In Love with George Eliot

by Kathy O'Shaughnessy

  ***

  By five o’clock, Ann has left. Alone, I freely weigh the diary in my hand, and feel a kind of exultation in being alone with it, too. I want to tell Marian’s story as accurately as possible, and just now this diary seems to take me into the past, as if it has magical properties. Chapman’s words, the faded ink, the crossings out and cut pages, the dusty, old-paper smell of it bring me to a bona fide glimpse of George Eliot, or Marian Evans, as the story unfolds of Chapman and the three women, all rivals for his affection. The words tell of the high, riding feelings of attraction, jealousy, indecision, possessiveness, fear that played themselves out at No.142 Strand in that spring of 1851.

  In fact the overall impression given by the diary is of four puppets pulled in different directions by their desires and dreams, all negotiated within those walls; with Chapman the cause of the scenario, victim and hero of it, and secret director of it, too.

  On February 18, Chapman writes that wife and mistress (S. and E.), previously rivals, are now plotting together, comparing notes on the subject of my intimacy with Marian (M.), and have concluded

  that we are completely in love with each other. E. being intensely jealous herself said all she could to cause S. to look from the same point of view, which a little incident (her finding me with my hand in M.’s) had quite prepared her for.

  So Marian had been caught holding Chapman’s hand in her bedroom.

  Over the next month, Marian became so unpopular with the other women, she had to leave. Chapman took her to the station. Before she boarded the train,

  she pressed me for some intimation of the state of my feelings. — I told her that I felt great affection for her, but that I loved E. and S. also, though each in a different way. At this avowal she burst into tears.

  There it is: George Eliot’s first London adventure — disastrous.

  As I read the diary in the yellow library light, I can imagine how it felt — the balloon popping. Marian sobbing; aghast at herself for weeping in public, yet relieved at venting the tension that has been mounting all these weeks. All her ideas of a future life with Chapman have collapsed. The dance is revealed to have been only a dance, antics that belong in a farce. Her hazy dreams of a grand future in London feel further away than ever.

  3

  Marian returned to Chapman’s house six months after she was booted out, to help launch the Westminster Review. This time, Chapman didn’t visit her room. She went on to fall in love again, eventually with George Henry Lewes. And it was this relationship, the main relationship of her life, that tipped her into the scandal for which she was first famous.

  Lewes was called the ugliest man in London, and when she first met him, Marian didn’t like him much — but then she often didn’t like people on first meeting. One day, she went to see a production of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives in Lewes’ company. The production was bad, but with Lewes joking and mimicking all the way, it became hilariously bad. Marian began to laugh and find him charming.

  George Lewes was writing for the Westminster Review, and he quite often dropped by to chat with this unusually clever, thoughtful woman. Marian knew by hearsay of his situation: that his wife Agnes had for years been having an affair with his best friend, Thornton Hunt. Recently Agnes had had children by Hunt, too, and Lewes now lived separately from her. As Marian began to see more of him, he began to confide in her about his unhappiness. She found him a serious thinker, and kind, too. He even let his wife’s illegitimate children by his best friend have his own name, so they wouldn’t be stigmatised.

  Marian moved out of No. 142 Strand and took lodgings, so she could see Lewes in private. They fell deeper in love. They wanted to marry — but because he’d let Agnes’ children by Hunt bear his name, he had ‘condoned’ the adultery, and was legally unable to obtain a divorce.

  And now Marian is in a dilemma. The custom in Victorian England is to have affairs discreetly, but Marian wants to be open. They’re both atheist, they wrestle with the problem. Finally, they decide — they’ll do it, she will live openly with this married man. They’ll live together in Europe, then England.

  It’s a momentous step. If she goes ahead, Marian will no longer be received socially. Women will fear to visit her. No one will bother to understand the facts as they are, see the situation ‘in the round’. She is so secretive about her intention she doesn’t even tell her long-time confidantes, Sara and Cara.

