Daniel Deronda

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It seemed to her, as it did to Rex, that the weeks had been filled with a
tumultuous life evident to all observers: if he had been questioned on the
subject he would have said that he had no wish to conceal what he hoped
would be an engagement which he should immediately tell his father of: and
yet for the first time in his life he was reserved not only about his
feelings but--which was more remarkable to Anna--about certain actions.
She, on her side, was nervous each time her father or mother began to
speak to her in private lest they should say anything about Rex and
Gwendolen. But the elders were not in the least alive to this agitating
drama, which went forward chiefly in a sort of pantomime extremely lucid
in the minds thus expressing themselves, but easily missed by spectators
who were running their eyes over the _Guardian_ or the _Clerical Gazette_,
and regarded the trivialities of the young ones with scarcely more
interpretation than they gave to the action of lively ants.

"Where are you going, Rex?" said Anna one gray morning when her father had
set off in his carriage to the sessions, Mrs. Gascoigne with him, and she
had observed that her brother had on his antigropelos, the utmost approach
he possessed to a hunting equipment.

"Going to see the hounds throw off at the Three Barns."

"Are you going to take Gwendolen?" said Anna, timidly.

"She told you, did she?"

"No, but I thought--Does papa know you are going?"

"Not that I am aware of. I don't suppose he would trouble himself about
the matter."

"You are going to use his horse?"

"He knows I do that whenever I can."

"Don't let Gwendolen ride after the hounds, Rex," said Anna, whose fears
gifted her with second-sight.

"Why not?" said Rex, smiling rather provokingly.

"Papa and mamma and aunt Davilow all wish her not to. They think it is not
right for her."

"Why should you suppose she is going to do what is not right?"

"Gwendolen minds nobody sometimes," said Anna getting bolder by dint of a
little anger.

"Then she would not mind me," said Rex, perversely making a joke of poor
Anna's anxiety.

"Oh Rex, I cannot bear it. You will make yourself very unhappy." Here Anna
burst into tears.

"Nannie, Nannie, what on earth is the matter with you?" said Rex, a little
impatient at being kept in this way, hat on and whip in hand.

"She will not care for you one bit--I know she never will!" said the poor
child in a sobbing whisper. She had lost all control of herself.

Rex reddened and hurried away from her out of the hall door, leaving her
to the miserable consciousness of having made herself disagreeable in
vain.

He did think of her words as he rode along; they had the unwelcomeness
which all unfavorable fortune-telling has, even when laughed at; but he
quickly explained them as springing from little Anna's tenderness, and
began to be sorry that he was obliged to come away without soothing her.
Every other feeling on the subject, however, was quickly merged in a
resistant belief to the contrary of hers, accompanied with a new
determination to prove that he was right. This sort of certainty had just
enough kinship to doubt and uneasiness to hurry on a confession which an
untouched security might have delayed.

Gwendolen was already mounted and riding up and down the avenue when Rex
appeared at the gate. She had provided herself against disappointment in
case he did not appear in time by having the groom ready behind her, for
she would not have waited beyond a reasonable time. But now the groom was
dismissed, and the two rode away in delightful freedom. Gwendolen was in
her highest spirits, and Rex thought that she had never looked so lovely
before; her figure, her long white throat, and the curves of her cheek and
chin were always set off to perfection by the compact simplicity of her
riding dress. He could not conceive a more perfect girl; and to a youthful
lover like Rex it seems that the fundamental identity of the good, the
true and the beautiful, is already extant and manifest in the object of
his love. Most observers would have held it more than equally accountable
that a girl should have like impressions about Rex, for in his handsome
face there was nothing corresponding to the undefinable stinging quality--
as it were a trace of demon ancestry--which made some beholders hesitate
in their admiration of Gwendolen.

