Daniel Deronda

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"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.