In Love with George Eliot

by Kathy O'Shaughnessy

  Most important was the information Barbara had given her.

  A few days later, at the breakfast table, Lewes passed her a letter from Blackwood. Blackwood, it turned out, was forwarding ‘for their interest’ a letter sent to him by the editor of The Times. It concerned the mystery author.

  The books, Adam Bede and Clerical Scenes, it said, were written by a lady who lived with Mr Lewes, ‘a very clever woman’.

  17

  ‘All we like sheep —’ the chorus sang, staccato; and the strings replied in steps, backwards one, forward two.

  ‘All we — like — sheep —’ they repeated, with greater intensity. Marian was sitting beside George in Crystal Palace, and more than 2,700 singers were assembled. In front of them was the silhouette of Sir Michael Costa, baton raised. The sound loud and streaming from all directions, filling the iron and crystal vault. To look upwards made her dizzy. Funny to think Owen Jones had designed this strange light-filled edifice: always so modest and unassuming.

  Moving into the dominant key.

  Isaiah 53:6.

  How well Handel conjured a trite, brittle, obedient sound for those unthinking sheep. How well she knew those sheep — cheap judgements following well-trodden grooves. The atmosphere darkened, the tone broadened and grew grave.

  ‘And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,’ sang the choir.

  On a close, oppressively humid afternoon, Marian and George had come to the Handel Festival to hear the Messiah, with Clara Novello singing. The performance would finish at five o’clock; they were meeting the Brays later: Charles, Cara, and Sara Hennell. At this thought, Marian’s left foot, under her skirt, began nervously beating time.

  What would she say? For nearly three years now she had not been honest with them. At times she had deliberately deceived them.

  ‘Thy rebuke hath broken His heart,’ the tenor was singing.

  It was difficult to let the music absorb her entirely: thoughts kept interfering. She looked over and around the audience, more vast than the choir: a sea of heads, endless, everywhere she looked.

  The plan was to have supper at the Brays’ lodgings afterwards. Lewes had the address in his pocket. Sir Michael Costa’s baton raised, silhouetted in front of them: audience holding its breath — and then a sound started.

  On the roof: a light, light pattering everywhere, in seconds becoming hundreds and thousands of tiny pattering noises, all over the vast glass and iron roof. Rain.

  Sir Michael’s baton moved, the violins struck up: ‘I know that my redeemer liveth.’

  A song of belief, she thought nostalgically.

  After, the rain was pouring so hard, it was difficult to see; the rain had swollen the gutters; walking among the crowds along the kerb in the wet, trying to hail a cab, was difficult; only after twenty minutes did they find a free one, climbing up and in, relieved to be out of the wet. Marian’s woollen stockings were damp through, the bonnet on her lap squashed and dripping. She moved the hat onto the floor. ‘I hope he knows where he’s going,’ she said.

  It was still light. From the swaying hansom, through the thick rain, Lewes was peering out at the unfamiliar Sydenham streets, with the small new houses. Marian sat forward in the seat. She saw the high trees, the thick wet green summer leaves.

  Was this the right thing to do? It surely had to be. She’d struggled through to this position, and she now must stick to it. Word was getting out, she wanted to tell her old friends the truth, before they heard it from someone else.

  The cabbie was shouting above, they were slowing. They had arrived in Norden Grove. The rain was still thundering down: they made a dash for the door.

  ***

  The three women were together, a circle of linked arms: Marian, Cara Bray, and Sara Hennell. Lavender — it was Cara, it was Cara’s old delicate smell, mixed with the smell of wet wool. They hugged, laughing, crying out, her head was now on Cara’s shoulder.

  But Cara had grey hair now — the sight had shocked her.

  They broke apart, sat in chairs. Cara was glancing repeatedly at Marian, with keen, puzzled interest, as if she couldn’t stop looking, a smile of unconscious delight beginning to show. Her small shoulders looking strangely quaint and frail.

  Sara was smiling boldly, broadly. ‘Here we all are, here we all are!’ She was holding out a large envelope to Marian.

  ‘For you!’ said Sara. ‘Oh Marian, you have no idea. Your counsel has been so helpful to me.’