It was an exquisite January morning in which there was no threat of rain,
but a gray sky making the calmest background for the charms of a mild
winter scene--the grassy borders of the lanes, the hedgerows sprinkled
with red berries and haunted with low twitterings, the purple bareness of
the elms, the rich brown of the furrows. The horses' hoofs made a musical
chime, accompanying their young voices. She was laughing at his equipment,
for he was the reverse of a dandy, and he was enjoying her laughter; the
freshness of the morning mingled with the freshness of their youth; and
every sound that came from their clear throats, every glance they gave
each other, was the bubbling outflow from a spring of joy. It was all
morning to them, within and without. And thinking of them in these moments
one is tempted to that futile sort of wishing--if only things could have
been a little otherwise then, so as to have been greatly otherwise after--
if only these two beautiful young creatures could have pledged themselves
to each other then and there, and never through life have swerved from
that pledge! For some of the goodness which Rex believed in was there.
Goodness is a large, often a prospective word; like harvest, which at one
stage when we talk of it lies all underground, with an indeterminate
future; is the germ prospering in the darkness? at another, it has put
forth delicate green blades, and by-and-by the trembling blossoms are
ready to be dashed off by an hour of rough wind or rain. Each stage has
its peculiar blight, and may have the healthy life choked out of it by a
particular action of the foul land which rears or neighbors it, or by
damage brought from foulness afar.

"Anna had got it into her head that you would want to ride after the
hounds this morning," said Rex, whose secret associations with Anna's
words made this speech seem quite perilously near the most momentous of
subjects.

"Did she?" said Gwendolen, laughingly. "What a little clairvoyant she is!"

"Shall you?" said Rex, who had not believed in her intending to do it if
the elders objected, but confided in her having good reasons.

"I don't know. I can't tell what I shall do till I get there. Clairvoyants
are often wrong: they foresee what is likely. I am not fond of what is
likely: it is always dull. I do what is unlikely."

"Ah, there you tell me a secret. When once I knew what people in general
would be likely to do, I should know you would do the opposite. So you
would have come round to a likelihood of your own sort. I shall be able to
calculate on you. You couldn't surprise me."

"Yes, I could. I should turn round and do what was likely for people in
general," said Gwendolen, with a musical laugh.

"You see you can't escape some sort of likelihood. And contradictoriness
makes the strongest likelihood of all. You must give up a plan."

"No, I shall not. My plan is to do what pleases me." (Here should any
young lady incline to imitate Gwendolen, let her consider the set of her
head and neck: if the angle there had been different, the chin protrusive,
and the cervical vertebrae a trifle more curved in their position, ten to
one Gwendolen's words would have had a jar in them for the sweet-natured
Rex. But everything odd in her speech was humor and pretty banter, which
he was only anxious to turn toward one point.)

"Can you manage to feel only what pleases you?" said he.

"Of course not; that comes from what other people do. But if the world
were pleasanter, one would only feel what was pleasant. Girls' lives are
so stupid: they never do what they like."

"I thought that was more the case of the men. They are forced to do hard
things, and are often dreadfully bored, and knocked to pieces too. And
then, if we love a girl very dearly we want to do as she likes, so after
all you have your own way."

"I don't believe it. I never saw a married woman who had her own way."

"What should you like to do?" said Rex, quite guilelessly, and in real
anxiety.

"Oh, I don't know!--go to the North Pole, or ride steeple-chases, or go to
be a queen in the East like Lady Hester Stanhope," said Gwendolen,
flightily. Her words were born on her lips, but she would have been at a
loss to give an answer of deeper origin.

"You don't mean you would never be married?"

"No; I didn't say that. Only when I married, I should not do as other
women do."

"You might do just as you liked if you married a man who loved you more
dearly than anything else in the world," said Rex, who, poor youth, was
moving in themes outside the curriculum in which he had promised to win
distinction. "I know one who does."

"Don't talk of Mr. Middleton, for heaven's sake," said Gwendolen, hastily,
a quick blush spreading over her face and neck; "that is Anna's chant. I
hear the hounds. Let us go on."

She put her chestnut to a canter, and Rex had no choice but to follow her.
Still he felt encouraged. Gwendolen was perfectly aware that her cousin
was in love with her; but she had no idea that the matter was of any
consequence, having never had the slightest visitation of painful love
herself. She wished the small romance of Rex's devotion to fill up the
time of his stay at Pennicote, and to avoid explanations which would bring
it to an untimely end. Besides, she objected, with a sort of physical
repulsion, to being directly made love to. With all her imaginative
delight in being adored, there was a certain fierceness of maidenhood in
her.

