Ophelia's Muse

by Rita Cameron

  Rossetti tried to be patient. He watched Lizzie carefully, willing her to come to her senses. He gave her a little laudanum when her hands shook, and he pretended not to notice when she helped herself to more from the green bottle that rested always by her side. With a heavy heart, he packed the collection of tiny clothes that had accumulated over the past months into a chest under the bed, and pushed the cradle, delivered with such enthusiasm by Emma and Ford, to a corner of the studio. He covered it with a drop cloth, and tried to forget it.

  Even if Lizzie could not feel its steady pulse, time did go on, and its progress was marked in strokes both large and small. Rossetti’s reputation as both a poet and a painter was growing, and his painting of Fanny Cornforth, Bocca Baciata, had been particularly well received. The picture’s frank sensuality and Fanny’s beauty made it an object of desire to all who saw it. Gentlemen whose decency prevented them from inviting women like Fanny into their drawing rooms had no compunction about commissioning Rossetti to create images of her to hang above the mantelpiece. As Lizzie had once predicted, Rossetti couldn’t paint fast enough to satisfy his admirers, and he felt at last that he was making a real start of things.

  Each day the mail was full of invitations. He always extended these invitations to Lizzie, telling her how Emma Brown longed for her company, and how he missed having her on his arm. If she wouldn’t come out, he said, then she should at least take up her work again. It was unfair, a crime against Art, to let her genius go to waste. But Lizzie was deaf to his entreaties. She claimed exhaustion or an upset stomach, or simply turned her head away from him and stared out of the window.

  For the first time since his marriage, Rossetti chafed at his domestic duties. He hesitated to bring models home, and upset Lizzie, lest he lose time to nursing her when he should have been painting. When he was able to work in the studio, he could feel Lizzie’s eyes following him, as focused and intent as a sailor watching for the first signs of shore. He sensed that he was her anchor, and he felt unbearably heavy: the anchor’s chain running through his core, its weight rooting him to the studio, and to her.

  He tried to draw her, to find inspiration in her as he once had. He painted a portrait of them as young lovers walking in a wood. But it was a gloomy scene, with the lovers meeting their own eerie doubles at twilight, a terrible portent of death. He drew her as Ophelia, spurned by a cruel and dismissive Hamlet. Each scene he imagined was darker than the last, but he found himself compelled to draw them, and later to hide them from her.

  Frightened by the awful omens that he was creating with his own hands, he painted her as Regina Cordium, the Queen of Hearts. The painting showed her in a three-quarter profile, her thick hair falling simply over her bare shoulders, a bloodred strand of beads circling her neck and a pansy clasped in her fingers. The portrait was striking, but the girl in it was pale and listless. She was beautiful in an ethereal way, but hardly a symbol of desire, like Rossetti’s lusty and inviting portraits of Annie Miller and Fanny Cornforth. Lizzie simply lacked the appetite for life that was so great in his other models that it seemed to burn through his canvases, threatening to devour those who looked too long.

  Perhaps if Lizzie had regained a little of her health, she might have found some comfort in taking up her art again, and she and Rossetti would have worked side by side, in the artistic partnership that each had once imagined. Or perhaps, if the child had lived, the demands and pleasures of attending to that little, shared life might have inspired in Rossetti some of the domestic habits for which he had not yet acquired a taste. But Lizzie and the child remained ghosts of one sort or another, and Rossetti, chilled by their haunting presence, fled toward life.

  “Oh, come on! Just one more dance!” Fanny cried, pulling Rossetti back toward the swirling mass of merrymakers who twirled across the dancing platform at Cremorne Gardens.

  The dancers, in dinner jackets and silk gowns, glided and dipped around a pagoda that held the orchestra beneath its eaves. The walls of the pagoda glowed with thousands of emerald-cut crystals and mirrors, and cast a shimmering light over the dancers. Fanny’s eyes glittered, and Rossetti followed her willingly onto the carousel of dancers.

