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DANIEL DERONDA
BY GEORGE ELIOT
Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul:
There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires
That trample on the dead to seize their spoil,
Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible
As exhalations laden with slow death,
And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys
Breathes pallid pestilence.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I. THE SPOILED CHILD
" II. MEETING STREAMS
" III. MAIDENS CHOOSING
" IV. GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE
" V. MORDECAI
" VI. REVELATIONS
" VII. THE MOTHER AND THE SON
" VIII. FRUIT AND SEED
DANIEL DERONDA.
BOOK I.--THE SPOILED CHILD.
CHAPTER I.
Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even
science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe
unit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when his
sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurate
grandmother Poetry has always been understood to start in the middle;
but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very different
from his; since Science, too, reckons backward as well as forward,
divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at Nought
really sets off _in medias res_. No retrospect will take us to
the true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth,
it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our
story sets out.
Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or
expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance? Was the good or
the evil genius dominant in those beams? Probably the evil; else why was
the effect that of unrest rather than of undisturbed charm? Why was the
wish to look again felt as coercion and not as a longing in which the
whole being consents?
She who raised these questions in Daniel Deronda's mind was occupied in
gambling: not in the open air under a southern sky, tossing coppers on a
ruined wall, with rags about her limbs; but in one of those splendid
resorts which the enlightenment of ages has prepared for the same species
of pleasure at a heavy cost of guilt mouldings, dark-toned color and
chubby nudities, all correspondingly heavy--forming a suitable condenser
for human breath belonging, in great part, to the highest fashion, and not
easily procurable to be breathed in elsewhere in the like proportion, at
least by persons of little fashion.
It was near four o'clock on a September day, so that the atmosphere was
well-brewed to a visible haze. There was deep stillness, broken only by a
light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an occasional
monotone in French, such as might be expected to issue from an ingeniously
constructed automaton. Round two long tables were gathered two serried
crowds of human beings, all save one having their faces and attention bent
on the tables. The one exception was a melancholy little boy, with his
knees and calves simply in their natural clothing of epidermis, but for
the rest of his person in a fancy dress. He alone had his face turned
toward the doorway, and fixing on it the blank gaze of a bedizened child
stationed as a masquerading advertisement on the platform of an itinerant
show, stood close behind a lady deeply engaged at the roulette-table.
About this table fifty or sixty persons were assembled, many in the outer
rows, where there was occasionally a deposit of new-comers, being mere
spectators, only that one of them, usually a woman, might now and then be
observed putting down a five-franc with a simpering air, just to see what
the passion of gambling really was. Those who were taking their pleasure
at a higher strength, and were absorbed in play, showed very distant
varieties of European type: Livonian and Spanish, Graeco-Italian and
miscellaneous German, English aristocratic and English plebeian. Here
certainly was a striking admission of human equality. The white bejewelled
fingers of an English countess were very near touching a bony, yellow,
crab-like hand stretching a bared wrist to clutch a heap of coin--a hand
easy to sort with the square, gaunt face, deep-set eyes, grizzled
eyebrows, and ill-combed scanty hair which seemed a slight metamorphosis
of the vulture. And where else would her ladyship have graciously
consented to sit by that dry-lipped feminine figure prematurely old,
withered after short bloom like her artificial flowers, holding a shabby
velvet reticule before her, and occasionally putting in her mouth the
point with which she pricked her card? There too, very near the fair
countess, was a respectable London tradesman, blonde and soft-handed, his
sleek hair scrupulously parted behind and before, conscious of circulars
addressed to the nobility and gentry, whose distinguished patronage
enabled him to take his holidays fashionably, and to a certain extent in
their distinguished company. Not his gambler's passion that nullifies
appetite, but a well-fed leisure, which, in the intervals of winning money
in business and spending it showily, sees no better resource than winning
money in play and spending it yet more showily--reflecting always that
Providence had never manifested any disapprobation of his amusement, and
dispassionate enough to leave off if the sweetness of winning much and
seeing others lose had turned to the sourness of losing much and seeing
others win. For the vice of gambling lay in losing money at it. In his
bearing there might be something of the tradesman, but in his pleasures he
was fit to rank with the owners of the oldest titles. Standing close to
his chair was a handsome Italian, calm, statuesque, reaching across him to
place the first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by an
envoy with a scrolled mustache. The pile was in half a minute pushed over
to an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. There was a
slight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old woman; but
the statuesque Italian remained impassive, and--probably secure in an
infallible system which placed his foot on the neck of chance--immediately
prepared a new pile. So did a man with the air of an emaciated beau or
worn-out libertine, who looked at life through one eye-glass, and held out
his hand tremulously when he asked for change. It could surely be no
severity of system, but rather some dream of white crows, or the induction
that the eighth of the month was lucky, which inspired the fierce yet
tottering impulsiveness of his play.
But, while every single player differed markedly from every other, there
was a certain uniform negativeness of expression which had the effect of a
mask--as if they had all eaten of some root that for the time compelled
the brains of each to the same narrow monotony of action.
Deronda's first thought when his eyes fell on this scene of dull, gas-
poisoned absorption, was that the gambling of Spanish shepherd-boys had
seemed to him more enviable:--so far Rousseau might be justified in
maintaining that art and science had done a poor service to mankind. But
suddenly he felt the moment become dramatic. His attention was arrested by
a young lady who, standing at an angle not far from him, was the last to
whom his eyes traveled. She was bending and speaking English to a middle-
aged lady seated at play beside her: but the next instant she returned to
her play, and showed the full height of a graceful figure, with a face
which might possibly be looked at without admiration, but could hardly be
passed with indifference.
The inward debate which she raised in Deronda gave to his eyes a growing
expression of scrutiny, tending farther and farther away from the glow of
mingled undefined sensibilities forming admiration. At one moment they
followed the movements of the figure, of the arms and hands, as this
problematic sylph bent forward to deposit her stake with an air of firm
choice; and the next they returned to the face which, at present
unaffected by beholders, was directed steadily toward the game. The sylph
was a winner; and as her taper fingers, delicately gloved in pale-gray,
were adjusting the coins which had been pushed toward her in order to pass
them back again to the winning point, she looked round her with a survey
too markedly cold and neutral not to have in it a little of that nature
which we call art concealing an inward exultation.
But in the course of that survey her eyes met Deronda's, and instead of
averting them as she would have desired to do, she was unpleasantly
conscious that they were arrested--how long? The darting sense that he was
measuring her and looking down on her as an inferior, that he was of
different quality from the human dross around her, that he felt himself in
a region outside and above her, and was examining her as a specimen of a
lower order, roused a tingling resentment which stretched the moment with
conflict. It did not bring the blood to her cheeks, but it sent it away
from her lips. She controlled herself by the help of an inward defiance,
and without other sign of emotion than this lip-paleness turned to her
play. But Deronda's gaze seemed to have acted as an evil eye. Her stake
was gone. No matter; she had been winning ever since she took to roulette
with a few napoleons at command, and had a considerable reserve. She had
begun to believe in her luck, others had begun to believe in it: she had
visions of being followed by a _cortege_ who would worship her as a
goddess of luck and watch her play as a directing augury. Such things had
been known of male gamblers; why should not a woman have a like supremacy?
Her friend and chaperon who had not wished her to play at first was
beginning to approve, only administering the prudent advice to stop at the
right moment and carry money back to England--advice to which Gwendolen
had replied that she cared for the excitement of play, not the winnings.
On that supposition the present moment ought to have made the flood-tide
in her eager experience of gambling. Yet, when her next stake was swept
away, she felt the orbits of her eyes getting hot, and the certainty she
had (without looking) of that man still watching her was something like a
pressure which begins to be torturing. The more reason to her why she
should not flinch, but go on playing as if she were indifferent to loss or
gain. Her friend touched her elbow and proposed that they should quit the
table. For reply Gwendolen put ten louis on the same spot: she was in that
mood of defiance in which the mind loses sight of any end beyond the
satisfaction of enraged resistance; and with the puerile stupidity of a
dominant impulse includes luck among its objects of defiance. Since she
was not winning strikingly, the next best thing was to lose strikingly.
She controlled her muscles, and showed no tremor of mouth or hands. Each
time her stake was swept off she doubled it. Many were now watching her,
but the sole observation she was conscious of was Deronda's, who, though
she never looked toward him, she was sure had not moved away. Such a drama
takes no long while to play out: development and catastrophe can often be
measured by nothing clumsier than the moment-hand. "Faites votre jeu,
mesdames et messieurs," said the automatic voice of destiny from between
the mustache and imperial of the croupier: and Gwendolen's arm was
stretched to deposit her last poor heap of napoleons. "Le jeu ne va plus,"
said destiny. And in five seconds Gwendolen turned from the table, but
turned resolutely with her face toward Deronda and looked at him. There
was a smile of irony in his eyes as their glances met; but it was at least
better that he should have disregarded her as one of an insect swarm who
had no individual physiognomy. Besides, in spite of his superciliousness
and irony, it was difficult to believe that he did not admire her spirit
as well as her person: he was young, handsome, distinguished in
appearance--not one of these ridiculous and dowdy Philistines who thought
it incumbent on them to blight the gaming-table with a sour look of
protest as they passed by it. The general conviction that we are admirable
does not easily give way before a single negative; rather when any of
Vanity's large family, male or female, find their performance received
coldly, they are apt to believe that a little more of it will win over the
unaccountable dissident. In Gwendolen's habits of mind it had been taken
for granted that she knew what was admirable and that she herself was
admired. This basis of her thinking had received a disagreeable
concussion, and reeled a little, but was not easily to be overthrown.
In the evening the same room was more stiflingly heated, was brilliant
with gas and with the costumes of ladies who floated their trains along it
or were seated on the ottomans.
The Nereid in sea-green robes and silver ornaments, with a pale sea-green
feather fastened in silver falling backward over her green hat and light
brown hair, was Gwendolen Harleth. She was under the wing, or rather
soared by the shoulder, of the lady who had sat by her at the roulette-
table; and with them was a gentleman with a white mustache and clipped
hair: solid-browed, stiff and German. They were walking about or standing
to chat with acquaintances, and Gwendolen was much observed by the seated
groups.
"A striking girl--that Miss Harleth--unlike others."
"Yes, she has got herself up as a sort of serpent now--all green and
silver, and winds her neck about a little more than usual."
"Oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. She is that kind of
girl, I fancy. Do you think her pretty, Mr. Vandernoodt?"
"Very. A man might risk hanging for her--I mean a fool might."
"You like a _nez retrousse_", then, and long narrow eyes?"
"When they go with such an _ensemble_."
"The _ensemble du serpent_?"
"If you will. Woman was tempted by a serpent; why not man?"
"She is certainly very graceful; but she wants a tinge of color in her
cheeks. It is a sort of Lamia beauty she has."
"On the contrary, I think her complexion one of her chief charms. It is a
warm paleness; it looks thoroughly healthy. And that delicate nose with
its gradual little upward curve is distracting. And then her mouth--there
never was a prettier mouth, the lips curled backward so finely, eh,
Mackworth?"
"Think so? I cannot endure that sort of mouth. It looks so self-
complacent, as if it knew its own beauty--the curves are too immovable. I
like a mouth that trembles more."
"For my part, I think her odious," said a dowager. "It is wonderful what
unpleasant girls get into vogue. Who are these Langens? Does anybody know
them?"
"They are quite _comme il faut_. I have dined with them several times at
the _Russie_. The baroness is English. Miss Harleth calls her cousin. The
girl herself is thoroughly well-bred, and as clever as possible."
"Dear me! and the baron?".
"A very good furniture picture."
"Your baroness is always at the roulette-table," said Mackworth. "I fancy
she has taught the girl to gamble."
"Oh, the old woman plays a very sober game; drops a ten-franc piece here
and there. The girl is more headlong. But it is only a freak."
"I hear she has lost all her winnings to-day. Are they rich? Who knows?"
"Ah, who knows? Who knows that about anybody?" said Mr. Vandernoodt,
moving off to join the Langens.
The remark that Gwendolen wound her neck about more than usual this
evening was true. But it was not that she might carry out the serpent idea
more completely: it was that she watched for any chance of seeing Deronda,
so that she might inquire about this stranger, under whose measuring gaze
she was still wincing. At last her opportunity came.
"Mr. Vandernoodt, you know everybody," said Gwendolen, not too eagerly,
rather with a certain languor of utterance which she sometimes gave to her
clear soprano. "Who is that near the door?"
"There are half a dozen near the door. Do you mean that old Adonis in the
George the Fourth wig?"
"No, no; the dark-haired young man on the right with the dreadful
expression."
"Dreadful, do you call it? I think he is an uncommonly fine fellow."
"But who is he?"
"He is lately come to our hotel with Sir Hugo Mallinger."
"Sir Hugo Mallinger?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"No." (Gwendolen colored slightly.) "He has a place near us, but he never
comes to it. What did you say was the name of that gentleman near the
door?"
"Deronda--Mr. Deronda."
"What a delightful name! Is he an Englishman?"
"Yes. He is reported to be rather closely related to the baronet. You are
interested in him?"
"Yes. I think he is not like young men in general."
"And you don't admire young men in general?"
"Not in the least. I always know what they will say. I can't at all guess
what this Mr. Deronda would say. What _does_ he say?"
"Nothing, chiefly. I sat with his party for a good hour last night on the
terrace, and he never spoke--and was not smoking either. He looked bored."
"Another reason why I should like to know him. I am always bored."
"I should think he would be charmed to have an introduction. Shall I bring
it about? Will you allow it, baroness?"
"Why not?--since he is related to Sir Hugo Mallinger. It is a new _role_
of yours, Gwendolen, to be always bored," continued Madame von Langen,
when Mr. Vandernoodt had moved away. "Until now you have always seemed
eager about something from morning till night."
"That is just because I am bored to death. If I am to leave off play I
must break my arm or my collar-bone. I must make something happen; unless
you will go into Switzerland and take me up the Matterhorn."
"Perhaps this Mr. Deronda's acquaintance will do instead of the
Matterhorn."
"Perhaps."
But Gwendolen did not make Deronda's acquaintance on this occasion. Mr.
Vandernoodt did not succeed in bringing him up to her that evening, and
when she re-entered her own room she found a letter recalling her home.
CHAPTER II.
This man contrives a secret 'twixt us two,
That he may quell me with his meeting eyes
Like one who quells a lioness at bay.
This was the letter Gwendolen found on her table:--
DEAREST CHILD.--I have been expecting to hear from you for a week. In
your last you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn and going
to Baden. How could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in
uncertainty about your address? I am in the greatest anxiety lest this
should not reach you. In any case, you were to come home at the end of
September, and I must now entreat you to return as quickly as
possible, for if you spent all your money it would be out of my power
to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the Langens, for I
could not repay them. This is the sad truth, my child--I wish I could
prepare you for it better--but a dreadful calamity has befallen us
all. You know nothing about business and will not understand it; but
Grapnell & Co. have failed for a million, and we are totally ruined--
your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, only that your uncle has his
benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest
for the boys, the family can go on. All the property our poor father
saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. There is nothing I can call
my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my
heart to have to tell it you. Of course we cannot help thinking what a
pity it was that you went away just when you did. But I shall never
reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I
could. On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the
change you will find. We shall perhaps leave Offendene at once, for we
hope that Mr. Haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it
off my hands. Of course we cannot go to the rectory--there is not a
corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us,
and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne's charity, until I see what
else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the
tradesmen besides the servants' wages. Summon up your fortitude, my
dear child; we must resign ourselves to God's will. But it is hard to
resign one's self to Mr. Lassman's wicked recklessness, which they say
was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me
and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in
the cloud--I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant
for poverty. If the Langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put
yourself under some one else's care for the journey. But come as soon
as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma,
FANNY DAVILOW.
The first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. The
implicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease, where
any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for, had been
stronger in her own mind than in her mamma's, being fed there by her
youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a large part
of her consciousness. It was almost as difficult for her to believe
suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of humiliating
dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong current of her
blooming life the chill sense that her death would really come. She stood
motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off her hat and automatically
looked in the glass. The coils of her smooth light-brown hair were still
in order perfect enough for a ball-room; and as on other nights, Gwendolen
might have looked lingeringly at herself for pleasure (surely an allowable
indulgence); but now she took no conscious note of her reflected beauty,
and simply stared right before her as if she had been jarred by a hateful
sound and was waiting for any sign of its cause. By-and-by she threw
herself in the corner of the red velvet sofa, took up the letter again and
read it twice deliberately, letting it at last fall on the ground, while
she rested her clasped hands on her lap and sat perfectly still, shedding
no tears. Her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than
to wail over it. There was no inward exclamation of "Poor mamma!" Her
mamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and if Gwendolen
had been at this moment disposed to feel pity she would have bestowed it
on herself--for was she not naturally and rightfully the chief object of
her mamma's anxiety too? But it was anger, it was resistance that
possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost her gains at
roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this one day she would
have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might have gone on playing
and won enough to support them all. Even now was it not possible? She had
only four napoleons left in her purse, but she possessed some ornaments
which she could sell: a practice so common in stylish society at German
baths that there was no need to be ashamed of it; and even if she had not
received her mamma's letter, she would probably have decided to get money
for an Etruscan necklace which she happened not to have been wearing since
her arrival; nay, she might have done so with an agreeable sense that she
was living with some intensity and escaping humdrum. With ten louis at her
disposal and a return of her former luck, which seemed probable, what
could she do better than go on playing for a few days? If her friends at
home disapproved of the way in which she got the money, as they certainly
would, still the money would be there. Gwendolen's imagination dwelt on
this course and created agreeable consequences, but not with unbroken
confidence and rising certainty as it would have done if she had been
touched with the gambler's mania. She had gone to the roulette-table not
because of passion, but in search of it: her mind was still sanely capable
of picturing balanced probabilities, and while the chance of winning
allured her, the chance of losing thrust itself on her with alternate
strength and made a vision from which her pride sank sensitively. For she
was resolved not to tell the Langens that any misfortune had befallen her
family, or to make herself in any way indebted to their compassion; and if
she were to part with her jewelry to any observable extent, they would
interfere by inquiries and remonstrances. The course that held the least
risk of intolerable annoyance was to raise money on her necklace early in
the morning, tell the Langens that her mother desired her immediate return
without giving a reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening. She
had no maid with her, and the Langens might make difficulties about her
returning home, but her will was peremptory.
Instead of going to bed she made as brilliant a light as she could and
began to pack, working diligently, though all the while visited by the
scenes that might take place on the coming day--now by the tiresome
explanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed
home, now by the alternative of staying just another day and standing
again at the roulette-table. But always in this latter scene there was the
presence of that Deronda, watching her with exasperating irony, and--the
two keen experiences were inevitably revived together--beholding her again
forsaken by luck. This importunate image certainly helped to sway her
resolve on the side of immediate departure, and to urge her packing to the
point which would make a change of mind inconvenient. It had struck twelve
when she came into her room, and by the time she was assuring herself that
she had left out only what was necessary, the faint dawn was stealing
through the white blinds and dulling her candles. What was the use of
going to bed? Her cold bath was refreshment enough, and she saw that a
slight trace of fatigue about the eyes only made her look the more
interesting. Before six o'clock she was completely equipped in her gray
traveling dress even to her felt hat, for she meant to walk out as soon as
she could count on seeing other ladies on their way to the springs. And
happening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between
her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the
back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her
portrait. It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-
satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense
because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care;
but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had a _naive_
delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest saintliness will
have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day seen a pleasant
reflection of that self in her friends' flattery as well as in the
looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles, while for lack of
anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in the growing light, her
face gathered a complacency gradual as the cheerfulness of the morning.
Her beautiful lips curled into a more and more decided smile, till at last
she took off her hat, leaned forward and kissed the cold glass which had
looked so warm. How could she believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she
felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or run away from it, as she had
done already. Anything seemed more possible than that she could go on
bearing miseries, great or small.
Madame von Langen never went out before breakfast, so that Gwendolen could
safely end her early walk by taking her way homeward through the Obere
Strasse in which was the needed shop, sure to be open after seven. At that
hour any observers whom she minded would be either on their walks in the
region of the springs, or would be still in their bedrooms; but certainly
there was one grand hotel, the _Czarina_ from which eyes might follow her
up to Mr. Wiener's door. This was a chance to be risked: might she not be
going in to buy something which had struck her fancy? This implicit
falsehood passed through her mind as she remembered that the _Czarina_ was
Deronda's hotel; but she was then already far up the Obere Strasse, and
she walked on with her usual floating movement, every line in her figure
and drapery falling in gentle curves attractive to all eyes except those
which discerned in them too close a resemblance to the serpent, and
objected to the revival of serpent-worship. She looked neither to the
right hand nor to the left, and transacted her business in the shop with a
coolness which gave little Mr. Weiner nothing to remark except her proud
grace of manner, and the superior size and quality of the three central
turquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a chain
once her father's: but she had never known her father; and the necklace
was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently part with.
Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be superstitious
and rationalizing at the same time? Roulette encourages a romantic
superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most prosaic
rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of raising
needful money. Gwendolen's dominant regret was that after all she had only
nine louis to add to the four in her purse: these Jew dealers were so
unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians unfortunate at play! But
she was the Langens' guest in their hired apartment, and had nothing to
pay there: thirteen louis would do more than take her home; even if she
determined on risking three, the remaining ten would more than suffice,
since she meant to travel right on, day and night. As she turned homeward,
nay, entered and seated herself in the _salon_ to await her friends and
breakfast, she still wavered as to her immediate departure, or rather she
had concluded to tell the Langens simply that she had had a letter from
her mamma desiring her return, and to leave it still undecided when she
should start. It was already the usual breakfast-time, and hearing some
one enter as she was leaning back rather tired and hungry with her eyes
shut, she rose expecting to see one or other of the Langens--the words
which might determine her lingering at least another day, ready-formed to
pass her lips. But it was the servant bringing in a small packet for Miss
Harleth, which had at that moment been left at the door. Gwendolen took it
in her hand and immediately hurried into her own room. She looked paler
and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma's letter.
Something--she never quite knew what--revealed to her before she opened
the packet that it contained the necklace she had just parted with.
Underneath the paper it was wrapped in a cambric handkerchief, and within
this was a scrap of torn-off note-paper, on which was written with a
pencil, in clear but rapid handwriting--"_A stranger who has found Miss
Harleth's necklace returns it to her with the hope that she will not again
risk the loss of it._"
Gwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. A large corner of
the handkerchief seemed to have been recklessly torn off to get rid of a
mark; but she at once believed in the first image of "the stranger" that
presented itself to her mind. It was Deronda; he must have seen her go
into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after and repurchased the
necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and had dared to place her
in a thoroughly hateful position. What could she do?--Not, assuredly, act
on her conviction that it was he who had sent her the necklace and
straightway send it back to him: that would be to face the possibility
that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the "stranger" were he and no
other, it would be something too gross for her to let him know that she
had divined this, and to meet him again with that recognition in their
minds. He knew very well that he was entangling her in helpless
humiliation: it was another way of smiling at her ironically, and taking
the air of a supercilious mentor. Gwendolen felt the bitter tears of
mortification rising and rolling down her cheeks. No one had ever before
dared to treat her with irony and contempt. One thing was clear: she must
carry out her resolution to quit this place at once; it was impossible for
her to reappear in the public _salon_, still less stand at the gaming-
table with the risk of seeing Deronda. Now came an importunate knock at
the door: breakfast was ready. Gwendolen with a passionate movement thrust
necklace, cambric, scrap of paper, and all into her _necessaire_, pressed
her handkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute or two to
summon back her proud self-control, went to join her friends. Such signs
of tears and fatigue as were left seemed accordant enough with the account
she at once gave of her having sat up to do her packing, instead of
waiting for help from her friend's maid. There was much protestation, as
she had expected, against her traveling alone, but she persisted in
refusing any arrangements for companionship. She would be put into the
ladies' compartment and go right on. She could rest exceedingly well in
the train, and was afraid of nothing.
In this way it happened that Gwendolen never reappeared at the roulette-
table, but that Thursday evening left Leubronn for Brussels, and on
Saturday morning arrived at Offendene, the home to which she and her
family were soon to say a last good-bye.
CHAPTER III.
"Let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown ourselves with
rosebuds before they be withered."--BOOK OF WISDOM.
Pity that Offendene was not the home of Miss Harleth's childhood, or
endeared to her by family memories! A human life, I think, should be well
rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender
kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the
sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a
familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening of knowledge: a
spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with
affection, and--kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs
and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a
sweet habit of the blood. At five years old, mortals are not prepared to
be citizens of the world, to be stimulated by abstract nouns, to soar
above preference into impartiality; and that prejudice in favor of milk
with which we blindly begin, is a type of the way body and soul must get
nourished at least for a time. The best introduction to astronomy is to
think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's
own homestead.
But this blessed persistence in which affection can take root had been
wanting in Gwendolen's life. It was only a year before her recall from
Leubronn that Offendene had been chosen as her mamma's home, simply for
its nearness to Pennicote Rectory, and that Mrs. Davilow, Gwendolen, and
her four half-sisters (the governess and the maid following in another
vehicle) had been driven along the avenue for the first time, on a late
October afternoon when the rooks were crawing loudly above them, and the
yellow elm-leaves were whirling.
The season suited the aspect of the old oblong red-brick house, rather too
anxiously ornamented with stone at every line, not excepting the double
row of narrow windows and the large square portico. The stone encouraged a
greenish lichen, the brick a powdery gray, so that though the building was
rigidly rectangular there was no harshness in the physiognomy which it
turned to the three avenues cut east, west and south in the hundred yards'
breadth of old plantation encircling the immediate grounds. One would have
liked the house to have been lifted on a knoll, so as to look beyond its
own little domain to the long thatched roofs of the distant villages, the
church towers, the scattered homesteads, the gradual rise of surging
woods, and the green breadths of undulating park which made the beautiful
face of the earth in that part of Wessex. But though standing thus behind,
a screen amid flat pastures, it had on one side a glimpse of the wider
world in the lofty curves of the chalk downs, grand steadfast forms played
over by the changing days.
The house was but just large enough to be called a mansion, and was
moderately rented, having no manor attached to it, and being rather
difficult to let with its sombre furniture and faded upholstery. But
inside and outside it was what no beholder could suppose to be inhabited
by retired trades-people: a certainty which was worth many conveniences to
tenants who not only had the taste that shrinks from new finery, but also
were in that border-territory of rank where annexation is a burning topic:
and to take up her abode in a house which had once sufficed for dowager
countesses gave a perceptible tinge to Mrs. Davilow's satisfaction in
having an establishment of her own. This, rather mysteriously to
Gwendolen, appeared suddenly possible on the death of her step-father,
Captain Davilow, who had for the last nine years joined his family only in
a brief and fitful manner, enough to reconcile them to his long absences;
but she cared much more for the fact than for the explanation. All her
prospects had become more agreeable in consequence. She had disliked their
former way of life, roving from one foreign watering-place or Parisian
apartment to another, always feeling new antipathies to new suites of
hired furniture, and meeting new people under conditions which made her
appear of little importance; and the variation of having passed two years
at a showy school, where, on all occasions of display, she had been put
foremost, had only deepened her sense that so exceptional a person as
herself could hardly remain in ordinary circumstances or in a social
position less than advantageous. Any fear of this latter evil was banished
now that her mamma was to have an establishment; for on the point of birth
Gwendolen was quite easy. She had no notion how her maternal grandfather
got the fortune inherited by his two daughters; but he had been a West
Indian--which seemed to exclude further question; and she knew that her
father's family was so high as to take no notice of her mamma, who
nevertheless preserved with much pride the miniature of a Lady Molly in
that connection. She would probably have known much more about her father
but for a little incident which happened when she was twelve years old.
Mrs. Davilow had brought out, as she did only at wide intervals, various
memorials of her first husband, and while showing his miniature to
Gwendolen recalled with a fervor which seemed to count on a peculiar
filial sympathy, the fact that dear papa had died when his little daughter
was in long clothes. Gwendolen, immediately thinking of the unlovable
step-father whom she had been acquainted with the greater part of her life
while her frocks were short, said--
"Why did you marry again, mamma? It would have been nicer if you had not."
Mrs. Davilow colored deeply, a slight convulsive movement passed over her
face, and straightway shutting up the memorials she said, with a violence
quite unusual in her--
"You have no feeling, child!"
Gwendolen, who was fond of her mamma, felt hurt and ashamed, and had never
since dared to ask a question about her father.
This was not the only instance in which she had brought on herself the
pain of some filial compunction. It was always arranged, when possible,
that she should have a small bed in her mamma's room; for Mrs. Davilow's
motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had been born in
her happier time. One night under an attack of pain she found that the
specific regularly placed by her bedside had been forgotten, and begged
Gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her. That healthy young lady,
snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little couch, objected to step out
into the cold, and lying perfectly still, grumbling a refusal. Mrs.
Davilow went without the medicine and never reproached her daughter; but
the next day Gwendolen was keenly conscious of what must be in her mamma's
mind, and tried to make amends by caresses which cost her no effort.
Having always been the pet and pride of the household, waited on by
mother, sisters, governess and maids, as if she had been a princess in
exile, she naturally found it difficult to think her own pleasure less
important than others made it, and when it was positively thwarted felt an
astonished resentment apt, in her cruder days, to vent itself in one of
those passionate acts which look like a contradiction of habitual
tendencies. Though never even as a child thoughtlessly cruel, nay
delighting to rescue drowning insects and watch their recovery, there was
a disagreeable silent remembrance of her having strangled her sister's
canary-bird in a final fit of exasperation at its shrill singing which had
again and again jarringly interrupted her own. She had taken pains to buy
a white mouse for her sister in retribution, and though inwardly excusing
herself on the ground of a peculiar sensitiveness which was a mark of her
general superiority, the thought of that infelonious murder had always
made her wince. Gwendolen's nature was not remorseless, but she liked to
make her penances easy, and now that she was twenty and more, some of her
native force had turned into a self-control by which she guarded herself
from penitential humiliation. There was more show of fire and will in her
than ever, but there was more calculation underneath it.
On this day of arrival at Offendene, which not even Mrs. Davilow had seen
before--the place having been taken for her by her brother-in-law, Mr.
Gascoigne--when all had got down from the carriage, and were standing
under the porch in front of the open door, so that they could have a
general view of the place and a glimpse of the stone hall and staircase
hung with sombre pictures, but enlivened by a bright wood fire, no one
spoke; mamma, the four sisters and the governess all looked at Gwendolen,
as if their feelings depended entirely on her decision. Of the girls, from
Alice in her sixteenth year to Isabel in her tenth, hardly anything could
be said on a first view, but that they were girlish, and that their black
dresses were getting shabby. Miss Merry was elderly and altogether neutral
in expression. Mrs. Davilow's worn beauty seemed the more pathetic for the
look of entire appeal which she cast at Gwendolen, who was glancing round
at the house, the landscape and the entrance hall with an air of rapid
judgment. Imagine a young race-horse in the paddock among untrimmed ponies
and patient hacks.
"Well, dear, what do you think of the place," said Mrs. Davilow at last,
in a gentle, deprecatory tone.
"I think it is charming," said Gwendolen, quickly. "A romantic place;
anything delightful may happen in it; it would be a good background for
anything. No one need be ashamed of living here."
"There is certainly nothing common about it."
"Oh, it would do for fallen royalty or any sort of grand poverty. We ought
properly to have been living in splendor, and have come down to this. It
would have been as romantic as could be. But I thought my uncle and aunt
Gascoigne would be here to meet us, and my cousin Anna," added Gwendolen,
her tone changed to sharp surprise.
"We are early," said Mrs. Davilow, and entering the hall, she said to the
housekeeper who came forward, "You expect Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne?"
"Yes, madam; they were here yesterday to give particular orders about the
fires and the dinner. But as to fires, I've had 'em in all the rooms for
the last week, and everything is well aired. I could wish some of the
furniture paid better for all the cleaning it's had, but I _think_ you'll
see the brasses have been done justice to. I _think_ when Mr. and Mrs.
Gascoigne come, they'll tell you nothing has been neglected. They'll be
here at five, for certain."
This satisfied Gwendolen, who was not prepared to have their arrival
treated with indifference; and after tripping a little way up the matted
stone staircase to take a survey there, she tripped down again, and
followed by all the girls looked into each of the rooms opening from the
hall--the dining-room all dark oak and worn red satin damask, with a copy
of snarling, worrying dogs from Snyders over the side-board, and a Christ
breaking bread over the mantel-piece; the library with a general aspect
and smell of old brown-leather; and lastly, the drawing-room, which was
entered through a small antechamber crowded with venerable knick-knacks.
"Mamma, mamma, pray come here!" said Gwendolen, Mrs. Davilow having
followed slowly in talk with the housekeeper. "Here is an organ. I will be
Saint Cecilia: some one shall paint me as Saint Cecilia. Jocosa (this was
her name for Miss Merry), let down my hair. See, mamma?"
She had thrown off her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the organ
in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and sad Jocosa
took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and then shook out
the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far below its owner's
slim waist.
Mrs. Davilow smiled and said, "A charming picture, my dear!" not
indifferent to the display of her pet, even in the presence of a
housekeeper. Gwendolen rose and laughed with delight. All this seemed
quite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a
background.
"What a queer, quaint, picturesque room!" she went on, looking about her.
"I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot,
and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the ribs--nothing but
ribs and darkness--I should think that is Spanish, mamma."
"Oh, Gwendolen!" said the small Isabel, in a tone of astonishment, while
she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of the room.
Every one, Gwendolen first, went to look. The opened panel had disclosed
the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure figure seemed
to be fleeing with outstretched arms. "How horrible!" said Mrs. Davilow,
with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered silently, and Isabel,
a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an alarming memory, said--
"You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen."
"How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse
little creature?" said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone. Then snatching the
panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily, saying,
"There is a lock--where is the key? Let the key be found, or else let one
be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the key be brought
to me."
At this command to everybody in general Gwendolen turned with a face which
was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, "Let us go up to
our own room, mamma."
The housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet
close by the panel, and presently handed it to Bugle, the lady's-maid,
telling her significantly to give it to her Royal Highness.
"I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Startin," said Bugle, who had been busy
up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather offended at
this irony in a new servant.
"I mean the young lady that's to command us all-and well worthy for looks
and figure," replied Mrs. Startin in propitiation. "She'll know what key
it is."
"If you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, Bugle,"
Gwendolen had said, when she and Mrs. Davilow entered their black and
yellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the side
of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. "I will help
mamma."
But her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the windows,
which reflected herself and the room completely, while her mamma sat down
and also looked at the reflection.
"That is a becoming glass, Gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color
that sets you off?" said Mrs. Davilow, as Gwendolen stood obliquely with
her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand
brushing back the stream of hair.
"I should make a tolerable St. Cecilia with some white roses on my head,"
said Gwendolen,--"only how about my nose, mamma? I think saint's noses
never in the least turn up. I wish you had given me your perfectly
straight nose; it would have done for any sort of character--a nose of all
work. Mine is only a happy nose; it would not do so well for tragedy."
"Oh, my dear, any nose will do to be miserable with in this world," said
Mrs. Davilow, with a deep, weary sigh, throwing her black bonnet on the
table, and resting her elbow near it.
"Now, mamma," said Gwendolen, in a strongly remonstrant tone, turning away
from the glass with an air of vexation, "don't begin to be dull here. It
spoils all my pleasure, and everything may be so happy now. What have you
to be gloomy about _now_?"
"Nothing, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, seeming to rouse herself, and
beginning to take off her dress. "It is always enough for me to see you
happy."
"But you should be happy yourself," said Gwendolen, still discontentedly,
though going to help her mamma with caressing touches. "Can nobody be
happy after they are quite young? You have made me feel sometimes as if
nothing were of any use. With the girls so troublesome, and Jocosa so
dreadfully wooden and ugly, and everything make-shift about us, and you
looking so dull--what was the use of my being anything? But now you
_might_ be happy."
"So I shall, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, patting the cheek that was bending
near her.
"Yes, but really. Not with a sort of make-believe," said Gwendolen, with
resolute perseverance. "See what a hand and arm!--much more beautiful than
mine. Any one can see you were altogether more beautiful."
"No, no, dear; I was always heavier. Never half so charming as you are."
"Well, but what is the use of my being charming, if it is to end in my
being dull and not minding anything? Is that what marriage always comes
to?"
"No, child, certainly not. Marriage is the only happy state for a woman,
as I trust you will prove."
"I will not put up with it if it is not a happy state. I am determined to
be happy--at least not to go on muddling away my life as other people do,
being and doing nothing remarkable. I have made up my mind not to let
other people interfere with me as they have done. Here is some warm water
ready for you, mamma," Gwendolen ended, proceeding to take off her own
dress and then waiting to have her hair wound up by her mamma.
There was silence for a minute or two, till Mrs. Davilow said, while
coiling the daughter's hair, "I am sure I have never crossed you,
Gwendolen."
"You often want me to do what I don't like."
"You mean, to give Alice lessons?"
"Yes. And I have done it because you asked me. But I don't see why I
should, else. It bores me to death, she is so slow. She has no ear for
music, or language, or anything else. It would be much better for her to
be ignorant, mamma: it is her _role_, she would do it well."
"That is a hard thing to say of your poor sister, Gwendolen, who is so
good to you, and waits on you hand and foot."
"I don't see why it is hard to call things by their right names, and put
them in their proper places. The hardship is for me to have to waste my
time on her. Now let me fasten up your hair, mamma."
"We must make haste; your uncle and aunt will be here soon. For heaven's
sake, don't be scornful to _them_, my dear child! or to your cousin Anna,
whom you will always be going out with. Do promise me, Gwendolen. You
know, you can't expect Anna to be equal to you."
"I don't want her to be equal," said Gwendolen, with a toss of her head
and a smile, and the discussion ended there.
When Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne and their daughter came, Gwendolen, far from
being scornful, behaved as prettily as possible to them. She was
introducing herself anew to relatives who had not seen her since the
comparatively unfinished age of sixteen, and she was anxious--no, not
anxious, but resolved that they should admire her.
Mrs. Gascoigne bore a family likeness to her sister. But she was darker
and slighter, her face was unworn by grief, her movements were less
languid, her expression more alert and critical as that of a rector's wife
bound to exert a beneficent authority. Their closest resemblance lay in a
non-resistant disposition, inclined to imitation and obedience; but this,
owing to the difference in their circumstances, had led them to very
different issues. The younger sister had been indiscreet, or at least
unfortunate in her marriages; the elder believed herself the most enviable
of wives, and her pliancy had ended in her sometimes taking shapes of
surprising definiteness. Many of her opinions, such as those on church
government and the character of Archbishop Laud, seemed too decided under
every alteration to have been arrived at otherwise than by a wifely
receptiveness. And there was much to encourage trust in her husband's
authority. He had some agreeable virtues, some striking advantages, and
the failings that were imputed to him all leaned toward the side of
success.
One of his advantages was a fine person, which perhaps was even more
impressive at fifty-seven than it had been earlier in life. There were no
distinctively clerical lines in the face, no tricks of starchiness or of
affected ease: in his Inverness cape he could not have been identified
except as a gentleman with handsome dark features, a nose which began with
an intention to be aquiline but suddenly became straight, and iron-gray,
hair. Perhaps he owed this freedom from the sort of professional make-up
which penetrates skin, tones and gestures and defies all drapery, to the
fact that he had once been Captain Gaskin, having taken orders and a
diphthong but shortly before his engagement to Miss Armyn. If any one had
objected that his preparation for the clerical function was inadequate,
his friends might have asked who made a better figure in it, who preached
better or had more authority in his parish? He had a native gift for
administration, being tolerant both of opinions and conduct, because be
felt himself able to overrule them, and was free from the irritations of
conscious feebleness. He smiled pleasantly at the foible of a taste which
he did not share--at floriculture or antiquarianism for example, which
were much in vogue among his fellow-clergyman in the diocese: for himself,
he preferred following the history of a campaign, or divining from his
knowledge of Nesselrode's motives what would have been his conduct if our
cabinet had taken a different course. Mr. Gascoigne's tone of thinking
after some long-quieted fluctuations had become ecclesiastical rather than
theological; not the modern Anglican, but what he would have called sound
English, free from nonsense; such as became a man who looked at a national
religion by daylight, and saw it in its relation to other things. No
clerical magistrate had greater weight at sessions, or less of mischievous
impracticableness in relation to worldly affairs. Indeed, the worst
imputation thrown out against him was worldliness: it could not be proved
that he forsook the less fortunate, but it was not to be denied that the
friendships he cultivated were of a kind likely to be useful to the father
of six sons and two daughters; and bitter observers--for in Wessex, say
ten years ago, there were persons whose bitterness may now seem
incredible--remarked that the color of his opinions had changed in
consistency with this principle of action. But cheerful, successful
worldliness has a false air of being more selfish than the acrid,
unsuccessful kind, whose secret history is summed up in the terrible
words, "Sold, but not paid for."
Gwendolen wondered that she had not better remembered how very fine a man
her uncle was; but at the age of sixteen she was a less capable and more
indifferent judge. At present it was a matter of extreme interest to her
that she was to have the near countenance of a dignified male relative,
and that the family life would cease to be entirely, insipidly feminine.
She did not intend that her uncle should control her, but she saw at once
that it would be altogether agreeable to her that he should be proud of
introducing her as his niece. And there was every sign of his being likely
to feel that pride. He certainly looked at her with admiration as he
said--
"You have outgrown Anna, my dear," putting his arm tenderly round his
daughter, whose shy face was a tiny copy of his own, and drawing her
forward. "She is not so old as you by a year, but her growing days are
certainly over. I hope you will be excellent companions."
He did give a comparing glance at his daughter, but if he saw her
inferiority, he might also see that Anna's timid appearance and miniature
figure must appeal to a different taste from that which was attracted by
Gwendolen, and that the girls could hardly be rivals. Gwendolen at least,
was aware of this, and kissed her cousin with real cordiality as well as
grace, saying, "A companion is just what I want. I am so glad we are come
to live here. And mamma will be much happier now she is near you, aunt."
The aunt trusted indeed that it would be so, and felt it a blessing that a
suitable home had been vacant in their uncle's parish. Then, of course,
notice had to be taken of the four other girls, whom Gwendolen had always
felt to be superfluous: all of a girlish average that made four units
utterly unimportant, and yet from her earliest days an obtrusive
influential fact in her life. She was conscious of having been much kinder
to them than could have been expected. And it was evident to her that her
uncle and aunt also felt it a pity there were so many girls:--what
rational person could feel otherwise, except poor mamma, who never would
see how Alice set up her shoulders and lifted her eyebrows till she had no
forehead left, how Bertha and Fanny whispered and tittered together about
everything, or how Isabel was always listening and staring and forgetting
where she was, and treading on the toes of her suffering elders?
"You have brothers, Anna," said Gwendolen, while the sisters were being
noticed. "I think you are enviable there."
"Yes," said Anna, simply. "I am very fond of them; but of course their
education is a great anxiety to papa. He used to say they made me a
tomboy. I really was a great romp with Rex. I think you will like Rex. He
will come home before Christmas."
"I remember I used to think you rather wild and shy; but it is difficult
now to imagine you a romp," said Gwendolen, smiling.
"Of course, I am altered now; I am come out, and all that. But in reality
I like to go blackberrying with Edwy and Lotta as well as ever. I am not
very fond of going out; but I dare say I shall like it better now you will
be often with me. I am not at all clever, and I never know what to say. It
seems so useless to say what everybody knows, and I can think of nothing
else, except what papa says."
"I shall like going out with you very much," said Gwendolen, well disposed
toward this _naive_ cousin. "Are you fond of riding?"
"Yes, but we have only one Shetland pony amongst us. Papa says he can't
afford more, besides the carriage-horses and his own nag; he has so many
expenses."
"I intend to have a horse and ride a great deal now," said Gwendolen, in a
tone of decision. "Is the society pleasant in this neighborhood?"
