Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XLIV.
Fairy folk a-listeningHear the seed sprout in the spring.And for music to their danceHear the hedgerows wake from trance,Sap that trembles into budsSending little rythmic floodsOf fairy sound in fairy ears.Thus all beauty that appearsHas birth as sound to finer senseAnd lighter-clad intelligence.
And Gwendolen? She was thinking of Deronda much more than he was thinkingof her--often wondering what were his ideas "about things," and how hislife was occupied. But a lap-dog would be necessarily at a loss in framingto itself the motives and adventures of doghood at large; and it was asfar from Gwendolen's conception that Deronda's life could be determined bythe historical destiny of the Jews, as that he could rise into the air ona brazen horse, and so vanish from her horizon in the form of a twinklingstar.
With all the sense of inferiority that had been forced upon her, it wasinevitable that she should imagine a larger place for herself in histhoughts than she actually possessed. They must be rather old and wisepersons who are not apt to see their own anxiety or elation aboutthemselves reflected in other minds; and Gwendolen, with her youth andinward solitude, may be excused for dwelling on signs of special interestin her shown by the one person who had impressed her with the feeling ofsubmission, and for mistaking the color and proportion of those signs inthe mind of Deronda.
Meanwhile, what would he tell her that she ought to do? "He said, I mustget more interest in others, and more knowledge, and that I must careabout the best things--but how am I to begin?" She wondered what books hewould tell her to take up to her own room, and recalled the famous writersthat she had either not looked into or had found the most unreadable, witha half-smiling wish that she could mischievously ask Deronda if they werenot the books called "medicine for the mind." Then she repented of hersauciness, and when she was safe from observation carried up amiscellaneous selection--Descartes, Bacon, Locke, Butler, Burke, Guizot--knowing, as a clever young lady of education, that these authors wereornaments of mankind, feeling sure that Deronda had read them, and hopingthat by dipping into them all in succession, with her rapid understandingshe might get a point of view nearer to his level.
But it was astonishing how little time she found for these vast mentalexcursions. Constantly she had to be on the scene as Mrs. Grandcourt, andto feel herself watched in that part by the exacting eyes of a husband whohad found a motive to exercise his tenacity--that of making his marriageanswer all the ends he chose, and with the more completeness the more hediscerned any opposing will in her. And she herself, whatever rebellionmight be going on within her, could not have made up her mind to failurein her representation. No feeling had yet reconciled her for a moment toany act, word, or look that would be a confession to the world: and whatshe most dreaded in herself was any violent impulse that would make aninvoluntary confession: it was the will to be silent in every otherdirection that had thrown the more impetuosity into her confidences towardDeronda, to whom her thought continually turned as a help against herself.Her riding, her hunting, her visiting and receiving of visits, were allperformed in a spirit of achievement which served instead of zest andyoung gladness, so that all around Diplow, in those weeks of the new year,Mrs. Grandcourt was regarded as wearing her honors with triumph.
"She disguises it under an air of taking everything as a matter ofcourse," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "A stranger might suppose that she hadcondescended rather than risen. I always noticed that doubleness in her."
To her mother most of all Gwendolen was bent on acting completesatisfaction, and poor Mrs. Davilow was so far deceived that she took theunexpected distance at which she was kept, in spite of what she felt to beGrandcourt's handsome behavior in providing for her, as a comparativeindifference in her daughter, now that marriage had created new interests.To be fetched to lunch and then to dinner along with the Gascoignes, to bedriven back soon after breakfast the next morning, and to have brief callsfrom Gwendolen in which her husband waited for her outside either onhorseback or sitting in the carriage, was all the intercourse allowed toher mother.
The truth was, that the second time Gwendolen proposed to invite hermother with Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne, Grandcourt had at first been silent,and then drawled, "We can't be having _those people_ always. Gascoignetalks too much. Country clergy are always bores--with their confoundedfuss about everything."
That speech was full of foreboding for Gwendolen. To have her motherclassed under "those people" was enough to confirm the previous dread ofbringing her too near. Still, she could not give the true reasons--shecould not say to her mother, "Mr. Grandcourt wants to recognize you aslittle as possible; and besides it is better you should not see much of mymarried life, else you might find out that I am miserable." So she waivedas lightly as she could every allusion to the subject; and when Mrs.Davilow again hinted the possibility of her having a house close toRyelands, Gwendolen said, "It would not be so nice for you as being nearthe rectory here, mamma. We shall perhaps be very little at Ryelands. Youwould miss my aunt and uncle."
