by Rita Cameron
Lizzie handed the gown to the maid, who quickly set about attaching the new collar. When she finished, Lizzie slipped the dress on and frowned. She had always been thin, but the dress now hung sadly. The maid hurried over with her kit. “Not to worry. I’ll take it in here in the back, and no one will notice.”
No, Lizzie thought, no one will notice, since no one will be there. Now that the day had finally come, she could not help but think that it was a woeful victory. While the maid worked on her dress, Lizzie slipped a well-worn letter from an envelope on her desk. It was from Lydia, who had written to say that Robert Crane, the grocer’s son, had taken over his father’s business and come to the Siddals to ask for Lydia’s hand in marriage. Lydia had presented all of this in a kind, straightforward manner—she was too conscious of Lizzie’s feelings to speak much of her own joy. But Lizzie could imagine the scene well enough: her father proud and serious as he pretended to think it over, her mother embracing the happy couple, Lydia blushing and smiling. The wedding would be held at their local church, with a breakfast afterward—well provisioned, too, since Lydia would now be a grocer’s wife. Meanwhile, Lizzie’s wedding ceremony would take place among strangers, far from her home.
The maid finished altering the dress, and Lizzie did have to admit that it did look rather well. She chastised herself for her gloomy thoughts, and tried to remember that in an hour’s time, she would be Rossetti’s wife. And now that they would be married, he would be her family, and her home would be where he was. The thought alone cheered her. She peered into the mirror, and pinched her cheeks and bit her lips, as she used to do before she entered Rossetti’s studio. Then she strode from the room, the maid scurrying behind her, and shut the door.
Rossetti was waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. The moment that she saw him, all melancholy and misgivings vanished, and she smiled at him as shyly as she had on the first day that they met. Rossetti glimpsed her shining eyes and gentle smile, and then Lizzie let the veil drop demurely over her face. She floated down the steps, and her gown, fussed over by the maid behind her, looked to Rossetti as if it were held aloft by fairies.
When she reached him, he whispered, as he had many times before, “You are a vision.” Then he handed her a bouquet of the most exquisite orange blossoms and lilies of the valley. “Lizzie,” he said, taking her hands. “If this happy day has been too long in coming, then it’s only because I have always felt in my heart that you were my wife, the companion of my body and the savior of my soul. Whether we stand together before an altar or under an apple tree, my heart knows no difference. But come to the church with me, my love, and let us be married before God and man.”
Lizzie smiled at him from behind her veil, and they stood for a moment, their fingers interlaced. Then the maid let out a little sob and blew her nose in her kerchief, breaking the spell. “Oh, Miss Siddal!” she exclaimed, her simple nature overcome by the scene. “Isn’t it too romantic!”
Lizzie laughed, and Rossetti took her arm and led her down a narrow street of old Tudor houses to the ancient church of St. Clements. When they arrived, Rossetti went to look for the vicar, and Lizzie and the maid waited in the vestibule. Lizzie peered down the aisle and decided at once that she couldn’t think of a more perfect place to be married. The church had a high arching ceiling and a floor of cool stone, and woodwork that gleamed in the sun pouring through the windows. A stained glass window of opaque white plates and glittering rubies filled the space with a soft prism of light. The only other person in the church was a stout older woman, dressed entirely in black, who was sweeping out the pews. She hunched over her work, paying no attention to the visitors.
Rossetti returned with the vicar and the curate, who would act as the second witness. The little party walked down the aisle to the altar. As Lizzie passed the old woman, she stared at Lizzie’s veil and bouquet, then she reached out a gnarled hand and caught Lizzie by the sleeve, pulling her close.
“Foolish girl!” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Don’t you know? Marry in May and rue the day! No happy wives have been made in this month!”
Lizzie gasped and pulled her hand back, her face white. Rossetti was ahead, speaking with the vicar, and didn’t notice, but the maid heard the warning. “Hush, you silly old woman!” she scolded. “That’s nothing but an old wives’ tale.” She turned to Lizzie. “Don’t mind her. I can just tell by looking at you and Mr. Rossetti that your wedding is blessed.”
