In Love with George Eliot

by Kathy O'Shaughnessy

  With the soporific rhythm of the train, his deep exhaustion was rising. He could at last admit the strain of the previous weeks.

  Why else was he so tired? He had had four hours’ sleep each night, scarcely more. There had been so much to take care of. The new Chelsea house, the lease, endless meetings with Mr Armitage about decorating it; the ceremony, the travel, the files he had had to leave for his business partner Robert, the dreadful letter he had had to write to Robert, the way he had to lie to Robert. What would Robert think when he read his letter? But he could not deal with that now, and he would not. It was over. This was the start. And then he had a sense in the train of floating, of release. Yet feeling for his watch, his waistcoat was loose. ‘I have lost weight,’ he said, as, with a screech and a roar, they arrived at Dover.

  She had observed it, she replied.

  Waiting for a hansom, he ventured, ‘My dear, I’ve heard it said that the King’s Head is much more out of the way. Would that not suit us — you — better than the Warden?’

  He spoke with respect. The Lord Warden was where she had stayed with Lewes, but she was damnably exercised about watching eyes, so she took up the suggestion. He enquired, came out to tell her they had rooms, he had inspected them, they were clean as a whistle. They registered, unpacked, went out again. The day was fine, it was past five, the sea air pinchingly brisk yet not cold, pleasant, and half gold, and those high spaced cries from the gulls were sounding and sounding. They walked on the shore, holding hands, the air in their faces. ‘I cannot believe,’ said Marian, turning to him, the light catching her beautiful grey-blue eyes, ‘that we have managed this.’

  Nor could he. He really could not. ‘Mia donna,’ he said. His heart was in his chest. ‘How you are,’ he said, ‘is everything to me.’

  It was no more than the truth. His senses were trained to her. He tightened his hold on her hand, raised it to his lips. They were face to face in the gaping open light of the sea, the lines of her face pitilessly revealed. He scanned her greedily for them, before kissing her. He liked to see her dear lines, her flaws, he was daily thankful for them, as sparing to him, and they embraced. He had a swooning, indecent excitement. ‘We should turn back,’ he said. He wanted to rein in his indecent sensations, and Marian so frail, too. It was all very queer.

  Walking back, Johnny was going over Marian’s face just then, her eyelids lowering, and the sense he had of her growing elation during the kiss. Perhaps this was indicative of the night to come. His ignorance was something. Lewes came into his mind, with all his experience. Lewes was dead. He was here now. Again the sheer arc of the horizon, a long ultramarine, becalmed, nearly, on this late afternoon, and then again the strange freedom he could feel they both had, like a present. The breeze was on their faces, whipping up the dusky gold-pale light. Over supper Johnny insisted on two bottles of champagne. ‘Is that expensive?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, with authority. ‘I want the best, because I have the best. I am married to the best.’

  It was a boast, but he knew the truth of it.

  They drank the champagne quickly. Drunkenly, they made their way to the rooms. In between the sea’s thirsty roar, he heard the sounds of Marian changing next door, small clicks, rustling. He did not turn when she entered, only realising, in a half stupor, that he had not yet undressed. Impossible to take off his clothes in front of her. He extinguished the lamp. In the dark, he realised from the warm heaviness of his own half-numb hands and his head that he was very intoxicated; it was hard undoing the garters of his socks. He was in under the covers beside her, heart thumping. She did not move and he wondered if she was already asleep. Even while wondering this, sleep was literally claiming him, the long, long exhaustion of the last few weeks was mounting.

  He was dreaming. He was in the Sussex coast where they went as children, and he was feeling with hands along the rocks for the secret cave, encountering only hard unyielding rocks, except the cave was close, he was sure of it; his hands were now finding, both of them, the long flat wide aperture, his hands were gripping inside and what they were gripping was soft and powerfully sucking; he was in the cave, and moving towards the light, his fingers locked perfectly into the aperture, and he was through, in an extraordinary moment. Seawater was at his thigh.