  It was five years since they had all been in the same room.

  ‘My goodness,’ exclaimed Charles Bray, grinning. ‘It does my heart good to see you all together.’

  ‘It’s a great pleasure to see you,’ said Cara in her gentle voice. Cara was looking at her steadily, as if to commit her to memory.

  Something painful about Cara’s kind face.

  Marian realised her hands were holding paper. The envelope. Ah, Sara’s book.

  Sara looking at her, brimming, expectant.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Marian, automatically.

  ‘My dear Marian,’ said Sara, excitedly, ‘you at least know how hard I’ve worked! But here it is. And,’ — she leaned forward, earnestly, lowering her voice — ‘I may have a publisher interested. George Manwaring.’

  Marian was too full — she was about to burst. She glanced at Lewes, who was sitting outside the gathering entirely. He gave a meaningful nod.

  ‘Dear friends,’ said Marian, unsteadily, ‘I have something to tell you.’

  Perhaps it was her tone, but there was silence straight away. ‘I have — I am,’ — she gasped. But she couldn’t help it: tears were coming down, then strangely loud, noisy sobs.

  ‘Marian.’ Through her tears she heard the voice of Cara.

  ‘I can’t,’ — she gasped, weeping.

  Lewes saw the sisters go and put their arms round her.

  ‘Oh listen my dears,’ he said, rising from his seat now. ‘She’s just trying to tell you that she’s an author. She’s the author of Adam Bede.’

  No sound now except for the low sobs of Marian. The Brays and Sara had seemed to turn, for a moment, into statues.

  ***

  Lewes and Charles Bray were drunk. ‘I’m enormously gratified,’ Charles was saying. ‘This confirms all my convictions about Marian. I knew she was capable of greatness. From the moment she appeared at Rosehill.’

  ‘And you were right, old man!’ said Lewes, lighting his cigar. All Lewes’ dislike of Charles, with his absurd devotion to phrenology, had vanished.

  ‘She’s remarkable,’ went on Lewes, complacently.

  ‘I think the girls are a little shocked,’ went on Charles, his speech slurring (‘shogged’).

  The three women were sitting in a huddled group at the other end of the room: Marian on the sofa; Sara and Cara in armchairs, drawn very close.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ whispered Charles then, leaning towards Lewes with his plump lips and cheeks, ‘I’m afraid Sara’s going to want her pound of flesh. Her book, you know —’

  Close up, Charles looked quite a sensualist, thought Lewes. He remembered rumours about a mistress and a child, possibly even something about a sister of Cara’s and Sara’s, who Charles was in love with, living at Rosehill. Perhaps even something about Marian and Charles. Was that possible?

  ‘Pound of flesh?’

  With Charles’ face and breath so close, the word ‘flesh’ seemed appropriate.

  ‘I have a feeling,’ said Charles Bray, in a loud whisper, ‘that she wants to discuss her book.’

  ***

  ‘It’s a great relief to me,’ said Marian, as she leant forward to take a hand from each sister in hers, ‘to have disburdened myself. It’s been a weight — here,’ she added, thumping her chest.

  Sara still looked white-faced, shaking her head, saying, ‘I just can’t believe it. I c
an’t believe that it’s you.’

  ‘It must seem strange, my dear Sara,’ said Marian, with an awkward laugh.

  ‘It is very strange,’ said Cara, quietly. ‘Strange but wonderful.’

  After another pause, Sara burst out again: ‘In a hundred years, I would never have guessed — after all the speculation — the mention of Liggins —’

  ‘It is something of a shock,’ agreed Cara.

  ‘But you must have had some idea!’

  Cara and Sara both shook their heads.

  ‘My dear Marian, the change in your fortunes, your giftedness, your fame … it’s a plot worthy of a novel!’ joked Cara, in her quiet voice.

  ‘To have written Adam Bede!’ said Sara. Her eyes looked bewildered. Or terrified. Staring, anyway.

  Then Sara said, with an oddly troubled look: ‘So … are you working on another book?’

