The Honeymoon

by Dinitia Smith

  She and George had been living together for almost eighteen years in defiance of the world. Now she was so important that women overcame their scruples and began to call on her. She was invited to dinner everywhere, with women now, with Dean Stanley of Westminster and his wife, Lady Augusta, and with Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, who’d been maid of honor to the queen. The queen’s own daughters wanted to meet her. One of them, Princess Louise, heard that the banker George Goschen was giving a dinner for Marian and asked to be invited so she could meet her.

  The moment the princess walked in the door, she caught sight of Marian and went up to her. The princess was tall and slim, with brown hair and blue eyes, the most attractive of the royal children. She sat down beside Marian and they talked all evening, about art and women’s higher education. The princess said that her mother, the queen, had allowed her to go to art school, and she was a serious sculptor.

  Next, her sister, the princess royal, and her husband, the crown prince of Prussia, wanted to meet Marian as well. Now she’d received the blessings of the royal family and the Church of England, in the person of Dean Stanley.

  But as her fame grew, death stalked them. She learned that Emanuel Deutsch, her dear little Silesian Jew, was ill with cancer. He’d been taken in by a clergyman, the Reverend Haweis, who lived on Welbeck Street. She went to visit him there.

  He was gaunt and in pain, all his roundness and ebullience gone. “I think the pain is God’s punishment for revealing the secrets of the Talmud,” he told her.

  “You can’t say that!” she told him. “You did the world an enormous favor with all your work.”

  He closed his eyes. “Sometimes I think I should just kill myself.”

  “Please, dear man, no!”

  “I would like to die in the Holy Land,” he said.

  When she got home to the Priory, she wrote him a passionate letter begging him not to take his own life. “Remember,” she importuned, “it has happened to many to be glad they did not commit suicide, though they once ran for the final leap.”

  Somehow, the Reverend Haweis and his wife were able to get him to a boat bound for Palestine.

  Later, she learned that he had gotten as far as Alexandria when they had to take him off the boat. As he lay dying in the hospital, he asked to be placed on the floor after he was gone. It was apparently a Jewish custom, to go from this world humbly. They buried him in the Jewish cemetery there.

  All around them, the young were dying — Thornie, Zibbie Cross. And now Emanuel Deutsch. Deutsch’s death haunted her, his feverish enthusiasm, his learning, his vision.

  On learning of Deutsch’s death, they left for another holiday on the Continent. To help her recover from the loss, George suggested she write something about Judaism. She began reading everything she could get her hands on about the subject. One Friday at sunset in Frankfurt, they visited the main synagogue. There, under the great domed roof, in the candlelight, they listened to the ethereal sound of the cantor chanting the Sabbath prayer in his minor key: “Yedid Nefesh av harachaman / Mesoch avdechah el retzonechah …” “Beloved of the soul, compassionate Father, / Draw your servant to your will …” Because of Deutsch, she could understand the prayer.

  It was while she was trying to write her Jewish novel, Daniel Deronda, that, one morning at dawn, she saw a drop of blood in her urine. A short time later she was struck with an excruciating pain in her left side. Was her own death coming now? The pain intensified, spread around the middle of her body, bombarded her in waves. She hadn’t known such pain was possible. George summoned Dr. Paget, who said it was a kidney stone. They gave her laudanum, hot baths, and fermentations, and eventually she recovered.

  Then it struck again — and again after that. George nursed her lovingly. Sometimes months would pass between attacks, but they continued and they weakened her. Somehow, though, she was able to keep working. George always said that the secret to her success was her signal ability to endure, through kidney pain and headache and toothache, and despite that, to write her long books and invent entire worlds out of her imagination. When she’d finished working for the day, she would walk with him for hours through the city and the country, and listen to music with intense, devouring concentration, and study paintings for hours on end. One had to have that strength, she thought, or one couldn’t live through one’s allotted time.

