ACT ONE

Scene One

October, 1869. Highgate Cemetery. Night. A mile away, a church bell strikes the quarter hour.

CHARLES HOWELL appears out of the night, carrying a lantern. Another man with a lantern approaches. It is MR TEBBS.

HOWELL. Are you Mr Tebbs?

TEBBS. I am.

HOWELL. Charles Howell. How do you do.

TEBBS. How do you do.

HOWELL. You’re very young for a solicitor.

TEBBS. Yes. That’s because I’m very good. Are you the man who’s going to put his hands in the coffin?

HOWELL. I am.

TEBBS. Where are the gravediggers?

HOWELL. They went up ahead. The sexton went up with them.

TEBBS. They can’t dig before midnight.

HOWELL. They’re building a bonfire. For heat and light. Shall we join them?

They start to go.

TEBBS….What was she like? Do you know?

HOWELL. What was who like?

TEBBS. The woman. The woman we’re going to dig up.

HOWELL. Does it matter what she was like?

Scene Two

Lights up on HUNT’s seedy studio. Morning.

WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT – age twenty-five – paints LIZZIE SIDDAL – age twenty-two. He speaks as he applies oil paint to a canvas of A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary.

She stands motionless, her left arm cradling a wooden bowl, her right hand poised above the bowl in the act of scooping water from it. Draped across her shoulders is a green shawl.

HUNT. Brilliant! The Academy will be compelled to accept this because it’s brilliant! They’ll hang it high up, hoping no one will notice, but I’m using colour of such intensity, the old farts will look up unawares and die of shock. ‘Aaaah! It’s too bright! Where are the shadows? Where’s the brown slosh? He’s not painting with dark-brown slosh! Aargh!’ Last to die will be Sir Tufton Bufton, wandering in from luncheon. ‘By Gad! – she’s – got – red – hairrrggh!’ They hate anything different – I love anything different. How does it feel to be different, Lizzie?

LIZZIE opens her mouth.

No, no, don’t speak. You know the restriction – models can’t talk in here. I must have no opinion in my head but my own. An artist’s studio cannot be a democracy. Don’t be offended. I am perfecting a new way of living. I call it ‘Sincerity’. I shall paint the truth and speak the truth. I expect to be hated.

ROSSETTI (off). Maniac!

HUNT. Not now!

ROSSETTI (off). Are you there?

HUNT. I’m working!

ROSSETTI – age twenty-five – appears in the doorway. From where he’s standing, he can’t see LIZZIE.

ROSSETTI. Are you really working? Or are you gawping at pictures of female buttocks?

HUNT…. Gabriel, may I present Miss Elizabeth Siddal. Miss Siddal, Mr Rossetti.

ROSSETTI steps forward and sees her. A beat.

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). How do you do… (To HUNT.) I thought today was foliage.

HUNT. Friday is foliage. Today is ministering maiden.

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Or at least a version of him – the embarrassed version. There are other more agreeable versions.

LIZZIE opens her mouth to reply.

HUNT. Miss Siddal cannot talk.

ROSSETTI. Really? I’m so sorry.

HUNT. No, I mean, she cannot talk because I am paying her sixpence an hour not to talk, or move. She is working. I am working.

ROSSETTI. Yes, but not while I’m here, surely.

HUNT. You don’t intend to stay if I’m working?

ROSSETTI. Miss Siddal, what would you think of a man who refuses to converse with his friend merely because of a painting? Can a painting be more important than a person? I think human beings have first claim on our affections, surely.

HUNT. If you’ve come in search of tin, I don’t have any.

ROSSETTI. What makes you think I’m in search of tin?

HUNT. You’re always in search of tin.

ROSSETTI. Supposing I were. What’s a loan between friends?

HUNT. Debt.

ROSSETTI. You mustn’t mind Mr Hunt’s temper, Miss Siddal. I am a painter, too. I understand the frustrations painters are prone to.

HUNT. Then why do you stay?

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). Though I am not only a painter. I am also a poet.

HUNT. Then go and write something.

ROSSETTI. I have. I have been writing. I’m exhausted.

HUNT. What? What have you written in the last three months?

It’s a challenge – to a man who hasn’t written anything recently. ROSSETTI hesitates.

ROSSETTI.

‘She fell asleep on Christmas Eve.

At length the long un-granted / shade’

HUNT. That’s not a new one, is it?

ROSSETTI. Not strictly new, no.

HUNT. In the last three months.

ROSSETTI. Very well…

‘Our Lombard country-girls along the coast

Wear daggers in their garters: for / they know’

HUNT. I heard that last year. It’s not new. Nothing recent then?

ROSSETTI….

‘Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for / the sailor lad.’

LIZZIE (moving forwards). But that’s not yours!

Both men are surprised.

(To HUNT.) …I’m sorry, Mr Hunt. Please take a penny from my wages.

(To ROSSETTI.) Tennyson wrote that poem.

ROSSETTI. He did.

LIZZIE. Then why call it yours?

ROSSETTI. I shouldn’t have. It was wrong. Perhaps because my own poetry lately is so feeble, I wouldn’t dream of airing it on first acquaintance with a lady.

LIZZIE (disarmed)….Oh.

HUNT groans.

ROSSETTI. But you like Tennyson?

LIZZIE. Yes. Yes, I do. I think him the finest poet we have had since Keats.

ROSSETTI. You like Keats?

LIZZIE. I revere Keats.

ROSSETTI. Keats is fine, isn’t he.

LIZZIE. He is beyond / fine.

ROSSETTI. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:’

LIZZIE. ‘Its loveliness increases.’

ROSSETTI. ‘It will never pass into / nothingness.’

HUNT. Oh, for Christ’s sake! (To ROSSETTI.) Now do you see why I pay people not to talk? Suddenly the room is full of opinions! I don’t want opinions – hers, or yours! I come here to work! This is my studio, my painting, mine, mine, mine!

LIZZIE. I’m sorry, Mr Hunt.

ROSSETTI. Never apologise for championing a poet, Miss / Siddal.

HUNT. She was apologising for interrupting a painter!

ROSSETTI. Are you a poet, too, Miss Siddal?

LIZZIE opens her mouth to reply.

HUNT. She’s a seamstress.

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). Have you never tried to write poems?

HUNT. No, she sews. And sometimes picks up money modelling, but only when she stands still and keeps quiet.

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). I haven’t seen you before.

HUNT. Gabriel, Gabriel. If you wish to hold a conversation with Miss Siddal, may I suggest later you take an omnibus down the Old Kent Road?

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). Is that where you live?

HUNT. Why do you keep asking her questions? I’m talking to you. (To LIZZIE.) Don’t answer his questions. (To ROSSETTI.) What do you want to know? She lives with her parents south of the river Dad’s got a shop sells knives and forks thinks he’s gentry doesn’t know his daughter models when she isn’t sewing in a hat shop ribbons mostly on bonnets pleasant girl red hair very useful reads a lot but otherwise unremarkable yours for sixpence an hour do you have sixpence of course you don’t I do. ‘That is all ye know and all ye need to know’ – Keats.

ROSSETTI….I wonder you are not employed at the docks squeezing large cargo into small holds. You cannot compress a life into a minute’s breath. It is dismissive. One might even be tempted to call it rude.

LIZZIE. Mr Rossetti. You are kind to leap to my defence where none is needed. Mr Hunt is trying to compress time, not me. It is his money that’s at stake – his canvas that needs attention. Any roughness in his manner will be amply compensated by the brilliance of the painting he will bring into the world.

ROSSETTI….My God, but that is beautifully spoken. Where did you learn to speak like that?

HUNT (warning him). Gabriel.

ROSSETTI. Is it not nobly said?

HUNT. She reads books.

ROSSETTI. She took your part.

HUNT. I’m paying her.

ROSSETTI. I’m not surprised. I’d pay her, too, to speak so well of me.

HUNT (exploding). What is the reason you are here? What? I have a work of art that will not wait. It must be done in time. I can’t come out to play. What do you want from me?

ROSSETTI (like a pathetic little boy). Company.

HUNT groans.

HUNT. There are six weeks left. Don’t you have your own painting?

ROSSETTI. I have nothing. And even if I had something, the ‘Greybeards’ would only criticise me, and I hate criticism. I like praise.

HUNT. Then stay home and show your work to your mum. No wonder you live there. ‘Look, Mama, here’s what I did.’ ‘Oh it’s lovely, Gabriel.’ ‘And here’s what else I did.’ ‘Oh it’s lovely, too, Gabriel.’

ROSSETTI. In point of fact I do have one idea I have long considered.

HUNT. Which one?

ROSSETTI. Beatrice Portinari.

HUNT. Then paint the woman. What’s stopping you?

ROSSETTI. I could never find a face to fit. (To LIZZIE.) Beatrice Portinari was the love of the great poet, Dante Alighieri. Do you know the story?

LIZZIE. No, / I…

HUNT (stopping him from telling the story). No. No.