  In front of me is Marian’s diary. I turn the pages until I get to July 1854. There it is, in her own words, the summer evening when she changes her life. She describes taking a hansom cab in London to St Katherine’s Wharf; boarding the steamer, The Ravensbourne; waiting in terror for George Lewes — until at last she sees ‘G’s’ welcome face over the porter’s shoulder. They spend the whole night on deck. They are both astonished at what they’ve done; there will be no going back — word will spread quickly. But as the night goes on, they begin to lose their fear. They are moving down the silent river. They too have become quiet, elation has taken them over.

  The sunset was lovely, writes Marian, but still lovelier the dawn as we were passing up the Scheldt between 2 and 3 in the morning. The crescent moon, the stars, the first faint blush of the dawn, reflected in the glassy river, the dark mass of clouds on the horizon, which sent forth flashes of lightning, and the graceful forms of the boats and sailing vessels painted in jet black on the reddish gold of the sky and water, made an unforgettable picture. Then the sun rose and lighted up the sleepy shores of Belgium with their fringe of long grass, their rows of poplars, their church spires and farm buildings.

  They had left England behind.

  Reaction was not slow to come.

  Now I can only pray, against hope, that he may prove constant to her; otherwise she is utterly lost, wrote John Chapman.

  From George Combe, the famous phrenologist, a friend of Marian’s:

  I should like to know whether there is insanity in Miss Evans’ family; for her conduct, with her brain, seems to me like morbid mental aberration … an educated woman who, in the face of the world, volunteers to live as a wife, with a man who already has a living wife and children, appears to me to pursue a course and to set an example calculated only to degrade herself and her sex, if she be sane. — If you receive her into your family circle, while present appearances are unexplained, pray consider whether you will do justice to your own female domestic circle, and how other ladies may feel about going into a circle which makes no distinction between those who act thus, and those who preserve their honour unspotted?

  The artist, the sculptor Thomas Woolner, also had damning words:

  By the way — have you heard of a — of two blackguard literary fellows, Lewes and Thornton Hunt? They seem to have used wives on the ancient Briton practice of having them in common: now blackguard Lewes has bolted with a — and is living in Germany with her. I believe it dangerous to write facts of anyone nowadays so I will not any further lift the mantle and display the filthy contaminations of these hideous satyrs and smirking moralists — these workers in the Agepemone — these Mormonites in another name — stinkpots of humanity.

  No one was going to get the story right. Carlyle saw it as Lewes finally abandoning his family. No one, in fact, would get the story right for decades.

  Part One

  1857

  1

  It was the middle of the night on Jersey. Thoughts distinct from dreams were penetrating Marian’s mind; finally she was awake. Now she could hear the sea, the fir tree branches too. She was awake and it wasn’t even light.

  This happened night after night. Each time words were weaving in her mind: My dear Isaac, you will be delighted to know that I have a husband.

  Or:

  Dearest Brother,

  Knowing your affectionate heart, I feel certain that you will rejoice that at last I have found a harbour for myself — or, to put it more plainly
— I am married, and have been so for the past three years.

  The dawn had begun to glimmer at the sides of the window as the sea became louder, as if the wind and water were rising in company with the light. George was beside her. George and the sea, his breathing, the exhalation of breath and surf. As a child, there was no sea, only a pond at the bottom of the giant’s hill. They would race down it, she and her brother Isaac, Isaac’s jacket whipping outwards side to side as he went ahead, the magic boy ahead of her. It was natural and right that he was ahead of her. But one day, her own legs were more encompassing, her stride was extending, and she began to gain on him, until seconds later she passed him. He arrived dark and panting, saying his leg hurt, he had let her win.

  At supper, she had passed Isaac her apple turnover under the table. But he, giving her an odd, crooked smile, gave it back to her.

  ‘Well done, Rabbit,’ he said, carelessly, that night, from his bed, when he settled his head on the pillow.

  His words had cost him. Even now the memory moved her, and with it sleep finally came.

