In Love with George Eliot

by Kathy O'Shaughnessy

  Lewes, recalling Miss Simcox’ remark about Anthony’s ‘voluminous works’, took mischievous pleasure in introducing her to Trollope.

  Marian was about to offer Miss Simcox a handkerchief, to wipe her face, when she noticed that Miss Simcox was using her sleeve as a towel, surreptitiously turning her face away.

  In fact, Edith had turned away because of her colossal shyness. Her thoughts were flooding her so that she was confused. She was aware of a long, pretty room, books, prints, flowers tastefully arranged. Then she felt a touch on her arm. George Eliot was there, she saw a blur of pearls, lace, light brown hair. ‘Miss Simcox, shall we sit down?’ On the sofa they were only two feet apart. There was a scent, beguiling, soft. Edith found the courage to lift her head and look properly at Marian, and was surprised by her face, it was so kindly and tender. ‘Tell me something about yourself, Miss Simcox,’ the musical voice was saying. ‘Have you — read anything of interest, lately?’

  Edith mentioned Tennyson. It was the only name that came into her head. They talked for some time, then fell silent. Marian was looking at the rug, thinking, before facing her again.

  ‘What — do you want to do?’ asked Marian, hesitantly, with a look of real curiosity. She was beginning to feel better, something to do with her guest’s difficulty and shyness — she wanted to put her at ease. ‘Apart from writing reviews of a high order?’

  How did Marian intuit her so accurately? She had asked the primary question — how she, a woman, should spend her life. In Marian’s face, she saw now, there was not just kindness but sadness too, and that comforted her. Breathing more easily, Edith said she wanted to write books, not only reviews.

  ‘And why should you not?’

  ‘Why should I not …’ Edith repeated.

  ‘You must do what you want to do.’

  They were simple words. It was pleasant hearing them, though, from George Eliot, or Mrs Lewes.

  Edith sat still, clasping her hands.

  ‘I would also like to,’ — she was encouraged by the other’s simple directness — ‘help.’

  Watching her keenly now, Marian asked in what way.

  Edith blushed. Complaints about social injustice had an obvious air. All she said was, ‘I see much of London.’

  She felt Marian absorbing her.

  ‘But I do want to write. I know Latin,’ went on Edith, suddenly feeling she could say almost anything. ‘I know French, German, and I mean to learn Greek —’

  Edith stopped, struck by the extraordinary beauty of her hostess’ eyes. But then — the entire scene — how could she take it in? The smell of juniper from the fire, that rain drumming on the window, the snapping gently motoric activity of the fire and warmth, and the present famous company. How rich Mrs Lewes’ life was! — full to the brim. How had she done it, earned her own heaven so perfectly? Her books, her lover, her hospitable home and admiring friends.

  ‘You still look wet, Miss — ah —’ said Anthony Trollope, in his loud, well-meaning way, standing up in his gloriously tasteless checked trousers.

  ‘Simcox. The weather is inclement,’ — nodding.

  ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘Kensington.’

  ‘What means of transport?’ boomed the kindly Trollope.

  ‘I walked.’

  A hungry sparrow of a Dorothea, thought Marian, wanting to set the world to rights. She had given succour to the sparrow, she knew. And somehow to herself, too. Her gloom of the morning was gone.

  Lewes walked Edith to the door to say goodbye, and said it had been a promising occasion.

  Edith heard irony in his tone. ‘He doesn’t like me,’ she thought, as she went down the steps. She was used to painful thoughts. Yet walking home, she was able to console herself. Before she left, Marian had held her cold hands in her warm ones, and said, ‘You will come back, won’t you?’

  4

  We are doing an experiment in the house. I take the mischievous third dog up to my flat at night, separating her from her companions, to see if the dawn chorus of barking will stop.

