Daniel Deronda

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She meant to sling a small stone at her husband in that way.

"It's very indecent of Deronda to go about praising that girl," said
Grandcourt in a tone of indifference.

"Indecent!" exclaimed Gwendolen, reddening and looking at him again,
overcome by startled wonder, and unable to reflect on the probable falsity
of the phrase--"to go about praising."

"Yes; and especially when she is patronized by Lady Mallinger. He ought to
hold his tongue about her. Men can see what is his relation to her."

"Men who judge of others by themselves," said Gwendolen, turning white
after her redness, and immediately smitten with a dread of her own words.

"Of course. And a woman should take their judgment--else she is likely to
run her head into the wrong place," said Grandcourt, conscious of using
pinchers on that white creature. "I suppose you take Deronda for a saint."

"Oh dear no?" said Gwendolen, summoning desperately her almost miraculous
power of self-control, and speaking in a high hard tone. "Only a little
less of a monster."

She rose, pushed her chair away without hurry, and walked out of the room
with something like the care of a man who is afraid of showing that he has
taken more wine than usual. She turned the keys inside her dressing-room
doors, and sat down for some time looking pale and quiet as when she was
leaving the breakfast-room. Even in the moments after reading the
poisonous letter she had hardly had more cruel sensations than now; for
emotion was at the acute point, where it is not distinguishable from
sensation. Deronda unlike what she had believed him to be, was an image
which affected her as a hideous apparition would have done, quite apart
from the way in which it was produced. It had taken hold of her as pain
before she could consider whether it were fiction or truth; and further to
hinder her power of resistance came the sudden perception, how very slight
were the grounds of her faith in Deronda--how little she knew of his life
--how childish she had been in her confidence. His rebukes and his
severity to her began to seem odious, along with all the poetry and lofty
doctrine in the world, whatever it might be; and the grave beauty of his
face seemed the most unpleasant mask that the common habits of men could
put on.

All this went on in her with the rapidity of a sick dream; and her start
into resistance was very much like a waking. Suddenly from out the gray
sombre morning there came a stream of sunshine, wrapping her in warmth and
light where she sat in stony stillness. She moved gently and looked round
her--there was a world outside this bad dream, and the dream proved
nothing; she rose, stretching her arms upward and clasping her hands with
her habitual attitude when she was seeking relief from oppressive feeling,
and walked about the room in this flood of sunbeams.

"It is not true! What does it matter whether _he_ believes it or not?"
This is what she repeated to herself--but this was not her faith come back
again; it was only the desperate cry of faith, finding suffocation
intolerable. And how could she go on through the day in this state? With
one of her impetuous alternations, her imagination flew to wild actions by
which she would convince herself of what she wished: she would go to Lady
Mallinger and question her about Mirah; she would write to Deronda and
upbraid him with making the world all false and wicked and hopeless to
her--to him she dared pour out all the bitter indignation of her heart.
No; she would go to Mirah. This last form taken by her need was more
definitely practicable, and quickly became imperious. No matter what came
of it. She had the pretext of asking Mirah to sing at her party on the
fourth. What was she going to say beside? How satisfy? She did not
foresee--she could not wait to foresee. If that idea which was maddening
her had been a living thing, she would have wanted to throttle it without
waiting to foresee what would come of the act. She rang her bell and asked
if Mr. Grandcourt were gone out: finding that he was, she ordered the
carriage, and began to dress for the drive; then she went down, and walked
about the large drawing-room like an imprisoned dumb creature, not
recognizing herself in the glass panels, not noting any object around her
in the painted gilded prison. Her husband would probably find out where
she had been, and punish her in some way or other--no matter--she could
neither desire nor fear anything just now but the assurance that she had
not been deluding herself in her trust.

