Daniel Deronda

G >> George Eliot >> Daniel Deronda

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69

Mrs. Glasher was seated in the pleasant room where she habitually passed
her mornings with her children round her. It had a square projecting
window and looked on broad gravel and grass, sloping toward a little brook
that entered the pool. The top of a low, black cabinet, the old oak table,
the chairs in tawny leather, were littered with the children's toys, books
and garden garments, at which a maternal lady in pastel looked down from
the walls with smiling indulgence. The children were all there. The three
girls, seated round their mother near the widow, were miniature portraits
of her--dark-eyed, delicate-featured brunettes with a rich bloom on their
cheeks, their little nostrils and eyebrows singularly finished as if they
were tiny women, the eldest being barely nine. The boy was seated on the
carpet at some distance, bending his blonde head over the animals from a
Noah's ark, admonishing them separately in a voice of threatening command,
and occasionally licking the spotted ones to see if the colors would hold.
Josephine, the eldest, was having her French lesson; and the others, with
their dolls on their laps, sat demurely enough for images of the Madonna.
Mrs. Glasher's toilet had been made very carefully--each day now she said
to herself that Grandcourt might come in. Her head, which, spite of
emaciation, had an ineffaceable beauty in the fine profile, crisp curves
of hair, and clearly-marked eyebrows, rose impressively above her bronze-
colored silk and velvet, and the gold necklace which Grandcourt had first
clasped round her neck years ago. Not that she had any pleasure in her
toilet; her chief thought of herself seen in the glass was, "How
changed!"--but such good in life as remained to her she would keep. If her
chief wish were fulfilled, she could imagine herself getting the
comeliness of a matron fit for the highest rank. The little faces beside
her, almost exact reductions of her own, seemed to tell of the blooming
curves which had once been where now was sunken pallor. But the children
kissed the pale cheeks and never found them deficient. That love was now
the one end of her life.

Suddenly Mrs. Glasher turned away her head from Josephine's book and
listened. "Hush, dear! I think some one is coming."

Henleigh the boy jumped up and said, "Mamma, is it the miller with my
donkey?"

He got no answer, and going up to his mamma's knee repeated his question
in an insistent tone. But the door opened, and the servant announced Mr.
Grandcourt. Mrs. Glasher rose in some agitation. Henleigh frowned at him
in disgust at his not being the miller, and the three little girls lifted
up their dark eyes to him timidly. They had none of them any particular
liking for this friend of mamma's--in fact, when he had taken Mrs.
Glasher's hand and then turned to put his other hand on Henleigh's head,
that energetic scion began to beat the friend's arm away with his fists.
The little girls submitted bashfully to be patted under the chin and
kissed, but on the whole it seemed better to send them into the garden,
where they were presently dancing and chatting with the dogs on the
gravel.

"How far are you come?" said Mrs. Glasher, as Grandcourt put away his hat
and overcoat.

"From Diplow," he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her and
looking at her with an unnoting gaze which she noted.

"You are tired, then."

"No, I rested at the Junction--a hideous hole. These railway journeys are
always a confounded bore. But I had coffee and smoked."

Grandcourt drew out his handkerchief, rubbed his face, and in returning
the handkerchief to his pocket looked at his crossed knee and blameless
boot, as if any stranger were opposite to him, instead of a woman
quivering with a suspense which every word and look of his was to incline
toward hope or dread. But he was really occupied with their interview and
what it was likely to include. Imagine the difference in rate of emotion
between this woman whom the years had worn to a more conscious dependence
and sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were dulling into a more
neutral obstinacy.

"I expected to see you--it was so long since I had heard from you. I
suppose the weeks seem longer at Gadsmere than they do at Diplow," said
Mrs. Glasher. She had a quick, incisive way of speaking that seemed to go
with her features, as the tone and _timbre_ of a violin go with its form.

"Yes," drawled Grandcourt. "But you found the money paid into the bank."

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. Always
before--at least she fancied so--Grandcourt had taken more notice of her
and the children than he did to-day.

"Yes," he resumed, playing with his whisker, and at first not looking at
her, "the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace with me; generally it
is slow enough. But there has been a good deal happening, as you know"--
here he turned his eyes upon her.