  ‘Yes.’ Marian was reluctant, but she felt it might be insulting not to elaborate. ‘It is,’ she went on slowly, ‘about a brother and a sister.’

  There. That would do. How hungrily were their eyes fixed on her now.

  ‘Does it — how long did it take you then … to write Adam Bede?’ asked Sara, with the same hungry look of interest.

  Marian said the writing took her thirteen months.

  ‘But you, Sara,’ said Marian quickly, ‘you’ve nearly done your book! That is something to be proud of.’

  ‘Doubtless,’ said Sara, with a wry look.

  Marian shifted in her seat.

  ‘Do you remember the day you gave me that brooch?’ Marian said suddenly. And now her voice was easier. ‘And I was christened your sister? I found it when we were packing to move! It took me back so vividly.’

  ‘I do!’ said Cara, who seemed perhaps the least agitated of the three. ‘We played charades after supper. You were staying at Rosehill.’

  ‘But how have you managed it?’ Charles Bray was asking, at the other end of the room, waving his cigar in the air. ‘How on earth have you managed to keep the secret so well?’

  ‘No thanks to Herbert Spencer!’ said Lewes at once, almost surprising himself with his own vitriol. ‘He’s been a treacherous brute. But we can trust you, I hope.’

  ‘Of course you can. But I’m still baffled how you managed to keep the secret — what a strain — what a burden!’

  ‘Secrets and debts: that’s our life,’ joked Lewes.

  ‘Debts?’

  ‘Oh, we have to pay a lot of debts,’ said Lewes. ‘Not our debts, I can tell you! No. Dear Agnes’s,’ he finished sardonically.

  Charles looked intrigued.

  ‘Thornton Hunt won’t pay ’em, so I do. Or rather, we do.’

  ‘That’s infamous!’ cried Charles.

  ‘True, true.’ Lewes never could be bothered to rise to too much indignation, although he was intermittently irritated and occasionally furious at both Agnes and Hunt. For the most part he just did what needed to be done.

  Marian had turned to him.

  ‘I was just saying,’ said Lewes, ‘how treacherous Mr Spencer has been.’

  The men moved their chairs closer to the women.

  Marian agreed.

  Lewes went on to say that Spencer had been jealous, malicious, unable to be generous, and, contrary to the rules of friendship, had been leaking news about the book — like a rusty old tap. A rusty old tap.

  ‘It’s indeed true,’ said Marian, frowning.

  ‘I must say,’ said Charles, ‘I didn’t realise you were both saddled with Agnes’ debts. That seems beyond the pale!’

  ‘Is that true?’ asked Cara, innocently.

  ‘Oh my goodness, yes!’ said Lewes. ‘Agnes sits there, doing just about nothing, while we toil away, helping her support the children fathered by Mr Hunt. Mr Hunt is infinitely feckless.’

  ‘I’m afraid her moral nature is quite limited,’ sighed Marian. ‘To speak honestly, she’s both selfish and lazy.’

  There was a chorus of agreement. Then Lewes, consulting his watch, said it was getting late, they’d better leave.

  ‘I’m sure you are very busy’, said Cara, rising to her feet at once, in her soft voice.

  ‘It’s been wonderful to see you — hear your news,’ stammered Sara, also rising to her feet.

  ‘We don’t have to go yet,’ said Marian.

  It was sad, somehow — the two women standing up as if she were a grand stranger.

  ‘Then stay a bit!’ said Charles, so loudly it was as if he were shouting. ‘Here we are, for the first time in years!’

  Marian asked them all to come and dine with them the next day — and that way, they’d have a chance to discuss Sara’s work.

  The following evening the Brays came to Holly Lodge. Lewes, with his usual theatrical gestures, led them around the house. Marian saw the way they looked at the new furnishings, commenting on the number of rooms. She remembered again that because of Charles’ business failing, they had had to leave gracious, large Rosehill, and move into a small cottage.

  After supper, Sara, Lewes, and Marian went to the top of the house, where Marian’s study was, to discuss the book.