  Lewes and Marian had arrived on Jersey three days earlier, having taken the boat from Plymouth. When they docked the weather was white, drizzly, and cold, but then they took the omnibus to the west side, where, dismounting, they looked around in disbelief. The mist had cleared. The sea was a brilliant blue, the air warm. Inland there were green hill slopes, thick with cream-flowering orchards, and in the town of Gorey they found Rosa Cottage tucked away, up from the harbour.

  ‘Thirteen shillings with board — not bad!’ Lewes had whispered to Marian, as the landlady, a slight woman, with her daughter in tow, showed them where they would be.

  They signed in at the register as Mr and Mrs Lewes.

  ‘Choice!’ was Lewes’ verdict, once they were left alone.

  The lodgings consisted of three adjoining rooms at the top of the house. They had walked around, exclaiming at the nooks they could inhabit — Marian at once had her eye on the small table in front of the bedroom window.

  The following day they began their routine. After breakfast Lewes headed out to the beach with traps and muslin nets, to find marine specimens for his work. Marian stayed in the bedroom, with her notebook and pen at the small table. She had to push thoughts of her brother Isaac out of her mind; she must write. She had started ‘Janet’s Repentance’, and it was going slowly. She mulled, sketched, wrote, mulled again — but now — the glittering light at the window and the blowy island air seemed to ask her to come outside.

  She’d go for a quick walk, that was all —

  But at the foot of the stairs, the little girl was waiting for her. ‘Will you come with me?’ she asked, with the directness of look and tone peculiar to children. Marian followed her, remembering she was called Janie, with her tight-drawn hair and single plait, to see the goldfish, trapped in its glass bowl, swimming round and enlarging through the water as it swam near; then on to a cupboard in the wall. First she was shown a startling dress in red chiffon, which looked large for Janie and small for her mother; then a long white wedding dress, turning yellow at the edges. Janie leant back against the wall, looked up at her. ‘Was your dress like that?’

  ‘Like what, my dear?’ asked Marian.

  ‘Like ma’s,’ said the little girl gravely.

  Marian hesitated.

  ‘Not entirely,’ she said. She knew she was smiling an odd, proud smile. Turning, she saw the landlady in the doorway. Marian found herself blushing, as Janie was scolded for disturbing her.

  An hour later, on the beach, she reported this conversation to Lewes. He listened as he attended to his selected jars, his longish hair falling in front of his face.

  ‘She is as sweet,’ said Lewes, referring to their landlady, giving the jar a firm circular push into the damp sand on each emphatic syllable, ‘as — apple — pie. Nonsense.’

  ‘I saw it.’

  ‘We’re not in London, we’re not even in England,’ said Lewes, in precise accents. ‘We are on the eastern side of Jersey island.’

  Reluctantly she smiled.

  The following day it was the same routine. This time Marian stayed at the desk, she wrote. But before the hour was out, a pain was flicking at her neck, cresting in her temple. She moved onto the bed, taking the pages onto her knee. As she read through what she had written, her stomach did a curling, sinking movement: finally she tossed the pages in the air, heard them fall with a dry fluttering noise on to the floor. She closed her eyes.

  ‘I could laugh as well as cry, when I read what I’ve written,’ she said to Lewes, when he returned, with the outdoors on him. The first thing he did was open the curtains.

  ‘Well, I’ve read it, and it’s only the freshest thing I’ve set eyes on for a long time,’ said Lewes, giving her a kiss on the forehead. ‘You remember what Blackwood said.’

  Marian nodded, then gave a feeble laugh. ‘You have faith in me.’

  ‘For good reason,’ he said absently. He had a jar in his hand, full of murky, salty, sandy water, into which he was now gazing. ‘Polly — I found the most fascinating little creature today: a mollusc with two bodies. That renegade Huxley will eat his words when this is published!’

  ‘He will, George,’ said Marian, taking his hand. Privately she thought he was too obsessed with Thomas Huxley, who’d once dismissed Lewes as a ‘mere book scientist’.