ROSSETTI. Dante said that from the moment he saw her, he felt his destiny was fixed. When Cupid’s arrow strikes, Miss Siddal, the wounded carries the wound for life, there is no remedy. Once we fall in love, we love for ever. Dante loved Beatrice from a distance.

HUNT. Pretty pointless way to love somebody.

ROSSETTI. What could be more moving than love unrequited? A life full of yearning! One day in the street, because of a stupid misunderstanding, Beatrice refused Dante her greeting as she passed by. It broke his heart.

HUNT. The end.

ROSSETTI. She had red hair.

A beat.

HUNT. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Gabriel, but Miss Siddal is not available at the moment.

ROSSETTI. I will have money next week to pay a model’s wages. My aunt has promised to send me a guinea. (To LIZZIE.) I have a studio in Highgate.

HUNT. What a pity. Miss Siddal tells me on Monday she goes back to work at the hat shop. The bonnet-making season has returned, which is excellent news for ladies with bad hair – and good news for women who sew who need money to eat. You’ve never had a sweetheart, Gabriel. You think they live on sighs and sonnets. They don’t, she doesn’t, she works. And so do I, so please, please, please, for the love of God, leave me to work!

ROSSETTI….Of course. You only had to say. Miss Siddal. I do hope we meet again. (Leaving.) Maniac.

LIZZIE. Mr Rossetti. There has been an unexpected change in my circumstances. I will be available next week, if that is of any interest.

ROSSETTI. Really?

LIZZIE. Yes.

ROSSETTI. Well. That’s remarkable news, isn’t it.

Scene Three

ROSSETTI’s studio; a tiny cottage at the back of a garden in Highgate. A summer morning.

ROSSETTI is adjusting the position of a chair, an easel, his hair, his clothes. Truth be told, he’s a virgin and not quite as confident as he appeared in the previous scene. Suddenly a button falls from his trousers.

ROSSETTI. Oh, God.

He retrieves the button and bends over trying to see which part of his trousers the button issued from. LIZZIE appears in the doorway.

LIZZIE. Good morning, sir.

ROSSETTI (startled). Miss Siddal. Sorry, a… button fell off.

LIZZIE. Take it to a seamstress.

ROSSETTI. Yes… I don’t suppose / you.

LIZZIE. No.

ROSSETTI. No.

LIZZIE. You would have to remove your trousers.

ROSSETTI. Good God. Out of the question.

LIZZIE. Besides, I am not a seamstress this week.

ROSSETTI. Of course you’re not. You’re a picture. Won’t you come in? And please call me Gabriel.

LIZZIE. I’d like that, thank you. I’m Lizzie.

ROSSETTI. Lizzie, the model who reads Keats – which is astonishing.

LIZZIE. Why?

ROSSETTI. Well, that you can read at all is fairly astonishing. Most models can’t.

LIZZIE. My father insisted. All his daughters had to learn to read.

ROSSETTI. How many daughters does he have?

LIZZIE. Five.

ROSSETTI. Five? Good grief.

LIZZIE. Why good grief?

ROSSETTI. I have two sisters and they’re a handful. And daughters are always more trouble, aren’t they.

LIZZIE. Are they?

ROSSETTI. Well, no, not trouble, but expense. There’s the dowry for a start. I mean, five!

LIZZIE. That was my father’s plan. Instead of a dowry. Reading and diction.

ROSSETTI. Instead of a dowry. How does that work?

LIZZIE. He believes men with money have books. Therefore they seek wives who can read aloud. Because at the end of a hard day it is the wife’s duty to provide her husband with entertainment.

ROSSETTI. Extraordinary piece of reasoning. Is his strategy working?

LIZZIE. Not so far… What kind of pictures do you paint? Hunt mentioned a Virgin Mary.

ROSSETTI. I have two Virgin Marys.

LIZZIE. Two?

ROSSETTI. Yes. My first was The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary, which sold for eighty pounds to Lady Bath. She’s a friend of my aunt.

LIZZIE. Congratulations.

ROSSETTI. But then, even better, I painted The Annunciation.

LIZZIE. Did that sell?

ROSSETTI. Not yet. I offered it to Lady Bath. She said the Virgin looked alarmed. Well, if you were woken in bed in the middle of the night by a large angel, wouldn’t you look alarmed?

LIZZIE. Yes, I think I would. Though I imagine I’d feel reassured once I’d seen the angel’s wings.

ROSSETTI. He didn’t have wings.

LIZZIE. No wings?

ROSSETTI. No.

LIZZIE. So she woke to find a large man in her bedroom?

ROSSETTI. He was obviously an angel, there were flames around his feet.

LIZZIE. His feet were on fire?

ROSSETTI. He was an angel.

LIZZIE. Of course he was.

ROSSETTI. Are you sure you’re a seamstress and not a critic?

LIZZIE. I didn’t mean to be critical. I think to be an artist must be very difficult and also wonderful.

ROSSETTI. It is difficult. And also, wonderful. I have an idea for a picture. I had it the day we met. The picture is called Love at First Sight.

LIZZIE. What would that look like?

ROSSETTI. I can demonstrate. Stay still for me.

LIZZIE stops moving.

Stillness is part of a picture’s power. Real life is never still. Even now, you, even now, standing like you are, you think you are still, you are not. Your chest rises and falls with each breath. If I come close, I can see there is a vein, in your neck, moving.

LIZZIE. Perhaps you shouldn’t come so close.

ROSSETTI. An artist must study his subject. My idea is that you are a princess. Do you have a handkerchief?

LIZZIE. No.

ROSSETTI. Take mine. (Takes a handkerchief from his pocket and gives it to her.) One day, you are passing by the royal stables, and your handkerchief falls to the ground…

She lets it fall.

But as you bend to retrieve it –

She bends.

– a stable groom reaches it first… (Already on one knee, retrieving the handkerchief. Their faces almost meet.) and he, looking up and seeing your face, falls in love.

Pause.

MILLAIS (off). Any chance of a cup of tea?

MILLAIS enters, age twenty-two, smiley, breezy.

ROSSETTI. Johnnie.

MILLAIS. Hello.

ROSSETTI. What are you doing here?

MILLAIS. I thought I’d come and get a cup of tea.

ROSSETTI. That’s absurd. No one makes tea in the mornings – it’s uncivilised. What do you want? I’m busy. Miss Siddal, Mr Millais – Mr Millais, / Miss Siddal.

MILLAIS. Miss Siddal, a pleasure to see you again.

LIZZIE. How do you do, Mr / Millais.

ROSSETTI. ‘Again’?

MILLAIS. We met a month ago. Do you remember, Miss Siddal? I sketched you.

LIZZIE. Yes. /

ROSSETTI. You sketched her? Why?

MILLAIS. I liked her face.

ROSSETTI. When did she sit for you?

MILLAIS. She didn’t. She was sitting for Hunt. I happened to call.

ROSSETTI. And sketched her?

MILLAIS. As an aide memoire.

ROSSETTI. What for?

MILLAIS. Faces are useful, aren’t they. And, you know me, I like to have a pencil busy. How are you, Miss Siddal?

LIZZIE. I am well, thank you, sir.

MILLAIS. Excellent. No chance of tea?

ROSSETTI. If people guzzled tea in the morning, what would they do in the afternoon? Would you have breakfast at midnight? Should the Moon come up at midday?

MILLAIS. Just a cup of tea.

ROSSETTI. No. I’d come back in and find you halfway through a masterpiece. Miss Siddal is mine for the day and I won’t have you drawing her better than me.

MILLAIS. Does the bonnet season start again soon, Miss Siddal?

LIZZIE. This very week.

MILLAIS. And ends in December, I believe?

LIZZIE. Yes.

ROSSETTI. You are very well informed about ladies’ headgear.

MILLAIS. Yes I am.

LIZZIE. How is your picture, Mr Millais? Of Jesus as a boy.

MILLAIS. You remembered. Yes, it’s done.

ROSSETTI. It is brilliant, dammit.

MILLAIS. Thank you. (To LIZZIE.) I’ve painted a real boy, in a real carpenter’s shop. But rendered simply, as if straight from the heart. Like in the early Renaissance, when truth and feeling carried the day. The Academy will hate it.

LIZZIE. Then how brave of you to do it.

ROSSETTI scowls. MILLAIS notices.

MILLAIS. But Gabriel is a good painter. When he finds the time. I suppose it’s difficult to write and paint. Have you done much writing lately?

ROSSETTI. I may have done.

MILLAIS. I’d love to hear some.

ROSSETTI. I’m drawing.

MILLAIS. Of course. Anyway, it’s Miss Siddal I came to see. Mr Hunt told me you were coming here, Miss Siddal. I wonder, might I have a word?

ROSSETTI. Now? She’s working.

MILLAIS. Gabriel, you spent half last winter in my studio, chattering away.

ROSSETTI. I don’t remember that.

