In Love with George Eliot

by Kathy O'Shaughnessy

  Marian did not say so, but while she had been talking to Mrs Anna Cross — whose keen interest in books, William Gladstone, and the Irish problem had impressed her — she had noted the stance of the twenty-nine-year-old son, sitting with his right hand in his pocket, in a gentlemanly way, wearing a jacket of what looked like the best cream-coloured linen. But she had also noted that while he was talking to Lewes, every now and then he had glanced in her direction, with a certain hunger in the eye. His presence was modest — charmingly so; expressive of a contented nature, yet some undefined eagerness to help. Yes, she had taken to both mother and son.

  The son’s name was John Walter Cross.

  ***

  And this was the start of the closest friendship with an entire family the Leweses would have. Though as history might privately relate, the family member who became the most intimate friend of all, John Cross, had been reluctant to pay that call in Rome in the first place. He had protested strongly in the high-ceilinged, newly painted rooms of the handsome apartment his mother, the splendid matriarch Mrs Anna Cross, had rented in the fashionable district of Rome, in the hours leading up to that significant visit.

  2

  All through the duskily sunny and too-hot morning, there had been discussion of the suggested visit to the famous author and her husband or lover (a certain cloud of confusion persisted here), George Henry Lewes. Johnny’s mother, Anna the Elder, though she did not like to be called that, said Johnny would accompany her.

  ‘If you refuse, I shall simply insist,’ she had laughed, then rang the bell, at which the Italian serving girl appeared, with her yellow skin and cap the wrong way round. Anna Cross said, in a slow kind voice: ‘Spremuta di limone, per favore — con molto acqua e zucchero. Zucchero.’

  ‘Mother,’ said Johnny (but how hot he was in this Roman climate; though it was at least not the wet heat of New York; but the smell from the street, on opening the window, had been vegetative, rotten, so that he had shut it smartly). ‘I do refuse. I’ll just sit there dumbly and talk about rolling stocks, bears and bulls. My guess is, folk like her and, for that matter, Lewes, would rather be alone, and private. In fact, that is exactly what they said to you.’

  ‘You are considerate to a fault,’ laughed his mother. ‘And what is this word, “folks”? You’ve been in America too long.’

  ‘Take Zibbie instead.’

  It was true Elizabeth, or Zibbie as she was called, had now met them twice. But his mother said that Zibbie must lie down, and he could see the sense of this. Zibbie was pregnant, and she had not only been sick this morning, her feet had suddenly swollen tremendously, her toes like roses and so strangely large.

  His mother cleared her throat, and at that moment Johnny knew he had lost the battle. It was that little guttural noise: it always preceded a statement of a decisive kind, but also, it undid him — too close, too fleshly, somehow, altogether too much of the body. At the same time she moved her chair nearer. ‘Johnny,’ she said, smiling. Her tone was dulcet now, her eyes fixed on him. ‘Zibbie said we would call. Zibbie is in bed, and we must go regardless. Make no mistake: this is not about fame, which is what you fear, if I guess right; they are the best company in the world. She is delightful, he is delightful. Why do you look so hesitant?’

  ‘So I will speak news about the Stock Exchange.’

  ‘You will speak about whatever you feel like speaking about. I want you to come.’

  After a brief pause, Johnny kissed her hand.

  ***

  At four o’clock precisely, having walked in the heat, which in the advancing hours had become more fetid, thick, with a snake-like undertow of effluvia, just detectable; in the strong yellow light, they walked along the Via dei Santi Apostoli, taking the way close to the Spanish Steps; then began climbing the Via del Piè di Marmo, at which the air became dry and salty and much improved. Johnny was regretting his choice of cravat: too close, sticking unpleasantly around his neck. (He was fastidious about washing, especially since living in New York.) There it was, in the bend of the street, with a pleasant awning extended around the entrance: the Hotel Minerva. Inside the lobby, it was by no means unimpressive, with two great ferns in high imposing urns, and the air was thankfully cooler and very shaded. The man at the desk, who shouted for the signora to come, had no teeth at all, Johnny saw. No — he had a single tooth, in the bottom of his mouth. At the sight of this aged, virtually toothless mouth, Johnny shut his own lips tightly. It’s a bad omen, he thought to himself. He turned, in the shadowed lobby, to look at the ferns, which rose and bent forwards towards him with their great fronds. He was reminded of a gaping mouth. He attempted to quiet himself. Now they were following the signora upstairs, following her vast behind in its floral dress, and Johnny saw quite clearly the patches of sweat in the centre of her back, and spreading beneath her armpits, and the repulsion and the dread grew.