Rossetti held out his hand and drew Lizzie to his side. The vicar began the ceremony with a prayer, and Lizzie closed her eyes and prayed as ardently as she had ever prayed in her life. Dear God, she whispered, please grant us the peace and happiness for which I have longed. Make me a good wife to Dante, and let him find with me the inspiration he requires. Then she turned to Rossetti with a clear heart and looked into his eyes as he repeated the wedding vows:
“I, Dante, take thee, Elizabeth, to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy law.”
Rossetti slipped a plain gold band onto Lizzie’s finger, lifted her veil, and chastely kissed her hand. Then they joined hands and walked down the aisle and out into the brightness of the afternoon. The little maid followed after them, wiping away tears and throwing rice from her pocket over their heads.
On the steps of the church, Rossetti kissed her. “And now,” he said, “my happiness is complete.”
Lizzie looked at him adoringly. “And mine,” she said, “has just begun.”
Rossetti was eager to please his new bride, and he gathered all the funds that he could and took her on a short honeymoon to Paris. They stayed in a small hotel in the rue de Rivoli, and when Lizzie felt up to it, they set out on long walks through the city. In the Jardin de Tuileries, they sat on wrought iron chairs, and Rossetti sketched Lizzie among the fashionable crowds that came to parade down the neat paths. Rossetti visited the Louvre to make studies of the old masters, and Lizzie read poetry, and wrote some of her own. Together they visited the exquisite shops in the little streets and arcades near the Place Vendôme, and Rossetti bought Lizzie trinkets that he could hardly afford: a sterling dragonfly pin set with a sapphire, an ivory pendant, and two splendid tortoiseshell hair combs, each set with a tiny diamond.
They returned to London triumphantly happy and bursting with ideas and images for their work, inspired by their travels. Their hearts were full, but their purse was empty, and so they set up house for the time being in Rossetti’s studio at Chatham Place. It had served them well enough in the past, and they saw no reason why they should take on the extra expense of a proper house now. Rossetti had many commissions, but the commissions had been paid and the money spent, and now the paintings must be done before he could hope to take on any more.
He set to work with a renewed vigor, and Lizzie didn’t complain when Fanny Cornforth came to sit. She was too aware of the great price that Rossetti’s portraits of Fanny could fetch, and too enamored of her own image in the glass, the diamond combs glinting in her hair, to make a fuss over Rossetti’s choice of models. She worked on her own pictures, including an ambitious and original design that she called Lovers Listening to Music. It showed a couple, the man with his arm around the woman’s waist. Their heads are bent close together, and the woman’s eyes are closed in a gesture of trust and happiness. A child, representing love, stands nearby.
Lizzie also kept house, after a fashion, planning dinners in the studio for their friends and the many painters and poets that Rossetti brought home. Soon after they came back to London they threw a party in celebration of their marriage, and invited their closest friends: Emma and Ford, John Millais, and Ned Burne-Jones, with his new wife, Georgie. Rossetti selected good wines, and Lizzie arranged a generous platter of oysters on ice, and another of the delicate éclairs and tartes aux pommes that she had loved in the Paris patisseries. Emma and Li
zzie hadn’t seen each other in many months, and they reunited joyfully, and Ned and Georgie brought Lizzie a gift of a lovely serving plate in the blue-and-white willow pattern that she adored.
The calm of married life agreed with Lizzie. Her illness may have left its mark on her, but it was hard to discern it behind the brilliance of her smile. She resumed her long walks through the city with Rossetti, and she took her laudanum only sparingly. Soon, her appetite returned, and she began to add a little flesh. At first it was only ounce by ounce, but it was not long before she had gained a softness at her bosom and hips. Rossetti was enchanted, and began to paint her more often, and with renewed passion.