MILLAIS. And you were very welcome – as surely I am now. Don’t let me stop you. Pick up your pencil. I’m not here.

ROSSETTI picks up a pencil and drawing board and sits, with bad grace. He starts to sketch.

Miss Siddal. I have spent all summer on a riverbank, studying, sketching – reeds and flowers and leaves…

ROSSETTI (yawns). Sorry. Tired.

MILLAIS. These weeks of preparation were for a subject I have long cherished.

ROSSETTI. Which one?

MILLAIS. I am coming to it. (To LIZZIE.) A young woman is brutally jilted by a prince. This self-same prince then stabs and murders her father. She loses her mind. Weighed down with grief, she climbs upon a willow tree; the branch she climbs on breaks; she falls into the stream beneath.

ROSSETTI.

‘Her clothes spread wide

    And mermaid-like / awhile they bore her up.’

LIZZIE.

– ‘awhile they bore her up.’

Ophelia? Am I to be Ophelia?

MILLAIS. Would you?

ROSSETTI (to MILLAIS). Wait, wait, wait. You can’t.

MILLAIS. I have it planned.

ROSSETTI. You can’t put her in the stream.

MILLAIS. There is a better way / than that.

ROSSETTI. Is there? Is there? You paint from life.

MILLAIS. Of course / I do.

ROSSETTI. How would you put Lizzie in water?

MILLAIS. Exactly. That’s the problem. And in January.

ROSSETTI. January?

MILLAIS. I have a bath.

ROSSETTI. No.

MILLAIS. Hear me out. I have a bath, Lizzie, a zinc bath which I intend to put on trestles.

ROSSETTI. Trestles?

MILLAIS. I’d fill the bath with water, then heat it from below with oil lamps.

ROSSETTI. Like a fish kettle.

MILLAIS. No, not like a fish kettle. The temperature would be just so.

ROSSETTI. The answer’s no.

MILLAIS. I’m not asking / you.

ROSSETTI. Don’t do it, Lizzie.

MILLAIS. Gabriel, what is going on?

LIZZIE (gently). Gabriel… (To MILLAIS.) How long would I have to stay in water?

MILLAIS. The detail must be dazzling. The technique is called painting on a white wet ground.

ROSSETTI. That would take weeks.

MILLAIS. Lizzie, you cannot conceive what this painting will be. I am, I think, the best painter in England. This will be my masterpiece. You will be Ophelia. Will you do it? Because if you will, I promise, I will make you immortal.

LIZZIE. Yes. Yes please.

ROSSETTI gets up violently.

MILLAIS. Is something the matter?

ROSSETTI. It’s wrong.

MILLAIS. What is?

ROSSETTI. To paint her in water in winter.

MILLAIS. It’ll be safe.

ROSSETTI. How will it be safe?

MILLAIS. I’ll make sure it’s / safe.

ROSSETTI. You will make sure it’s safe?

MILLAIS. Yes, I will.

ROSSETTI. Who made the boy Jesus cry?

MILLAIS. I didn’t make him cry; he cried.

ROSSETTI. Why did he cry?

MILLAIS. He got cramp.

ROSSETTI. Of course he got cramp! You wouldn’t let him move!

MILLAIS. What’s that got to do with Ophelia?

ROSSETTI. If you can reduce Jesus to tears, what are you going to do to an innocent woman?

MILLAIS. Nothing! And I fail to understand why you should be taking offence.

ROSSETTI. I think you should go. Please. You should. Go. You have disrupted my day.

Pause.

MILLAIS. So… I’ll take my leave now, Miss Siddal. When the bonnet season is over, I shall be in communication. I cannot tell you how delighted I am.

LIZZIE. Thank you, sir.

MILLAIS. I don’t want bad blood between us, Gabriel.

MILLAIS proffers his hand. ROSSETTI folds his arms in response. A beat, then MILLAIS leaves.

ROSSETTI. You cannot do it… Obviously you can if you want – but you can’t possibly.

LIZZIE. Why shouldn’t I?

ROSSETTI. Give up weeks of your life to pose in water? /

LIZZIE. You said yourself he’s brilliant.

ROSSETTI. I may have said that.

LIZZIE. Then why shouldn’t I pose for him? /

ROSSETTI. You’re flattered. I can see you’re flattered, you are flattered.

LIZZIE. And if I am?

ROSSETTI. And now you’ll drown. Or freeze. Or the oil lamps will catch your dress on fire and you’ll end up scarred for the rest of / your days.

LIZZIE. Gabriel, Gabriel, he won’t harm me. He’s an artist.

ROSSETTI. You cannot trust an artist! I mean, obviously you can trust an artist, except there are times when you can’t. An artist is judged on his picture, not on the damage he causes in making it. He’ll do what he must, to get what he wants. He won’t care about you.

LIZZIE. Why would he care about me? I’m a model.

ROSSETTI. Well, he should care. Look at you, you’re lovely, you should be cared for – somebody should – I mean, why not? – we should all care about each other. Jesus said that, I think – something like it. I’m so agitated, I have lost all eloquence.

Pause.

LIZZIE (gently). It must be hard for you to understand. Your life is teeming with events – you create them. The rest of us – in our lives – nothing happens from week to week. We are drudges. One day we’ll die and it will be as if we never lived.

ROSSETTI. How will that be altered by lying in a bath?

LIZZIE. Something of me will be in his painting. Something of me will be worth poetry and tears. Or perhaps you consider me too ordinary to be a heroine. You may / be right.

ROSSETTI. I haven’t said / that.

LIZZIE. You’re entitled to your opinion, but it is not / the opinion of Mr Millais.

ROSSETTI. It is not my opinion. I did not / say any such thing

LIZZIE. Nor Mr Deverell, either.

ROSSETTI. Mr – ? Walter Deverell?

LIZZIE. Yes. Walter Deverell. The artist. I was Viola. In his painting of Twelfth Night.

ROSSETTI. That was your face?

LIZZIE. Yes.

ROSSETTI. Was it?… Walter is very good with trees.

LIZZIE. Yes, his trees are excellent.

ROSSETTI. He’s not so good with…

LIZZIE….faces, no. (It’s a truce.) I think I draw as well as he does. And I’ve only just begun.

ROSSETTI. Begun?

LIZZIE. To draw.

ROSSETTI. You draw?

LIZZIE. It’s a new law they’ve brought in – even common girls are now allowed to purchase pencils if they can save up thruppence.

ROSSETTI. You are not common. You are not. You are the most rare creature. (A thought occurs.) I can teach you. I can teach you. To draw, to paint. I can teach you everything I know.

LIZZIE. Why would you do that?

ROSSETTI. Because the day I met you, I came back here and wrote a poem straight away. Would you care to hear it?

LIZZIE. Yes.

ROSSETTI….

‘I have been here before,

But when or how I cannot tell:

I know the grass beyond the door,

The sweet keen smell,

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,

How long ago I may not know:

But just when at that swallow’s soar

Your neck turned so,

Some veil did fall – I knew it all of yore.

Then, now, – perchance again!…

O round mine eyes your tresses shake!

Shall we not lie as we have lain

Thus for Love’s sake,

And sleep, and wake, yet never break the chain?’

…Let me teach you about art.

A clap of thunder ushers in the next scene.

Scene Four

Autumn. Parkland in Kent.

Steady rain is falling. HUNT sits on a stool, drawing, under an umbrella held by MILLAIS. HUNT is oblivious to the weather and to MILLAIS, who has an artist’s bag on his shoulder.

MILLAIS. Maniac.

HUNT. Yes?

MILLAIS. It’s still raining.

HUNT. Yes.

MILLAIS. We could move in under those trees.

HUNT. That might disturb the deer. If they run away, I’d have to start again.

MILLAIS. But I can’t use my watercolours in the rain.

HUNT. Obviously not.

MILLAIS. And I can’t work at all if I’m holding the umbrella.

HUNT. No.

MILLAIS. And my arm’s getting tired.

HUNT. Is it? Uh-huh. No, the thing is, she’s a whore. Well, I wasn’t surprised – most models are whores. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t consider… you know… Jesus saved whores, didn’t he. He went round Galilee saving whores.

MILLAIS. I don’t think that was his primary purpose.

HUNT. I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to marry her. But suppose one could civilise her. Do you think it’s possible to elevate a woman through rigorous education and immersion in the arts?

MILLAIS. No.

HUNT. Literature is full of maids who are rescued by knights and become ladies.

MILLAIS. Yes, it’s called fiction. Written by men who can’t attract women.

HUNT. I think reclaiming a woman would be a heroic act. Mind – you’d have to invent a past – you couldn’t tell the truth. Imagine taking her home to meet your parents. ‘This is my intended. She used to be a model.’ You’d have to bring both parents round with smelling salts.

MILLAIS. Actually, not all models are whores.