  The signora indicated the door. His mother knocked. There was no reply. After a minute, Anna Cross knocked again. Again there was no reply. Johnny listened intently. And now he could not stand it. ‘Mother, we should go.’

  When the door opened, and in Johnny’s memory, though he would not like to exaggerate, the door opened in every sense, as the dark landing was suddenly flooded by the light of the room, a man, who instantly reminded him of a monkey — he looked at once so spry, so energised, with a face whose jaw was exceptionally narrow below an upper lip protruding in a forward and, yes, monkey-like, way — was saying: ‘My dear — my dears — how lovely to see you: Come in — come in — Polly — look — look who’s here — Mrs Cross!’

  And he indicated, seated on a couch of ochre velvet, a woman. Dressed in dark clothing, she was diminutive, with a large head. She was looking downwards; and then she quickly raised her head, in an almost imperious motion, and Johnny had a light, fleeting shock. This was George Eliot, or Mrs Lewes, or Polly — all of them. Hadn’t he been reading George Eliot, hadn’t she just been speaking to him in the most direct voice of understanding he had yet encountered in his life, in the book called Adam Bede, and now here she was — and he knew only the shocking sting of disappointment. The face was not pretty. The hair artificially smooth in look, above a large, long nose, and then, perhaps most surprising of all, the large chin. All atop a body that looked quite small.

  But Johnny knew himself to be a relatively handsome man, and the famous author’s ugliness gave him courage. He stepped forward, they were introduced. ‘My son,’ Anna was saying. ‘Just come from New York, where he has been a banker in our family business; thankfully, he will now be nearer, with an office in London. He is just twenty-nine.’

  ‘Mother,’ laughed Johnny. Did she need to give such a potted summary of him? He put out his hand, and Lewes shook it; and now the great authoress had risen, and he was kissing her hand, though his fear came briefly upon him again, and for a moment he did not know where to put his eyes. ‘So you’re Johnny,’ she was saying, with a most peculiar leap into informality; and still with his earlier shyness, because he was nothing, absolutely nothing, he hesitated before lifting up his head, though again what held him back he couldn’t say. But then he did look up, and the eyes were looking at him and seeing entirely his shyness; had comprehended all of him, this he knew in less than a second; and did not judge him, simply understood. The eyes were greyish and quite luminous, and they were regarding him with a tender warmth, almost, it seemed, before the fact.

  And now he found his voice.

  ‘It’s an honour to meet you. I’m sure Mother has said, our entire family has been enslaved by your books. I finished Adam Bede less than a fortnight ago, and before that, The Mill on the Floss. The wrong way round, I take it. But I was never more moved in my life. I can also add, the whole of New York is talking about you, and them.’

  And in the next instant, in the uncanny way of things, he knew he had said the right thing. How had he known not to be shy with praise? Partly, he wante
d to tell it true. Also, he had, as by magic, divined in her look, not just tender warmth, but some supplicating need, that called for an answer.

  The authoress’ eyes were following him attentively and his words had drawn a smile.

  The eyes were not at all ugly, he was dimly realising, not at all, quite the opposite.

  ‘And how are you liking Rome, Johnny Cross?’ she asked; and her voice seemed very musical, pleasing to the ear.

  She had sat back down on the ochre velvet seat, and was now patting the low stool that was beside her chair, inviting him to sit beside her. He did so. Except that, being a tall fellow, with great long legs, his knees stuck up rather. Which Mrs Lewes, as he later learned she liked to be called, at once observed. ‘Is that comfortable for you?’ she said, with a worried expression.

  ‘It’s delightful’, said Johnny. He had found himself, his own best prompt humorous and kind self. He could tell she liked it, him.