She was provided with Mirah's address. Soon she was on the way with all
the fine equipage necessary to carry about her poor uneasy heart,
depending in its palpitations on some answer or other to questioning which
she did not know how she should put. She was as heedless of what happened
before she found that Miss Lapidoth was at home, as one is of lobbies and
passages on the way to a court of justice--heedless of everything till she
was in a room where there were folding-doors, and she heard Deronda's
voice behind it. Doubtless the identification was helped by forecast, but
she was as certain of it as if she had seen him. She was frightened at her
own agitation, and began to unbutton her gloves that she might button them
again, and bite her lips over the pretended difficulty, while the door
opened, and Mirah presented herself with perfect quietude and a sweet
smile of recognition. There was relief in the sight of her face, and
Gwendolen was able to smile in return, while she put out her hand in
silence; and as she seated herself, all the while hearing the voice, she
felt some reflux of energy in the confused sense that the truth could not
be anything that she dreaded. Mirah drew her chair very near, as if she
felt that the sound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at
her visitor with placid expectation, while Gwendolen began in a low tone,
with something that seemed like bashfulness--

"Perhaps you wonder to see me--perhaps I ought to have written--but I
wished to make a particular request."

"I am glad to see you instead of having a letter," said Mirah, wondering
at the changed expression and manner of the "Vandyke duchess," as Hans had
taught her to call Gwendolen. The rich color and the calmness of her own
face were in strong contrast with the pale agitated beauty under the
plumed hat.

"I thought," Gwendolen went on--"at least I hoped, you would not object to
sing at our house on the 4th--in the evening--at a party like Lady
Brackenshaw's. I should be so much obliged."

"I shall be very happy to sing for you. At ten?" said Mirah, while
Gwendolen seemed to get more instead of less embarrassed.

"At ten, please," she answered; then paused, and felt that she had nothing
more to say. She could not go. It was impossible to rise and say good-bye.
Deronda's voice was in her ears. She must say it--she could contrive no
other sentence--

"Mr. Deronda is in the next room."

"Yes," said Mirah, in her former tone. "He is reading Hebrew with my
brother."

"You have a brother?" said Gwendolen, who had heard this from Lady
Mallinger, but had not minded it then.

"Yes, a dear brother who is ill-consumptive, and Mr. Deronda is the best
of friends to him, as he has been to me," said Mirah, with the impulse
that will not let us pass the mention of a precious person indifferently.

"Tell me," said Gwendolen, putting her hand on Mirah's, and speaking
hardly above a whisper--"tell me--tell me the truth. You are sure he is
quite good. You know no evil of him. Any evil that people say of him is
false."

Could the proud-spirited woman have behaved more like a child? But the
strange words penetrated Mirah with nothing but a sense of solemnity and
indignation. With a sudden light in her eyes and a tremor in her voice,
she said--

"Who are the people that say evil of him? I would not believe any evil of
him, if an angel came to tell it me. He found me when I was so miserable--
I was going to drown myself; I looked so poor and forsaken; you would have
thought I was a beggar by the wayside. And he treated me as if I had been
a king's daughter. He took me to the best of women. He found my brother
for me. And he honors my brother--though he too was poor--oh, almost as
poor as he could be. And my brother honors him. That is no light thing to
say"--here Mirah's tone changed to one of profound emphasis, and she shook
her head backward: "for my brother is very learned and great-minded. And
Mr. Deronda says there are few men equal to him." Some Jewish defiance had
flamed into her indignant gratitude and her anger could not help including
Gwendolen since she seemed to have doubted Deronda's goodness.

But Gwendolen was like one parched with thirst, drinking the fresh water
that spreads through the frame as a sufficient bliss. She did not notice
that Mirah was angry with her; she was not distinctly conscious of
anything but of the penetrating sense that Deronda and his life were no
more like her husband's conception than the morning in the horizon was
like the morning mixed with street gas. Even Mirah's words sank into the
indefiniteness of her relief. She could hardly have repeated them, or said
how her whole state of feeling was changed. She pressed Mirah's hand, and
said, "Thank you, thank you," in a hurried whisper, then rose, and added,
with only a hazy consciousness, "I must go, I shall see you--on the
fourth--I am so much obliged"--bowing herself out automatically, while
Mirah, opening the door for her, wondered at what seemed a sudden retreat
into chill loftiness.