"Papa says it is, very. There are the clergymen all about, you know; and
the Quallons, and the Arrowpoints, and Lord Brackenshaw, and Sir Hugo
Mallinger's place, where there is nobody--that's very nice, because we
make picnics there--and two or three families at Wanchester: oh, and old
Mrs. Vulcany, at Nuttingwood, and--"
But Anna was relieved of this tax on her descriptive powers by the
announcement of dinner, and Gwendolen's question was soon indirectly
answered by her uncle, who dwelt much on the advantages he had secured for
them in getting a place like Offendene. Except the rent, it involved no
more expense than an ordinary house at Wanchester would have done.
"And it is always worth while to make a little sacrifice for a good style
of house," said Mr. Gascoigne, in his easy, pleasantly confident tone,
which made the world in general seem a very manageable place of residence:
"especially where there is only a lady at the head. All the best people
will call upon you; and you need give no expensive dinners. Of course, I
have to spend a good deal in that way; it is a large item. But then I get
my house for nothing. If I had to pay three hundred a year for my house I
could not keep a table. My boys are too great a drain on me. You are
better off than we are, in proportion; there is no great drain on you now,
after your house and carriage."
"I assure you, Fanny, now that the children are growing up, I am obliged
to cut and contrive," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "I am not a good manager by
nature, but Henry has taught me. He is wonderful for making the best of
everything; he allows himself no extras, and gets his curates for nothing.
It is rather hard that he has not been made a prebendary or something, as
others have been, considering the friends he has made and the need there
is for men of moderate opinions in all respects. If the Church is to keep
its position, ability and character ought to tell."
"Oh, my dear Nancy, you forget the old story--thank Heaven, there are
three hundred as good as I. And ultimately, we shall have no reason to
complain, I am pretty sure. There could hardly be a more thorough friend
than Lord Brackenshaw--your landlord, you know, Fanny. Lady Brackenshaw
will call upon you. And I have spoken for Gwendolen to be a member of our
Archery Club--the Brackenshaw Archery Club--the most select thing
anywhere. That is, if she has no objection," added Mr. Gascoigne, looking
at Gwendolen with pleasant irony.
"I should like it of all things," said Gwendolen. "There is nothing I
enjoy more than taking aim--and hitting," she ended, with a pretty nod and
smile.
"Our Anna, poor child, is too short-sighed for archery. But I consider
myself a first-rate shot, and you shall practice with me. I must make you
an accomplished archer before our great meeting in July. In fact, as to
neighborhood, you could hardly be better placed. There are the
Arrowpoints--they are some of our best people. Miss Arrowpoint is a
delightful girl--she has been presented at Court. They have a magnificent
place--Quetcham Hall--worth seeing in point of art; and their parties, to
which you are sure to be invited, are the best things of the sort we have.
The archdeacon is intimate there, and they have always a good kind of
people staying in the house. Mrs. Arrowpoint is peculiar, certainly;
something of a caricature, in fact; but well-meaning. And Miss Arrowpoint
is as nice as possible. It is not all young ladies who have mothers as
handsome and graceful as yours and Anna's."
Mrs. Davilow smiled faintly at this little compliment, but the husband and
wife looked affectionately at each other, and Gwendolen thought, "My uncle
and aunt, at least, are happy: they are not dull and dismal." Altogether,
she felt satisfied with her prospects at Offendene, as a great improvement
on anything she had known. Even the cheap curates, she incidentally
learned, were almost always young men of family, and Mr. Middleton, the
actual curate, was said to be quite an acquisition: it was only a pity he
was so soon to leave.
But there was one point which she was so anxious to gain that she could
not allow the evening to pass without taking her measures toward securing
it. Her mamma, she knew, intended to submit entirely to her uncle's
judgment with regard to expenditure; and the submission was not merely
prudential, for Mrs. Davilow, conscious that she had always been seen
under a cloud as poor dear Fanny, who had made a sad blunder with her
second marriage, felt a hearty satisfaction in being frankly and cordially
identified with her sister's family, and in having her affairs canvassed
and managed with an authority which presupposed a genuine interest. Thus
the question of a suitable saddle-horse, which had been sufficiently
discussed with mamma, had to be referred to Mr. Gascoigne; and after
Gwendolen had played on the piano, which had been provided from
Wanchester, had sung to her hearers' admiration, and had induced her uncle
to join her in a duet--what more softening influence than this on any
uncle who would have sung finely if his time had not been too much taken
up by graver matters?--she seized the opportune moment for saying, "Mamma,
you have not spoken to my uncle about my riding."
"Gwendolen desires above all things to have a horse to ride--a pretty,
light, lady's horse," said Mrs. Davilow, looking at Mr. Gascoigne. "Do you
think we can manage it?"
Mr. Gascoigne projected his lower lip and lifted his handsome eyebrows
sarcastically at Gwendolen, who had seated herself with much grace on the
elbow of her mamma's chair.
"We could lend her the pony sometimes," said Mrs. Gascoigne, watching her
husband's face, and feeling quite ready to disapprove if he did.
"That might be inconveniencing others, aunt, and would be no pleasure to
me. I cannot endure ponies," said Gwendolen. "I would rather give up some
other indulgence and have a horse." (Was there ever a young lady or
gentleman not ready to give up an unspecified indulgence for the sake of
the favorite one specified?)
"She rides so well. She has had lessons, and the riding-master said she
had so good a seat and hand she might be trusted with any mount," said
Davilow, who, even if she had not wished her darling to have the horse,
would not have dared to be lukewarm in trying to get it for her.
"There is the price of the horse--a good sixty with the best chance, and
then his keep," said Mr. Gascoigne, in a tone which, though demurring,
betrayed the inward presence of something that favored the demand. "There
are the carriage-horses--already a heavy item. And remember what you
ladies cost in toilet now."
"I really wear nothing but two black dresses," said Mrs. Davilow, hastily.
"And the younger girls, of course, require no toilet at present. Besides,
Gwendolen will save me so much by giving her sisters lessons." Here Mrs.
Davilow's delicate cheek showed a rapid blush. "If it were not for that, I
must really have a more expensive governess, and masters besides."
Gwendolen felt some anger with her mamma, but carefully concealed it.
"That is good--that is decidedly good," said Mr. Gascoigne, heartily,
looking at his wife. And Gwendolen, who, it must be owned, was a deep
young lady, suddenly moved away to the other end of the long drawing-room,
and busied herself with arranging pieces of music.
"The dear child has had no indulgences, no pleasures," said Mrs. Davilow,
in a pleading undertone. "I feel the expense is rather imprudent in this
first year of our settling. But she really needs the exercise--she needs
cheering. And if you were to see her on horseback, it is something
splendid."
"It is what we could not afford for Anna," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "But she,
dear child, would ride Lotta's donkey and think it good enough." (Anna was
absorbed in a game with Isabel, who had hunted out an old back-gammon-
board, and had begged to sit up an extra hour.)
"Certainly, a fine woman never looks better than on horseback," said Mr.
Gascoigne. "And Gwendolen has the figure for it. I don't say the thing
should not be considered."
"We might try it for a time, at all events. It can be given up, if
necessary," said Mrs. Davilow.
"Well, I will consult Lord Brackenshaw's head groom. He is my _fidus
Achates_ in the horsey way."
"Thanks," said Mrs. Davilow, much relieved. "You are very kind."
"That he always is," said Mrs. Gascoigne. And later that night, when she
and her husband were in private, she said--
"I thought you were almost too indulgent about the horse for Gwendolen.
She ought not to claim so much more than your own daughter would think of.
Especially before we see how Fanny manages on her income. And you really
have enough to do without taking all this trouble on yourself."
"My dear Nancy, one must look at things from every point of view. This
girl is really worth some expense: you don't often see her equal. She
ought to make a first-rate marriage, and I should not be doing my duty if
I spared my trouble in helping her forward. You know yourself she has been
under a disadvantage with such a father-in-law, and a second family,
keeping her always in the shade. I feel for the girl, And I should like
your sister and her family now to have the benefit of your having married
rather a better specimen of our kind than she did."
"Rather better! I should think so. However, it is for me to be grateful
that you will take so much on your shoulders for the sake of my sister and
her children. I am sure I would not grudge anything to poor Fanny. But
there is one thing I have been thinking of, though you have never
mentioned it."
"What is that?"
"The boys. I hope they will not be falling in love with Gwendolen."
"Don't presuppose anything of the kind, my dear, and there will be no
danger. Rex will never be at home for long together, and Warham is going
to India. It is the wiser plan to take it for granted that cousins will
not fall in love. If you begin with precautions, the affair will come in
spite of them. One must not undertake to act for Providence in these
matters, which can no more be held under the hand than a brood of
chickens. The boys will have nothing, and Gwendolen will have nothing.
They can't marry. At the worst there would only be a little crying, and
you can't save boys and girls from that."
Mrs. Gascoigne's mind was satisfied: if anything did happen, there was the
comfort of feeling that her husband would know what was to be done, and
would have the energy to do it.
CHAPTER IV.
"_Gorgibus._-- * * * Je te dis que le mariage est une chose sainte
et sacree: et que c'est faire en honnetes gens, que de debuter par la.
"_Madelon._--Mon Dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un
roman serait bientot fini! La belle chose que ce serait, si d'abord
Cyrus epousait Mandane, et qu'Aronce de plain-pied fut marie a Clelie!
* * * Laissez-nous faire a loisir le tissu de notre roman, et n'en
pressez pas tant la conclusion."
MOLIERE. _Les Precieuses Ridicules._
It would be a little hard to blame the rector of Pennicote that in the
course of looking at things from every point of view, he looked at
Gwendolen as a girl likely to make a brilliant marriage. Why should he be
expected to differ from his contemporaries in this matter, and wish his
niece a worse end of her charming maidenhood than they would approve as
the best possible? It is rather to be set down to his credit that his
feelings on the subject were entirely good-natured. And in considering the
relation of means to ends, it would have been mere folly to have been
guided by the exceptional and idylic--to have recommended that Gwendolen
should wear a gown as shabby as Griselda's in order that a marquis might
fall in love with her, or to have insisted that since a fair maiden was to
be sought, she should keep herself out of the way. Mr. Gascoigne's
calculations were of the kind called rational, and he did not even think
of getting a too frisky horse in order that Gwendolen might be threatened
with an accident and be rescued by a man of property. He wished his niece
well, and he meant her to be seen to advantage in the best society of the
neighborhood.
Her uncle's intention fell in perfectly with Gwendolen's own wishes. But
let no one suppose that she also contemplated a brilliant marriage as the
direct end of her witching the world with her grace on horseback, or with
any other accomplishment. That she was to be married some time or other
she would have felt obliged to admit; and that her marriage would not be
of a middling kind, such as most girls were contented with, she felt
quietly, unargumentatively sure. But her thoughts never dwelt on marriage
as the fulfillment of her ambition; the dramas in which she imagined
herself a heroine were not wrought up to that close. To be very much sued
or hopelessly sighed for as a bride was indeed an indispensable and
agreeable guarantee of womanly power; but to become a wife and wear all
the domestic fetters of that condition, was on the whole a vexatious
necessity. Her observation of matrimony had inclined her to think it
rather a dreary state in which a woman could not do what she liked, had
more children than were desirable, was consequently dull, and became
irrevocably immersed in humdrum. Of course marriage was social promotion;
she could not look forward to a single life; but promotions have sometimes
to be taken with bitter herbs--a peerage will not quite do instead of
leadership to the man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of
twenty meant to lead. For such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. In
Gwendolen's, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and
had no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the balance
of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort of standing-
room or length of lever could have been expected to move the world. She
meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking manner; or rather,
whatever she could do so as to strike others with admiration and get in
that reflected way a more ardent sense of living, seemed pleasant to her
fancy.
"Gwendolen will not rest without having the world at her feet," said Miss
Merry, the meek governess: hyperbolical words which have long come to
carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private persons
having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen items of
flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And words could
hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that made a hazy
largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young self-
exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, and to
have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in which no
will was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no longer be
sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would make the very
best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer circumstances by
her exceptional cleverness. Certainly, to be settled at Offendene, with
the notice of Lady Brackenshaw, the archery club, and invitations to dine
with the Arrowpoints, as the highest lights in her scenery, was not a
position that seemed to offer remarkable chances; but Gwendolen's
confidence lay chiefly in herself. She felt well equipped for the mastery
of life. With regard to much in her lot hitherto, she held herself rather
hardly dealt with, but as to her "education," she would have admitted that
it had left her under no disadvantages. In the school-room her quick mind
had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected
facts which saves ignorance from any painful sense of limpness; and what
remained of all things knowable, she was conscious of being sufficiently
acquainted with through novels, plays and poems. About her French and
music, the two justifying accomplishments of a young lady, she felt no
ground for uneasiness; and when to all these qualifications, negative and
positive, we add the spontaneous sense of capability some happy persons
are born with, so that any subject they turn their attention to impresses
them with their own power of forming a correct judgment on it, who can
wonder if Gwendolen felt ready to manage her own destiny?
There were many subjects in the world--perhaps the majority--in which she
felt no interest, because they were stupid; for subjects are apt to appear
stupid to the young as light seems dull to the old; but she would not have
felt at all helpless in relation to them if they had turned up in
conversation. It must be remembered that no one had disputed her power or
her general superiority. As on the arrival at Offendene, so always, the
first thought of those about her had been, what will Gwendolen think?--if
the footman trod heavily in creaking boots, or if the laundress's work was
unsatisfactory, the maid said, "This will never do for Miss Harleth"; if
the wood smoked in the bedroom fireplace, Mrs. Davilow, whose own weak
eyes suffered much from this inconvenience, spoke apologetically of it to
Gwendolen. If, when they were under the stress of traveling, she did not
appear at the breakfast table till every one else had finished, the only
question was, how Gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the
hottest and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed
light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to coil
it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx from
under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be tolerant
--to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up her
shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of pushing up
to her and asking questions, would go away to Miss Merry.
Always she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have
her breakfast-roll made of the finest-bolted flour from the seven thin
ears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver folk
kept out of the baggage. How was this to be accounted for? The answer may
seem to lie quite on the surface:--in her beauty, a certain unusualness
about her, a decision of will which made itself felt in her graceful
movements and clear unhesitating tones, so that if she came into the room
on a rainy day when everybody else was flaccid and the use of things in
general was not apparent to them, there seemed to be a sudden, sufficient
reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even the waiters at hotels
showed the more alacrity in doing away with crumbs and creases and dregs
with struggling flies in them. This potent charm, added to the fact that
she was the eldest daughter, toward whom her mamma had always been in an
apologetic state of mind for the evils brought on her by a step-father,
may seem so full a reason for Gwendolen's domestic empire, that to look
for any other would be to ask the reason of daylight when the sun is
shining. But beware of arriving at conclusions without comparison. I
remember having seen the same assiduous, apologetic attention awarded to
persons who were not at all beautiful or unusual, whose firmness showed
itself in no very graceful or euphonious way, and who were not eldest
daughters with a tender, timid mother, compunctious at having subjected
them to inconveniences. Some of them were a very common sort of men. And
the only point of resemblance among them all was a strong determination to
have what was pleasant, with a total fearlessness in making themselves
disagreeable or dangerous when they did not get it. Who is so much cajoled
and served with trembling by the weak females of a household as the
unscrupulous male--capable, if he has not free way at home, of going and
doing worse elsewhere? Hence I am forced to doubt whether even without her
potent charm and peculiar filial position Gwendolen might not still have
played the queen in exile, if only she had kept her inborn energy of
egoistic desire, and her power of inspiring fear as to what she might say
or do. However, she had the charm, and those who feared her were also fond
of her; the fear and the fondness being perhaps both heightened by what
may be called the iridescence of her character--the play of various, nay,
contrary tendencies. For Macbeth's rhetoric about the impossibility of
being many opposite things in the same moment, referred to the clumsy
necessities of action and not to the subtler possibilities of feeling. We
cannot speak a loyal word and be meanly silent; we cannot kill and not
kill in the same moment; but a moment is wide enough for the loyal and
mean desire, for the outlash of a murderous thought and the sharp backward
stroke of repentance.
CHAPTER V.
"Her wit
Values itself so highly, that to her
All matter else seems weak."
--_Much Ado About Nothing._
Gwendolen's reception in the neighborhood fulfilled her uncle's
expectations. From Brackenshaw Castle to the Firs at Winchester, where Mr.
Quallon the banker kept a generous house, she was welcomed with manifest
admiration, and even those ladies who did not quite like her, felt a
comfort in having a new, striking girl to invite; for hostesses who
entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their
cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking. Then, in order to have
Gwendolen as a guest, it was not necessary to ask any one who was
disagreeable, for Mrs. Davilow always made a quiet, picturesque figure as
a chaperon, and Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere in request for his own sake.
Among the houses where Gwendolen was not quite liked, and yet invited, was
Quetcham Hall. One of her first invitations was to a large dinner-party
there, which made a sort of general introduction for her to the society of
the neighborhood; for in a select party of thirty and of well-composed
proportions as to age, few visitable families could be entirely left out.
No youthful figure there was comparable to Gwendolen's as she passed
through the long suite of rooms adorned with light and flowers, and,
visible at first as a slim figure floating along in white drapery,
approached through one wide doorway after another into fuller illumination
and definiteness. She had never had that sort of promenade before, and she
felt exultingly that it befitted her: any one looking at her for the first
time might have supposed that long galleries and lackeys had always been a
matter of course in her life; while her cousin Anna, who was really more
familiar with these things, felt almost as much embarrassed as a rabbit
suddenly deposited in that well-lit-space.
"Who is that with Gascoigne?" said the archdeacon, neglecting a discussion
of military manoeuvres on which, as a clergyman, he was naturally appealed
to. And his son, on the other side of the room--a hopeful young scholar,
who had already suggested some "not less elegant than ingenious,"
emendations of Greek texts--said nearly at the same time, "By George! who
is that girl with the awfully well-set head and jolly figure?"
But to a mind of general benevolence, wishing everybody to look well, it
was rather exasperating to see how Gwendolen eclipsed others: how even the
handsome Miss Lawe, explained to be the daughter of Lady Lawe, looked
suddenly broad, heavy and inanimate; and how Miss Arrowpoint,
unfortunately also dressed in white, immediately resembled a _carte-de-
visite_ in which one would fancy the skirt alone to have been charged for.
Since Miss Arrowpoint was generally liked for the amiable unpretending way
in which she wore her fortunes, and made a softening screen for the
oddities of her mother, there seemed to be some unfitness in Gwendolen's
looking so much more like a person of social importance.
"She is not really so handsome if you come to examine her features," said
Mrs. Arrowpoint, later in the evening, confidentially to Mrs. Vulcany. "It
is a certain style she has, which produces a great effect at first, but
afterward she is less agreeable."
In fact, Gwendolen, not intending it, but intending the contrary, had
offended her hostess, who, though not a splenetic or vindictive woman, had
her susceptibilities. Several conditions had met in the Lady of Quetcham
which to the reasoners in that neighborhood seemed to have an essential
connection with each other. It was occasionally recalled that she had been
the heiress of a fortune gained by some moist or dry business in the city,
in order fully to account for her having a squat figure, a harsh parrot-
like voice, and a sytematically high head-dress; and since these points
made her externally rather ridiculous, it appeared to many only natural
that she should have what are called literary tendencies. A little
comparison would have shown that all these points are to be found apart;
daughters of aldermen being often well-grown and well-featured, pretty
women having sometimes harsh or husky voices, and the production of feeble
literature being found compatible with the most diverse forms of
_physique_, masculine as well as feminine.
Gwendolen, who had a keen sense of absurdity in others, but was kindly
disposed toward any one who could make life agreeable to her, meant to win
Mrs. Arrowpoint by giving her an interest and attention beyond what others
were probably inclined to show. But self-confidence is apt to address
itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off
speak in a cajoling tone to the poor, and those who are in the prime of
life raise their voice and talk artificially to seniors, hastily
conceiving them to be deaf and rather imbecile. Gwendolen, with all her
cleverness and purpose to be agreeable, could not escape that form of
stupidity: it followed in her mind, unreflectingly, that because Mrs.
Arrowpoint was ridiculous she was also likely to be wanting in
penetration, and she went through her little scenes without suspicion that
the various shades of her behavior were all noted.
"You are fond of books as well as of music, riding, and archery, I hear,"
Mrs. Arrowpoint said, going to her for a _tete-a-tete_ in the drawing-room
after dinner. "Catherine will be very glad to have so sympathetic a
neighbor." This little speech might have seemed the most graceful
politeness, spoken in a low, melodious tone; but with a twang, fatally
loud, it gave Gwendolen a sense of exercising patronage when she answered,
gracefully:
"It is I who am fortunate. Miss Arrowpoint will teach me what good music
is. I shall be entirely a learner. I hear that she is a thorough
musician."
"Catherine has certainly had every advantage. We have a first-rate
musician in the house now--Herr Klesmer; perhaps you know all his
compositions. You must allow me to introduce him to you. You sing, I
believe. Catherine plays three instruments, but she does not sing. I hope
you you will let us hear you. I understand you are an accomplished
singer."
"Oh, no!--'die Kraft ist schwach, allein die Lust ist gross,' as
Mephistopheles says."
"Ah, you are a student of Goethe. Young ladies are so advanced now. I
suppose you have read everything."
"No, really. I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have
been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is
nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I
could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be
to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's!
Home-made books must be so nice."
For an instant Mrs. Arrowpoint's glance was a little sharper, but the
perilous resemblance to satire in the last sentence took the hue of
girlish simplicity when Gwendolen added--
"I would give anything to write a book!"
"And why should you not?" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, encouragingly. "You have
but to begin as I did. Pen, ink, and paper are at everybody's command. But
I will send you all I have written with pleasure."
"Thanks. I shall be so glad to read your writings. Being acquainted with
authors must give a peculiar understanding of their books: one would be
able to tell then which parts were funny and which serious. I am sure I
often laugh in the wrong place." Here Gwendolen herself became aware of
danger, and added quickly, "In Shakespeare, you know, and other great
writers that we can never see. But I always want to know more than there
is in the books."
"If you are interested in any of my subjects I can lend you many extra
sheets in manuscript," said Mrs. Arrowpoint--while Gwendolen felt herself
painfully in the position of the young lady who professed to like potted
sprats.
"These are things I dare say I shall publish eventually: several friends
have urged me to do so, and one doesn't like to be obstinate. My Tasso,
for example--I could have made it twice the size."
"I dote on Tasso," said Gwendolen.
"Well, you shall have all my papers, if you like. So many, you know, have
written about Tasso; but they are all wrong. As to the particular nature
of his madness, and his feelings for Leonora, and the real cause of his
imprisonment, and the character of Leonora, who, in my opinion, was a
cold-hearted woman, else she would have married him in spite of her
brother--they are all wrong. I differ from everybody."
"How very interesting!" said Gwendolen. "I like to differ from everybody.
I think it is so stupid to agree. That is the worst of writing your
opinions; and make people agree with you." This speech renewed a slight
suspicion in Mrs. Arrowpoint, and again her glance became for a moment
examining. But Gwendolen looked very innocent, and continued with a docile
air:
"I know nothing of Tasso except the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, which we read
and learned by heart at school."
"Ah, his life is more interesting than his poetry, I have constructed the
early part of his life as a sort of romance. When one thinks of his father
Bernardo, and so on, there is much that must be true."
"Imagination is often truer than fact," said Gwendolen, decisively, though
she could no more have explained these glib words than if they had been
Coptic or Etruscan. "I shall be so glad to learn all about Tasso--and his
madness especially. I suppose poets are always a little mad."
"To be sure--'the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling'; and somebody says
of Marlowe--
'For that fine madness still he did maintain,
Which always should possess the poet's brain.'"
"But it was not always found out, was it?" said Gwendolen innocently. "I
suppose some of them rolled their eyes in private. Mad people are often
very cunning."
Again a shade flitted over Mrs. Arrowpoint's face; but the entrance of the
gentlemen prevented any immediate mischief between her and this too quick
young lady, who had over-acted her _naivete_.
"Ah, here comes Herr Klesmer," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, rising; and presently
bringing him to Gwendolen, she left them to a dialogue which was agreeable
on both sides, Herr Klesmer being a felicitous combination of the German,
the Sclave and the Semite, with grand features, brown hair floating in
artistic fashion, and brown eyes in spectacles. His English had little
foreignness except its fluency; and his alarming cleverness was made less
formidable just then by a certain softening air of stilliness which will
sometimes befall even genius in the desire of being agreeable to beauty.
Music was soon begun. Miss Arrowpoint and Herr Klesmer played a four-
handed piece on two pianos, which convinced the company in general that it
was long, and Gwendolen in particular that the neutral, placid-faced Miss
Arrowpoint had a mastery of the instrument which put her own execution out
of question--though she was not discouraged as to her often-praised touch
and style. After this every one became anxious to hear Gwendolen sing;
especially Mr. Arrowpoint; as was natural in a host and a perfect
gentleman, of whom no one had anything to say but that he married Miss
Cuttler and imported the best cigars; and he led her to the piano with
easy politeness. Herr Klesmer closed the instrument in readiness for her,
and smiled with pleasure at her approach; then placed himself at a
distance of a few feet so that he could see her as she sang.
Gwendolen was not nervous; what she undertook to do she did without
trembling, and singing was an enjoyment to her. Her voice was a moderately
powerful soprano (some one had told her it was like Jenny Lind's), her ear
good, and she was able to keep in tune, so that her singing gave pleasure
to ordinary hearers, and she had been used to unmingled applause. She had
the rare advantage of looking almost prettier when she was singing than at
other times, and that Herr Klesmer was in front of her seemed not
disagreeable. Her song, determined on beforehand, was a favorite aria of
Belini's, in which she felt quite sure of herself.
"Charming?" said Mr. Arrowpoint, who had remained near, and the word was
echoed around without more insincerity than we recognize in a brotherly
way as human. But Herr Klesmer stood like a statue--if a statue can be
imagined in spectacles; at least, he was as mute as a statue. Gwendolen
was pressed to keep her seat and double the general pleasure, and she did
not wish to refuse; but before resolving to do so, she moved a little
toward Herr Klesmer, saying with a look of smiling appeal, "It would be
too cruel to a great musician. You cannot like to hear poor amateur
singing."
"No, truly; but that makes nothing," said Herr Klesmer, suddenly speaking
in an odious German fashion with staccato endings, quite unobservable in
him before, and apparently depending on a change of mood, as Irishmen
resume their strongest brogue when they are fervid or quarrelsome. "That
makes nothing. It is always acceptable to see you sing."
Was there ever so unexpected an assertion of superiority? at least before
the late Teutonic conquest? Gwendolen colored deeply, but, with her usual
presence of mind, did not show an ungraceful resentment by moving away
immediately; and Miss Arrowpoint, who had been near enough to overhear
(and also to observe that Herr Klesmer's mode of looking at Gwendolen was
more conspicuously admiring than was quite consistent with good taste),
now with the utmost tact and kindness came close to her and said--
"Imagine what I have to go through with this professor! He can hardly
tolerate anything we English do in music. We can only put up with his
severity, and make use of it to find out the worst that can be said of us.
It is a little comfort to know that; and one can bear it when every one
else is admiring."
"I should be very much obliged to him for telling me the worst," said
Gwendolen, recovering herself. "I dare say I have been extremely ill
taught, in addition to having no talent--only liking for music." This was
very well expressed considering that it had never entered her mind before.
"Yes, it is true: you have not been well taught," said Herr Klesmer,
quietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. "Still, you are not
quite without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair organ.
But you produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing is beneath
you. It is a form of melody which expresses a puerile state of culture--a
dawdling, canting, see-saw kind of stuff--the passion and thought of
people without any breadth of horizon. There is a sort of self-satisfied
folly about every phrase of such melody; no cries of deep, mysterious
passion--no conflict--no sense of the universal. It makes men small as
they listen to it. Sing now something larger. And I shall see."
"Oh, not now--by-and-by," said Gwendolen, with a sinking of heart at the
sudden width of horizon opened round her small musical performance. For a
lady desiring to lead, this first encounter in her campaign was startling.
But she was bent on not behaving foolishly, and Miss Arrowpoint helped her
by saying--
"Yes, by-and-by. I always require half an hour to get up my courage after
being criticised by Herr Klesmer. We will ask him to play to us now: he is
bound to show us what is good music."
To be quite safe on this point Herr Klesmer played a composition of his
own, a fantasia called _Freudvoll, Leidvoll, Gedankenvoll_--an extensive
commentary on some melodic ideas not too grossly evident; and he certainly
fetched as much variety and depth of passion out of the piano as that
moderately responsive instrument lends itself to, having an imperious
magic in his fingers that seem to send a nerve-thrill through ivory key
and wooden hammer, and compel the strings to make a quivering lingering
speech for him. Gwendolen, in spite of her wounded egoism, had fullness of
nature enough to feel the power of this playing, and it gradually turned
her inward sob of mortification into an excitement which lifted her for
the moment into a desperate indifference about her own doings, or at least
a determination to get a superiority over them by laughing at them as if
they belonged to somebody else. Her eyes had become brighter, her cheeks
slightly flushed, and her tongue ready for any mischievous remarks.
"I wish you would sing to us again, Miss Harleth," said young Clintock,
the archdeacon's classical son, who had been so fortunate as to take her
to dinner, and came up to renew conversation as soon as Herr Klesmer's
performance was ended, "That is the style of music for me. I never can
make anything of this tip-top playing. It is like a jar of leeches, where
you can never tell either beginnings or endings. I could listen to your
singing all day."
"Yes, we should be glad of something popular now--another song from you
would be a relaxation," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, who had also come near with
polite intentions.
"That must be because you are in a puerile state of culture, and have no
breadth of horizon. I have just learned that. I have been taught how bad
my taste is, and am feeling growing pains. They are never pleasant," said
Gwendolen, not taking any notice of Mrs. Arrowpoint, and looking up with a
bright smile at young Clintock.
Mrs. Arrowpoint was not insensible to this rudeness, but merely said,
"Well, we will not press anything disagreeably," and as there was a
perceptible outburst of imprisoned conversation just then, and a movement
of guests seeking each other, she remained seated where she was, and
looked around her with the relief of a hostess at finding she is not
needed.
"I am glad you like this neighborhood," said young Clintock, well-pleased
with his station in front of Gwendolen.
"Exceedingly. There seems to be a little of everything and not much of
anything."
"That is rather equivocal praise."
"Not with me. I like a little of everything; a little absurdity, for
example, is very amusing. I am thankful for a few queer people; but much
of them is a bore."
(Mrs. Arrowpoint, who was hearing this dialogue, perceived quite a new
tone in Gwendolen's speech, and felt a revival of doubt as to her interest
in Tasso's madness.)
"I think there should be more croquet, for one thing," young Clintock; "I
am usually away, but if I were more here I should go in for a croquet
club. You are one of the archers, I think. But depend upon it croquet is
the game of the future. It wants writing up, though. One of our best men
has written a poem on it, in four cantos;--as good as Pope. I want him to
publish it--You never read anything better."
"I shall study croquet to-morrow. I shall take to it instead of singing."
"No, no, not that; but do take to croquet. I will send you Jenning's poem
if you like. I have a manuscript copy."
"Is he a great friend of yours?"
"Well, rather."
"Oh, if he is only rather, I think I will decline. Or, if you send it to
me, will you promise not to catechise me upon it and ask me which part I
like best? Because it is not so easy to know a poem without reading it as
to know a sermon without listening."
"Decidedly," Mrs. Arrowpoint thought, "this girl is double and satirical.
I shall be on my guard against her."
But Gwendolen, nevertheless, continued to receive polite attentions from
the family at Quetcham, not merely because invitations have larger grounds
than those of personal liking, but because the trying little scene at the
piano had awakened a kindly solicitude toward her in the gentle mind of
Miss Arrowpoint, who managed all the invitations and visits, her mother
being otherwise occupied.
CHAPTER VI.
"Croyez-vous m'avoir humiliee pour m'avoir appris que la terre tourne
autour du soleil? Je vous jure que je ne m'en estime pas moins."
--FONTENELLE: _Pluralite des Mondes_.
That lofty criticism had caused Gwendolen a new sort of pain. She would
not have chosen to confess how unfortunate she thought herself in not
having had Miss Arrowpoint's musical advantages, so as to be able to
question Herr Klesmer's taste with the confidence of thorough knowledge;
still less, to admit even to herself that Miss Arrowpoint each time they
met raised an unwonted feeling of jealousy in her: not in the least
because she was an heiress, but because it was really provoking that a
girl whose appearance you could not characterize except by saying that her
figure was slight and of middle stature, her features small, her eyes
tolerable, and her complexion sallow, had nevertheless a certain mental
superiority which could not be explained away--an exasperating
thoroughness in her musical accomplishment, a fastidious discrimination in
her general tastes, which made it impossible to force her admiration and
kept you in awe of her standard. This insignificant-looking young lady of
four-and-twenty, whom any one's eyes would have passed over negligently if
she had not been Miss Arrowpoint, might be suspected of a secret opinion
that Miss Harleth's acquirements were rather of a common order, and such
an opinion was not made agreeable to think of by being always veiled under
a perfect kindness of manner.
But Gwendolen did not like to dwell on facts which threw an unfavorable
light on itself. The musical Magus who had so suddenly widened her horizon
was not always on the scene; and his being constantly backward and forward
between London and Quetcham soon began to be thought of as offering
opportunities for converting him to a more admiring state of mind.
Meanwhile, in the manifest pleasure her singing gave at Brackenshaw
Castle, the Firs, and elsewhere, she recovered her equanimity, being
disposed to think approval more trustworthy than objection, and not being
one of the exceptional persons who have a parching thirst for a perfection
undemanded by their neighbors. Perhaps it would have been rash to say then
that she was at all exceptional inwardly, or that the unusual in her was
more than her rare grace of movement and bearing, and a certain daring
which gave piquancy to a very common egoistic ambition, such as exists
under many clumsy exteriors and is taken no notice of. For I suppose that
the set of the head does not really determine the hunger of the inner self
for supremacy: it only makes a difference sometimes as to the way in which
the supremacy is held attainable, and a little also to the degree in which
it can be attained; especially when the hungry one is a girl, whose
passion for doing what is remarkable has an ideal limit in consistency
with the highest breeding and perfect freedom from the sordid need of
income. Gwendolen was as inwardly rebellious against the restraints of
family conditions, and as ready to look through obligations into her own
fundamental want of feeling for them, as if she had been sustained by the
boldest speculations; but she really had no such speculations, and would
at once have marked herself off from any sort of theoretical or
practically reforming women by satirizing them. She rejoiced to feel
herself exceptional; but her horizon was that of the genteel romance where
the heroine's soul poured out in her journal is full of vague power,
originality, and general rebellion, while her life moves strictly in the
sphere of fashion; and if she wanders into a swamp, the pathos lies
partly, so to speak, in her having on her satin shoes. Here is a restraint
which nature and society have provided on the pursuit of striking
adventure; so that a soul burning with a sense of what the universe is
not, and ready to take all existence as fuel, is nevertheless held captive
by the ordinary wirework of social forms and does nothing particular.
This commonplace result was what Gwendolen found herself threatened with
even in the novelty of the first winter at Offendene. What she was clear
upon was, that she did not wish to lead the same sort of life as ordinary
young ladies did; but what she was not clear upon was, how she should set
about leading any other, and what were the particular acts which she would
assert her freedom by doing. Offendene remained a good background, if
anything would happen there; but on the whole the neighborhood was in
fault.
Beyond the effect of her beauty on a first presentation, there was not
much excitement to be got out of her earliest invitations, and she came
home after little sallies of satire and knowingness, such as had offended
Mrs. Arrowpoint, to fill the intervening days with the most girlish
devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her individual
claims was to leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle that Alice was
more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her with Miss Merry, and
the maid who was understood to wait on all the ladies, in helping to
arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen pleased herself with
having in readiness for some future occasions of acting in charades or
theatrical pieces, occasions which she meant to bring about by force of
will or contrivance. She had never acted--only made a figure in _tableaux
vivans_ at school; but she felt assured that she could act well, and
having been once or twice to the Theatre Francais, and also heard her
mamma speak of Rachel, her waking dreams and cogitations as to how she
would manage her destiny sometimes turned on the question whether she
would become an actress like Rachel, since she was more beautiful than
that thin Jewess. Meanwhile the wet days before Christmas were passed
pleasantly in the preparation of costumes, Greek, Oriental, and Composite,
in which Gwendolen attitudinized and speechified before a domestic
audience, including even the housekeeper, who was once pressed into it
that she might swell the notes of applause; but having shown herself
unworthy by observing that Miss Harleth looked far more like a queen in
her own dress than in that baggy thing with her arms all bare, she was not
invited a second time.
"Do I look as well as Rachel, mamma?" said Gwendolen, one day when she had
been showing herself in her Greek dress to Anna, and going through scraps
of scenes with much tragic intention.
"You have better arms than Rachel," said Mrs. Davilow, "your arms would do
for anything, Gwen. But your voice is not so tragic as hers; it is not so
deep."
"I can make it deeper, if I like," said Gwendolen, provisionally; then she
added, with decision, "I think a higher voice is more tragic: it is more
feminine; and the more feminine a woman is, the more tragic it seems when
she does desperate actions."
"There may be something in that," said Mrs. Davilow, languidly. "But I
don't know what good there is in making one's blood creep. And if there is
anything horrible to be done, I should like it to be left to the men."
"Oh, mamma, you are so dreadfully prosaic! As if all the great poetic
criminals were not women! I think the men are poor cautious creatures."
"Well, dear, and you--who are afraid to be alone in the night--I don't
think you would be very bold in crime, thank God."
"I am not talking about reality, mamma," said Gwendolen, impatiently. Then
her mamma being called out of the room, she turned quickly to her cousin,
as if taking an opportunity, and said, "Anna, do ask my uncle to let us
get up some charades at the rectory. Mr. Middleton and Warham could act
with us--just for practice. Mamma says it will not do to have Mr.
Middleton consulting and rehearsing here. He is a stick, but we could give
him suitable parts. Do ask, or else I will."
"Oh, not till Rex comes. He is so clever, and such a dear old thing, and
he will act Napoleon looking over the sea. He looks just like Napoleon.
Rex can do anything."
"I don't in the least believe in your Rex, Anna," said Gwendolen, laughing
at her. "He will turn out to be like those wretched blue and yellow water-
colors of his which you hang up in your bedroom and worship."
"Very well, you will see," said Anna. "It is not that I know what is
clever, but he has got a scholarship already, and papa says he will get a
fellowship, and nobody is better at games. He is cleverer than Mr.
Middleton, and everybody but you call Mr. Middleton clever."
"So he may be in a dark-lantern sort of way. But he _is_ a stick. If he
had to say, 'Perdition catch my soul, but I do love her,' he would say it
in just the same tone as, 'Here endeth the second lesson.'"
"Oh, Gwendolen!" said Anna, shocked at these promiscuous allusions. "And
it is very unkind of you to speak so of him, for he admires you very much.
I heard Warham say one day to mamma, 'Middleton is regularly spooney upon
Gwendolen.' She was very angry with him; but I know what it means. It is
what they say at college for being in love."
"How can I help it?" said Gwendolen, rather contemptuously. "Perdition
catch my soul if I love _him_."
"No, of course; papa, I think, would not wish it. And he is to go away
soon. But it makes me sorry when you ridicule him."
"What shall you do to me when I ridicule Rex?" said Gwendolen, wickedly.
"Now, Gwendolen, dear, you _will not_?" said Anna, her eyes filling with
tears. "I could not bear it. But there really is nothing in him to
ridicule. Only you may find out things. For no one ever thought of
laughing at Mr. Middleton before you. Every one said he was nice-looking,
and his manners perfect. I am sure I have always been frightened at him
because of his learning and his square-cut coat, and his being a nephew of
the bishop's, and all that. But you will not ridicule Rex--promise me."
Anna ended with a beseeching look which touched Gwendolen.
"You are a dear little coz," she said, just touching the tip of Anna's
chin with her thumb and forefinger. "I don't ever want to do anything that
will vex you. Especially if Rex is to make everything come off--charades
and everything."
And when at last Rex was there, the animation he brought into the life of
Offendene and the rectory, and his ready partnership in Gwendolen's plans,
left her no inclination for any ridicule that was not of an open and
flattering kind, such as he himself enjoyed. He was a fine open-hearted
youth, with a handsome face strongly resembling his father's and Anna's,
but softer in expression than the one, and larger in scale than the other:
a bright, healthy, loving nature, enjoying ordinary innocent things so
much that vice had no temptation for him, and what he knew of it lay too
entirely in the outer courts and little-visited chambers of his mind for
him to think of it with great repulsion. Vicious habits were with him
"what some fellows did"--"stupid stuff" which he liked to keep aloof from.
He returned Anna's affection as fully as could be expected of a brother
whose pleasures apart from her were more than the sum total of hers; and
he had never known a stronger love.
The cousins were continually together at the one house or the other--
chiefly at Offendene, where there was more freedom, or rather where there
was a more complete sway for Gwendolen; and whatever she wished became a
ruling purpose for Rex. The charades came off according to her plans; and
also some other little scenes not contemplated by her in which her acting
was more impromptu. It was at Offendene that the charades and _tableaux_
were rehearsed and presented, Mrs. Davilow seeing no objection even to Mr.
Middleton's being invited to share in them, now that Rex too was there--
especially as his services were indispensable: Warham, who was studying
for India with a Wanchester "coach," having no time to spare, and being
generally dismal under a cram of everything except the answers needed at
the forthcoming examination, which might disclose the welfare of our
Indian Empire to be somehow connected with a quotable knowledge of
Browne's Pastorals.
Mr. Middleton was persuaded to play various grave parts, Gwendolen having
flattered him on his enviable immobility of countenance; and at first a
little pained and jealous at her comradeship with Rex, he presently drew
encouragement from the thought that this sort of cousinly familiarity
excluded any serious passion. Indeed, he occasionally felt that her more
formal treatment of himself was such a sign of favor as to warrant his
making advances before he left Pennicote, though he had intended to keep
his feelings in reserve until his position should be more assured. Miss
Gwendolen, quite aware that she was adored by this unexceptionable young
clergyman with pale whiskers and square-cut collar, felt nothing more on
the subject than that she had no objection to being adored: she turned her
eyes on him with calm mercilessness and caused him many mildly agitating
hopes by seeming always to avoid dramatic contact with him--for all
meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.
Some persons might have thought beforehand that a young man of Anglican
leanings, having a sense of sacredness much exercised on small things as
well as great, rarely laughing save from politeness, and in general
regarding the mention of spades by their naked names as rather coarse,
would not have seen a fitting bride for himself in a girl who was daring
in ridicule, and showed none of the special grace required in the
clergyman's wife; or, that a young man informed by theological reading
would have reflected that he was not likely to meet the taste of a lively,
restless young lady like Miss Harleth. But are we always obliged to
explain why the facts are not what some persons thought beforehand? The
apology lies on their side, who had that erroneous way of thinking.
As for Rex, who would possibly have been sorry for poor Middleton if he
had been aware of the excellent curate's inward conflict, he was too
completely absorbed in a first passion to have observation for any person
or thing. He did not observe Gwendolen; he only felt what she said or did,
and the back of his head seemed to be a good organ of information as to
whether she was in the room or out. Before the end of the first fortnight
he was so deeply in love that it was impossible for him to think of his
life except as bound up with Gwendolen's. He could see no obstacles, poor
boy; his own love seemed a guarantee of hers, since it was one with the
unperturbed delight in her image, so that he could no more dream of her
giving him pain than an Egyptian could dream of snow. She sang and played
to him whenever he liked, was always glad of his companionship in riding,
though his borrowed steeds were often comic, was ready to join in any fun
of his, and showed a right appreciation of Anna. No mark of sympathy
seemed absent. That because Gwendolen was the most perfect creature in the
world she was to make a grand match, had not occurred to him. He had no
conceit--at least not more than goes to make up the necessary gum and
consistence of a substantial personality: it was only that in the young
bliss of loving he took Gwendolen's perfection as part of that good which
had seemed one with life to him, being the outcome of a happy, well-
embodied nature.