  He now attempted to convey to her his impressions of Rome: the confusion of images, their splendour, and the confusion of ages, ancient and, to use the new term, Renaissance —

  No sooner was that word out of his mouth than Lewes, from the other side of the room, sprang to his feet, saying, ‘Someone has been reading Burckhardt, no?’ with a thoroughly joyous expression on his face.

  ‘Not me,’ confessed Johnny, with a smile. ‘I wish, though.’

  He was honest, he was modest. He did not have to try. This was how he was. Yes, he had the instant sense that his nature was grasped, understood by Mrs Lewes, and approved of.

  ‘Our dear friend Mr Spencer has been talking about it,’ said Anna the Elder, Johnny’s mother.

  ‘Ah, Herbert Spencer. Well, if Mr Spencer will acknowledge the originator as Jacob Burckhardt, he’s doing excellently! Very unlike him! Forgive this joke, Mr Cross,’ said Lewes, whose face underwent sixteen expressions, it seemed to Johnny, in the space of a minute, and now he was bending forward towards Johnny, one eyebrow imploringly raised. ‘If Mr Spencer has his way, he is the only thinker on planet earth, and owes nothing to anyone else. But you know — even as I say this,’ — and now Johnny saw, most endearingly, a woebegone, self-reproachful smile light up Lewes’ features — ‘I owe Mr Spencer a great debt! A great, wonderful debt! Before my life was to join with Polly’s, when I was effectively reborn, I was for a time at risk from despair you know; despair was drawing me down, and the person who gave me a new lease of life, and all because of his talk, which was extraordinarily stimulating, was Mr Spencer. The very same. Now — toast. A toast to the maligned Mr Spencer! Polly — what are we drinking? We haven’t even offered our guests anything to drink!’

  ‘We must remedy that at once,’ murmured Polly, or Mrs Lewes.

  They drank white wine, and small candied-almond pastries were brought in.

  The day was quickly forming itself to last in Johnny’s memory; he was moved by the unprecedented candour of Lewes, the way he talked about his life, and by the sympathy between the couple, readable in the glances that went back and forth. Johnny had even forgotten the heat, the sweatiness of his undergarments — he did set store by hygiene and order, but a most charming disorder was here beginning to rule the day. For, just as they were now toasting the absent Mr Spencer, Mrs Lewes, who had been momentarily rapt, or lost, in thought, her gaze locked on to the floor, said, ‘Tell me, is it the eighteenth of April today?’

  (Again, Johnny was moved; curiously so. Such vagueness, such confusion, in so great a genius! She didn’t even know what day it was.)

  ‘It is the eighteenth of April, the year of our lord 1869,’ said Johnny, with a promptness, a verve, that he knew would please.

  ‘George. It is your birthday. I am sure of it.’

  Mr Lewes confirmed that this was the case! And at once, he began to sing, and though Johnny did not know much about opera, he thought he recognised Rossini; at the same time, as he was singing, Mr Lewes, adeptly opening a second bottle of wine, crowed: ‘Well done Polly! She’s got a better memory than me, infinitely better. Do you know, it’s Polly who remembers my own children’s birthdays? A better Mutter never existed.’

  ‘George is exaggerating,’ said Mrs Lewes in a soft voice, but she had a look of tranquil happiness on her face as she spoke.

  The afternoon ended in great spirits, as Mr Lewes, as if fulfilling in some mysterious way Johnny’s perception of him, rushed outside of the hotel, having spotted something from the balcony, and returned with an organ grinder, an accordion, and a veritable monkey, and the actual monkey and the music entranced them all, particularly Mrs Lewes, who found its gestures so uncannily human, irresistibly comic, and laughed until she had tears in her eyes.

  Johnny gazed at her. He had not expected this much laughter, this much humour. But then, he reflected, there was much humorous observation in her books.

  Towards seven o’clock, when the heat had begun to die down, the light had grown more mellow and gold and the shadows of evening had appeared, they said goodbye. Mr Lewes had ordered a carriage for them, asking it to come presto, prestissimo. Mrs Lewes had taken his hand. ‘You will come and see us in England, won’t you? Don’t be a stranger. And then in England you can tell us why you are come back to our native country. You must have interesting reasons.’