  The softness beneath him was Marian, bearing his full six-foot weight. ‘I hope … I hope …’ he was whispering, in the darkness, as he levered himself up and off her, fear growing; ‘I hope … I have not hurt you.’ A soft laugh sounded. He was glad of the darkness, glad of her.

  They crossed the channel the next day in the Calais-Douvre, with a luxurious private cabin on deck. There was scarcely wind, and the sky was cloudless. Wedding days were maligned, they joked. By late afternoon, they had reached the Hotel du Rhin in Amiens. ‘You are spoiling me,’ Marian murmured. She had not wanted the honeymoon suite, which would potentially draw attention to them as a couple. Their rooms were palatial, with a charming sofa and table in the window.

  ‘You must sleep where you please,’ said Johnny, in a gentle tone to her, as they strolled round the two rooms. He still had a notion that he might have in some way damaged her the previous night. Yet he also had a wild, golden thrill when he reimagined the night, his stomach tumbling.

  Early evening, they stood before Amiens cathedral in the late sun. ‘The architect had the stone cut before it was built,’ said Marian.

  ‘Stone cut?’ repeated Johnny. He felt stupid.

  ‘Cut to its final size. It is built in the Gothic Lanceolate style,’ went on his wife.

  She was looking at it keenly, a complex look of assimilation in her narrowed eyes. She was reading aloud from the guide, but Johnny suspected she knew it all anyway; even if she didn’t, their meaning was percolating in her in a way that was beyond him. But after looking awhile, he felt a small shimmer of rapture up his spine. So he had it in him. He walked back to the hotel with a buoyant step. Over supper in their room, he told Marian about the moment of rapture. ‘Oh I am pleased for you,’ she said, with passion.

  Supper was over, the waiter took the tray away. It was all so comfortable, with a fire going. ‘Dare I suggest a little Dante?’ she said.

  ‘Dare away,’ said Johnny cheerfully. Tired, he smiled. He had a memory of his sister Eleanor, Nelly. He had confided in her that he was having a set of his wife’s works bound, in a small edition of calf leather and vellum, as a wedding present, which he would give to her in Venice.

  ‘You don’t want to lug too many books on your travel,’ Nelly had pointed out. He said they were taking so many books anyway it would make no difference.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind having supper brought to our room,’ said Marian, anxiously, ‘only I do not like to be recognised.’

  ‘I quite understand,’ said Johnny. ‘It is the curse of being famous.’ He looked at her with pride. He was married to England’s most famous novelist. Famous all over the world. Some moments he thought he was ill or dreaming. He could not believe it. He laughed.

  ‘Dearest, what is funny?’

  He told her, they both laughed, she said she was so thankful, he was too. ‘It is almost too perfect,’ agreed Johnny. He prayed nothing would spoil it. They spent a nostalgic hour alternately reading and translating the Dante; then they had reached the end of the canto. Johnny’s eyes were closing.

  ‘Shall we try a little Eugénie Grandet?’ she suggested.

  ‘Why yes,’ he said. Except he was fearfully tired. He knew Eugénie Grandet was by Balzac, and he hoped it would be in English, but he had an unfortunate memory of the volume on its side at the bottom of a trunk, a French word on the bottom of its spine.

  She was kneeling now to pull it out. ‘This will exercise our French,’ she cried. ‘You begin!’

  It was more amusing than he could have predicted, though his great tiredness, like a potentially smothering and sucking ocean wave, kept
swelling up. They were nurturing their minds as other people watered gardens, straining for Balzac’s meaning through the prism of another language, and he shot an admiring glance at Marian when it was her turn to read, her energy so utterly undimmed. He had the sensation he used to have with Lewes and Marian, that life with them was lived at no ordinary level.

  In Paris, they rented rooms at the Hotel Vouillement. ‘I remember it well,’ said Marian sadly, as they entered it. She had stayed here with Lewes.

  Johnny did not feel even a flicker of jealousy. To show her this, he asked politely, ‘When did you and George stay here?’