HUNT. Most of them are – always have been. The galleries of England are festooned with trollops. You can walk into any aristocrat’s home and the proud owner will point to his wall and say ‘Look at my Venus’ or ‘Have you seen my Boudicca?’, and you look up and there’s some tart staring down at you.

MILLAIS. What’s her name? This woman you want to save?

HUNT. I’m not saying I’m going to. Annie Miller. Gabriel knows her.

MILLAIS. I haven’t spoken to Gabriel in a month.

HUNT. Nor have I. I wish he was here. He’s cheerful.

MILLAIS. I’m sure he’s cheerful. He’s nice and dry in Highgate.

Scene Five

ROSSETTI arranging chairs and an easel in his studio in Highgate. He hears someone coming.

ROSSETTI. Hello? Lizzie?

HUNT (off). Hullo?… Hullo?

HUNT enters.

Gabriel. Lord, how it rained in Kent. I nearly rounded up the animals and built an ark.

ROSSETTI. What are you doing here?

HUNT. I was on my way to meet Brown. Thought I’d call in here and see if you’d died. Have you died?

ROSSETTI. No.

HUNT. Good. What have you been up to?

ROSSETTI. Working.

HUNT. Really? Well done. On what?

ROSSETTI. Oh, drawings mostly.

HUNT. Drawings? What drawings?

ROSSETTI. Oh, just – you know – whatever I could see around me.

HUNT. Can I look?

ROSSETTI. Well.

HUNT is already picking up ROSSETTI’s drawings and sifting through them.

HUNT. My God, wonderful. Very fine. This looks like Lizzie Siddal.

ROSSETTI. Does it?

HUNT. So does this… And this… They all look like Lizzie Siddal.

ROSSETTI. Do they?

HUNT. You know they do. There’s got to be several weeks’ work. Why have you kept drawing her?

ROSSETTI. No reason. She must have just popped into my head.

LIZZIE enters and taps on the door to announce her arrival. She has a wooden watercolour field box and a drawing book.

LIZZIE. Good morning, Mr Hunt.

HUNT. Lizzie.

LIZZIE. How pleasant to see you.

HUNT. What are you doing here? – That’s my field box. /

ROSSETTI (softly). Oh, Christ. /

HUNT. Isn’t it? Yes, that’s my mark. That’s my field box – the one I lent you at Knole Park. (Indicating the box.) May I?

LIZZIE. Yes, of course.

She hands HUNT the box.

HUNT. Yes. This is mine. /

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). I’ll buy you another. /

LIZZIE. There’s no need. /

ROSSETTI. I will. /

HUNT. What’s she doing with my field box?

ROSSETTI. I gave it to her.

HUNT. It’s not yours to give.

ROSSETTI. She didn’t have one.

HUNT. Why give her mine?

ROSSETTI. To paint with.

HUNT. Oh Lord, I hope you haven’t ruined my paints.

LIZZIE. No, I / haven’t.

HUNT. The last box I had was ruined by my niece.

ROSSETTI. Lizzie’s not a child.

HUNT. No, but she’s not an artist either.

LIZZIE. I am. I am now… I am become one.

HUNT….What does that mean?

LIZZIE. I am become an artist.

HUNT. You’re a seamstress.

LIZZIE. I left.

HUNT. You left your job?

LIZZIE. To be an artist, yes.

HUNT. Good God, why?

LIZZIE. To commit to art. All or nothing.

ROSSETTI. The only way to be.

HUNT. That’s nonsense.

ROSSETTI. No it isn’t.

HUNT. Of course it is. Anyone can’t suddenly up and be an artist.

ROSSETTI. Why not?

HUNT. You know why not. Artists are born with talent, given of God.

ROSSETTI. Lizzie has talent.

HUNT. Does she? (To LIZZIE.) Do you? Where’s the evidence?

LIZZIE (tightening her grip on her folder). Well, I’ve only just begun.

HUNT. Where have you studied?

LIZZIE. I haven’t.

HUNT. Do you have ambitions? Precepts? What do you hope to accomplish?

LIZZIE. ‘To accomplish’?

HUNT. I hope to teach the world to behave better through the moral force of my images. What do you hope to do?

LIZZIE. I don’t know.

ROSSETTI. We don’t want to teach anyone how to behave.

HUNT. ‘We’?

ROSSETTI. Lizzie is my pupil.

A beat. HUNT catches up.

HUNT. Well, there’s a thing. Brave new world. How will you eat?

LIZZIE. At my parents’ table.

HUNT. Without bringing home wages?

LIZZIE. I am modelling for Millais soon. They can have the fee.

HUNT. And after that?

LIZZIE. I will sell my pictures.

HUNT. Will you? Mm-hm. Good Lord, I’ve only just realised how late I am. Please accept this as a small gift. May it bring you joy.

He hands back the box.

LIZZIE. Mr Hunt…

HUNT. Holman. Call me Holman. No need to thank me. Fellow artist. Why not?

(A nod of farewell to ROSSETTI.) Gabriel. Forgive me. I’d like to stay and spoil your day, but Brown sulks if I’m late. See you some time.

HUNT goes.

ROSSETTI. Yes. Give my regards to Brown. (To LIZZIE.) That man really is the most contrary / fellow.

LIZZIE. He gave me his paints.

ROSSETTI. Yes, that was kind.

LIZZIE. So generous of him. And of you to give me his paints before he did.

ROSSETTI. I’m sorry. I’d forgotten they were his. I do think you might have shown him your drawings. He’d have seen your genius.

LIZZIE. I have no genius, / Gabriel.

ROSSETTI. You are absolutely the / most gifted…

LIZZIE. Please, don’t over-praise me. /

ROSSETTI. I cannot over-praise you. You are beyond my powers of / praise.

LIZZIE. No. No, no, no. No. You must stop this.

ROSSETTI. How can I stop? How? I am caught. Every day I am stuck. I am bound. Spellbound. Spending the day within touching distance. Not that I would.

LIZZIE. I cannot come here every day if I am under siege.

ROSSETTI. You are not.

LIZZIE. My mother’s convinced my castle walls have already fallen.

ROSSETTI. I shall write to your mother and tell her you could not be safer if you were in a convent. And I know, even if I tried to touch that hand… just touch it… that you would deny me.

He is reaching out.

LIZZIE. Yes, I would.

He withdraws his hand. LIZZIE picks up a pencil and opens her drawing book.

ROSSETTI. I had not suspected you could be so cold. And here am I, your poor, pitiful, penniless poet. Left to languish, lovelorn. Without a word of comfort.

LIZZIE. I had thought you better than this.

ROSSETTI. In what way better? Is there a better way to be than loving / you?

LIZZIE. You don’t mean what you say. /

ROSSETTI. I mean every word.

LIZZIE. You say you are penniless, but you are rich in words. You spend them all day long. They cost you nothing and they mean nothing, but if I were to believe them once, think what they might cost me.

ROSSETTI. What might they cost you?

LIZZIE. You are a man.

ROSSETTI. Yes?

LIZZIE. My father used to say, ‘Beware young men. They wish to enjoy the fruit. Without owning the tree.’

ROSSETTI. What does that mean?

LIZZIE. I wonder.

ROSSETTI. You are a holy thing to me.

LIZZIE. You cannot say what isn’t true.

ROSSETTI. It is true. But if you say I cannot say it, then I won’t. Your wish is my command.

LIZZIE. Is it?

ROSSETTI. Yes.

LIZZIE. My wish is your command?

ROSSETTI. Yes.

LIZZIE. In that case, sit for me.

ROSSETTI. Nooooh.

LIZZIE. Yes. Yes. You said one day you’d sit for me. It is my wish. Sit for me. Will you? Would you?

LIZZIE waits. ROSSETTI sits and folds his arms. She smiles.

Thank you.

She starts to draw.

ROSSETTI. God, I hate this. I hate being a model. It makes me feel like an object.

LIZZIE. You are an object. Sit still while I draw.

ROSSETTI. How did this happen? I was enjoying myself and then… Don’t just draw me as I am. Make me some personage. St George.

LIZZIE. St George was a warrior.

ROSSETTI. I could be a warrior.

LIZZIE. You’re a poet.

ROSSETTI. Poets are tough. Don’t underestimate poets.

LIZZIE. You’re so right. Wasn’t it the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo who said, ‘There is only one thing that can save us now. Send in the battalion of poets.’

ROSSETTI….I would fight for you. I adore you. When you’re here I’m alive, when you’re gone, I’m a dead man. I sit bereft of life and wonder what you’re doing – who you’re with. Are they making you laugh? I want you to laugh, but I don’t want anyone else to make you laugh. I want it to be me. Do you think of me? Say something.

LIZZIE. What would you have me say?

ROSSETTI. Tell me the truth.

LIZZIE. You are a god of painting. A prince of poets. And a man of charm. You could talk your way into the Underworld and out again. Any woman in Christendom would be glad of a greeting from you – would store your words in her heart for ever – would stitch her soul to yours if she could. I have never met anyone like you, nor hoped to meet anyone like you… Now sit still. Let me finish my drawing.