  But the next day her concentration was poor again, and reading what she’d written, she slapped the pages face down on the table. Outside the kid-goat was following her, but she shut the gate, began to walk fast up the hill. And once she was walking, she thought again about Isaac, Fanny, Chrissey, her siblings. She wanted to tell them about George. It had been three years now. Their life in Coventry was so remote from the world of London letters that no rumour of her situation had even reached them. They still sent letters to Marian Evans; they still thought she lived alone.

  There was abundant soft May air; up to the right, the cream-flowered orchards.

  After climbing some more, she began to descend towards the sea, then realised she was walking towards the beach where George was. Was that him? No. Then — surely that was him, that figure kneeling. No hat, foolish. She watched him, unseen, from a distance. Strange, the landscape: the line of the horizon splitting sky from sea, sea rimming into darkness. What was it he had said? ‘The freshest work he had read for a long time.’

  But he probably read her work, she thought gloomily, with an idealising eye.

  The following day, she mustered her determination. No matter if it was bad. She wrote. She wrote.

  By the end of the morning, grim-faced, she was again lying on the bed. She had fallen into a slow, head-aching doze.

  Some time later she heard George’s footsteps. Thud, thud, a springy repeated thud on the stairs, evidently bounding up two at a time. The door swung open.

  ‘Her fame’s beginning already!’ he said, radiantly. He was waving a letter in his hand.

  ‘Whoever “she” may be,’ said Marian, weakly, but with a smile beginning in spite of herself.

  She sat up and began to read.

  She didn’t recognise the handwriting.

  Sir,

  Will you consider it impertinent in a brother author and old reviewer to address a few lines of earnest sympathy and admiration to you, excited by the purity of your style, originality of your thoughts, and absence of all vulgar seeking for effect in those ‘Scenes of Clerical Life’ now appearing in Blackwood? If I mistake not much, your muse of invention is no hackneyed one, and your style is too peculiar to allow of your being confounded with any of the already well-known writers of the day. Your great and characteristic charm is, to my mind, Nature. Will you always remain equally natural, preserve the true independence which seems to mark a real supremacy of intellect? Pardon this word of greeting from one whom you may never see or know, and believe me your
earnest admirer,

  Archer Gurney

  ‘Well!’ she said, looking round the room. It was as if she had drunk some pleasant tonic water. She was feeling different. The walls looked a better colour. George had his arm round her shoulder, was calling her darling and kissing her cheek. They laughed, he kissed her again, she exclaimed. A minute later, though, he’d stepped back. Arms folded, he was regarding her with a new, quizzical, shrewd expression.

  ‘Ocular proof, eh, Polly?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, indeed.’

  ‘This man Gurney writing out of the blue. Are you convinced?’

  ‘I am, George,’ she said, her voice sounding small and a little odd. The tears had come to her eyes. Her chest was expanding and feeling deliciously light. And the headache — it was vanishing fast.

  ‘And now,’ he continued, smiling sternly, ‘do you remember the people at the club Blackwood told me about? The man who blubbed like a baby at Milly’s death? And Thackeray himself, eyes sparkling with tears?’

  It was true. She’d learn to trust herself. She was capable. More than capable.

  Lewes went next door to begin his dissecting. Marian picked up the manuscript of ‘Janet’s Repentance’, and began to re-read. As she read, an unconscious smile was shaping her mouth.

  … they had that sort of friendly contempt for each other which is always conducive to a good understanding between professional men; and when any new surgeon attempted, in an ill-advised hour, to settle himself in the town, it was strikingly demonstrated how slight and trivial are theoretic differences compared with the broad basis of common human feeling. There was the most perfect unanimity between Pratt and Pilgrim in the determination to drive away the obvious and too probably unqualified intruder as soon as possible …

  For the next two days, she was aware of being happy as if it were a physical state: she had energy as she walked up the hills; looking at the sea, the glitter of the sun on the water bulged into melted silver in her vision. Back in the cottage, Lewes, who had been in his ‘workroom’, put his head round the door. ‘Progress?’ he asked.