In Love with George Eliot

by Kathy O'Shaughnessy

  Johnny obtained the special licence, so they could dispense with the Banns. He was working long hours, resigned to leaving a letter behind for his partner, Robert Benson, once they were gone. Marian was thinking of her trousseau, and consulting both Baedekers and memory for places to see.

  Johnny told his family. The reaction was just what she had hoped. Eleanor felt like a natural confidante. To her, she began to admit her fears. I quail a little, she wrote, in facing what has to be gone through — the hurting of many I care for.

  She must tell Maria, Georgiana, Barbara, Elma Stuart, Edith, Cara, and above all, immediately, Charles. So far she hadn’t.

  Serendipity — the doorbell went, it was Charles! He had news. He had been promoted to Principal Clerk at the Post Office. She congratulated him, then grew serious. Now she must give him her news.

  Observing her peculiar expression, he said, ‘You are thinking how pleased the Pater would be if he were here. I know.’

  ‘I — yes.’

  ‘I know.’

  He pressed her hand feelingly.

  She had the darting suspicion that her stepson achieved exalted states of mind in her presence. And this horrid suspicion, like a twinkling little mocking star, seemed somehow linked to other horrid, mocking, twinkling little stars.

  She had failed again. Talking to Johnny, she had a sudden idea.

  ‘Could you tell Charles?’

  ‘I?’

  Johnny hesitated. ‘I am happy to. But — Charles is almost my age — do you not think it would be better …’

  Her expression was so distressed, he gave up.

  ‘I will tell Charles,’ he said, good-naturedly.

  Charles came the following evening straight after seeing Johnny. He had wanted to see Marian immediately. He was happy for her. The Pater wouldn’t have minded, either — he didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. Marian had never been so fond of Charles. She in turn tried to explain herself to him. ‘I couldn’t have written my books,’ she said, ‘if I hadn’t been human.’

  Marian asked Maria Congreve to come and see her. She arrived with her husband.

  Richard kissed her hand reverently, and as he bowed Marian noticed the bald spot on top of his head. ‘We are all expecting something from you, my dear Mrs Lewes,’ he said heavily at once. ‘You know that I have declared my independence from Harrison. My conception of Positivism is more — spiritual, though I say so myself. But you — you. In our sect, we feel that no one living is so fit to write the creed. Do you think you might be able to — write something?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Do not look like that,’ said Mr Congreve, with an unexpectedly deep, kindly laugh. ‘Without a doubt, you have written it. In your books, and in your life. You anticipated the Positivist creed. Your marriage, the love you shared together, did not need the sanction of the church.’

  The ironies were grotesque.

  Marian went to see Georgiana; looked for, and failed to find the right words. Every single sentence that arose, seemed a strange contradiction of what had passed between them previously. Painfully, she remembered the honest way Georgiana had told her in such detail about Edward and his lover Maria Zambaco. Marian stayed on, trying to summon the words.

  Finally she rose to leave. She stumbled towards honesty. ‘I am so tired,’ she said, as she put on her coat, ‘of being put on a pedestal, and expected to vent wisdom.’

  18

  The marriage preparations were underway. A note arrived from Edith: the silk shift was ready; the following day, Edith delivered it.

  Entering the drawing room, the fire was blazing, Marian was framed in a peninsula of light. Edith took her seat opposite Marian, they talked of how the Hamiltons business was doing, of Gladstone’s folly.

  Edith said, suddenly, ‘Did you by any chance read that piece in the Cornhill, comparing Tennyson with Chertbury?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Marian, shutting her eyes for a moment. She knew very well what Edith was referring to. Then, with perfect deliberation: ‘You mean the piece by Collins, comparing Chertbury’s Ode upon A Question Moved, Whether Love Should Continue For Ever, with stanzas of In Memoriam?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I did read it. I cannot say I know what to make of it. Men’s characters are as mixed as the origins of mythology.’

  ‘Which is to say —?’