  Deronda took over three years to write. Once again, she had two stories going at once. She kept seeing Byron’s niece in the casino at the Kursaal. What if the girl was gambling to save her bankrupt family from ruin? In the story, she’d call her Gwendolen Harleth.

  To get money for her family, Gwendolen marries the rich, cold, and immoral Henleigh Grandcourt. Marian was good at depicting cold men, wasn’t she? Gwendolen falls in love with Daniel Deronda, who’s noble and good, and Jewish, but he doesn’t know it yet. Deronda doesn’t love her. One summer night, while out rowing on the Thames, he rescues a girl, Mirah, from suicide. She’s Jewish, a singer with a divine voice. She has a brother, Mordecai, from whom she’s been separated.

  Mordecai would be like Emanuel Deutsch, steeped in poverty, obscure, dying … but alive with the burning intensity of his dreams, living in the invisible past and his vision of the future. Deronda discovers he’s Jewish, falls in love with Mirah, and reunites her with her brother. How many of her writings were filled with that longing, the reuniting of brother and sister? The Mill on the Floss, Romola. If it couldn’t happen in life, she would make it happen in her books.

  Chapter 14

  During the years it took to write her Jewish novel, she and George often went down to Surrey to seek refuge in the country air and stay with the Crosses in Weybridge, that place of youth and hope. There were the two brothers, Johnnie and Willie, and the sisters, “the Doves,” as George began to refer to them. Marian was particularly drawn to Mary Cross, with her plain looks and soft, gentle ways. Mary had literary ambitions and had published a story in Macmillan’s, “Marie of Villefranche,” about the Franco-Prussian War. She had gone to aid the refugees during the war and set up a soup kitchen for them. Marian told Mary that she thought the story was excellent, and that she’d wept over the plight of the starving mother. In gratitude, Mary gave her a present of a vase on which she’d painted scenes from Marian’s novel Romola.

  Marian was aging now, fifty-six in the year 1875. She began using powder to cover the lines in her face, and Dr. Liebreich prescribed glasses for her in the hopes of alleviating her headaches. But when she and George were at Weybridge, they became young again. The Crosses didn’t discriminate against them because they were old. They drew them into all their games and charades and Johnnie Cross took them on delicious hikes amidst the pines on St. George’s Hill, from which they could see all the way over to Windsor.

  They spent holidays with the family, and rented houses near them in summer. There were growing numbers of Cross grandchildren romping around, and little family intrigues and youthful romances to pay attention to. One sister, sweet, demure Emily, had a suitor, Francis Otter, a young barrister from Lincolnshire. Marian saw them one day out in the garden, under a tree, arguing. Frank was remonstrating with Emily about something and suddenly she started to cry. Marian didn’t ask what the matter was, but she wondered.

  She and George began calling Johnnie and Willie their “two tall nephews,” and she, Marian, was their “Auntie.”

  Anna Cross had had ten children. There was the offhand mention of another brother, Alexander, who’d died. But no cause was given, no expression of sadness.

  Once, when she was alone with Mary Cross, she asked, “You had another brother, didn’t you? One who died — when was that? How old was he?”

  She saw Mary tense. “It’s really something we never discuss.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marian quickly replied. “Please — forgive me. It’s all right.”

  “Please, don’t ask Mama about him,” Mary said. “It always makes her cry.”

  “My goodness. I cou
ldn’t bear to hurt Anna.”

  Mary paused. Her lips parted, as if she wanted to tell her something else. But Marian, afraid to cause her more pain, didn’t ask more. She rushed to fill the gap. “You’re all so lucky to have one another,” she cried. “I always wanted a big family, lots of brothers and sisters, always there for you, no matter what. But my sister’s dead, and my brother — he hasn’t spoken to me for twenty years.”

  “But why?”

  They never spoke to anyone about their “irregular” marriage. It was too private, and to do so would be to admit it was irregular.

  “I’m afraid he didn’t approve of George,” was all she said.

  “But you have us,” Mary said. “We’re your family now.”

