Chapter Twenty-seven
While Grandcourt was riding to Offendene on his beautiful black Yarico, with the groom behind him on Criterion, Gwendolen was seated before the mirror while her mother carefully brushed her light-brown hair.
“Just gather it up easily and make a coil, mamma,” said Gwendolen.
“Let me bring you some ear-rings, Gwen,” said Mrs. Davilow, when the hair was adjusted, and they were both looking at the reflection in the glass. The eyes looked brighter than they had done of late; there seemed to be a shadow lifted from the face.
“No, mamma; no ornaments, and I shall put on my black silk. Black is the only colour to wear when one is going to refuse an offer,” said Gwendolen, with one of her old smiles.
“Suppose the offer is not made?”
“Then that will be because I refuse it beforehand,” said Gwendolen. “It comes to the same thing.”
There was a proud toss of the head as she said this; and when she walked downstairs in her black robes, there was just that firm poise of head and elasticity of form which had lately been missing, as in a parched plant. Her mother thought, “She is quite herself again. It must be pleasure in his coming. Can her mind be really made up against him?”
Gwendolen had been so occupied with perpetually alternating arguments for and against her marrying Grandcourt, that the conclusion which she had determined on ceased to have any hold on her mind. She was in a state in which no conclusion could look fixed to her. She would have expressed her resolve as before; but the blood had been sucked out of it. She did not mean to accept Grandcourt; still, that only prompted her to look the unwelcome reasons full in the face until she had a little less awe of them. By looking at a dubious object with a constructive imagination, one can give it twenty different shapes. Her indistinct hesitation before the interview at the Whispering Stones now counted for nothing; if it had not been for that day in Cardell Chase, she said to herself, there would have been no obstacle to her marrying Grandcourt. On that day, she had acted with an impulse which had come partly from her dread of wrong-doing. She shrank with pride and terror from the dim region of what was called disgraceful, wrong, or guilty.
But now – did she know the exact state of the case with regard to Mrs. Glasher? She had given a sort of promise – had said, “I will not interfere with your wishes.” But might it not be just as well, nay better, that Grandcourt should marry? For what could not a woman do when she was married, if she knew how to assert herself? Here all was imagination. Gwendolen had about as accurate an idea of marriage – of its mutual influences, demands and duties – as she had of magnetic currents and the law of storms.
“Mamma managed badly,” was how she summed up her mother’s experience: she herself would manage quite differently.
“I wonder what mamma and my uncle would say if they knew about Mrs. Glasher!” thought Gwendolen. “I wonder what anybody would say!” To consider what “anybody” would say, was to be released from the difficulty of judging: “anybody” would regard illegitimate children as rightfully to be looked down on and deprived of social advantages. The verdict of “anybody” seemed to be that she had no reason to concern herself greatly on behalf of Mrs. Glasher and her children.
But this could not do away with her indignation and loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an outworn life, full of past secrets. True, love on her own part had hardly occupied her mind at all in relation to Grandcourt. The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other feelings; and to be enamoured was the part of the man. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt’s way of being enamoured before she had that glimpse of his past, which made her feel disgust for his addresses. Perhaps other men’s lives were also full of secrets, and they were laughing up their sleeves at the ignorance of the women they wanted to marry.
These feelings of disgust and indignation had sunk deep, and kept her firm to her decision that she was not going to accept Grandcourt. If anything could have induced her to change, it would have been the prospect of making all things easy for “poor mamma:” that, she admitted, was a temptation. But no! she was going to refuse him.
Meanwhile, the thought that he was coming to be refused was inspiriting: she had the reins in her hands again, and felt herself reviving from the beaten-down state in which she had been left by the interview with Klesmer. She was going to exercise her power.
Was this what made her heart palpitate annoyingly when she heard the horse’s footsteps on the gravel? – when Miss Merry came to tell her that Grandcourt was in the drawing-room? Walking into the drawing-room, she had to concentrate all her energy in self-control, which made her appear gravely gracious as she answered his greeting in a voice as low and languid as his own.
When they were both seated – Gwendolen upright with downcast eyelids, Grandcourt about two yards distant, leaning one arm over the back of his chair while he looked at her – anyone seeing them would have concluded that they were in some stage of love-making suspense. And she already felt herself being wooed by this silent man seated at an agreeable distance, with his attention bent wholly on her. And he also considered himself to be wooing: he felt the utmost piquancy in a girl whom he had not found quite calculable.