  Her name is Billy, she is a mongrel, with a streak of chestnut spaniel. When I collect her, she speeds upstairs. In my flat she runs in circles, sniffing everywhere. I figure she’s quite young, maybe two. We go up to the attic where my bed is, my desk, my work, George Eliot books, laptop, notebooks. I put a pillow down for her to sleep on, in front of the boarded-up fireplace. She takes a look, goes instead into the corner. After going round and round, clawing noisily with her paws at the floor, as if the boards are diggable earth, she stops, curls up. She’s made the corner into her house, flanked on both sides by the walls. Her nose is wrapped into her tail, in a circle.

  Lying there with the light off, I can hear her breathing.

  She wakes at six-thirty, a big improvement. I put on boots, coat, take her out into the cold. It’s light, the birds are noisy.

  Dale has given me spare keys, when I leave for work I slip Billy through his door.

  ***

  Next Thursday, Hans and I are preparing the class when Ann knocks on the door, and asks us to come to the canteen.

  The canteen is cavernous with a high ceiling where the pipes of the building are exposed. As we queue with our trays, Ann glances at the photographs on the wall, in lurid colour, six feet high, of famous academics who have worked at QEC. ‘So pleased with themselves’, she mutters, frowning and shaking her head.

  Ann is wearing a white long-sleeved blouse with a brooch at her throat. It’s a warm day in April but the heating is on at full throttle.

  ‘Listen,’ she says, as we sit down. And now she turns to me. ‘Are you free to go with Hans next Friday? To Coventry? To the Eliot museum?’

  ‘Me?’ I say in surprise.

  The department is setting up an exhibition to accompany the conference, and Ann and Hans were going to Coventry to sign documents and check the exhibits. The plea in her eye resembles a young girl’s. I look at Hans and then take a biscuit quickly. I don’t like what I see. He looks so contemptuous.

  ‘Why — do you — suggest this?’ he asks, in a voice of extreme politeness.

  ‘Because,’ says Ann, ‘I’m very behind, as you know. I’m behind on my book, I’m behind on everything, in fact.’ Her voice is quavering. Hans looks away.

  ‘Look,’ I begin —

  He says it’s fine; if I am free, that would be great. I look down, I don’t like my red skirt. It’s agreed I’ll go with Hans. I ring my sister Sal that night and try to describe the strange couple.

  5

  Spring came, and Marian admitted to herself that the germ of a new book was at last forming in her mind. She had begun researching Jewish culture — the theme, of a people seeking a home, stirred her. But going abroad in the summer, it was the sight of a woman in the grip of a compulsion, gambling, that caught her imagination.

  She needed to find a quiet place for this germ to grow, away from socialising. They began to look more actively for a place in the country. So far nothing had been quite right, but Johnny Cross was looking for them. And they trusted him to get it right. Johnny, their Nephew as they called him, had invested their money into American railway stock with great success.

  One autumn Sunday, when the guests had gone, Marian stretched herself out on the sofa. ‘I hope I have not gone on too long,’ Benjamin Jowett had said, before he left. On the contrary, she replied. Marian had touched his fingers. The touch would say much. The oil-lamps glowed and smelled faintly sulphurous. But now she was tired. She had begun every conversation with a gentle, careful enquiry, and with each guest she ended up witnessing her own effect. Her genius for seeing and understanding, compounded by her compelling need to give, gave her a taste in her own mouth of ecstasy. The candles burned brightly in her vision; she had a hot, wonderful sense of proof.

  ‘Madonna, hello,’ said Lewes. George’s voic
e sounded odd, to her ear. He wanted to sit beside her, she could see, but lying there on the sofa she did not feel like moving.

  ‘I had a letter from Bertie,’ said Lewes.

  Bertie, Africa. At once she felt bilious, the candles burned less brightly.

  Bertie had followed Thornie out to Africa years before; his life so far had been a series of misfortunes. Illness, robberies, botched deals, loss, loneliness. He was married now with a child. Reluctantly, Marian shifted herself, sat up and took the letter. She read through, then more slowly:

  I am still suffering from Neuralgia in my back and hips, and have got quite a skeleton. We have had a very long dry winter, and our oxen have been very poor, we lost three from poverty.