  “Just one more dance, and then I really must be off,” he murmured, taking her hand and pulling her close. Fanny smiled and shrugged, happy to have him there for the moment at least. They glided and turned across the platform, and when the orchestra started up a new tune with a quicker tempo, Rossetti stayed for a second dance. Everyone was drinking champagne, and the dance floor was a barely controlled chaos, with dancers changing partners and then finding each other again, laughing and smiling beneath the lights.

  Rossetti and Fanny paused for a drink, and then returned to the fray. He knew that he was being reckless, that he ought to go home and see Lizzie before the evening was through, as he always did. But he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the boisterous crowd for the lonely studio.

  Fanny seemed to read his mind. “Don’t worry. It’s just a bit of fun.”

  When the closing bell rang at five till midnight, Rossetti was still among the crush of people—young and old, of all stations of life and all shades of virtue—who let out a collective sigh at the ending of an amusing evening. Cremorne, with its colorful lights and lively cafés, offered up a feast to anyone hungry for beauty and life, and Rossetti didn’t care if the colors, or the women, were sometimes too bold, or the fireworks too loud. He was drawn to its festivities as a cold man is drawn to a warm fire.

  The bell rang once more and Rossetti led Fanny from the dance floor. Just as they reached the gate, he spotted a familiar profile in the crowd. It was John Ruskin, and Rossetti pushed forward to catch up with him.

  “Hello!” Ruskin cried when he spotted Rossetti. “I thought that you might be here.”

  “An easy guess. Is there any place more inviting on a warm evening?”

  “No, I suppose not.” Ruskin glanced at Fanny and shook his head ever so slightly at Rossetti. Rossetti knew that Ruskin had never really approved of his dalliance with Fanny Cornforth. But Ruskin couldn’t deny that Rossetti was painting great pictures of her, and he knew that Ruskin was willing to ignore his whims in women as long as the paintings were good.

  “Anyway, I’m glad that I’ve run into you,” Ruskin said. “I have excellent news. My publishers, Smith and Elder, have agreed to undertake a printing of your translations of Dante’s early poems. They’ve consented to a run of six hundred copies, which is quite good, I think, for a work of its sort.”

  Rossetti grinned and clapped Ruskin on the back. “Excellent news, indeed! I’d begun to despair of ever having them published. And I suppose that I have your backing to thank for this? How can I ever thank you for all of your help?”

  “You can thank me by agreeing to come to dinner at the Sablonière tomorrow evening. We’ll celebrate in style.”

  “By all means.”

  “Then I’ll see you there at eight o’clock.” Ruskin paused and then added, for Fanny’s benefit: “It will be an intimate dinner. Just a few old friends.”

  Rossetti was too pleased with the news to be annoyed by Ruskin’s disapproval. When Ruskin sauntered off to find his friends, Rossetti turned to Fanny. “Why don’t we start the celebration tonight? If I remember right, there’s a little restaurant where drinks can be had in the small hours just around the corner. Will you join me?”

  “I thought that you had to be getting home!”

  “Don’t tease,” Rossetti laughed. “This is no night for going home. This is a night for taking a beautiful woman out to drink champagne. And I can think of no more beautiful woman than you.”

  Fanny let Rossetti slip his arm around her waist, and with no thought of tomorrow, they went forth into the promise of the London night.

  The sun had already been up for an hour by the time Rossetti stumbled home the next morning. He climbed the stairs slowly, his head pounding from drink. He had hoped to slip into the studio quietly and wash up before Lizz
ie woke, but she was already up and sitting in a chair, staring at the door as he entered. He couldn’t tell whether she had been there all night or not.

  “Lizzie,” he said tiredly. “Are you well?”

  “As well as can be expected after I spent the night worrying. Where were you? Why didn’t you send a note?”

  “I’m sorry.” Rossetti sighed. “I was working late at Hunt’s studio. By the time I realized the hour, it was too late to send word, and I didn’t want to wake you, so I just slept there.”

  Lizzie stared at him, taking in his rumpled clothes and his swollen eyes. He didn’t look like a man who had spent the evening working.

  “You were painting? Whom were you painting? Which girl?”

  Now Rossetti frowned. “Really, Lizzie, can’t this wait? I’m tired and I want to lie down in my own bed for a few hours.”

  But Lizzie pressed on. “Isn’t it enough that you’re gone all day? Must you spend your nights away from me as well?”