As the months passed, her curves became even more noticeable and, once she was sure, she found that she had good news to share with Rossetti: they were going to have a baby. If she felt any trepidation over the toll that carrying a child would take on her already delicate health, she didn’t share it with him. She knew as well as any woman the dangers of childbirth, but she had come so close to death before that she no longer feared it. Her only fear was losing Rossetti again, and now that they had the promise of a child to bind them, she felt safe and happy.
Rossetti heard the news as a man should: with a combination of joy and trepidation that left him ricocheting about the studio, sweeping Lizzie across the room in a waltz at one moment, and then carefully settling her down on the sofa the next, as if she might break. Lizzie was serene, accepting the miracle of the child, despite her long illness, as a sign from God that her marriage was, after all, blessed.
Emma laughed with joy when Lizzie told her the happy news, and insisted that Ford dash home immediately to fetch their little wooden cradle, which she wanted Lizzie to use for the new baby. Lydia, too, was elated at the prospect of being an aunt, and began at once to sew a tiny christening gown and bonnet. Even Mr. Siddal, who had grudgingly begun to receive Lizzie since her marriage, sent his congratulations and promised to engrave a tiny spoon with the baby’s name. Mrs. Rossetti, fretting over Lizzie’s health, took it upon herself to engage an obstetrician and a nurse for Lizzie, despite the cost. Rossetti watched the preparations with pride, finding that the responsibilities of a wife and a household, which he had for so long feared and avoided, were a boon, rather than a burden, to his work.
Lizzie resumed her old place, in the sunny chair by the balcony doors. She let her hands rest on her growing belly, and her daydreams were as sweet and rosy as the cheek of a newborn babe.
CHAPTER 23
For what seemed like the thousandth time, Rossetti stood and stalked the perimeter of the studio. He sat back down in his chair, and then rose again and retraced his steps. He could hear Lizzie’s screams from behind the bedroom door. The raw chords of suffering echoed through the studio, and his veins pulsed with the animal instincts of fear and flight.
Her labor had begun in the night, and the obstetrician, Dr. Hutchinson, had arrived with the nurse and set about preparing the room for the birth. Rossetti sent a note to Lydia, who came in the early hours of the morning to help.
Rossetti was not permitted to enter the bedroom, but the doctor appeared at the door periodically to answer his questions with a furrowed brow and one-syllable replies. Ford Madox Brown had tried, without success, to persuade Rossetti to go with him to a pub on the corner and wait there for the news. Ford had been through this before. He knew that there was nothing for the father to do but wait, and that this uselessness could be as hard to bear as the terrible cries. But Rossetti refused to leave. He felt that something wasn’t right, and he was rooted to the spot by an awful conviction that he had nursed Lizzie back to health, only to now have her die in childbirth.
It was nearly nightfall again before Lizzie’s cries, closer now to whimpers than screams, stopped abruptly. The sudden silence was jarring, and Rossetti snapped to attention in the chair where he was dozing. His eyes fixed on the closed door. He strained to hear a sound, any sound, but he couldn’t hear anything. Finally the door opened and the doctor, his face lined with exhaustion, stepped into the studio. He looked at Rossetti with professional pity and sighed. “I’m sorry. The child is stillborn. It was a girl.”
Rossetti stared at him. He hadn’t been thinking of the child, and the news came as its own shock. “And my wife? My wife, is she . . . ?”
“Mrs. Rossetti is resting. It’s too early to say for sure, but I believe she will make a full recovery.”
Relief flooded through him, leaving him lightheaded. She was alive. “And the child? What happened?”
“It’s impossible to say. It’s not uncommon. There’s no reason why Mrs. Rossetti shouldn’t go on to give you healthy children.”
Rossetti nodded and went into the bedroom. He kneeled beside the bed. Lydia was sitting white-faced in a chair with a bundle of linens in her arms. He stared at her for a moment, then realized with a start what the bundle must be. He turned back to Lizzie, aghast. She was pale and clammy, but she was breathing, the soft rhythm of her breath visible in the rise and fall of the sheets that covered her. He took her hand. “My dove,” he whispered. “My little dove.”
She rolled her head to look at him, and the dull, unseeing gleam of her eyes sent a shiver down his spine. “Where is my baby?” Her voice was flat. “Where is my little daughter?”