  Marian now properly opened her eyes. ‘It’s the question of principle.’

  Edith’s eyes were lynx-bright, with small pupils: for a moment Marian wondered if Edith ever wrote down what she said — then dismissed the idea as fanciful.

  But Edith had come to the needle-point. How, Marian did not know. There was some way in which Edith seemed to shadow her. To distract Edith from this topic, she said, ‘Come, sit by me.’

  Edith at once did so.

  But now, seated, Edith stopped. She was thinking about her newest attempt at writing. She had searched and searched for a way of writing about the dominant passion of her life, outside the arena of her diary. She had developed a hybrid, a partly autobiographical kind of fiction, with thinly disguised references to Marian, called Episodes in the Lives of Men, Women and Lovers. She wondered if she could mention it to Marian. Marian, who had said to her that she had the moral matter in herself; enough to write. Then she was kissing Marian’s cheek, and her thoughts flew to pieces. She was saying she loved Marian. She said it again.

  ‘Nay, do not exaggerate.’

  Marian’s voice was guttural. For a moment, Edith was disturbed. But she was a resourceful lover. She knelt instead, and began kissing Marian’s feet.

  With sharp suddenness, the feet withdrew.

  Edith fell back on her heels. And now she was embarrassed. Worse, she was blinking away tears; which soon were running unchecked down her cheeks.

  ‘I thought you believed me at least veracious —’

  ‘Veracious!’ cried Marian.

  ‘Yes,’ said Edith. ‘Veracious.’

  Marian and Edith looked directly at one another.

  Marian said, evenly, ‘It is a hard thing to say of anyone. It is nearly impossible to attain perfect truth.’ She found herself colouring, though, as she said this.

  ‘What is more,’ went on Marian, with her hot cheeks, becoming sidetracked, ‘it can easily be an overdone virtue. On the whole I would rather scold you, Edith, for imperfect veiling of unpleasant truths, as when you don’t like someone.’

  They were both silent, each regrouping. Marian was thinking of Edith’s rudeness to Johnny.

  ‘I like,’ said Edith, ‘for you to tell me the truth.’

  ‘Would you really like that?’

  Marian’s words came like a cold challenge. Edith nodded.

  Marian narrowed her eyes, she was trying to penetrate into Edith’s mind, to see how Edith saw her, to feel the shape Edith had made for her.

  Marian said: ‘The love of men and women for each other must always be more and better than any other.’

  Marian wanted to penetrate Edith’s atmosphere, cut into her, break and shatter her delusion.

  ‘I have never, all my life, cared very much for women.’

  ‘I have always known it,’ Edith said, quickly.

  ‘I care for the womanly ideal. I sympathise with women, I like to be their confidante. They are close to me in one way, but not in the essential intimate way. I hope I make myself clear.’

  ‘You do.’

  Marian sat still: the sensation of violence — or was it rage? — had vanished already.

  ‘Edith, it has probably been my fault. I have a painful susceptibility to encourage a certain — approach in others. — As a person I need — these things,’ — and she gestured vaguely. What she really meant was love. ‘But that mood might not last; in fact, it does not last,’ she added, in a surge of strange hopelessnes
s: it was as if she had stepped towards a grief, and was now in danger of getting lost. Then Marian saw beyond herself to Edith, shoulders hunched. ‘My dear Edith, I have so much respect and admiration for you — so much more than I used to —’

  Edith was nodding dumbly, and Marian caught her own words. Surely they were implying something hurtful all over again.

  ***

  A week before the wedding took place, Marian was writing to Elma Stuart. She had looked at all the wooden objects Elma had carved for her. Could she tell Elma? The best she could do was warn her. She had already mentioned that she was going away, and now she added: I hope to see you before I go away. What I would ask of you is, whether your love and trust in me will suffice to satisfy you that, when I act in a way which is thoroughly unexpected there are reasons which justify my action, though the reasons may not be evident to you.