  “Damn it, Lizzie!” Rossetti slapped his hand on the table in frustration. “You’re not happy if I bring my models here to paint, and you’re not happy if I paint elsewhere, at a lot of inconvenience to myself. It’s impossible! Tell me, what can I do to make you happy? Should I become a cutler, like your father, and keep a shop downstairs? Is that what you want? I must pay the bills somehow, and God knows that you’re too ill to work, or even to sit for me for very long.”

  Lizzie stepped back from him. “I’m sorry if my illness has inconvenienced you.”

  “No, no, Lizzie, forgive me.” He put a hand on her shoulder, and when she didn’t respond, he turned her firmly around and pulled her into his arms. “I’m tired. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  Lizzie stood rigidly in his arms, letting him hold her, but not returning his embrace. He hated the coldness between them, and longed for the days when they would lounge for hours in the studio, limbs entwined, reading poetry to each other and talking nonsense.

  “Come out with me tonight,” he found himself whispering into Lizzie’s hair. “To the Hotel Sablonière. Ruskin is giving a little party to celebrate the publication of my translations of Dante. You’re my wife. I want you by my side.”

  “Your translations are going to be published?” Lizzie asked, momentarily surprised out of her anger. “Why, that’s marvelous!”

  Rossetti smiled, and Lizzie returned his smile. The high current of their anger was replaced, as it sometimes is, by an equal measure of giddy affection.

  “Yes, at long last. It wasn’t until I met you, you know, that I understood Dante’s love for Beatrice, and it wasn’t until I looked upon your beauty that I knew how a man could be consumed by love. I’m going to dedicate the volume to you.”

  Appeased, as she always was, by Rossetti’s compliments, Lizzie at last relaxed into his embrace. “Then you’ll come with me tonight?” he asked.

  “Yes. We’ve been apart for too long. Even when we’re here together, we’ve been alone. I know that I haven’t been a good wife to you. I’ve barely been able to see beyond my own grief. But tonight I want to come with you.”

  Lizzie dressed, selecting an old velvet gown from the back of the wardrobe. It was one that she had cut in the medieval style, in the early days of her courtship, when Rossetti had painted her as the beloved Beatrice. She hadn’t worn it in a long time, and the pile of the velvet was still thick and luxurious between her fingers. She slipped it on and found that it still fit, if a bit loosely. She brushed her hair out until it glowed, and wrapped the strand of seed pearls around her neck. She sensed that everything depended upon this evening being a success, and she wanted to remind Rossetti of the girl that he had fallen in love with.

  She gave her hair a final brushing and then took a long, steadying draught of laudanum to calm her nerves and give her the strength that she needed. It had been a long time since she’d gone out with friends. She took one last sip for good measure, and they went down to the street to hail a cab. Rossetti settled Lizzie into the facing seat, and she smiled at him with bright, unfocused eyes.

  “Are you well?” he asked, thinking that there was something not entirely natural in her demeanor. He wondered if it was a good idea, after all, for Lizzie to go out. She still wasn’t fully recovered.

  “Quite well! I can’t think when I’ve felt better,” she cried, her voice strange and her words ever so slightly slurred. The laudanum had begun to work almost immediately, and Lizzie was relieved to find that it had wrapped her up in its warm spell, padding her against the bumping of the cab and rendering everything rosy, as if the gaslights were wrapped in pink satin. The carriage wheel struck a loose stone, and the jolt made Lizzie fall sideways in the seat. Unable to right herself without his help, she laughed, and Rossetti looked at her with real concern.

  “Lizzie, please, I don’t think that you’re well. I’m going to tell the driver to take us home. I’ll send a note to Ruskin. He’ll understand.”

  Lizzie sat up straight and frowned. “Don’t you want me to come with you? You’re always saying that it would do me good to go out.”

  “Yes, of course I want you to come. I’m only worried about your health.” He was already regretting his spur-of-the-moment invitation. “You’re looking awfully pale, and you know how these things are—it’s bound to drag on very late. I’d hate for you to tire yourself.”