And all the while this contemptuous veto of her husband's on any intimacywith her family, making her proudly shrink from giving them the aspect oftroublesome pensioners, was rousing more inward inclination toward them.She had never felt so kindly toward her uncle, so much disposed to lookback on his cheerful, complacent activity and spirit of kind management,even when mistaken, as more of a comfort than the neutral loftiness whichwas every day chilling her. And here perhaps she was unconsciously findingsome of that mental enlargement which it was hard to get from heroccasional dashes into difficult authors, who instead of blendingthemselves with her daily agitations required her to dismiss them.
It was a delightful surprise one day when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne were atOffendene to see Gwendolen ride up without her husband--with the groomonly. All, including the four girls and Miss Merry, seated in the dining-room at lunch, could see the welcome approach; and even the elder oneswere not without something of Isabel's romantic sense that the beautifulsister on the splendid chestnut, which held its head as if proud to bearher, was a sort of Harriet Byron or Miss Wardour reappearing out of her"happiness ever after."
Her uncle went to the door to give her his hand, and she sprang from herhorse with an air of alacrity which might well encourage that notion ofguaranteed happiness; for Gwendolen was particularly bent to-day onsetting her mother's heart at rest, and her unusual sense of freedom inbeing able to make this visit alone enabled her to bear up under thepressure of painful facts which were urging themselves anew. The sevenfamily kisses were not so tiresome as they used to be.
"Mr. Grandcourt is gone out, so I determined to fill up the time by comingto you, mamma," said Gwendolen, as she laid down her hat and seatedherself next to her mother; and then looking at her with a playfullymonitory air, "That is a punishment to you for not wearing better lace onyour head. You didn't think I should come and detect you--you dreadfullycareless-about-yourself mamma!" She gave a caressing touch to the dearhead.
"Scold me, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, her delicate worn face flushing withdelight. "But I wish there was something you could eat after your ride--instead of these scraps. Let Jocosa make you a cup of chocolate in yourold way. You used to like that."
Miss Merry immediately rose and went out, though Gwendolen said, "Oh, no,a piece of bread, or one of those hard biscuits. I can't think abouteating. I am come to say good-bye."
"What! going to Ryelands again?" said Mr. Gascoigne.
"No, we are going to town," said Gwendolen, beginning to break up a pieceof bread, but putting no morsel into her mouth.
"It is rather early to go to town," said Mrs. Gascoigne, "and Mr.Grandcourt not in Parliament."
"Oh, there is only one more day's hunting to be had, and Henleigh has somebusiness in town with lawyers, I think," said Gwendolen. "I am very glad.I shall like to go to town."
"You will see your house in Grosvenor Square," said Mrs. Davilow. She andthe girls were devouring with their eyes every movement of their goddess,soon to vanish.
"Yes," said Gwendolen, in a tone of assent to the interest of thatexpectation. "And there is so much to be seen and done in town."
"I wish, my dear Gwendolen," said Mr. Gascoigne, in a kind of cordialadvice, "that you would use your influence with Mr. Grandcourt to inducehim to enter Parliament. A man of his position should make his weight feltin politics. The best judges are confident that the ministry will have toappeal to the country on this question of further Reform, and Mr.Grandcourt should be ready for the opportunity. I am not quite sure thathis opinions and mine accord entirely; I have not heard him expresshimself very fully. But I don't look at the matter from that point ofview. I am thinking of your husband's standing in the country. And he hasnow come to that stage of life when a man like him should enter intopublic affairs. A wife has great influence with her husband. Use yours inthat direction, my dear."
The rector felt that he was acquitting himself of a duty here, and givingsomething like the aspect of a public benefit to his niece's match. ToGwendolen the whole speech had the flavor of bitter comedy. If she hadbeen merry, she must have laughed at her uncle's explanation to her thathe had not heard Grandcourt express himself very fully on politics. Andthe wife's great influence! General maxims about husbands and wives seemednow of a precarious usefulness. Gwendolen herself had once believed in herfuture influence as an omnipotence in managing--she did not know exactlywhat. But her chief concern at present was to give an answer that would befelt appropriate.