  ‘Five, no, six years ago,’ she said absently. ‘Before we dine, shall we walk to the Arc des Etoiles? Also, I’m hoping we will be able to hear the glorious singing that I once heard at the Russian church tomorrow. I have set my heart,’ she went on, ‘on you enjoying it as I did.’

  ‘I hope so too. You look blooming.’

  It would have been impolite to say what he really thought, which was that she looked much younger: the healthy colour coming in and out of her cheeks. The chestnut trees were in early leaf as they strolled down the Arc des Etoiles; later, they went for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne.

  ‘I keep thinking of that small dear group in the church, wishing us well,’ said Marian, as the driver went with sudden swiftness under a cedar tree, the lowest branch of which Johnny could reach up and touch. ‘There is only one cloud on the horizon, and that is the missing brooch,’ she said. It had been lost just before they left. It was the most valuable jewellery she owned.

  ‘It’s only a brooch,’ mused Marian, ‘but I can’t stop thinking about it. I hope it is found before we get to Venice.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘No reason at all! Only that it bothers me,’ she admitted. She laughed because she had a superstitious feeling about it — if it were found, the darkness, the dark thing, would lift.

  ‘Don’t let it worry you too much,’ said Johnny, shooting her a concerned look. She saw new signs of his kindness every day; he had a naturally courteous, generous nature.

  They visited the Sainte Chapelle. ‘Your response to art is growing,’ she said, when they left.

  ‘I am beginning to see it with your eyes,’ he joked.

  They saw Notre Dame, lunched at the Cafe Corazza. Marian loved Johnny, this modest man whose beauty — she had glimpsed him naked for the first time two mornings ago — had shocked her, so different to Lewes. They were an odd couple, she sixty, he forty; at a stroke, she had deprived him of the chance to have his own children, or a bride his own age. Yet like some strange chemical combination, as if the gap in his circle of electrons were filled exactly by her extra ones, she thought, they were right together.

  But London was on her mind.

  The day of the wedding, the news would have been out. She had no illusions. It was a thrilling moment when someone in public showed feet of clay — the higher the fall the better. How the judgements would rain! Of those who loved her, a few might defend her. Letters had never been as important as now. Each time they reached a new city, Johnny, in his correct jacket, which he put on every day with an absent air of duty, looking every inch the Englishman, went off to collect the letters post restante. When he returned, it was an effort not to snatch them from him.

  Edith had written, sensitively. Barbara’s letter outshone the others.

  My dear I hope and I think you will be happy.

  Tell Johnny Cross I should have done exactly what he has done if you would have let me and I had been a man.

  You see I know all love is so different that I do not see it unnatural to love in new ways — not to be unfaithful to any memory.

  If I knew Mr Lewes he would be glad as I am that you have a new friend.

  What a woman, what a friend. Cara and Sara sent kind notes. She still had no word, though, from Maria Congreve, or Georgiana. And Charles was strangely silent on that matter. They had received a kind note of congratulations from Mr James, Mr Henry James. She had heard from Elma Stuart.

  Johnny decided to write to Elma. Picking up his pen, he remembered her wooden gifts. What painstaking labour! He had a guilty sense he had stolen the prize.

  But the great event, he wrote, that has happened in my life seems to have taken away from me all power of doing, or thinking of, anything except how marvellously blessed is my lot — to be united for life with her who has for so long been my ideal. It is almost too great a happiness to have got the best.

  He was not exaggerating. In the Bois, the blossoms flamed in his vision, the colours in the stained-glass windows of La Sainte Chapelle had burned unnaturally, making his heart beat faster. They were travelling southwards to the sun.

  Marian liked to write her letters just after breakfast. She wrote that Johnny had elected to dedicate his life to the remaining fragment of hers. She liked this picture of the robust man helping her, the frail one, walk and live; no whiff of unseemly, hasty, lusty romance. Johnny, much loved and trusted by Mr Lewes, now that she was alone, sees his only longed-for happiness in dedicating his life to me. Johnny was caretaker, really. There was even a religious ring about the word dedicate. Yet — it was a Sisyphean job, this attempt to control it all. What was she doing? She was like Canute, really, trying to push back the waves.