  Lizzie frowned, and it looked as if she were about to put up a fight, but then her face softened instead. “Dante, dear, I’m perfectly fine, and I’m very much looking forward to our evening. Let’s please go on as we planned.”

  Rossetti leaned back into his seat, unsure of what to do. Finally he shrugged. “If you’re well enough, then by all means let’s go on.”

  The cab pulled up at the hotel, and Rossetti paid the driver and helped Lizzie down. The dinner crowd at the Sablonière was just beginning to arrive: a mix of university students in elegant evening wear, artists and writers in somewhat more eccentric dress, and ladies in a variety of pretty silks and social positions.

  Ruskin and Ford were already sitting at the table when Lizzie and Rossetti entered. Ruskin rose with a broad smile when he saw Lizzie.

  “My dear Mrs. Rossetti!” Lizzie noted that he used her married name, and not his pet name for her, the Princess Ida. How funny men were. In private they loved nothing more than to play at the bohemian—the lover or the poet—but in public they thought only of respectability and the following of conventions.

  “I’m so happy to finally see you up and about,” Ruskin said, helping Lizzie into a chair and filling her glass with champagne. “To what do we owe this wonderful surprise?”

  “I grew lonely for my old friends, and for my dear Dante, who is so often away in their company.” She smiled as she said this, but her voice was not entirely light.

  “Well, we’re very glad of your return.” Ruskin stole a quick glance at Rossetti, and Rossetti knew that Ruskin suspected that he had never made it home last night.

  “Hunt will join us after dinner for cognac,” Ruskin said as they all sat down. “But before we dine, I propose a toast. To Dante Rossetti, whose new volume of poetry will teach the English how to love like the Italians, and to England, who shall be the better for it!”

  They all laughed, and raised a glass. But before they drank, Rossetti proposed his own toast. “And to my dear Lizzie, who has inspired me as Beatrice inspired Dante, and who taught me what true love is. It is to her that I shall dedicate my translations.”

  Ruskin cried, “Cheers to that!” and they clinked glasses all around.

  Despite Rossetti’s worries, the evening started out well. If Lizzie’s spirits seemed unnaturally high, they were not out of place at the Sablonière, where one had to shout to be heard above the clamor. She seemed genuinely happy to be out in company, and Rossetti wondered if their long winter might be over at last.

  He was just turning to Lizzie to pour her more champagne when he saw her smile freeze and her eyes grow cold an
d opaque. She was staring at something just past his shoulder.

  “Lizzie?” he asked, and then the question died on his lips. The scent of jasmine and the weight of a plump hand on his shoulder told him that Fanny Cornforth was standing behind him. For one moment he sat frozen, his eyes focused on Lizzie, willing Fanny with all of his heart to just go away. But it wasn’t to be. He felt her lean down and rest her face next to his. Ruskin and Ford were watching them, their faces wary.

  “Hello, sweets,” Fanny said, laughing. Rossetti could smell the gin on her breath. Usually it was a sign of good times to come, but tonight it was a scent of warning.

  “Miss Cornforth.” He pushed his chair to the side and slid out from under her hand. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Miss Cornforth!” Fanny mimicked Rossetti, laughing again and leering at Ruskin and Ford. “Well, isn’t he formal tonight? Have I interrupted some important gentlemen’s business, perhaps? But, then, I thought that I was your business, or is it perhaps that you are mine?” She laughed again at her own nonsense. “But of course! How could I have forgotten? You’re celebrating! Last night’s celebrations weren’t sufficient, I suppose!” She glanced around, but Ruskin and Ford were both looking down at their plates.

  Rossetti stared at Lizzie, unable to look away from her stricken face. In the silence that followed, Fanny finally seemed to recognize Lizzie. When their eyes met, Lizzie’s eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed a dark scarlet. Fanny tilted her head back and considered Lizzie, a small smile curling the corner of her lip. “Oh, I see. There are ladies present.”

  Rossetti instinctively reached out a hand to grab Lizzie’s wrist, but he was a second too late; she had already sprung to her feet. She glanced at Fanny imperiously and then turned, seeming to dismiss her from her consideration. She focused instead on Rossetti. Her eyes were wild now, and Rossetti felt rooted to his chair.