  ***

  It was the day before the wedding. The trunk was packed and ready in her bedroom, her wedding dress hung in the corner: deep cream with a garment of lace that would be worn on top; small, satin-covered buttons on the sleeves, wrist to elbow. Taking a last look at this dress, her first wedding dress, she went to her study, lit the oil lamps, and sat at her desk, where she had written Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.

  It was familiar. She was about to write letters to leave behind, and she was about to go away. Her movements to her close friends were a perfect secret. It was uncanny what she was doing. She was repeating what had taken place, twenty-five years ago, when she had planned to leave England with Lewes.

  Except it was the opposite.

  It was strange to think that this step into respectability would be scandalous. She had an image of shapes morphing into new shapes, thesis to antithesis. And then she had that moral certitude. No certitude now. Almost the converse.

  Barbara first. I am going to do, she wrote, what not very long ago I should myself have pronounced impossible for me, and therefore I should not wonder at anyone else who found my action incomprehensible.

  To Georgiana: A great momentous change is taking place in my life — a sort of miracle in which I could never have believed, and under which I still sit amazed. If it alters your conception of me so thoroughly that you must from henceforth regard me as a new person, a stranger to you, I shall not take it hardly, for I myself a little while ago should have said that this thing could not be.

  She did feel sad — becoming a stranger to Georgie was an awful idea. But it was what she feared. People had such set ideas about other people. Explanations of these crises, which seem sudden though they are slowly dimly prepared, are impossible. I can only ask you and your husband to imagine and interpret according to your deep experience and loving kindness.

  She sealed the letter.

  Charles had agreed to speak to Edith, Elma, and Maria Congreve. But she would send an advance warning to Maria.

  A great, momentous change is going to take place in my life … With your permission Charles will call on you and tell you what he can on Saturday.

  Ever with unchanging love —

  ***

  On May 6, at St George’s Church in Hanover Square, Marian walked, with a careful but measured step, on Charles Lewes’ arm, up the aisle. It was a small gathering: Charles and the Cross family were present, and Henry Bullock-Hall. After, they returned to the Priory to sign their wills.

  As Charles Lewes waved goodbye to the carriage leaving for Dover, he remembered what she had said to him a week ago. ‘I couldn’t have written my books, if I hadn’t been human.’

  Charles thought of the words now, and he would think about them many more times in his life. The human machinery was imperfect — was that what she meant?

  19

  It is the last full day of the conference. Our papers are read, Hans’, Ann’s, mine, and after dinner three of us, Bruno, Hans, and I, ride in a gondola. The lagoon is like open sea, the sky is reflected everywhere. Swiftly, in his purple bolero and hat, the gondolier plunges the oar down and draws us into the city. It is dusk, the stone walls and buildings are illuminated a rich amber as the blue sky deepens. Down the long canals, this way and that. I have no idea where we are. The gondola drops off Hans first at St Marco; then drops Bruno and me at the Accademia, where we are both staying.

  Entering the lobby, Bruno says, ‘I won’t be able to go straight to sleep after that gondola, and that’s a fact. How about a drink?’

  We drink Cent’herbe in two comfortable armchairs by the bar — small, strange-looking green drinks that Bruno orders. After sipping it, I start the conversation. ‘You’re Hans’ great friend,’ I say.

  ‘He was my best man,’ says Bruno, at once. They met years ago, at Columbia University in New York. Bruno says he liked what Hans read today, and what I read today. We go over everyone’s paper in brief. Then I mention the fact that Jo Devlin didn’t come.

  To my surprise, Bruno grins.

  ‘I did a wicked thing,’ admits Bruno. ‘I put him off. At the last minute.’

  ‘Really!’ I add that Devlin didn’t come to our conference either.

  ‘I know,’ he says, promptly — eagerly. For a moment, he looks doubtful. Then: ‘If we’re going to have this conversation, I’m going to have to order another.’

  He does so.

  ‘Kate Boyd. Boyd. Where’s that name from?’

