George Gissing: A Fan's Commonplace Blog

Commonplace 208  George & His Brother William PART TWO

On May 17^th 1879, five months before her marriage to George, Marianne aka Nell, went to stay with her ‘brother-in-law’, William in his lodgings at Rose Cottage, Wilmslow, Cheshire. 

Rose Cottage

In William's day, Wilmslow was a medium-sized village with regular transport links to Manchester, a prime place for commuters to live far removed from that city's terrible dirt and industry click. Nowadays, Wilmslow is one of the most prestigious addresses in the north of England, the home of the nouveau riche, footballers and celebrities and is a sort of Northern version of Loughton click minus the Southern charm. (I would say that, as I am a Southerner haha) However, it is also renowned as the place where Alan Turing committed suicide in 1954, following the homophobic harassment he received at the hands of the misguided British Establishment.

This little holiday was meant to improve the state of Marianne's health, but was mainly to give George a break from his role of carer. William, no stranger to illness himself (pulmonary tuberculosis had forced him to abandon working in a bank), demonstrated a marked degree of empathy towards Marianne, providing her with what might have been one of the happiest times of her life, if not in fact, the last happy time.

 

Adlington Road

Marianne suffered from scrofula, the glandular form of tuberculosis. George's letters to Algernon and William explain how this manifested itself - convulsions, rheumatism, abdominal neuralgia, haemoptysis (spitting blood); tonsillitis, congestion; insomnia; tumours on her arm and face; toothache; ‘erysipelas-like’ facial lesions; confusion; weight loss; delirium; headache; and serious eye problems. These are, in themselves, debilitating and disabling - Marianne needed someone to care about the outcome of all this suffering, and George was no doubt demonstrating ambivalence, already wishing he could jump ship and leave her to it - which he eventually did, not long after they were legally married. George had taken on the role of carer reluctantly and resentfully, and his letters demonstrate this.

In Marianne’s time, treatment for scrofula was ineffectual, bordering on the iatrogenic. Toxic substances such as antimony; mercury; baryta (bromide); hemlock; belladonna; and opium were prescribed. Ironically, even back in the eighteenth century, these toxic substances were known to produce seizures and neurological damage; in the nineteenth, they  could be bought 'over the counter' in shops such as George's father's chemist's shop (that's a lot of apostrophes!) in Wakefield.  There was the option of surgery to remove the disfiguring pustules but this was often ill-advised as surgical intervention was known to carry the risk of spreading the disease to other organs. There was no cure for it until the advent of antibiotics in the middle of the twentieth century, but drug-resistant strains are now making TB a formidable foe once more, especially in Africa and China.

Though we will never know exactly how spitefully his resentment manifested itself behind closed doors, the callous way George blamed Nell for her own, as well as his, predicament, remains one of George's vilest acts towards her, possibly only topped by the character assassination he regularly visited upon her good name that went on as far as the 1890s and his grovelling relationship with Miss Collet. In order to deflect his own guilt at abandoning his first wife (thereby adding to her great suffering), he destroyed his Diaries up the year 1888, the year that more or less started with her death. This was done to prevent any sympathy going Marianne's way - after all, he couldn't blame his wives for his miserable life if anyone could ever get to know and like them, or maybe sympathise and realise how badly he treated them, could he? No; all sympathy had to go to him, the hard-done by husband paying the doctors' bills and 'caring' for Nell. If it wasn't for George's replies to William's (and, to a lesser extent, Algernon's) letters, we might believe George's finely crafted version of Nell's life. George writes angrily about how her physical condition affects his mental life - he makes no mention of how it affects hers.

At the time of the holiday with Will, it was epilepsy that dominated her health concerns. Epilepsy is a sudden, recurrent episode of sensory disturbance and loss of consciousness generally associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Typical seizures present a range of observable behaviours immediately before unconsciousness sets in. This ‘fugue state’ may bring slurred speech, problems with balance, the appearance of stupefaction, and hallucination-like sensations of touch and sight which may result in bizarre reactions and behaviours. In the classic grand mal fit there is sudden collapse often resulting in injury producing bleeding wounds (particularly to the head), frequently accompanied by disturbing, frightening, sounds as the vocal chords go in to spasm. Unconsciousness follows, then a process of bodily rigidity, writhing movements, possible incontinence, and tongue-biting with bloody frothing saliva. Clothes may have become torn or dishevelled, embarrassing for all when undergarments or intimate body parts are inadvertently displayed. Seizures of the grand mal type are usually single events, but in ‘status epilepticus’ the sufferer does not regain consciousness but returns to restart the fit process perhaps several times. This is often a life-threatening situation due to problems with getting enough air to the lungs. Anyone with, for example, underlying lung disease - such as TB - is particularly vulnerable.

On regaining consciousness there may be confusion and disorientation and the sufferer might exhibit ‘post- seizure automatism’, a situation sometimes leading to potentially socially inappropriate behaviours, such as removing clothes or interacting in an uncharacteristically sexually provocative way with strangers. Belligerence and aggression with swearing and shouting are also possible, pre- and post-seizure. Today, as in George's, more often than not, the ignorant would assume the victim of these attacks is paralytically drunk and so leave the victim possibly suffocating in the street, unable to regain consciousness. We now know there are many forms of epilepsy that produce a broad range of signs and symptoms. The causes of epilepsy are largely still a mystery, but damage to the brain by injury, infection, genetic abnormality, or environmental factors is often a precursor. It is well-known to be exacerbated by stress - Marianne certainly had her fair share of that, living with George.

St Bartholomew's Wilmslow

William was more than sympathetic to her plight - he displayed a degree of empathy that was never at any time to be found in George's make-up. To this was matched the practical application of his own personal philosophy of what contributes to a picture of good health: good personal hygiene, tasty and adequate nutrition and diverting mental stimulation. Added to this was his total belief in PMA - Positive Mental Attitude - for him, there was no more efficacious way for the human body to tackle the adversity of illness. Will may have channelled the philosophy of Samuel Smiles and his 'Self Help' here, but he always believed in facing up to life's challenges, and he was not one to make a health mountain out of a molehill. Being the opposite of George in many ways, he played down the parlous state of his own health and never sought out that dratted 'sympathy' George so cravenly needed. In fact, he would have been embarrassed to find others feeling sorry for him or thinking he was in need of special treatment.