She draws.

Scene Six

Dusk. The Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

MILLAIS stands admiring his own painting of Ophelia. JOHN RUSKIN appears and stops some distance away. He’s in his early thirties.

MILLAIS. Mr Ruskin.

RUSKIN. Man never tires of looking at beauty. Have you created beauty, Johnnie?

MILLAIS. You have not seen it yet?

RUSKIN. I have been in Venice. Effie and I arrived back yesterday.

MILLAIS. How is your wife?

RUSKIN. She is well. They’re taking it down tonight, I gather.

MILLAIS. In the next half-hour.

RUSKIN. I hear there never was such pushing and shoving round a painting. I asked the Academy if I could slip in after hours. They said yes.

MILLAIS. The critics were their normal sniffy selves.

RUSKIN. I’m a critic.

MILLAIS. You’re not going to be sniffy, are you, sir?

RUSKIN. I might be. Shall I take a look?

RUSKIN studies the painting.

At the same time, in an apartment in Blackfriars, it is also dusk.

ROSSETTI is there, waiting for LIZZIE, who comes in, brimming with excitement.

LIZZIE. I’m so sorry, Gabriel.

ROSSETTI. It’s all right. Really.

LIZZIE. I had to queue.

ROSSETTI. Did you?

LIZZIE. There was a crowd round the painting. The attendant kept saying ‘move along’ but no one moved. And I was standing there and a woman looked at me and said, ‘It’s her.’ And then people were turning round and I was the centre of attention. And an old man with a wig said I was better than the painting, and then a little blond boy said the painting was beautiful but I was ugly, and his mother smacked him, and then blond boy started crying and people were laughing, and the attendant told everyone to be quiet, and wanted to know what the fuss was. And he asked if it really was me in the picture and I said yes. And then he cleared a space, and let me stand there on my own, for two whole minutes, and look. And everyone was quiet. And then I said thank you, and then I turned to go and there was applause. For me. There was applause.

ROSSETTI. Really.

LIZZIE. I am Ophelia.

ROSSETTI. Yes.

LIZZIE. Are you not thrilled for me?

ROSSETTI. Of course I am. I am, yes. Yes. I have been waiting for an hour, that’s all.

LIZZIE. I’m so sorry.

ROSSETTI. No, I’m sorry. I… I don’t mean to be unenthusiastic.

LIZZIE. Of course you don’t. An hour. How annoying.

ROSSETTI. It’s all right. Really. I am glad for you. What a tremendous success.

LIZZIE. It’s Millais’ success.

ROSSETTI. Yes. I loathe his success. I loathe him. He made you ill.

LIZZIE. I’m better now. And this. (Gesturing at the room.) You’re renting this?

ROSSETTI. With William, yes.

LIZZIE. It’s spectacular.

ROSSETTI. There’s a view of the Thames. From my bedroom.

LIZZIE. How wonderful. Where is your brother?

ROSSETTI. He’s staying the night at my mother’s.

LIZZIE. Is he?

ROSSETTI. I thought we could do some painting together. And I bought you a gift. (Searches his pockets.) It’s in my coat. Wait.

He goes. She waits.

In the Academy, RUSKIN speaks at last.

RUSKIN. My boy, it is, I have to tell you, exquisite.

MILLAIS. Thank you.

RUSKIN. And yet…

MILLAIS. And yet?

RUSKIN. No. No, no, it’s lovely. And yet…

MILLAIS. And yet?

ROSSETTI. There’s something troubling me. There’s something wrong with it.

In the apartment, ROSSETTI returns with something tiny in his hand.

LIZZIE. What is it?

He reveals a solid ‘cake’ or pan of watercolour wrapped in foil.

ROSSETTI. Dragon’s Blood. A two-shilling cake.

LIZZIE takes it.

LIZZIE (chuckles). Oh, Gabriel. Shall I paint in Dragon’s Blood? Did you kill a dragon for me?

ROSSETTI. Of course I did.

LIZZIE. Where’s the head?

ROSSETTI. I threw it in the river.

LIZZIE. I’d like to see the river.

ROSSETTI. Would you? Well, you could see it from my bedroom. If you’d like to.

They kiss. Then surface. Then exit.

In the Academy, RUSKIN speaks again.

RUSKIN. Who is the model?

MILLAIS. Elizabeth Siddal. Hunt painted her before me.

RUSKIN. Did he?

MILLAIS. ‘And yet.’ You said ‘and yet’.

RUSKIN. The shadows are wrong. You’ve made them too cold.

MILLAIS. I don’t think so.

RUSKIN. Yes. You have. I thought the whole point of you Pre-Raphaelites is that you render the truth and nothing but the truth. And her skin. You’ve used some rather crude purples and yellows. I suppose you mean to suggest transparency on the skin.

MILLAIS. She’s dying, John.

RUSKIN. Yes, but the effect is too melancholy to be true. You have embellished instead of painting what you saw.

MILLAIS. I painted what I saw.

RUSKIN. There’s an excess of tragedy in the girl.

MILLAIS. Yes. That’s what I saw.

Scene Seven

Six months later. The beach at Hastings. A bright April morning. The sound of seagulls and the sea on shingle.

ROSSETTI is coming up the beach with a beaker of seawater. LIZZIE waits. Both of them are in good spirits.

ROSSETTI. You will drink this. You must. I have braved sea monsters to get it.

LIZZIE. Where are the sea monsters?

ROSSETTI. They’re just below the surface. I could have been dragged in at any moment. Worth it though because – mmm – if I’m not mistaken this is Hastings seawater – recommended by doctors – fresh, tangy, salty.

LIZZIE. Is that the same water that fish float in, and poor drowned sailors? And do passing ships empty their bilge pumps into it?

ROSSETTI. It will do you good.

LIZZIE. I don’t think it will.

ROSSETTI. Then why do doctors recommend it?

LIZZIE. Doctors recommend it; they don’t drink it. Doctors drink claret.

ROSSETTI. I could sell this in the Strand for a guinea.

LIZZIE. Then you should fill a bucket and take it on the train to London tomorrow.

ROSSETTI. I do think you might be more obliging. I pawned my dead father’s gold pin to pay for our lodgings.

LIZZIE. Your father’s spirit kisses you for doing so.

ROSSETTI. The whole point of Hastings is to make people healthy. Otherwise what is the point of Hastings?

LIZZIE. I am healthy.

ROSSETTI. Healthy people don’t get chest infections that last all winter.

LIZZIE. It’s disappeared now. I could come back on the train with you.

ROSSETTI. No. I’ve paid for your room for another week.

LIZZIE. Why would I want to stay on here if you’re in London?

ROSSETTI. Better if you stay. We wouldn’t see each other in London anyway. I have pictures to finish; people to see; a sponsor I have to charm.

LIZZIE. You don’t want me there.

ROSSETTI. I want you healthy. Stay here.

LIZZIE. I wouldn’t distract you. I could stand in the street outside. You could look out of your window from time to time. I’d see your face.

ROSSETTI. Halfwit.

LIZZIE. Ninny.

ROSSETTI. Goose.

LIZZIE. Booby.

ROSSETTI. Featherbrain.

LIZZIE. Oaf.

ROSSETTI. Whey-face.

LIZZIE. Thank you for the holiday.

ROSSETTI. My absolute pleasure. When I have money, we’ll have holidays all the time. We are artists. We must have a surfeit of everything. We cannot live ordinary lives. That would be a crime.

LIZZIE. Is it a crime to be ordinary?

ROSSETTI. Yes. An artist must go beyond the pale. How else could we encompass the passions we are supposed to represent? How could you write Romeo and Juliet if all you knew was the plough and the field, and the daily plod? If all you did was scratch ink in an office, how could you paint Lancelot trapped in the Queen’s chamber? We lead large lives so that we feel able to write them and paint them. Hero, Leander, Romeo, Juliet, Dante, Beatrice. All the great loves.

LIZZIE….All the great loves died young. Leander drowns and Hero kills herself. Romeo thinks Juliet dead and so he kills himself. And then she kills herself. And Dante loves Beatrice, who dies at twenty and then he pines.

ROSSETTI. Yes.

LIZZIE. Then do we have to die young?

ROSSETTI. Us? No.

LIZZIE. But ours is a great love, too.

ROSSETTI. It is.

LIZZIE. Then I’ll have to drown myself.

ROSSETTI. You have no reason to drown yourself.

LIZZIE. I have every reason. I am a fallen woman. Worse – my lover abandons me tomorrow for London. There he will probably visit his mother. What she looks like I do not know, for I have never met her.

A beat.

ROSSETTI. I will invite you to meet my mother the moment you get back.

LIZZIE. You will?

ROSSETTI. I will.

LIZZIE. Gabriel! You promise?

ROSSETTI. I do.

She starts to embrace him.

