Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XLVIII. Page 3
Lush obeyed, thinking as he took an easy-chair in the back drawing-room,"My lady winces considerably. She didn't know what would be the charge forthat superfine article, Henleigh Grandcourt." But it seemed to him that apenniless girl had done better than she had any right to expect, and thatshe had been uncommonly knowing for her years and opportunities: her wordsto Lydia meant nothing, and her running away had probably been part of heradroitness. It had turned out a master-stroke.
Meanwhile Gwendolen was rallying her nerves to the reading of the paper.She must read it. Her whole being--pride, longing for rebellion, dreams offreedom, remorseful conscience, dread of fresh visitation--all made oneneed to know what the paper contained. But at first it was not easy totake in the meaning of the words. When she had succeeded, she found thatin the case of there being no son as issue of her marriage, Grandcourt hadmade the small Henleigh his heir; that was all she cared to extract fromthe paper with any distinctness. The other statement as to what provisionwould be made for her in the same case, she hurried over, getting only aconfused perception of thousands and Gadsmere. It was enough. She coulddismiss the man in the next room with the defiant energy which had revivedin her at the idea that this question of property and inheritance wasmeant as a finish to her humiliations and her thraldom.
She thrust the paper between the leaves of her book, which she took in herhand, and walked with her stateliest air into the next room, where Lushimmediately arose, awaiting her approach. When she was four yards fromhim, it was hardly an instant that she paused to say in a high tone, whileshe swept him with her eyelashes--
"Tell Mr. Grandcourt that his arrangements are just what I desired"--passing on without haste, and leaving Lush time to mingle some admirationof her graceful back with that half-amused sense of her spirit andimpertinence, which he expressed by raising his eyebrows and justthrusting his tongue between his teeth. He really did not want her to beworse punished, and he was glad to think that it was time to go and lunchat the club, where he meant to have a lobster salad.
What did Gwendolen look forward to? When her husband returned he found herequipped in her riding-dress, ready to ride out with him. She was notagain going to be hysterical, or take to her bed and say she was ill. Thatwas the implicit resolve adjusting her muscles before she could haveframed it in words, as she walked out of the room, leaving Lush behindher. She was going to act in the spirit of her message, and not to giveherself time to reflect. She rang the bell for her maid, and went with theusual care through her change of toilet. Doubtless her husband had meantto produce a great effect on her: by-and-by perhaps she would let him seean effect the very opposite of what he intended; but at present all thatshe could show was a defiant satisfaction in what had been presumed to bedisagreeable. It came as an instinct rather than a thought, that to showany sign which could be interpreted as jealousy, when she had just beeninsultingly reminded that the conditions were what she had accepted withher eyes open, would be the worst self-humiliation. She said to herselfthat she had not time to-day to be clear about her future actions; all shecould be clear about was that she would match her husband in ignoring anyground for excitement. She not only rode, but went out with him to dine,contributing nothing to alter their mutual manner, which was never that ofrapid interchange in discourse; and curiously enough she rejected ahandkerchief on which her maid had by mistake put the wrong scent--a scentthat Grandcourt had once objected to. Gwendolen would not have liked to bean object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she liked all disgustto be on her side.