One incident which happened in the course of their dramatic attempts
impressed Rex as a sign of her unusual sensibility. It showed an aspect of
her nature which could not have been preconceived by any one who, like
him, had only seen her habitual fearlessness in active exercises and her
high spirits in society.
After a good deal of rehearsing it was resolved that a select party should
be invited to Offendene to witness the performances which went with so
much satisfaction to the actors. Anna had caused a pleasant surprise;
nothing could be neater than the way in which she played her little parts;
one would even have suspected her of hiding much sly observation under her
simplicity. And Mr. Middleton answered very well by not trying to be
comic. The main source of doubt and retardation had been Gwendolen's
desire to appear in her Greek dress. No word for a charade would occur to
her either waking or dreaming that suited her purpose of getting a
statuesque pose in this favorite costume. To choose a motive from Racine
was of no use, since Rex and the others could not declaim French verse,
and improvised speeches would turn the scene into burlesque. Besides, Mr.
Gascoigne prohibited the acting of scenes from plays: he usually protested
against the notion that an amusement which was fitting for every one else
was unfitting for a clergyman; but he would not in this matter overstep
the line of decorum as drawn in that part of Wessex, which did not exclude
his sanction of the young people's acting charades in his sister-in-law's
house--a very different affair from private theatricals in the full sense
of the word.
Everybody of course was concerned to satisfy this wish of Gwendolen's, and
Rex proposed that they should wind up with a tableau in which the effect
of her majesty would not be marred by any one's speech. This pleased her
thoroughly, and the only question was the choice of the tableau.
"Something pleasant, children, I beseech you," said Mrs. Davilow; "I can't
have any Greek wickedness."
"It is no worse than Christian wickedness, mamma," said Gwendolen, whose
mention of Rachelesque heroines had called forth that remark.
"And less scandalous," said Rex. "Besides, one thinks of it as all gone by
and done with. What do you say to Briseis being led away? I would be
Achilles, and you would be looking round at me--after the print we have at
the rectory."
"That would be a good attitude for me," said Gwendolen, in a tone of
acceptance. But afterward she said with decision, "No. It will not do.
There must be three men in proper costume, else it will be ridiculous."
"I have it," said Rex, after a little reflection. "Hermione as the statue
in Winter's Tale? I will be Leontes, and Miss Merry, Paulina, one on each
side. Our dress won't signify," he went on laughingly; "it will be more
Shakespearian and romantic if Leontes looks like Napoleon, and Paulina
like a modern spinster."
And Hermione was chosen; all agreeing that age was of no consequence, but
Gwendolen urged that instead of the mere tableau there should be just
enough acting of the scene to introduce the striking up of the music as a
signal for her to step down and advance; when Leontes, instead of
embracing her, was to kneel and kiss the hem of her garment, and so the
curtain was to fall. The antechamber with folding doors lent itself
admirably to the purpose of a stage, and the whole of the establishment,
with the addition of Jarrett the village carpenter, was absorbed in the
preparations for an entertainment, which, considering that it was an
imitation of acting, was likely to be successful, since we know from
ancient fable that an imitation may have more chance of success than the
original.
Gwendolen was not without a special exultation in the prospect of this
occasion, for she knew that Herr Klesmer was again at Quetcham, and she
had taken care to include him among the invited.
Klesmer came. He was in one of his placid, silent moods, and sat in serene
contemplation, replying to all appeals in benignant-sounding syllables
more or less articulate--as taking up his cross meekly in a world
overgrown with amateurs, or as careful how he moved his lion paws lest he
should crush a rampant and vociferous mouse.
Everything indeed went off smoothly and according to expectation--all that
was improvised and accidental being of a probable sort--until the incident
occurred which showed Gwendolen in an unforeseen phase of emotion. How it
came about was at first a mystery.
The tableau of Hermione was doubly striking from its dissimilarity with
what had gone before: it was answering perfectly, and a murmur of applause
had been gradually suppressed while Leontes gave his permission that
Paulina should exercise her utmost art and make the statue move.
Hermione, her arm resting on a pillar, was elevated by about six inches,
which she counted on as a means of showing her pretty foot and instep,
when at the given signal she should advance and descend.
"Music, awake her, strike!" said Paulina (Mrs. Davilow, who, by special
entreaty, had consented to take the part in a white burnous and hood).
Herr Klesmer, who had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the
piano, struck a thunderous chord--but in the same instant, and before
Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line
with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed
the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought out in pale
definiteness by the position of the wax-lights. Everyone was startled, but
all eyes in the act of turning toward the open panel were recalled by a
piercing cry from Gwendolen, who stood without change of attitude, but
with a change of expression that was terrifying in its terror. She looked
like a statue into which a soul of Fear had entered: her pallid lips were
parted; her eyes, usually narrowed under their long lashes, were dilated
and fixed. Her mother, less surprised than alarmed, rushed toward her, and
Rex, too, could not help going to her side. But the touch of her mother's
arm had the effect of an electric charge; Gwendolen fell on her knees and
put her hands before her face. She was still trembling, but mute, and it
seemed that she had self-consciousness enough to aim at controlling her
signs of terror, for she presently allowed herself to be raised from her
kneeling posture and led away, while the company were relieving their
minds by explanation.
"A magnificent bit of _plastik_ that!" said Klesmer to Miss Arrowpoint.
And a quick fire of undertoned question and answer went round.
"Was it part of the play?"
"Oh, no, surely not. Miss Harleth was too much affected. A sensitive
creature!"
"Dear me! I was not aware that there was a painting behind that panel;
were you?"
"No; how should I? Some eccentricity in one of the Earl's family long ago,
I suppose."
"How very painful! Pray shut it up."
"Was the door locked? It is very mysterious. It must be the spirits."
"But there is no medium present."
"How do you know that? We must conclude that there is, when such things
happen."
"Oh, the door was not locked; it was probably the sudden vibration from
the piano that sent it open."
This conclusion came from Mr. Gascoigne, who begged Miss Merry if possible
to get the key. But this readiness to explain the mystery was thought by
Mrs. Vulcany unbecoming in a clergyman, and she observed in an undertone
that Mr. Gascoigne was always a little too worldly for her taste. However,
the key was produced, and the rector turned it in the lock with an
emphasis rather offensively rationalizing--as who should say, "it will not
start open again"--putting the key in his pocket as a security.
However, Gwendolen soon reappeared, showing her usual spirits, and
evidently determined to ignore as far as she could the striking change she
had made in the part of Hermione.
But when Klesmer said to her, "We have to thank you for devising a perfect
climax: you could not have chosen a finer bit of _plastik_," there was a
flush of pleasure in her face. She liked to accept as a belief what was
really no more than delicate feigning. He divined that the betrayal into a
passion of fear had been mortifying to her, and wished her to understand
that he took it for good acting. Gwendolen cherished the idea that now he
was struck with her talent as well as her beauty, and her uneasiness about
his opinion was half turned to complacency.
But too many were in the secret of what had been included in the
rehearsals, and what had not, and no one besides Klesmer took the trouble
to soothe Gwendolen's imagined mortification. The general sentiment was
that the incident should be let drop.
There had really been a medium concerned in the starting open of the
panel: one who had quitted the room in haste and crept to bed in much
alarm of conscience. It was the small Isabel, whose intense curiosity,
unsatisfied by the brief glimpse she had had of the strange picture on the
day of arrival at Offendene, had kept her on the watch for an opportunity
of finding out where Gwendolen had put the key, of stealing it from the
discovered drawer when the rest of the family were out, and getting on a
stool to unlock the panel. While she was indulging her thirst for
knowledge in this way, a noise which she feared was an approaching
footstep alarmed her: she closed the door and attempted hurriedly to lock
it, but failing and not daring to linger, she withdrew the key and trusted
that the panel would stick, as it seemed well inclined to do. In this
confidence she had returned the key to its former place, stilling any
anxiety by the thought that if the door were discovered to be unlocked
nobody would know how the unlocking came about. The inconvenient Isabel,
like other offenders, did not foresee her own impulse to confession, a
fatality which came upon her the morning after the party, when Gwendolen
said at the breakfast-table, "I know the door was locked before the
housekeeper gave me the key, for I tried it myself afterward. Some one
must have been to my drawer and taken the key."
It seemed to Isabel that Gwendolen's awful eyes had rested on her more
than on the other sisters, and without any time for resolve, she said,
with a trembling lip:
"Please forgive me, Gwendolen."
The forgiveness was sooner bestowed than it would have been if Gwendolen
had not desired to dismiss from her own and every one else's memory any
case in which she had shown her susceptibility to terror. She wondered at
herself in these occasional experiences, which seemed like a brief
remembered madness, an unexplained exception from her normal life; and in
this instance she felt a peculiar vexation that her helpless fear had
shown itself, not, as usual, in solitude, but in well-lit company. Her
ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in braving dangers, both
moral and physical; and though her practice fell far behind her ideal,
this shortcoming seemed to be due to the pettiness of circumstances, the
narrow theatre which life offers to a girl of twenty, who cannot conceive
herself as anything else than a lady, or as in any position which would
lack the tribute of respect. She had no permanent consciousness of other
fetters, or of more spiritual restraints, having always disliked whatever
was presented to her under the name of religion, in the same way that some
people dislike arithmetic and accounts: it had raised no other emotion in
her, no alarm, no longing; so that the question whether she believed it
had not occurred to her any more than it had occurred to her to inquire
into the conditions of colonial property and banking, on which, as she had
had many opportunities of knowing, the family fortune was dependent. All
these facts about herself she would have been ready to admit, and even,
more or less indirectly, to state. What she unwillingly recognized, and
would have been glad for others to be unaware of, was that liability of
hers to fits of spiritual dread, though this fountain of awe within her
had not found its way into connection with the religion taught her or with
any human relations. She was ashamed and frightened, as at what might
happen again, in remembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone,
when, for example, she was walking without companionship and there came
some rapid change in the light. Solitude in any wide scene impressed her
with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in the
midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself. The
little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her
imagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when some
one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in which she
seemed an exile; she found again her usual world in which her will was of
some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to this world was no
more identified for her with those uneasy impressions of awe than her
uncle's surplices seen out of use at the rectory. With human ears and eyes
about her, she had always hitherto recovered her confidence, and felt the
possibility of winning empire.
To her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were sufficiently
accounted for by her "sensitiveness" or the "excitability of her nature";
but these explanatory phrases required conciliation with much that seemed
to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery. Heat is a great agent and a
useful word, but considered as a means of explaining the universe it
requires an extensive knowledge of differences; and as a means of
explaining character "sensitiveness" is in much the same predicament. But
who, loving a creature like Gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard
every peculiarity in her as a mark of preeminence? That was what Rex did.
After the Hermione scene he was more persuaded than ever that she must be
instinct with all feeling, and not only readier to respond to a worshipful
love, but able to love better than other girls. Rex felt the summer on his
young wings and soared happily.
CHAPTER VII.
"_Perigot_. As the bonny lasse passed by,
_Willie_. Hey, ho, bonnilasse!
_P_. She roode at me with glauncing eye,
_W_. As clear as the crystal glasse.
_P_. All as the sunny beame so bright,
_W_. Hey, ho, the sunnebeame!
_P_. Glaunceth from Phoebus' face forthright,
_W_. So love into thy heart did streame."
--SPENSER: _Shepard's Calendar_.
"The kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish
state of youth; the nourisher and destroyer of hopeful wits; * * * the
servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the liberal
superstition."--CHARLES LAMB.
The first sign of the unimagined snow-storm was like the transparent white
cloud that seems to set off the blue. Anna was in the secret of Rex's
feeling; though for the first time in their lives he had said nothing to
her about what he most thought of, and he only took it for granted that
she knew it. For the first time, too, Anna could not say to Rex what was
continually in her mind. Perhaps it might have been a pain which she would
have had to conceal, that he should so soon care for some one else more
than for herself, if such a feeling had not been thoroughly neutralized by
doubt and anxiety on his behalf. Anna admired her cousin--would have said
with simple sincerity, "Gwendolen is always very good to me," and held it
in the order of things for herself to be entirely subject to this cousin;
but she looked at her with mingled fear and distrust, with a puzzled
contemplation as of some wondrous and beautiful animal whose nature was a
mystery, and who, for anything Anna knew, might have an appetite for
devouring all the small creatures that were her own particular pets. And
now Anna's heart was sinking under the heavy conviction which she dared
not utter, that Gwendolen would never care for Rex. What she herself held
in tenderness and reverence had constantly seemed indifferent to
Gwendolen, and it was easier to imagine her scorning Rex than returning
any tenderness of his. Besides, she was always thinking of being something
extraordinary. And poor Rex! Papa would be angry with him if he knew. And
of course he was too young to be in love in that way; and she, Anna had
thought that it would be years and years before any thing of that sort
came, and that she would be Rex's housekeeper ever so long. But what a
heart must that be which did not return his love! Anna, in the prospect of
his suffering, was beginning to dislike her too fascinating cousin.
It seemed to her, as it did to Rex, that the weeks had been filled with a
tumultuous life evident to all observers: if he had been questioned on the
subject he would have said that he had no wish to conceal what he hoped
would be an engagement which he should immediately tell his father of: and
yet for the first time in his life he was reserved not only about his
feelings but--which was more remarkable to Anna--about certain actions.
She, on her side, was nervous each time her father or mother began to
speak to her in private lest they should say anything about Rex and
Gwendolen. But the elders were not in the least alive to this agitating
drama, which went forward chiefly in a sort of pantomime extremely lucid
in the minds thus expressing themselves, but easily missed by spectators
who were running their eyes over the _Guardian_ or the _Clerical Gazette_,
and regarded the trivialities of the young ones with scarcely more
interpretation than they gave to the action of lively ants.
"Where are you going, Rex?" said Anna one gray morning when her father had
set off in his carriage to the sessions, Mrs. Gascoigne with him, and she
had observed that her brother had on his antigropelos, the utmost approach
he possessed to a hunting equipment.
"Going to see the hounds throw off at the Three Barns."
"Are you going to take Gwendolen?" said Anna, timidly.
"She told you, did she?"
"No, but I thought--Does papa know you are going?"
"Not that I am aware of. I don't suppose he would trouble himself about
the matter."
"You are going to use his horse?"
"He knows I do that whenever I can."
"Don't let Gwendolen ride after the hounds, Rex," said Anna, whose fears
gifted her with second-sight.
"Why not?" said Rex, smiling rather provokingly.
"Papa and mamma and aunt Davilow all wish her not to. They think it is not
right for her."
"Why should you suppose she is going to do what is not right?"
"Gwendolen minds nobody sometimes," said Anna getting bolder by dint of a
little anger.
"Then she would not mind me," said Rex, perversely making a joke of poor
Anna's anxiety.
"Oh Rex, I cannot bear it. You will make yourself very unhappy." Here Anna
burst into tears.
"Nannie, Nannie, what on earth is the matter with you?" said Rex, a little
impatient at being kept in this way, hat on and whip in hand.
"She will not care for you one bit--I know she never will!" said the poor
child in a sobbing whisper. She had lost all control of herself.
Rex reddened and hurried away from her out of the hall door, leaving her
to the miserable consciousness of having made herself disagreeable in
vain.
He did think of her words as he rode along; they had the unwelcomeness
which all unfavorable fortune-telling has, even when laughed at; but he
quickly explained them as springing from little Anna's tenderness, and
began to be sorry that he was obliged to come away without soothing her.
Every other feeling on the subject, however, was quickly merged in a
resistant belief to the contrary of hers, accompanied with a new
determination to prove that he was right. This sort of certainty had just
enough kinship to doubt and uneasiness to hurry on a confession which an
untouched security might have delayed.
Gwendolen was already mounted and riding up and down the avenue when Rex
appeared at the gate. She had provided herself against disappointment in
case he did not appear in time by having the groom ready behind her, for
she would not have waited beyond a reasonable time. But now the groom was
dismissed, and the two rode away in delightful freedom. Gwendolen was in
her highest spirits, and Rex thought that she had never looked so lovely
before; her figure, her long white throat, and the curves of her cheek and
chin were always set off to perfection by the compact simplicity of her
riding dress. He could not conceive a more perfect girl; and to a youthful
lover like Rex it seems that the fundamental identity of the good, the
true and the beautiful, is already extant and manifest in the object of
his love. Most observers would have held it more than equally accountable
that a girl should have like impressions about Rex, for in his handsome
face there was nothing corresponding to the undefinable stinging quality--
as it were a trace of demon ancestry--which made some beholders hesitate
in their admiration of Gwendolen.
It was an exquisite January morning in which there was no threat of rain,
but a gray sky making the calmest background for the charms of a mild
winter scene--the grassy borders of the lanes, the hedgerows sprinkled
with red berries and haunted with low twitterings, the purple bareness of
the elms, the rich brown of the furrows. The horses' hoofs made a musical
chime, accompanying their young voices. She was laughing at his equipment,
for he was the reverse of a dandy, and he was enjoying her laughter; the
freshness of the morning mingled with the freshness of their youth; and
every sound that came from their clear throats, every glance they gave
each other, was the bubbling outflow from a spring of joy. It was all
morning to them, within and without. And thinking of them in these moments
one is tempted to that futile sort of wishing--if only things could have
been a little otherwise then, so as to have been greatly otherwise after--
if only these two beautiful young creatures could have pledged themselves
to each other then and there, and never through life have swerved from
that pledge! For some of the goodness which Rex believed in was there.
Goodness is a large, often a prospective word; like harvest, which at one
stage when we talk of it lies all underground, with an indeterminate
future; is the germ prospering in the darkness? at another, it has put
forth delicate green blades, and by-and-by the trembling blossoms are
ready to be dashed off by an hour of rough wind or rain. Each stage has
its peculiar blight, and may have the healthy life choked out of it by a
particular action of the foul land which rears or neighbors it, or by
damage brought from foulness afar.
"Anna had got it into her head that you would want to ride after the
hounds this morning," said Rex, whose secret associations with Anna's
words made this speech seem quite perilously near the most momentous of
subjects.
"Did she?" said Gwendolen, laughingly. "What a little clairvoyant she is!"
"Shall you?" said Rex, who had not believed in her intending to do it if
the elders objected, but confided in her having good reasons.
"I don't know. I can't tell what I shall do till I get there. Clairvoyants
are often wrong: they foresee what is likely. I am not fond of what is
likely: it is always dull. I do what is unlikely."
"Ah, there you tell me a secret. When once I knew what people in general
would be likely to do, I should know you would do the opposite. So you
would have come round to a likelihood of your own sort. I shall be able to
calculate on you. You couldn't surprise me."
"Yes, I could. I should turn round and do what was likely for people in
general," said Gwendolen, with a musical laugh.
"You see you can't escape some sort of likelihood. And contradictoriness
makes the strongest likelihood of all. You must give up a plan."
"No, I shall not. My plan is to do what pleases me." (Here should any
young lady incline to imitate Gwendolen, let her consider the set of her
head and neck: if the angle there had been different, the chin protrusive,
and the cervical vertebrae a trifle more curved in their position, ten to
one Gwendolen's words would have had a jar in them for the sweet-natured
Rex. But everything odd in her speech was humor and pretty banter, which
he was only anxious to turn toward one point.)
"Can you manage to feel only what pleases you?" said he.
"Of course not; that comes from what other people do. But if the world
were pleasanter, one would only feel what was pleasant. Girls' lives are
so stupid: they never do what they like."
"I thought that was more the case of the men. They are forced to do hard
things, and are often dreadfully bored, and knocked to pieces too. And
then, if we love a girl very dearly we want to do as she likes, so after
all you have your own way."
"I don't believe it. I never saw a married woman who had her own way."
"What should you like to do?" said Rex, quite guilelessly, and in real
anxiety.
"Oh, I don't know!--go to the North Pole, or ride steeple-chases, or go to
be a queen in the East like Lady Hester Stanhope," said Gwendolen,
flightily. Her words were born on her lips, but she would have been at a
loss to give an answer of deeper origin.
"You don't mean you would never be married?"
"No; I didn't say that. Only when I married, I should not do as other
women do."
"You might do just as you liked if you married a man who loved you more
dearly than anything else in the world," said Rex, who, poor youth, was
moving in themes outside the curriculum in which he had promised to win
distinction. "I know one who does."
"Don't talk of Mr. Middleton, for heaven's sake," said Gwendolen, hastily,
a quick blush spreading over her face and neck; "that is Anna's chant. I
hear the hounds. Let us go on."
She put her chestnut to a canter, and Rex had no choice but to follow her.
Still he felt encouraged. Gwendolen was perfectly aware that her cousin
was in love with her; but she had no idea that the matter was of any
consequence, having never had the slightest visitation of painful love
herself. She wished the small romance of Rex's devotion to fill up the
time of his stay at Pennicote, and to avoid explanations which would bring
it to an untimely end. Besides, she objected, with a sort of physical
repulsion, to being directly made love to. With all her imaginative
delight in being adored, there was a certain fierceness of maidenhood in
her.
But all other thoughts were soon lost for her in the excitement of the
scene at the Three Barns. Several gentlemen of the hunt knew her, and she
exchanged pleasant greetings. Rex could not get another word with her. The
color, the stir of the field had taken possession of Gwendolen with a
strength which was not due to habitual associations, for she had never yet
ridden after the hounds--only said she should like to do it, and so drawn
forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and her uncle
declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent exercise unseemly
in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other parts of the country,
no lady of good position followed the Wessex hunt: no one but Mrs. Gadsby,
the yeomanry captain's wife, who had been a kitchenmaid and still spoke
like one. This last argument had some effect on Gwendolen, and had kept
her halting between her desire to assert her freedom and her horror of
being classed with Mrs. Gadsby.
Some of the most unexceptionable women in the neighborhood occasionally
went to see the hounds throws off; but it happened that none of them were
present this morning to abstain from following, while Mrs. Gadsby, with
her doubtful antecedents, grammatical and otherwise, was not visible to
make following seem unbecoming. Thus Gwendolen felt no check on the animal
stimulus that came from the stir and tongue of the hounds, the pawing of
the horses, the varying voices of men, the movement hither and thither of
vivid color on the background of green and gray stillness:--that utmost
excitement of the coming chase which consists in feeling something like a
combination of dog and horse, with the superadded thrill of social
vanities and consciousness of centaur-power which belongs to humankind.
Rex would have felt more of the same enjoyment if he could have kept
nearer to Gwendolen, and not seen her constantly occupied with
acquaintances, or looked at by would-be acquaintances, all on lively
horses which veered about and swept the surrounding space as effectually
as a revolving lever.
"Glad to see you here this fine morning, Miss Harleth," said Lord
Brackenshaw, a middle-aged peer of aristocratic seediness in stained pink,
with easy-going manners which would have made the threatened deluge seem
of no consequence. "We shall have a first-rate run. A pity you didn't go
with us. Have you ever tried your little chestnut at a ditch? you wouldn't
be afraid, eh?"
"Not the least in the world," said Gwendolen. And that was true: she was
never fearful in action and companionship. "I have often taken him at some
rails and a ditch too, near--"
"Ah, by Jove!" said his lordship, quietly, in notation that something was
happening which must break off the dialogue: and as he reined off his
horse, Rex was bringing his sober hackney up to Gwendolen's side when--the
hounds gave tongue, and the whole field was in motion as if the whirl of
the earth were carrying it; Gwendolen along with everything else; no word
of notice to Rex, who without a second thought followed too. Could he let
Gwendolen go alone? under other circumstances he would have enjoyed the
run, but he was just now perturbed by the check which had been put on the
impetus to utter his love, and get utterance in return, an impetus which
could not at once resolve itself into a totally different sort of chase,
at least with the consciousness of being on his father's gray nag, a good
horse enough in his way, but of sober years and ecclesiastical habits.
Gwendolen on her spirited little chestnut was up with the best, and felt
as secure as an immortal goddess, having, if she had thought of risk, a
core of confidence that no ill luck would happen to her. But she thought
of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might be for her
cousin. If she had thought of him, it would have struck her as a droll
picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and looking round in
search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must be panting with all
the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a wizard's spell on a stiff
clerical hackney, would have made her laugh with a sense of fun much too
strong for her to reflect on his mortification. But Gwendolen was apt to
think rather of those who saw her than of those whom she could not see;
and Rex was soon so far behind that if she had looked she would not have
seen him. For I grieve to say that in the search for a gate, along a lane
lately mended, Primrose fell, broke his knees, and undesignedly threw Rex
over his head.
Fortunately a blacksmith's son who also followed the hounds under
disadvantages, namely, on foot (a loose way of hunting which had struck
some even frivolous minds as immoral), was naturally also in the rear, and
happened to be within sight of Rex's misfortune. He ran to give help which
was greatly needed, for Rex was a great deal stunned, and the complete
recovery of sensation came in the form of pain. Joel Dagge on this
occasion showed himself that most useful of personages, whose knowledge is
of a kind suited to the immediate occasion: he not only knew perfectly
well what was the matter with the horse, how far they were both from the
nearest public-house and from Pennicote Rectory, and could certify to Rex
that his shoulder was only a bit out of joint, but also offered
experienced surgical aid.
"Lord, sir, let me shove it in again for you! I's seen Nash, the bone-
setter, do it, and done it myself for our little Sally twice over. It's
all one and the same, shoulders is. If you'll trusten to me and tighten
your mind up a bit, I'll do it for you in no time."
"Come then, old fellow," said Rex, who could tighten his mind better than
his seat in the saddle. And Joel managed the operation, though not without
considerable expense of pain to his patient, who turned so pitiably pale
while tightening his mind, that Joel remarked, "Ah, sir, you aren't used
to it, that's how it is. I's see lots and lots o' joints out. I see a man
with his eye pushed out once--that was a rum go as ever I see. You can't
have a bit o' fun wi'out such sort o' things. But it went in again. I's
swallowed three teeth mysen, as sure as I'm alive. Now, sirrey" (this was
addressed to Primrose), "come alonk--you musn't make believe as you
can't."
Joel being clearly a low character, it is, happily, not necessary to say
more of him to the refined reader, than that he helped Rex to get home
with as little delay as possible. There was no alternative but to get
home, though all the while he was in anxiety about Gwendolen, and more
miserable in the thought that she, too, might have had an accident, than
in the pain of his own bruises and the annoyance he was about to cause his
father. He comforted himself about her by reflecting that every one would
be anxious to take care of her, and that some acquaintance would be sure
to conduct her home.
Mr. Gascoigne was already at home, and was writing letters in his study,
when he was interrupted by seeing poor Rex come in with a face which was
not the less handsome and ingratiating for being pale and a little
distressed. He was secretly the favorite son, and a young portrait of the
father; who, however, never treated him with any partiality--rather, with
an extra rigor. Mr. Gascoigne having inquired of Anna, knew that Rex had
gone with Gwendolen to the meet at the Three Barns.
"What is the matter?" he said hastily, not laying down his pen.
"I'm very sorry, sir; Primrose has fallen down and broken his knees."
"Where have you been with him?" said Mr. Gascoigne, with a touch of
severity. He rarely gave way to temper.
"To the Three Barns to see the hounds throw off."
"And you were fool enough to follow?"
"Yes, sir. I didn't go at any fences, but the horse got his leg into a
hole."
"And you got hurt yourself, I hope, eh!"
"I got my shoulder put out, but a young blacksmith put it in again for me.
I'm just a little battered, that's all."
"Well, sit down."
"I'm very sorry about the horse, sir; I knew it would be a vexation to
you."
"And what has become of Gwendolen?" said Mr. Gascoigne, abruptly. Rex, who
did not imagine that his father had made any inquiries about him, answered
at first with a blush, which was the more remarkable for his previous
paleness. Then he said, nervously--
"I am anxious to know--I should like to go or send at once to Offendene--
but she rides so well, and I think she would keep up--there would most
likely be many round her."
"I suppose it was she who led you on, eh?" said Mr. Gascoigne, laying down
his pen, leaning back in his chair, and looking at Rex with more marked
examination.
"It was natural for her to want to go: she didn't intend it beforehand--
she was led away by the spirit of the thing. And, of course, I went when
she went."
Mr. Gascoigne left a brief interval of silence, and then said, with quiet
irony,--"But now you observe, young gentleman, that you are not furnished
with a horse which will enable you to play the squire to your cousin. You
must give up that amusement. You have spoiled my nag for me, and that is
enough mischief for one vacation. I shall beg you to get ready to start
for Southampton to-morrow and join Stilfox, till you go up to Oxford with
him. That will be good for your bruises as well as your studies."
Poor Rex felt his heart swelling and comporting itself as if it had been
no better than a girl's.
"I hope you will not insist on my going immediately, sir."
"Do you feel too ill?"
"No, not that--but--" here Rex bit his lips and felt the tears starting,
to his great vexation; then he rallied and tried to say more firmly, "I
want to go to Offendene, but I can go this evening."
"I am going there myself. I can bring word about Gwendolen, if that is
what you want."
Rex broke down. He thought he discerned an intention fatal to his
happiness, nay, his life. He was accustomed to believe in his father's
penetration, and to expect firmness. "Father, I can't go away without
telling her that I love her, and knowing that she loves me."
Mr. Gascoigne was inwardly going through some self-rebuke for not being
more wary, and was now really sorry for the lad; but every consideration
was subordinate to that of using the wisest tactics in the case. He had
quickly made up his mind and to answer the more quietly--
"My dear boy, you are too young to be taking momentous, decisive steps of
that sort. This is a fancy which you have got into your head during an
idle week or two: you must set to work at something and dismiss it. There
is every reason against it. An engagement at your age would be totally
rash and unjustifiable; and moreover, alliances between first cousins are
undesirable. Make up your mind to a brief disappointment. Life is full of
them. We have all got to be broken in; and this is a mild beginning for
you."
"No, not mild. I can't bear it. I shall be good for nothing. I shouldn't
mind anything, if it were settled between us. I could do anything then,"
said Rex, impetuously. "But it's of no use to pretend that I will obey
you. I can't do it. If I said I would, I should be sure to break my word.
I should see Gwendolen again."
"Well, wait till to-morrow morning, that we may talk of the matter again--
you will promise me that," said Mr. Gascoigne, quietly; and Rex did not,
could not refuse.
The rector did not even tell his wife that he had any other reason for
going to Offendene that evening than his desire to ascertain that
Gwendolen had got home safely. He found her more than safe--elated. Mr.
Quallon, who had won the brush, had delivered the trophy to her, and she
had brought it before her, fastened on the saddle; more than that, Lord
Brackenshaw had conducted her home, and had shown himself delighted with
her spirited riding. All this was told at once to her uncle, that he might
see how well justified she had been in acting against his advice; and the
prudential rector did feel himself in a slight difficulty, for at that
moment he was particularly sensible that it was his niece's serious
interest to be well regarded by the Brackenshaws, and their opinion as to
her following the hounds really touched the essence of his objection.
However, he was not obliged to say anything immediately, for Mrs. Davilow
followed up Gwendolen's brief triumphant phrases with--
"Still, I do hope you will not do it again, Gwendolen. I should never have
a moment's quiet. Her father died by an accident, you know."
Here Mrs. Davilow had turned away from Gwendolen, and looked at Mr.
Gascoigne.
"Mamma, dear," said Gwendolen, kissing her merrily, and passing over the
question of the fears which Mrs. Davilow had meant to account for,
"children don't take after their parents in broken legs."
Not one word had yet been said about Rex. In fact there had been no
anxiety about him at Offendene. Gwendolen had observed to her mamma, "Oh,
he must have been left far behind, and gone home in despair," and it could
not be denied that this was fortunate so far as it made way for Lord
Brackenshaw's bringing her home. But now Mr. Gascoigne said, with some
emphasis, looking at Gwendolen--
"Well, the exploit has ended better for you than for Rex."
"Yes, I dare say he had to make a terrible round. You have not taught
Primrose to take the fences, uncle," said Gwendolen, without the faintest
shade of alarm in her looks and tone.
"Rex has had a fall," said Mr. Gascoigne, curtly, throwing himself into an
arm-chair resting his elbows and fitting his palms and fingers together,
while he closed his lips and looked at Gwendolen, who said--
"Oh, poor fellow! he is not hurt, I hope?" with a correct look of anxiety
such as elated mortals try to super-induce when their pulses are all the
while quick with triumph; and Mrs. Davilow, in the same moment, uttered a
low "Good heavens! There!"
Mr. Gascoigne went on: "He put his shoulder out, and got some bruises, I
believe." Here he made another little pause of observation; but Gwendolen,
instead of any such symptoms as pallor and silence, had only deepened the
compassionateness of her brow and eyes, and said again, "Oh, poor fellow!
it is nothing serious, then?" and Mr. Gascoigne held his diagnosis
complete. But he wished to make assurance doubly sure, and went on still
with a purpose.
"He got his arm set again rather oddly. Some blacksmith--not a parishioner
of mine--was on the field--a loose fish, I suppose, but handy, and set the
arm for him immediately. So after all, I believe, I and Primrose come off
worst. The horse's knees are cut to pieces. He came down in a hole, it
seems, and pitched Rex over his head."
Gwendolen's face had allowably become contented again, since Rex's arm had
been reset; and now, at the descriptive suggestions in the latter part of
her uncle's speech, her elated spirits made her features less unmanageable
than usual; the smiles broke forth, and finally a descending scale of
laughter.
"You are a pretty young lady--to laugh at other people's calamities," said
Mr. Gascoigne, with a milder sense of disapprobation than if he had not
had counteracting reasons to be glad that Gwendolen showed no deep feeling
on the occasion.
"Pray forgive me, uncle. Now Rex is safe, it is so droll to fancy the
figure he and Primrose would cut--in a lane all by themselves--only a
blacksmith running up. It would make a capital caricature of 'Following
the Hounds.'"
Gwendolen rather valued herself on her superior freedom in laughing where
others might only see matter for seriousness. Indeed, the laughter became
her person so well that her opinion of its gracefulness was often shared
by others; and it even entered into her uncle's course of thought at this
moment, that it was no wonder a boy should be fascinated by this young
witch--who, however, was more mischievous than could be desired.
"How can you laugh at broken bones, child?" said Mrs. Davilow, still under
her dominant anxiety. "I wish we had never allowed you to have the horse.
You will see that we were wrong," she added, looking with a grave nod at
Mr. Gascoigne--"at least I was, to encourage her in asking for it."
"Yes, seriously, Gwendolen," said Mr. Gascoigne, in a judicious tone of
rational advice to a person understood to be altogether rational, "I
strongly recommend you--I shall ask you to oblige me so far--not to repeat
your adventure of to-day. Lord Brackenshaw is very kind, but I feel sure
that he would concur with me in what I say. To be spoken of as 'the young
lady who hunts' by way of exception, would give a tone to the language
about you which I am sure you would not like. Depend upon it, his lordship
would not choose that Lady Beatrice or Lady Maria should hunt in this part
of the country, if they were old enough to do so. When you are married, it
will be different: you may do whatever your husband sanctions. But if you
intend to hunt, you must marry a man who can keep horses."
"I don't know why I should do anything so horrible as to marry without
_that_ prospect, at least," said Gwendolen, pettishly. Her uncle's speech
had given her annoyance, which she could not show more directly; but she
felt that she was committing herself, and after moving carelessly to
another part of the room, went out.
"She always speaks in that way about marriage," said Mrs. Davilow; "but it
will be different when she has seen the right person."
"Her heart has never been in the least touched, that you know of?" said
Mr. Gascoigne.
Mrs. Davilow shook her head silently. "It was only last night she said to
me, 'Mamma, I wonder how girls manage to fall in love. It is easy to make
them do it in books. But men are too ridiculous.'"
Mr. Gascoigne laughed a little, and made no further remark on the subject.
The next morning at breakfast he said--
"How are your bruises, Rex?"
"Oh, not very mellow yet, sir; only beginning to turn a little."
"You don't feel quite ready for a journey to Southampton?"
"Not quite," answered Rex, with his heart metaphorically in his mouth.
"Well, you can wait till to-morrow, and go to say goodbye to them at
Offendene."
Mrs. Gascoigne, who now knew the whole affair, looked steadily at her
coffee lest she also should begin to cry, as Anna was doing already.
Mr. Gascoigne felt that he was applying a sharp remedy to poor Rex's acute
attack, but he believed it to be in the end the kindest. To let him know
the hopelessness of his love from Gwendolen's own lips might be curative
in more ways than one.
"I can only be thankful that she doesn't care about him," said Mrs.
Gascoigne, when she joined her husband in his study. "There are things in
Gwendolen I cannot reconcile myself to. My Anna is worth two of her, with
all her beauty and talent. It looks very ill in her that she will not help
in the schools with Anna--not even in the Sunday-school. What you or I
advise is of no consequence to her: and poor Fannie is completely under
her thumb. But I know you think better of her," Mrs. Gascoigne ended with
a deferential hesitation.
"Oh, my dear, there is no harm in the girl. It is only that she has a high
spirit, and it will not do to hold the reins too tight. The point is, to
get her well married. She has a little too much fire in her for her
present life with her mother and sisters. It is natural and right that she
should be married soon--not to a poor man, but one who can give her a
fitting position."
Presently Rex, with his arm in a sling, was on his two miles' walk to
Offendene. He was rather puzzled by the unconditional permission to see
Gwendolen, but his father's real ground of action could not enter into his
conjectures. If it had, he would first have thought it horribly cold-
blooded, and then have disbelieved in his father's conclusions.
When he got to the house, everybody was there but Gwendolen. The four
girls, hearing him speak in the hall, rushed out of the library, which was
their school-room, and hung round him with compassionate inquiries about
his arm. Mrs. Davilow wanted to know exactly what had happened, and where
the blacksmith lived, that she might make him a present; while Miss Merry,
who took a subdued and melancholy part in all family affairs, doubted
whether it would not be giving too much encouragement to that kind of
character. Rex had never found the family troublesome before, but just now
he wished them all away and Gwendolen there, and he was too uneasy for
good-natured feigning. When at last he had said, "Where is Gwendolen?" and
Mrs. Davilow had told Alice to go and see if her sister were come down,
adding, "I sent up her breakfast this morning. She needed a long rest."
Rex took the shortest way out of his endurance by saying, almost
impatiently, "Aunt, I want to speak to Gwendolen--I want to see her
alone."
"Very well, dear; go into the drawing-room. I will send her there," said
Mrs. Davilow, who had observed that he was fond of being with Gwendolen,
as was natural, but had not thought of this as having any bearing on the
realities of life: it seemed merely part of the Christmas holidays which
were spinning themselves out.
Rex for his part thought that the realities of life were all hanging on
this interview. He had to walk up and down the drawing-room in expectation
for nearly ten minutes--ample space for all imaginative fluctuations; yet,
strange to say, he was unvaryingly occupied in thinking what and how much
he could do, when Gwendolen had accepted him, to satisfy his father that
the engagement was the most prudent thing in the world, since it inspired
him with double energy for work. He was to be a lawyer, and what reason
was there why he should not rise as high as Eldon did? He was forced to
look at life in the light of his father's mind.
But when the door opened and she whose presence he was longing for
entered, there came over him suddenly and mysteriously a state of tremor
and distrust which he had never felt before. Miss Gwendolen, simple as she
stood there, in her black silk, cut square about the round white pillar of
her throat, a black band fastening her hair which streamed backward in
smooth silky abundance, seemed more queenly than usual. Perhaps it was
that there was none of the latent fun and tricksiness which had always
pierced in her greeting of Rex. How much of this was due to her
presentiment from what he had said yesterday that he was going to talk of
love? How much from her desire to show regret about his accident?
Something of both. But the wisdom of ages has hinted that there is a side
of the bed which has a malign influence if you happen to get out on it;
and this accident befalls some charming persons rather frequently. Perhaps
it had befallen Gwendolen this morning. The hastening of her toilet, the
way in which Bugle used the brush, the quality of the shilling serial
mistakenly written for her amusement, the probabilities of the coming day,
and, in short, social institutions generally, were all objectionable to
her. It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not
equal to the demands of her fine organism.
However it might be, Rex saw an awful majesty about her as she entered and
put out her hand to him, without the least approach to a smile in eyes or
mouth. The fun which had moved her in the evening had quite evaporated
from the image of his accident, and the whole affair seemed stupid to her.
But she said with perfect propriety, "I hope you are not much hurt, Rex; I
deserve that you should reproach me for your accident."
"Not at all," said Rex, feeling the soul within him spreading itself like
an attack of illness. "There is hardly any thing the matter with me. I am
so glad you had the pleasure: I would willingly pay for it by a tumble,
only I was sorry to break the horse's knees."
Gwendolen walked to the hearth and stood looking at the fire in the most
inconvenient way for conversation, so that he could only get a side view
of her face.
"My father wants me to go to Southampton for the rest of the vacation,"
said Rex, his baritone trembling a little.
"Southampton! That's a stupid place to go to, isn't it?" said Gwendolen,
chilly.
"It would be to me, because you would not be there." Silence.
"Should you mind about me going away, Gwendolen?"
"Of course. Every one is of consequence in this dreary country," said
Gwendolen, curtly. The perception that poor Rex wanted to be tender made
her curl up and harden like a sea-anemone at the touch of a finger.
"Are you angry with me, Gwendolen? Why do you treat me in this way all at
once?" said Rex, flushing, and with more spirit in his voice, as if he too
were capable of being angry.
Gwendolen looked round at him and smiled. "Treat you? Nonsense! I am only
rather cross. Why did you come so very early? You must expect to find
tempers in dishabille."
"Be as cross with me as you like--only don't treat me with indifference,"
said Rex, imploringly. "All the happiness of my life depends on your
loving me--if only a little--better than any one else."
He tried to take her hand, but she hastily eluded his grasp and moved to
the other end of the hearth, facing him.
"Pray don't make love to me! I hate it!" she looked at him fiercely.
Rex turned pale and was silent, but could not take his eyes off her, and
the impetus was not yet exhausted that made hers dart death at him.
Gwendolen herself could not have foreseen that she should feel in this
way. It was all a sudden, new experience to her. The day before she had
been quite aware that her cousin was in love with her; she did not mind
how much, so that he said nothing about it; and if any one had asked her
why she objected to love-making speeches, she would have said, laughingly,
"Oh I am tired of them all in the books." But now the life of passion had
begun negatively in her. She felt passionately averse to this volunteered
love.
To Rex at twenty the joy of life seemed at an end more absolutely than it
can do to a man at forty. But before they had ceased to look at each
other, he did speak again.
"Is that last word you have to say to me, Gwendolen? Will it always be
so?"
She could not help seeing his wretchedness and feeling a little regret for
the old Rex who had not offended her. Decisively, but yet with some return
of kindness, she said--
"About making love? Yes. But I don't dislike you for anything else."
There was just a perceptible pause before he said a low "good-bye." and
passed out of the room. Almost immediately after, she heard the heavy hall
door bang behind him.
Mrs. Davilow, too, had heard Rex's hasty departure, and presently came
into the drawing-room, where she found Gwendolen seated on the low couch,
her face buried, and her hair falling over her figure like a garment. She
was sobbing bitterly. "My child, my child, what is it?" cried the mother,
who had never before seen her darling struck down in this way, and felt
something of the alarmed anguish that women, feel at the sight of
overpowering sorrow in a strong man; for this child had been her ruler.
Sitting down by her with circling arms, she pressed her cheek against
Gwendolen's head, and then tried to draw it upward. Gwendolen gave way,
and letting her head rest against her mother, cried out sobbingly, "Oh,
mamma, what can become of my life? There is nothing worth living for!"
"Why, dear?" said Mrs. Davilow. Usually she herself had been rebuked by
her daughter for involuntary signs of despair.
"I shall never love anybody. I can't love people. I hate them."
"The time will come, dear, the time will come."
Gwendolen was more and more convulsed with sobbing; but putting her arms
round her mother's neck with an almost painful clinging, she said
brokenly, "I can't bear any one to be very near me but you."
Then the mother began to sob, for this spoiled child had never shown such
dependence on her before: and so they clung to each other.