"What do I know?" said she, sharply.

He left a pause before he said, without change of manner, "That I was
thinking of marrying. You saw Miss Harleth?"

"_She_ told you that?"

The pale cheeks looked even paler, perhaps from the fierce brightness in
the eyes above them.

"No. Lush told me," was the slow answer. It was as if the thumb-screw and
the iron boot were being placed by creeping hands within sight of the
expectant victim.

"Good God! say at once that you are going to marry her," she burst out,
passionately, her knees shaking and her hands tightly clasped.

"Of course, this kind of thing must happen some time or other, Lydia,"
said he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the pain
worse.

"You didn't always see the necessity."

"Perhaps not. I see it now."

In those few under-toned words of Grandcourt's she felt as absolute a
resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron
door. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any appeal
--shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, only to see
the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. She did not weep nor speak;
she was too hard pressed by the sudden certainty which had as much of
chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. The defeated clutch of
struggling hope gave her in these first moments a horrible sensation. At
last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, unconscious of every thing
but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead against the hard, cold glass of
the window. The children, playing on the gravel, took this as a sign that
she wanted them, and, running forward, stood in front of her with their
sweet faces upturned expectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at
them, waved them off, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back
in the nearest chair.

Grandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed--at the scene itself, and
at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it; but the
task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative necessity of
arranging things so that there should be as little annoyance as possible
in the future. He was leaning against the corner of the fire-place. She
looked up at him and said, bitterly--

"All this is of no consequence to you. I and the children are importunate
creatures. You wish to get away again and be with Miss Harleth."

"Don't make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. Lydia. It is of
no use to harp on things that can't be Altered. Of course, its deucedly
disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. I've taken this
journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to:--you and the
children will be provided for as usual;--and there's an end of it."

Silence. She dared not answer. This woman with the intense, eager look had
had the iron of the mother's anguish in her soul, and it had made her
sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and struggle. But
underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and vindictiveness:
she wished that the marriage might make two others wretched, besides
herself. Presently he went on--

"It will be better for you. You may go on living here. But I think of by-
and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live where
you like. There will be nothing for you to complain of then. Whatever
happens, you will feel secure. Nothing could be done beforehand. Every
thing has gone on in a hurry."

Grandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. He did not expect her to
thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented; if it
were possible for Lydia to be contented. She showed no change, and after a
minute he said--

"You have never had any reason to fear that I should be illiberal. I don't
care a curse about the money."

"If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us," said
Lydia. The sarcasm was irrepressible.

"That's a devilishly unfair thing to say," Grandcourt replied, in a lower
tone; "and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again."

"Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?" In spite of
herself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other.

"There is no question about leaving the children in beggary," said
Grandcourt, still in his low voice. "I advise you not to say things that
you will repent of."

"I am used to repenting," said she, bitterly. "Perhaps you will repent.
You have already repented of loving me."

"All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again.
What friend have you besides me?"

"Quite true."

The words came like a low moan. At the same moment there flashed through
her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness than that he
had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness which would drive
him back to her to find some memory of a time when he was young, glad, and
hopeful. But no! he would go scathless; it was she that had to suffer.

With this the scorching words were ended. Grandcourt had meant to stay
till evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable
train earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still to
speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a second
surgical operation seemed to require an interval. The hours had to go by;
there was eating to be done; the children came in--all this mechanism of
life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of constraint which is
often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind. To Lydia it was some
slight relief for her stifled fury to have the children present: she felt
a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it would taunt Grandcourt with
his indifference to her and them--a secret darting of venom which was
strongly imaginative. He acquitted himself with all the advantage of a man
whose grace of bearing has long been moulded on an experience of boredom--
nursed the little Antonia, who sat with her hands crossed and eyes
upturned to his bald head, which struck her as worthy of observation--and
propitiated Henleigh by promising him a beautiful saddle and bridle. It
was only the two eldest girls who had known him as a continual presence;
and the intervening years had overlaid their infantine memories with a
bashfulness which Grandcourt's bearing was not likely to dissipate. He and
Lydia occasionally, in the presence of the servants, made a conventional
remark; otherwise they never spoke; and the stagnant thought in
Grandcourt's mind all the while was of his own infatuation in having given
her those diamonds, which obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking
about them. He had an ingrained care for what he held to belong to his
caste, and about property he liked to be lordly; also he had a
consciousness of indignity to himself in having to ask for anything in the
world. But however he might assert his independence of Mrs. Glasher's
past, he had made a past for himself which was a stronger yoke than any he
could impose. He must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to
Gwendolen.