  ‘This is where you work,’ Sara said, as they entered, peering around with the most intense look of curiosity. This room had not been included in the earlier tour. In the armchair, with an expectant look, Sara’s dark hair was drawn back, leaving her broad forehead exposed. She wore a large white lace collar under her dress of dark dimity.

  Lewes and Marian began by praising her — the portions they’d read showed evidence of hard work; then Lewes began listing their criticisms. Marian let George do the talking. But slowly Sara’s reaction began to irritate her. Instead of seeming receptive and possibly grateful for the remarks, which, in truth, could help her, Sara’s chin grew more and more set; two red spots appeared in her cheeks. Marian eventually interrupted Lewes, saying impatiently, ‘My dear Sara, the arguments are really so weak, they need complete re-working! The book simply doesn’t stand up at the moment.’

  ‘It’s not an improvement on your last, I’m afraid,’ added Lewes.

  Charles took Sara home before she wanted to leave. Though Marian didn’t like to admit it, it was a relief when the door shut, and the old friends had gone.

  ‘Well, I’m glad that’s over,’ said Lewes. ‘What a business.’

  A letter arrived from Charles:

  My dear Marian,

  I am sorry we did not get another look at you — but to find you famous and my convictions confirmed, produced a more agreeable internal confloption than the four and twenty fiddlers all in a row. We had Sara in strong stericks all the way home, because she had missed her final chance of explanation and advice from you.

  By now, Marian was more bothered by the evening with her old friends than she liked to say. That morning she put down her manuscript, collected Rough from the Congreves’ housekeeper — Rough making agreeably wild yelps of enthusiasm at her appearance — and went for a walk on Wandsworth Common, gathering twigs, which she proceeded to throw from the comfort of a bench; Rough, she could see, already eagerly anticipating the familiar game.

  It was a gloomy, overcast June day. Sitting there, she was able to lose sight of the expanse of green grass and the distant plane and horse chestnut trees, as she re-lived their meeting with the Brays, the tumultuous embrace, Sara entering, and yes, Sara bearing her manuscript as a special gift — mixed up, in her memory, oddly, with an image of a biblical offering, that included a kneeling woman. But then had come Marian’s revelation, and Sara’s face.

  And now, like a thief, like a novelist, she entered into Sara’s feelings. There was the great shifting of fortune between them, the great adjustment, that often must happen in the course of life between friends. Leading to a cruel new self-assessment, in relation to Marian’s success. The same Marian who had dreaded her fi
rst visit to Rosehill. Such sophistication Cara and Sara had. Yet now she, Marian, was the more adjusted to London; she had even, when she walked in, had the very queer, fleeting sense of beholding three — could she say it to herself? — provincial people.

  Marian reflected, with a sigh, that Sara didn’t have the discipline or capacity to write a good philosophical book. Why had she attacked her? She recalled her own excited urge to break Sara’s defences down, break down that mutinous thrust of the chin, below the red-spotted defiant cheeks, while Lewes had delivered his criticisms. The urge had taken her over, as for Sara’s good. But how fragile such shells of willed unreality are, how painful when they break open.

  Sara had strong stericks, Charles had written.

  Dear Sara,

  There is always an after-sadness belonging to brief and interrupted intercourse between friends — the sadness of feeling that the blundering efforts we have made towards mutual understanding have only made a new veil between us — still more the sadness of feeling that some pain may have been given which separation makes a permanent memory. We are quite unable to represent ourselves truly — why should we complain that our friends see a false image?

  I say this, because I am feeling painfully this morning that instead of helping you when you brought before me a matter so deeply interesting to you, I have only blundered, and that I have blundered, as most of us do, from too much egoism and too little sympathy. If I am too imperfect to do and feel the right thing at the right moment, I am not without the slower sympathy that becomes all the stronger from a sense of previous mistake.

  Dear Sara, believe that I shall think of you and your work much, and that my ear and heart are more open for the future because I feel I have not done what a better spirit would have made me do in the past.

  She posted the letter at noon, at the red pillar box recently installed at the bottom of the street. Returning to her desk, she felt cleansed, rather like after going to church in Nuneaton as a child. Relieved, she even found herself wondering about incorporating such painful sensations as she had just experienced in a future fiction.