by Mary Hoban
If Julia recognised the intractability of their separate lives, Tom continued to assert that her place was by his side. She mocked the idea, telling him she was not the only woman she knew not living with her husband. Mary Bliss was not living with her husband William, who had converted from being an Anglican priest to being a Catholic in 1869. Surprisingly this had not precluded him from being appointed as keeper of periodicals at the Bodleian Library. In 1877, when asked by the Public Records Office to undertake research in the Vatican Archives, he had moved to Rome, where he spent nine months of the year. Mrs Bliss not only remained in Oxford, but she also remained an Anglican and it was she who brought up their eleven children.
Tom refused to accept this as a parallel case. Nor would he discuss the case of a man named Boyd, who, according to Julia, tried to do as Mr Bliss has done but his two eldest children (girls I have been told) are now with their mother but a little girl of two he has taken away from her & she does not know where she is. He has also sent the one boy away from her to some Jesuit College & more than this he has refused to live with her unless she goes over.
Ignoring all Julia’s taunts, pleas, and arguments, Tom continued to maintain that he was a married man whose wife lived in Oxford while he lived in Dublin. He returned to Oxford several times annually, determined to demonstrate the outward appearance of a functional marriage. At one point it even appeared that he might be able to return permanently when Matthew, who had been visiting Oxford to discuss with Jowett the possibility of taking the Merton Chair of English Language and Literature, told Tom that if he decided against it he would raise the possibility of Tom being offered the chair instead. Tom was immediately hopeful. Julia was not, telling him that what he said about a chair at Oxford is so visionary that it is not worth discussing. I do not think that any one in your circumstances would have the slightest chance of being elected here to any such post. The time had passed, she said, when it might give her any gratification to see him in such a position:
For your sake I should be glad, but once there the feelings would be mixed. My children are all now entered or entering the world, & what would have given me the greatest gratification which anything in this world could give when they were young now is a matter of absolute indifference to me. No one who has wasted the greatest part of his life as you have done has any right to expect such a blissful ending as you appear to contemplate.
She finished this harsh analysis of the situation by reminding him that she hated Roman Catholics and telling him not to hurry home as she infinitely preferred her rooms to herself and that the prospect of sharing them was not a pleasant one. Her bitterness was turning rancid. As it was, Julia’s grasp of the situation was realistic. Jowett decided against giving the position to Tom. His age was against him, he said, as was his religious conviction.
When Tom’s assertions that Julia had failed as a wife had no effect, he began asserting that Julia had also failed as a mother. Impelled by the devil, she had kept their children, by violence & other ways, from becoming Catholics, as they would otherwise have happily & surely been, sooner or later … a sad & terrible responsibility to take. Tom seemed oblivious to having spurned the religious views of his own parents and to the reality that his children, like Julia, had come to their own truth. Polly had told him on numerous occasions that her views were very different to his, that she believed more in facts than doctrines, and both Willy and Theodore had given up Catholicism as soon as they could and never returned to it. Julia refused to be provoked. She knew her children did not share Tom’s view of her. And she was right.
Their children were, in fact, often appalled at Tom’s behaviour. Polly felt its injustice particularly. She was closest to Tom, his favoured child — he admired her receptive and flexible mind — and his scholarship and gentleness were characteristics that she appreciated greatly. It was this affinity that made it all the harder for her to witness his cruelty to Julia, his intransigence, and his capacity to ignore pressing issues. And as Julia grew more frail, their mother and daughter roles began to reverse, Julia relying on Polly for advice, for help, for love, and Polly becoming the cajoler, the nurturer, the carer.