But all other thoughts were soon lost for her in the excitement of the
scene at the Three Barns. Several gentlemen of the hunt knew her, and she
exchanged pleasant greetings. Rex could not get another word with her. The
color, the stir of the field had taken possession of Gwendolen with a
strength which was not due to habitual associations, for she had never yet
ridden after the hounds--only said she should like to do it, and so drawn
forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and her uncle
declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent exercise unseemly
in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other parts of the country,
no lady of good position followed the Wessex hunt: no one but Mrs. Gadsby,
the yeomanry captain's wife, who had been a kitchenmaid and still spoke
like one. This last argument had some effect on Gwendolen, and had kept
her halting between her desire to assert her freedom and her horror of
being classed with Mrs. Gadsby.

Some of the most unexceptionable women in the neighborhood occasionally
went to see the hounds throws off; but it happened that none of them were
present this morning to abstain from following, while Mrs. Gadsby, with
her doubtful antecedents, grammatical and otherwise, was not visible to
make following seem unbecoming. Thus Gwendolen felt no check on the animal
stimulus that came from the stir and tongue of the hounds, the pawing of
the horses, the varying voices of men, the movement hither and thither of
vivid color on the background of green and gray stillness:--that utmost
excitement of the coming chase which consists in feeling something like a
combination of dog and horse, with the superadded thrill of social
vanities and consciousness of centaur-power which belongs to humankind.

Rex would have felt more of the same enjoyment if he could have kept
nearer to Gwendolen, and not seen her constantly occupied with
acquaintances, or looked at by would-be acquaintances, all on lively
horses which veered about and swept the surrounding space as effectually
as a revolving lever.

"Glad to see you here this fine morning, Miss Harleth," said Lord
Brackenshaw, a middle-aged peer of aristocratic seediness in stained pink,
with easy-going manners which would have made the threatened deluge seem
of no consequence. "We shall have a first-rate run. A pity you didn't go
with us. Have you ever tried your little chestnut at a ditch? you wouldn't
be afraid, eh?"

"Not the least in the world," said Gwendolen. And that was true: she was
never fearful in action and companionship. "I have often taken him at some
rails and a ditch too, near--"

"Ah, by Jove!" said his lordship, quietly, in notation that something was
happening which must break off the dialogue: and as he reined off his
horse, Rex was bringing his sober hackney up to Gwendolen's side when--the
hounds gave tongue, and the whole field was in motion as if the whirl of
the earth were carrying it; Gwendolen along with everything else; no word
of notice to Rex, who without a second thought followed too. Could he let
Gwendolen go alone? under other circumstances he would have enjoyed the
run, but he was just now perturbed by the check which had been put on the
impetus to utter his love, and get utterance in return, an impetus which
could not at once resolve itself into a totally different sort of chase,
at least with the consciousness of being on his father's gray nag, a good
horse enough in his way, but of sober years and ecclesiastical habits.
Gwendolen on her spirited little chestnut was up with the best, and felt
as secure as an immortal goddess, having, if she had thought of risk, a
core of confidence that no ill luck would happen to her. But she thought
of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might be for her
cousin. If she had thought of him, it would have struck her as a droll
picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and looking round in
search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must be panting with all
the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a wizard's spell on a stiff
clerical hackney, would have made her laugh with a sense of fun much too
strong for her to reflect on his mortification. But Gwendolen was apt to
think rather of those who saw her than of those whom she could not see;
and Rex was soon so far behind that if she had looked she would not have
seen him. For I grieve to say that in the search for a gate, along a lane
lately mended, Primrose fell, broke his knees, and undesignedly threw Rex
over his head.

Fortunately a blacksmith's son who also followed the hounds under
disadvantages, namely, on foot (a loose way of hunting which had struck
some even frivolous minds as immoral), was naturally also in the rear, and
happened to be within sight of Rex's misfortune. He ran to give help which
was greatly needed, for Rex was a great deal stunned, and the complete
recovery of sensation came in the form of pain. Joel Dagge on this
occasion showed himself that most useful of personages, whose knowledge is
of a kind suited to the immediate occasion: he not only knew perfectly
well what was the matter with the horse, how far they were both from the
nearest public-house and from Pennicote Rectory, and could certify to Rex
that his shoulder was only a bit out of joint, but also offered
experienced surgical aid.

"Lord, sir, let me shove it in again for you! I's seen Nash, the bone-
setter, do it, and done it myself for our little Sally twice over. It's
all one and the same, shoulders is. If you'll trusten to me and tighten
your mind up a bit, I'll do it for you in no time."