At last they were alone again, with the candles above them, face to face
with each other. Grandcourt looked at his watch, and then said, in an
apparently indifferent drawl, "There is one thing I had to mention, Lydia.
My diamonds--you have them."

"Yes, I have them," she answered promptly, rising and standing with her
arms thrust down and her fingers threaded, while Grandcourt sat still. She
had expected the topic, and made her resolve about it. But she meant to
carry out her resolve, if possible, without exasperating him. During the
hours of silence she had longed to recall the words which had only widened
the breach between them.

"They are in this house, I suppose?"

"No; not in this house."

"I thought you said you kept them by you."

"When I said so it was true. They are in the bank at Dudley."

"Get them away, will you? I must make an arrangement for your delivering
them to some one."

"Make no arrangement. They shall be delivered to the person you intended
them for. _I_ will make the arrangement."

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. I have always told you that I would give them up to your
wife. I shall keep my word. She is not your wife yet."

"This is foolery," said Grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. It was too
irritating that this indulgence of Lydia had given her a sort of mastery
over him in spite of dependent condition.

She did not speak. He also rose now, but stood leaning against the mantle-
piece with his side-face toward her.

"The diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage," he began again.

"What is your wedding-day?"

"The tenth. There is no time to be lost."

"And where do you go after the marriage?"

He did not reply except by looking more sullen. Presently he said, "You
must appoint a day before then, to get them from the bank and meet me--or
somebody else I will commission;--it's a great nuisance, Mention a day."

"No; I shall not do that. They shall be delivered to her safely. I shall
keep my word."

"Do you mean to say," said Grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face her,
"that you will not do as I tell you?"

"Yes, I mean that," was the answer that leaped out, while her eyes flashed
close to him. The poor creature was immediately conscious that if her
words had any effect on her own lot, the effect must be mischievous, and
might nullify all the remaining advantage of her long patience. But the
word had been spoken.

He was in a position the most irritating to him. He could not shake her
nor touch her hostilely; and if he could, the process would not bring his
mother's diamonds. He shrank from the only sort of threat that would
frighten her--if she believed it. And in general, there was nothing he
hated more than to be forced into anything like violence even in words:
his will must impose itself without trouble. After looking at her for a
moment, he turned his side-face toward her again, leaning as before, and
said--

"Infernal idiots that women are!"

"Why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? I could
be at the wedding if I liked, and learn in that way," said Lydia, not
shrinking from the one suicidal form of threat within her power.

"Of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman," said Grandcourt,
with _sotto voce_ scorn. "It is not to be supposed that you will wait to
think what good will come of it--or what you owe to me."

He was in a state of disgust and embitterment quite new in the history of
their relation to each other. It was undeniable that this woman, whose
life he had allowed to send such deep suckers into his, had a terrible
power of annoyance in her; and the rash hurry of his proceedings had left
her opportunities open. His pride saw very ugly possibilities threatening
it, and he stood for several minutes in silence reviewing the situation--
considering how he could act upon her. Unlike himself she was of a direct
nature, with certain simple strongly-colored tendencies, and there was one
often-experienced effect which he thought he could count upon now. As Sir
Hugo had said of him, Grandcourt knew how to play his cards upon occasion.

He did not speak again, but looked at his watch, rang the bell, and
ordered the vehicle to be brought round immediately. Then he removed
farther from her, walked as if in expectation of a summons, and remained
silent without turning his eyes upon her.

