Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XXXV. Page 3
"Oh, this is glorious!" Gwendolen burst forth, in forgetfulness ofeverything but the immediate impression: there had been a littleintoxication for her in the grand spaces of courts and building, and thefact of her being an important person among them. "This _is_ glorious!Only I wish there were a horse in every one of the boxes. I would tentimes rather have these stables than those at Diplow."
But she had no sooner said this than some consciousness arrested her, andinvoluntarily she turned her eyes toward Deronda, who oddly enough hadtaken off his felt hat and stood holding it before him as if they hadentered a room or an actual church. He, like others, happened to belooking at her, and their eyes met--to her intense vexation, for it seemedto her that by looking at him she had betrayed the reference of herthoughts, and she felt herself blushing: she exaggerated the impressionthat even Sir Hugo as well as Deronda would have of her bad taste inreferring to the possession of anything at the Abbey: as for Deronda, shehad probably made him despise her. Her annoyance at what she imagined tobe the obviousness of her confusion robbed her of her usual facility incarrying it off by playful speech, and turning up her face to look at theroof, she wheeled away in that attitude. If any had noticed her blush assignificant, they had certainly not interpreted it by the secret windingsand recesses of her feeling. A blush is no language: only a dubious flag-signal which may mean either of two contradictories. Deronda alone had afaint guess at some part of her feeling; but while he was observing her hewas himself under observation.
"Do you take off your hat to horses?" said Grandcourt, with a slightsneer.
"Why not?" said Deronda, covering himself. He had really taken off the hatautomatically, and if he had been an ugly man might doubtless have done sowith impunity; ugliness having naturally the air of involuntary exposure,and beauty, of display.
Gwendolen's confusion was soon merged in the survey of the horses, whichGrandcourt politely abstained from appraising, languidly assenting to SirHugo's alternate depreciation and eulogy of the same animal, as one thathe should not have bought when he was younger, and piqued himself on hishorses, but yet one that had better qualities than many more expensivebrutes.
"The fact is, stables dive deeper and deeper into the pocket nowadays, andI am very glad to have got rid of that _démangeaison_," said Sir Hugo, asthey were coming out.
"What is a man to do, though?" said Grandcourt. "He must ride. I don't seewhat else there is to do. And I don't call it riding to sit astride a setof brutes with every deformity under the sun."
This delicate diplomatic way of characterizing Sir Hugo's stud did notrequire direct notice; and the baronet, feeling that the conversation hadworn rather thin, said to the party generally, "Now we are going to seethe cloister--the finest bit of all--in perfect preservation; the monksmight have been walking there yesterday."
But Gwendolen had lingered behind to look at the kenneled blood-hounds,perhaps because she felt a little dispirited; and Grandcourt waited forher.
"You had better take my arm," he said, in his low tone of command; and shetook it.
"It's a great bore being dragged about in this way, and no cigar," saidGrandcourt.
"I thought you would like it."
"Like it!--one eternal chatter. And encouraging those ugly girls--invitingone to meet such monsters. How that _fat_ Deronda can bear looking ather----"
"Why do you call him _fat_? Do you object to him so much?"
"Object? no. What do I care about his being a _fat_? It's of noconsequence to me. I'll invite him to Diplow again if you like."
"I don't think he would come. He is too clever and learned to care about_us_," said Gwendolen, thinking it useful for her husband to be told(privately) that it was possible for him to be looked down upon.
"I never saw that make much difference in a man. Either he is a gentleman,or he is not," said Grandcourt.
That a new husband and wife should snatch, a moment's _tete-à-tete_ waswhat could be understood and indulged; and the rest of the party left themin the rear till, re-entering the garden, they all paused in thatcloistered court where, among the falling rose-petals thirteen yearsbefore, we saw a boy becoming acquainted with his first sorrow. Thiscloister was built of a harder stone than the church, and had been ingreater safety from the wearing weather. It was a rare example of anorthern cloister with arched and pillard openings not intended forglazing, and the delicately-wrought foliage of the capitals seemed stillto carry the very touches of the chisel. Gwendolen had dropped herhusband's arm and joined the other ladies, to whom Deronda was noticingthe delicate sense which had combined freedom with accuracy in theimitation of natural forms.