"Come then, old fellow," said Rex, who could tighten his mind better than
his seat in the saddle. And Joel managed the operation, though not without
considerable expense of pain to his patient, who turned so pitiably pale
while tightening his mind, that Joel remarked, "Ah, sir, you aren't used
to it, that's how it is. I's see lots and lots o' joints out. I see a man
with his eye pushed out once--that was a rum go as ever I see. You can't
have a bit o' fun wi'out such sort o' things. But it went in again. I's
swallowed three teeth mysen, as sure as I'm alive. Now, sirrey" (this was
addressed to Primrose), "come alonk--you musn't make believe as you
can't."

Joel being clearly a low character, it is, happily, not necessary to say
more of him to the refined reader, than that he helped Rex to get home
with as little delay as possible. There was no alternative but to get
home, though all the while he was in anxiety about Gwendolen, and more
miserable in the thought that she, too, might have had an accident, than
in the pain of his own bruises and the annoyance he was about to cause his
father. He comforted himself about her by reflecting that every one would
be anxious to take care of her, and that some acquaintance would be sure
to conduct her home.

Mr. Gascoigne was already at home, and was writing letters in his study,
when he was interrupted by seeing poor Rex come in with a face which was
not the less handsome and ingratiating for being pale and a little
distressed. He was secretly the favorite son, and a young portrait of the
father; who, however, never treated him with any partiality--rather, with
an extra rigor. Mr. Gascoigne having inquired of Anna, knew that Rex had
gone with Gwendolen to the meet at the Three Barns.

"What is the matter?" he said hastily, not laying down his pen.

"I'm very sorry, sir; Primrose has fallen down and broken his knees."

"Where have you been with him?" said Mr. Gascoigne, with a touch of
severity. He rarely gave way to temper.

"To the Three Barns to see the hounds throw off."

"And you were fool enough to follow?"

"Yes, sir. I didn't go at any fences, but the horse got his leg into a
hole."

"And you got hurt yourself, I hope, eh!"

"I got my shoulder put out, but a young blacksmith put it in again for me.
I'm just a little battered, that's all."

"Well, sit down."

"I'm very sorry about the horse, sir; I knew it would be a vexation to
you."

"And what has become of Gwendolen?" said Mr. Gascoigne, abruptly. Rex, who
did not imagine that his father had made any inquiries about him, answered
at first with a blush, which was the more remarkable for his previous
paleness. Then he said, nervously--

"I am anxious to know--I should like to go or send at once to Offendene--
but she rides so well, and I think she would keep up--there would most
likely be many round her."

"I suppose it was she who led you on, eh?" said Mr. Gascoigne, laying down
his pen, leaning back in his chair, and looking at Rex with more marked
examination.

"It was natural for her to want to go: she didn't intend it beforehand--
she was led away by the spirit of the thing. And, of course, I went when
she went."

Mr. Gascoigne left a brief interval of silence, and then said, with quiet
irony,--"But now you observe, young gentleman, that you are not furnished
with a horse which will enable you to play the squire to your cousin. You
must give up that amusement. You have spoiled my nag for me, and that is
enough mischief for one vacation. I shall beg you to get ready to start
for Southampton to-morrow and join Stilfox, till you go up to Oxford with
him. That will be good for your bruises as well as your studies."

Poor Rex felt his heart swelling and comporting itself as if it had been
no better than a girl's.

"I hope you will not insist on my going immediately, sir."

"Do you feel too ill?"

"No, not that--but--" here Rex bit his lips and felt the tears starting,
to his great vexation; then he rallied and tried to say more firmly, "I
want to go to Offendene, but I can go this evening."

"I am going there myself. I can bring word about Gwendolen, if that is
what you want."

Rex broke down. He thought he discerned an intention fatal to his
happiness, nay, his life. He was accustomed to believe in his father's
penetration, and to expect firmness. "Father, I can't go away without
telling her that I love her, and knowing that she loves me."

Mr. Gascoigne was inwardly going through some self-rebuke for not being
more wary, and was now really sorry for the lad; but every consideration
was subordinate to that of using the wisest tactics in the case. He had
quickly made up his mind and to answer the more quietly--

"My dear boy, you are too young to be taking momentous, decisive steps of
that sort. This is a fancy which you have got into your head during an
idle week or two: you must set to work at something and dismiss it. There
is every reason against it. An engagement at your age would be totally
rash and unjustifiable; and moreover, alliances between first cousins are
undesirable. Make up your mind to a brief disappointment. Life is full of
them. We have all got to be broken in; and this is a mild beginning for
you."

