Free Ophelia's Muse by Rita Cameron Page A

pleasant, and that the studio was not at all the sordid place she had imagined.
    A whisper from Mary Deverell recalled her from her thoughts. “Are you very uncomfortable? I always get so stiff when I’m sitting for Walter. He can draw for hours, and I don’t think he notices that the time is passing.”
    â€œI’m used to sitting still. I don’t mind. And I’d much rather sit in this lovely room than . . .” She trailed off. She didn’t want to talk about the shop, not today. “Besides, it’s so very interesting to me, to see an artist at work. I’ve never met a painter before.”
    â€œI also like to watch Walter when he’s painting,” Mary said. “My own watercolors owe so much to his instruction.” She was sitting at a small easel near Lizzie, and she turned the easel so that Lizzie could see her painting, a half-finished watercolor of an iris, which sat in a jar of water on the table.
    â€œWhy, it’s lovely!” Lizzie saw that the lines were clean and sure, the petals a velvety purple and the leaves a crisp green.
    â€œDo you care for drawing?” Mary asked.
    â€œVery much. But I’ve had no real training.”
    â€œThen you must ask Walter to give you a lesson!”
    â€œOh, no,” Lizzie stammered. “I didn’t mean to suggest . . . it’s really just a hobby.”
    â€œI’m sure that he would be happy to critique your drawings. He never shies away from critiquing mine!”
    The girls both laughed, and Deverell cleared his throat. Mary gave her brother a contrite pout and then smiled at Lizzie, her eyes twinkling. “I’m not to disturb you. I shouldn’t be making you laugh. But don’t worry; I won’t let you be bored. I’ll tell you all about Walter and his friends while you sit. They’re quite a remarkable group—always coming up with schemes and grand ideas for paintings and literary magazines and the like. I’m sure that you’ll like them very much, as I do. Unless, of course, you find them to be too bohemian, as Mother does. Of course you’ll meet them before long. They pop in at all hours, and I can’t imagine that Walter is going to be able to keep a girl like you a secret for long.”
    â€œYou’re too kind,” Lizzie murmured. She thought that Mary must have been flattering her to put her more at ease. But Mary was so sweet, Lizzie was grateful for her company and attention.
    Mary drew her chair closer and began to tell Lizzie stories, painting with her words a cast of characters that immediately sparked Lizzie’s imagination. There was a secret brotherhood of artists which Walter may or may not have been nominated to join—she wasn’t quite sure and he wasn’t telling; lady poets who wrote daring verses and published them under noms de plume; and late nights at the Cremorne pleasure gardens, where painters and poets mingled with the lowest sort of women and the wealthiest of the aristocracy, drinking champagne under the many-colored lights.
    The world Mary described was entirely new to Lizzie, and it didn’t seem to exist in the same London that she knew, and which seemed very drab in comparison. She didn’t care that her mother would have considered many of the stories shocking—she thought they sounded exotic and exciting. Here in Deverell’s studio a different set of expectations seemed to apply, and Lizzie was free for a moment to forget the stricter rules of the world outside.
    Mary wove her stories all afternoon. Deverell was intent on his work and hardly spoke, except to laugh or to utter an affronted disavowal of some rumor or other. But though he hardly spoke, Lizzie felt that she was beginning to know him through Mary’s affectionate descriptions. When he finally stood and stretched with a loud yawn, it took Lizzie by surprise.
    â€œI’ve done all that I can today,” he said. “You