We commence Book Three with Aurora telling us a little of her career after her aunt’s death. There’s some wonderfully bitchy lines that make me wish EBB had lived in the age of Twitter (or, I mean, at least the age of online criticism, right?).
He’s ‘forced to marry where his heart is not,
Because the purse lacks where he lost his heart.’
Ah!–lost it because no one picked it up!
That’s really loss!
HARSH.
Mostly, though, she’s writing about writing, and it’s a good time to mention that L.M. Montgomery, author most famously of Emily of New Moon and its sequels, obviously drew a ton of inspiration from EBB, which makes me feel extra fond of LM Montgomery. I’ve already spotted one spot where Emily quotes from Aurora Leigh, and I bet if I knew the poem better when reading the Emily books, I’d notice more. It is NICE when authors I like like other authors I like.
We get introduced in this section to LADY WALDEMAR, a character I know must be important because whoever owned my copy of Aurora Leigh before me wrote in the margins LADY WALDEMAR! when she shows up. Because this is the olden days when people came to people’s houses just goddamn willy nilly apparently like damn son give a person a heads-up first cause I know the post in London was supernaturally speedy and convenient. This is your first sign that you’re not going to like Lady Waldemar.
She shows up at Aurora’s place and is like “blah blah blah this and that classical reference I don’t care about your poetry” and Aurora’s all “What?” and Lady Waldemar’s all “Okay, I’ll be straight with you, I love Romney Leigh, you know, your cousin? I’d like to not love him but here we are, I do love him so that’s what’s up, I sure am glad we’re friends Aurora” and Aurora’s all,
She actually says, “Lady Waldemar, the point’s the thing / We never seem to come to” because ahahahaha she’s a bitch and I love her.
(Romney Leigh sucks and I wouldn’t be mad if this became a poem about Lady Waldemar learning to not be a rich jerk and Aurora Leigh learning not to be an intellectual snob and then they fall in love.)
It turns out that Romney is about to marry a POOR GIRL (gasp) called Marian Erle, a disgusting seamstress, and Aurora’s like “So?” and Lady Waldemar says,
Despite,
Aurora, that most radiant morning name,
You’re dull as any London afternoon.
Obviously, Lady Waldemar wants Aurora to go up to visit Romney Leigh and do the whole “I object!” thing. All I’m saying is that in the gay version of this poem, Lady Waldemar and Aurora would road-trip to wherever Romney Leigh lives, and along the way maybe they’d have to stop at some inns with only one room available and the room only has one bed because of course, and what with one thing and another, by the time they get to the wedding, Lady Waldemar has some new interests in life.
In the real, not-gay version of the poem, Aurora says this:
A love that burns through veils will burn through masks,
And shrivel up treachery. What, love and lie!
Nay–go to the opera! Your love’s curable.
Aurora, who is contrary and whom I consequently adore, immediately runs off to meet Marian Erle, a properly Dickensian sort of waif who fled her home when her mother tried to sell her to a man, fell ill while running because of course, and met Romney Leigh at a hospital. She’s dull as dishwater but she does say one of the lines I remember loving best when I first read this poem:
‘Common words, perhaps;
The ministers in church might say the same;
But he, he made the church with what he spoke,–
The difference was the miracle,’ said she.
I just like that so much.
Then Romney Leigh shows up, and he and Aurora like assholes have this whole conversation about Marian in front of Marian. Marian just sits there waiting for Romney to notice her. It’s awful. He’s awful.
On the wedding day, Romney Leigh I guess invites all the rich people he knows, plus everyone in the whole of St. Giles? I am not clear exactly on what happens here, except that Aurora judges the fancy rich people in attendance for being snooty about the poors, but then she compares the poors to snakes and mud and says that remembering that day gives her nightmares. The only person at this wedding I don’t hate is this gentleman Lord Howe, who makes the following very good point:
There’s one true thing on earth;
That’s love! [Romney] takes it up, and dresses it,
And acts a play with it, as Hamlet did,
To show what cruel uncles we have been,
And how we should be uneasy in our minds.
Marian very sensibly leaves Romney at the altar. I expect this setback will do him a world of good. She writes him a letter all pitiful to say that she’s not good enough for him. Aurora Leigh suspects Lady Waldemar had a hand in it, but she’s not sure enough to say anything about it to Romney. And Romney’s like “Aurora, I’m real sad my marriage didn’t work out, and also, poetry’s still a dumb profession.”
Tune in next week for more brutal burns by Elizabeth Barrett Browning characters. I hope Aurora and Lady Waldemar get to hang out again. I enjoy how rude they are to each other.