But to defer thought in this way was something like trying to talk withoutsinging in her own ears. The thought that is bound up with our passion isas penetrative as air--everything is porous to it; bows, smiles,conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts rushesfreely, not always with a taste of honey. And without shutting herself upin any solitude, Gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten hours to havegone through a labyrinth of reflection, in which already the samesuccession of prospects had been repeated, the same fallacious outletsrejected, the same shrinking from the necessities of every course. Alreadyshe was undergoing some hardening effect from feeling that she was undereyes which saw her past actions solely in the light of her lowest motives.She lived back in the scenes of her courtship, with the new bitterconsciousness of what had been in Grandcourt's mind--certain now, with herpresent experience of him, that he had a peculiar triumph in conqueringher dumb repugnance, and that ever since their marriage he had had a coldexultation in knowing her fancied secret. Her imagination exaggeratedevery tyrannical impulse he was capable of. "I will insist on beingseparated from him"--was her first darting determination; then, "I willleave him whether he consents or not. If this boy becomes his heir, I havemade an atonement." But neither in darkness nor in daylight could sheimagine the scenes which must carry out those determinations with thecourage to feel them endurable. How could she run away to her own family--carry distress among them, and render herself an object of scandal in thesociety she had left behind her? What future lay before her as Mrs.Grandcourt gone back to her mother, who would be made destitute again bythe rupture of the marriage for which one chief excuse had been that ithad brought that mother a maintenance? She had lately been seeing heruncle and Anna in London, and though she had been saved from anydifficulty about inviting them to stay in Grosvenor Square by their wishto be with Rex, who would not risk a meeting with her, the transient visitshe had had from them helped now in giving stronger color to the pictureof what it would be for her to take refuge in her own family. What couldshe say to justify her flight? Her uncle would tell her to go back. Hermother would cry. Her aunt and Anna would look at her with wonderingalarm. Her husband would have power to compel her. She had absolutelynothing that she could allege against him in judicious or judicial ears.And to "insist on separation!" That was an easy combination of words; butconsidered as an action to be executed against Grandcourt, it would beabout as practicable as to give him a pliant disposition and a dread ofother people's unwillingness. How was she to begin? What was she to saythat would not be a condemnation of herself? "If I am to have miseryanyhow," was the bitter refrain of her rebellious dreams, "I had betterhave the misery that I can keep to myself." Moreover, her capability ofrectitude told her again and again that she had no right to complain ofher contract, or to withdraw from it.
And always among the images that drove her back to submission was Deronda.The idea of herself separated from her husband, gave Deronda a changed,perturbing, painful place in her consciousness: instinctively she feltthat the separation would be from him too, and in the prospective visionof herself as a solitary, dubiously-regarded woman, she felt some tinglingbashfulness at the remembrance of her behavior towards him. Theassociation of Deronda with a dubious position for herself wasintolerable. And what would he say if he knew everything? Probably thatshe ought to bear what she had brought on herself, unless she were surethat she could make herself a better woman by taking any other course. Andwhat sort of woman was she to be--solitary, sickened of life, looked atwith a suspicious kind of pity?--even if she could dream of success ingetting that dreary freedom. Mrs. Grandcourt "run away" would be a morepitiable creature than Gwendolen Harleth condemned to teach the bishop'sdaughters, and to be inspected by Mrs. Mompert.
One characteristic trait in her conduct is worth mentioning. She would notlook a second time at the paper Lush had given her; and before ringing forher maid she locked it up in a traveling-desk which was at hand, proudlyresolved against curiosity about what was allotted to herself inconnection with Gadsmere--feeling herself branded in the minds of herhusband and his confidant with the meanness that would accept marriage andwealth on any conditions, however dishonorable and humiliating.
Day after day the same pattern of thinking was repeated. There camenothing to change the situation--no new elements in the sketch--only arecurrence which engraved it. The May weeks went on into June, and stillMrs. Grandcourt was outwardly in the same place, presenting herself as shewas expected to do in the accustomed scenes, with the accustomed grace,beauty, and costume; from church at one end of the week, through all thescale of desirable receptions, to opera at the other. Church was notmarkedly distinguished in her mind from the other forms of self-presentation, for marriage had included no instruction that enabled her toconnect liturgy and sermon with any larger order of the world than that ofunexplained and perhaps inexplicable social fashions. While a laudablezeal was laboring to carry the light of spiritual law up the alleys wherelaw is chiefly known as the policeman, the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt,condescending a little to a fashionable rector and conscious of a feminineadvantage over a learned dean, was, so far as pastoral care and religiousfellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in alighthouse.
Can we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructiverebellion? The combination is common enough, as we know from the number ofpersons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous unweariedstatement of the reasons against their submitting to a situation which, oninquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable within their reach. PoorGwendolen had both too much and too little mental power and dignity tomake herself exceptional. No wonder that Deronda now marked some hardeningin a look and manner which were schooled daily to the suppression offeeling.