CHAPTER VIII.
What name doth Joy most borrow
When life is fair?
"To-morrow."
What name doth best fit Sorrow
In young despair?
"To-morrow."
There was a much more lasting trouble at the rectory. Rex arrived there
only to throw himself on his bed in a state of apparent apathy, unbroken
till the next day, when it began to be interrupted by more positive signs
of illness. Nothing could be said about his going to Southampton: instead
of that, the chief thought of his mother and Anna was how to tend this
patient who did not want to be well, and from being the brightest, most
grateful spirit in the household, was metamorphosed into an irresponsive,
dull-eyed creature who met all affectionate attempts with a murmur of "Let
me alone." His father looked beyond the crisis, and believed it to be the
shortest way out of an unlucky affair; but he was sorry for the inevitable
suffering, and went now and then to sit by him in silence for a few
minutes, parting with a gentle pressure of his hand on Rex's blank brow,
and a "God bless you, my boy." Warham and the younger children used to
peep round the edge of the door to see this incredible thing of their
lively brother being laid low; but fingers were immediately shaken at them
to drive them back. The guardian who was always there was Anna, and her
little hand was allowed to rest within her brother's, though he never gave
it a welcoming pressure. Her soul was divided between anguish for Rex and
reproach of Gwendolen.
"Perhaps it is wicked of me, but I think I never _can_ love her again,"
came as the recurrent burden of poor little Anna's inward monody. And even
Mrs. Gascoigne had an angry feeling toward her niece which she could not
refrain from expressing (apologetically) to her husband.
"I know of course it is better, and we ought to be thankful that she is
not in love with the poor boy; but really. Henry, I think she is hard; she
has the heart of a coquette. I can not help thinking that she must have
made him believe something, or the disappointment would not have taken
hold of him in that way. And some blame attaches to poor Fanny; she is
quite blind about that girl."
Mr. Gascoigne answered imperatively: "The less said on that point the
better, Nancy. I ought to have been more awake myself. As to the boy, be
thankful if nothing worse ever happens to him. Let the thing die out as
quickly as possible; and especially with regard to Gwendolen--let it be as
if it had never been."
The rector's dominant feeling was that there had been a great escape.
Gwendolen in love with Rex in return would have made a much harder
problem, the solution of which might have been taken out of his hands. But
he had to go through some further difficulty.
One fine morning Rex asked for his bath, and made his toilet as usual.
Anna, full of excitement at this change, could do nothing but listen for
his coming down, and at last hearing his step, ran to the foot of the
stairs to meet him. For the first time he gave her a faint smile, but it
looked so melancholy on his pale face that she could hardly help crying.
"Nannie!" he said gently, taking her hand and leading her slowly along
with him to the drawing-room. His mother was there, and when she came to
kiss him, he said: "What a plague I am!"
Then he sat still and looked out of the bow-window on the lawn and shrubs
covered with hoar-frost, across which the sun was sending faint occasional
gleams:--something like that sad smile on Rex's face, Anna thought. He
felt as if he had had a resurrection into a new world, and did not know
what to do with himself there, the old interests being left behind. Anna
sat near him, pretending to work, but really watching him with yearning
looks. Beyond the garden hedge there was a road where wagons and carts
sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was made in the hedge,
because the upland with its bordering wood and clump of ash-trees against
the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came along a wagon laden with
timber; the horses were straining their grand muscles, and the driver
having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to guide the leader's head,
fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into attention, rose and looked
till the last quivering trunk of the timber had disappeared, and then
walked once or twice along the room. Mrs. Gascoigne was no longer there,
and when he came to sit down again, Anna, seeing a return of speech in her
brother's eyes, could not resist the impulse to bring a little stool and
seat herself against his knee, looking up at him with an expression which
seemed to say, "Do speak to me." And he spoke.
"I'll tell you what I'm thinking of, Nannie. I will go to Canada, or
somewhere of that sort." (Rex had not studied the character of our
colonial possessions.)
"Oh, Rex, not for always!"
"Yes, to get my bread there. I should like to build a hut, and work hard
at clearing, and have everything wild about me, and a great wide quiet."
"And not take me with you?" said Anna, the big tears coming fast.
"How could I?"
"I should like it better than anything; and settlers go with their
families. I would sooner go there than stay here in England. I could make
the fires, and mend the clothes, and cook the food; and I could learn how
to make the bread before we went. It would be nicer than anything--like
playing at life over again, as we used to do when we made our tent with
the drugget, and had our little plates and dishes."
"Father and mother would not let you go."
"Yes, I think they would, when I explained everything. It would save
money; and papa would have more to bring up the boys with."
There was further talk of the same practical kind at intervals, and it
ended in Rex's being obliged to consent that Anna should go with him when
he spoke to his father on the subject.
Of course it was when the rector was alone in his study. Their mother
would become reconciled to whatever he decided on, but mentioned to her
first, the question would have distressed her.
"Well, my children!" said Mr. Gascoigne, cheerfully, as they entered. It
was a comfort to see Rex about again.
"May we sit down with you a little, papa?" said Anna. "Rex has something
to say."
"With all my heart."
It was a noticeable group that these three creatures made, each of them
with a face of the same structural type--the straight brow, the nose
suddenly straightened from an intention of being aquiline, the short upper
lip, the short but strong and well-hung chin: there was even the same tone
of complexion and set of the eye. The gray-haired father was at once
massive and keen-looking; there was a perpendicular line in his brow which
when he spoke with any force of interest deepened; and the habit of ruling
gave him an air of reserved authoritativeness. Rex would have seemed a
vision of his father's youth, if it had been possible to imagine Mr.
Gascoigne without distinct plans and without command, smitten with a heart
sorrow, and having no more notion of concealment than a sick animal; and
Anna was a tiny copy of Rex, with hair drawn back and knotted, her face
following his in its changes of expression, as if they had one soul
between them.
"You know all about what has upset me, father," Rex began, and Mr.
Gascoigne nodded.
"I am quite done up for life in this part of the world. I am sure it will
be no use my going back to Oxford. I couldn't do any reading. I should
fail, and cause you expense for nothing. I want to have your consent to
take another course, sir."
Mr. Gascoigne nodded more slowly, the perpendicular line on his brow
deepened, and Anna's trembling increased.
"If you would allow me a small outfit, I should like to go to the colonies
and work on the land there." Rex thought the vagueness of the phrase
prudential; "the colonies" necessarily embracing more advantages, and
being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground than any
particular settlement.
"Oh, and with me, papa," said Anna, not bearing to be left out from the
proposal even temporarily. "Rex would want some one to take care of him,
you know--some one to keep house. And we shall never, either of us, be
married. And I should cost nothing, and I should be so happy. I know it
would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the others to
bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more."
Anna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going
closer to her papa as she spoke. He did not smile, but he drew her on his
knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the question while
he spoke to Rex.
"You will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for you,
and that I can probably guide you in practical matters better than you can
guide yourself?"
Rex was obliged to say, "Yes, sir."
"And perhaps you will admit--though I don't wish to press that point--that
you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?"
"I have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir." Rex in his
secret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies,
but to go to Oxford again--which was the point in question.
"But you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash and
foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which my
experience of life assures me of. You think, I suppose, that you have had
a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied your brains,
unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you a dislike to
society? Is that what you believe?"
"Something like that. I shall never be up to the sort of work I must do to
live in this part of the world. I have not the spirit for it. I shall
never be the same again. And without any disrespect to you, father, I
think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of life, if he
does nobody any harm. There are plenty to stay at home, and those who like
might be allowed to go where there are empty places."
"But suppose I am convinced on good evidence--as I am--that this state of
mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose, you
would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip back from
the point you have been gaining by your education till now? Have you not
strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on my assurance for
a time, and test it? In my opinion, so far from agreeing with you that you
should be free to turn yourself into a colonist and work in your shirt-
sleeves with spade and hatchet--in my opinion you have no right whatever
to expatriate yourself until you have honestly endeavored to turn to
account the education you have received here. I say nothing of the grief
to your mother and me."
"I'm very sorry; but what can I do? I can't study--that's certain," said
Rex.
"Not just now, perhaps. You will have to miss a term. I have made
arrangements for you--how you are to spend the next two months. But I
confess I am disappointed in you, Rex. I thought you had more sense than
to take up such ideas--to suppose that because you have fallen into a very
common trouble, such as most men have to go through, you are loosened from
all bonds of duty--just as if your brain had softened and you were no
longer a responsible being."
What could Rex say? Inwardly he was in a state of rebellion, but he had no
arguments to meet his father's; and while he was feeling, in spite of any
thing that might be said, that he should like to go off to "the colonies"
to-morrow, it lay in a deep fold of his consciousness that he ought to
feel--if he had been a better fellow he would have felt--more about his
old ties. This is the sort of faith we live by in our soul sicknesses.
Rex got up from his seat, as if he held the conference to be at an end.
"You assent to my arrangement, then?" said Mr. Gascoigne, with that
distinct resolution of tone which seems to hold one in a vise.
There was a little pause before Rex answered, "I'll try what I can do,
sir. I can't promise." His thought was, that trying would be of no use.
Her father kept Anna, holding her fast, though she wanted to follow Rex.
"Oh, papa," she said, the tears coming with her words when the door had
closed; "it is very hard for him. Doesn't he look ill?"
"Yes, but he will soon be better; it will all blow over. And now, Anna, be
as quiet as a mouse about it all. Never let it be mentioned when he is
gone."
"No, papa. But I would not be like Gwendolen for any thing--to have people
fall in love with me so. It is very dreadful."
Anna dared not say that she was disappointed at not being allowed to go to
the colonies with Rex; but that was her secret feeling, and she often
afterward went inwardly over the whole affair, saying to herself, "I
should have done with going out, and gloves, and crinoline, and having to
talk when I am taken to dinner--and all that!"
I like to mark the time, and connect the course of individual lives with
the historic stream, for all classes of thinkers. This was the period when
the broadening of gauge in crinolines seemed to demand an agitation for
the general enlargement of churches, ball-rooms, and vehicles. But Anna
Gascoigne's figure would only allow the size of skirt manufactured for
young ladies of fourteen.
CHAPTER IX.
I'll tell thee, Berthold, what men's hopes are like:
A silly child that, quivering with joy,
Would cast its little mimic fishing-line
Baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys
In the salt ocean.
Eight months after the arrival of the family at Offendene, that is to say
in the end of the following June, a rumor was spread in the neighborhood
which to many persons was matter of exciting interest. It had no reference
to the results of the American war, but it was one which touched all
classes within a certain circuit round Wanchester: the corn-factors, the
brewers, the horse-dealers, and saddlers, all held it a laudable thing,
and one which was to be rejoiced in on abstract grounds, as showing the
value of an aristocracy in a free country like England; the blacksmith in
the hamlet of Diplow felt that a good time had come round; the wives of
laboring men hoped their nimble boys of ten or twelve would be taken into
employ by the gentlemen in livery; and the farmers about Diplow admitted,
with a tincture of bitterness and reserve that a man might now again
perhaps have an easier market or exchange for a rick of old hay or a
wagon-load of straw. If such were the hopes of low persons not in society,
it may be easily inferred that their betters had better reasons for
satisfaction, probably connected with the pleasures of life rather than
its business. Marriage, however, must be considered as coming under both
heads; and just as when a visit of majesty is announced, the dream of
knighthood or a baronetcy is to be found under various municipal
nightcaps, so the news in question raised a floating indeterminate vision
of marriage in several well-bred imaginations.
The news was that Diplow Hall, Sir Hugo Mallinger's place, which had for a
couple of years turned its white window-shutters in a painfully wall-eyed
manner on its fine elms and beeches, its lilied pool and grassy acres
specked with deer, was being prepared for a tenant, and was for the rest
of the summer and through the hunting season to be inhabited in a fitting
style both as to house and stable. But not by Sir Hugo himself: by his
nephew, Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt, who was presumptive heir to the
baronetcy, his uncle's marriage having produced nothing but girls. Nor was
this the only contingency with which fortune flattered young Grandcourt,
as he was pleasantly called; for while the chance of the baronetcy came
through his father, his mother had given a baronial streak to his blood,
so that if certain intervening persons slightly painted in the middle
distance died, he would become a baron and peer of this realm.
It is the uneven allotment of nature that the male bird alone has the
tuft, but we have not yet followed the advice of hasty philosophers who
would have us copy nature entirely in these matters; and if Mr. Mallinger
Grandcourt became a baronet or a peer, his wife would share the title--
which in addition to his actual fortune was certainly a reason why that
wife, being at present unchosen, should be thought of by more than one
person with a sympathetic interest as a woman sure to be well provided
for.
Some readers of this history will doubtless regard it as incredible that
people should construct matrimonial prospects on the mere report that a
bachelor of good fortune and possibilities was coming within reach, and
will reject the statement as a mere outflow of gall: they will aver that
neither they nor their first cousins have minds so unbridled; and that in
fact this is not human nature, which would know that such speculations
might turn out to be fallacious, and would therefore not entertain them.
But, let it be observed, nothing is here narrated of human nature
generally: the history in its present stage concerns only a few people in
a corner of Wessex--whose reputation, however, was unimpeached, and who, I
am in the proud position of being able to state, were all on visiting
terms with persons of rank.
There were the Arrowpoints, for example, in their beautiful place at
Quetcham: no one could attribute sordid views in relation to their
daughter's marriage to parents who could leave her at least half a
million; but having affectionate anxieties about their Catherine's
position (she having resolutely refused Lord Slogan, an unexceptionable
Irish peer, whose estate wanted nothing but drainage and population), they
wondered, perhaps from something more than a charitable impulse, whether
Mr. Grandcourt was good-looking, of sound constitution, virtuous, or at
least reformed, and if liberal-conservative, not too liberal-conservative;
and without wishing anybody to die, thought his succession to the title an
event to be desired.
If the Arrowpoints had such ruminations, it is the less surprising that
they were stimulated in Mr. Gascoigne, who for being a clergyman was not
the less subject to the anxieties of a parent and guardian; and we have
seen how both he and Mrs. Gascoigne might by this time have come to feel
that he was overcharged with the management of young creatures who were
hardly to be held in with bit or bridle, or any sort of metaphor that
would stand for judicious advice.
Naturally, people did not tell each other all they felt and thought about
young Grandcourt's advent: on no subject is this openness found prudently
practicable--not even on the generation of acids, or the destination of
the fixed stars: for either your contemporary with a mind turned toward
the same subjects may find your ideas ingenious and forestall you in
applying them, or he may have other views on acids and fixed stars, and
think ill of you in consequence. Mr. Gascoigne did not ask Mr. Arrowpoint
if he had any trustworthy source of information about Grandcourt
considered as a husband for a charming girl; nor did Mrs. Arrowpoint
observe to Mrs. Davilow that if the possible peer sought a wife in the
neighborhood of Diplow, the only reasonable expectation was that he would
offer his hand to Catherine, who, however, would not accept him unless he
were in all respects fitted to secure her happiness. Indeed, even to his
wife the rector was silent as to the contemplation of any matrimonial
result, from the probability that Mr. Grandcourt would see Gwendolen at
the next Archery Meeting; though Mrs. Gascoigne's mind was very likely
still more active in the same direction. She had said interjectionally to
her sister, "It would be a mercy, Fanny, if that girl were well married!"
to which Mrs. Davilow discerning some criticism of her darling in the
fervor of that wish, had not chosen to make any audible reply, though she
had said inwardly, "You will not get her to marry for your pleasure"; the
mild mother becoming rather saucy when she identified herself with her
daughter.
To her husband Mrs. Gascoigne said, "I hear Mr. Grandcourt has got two
places of his own, but he comes to Diplow for the hunting. It is to be
hoped he will set a good example in the neighborhood. Have you heard what
sort of a young man he is, Henry?"
Mr. Gascoigne had not heard; at least, if his male acquaintances had
gossiped in his hearing, he was not disposed to repeat their gossip, or to
give it any emphasis in his own mind. He held it futile, even if it had
been becoming, to show any curiosity as to the past of a young man whose
birth, wealth, and consequent leisure made many habits venial which under
other circumstances would have been inexcusable. Whatever Grandcourt had
done, he had not ruined himself; and it is well-known that in gambling,
for example, whether of the business or holiday sort, a man who has the
strength of mind to leave off when he has only ruined others, is a
reformed character. This is an illustration merely: Mr. Gascoigne had not
heard that Grandcourt had been a gambler; and we can hardly pronounce him
singular in feeling that a landed proprieter with a mixture of noble blood
in his veins was not to be an object of suspicious inquiry like a reformed
character who offers himself as your butler or footman. Reformation, where
a man can afford to do without it, can hardly be other than genuine.
Moreover, it was not certain on any other showing hitherto, that Mr.
Grandcourt had needed reformation more than other young men in the ripe
youth of five-and-thirty; and, at any rate, the significance of what he
had been must be determined by what he actually was.
Mrs. Davilow, too, although she would not respond to her sister's pregnant
remark, could not be inwardly indifferent to an advent that might promise
a brilliant lot for Gwendolen. A little speculation on "what may be" comes
naturally, without encouragement--comes inevitably in the form of images,
when unknown persons are mentioned; and Mr. Grandcourt's name raised in
Mrs. Davilow's mind first of all the picture of a handsome, accomplished,
excellent young man whom she would be satisfied with as a husband for her
daughter; but then came the further speculation--would Gwendolen be
satisfied with him? There was no knowing what would meet that girl's taste
or touch her affections--it might be something else than excellence; and
thus the image of the perfect suitor gave way before a fluctuating
combination of qualities that might be imagined to win Gwendolen's heart.
In the difficulty of arriving at the particular combination which would
insure that result, the mother even said to herself, "It would not signify
about her being in love, if she would only accept the right person." For
whatever marriage had been for herself, how could she the less desire it
for her daughter? The difference her own misfortunes made was, that she
never dared to dwell much to Gwendolen on the desirableness of marriage,
dreading an answer something like that of the future Madame Roland, when
her gentle mother urging the acceptance of a suitor, said, "Tu seras
heureuse, ma chere." "Oui, maman, comme toi."
In relation to the problematic Mr. Grandcourt least of all would Mrs.
Davilow have willingly let fall a hint of the aerial castle-building which
she had the good taste to be ashamed of; for such a hint was likely enough
to give an adverse poise to Gwendolen's own thought, and make her detest
the desirable husband beforehand. Since that scene after poor Rex's
farewell visit, the mother had felt a new sense of peril in touching the
mystery of her child's feeling, and in rashly determining what was her
welfare: only she could think of welfare in no other shape than marriage.
The discussion of the dress that Gwendolen was to wear at the Archery
Meeting was a relevant topic, however; and when it had been decided that
as a touch of color on her white cashmere, nothing, for her complexion,
was comparable to pale green--a feather which she was trying in her hat
before the looking-glass having settled the question--Mrs. Davilow felt
her ears tingle when Gwendolen, suddenly throwing herself into the
attitude of drawing her bow, said with a look of comic enjoyment--
"How I pity all the other girls at the Archery Meeting--all thinking of
Mr. Grandcourt! And they have not a shadow of a chance."
Mrs. Davilow had not the presence of mind to answer immediately, and
Gwendolen turned round quickly toward her, saying, wickedly--
"Now you know they have not, mamma. You and my uncle and aunt--you all
intend him to fall in love with me."
Mrs. Davilow, pigued into a little stratagem, said, "Oh, my, dear, that is
not so certain. Miss Arrowpoint has charms which you have not."
"I know, but they demand thought. My arrow will pierce him before he has
time for thought. He will declare himself my slave--I shall send him round
the world to bring me back the wedding ring of a happy woman--in the
meantime all the men who are between him and the title will die of
different diseases--he will come back Lord Grandcourt--but without the
ring--and fall at my feet. I shall laugh at him--he will rise in
resentment--I shall laugh more--he will call for his steed and ride to
Quetcham, where he will find Miss Arrowpoint just married to a needy
musician, Mrs. Arrowpoint tearing her cap off, and Mr. Arrowpoint standing
by. Exit Lord Grandcourt, who returns to Diplow, and, like M. Jabot,
_change de linge_."
Was ever any young witch like this? You thought of hiding things from her
--sat upon your secret and looked innocent, and all the while she knew
by the corner of your eye that it was exactly five pounds ten you were
sitting on! As well turn the key to keep out the damp! It was probable
that by dint of divination she already knew more than any one else did of
Mr. Grandcourt. That idea in Mrs. Davilow's mind prompted the sort of
question which often comes without any other apparent reason than the
faculty of speech and the not knowing what to do with it.
"Why, what kind of a man do you imagine him to be, Gwendolen?"
"Let me see!" said the witch, putting her forefinger to her lips, with a
little frown, and then stretching out the finger with decision. "Short--
just above my shoulder--crying to make himself tall by turning up his
mustache and keeping his beard long--a glass in his right eye to give him
an air of distinction--a strong opinion about his waistcoat, but uncertain
and trimming about the weather, on which he will try to draw me out. He
will stare at me all the while, and the glass in his eye will cause him to
make horrible faces, especially when he smiles in a flattering way. I
shall cast down my eyes in consequence, and he will perceive that I am not
indifferent to his attentions. I shall dream that night that I am looking
at the extraordinary face of a magnified insect--and the next morning he
will make an offer of his hand; the sequel as before."
"That is a portrait of some one you have seen already, Gwen. Mr.
Grandcourt may be a delightful young man for what you know."
"Oh, yes," said Gwendolen, with a high note of careless admission, taking
off her best hat and turning it round on her hand contemplatively. "I
wonder what sort of behavior a delightful young man would have? I know he
would have hunters and racers, and a London house and two country-houses--
one with battlements and another with a veranda. And I feel sure that with
a little murdering he might get a title."
The irony of this speech was of the doubtful sort that has some genuine
belief mixed up with it. Poor Mrs. Davilow felt uncomfortable under it.
Her own meanings being usually literal and in intention innocent; and she
said with a distressed brow:
"Don't talk in that way, child, for heaven's sake! you do read such books
--they give you such ideas of everything. I declare when your aunt and I
were your age we knew nothing about wickedness. I think it was better so."
"Why did you not bring me up in that way, mamma?" said Gwendolen. But
immediately perceiving in the crushed look and rising sob that she had
given a deep wound, she tossed down her hat and knelt at her mother's feet
crying--
"Mamma, mamma! I was only speaking in fun. I meant nothing."
"How could I, Gwendolen?" said poor Mrs. Davilow, unable to hear the
retraction, and sobbing violently while she made the effort to speak.
"Your will was always too strong for me--if everything else had been
different."
This disjoined logic was intelligible enough to the daughter. "Dear mamma,
I don't find fault with you--I love you," said Gwendolen, really
compunctious. "How can you help what I am? Besides, I am very charming.
Come, now." Here Gwendolen with her handkerchief gently rubbed away her
mother's tears. "Really--I am contented with myself. I like myself better
than I should have liked my aunt and you. How dreadfully dull you must
have been!"
Such tender cajolery served to quiet the mother, as it had often done
before after like collisions. Not that the collisions had often been
repeated at the same point; for in the memory of both they left an
association of dread with the particular topics which had occasioned them:
Gwendolen dreaded the unpleasant sense of compunction toward her mother,
which was the nearest approach to self-condemnation and self-distrust that
she had known; and Mrs. Davilow's timid maternal conscience dreaded
whatever had brought on the slightest hint of reproach. Hence, after this
little scene, the two concurred in excluding Mr. Grandcourt from their
conversation.
When Mr. Gascoigne once or twice referred to him, Mrs. Davilow feared
least Gwendolen should betray some of her alarming keen-sightedness about
what was probably in her uncle's mind; but the fear was not justified.
Gwendolen knew certain differences in the characters with which she was
concerned as birds know climate and weather; and for the very reason that
she was determined to evade her uncle's control, she was determined not to
clash with him. The good understanding between them was much fostered by
their enjoyment of archery together: Mr. Gascoigne, as one of the best
bowmen in Wessex, was gratified to find the elements of like skill in his
niece; and Gwendolen was the more careful not to lose the shelter of his
fatherly indulgence, because since the trouble with Rex both Mrs.
Gascoigne and Anna had been unable to hide what she felt to be a very
unreasonable alienation from her. Toward Anna she took some pains to
behave with a regretful affectionateness; but neither of them dared to
mention Rex's name, and Anna, to whom the thought of him was part of the
air she breathed, was ill at ease with the lively cousin who had ruined
his happiness. She tried dutifully to repress any sign of her changed
feeling; but who in pain can imitate the glance and hand-touch of
pleasure.
This unfair resentment had rather a hardening effect on Gwendolen, and
threw her into a more defiant temper. Her uncle too might be offended if
she refused the next person who fell in love with her; and one day when
that idea was in her mind she said--
"Mamma, I see now why girls are glad to be married--to escape being
expected to please everybody but themselves."
Happily, Mr. Middleton was gone without having made any avowal; and
notwithstanding the admiration for the handsome Miss Harleth, extending
perhaps over thirty square miles in a part of Wessex well studded with
families whose numbers included several disengaged young men, each glad to
seat himself by the lively girl with whom it was so easy to get on in
conversation,--notwithstanding these grounds for arguing that Gwendolen
was likely to have other suitors more explicit than the cautious curate,
the fact was not so.
Care has been taken not only that the trees should not sweep the stars
down, but also that every man who admires a fair girl should not be
enamored of her, and even that every man who is enamored should not
necessarily declare himself. There are various refined shapes in which the
price of corn, known to be potent cause in their relation, might, if
inquired into, show why a young lady, perfect in person, accomplishments,
and costume, has not the trouble of rejecting many offers; and nature's
order is certainly benignant in not obliging us one and all to be
desperately in love with the most admirable mortal we have ever seen.
Gwendolen, we know, was far from holding that supremacy in the minds of
all observers. Besides, it was but a poor eight months since she had come
to Offendene, and some inclinations become manifest slowly, like the
sunward creeping of plants.
In face of this fact that not one of the eligible young men already in the
neighborhood had made Gwendolen an offer, why should Mr. Grandcourt be
thought of as likely to do what they had left undone?
Perhaps because he was thought of as still more eligible; since a great
deal of what passes for likelihood in the world is simply the reflex of a
wish. Mr. and Mrs. Arrowpoint, for example, having no anxiety that Miss
Harleth should make a brilliant marriage, had quite a different likelihood
in their minds.
CHAPTER X.
_1st Gent._ What woman should be? Sir, consult the taste
Of marriageable men. This planet's store
In iron, cotton, wool, or chemicals--
All matter rendered to our plastic skill,
Is wrought in shapes responsive to demand;
The market's pulse makes index high or low,
By rule sublime. Our daughters must be wives,
And to the wives must be what men will choose;
Men's taste is woman's test. You mark the phrase?
'Tis good, I think?--the sense well-winged and poised
With t's and s's.
_2nd Gent._ Nay, but turn it round;
Give us the test of taste. A fine _menu_--
Is it to-day what Roman epicures
Insisted that a gentleman must eat
To earn the dignity of dining well?
Brackenshaw Park, where the Archery Meeting was held, looked out from its
gentle heights far over the neighboring valley to the outlying eastern
downs and the broad, slow rise of cultivated country, hanging like a vast
curtain toward the west. The castle which stood on the highest platform of
the clustered hills, was built of rough-hewn limestone, full of lights and
shadows made by the dark dust of lichens and the washings of the rain.
Masses of beech and fir sheltered it on the north, and spread down here
and there along the green slopes like flocks seeking the water which
gleamed below. The archery-ground was a carefully-kept enclosure on a bit
of table-land at the farthest end of the park, protected toward the
southwest by tall elms and a thick screen of hollies, which kept the
gravel walk and the bit of newly-mown turf where the targets were placed
in agreeable afternoon shade. The Archery Hall with an arcade in front
showed like a white temple against the greenery on the north side.
What could make a better background for the flower-groups of ladies,
moving and bowing and turning their necks as it would become the leisurely
lilies to do if they took to locomotion. The sounds too were very pleasant
to hear, even when the military band from Wanchester ceased to play:
musical laughs in all the registers and a harmony of happy, friendly
speeches, now rising toward mild excitement, now sinking to an agreeable
murmur.
No open-air amusement could be much freer from those noisy, crowding
conditions which spoil most modern pleasures; no Archery Meeting could be
more select, the number of friends accompanying the members being
restricted by an award of tickets, so as to keep the maximum within the
limits of convenience for the dinner and ball to be held in the castle.
Within the enclosure no plebeian spectators were admitted except Lord
Brackenshaw's tenants and their families, and of these it was chiefly the
feminine members who used the privilege, bringing their little boys and
girls or younger brothers and sisters. The males among them relieved the
insipidity of the entertainment by imaginative betting, in which the stake
was "anything you like," on their favorite archers; but the young maidens,
having a different principle of discrimination, were considering which of
those sweetly-dressed ladies they would choose to be, if the choice were
allowed them. Probably the form these rural souls would most have striven
for as a tabernacle, was some other than Gwendolen's--one with more pink
in her cheeks and hair of the most fashionable yellow; but among the male
judges in the ranks immediately surrounding her there was unusual
unanimity in pronouncing her the finest girl present.
No wonder she enjoyed her existence on that July day. Pre-eminence is
sweet to those who love it, even under mediocre circumstances. Perhaps it
was not quite mythical that a slave has been proud to be bought first; and
probably a barn-door fowl on sale, though he may not have understood
himself to be called the best of a bad lot, may have a self-informed
consciousness of his relative importance, and strut consoled. But for
complete enjoyment the outward and the inward must concur. And that
concurrence was happening to Gwendolen.
Who can deny that bows and arrows are among the prettiest weapons in the
world for feminine forms to play with? They prompt attitudes full of grace
and power, where that fine concentration of energy seen in all
markmanship, is freed from associations of bloodshed. The time-honored
British resources of "killing something" is no longer carried on with bow
and quiver; bands defending their passes against an invading nation fight
under another sort of shade than a cloud of arrows; and poisoned darts are
harmless survivals either in rhetoric or in regions comfortably remote.
Archery has no ugly smell of brimstone; breaks nobody's shins, breeds no
athletic monsters; its only danger is that of failing, which for generous
blood is enough to mould skilful action. And among the Brackenshaw archers
the prizes were all of the nobler symbolic kind; not properly to be
carried off in a parcel, degrading honor into gain; but the gold arrow and
the silver, the gold star and the silver, to be worn for a long time in
sign of achievement and then transferred to the next who did excellently.
These signs of pre-eminence had the virtue of wreaths without their
inconveniences, which might have produced a melancholy effect in the heat
of the ball-room. Altogether the Brackenshaw Archery Club was an
institution framed with good taste, so as not to have by necessity any
ridiculous incidents.
And to-day all incalculable elements were in its favor. There was mild
warmth, and no wind to disturb either hair or drapery or the course of the
arrow; all skillful preparation had fair play, and when there was a
general march to extract the arrows, the promenade of joyous young
creatures in light speech and laughter, the graceful movement in common
toward a common object, was a show worth looking at. Here Gwendolen seemed
a Calypso among her nymphs. It was in her attitudes and movements that
every one was obliged to admit her surpassing charm.
"That girl is like a high-mettled racer," said Lord Brackenshaw to young
Clintock, one of the invited spectators.
"First chop! tremendously pretty too," said the elegant Grecian, who had
been paying her assiduous attention; "I never saw her look better."
Perhaps she had never looked so well. Her face was beaming with young
pleasure in which there was no malign rays of discontent; for being
satisfied with her own chances, she felt kindly toward everybody and was
satisfied with the universe. Not to have the highest distinction in rank,
not to be marked out as an heiress, like Miss Arrowpoint, gave an added
triumph in eclipsing those advantages. For personal recommendation she
would not have cared to change the family group accompanying her for any
other: her mamma's appearance would have suited an amiable duchess; her
uncle and aunt Gascoigne with Anna made equally gratifying figures in
their way; and Gwendolen was too full of joyous belief in herself to feel
in the least jealous though Miss Arrowpoint was one of the best
archeresses.
Even the reappearance of the formidable Herr Klesmer, which caused some
surprise in the rest of the company, seemed only to fall in with
Gwendolen's inclination to be amused. Short of Apollo himself, what great
musical _maestro_ could make a good figure at an archery meeting? There
was a very satirical light in Gwendolen's eyes as she looked toward the
Arrowpoint party on their first entrance, when the contrast between
Klesmer and the average group of English country people seemed at its
utmost intensity in the close neighborhood of his hosts--or patrons, as
Mrs. Arrowpoint would have liked to hear them called, that she might deny
the possibility of any longer patronizing genius, its royalty being
universally acknowledged. The contrast might have amused a graver
personage than Gwendolen. We English are a miscellaneous people, and any
chance fifty of us will present many varieties of animal architecture or
facial ornament; but it must be admitted that our prevailing expression is
not that of a lively, impassioned race, preoccupied with the ideal and
carrying the real as a mere make-weight. The strong point of the English
gentleman pure is the easy style of his figure and clothing; he objects to
marked ins and outs in his costume, and he also objects to looking
inspired.
Fancy an assemblage where the men had all that ordinary stamp of the well-
bred Englishman, watching the entrance of Herr Klesmer--his mane of hair
floating backward in massive inconsistency with the chimney-pot hat, which
had the look of having been put on for a joke above his pronounced but
well-modeled features and powerful clear-shaven mouth and chin; his tall,
thin figure clad in a way which, not being strictly English, was all the
worse for its apparent emphasis of intention. Draped in a loose garment
with a Florentine _berretta_ on his head, he would have been fit to stand
by the side of Leonardo de Vinci; but how when he presented himself in
trousers which were not what English feeling demanded about the knees?--
and when the fire that showed itself in his glances and the movements of
his head, as he looked round him with curiosity, was turned into comedy by
a hat which ruled that mankind should have well-cropped hair and a staid
demeanor, such, for example, as Mr. Arrowsmith's, whose nullity of face
and perfect tailoring might pass everywhere without ridicule? One feels
why it is often better for greatness to be dead, and to have got rid of
the outward man.
Many present knew Klesmer, or knew of him; but they had only seen him on
candle-light occasions when he appeared simply as a musician, and he had
not yet that supreme, world-wide celebrity which makes an artist great to
the most ordinary people by their knowledge of his great expensiveness. It
was literally a new light for them to see him in--presented unexpectedly
on this July afternoon in an exclusive society: some were inclined to
laugh, others felt a little disgust at the want of judgment shown by the
Arrowpoints in this use of an introductory card.
"What extreme guys those artistic fellows usually are?" said young
Clintock to Gwendolen. "Do look at the figure he cuts, bowing with his
hand on his heart to Lady Brackenshaw--and Mrs. Arrowpoint's feather just
reaching his shoulder."
"You are one of the profane," said Gwendolen. "You are blind to the
majesty of genius. Herr Klesmer smites me with awe; I feel crushed in his
presence; my courage all oozes from me."
"Ah, you understand all about his music."
"No, indeed," said Gwendolen, with a light laugh; "it is he who
understands all about mine and thinks it pitiable." Klesmer's verdict on
her singing had been an easier joke to her since he had been struck by her
_plastik_.
"It is not addressed to the ears of the future, I suppose. I'm glad of
that: it suits mine."
"Oh, you are very kind. But how remarkably well Miss Arrowpoint looks to-
day! She would make quite a fine picture in that gold-colored dress."
"Too splendid, don't you think?"
"Well, perhaps a little too symbolical--too much like the figure of Wealth
in an allegory."
This speech of Gwendolen's had rather a malicious sound, but it was not
really more than a bubble of fun. She did not wish Miss Arrowpoint or any
one else to be out of the way, believing in her own good fortune even more
than in her skill. The belief in both naturally grew stronger as the
shooting went on, for she promised to achieve one of the best scores--a
success which astonished every one in a new member; and to Gwendolen's
temperament one success determined another. She trod on air, and all
things pleasant seemed possible. The hour was enough for her, and she was
not obliged to think what she should do next to keep her life at the due
pitch.
"How does the scoring stand, I wonder?" said Lady Brackenshaw, a gracious
personage who, adorned with two little girls and a boy of stout make, sat
as lady paramount. Her lord had come up to her in one of the intervals of
shooting. "It seems to me that Miss Harleth is likely to win the gold
arrow."
"Gad, I think she will, if she carries it on! she is running Juliet Fenn
hard. It is wonderful for one in her first year. Catherine is not up to
her usual mark," continued his lordship, turning to the heiress's mother
who sat near. "But she got the gold arrow last time. And there's a luck
even in these games of skill. That's better. It gives the hinder ones a
chance."
"Catherine will be very glad for others to win," said Mrs. Arrowpoint,
"she is so magnanimous. It was entirely her considerateness that made us
bring Herr Klesmer instead of Canon Stopley, who had expressed a wish to
come. For her own pleasure, I am sure she would rather have brought the
Canon; but she is always thinking of others. I told her it was not quite
_en regle_ to bring one so far out of our own set; but she said, 'Genius
itself is not _en regle_; it comes into the world to make new rules.' And
one must admit that."
"Ay, to be sure," said Lord Brackenshaw, in a tone of careless dismissal,
adding quickly, "For my part, I am not magnanimous; I should like to win.
But, confound it! I never have the chance now. I'm getting old and idle.
The young ones beat me. As old Nestor says--the gods don't give us
everything at one time: I was a young fellow once, and now I am getting an
old and wise one. Old, at any rate; which is a gift that comes to
everybody if they live long enough, so it raises no jealousy." The Earl
smiled comfortably at his wife.
"Oh, my lord, people who have been neighbors twenty years must not talk to
each other about age," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "Years, as the Tuscans say,
are made for the letting of houses. But where is our new neighbor? I
thought Mr. Grandcourt was to be here to-day."
"Ah, by the way, so he was. The time's getting on too," said his lordship,
looking at his watch. "But he only got to Diplow the other day. He came to
us on Tuesday and said he had been a little bothered. He may have been
pulled in another direction. Why, Gascoigne!"--the rector was just then
crossing at a little distance with Gwendolen on his arm, and turned in
compliance with the call--"this is a little too bad; you not only beat us
yourself, but you bring up your niece to beat all the archeresses."
"It _is_ rather scandalous in her to get the better of elder members,"
said Mr. Gascoigne, with much inward satisfaction curling his short upper
lip. "But it is not my doing, my lord. I only meant her to make a
tolerable figure, without surpassing any one."
"It is not my fault, either," said Gwendolen, with pretty archness. "If I
am to aim, I can't help hitting."
"Ay, ay, that may be a fatal business for some people," said Lord
Brackenshaw, good-humoredly; then taking out his watch and looking at Mrs.
Arrowpoint again--"The time's getting on, as you say. But Grandcourt is
always late. I notice in town he's always late, and he's no bowman--
understands nothing about it. But I told him he must come; he would see
the flower of the neighborhood here. He asked about you--had seen
Arrowpoint's card. I think you had not made his acquaintance in town. He
has been a good deal abroad. People don't know him much."
"No; we are strangers," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "But that is not what might
have been expected. For his uncle Sir Hugo Mallinger and I are great
friends when we meet."
"I don't know; uncles and nephews are not so likely to be seen together as
uncles and nieces," said his lordship, smiling toward the rector. "But
just come with me one instant, Gascoigne, will you? I want to speak a word
about the clout-shooting."
Gwendolen chose to go too and be deposited in the same group with her
mamma and aunt until she had to shoot again. That Mr. Grandcourt might
after all not appear on the archery-ground, had begun to enter into
Gwendolen's thought as a possible deduction from the completeness of her
pleasure. Under all her saucy satire, provoked chiefly by her divination
that her friends thought of him as a desirable match for her, she felt
something very far from indifference as to the impression she would make
on him. True, he was not to have the slightest power over her (for
Gwendolen had not considered that the desire to conquer is itself a sort
of subjection); she had made up her mind that he was to be one of those
complimentary and assiduously admiring men of whom even her narrow
experience had shown her several with various-colored beards and various
styles of bearing; and the sense that her friends would want her to think
him delightful, gave her a resistant inclination to presuppose him
ridiculous. But that was no reason why she could spare his presence: and
even a passing prevision of trouble in case she despised and refused him,
raised not the shadow of a wish that he should save her that trouble by
showing no disposition to make her an offer. Mr. Grandcourt taking hardly
any notice of her, and becoming shortly engaged to Miss Arrowpoint, was
not a picture which flattered her imagination.
Hence Gwendolen had been all ear to Lord Brackenshaw's mode of accounting
for Grandcourt's non-appearance; and when he did arrive, no consciousness
--not even Mrs. Arrowpoint's or Mr. Gascoigne's--was more awake to the
fact than hers, although she steadily avoided looking toward any point
where he was likely to be. There should be no slightest shifting of angles
to betray that it was of any consequence to her whether the much-talked-of
Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt presented himself or not. She became again
absorbed in the shooting, and so resolutely abstained from looking round
observantly that, even supposing him to have taken a conspicuous place
among the spectators, it might be clear she was not aware of him. And all
the while the certainty that he was there made a distinct thread in her
consciousness. Perhaps her shooting was the better for it: at any rate, it
gained in precision, and she at last raised a delightful storm of clapping
and applause by three hits running in the gold--a feat which among the
Brackenshaw arches had not the vulgar reward of a shilling poll-tax, but
that of a special gold star to be worn on the breast. That moment was not
only a happy one to herself--it was just what her mamma and her uncle
would have chosen for her. There was a general falling into ranks to give
her space that she might advance conspicuously to receive the gold star
from the hands of Lady Brackenshaw; and the perfect movement of her fine
form was certainly a pleasant thing to behold in the clear afternoon light
when the shadows were long and still. She was the central object of that
pretty picture, and every one present must gaze at her. That was enough:
she herself was determined to see nobody in particular, or to turn her
eyes any way except toward Lady Brackenshaw, but her thoughts undeniably
turned in other ways. It entered a little into her pleasure that Herr
Klesmer must be observing her at a moment when music was out of the
question, and his superiority very far in the back-ground; for vanity is
as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it
cannot return; and the unconquered Klesmer threw a trace of his malign
power even across her pleasant consciousness that Mr. Grandcourt was
seeing her to the utmost advantage, and was probably giving her an
admiration unmixed with criticism. She did not expect to admire _him_, but
that was not necessary to her peace of mind.
Gwendolen met Lady Brackenshaw's gracious smile without blushing (which
only came to her when she was taken by surprise), but with a charming
gladness of expression, and then bent with easy grace to have the star
fixed near her shoulder. That little ceremony had been over long enough
for her to have exchanged playful speeches and received congratulations as
she moved among the groups who were now interesting themselves in the
results of the scoring; but it happened that she stood outside examining
the point of an arrow with rather an absent air when Lord Brackenshaw came
up to her and said:
"Miss Harleth, here is a gentleman who is not willing to wait any longer
for an introduction. He has been getting Mrs. Davilow to send me with him.
Will you allow me to introduce Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt?"
BOOK II--MEETING STREAMS.
CHAPTER XI.
The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to
get a definite outline for our ignorance.
Mr. Grandcourt's wish to be introduced had no suddenness for Gwendolen;
but when Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured stranger
to come forward and she felt herself face to face with the real man, there
was a little shock which flushed her cheeks and vexatiously deepened with
her consciousness of it. The shock came from the reversal of her
expectations: Grandcourt could hardly have been more unlike all her
imaginary portraits of him. He was slightly taller than herself, and their
eyes seemed to be on a level; there was not the faintest smile on his face
as he looked at her, not a trace of self-consciousness or anxiety in his
bearing: when he raised his hat he showed an extensive baldness surrounded
with a mere fringe of reddish-blonde hair, but he also showed a perfect
hand; the line of feature from brow to chin undisguised by beard was
decidedly handsome, with only moderate departures from the perpendicular,
and the slight whisker too was perpendicular. It was not possible for a
human aspect to be freer from grimace or solicitious wrigglings: also it
was perhaps not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less
animated. The correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into
rigidity, assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal
drill, suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go
with some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt's
bearing had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion
had a faded fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the
artificial white and red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing but
indifference. Attempts at description are stupid: who can all at once
describe a human being? even when he is presented to us we only begin that
knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable
impressions under differing circumstances. We recognize the alphabet; we
are not sure of the language. I am only mentioning the point that
Gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the first minutes of
her meeting with Grandcourt: they were summed up in the words, "He is not
ridiculous." But forthwith Lord Brackenshaw was gone, and what is called
conversation had begun, the first and constant element in it being that
Grandcourt looked at Gwendolen persistently with a slightly exploring
gaze, but without change of expression, while she only occasionally looked
at him with a flash of observation a little softened by coquetry. Also,
after her answers there was a longer or shorter pause before he spoke
again.