LIZZIE. Oh, Gabriel! /

ROSSETTI. Lizzie, Lizzie, we’re in public.

LIZZIE. It’s all right. I’m an artist.

She kisses him on the cheek. ROSSETTI looks around.

…How can a poet be so prim?

ROSSETTI. I am not prim. I am not prim.

LIZZIE. Spoken by the man who doesn’t dare come to my room at night.

ROSSETTI. I cannot come to your room. The landlady is a dragon in human form. She stalks the corridors.

LIZZIE. You slay dragons.

ROSSETTI. I think I may have mentioned the creaky floorboards between your room and mine.

LIZZIE. ‘An artist must go beyond the pale.’

ROSSETTI. What would you have me do?

LIZZIE. There’s an ironmonger’s in Trinity Street. I would have you go there and buy French chalk.

ROSSETTI. Why would I want French chalk?

LIZZIE. Because you are not prim. Because you are bold and dashing. Because you are the great Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and when you puff French chalk between floorboards, they don’t creak.

The sound of the sea swells. Waves crash resoundingly as if sweeping all away and then fade, replaced by the sounds of a London street in the 1850s.

Scene Eight

It is three years later. ROSSETTI’s apartment. A spring afternoon. Chairs. An easel. A small table.

LIZZIE sits and begins to draw with great concentration. ROSSETTI enters.

ROSSETTI. What are you doing now?

LIZZIE. Darkening the hair.

ROSSETTI. Not now. Don’t change what he’s seen.

LIZZIE. But if I can do it better.

ROSSETTI. No, no, he’s coming. We should be ready…

LIZZIE puts her drawing and pencil to one side.

And happy.

Pause.

You won’t give the impression that you’re too familiar with the apartment?

LIZZIE. No.

ROSSETTI. I don’t want Ruskin to think you live here.

LIZZIE. I don’t live here.

ROSSETTI. Or spend the night.

LIZZIE. I don’t. I haven’t. Not for a long time.

ROSSETTI. It’s just that he thinks you’re my pupil. I wouldn’t want him to think other thoughts.

LIZZIE. You can call your brother to give evidence.

ROSSETTI. William’s not back till late. He’s going round to Charlotte Street.

LIZZIE….How is your dear mother? Her nerves – are they better?

ROSSETTI. A little.

LIZZIE. But still not strong enough to cope with meeting me?

ROSSETTI. Soon.

LIZZIE. Really?

ROSSETTI. Yes.

LIZZIE. Such a will o’ the wisp, your mother. So hard to pin down. Always off ‘visiting cousins’, or ‘busy this week’, or ‘not very well’. Three years she’s been doing that now. /

ROSSETTI. It’s not three years. /

LIZZIE. Three years since you stood on a beach in Hastings and promised you’d introduce me.

ROSSETTI. I am about to introduce you to the greatest critic of the age: John Ruskin.

LIZZIE. But not your mother.

ROSSETTI. Can we just concentrate on Ruskin? Can we? For now? And then later, after, we can talk about other things, yes?

LIZZIE….No.

ROSSETTI. What?

LIZZIE. No, no. I’m sorry, no – we can’t. We can’t. I’m sorry, I have a question, it’s urgent, I’m so sorry, Gabriel, but I ask myself this question every night before I go to sleep. And when I wake in the morning the question is still there. I carry the question in my head all the time. All the time.

ROSSETTI. Very well. What is the question?

LIZZIE. Do you grow tired of me, Gabriel?

ROSSETTI….No.

LIZZIE…. Are you sure?… Possession makes some men weary. I wonder if you are weary.

ROSSETTI. I’m not. I don’t know how you can ask that. How can you ask that?

LIZZIE. Because. Because I feel that Love should not hesitate. And you do. (Indicating drawings and paintings.) In your pictures, Love plunges in, Love cannot help itself – it leaps like Leander into the sea. Love makes love – and is damned like Paolo and Francesca. Love is Lancelot – torn by guilt, but loving anyway. I wonder why you hang back.

ROSSETTI. I do not hang back. I never hang back. I do not hesitate in anything.

LIZZIE. Is it consequence you shy away from? The consequence of love might be a child. Is that the cause?

ROSSETTI. This is not to be believed. That you should broach this now. I am about to bring you Ruskin and you speak of intimacies? The subject of the bedroom should stay in the bedroom.

LIZZIE. But we are never in the bedroom.

The sound of a door knocker.

ROSSETTI. Where’s your folder?

LIZZIE. I’ll get it.

LIZZIE exits. ROSSETTI goes to the door.

HUNT enters with ANNIE MILLER – in her early twenties.

HUNT. Sorry to barge in. How are you? You know Annie.

ANNIE. ’Allo / Gabriel.

HUNT. Is this convenient?

ANNIE. ’Ow are / ya?

ROSSETTI. No. No, it’s not convenient.

HUNT. Isn’t it? Why isn’t it convenient?

ROSSETTI. I’m expecting Ruskin.

HUNT. Ruskin?

ROSSETTI. You can’t stay. He’ll be here soon. (Big smile.) Hello, Annie. You are a stunner.

ANNIE. Am I? I like your apartment. Ain’t you a swell.

HUNT. His brother lives here too – William – he pays the rent.

ROSSETTI. No he doesn’t.

HUNT. He works at the Inland Revenue. They’re never short of a shilling.

ROSSETTI. I also pay rent. Some of the rent. Some of the time.

HUNT. Are you getting commissions from Ruskin now?

ROSSETTI. I am.

HUNT. I thought you’d nip in there.

ROSSETTI. I didn’t nip in. He needed a protégé.

HUNT. And you were passing.

ROSSETTI. What is it you want?

HUNT. Dammit, Gabriel, I want our friendship back. I want our youth back. I want to row down the Thames in the morning mist, do you remember?

ROSSETTI. Yes. Strenuous way to start the day.

HUNT. Not for you – you didn’t do any rowing – I did all the rowing. You spouted poetry to uncomprehending ducks.

ROSSETTI. They were not uncomprehending. They were particularly appreciative of ‘The Blessed Damozel’.

HUNT. ‘The blessed Damozel leaned out…’

ROSSETTI.

‘…From the gold bar of Heaven;

Her eyes were deeper than the depth

Of waters stilled at even;

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.’

HUNT quacks like a flock of appreciative ducks. LIZZIE returns, carrying an art folder. HUNT stops quacking.

HUNT. Lizzie. Are you living here now?

LIZZIE. No, of course I’m not.

HUNT. Oh. Well, anyway, how are you? May I present Annie Miller? Annie, this is Lizzie Siddal, Gabriel’s special friend.

ANNIE. Pleasure to meet you, I’m sure.

LIZZIE (friendly). How do you do.

ANNIE. I know oo you are.

LIZZIE. Do you?

ANNIE. You’re the one nearly drowned in the painting.

HUNT. Ophelia.

ANNIE. That’s the one, the one you nearly drowned for.

HUNT. She didn’t drown.

ANNIE. She did nearly.

HUNT. She didn’t drown. She nearly froze. The lamps heating the bath went out. She nearly froze.

ANNIE. All right, all right, don’t kick up a shine, I’m only talkin’.

HUNT. We’re in company.

ANNIE. I can see we’re in comp’ny. I can see – the – comp’ny. They’re in front of me.

LIZZIE. I’ve recovered now though so all is well.

HUNT. She got pneumonia.

ANNIE. Noomonia? ’Ow come?

HUNT (exasperated). The water in the bath was cold!

ANNIE. Well, why didn’t she get out the bath? (To LIZZIE.) Why didn’t you get out the bath?

LIZZIE. It would have disturbed the artist.

ANNIE finds this absurd. The others don’t. Short pause.

It’s best forgotten. We’re expecting / Ruskin.

ROSSETTI. I’ve told / them.

HUNT. We won’t stay, Liz, don’t fret. Just five minutes, then we’ll go.

ROSSETTI. It’s Lizzie whom Ruskin is coming to see.

HUNT. Lizzie? What for?

LIZZIE. Gabriel showed Ruskin my pictures. Isn’t that kind of him?

HUNT (to ROSSETTI). Why would you do that?

ROSSETTI. I thought he might like them.

HUNT. Which pictures? The kid in tears – that one?

LIZZIE. Do you mean the grieving child from Wordsworth’s poem ‘We Are Seven’?

HUNT. Yes, that one. And the sad women on the shore?

LIZZIE. It’s called The Ladies Lament. From the ballad by Sir Patrick Spens.

HUNT. What did Ruskin say?

ROSSETTI. He liked her work.

HUNT. He didn’t think it too naive?

ROSSETTI. No, he didn’t.

HUNT. And now he wants to meet you?

LIZZIE. We hope he might buy something. Wouldn’t that be extraordinary?

HUNT. Yes. It would. (To ROSSETTI.) Although, if he liked the work, why didn’t he go ahead and buy it? Why does he need to meet her?

ROSSETTI. We don’t know.

