Daniel Deronda

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"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 verbatim, 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 she 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.