  You did not tell me the name of your last Work. I have read a great deal latterly of a night, not being able to sleep through pain.

  Love from Eliza and myself, to you and little Mutter.

  Marian put the letter down. It was bad — very bad. It was a dread echo of Thornie. Briefly she closed her eyes. Bertie wanted them to suggest he came here. At the same time, it was clear he did not dare ask himself.

  ‘It sounds like Thornie all over again,’ said Lewes, at the mantelpiece. He was fingering his moustache repeatedly.

  ‘If,’ Marian said carefully, ‘he comes home, his family will come with him.’

  Lewes looked at her. ‘It’s a bad business,’ he said. He moved away from the sofa where she was, to be near the window. He had glimpsed her now, her kind-looking face having acquired the massive, granite-like quality it sometimes did. They were both silent, the fire spat.

  ‘They will all come,’ she said, ‘and where will they live?’

  Lewes shrugged. He went back to the mantelpiece to light a cigar. But he could not stay still, he started pacing, smoking, his heart beating. He observed mechanically that Amelia had come in, and begun setting the empty glasses on a tray, bowing her shoulders as if to look invisible.

  He knew he could not win this argument. If he was truthful, he, too, found the idea of Bertie and family coming here, extremely daunting. They were on a tight track, the way they lived. Yet to leave Bertie out there was to abandon him.

  They came to no solution that night; they would send money, and talk again soon, when they had further news. Lewes slept downstairs alone in the study.

  The next day, after leaving the London Library, he walked by the Thames. A boat was skimming fast, he could not help watching it. It was going diagonally, losing its course. He found himself descending the bank. ‘Hey!’ he shouted. He was in an incomprehensible welter of indignation mixed with fear. What was the fool of a skipper up to? Who was steering it? A man was at the helm in a black cap. At last the boat averted the shore, and began, wobbling, to regain its course.

  Lewes patted his pocket. Bertie’s letter was in there, he was aware of it as he walked. He had meant to read it again by the river. No, the sun was too bright.

  He could smell burning leaves. He remembered the garden from his first year of marriage to diminutive, pretty Agnes, in Kensington. He had a nostalgic happy sensation, and his eyes were suddenly sticky.

  Here we are all, by day; by night we’re hurl’d

  By dreams, each one, into a several world

  He said this to himself, as he walked along Embankment. He and Thornton Hunt, his great friend, who became Agnes’ lover, used to take night walks together by the river, just where he was walking now. Late, he would go home. Those babies, those toddlers. He sometimes sang to them in the dark.

  6

  Edith appeared occasionally on Sundays, sometimes with her brother, the classicist Augustus Simcox. More often she came alone. She was Marian’s most intellectual woman friend. Edith’s face was a mask of composure, tightly in place: but the same Edith had tears in her eyes on occasion, and would drop, abruptly, to the floor, and kneel at Marian’s feet. These gestures, that were so without contrivance, touched Marian. Over time their correspondence became close, Marian felt herself to be nurturing and signed herself Mother.

  Edith’s courage grew. She began to demonstrate her affection, she began to give in to her own desire to kiss Marian’s hands, cheeks. To her amazement her kisses were not rejected! Sometimes Marian would lean her cheek towards her to be kissed. She cannot dislike me, Edith said to herself, joy springing up in her heart. Her own sensations mounted in consequence. She knelt regularly now, on the Priory rug, and mostly, when she kissed Marian’s hands, Lewes was there, giving surprising but definitely genial encouragement.

  One day, when Edith was kneeling at Marian’s feet, Marian felt the warm soft touch of Edith’s lips on her foot, the upper part, where the shoe gave way to her stocking.

  ‘Nay,’ said Marian, softly.

  ‘Oh, let her!’ urged Lewes, good-naturedly, but impatiently.

  Marian did so. Edith’s homage was sweet. She blushed, her lip trembled, Marian read her emotions with dreadful ease. And she couldn’t help it, her own dull mood lifted at the sight.

  Yet Edith made her uneasy. The source of her unease lay in herself, she knew, but she could neither find, nor quite see it.