  All said in a calm tone, the warmth of which was, Johnny said to himself, splendid.

  Returning to their hotel, mounting the badly lit stairway, Johnny had a sense of life returning to its usual rhythm, and that rhythm felt a little ordinary, in contrast to where they had just been.

  ‘What a strange man! What a strange woman!’ he kept saying to himself.

  Back home, in the shared sitting room, Zibbie was red-faced and fretful, still complaining about the heat, and showing again her feet so rosy and splayed and fearfully enlarged. ‘Will you touch my stomach?’ she begged, piteously, with one eye a-slant. For she knew he did not want to, and he knew that she knew that. Zibbie had for many years teased him about what she called the mystery of the feminine moon-tide; his clever older sister had always plucked out his weakness. But there was no clever, merry teasing in her face now. He had been out, she had stayed here, her eyes uneasy, looking down, up, everywhere. The room was hot. He didn’t like to see her fear, and so he did as she asked, though it was an effort, laid his hand gently on her stomach.

  ‘Press,’ she instructed him.

  Was she teasing?

  ‘Zibbie, it will be all right. I know it will, and I do not know why you are so frightened.’

  Through the chiffon of her dress, he felt the heat of her belly-skin, and the tautness of her stomach. Quickly, he lifted his hand away. He hadn’t liked touching it. Then he took her hand and said again that she would be all right.

  She said she was glad he was here. He could hear their mother asking the servants about cena, dinner. Then Zibbie asked how he had enjoyed it.

  ‘I enjoyed it, more than I would have thought possible.’

  ‘Is she not extraordinary?’

  ‘She is extraordinary.’

  ‘Did they ask you why you were moving to London?’ said Zibbie, with a sly, good-natured smile.

  Johnny said, ‘Not in so many words.’

  Because Mrs Lewes had touched gently on the subject, that was the queer thing, as if she had divined pushing matters in his life, and her divination had been correct. He had formed a rash engagement, from which he had lately escaped.

  Zibbie said now, ‘You’re glad about Miss Jay.’

  ‘Why,’ he said, ‘that is true. I gave them the slip. The family.’

  ‘A narrow escape,’ said Zibbie, and now the elder-sister teasing smile was back. ‘With my help and Mother’s. So you met Her. You know she liked my poems? She did. She really did.’

  Johnny pressed his sister’s hand. He looked only at her hand, as he had seen, when she mentioned her poems, tears f
ill those eyes. Of course he knew that. Mrs Lewes’ encouragement had long been a part of family mythology since Zibbie had, a year ago, visited Mrs Lewes to present her with a copy of her published poems. Then Zibbie whispered: ‘Was the talk good?’

  ‘It was,’ he agreed gravely. ‘The best.’

  ‘And now, what do you think of Miss Jay?’

  The spirit of mischief was rekindled in Zibbie’s eyes, along with an exultant smile. He smelled then the most delicious smell, suddenly, through the window: was it onions, or tomatoes, or something softer, more mysterious, like saffron?

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ murmured Johnny.

  Why was it that women, at least his sisters, and his mother, penetrated him so easily? It was nearly occult. Miss Jay, to whom he had been engaged, was no longer his fiancée, and all had fallen beautifully into place. Freedom, that most precious asset, was his again. Whether he had acquired it through his own agency was another matter. It was, he had to admit to himself, with his mother and Zibbie’s encouragement, that, in the face of virtual pursuit from Miss Jay’s family, who had followed him to Europe, he had finally made the almost impertinent suggestion that the engagement should be of a four-year-duration, conveying a message of no muddied kind. At the end of that period, he had written, each party could proceed if still inclined to do so; in a reasonably kind and gentleman-like way, he had made his wishes clear.

  But yes, Miss Jay, as they had been coming home in the carriage, had most inopportunely come up in his mind, and the image had been of her giggling, there was no other word for it, over the servant’s pronunciation, as this had been in New York, and the servant had been from the South; he had remembered the moment, he had flinched somewhat, as the giggling seemed both ignorant and unkind. Also, on their own, talk had not been forthcoming. He had been unable to envisage their married life together, it had remained blank as a calm sea in the early morning.

  He crossed himself. It was a nervous tic, though — he was not even religious!