“I was disappointed not to find you at Leubronn,” he began, his usual broken drawl having just a shade of amorous languor in it. “The place was intolerable without you. A mere kennel of a place. Don’t you think so?”
“I can’t judge what it would be without myself,” said Gwendolen, with some recovered sense of mischief. “With myself I liked it well enough. But I was obliged to come home on account of family troubles.”
“It was very cruel of you to go to Leubronn,” said Grandcourt, taking no notice of the troubles, on which Gwendolen – she hardly knew why – wished that there should be a clear understanding at once. “You knew you were the heart and soul of everything that went on. Are you quite reckless about me?”
It was impossible to say “yes”; equally impossible to say “no;” but what else could she say? In her difficulty, she looked down, blushing. Grandcourt believed that she was showing her inclination. But he was determined that she should show it more decidedly.
“Perhaps there is some deeper interest? Some attraction – some engagement? Is there any man who stands between us?”
Inwardly the answer framed itself. “No; but there is a woman.” Yet how could she utter this? Even if she had not promised that woman to be silent, it would have been impossible for her to enter on the subject with Grandcourt. Gwendolen felt compelled to silence, and after a pause, Grandcourt said–
“Am I to understand that some one else is preferred?”
Gwendolen, now impatient of her own embarrassment, determined to rush at the difficulty and free herself. She raised her eyes again and said with her former clearness and defiance, “No,” wishing him to understand that she might not be ready to take him.
“The last thing I would do, is to importune you. I should not hope to win you by making myself a bore. If there were no hope for me, I would ask you to tell me so at once, that I might just ride away to – no matter where.”
Almost to her own astonishment, Gwendolen felt a sudden alarm at the image of Grandcourt finally riding away. What would be left her then? Nothing but the former dreariness. She liked him to be there. She snatched at the subject that would defer any decisive answer.
“I fear you are not aware of what has happened to us. I have lately had to think so much of my mamma’s troubles, that other matters have been quite thrown into the background. She has lost all her fortune, and we are going to leave this place. I must ask you to excuse my seeming preoccupied.”
In eluding a direct appeal Gwendolen recovered some of her self-possession. She spoke with dignity and looked straight at Grandcourt, whose long, narrow, impenetrable eyes met hers, and mysteriously arrested them. It would be hard to tell on which side – Gwendolen’s or Grandcourt’s – the effect o
f that look was more mixed. At that moment his strongest wish was to be completely master of this creature – this piquant combination of maidenliness and mischief. The fact that she knew things which had repelled her, spurred him to triumph over that repugnance; and he believed that he should triumph.
And she – ah, piteous equality in the need to dominate! – she was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water in the desert, overcome by the sense that this man offered rescue from helpless subjection to an oppressive lot.
All the while they were looking at each other; and Grandcourt said, slowly and languidly, as if it were of no importance,
“You will tell me now, I hope, that Mrs. Davilow’s loss of fortune will not trouble you further. You will trust me to prevent it from weighing upon her. You will give me the claim to provide against that.”
The pauses and refined drawlings with which this speech was uttered, gave time for Gwendolen to go through the dream of a life. The words had the effect of a draught of wine, which suddenly makes all things easier. She had a momentary phantasmal love for this man who chose his words so well, and paid her such delicate homage. Repugnance, dread, scruples – these were dim as remembered pains. She imagined herself already springing to her mother. Yet when Grandcourt had ceased to speak, there was an instant in which she was conscious of being at the turning of the ways.
“You are very generous,” she said, not moving her eyes, and speaking gently.
“You accept this provision?” said Grandcourt, without any new eagerness. “You consent to become my wife?”
Something made her rise from her seat and walk a little distance. Then she turned and with her hands folded stood in silence.
Grandcourt immediately rose too. The hesitation of this destitute girl to take his splendid offer stung him into a keenness of interest such as he had not known for years; none the less because he attributed her hesitation entirely to her knowledge about Mrs. Glasher.
“Do you command me to go?” he said.
“No,” said Gwendolen. She could not let him go: that no clutched at his presence. She seemed to herself to be drifting toward the tremendous decision – but drifting depends not only on the currents but on how the sails have been set beforehand.