"I wonder whether one oftener learns to love real objects through theirrepresentations, or the representations through the real objects," hesaid, after pointing out a lovely capital made by the curled leaves ofgreens, showing their reticulated under-side with the firm gradual swellof its central rib. "When I was a little fellow these capitals taught meto observe and delight in the structure of leaves."
"I suppose you can see every line of them with your eyes shut," saidJuliet Fenn.
"Yes. I was always repeating them, because for a good many years thiscourt stood for me as my only image of a convent, and whenever I read ofmonks and monasteries, this was my scenery for them."
"You must love this place very much," said Miss Fenn, innocently, notthinking of inheritance. "So many homes are like twenty others. But thisis unique, and you seem to know every cranny of it. I dare say you couldnever love another home so well."
"Oh, I carry it with me," said Deronda, quietly, being used to allpossible thoughts of this kind. "To most men their early home is no morethan a memory of their early years, and I'm not sure but they have thebest of it. The image is never marred. There's no disappointment inmemory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side."
Gwendolen felt sure that he spoke in that way out of delicacy to her andGrandcourt--because he knew they must hear him; and that he probablythought of her as a selfish creature who only cared about possessingthings in her own person. But whatever he might say, it must have been asecret hardship to him that any circumstances of his birth had shut himout from the inheritance of his father's position; and if he supposed thatshe exulted in her husband's taking it, what could he feel for her butscornful pity? Indeed it seemed clear to her that he was avoiding her, andpreferred talking to others--which nevertheless was not kind in him.
With these thoughts in her mind she was prevented by a mixture of prideand timidity from addressing him again, and when they were looking at therows of quaint portraits in the gallery above the cloisters, she kept upher air of interest and made her vivacious remarks without any directappeal to Deronda. But at the end she was very weary of her assumedspirits, and Grandcourt turned into the billiard-room, she went to thepretty boudoir which had been assigned to her, and shut herself up to lookmelancholy at her ease. No chemical process shows a more wonderfulactivity than the transforming influence of the thoughts we imagine to begoing on in another. Changes in theory, religion, admirations, may beginwith a suspicion of dissent or disapproval, even when the grounds ofdisapproval are but matter of searching conjecture.
Poor Gwendolen was conscious of an uneasy, transforming process--all theold nature shaken to its depths, its hopes spoiled, its pleasuresperturbed, but still showing wholeness and strength in the will toreassert itself. After every new shock of humiliation she tried to adjustherself and seize her old supports--proud concealment, trust in newexcitements that would make life go by without much thinking; trust insome deed of reparation to nullify her self-blame and shield her from avague, ever-visiting dread of some horrible calamity; trust in thehardening effect of use and wont that would make her indifferent to hermiseries.
Yes--miseries. This beautiful, healthy young creature, with her two-and-twenty years and her gratified ambition, no longer felt inclined to kissher fortunate image in the glass. She looked at it with wonder that shecould be so miserable. One belief which had accompanied her through herunmarried life as a self-cajoling superstition, encouraged by thesubordination of every one about her--the belief in her own power ofdominating--was utterly gone. Already, in seven short weeks, which seemedhalf her life, her husband had gained a mastery which she could no moreresist than she could have resisted the benumbing effect from the touch ofa torpedo. Gwendolen's will had seemed imperious in its small girlishsway; but it was the will of a creature with a large discourse ofimaginative fears: a shadow would have been enough to relax its hold. Andshe had found a will like that of a crab or a boa-constrictor, which goeson pinching or crushing without alarm at thunder. Not that Grandcourt waswithout calculation of the intangible effects which were the chief meansof mastery; indeed, he had a surprising acuteness in detecting thatsituation of feeling in Gwendolen which made her proud and rebelliousspirit dumb and helpless before him.
She had burned Lydia Glasher's letter with an instantaneous terror lestother eyes should see it, and had tenaciously concealed from Grandcourtthat there was any other cause of her violent hysterics than theexcitement and fatigue of the day: she had been urged into an impliedfalsehood. "Don't ask me--it was my feeling about everything--it was thesudden change from home." The words of that letter kept repeatingthemselves, and hung on her consciousness with the weight of a propheticdoom. "I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried as wellas mine. You had your warning. You have chosen to injure me and mychildren. He had meant to marry me. He would have married me at last, ifyou had not broken your word. You will have your punishment. I desire itwith all my soul. Will you give him this letter to set him against me andruin us more--me and my children? Shall you like to stand before yourhusband with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in histhoughts and yours? Will he think you have any right to complain when hehas made you miserable? You took him with your eyes open. The willingwrong you have done me will be your curse."