"I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He spoke
with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a distinguished
personage with a distinguished cold on his chest.
"Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen.
(Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion
about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.)
"Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally sees
people missing and simpering."
"I suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle."
(Pause, during which Gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of
Grandcourt, made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite
hearer.)
"I have left off shooting."
"Oh then you are a formidable person. People who have done things once and
left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using cast-
off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I practice
a great many."
(Pause, during which Gwendolen made several interpretations of her own
speech.)
"What do you call follies?"
"Well, in general I think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But
you have not left off hunting, I hear."
(Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about Grandcourt's
position, and decided that he was the most aristocratic-looking man she
had ever seen.)
"One must do something."
"And do you care about the turf?--or is that among the things you have
left off?"
(Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm, cold
manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, and not
likely to interfere with his wife's preferences.)
"I run a horse now and then; but I don't go in for the thing as some men
do. Are you fond of horses?"
"Yes, indeed: I never like my life so well as when I am on horseback,
having a great gallop. I think of nothing. I only feel myself strong and
happy."
(Pause, wherein Gwendolen wondered whether Grandcourt would like what she
said, but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her tastes.)
"Do you like danger?"
"I don't know. When I am on horseback I never think of danger. It seems to
me that if I broke my bones I should not feel it. I should go at anything
that came in my way."
(Pause during which Gwendolen had run through a whole hunting season with
two chosen hunters to ride at will.)
"You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some of that
for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff after
that."
"_You_ are fond of danger, then?"
(Pause, wherein Gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of
coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her
own insight, supposing the question had to be decided.)
"One must have something or other. But one gets used to it."
"I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new to me: it
is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to anything except
being dull, which I should like to leave off as you have left off
shooting."
(Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold and
distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the other
hand she thought that most persons were dull, that she had not observed
husbands to be companions--and that after all she was not going to accept
Grandcourt.)
"Why are you dull?"
"This is a dreadful neighborhood. There is nothing to be done in it. That
is why I practiced my archery."
(Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried
woman who could not go about and had no command of anything must
necessarily be dull through all degrees of comparison as time went on.)
"You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the first
prize."
"I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how well Miss
Arrowpoint shot?"
(Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to choose
some one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled several
experiences of that kind in novels.)
"Miss Arrowpoint. No--that is, yes."
"Shall we go now and hear what the scoring says? Every one is going to the
other end now--shall we join them? I think my uncle is looking toward me.
He perhaps wants me."
Gwendolen found a relief for herself by thus changing the situation: not
that the _tete-a-tete_ was quite disagreeable to her; but while it lasted
she apparently could not get rid of the unwonted flush in her cheeks and
the sense of surprise which made her feel less mistress of herself than
usual. And this Mr. Grandcourt, who seemed to feel his own importance more
than he did hers--a sort of unreasonableness few of us can tolerate--must
not take for granted that he was of great moment to her, or that because
others speculated on him as a desirable match she held herself altogether
at his beck. How Grandcourt had filled up the pauses will be more evident
hereafter.
"You have just missed the gold arrow, Gwendolen," said Mr. Gascoigne.
"Miss Juliet Fenn scores eight above you."
"I am very glad to hear it. I should have felt that I was making myself
too disagreeable--taking the best of everything," said Gwendolen, quite
easily.
It was impossible to be jealous of Juliet Fenn, a girl as middling as mid-
day market in everything but her archery and plainness, in which last she
was noticeable like her father: underhung and with receding brow
resembling that of the more intelligent fishes. (Surely, considering the
importance which is given to such an accident in female offspring,
marriageable men, or what the new English calls "intending bridegrooms,"
should look at themselves dispassionately in the glass, since their
natural selection of a mate prettier than themselves is not certain to bar
the effect of their own ugliness.)
There was now a lively movement in the mingling groups, which carried the
talk along with it. Every one spoke to every one else by turns, and
Gwendolen, who chose to see what was going on around her now, observed
that Grandcourt was having Klesmer presented to him by some one unknown to
her--a middle-aged man, with dark, full face and fat hands, who seemed to
be on the easiest terms with both, and presently led the way in joining
the Arrowpoints, whose acquaintance had already been made by both him and
Grandcourt. Who this stranger was she did not care much to know; but she
wished to observe what was Grandcourt's manner toward others than herself.
Precisely the same: except that he did not look much at Miss Arrowpoint,
but rather at Klesmer, who was speaking with animation--now stretching out
his long fingers horizontally, now pointing downward with his fore-finger,
now folding his arms and tossing his mane, while he addressed himself
first to one and then to the other, including Grandcourt, who listened
with an impassive face and narrow eyes, his left fore-finger in his
waistcoat-pocket, and his right slightly touching his thin whisker.
"I wonder which style Miss Arrowpoint admires most," was a thought that
glanced through Gwendolen's mind, while her eyes and lips gathered rather
a mocking expression. But she would not indulge her sense of amusement by
watching, as if she were curious, and she gave all her animation to those
immediately around her, determined not to care whether Mr. Grandcourt came
near her again or not.
He did not come, however, and at a moment when he could propose to conduct
Mrs. Davilow to her carriage, "Shall we meet again in the ball-room?" she
said as he raised his hat at parting. The "yes" in reply had the usual
slight drawl and perfect gravity.
"You were wrong for once Gwendolen," said Mrs. Davilow, during their few
minutes' drive to the castle.
"In what, mamma?"
"About Mr. Grandcourt's appearance and manners. You can't find anything
ridiculous in him."
"I suppose I could if I tried, but I don't want to do it," said Gwendolen,
rather pettishly; and her mother was afraid to say more.
It was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine
apart, so that the dinner might make a time of comparative ease and rest
for both. Indeed, the gentlemen had a set of archery stories about the
epicurism of the ladies, who had somehow been reported to show a revolting
masculine judgment in venison, even asking for the fat--a proof of the
frightful rate at which corruption might go on in women, but for severe
social restraint, and every year the amiable Lord Brackenshaw, who was
something of a _gourmet_, mentioned Byron's opinion that a woman should
never be seen eating,--introducing it with a confidential--"The fact is"
as if he were for the first time admitting his concurrence in that
sentiment of the refined poet.
In the ladies' dining-room it was evident that Gwendolen was not a general
favorite with her own sex: there were no beginnings of intimacy between
her and other girls, and in conversation they rather noticed what she said
than spoke to her in free exchange. Perhaps it was that she was not much
interested in them, and when left alone in their company had a sense of
empty benches. Mrs. Vulcany once remarked that Miss Harleth was too fond
of the gentlemen; but we know that she was not in the least fond of them--
she was only fond of their homage--and women did not give her homage. The
exception to this willing aloofness from her was Miss Arrowpoint, who
often managed unostentatiously to be by her side, and talked to her with
quiet friendliness.
"She knows, as I do, that our friends are ready to quarrel over a husband
for us," thought Gwendolen, "and she is determined not to enter into the
quarrel."
"I think Miss Arrowpoint has the best manners I ever saw," said Mrs.
Davilow, when she and Gwendolen were in a dressing-room with Mrs.
Gascoigne and Anna, but at a distance where they could have their talk
apart.
"I wish I were like her," said Gwendolen.
"Why? Are you getting discontented with yourself, Gwen?"
"No; but I am discontented with things. She seems contented."
"I am sure you ought to be satisfied to-day. You must have enjoyed the
shooting. I saw you did."
"Oh, that is over now, and I don't know what will come next," said
Gwendolen, stretching herself with a sort of moan and throwing up her
arms. They were bare now; it was the fashion to dance in the archery
dress, throwing off the jacket; and the simplicity of her white cashmere
with its border of pale green set off her form to the utmost. A thin line
of gold round her neck, and the gold star on her breast, were her only
ornaments. Her smooth soft hair piled up into a grand crown made a clear
line about her brow. Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait;
and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this,
that he would not have had to represent the truth of change--only to give
stability to one beautiful moment.
"The dancing will come next," said Mrs. Davilow "You We sure to enjoy
that."
"I shall only dance in the quadrille. I told Mr. Clintock so. I shall not
waltz or polk with any one."
"Why in the world do you say that all on a sudden?"
"I can't bear having ugly people so near me."
"Whom do you mean by ugly people?"
"Oh, plenty."
"Mr. Clintock, for example, is not ugly." Mrs. Davilow dared not mention
Grandcourt.
"Well, I hate woolen cloth touching me."
"Fancy!" said Mrs. Davilow to her sister who now came up from the other
end of the room. "Gwendolen says she will not waltz or polk."
"She is rather given to whims, I think," said Mrs. Gascoigne, gravely. "It
would be more becoming in her to behave as other young ladies do on such
an occasion as this; especially when she has had the advantage of first-
rate dancing lessons."
"Why should I dance if I don't like it, aunt? It is not in the catechism."
"My _dear_!" said Mrs. Gascoigne, in a tone of severe check, and Anna
looked frightened at Gwendolen's daring. But they all passed on without
saying any more.
Apparently something had changed Gwendolen's mood since the hour of
exulting enjoyment in the archery-ground. But she did not look the worse
under the chandeliers in the ball-room, where the soft splendor of the
scene and the pleasant odors from the conservatory could not but be
soothing to the temper, when accompanied with the consciousness of being
preeminently sought for. Hardly a dancing man but was anxious to have her
for a partner, and each whom she accepted was in a state of melancholy
remonstrance that she would not waltz or polk.
"Are you under a vow, Miss Harleth?"--"Why are you so cruel to us all?"--
"You waltzed with me in February."--"And you who waltz so perfectly!" were
exclamations not without piquancy for her. The ladies who waltzed
naturally thought that Miss Harleth only wanted to make herself
particular; but her uncle when he overheard her refusal supported her by
saying--
"Gwendolen has usually good reasons." He thought she was certainly more
distinguished in not waltzing, and he wished her to be distinguished. The
archery ball was intended to be kept at the subdued pitch that suited all
dignities clerical and secular; it was not an escapement for youthful high
spirits, and he himself was of opinion that the fashionable dances were
too much of a romp.
Among the remonstrant dancing men, however, Mr. Grandcourt was not
numbered. After standing up for a quadrille with Miss Arrowpoint, it
seemed that he meant to ask for no other partner. Gwendolen observed him
frequently with the Arrowpoints, but he never took an opportunity of
approaching her. Mr. Gascoigne was sometimes speaking to him; but Mr.
Gascoigne was everywhere. It was in her mind now that she would probably
after all not have the least trouble about him: perhaps he had looked at
her without any particular admiration, and was too much used to everything
in the world to think of her as more than one of the girls who were
invited in that part of the country. Of course! It was ridiculous of
elders to entertain notions about what a man would do, without having seen
him even through a telescope. Probably he meant to marry Miss Arrowpoint.
Whatever might come, she, Gwendolen, was not going to be disappointed: the
affair was a joke whichever way it turned, for she had never committed
herself even by a silent confidence in anything Mr. Grandcourt would do.
Still, she noticed that he did sometimes quietly and gradually change his
position according to hers, so that he could see her whenever she was
dancing, and if he did not admire her--so much the worse for him.
This movement for the sake of being in sight of her was more direct than
usual rather late in the evening, when Gwendolen had accepted Klesmer as a
partner; and that wide-glancing personage, who saw everything and nothing
by turns, said to her when they were walking, "Mr. Grandcourt is a man of
taste. He likes to see you dancing."
"Perhaps he likes to look at what is against his taste," said Gwendolen,
with a light laugh; she was quite courageous with Klesmer now. He may be
so tired of admiring that he likes disgust for variety."
"Those words are not suitable to your lips," said Klesmer, quickly, with
one of his grand frowns, while he shook his hand as if to banish the
discordant sounds.
"Are you as critical of words as of music?"
"Certainly I am. I should require your words to be what your face and form
are--always among the meanings of a noble music."
"That is a compliment as well as a correction. I am obliged for both. But
do you know I am bold enough to wish to correct _you_, and require you to
understand a joke?"
"One may understand jokes without liking them," said the terrible Klesmer.
"I have had opera books sent me full of jokes; it was just because I
understood them that I did not like them. The comic people are ready to
challenge a man because he looks grave. 'You don't see the witticism,
sir?' 'No, sir, but I see what you meant.' Then I am what we call ticketed
as a fellow without _esprit_. But, in fact," said Klesmer, suddenly
dropping from his quick narrative to a reflective tone, with an impressive
frown, "I am very sensible to wit and humor."
"I am glad you tell me that," said Gwendolen, not without some wickedness
of intention. But Klesmer's thoughts had flown off on the wings of his own
statement, as their habit was, and she had the wickedness all to herself.
"Pray, who is that standing near the card-room door?" she went on, seeing
there the same stranger with whom Klesmer had been in animated talk on the
archery ground. "He is a friend of yours, I think."
"No, no; an amateur I have seen in town; Lush, a Mr. Lush--too fond of
Meyerbeer and Scribe--too fond of the mechanical-dramatic."
"Thanks. I wanted to know whether you thought his face and form required
that his words should be among the meanings of noble music?" Klesmer was
conquered, and flashed at her a delightful smile which made them quite
friendly until she begged to be deposited by the side of her mamma.
Three minutes afterward her preparations for Grandcourt's indifference
were all canceled. Turning her head after some remark to her mother, she
found that he had made his way up to her.
"May I ask if you are tired of dancing, Miss Harleth?" he began, looking
down with his former unperturbed expression.
"Not in the least."
"Will you do me the honor--the next--or another quadrille?"
"I should have been very happy," said Gwendolen looking at her card, "but
I am engaged for the next to Mr. Clintock--and indeed I perceive that I am
doomed for every quadrille; I have not one to dispose of." She was not
sorry to punish Mr. Grandcourt's tardiness, yet at the same time she would
have liked to dance with him. She gave him a charming smile as she looked
up to deliver her answer, and he stood still looking down at her with no
smile at all.
"I am unfortunate in being too late," he said, after a moment's pause.
"It seemed to me that you did not care for dancing," said Gwendolen. "I
thought it might be one of the things you had left off."
"Yes, but I have not begun to dance with you," said. Grandcourt. Always
there was the same pause before he took up his cue. "You make dancing a
new thing, as you make archery."
"Is novelty always agreeable?"
"No, no--not always."
"Then I don't know whether to feel flattered or not. When you had once
danced with me there would be no more novelty in it."
"On the contrary, there would probably be much more."
"That is deep. I don't understand."
"It is difficult to make Miss Harleth understand her power?" Here
Grandcourt had turned to Mrs. Davilow, who, smiling gently at her
daughter, said--
"I think she does not generally strike people as slow to understand."
"Mamma," said Gwendolen, in a deprecating tone, "I am adorably stupid, and
want everything explained to me--when the meaning is pleasant."
"If you are stupid, I admit that stupidity is adorable," returned
Grandcourt, after the usual pause, and without change of tone. But clearly
he knew what to say.
"I begin to think that my cavalier has forgotten me," Gwendolen observed
after a little while. "I see the quadrille is being formed."
"He deserves to be renounced," said Grandcourt.
"I think he is very pardonable," said Gwendolen.
"There must have been some misunderstanding," said Mrs. Davilow. "Mr.
Clintock was too anxious about the engagement to have forgotten it."
But now Lady Brackenshaw came up and said, "Miss Harleth, Mr. Clintock has
charged me to express to you his deep regret that he was obliged to leave
without having the pleasure of dancing with you again. An express came
from his father, the archdeacon; something important; he was to go. He was
_au desespoir_."
"Oh, he was very good to remember the engagement under the circumstances,"
said Gwendolen. "I am sorry he was called away." It was easy to be
politely sorrowful on so felicitious an occasion.
"Then I can profit by Mr. Clintock's misfortune?" said Grandcourt. "May I
hope that you will let me take his place?"
"I shall be very happy to dance the next quadrille with you."
The appropriateness of the event seemed an augury, and as Gwendolen stood
up for the quadrille with Grandcourt, there was a revival in her of the
exultation--the sense of carrying everything before her, which she had
felt earlier in the day. No man could have walked through the quadrille
with more irreproachable ease than Grandcourt; and the absence of all
eagerness in his attention to her suited his partner's taste. She was now
convinced that he meant to distinguish her, to mark his admiration of her
in a noticeable way; and it began to appear probable that she would have
it in her power to reject him, whence there was a pleasure in reckoning up
the advantages which would make her rejection splendid, and in giving Mr.
Grandcourt his utmost value. It was also agreeable to divine that this
exclusive selection of her to dance with, from among all the unmarried
ladies present, would attract observation; though She studiously avoided
seeing this, and at the end of the quadrille walked away on Grandcourt's
arm as if she had been one of the shortest sighted instead of the longest
and widest sighted of mortals. They encountered Miss Arrowpoint, who was
standing with Lady Brackenshaw and a group of gentlemen. The heiress
looked at Gwendolen invitingly and said, "I hope you will vote with us,
Miss Harleth, and Mr. Grandcourt too, though he is not an archer."
Gwendolen and Grandcourt paused to join the group, and found that the
voting turned on the project of a picnic archery meeting to be held in
Cardell Chase, where the evening entertainment would be more poetic than a
ball under, chandeliers--a feast of sunset lights along the glades and
through the branches and over the solemn tree-tops.
Gwendolen thought the scheme delightful--equal to playing Robin Hood and
Maid Marian: and Mr. Grandcourt, when appealed to a second time, said it
was a thing to be done; whereupon Mr. Lush, who stood behind Lady
Brackenshaw's elbow, drew Gwendolen's notice by saying with a familiar
look and tone to Grandcourt, "Diplow would be a good place for the
meeting, and more convenient: there's a fine bit between the oaks toward
the north gate."
Impossible to look more unconscious of being addressed than Grandcourt;
but Gwendolen took a new survey of the speaker, deciding, first, that he
must be on terms of intimacy with the tenant of Diplow, and, secondly,
that she would never, if she could help it, let him come within a yard of
her. She was subject to physical antipathies, and Mr. Lush's prominent
eyes, fat though not clumsy figure, and strong black gray-besprinkled hair
of frizzy thickness, which, with the rest of his prosperous person, was
enviable to many, created one of the strongest of her antipathies. To be
safe from his looking at her, she murmured to Grandcourt, "I should like
to continue walking."
He obeyed immediately; but when they were thus away from any audience, he
spoke no word for several minutes, and she, out of a half-amused, half-
serious inclination for experiment, would not speak first. They turned
into the large conservatory, beautifully lit up with Chinese lamps. The
other couples there were at a distance which would not have interfered
with any dialogue, but still they walked in silence until they had reached
the farther end where there was a flush of pink light, and the second wide
opening into the ball-room. Grandcourt, when they had half turned round,
paused and said languidly--
"Do you like this kind of thing?"
If the situation had been described to Gwendolen half an hour before, she
would have laughed heartily at it, and could only have imagined herself
returning a playful, satirical answer. But for some mysterious reason--it
was a mystery of which she had a faint wondering consciousness--she dared
not be satirical: she had begun to feel a wand over her that made her
afraid of offending Grandcourt.
"Yes," she said, quietly, without considering what "kind of thing" was
meant--whether the flowers, the scents, the ball in general, or this
episode of walking with Mr. Grandcourt in particular. And they returned
along the conservatory without farther interpretation. She then proposed
to go and sit down in her old place, and they walked among scattered
couples preparing for the waltz to the spot where Mrs. Davilow had been
seated all the evening. As they approached it her seat was vacant, but she
was coming toward it again, and, to Gwendolen's shuddering annoyance, with
Mr. Lush at her elbow. There was no avoiding the confrontation: her mamma
came close to her before they had reached the seats, and, after a quiet
greeting smile, said innocently, "Gwendolen, dear, let me present Mr. Lush
to you." Having just made the acquaintance of this personage, as an
intimate and constant companion of Mr. Grandcourt's, Mrs. Davilow imagined
it altogether desirable that her daughter also should make the
acquaintance.
It was hardly a bow that Gwendolen gave--rather, it was the slightest
forward sweep of the head away from the physiognomy that inclined itself
toward her, and she immediately moved toward her seat, saying, "I want to
put on my burnous." No sooner had she reached it, than Mr. Lush was there,
and had the burnous in his hand: to annoy this supercilious young lady, he
would incur the offense of forestalling Grandcourt; and, holding up the
garment close to Gwendolen, he said, "Pray, permit me?" But she, wheeling
away from him as if he had been a muddy hound, glided on to the ottoman,
saying, "No, thank you."
A man who forgave this would have much Christian feeling, supposing he had
intended to be agreeable to the young lady; but before he seized the
burnous Mr. Lush had ceased to have that intention. Grandcourt quietly
took the drapery from him, and Mr. Lush, with a slight bow, moved away.
"You had perhaps better put it on," said Mr. Grandcourt, looking down on
her without change of expression.
"Thanks; perhaps it would be wise," said Gwendolen, rising, and submitting
very gracefully to take the burnous on her shoulders.
After that, Mr. Grandcourt exchanged a few polite speeches with Mrs.
Davilow, and, in taking leave, asked permission to call at Offendene the
next day. He was evidently not offended by the insult directed toward his
friend. Certainly Gwendolen's refusal of the burnous from Mr. Lush was
open to the interpretation that she wished to receive it from Mr.
Grandcourt. But she, poor child, had no design in this action, and was
simply following her antipathy and inclination, confiding in them as she
did in the more reflective judgments into which they entered as sap into
leafage. Gwendolen had no sense that these men were dark enigmas to her,
or that she needed any help in drawing conclusions about them--Mr.
Grandcourt at least. The chief question was, how far his character and
ways might answer her wishes; and unless she were satisfied about that,
she had said to herself that she would not accept his offer.
Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history
than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of the
way in which she could make her life pleasant?--in a time, too, when ideas
were with fresh vigor making armies of themselves, and the universal
kinship was declaring itself fiercely; when women on the other side of the
world would not mourn for the husbands and sons who died bravely in a
common cause, and men stinted of bread on our side of the world heard of
that willing loss and were patient: a time when the soul of man was
walking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him unfelt,
until their full sum made a new life of terror or of joy.
What in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind visions?
They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are enduring and
fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the
treasure of human affections.
CHAPTER XII.
"O gentlemen, the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour."
--SHAKESPEARE: _Henry IV_.
On the second day after the Archery Meeting, Mr. Henleigh Mallinger
Grandcourt was at his breakfast-table with Mr. Lush. Everything around
them was agreeable: the summer air through the open windows, at which the
dogs could walk in from the old green turf on the lawn; the soft, purplish
coloring of the park beyond, stretching toward a mass of bordering wood;
the still life in the room, which seemed the stiller for its sober
antiquated elegance, as if it kept a conscious, well-bred silence, unlike
the restlessness of vulgar furniture.
Whether the gentlemen were agreeable to each other was less evident. Mr.
Grandcourt had drawn his chair aside so as to face the lawn, and with his
left leg over another chair, and his right elbow on the table, was smoking
a large cigar, while his companion was still eating. The dogs--half-a-
dozen of various kinds were moving lazily in and out, taking attitudes of
brief attention--gave a vacillating preference first to one gentleman,
then to the other; being dogs in such good circumstances that they could
play at hunger, and liked to be served with delicacies which they declined
to put in their mouths; all except Fetch, the beautiful liver-colored
water-spaniel, which sat with its forepaws firmly planted and its
expressive brown face turned upward, watching Grandcourt with unshaken
constancy. He held in his lap a tiny Maltese dog with a tiny silver collar
and bell, and when he had a hand unused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested
on this small parcel of animal warmth. I fear that Fetch was jealous, and
wounded that her master gave her no word or look; at last it seemed that
she could bear this neglect no longer, and she gently put her large silky
paw on her master's leg. Grandcourt looked at her with unchanged face for
half a minute, and then took the trouble to lay down his cigar while he
lifted the unimpassioned Fluff close to his chin and gave it caressing
pats, all the while gravely watching Fetch, who, poor thing, whimpered
interruptedly, as if trying to repress that sign of discontent, and at
last rested her head beside the appealing paw, looking up with piteous
beseeching. So, at least, a lover of dogs must have interpreted Fetch, and
Grandcourt kept so many dogs that he was reputed to love them; at any
rate, his impulse to act just in that way started from such an
interpretation. But when the amusing anguish burst forth in a howling
bark, Grandcourt pushed Fetch down without speaking, and, depositing Fluff
carelessly on the table (where his black nose predominated over a salt-
cellar), began to look to his cigar, and found, with some annoyance
against Fetch as the cause, that the brute of a cigar required relighting.
Fetch, having begun to wail, found, like others of her sex, that it was
not easy to leave off; indeed, the second howl was a louder one, and the
third was like unto it.
"Turn out that brute, will you?" said Grandcourt to Lush, without raising
his voice or looking at him--as if he counted on attention to the smallest
sign.
And Lush immediately rose, lifted Fetch, though she was rather heavy, and
he was not fond of stooping, and carried her out, disposing of her in some
way that took him a couple of minutes before he returned. He then lit a
cigar, placed himself at an angle where he could see Grandcourt's face
without turning, and presently said--
"Shall you ride or drive to Quetcham to-day?"
"I am not going to Quetcham."
"You did not go yesterday."
Grandcourt smoked in silence for half a minute, and then said--
"I suppose you sent my card and inquiries."
"I went myself at four, and said you were sure to be there shortly. They
would suppose some accident prevented you from fulfilling the intention.
Especially if you go to-day."
Silence for a couple of minutes. Then Grandcourt said, "What men are
invited here with their wives?"
Lush drew out a note-book. "The Captain and Mrs. Torrington come next
week. Then there are Mr. Hollis and Lady Flora, and the Cushats and the
Gogoffs."
"Rather a ragged lot," remarked Grandcourt, after a while. "Why did you
ask the Gogoffs? When you write invitations in my name, be good enough to
give me a list, instead of bringing down a giantess on me without my
knowledge. She spoils the look of the room."
"You invited the Gogoffs yourself when you met them in Paris."
"What has my meeting them in Paris to do with it? I told you to give me a
list."
Grandcourt, like many others, had two remarkably different voices.
Hitherto we have heard him speaking in a superficial interrupted drawl
suggestive chiefly of languor and _ennui_. But this last brief speech was
uttered in subdued inward, yet distinct, tones, which Lush had long been
used to recognize as the expression of a peremptory will.
"Are there any other couples you would like to invite?"
"Yes; think of some decent people, with a daughter or two. And one of your
damned musicians. But not a comic fellow."
"I wonder if Klesmer would consent to come to us when he leaves Quetcham.
Nothing but first-class music will go down with Miss Arrowpoint."
Lush spoke carelessly, but he was really seizing an opportunity and fixing
an observant look on Grandcourt, who now for the first time, turned his
eyes toward his companion, but slowly and without speaking until he had
given two long luxuriant puffs, when he said, perhaps in a lower tone than
ever, but with a perceptible edge of contempt--
"What in the name of nonsense have I to do with Miss Arrowpoint and her
music?"
"Well, something," said Lush, jocosely. "You need not give yourself much
trouble, perhaps. But some forms must be gone through before a man can
marry a million."
"Very likely. But I am not going to marry a million."
"That's a pity--to fling away an opportunity of this sort, and knock down
your own plans."
"_Your_ plans, I suppose you mean."
"You have some debts, you know, and things may turn out inconveniently
after all. The heirship is not _absolutely_ certain."
Grandcourt did not answer, and Lush went on.
"It really is a fine opportunity. The father and mother ask for nothing
better, I can see, and the daughter's looks and manners require no
allowances, any more than if she hadn't a sixpence. She is not beautiful;
but equal to carrying any rank. And she is not likely to refuse such
prospects as you can offer her."
"Perhaps not."
"The father and mother would let you do anything you like with them."
"But I should not like to do anything with them."
Here it was Lush who made a little pause before speaking again, and then
he said in a deep voice of remonstrance, "Good God, Grandcourt! after your
experience, will you let a whim interfere with your comfortable settlement
in life?"
"Spare your oratory. I know what I am going to do."
"What?" Lush put down his cigar and thrust his hands into his side
pockets, as if he had to face something exasperating, but meant to keep
his temper.
"I am going to marry the other girl."
"Have you fallen in love?" This question carried a strong sneer.
"I am going to marry her."
"You have made her an offer already, then?"
"No."
"She is a young lady with a will of her own, I fancy. Extremely well
fitted to make a rumpus. She would know what she liked."
"She doesn't like you," said Grandcourt, with the ghost of a smile.
"Perfectly true," said Lush, adding again in a markedly sneering tone.
"However, if you and she are devoted to each other, that will be enough."
Grandcourt took no notice of this speech, but sipped his coffee, rose, and
strolled out on the lawn, all the dogs following him.
Lush glanced after him a moment, then resumed his cigar and lit it, but
smoked slowly, consulting his beard with inspecting eyes and fingers, till
he finally stroked it with an air of having arrived at some conclusion,
and said in a subdued voice--
"Check, old boy!"
Lush, being a man of some ability, had not known Grandcourt for fifteen
years without learning what sort of measures were useless with him, though
what sort might be useful remained often dubious. In the beginning of his
career he held a fellowship, and was near taking orders for the sake of a
college living, but not being fond of that prospect accepted instead the
office of traveling companion to a marquess, and afterward to young
Grandcourt, who had lost his father early, and who found Lush so
convenient that he had allowed him to become prime minister in all his
more personal affairs. The habit of fifteen years had made Grandcourt more
and more in need of Lush's handiness, and Lush more and more in need of
the lazy luxury to which his transactions on behalf of Grandcourt made no
interruption worth reckoning. I cannot say that the same lengthened habit
had intensified Grandcourt's want of respect for his companion since that
want had been absolute from the beginning, but it had confirmed his sense
that he might kick Lush if he chose--only he never did choose to kick any
animal, because the act of kicking is a compromising attitude, and a
gentleman's dogs should be kicked for him. He only said things which might
have exposed himself to be kicked if his confidant had been a man of
independent spirit. But what son of a vicar who has stinted his wife and
daughters of calico in order to send his male offspring to Oxford, can
keep an independent spirit when he is bent on dining with high
discrimination, riding good horses, living generally in the most luxuriant
honey-blossomed clover--and all without working? Mr. Lush had passed for a
scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he was not trying
to remember much of it; but the bachelor's and other arts which soften
manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; and Lush's present
comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not requiring more than
the odor of departed learning. He was not unconscious of being held
kickable, but he preferred counting that estimate among the peculiarities
of Grandcourt's character, which made one of his incalculable moods or
judgments as good as another. Since in his own opinion he had never done a
bad action, it did not seem necessary to consider whether he should be
likely to commit one if his love of ease required it. Lush's love of ease
was well-satisfied at present, and if his puddings were rolled toward him
in the dust, he took the inside bits and found them relishing.
This morning, for example, though he had encountered more annoyance than
usual, he went to his private sitting-room and played a good hour on the
violoncello.
CHAPTER XIII.
"Philistia, be thou glad of me!"
Grandcourt having made up his mind to marry Miss Harleth, showed a power
of adapting means to ends. During the next fortnight there was hardly a
day on which by some arrangement or other he did not see her, or prove by
emphatic attentions that she occupied his thoughts. His cousin, Mrs.
Torrington, was now doing the honors of his house, so that Mrs. Davilow
and Gwendolen could be invited to a large party at Diplow in which there
were many witnesses how the host distinguished the dowerless beauty, and
showed no solicitude about the heiress. The world--I mean Mr. Gascoigne
and all the families worth speaking of within visiting distance of
Pennicote--felt an assurance on the subject which in the rector's mind
converted itself into a resolution to do his duty by his niece and see
that the settlements were adequate. Indeed the wonder to him and Mrs.
Davilow was that the offer for which so many suitable occasions presented
themselves had not been already made; and in this wonder Grandcourt
himself was not without a share. When he had told his resolution to Lush
he had thought that the affair would be concluded more quickly, and to his
own surprise he had repeatedly promised himself in a morning that he would
to-day give Gwendolen the opportunity of accepting him, and had found in
the evening that the necessary formality was still unaccomplished. This
remarkable fact served to heighten his determination on another day. He
had never admitted to himself that Gwendolen might refuse him, but--heaven
help us all!--we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection
to a contrary issue (were it possible) is so strong that it rises like a
spectral illusion between us and our certainty; we are rationally sure
that the blind worm can not bite us mortally, but it would be so
intolerable to be bitten, and the creature has a biting look--we decline
to handle it.
He had asked leave to have a beautiful horse of his brought for Gwendolen
to ride. Mrs. Davilow was to accompany her in the carriage, and they were
to go to Diplow to lunch, Grandcourt conducting them. It was a fine mid-
harvest time, not too warm for a noonday ride of five miles to be
delightful; the poppies glowed on the borders of the fields, there was
enough breeze to move gently like a social spirit among the ears of uncut
corn, and to wing the shadow of a cloud across the soft gray downs; here
the sheaves were standing, there the horses were straining their muscles
under the last load from a wide space of stubble, but everywhere the green
pasture made a broader setting for the corn-fields, and the cattle took
their rest under wide branches. The road lay through a bit of country
where the dairy-farms looked much as they did in the days of our
forefathers--where peace and permanence seemed to find a home away from
the busy change that sent the railway train flying in the distance.
But the spirit of peace and permanence did not penetrate poor Mrs.
Davilow's mind so as to overcome her habit of uneasy foreboding. Gwendolen
and Grandcourt cantering in front of her, and then slackening their pace
to a conversational walk till the carriage came up with them again, made a
gratifying sight; but it served chiefly to keep up the conflict of hopes
and fears about her daughter's lot. Here was an irresistible opportunity
for a lover to speak and put an end to all uncertainties, and Mrs. Davilow
could only hope with trembling that Gwendolen's decision would be
favorable. Certainly if Rex's love had been repugnant to her, Mr.
Grandcourt had the advantage of being in complete contrast with Rex; and
that he had produced some quite novel impression on her seemed evident in
her marked abstinence from satirical observations, nay, her total silence
about his characteristics, a silence which Mrs. Davilow did not dare to
break. "Is he a man she would be happy with?"--was a question that
inevitably arose in the mother's mind. "Well, perhaps as happy as she
would be with any one else--or as most other women are"--was the answer
with which she tried to quiet herself; for she could not imagine Gwendolen
under the influence of any feeling which would make her satisfied in what
we traditionally call "mean circumstances."
Grandcourt's own thought was looking in the same direction: he wanted to
have done with the uncertainty that belonged to his not having spoken. As
to any further uncertainty--well, it was something without any reasonable
basis, some quality in the air which acted as an irritant to his wishes.
Gwendolen enjoyed the riding, but her pleasure did not break forth in
girlish unpremeditated chat and laughter as it did on that morning with
Rex. She spoke a little, and even laughed, but with a lightness as of a
far-off echo: for her too there was some peculiar quality in the air--not,
she was sure, any subjugation of her will by Mr. Grandcourt, and the
splendid prospects he meant to offer her; for Gwendolen desired every one,
that dignified gentleman himself included, to understand that she was
going to do just as she liked, and that they had better not calculate on
her pleasing them. If she chose to take this husband, she would have him
know that she was not going to renounce her freedom, or according to her
favorite formula, "not going to do as other women did."
Grandcourt's speeches this morning were, as usual, all of that brief sort
which never fails to make a conversational figure when the speaker is held
important in his circle. Stopping so soon, they give signs of a suppressed
and formidable ability so say more, and have also the meritorious quality
of allowing lengthiness to others.
"How do you like Criterion's paces?" he said, after they had entered the
park and were slacking from a canter to a walk.
"He is delightful to ride. I should like to have a leap with him, if it
would not frighten mamma. There was a good wide channel we passed five
minutes ago. I should like to have a gallop back and take it."
"Pray do. We can take it together."
"No, thanks. Mamma is so timid--if she saw me it might make her ill."
"Let me go and explain. Criterion would take it without fail."
"No--indeed--you are very kind--but it would alarm her too much. I dare
take any leap when she is not by; but I do it and don't tell her about
it."
"We can let the carriage pass and then set off."
"No, no, pray don't think of it any more: I spoke quite randomly," said
Gwendolen; she began to feel a new objection to carrying out her own
proposition.
"But Mrs. Davilow knows I shall take care of you."
"Yes, but she would think of you as having to take care of my broken
neck."
There was a considerable pause before Grandcourt said, looking toward her,
"I should like to have the right always to take care of you."
Gwendolen did not turn her eyes on him; it seemed to her a long while that
she was first blushing, and then turning pale, but to Grandcourt's rate of
judgment she answered soon enough, with the lightest flute-tone and a
careless movement of the head, "Oh, I am not sure that I want to be taken
care of: if I chose to risk breaking my neck, I should like to be at
liberty to do it."
She checked her horse as she spoke, and turned in her saddle, looking
toward the advancing carriage. Her eyes swept across Grandcourt as she
made this movement, but there was no language in them to correct the
carelessness of her reply. At that very moment she was aware that she was
risking something--not her neck, but the possibility of finally checking
Grandcourt's advances, and she did not feel contented with the
possibility.
"Damn her!" thought Grandcourt, as he to checked his horse. He was not a
wordy thinker, and this explosive phrase stood for mixed impressions which
eloquent interpreters might have expanded into some sentences full of an
irritated sense that he was being mystified, and a determination that this
girl should not make a fool of him. Did she want him to throw himself at
her feet and declare that he was dying for her? It was not by that gate
that she could enter on the privileges he could give her. Or did she
expect him to write his proposals? Equally a delusion. He would not make
his offer in any way that could place him definitely in the position of
being rejected. But as to her accepting him, she had done it already in
accepting his marked attentions: and anything which happened to break them
off would be understood to her disadvantage. She was merely coquetting,
then?
However, the carriage came up, and no further _tete-a-tete_ could well
occur before their arrival at the house, where there was abundant company,
to whom Gwendolen, clad in riding-dress, with her hat laid aside, clad
also in the repute of being chosen by Mr. Grandcourt, was naturally a
centre of observation; and since the objectionable Mr. Lush was not there
to look at her, this stimulus of admiring attention heightened her
spirits, and dispersed, for the time, the uneasy consciousness of divided
impulses which threatened her with repentance of her own acts. Whether
Grandcourt had been offended or not there was no judging: his manners were
unchanged, but Gwendolen's acuteness had not gone deeper than to discern
that his manners were no clue for her, and because these were unchanged
she was not the less afraid of him.
She had not been at Diplow before except to dine; and since certain points
of view from the windows and the garden were worth showing, Lady Flora
Hollis proposed after luncheon, when some of the guests had dispersed, and
the sun was sloping toward four o'clock, that the remaining party should
make a little exploration. Here came frequent opportunities when
Grandcourt might have retained Gwendolen apart, and have spoken to her
unheard. But no! He indeed spoke to no one else, but what he said was
nothing more eager or intimate than it had been in their first interview.
He looked at her not less than usual; and some of her defiant spirit
having come back, she looked full at him in return, not caring--rather
preferring--that his eyes had no expression in them.
But at last it seemed as if he entertained some contrivance. After they
had nearly made the tour of the grounds, the whole party stopped by the
pool to be amused with Fetch's accomplishment of bringing a water lily to
the bank like Cowper's spaniel Beau, and having been disappointed in his
first attempt insisted on his trying again.
Here Grandcourt, who stood with Gwendolen outside the group, turned
deliberately, and fixing his eyes on a knoll planted with American shrubs,
and having a winding path up it, said languidly--
"This is a bore. Shall we go up there?"
"Oh, certainly--since we are exploring," said Gwendolen. She was rather
pleased, and yet afraid.
The path was too narrow for him to offer his arm, and they walked up in
silence. When they were on the bit of platform at the summit, Grandcourt
said--
"There is nothing to be seen here: the thing was not worth climbing."
How was it that Gwendolen did not laugh? She was perfectly silent, holding
up the folds of her robe like a statue, and giving a harder grasp to the
handle of her whip, which she had snatched up automatically with her hat
when they had first set off.
"What sort of a place do you prefer?" said Grandcourt.
"Different places are agreeable in their way. On the whole, I think, I
prefer places that are open and cheerful. I am not fond of anything
sombre."
"Your place of Offendene is too sombre."
"It is, rather."
"You will not remain there long, I hope."
"Oh, yes, I think so. Mamma likes to be near her sister."
Silence for a short space.
"It is not to be supposed that _you_ will always live there, though Mrs.
Davilow may."
"I don't know. We women can't go in search of adventures--to find out the
North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in the
East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to
transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as we
can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about the plants;
they are often bored, and that is the reason why some of them have got
poisonous. What do you think?" Gwendolen had run on rather nervously,
lightly whipping the rhododendron bush in front of her.
"I quite agree. Most things are bores," said Grandcourt, his mind having
been pushed into an easy current, away from its intended track. But, after
a moment's pause, he continued in his broken, refined drawl--
"But a woman can be married."
"Some women can."
"You, certainly, unless you are obstinately cruel."
"I am not sure that I am not both cruel and obstinate." Here Gwendolen
suddenly turned her head and looked full at Grandcourt, whose eyes she had
felt to be upon her throughout their conversation. She was wondering what
the effect of looking at him would be on herself rather than on him.
He stood perfectly still, half a yard or more away from her; and it
flashed through her mind what a sort of lotus-eater's stupor had begun in
him and was taking possession of her. Then he said--
"Are you as uncertain about yourself as you make others about you?"
"I am quite uncertain about myself; I don't know how uncertain others may
be."
"And you wish them to understand that you don't care?" said Grandcourt,
with a touch of new hardness in his tone.
"I did not say that," Gwendolen replied, hesitatingly, and turning her
eyes away whipped the rhododendron bush again. She wished she were on
horseback that she might set off on a canter. It was impossible to set off
running down the knoll.
"You do care, then," said Grandcourt, not more quickly, but with a
softened drawl.
"Ha! my whip!" said Gwendolen, in a little scream of distress. She had let
it go--what could be more natural in a slight agitation?--and--but this
seemed less natural in a gold-handled whip which had been left altogether
to itself--it had gone with some force over the immediate shrubs, and had
lodged itself in the branches of an azalea half-way down the knoll. She
could run down now, laughing prettily, and Grandcourt was obliged to
follow; but she was beforehand with him in rescuing the whip, and
continued on her way to the level ground, when she paused and looked at
Grandcourt with an exasperating brightness in her glance and a heightened
color, as if she had carried a triumph, and these indications were still
noticeable to Mrs. Davilow when Gwendolen and Grandcourt joined the rest
of the party.
"It is all coquetting," thought Grandcourt; "the next time I beckon she
will come down."
It seemed to him likely that this final beckoning might happen the very
next day, when there was to be a picnic archery meeting in Cardell Chase,
according to the plan projected on the evening of the ball.
Even in Gwendolen's mind that result was one of two likelihoods that
presented themselves alternately, one of two decisions toward which she
was being precipitated, as if they were two sides of a boundary-line, and
she did not know on which she should fall. This subjection to a possible
self, a self not to be absolutely predicted about, caused her some
astonishment and terror; her favorite key of life--doing as she liked--
seemed to fail her, and she could not foresee what at a given moment she
might like to do. The prospect of marrying Grandcourt really seemed more
attractive to her than she had believed beforehand that any marriage could
be: the dignities, the luxuries, the power of doing a great deal of what
she liked to do, which had now come close to her, and within her choice to
secure or to lose, took hold of her nature as if it had been the strong
odor of what she had only imagined and longed for before. And Grandcourt
himself? He seemed as little of a flaw in his fortunes as a lover and
husband could possibly be. Gwendolen wished to mount the chariot and drive
the plunging horses herself, with a spouse by her side who would fold his
arms and give her his countenance without looking ridiculous. Certainly,
with all her perspicacity, and all the reading which seemed to her mamma
dangerously instructive, her judgment was consciously a little at fault
before Grandcourt. He was adorably quiet and free from absurdities--he
would be a husband to suit with the best appearance a woman could make.