  2

  After the sunny days, the storms came at Lyons. From their hotel apartment they watched the sheet lightning after supper, the curtains drawn. The Fouviere Hills in near darkness transformed in livid instants into a different picture — white-filled, strange, and ghostly. Then Johnny lit the oil lamp. He had his jacket off, and Marian reached to touch the scarf round his neck, which felt icy-smooth in her fingers. ‘It’s silk,’ he remarked. Marian went on feeling it. She was slightly jealous, in fact, of Johnny and his siblings’ easy loving unity. The scarf was his wedding present from them. He used their nicknames with careless fondness. Mary was Marly; Emily, Emmy; Eleanor, Nelly; Willie, Will. Marian kissed his hand in penance for her inward jealousy; pushed away thoughts of Isaac. She was joining the family anyway. Johnny was tap-tapping the sofa arm, still watching for the ghostly lightning. She did hope he would sleep in her room tonight. She would not suggest it. Strange, sweet man! Each time they were together in the night, he had woken in the morning with a banging headache at the base of his skull. But would he come to her room tonight? As he had grown thinner, his face had grown in beauty. She had not known this pleasure with George.

  But where was that brooch? Brett still had sent no word.

  ***

  In Verona, in his own room, Johnny woke before it was light. A mosquito had disturbed his sleep. He opened the french doors to the balcony, and sat. The sky was deepest blue, beginning to lighten. Below him spread the russet corrugated rooves at all angles. The bell tower of the Basilica was outlined against the horizon. His thoughts were already mounting; in a funny way, they were like the rooves, pitted against each other at all angles, they kept coming. He had never read so much in his life before, as in the last month; nor seen so much art, nor looked so hard, and he was rising, he could feel it, he was becoming knowledgeable, with her incomparable mind to help him. They never dined out, always in the hotel apartment, so she would not be recognised. It made absolute sense. But he had been glad, two nights ago in Milan, to see Rossi in Hamlet. He had been determined to see Rossi. She despised Rossi’s performance, but he had a secret sympathy for the troubled prince. At the same time, he had listened with her ears and eyes, seen Rossi’s crudity. He was split, he had held on to his view. The molten sun was rising, the morning silence over the sleeping city was dreamlike. His knowledge filling his head to bursting. The days were getting hotter, but his summer clothes did not fit him, he had lost too much weight.

  Later, as the day began to grow hot, and the insinuating waiter had taken away the breakfast things, Marian took out her paper and pen. I am happy, I am full of vigour, s
he thought defiantly. Against all the odds. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks — and she threw a crust to the cheeky pigeon that was swaying forwards and backwards, with an insecure grasp, on the balcony’s edge. With a greedy, gobbling coo, the pigeon descended to eat the crust. She wrote to Florence Cross: What can I say to give your affectionate hearts a sense of our happiness? Only that we seem to love each other better than we did when we set out, which seemed then hardly possible, and we often talk of our Sisters, oftener think of them. You are our children, you know.

  Has she had achieved the impossible? Found a happy life with George dead? The hope made her want to cry aloud with joy. You know that you are a very celebrated person, Benjamin Jowett had written, and therefore the world will talk a little about you, but they will not talk long and what they say does not much signify. It would be foolish to give up actual affection for the sake of what people say.

  She folded this letter into two, then four, then eight, inserted it into her reticule. It would live there with the letter from her brother. Isaac had written to congratulate her on her marriage, breaking twenty-five years of silence.

  The next step was Venice.

  3

  There is a last morning of talks, then it’s over, and there’s a final lunch in the Ca’Foscari before everyone goes to the airport. Hans is at the other end of the table. ‘Looking forward to London?’ says Bruno. He looks hung-over.

  ‘No,’ I say, as I sip my fizzy water.

  On the wall hang black-and-white photographs of Venice, in a neat row. They remind me of a scanty row of pansies in a flowerbed. I’d like to rearrange them, mess them up. ‘Katie Boyd, you look very distracted,’ says Bruno. I reach for the wine.