"I should be very glad, uncle. But I think Mr. Grandcourt would not likethe trouble of an election--at least, unless it could be without hismaking speeches. I thought candidates always made speeches."
"Not necessarily--to any great extent," said Mr. Gascoigne. "A man ofposition and weight can get on without much of it. A county member needhave very little trouble in that way, and both out of the House and in itis liked the better for not being a speechifier. Tell Mr. Grandcourt thatI say so."
"Here comes Jocosa with my chocolate after all," said Gwendolen, escapingfrom a promise to give information that would certainly have been receivedin a way inconceivable to the good rector, who, pushing his chair a littleaside from the table and crossing his leg, looked as well as it he feltlike a worthy specimen of a clergyman and magistrate giving experiencedadvice. Mr. Gascoigne had come to the conclusion that Grandcourt was aproud man, but his own self-love, calmed through life by the consciousnessof his general value and personal advantages, was not irritable enough toprevent him from hoping the best about his niece's husband because heruncle was kept rather haughtily at a distance. A certain aloofness must beallowed to the representative of an old family; you would not expect himto be on intimate terms even with abstractions. But Mrs. Gascoigne wasless dispassionate on her husband's account, and felt Grandcourt'shaughtiness as something a little blameable in Gwendolen.
"Your uncle and Anna will very likely be in town about Easter," she said,with a vague sense of expressing a slight discontent. "Dear Rex hopes tocome out with honors and a fellowship, and he wants his father and Anna tomeet him in London, that they may be jolly together, as he says. Ishouldn't wonder if Lord Brackenshaw invited them, he has been so verykind since he came back to the Castle."
"I hope my uncle will bring Ann to stay in Grosvenor Square," saidGwendolen, risking herself so far, for the sake of the present moment, butin reality wishing that she might never be obliged to bring any of herfamily near Grandcourt again. "I am very glad of Rex's good fortune."
"We must not be premature, and rejoice too much beforehand," said therector, to whom this topic was the happiest in the world, and altogetherallowable, now that the issue of that little affair about Gwendolen hadbeen so satisfactory. "Not but that I am in correspondence with impartialjudges, who have the highest hopes about my son, as a singularly clear-headed young man. And of his excellent disposition and principle I havehad the best evidence."
"We shall have him a great lawyer some time," said Mrs. Gascoigne.
"How very nice!" said Gwendolen, with a concealed scepticism as toniceness in general, which made the word quite applicable to lawyers.
"Talking of Lord Brackenshaw's kindness," said Mrs. Davilow, "you don'tknow how delightful he has been, Gwendolen. He has begged me to considermyself his guest in this house till I can get another that I like--he didit in the most graceful way. But now a house has turned up. Old Mr. Jodsonis dead, and we can have his house. It is just what I want; small, butwith nothing hideous to make you miserable thinking about it. And it isonly a mile from the Rectory. You remember the low white house nearlyhidden by the trees, as we turn up the lane to the church?"
"Yes, but you have no furniture, poor mamma," said Gwendolen, in amelancholy tone.
"Oh, I am saving money for that. You know who has made me rather rich,dear," said Mrs. Davilow, laying her hand on Gwendolen's. "And Jocosareally makes so little do for housekeeping--it is quite wonderful."
"Oh, please let me go up-stairs with you and arrange my hat, mamma," saidGwendolen, suddenly putting up her hand to her hair and perhaps creating adesired disarrangement. Her heart was swelling, and she was ready to cry.Her mother _must_ have been worse off, if it had not been for Grandcourt."I suppose I shall never see all this again," said Gwendolen, lookinground her, as they entered the black and yellow bedroom, and then throwingherself into a chair in front of the glass with a little groan as ofbodily fatigue. In the resolve not to cry she had become very pale.
"You are not well, dear?" said Mrs. Davilow.
"No; that chocolate has made me sick," said Gwendolen, putting up her handto be taken.
"I should be allowed to come to you if you were ill, darling," said Mrs.Davilow, rather timidly, as she pressed the hand to her bosom. Somethinghad made her sure today that her child loved her--needed her as much asever.
"Oh, yes," said Gwendolen, leaning her head against her mother, thoughspeaking as lightly as she could. "But you know I never am ill. I am asstrong as possible; and you must not take to fretting about me, but makeyourself as happy as you can with the girls. They are better children toyou than I have been, you know." She turned up her face with a smile.