HUNT (to ANNIE). Lizzie draws and paints.

ANNIE. Oh.

HUNT. She’s been under Gabriel’s tutelage.

ANNIE. ’As she now? That sounds a bit filthy, if you ask / me.

HUNT (suddenly incensed). This is what I mean. This is where we fall / down.

ANNIE. What you sayin’ / now?

HUNT. The simplest / conversation –

ANNIE. Don’t start, Holman, don’t you even / think of starting.

HUNT. You cannot join in unless you learn how to speak with / decorum.

ANNIE. I’m learnin’ ’ow to speak, why don’t you learn your / manners?

LIZZIE. Miss Miller… Forgive my interrupting. I wouldn’t normally be so blunt. We’re expecting an important visitor. I wonder could you come back another day? Tomorrow? Or Thursday?

ROSSETTI. Yes, perhaps the two of you could suspend your row till Thursday? We’d love to watch you fight then, wouldn’t we, Lizzie? Do you have a row booked for Thursday? Could we fit one in?

HUNT. How very droll.

LIZZIE. Unless your business really is urgent in some way?

ANNIE. Oh, don’t ask me, dearie, ask ’is / nibs.

HUNT. If I may speak a sentence un-heckled? There is one pressing matter. As you know, I am off to the Holy Land; I shall be gone several months. I am bent on creating a work there that will render all other painting this century second rate. However my absence is unfortunate in one regard: that Miss Miller and I have recently formed an attachment. It’s difficult to believe, but there are times when Miss Miller can actually be a very pleasing companion.

ANNIE. Oh, can I?

HUNT. Will you shut up please?

ANNIE. I’m gonna go.

HUNT. Then go.

ANNIE. I need money for a cab.

HUNT. In a minute. While I’m away, I’m paying for Miss Miller to have lessons in how to be a lady. How to walk and talk and sit. And cross her legs. She’ll be going to a Mrs Bramah in Cheyne Gardens – do you know her, Lizzie?

LIZZIE. No. Why would I?

HUNT. Well, you’re more ladylike than some. I always assumed you’d had lessons.

LIZZIE. No.

ROSSETTI. What do you want me to do, Maniac?

HUNT. I want to be clear. I have not promised to marry Miss Miller. She is not fit currently to be a wife. However, if on my return, I judge that she is fit, I may – or I may not – or I / may –

ANNIE. Oh, for Gawd’s sake, spit it / out.

HUNT. Will you be quiet?

ROSSETTI. You want me to keep an eye on her, is that it?

HUNT. Yes! Yes! Exactly that! This is a woman who thinks the way to stave off temptation is to give in to it. Could you keep an eye on her? Would you do that, Gabriel? Look after your old friend’s special friend?

ROSSETTI. It would be a pleasure.

ANNIE. You gonna paint me, Gabriel? While ’e’s gone? You gonna do me again?

ROSSETTI. Do you know, I’d like that very much.

ANNIE. Would ya now?

HUNT. And you, Lizzie. Perhaps I could ask you to keep an eye on her too?

LIZZIE. Me?… No.

HUNT. No?

LIZZIE. No.

ANNIE. Charmed, I’m sure.

ROSSETTI. Liz.

LIZZIE (to HUNT). Are you going to Palestine? Take her with you. If I was a man-loved-a-woman, I wouldn’t want her from my side for a moment. And if she truly loved you, the ends of the earth would not be too far to follow. All you’re saying is, ‘See this woman? I don’t trust her. Watch her till I come back.’

ANNIE (to HUNT). And you said I wasn’t up to comp’ny.

HUNT (to LIZZIE). I am staggered at your / inference –

ROSSETTI. Maniac! Maniac. Maniac. It’s all right, it’s all right. Friend. Friend… Come in the next room. I… I wanted to show you Dante’s Vision of Rachel and Leah.

HUNT….Right.

ROSSETTI (to LIZZIE). We’ll only be a minute.

HUNT and ROSSETTI exit. There’s a pause.

ANNIE….’E ain’t married ya then?

LIZZIE. No.

ANNIE. Some do, some don’t. Spec you’re doin’ all right though. Bet you’re flush. Did ’e buy you that dress?

LIZZIE. No. I made this dress.

ANNIE. Oh. But ’e does buy you things though, don’t ’e. That’s how the world turns. You show ’im what’s under your frock, ’e’ll show you what’s in ’is pocket. Bargain while you can, I say. Cuz ’e ain’t gonna be keen for ever. No man wants to spend ’is whole life diggin’ the same trench. It’s ’ow they’re made. We all got to get out the gutter, some’ow, int we.

LIZZIE. I’ve never been in the gutter.

ANNIE. Lucky you. I was. Me, I never ’ad a mum. ’Ad a dad, but ’e went soft in the ’ead. I was on the game at twelve. I’m not ashamed. Tell you, I tell everyone. All I could do. I was living with me aunt, but ’er ’usband started feeling me up. Yeah.

LIZZIE. I’m so sorry.

ANNIE. Dirty bastard.

LIZZIE. How terrifying for you.

ANNIE. Dun’t matter. It’s only fingers. ’E was a cobbler. ’Is fingers was black. Left marks on me skin. It washes off. Not that I ’ardly washed then. I do now. Holman’s particular in that way. ’E’s a lunatic for baths. What’s your Gabriel like? Is ’e like that?

LIZZIE. I’m sorry. I can’t discuss that. I don’t mean to be unfriendly.

ANNIE. Go on, where’s the ’arm? We swim in the same river.

LIZZIE. I don’t think that’s true.

ANNIE. Course we do. You’re a model, I’m a model. What? Just cuz I done tricks and you didn’t? That don’t make you Queen of England.

LIZZIE. I’m not a model any more, I’m an artist.

ANNIE. Oh, what’s the difference? What? It’s only a dance round an easel. You step one side, I step the other – well, pardon me if I don’t care – it’s not real life. What’s it for? It ’angs on a wall. It dun’t keep you warm. You can’t eat it. What is it? Paint stains on a bit of canvas. Smudges on paper. Your smudges are better than ’is – ’is smudges are better than yours. Who cares?

LIZZIE. I care! Many people care and I care! Or are we all just animals on two legs with nothing in our heads but what to eat and what to burn for a fire? Are all the feelings of our hearts to be ignored? Unremembered? Worthless? Numberless? As animals are numberless? Our lives must have meaning! Or else why live? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.

HUNT and ROSSETTI re-enter.

HUNT. Annie, we’re leaving now.

ANNIE. Oh, don’t ask me, will ya, just tell me. I’m a dog: woof, woof.

ROSSETTI. Goodbye, Annie. I’ll see you soon.

ANNIE. Yeah. ’Ope so.

HUNT. Annie!

ANNIE. Miss Siddal. Nice to meet another model.

HUNT. Annie!

The sound of a front door knocker.

ROSSETTI. Ruskin.

HUNT. Well, we’re going. We’re going.

ROSSETTI. Yes, you are.

ROSSETTI exits to let RUSKIN in.

LIZZIE. Miss Miller… Annie. If you would like to meet on some other / occasion.

ANNIE. No, you’re all right. I ain’t good with women. I’m better with men.

ROSSETTI enters with RUSKIN.

RUSKIN (to HUNT). Holman. My dear fellow. What a surprise.

HUNT. John. We’re just leaving. Oh. May I present Miss Annie Miller. Mr John Ruskin.

RUSKIN. How do you do.

ANNIE. I do very well, thank you, John, ’ow do you do?

RUSKIN. I… Well, I…

HUNT. We’re going, John.

ROSSETTI. They are just going, John.

ANNIE. Yep. We’re going, John.

HUNT. So. Goodbye. Goodbye.

ANNIE. Bye.

HUNT and ANNIE leave.

RUSKIN. Who was that person?

ROSSETTI. Annie?

RUSKIN. She seemed rather earthy.

ROSSETTI. She’s a model, John.

RUSKIN. Is Hunt stepping out with a model?

ROSSETTI. I believe he may be.

RUSKIN. Hmm. (To LIZZIE.) My dear. We have not been introduced, but I feel sure it is you I’ve come to see.

ROSSETTI. John, may I present Miss Elizabeth Siddal. Lizzie, this is John Ruskin.

LIZZIE curtsies.

LIZZIE. How do you do, sir.

RUSKIN. Miss Siddal. This is a treat. I have gazed upon your features innumerable times in pencil form. This man has not ceased drawing you these three years. I have examined you in outline, tone, line and tone, wet drawing, and in colour. But in all that work there was one feature which I could not discern, thus making an encounter with you a necessity.

LIZZIE. What feature, sir?

RUSKIN. Your voice. I had to hear your voice. Say something, Miss Siddal.

LIZZIE. I… don’t know what you’d have me say… However, what I would wish to say to you is how wonderfully you describe the paintings of Turner in Modern Painters, Volume One. I have never read a more enthralling description of art.