For example. One morning, riding in Rotten Row with Grandcourt by herside, she saw standing against the railing at the turn, just facing them,a dark-eyed lady with a little girl and a blonde boy, whom she at oncerecognized as the beings in all the world the most painful for her tobehold. She and Grandcourt had just slackened their pace to a walk; hebeing on the outer side was the nearer to the unwelcome vision, andGwendolen had not presence of mind to do anything but glance away from thedark eyes that met hers piercingly toward Grandcourt, who wheeled past thegroup with an unmoved face, giving no sign of recognition.
Immediately she felt a rising rage against him mingling with her shame forherself, and the words, "You might at least have raised your hat to her,"flew impetuously to her lips--but did not pass them. If as her husband, inher company, he chose to ignore these creatures whom she herself hadexcluded from the place she was filling, how could she be the person toreproach him? She was dumb.
It was not chance, but her own design, that had brought Mrs. Glasher therewith her boy. She had come to town under the pretext of making purchases--really wanting educational apparatus for her children, and had hadinterviews with Lush in which she had not refused to soothe her uneasymind by representing the probabilities as all on the side of her ultimatetriumph. Let her keep quiet, and she might live to see the marriagedissolve itself in one way or other--Lush hinted at several ways--leavingthe succession assured to her boy. She had had an interview withGrandcourt, too, who had as usual told her to behave like a reasonablewoman, and threatened punishment if she were troublesome; but had, also asusual, vindicated himself from any wish to be stingy, the money he wasreceiving from Sir Hugo on account of Diplow encouraging him to be lavish.Lydia, feeding on the probabilities in her favor, devoured her helplesswrath along with that pleasanter nourishment; but she could not let herdiscretion go entirely without the reward of making a Medusa-apparitionbefore Gwendolen, vindictiveness and jealousy finding relief in an outletof venom, though it were as futile as that of a viper already flung on theother side of the hedge. Hence, each day, after finding out from Lush thelikely time for Gwendolen to be riding, she had watched at that post,daring Grandcourt so far. Why should she not take little Henleigh into thePark?
The Medusa-apparition was made effective beyond Lydia's conception by theshock it gave Gwendolen actually to see Grandcourt ignoring this woman whohad once been the nearest in the world to him, along with the children shehad borne him. And all the while the dark shadow thus cast on the lot of awoman destitute of acknowledged social dignity, spread itself over hervisions of a future that might be her own, and made part of her dread onher own behalf. She shrank all the more from any lonely action. Whatpossible release could there be for her from this hated vantage ground,which yet she dared not quit, any more than if fire had been rainingoutside it? What release, but death? Not her own death. Gwendolen was nota woman who could easily think of her own death as a near reality, orfront for herself the dark entrance on the untried and invisible. Itseemed more possible that Grandcourt should die:--and yet not likely. Thepower of tyranny in him seemed a power of living in the presence of anywish that he should die. The thought that his death was the only possibledeliverance for her was one with the thought that deliverance would nevercome--the double deliverance from the injury with which other beings mightreproach her and from the yoke she had brought on her own neck. No! sheforesaw him always living, and her own life dominated by him; the "always"of her young experience not stretching beyond the few immediate years thatseemed immeasurably long with her passionate weariness. The thought of hisdying would not subsist: it turned as with a dream-change into the terrorthat she should die with his throttling fingers on her neck avenging thatthought. Fantasies moved within her like ghosts, making no break in hermore acknowledged consciousness and finding no obstruction in it: darkrays doing their work invisibly in the broad light.