  ‘Scotland and New Zealand.’

  He pauses, he’s frowning and thinking.

  ‘Hans — I mean I don’t know how to say this. He’s a — how can I say —’

  He stops again. Then says: ‘He hasn’t talked about Devlin to you, has he?’

  ‘No.’

  Bruno holds up his drink to the light. ‘They make ’em stronger here. No — I mean, the fact is, I know he hasn’t talked to you about Devlin. He’s a very strange man Hans, I have to tell you.’

  I swallow.

  ‘Bruno, I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘You like Hans.’

  ‘Well —’

  ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m saying this very badly. Listen, Ann has been having an affair with him for a good while. Devlin, I mean. A really very good while. And I have to say — I have said to him, he should tell you, so you get the lie of the land.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’

  But in the next minute, as I sip my green drink, which tastes bitter but also strangely pleasant, I’m thinking, yes. That makes a lot of sense.

  ‘She’s always getting him out the way,’ Bruno continues, as he regards me. He sticks up his arm, waves to the barman. ‘Due ancora!’

  I sit back in my chair; I am still trying to take it in.

  ‘You know, as his friend, I haven’t enjoyed this. But he made a stand, about the conference. He told your Chair. He wouldn’t have Devlin there. That’s how it happened.’

  He mutters about vaping, pulls out a blue vape, moves his chair so that he’s partly concealed by the large plant, vapes, and then says, ‘How do you feel?’

  I say, ‘But why didn’t he mention it to me? I mean, not that it changes so much, but — I don’t know.’

  He explains. When Hans told the Chair, Ann thought it grotesque of him. And her bargain was, he must tell no one else. No one. ‘And she … she’s quite freaked about the department, if you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he leave her?’ I have a sensation, a little like terror, as I say this.

  ‘It’s coming,’ he says. ‘He’s slow to break up his family. But he’s absolutely going to.’

  Hans was brought up without a father, he adds. I’m silent, looking at the plant: the complex threads and weaves of these great dark green leaves.

  ‘There’s another reason he didn’t. Apart from some fucked-up German sense of honour, I mean. He was convinced it would seem like bargaining with you.’

  ‘Bargaining.’


  I go up to my room, open the window. So, nothing is clear — nothing is clear at all — but still — I put my head out into the air. I try to work out where Hans’ hotel is. Tomorrow we go back to London.

  Part Five

  I think you are quite right to look over your old letters and papers and decide for yourself what should be burnt. Burning is the most reverential destination one can give to relics … I hate the thought that what we have looked at with eyes full of living memory should be tossed about and made lumber of, or (if it be writing) read with hard curiosity. I am continually considering whether I have saved as much as possible from this desecrating fate.

  Marian Evans, letter to Cara Bray, 1880

  What does it all mean, and after the state of desolation she was in after poor Lewes’ death it is to me almost unaccountable. What would my uncle [John Blackwood] have said, and does it not take away all the romance of her connection with Lewes?

  William Blackwood, writing to his London manager Joseph Langford, 1880

  I am still thrrrrrilling over a conversation I had yesterday with Charles Lewes. Lionel Tennyson was here; he declared that his hair stood on end as he listened. Charles Lewes said he wished to tell me all about the wedding. He gave her away, and looks upon Mr. Cross as an elder brother.

  I asked him if she had consulted him and he said no, not consulted, but that she had told him a few weeks ago. She confided in Paget who approved and told her that it wouldn’t make any difference in her influence. Here I couldn’t stand it, and said of course it would, but it was better to be genuine than to have influence …

  Anne Thackeray Ritchie to Richmond Ritchie, May 1880

  1

  A man of business, a son, a brother, but he had never believed he would become a husband, yet he had done it, and she was his.

  They had rattled on the train to Dover, seated on the westerly side as it snaked southeastwards from St Pancras. Beside her, he could now take her hand in public. Through half-open eyes he registered the Kent Downs, green in the afternoon May light. The scenes were passing fast.