But what else was he? He had been everywhere, and seen everything. _That_
was desirable, and especially gratifying as a preamble to his supreme
preference for Gwendolen Harleth. He did not appear to enjoy anything
much. That was not necessary: and the less he had of particular tastes, or
desires, the more freedom his wife was likely to have in following hers.
Gwendolen conceived that after marriage she would most probably be able to
manage him thoroughly.
How was it that he caused her unusual constraint now?--that she was less
daring and playful in her talk with him than with any other admirer she
had known? That absence of demonstrativeness which she was glad of, acted
as a charm in more senses than one, and was slightly benumbing. Grandcourt
after all was formidable--a handsome lizard of a hitherto unknown species,
riot of the lively, darting kind. But Gwendolen knew hardly anything about
lizards, and ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities. This
splendid specimen was probably gentle, suitable as a boudoir pet: what may
not a lizard be, if you know nothing to the contrary? Her acquaintance
with Grandcourt was such that no accomplishment suddenly revealed in him
would have surprised her. And he was so little suggestive of drama, that
it hardly occurred to her to think with any detail how his life of thirty-
six years had been passed: in general, she imagined him always cold and
dignified, not likely ever to have committed himself. He had hunted the
tiger--had he ever been in love or made love? The one experience and the
other seemed alike remote in Gwendolen's fancy from the Mr. Grandcourt who
had come to Diplow in order apparently to make a chief epoch in her
destiny--perhaps by introducing her to that state of marriage which she
had resolved to make a state of greater freedom than her girlhood. And on
the whole she wished to marry him; he suited her purpose; her prevailing,
deliberate intention was, to accept him.
But was she going to fulfill her deliberate intention? She began to be
afraid of herself, and to find out a certain difficulty in doing as she
liked. Already her assertion of independence in evading his advances had
been carried farther than was necessary, and she was thinking with some
anxiety what she might do on the next occasion.
Seated according to her habit with her back to the horses on their drive
homeward, she was completely under the observation of her mamma, who took
the excitement and changefulness in the expression of her eyes, her
unwonted absence of mind and total silence, as unmistakable signs that
something unprecedented had occurred between her and Grandcourt. Mrs.
Davilow's uneasiness determined her to risk some speech on the subject:
the Gascoignes were to dine at Offendene, and in what had occurred this
morning there might be some reason for consulting the rector; not that she
expected him anymore than herself to influence Gwendolen, but that her
anxious mind wanted to be disburdened.
"Something has happened, dear?" she began, in a tender tone of question.
Gwendolen looked round, and seeming to be roused to the consciousness of
her physical self, took off her gloves and then her hat, that the soft
breeze might blow on her head. They were in a retired bit of the road,
where the long afternoon shadows from the bordering trees fell across it
and no observers were within sight. Her eyes continued to meet her
mother's, but she did not speak.
"Mr. Grandcourt has been saying something?--Tell me, dear." The last words
were uttered beseechingly.
"What am I to tell you, mamma?" was the perverse answer.
"I am sure something has agitated you. You ought to confide in me, Gwen.
You ought not to leave me in doubt and anxiety." Mrs. Davilow's eyes
filled with tears.
"Mamma, dear, please don't be miserable," said Gwendolen, with pettish
remonstrance. "It only makes me more so. I am in doubt myself."
"About Mr. Grandcourt's intentions?" said Mrs. Davilow, gathering
determination from her alarms.
"No; not at all," said Gwendolen, with some curtness, and a pretty little
toss of the head as she put on her hat again.
"About whether you will accept him, then?"
"Precisely."
"Have you given him a doubtful answer?"
"I have given him no answer at all."
"He _has_ spoken so that you could not misunderstand him?"
"As far as I would let him speak."
"You expect him to persevere?" Mrs. Davilow put this question rather
anxiously, and receiving no answer, asked another: "You don't consider
that you have discouraged him?"
"I dare say not."
"I thought you liked him, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, timidly.
"So I do, mamma, as liking goes. There is less to dislike about him than
about most men. He is quiet and _distingue_." Gwendolen so far spoke with
a pouting sort of gravity; but suddenly she recovered some of her
mischievousness, and her face broke into a smile as she added--"Indeed he
has all the qualities that would make a husband tolerable--battlement,
veranda, stable, etc., no grins and no glass in his eye."
"Do be serious with me for a moment, dear. Am I to understand that you
mean to accept him?"
"Oh, pray, mamma, leave me to myself," said Gwendolen, with a pettish
distress in her voice.
And Mrs. Davilow said no more.
When they got home Gwendolen declared that she would not dine. She was
tired, and would come down in the evening after she had taken some rest.
The probability that her uncle would hear what had passed did not trouble
her. She was convinced that whatever he might say would be on the side of
her accepting Grandcourt, and she wished to accept him if she could. At
this moment she would willingly have had weights hung on her own caprice.
Mr. Gascoigne did hear--not Gwendolen's answers repeated verbation, but a
softened generalized account of them. The mother conveyed as vaguely as
the keen rector's questions would let her the impression that Gwendolen
was in some uncertainty about her own mind, but inclined on the whole to
acceptance. The result was that the uncle felt himself called on to
interfere; he did not conceive that he should do his duty in witholding
direction from his niece in a momentous crisis of this kind. Mrs. Davilow
ventured a hesitating opinion that perhaps it would be safer to say
nothing--Gwendolen was so sensitive (she did not like to say willful). But
the rector's was a firm mind, grasping its first judgments tenaciously and
acting on them promptly, whence counter-judgments were no more for him
than shadows fleeting across the solid ground to which he adjusted
himself.
This match with Grandcourt presented itself to him as a sort of public
affair; perhaps there were ways in which it might even strengthen the
establishment. To the rector, whose father (nobody would have suspected
it, and nobody was told) had risen to be a provincial corn-dealer,
aristocratic heirship resembled regal heirship in excepting its possessor
from the ordinary standard of moral judgments, Grandcourt, the almost
certain baronet, the probable peer, was to be ranged with public
personages, and was a match to be accepted on broad general grounds
national and ecclesiastical. Such public personages, it is true, are often
in the nature of giants which an ancient community may have felt pride and
safety in possessing, though, regarded privately, these born eminences
must often have been inconvenient and even noisome. But of the future
husband personally Mr. Gascoigne was disposed to think the best. Gossip is
a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of of those who
diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. But if
Grandcourt had really made any deeper or more unfortunate experiments in
folly than were common in young men of high prospects, he was of an age to
have finished them. All accounts can be suitably wound up when a man has
not ruined himself, and the expense may be taken as an insurance against
future error. This was the view of practical wisdom; with reference to
higher views, repentance had a supreme moral and religious value. There
was every reason to believe that a woman of well-regulated mind would be
happy with Grandcourt.
It was no surprise to Gwendolen on coming down to tea to be told that her
uncle wished to see her in the dining-room. He threw aside the paper as
she entered and greeted her with his usual kindness. As his wife had
remarked, he always "made much" of Gwendolen, and her importance had risen
of late. "My dear," he said, in a fatherly way, moving a chair for her as
he held her hand, "I want to speak to you on a subject which is more
momentous than any other with regard to your welfare. You will guess what
I mean. But I shall speak to you with perfect directness: in such matters
I consider myself bound to act as your father. You have no objection, I
hope?"
"Oh dear, no, uncle. You have always been very kind to me," said
Gwendolen, frankly. This evening she was willing, if it were possible, to
be a little fortified against her troublesome self, and her resistant
temper was in abeyance. The rector's mode of speech always conveyed a
thrill of authority, as of a word of command: it seemed to take for
granted that there could be no wavering in the audience, and that every
one was going to be rationally obedient.
"It is naturally a satisfaction to me that the prospect of a marriage for
you--advantageous in the highest degree--has presented itself so early. I
do not know exactly what has passed between you and Mr. Grandcourt, but I
presume there can be little doubt, from the way in which he has
distinguished you, that he desires to make you his wife."
Gwendolen did not speak immediately, and her uncle said with more
emphasis--
"Have you any doubt of that yourself, my dear?"
"I suppose that is what he has been thinking of. But he may have changed
his mind to-morrow," said Gwendolen.
"Why to-morrow? Has he made advances which you have discouraged?"
"I think he meant--he began to make advances--but I did not encourage
them. I turned the conversation."
"Will you confide in me so far as to tell me your reasons?"
"I am not sure that I had any reasons, uncle." Gwendolen laughed rather
artificially.
"You are quite capable of reflecting, Gwendolen. You are aware that this
is not a trivial occasion, and it concerns your establishment for life
under circumstances which may not occur again. You have a duty here both
to yourself and your family. I wish to understand whether you have any
ground for hesitating as to your acceptance of Mr. Grandcourt."
"I suppose I hesitate without grounds." Gwendolen spoke rather poutingly,
and her uncle grew suspicious.
"Is he disagreeable to you personally?"
"No."
"Have you heard anything of him which has affected you disagreeably?" The
rector thought it impossible that Gwendolen could have heard the gossip he
had heard, but in any case he must endeavor to put all things in the right
light for her.
"I have heard nothing about him except that he is a great match," said
Gwendolen, with some sauciness; "and that affects me very agreeably."
"Then, my dear Gwendolen, I have nothing further to say than this: you
hold your fortune in your own hands--a fortune such as rarely happens to a
girl in your circumstances--a fortune in fact which almost takes the
question out of the range of mere personal feeling, and makes your
acceptance of it a duty. If Providence offers you power and position--
especially when unclogged by any conditions that are repugnant to you--
your course is one of responsibility, into which caprice must not enter. A
man does not like to have his attachment trifled with: he may not be at
once repelled--these things are matters of individual disposition. But the
trifling may be carried too far. And I must point out to you that in case
Mr. Grandcourt were repelled without your having refused him--without your
having intended ultimately to refuse him, your situation would be a
humiliating and painful one. I, for my part, should regard you with severe
disapprobation, as the victim of nothing else than your own coquetry and
folly."
Gwendolen became pallid as she listened to this admonitory speech. The
ideas it raised had the force of sensations. Her resistant courage would
not help her here, because her uncle was not urging her against her own
resolve; he was pressing upon her the motives of dread which she already
felt; he was making her more conscious of the risks that lay within
herself. She was silent, and the rector observed that he had produced some
strong effect.
"I mean this in kindness, my dear." His tone had softened.
"I am aware of that, uncle," said Gwendolen, rising and shaking her head
back, as if to rouse herself out of painful passivity. "I am not foolish.
I know that I must be married some time--before it is too late. And I
don't see how I could do better than marry Mr. Grandcourt. I mean to
accept him, if possible." She felt as if she were reinforcing herself by
speaking with this decisiveness to her uncle.
But the rector was a little startled by so bare a version of his own
meaning from those young lips. He wished that in her mind his advice
should be taken in an infusion of sentiments proper to a girl, and such as
are presupposed in the advice of a clergyman, although he may not consider
them always appropriate to be put forward. He wished his niece parks,
carriages, a title--everything that would make this world a pleasant
abode; but he wished her not to be cynical--to be, on the contrary,
religiously dutiful, and have warm domestic affections.
"My dear Gwendolen," he said, rising also, and speaking with benignant
gravity, "I trust that you will find in marriage a new fountain of duty
and affection. Marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a
woman, and if your marriage with Mr. Grandcourt should be happily decided
upon, you will have, probably, an increasing power, both of rank and
wealth, which may be used for the benefit of others. These considerations
are something higher than romance! You are fitted by natural gifts for a
position which, considering your birth and early prospects, could hardly
be looked forward to as in the ordinary course of things; and I trust
that, you will grace it, not only by those personal gifts, but by a good
and consistent life."
"I hope mamma will be the happier," said Gwendolen, in a more cheerful
way, lifting her hands backward to her neck and moving toward the door.
She wanted to waive those higher considerations.
Mr. Gascoigne felt that he had come to a satisfactory understanding with
his niece, and had furthered her happy settlement in life by furthering
her engagement to Grandcourt. Meanwhile there was another person to whom
the contemplation of that issue had been a motive for some activity, and
who believed that he, too, on this particular day had done something
toward bringing about a favorable decision in _his_ sense--which happened
to be the reverse of the rector's.
Mr. Lush's absence from Diplow during Gwendolen's visit had been due, not
to any fear on his part of meeting that supercilious young lady, or of
being abashed by her frank dislike, but to an engagement from which he
expected important consequences. He was gone, in fact, to the Wanchester
station to meet a lady, accompanied by a maid and two children, whom he
put into a fly, and afterward followed to the hotel of the Golden Keys, in
that town. An impressive woman, whom many would turn to look at again in
passing; her figure was slim and sufficiently tall, her face rather
emaciated, so that its sculpturesque beauty was the more pronounced, her
crisp hair perfectly black, and her large, anxious eyes what we call
black. Her dress was soberly correct, her age, perhaps, physically more
advanced than the number of years would imply, but hardly less than seven-
and-thirty. An uneasy-looking woman: her glance seemed to presuppose that
the people and things were going to be unfavorable to her, while she was,
nevertheless, ready to meet them with resolution. The children were
lovely--a dark-haired girl of six or more, a fairer boy of five. When Lush
incautiously expressed some surprise at her having brought the children,
she said, with a sharp-toned intonation--
"Did you suppose I should come wandering about here by myself? Why should
I not bring all four if I liked?"
"Oh, certainly," said Lush, with his usual fluent _nonchalance_.
He stayed an hour or so in conference with her, and rode back to Diplow in
a state of mind that was at once hopeful and busily anxious as to the
execution of the little plan on which his hopefulness was based.
Grandcourt's marriage to Gwendolen Harleth would not, he believed, be much
of a good to either of them, and it would plainly be fraught with
disagreeables to himself. But now he felt confident enough to say
inwardly, "I will take, nay, I will lay odds that the marriage will never
happen."
CHAPTER XIV.
I will not clothe myself in wreck--wear gems
Sawed from cramped finger-bones of women drowned;
Feel chilly vaporous hands of ireful ghosts
Clutching my necklace: trick my maiden breast
With orphans' heritage. Let your dead love
Marry it's dead.
Gwendolen looked lovely and vigorous as a tall, newly-opened lily the next
morning: there was a reaction of young energy in her, and yesterday's
self-distrust seemed no more than the transient shiver on the surface of a
full stream. The roving archery match in Cardell Chase was a delightful
prospect for the sport's sake: she felt herself beforehand moving about
like a wood-nymph under the beeches (in appreciative company), and the
imagined scene lent a charm to further advances on the part of Grandcourt
--not an impassioned lyrical Daphnis for the wood-nymph, certainly: but so
much the better. To-day Gwendolen foresaw him making slow conversational
approaches to a declaration, and foresaw herself awaiting and encouraging
it according to the rational conclusion which she had expressed to her
uncle.
When she came down to breakfast (after every one had left the table except
Mrs. Davilow) there were letters on her plate. One of them she read with a
gathering smile, and then handed it to her mamma, who, on returning it,
smiled also, finding new cheerfulness in the good spirits her daughter had
shown ever since waking, and said--
"You don't feel inclined to go a thousand miles away?"
"Not exactly so far."
"It was a sad omission not to have written again before this. Can't you
write how--before we set out this morning?"
"It is not so pressing. To-morrow will do. You see they leave town to-day.
I must write to Dover. They will be there till Monday."
"Shall I write for you, dear--if it teases you?"
Gwendolen did not speak immediately, but after sipping her coffee,
answered brusquely, "Oh no, let it be; I will write to-morrow." Then,
feeling a touch of compunction, she looked up and said with playful
tenderness, "Dear, old, beautiful mamma!"
"Old, child, truly."
"Please don't, mamma! I meant old for darling. You are hardly twenty-five
years older than I am. When you talk in that way my life shrivels up
before me."
"One can have a great deal of happiness in twenty-five years, my dear."
"I must lose no time in beginning," said Gwendolen, merrily. "The sooner I
get my palaces and coaches the better."
"And a good husband who adores you, Gwen," said Mrs. Davilow,
encouragingly.
Gwendolen put out her lips saucily and said nothing.
It was a slight drawback on her pleasure in starting that the rector was
detained by magistrate's business, and would probably not be able to get
to Cardell Chase at all that day. She cared little that Mrs. Gascoigne and
Anna chose not to go without him, but her uncle's presence would have
seemed to make it a matter of course that the decision taken would be
acted on. For decision in itself began to be formidable. Having come close
to accepting Grandcourt, Gwendolen felt this lot of unhoped-for fullness
rounding itself too definitely. When we take to wishing a great deal for
ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.
Still there was the reassuring thought that marriage would be the gate
into a larger freedom.
The place of meeting was a grassy spot called Green Arbor, where a bit of
hanging wood made a sheltering amphitheatre. It was here that the coachful
of servants with provisions had to prepare the picnic meal; and the warden
of the Chase was to guide the roving archers so as to keep them within the
due distance from this centre, and hinder them from wandering beyond the
limit which had been fixed on--a curve that might be drawn through certain
well-known points, such as the double Oak, the Whispering Stones, and the
High Cross. The plan was to take only a preliminary stroll before
luncheon, keeping the main roving expedition for the more exquisite lights
of the afternoon. The muster was rapid enough to save every one from dull
moments of waiting, and when the groups began to scatter themselves
through the light and shadow made here by closely neighboring beeches and
thereby rarer oaks, one may suppose that a painter would have been glad to
look on. This roving archery was far prettier than the stationary game,
but success in shooting at variable marks were less favored by practice,
and the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise than
they would have been in target-shooting. From this cause, perhaps, as well
as from the twofold distraction of being preoccupied and wishing not to
betray her preoccupation, Gwendolen did not greatly distinguish herself in
these first experiments, unless it were by the lively grace with which she
took her comparative failure. She was in white and green as on the day of
the former meeting, when it made an epoch for her that slie was introduced
to Grandcourt; he was continually by her side now, yet it would have been
hard to tell from mere looks and manners that their relation to each other
had at all changed since their first conversation. Still there were other
grounds that made most persons conclude them to be, if not engaged
already, on the eve of being so. And she believed this herself. As they
were all returning toward Green Arbor in divergent groups, not thinking at
all of taking aim but merely chattering, words passed which seemed really
the beginning of that end--the beginning of her acceptance. Grandcourt
said, "Do you know how long it is since I first saw you in this dress?"
"The archery meeting was on the 25th, and this is the 13th," said
Gwendolen, laughingly. "I am not good at calculating, but I will venture
to say that it must be nearly three weeks."
A little pause, and then he said, "That is a great loss of time."
"That your knowing me has caused you? Pray don't be uncomplimentary; I
don't like it."
Pause again. "It is because of the gain that I feel the loss."
Here Gwendolen herself let a pause. She was thinking, "He is really very
ingenious. He never speaks stupidly." Her silence was so unusual that it
seemed the strongest of favorable answers, and he continued:
"The gain of knowing you makes me feel the time I lose in uncertainty. Do
_you_ like uncertainty?"
"I think I do, rather," said Gwendolen, suddenly beaming on him with a
playful smile. "There is more in it."
Grandcourt met her laughing eyes with a slow, steady look right into them,
which seemed like vision in the abstract, and then said, "Do you mean more
torment for me?"
There was something so strange to Gwendolen in this moment that she was
quite shaken out of her usual self-consciousness. Blushing and turning
away her eyes, she said, "No, that would make me sorry."
Grandcourt would have followed up this answer, which the change in her
manner made apparently decisive of her favorable intention; but he was not
in any way overcome so as to be unaware that they were now, within sight
of everybody, descending the space into Green Arbor, and descending it at
an ill-chosen point where it began to be inconveniently steep. This was a
reason for offering his hand in the literal sense to help her; she took
it, and they came down in silence, much observed by those already on the
level--among others by Mrs. Arrowpoint, who happened to be standing with
Mrs. Davilow. That lady had now made up her mind that Grandcourt's merits
were not such as would have induced Catherine to accept him, Catherine
having so high a standard as to have refused Lord Slogan. Hence she looked
at the tenant of Diplow with dispassionate eyes.
"Mr. Grandcourt is not equal as a man to his uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger--
too languid. To be sure, Mr. Grandcourt is a much younger man, but I
shouldn't wonder if Sir Hugo were to outlive him, notwithstanding the
difference of years. It is ill calculating on successions," concluded Mrs.
Arrowpoint, rather too loudly.
"It is indeed," said Mrs. Davilow, able to assent with quiet cheerfulness,
for she was so well satisfied with the actual situation of affairs that
her habitual melancholy in their general unsatisfactoriness was altogether
in abeyance.
I am not concerned to tell of the food that was eaten in that green
refectory, or even to dwell on the stories of the forest scenery that
spread themselves out beyond the level front of the hollow; being just now
bound to tell a story of life at a stage when the blissful beauty of earth
and sky entered only by narrow and oblique inlets into the consciousness,
which was busy with a small social drama almost as little penetrated by a
feeling of wider relations as if it had been a puppet-show. It will be
understood that the food and champagne were of the best--the talk and
laughter too, in the sense of belonging to the best society, where no one
makes an invidious display of anything in particular, and the advantages
of the world are taken with that high-bred depreciation which follows from
being accustomed to them. Some of the gentlemen strolled a little and
indulged in a cigar, there being a sufficient interval before, four
o'clock--the time for beginning to rove again. Among these, strange to
say, was Grandcourt; but not Mr. Lush, who seemed to be taking his
pleasure quite generously to-day by making himself particularly
serviceable, ordering everything for everybody, and by this activity
becoming more than ever a blot on the scene to Gwendolen, though he kept
himself amiably aloof from her, and never even looked at her obviously.
When there was a general move to prepare for starting, it appeared that
the bows had all been put under the charge of Lord Brackenshaw's valet,
and Mr. Lush was concerned to save ladies the trouble of fetching theirs
from the carriage where they were propped. He did not intend to bring
Gwendolen's, but she, fearful lest he should do so, hurried to fetch it
herself. The valet, seeing her approach, met her with it, and in giving it
into her hand gave also a letter addressed to her. She asked no question
about it, perceived at a glance that the address was in a lady's
handwriting (of the delicate kind which used to be esteemed feminine
before the present uncial period), and moving away with her bow in her
hand, saw Mr. Lush coming to fetch other bows. To avoid meeting him she
turned aside and walked with her back toward the stand of carriages,
opening the letter. It contained these words--
If Miss Harleth is in doubt whether she should accept Mr. Grandcourt,
let her break from her party after they have passed the Whispering
Stones and return to that spot. She will then hear something to decide
her; but she can only hear it by keeping this letter a strict secret
from every one. If she does not act according to this letter, she will
repent, as the woman who writes it has repented. The secrecy Miss
Harleth will feel herself bound in honor to guard.
Gwendolen felt an inward shock, but her immediate thought was, "It is come
in time." It lay in her youthfulness that she was absorbed by the idea of
the revelation to be made, and had not even a momentary suspicion of
contrivance that could justify her in showing the letter. Her mind
gathered itself up at once into the resolution, that she would manage to
go unobserved to the Whispering Stones; and thrusting the letter into her
pocket she turned back to rejoin the company, with that sense of having
something to conceal which to her nature had a bracing quality and helped
her to be mistress of herself.
It was a surprise to every one that Grandcourt was not, like the other
smokers, on the spot in time to set out roving with the rest. "We shall
alight on him by-and-by," said Lord Brackenshaw; "he can't be gone far."
At any rate, no man could be waited for. This apparent forgetfulness might
be taken for the distraction of a lover so absorbed in thinking of the
beloved object as to forget an appointment which would bring him into her
actual presence. And the good-natured Earl gave Gwendolen a distant jocose
hint to that effect, which she took with suitable quietude. But the
thought in her mind was "Can he too be starting away from a decision?" It
was not exactly a pleasant thought to her; but it was near the truth.
"Starting away," however, was not the right expression for the languor of
intention that came over Grandcourt, like a fit of diseased numbness, when
an end seemed within easy reach: to desist then, when all expectation was
to the contrary, became another gratification of mere will, sublimely
independent of definite motive. At that moment he had begun a second large
cigar in a vague, hazy obstinacy which, if Lush or any other mortal who
might be insulted with impunity had interrupted by overtaking him with a
request for his return, would have expressed itself by a slow removal of
his cigar, to say in an undertone, "You'll be kind enough to go to the
devil, will you?"
But he was not interrupted, and the rovers set off without any visible
depression of spirits, leaving behind only a few of the less vigorous
ladies, including Mrs. Davilow, who preferred a quiet stroll free from
obligation to keep up with others. The enjoyment of the day was soon at
its highest pitch, the archery getting more spirited and the changing
scenes of the forest from roofed grove to open glade growing lovelier with
the lengthening shadows, and the deeply-felt but undefinable gradations of
the mellowing afternoon. It was agreed that they were playing an
extemporized "As you like it;" and when a pretty compliment had been
turned to Gwendolen about her having the part of Rosalind, she felt the
more compelled to be surpassing in loveliness. This was not very difficult
to her, for the effect of what had happened to-day was an excitement which
needed a vent--a sense of adventure rather than alarm, and a straining
toward the management of her retreat, so as not to be impeded.
The roving had been lasting nearly an hour before the arrival at the
Whispering Stones, two tall conical blocks that leaned toward each other
like gigantic gray-mantled figures. They were soon surveyed and passed by
with the remark that they would be good ghosts on a starlit night. But a
soft sunlight was on them now, and Gwendolen felt daring. The stones were
near a fine grove of beeches, where the archers found plenty of marks.
"How far are we from Green Arbor now?" said Gwendolen, having got in front
by the side of the warden.
"Oh, not more than half a mile, taking along the avenue we're going to
cross up there: but I shall take round a Couple of miles, by the High
Cross."
She was falling back among the rest, when suddenly they seemed all to be
hurrying obliquely forward under the guidance of Mr. Lush, and lingering a
little where she was, she perceived her opportunity of slipping away. Soon
she was out of sight, and without running she seemed to herself to fly
along the ground and count the moments nothing till she found herself back
again at the Whispering Stones. They turned their blank gray sides to her:
what was there on the other side? If there were nothing after all? That
was her only dread now--to have to turn back again in mystification; and
walking round the right-hand stone without pause, she found herself in
front of some one whose large dark eyes met hers at a foot's distance. In
spite of expectation, she was startled and shrank bank, but in doing so
she could take in the whole figure of this stranger and perceive that she
was unmistakably a lady, and one who must have been exceedingly handsome.
She perceived, also, that a few yards from her were two children seated on
the grass.
"Miss Harleth?" said the lady.
"Yes." All Gwendolen's consciousness was wonder.
"Have you accepted Mr. Grandcourt?"
"No."
"I have promised to tell you something. And you will promise to keep my
secret. However you may decide you will not tell Mr. Grandcourt, or any
one else, that you have seen me?"
"I promise."
"My name is Lydia Glasher. Mr. Grandcourt ought not to marry any one but
me. I left my husband and child for him nine years ago. Those two children
are his, and we have two others--girls--who are older. My husband is dead
now, and Mr. Grandcourt ought to marry me. He ought to make that boy his
heir."
She looked at the boy as she spoke, and Gwendolen's eyes followed hers.
The handsome little fellow was puffing out his cheeks in trying to blow a
tiny trumpet which remained dumb. His hat hung backward by a string, and
his brown purls caught the sun-rays. He was a cherub.
The two women's eyes met again, and Gwendolen said proudly, "I will not
interfere with your wishes." She looked as if she were shivering, and her
lips were pale.
"You are very attractive, Miss Harleth. But when he first knew me, I too
was young. Since then my life has been broken up and embittered. It is not
fair that he should be happy and I miserable, and my boy thrust out of
sight for another."
These words were uttered with a biting accent, but with a determined
abstinence from anything violent in tone or manner. Gwendolen, watching
Mrs. Glasher's face while she spoke, felt a sort of terror: it was as if
some ghastly vision had come to her in a dream and said, "I am a woman's
life."
"Have you anything more to say to me?" she asked in a low tone, but still
proud and coldly. The revulsion within her was not tending to soften her.
Everyone seemed hateful.
"Nothing. You know what I wished you to know. You can inquire about me if
you like. My husband was Colonel Glasher."
"Then I will go," said Gwendolen, moving away with a ceremonious
inclination, which was returned with equal grace.
In a few minutes Gwendolen was in the beech grove again but her party had
gone out of sight and apparently had not sent in search of her, for all
was solitude till she had reached the avenue pointed out by the warden.
She determined to take this way back to Green Arbor, which she reached
quickly; rapid movements seeming to her just now a means of suspending the
thoughts which might prevent her from behaving with due calm. She had
already made up her mind what step she would take.
Mrs. Davilow was of course astonished to see Gwendolen returning alone,
and was not without some uneasiness which the presence of other ladies
hindered her from showing. In answer to her words of surprise Gwendolen
said--
"Oh, I have been rather silly. I lingered behind to look at the Whispering
Stones, and the rest hurried on after something, so I lost sight of them.
I thought it best to come home by the short way--the avenue that the
warden had old me of. I'm not sorry after all. I had had enough walking."
"Your party did not meet Mr. Grandcourt, I presume," said Mrs. Arrowpoint,
not without intention.
"No," said Gwendolen, with a little flash of defiance, and a light laugh.
"And we didn't see any carvings on the trees, either. Where can he be? I
should think he has fallen into the pool or had an apoplectic fit."
With all Gwendolen's resolve not to betray any agitation, she could not
help it that her tone was unusually high and hard, and her mother felt
sure that something unpropitious had happened.
Mrs. Arrowpoint thought that the self-confident young lady was much
piqued, and that Mr. Grandcourt was probably seeing reason to change his
mind.
"If you have no objection, mamma, I will order the carriage," said
Gwendolen. "I am tired. And every one will be going soon."
Mrs. Davilow assented; but by the time the carriage was announced as,
ready--the horses having to be fetched from the stables on the warden's
premises--the roving party reappeared, and with them Mr. Grandcourt.
"Ah, there you are!" said Lord Brackenshaw, going up to Gwendolen, who was
arranging her mamma's shawl for the drive. "We thought at first you had
alighted on Grandcourt and he had taken you home. Lush said so. But after
that we met Grandcourt. However, we didn't suppose you could be in any
danger. The warden said he had told you a near way back."
"You are going?" said Grandcourt, coming up with his usual air, as if he
did not conceive that there had been any omission on his part. Lord
Brackenshaw gave place to him and moved away.
"Yes, we are going," said Gwendolen, looking busily at her scarf, which
she was arranging across her shoulders Scotch fashion.
"May I call at Offendene to-morrow?
"Oh yes, if you like," said Gwendolen, sweeping him from a distance with
her eyelashes. Her voice was light and sharp as the first touch of frost.
Mrs. Davilow accepted his arm to lead her to the carriage; but while that
was happening, Gwendolen with incredible swiftness had got in advance of
them, and had sprung into the carriage.
"I got in, mamma, because I wished to be on this side," she said,
apologetically. But she had avoided Grandcourt's touch: he only lifted his
hat and walked away--with the not unsatisfactory impression that she meant
to show herself offended by his neglect.
The mother and daughter drove for five minutes in silence. Then Gwendolen
said, "I intend to join the Langens at Dover, mamma. I shall pack up
immediately on getting home, and set off by the early train. I shall be at
Dover almost as soon as they are; we can let them know by telegraph."
"Good heavens, child! what can be your reason for saying so?"
"My reason for saying it, mamma, is that I mean to do it."
"But why do you mean to do it?"
"I wish to go away."
"Is it because you are offended with Mr. Grandcourt's odd behavior in
walking off to-day?"
"It is useless to enter into such questions. I am not going in any case to
marry Mr. Grandcourt. Don't interest yourself further about it."
"What can I say to your uncle, Gwendolen? Consider the position you place
me in. You led him to believe only last night that you had made up your
mind in favor of Mr. Grandcourt."
"I am very sorry to cause you annoyance, mamma, dear, but I can't help
it," said Gwendolen, with still harder resistance in her tone. "Whatever
you or my uncle may think or do, I shall not alter my resolve, and I shall
not tell my reason. I don't care what comes of it. I don't care if I never
marry any one. There is nothing worth caring for. I believe all men are
bad, and I hate them."
"But need you set off in this way, Gwendolen," said Mrs. Davilow,
miserable and helpless.
"Now mamma, don't interfere with me. If you have ever had any trouble in
your own life, remember it and don't interfere with me. If I am to be
miserable, let it be by my own choice."
The mother was reduced to trembling silence. She began to see that the
difficulty would be lessened if Gwendolen went away.
And she did go. The packing was all carefully done that evening, and not
long after dawn the next day Mrs. Davilow accompanied her daughter to the
railway station. The sweet dews of morning, the cows and horses looking
over the hedges without any particular reason, the early travelers on foot
with their bundles, seemed all very melancholy and purposeless to them
both. The dingy torpor of the railway station, before the ticket could be
taken, was still worse. Gwendolen had certainly hardened in the last
twenty-four hours: her mother's trouble evidently counted for little in
her present state of mind, which did not essentially differ from the mood
that makes men take to worse conduct when their belief in persons or
things is upset. Gwendolen's uncontrolled reading, though consisting
chiefly in what are called pictures of life, had somehow not prepared her
for this encounter with reality. Is that surprising? It is to be believed
that attendance at the _opera bouffe_ in the present day would not leave
men's minds entirely without shock, if the manners observed there with
some applause were suddenly to start up in their own families.
Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors
of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque
through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not
languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange
language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and
other painful effects when presented incur personal experience.
Mrs. Davilow felt Gwendolen's new phase of indifference keenly, and as she
drove back alone, the brightening morning was sadder to her than before.
Mr. Grandcourt called that day at Offendene, but nobody was at home.
CHAPTER XV.
"_Festina lente_--celerity should be contempered with
cunctation."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
Gwendolen, we have seen, passed her time abroad in the new excitement of
gambling, and in imagining herself an empress of luck, having brought from
her late experience a vague impression that in this confused world it
signified nothing what any one did, so that they amused themselves. We
have seen, too, that certain persons, mysteriously symbolized as Grapnell
& Co., having also thought of reigning in the realm of luck, and being
also bent on amusing themselves, no matter how, had brought about a
painful change in her family circumstances; whence she had returned home--
carrying with her, against her inclination, a necklace which she had
pawned and some one else had redeemed.
While she was going back to England, Grandcourt was coming to find her;
coming, that is, after his own manner--not in haste by express straight
from Diplow to Leubronn, where she was understood to be; but so entirely
without hurry that he was induced by the presence of some Russian
acquaintances to linger at Baden-Baden and make various appointments with
them, which, however, his desire to be at Leubronn ultimately caused him
to break. Grandcourt's passions were of the intermittent, flickering kind:
never flaming out strongly. But a great deal of life goes on without
strong passion: myriads of cravats are carefully tied, dinners attended,
even speeches made proposing the health of august personages without the
zest arising from a strong desire. And a man may make a good appearance in
high social positions--may be supposed to know the classics, to have his
reserves on science, a strong though repressed opinion on politics, and
all the sentiments of the English gentleman, at a small expense of vital
energy. Also, he may be obstinate or persistent at the same low rate, and
may even show sudden impulses which have a false air of daemonic strength
because they seem inexplicable, though perhaps their secret lies merely in
the want of regulated channels for the soul to move in--good and
sufficient ducts of habit without which our nature easily turns to mere
ooze and mud, and at any pressure yields nothing but a spurt or a puddle.
Grandcourt had not been altogether displeased by Gwendolen's running away
from the splendid chance he was holding out to her. The act had some
piquancy for him. He liked to think that it was due to resentment of his
careless behavior in Cardell Chase, which, when he came to consider it,
did appear rather cool. To have brought her so near a tender admission,
and then to have walked headlong away from further opportunities of
winning the consent which he had made her understand him to be asking for,
was enough to provoke a girl of spirit; and to be worth his mastering it
was proper that she should have some spirit. Doubtless she meant him to
follow her, and it was what he meant too. But for a whole week he took no
measures toward starting, and did not even inquire where Miss Harleth was
gone. Mr. Lush felt a triumph that was mingled with much distrust; for
Grandcourt had said no word to him about her, and looked as neutral as an
alligator; there was no telling what might turn up in the slowly-churning
chances of his mind. Still, to have put off a decision was to have made
room for the waste of Grandcourt's energy.
The guests at Diplow felt more curiosity than their host. How was it that
nothing more was heard of Miss Harleth? Was it credible that she had
refused Mr. Grandcourt? Lady Flora Hollis, a lively middle-aged woman,
well endowed with curiosity, felt a sudden interest in making a round of
calls with Mrs. Torrington, including the rectory, Offendene, and
Quetcham, and thus not only got twice over, but also discussed with the
Arrowpoints, the information that Miss Harleth was gone to Leubronn, with
some old friends, the Baron and Baroness von Langen; for the immediate
agitation and disappointment of Mrs. Davilow and the Gascoignes had
resolved itself into a wish that Gwendolen's disappearance should not be
interpreted as anything eccentric or needful to be kept secret. The
rector's mind, indeed, entertained the possibility that the marriage was
only a little deferred, for Mrs. Davilow had not dared to tell him of the
bitter determination with which Gwendolen had spoken. And in spite of his
practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and
quotations. Amaryllis fleeing desired that her hiding-place should be
known; and that love will find out the way "over the mountain and over the
wave" may be said without hyperbole in this age of steam. Gwendolen, he
conceived, was an Amaryllis of excellent sense but coquettish daring; the
question was whether she had dared too much.
Lady Flora, coming back charged with news about Miss Harleth, saw no good
reason why she should not try whether she could electrify Mr. Grandcourt
by mentioning it to him at the table; and in doing so shot a few hints of
a notion having got abroad that he was a disappointed adorer. Grandcourt
heard with quietude, but with attention; and the next day he ordered Lush
to bring about a decent reason for breaking up the party at Diplow by the
end of another week, as he meant to go yachting to the Baltic or
somewhere--it being impossible to stay at Diplow as if he were a prisoner
on parole, with a set of people whom he had never wanted. Lush needed no
clearer announcement that Grandcourt was going to Leubronn; but he might
go after the manner of a creeping billiard-ball and stick on the way. What
Mr. Lush intended was to make himself indispensable so that he might go
too, and he succeeded; Gwendolen's repulsion for him being a fact that
only am used his patron, and made him none the less willing to have Lush
always at hand.
This was how it happened that Grandcourt arrived at the _Czarina_ on the
fifth day after Gwendolen had left Leubronn, and found there his uncle,
Sir Hugo Mallinger, with his family, including Deronda. It is not
necessarily a pleasure either to the reigning power or the heir
presumptive when their separate affairs--a--touch of gout, say, in the
one, and a touch of willfulness in the other--happen to bring them to the
same spot. Sir Hugo was an easy-tempered man, tolerant both of differences
and defects; but a point of view different from his own concerning the
settlement of the family estates fretted him rather more than if it had
concerned Church discipline or the ballot, and faults were the less venial
for belonging to a person whose existence was inconvenient to him. In no
case could Grandcourt have been a nephew after his own heart; but as the
presumptive heir to the Mallinger estates he was the sign and embodiment
of a chief grievance in the baronet's life--the want of a son to inherit
the lands, in no portion of which had he himself more than a life-
interest. For in the ill-advised settlement which his father, Sir Francis,
had chosen to make by will, even Diplow with its modicum of land had been
left under the same conditions as the ancient and wide inheritance of the
two Toppings--Diplow, where Sir Hugo had lived and hunted through many a
season in his younger years, and where his wife and daughters ought to
have been able to retire after his death.
This grievance had naturally gathered emphasis as the years advanced, and
Lady Mallinger, after having had three daughters in quick succession, had
remained for eight years till now that she was over forty without
producing so much as another girl; while Sir Hugo, almost twenty years
older, was at a time of life when, notwithstanding the fashionable
retardation of most things from dinners to marriages, a man's hopefulness
is apt to show signs of wear, until restored by second childhood.
In fact, he had begun to despair of a son, and this confirmation of
Grandcourt's interest in the estates certainly tended to make his image
and presence the more unwelcome; but, on the other hand, it carried
circumstances which disposed Sir Hugo to take care that the relation
between them should be kept as friendly as possible. It led him to dwell
on a plan which had grown up side by side with his disappointment of an
heir; namely, to try and secure Diplow as a future residence for Lady
Mallinger and her daughters, and keep this pretty bit of the family
inheritance for his own offspring in spite of that disappointment. Such
knowledge as he had of his nephew's disposition and affairs encouraged the
belief that Grandcourt might consent to a transaction by which he would
get a good sum of ready money, as an equivalent for his prospective
interest in the domain of Diplow and the moderate amount of land attached
to it. If, after all, the unhoped-for son should be born, the money would
have been thrown away, and Grandcourt would have been paid for giving up
interests that had turned out good for nothing; but Sir Hugo set down this
risk as _nil_, and of late years he had husbanded his fortune so well by
the working of mines and the sale of leases that he was prepared for an
outlay.
Here was an object that made him careful to avoid any quarrel with
Grandcourt. Some years before, when he was making improvements at the
Abbey, and needed Grandcourt's concurrence in his felling an obstructive
mass of timber on the demesne, he had congratulated himself on finding
that there was no active spite against him in his nephew's peculiar mind;
and nothing had since occurred to make them hate each other more than was
compatible with perfect politeness, or with any accommodation that could
be strictly mutual.
Grandcourt, on his side, thought his uncle a superfluity and a bore, and
felt that the list of things in general would be improved whenever Sir
Hugo came to be expunged. But he had been made aware through Lush, always
a useful medium, of the baronet's inclinations concerning Diplow, and he
was gratified to have the alternative of the money in his mind: even if he
had not thought it in the least likely that he would choose to accept it,
his sense of power would have been flattered by his being able to refuse
what Sir Hugo desired. The hinted transaction had told for something among
the motives which had made him ask for a year's tenancy of Diplow, which
it had rather annoyed Sir Hugo to grant, because the excellent hunting in
the neighborhood might decide Grandcourt not to part with his chance of
future possession;--a man who has two places, in one of which the hunting
is less good, naturally desiring a third where it is better. Also, Lush
had thrown out to Sir Hugo the probability that Grandcourt would woo and
win Miss Arrowpoint, and in that case ready money might be less of a
temptation to him. Hence, on this unexpected meeting at Leubronn, the
baronet felt much curiosity to know how things had been going on at
Diplow, was bent on being as civil as possible to his nephew, and looked
forward to some private chat with Lush.
Between Deronda and Grandcourt there was a more faintly-marked but
peculiar relation, depending on circumstances which have yet to be made
known. But on no side was there any sign of suppressed chagrin on the
first meeting at the _table d'hote_, an hour after Grandcourt's arrival;
and when the quartette of gentlemen afterward met on the terrace, without
Lady Mallinger, they moved off together to saunter through the rooms, Sir
Hugo saying as they entered the large _saal_--
"Did you play much at Baden, Grandcourt?"
"No; I looked on and betted a little with some Russians there."
"Had you luck?"
"What did I win, Lush?"
"You brought away about two hundred," said Lush.
"You are not here for the sake of the play, then?" said Sir Hugo.
"No; I don't care about play now. It's a confounded strain," said
Grandcourt, whose diamond ring and demeanor, as he moved along playing
slightly with his whisker, were being a good deal stared at by rouged
foreigners interested in a new milord.
"The fact is, somebody should invent a mill to do amusements for you, my
dear fellow," said Sir Hugo, "as the Tartars get their praying done. But I
agree with you; I never cared for play. It's monotonous--knits the brain
up into meshes. And it knocks me up to watch it now. I suppose one gets
poisoned with the bad air. I never stay here more than ten minutes. But
where's your gambling beauty, Deronda? Have you seen her lately?"
"She's gone," said Deronda, curtly.