Gwendolen, indeed, had no feeling to spare in any effusiveness toward the
creature who had brought her relief. The passionate need of contradiction
to Grandcourt's estimate of Deronda, a need which had blunted her
sensibility to everything else, was no sooner satisfied than she wanted to
be gone. She began to be aware that she was out of place, and to dread
Deronda's seeing her. And once in the carriage again, she had the vision
of what awaited her at home. When she drew up before the door in Grosvenor
Square, her husband was arriving with a cigar between his fingers. He
threw it away and handed her out, accompanying her up-stairs. She turned
into the drawing-room, lest he should follow her farther and give her no
place to retreat to; then she sat down with a weary air, taking off her
gloves, rubbing her hand over her forehead, and making his presence as
much of a cipher as possible. But he sat, too, and not far from her--just
in front, where to avoid looking at him must have the emphasis of effort.

"May I ask where you have been at this extraordinary hour?" said
Grandcourt.

"Oh, yes; I have been to Miss Lapidoth's, to ask her to come and sing for
us," said Gwendolen, laying her gloves on the little table beside her, and
looking down at them.

"And to ask her about her relations with Deronda?" said Grandcourt, with
the coldest possible sneer in his low voice which in poor Gwendolen's ear
was diabolical.

For the first time since their marriage she flashed out upon him without
inward check. Turning her eyes full on his she said, in a biting tone--

"Yes; and what you said is false--a low, wicked falsehood."

"She told you so--did she?" returned Grandcourt, with a more thoroughly
distilled sneer.

Gwendolen was mute. The daring anger within her was turned into the rage
of dumbness. What reasons for her belief could she give? All the reasons
that seemed so strong and living within her--she saw them suffocated and
shrivelled up under her husband's breath. There was no proof to give, but
her own impression, which would seem to him her own folly. She turned her
head quickly away from him and looked angrily toward the end of the room:
she would have risen, but he was in her way.

Grandcourt saw his advantage. "It's of no consequence so far as her
singing goes," he said, in his superficial drawl. "You can have her to
sing, if you like." Then, after a pause, he added in his lowest imperious
tone, "But you will please to observe that you are not to go near that
house again. As my wife, you must take my word about what is proper for
you. When you undertook to be Mrs. Grandcourt, you undertook not to make a
fool of yourself. You have been making a fool of yourself this morning;
and if you were to go on as you have begun, you might soon get yourself
talked of at the clubs in a way you would not like. What do _you_ know
about the world? You have married _me_, and must be guided by my opinion."

Every slow sentence of that speech had a terrific mastery in it for
Gwendolen's nature. If the low tones had come from a physician telling her
that her symptoms were those of a fatal disease, and prognosticating its
course, she could not have been more helpless against the argument that
lay in it. But she was permitted to move now, and her husband never again
made any reference to what had occurred this morning. He knew the force of
his own words. If this white-handed man with the perpendicular profile had
been sent to govern a difficult colony, he might have won reputation among
his contemporaries. He had certainly ability, would have understood that
it was safer to exterminate than to cajole superseded proprietors, and
would not have flinched from making things safe in that way.

Gwendolen did not, for all this, part with her recovered faith;--rather,
she kept it with a more anxious tenacity, as a Protestant of old kept his
bible hidden or a Catholic his crucifix, according to the side favored by
the civil arm; and it was characteristic of her that apart from the
impression gained concerning Deronda in that visit, her imagination was
little occupied with Mirah or the eulogised brother. The one result
established for her was, that Deronda had acted simply as a generous
benefactor, and the phrase "reading Hebrew" had fleeted unimpressively
across her sense of hearing, as a stray stork might have made its peculiar
flight across her landscape without rousing any surprised reflection on
its natural history.

But the issue of that visit, as it regarded her husband, took a strongly
active part in the process which made an habitual conflict within her, and
was the cause of some external change perhaps not observed by any one
except Deronda. As the weeks went on bringing occasional transient
interviews with her, he thought that he perceived in her an intensifying
of her superficial hardness and resolute display, which made her abrupt
betrayals of agitation the more marked and disturbing to him.