In order to reassure her boarders, and their parents, that she could continue chaperoning, Julia had become adept at hiding the full misery of her situation and the pain trapped inside her body. She had always presented a cheerful face to the world — that was innate — but she could not hide her misery from Polly, and as her daughter witnessed and understood more of Julia’s turmoil and struggle, she took up her cause more vehemently, intervening on her behalf when Tom became more dogmatic and negligent, and doing all she could to make her mother’s life easier. When her novel, Miss Bretherton, was published in December 1884, one of the first things she did was buy her mother a fur-lined cloak. Julia’s gratitude was palpable:
How can I thank you and Humphry for all your goodness to me? I only hope my darling child that you have not pinched yourself in any way to send me the furlined cloak.
Julia’s health had become more stable under a regime of homeopathic medicine — a situation that her local doctor thought was remarkable — and this hiatus allowed her to concentrate on her younger children, Lucy, Frank, Judy, and Ethel, whose futures weighed upon her, their prospects blighted by Tom’s Catholicism. So sure had Julia been that Tom’s reconversion would destroy Lucy’s chances of marrying well, she had sent her daughter back to the Croppers, where she hoped she would be able to live without Tom’s action blighting her life. She felt utterly vindicated when Lucy met and fell in love with the Reverend Edward Carus Selwyn, the principal of Liverpool College, a Cambridge graduate, and the son of an Anglican clergyman. Even Tom could find no fault with Lucy’s choice. But that was not the case with Judy, who, in her first year studying English at Somerville Hall, had also fallen in love.
Leonard Huxley was a young undergraduate at Balliol College from a renowned intellectual family. His father, Thomas, was a biologist, anthropologist, and philosopher of history and science, who had come to public prominence as a supporter of Charles Darwin when publicly, eloquently, and often, he defended Darwin’s theory of evolution. Leonard’s parents, like Julia and Tom, had met in the Australian colonies — Thomas Huxley was serving as assistant surgeon on the H.M.S. Rattlesnake when he met Henrietta Heathorn in Sydney in 1847 — and they, too, found themselves on different sides of the religious spectrum. Thomas, the agnostic — he is said to have coined the phrase — and Nettie, the devout Christian. But unlike Julia and Tom, the Huxleys did not allow religion to divide them. Instead, they worked to bridge the worlds of science and theology.
Leonard’s parents and Julia approved the match, and they agreed to a formal engagement, although not to a marriage until Leonard and Judy had finished their studies. But Tom refused to give his permission. He was unhappy that his daughter was marrying the son of an agnostic and he thought Leonard a revolutionary, harebrained, unstable will of the wisp. Judy deeply resented her father’s attitude. She saw it as a condemnation of Leonard’s religious beliefs and character and, importantly, as a condemnation of her own judgement. She was keen to defend herself and she did so with astonishing clarity for a nineteen-year-old.
However much she might be in love with a man, she said, she would certainly have enough common sense to know that there would be no chance of enduring happiness in a marriage with a man who had no high, ruling principles of life, who didn’t trouble himself about religious matters, and looked down and scoffed at believers in Christianity. And in a telling, somewhat biting, finale to her plea for his permission, Judy told her father that she was certain that he would be able to reconcile it perfectly with his conscience, and that he would never have to reproach himself. Tom gave his consent.
The wedding of Lucy and Carus in July 1884 was a splendid affair, paid for and hosted by the Croppers, and Julia was determined that Judy’s wedding in April 1885 should be as fine, an ambition that added further stres
s to the fragile relationship between Dublin and Oxford. Tom had promised cash for Judy’s trousseau, but when he could not find the money, he demanded that Julia sell the furniture and move to a smaller house. He also renewed his threat to inform Oxford tradesmen that he would refuse to pay any credit granted to her. On this occasion, Tom’s anger extended beyond Julia and embraced Ethel, who was helping her mother deal with the household bills. Knowing how much Julia and their daughters liked George Eliot and despite thinking her a sceptic and a cold hard clever woman, Tom quoted Eliot’s thoughts on debt and begging as the two deepest dishonours short of crime.