She was suffering the horrible conflict of self-reproach and tenacity. She
saw beforehand Grandcourt leaving her without even looking at her again--
herself left behind in lonely uncertainty--hearing nothing from him--not
knowing whether she had done her children harm--feeling that she had
perhaps made him hate her;--all the wretchedness of a creature who had
defeated her own motives. And yet she could not bear to give up a purpose
which was a sweet morsel to her vindictiveness. If she had not been a
mother she would willingly have sacrificed herself to her revenge--to what
she felt to be the justice of hindering another from getting happiness by
willingly giving her over to misery. The two dominant passions were at
struggle. She must satisfy them both.

"Don't let us part in anger, Henleigh," she began, without changing her
voice or attitude: "it is a very little thing I ask. If I were refusing to
give anything up that you call yours it would be different: that would be
a reason for treating me as if you hated me. But I ask such a little
thing. If you will tell me where you are going on the wedding-day I will
take care that the diamonds shall be delivered to her without scandal.
Without scandal," she repeated entreatingly.

"Such preposterous whims make a woman odious," said Grandcourt, not giving
way in look or movement. "What is the use of talking to mad people?"

"Yes, I am foolish--loneliness has made me foolish--indulge me." Sobs rose
as she spoke. "If you will indulge me in this one folly I will be very
meek--I will never trouble you." She burst into hysterical crying, and
said again almost with a scream--"I will be very meek after that."

There was a strange mixture of acting and reality in this passion. She
kept hold of her purpose as a child might tighten its hand over a small
stolen thing, crying and denying all the while. Even Grandcourt was
wrought upon by surprise: this capricious wish, this childish violence,
was as unlike Lydia's bearing as it was incongruous with her person. Both
had always had a stamp of dignity on them. Yet she seemed more manageable
in this state than in her former attitude of defiance. He came close up to
her again, and said, in his low imperious tone, "Be quiet, and hear what I
tell you, I will never forgive you if you present yourself again and make
a scene."

She pressed her handkerchief against her face, and when she could speak
firmly said, in the muffled voice that follows sobbing, "I will not--if
you will let me have my way--I promise you not to thrust myself forward
again. I have never broken my word to you--how many have you broken to me?
When you gave me the diamonds to wear you were not thinking of having
another wife. And I now give them up--I don't reproach you--I only ask you
to let me give them up in my own way. Have I not borne it well? Everything
is to be taken away from me, and when I ask for a straw, a chip--you deny
it me." She had spoken rapidly, but after a little pause she said more
slowly, her voice freed from its muffled tone: "I will not bear to have it
denied me."

Grandcourt had a baffling sense that he had to deal with something like
madness; he could only govern by giving way. The servant came to say the
fly was ready. When the door was shut again Grandcourt said sullenly, "We
are going to Ryelands then."

"They shall be delivered to her there," said Lydia, with decision.

"Very well, I am going." He felt no inclination even to take her hand: she
had annoyed him too sorely. But now that she had gained her point, she was
prepared to humble herself that she might propitiate him.

"Forgive me; I will never vex you again," she said, with beseeching looks.
Her inward voice said distinctly--"It is only I who have to forgive." Yet
she was obliged to ask forgiveness.

"You had better keep that promise. You have made me feel uncommonly ill
with your folly," said Grandcourt, apparently choosing this statement as
the strongest possible use of language.

"Poor thing!" cried Lydia, with a faint smile;--was he aware of the minor
fact that he made her feel ill this morning?

But with the quick transition natural to her, she was now ready to coax
him if he would let her, that they might part in some degree reconciled.
She ventured to lay her hand on his shoulder, and he did not move away
from her: she had so far succeeded in alarming him, that he was not sorry
for these proofs of returned subjection.

"Light a cigar," she said, soothingly, taking the case from his breast-
pocket and opening it.

Amidst such caressing signs of mutual fear they parted. The effect that
clung and gnawed within Grandcourt was a sense of imperfect mastery.

CHAPTER XXXI.

"A wild dedication of yourselves
To unpath'd waters, undreamed shores."
--SHAKESPEARE.

