George Gissing: A Fan's Commonplace Blog

Commonplace 74 George & Mrs Annie Coward part 2.

Little Red Riding Hood by Gustave Doré 1883

Now, it seems unlikely George was looking for your actual love of the emotional kind, and he wasn't interested in a life partner when he had his dalliance with Annie Coward. There was the means, motive and opportunity for a bit of buckshee slap and tickle and he took it - according to Morley Roberts, who was a frequent visitor to George's Chelsea home. Annie was married, her husband was fertile and away from home a lot, so any unfortunate slips with whatever contraception they used could be hidden in the marital set up. Annie could also be presumed to be disease-free - sexually disease-free. George was beyond the 4-year long primary and secondary stages of his own syphilis, and in the latent stage which we now know is not contagious. This latent stage produced ailments for the sufferer, but not transmissible ones, but in George's time, little was known about the stages of syphilis or the prognosis. He would possibly not have realised the ailments he so frequently suffered are classic signs of the disease.

Wherever George resided, from the moment he was born - with the exception of the Alderley Edge few years - he sought out female company, not always for sexual reasons, of course. He liked to reap the rewards of his financial doings with them - if he was paying for services, by jingo! those services had to be provided! Good housekeeping was always high on his wish list of 'things a real woman must be good at', so a landlady who could give good housekeeping was an acceptable prospect, though she was, to him, of the lower orders. He needed someone to feel superior to, and he wanted to be the master of a female subordinate as the rolling out of the 'natural order' of things according to the Origin of Species - Him Tarzan; her, Jane sort of thing. He liked to be fed well, coddled when he was poorly, allowed to come and go as he pleased, never argued with and left in peace for most of the day - like some indulged pussy cat, who dominates and disdains in equal measure the humans who dote on him. 

And, with the taint of bohemianism still on him, and spouting the tosh he spewed about his emancipated views on women - but which he never evidenced in actions - he would have offered Annie a balm against her own suffering loneliness. What he needed to stimulate his egotistic libido was power over his mate - that he was Superman in the relationship (not the DC Comics version, the Fred Nietzsche one haha). And, as he had no moral compass originating in Christian doctrine to guide him on the way, he had no qualms about committing adultery - or encouraging Annie to. As it says in George Gissing's Commonplace Book (catchy title!): I strongly doubt whether husband & wife ever become as much to each other as relatives by blood.  This 'The Godfather/Michael Corleone' attitude is a continuing problem throughout all his three marriages (and will be fully described subsequently by letters to HG Wells from Gabrielle Fleury), because it informs his moral attitude towards responsibility and loyalty to these dependent women. Wives are expendable, but his family are never far from his thoughts. It makes you realise what a peculiar lot some of those Gissings were.

It might be presumed Annie threw herself at him, but, really... You can imagine how he screwed the maximum sympathy out of his situation. First, he posed as the caring and attentive husband, dealing compassionately with Marianne aka Nell's ailments; then, the frustrated artist, misunderstood and ignored by a fickle public; then the little boy lost miles from home and his mama's comforting bosom; he was then a put-upon drudge of a carer who was damaging his own health to care for a hopeless case; lastly, a young man in the full flush of his virility going to waste... the sighing, the moping about, the pathos dripping off him must have been overpowering. His refined ways, his love of quiet reading, his posh (manufactured) received pronunciation, the air of mystery only a man with dark secrets exudes... poor Annie was knocked bandy by the whole package, though we can assume at some stage, George must have negotiated some 'up front' arrangement to define the parameters as more of a 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' sort of a deal. George would have exploited her womanly need for attention in a situation where she was temporarily deserted by her (much older) travelling salesman husband. Flattery, helpfulness (carrying heavy items, undoing tightly-lidded jars?), copious thanks for her services, intimations of understanding of her unhappy situation... all typical of the predatory male on the make.

The Madness of Orlando 
by Gustave Dore 1877. 
George grew a beard in 1884!

Annie will have been fully aware that Marianne's days as Mrs Gissing version 1 were numbered, right from the first time she studied George's attitude towards caring for her. Was she hoping to step into Marianne's shoes and leave her husband for George? Maybe she helped George make his decision to take a hard line on his wife - we know what he was like for getting others to make up his mind for him, and he had already been discussing his life with Marianne with Frederic Harrison, so he was open to suggestions. In fact, the only times he ever confided in others about his past, it was to manage their perceptions of his life story - and then, he could more or less tell them what he chose to, because no-one was ever going to check up on it (as we know from the Anthony West account!). Did Mrs Coward act in her own interests? Women are born optimists, after all, and perhaps she made herself available as a Marianne substitute to help her get away from her own unhappy situation, whilst helping George over his own woes. But, she might have realised her two small children might be more than George would be prepared to take on, and thought she might as well get a bit of fun in life while she could. Annie was probably flattered by his attentions - a well-spoken, well-educated artistic type, with a ready line in poetic patter, with good manners and quiet, clean habits might have seemed heaven-sent. If she was lonely, maybe she thought he might be lonely, too. Maybe her thoughts would have been other if she had known her favourite lodger was an ex-con, potential serial wife-abandoner. 

It seems a bold step to take for Marianne to leave George, but he had changed towards her, that is clear from his letters, and Marianne will have felt it. Did he ever stop complaining about the medical bills? Making her feel guilty for being ill, then emotionally blackmailing her into submission, blaming her for his lack of natural ability in the writing stakes by making it clear her care needs were the cause of his lack of success? He resented the time he had to spend on her ailments - probably more than the money they cost him, though he had to earn that money, which was, to him, wasted time. But, leaving him and setting up on her own would have been a huge step for Marianne to take - did she find out about Mrs Coward's sympathetic ways working their magic on her husband, and realise she couldn't compete? Marianne will have picked up on the little 'tells' that psychologists use to describe body language - eye contact (or lack of it!), unselfconscious proximity, lip-licking, blushing, displacement actions such as nervous habit ticks; and the constant praising of a rival, the preferment, the subtle signs of flirting. Did George engineer then exploit the situation to make Marianne jealous enough to storm out? 