Only an evening or two after that encounter in the Park, there was a grandconcert at Klesmer's, who was living rather magnificently now in one ofthe large houses in Grosvenor Place, a patron and prince among musicalprofessors. Gwendolen had looked forward to this occasion as one on whichshe was sure to meet Deronda, and she had been meditating how to put aquestion to him which, without containing a word that she would feel adislike to utter, would yet be explicit enough for him to understand it.The struggle of opposite feelings would not let her abide by her instinctthat the very idea of Deronda's relation to her was a discouragement toany desperate step towards freedom. The next wave of emotion was a longingfor some word of his to enforce a resolve. The fact that her opportunitiesof conversation with him had always to be snatched in the doubtful privacyof large parties, caused her to live through them many times beforehand,imagining how they would take place and what she would say. The irritationwas proportionate when no opportunity came; and this evening at Klesmer'sshe included Deronda in her anger, because he looked as calm as possibleat a distance from her, while she was in danger of betraying herimpatience to every one who spoke to her. She found her only safety in achill haughtiness which made Mr. Vandernoodt remark that Mrs. Grandcourtwas becoming a perfect match for her husband. When at last the chances ofthe evening brought Deronda near her, Sir Hugo and Mrs. Raymond were closeby and could hear every word she said. No matter: her husband was notnear, and her irritation passed without check into a fit of daring whichrestored the security of her self-possession. Deronda was there at last,and she would compel him to do what she pleased. Already and withouteffort rather queenly in her air as she stood in her white lace and greenleaves she threw a royal permissiveness into her way of saying, "I wishyou would come and see me to-morrow between five and six, Mr. Deronda."
There could be but one answer at that moment: "Certainly," with a tone ofobedience.
Afterward it occurred to Deronda that he would write a note to excusehimself. He had always avoided making a call at Grandcourt's. He could notpersuade himself to any step that might hurt her, and whether his excusewere taken for indifference or for the affectation of indifference itwould be equally wounding. He kept his promise. Gwendolen had declined toride out on the plea of not feeling well enough having left her refusal tothe last moment when the horses were soon to be at the door--not withoutalarm lest her husband should say that he too would stay at home. Becomealmost superstitious about his power of suspicious divination, she had aglancing forethought of what she would do in that case--namely, haveherself denied as not well. But Grandcourt accepted her excuse withoutremark, and rode off.
Nevertheless when Gwendolen found herself alone, and had sent down theorder that only Mr. Deronda was to be admitted, she began to be alarmed atwhat she had done, and to feel a growing agitation in the thought that hewould soon appear, and she should soon be obliged to speak: not oftrivialities, as if she had no serious motive in asking him to come: andyet what she had been for hours determining to say began to seemimpossible. For the first time the impulse of appeal to him was beingchecked by timidity, and now that it was too late she was shaken by thepossibility that he might think her invitation unbecoming. If so, shewould have sunk in his esteem. But immediately she resist ed thisintolerable fear as an infection from her husband's way of thinking. That_he_ would say she was making a fool of herself was rather a reason whysuch a judgment would be remote from Deronda's mind. But that she couldnot rid herself from this sudden invasion of womanly reticence wasmanifest in a kind of action which had never occurred to her before. Inher struggle between agitation and the effort to suppress it, she waswalking up and down the length of the two drawing-rooms, where at one enda long mirror reflected her in her black dress, chosen in the earlymorning with a half-admitted reference to this hour. But above this blackdress her head on its white pillar of a neck showed to advantage. Someconsciousness of this made her turn hastily and hurry to the boudoir,where again there was a glass, but also, tossed over a chair, a largepiece of black lace which she snatched and tied over her crown of hair soas completely to conceal her neck, and leave only her face looking outfrom the black frame. In this manifest contempt of appearance, she thoughtit possible to be freer from nervousness, but the black lace did not takeaway the uneasiness from her eyes and lips.
She was standing in the middle of the room when Deronda was announced, andas he approached her she perceived that he too for some reason was not hisusual self. She could not have defined the change except by saying that helooked less happy than usual, and appeared to be under some effort inspeaking to her. And yet the speaking was the slightest possible. Theyboth said, "How do you do?" quite curtly; and Gwendolen, instead ofsitting down, moved to a little distance, resting her arms slightly on thetall back of a chair, while Deronda stood where he was,--both feeling itdifficult to say any more, though the preoccupation in his mind couldhardly have been more remote than it was from Gwendolen's conception. Shenaturally saw in his embarrassment some reflection of her own. Forced tospeak, she found all her training in concealment and self-command of nouse to her and began with timid awkwardness--
"You will wonder why. I begged you to come. I wanted to ask you something.You said I was ignorant. That is true. And what can I do but ask you?"