In fact, she was undergoing a sort of discipline for the refractory which,
as little as possible like conversion, bends half the self with a terrible
strain, and exasperates the unwillingness of the other half. Grandcourt
had an active divination rather than discernment of refractoriness in her,
and what had happened about Mirah quickened his suspicion that there was
an increase of it dependent on the occasions when she happened to see
Deronda: there was some "confounded nonsense" between them: he did not
imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his imagination in other branches
was rather restricted; but it was nonsense that evidently kept up a kind
of simmering in her mind--an inward action which might become disagreeable
outward. Husbands in the old time are known to have suffered from a
threatening devoutness in their wives, presenting itself first
indistinctly as oddity, and ending in that mild form of lunatic asylum, a
nunnery: Grandcourt had a vague perception of threatening moods in
Gwendolen which the unity between them in his views of marriage required
him peremptorily to check. Among the means he chose, one was peculiar, and
was less ably calculated than the speeches we have just heard.

He determined that she should know the main purport of the will he was
making, but he could not communicate this himself, because it involved the
fact of his relation to Mrs. Glasher and her children; and that there
should be any overt recognition of this between Gwendolen and himself was
supremely repugnant to him. Like all proud, closely-wrapped natures, he
shrank from explicitness and detail, even on trivialities, if they were
personal: a valet must maintain a strict reserve with him on the subject
of shoes and stockings. And clashing was intolerable to him; his habitual
want was to put collision out of the question by the quiet massive
pressure of his rule. But he wished Gwendolen to know that before he made
her an offer it was no secret to him that she was aware of his relations
with Lydia, her previous knowledge being the apology for bringing the
subject before her now. Some men in his place might have thought of
writing what he wanted her to know, in the form of a letter. But
Grandcourt hated writing: even writing a note was a bore to him, and he
had long been accustomed to have all his writing done by Lush. We know
that there are persons who will forego their own obvious interest rather
than do anything so disagreeable as to write letters; and it is not
probable that these imperfect utilitarians would rush into manuscript and
syntax on a difficult subject in order to save another's feelings. To
Grandcourt it did not even occur that he should, would, or could write to
Gwendolen the information in question; and the only medium of
communication he could use was Lush, who, to his mind, was as much of an
implement as pen and paper. But here too Grandcourt had his reserves, and
would not have uttered a word likely to encourage Lush in an impudent
sympathy with any supposed grievance in a marriage which had been
discommended by him. Who that has a confidant escapes believing too little
in his penetration, and too much in his discretion? Grandcourt had always
allowed Lush to know his external affairs indiscriminately--
irregularities, debts, want of ready money; he had only used
discrimination about what he would allow his confidant to say to him; and
he had been so accustomed to this human tool, that the having him at call
in London was a recovery of lost ease. It followed that Lush knew all the
provisions of the will more exactly than they were known to the testator
himself.

Grandcourt did not doubt that Gwendolen, since she was a woman who could
put two and two together, knew or suspected Lush to be the contriver of
her interview with Lydia, and that this was the reason why her first
request was for his banishment. But the bent of a woman's inferences on
mixed subjects which excites mixed passions is not determined by her
capacity for simple addition; and here Grandcourt lacked the only organ of
thinking that could have saved him from mistake--namely, some experience
of the mixed passions concerned. He had correctly divined one-half of
Gwendolen's dread--all that related to her personal pride, and her
perception that his will must conquer hers; but the remorseful half, even
if he had known of her broken promise, was as much out of his imagination
as the other side of the moon. What he believed her to feel about Lydia
was solely a tongue-tied jealousy, and what he believed Lydia to have
written with the jewels was the fact that she had once been used to
wearing them, with other amenities such as he imputed to the intercourse
with jealous women. He had the triumphant certainty that he could
aggravate the jealousy and yet smite it with a more absolute dumbness. His
object was to engage all his wife's egoism on the same side as his own,
and in his employment of Lush he did not intend an insult to her: she
ought to understand that he was the only possible envoy. Grandcourt's view
of things was considerably fenced in by his general sense, that what
suited him others must put up with. There is no escaping the fact that
want of sympathy condemns us to corresponding stupidity. Mephistopheles
thrown upon real life, and obliged to manage his own plots, would
inevitably make blunders.

One morning he went to Gwendolen in the boudoir beyond the back drawing-
room, hat and gloves in hand, and said with his best-tempered, most
persuasive drawl, standing before her and looking down on her as she sat
with a book on her lap--

"A--Gwendolen, there's some business about property to be explained. I
have told Lush to come and explain it to you. He knows all about these
things. I am going out. He can come up now. He's the only person who can
explain. I suppose you'll not mind."