Flirting by Eugene de Blass 1904

The Letters give us some information. He and Marianne moved into Oakley Crescent in September 1882. In October, Marianne has been hospitalized for an operation on her eyes and was recuperating with a friend - not in Oakley Crescent, under her husband's care. George complained he had to go to Lambeth to collect her in a cab - at a cost of 4/6d. He then tells us he is hiring a lady to go out with Marianne - a carer, in effect - which will cost 1/- a week plus meals and travelling expenses for the one day a week (it can be presumed) Marianne is allowed out (maybe this outing is for a hospital appointment?). George has been writing 'The Hope of Pessimism', and so his humane faculties have been banjaxed. Was it that he couldn't care less about Marianne and has no compassion for her? Well, he writes, on October 31st, 1882: The matter has been that Helen's (he has stopped calling her Nell) ailments clearly make it impossible for her to remain here, as we had hoped, & have been seeking high and low for some new retreat. Inquiries are at present being made at a Home for Consumptives in Marylebone, where they require an entrance fee of £1.1, & after 5/- weekly. This of course extremely cheap, &, as the place seems a very good one, it would be very fine to secure it. Was it so very difficult to provide care for her in Oakley Crescent, or was she in the way of his philandering and it was a case of she had to be ousted?

Romeo and Juliet by Ford Maddox Brown 1867

As it happened, Marianne was admitted to Westminster Hospital on November 7th, and she was expecting an operation on her arm. In the light of the hoped-for admission to a Consumption Hospital, we can assume she was suffering badly with her scrofula, which was known to cause various tumours, particularly around gland tissue (such as armpits). But, he wrote to Algernon on November 2nd:
A step has been taken. They have consented to receive Helen into Westminster Hospital, in all probability they will operate on her arm. She goes on Tuesday. This is not a day too soon. For more than a week I have scarcely slept more than half an hour at a time through the night, & the results are appreciable. I have, in the meantime, got Mrs Harrison's help in searching for a permanent home. This will be made use of when she leaves Hospital.  Not because, according to most biographers, Marianne was a drunk who was never sober, but because she was ill with TB and he was tired of caring for and shelling out for an invalid who had no chance for a long-term, meaningful recovery. Heroic? Well, he had his own long-term health costs to consider. George was already beginning to suffer the incurable effects of the syphilis he contracted in the 1870s, though these would not have been identified as such at that time (we now know a lot more about syphilis and the way it damages various bodily systems). All that lumbago, stomach problems and the alleged varicose veins...

Bacchus by Peter Paul Rubens 1638-40

On December 14th, George writes Marianne is returning home. On December 27th 1882, he writes the letter informing Algernon that My wife, in brief, has gone to live with some people in Brixton. Christmas, for those who mark it, is always a stressful time, but maybe something happened in the household that decided Marianne on her next step. George was always cruel and unfeeling towards people he no longer needed, and so perhaps he was making it clear he wanted her out of his life, and playing up to Annie's attentions might have been a ploy to make Marianne leave. There is no reason given for this cold statement, but, of course, biographers assume Marianne was to blame. With an attentive landlady, who offered sex on a plate, what use was there in his life, for poor Marianne?

Marianne had lived with George in Oakley Crescent for about two months, and for much of that time, she was in hospital, or being looked after by someone other than her husband. Did George realise, in Annie Coward, he had a free, better version of a wife, minus the obligations to faithfulness or responsibility to at least attempt to honour his marriage vows? Or did he use Annie to make Marianne see the hopelessness of her predicament? It would be like George to play people off against each other, and he had a low opinion of women in their interactions with each other. Schopenhauer was reigning supreme in his heart, and that old German misogynist spoke at length about how inferior he considered women to be. George, ever the cultural sponge soaking up others' ideas to mould into his own, much more of a follower than the pioneer in the social revolution he is mistaken for by some fans, liked little mottoes and life-affirming phrases. You can imagine him cutting out and copying Schopenhauer's words, can't you, for his Commonplaces collection. Today, he would have a Pinterest account full of them, and maybe an Art Journal with badly collaged pictures adorning his favourite 'words of wisdom' entries. 

The Flood - Deucalion Holding Aloft His Wife by Paul Merwart c 1882

George had made it clear (especially to Mrs Frederic Harrison) that he no longer wished to live with Marianne, but this was not because his wife really was a drinker, or a whore - it was because he was fed up with caring for her. He had no compunction in making it clear he did not want her in his life, but he was lumbered with paying for her - to the tune of £1 a week. This might seem like he was being generous, but she was an ailing woman much in need of frequent hospital treatment and nursing care with its medical expenses, for which she would have to pay. And, as Marianne convalesced in Brixton, and came to terms with her dreadful lonely predicament and her tragic medical prognosis, George took to the town and indulged his fancy for Gilbert and Sullivan. 

Landscape With The Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder poss 1560 

On August 9th, 1883, George writes to sister Madge that he knows the Cowards are only going to be in Oakley Crescent for about another year. 

On May15th 1884, George sends Algernon his new address. And, on May 23rd, he writes to his sister, Madge: You will see that I have once more changed the place of my abode, & have come back to an old familiar neighbourhood. I was very comfortable indeed at Oakley Crescent, but the position of my room brought me so much into contact with the family that little by little my work had come to a stand-still. I could only save myself by exile, so here I am. 

Could only save himself from a damned good thrashing from a cuckolded husband, perhaps??