And at this moment she was feeling it utterly impossible to put thequestions she had intended. Something hew in her nervous manner rousedDeronda's anxiety lest there might be a new crisis. He said with thesadness of affection in his voice--
"My only regret is, that I can be of so little use to you." The words andthe tone touched a new spring in her, and she went on with more sense offreedom, yet still not saying anything she had designed to say, andbeginning to hurry, that she might somehow arrive at the right words.
"I wanted to tell you that I have always been thinking of your advice, butis it any use?--I can't make myself different, because things about meraise bad feelings--and I must go on--I can alter nothing--it is no use."
She paused an instant, with the consciousness that she was not finding theright words, but began again hurriedly, "But if I go on I shall get worse.I want not to get worse. I should like to be what you wish. There arepeople who are good and enjoy great things--I know there are. I am acontemptible creature. I feel as if I should get wicked with hatingpeople. I have tried to think that I would go away from everybody. But Ican't. There are so many things to hinder me. You think, perhaps, that Idon't mind. But I do mind. I am afraid of everything. I am afraid ofgetting wicked. Tell me what I can do."
She had forgotten everything but that image of her helpless misery whichshe was trying to make present to Deronda in broken allusive speech--wishing to convey but not express all her need. Her eyes were tearless,and had a look of smarting in their dilated brilliancy; there was asubdued sob in her voice which was more and more veiled, till it washardly above a whisper. She was hurting herself with the jewels thatglittered on her tightly-clasped fingers pressed against her heart.
The feeling Deronda endured in these moments he afterward called horrible.Words seemed to have no more rescue in them than if he had been beholdinga vessel in peril of wreck--the poor ship with its many-lived anguishbeaten by the inescapable storm. How could he grasp the long-growingprocess of this young creature's wretchedness?--how arrest and change itwith a sentence? He was afraid of his own voice. The words that rushedinto his mind seemed in their feebleness nothing better than despair madeaudible, or than that insensibility to another's hardship which appliesprecept to soothe pain. He felt himself holding a crowd of wordsimprisoned within his lips, as if the letting them escape would be aviolation of awe before the mysteries of our human lot. The thought thaturged itself foremost was--"Confess everything to your husband; havenothing concealed:"--the words carried in his mind a vision of reasonswhich would have needed much fuller expressions for Gwendolen to apprehendthem, but before he had begun those brief sentences, the door opened andthe husband entered.
Grandcourt had deliberately gone out and turned back to satisfy asuspicion. What he saw was Gwendolen's face of anguish framed black like anun's, and Deronda standing three yards from her with a look of sorrowsuch as he might have bent on the last struggle of life in a belovedobject. Without any show of surprise Grandcourt nodded to Deronda, gave asecond look at Gwendolen, passed on, and seated himself easily at a littledistance crossing his legs, taking out his handkerchief and trifling withit elegantly.
Gwendolen had shrunk and changed her attitude on seeing him, but she didnot turn or move from her place. It was not a moment in which she couldfeign anything, or manifest any strong revulsion of feeling: thepassionate movement of her last speech was still too strong within her.What she felt beside was a dull despairing sense that her interview withDeronda was at an end: a curtain had fallen. But he, naturally, was urgedinto self-possession and effort by susceptibility to what might follow forher from being seen by her husband in this betrayal of agitation; andfeeling that any pretence of ease in prolonging his visit would onlyexaggerate Grandcourt's possible conjectures of duplicity, he merelysaid--
"I will not stay longer now. Good bye."
He put out his hand, and she let him press her poor little chill fingers;but she said no good-bye.
When he had left the room, Gwendolen threw herself into a seat, with anexpectation as dull as her despair--the expectation that she was going tobe punished. But Grandcourt took no notice: he was satisfied to have lether know that she had not deceived him, and to keep a silence which wasformidable with omniscience. He went out that evening, and her plea offeeling ill was accepted without even a sneer.
The next morning at breakfast he said, "I am going yachting to theMediterranean."
"When?" said Gwendolen, with a leap of heart which had hope in it.
"The day after to-morrow. The yacht is at Marseilles. Lush is gone to geteverything ready."
"Shall I have mamma to stay with me, then?" said Gwendolen, the new suddenpossibility of peace and affection filling her mind like a burst ofmorning light.
"No; you will go with me."