Ethel responded by turning to Polly, asking her to put a stop to their father’s attacks and to his sermonising. Polly did not hold back. She told her father that the household expenditure was not outrageous and Julia was not well enough to carry out his demands on her. She was an invalid who ought indeed to have far more dainties than she ever allows herself, and he was bound by every human and religious consideration to ensure that she was not thrown into a stressed state. He knew, as they all did, that a crisis of this kind was like poison to her, and he might as well give her something deadly to drink as write letters to the tradesmen about her. Every such action on his part shortened her chance of life, and, whatever the fault on her side, he was incurring a very heavy responsibility. That, said Polly, was the plain truth as his children saw it.
It was a stinging indictment. Tom drew back. Julia’s credit was not cut off, but the damage was profound. She would never forget or forgive him for contemplating, for a second time, publicly humiliating her in Oxford:
Your nature & mind are altogether mysteries to me. A man who cannot understand that a woman in the 36th year of her married life, even if she were of the most lethargic temperament instead of a very sensitive and proud temperament as mine is, would not resent her husband’s contemplation of such a step as that contemplated … You must understand that this is a step never to take except in cases of wanton personal extravagance on the part of the wife or in cases when the wife has dishonoured her husband’s name & is still pledging his credit … During the whole of my married life you have been so systematically unjust & unreasonable with me on the subject of money that I do not for the very short term of life left to me intend to have any dealings with you about money. What is done must be done through Ethel & if you cannot provide me with sufficient to live upon & remain in this house it will matter very little to me if I should be obliged to end my life in lodgings. But I cannot however bear expressions of sympathy and that sort of thing from a man who has shewn himself so absolutely devoid of feeling towards me as you have done & the only way therefore for me to live my life in peace and quietness is for us to go our separate ways independently of each other … However it is of no use writing or talking on the subject, the time for me here is very short and I do not intend to hasten my end by agitating myself, Let things be as they are.
Julia Arnold.
Amidst this considerable drama, Judy’s wedding to Leonard Huxley went ahead. Julia’s wound began bleeding again immediately after it. The disease had taken hold once more.
Twelve months later, in April 1886, Julia’s brother-in-law William Forster died. Between his appointment as under-secretary for the Colonies in 1865 to his resignation as chief secretary for Ireland in 1882, Forster had worked assiduously inside the parliament as a Liberal Party politician, most notably steering through the various education Bills of 1867, 1868, and 1870, which effectively established a system of national education in England, and the Ballot Act of 1872, which introduced secret ballots for parliamentary and local government elections.
While William had been largely respected and loved by the wider world — the Queen herself had been given daily reports of his health — and deeply loved by the whole Arnold family, Julia mourned his death particularly. From the time of her arrival in England thirty years before, he had been a rock in her life, always in the background supporting and advising Tom, even if his advice was too often ignored. She felt even more bereft because she was too ill to attend his funeral. Her daughters, knowing how deep her mourning was, gathered in Oxford to be with her, causing Polly to reflect that except for their anxiety about Julia, the ‘gathering of the sisters’ was very nice. And her daughters had every reason to be very anxious. Julia’s condition had deteriorated to the point where they believed she required a nurse, and they left Oxford determined that one would be provided with help from the whole family, Tom included.
By the end of April, a nurse was in place, and Julia’s children were hopeful that she would prosper under this ministration. It appeared to work. She regained strength, but then as quickly as she rallied, a relapse would occur. Julia was using her warm interest in life and other people to distract her mind from the pain and weakness. Her capacity for friendship had sustained her throughout her life, and even Tom believed that there were very few women in the world whom the large circle of their friends thought could be spared less.
She was now dependant on something elemental in her nature, her capacity to absorb, to confront, and to persevere. These characteristics were often remarked upon by the wider family and friends and were, Polly believed, God’s special gifts to her. Jane Forster spoke of her wonderful vital energy and her rallying power. Matthew often noted her pluck and how it made her suffering lighter. Fan wrote of her bravery, while Polly was in awe of her patience and her thought for others as her illness took hold.