“You accept my devotion?” said Grandcourt, looking straight into her eyes, without other movement. Their eyes meeting in that way seemed to allow any length of pause: but how could she contradict herself? What had she detained him for? He had shut out any explanation.
“Yes,” came as gravely from Gwendolen’s lips as if she had been answering to her name in a court of justice. He received it gravely, and they still looked at each other in the same attitude. Was there ever such a way of accepting the bliss-giving “Yes”? Grandcourt liked better to be at that distance from her, and to feel under a ceremony imposed by an indefinable prohibition that breathed from Gwendolen’s bearing.
But he did at length advance to take her hand, just pressing his lips upon it and letting it go again. She thought his behaviour perfect, and gained a sense of freedom which made her almost ready to be mischievous. Her “Yes” entailed so little at this moment that there was nothing to screen the reversal of her gloomy prospects; her vision was filled by her own release from the Momperts, and her mother’s release from Sawyer’s Cottage. With a happy curl of the lips, she said–
“Will you not see mamma? I will fetch her.”
“Let us wait a little,” said Grandcourt, in his favourite attitude, having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with his right hand caressing his whisker, while he looked at Gwendolen.
“Have you anything else to say to me?” she said, playfully.
“I know having things said to you is a great bore,” said Grandcourt, rather sympathetically.
“Not when they are things I like to hear.”
“Will it bother you to be asked how soon we can be married?”
“I think it will, today,” said Gwendolen, putting up her chin saucily.
“Not today, then, but tomorrow. Think of it before I come tomorrow. In a fortnight – or three weeks – as soon as possible.”
“Ah, you think you will be tired of my company,” said Gwendolen. “I notice when people are married the husband is not so much with his wife as when they are engaged. But perhaps I shall like that better, too.”
She laughed charmingly.
“You shall have whatever you like,” said Grandcourt.
“And nothing that I don’t like – please say that; because I think I dislike what I don’t like more than I like what I like,” said Gwendolen, finding herself in the woman’s paradise, where all her nonsense is adorable.
Grandcourt paused; these were subtleties in which he had much experience of his own. “I don’t know. This is such a brute of a world, things are always turning up that one doesn’t like. If you like to ride Criterion, I can’t prevent his coming down by some chance or other.”
“Ah, my friend Criterion, how is he?”
“He is outside: I made the groom ride him, that you might see him. Come to the window and look at him.”
They could see the two horses being taken slowly round the sweep, and the beautiful creatures sent a thrill of exultation through Gwendolen. They were symbols of command and luxury, in delightful contrast with the ugliness of poverty and humiliation at which she had lately been looking.
“Will you ride Criterion tomorrow?” said Grandcourt. “If you will, everything shall be arranged.”
“I should like it of all things,” said Gwendolen. “I want to lose myself in a gallop again. But now I must go and fetch mamma.”
“Take my arm to the door, then,” said Grandcourt, and she accepted. Their faces were very near each other, almost on a level. She thought his manners as a lover more agreeable than any she had seen described. She had no alarm lest he meant to kiss her, and was so much at her ease, that she suddenly paused and said half archly, half earnestly–
“Oh, while I think of it, there is something I dislike that you can save me from. I do not like Mr. Lush’s company.”
“You shall not have it. I’ll get rid of him.”
“You are not fond of him yourself?”
“Not in the least. I let him hang on me because he has always been a poor devil,” said Grandcourt, in utter indifference. “A coarse-haired kind of brute – sort of cross between a hog and a dilettante.”
Gwendolen laughed. When they reached the door, his way of opening it for her was the perfection of easy homage. Really, she thought, he was likely to be the least disagreeable of husbands.
Mrs. Davilow was waiting anxiously in her bedroom when Gwendolen entered, and kissing her, said, “Come down, mamma, and see Mr. Grandcourt. I am engaged to him.”
“My darling child,” said Mrs. Davilow, with surprise.
“Yes,” said Gwendolen. “Everything is settled. You are not going to Sawyer’s Cottage, I am not going to be inspected by Mrs. Mompert, and everything is to be as I like. So come down with me immediately.”
BOOK IV: GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE
George Eliot's Daniel Deronda: Abridged Page 29