On the day when Gwendolen Harleth was married and became Mrs. Grandcourt,
the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low a slight frost
crisped the leaves. The bridal party was worth seeing, and half Pennicote
turned out to see it, lining the pathway up to the church. An old friend
of the rector's performed the marriage ceremony, the rector himself acting
as father, to the great advantage of the procession. Only two faces, it
was remarked, showed signs of sadness--Mrs. Davilow's and Anna's. The
mother's delicate eyelids were pink, as if she had been crying half the
night; and no one was surprised that, splendid as the match was, she
should feel the parting from a daughter who was the flower of her children
and of her own life. It was less understood why Anna should be troubled
when she was being so well set off by the bridesmaid's dress. Every one
else seemed to reflect the brilliancy of the occasion--the bride most of
all. Of her it was agreed that as to figure and carriage she was worthy to
be a "lady o' title": as to face, perhaps it might be thought that a title
required something more rosy; but the bridegroom himself not being fresh-
colored--being indeed, as the miller's wife observed, very much of her own
husband's complexion--the match was the more complete. Anyhow he must be
very fond of her; and it was to be hoped that he would never cast it up to
her that she had been going out to service as a governess, and her mother
to live at Sawyer's Cottage--vicissitudes which had been much spoken of in
the village. The miller's daughter of fourteen could not believe that high
gentry behaved badly to their wives, but her mother instructed her--"Oh,
child, men's men: gentle or simple, they're much of a muchness. I've heard
my mother say Squire Pelton used to take his dogs and a long whip into his
wife's room, and flog 'em there to frighten her; and my mother was lady's-
maid there at the very time."

"That's unlucky talk for a wedding, Mrs. Girdle," said the tailor. "A
quarrel may end wi' the whip, but it begins wi' the tongue, and it's the
women have got the most o' that."

"The Lord gave it 'em to use, I suppose," said Mrs. Girdle. "_He_ never
meant you to have it all your own way."

"By what I can make out from the gentleman as attends to the grooming at
Offendene," said the tailor, "this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful little
tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering."

"Then he's the more whip, I doubt," said Mrs. Girdle. "_She's_ got tongue
enough, I warrant her. See, there they come out together!"

"What wonderful long corners she's got to her eyes!" said the tailor. "She
makes you feel comical when she looks at you."

Gwendolen, in fact, never showed more elasticity in her bearing, more
lustre in her long brown glance: she had the brilliancy of strong
excitement, which will sometimes come even from pain. It was not pain,
however, that she was feeling: she had wrought herself up to much the same
condition as that in which she stood at the gambling-table when Deronda
was looking at her, and she began to lose. There was an enjoyment in it:
whatever uneasiness a growing conscience had created was disregarded as an
ailment might have been, amidst the gratification of that ambitious vanity
and desire for luxury within her which it would take a great deal of slow
poisoning to kill. This morning she could not have said truly that she
repented her acceptance of Grandcourt, or that any fears in hazy
perspective could hinder the glowing effect of the immediate scene in
which she was the central object. That she was doing something wrong--that
a punishment might be hanging over her--that the woman to whom she had
given a promise and broken it, was thinking of her in bitterness and
misery with a just reproach--that Deronda with his way of looking into
things very likely despised her for marrying Grandcourt, as he had
despised her for gambling--above all, that the cord which united her with
this lover and which she had heretofore held by the hand, was now being
flung over her neck,--all this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts
with vague but deep impressions, and with images half real, half
fantastic, had been disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement. Was
that agitating experience nullified this morning? No: it was surmounted
and thrust down with a sort of exulting defiance as she felt herself
standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything to
win much--or if to lose, still with _eclat_ and a sense of importance. But
this morning a losing destiny for herself did not press upon her as a
fear: she thought that she was entering on a fuller power of managing
circumstances--with all the official strength of marriage, which some
women made so poor a use of. That intoxication of youthful egoism out of
which she had been shaken by trouble, humiliation, and a new sense of
culpability, had returned upon her under a newly-fed strength of the old
fumes. She did not in the least present the ideal of the tearful,
tremulous bride. Poor Gwendolen, whom some had judged much too forward and
instructed in the world's ways!--with her erect head and elastic footstep
she was walking among illusions; and yet, too, there was an under-
consciousness of her that she was a little intoxicated.