“Oh, Lizzie.” He didn’t know what to say. He looked to Lydia, who met his eyes with a troubled frown and mouthed the words, “She’s been told.”
He turned back to Lizzie. “My love, you mustn’t tire yourself, or wear yourself out with worry. After all, the most important thing is that you are well. I feel nothing but thankfulness that I haven’t lost you as well.”
Lizzie continued to stare at him, either not hearing him or not understanding, he wasn’t sure which. Then her eyes fluttered closed, and she seemed to pass into a peaceful sleep.
Rossetti stood up and left Lydia and the nurse to do their sad work. Back in the studio, he found that its familiar lines were already altered, slightly but indelibly, by the events of the night. They had lost the child, and his grief for the unknown life felt like a hard knot, whose contours and weight he would examine and learn by heart in the coming days. But for the moment, he could think of nothing but his relief that Lizzie had survived.
He stumbled over to the sofa and lay down. The studio was warm, but he was shivering from shock and exhaustion, and he pulled a throw over his shoulders. Tragedy, whose cold shadow had loomed over him all through the night, tapping his fingers on the windowpanes and breathing his dark fortune under the door, had somehow been averted. So why was it, he wondered, that he still felt its chill, as if the wind had only shifted for a moment, ushering in the false calm of the eye of the storm?
People came in, and then went out again. Rossetti was with her, and her sister, and others—the nurse perhaps? She was urged to drink, and to eat; to get dressed and to take the fresh air; to make some efforts at a sketch, or a little watercolor. Their words passed over her and passed through her. She heard them as if from a distance, and nodded vaguely, agreeably consenting to nothing.
If Lizzie had ever before paused to consider the nature of time, she would have thought of it only as constant and unremarkable: the tapping of her mother’s knitting needles or the rising and setting of the sun outside the studio windows. Out in the street, men checked their pocket watches and the massive new bell in the Westminster clock tower kept the hour with startling accuracy, ordering and measuring the little lives that scurried below according to its steady rhythm.
It came as a surprise, therefore, to find that time was not so dependable as she had thought. Instead of an orderly march of seconds and minutes, time now seemed to proceed in fits and starts, stretching out and then warping, while whole hours and days disappeared into the ether. She was often surprised to notice the last dying rays of the sunset, when she would have, not a moment before, set the hour at no later than one o’clock.
In her moments of clarity, Lizzie repeated to herself what
the doctor and Rossetti had told her: The baby had been born dead; there had been no question of saving her; it was not uncommon. She was buried in the cemetery, but there was no funeral service, since she hadn’t been baptized. It was important for Lizzie to repeat these facts, because she often forgot them, and would wake from dozing thinking that she was still pregnant, or dreaming that she heard a child crying. Rossetti had seen to the burial alone, and Lizzie didn’t know if he had named her, or if there was a stone to mark the grave. She couldn’t ask him, couldn’t form the words to make it real. There were things she knew he couldn’t say, either: He never blamed her, never mentioned the laudanum, never said they would go on to have more children. She knew, somehow, that she would never have another baby. The stillbirth seemed both an omen and a punishment, and she would not tempt fate further. Marry in May and rue the day. She gave her daughter a name, which she kept secret and whispered to herself as she stared out of the window. This was her story. And then time would warp again and Lizzie would be back at the beginning, feeling as if for the first time the pain of each of these facts.
Rossetti, she noted with interest, appeared untouched by this new accounting of time. He mourned alongside her, and then, slowly and steadily, he returned to his old life. He rose each morning and painted, often at Ford’s studio, so as not to disturb her. In the afternoons he returned home to work at his translations and verses, or to catch up with his correspondence. And then, as evening fell, he would sit with Lizzie, reading poetry to her and trying to draw her out, or else he went out to dine with friends, or to the theater. People came to visit: potential patrons and buyers, members of the Brotherhood, and the plump and beautiful models who sat for Rossetti’s paintings and giggled at his whispered observations and compliments.