None of this admiration could halt the disease. Nor did the summer spent by the sea have a recuperative effect. On her return home, with the Oxford damp descending, Julia developed bronchitis and went onto cocaine for pain relief. It may have been this or the fact that her old friends, the Müllers, had tragically lost another daughter — their eldest daughter, Ada, had died from meningitis in 1876 — that caused Julia to ponder on death more often and to clarify her understanding of what it meant. She came to think of death as an end, a tragedy, rather than the beginning of an eternal life, but she did not seek out any religious institutions for comfort. She had always thought the Christian church’s teaching on punishment was odious, and she had far more respect for a man like Huxley, a scientist, than she had for ecclesiastics. She was sure that in the long term scientific, more secular views would prevail.
She shared these thoughts with Polly, not Tom, and despite her apparent non-religious views, Polly felt her mother’s spiritual nature shone out and grew during those last years of illness. There was an extreme sincerity, she thought, in all that Julia said about religious matters, and while she took what others said with a gentle docility — the exception to this was Tom — she said nothing herself unless it meant something real to her. There was no acquiescence in things, as it were, for safety’s sake, & not the smallest terror of death. Truth & love — what can one want more? When her young friend, Laura Lyttelton, died in childbirth, Polly described her as someone who met love with love. She and her sister Judy would use very similar words to describe Julia.
When Julia spoke to Tom about religion, it was generally to decry his choice. On one occasion, referring to one of their acquaintances who had been confined in a mental institution, Julia wrote that changing religion had clearly not answered in his case. In response, Tom told her he was reading the anti-feminist Eliza Linton’s novel Under Which Lord?, and described as almost tragic one of the scenes in Linton’s book when the silly soft Hermione, after she has driven her husband away from her, goes one evening into the dismantled study, and instead of anatomical sections of diagrams, astronomical charts, microscope, scientific apparatus & so on, finds a dismal sense of vacancy & dullness, everything that could remind her of her husband having been swept away. She picks up in a corner a scrap of paper in his handwriting, & covers it with kisses & tears … Did Tom hope or imagine that Julia, like Hermione, had gone into his study after his departure from Oxford and wept bitter tears of remorse at the part she may have played in driving him away? J
ulia gave him no hint. Instead she reiterated her opinion that the Christian church’s teaching on punishment was odious and continued to send him any articles and snippets she found from the newspapers about the failings of the Roman Church.
As the end of 1886 approached and the pain intensified, Julia’s handwriting bore pitiable witness to the spreading disease. Her script was increasingly frail and wobbly, no longer a flowing, decisive hand. It was now the tenth year of her separation from Tom, and although she was once more, on paper at least, his ‘dearest Julia’, she did not derive any comfort from his words. The wound had opened up further, and she was growing more dependent upon opiates — now a combination of cocaine and morphia — to allay the effects, yet he continued to deny the reality of her disease. He was alternately cruelly dismissive of her and her pain or full of overblown sympathy. But Julia was exhausted from the battle. She was only too familiar with the gap between Tom’s prose and his practice and she no longer required, nor could she bear, expressions of sympathy from him.
Still, she continued to write regularly to him and he to her, domestic conversations about matters to be dealt with, misunderstandings to be cleared up, political events to be wondered at, gossip exchanged, anxieties about children and health and money, and constant dispute about religious history and its implications. These letters were ambiguous declarations of love, revealing what kept these two people tied to each other and underscoring what separated them. Julia ardently pressed her point, while Tom deflected, condescending, and occasionally took up what he considered were her more extravagant points and drew attention to her mistakes or her irrationality. Often these conversations were full of poignant reflections and pleas for comfort. At other times they were full of anger and bitterness. Between harsh ‘facts’, accusations, and regrets, there were occasional flashes of domestic humour, as when Julia advised him not to eat fish when you are out of sorts.