"You know that I do mind," said Gwendolen, angrily, starting up. "I shall
not see him." She showed the intention to dart away to the door.
Grandcourt was before her, with his back toward it. He was prepared for
her anger, and showed none in return, saying, with the same sort of
remonstrant tone that he might have used about an objection to dining
out--

"It's no use making a fuss. There are plenty of brutes in the world that
one has to talk to. People with any _savoir vivre_ don't make a fuss about
such things. Some business must be done. You can't expect agreeable people
to do it. If I employ Lush, the proper thing for you is to take it as a
matter of course. Not to make a fuss about it. Not to toss your head and
bite your lips about people of that sort."

The drawling and the pauses with which this speech was uttered gave time
for crowding reflections in Gwendolen, quelling her resistance. What was
there to be told her about property? This word had certain dominant
associations for her, first with her mother, then with Mrs. Glasher and
her children. What would be the use if she refused to see Lush? Could she
ask Grandcourt to tell her himself? That might be intolerable, even if he
consented, which it was certain he would not, if he had made up his mind
to the contrary. The humiliation of standing an obvious prisoner, with her
husband barring the door, was not to be borne any longer, and she turned
away to lean against a cabinet, while Grandcourt again moved toward her.

"I have arranged for Lush to come up now, while I am out," he said, after
a long organ stop, during which Gwendolen made no sign. "Shall I tell him
he may come?"

Yet another pause before she could say "Yes"--her face turned obliquely
and her eyes cast down.

"I shall come back in time to ride, if you like to get ready," said
Grandcourt. No answer. "She is in a desperate rage," thought he. But the
rage was silent, and therefore not disagreeable to him. It followed that
he turned her chin and kissed her, while she still kept her eyelids down,
and she did not move them until he was on the other side of the door.

What was she to do? Search where she would in her consciousness, she found
no plea to justify a plaint. Any romantic allusions she had had in
marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked. He
was using her as he liked.

She sat awaiting the announcement of Lush as a sort of searing operation
that she had to go through. The facts that galled her gathered a burning
power when she thought of their lying in his mind. It was all a part of
that new gambling, in which the losing was not simply a _minus_, but a
terrible _plus_ that had never entered into her reckoning.

Lush was neither quite pleased nor quite displeased with his task.
Grandcourt had said to him by way of conclusion, "Don't make yourself more
disagreeable than nature obliges you."

"That depends," thought Lush. But he said, "I will write a brief abstract
for Mrs. Grandcourt to read." He did not suggest that he should make the
whole communication in writing, which was a proof that the interview did
not wholly displease him.

Some provision was being made for himself in the will, and he had no
reason to be in a bad humor, even if a bad humor had been common with him.
He was perfectly convinced that he had penetrated all the secrets of the
situation; but he had no diabolical delight in it. He had only the small
movements of gratified self-loving resentment in discerning that this
marriage had fulfilled his own foresight in not being as satisfactory as
the supercilious young lady had expected it to be, and as Grandcourt
wished to feign that it was. He had no persistent spite much stronger than
what gives the seasoning of ordinary scandal to those who repeat it and
exaggerate it by their conjectures. With no active compassion or good-
will, he had just as little active malevolence, being chiefly occupied in
liking his particular pleasures, and not disliking anything but what
hindered those pleasures--everything else ranking with the last murder and
the last _opera bouffe_, under the head of things to talk about.
Nevertheless, he was not indifferent to the prospect of being treated
uncivilly by a beautiful woman, or to the counter-balancing fact that his
present commission put into his hands an official power of humiliating
her. He did not mean to use it needlessly; but there are some persons so
gifted in relation to us that their "How do you do?" seems charged with
offense.

By the time that Mr. Lush was announced, Gwendolen had braced herself to a
bitter resolve that he should not witness the slightest betrayal of her
feeling, whatever he might have to tell. She invited him to sit down with
stately quietude. After all, what was this man to her? He was not in the
least like her husband. Her power of hating a coarse, familiar-mannered
man, with clumsy hands, was now relaxed by the intensity with which she
hated his contrast.