The words had nestled their venomous life within her, and stirredcontinually the vision of the scene at the Whispering Stones. That scenewas now like an accusing apparition: she dreaded that Grandcourt shouldknow of it--so far out of her sight now was that possibility she had oncesatisfied herself with, of speaking to him about Mrs. Glasher and herchildren, and making them rich amends. Any endurance seemed easier thanthe mortal humiliation of confessing that she knew all before she marriedhim, and in marrying him had broken her word. For the reasons by which shehad justified herself when the marriage tempted her, and all her easyarrangement of her future power over her husband to make him do betterthan he might be inclined to do, were now as futile as the burned-outlights which set off a child's pageant. Her sense of being blameworthy wasexaggerated by a dread both definite and vague. The definite dread waslest the veil of secrecy should fall between her and Grandcourt, and givehim the right to taunt her. With the reading of that letter had begun herhusband's empire of fear.
And her husband all the while knew it. He had not, indeed, any distinctknowledge of her broken promise, and would not have rated highly theeffect of that breach on her conscience; but he was aware not only of whatLush had told him about the meeting at the Whispering Stones, but also ofGwendolen's concealment as to the cause of her sudden illness. He feltsure that Lydia had enclosed something with the diamonds, and that thissomething, whatever it was, had at once created in Gwendolen a newrepulsion for him and a reason for not daring to manifest it. He did notgreatly mind, or feel as many men might have felt, that his hopes inmarriage were blighted: he had wanted to marry Gwendolen, and he was not aman to repent. Why should a gentleman whose other relations in life arecarried on without the luxury of sympathetic feeling, be supposed torequire that kind of condiment in domestic life? What he chiefly felt wasthat a change had come over the conditions of his mastery, which, far fromshaking it, might establish it the more thoroughly. And it wasestablished. He judged that he had not married a simpleton unable toperceive the impossibility of escape, or to see alternative evils: he hadmarried a girl who had spirit and pride enough not to make a fool ofherself by forfeiting all the advantages of a position which had attractedher; and if she wanted pregnant hints to help her in making up her mindproperly he would take care not to withhold them.
Gwendolen, indeed, with all that gnawing trouble in her consciousness, hadhardly for a moment dropped the sense that it was her part to bear herselfwith dignity, and appear what is called happy. In disclosure ofdisappointment or sorrow she saw nothing but a humiliation which wouldhave been vinegar to her wounds. Whatever her husband might have come atlast to be to her, she meant to wear the yoke so as not to be pitied. Forshe did think of the coming years with presentiment: she was frightened atGrandcourt. The poor thing had passed from her girlish sauciness ofsuperiority over this inert specimen of personal distinction into anamazed perception of her former ignorance about the possible mentalattitude of a man toward the woman he sought in marriage--of her presentignorance as to what their life with each other might turn into. Fornovelty gives immeasurableness to fear, and fills the early time of allsad changes with phantoms of the future. Her little coquetries, voluntaryor involuntary, had told on Grandcourt during courtship, and formed amedium of communication between them, showing him in the light of acreature such as she could understand and manage: But marriage hadnulified all such interchange, and Grandcourt had become a blankuncertainty to her in everything but this, that he would do just what hewilled, and that she had neither devices at her command to determine hiswill, nor any rational means of escaping it.
What had occurred between them and her wearing the diamonds was typical.One evening, shortly before they came to the Abbey, they were going todine at Brackenshaw Castle. Gwendolen had said to herself that she wouldnever wear those diamonds: they had horrible words clinging and crawlingabout them, as from some bad dream, whose images lingered on the perturbedsense. She came down dressed in her white, with only a streak of gold anda pendant of emeralds, which Grandcourt had given her, round her neck, andthe little emerald stars in her ears.
Grandcourt stood with his back to the fire and looked at her as sheentered.