"You have always been good, my darling. I remember nothing else."
"Why, what did I ever do that was good to you, except marry Mr.Grandcourt?" said Gwendolen, starting up with a desperate resolve to beplayful, and keep no more on the perilous edge of agitation. "And I shouldnot have done that unless it had pleased myself." She tossed up her chin,and reached her hat.
"God forbid, child! I would not have had you marry for my sake. Yourhappiness by itself is half mine."
"Very well," said Gwendolen, arranging her hat fastidiously, "then youwill please to consider that you are half happy, which is more than I amused to seeing you." With the last words she again turned with her oldplayful smile to her mother. "Now I am ready; but oh, mamma, Mr.Grandcourt gives me a quantity of money, and expects me to spend it, and Ican't spend it; and you know I can't bear charity children and all that;and here are thirty pounds. I wish the girls would spend it for me onlittle things for themselves when you go to the new house. Tell them so."Gwendolen put the notes into her mother's hands and looked away hastily,moving toward the door.
"God bless you, dear," said Mrs. Davilow. "It will please them so that youshould have thought of them in particular."
"Oh, they are troublesome things; but they don't trouble me now," saidGwendolen, turning and nodding playfully. She hardly understood her ownfeeling in this act toward her sisters, but at any rate she did not wishit to be taken as anything serious. She was glad to have got out of thebedroom without showing more signs of emotion, and she went through therest of her visit and all the good-byes with a quiet propriety that madeher say to herself sarcastically as she rode away, "I think I am making avery good Mrs. Grandcourt."
She believed that her husband had gone to Gadsmere that day--had inferredthis, as she had long ago inferred who were the inmates of what he haddescribed as "a dog-hutch of a place in a black country;" and the strangeconflict of feeling within her had had the characteristic effect ofsending her to Offendene with a tightened resolve--a form of excitementwhich was native to her.
She wondered at her own contradictions. Why should she feel it bitter toher that Grandcourt showed concern for the beings on whose account sheherself was undergoing remorse? Had she not before her marriage inwardlydetermined to speak and act on their behalf?--and since he had latelyimplied that he wanted to be in town because he was making arrangementsabout his will, she ought to have been glad of any sign that he kept aconscience awake toward those at Gadsmere; and yet, now that she was awife, the sense that Grandcourt was gone to Gadsmere was like red heatnear a burn. She had brought on herself this indignity in her own eyes--this humiliation of being doomed to a terrified silence lest her husbandshould discover with what sort of consciousness she had married him; andas she had said to Deronda, she "must go on." After the intense moments ofsecret hatred toward this husband who from the very first had cowed her,there always came back the spiritual pressure which made submissioninevitable. There was no effort at freedoms that would not bring fresh andworse humiliation. Gwendolen could dare nothing except an impulsiveaction--least of all could she dare premeditatedly a vague future in whichthe only certain condition was indignity. It spite of remorse, it stillseemed the worst result of her marriage that she should in any way make aspectacle of herself; and her humiliation was lightened by her thinkingthat only Mrs. Glasher was aware of the fact which caused it. ForGwendolen had never referred the interview at the Whispering Stones toLush's agency; her disposition to vague terror investing with shadowyomnipresence any threat of fatal power over her, and so hindering her fromimagining plans and channels by which news had been conveyed to the womanwho had the poisoning skill of a sorceress. To Gwendolen's mind the secretlay with Mrs. Glasher, and there were words in the horrible letter whichimplied that Mrs. Glasher would dread disclosure to the husband, as muchas the usurping Mrs. Grandcourt.
Something else, too, she thought of as more of a secret from her husbandthan it really was--namely that suppressed struggle of desperate rebellionwhich she herself dreaded. Grandcourt could not indeed fully imagine howthings affected Gwendolen: he had no imagination of anything in her butwhat affected the gratification of his own will; but on this point he hadthe sensibility which seems like divination. What we see exclusively weare apt to see with some mistake of proportions; and Grandcourt was notlikely to be infallible in his judgments concerning this wife who wasgoverned by many shadowy powers, to him nonexistent. He magnified herinward resistance, but that did not lessen his satisfaction in the masteryof it.