  7

  I am in the Herbert Gallery with Hans, in Coventry, looking at Eliot’s kid gloves, her writing cabinet, a folding table. We come to the piano, her Broadwood grand. ‘We certainly can’t take this to London!’ says Hans. I start talking about how musical she was, how the piano was a symbol of status. ‘I know I know, she’s really your George Eliot,’ says Hans, half in my ear, joking as usual, in a mock-reassuring voice. I laugh; the day’s been easier than I thought it would be.

  After we’ve signed the insurance documents, we stand outside; neither of us speaks at first.

  ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ he says, suddenly.

  ‘Well —’

  ‘You need to get home,’ he says quickly.

  ‘No … no … sure.’

  We go to the War Memorial Park, and it feels like a holiday. The sun is out, we buy ice creams, find a bench near the pond. Children are feeding the ducks; I watch as Hans gives them a croissant: they suddenly freeze, almost comically, before snatching it and running back to the ducks. I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a while.

  At the station it’s rush hour. Inside there are no two seats free next to each other.

  The train starts moving. I’m seated beside a stranger, the aisle is on my left. Peering down, I can just see Hans’ grey trainer and protruding knee on the other side. The train is noisy with its compressed, speedy rhythmic rattle, a high-pitched sound as we take a long bend. I take out my phone, put it down; take out my book, put that down too. I close my eyes.

  After a while the train slows, we’re coming to Milton Keynes. The doors are opening — there’s a voice over the loudspeaker. Hans is standing, letting the person next to him out. I get up, pick up my bag, and take the empty seat.

  ‘Hi — hi — I saw the seat —’

  ‘Great.’ He’s taken his jacket off, rolled up his sleeves, and got his laptop out. I’m so near I notice the thin chain he wears round his neck. And I notice his arms. Why do I notice his arms and his hands? There’s something capable about them.

  ‘I’ve just sent you some letters,’ he says. ‘Eliot letters.’

  Sitting next to him, I relax. I’ve always loved trains: the sprung motion and the sound of them. Outside it’s light, the landscape is flat, the sun is just starting its descent, shadows to lengthen. Hans asks if I want tea. He returns with two polystyrene cups with lids.

  ‘You were married, weren’t you,’ he says, out of the blue.

  I say yes, to someone called Rob.

  He hesitates; then: ‘But you didn’t want children?’

  ‘Oh! No, I did.’

  He looks at me. ‘I don’t mean to offend you, but —’

  ‘He couldn’t have them,’ I cut in.

&
nbsp; We are silent again. He is looking thoughtful. ‘But you didn’t want to, you know, go another route.’

  ‘I did,’ I say. I don’t mind telling him. ‘I did, he didn’t. I sort of accepted it at the time — but when we broke up —’

  I touch the polystyrene. The tea is still too hot to drink. ‘It was too late then. I’m forty-six.’

  ‘Difficult,’ he says. He doesn’t put too much sympathy in his voice; just a fragment.

  ‘But you know,’ he says, turning to me with a half-smile, ‘it’s not all skittles and roses.’

  ‘Beer and skittles. No. I’m going to see Rob, actually.’

  ‘Your ex?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’ He is looking at me in complete surprise.

  ‘We were together a long time. It’s nice if we can be, I don’t know, friendly.’

  He is silent, before saying decisively — disapprovingly — ‘I can’t see the point of it at all. These things can rekindle.’

  ‘There’s no question of that; he’s with someone else. His assistant.’

  ‘Classic!’ — contemptuously.

  The ticket collector comes, we show our tickets, then settle back to watch the view go by. After a while:

  ‘Ann says —’ Hans, in a perfectly neutral tone ‘— that you don’t see eye to eye about the conference.’

  I think, then explain: Ann wants to grill Eliot politically on the first day. I worry this will set a negative tone for the whole thing.

  We’re silent; just the rumbling, comfortable rattle of the train. Eventually he says: ‘The politically adventurous one is Simcox, right?’