"Am I altogether as you like?" she said, speaking rather gaily. She wasnot without enjoyment in this occasion of going to Brackenshaw Castle withher new dignities upon her, as men whose affairs are sadly involved willenjoy dining out among persons likely to be under a pleasant mistake aboutthem.
"No," said Grandcourt.
Gwendolen felt suddenly uncomfortable, wondering what was to come. She wasnot unprepared for some struggle about the diamonds; but suppose he weregoing to say, in low, contemptuous tones, "You are not in any way what Ilike." It was very bad for her to be secretly hating him; but it would bemuch worse when he gave the first sign of hating her.
"Oh, mercy!" she exclaimed, the pause lasting till she could bear it nolonger. "How am I to alter myself?"
"Put on the diamonds," said Grandcourt, looking straight at her with hisnarrow glance.
Gwendolen paused in her turn, afraid of showing any emotion, and feelingthat nevertheless there was some change in her eyes as they met his. Butshe was obliged to answer, and said as indifferently as she could, "Oh,please not. I don't think diamonds suit me."
"What you think has nothing to do with it," said Grandcourt, his _sottovoce_ imperiousness seeming to have an evening quietude and finish, likehis toilet. "I wish you to wear the diamonds."
"Pray excuse me; I like these emeralds," said Gwendolen, frightened inspite of her preparation. That white hand of his which was touching hiswhisker was capable, she fancied, of clinging round her neck andthreatening to throttle her; for her fear of him, mingling with the vagueforeboding of some retributive calamity which hung about her life, hadreached a superstitious point.
"Oblige me by telling me your reason for not wearing the diamonds when Idesire it," said Grandcourt. His eyes were still fixed upon her, and shefelt her own eyes narrowing under them as if to shut out an entering pain.
Of what use was the rebellion within her? She could say nothing that wouldnot hurt her worse than submission. Turning slowing and covering herselfagain, she went to her dressing-room. As she reached out the diamonds itoccurred to her that her unwillingness to wear them might have alreadyraised a suspicion in Grandcourt that she had some knowledge about themwhich he had not given her. She fancied that his eyes showed a delight intorturing her. How could she be defiant? She had nothing to say that wouldtouch him--nothing but what would give him a more painful grasp on herconsciousness.
"He delights in making the dogs and horses quail: that is half hispleasure in calling them his," she said to herself, as she opened thejewel-case with a shivering sensation.
"It will come to be so with me; and I shall quail. What else is there forme? I will not say to the world, 'Pity me.'"
She was about to ring for her maid when she heard the door open behindher. It was Grandcourt who came in.
"You want some one to fasten them," he said, coming toward her.
She did not answer, but simply stood still, leaving him to take out theornaments and fasten them as he would. Doubtless he had been used tofasten them on some one else. With a bitter sort of sarcasm againstherself, Gwendolen thought, "What a privilege this is, to have robbedanother woman of!"
"What makes you so cold?" said Grandcourt, when he had fastened the lastear-ring. "Pray put plenty of furs on. I hate to see a woman come into aroom looking frozen. If you are to appear as a bride at all, appeardecently."
This martial speech was not exactly persuasive, but it touched the quickof Gwendolen's pride and forced her to rally. The words of the bad dreamcrawled about the diamonds still, but only for her: to others they werebrilliants that suited her perfectly, and Grandcourt inwardly observedthat she answered to the rein.
"Oh, yes, mamma, quite happy," Gwendolen had said on her return to Diplow."Not at all disappointed in Ryelands. It is a much finer place than this--larger in every way. But don't you want some more money?"
"Did you not know that Mr. Grandcourt left me a letter on your wedding-day? I am to have eight hundred a year. He wishes me to keep Offendene forthe present, while you are at Diplow. But if there were some prettycottage near the park at Ryelands we might live there without muchexpense, and I should have you most of the year, perhaps."
"We must leave that to Mr. Grandcourt, mamma."
"Oh, certainly. It is exceedingly handsome of him to say that he will paythe rent for Offendene till June. And we can go on very well--without anyman-servant except Crane, just for out-of-doors. Our good Merry will staywith us and help me to manage everything. It is natural that Mr.Grandcourt should wish me to live in a good style of house in yourneighborhood, and I cannot decline. So he said nothing about it to you?"
"No; he wished me to hear it from you, I suppose."