  Johnnie offered them financial advice. He knew about the new American markets that were opening up and he took the royalties from Middlemarch and invested them in railway stock. By year’s end, the interest on it made up half their income. George was grateful to be relieved of the burden of managing their money.

  It was a good thing they had Johnnie to look after their finances, because there were more people to provide funds for now. There were the regular payments to Agnes and to her children with Thornton — a hundred pounds to her son, Edmund, to establish a dental practice, money to her daughter, Mildred, to buy a Latin dictionary. They sent money to Chrissey’s daughter, Emily, for school. Charles and Cara Bray were in a bad way too. The silk industry was declining and they’d had to give up Rosehill and move to smaller quarters. She and George didn’t see much of the Brays anymore — George thought Charles’s belief in phrenology was ridiculous. But she couldn’t forget all they’d done for her. She knew they’d be too proud to take money directly, so she suggested to Cara that she write a children’s story about kindness to animals, and she sent her a check for fifty pounds as if it were a contribution to the cause.

  In July there came a letter from the colonies. Bertie had died of bronchitis. He’d left behind a wife and the two little ones.

  George held the letter to his heart and sank down into a chair. His face was stone.

  She put her arms around him to comfort him, but he couldn’t speak. And he couldn’t cry. There was silence. She asked, “Would you like me to inform people?”

  “No. Don’t tell them. I can’t bear the letters of consolation coming in.”

  He stared out into the room, then he bent his head and covered his eyes.

  She did tell Barbara Bodichon about Bertie’s death though, because she had taken such an interest in the boys. And she also confided in Johnnie. Johnnie was only four years older than Bertie, the embodiment of youth and life. “He was such a sweet-natured creature,” she wrote to Johnnie, “not clever, but diligent and well-judging about the things of daily life.”

  Now they would support Bertie’s wife, Liza, and the children. It was good to know they could. Johnnie, with his skill at managing money, made her feel safe.

  He had officially retired from the family business now, at only thirty years old. “You’re so young to be retired,” she told him. “You’re so good at business, you ought to do something with that brain of yours, something of use to the world.”

  “I hope I am useful,” he said. “I try to be, taking care of mother.”

  “Of course, taking care of Anna comes first.” Indeed, Anna Cross had been ill lately and they were worried about her.

  Johnnie seemed to have few interests other than playing tennis with his brother-in-law, Albert Druce, and boating with him on the Thames. He’d published a piece of writing in Macmillan’s about his days in New York society, and Anna had proudly sent it to her. It was about how much freer the young women in New York were than in London, how they mixed more naturally with the opposite sex. New York girls were better read than the men, who were unlikely to have heard of great works such as George Eliot’s Spanish Gypsy. Marian wrote to Anna that she had found the essay quite instructive.

  “Perhaps you should write more,” she said to Johnnie.

  “I’m afraid writing’s very difficult for me. But I do try and stay active.”

  “Of course. You’re a young man. You must.”

  “As you know,” he laughed, “I do love games.”

  Johnnie became the ringmaster of their amusements, always arranging distractions for them. He took her to the Lord Mayor’s Show and on a tour of the Bank of England, where she autographed a thousand-pound note. He invited her and George to lunch at the Dennistoun & Cross offices on Cannon Street, and organized trips to the Woolwich Arsenal and the National Gallery and to tennis matches.

  He was very athletic. She liked to watch him play tennis with Albert, his best friend. Albert was as tall as Johnnie and had dark blond curly hair, fine features, an aristocratic but warm manner, and a mellifluous voice. The two of them together were like young gods, she sometimes thought, playing tennis at Weybridge, dressed in their whites, their long, slender forms taking flight as they served, like great white herons. They were in perpetual, affectionate competition, laughing and goading one another. But at the end of the match there was always a consolatory hug, the two of them sweating and playfully batting at each other.

  “You should play!” Johnnie urged her.

  “We’re much too old and infirm,” she said. Johnnie and Albert wanted her and George to go out with them on their boat on the Thames, but that she would not do.

