive pleasure, and instead cleared his throat and pulled a package wrapped in brown paper from his pocket. “As I promised you. A translation of Dante’s love poems, from The New Life.”
“Thank you,” Lizzie murmured, pleased that he had remembered. “You are so kind. I very much look forward to reading them.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment, smiling at each other, but not speaking. Lizzie hated to end the interview, and she groped around for something to say. “And how does Mr. Deverell get along with his painting?” she asked.
“Deverell? I’m sure that he gets along fine. It’s a very good painting; no doubt it will be accepted for the Exhibition this spring.” He paused. “But I didn’t come here to speak of Deverell’s work. I’m afraid that my gift was not entirely unselfish. I had hoped that you might consent to come sit for me, for a painting based on one of the poems. Please say that you will.”
Lizzie could feel the eyes of the other girls in the shop on her. There would be no denying the rumors now, if she were to say yes. “I don’t know . . . I’ve already been away from the shop for several weeks.”
Rossetti looked around as if he had just now realized that he was in a shop. Then he waved his hand impatiently
, dismissing it from his notice. “Your beauty must be painted. You wouldn’t deny me if you knew how important you will be to my work. Already you begin to inhabit my poems.”
Lizzie laughed at Rossetti’s excessive praise, but she was not immune to it. Why should she suffer for the small-mindedness of the other girls? The feeling of being watched by them now only made her answer more exhilarating. She glanced down at the poems in her hands. “How could I deny your request? I’m in your debt.”
She glanced over at Mrs. Tozer, who glared back at her, clearly on the verge of turning the young man out of the shop. She jotted down her address on a scrap of wrapping paper and handed it to Rossetti. “If you send a note round with your address and the time, I will try to settle with Mrs. Tozer for a few more days off.”
“I’m honored,” Rossetti said, ignoring the red-faced proprietress. He made a small bow at the door of the shop. “I’ll await your visit with bated breath.”
Lizzie blushed and, avoiding Mrs. Tozer’s eye, she gathered up the poems from Rossetti and hurried back to the workroom. Mrs. Tozer might be angry at the moment, but surely she could be reasoned with. After all, it had been her idea for Lizzie to try her hand at modeling.
She sat down and placed the packet of poems on her lap, unwrapping them and examining Rossetti’s bold scrawl. She took no more notice of the muttered comments of the other girls than she would have of the wind whispering through the trees. For the rest of the afternoon she stole glances at the poems as she worked, silently mouthing their antique words. Her hands may have worked on the bonnets with practiced skill, but her mind was consumed by a fifteenth-century romance, the words of the poems an incantation, an invitation.
CHAPTER 6
Rossetti leaned out over the balcony of his studio in Chatham Place. The road below his window sat snug against the Thames, at places nearly spilling over its banks. A mass of carts and carriages surged up the narrow passage, keeping time with the rising tide, and crossed over Blackfriars Bridge, bound for the markets and offices of the city. The sound of the traffic floated up to him, but he barely noticed the pushing crowds below. They were nothing to him but a sea of bent heads and ordinary cares. His eyes were on the river, which shone like dull silver under the gray sky, a hazy mirror of the steeples and domes that lined its banks. If he squinted, he might have been gazing over the Arno from a Florentine palazzo.