Gwendolen in fact had been very anxious to have some definite knowledge ofwhat would be done for her mother, but at no moment since her marriage hadshe been able to overcome the difficulty of mentioning the subject toGrandcourt. Now, however, she had a sense of obligation which would notlet her rest without saying to him, "It is very good of you to provide formamma. You took a great deal on yourself in marrying a girl who hadnothing but relations belonging to her."
Grandcourt was smoking, and only said carelessly, "Of course I was notgoing to let her live like a gamekeeper's mother."
"At least he is not mean about money," thought Gwendolen, "and mamma isthe better off for my marriage."
She often pursued the comparison between what might have been, if she hadnot married Grandcourt, and what actually was, trying to persuade herselfthat life generally was barren of satisfaction, and that if she had chosendifferently she might now have been looking back with a regret as bitteras the feeling she was trying to argue away. Her mother's dullness, whichused to irritate her, she was at present inclined to explain as theordinary result of woman's experience. True, she still saw that she would"manage differently from mamma;" but her management now only meant thatshe would carry her troubles with spirit, and let none suspect them. Byand by she promised herself that she should get used to her heart-sores,and find excitements that would carry her through life, as a hard gallopcarried her through some of the morning hours. There was gambling: she hadheard stories at Leubronn of fashionable women who gambled in all sorts ofways. It seemed very flat to her at this distance, but perhaps if shebegan to gamble again, the passion might awake. Then there was thepleasure of producing an effect by her appearance in society: what didcelebrated beauties do in town when their husbands could afford display?All men were fascinated by them: they had a perfect equipage and toilet,walked into public places, and bowed, and made the usual answers, andwalked out again, perhaps they bought china, and practicedaccomplishments. If she could only feel a keen appetite for thosepleasures--could only believe in pleasure as she used to do!Accomplishments had ceased to have the exciting quality of promising anypre-eminence to her; and as for fascinated gentlemen--adorers who mighthover round her with languishment, and diversify married life with theromantic stir of mystery, passion, and danger, which her French readinghad given her some girlish notion of--they presented themselves to herimagination with the fatal circumstance that, instead of fascinating herin return, they were clad in her own weariness and disgust. The admiringmale, rashly adjusting the expression of his features and the turn of hisconversation to her supposed tastes, had always been an absurd object toher, and at present seemed rather detestable. Many courses are actuallypursued--follies and sins both convenient and inconvenient--withoutpleasure or hope of pleasure; but to solace ourselves with imagining anycourse beforehand, there must be some foretaste of pleasure in the shapeof appetite; and Gwendolen's appetite had sickened. Let her wander overthe possibilities of her life as she would, an uncertain shadow doggedher. Her confidence in herself and her destiny had turned into remorse anddread; she trusted neither herself nor her future.
This hidden helplessness gave fresh force to the hold Deronda had from thefirst taken on her mind, as one who had an unknown standard by which hejudged her. Had he some way of looking at things which might be a newfooting for her--an inward safeguard against possible events which shedreaded as stored-up retribution? It is one of the secrets in that changeof mental poise which has been fitly named conversion, that to many amongus neither heaven nor earth has any revelation till some personalitytouches theirs with a peculiar influence, subduing them intoreceptiveness. It had been Gwendolen's habit to think of the personsaround her as stale books, too familiar to be interesting. Deronda had litup her attention with a sense of novelty: not by words only, but byimagined facts, his influence had entered into the current of that self-suspicion and self-blame which awakens a new consciousness.
"I wish he could know everything about me without my telling him," was oneof her thoughts, as she sat leaning over the end of a couch, supportingher head with her hand, and looking at herself in a mirror--not inadmiration, but in a sad kind of companionship. "I wish he knew that I amnot so contemptible as he thinks me; that I am in deep trouble, and wantto be something better if I could." Without the aid of sacred ceremony orcostume, her feelings had turned this man, only a few years older thanherself, into a priest; a sort of trust less rare than the fidelity thatguards it. Young reverence for one who is also young is the most coerciveof all: there is the same level of temptation, and the higher motive isbelieved in as a fuller force--not suspected to be a mere residue fromweary experience.
But the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence.Those who trust us educate us. And perhaps in that ideal consecration ofGwendolen's, some education was being prepared for Deronda.