"No, not mild. I can't bear it. I shall be good for nothing. I shouldn't
mind anything, if it were settled between us. I could do anything then,"
said Rex, impetuously. "But it's of no use to pretend that I will obey
you. I can't do it. If I said I would, I should be sure to break my word.
I should see Gwendolen again."

"Well, wait till to-morrow morning, that we may talk of the matter again--
you will promise me that," said Mr. Gascoigne, quietly; and Rex did not,
could not refuse.

The rector did not even tell his wife that he had any other reason for
going to Offendene that evening than his desire to ascertain that
Gwendolen had got home safely. He found her more than safe--elated. Mr.
Quallon, who had won the brush, had delivered the trophy to her, and she
had brought it before her, fastened on the saddle; more than that, Lord
Brackenshaw had conducted her home, and had shown himself delighted with
her spirited riding. All this was told at once to her uncle, that he might
see how well justified she had been in acting against his advice; and the
prudential rector did feel himself in a slight difficulty, for at that
moment he was particularly sensible that it was his niece's serious
interest to be well regarded by the Brackenshaws, and their opinion as to
her following the hounds really touched the essence of his objection.
However, he was not obliged to say anything immediately, for Mrs. Davilow
followed up Gwendolen's brief triumphant phrases with--

"Still, I do hope you will not do it again, Gwendolen. I should never have
a moment's quiet. Her father died by an accident, you know."

Here Mrs. Davilow had turned away from Gwendolen, and looked at Mr.
Gascoigne.

"Mamma, dear," said Gwendolen, kissing her merrily, and passing over the
question of the fears which Mrs. Davilow had meant to account for,
"children don't take after their parents in broken legs."

Not one word had yet been said about Rex. In fact there had been no
anxiety about him at Offendene. Gwendolen had observed to her mamma, "Oh,
he must have been left far behind, and gone home in despair," and it could
not be denied that this was fortunate so far as it made way for Lord
Brackenshaw's bringing her home. But now Mr. Gascoigne said, with some
emphasis, looking at Gwendolen--

"Well, the exploit has ended better for you than for Rex."

"Yes, I dare say he had to make a terrible round. You have not taught
Primrose to take the fences, uncle," said Gwendolen, without the faintest
shade of alarm in her looks and tone.

"Rex has had a fall," said Mr. Gascoigne, curtly, throwing himself into an
arm-chair resting his elbows and fitting his palms and fingers together,
while he closed his lips and looked at Gwendolen, who said--

"Oh, poor fellow! he is not hurt, I hope?" with a correct look of anxiety
such as elated mortals try to super-induce when their pulses are all the
while quick with triumph; and Mrs. Davilow, in the same moment, uttered a
low "Good heavens! There!"

Mr. Gascoigne went on: "He put his shoulder out, and got some bruises, I
believe." Here he made another little pause of observation; but Gwendolen,
instead of any such symptoms as pallor and silence, had only deepened the
compassionateness of her brow and eyes, and said again, "Oh, poor fellow!
it is nothing serious, then?" and Mr. Gascoigne held his diagnosis
complete. But he wished to make assurance doubly sure, and went on still
with a purpose.

"He got his arm set again rather oddly. Some blacksmith--not a parishioner
of mine--was on the field--a loose fish, I suppose, but handy, and set the
arm for him immediately. So after all, I believe, I and Primrose come off
worst. The horse's knees are cut to pieces. He came down in a hole, it
seems, and pitched Rex over his head."

Gwendolen's face had allowably become contented again, since Rex's arm had
been reset; and now, at the descriptive suggestions in the latter part of
her uncle's speech, her elated spirits made her features less unmanageable
than usual; the smiles broke forth, and finally a descending scale of
laughter.

"You are a pretty young lady--to laugh at other people's calamities," said
Mr. Gascoigne, with a milder sense of disapprobation than if he had not
had counteracting reasons to be glad that Gwendolen showed no deep feeling
on the occasion.

"Pray forgive me, uncle. Now Rex is safe, it is so droll to fancy the
figure he and Primrose would cut--in a lane all by themselves--only a
blacksmith running up. It would make a capital caricature of 'Following
the Hounds.'"