"An uncommonly fine girl, a perfect Diana," said Sir Hugo, turning to
Grandcourt again. "Really worth a little straining to look at her. I saw
her winning, and she took it as coolly as if she had known it all
beforehand. The same day Deronda happened to see her losing like wildfire,
and she bore it with immense pluck. I suppose she was cleaned out, or was
wise enough to stop in time. How do you know she's gone?"
"Oh, by the Visitor-list," said Deronda, with a scarcely perceptible
shrug. "Vandernoodt told me her name was Harleth, and she was with the
Baron and Baroness von Langen. I saw by the list that Miss Harleth was no
longer there."
This held no further information for Lush than that Gwendolen had been
gambling. He had already looked at the list, and ascertained that
Gwendolen had gone, but he had no intention of thrusting this knowledge on
Grandcourt before he asked for it; and he had not asked, finding it enough
to believe that the object of search would turn up somewhere or other.
But now Grandcourt had heard what was rather piquant, and not a word about
Miss Harleth had been missed by ham. After a moment's pause he said to
Deronda--
"Do you know those people--the Langens?"
"I have talked with them a little since Miss Harleth went away. I knew
nothing of them before."
"Where is she gone--do you know?"
"She is gone home," said Deronda, coldly, as if he wished to say no more.
But then, from a fresh impulse, he turned to look markedly at Grandcourt,
and added, "But it is possible you know her. Her home is not far from
Diplow: Offendene, near Winchester."
Deronda, turning to look straight at Grandcourt, who was on his left hand,
might have been a subject for those old painters who liked contrasts of
temperament. There was a calm intensity of life and richness of tint in
his face that on a sudden gaze from him was rather startling, and often
made him seem to have spoken, so that servants and officials asked him
automatically, "What did you say, sir?" when he had been quite silent.
Grandcourt himself felt an irritation, which he did not show except by a
slight movement of the eyelids, at Deronda's turning round on him when he
was not asked to do more than speak. But he answered, with his usual
drawl, "Yes, I know her," and paused with his shoulder toward Deronda, to
look at the gambling.
"What of her, eh?" asked Sir Hugo of Lush, as the three moved on a little
way. "She must be a new-comer at Offendene. Old Blenny lived there after
the dowager died."
"A little too much of her," said Lush, in a low, significant tone; not
sorry to let Sir Hugo know the state of affairs.
"Why? how?" said the baronet. They all moved out of the _salon_ into an
airy promenade.
"He has been on the brink of marrying her," Lush went on. "But I hope it's
off now. She's a niece of the clergyman--Gascoigne--at Pennicote. Her
mother is a widow with a brood of daughters. This girl will have nothing,
and is as dangerous as gunpowder. It would be a foolish marriage. But she
has taken a freak against him, for she ran off here without notice, when
he had agreed to call the next day. The fact is, he's here after her; but
he was in no great hurry, and between his caprice and hers they are likely
enough not to get together again. But of course he has lost his chance
with the heiress."
Grandcourt joining them said, "What a beastly den this is!--a worse hole
than Baden. I shall go back to the hotel."
When Sir Hugo and Deronda were alone, the baronet began--
"Rather a pretty story. That girl has something in her. She must be worth
running after--has _de l'imprevu_. I think her appearance on the scene has
bettered my chance of getting Diplow, whether the marriage comes off or
not."
"I should hope a marriage like that would not come off," said Deronda, in
a tone of disgust.
"What! are you a little touched with the sublime lash?" said Sir Hugo,
putting up his glasses to help his short sight in looking at his
companion. "Are you inclined to run after her?"
"On the contrary," said Deronda, "I should rather be inclined to run away
from her."
"Why, you would easily cut out Grandcourt. A girl with her spirit would
think you the finer match of the two," said Sir Hugo, who often tried
Deronda's patience by finding a joke in impossible advice. (A difference
of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.)
"I suppose pedigree and land belong to a fine match," said Deronda,
coldly.
"The best horse will win in spite of pedigree, my boy. You remember
Napoleon's _mot--Je suis un ancetre_" said Sir Hugo, who habitually
undervalued birth, as men after dining well often agree that the good of
life is distributed with wonderful equality.
"I am not sure that I want to be an ancestor," said Deronda. "It doesn't
seem to me the rarest sort of origination."
"You won't run after the pretty gambler, then?" said Sir Hugo, putting
down his glasses.
"Decidedly not."
This answer was perfectly truthful; nevertheless it had passed through
Deronda's mind that under other circumstances he should have given way to
the interest this girl had raised in him, and tried to know more of her.
But his history had given him a stronger bias in another direction. He
felt himself in no sense free.
CHAPTER XVI.
Men, like planets, have both a visible and an invisible history. The
astronomer threads the darkness with strict deduction, accounting so
for every visible arc in the wanderer's orbit; and the narrator of
human actions, if he did his work with the same completeness, would
have to thread the hidden pathways of feeling and thought which lead
up to every moment of action, and to those moments of intense
suffering which take the quality of action--like the cry of
Prometheus, whose chained anguish seems a greater energy than the sea
and sky he invokes and the deity he defies.
Deronda's circumstances, indeed, had been exceptional. One moment had been
burned into his life as its chief epoch--a moment full of July sunshine
and large pink roses shedding their last petals on a grassy court enclosed
on three sides by a gothic cloister. Imagine him in such a scene: a boy of
thirteen, stretched prone on the grass where it was in shadow, his curly
head propped on his arms over a book, while his tutor, also reading, sat
on a camp-stool under shelter. Deronda s book was Sismondi's "History of
the Italian Republics";--the lad had a passion for history, eager to know
how time had been filled up since the flood, and how things were carried
on in the dull periods. Suddenly he let down his left arm and looked at
his tutor, saying in purest boyish tones--
"Mr. Fraser, how was it that the popes and cardinals always had so many
nephews?"
The tutor, an able young Scotchman, who acted as Sir Hugo Mallinger's
secretary, roused rather unwillingly from his political economy, answered
with the clear-cut emphatic chant which makes a truth doubly telling in
Scotch utterance--
"Their own children were called nephews."
"Why?" said Deronda.
"It was just for the propriety of the thing; because, as you know very
well, priests don't marry, and the children were illegitimate."
Mr. Fraser, thrusting out his lower lip and making his chant of the last
word the more emphatic for a little impatience at being interrupted, had
already turned his eyes on his book again, while Deronda, as if something
had stung him, started up in a sitting attitude with his back to the
tutor.
He had always called Sir Hugo Mallinger his uncle, and when it once
occurred to him to ask about his father and mother, the baronet had
answered, "You lost your father and mother when you were quite a little
one; that is why I take care of you." Daniel then straining to discern
something in that early twilight, had a dim sense of having been kissed
very much, and surrounded by thin, cloudy, scented drapery, till his
ringers caught in something hard, which hurt him, and he began to cry.
Every other memory he had was of the little world in which he still lived.
And at that time he did not mind about learning more, for he was too fond
of Sir Hugo to be sorry for the loss of unknown parents. Life was very
delightful to the lad, with an uncle who was always indulgent and
cheerful--a fine man in the bright noon of life, whom Daniel thought
absolutely perfect, and whose place was one of the finest in England, at
once historical; romantic, and home-like: a picturesque architectural
outgrowth from an abbey, which had still remnants of the old monastic
trunk. Diplow lay in another county, and was a comparatively landless
place which had come into the family from a rich lawyer on the female side
who wore the perruque of the restoration; whereas the Mallingers had the
grant of Monk's Topping under Henry the Eighth, and ages before had held
the neighboring lands of King's Topping, tracing indeed their origin to a
certain Hugues le Malingre, who came in with the Conqueror--and also
apparently with a sickly complexion which had been happily corrected in
his descendants. Two rows of these descendants, direct and collateral,
females of the male line, and males of the female, looked down in the
gallery over the cloisters on the nephew Daniel as he walked there: men in
armor with pointed beards and arched eyebrows, pinched ladies in hoops and
ruffs with no face to speak of; grave-looking men in black velvet and
stuffed hips, and fair, frightened women holding little boys by the hand;
smiling politicians in magnificent perruques, and ladies of the prize-
animal kind, with rosebud mouths and full eyelids, according to Lely; then
a generation whose faces were revised and embellished in the taste of
Kneller; and so on through refined editions of the family types in the
time of Reynolds and Romney, till the line ended with Sir Hugo and his
younger brother Henleigh. This last had married Miss Grandcourt, and taken
her name along with her estates, thus making a junction between two
equally old families, impaling the three Saracens' heads proper and three
bezants of the one with the tower and falcons _argent_ of the other, and,
as it happened, uniting their highest advantages in the prospects of that
Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt who is at present more of an acquaintance to
us than either Sir Hugo or his nephew Daniel Deronda.
In Sir Hugo's youthful portrait with rolled collar and high cravat, Sir
Thomas Lawrence had done justice to the agreeable alacrity of expression
and sanguine temperament still to be seen in the original, but had done
something more than justice in slightly lengthening the nose, which was in
reality shorter than might have been expected in a Mallinger. Happily the
appropriate nose of the family reappeared in his younger brother, and was
to be seen in all its refined regularity in his nephew Mallinger
Grandcourt. But in the nephew Daniel Deronda the family faces of various
types, seen on the walls of the gallery; found no reflex. Still he was
handsomer than any of them, and when he was thirteen might have served as
model for any painter who wanted to image the most memorable of boys: you
could hardly have seen his face thoroughly meeting yours without believing
that human creatures had done nobly in times past, and might do more nobly
in time to come. The finest childlike faces have this consecrating power,
and make us shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of
the world, lest they should enter here and defile.
But at this moment on the grass among the rose-petals, Daniel Deronda was
making a first acquaintance with those griefs. A new idea had entered his
mind, and was beginning to change the aspect of his habitual feelings as
happy careless voyagers are changed with the sky suddenly threatened and
the thought of danger arises. He sat perfectly still with his back to the
tutor, while his face expressed rapid inward transition. The deep blush,
which had come when he first started up, gradually subsided; but his
features kept that indescribable look of subdued activity which often
accompanies a new mental survey of familiar facts. He had not lived with
other boys, and his mind showed the same blending of child's ignorance
with surprising knowledge which is oftener seen in bright girls. Having
read Shakespeare as well as a great deal of history, he could have talked
with the wisdom of a bookish child about men who were born out of wedlock
and were held unfortunate in consequence, being under disadvantages which
required them to be a sort of heroes if they were to work themselves up to
an equal standing with their legally born brothers. But he had never
brought such knowledge into any association with his own lot, which had
been too easy for him ever to think about it--until this moment when there
had darted into his mind with the magic of quick comparison, the
possibility that here was the secret of his own birth, and that the man
whom he called uncle was really his father. Some children, even younger
than Daniel, have known the first arrival of care, like an ominous
irremovable guest in their tender lives, on the discovery that their
parents, whom they had imagined able to buy everything, were poor and in
hard money troubles. Daniel felt the presence of a new guest who seemed to
come with an enigmatic veiled face, and to carry dimly-conjectured,
dreaded revelations. The ardor which he had given to the imaginary world
in his books suddenly rushed toward his own history and spent its
pictorial energy there, explaining what he knew, representing the unknown.
The uncle whom he loved very dearly took the aspect of a father who held
secrets about him--who had done him a wrong--yes, a wrong: and what had
become of his mother, for whom he must have been taken away?--Secrets
about which he, Daniel, could never inquire; for to speak or to be spoken
to about these new thoughts seemed like falling flakes of fire to his
imagination. Those who have known an impassioned childhood will understand
this dread of utterance about any shame connected with their parents. The
impetuous advent of new images took possession of him with the force of
fact for the first time told, and left him no immediate power for the
reflection that he might be trembling at a fiction of his own. The
terrible sense of collision between a strong rush of feeling and the dread
of its betrayal, found relief at length in big slow tears, which fell
without restraint until the voice of Mr. Fraser was heard saying:
"Daniel, do you see that you are sitting on the bent pages of your book?"
Daniel immediately moved the book without turning round, and after holding
it before him for an instant, rose with it and walked away into the open
grounds, where he could dry his tears unobserved. The first shock of
suggestion past, he could remember that he had no certainty how things
really had been, and that he had been making conjectures about his own
history, as he had often made stories about Pericles or Columbus, just to
fill up the blanks before they became famous. Only there came back certain
facts which had an obstinate reality,--almost like the fragments of a
bridge, telling you unmistakably how the arches lay. And again there came
a mood in which his conjectures seemed like a doubt of religion, to be
banished as an offense, and a mean prying after what he was not meant to
know; for there was hardly a delicacy of feeling this lad was not capable
of. But the summing-up of all his fluctuating experience at this epoch
was, that a secret impression had come to him which had given him
something like a new sense in relation to all the elements of his life.
And the idea that others probably knew things concerning which they did
not choose to mention, set up in him a premature reserve which helped to
intensify his inward experience. His ears open now to words which before
that July day would have passed by him unnoted; and round every trivial
incident which imagination could connect with his suspicions, a newly-
roused set of feelings were ready to cluster themselves.
One such incident a month later wrought itself deeply into his life.
Daniel had not only one of those thrilling boy voices which seem to bring
an idyllic heaven and earth before our eyes, but a fine musical instinct,
and had early made out accompaniments for himself on the piano, while he
sang from memory. Since then he had had some teaching, and Sir Hugo, who
delighted in the boy, used to ask for his music in the presence of guests.
One morning after he had been singing "Sweet Echo" before a small party of
gentlemen whom the rain had kept in the house, the baronet, passing from a
smiling remark to his next neighbor said:
"Come here, Dan!"
The boy came forward with unusual reluctance. He wore an embroidered
holland blouse which set off the rich coloring of his head and throat, and
the resistant gravity about his mouth and eyes as he was being smiled
upon, made their beauty the more impressive. Every one was admiring him,
"What do you say to being a great singer? Should you like to be adored by
the world and take the house by storm; like Mario and Tamberlik?"
Daniel reddened instantaneously, but there was a just perceptible interval
before he answered with angry decision--
"No; I should hate it!"
"Well, well, well!" said Sir Hugo, with surprised kindliness intended to
be soothing. But Daniel turned away quickly, left the room, and going to
his own chamber threw himself on the broad window-sill, which was a
favorite retreat of his when he had nothing particular to do. Here he
could see the rain gradually subsiding with gleams through the parting
clouds which lit up a great reach of the park, where the old oaks stood
apart from each other, and the bordering wood was pierced with a green
glade which met the eastern sky. This was a scene which had always been
part of his home--part of the dignified ease which had been a matter of
course in his life. And his ardent clinging nature had appropriated it all
with affection. He knew a great deal of what it was to be a gentleman by
inheritance, and without thinking much about himself--for he was a boy of
active perceptions and easily forgot his own existence in that of Robert
Bruce--he had never supposed that he could be shut out from such a lot, or
have a very different part in the world from that of the uncle who petted
him. It is possible (though not greatly believed in at present) to be fond
of poverty and take it for a bride, to prefer scoured deal, red quarries
and whitewash for one's private surroundings, to delight in no splendor
but what has open doors for the whole nation, and to glory in having no
privileges except such as nature insists on; and noblemen have been known
to run away from elaborate ease and the option of idleness, that they
might bind themselves for small pay to hard-handed labor. But Daniel's
tastes were altogether in keeping with his nurture: his disposition was
one in which everyday scenes and habits beget not _ennui_ or rebellion,
but delight, affection, aptitudes; and now the lad had been stung to the
quick by the idea that his uncle--perhaps his father--thought of a career
for him which was totally unlike his own, and which he knew very well was
not thought of among possible destinations for the sons of English
gentlemen. He had often stayed in London with Sir Hugo, who to indulge the
boy's ear had carried him to the opera to hear the great tenors, so that
the image of a singer taking the house by storm was very vivid to him; but
now, spite of his musical gift, he set himself bitterly against the notion
of being dressed up to sing before all those fine people, who would not
care about him except as a wonderful toy. That Sir Hugo should have
thought of him in that position for a moment, seemed to Daniel an
unmistakable proof that there was something about his birth which threw
him out from the class of gentlemen to which the baronet belonged. Would
it ever be mentioned to him? Would the time come when his uncle would tell
him everything? He shrank from the prospect: in his imagination he
preferred ignorance. If his father had been wicked--Daniel inwardly used
strong words, for he was feeling the injury done him as a maimed boy feels
the crushed limb which for others is merely reckoned in an average of
accidents--if his father had done any wrong, he wished it might never be
spoken of to him: it was already a cutting thought that such knowledge
might be in other minds. Was it in Mr. Fraser's? probably not, else he
would not have spoken in that way about the pope's nephews. Daniel
fancied, as older people do, that every one else's consciousness was as
active as his own on a matter which was vital to him. Did Turvey the valet
know?--and old Mrs. French the housekeeper?--and Banks the bailiff, with
whom he had ridden about the farms on his pony?--And now there came back
the recollection of a day some years before when he was drinking Mrs.
Banks's whey, and Banks said to his wife with a wink and a cunning laugh,
"He features the mother, eh?" At that time little Daniel had merely
thought that Banks made a silly face, as the common farming men often did,
laughing at what was not laughable; and he rather resented being winked at
and talked of as if he did not understand everything. But now that small
incident became information: it was to be reasoned on. How could he be
like his mother and not like his father? His mother must have been a
Mallinger, if Sir Hugo were his uncle. But no! His father might have been
Sir Hugo's brother and have changed his name, as Mr. Henleigh Mallinger
did when he married Miss Grandcourt. But then, why had he never heard Sir
Hugo speak of his brother Deronda, as he spoke of his brother Grandcourt?
Daniel had never before cared about the family tree--only about that
ancestor who had killed three Saracens in one encounter. But now his mind
turned to a cabinet of estate-maps in the library, where he had once seen
an illuminated parchment hanging out, that Sir Hugo said was the family
tree. The phrase was new and odd to him--he was a little fellow then--
hardly mare than half his present age--and he gave it no precise meaning.
He knew more now and wished that he could examine that parchment. He
imagined that the cabinet was always locked, and longed to try it. But
here he checked himself. He might be seen: and he would never bring
himself near even a silent admission of the sore that had opened in him.
It is in such experiences of a boy or girlhood, while elders are debating
whether most education lies in science or literature, that the main lines
of character are often laid down. If Daniel had been of a less ardently
affectionate nature, the reserve about himself and the supposition that
others had something to his disadvantage in their minds, might have turned
into a hard, proud antagonism. But inborn lovingness was strong enough to
keep itself level with resentment. There was hardly any creature in his
habitual world that he was not fond of; teasing them occasionally, of
course--all except his uncle, or "Nunc," as Sir Hugo had taught him to
say; for the baronet was the reverse of a strait-laced man, and left his
dignity to take care of itself. Him Daniel loved in that deep-rooted
filial way which makes children always the happier for being in the same
room with father or mother, though their occupations may be quite apart.
Sir Hugo's watch-chain and seals, his handwriting, his mode of smoking and
of talking to his dogs and horses, had all a rightness and charm about
them to the boy which went along with the happiness of morning and
breakfast time. That Sir Hugo had always been a Whig, made Tories and
Radicals equally opponents of the truest and best; and the books he had
written were all seen under the same consecration of loving belief which
differenced what was his from what was not his, in spite of general
resemblance. Those writings were various, from volumes of travel in the
brilliant style, to articles on things in general, and pamphlets on
political crises; but to Daniel they were alike in having an
unquestionable rightness by which other people's information could be
tested.
Who cannot imagine the bitterness of a first suspicion that something in
this object of complete love was _not_ quite right? Children demand that
their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a
first discovery to the contrary is hardly a less revolutionary shock to a
passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which
makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.
But some time after this renewal of Daniel's agitation it appeared that
Sir Hugo must have been making a merely playful experiment in his question
about the singing. He sent for Daniel into the library, and looking up
from his writing as the boy entered threw himself sideways in his
armchair. "Ah, Dan!" he said kindly, drawing one of the old embroidered
stools close to him. "Come and sit down here."
Daniel obeyed, and Sir Hugo put a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking at
him affectionately.
"What is it, my boy? Have you heard anything that has put you out of
spirits lately?"
Daniel was determined not to let the tears come, but he could not speak.
"All changes are painful when people have been happy, you know," said Sir
Hugo, lifting his hand from the boy's shoulder to his dark curls and
rubbing them gently. "You can't be educated exactly as I wish you to be
without our parting. And I think you will find a great deal to like at
school."
This was not what Daniel expected, and was so far a relief, which gave him
spirit to answer--
"Am I to go to school?"
"Yes, I mean you to go to Eton. I wish you to have the education of an
English gentleman; and for that it is necessary that you should go to a
public school in preparation for the university: Cambridge I mean you to
go to; it was my own university."
Daniel's color came went.
"What do you say, sirrah?" said Sir Hugo, smiling.
"I should like to be a gentleman," said Daniel, with firm distinctness,
"and go to school, if that is what a gentleman's son must do."
Sir Hugo watched him silently for a few moments, thinking he understood
now why the lad had seemed angry at the notion of becoming a singer. Then
he said tenderly--
"And so you won't mind about leaving your old Nunc?"
"Yes, I shall," said Daniel, clasping Sir Hugo's caressing arm with both
his hands. "But shan't I come home and be with you in the holidays?"
"Oh yes, generally," said Sir Hugo. "But now I mean you to go at once to a
new tutor, to break the change for you before you go to Eton."
After this interview Daniel's spirit rose again. He was meant to be a
gentleman, and in some unaccountable way it might be that his conjectures
were all wrong. The very keenness of the lad taught him to find comfort in
his ignorance. While he was busying his mind in the construction of
possibilities, it became plain to him that there must be possibilities of
which he knew nothing. He left off brooding, young joy and the spirit of
adventure not being easily quenched within him, and in the interval before
his going away he sang about the house, danced among the old servants,
making them parting gifts, and insisted many times to the groom on the
care that was to be taken of the black pony.
"Do you think I shall know much less than the other boys, Mr. Fraser?"
said Daniel. It was his bent to think that every stranger would be
surprised at his ignorance.
"There are dunces to be found everywhere," said the judicious Fraser.
"You'll not be the biggest; but you've not, the makings of a Porson in
you, or a Leibnitz either."
"I don't want to be a Porson or a Leibnitz," said Daniel. "I would rather
be a greater leader, like Pericles or Washington."
"Ay, ay; you've a notion they did with little parsing, and less algebra,"
said Fraser. But in reality he thought his pupil a remarkable lad, to whom
one thing was as easy as another, if he had only a mind to it.
Things went on very well with Daniel in his new world, except that a boy
with whom he was at once inclined to strike up a close friendship talked
to him a great deal about his home and parents, and seemed to expect a
like expansiveness in return. Daniel immediately shrank into reserve, and
this experience remained a check on his naturally strong bent toward the
formation of intimate friendship. Every one, his tutor included, set him
down as a reserved boy, though he was so good-humored and unassuming, as
well as quick, both at study and sport, that nobody called his reserve
disagreeable. Certainly his face had a great deal to do with that
favorable interpretation; but in this instance the beauty of the closed
lips told no falsehood.
A surprise that came to him before his first vacation strengthened the
silent consciousness of a grief within, which might be compared in some
ways with Byron's susceptibility about his deformed foot. Sir Hugo wrote
word that he was married to Miss Raymond, a sweet lady, whom Daniel must
remember having seen. The event would make no difference about his
spending the vacation at the Abbey; he would find Lady Mallinger a new
friend whom he would be sure to love--and much more to the usual effect
when a man, having done something agreeable to himself, is disposed to
congratulate others on his own good fortune, and the deducible
satisfactoriness of events in general.
Let Sir Hugo be partly excused until the grounds of his action can be more
fully known. The mistakes in his behavior to Deronda were due to that
dullness toward what may be going on in other minds, especially the minds
of children, which is among the commonest deficiencies, even in good-
natured men like him, when life has been generally easy to themselves, and
their energies have been quietly spent in feeling gratified. No one was
better aware than he that Daniel was generally suspected to be his own
son. But he was pleased with that suspicion; and his imagination had never
once been troubled with the way in which the boy himself might be
affected, either then or in the future, by the enigmatic aspect of his
circumstances. He was as fond of him as could be, and meant the best by
him. And, considering the lightness with which the preparation of young
lives seem to lie on respectable consciences, Sir Hugo Mallinger can
hardly be held open to exceptional reproach. He had been a bachelor till
he was five-and-forty, had always been regarded as a fascinating man of
elegant tastes; what could be more natural, even according to the index of
language, than that he should have a beautiful boy like the little Deronda
to take care of? The mother might even, perhaps, be in the great world--
met with in Sir Hugo's residence abroad. The only person to feel any
objection was the boy himself, who could not have been consulted. And the
boy's objections had never been dreamed of by anybody but himself.
By the time Deronda was ready to go to Cambridge, Lady Mallinger had
already three daughters--charming babies, all three, but whose sex was
announced as a melancholy alternative, the offspring desired being a son;
if Sir Hugo had no son the succession must go to his nephew, Mallinger
Grandcourt. Daniel no longer held a wavering opinion about his own birth.
His fuller knowledge had tended to convince him that Sir Hugo was his
father, and he conceived that the baronet, since he never approached a
communication on the subject, wished him to have a tacit understanding of
the fact, and to accept in silence what would be generally considered more
than the due love and nurture. Sir Hugo's marriage might certainly have
been felt as a new ground of resentment by some youths in Deronda's
position, and the timid Lady Mallinger with her fast-coming little ones
might have been images to scowl at, as likely to divert much that was
disposable in the feelings and possessions of the baronet from one who
felt his own claim to be prior. But hatred of innocent human obstacles was
a form of moral stupidity not in Deronda's grain; even the indignation
which had long mingled itself with his affection for Sir Hugo took the
quality of pain rather than of temper; and as his mind ripened to the idea
of tolerance toward error, he habitually liked the idea with his own
silent grievances.
The sense of an entailed disadvantage--the deformed foot doubtfully hidden
by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a
self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort,
who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the
inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination
tender. Deronda's early-weakened susceptibility, charged at first with
ready indignation and resistant pride, had raised in him a premature
reflection on certain questions of life; it had given a bias to his
conscience, a sympathy with certain ills, and a tension of resolve in
certain directions, who marked him off from other youths much more than
any talents he possessed.
One day near the end of the long vacation, when he had been making a tour
in the Rhineland with his Eton tutor, and was come for a farewell stay at
the Abbey before going to Cambridge, he said to Sir Hugo--
"What do you intend me to be, sir?" They were in the library, and it was
the fresh morning. Sir Hugo had called him in to read a letter from a
Cambridge Don who was to be interested in him; and since the baronet wore
an air at once business-like and leisurely, the moment seemed propitious
for entering on a grave subject which had never yet been thoroughly
discussed.
"Whatever your inclination leads you to, my boy. I thought it right to
give you the option of the army, but you shut the door on that, and I was
glad. I don't expect you to choose just yet--by-and-by, when you have
looked about you a little more and tried your mettle among older men. The
university has a good wide opening into the forum. There are prizes to be
won, and a bit of good fortune often gives the turn to a man's taste. From
what I see and hear, I should think you can take up anything you like. You
are in the deeper water with your classics than I ever got into, and if
you are rather sick of that swimming, Cambridge is the place where you can
go into mathematics with a will, and disport yourself on the dry sand as
much as you like. I floundered along like a carp."
"I suppose money will make some difference, sir," said Daniel blushing. "I
shall have to keep myself by-and-by."
"Not exactly. I recommend you not to be extravagant--yes, yes, I know--you
are not inclined to that;--but you need not take up anything against the
grain. You will have a bachelor's income--enough for you to look about
with. Perhaps I had better tell you that you may consider yourself secure
of seven hundred a year. You might make yourself a barrister--be a writer
--take up politics. I confess that is what would please me best. I should
like to have you at my elbow and pulling with me."
Deronda looked embarrassed. He felt that he ought to make some sign of
gratitude, but other feelings clogged his tongue. A moment was passing by
in which a question about his birth was throbbing within him, and yet it
seemed more impossible than ever that the question should find vent--more
impossible than ever that he could hear certain things from Sir Hugo's
lips. The liberal way in which he was dealt with was the more striking
because the baronet had of late cared particularly for money, and for
making the utmost of his life-interest in the estate by way of providing
for his daughters; and as all this flashed through Daniel's mind it was
momentarily within his imagination that the provision for him might come
in some way from his mother. But such vaporous conjecture passed away as
quickly as it came.
Sir Hugo appeared not to notice anything peculiar in Daniel's manner, and
presently went on with his usual chatty liveliness.
"I am glad you have done some good reading outside your classics, and have
got a grip of French and German. The truth is, unless a man can get the
prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it's hardly worth
while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to
spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse you'll give him as
a cue. That's all very fine, but in practical life nobody does give you
the cue for pages of Greek. In fact, it's a nicety of conversation which I
would have you attend to--much quotation of any sort, even in English is
bad. It tends to choke ordinary remark. One couldn't carry on life
comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything had
been said better than we can put it ourselves. But talking of Dons, I have
seen Dons make a capital figure in society; and occasionally he can shoot
you down a cart-load of learning in the right place, which will tell in
politics. Such men are wanted; and if you have any turn for being a Don, I
say nothing against it."
"I think there's not much chance of that. Quicksett and Puller are both
stronger than I am. I hope you will not be much disappointed if I don't
come out with high honors."
"No, no. I should like you to do yourself credit, but for God's sake don't
come out as a superior expensive kind of idiot, like young Brecon, who got
a Double First, and has been learning to knit braces ever since. What I
wish you to get is a passport in life. I don't go against our university
system: we want a little disinterested culture to make head against cotton
and capital, especially in the House. My Greek has all evaporated; if I
had to construe a verse on a sudden, I should get an apoplectic fit. But
it formed my taste. I dare say my English is the better for it."
On this point Daniel kept a respectful silence. The enthusiastic belief in
Sir Hugo's writings as a standard, and in the Whigs as the chosen race
among politicians, had gradually vanished along with the seraphic boy's
face. He had not been the hardest of workers at Eton. Though some kinds of
study and reading came as easily as boating to him, he was not of the
material that usually makes the first-rate Eton scholar. There had sprung
up in him a meditative yearning after wide knowledge which is likely
always to abate ardor in the fight for prize acquirement in narrow tracks.
Happily he was modest, and took any second-rate-*ness in himself simply as
a fact, not as a marvel necessarily to be accounted for by a superiority.
Still Mr. Eraser's high opinion of the lad had not been altogether belied
by the youth: Daniel had the stamp of rarity in a subdued fervor of
sympathy, an activity of imagination on behalf of others which did not
show itself effusively, but was continually seen in acts of
considerateness that struck his companions as moral eccentricity. "Deronda
would have been first-rate if he had had more ambition," was a frequent
remark about him. But how could a fellow push his way properly when he
objected to swop for his own advantage, knocked under by choice when he
was within an inch of victory, and, unlike the great Clive, would rather
be the calf than the butcher? It was a mistake, however, to suppose that
Deronda had not his share of ambition. We know he had suffered keenly from
the belief that there was a tinge of dishonor in his lot; but there are
some cases, and his was one of them, in which the sense of injury breeds--
not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a
hatred of all injury. He had his flashes of fierceness and could hit out
upon occasion, but the occasions were not always what might have been
expected. For in what related to himself his resentful impulses had been
early checked by a mastering affectionateness. Love has a habit of saying
"Never mind" to angry self, who, sitting down for the nonce in the lower
place, by-and-by gets used to it. So it was that as Deronda approached
manhood his feeling for Sir Hugo, while it was getting more and more mixed
with criticism, was gaining in that sort of allowance which reconciles
criticism with tenderness. The dear old beautiful home and everything
within it, Lady Mallinger and her little ones included, were consecrated
for the youth as they had been for the boy--only with a certain difference
of light on the objects. The altarpiece was no longer miraculously
perfect, painted under infallible guidance, but the human hand discerned
in the work was appealing to a reverent tenderness safer from the gusts of
discovery. Certainly Deronda's ambition, even in his spring-time, lay
exceptionally aloof from conspicuous, vulgar triumph, and from other ugly
forms of boyish energy; perhaps because he was early impassioned by ideas,
and burned his fire on those heights. One may spend a good deal of energy
in disliking and resisting what others pursue, and a boy who is fond of
somebody else's pencil-case may not be more energetic than another who is
fond of giving his own pencil-case away. Still it was not Deronda's
disposition to escape from ugly scenes; he was more inclined to sit
through them and take care of the fellow least able to take care of
himself. It had helped to make him popular that he was sometimes a little
compromised by this apparent comradeship. For a meditative interest in
learning how human miseries are wrought--as precocious in him as another
sort of genius in the poet who writes a Queen Mab at nineteen--was so
infused with kindliness that it easily passed for comradeship. Enough. In
many of our neighbors' lives there is much not only of error and lapse,
but of a certain exquisite goodness which can never be written or even
spoken--only divined by each of us, according to the inward instruction of
our own privacy.
The impression he made at Cambridge corresponded to his position at Eton.
Every one interested in him agreed that he might have taken a high place
if his motives had been of a more pushing sort, and if he had not, instead
of regarding studies as instruments of success, hampered himself with the
notion that they were to feed motive and opinion--a notion which set him
criticising methods and arguing against his freight and harness when he
should have been using all his might to pull. In the beginning his work at
the university had a new zest for him: indifferent to the continuation of
Eton classical drill, he applied himself vigorously to mathematics, for
which he had shown an early aptitude under Mr. Fraser, and he had the
delight of feeling his strength in a comparatively fresh exercise of
thought. That delight, and the favorable opinion of his tutor, determined
him to try for a mathematical scholarship in the Easter of his second
year: he wished to gratify Sir Hugo by some achievement, and the study of
the higher mathematics, having the growing fascination inherent in all
thinking which demands intensity, was making him a more exclusive worker
than he had been before.
But here came the old check which had been growing with his growth. He
found the inward bent toward comprehension and thoroughness diverging more
and more from the track marked out by the standards of examination: he
felt a heightening discontent with the wearing futility and enfeebling
strain of a demand for excessive retention and dexterity without any
insight into the principles which form the vital connections of knowledge.
(Deronda's undergraduateship occurred fifteen years ago, when the
perfection of our university methods was not yet indisputable.) In hours
when his dissatisfaction was strong upon him he reproached himself for
having been attracted by the conventional advantage of belonging to an
English university, and was tempted toward the project of asking Sir Hugo
to let him quit Cambridge and pursue a more independent line of study
abroad. The germs of this inclination had been already stirring in his
boyish love of universal history, which made him want to be at home in
foreign countries, and follow in imagination the traveling students of the
middle ages. He longed now to have the sort of apprenticeship to life
which would not shape him too definitely, and rob him of the choice that
might come from a free growth. One sees that Deronda's demerits were
likely to be on the side of reflective hesitation, and this tendency was
encouraged by his position; there was no need for him to get an immediate
income, or to fit himself in haste for a profession; and his sensibility
to the half-known facts of his parentage made him an excuse for lingering
longer than others in a state of social neutrality. Other men, he inwardly
said, had a more definite place and duties. But the project which
flattered his inclination might not have gone beyond the stage of
ineffective brooding, if certain circumstances had not quickened it into
action.
The circumstances arose out of an enthusiastic friendship which extended
into his after-life. Of the same year with himself, and occupying small
rooms close to his, was a youth who had come as an exhibitioner from
Christ's Hospital, and had eccentricities enough for a Charles Lamb. Only
to look at his pinched features and blonde hair hanging over his collar
reminded one of pale quaint heads by early German painters; and when this
faint coloring was lit up by a joke, there came sudden creases about the
mouth and eyes which might have been moulded by the soul of an aged
humorist. His father, an engraver of some distinction, had been dead
eleven years, and his mother had three girls to educate and maintain on a
meagre annuity. Hans Meyrick--he had been daringly christened after
Holbein--felt himself the pillar, or rather the knotted and twisted trunk,
round which these feeble climbing plants must cling. There was no want of
ability or of honest well-meaning affection to make the prop trustworthy:
the ease and quickness with which he studied might serve him to win prizes
at Cambridge, as he had done among the Blue Coats, in spite of
irregularities. The only danger was, that the incalculable tendencies in
him might be fatally timed, and that his good intentions might be
frustrated by some act which was not due to habit but to capricious,
scattered impulses. He could not be said to have any one bad habit; yet at
longer or shorter intervals he had fits of impish recklessness, and did
things that would have made the worst habits.
Hans in his right mind, however, was a lovable creature, and in Deronda he
had happened to find a friend who was likely to stand by him with the more
constancy, from compassion for these brief aberrations that might bring a
long repentance. Hans, indeed, shared Deronda's rooms nearly as much as he
used his own: to Deronda he poured himself out on his studies, his
affairs, his hopes; the poverty of his home, and his love for the
creatures there; the itching of his fingers to draw, and his determination
to fight it away for the sake of getting some sort of a plum that he might
divide with his mother and the girls. He wanted no confidence in return,
but seemed to take Deronda as an Olympian who needed nothing--an egotism
in friendship which is common enough with mercurial, expansive natures.
Deronda was content, and gave Meyrick all the interest he claimed, getting
at last a brotherly anxiety about him, looking after him in his erratic
moments, and contriving by adroitly delicate devices not only to make up
for his friend's lack of pence, but to save him from threatening chances.
Such friendship easily becomes tender: the one spreads strong sheltering
wings that delight in spreading, the other gets the warm protection which
is also a delight. Meyrick was going in for a classical scholarship, and
his success, in various ways momentous, was the more probable from the
steadying influence of Deronda's friendship.
But an imprudence of Meyrick's, committed at the beginning of the autumn
term, threatened to disappoint his hopes. With his usual alternation
between unnecessary expense and self-privation, he had given too much
money for an old engraving which fascinated him, and to make up for it,
had come from London in a third-class carriage with his eyes exposed to a
bitter wind and any irritating particles the wind might drive before it.
The consequence was a severe inflammation of the eyes, which for some time
hung over him the threat of a lasting injury. This crushing trouble called
out all Deronda's readiness to devote himself, and he made every other
occupation secondary to that of being companion and eyes to Hans, working
with him and for him at his classics, that if possible his chance of the
classical scholarship might be saved. Hans, to keep the knowledge of his
suffering from his mother and sisters, alleged his work as a reason for
passing the Christmas at Cambridge, and his friend stayed up with him.
Meanwhile Deronda relaxed his hold on his mathematics, and Hans,
reflecting on this, at length said: "Old fellow, while you are hoisting me
you are risking yourself. With your mathematical cram one may be like
Moses or Mahomet or somebody of that sort who had to cram, and forgot in
one day what it had taken him forty to learn."
Deronda would not admit that he cared about the risk, and he had really
been beguiled into a little indifference by double sympathy: he was very
anxious that Hans should not miss the much-needed scholarship, and he felt
a revival of interest in the old studies. Still, when Hans, rather late in
the day, got able to use his own eyes, Deronda had tenacity enough to try
hard and recover his lost ground. He failed, however; but he had the
satisfaction of seeing Meyrick win.
Success, as a sort of beginning that urged completion, might have
reconciled Deronda to his university course; but the emptiness of all
things, from politics to pastimes, is never so striking to us as when we
fail in them. The loss of the personal triumph had no severity for him,
but the sense of having spent his time ineffectively in a mode of working
which had been against the grain, gave him a distaste for any renewal of
the process, which turned his imagined project of quitting Cambridge into
a serious intention. In speaking of his intention to Meyrick he made it
appear that he was glad of the turn events had taken--glad to have the
balance dip decidedly, and feel freed from his hesitations; but he
observed that he must of course submit to any strong objection on the part
of Sir Hugo.
Meyrick's joy and gratitude were disturbed by much uneasiness. He believed
in Deronda's alleged preference, but he felt keenly that in serving him
Daniel had placed himself at a disadvantage in Sir Hugo's opinion, and he
said mournfully, "If you had got the scholarship, Sir Hugo would have
thought that you asked to leave us with a better grace. You have spoiled
your luck for my sake, and I can do nothing to amend it."
"Yes, you can; you are to be a first-rate fellow. I call that a first-rate
investment of my luck."
"Oh, confound it! You save an ugly mongrel from drowning, and expect him
to cut a fine figure. The poets have made tragedies enough about signing
one's self over to wickedness for the sake of getting something plummy; I
shall write a tragedy of a fellow who signed himself over to be good, and
was uncomfortable ever after."
But Hans lost no time in secretly writing the history of the affair to Sir
Hugo, making it plain that but for Deronda's generous devotion he could
hardly have failed to win the prize he had been working for.
The two friends went up to town together: Meyrick to rejoice with his
mother and the girls in their little home at Chelsea; Deronda to carry out
the less easy task of opening his mind to Sir Hugo. He relied a little on
the baronet's general tolerance of eccentricities, but he expected more
opposition than he met with. He was received with even warmer kindness
than usual, the failure was passed over lightly, and when he detailed his
reasons for wishing to quit the university and go to study abroad. Sir
Hugo sat for some time in a silence which was rather meditative than
surprised. At last he said, looking at Daniel with examination, "So you
don't want to be an Englishman to the backbone after all?"
"I want to be an Englishman, but I want to understand other points of
view. And I want to get rid of a merely English attitude in studies."
"I see; you don't want to be turned out in the same mould as every other
youngster. And I have nothing to say against your doffing some of our
national prejudices. I feel the better myself for having spent a good deal
of my time abroad. But, for God's sake, keep an English cut, and don't
become indifferent to bad tobacco! And, my dear boy, it is good to be
unselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. It will not do to
give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow-trade; you
must know where to find yourself. However, I shall put no vote on your
going. Wait until I can get off Committee, and I'll run over with you."
So Deronda went according to his will. But not before he had spent some
hours with Hans Meyrick, and been introduced to the mother and sisters in
the Chelsea home. The shy girls watched and registered every look of their
brother's friend, declared by Hans to have been the salvation of him, a
fellow like nobody else, and, in fine, a brick. They so thoroughly
accepted Deronda as an ideal, that when he was gone the youngest set to
work, under the criticism of the two elder girls, to paint him as Prince
Camaralzaman.
CHAPTER XVII.
"This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
--TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_.
On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on the
Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to England,
with the understanding that his education was finished, and that he was
somehow to take his place in English society; but though, in deference to
Sir Hugo's wish, and to fence off idleness, he had began to read law, this
apparent decision had been without other result than to deepen the roots
of indecision. His old love of boating had revived with the more force now
that he was in town with the Mallingers, because he could nowhere else get
the same still seclusion which the river gave him. He had a boat of his
own at Putney, and whenever Sir Hugo did not want him, it was his chief
holiday to row till past sunset and come in again with the stars. Not that
he was in a sentimental stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative
mood perhaps more common in the young men of our day--that of questioning
whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I
mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of
questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which
somebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a
splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be hampered
with ideas which, since they left an accomplished Whig like himself
unobstructed, could be no better than spectral illusions; especially as
Deronda set himself against authorship--a vocation which is understood to
turn foolish thinking into funds.
Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped,
his mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only disguised
traces of the seraphic boy "trailing clouds of glory." Still, even one who
had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at him with slow
recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze which Gwendolen
chose to call "dreadful," though it had really a very mild sort of
scrutiny. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches of song, had
turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at his lithe,
powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have been enough for
an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing tenor such as
nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his hands: they are
not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem to have only a
deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, firmly-grasping hands, such as
Titian has painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of
refinement with force. And there is something of a likeness, too, between
the faces belonging to the hands--in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the
perpendicular brow, the calmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer:
thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a
human dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations.
Such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a workman,
for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting his eyes to
answer our question about the road. And often the grand meanings of faces
as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the impressions that happen
just now to be of importance in relation to Deronda, rowing on the Thames
in a very ordinary equipment for a young Englishman at leisure, and
passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of an adventure in which his
appearance was likely to play any part. In fact, he objected very strongly
to the notion, which others had not allowed him to escape, that his
appearance was of a kind to draw attention; and hints of this, intended to
be complimentary, found an angry resonance in him, coming from mingled
experiences, to which a clue has already been given. His own face in the
glass had during many years associated for him with thoughts of some one
whom he must be like--one about whose character and lot he continually
wondered, and never dared to ask.