  She wondered why Johnnie was so fond of two such old people as her and George, frail writers, both of them so often sick. Was it her fame, or George’s humor and charm and learning? To be sure, Johnnie seemed to be equally as fond of George as he was of her. He gave a lunch for George at the Devonshire Club to celebrate his work.

  It was Johnnie who found them their estate, the Heights, at Witley, close enough to Weybridge so that they could visit the Crosses often. It was a great vine-covered red-brick house with timbered brackets and a gabled roof, far too big for them really, three reception rooms, a wide terrace with a view of heather-covered hills, all the way down to Blackdown, where Tennyson lived. There were nine acres of sculpted gardens, fields, and woods, a conservatory, and a coachman’s house. Johnnie negotiated the whole thing for them and even got the price down.

  And now they had their own special paradise.

  “You should get a billiard table for guests so they can play on rainy days,” Johnnie said. They bought one and he and George played. Johnnie bought them tennis equipment and insisted they learn the game; he was patient when they kept missing the ball, and he taught them how to serve. They played until they perspired. Tennis was impractical for London, so in autumn when they went back to the city, he gave them a badminton set. He set it up in the Priory garden, but it was too windy to play outdoors, so he installed it in the entrance hall for them.

  How often she called herself “Aunt” to him. Was she careful to do that, she wondered, instinctively to reassure him that she saw him as a son, not as a handsome and sexual young man?

  At the Crosses’ parties at Weybridge, she’d never observed Johnnie in close conversation with a young woman of his own age, other than his sisters. He was usually in a group, standing out among them because he was the tallest, laughing and merry.

  She ventured once to ask Mary Cross, “Do you think that Johnnie will ever marry?”

  It was New Year’s Eve, 1876, and there was a party at Weybridge with neighbors from across the county. She’d noticed that Johnnie had danced only with his mother and his sisters, not with any of the young women there. Mary scrutinized her brother across the room. “I’m not sure,” Mary said. “I guess Johnnie and Willie and I just aren’t the marrying sort. We’re destined to live together — forever,” she said with a smile.

  One summer day at Witley, Miriam and Johnnie were sitting on the terrace having tea. He’d brought Albert Druce’s children, his nephew Eliot, whom the Druces had named in her honor, and Elsie, his niece, over for a visit. The children were attempting to play croquet on the lawn below. Elsie wa
s older and ordering around little Eliot, who was toddling about carrying the heavy mallet.

  George had gone upstairs to rest and she and Johnnie were alone watching them.

  Then Elsie snatched the mallet from her little brother, and he burst into tears and began crying piteously.

  Johnnie jumped up to intervene. “I’m afraid this was a bad idea. The mallet’s much too heavy for him.” She watched as he marched down, gently remonstrated with Elsie, and tenderly picked up little Eliot and patted him on the back till his tears subsided.

  “You’re so good with little children,” Marian said when he returned. “It’s a shame you don’t have any of your own.”

  “Mama keeps asking me about that.” He sighed. “But I don’t seem to be able to find the right person. Perhaps I’m lacking. No one’s seemed particularly interested in me, either.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said. “A handsome, healthy young man like you who’s done so well in life?”

  He looked distractedly into the distance, as if this troubled him too. “Yes, it’s strange. I must have some deficiency. Something I’m not aware of …” He stopped, considering this. “… that I can’t find the right one.”

  PART IV

  On the Shores of Acheron

  Chapter 15

  Following the incident at the Lido, Johnnie slept through the night with the aid of the laudanum. When he finally got up, he was sluggish and slow and unspeaking. She watched as he stumbled around the sala, tall and bent and painfully thin, like a stick figure, his hands shaking as he poured his morning coffee from the urn and then spilled it from the cup. Had he forgotten what had happened on the beach? That he’d pushed her? She was afraid to confront him, to make him angry. Perhaps it was better left forgotten. Perhaps he’d be all right now.