RUSKIN (to ROSSETTI). This is what I came for. This is what I wanted to hear. Miss Siddal, you speak well, you do speak well. Say something else. What can I get you to say?

LIZZIE. Perhaps if we engage in conversation naturally, sir.

ROSSETTI. Will you take tea, John?

RUSKIN. Alas, I cannot. This is where the day has taken a discouraging turn of events. The truth is, I nearly didn’t come here at all.

ROSSETTI. Oh dear.

RUSKIN. But then I knew how disappointed you both would be, and so I came but I have dismal news; this present visit can only be fleeting.

LIZZIE. Is there some trouble, Mr Ruskin?

RUSKIN. One of timing. I was in the very act of leaving my house, when a messenger came from Lidgate – my lawyer – sends his compliments and could he trouble me for an urgent interview?

ROSSETTI. Is that because of…? /

RUSKIN. Don’t ask.

ROSSETTI. I won’t.

RUSKIN. She’s made her bed. Now she can lie in it. Are you still in touch with Millais?

ROSSETTI. No. No.

RUSKIN. You Pre-Raphaelites all made such play of your sincerity. And now I wear a cuckold’s horns. How is your health, my dear? That business with Ophelia – I hope it has not left you with permanent damage?

LIZZIE. No, sir.

ROSSETTI. Her lungs are weaker, John.

RUSKIN. Are they? In that case, you must see my doctor. Acland is very capable; he can treat anything. (To ROSSETTI.) Even women’s complaints.

ROSSETTI. Really?

RUSKIN. Oh yes.

RUSKIN smiles. The moment has come.

Look at you. Graceful and patient. Exactly as I had imagined. Gabriel pressed some work of yours into my hands. Did he tell you that I liked it?

LIZZIE. Yes, Mr Ruskin, he did.

RUSKIN. There are some desperate faults, Miss Siddal. I tell you now the people in your pictures will never walk, for they stand on legs that have no muscle.

ROSSETTI. She couldn’t go to life class.

RUSKIN. Of course she couldn’t, she’s a woman. She could study statues though.

ROSSETTI. Quite. (To LIZZIE.) Statues.

RUSKIN (to LIZZIE). Do not distress yourself, my dear. I have not come to pick at threads. Your pictures are naive. That is their strength. They speak to the heart. Let me be brief. I wish to own your work.

LIZZIE. Own it?

RUSKIN. All of it. I’d like to buy it. That folder there. How much? How much do you want for it?

ROSSETTI. Twenty… five. Twenty-five pounds.

RUSKIN. I’ll give you thirty. Would that be acceptable?

ROSSETTI. Yes. Very. Completely.

RUSKIN. Good.

LIZZIE. You’re buying all my work?

RUSKIN. Is that agreeable?

LIZZIE. Yes, Mr Ruskin. It is agreeable.

RUSKIN. Excellent! Have I made you happy? I have? You don’t know how it cheers a man to see a woman smile. I wanted to meet you. I wanted to be sure. I am sure. Here’s what I propose… I’d like to patronise a woman. It would be a treat for me. How would it suit if I were to pay you an allowance of… a hundred and fifty a year?

ROSSETTI. A hundred and fifty?

RUSKIN. What do you think?

ROSSETTI. Pounds?

RUSKIN. Would that be helpful?

ROSSETTI. A year?

LIZZIE. It would be astonishing, sir.

RUSKIN. Well, I have astonished people all my life.

ROSSETTI. A hundred and fifty a year!

LIZZIE. And in return?

RUSKIN. What, my dear?

LIZZIE. What you would require in return?

RUSKIN. Your work.

LIZZIE. All of it?

RUSKIN. Yes.

LIZZIE. Everything?

RUSKIN. Yes.

LIZZIE. You will keep everything?

RUSKIN. Yes. Is that a problem?

LIZZIE. So you would be keeping my work, and my person?

RUSKIN hesitates.

ROSSETTI. She accepts. You do. It’s done. She does. We accept.

RUSKIN (to LIZZIE). Do you accept?

LIZZIE hesitates.

LIZZIE…. Yes. I do. Thank you. I accept.

RUSKIN. Good. Then it is done. How I wish I could stay to share your pleasure. However, I must take arms against a sea of troubles. Next Tuesday. Come to my house, in the afternoon, both of you. We’ll have tea.

RUSKIN holds out his hand. LIZZIE shakes it.

Miss Siddal. Au revoir. I have lots to teach you. Oh. Yes. Don’t paint.

LIZZIE. I’m sorry?

RUSKIN. You must not paint. Not till you can draw. Drawing must be studied first. You must draw from nature; simple objects to start: a flower, a rock.

LIZZIE. A rock?

RUSKIN. I myself have made studies of a rock.

LIZZIE. And if I feel no passion for a rock, sir?

RUSKIN. You must.

ROSSETTI. She will. I know she will.

RUSKIN. Of course she will. (To LIZZIE.) You will. And I will guide your every mark. You’ll never draw unaided again. I have you. Don’t worry. What a novelty this will be.

RUSKIN holds out his hand to ROSSETTI.

Gabriel.

ROSSETTI. John.

RUSKIN. You owe me a picture. I paid in advance. Where’s the picture?

ROSSETTI. I haven’t done it.

RUSKIN. Why not?

ROSSETTI. I was too busy spending your money.

RUSKIN. Au revoir.

RUSKIN goes, waving.

ROSSETTI. Au revoir… Lizzie!

LIZZIE. What have I done?

ROSSETTI. You have conquered Ruskin!

LIZZIE. Have I? Is that what I have done?

ROSSETTI. You are splendiferous! You are magnificent! You are rich!

LIZZIE. I am. Yes. I am!… Or have I signed my life away?

ROSSETTI. No, no, no! You are an artist!

LIZZIE. Yes! I am an artist!… who must not paint. I must not / paint.

ROSSETTI. Ignore him.

LIZZIE. I can’t ignore / him.

ROSSETTI. Ignore him, fob him off. Take his tin! A hundred and fifty! That’s money! That’s proper coin! That’s what a vicar earns in a year! And you won’t even have to go to church on Sundays!

LIZZIE. Yes! And does he own me?

ROSSETTI. No, he doesn’t own you; he sustains you.

LIZZIE. I feel as if I have given something away.

ROSSETTI. You haven’t. You haven’t. You are not giving, you are taking – taking his tin! Why are you not dancing? Why? You are an artist and being paid! /

LIZZIE. Yes. /

ROSSETTI. A hundred and fifty!

LIZZIE. So much money! That’s nearly… more than I can count – I can give my mother some / money.

ROSSETTI. You can buy me a dinner.

LIZZIE. I can buy you a year of dinners.

ROSSETTI. A hundred and fifty pounds. That’s enough to rent your own apartment.

LIZZIE (a beat). Yes.

ROSSETTI. You could get your own apartment.

LIZZIE. Yes. I could get my own apartment.

ROSSETTI. Will you get your own apartment?

LIZZIE…. I could.

ROSSETTI. Of course you could. You should.

LIZZIE. Live on my own?

ROSSETTI. Yes. Oh yes. It’s the only way to be. Think of it, Liz. Your own apartment.

LIZZIE. Why would I want to live on my own?

ROSSETTI. So you could work.

LIZZIE…. I always thought I’d marry. And work.

ROSSETTI. But now you are independent.

LIZZIE. Am I?

ROSSETTI. How wonderful to be independent. To be free to come and go as you please, completely unencumbered. Believe me, Liz, that’s how an artist should live.

LIZZIE…. Gabriel. You know my expectations. We are a pair. You’ve said yourself, we are the Sun and the Moon. We are balancing opposites, are we not? We are lovers.

ROSSETTI. I agree.

LIZZIE. Then…?

ROSSETTI. I agree. Balance. Is everything. Keeping it. Keeping our lives in balance. Just so. A delicate equilibrium.

LIZZIE. You do intend to marry me?

ROSSETTI. All in good time.

LIZZIE. Wouldn’t this then be a moment to… consider…

ROSSETTI. What?

LIZZIE. Asking me?

ROSSETTI. I don’t think so. Do you? Why upset the equilibrium now?

LIZZIE. What upset would there be? You wish to marry?

ROSSETTI. Yes.

LIZZIE. You wish to have me for your wife?

ROSSETTI. Yes.

LIZZIE. Then, in God’s name, Gabriel, what do you say?

ROSSETTI….It is not always better to possess. To yearn for something… doesn’t that make life more intense? All the great stories are stories of longing: Orpheus, Troilus, Dante. To have the-thing-we-want-most within our reach and yet to have it not. Only in the midst of longing do we know that we’re alive.

LIZZIE. I know very well that I am alive, Gabriel! I do not need to play a game to feel that! Why do you speak like a lawyer when you should speak like a poet?

ROSSETTI. I do speak like a poet.

LIZZIE. You speak like a scoundrel!

Blackout.

End of Act One.