In the neighborhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o'clock, the
river was no solitude. Several persons were sauntering on the towing-path,
and here and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been rowing fast to get
over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great barge advancing toward
him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his oar within a couple of
yards of the river-brink. He was all the while unconsciously continuing
the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river
--the gondolier's song in the "Otello," where Rossini has worthily set to
music the immortal words of Dante--
"Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria":
[Footnote: Dante's words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines at
the head of the chapter.]
and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail
"nella miseria" was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three or
four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing the
bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman in the
boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal sounds came
with more significance than if they had been an insect-murmur amidst the
sum of current noises. Deronda, awaiting the barge, now turning his head
to the river-side, and saw at a few yards' distant from him a figure which
might have been an impersonation of the misery he was unconsciously giving
voice to: a girl hardly more than eighteen, of low slim figure, with most
delicate little face, her dark curls pushed behind her ears under a large
black hat, a long woolen cloak over her shoulders. Her hands were hanging
down clasped before her, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look
of immovable, statue-like despair. This strong arrest of his attention
made him cease singing: apparently his voice had entered her inner world
without her taking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased
she changed her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened
glance, met Deronda's face. It was but a couple of moments, but that
seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her
look was something like that of a fawn or other gentle animal before it
turns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity
which yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. In
fact, it seemed to Deronda that she was only half conscious of her
surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of
bewilderment? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her;
but the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring bench
under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her: poorly-dressed,
melancholy women are common sights; it was only the delicate beauty,
picturesque lines and color of the image that was exceptional, and these
conditions made it more markedly impossible that he should obtrude his
interest upon her. He began to row away and was soon far up the river; but
no other thoughts were busy enough quite to expel that pale image of
unhappy girlhood. He fell again and again to speculating on the probable
romance that lay behind that loneliness and look of desolation; then to
smile at his own share in the prejudice that interesting faces must have
interesting adventures; then to justify himself for feeling that sorrow
was the more tragic when it befell delicate, childlike beauty.
"I should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly and
vulgar," he said to himself. But there was no denying that the
attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was clear to him
as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with small,
small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over the girl-
tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as if they
were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless drag
wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the red
moment-hand of their own death. Deronda of late, in his solitary
excursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties about his own
course; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont to
have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that the new
image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed to him the
strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting into that
routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its wrong-doing,
and take opinions as mere professional equipment--why he should not draw
strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled scheme of things.
He used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken back
by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn passivity which
easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow light, when thinking
and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what in other hours may have
seemed argument takes the quality of passionate vision. By the time he had
come back again with the tide past Richmond Bridge the sun was near
setting: and the approach of his favorite hour--with its deepening
stillness and darkening masses of tree and building between the double
glow of the sky and the river--disposed him to linger as if they had been
an unfinished strain of music. He looked out for a perfectly solitary spot
where he could lodge his boat against the bank, and, throwing himself on
his back with his head propped on the cushions, could watch out the light
of sunset and the opening of that bead-roll which some oriental poet
describes as God's call to the little stars, who each answer, "Here am I."
He chose a spot in the bend of the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where
he had a great breadth of water before him reflecting the glory of the
sky, while he himself was in shadow. He lay with his hands behind his
head, propped on a level with the boat's edge, so that he could see all
round him, but could not be seen by any one at a few yards' distance; and
for a long while he never turned his eyes from the view right in front of
him. He was forgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-
involuntary identification of himself with the objects he was looking at,
thinking how far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till
his own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape--when
the sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was
bordered by a line of willow bushes, made him turn his glance thitherward.
In the first moment he had a darting presentiment about the moving figure;
and now he could see the small face with the strange dying sunlight upon
it. He feared to frighten her by a sudden movement, and watched her with
motionless attention. She looked round, but seemed only to gather security
from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among the willows, and immediately
took off her woolen cloak. Presently she seated herself and deliberately
dipped the cloak in the water, holding it there a little while, then
taking it out with effort, rising from her seat as she did so. By this
time Deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a
drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening
her. He rose and seized his oar to ply across; happily her position lay a
little below him. The poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of
discovery from the opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding
her cloak half out of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if
she kept a faint hope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was
accidentally coming toward her. But soon he was within brief space of her,
steadying his boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently--
"Don't be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can do
to help you."
She raised her head and looked up at him. His face now was toward the
light, and she knew it again. But she did not speak for a few moments
which were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. At last she said
in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested
foreignness and yet was not foreign, "I saw you before," and then added
dreamily, after a like pause, "nella miseria."
Deronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed that
her mind was weakened by distress and hunger.
"It was you, singing?" she went on, hesitatingly--"Nessun maggior dolore."
The mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones seemed to give
the melody to Deronda's ear.
"Ah, yes," he said, understanding now, "I am often singing them. But I
fear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me take you in my
boat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak--let me take it."
He would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he should
scare her. Even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and clutched the
cloak more tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him with a question in
them as she said, "You look good. Perhaps it is God's command."
"Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm come
to you."
She rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak and
then letting it fall on the ground--it was too heavy for her tired arms.
Her little woman's figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands together
one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward while she
leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face, was
unspeakably touching.
"Great God!" the words escaped Deronda in a tone so low and solemn that
they seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. The agitating
impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that lay
close to his deepest interest in the fates of women--"perhaps my mother
was like this one." The old thought had come now with a new impetus of
mingled feeling, and urged that exclamation in which both East and West
have for ages concentrated their awe in the presence of inexorable
calamity.
The low-toned words seemed to have some reassurance in them for the
hearer: she stepped forward close to the boat's side, and Deronda put out
his hand, hoping now that she would let him help her in. She had already
put her tiny hand into his which closed around it, when some new thought
struck her, and drawing back she said--
"I have nowhere to go--nobody belonging to me in all this land."
"I will take you to a lady who has daughters," said Deronda, immediately.
He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched home and cruel
friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in the near
background. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly than ever--
"Do you belong to the theatre?"
"No; I have nothing to do with the theatre," said Deronda, in a decided
tone. Then beseechingly, "I will put you in perfect safety at once; with a
lady, a good woman; I am sure she will be kind. Let us lose no time: you
will make yourself ill. Life may still become sweet to you. There are good
people--there are good women who will take care of you."
She drew backward no more, but stepped in easily, as if she were used to
such action, and sat down on the cushions.
"You had a covering for your head," said Deronda.
"My hat?" (She lifted up her hands to her head.) "It is quite hidden in
the bush."
"I will find it," said Deronda, putting out his hand deprecatingly as she
attempted to rise. "The boat is fixed."
He jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak, wringing
it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat.
"We must carry the cloak away, to prevent any one who may have noticed you
from thinking you have been drowned," he said, cheerfully, as he got in
again and presented the old hat to her. "I wish I had any other garment
than my coat to offer you. But shall you mind throwing it over your
shoulders while we are on the water? It is quite an ordinary thing to do,
when people return late and are not enough provided with wraps." He held
out the coat toward her with a smile, and there came a faint melancholy
smile in answer, as she took it and put it on very cleverly.
"I have some biscuits--should you like them?" said Deronda.
"No; I cannot eat. I had still some money left to buy bread."
He began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along
swiftly for many minutes without speaking. She did not look at him, but
was watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if she
were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the prospect of
life instead of death. The twilight was deepening; the red flush was all
gone and the little stars were giving their answer one after another. The
moon was rising, but was still entangled among the trees and buildings.
The light was not such that he could distinctly discern the expression of
her features or her glance, but they were distinctly before him
nevertheless--features and a glance which seemed to have given a fuller
meaning for him to the human face. Among his anxieties one was dominant:
his first impression about her, that her mind might be disordered, had not
been quite dissipated: the project of suicide was unmistakable, and given
a deeper color to every other suspicious sign. He longed to begin a
conversation, but abstained, wishing to encourage the confidence that
might induce her to speak first. At last she did speak.
"I like to listen to the oar."
"So do I."
"If you had not come, I should have been dead now."
"I cannot bear you to speak of that. I hope you will never be sorry that I
came."
"I cannot see how I shall be glad to live. The _maggior dolore_ and the
_miseria_ have lasted longer than the _tempo felice_." She paused and then
went on dreamily,--"_Dolore--miseria_--I think those words are alive."
Deronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he
shrank from appearing to claim the authority of a benefactor, or to treat
her with the less reverence because she was in distress. She went on
musingly--
"I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the Eternal. I
know our fathers slew their children and then slew themselves, to keep
their souls pure. I meant it so. But now I am commanded to live. I cannot
see how I shall live."
"You will find friends. I will find them for you."
She shook her head and said mournfully, "Not my mother and brother. I
cannot find them."
"You are English? You must be--speaking English so perfectly."
She did not answer immediately, but looked at Deronda again, straining to
see him in the double light. Until now she had been watching the oar. It
seemed as if she were half roused, and wondered which part of her
impression was dreaming and which waking. Sorrowful isolation had benumbed
her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward and inward
was continually slipping away from her. Her look was full of wondering
timidity such as the forsaken one in the desert might have lifted to the
angelic vision before she knew whether his message was in anger or in
pity.
"You want to know if I am English?" she said at last, while Deronda was
reddening nervously under a gaze which he felt more fully than he saw.
"I want to know nothing except what you like to tell me," he said, still
uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. "Perhaps it is not good
for you to talk."
"Yes, I will tell you. I am English-born. But I am a Jewess."
Deronda was silent, inwardly wondering that he had not said this to
himself before, though any one who had seen delicate-faced Spanish girls
might simply have guessed her to be Spanish.
"Do you despise me for it?" she said presently in low tones, which had a
sadness that pierced like a cry from a small dumb creature in fear.
"Why should I?" said Deronda. "I am not so foolish."
"I know many Jews are bad."
"So are many Christians. But I should not think it fair for you to despise
me because of that."
"My mother and brother were good. But I shall never find them. I am come a
long way--from abroad. I ran away; but I cannot tell you--I cannot speak
of it. I thought I might find my mother again--God would guide me. But
then I despaired. This morning when the light came, I felt as if one word
kept sounding within me--Never! never! But now--I begin--to think--" her
words were broken by rising sobs--"I am commanded to live--perhaps we are
going to her."
With an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. He hoped
that this passionate weeping might relieve her excitement. Meanwhile he
was inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present himself
with her in Park Lane--the course which he had at first unreflectingly
determined on. No one kinder and more gentle than Lady Mallinger; but it
was hardly probable that she would be at home; and he had a shuddering
sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful image of womanhood--
of glaring lights and fine staircases, and perhaps chilling suspicious
manners from lady's maid and housekeeper, that might scare the mind
already in a state of dangerous susceptibility. But to take her to any
other shelter than a home already known to him was not to be contemplated:
he was full of fears about the issue of the adventure which had brought on
him a responsibility all the heavier for the strong and agitating
impression this childlike creature had made on him. But another resource
came to mind: he could venture to take her to Mrs. Meyrick's--to the small
house at Chelsea--where he had been often enough since his return from
abroad to feel sure that he could appeal there to generous hearts, which
had a romantic readiness to believe in innocent need and to help it. Hans
Meyrick was safe away in Italy, and Deronda felt the comfort of presenting
himself with his charge at a house where he would be met by a motherly
figure of quakerish neatness, and three girls who hardly knew of any evil
closer to them than what lay in history-books, and dramas, and would at
once associate a lovely Jewess with Rebecca in "Ivanhoe," besides thinking
that everything they did at Deronda's request would be done for their
idol, Hans. The vision of the Chelsea home once raised, Deronda no longer
hesitated.
The rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed
long. Happily his charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and
submitted like a tired child. When they were in the cab, she laid down her
hat and tried to rest her head, but the jolting movement would not let it
rest. Still she dozed, and her sweet head hung helpless, first on one
side, then on the other.
"They are too good to have any fear about taking her in," thought Deronda.
Her person, her voice, her exquisite utterance, were one strong appeal to
belief and tenderness. Yet what had been the history which had brought her
to this desolation? He was going on a strange errand--to ask shelter for
this waif. Then there occurred to him the beautiful story Plutarch
somewhere tells of the Delphic women: how when the Maenads, outworn with
their torch-lit wanderings, lay down to sleep in the market-place, the
matrons came and stood silently round them to keep guard over their
slumbers; then, when they waked, ministered to them tenderly and saw them
safely to their own borders. He could trust the women he was going to for
having hearts as good.
Deronda felt himself growing older this evening and entering on a new
phase in finding a life to which his own had come--perhaps as a rescue;
but how to make sure that snatching from death was rescue? The moment of
finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation
as the moment of finding an idea.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Life is a various mother: now she dons
Her plumes and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs
With head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes
On lackeys who attend her; now she dwells
Grim-clad, up darksome allyes, breathes hot gin,
And screams in pauper riot.
But to these
She came a frugal matron, neat and deft,
With cheerful morning thoughts and quick device
To find the much in little.
Mrs. Meyrick's house was not noisy: the front parlor looked on the river,
and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to her
daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the small
double room where a lamp and two candles were burning. The candles were on
a table apart for Kate, who was drawing illustrations for a publisher; the
lamp was not only for the reader but for Amy and Mab, who were
embroidering satin cushions for "the great world."
Outside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light through
the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame; but it is
pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space in our foggy
London have been and still are the homes of a culture the more spotlessly
free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered everything like display
an impersonal question, and all the grand shows of the world simply a
spectacle which rouses petty rivalry or vain effort after possession.
The Meyricks' was a home of that kind: and they all clung to this
particular house in a row because its interior was filled with objects
always in the same places, which, for the mother held memories of her
marriage time, and for the young ones seemed as necessary and uncriticised
a part of their world as the stars of the Great Bear seen from the back
windows. Mrs. Meyrick had borne much stint of other matters that she might
be able to keep some engravings specially cherished by her husband; and
the narrow spaces of wall held a world history in scenes and heads which
the children had early learned by heart. The chairs and tables were also
old friends preferred to new. But in these two little parlors with no
furniture that a broker would have cared to cheapen except the prints and
piano, there was space and apparatus for a wide-glancing, nicely-select
life, opened to the highest things in music, painting and poetry. I am not
sure that in the times of greatest scarcity, before Kate could get paid-
work, these ladies had always had a servant to light their fires and sweep
their rooms; yet they were fastidious in some points, and could not
believe that the manners of ladies in the fashionable world were so full
of coarse selfishness, petty quarreling, and slang as they are represented
to be in what are called literary photographs. The Meyricks had their
little oddities, streaks of eccentricity from the mother's blood as well
as the father's, their minds being like mediaval houses with unexpected
recesses and openings from this into that, flights of steps and sudden
outlooks.
But mother and daughters were all united by a triple bond--family love;
admiration for the finest work, the best action; and habitual industry.
Hans' desire to spend some of his money in making their lives more
luxurious had been resisted by all of them, and both they and he had been
thus saved from regrets at the threatened triumphs of his yearning for art
over the attractions of secured income--a triumph that would by-and-by
oblige him to give up his fellowship. They could all afford to laugh at
his Gavarni-caricatures and to hold him blameless in following a natural
bent which their unselfishness and independence had left without obstacle.
It was enough for them to go on in their old way, only having a grand
treat of opera-going (to the gallery) when Hans came home on a visit.
Seeing the group they made this evening, one could hardly wish them to
change their way of life. They were all alike small, and so in due
proportion to their miniature rooms. Mrs. Meyrick was reading aloud from a
French book; she was a lively little woman, half French, half Scotch, with
a pretty articulateness of speech that seemed to make daylight in her
hearer's understanding. Though she was not yet fifty, her rippling hair,
covered by a quakerish net cap, was chiefly gray, but her eyebrows were
brown as the bright eyes below them; her black dress, almost like a
priest's cassock with its rows of buttons, suited a neat figure hardly
five feet high. The daughters were to match the mother, except that Mab
had Hans' light hair and complexion, with a bossy, irregular brow, and
other quaintnesses that reminded one of him. Everything about them was
compact, from the firm coils of their hair, fastened back _a la Chinoise_,
to their gray skirts in Puritan nonconformity with the fashion, which at
that time would have demanded that four feminine circumferences should
fill all the free space in the front parlor. All four, if they had been
wax-work, might have been packed easily in a fashionable lady's traveling
trunk. Their faces seemed full of speech, as if their minds had been
shelled, after the manner of horse-chestnuts, and become brightly visible.
The only large thing of its kind in the room was Hafiz, the Persian cat,
comfortably poised on the brown leather back of a chair, and opening his
large eyes now and then to see that the lower animals were not in any
mischief.
The book Mrs. Meyrick had before her was Erckmann-Chatrian's _Historie
d'un Conscrit_. She had just finished reading it aloud, and Mab, who had
let her work fall on the ground while she stretched her head forward and
fixed her eyes on the reader, exclaimed--
"I think that is the finest story in the world."
"Of course, Mab!" said Amy, "it is the last you have heard. Everything
that pleases you is the best in its turn."
"It is hardly to be called a story," said Kate. "It is a bit of history
brought near us with a strong telescope. We can see the soldiers' faces:
no, it is more than that--we can hear everything--we can almost hear their
hearts beat."
"I don't care what you call it," said Mab, flirting away her thimble.
"Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something good,
something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me like
Schiller--I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. I must kiss you
instead, little mother?" She threw her arms round her mother's neck.
"Whenever you are in that mood, Mab, down goes your work," said Amy. "It
would be doing something good to finish your cushion without soiling it."
"Oh--oh--oh!" groaned Mab, as she stooped to pick up her work and thimble.
"I wish I had three wounded conscripts to take care of."
"You would spill their beef-tea while you were talking," said Amy.
"Poor Mab! don't be hard on her," said the mother. "Give me the embroidery
now, child. You go on with your enthusiasm, and I will go on with the pink
and white poppy."
"Well, ma, I think you are more caustic than Amy," said Kate, while she
drew her head back to look at her drawing.
"Oh--oh--oh!" cried Mab again, rising and stretching her arms. "I wish
something wonderful would happen. I feel like the deluge. The waters of
the great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened. I must
sit down and play the scales."
Mab was opening the piano while the others were laughing at this climax,
when a cab stopped before the house, and there forthwith came a quick rap
of the knocker.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Meyrick, starting up, "it is after ten, and Phoebe is
gone to bed." She hastened out, leaving the parlor door open.
"Mr. Deronda!" The girls could hear this exclamation from their mamma. Mab
clasped her hands, saying in a loud whisper, "There now! something _is_
going to happen." Kate and Amy gave up their work in amazement. But
Deronda's tone in reply was so low that they could not hear his words, and
Mrs. Meyrick immediately closed the parlor door.
"I know I am trusting to your goodness in a most extraordinary way,"
Deronda went on, after giving his brief narrative; "but you can imagine
how helpless I feel with a young creature like this on my hands. I could
not go with her among strangers, and in her nervous state I should dread
taking her into a house full of servants. I have trusted to your mercy. I
hope you will not think my act unwarrantable."
"On the contrary. You have honored me by trusting me. I see your
difficulty. Pray bring her in. I will go and prepare the girls."
While Deronda went back to the cab, Mrs. Meyrick turned into the parlor
again and said: "Here is somebody to take care of instead of your wounded
conscripts, Mab: a poor girl who was going to drown herself in despair.
Mr. Deronda found her only just in time to save her. He brought her along
in his boat, and did not know what else it would be safe to do with her,
so he has trusted us and brought her here. It seems she is a Jewess, but
quite refined, he says--knowing Italian and music."
The three girls, wondering and expectant, came forward and stood near each
other in mute confidence that they were all feeling alike under this
appeal to their compassion. Mab looked rather awe-stricken, as if this
answer to her wish were something preternatural.
Meanwhile Deronda going to the door of the cab where the pale face was now
gazing out with roused observation, said, "I have brought you to some of
the kindest people in the world: there are daughters like you. It is a
happy home. Will you let me take you to them?"
She stepped out obediently, putting her hand in his and forgetting her
hat; and when Deronda led her into the full light of the parlor where the
four little women stood awaiting her, she made a picture that would have
stirred much duller sensibilities than theirs. At first she was a little
dazed by the sudden light, and before she had concentrated her glance he
had put her hand into the mother's. He was inwardly rejoicing that the
Meyricks were so small: the dark-curled head was the highest among them.
The poor wanderer could not be afraid of these gentle faces so near hers:
and now she was looking at each of them in turn while the mother said,
"You must be weary, poor child."
"We will take care of you--we will comfort you--we will love you," cried
Mab, no longer able to restrain herself, and taking the small right hand
caressingly between both her own. This gentle welcoming warmth was
penetrating the bewildered one: she hung back just enough to see better
the four faces in front of her, whose good will was being reflected in
hers, not in any smile, but in that undefinable change which tells us that
anxiety is passing in contentment. For an instant she looked up at
Deronda, as if she were referring all this mercy to him, and then again
turning to Mrs. Meyrick, said with more collectedness in her sweet tones
than he had heard before--
"I am a stranger. I am a Jewess. You might have thought I was wicked."
"No, we are sure you are good," burst out Mab.
"We think no evil of you, poor child. You shall be safe with us," said
Mrs. Meyrick. "Come now and sit down. You must have some food, and then
you must go to rest."
The stranger looked up again at Deronda, who said--
"You will have no more fears with these friends? You will rest to-night?"
"Oh, I should not fear. I should rest. I think these are the ministering
angels."
Mrs. Meyrick wanted to lead her to seat, but again hanging back gently,
the poor weary thing spoke as if with a scruple at being received without
a further account of herself.
"My name is Mirah Lapidoth. I am come a long way, all the way from Prague
by myself. I made my escape. I ran away from dreadful things. I came to
find my mother and brother in London. I had been taken from my mother when
I was little, but I thought I could find her again. I had trouble--the
houses were all gone--I could not find her. It has been a long while, and
I had not much money. That is why I am in distress."
"Our mother will be good to you," cried Mab. "See what a nice little
mother she is!"
"Do sit down now," said Kate, moving a chair forward, while Amy ran to get
some tea.
Mirah resisted no longer, but seated herself with perfect grace, crossing
her little feet, laying her hands one over the other on her lap, and
looking at her friends with placid reverence; whereupon Hafiz, who had
been watching the scene restlessly came forward with tail erect and rubbed
himself against her ankles. Deronda felt it time to go.
"Will you allow me to come again and inquire--perhaps at five to-morrow?"
he said to Mrs. Meyrick.
"Yes, pray; we shall have had time to make acquaintance then."
"Good-bye," said Deronda, looking down at Mirah, and putting out his hand.
She rose as she took it, and the moment brought back to them both strongly
the other moment when she had first taken that outstretched hand. She
lifted her eyes to his and said with reverential fervor, "The God of our
fathers bless you and deliver you from all evil as you have delivered me.
I did not believe there was any man so good. None before have thought me
worthy of the best. You found me poor and miserable, yet you have given me
the best."
Deronda could not speak, but with silent adieux to the Meyricks, hurried
away.
BOOK III--MAIDENS CHOOSING.
CHAPTER XIX.
"I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say, 'Tis
all barren': and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not
cultivate the fruits it offers."--STERNE: _Sentimental Journey_.
To say that Deronda was romantic would be to misrepresent him; but under
his calm and somewhat self-repressed exterior there was a fervor which
made him easily find poetry and romance among the events of every-day
life. And perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever in the world
except for those phlegmatic natures who I suspect would in any age have
regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. They exist very easily
in the same room with the microscope and even in railway carriages: what
banishes them in the vacuum in gentlemen and lady passengers. How should
all the apparatus of heaven and earth, from the farthest firmament to the
tender bosom of the mother who nourished us, make poetry for a mind that
had no movements of awe and tenderness, no sense of fellowship which
thrills from the near to the distant, and back again from the distant to
the near?
To Deronda this event of finding Mirah was as heart-stirring as anything
that befell Orestes or Rinaldo. He sat up half the night, living again
through the moments since he had first discerned Mirah on the river-brink,
with the fresh and fresh vividness which belongs to emotive memory. When
he took up a book to try and dull this urgency of inward vision, the
printed words were no more than a network through which he saw and heard
everything as clearly as before--saw not only the actual events of two
hours, but possibilities of what had been and what might be which those
events were enough to feed with the warm blood of passionate hope and
fear. Something in his own experience caused Mirah's search after her
mother to lay hold with peculiar force on his imagination. The first
prompting of sympathy was to aid her in her search: if given persons were
extant in London there were ways of finding them, as subtle as scientific
experiment, the right machinery being set at work. But here the mixed
feelings which belonged to Deronda's kindred experience naturally
transfused themselves into his anxiety on behalf of Mirah.
The desire to know his own mother, or to know about her, was constantly
haunted with dread; and in imagining what might befall Mirah it quickly
occurred to him that finding the mother and brother from whom she had been
parted when she was a little one might turn out to be a calamity. When she
was in the boat she said that her mother and brother were good; but the
goodness might have been chiefly in her own ignorant innocence and
yearning memory, and the ten or twelve years since the parting had been
time enough for much worsening. Spite of his strong tendency to side with
the objects of prejudice, and in general with those who got the worst of
it, his interest had never been practically drawn toward existing Jews,
and the facts he knew about them, whether they walked conspicuous in fine
apparel or lurked in by-streets, were chiefly of a sort most repugnant to
him. Of learned and accomplished Jews he took it for granted that they had
dropped their religion, and wished to be merged in the people of their
native lands. Scorn flung at a Jew as such would have roused all his
sympathy in griefs of inheritance; but the indiscriminate scorn of a race
will often strike a specimen who has well earned it on his own account,
and might fairly be gibbeted as a rascally son of Adam. It appears that
the Caribs, who know little of theology, regard thieving as a practice
peculiarly connected with Christian tenets, and probably they could allege
experimental grounds for this opinion. Deronda could not escape (who can?)
knowing ugly stories of Jewish characteristics and occupations; and though
one of his favorite protests was against the severance of past and present
history, he was like others who shared his protest, in never having cared
to reach any more special conclusions about actual Jews than that they
retained the virtues and vices of a long-oppressed race. But now that
Mirah's longing roused his mind to a closer survey of details, very
disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might be to find out this
middle-aged Jewess and her son. To be sure, there was the exquisite
refinement and charm of the creature herself to make a presumption in
favor of her immediate kindred, but--he must wait to know more: perhaps
through Mrs. Meyrick he might gather some guiding hints from Mirah's own
lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks--all the sweet purity that clothed
her as with a consecrating garment made him shrink the more from giving
her, either ideally or practically, an association with what was hateful
or contaminating. But these fine words with which we fumigate and becloud
unpleasant facts are not the language in which we think. Deronda's
thinking went on in rapid images of what might be: he saw himself guided
by some official scout into a dingy street; he entered through a dim
doorway, and saw a hawk-eyed woman, rough-headed, and unwashed, cheapening
a hungry girl's last bit of finery; or in some quarter only the more
hideous for being smarter, he found himself under the breath of a young
Jew talkative and familiar, willing to show his acquaintance with
gentlemen's tastes, and not fastidious in any transactions with which they
would favor him--and so on through the brief chapter of his experience in
this kind. Excuse him: his mind was not apt to run spontaneously into
insulting ideas, or to practice a form of wit which identifies Moses with
the advertisement sheet; but he was just now governed by dread, and if
Mirah's parents had been Christian, the chief difference would have been
that his forebodings would have been fed with wider knowledge. It was the
habit of his mind to connect dread with unknown parentage, and in this
case as well as his own there was enough to make the connection
reasonable.
But what was to be done with Mirah? She needed shelter and protection in
the fullest sense, and all his chivalrous sentiment roused itself to
insist that the sooner and the more fully he could engage for her the
interest of others besides himself, the better he should fulfill her
claims on him. He had no right to provide for her entirely, though he
might be able to do so; the very depth of the impression she had produced
made him desire that she should understand herself to be entirely
independent of him; and vague visions of the future which he tried to
dispel as fantastic left their influence in an anxiety stronger than any
motive he could give for it, that those who saw his actions closely should
be acquainted from the first with the history of his relation to Mirah. He
had learned to hate secrecy about the grand ties and obligations of his
life--to hate it the more because a strong spell of interwoven
sensibilities hindered him from breaking such secrecy. Deronda had made a
vow to himself that--since the truths which disgrace mortals are not all
of their own making--the truth should never be made a disgrace to another
by his act. He was not without terror lest he should break this vow, and
fall into the apologetic philosophy which explains the world into
containing nothing better than one's own conduct.
At one moment he resolved to tell the whole of his adventure to Sir Hugo
and Lady Mallinger the next morning at breakfast, but the possibility that
something quite new might reveal itself on his next visit to Mrs.
Meyrick's checked this impulse, and he finally went to sleep on the
conclusion that he would wait until that visit had been made.
CHAPTER XX.
"It will hardly be denied that even in this frail and corrupted world,
we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well
as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a signature and stamp of
virtue, as to make our judgment of them a matter of intuition rather
than the result of continued examination."--ALEXANDER KNOX: quoted in
Southey's Life of Wesley.
Mirah said that she had slept well that night; and when she came down in
Mab's black dress, her dark hair curling in fresh fibrils as it gradually
dried from its plenteous bath, she looked like one who was beginning to
take comfort after the long sorrow and watching which had paled her cheek
and made blue semicircles under her eyes. It was Mab who carried her
breakfast and ushered her down--with some pride in the effect produced by
a pair of tiny felt slippers which she had rushed out to buy because there
were no shoes in the house small enough for Mirah, whose borrowed dress
ceased about her ankles and displayed the cheap clothing that, moulding
itself on her feet, seemed an adornment as choice as the sheaths of buds.
The farthing buckles were bijoux.
"Oh, if you please, mamma?" cried Mab, clasping her hands and stooping
toward Mirah's feet, as she entered the parlor; "look at the slippers, how
beautiful they fit! I declare she is like the Queen Budoor--' two delicate
feet, the work of the protecting and all-recompensing Creator, support
her; and I wonder how they can sustain what is above them.'"
Mirah looked down at her own feet in a childlike way and then smiled at
Mrs. Meyrick, who was saying inwardly, "One could hardly imagine this
creature having an evil thought. But wise people would tell me to be
cautious." She returned Mirah's smile and said, "I fear the feet have had
to sustain their burden a little too often lately. But to-day she will
rest and be my companion."
"And she will tell you so many things and I shall not hear them," grumbled
Mab, who felt herself in the first volume of a delightful romance and
obliged to miss some chapters because she had to go to pupils.
Kate was already gone to make sketches along the river, and Amy was away
on business errands. It was what the mother wished, to be alone with this
stranger, whose story must be a sorrowful one, yet was needful to be told.
The small front parlor was as good as a temple that morning. The sunlight
was on the river and soft air came in through the open window; the walls
showed a glorious silent cloud of witnesses--the Virgin soaring amid her
cherubic escort; grand Melancholia with her solemn universe; the Prophets
and Sibyls; the School of Athens; the Last Supper; mystic groups where
far-off ages made one moment; grave Holbein and Rembrandt heads; the
Tragic Muse; last-century children at their musings or their play; Italian
poets--all were there through the medium of a little black and white. The
neat mother who had weathered her troubles, and come out of them with a
face still cheerful, was sorting colored wools for her embroidery. Hafiz
purred on the window-ledge, the clock on the mantle-piece ticked without
hurry, and the occasional sound of wheels seemed to lie outside the more
massive central quiet. Mrs. Meyrick thought that this quiet might be the
best invitation to speech on the part of her companion, and chose not to
disturb it by remark. Mirah sat opposite in her former attitude, her hands
clasped on her lap, her ankles crossed, her eyes at first traveling slowly
over the objects around her, but finally resting with a sort of placid
reverence on Mrs. Meyrick. At length she began to speak softly.
"I remember my mother's face better than anything; yet I was not seven
when I was taken away, and I am nineteen now."
"I can understand that," said Mrs. Meyrick. "There are some earliest
things that last the longest."
"Oh, yes, it was the earliest. I think my life began with waking up and
loving my mother's face: it was so near to me, and her arms were round me,
and she sang to me. One hymn she sang so often, so often: and then she
taught me to sing it with her: it was the first I ever sang. They were
always Hebrew hymns she sang; and because I never knew the meaning of the
words they seemed full of nothing but our love and happiness. When I lay
in my little bed and it was all white above me, she used to bend over me,
between me and the white, and sing in a sweet, low voice. I can dream
myself back into that time when I am awake, and it often comes back to me
in my sleep--my hand is very little, I put it up to her face and she
kisses it. Sometimes in my dreams I begin to tremble and think that we are
both dead; but then I wake up and my hand lies like this, and for a moment
I hardly know myself. But if I could see my mother again I should know
her."
"You must expect some change after twelve years," said Mrs. Meyrick,
gently. "See my grey hair: ten years ago it was bright brown. The days and
months pace over us like restless little birds, and leave the marks of
their feet backward and forward; especially when they are like birds with
heavy hearts-then they tread heavily."
"Ah, I am sure her heart has been heavy for want of me. But to feel her
joy if we could meet again, and I could make her know I love her and give
her deep comfort after all her mourning! If that could be, I should mind
nothing; I should be glad that I have lived through my trouble. I did
despair. The world seemed miserable and wicked; none helped me so that I
could bear their looks and words; I felt that my mother was dead, and
death was the only way to her. But then in the last moment--yesterday,
when I longed for the water to close over me--and I thought that death was
the best image of mercy--then goodness came to me living, and I felt trust
in the living. And--it is strange--but I began to hope that she was living
too. And now I with you--here--this morning, peace and hope have come into
me like a flood. I want nothing; I can wait; because I hope and believe
and am grateful--oh, so grateful! You have not thought evil of me--you
have not despised me."
Mirah spoke with low-toned fervor, and sat as still as a picture all the
while.
"Many others would have felt as we do, my dear," said Mrs. Meyrick,
feeling a mist come over her eyes as she looked at her work.
"But I did not meet them--they did not come to me."
"How was it that you were taken from your mother?"
"Ah, I am a long while coming to that. It is dreadful to speak of, yet I
must tell you--I must tell you everything. My father--it was he that took
me away. I thought we were only going on a little journey; and I was
pleased. There was a box with all my little things in. But we went on
board a ship, and got farther and farther away from the land. Then I was
ill; and I thought it would never end--it was the first misery, and it
seemed endless. But at last we landed. I knew nothing then, and believed
what my father said. He comforted me, and told me I should go back to my
mother. But it was America we had reached, and it was long years before we
came back to Europe. At first I often asked my father when we were going
back; and I tried to learn writing fast, because I wanted to write to my
mother; but one day when he found me trying to write a letter, he took me
on his knee and told me that my mother and brother were dead; that was why
we did not go back. I remember my brother a little; he carried me once;
but he was not always at home. I believed my father when he said that they
were dead. I saw them under the earth when he said they were there, with
their eyes forever closed. I never thought of its not being true; and I
used to cry every night in my bed for a long while. Then when she came so
often to me, in my sleep, I thought she must be living about me though I
could not always see her, and that comforted me. I was never afraid in the
dark, because of that; and very often in the day I used to shut my eyes
and bury my face and try to see her and to hear her singing. I came to do
that at last without shutting my eyes."
Mirah paused with a sweet content in her face, as if she were having her
happy vision, while she looked out toward the river.
"Still your father was not unkind to you, I hope," said Mrs. Meyrick,
after a minute, anxious to recall her.
"No; he petted me, and took pains to teach me. He was an actor; and I
found out, after, that the 'Coburg' I used to hear of his going to at home
was a theatre. But he had more to do with the theatre than acting. He had
not always been an actor; he had been a teacher, and knew many languages.
His acting was not very good; I think, but he managed the stage, and wrote
and translated plays. An Italian lady, a singer, lived with us a long
time. They both taught me, and I had a master besides, who made me learn
by heart and recite. I worked quite hard, though I was so little; and I
was not nine when I first went on the stage. I could easily learn things,
and I was not afraid. But then and ever since I hated our way of life. My
father had money, and we had finery about us in a disorderly way; always
there were men and women coming and going; there was loud laughing and
disputing, strutting, snapping of fingers, jeering, faces I did not like
to look at--though many petted and caressed me. But then I remembered my
mother. Even at first when I understood nothing, I shrank away from all
those things outside me into companionship with thoughts that were not
like them; and I gathered thoughts very fast, because I read many things--
plays and poetry, Shakespeare and Schiller, and learned evil and good. My
father began to believe that I might be a great singer: my voice was
considered wonderful for a child; and he had the best teaching for me. But
it was painful that he boasted of me, and set me to sing for show at any
minute, as if I had been a musical box. Once when I was nine years old, I
played the part of a little girl who had been forsaken and did not know
it, and sat singing to herself while she played with flowers. I did it
without any trouble; but the clapping and all the sounds of the theatre
were hateful to me; and I never liked the praise I had, because it all
seemed very hard and unloving: I missed the love and trust I had been born
into. I made a life in my own thoughts quite different from everything
about me: I chose what seemed to me beautiful out of the plays and
everything, and made my world out of it; and it was like a sharp knife
always grazing me that we had two sorts of life which jarred so with each
other--women looking good and gentle on the stage, and saying good things
as if they felt them, and directly after I saw them with coarse, ugly
manners. My father sometimes noticed my shrinking ways; and Signora said
one day, when I had been rehearsing, 'She will never be an artist: she has
no notion of being anybody but herself. That does very well now, but by-
and-by you will see--she will have no more face and action than a singing-
bird.' My father was angry, and they quarreled. I sat alone and cried,
because what she had said was like a long unhappy future unrolled before
me. I did not want to be an artist; but this was what my father expected
of me. After a while Signora left us, and a governess used to come and
give me lessons in different things, because my father began to be afraid
of my singing too much; but I still acted from time to time. Rebellious
feelings grew stronger in me, and I wished to get away from this life; but
I could not tell where to go, and I dreaded the world. Besides, I felt it
would be wrong to leave my father: I dreaded doing wrong, for I thought I
might get wicked and hateful to myself, in the same way that many others
seemed hateful to me. For so long, so long I had never felt my outside
world happy; and if I got wicked I should lose my world of happy thoughts
where my mother lived with me. That was my childish notion all through
those years. Oh how long they were!"
Mirah fell to musing again.
"Had you no teaching about what was your duty?" said Mrs. Meyrick. She did
not like to say "religion"--finding herself on inspection rather dim as to
what the Hebrew religion might have turned into at this date.
"No--only that I ought to do what my father wished. He did not follow our
religion at New York, and I think he wanted me not to know much about it.
But because my mother used to take me to the synagogue, and I remembered
sitting on her knee and looking through the railing and hearing the
chanting and singing, I longed to go. One day when I was quite small I
slipped out and tried to find the synagogue, but I lost myself a long
while till a peddler questioned me and took me home. My father, missing
me, had been much in fear, and was very angry. I too had been so
frightened at losing myself that it was long before I thought of venturing
out again. But after Signora left us we went to rooms where our landlady
was a Jewess and observed her religion. I asked her to take me with her to
the synagogue; and I read in her prayer-books and Bible, and when I had
money enough I asked her to buy me books of my own, for these books seemed
a closer companionship with my mother: I knew that she must have looked at
the very words and said them. In that way I have come to know a little of
our religion, and the history of our people, besides piecing together what
I read in plays and other books about Jews and Jewesses; because I was
sure my mother obeyed her religion. I had left off asking my father about
her. It is very dreadful to say it, but I began to disbelieve him. I had
found that he did not always tell the truth, and made promises without
meaning to keep them; and that raised my suspicion that my mother and
brother were still alive though he had told me they were dead. For in
going over the past again as I got older and knew more, I felt sure that
my mother had been deceived, and had expected to see us back again after a
very little while; and my father taking me on his knee and telling me that
my mother and brother were both dead seemed to me now but a bit of acting,
to set my mind at rest. The cruelty of that falsehood sank into me, and I
hated all untruth because of it. I wrote to my mother secretly: I knew the
street, Colman Street, where we lived, and that it was not Blackfriars
Bridge and the Coburg, and that our name was Cohen then, though my father
called us Lapidoth, because, he said, it was a name of his forefathers in
Poland. I sent my letter secretly; but no answer came, and I thought there
was no hope for me. Our life in America did not last much longer. My
father suddenly told me we were to pack up and go to Hamburg, and I was
rather glad. I hoped we might get among a different sort of people, and I
knew German quite well--some German plays almost all by heart. My father
spoke it better than he spoke English. I was thirteen then, and I seemed
to myself quite old--I knew so much, and yet so little. I think other
children cannot feel as I did. I had often wished that I had been drowned
when I was going away from my mother. But I set myself to obey and suffer:
what else could I do? One day when we were on our voyage, a new thought
came into my mind. I was not very ill that time, and I kept on deck a good
deal. My father acted and sang and joked to amuse people on board, and I
used often to hear remarks about him. One day, when I was looking at the
sea and nobody took notice of me, I overheard a gentleman say, 'Oh, he is
one of those clever Jews--a rascal, I shouldn't wonder. There's no race
like them for cunning in the men and beauty in the women. I wonder what
market he means that daughter for.' When I heard this it darted into my
mind that the unhappiness in my life came from my being a Jewess, and that
always to the end the world would think slightly of me and that I must
bear it, for I should be judged by that name; and it comforted me to
believe that my suffering was part of the affliction of my people, my part
in the long song of mourning that has been going on through ages and ages.
For if many of our race were wicked and made merry in their wickedness--
what was that but part of the affliction borne by the just among them, who
were despised for the sins of their brethren?--But you have not rejected
me."
Mirah had changed her tone in this last sentence, having suddenly
reflected that at this moment she had reason not for complaint but for
gratitude.
"And we will try to save you from being judged unjustly by others, my poor
child," said Mrs. Meyrick, who had now given up all attempt at going on
with her work, and sat listening with folded hands and a face hardly less
eager than Mab's would have been. "Go on, go on: tell me all."
"After that we lived in different towns--Hamburg and Vienna, the longest.
I began to study singing again: and my father always got money about the
theatres. I think he brought a good deal of money from America, I never
knew why we left. For some time he was in great spirits about my singing,
and he made me rehearse parts and act continually. He looked forward to my
coming out in the opera. But by-and-by it seemed that my voice would never
be strong enough--it did not fulfill its promise. My master at Vienna
said, 'Don't strain it further: it will never do for the public:--it is
gold, but a thread of gold dust.' My father was bitterly disappointed: we
were not so well off at that time. I think I have not quite told you what
I felt about my father. I knew he was fond of me and meant to indulge me,
and that made me afraid of hurting him; but he always mistook what would
please me and give me happiness. It was his nature to take everything
lightly; and I soon left off asking him any questions about things that I
cared for much, because he always turned them off with a joke. He would
even ridicule our own people; and once when he had been imitating their
movements and their tones in praying, only to make others laugh, I could
not restrain myself--for I always had an anger in my heart about my
mother--and when we were alone, I said, 'Father, you ought not to mimic
our own people before Christians who mock them: would it not be bad if I
mimicked you, that they might mock you?' But he only shrugged his
shoulders and laughed and pinched my chin, and said, 'You couldn't do it,
my dear." It was this way of turning off everything, that made a great
wall between me and my father, and whatever I felt most I took the most
care to hide from him. For there were some things--when they were laughed
at I could not bear it: the world seemed like a hell to me. Is this world
and all the life upon it only like a farce or a vaudeville, where you find
no great meanings? Why then are there tragedies and grand operas, where
men do difficult things and choose to suffer? I think it is silly to speak
of all things as a joke. And I saw that his wishing me to sing the
greatest music, and parts in grand operas, was only wishing for what would
fetch the greatest price. That hemmed in my gratitude for his
affectionateness, and the tenderest feeling I had toward him was pity.
Yes, I did sometimes pity him. He had aged and changed. Now he was no
longer so lively. I thought he seemed worse--less good to others than to
me. Every now and then in the latter years his gaiety went away suddenly,
and he would sit at home silent and gloomy; or he would come in and fling
himself down and sob, just as I have done myself when I have been in
trouble. If I put my hand on h |
