George Eliot's Daniel Deronda: Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Gwendolen was now at the height of her entanglement in those fatal meshes which are woven more closely within than without, and make the inward torture far worse than the apparent outward cause.

  In taking his wife with him on a yachting expedition, Grandcourt wanted to feel that she was his to do as he liked with, and to make her feel it also. Moreover, he was very fond of yachting: its dreamy do-nothing absolutism, unmolested by social demands, suited his disposition. He had his reasons for carrying Gwendolen out of reach: he suspected a growing spirit of opposition in her, and his feeling about the inclination she betrayed for Deronda was what in another man he would have called jealousy. In himself it seemed merely a resolution to put an end to such foolery.

  And Grandcourt might have pleaded that he was perfectly justified in taking care that his wife should fulfil her obligations. Her marriage was a contract where all the apparent advantages were on her side, and it was only right for her husband to hinder her from any unsuitable behaviour. He knew quite well that she had not married him out of love; he had won her by the rank and luxuries he had to give her, and these she had got: he had fulfilled his side of the contract.

  And Gwendolen, we know, was thoroughly aware of the situation. She could not excuse herself by saying that that she had meant to rule and have her own way. With all her early indulgence, she was not one of those narrow-brained women who regard all their own selfish demands as rights, and every claim upon themselves as an injury. She had a root of conscience in her, and the process of purgatory had begun: she knew that she had been wrong.

  But now enter into the soul of this young creature as she found herself, with the blue Mediterranean dividing her from the world, on the tiny plank-island of a yacht, the domain of the husband to whom she had sold herself, and had been paid the strict price: the husband to whom she had sold her truth and justice, so that he held them throttled into silence, collared and dragged behind him, without remonstrance.

  What had she to complain of? The yacht was of the prettiest; the cabin fitted up to perfection, smelling of cedar, soft-cushioned, hung with silk, expanded with mirrors; the crew such as suited an elegant toy; and Mr. Lush was not there, for he had returned to England. Moreover, Gwendolen liked the sea: it did not make her ill; and to observe the rigging of the vessel and forecast its adjustments was a sort of amusement that might have gratified her enjoyment of imaginary rule; the weather was fine, and they were coasting southward, where one may float between blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that the world has done with sorrow.

  But what can still that hunger of the heart which sickens the eye for beauty, and makes sweet-scented ease an oppression? What sort of paradise would quiet the terrible fury of repulsion, which, like a torture, concentrates the mind in poisonous misery? While Gwendolen, throned on her cushions at evening, and beholding the glory of sea and sky softening as if with boundless love around her, was hoping that Grandcourt in his march up and down was not going to pause near her or speak to her, some woman living in poverty, under a smoky sky, was listening for the music of a footstep that would remove all risk from her foretaste of joy.

  Had Grandcourt the least conception of what was going on in his wife’s mind? He conceived that she did not love him; but was that necessary? She was under his power. But he did not understand that she could have any special repulsion for him personally. How could she? He himself knew what personal repulsion was – nobody better; his mind was much furnished with a sense of what brutes his fellow-creatures were, what odious familiarities they had, what smirks, what foolish modes of flourishing their handkerchiefs. In this critical view of mankind there was an affinity between him and Gwendolen before their marriage, and she was attracted by the refined negations he presented to her. Hence he understood her repulsion for Lush.

  But how was he to understand her present repulsion for Henleigh Grandcourt? He had all his life had reason to take a flattering view of his own attractiveness to women of taste. He had no idea of moral repulsion, and could not have believed that there may be a disgust which will gradually make beauty more detestable than ugliness, through exasperation at that outward advantage in which hateful things can affect superiority.

  How, then, could Grandcourt divine what was going on in Gwendolen’s breast?

  For their behaviour to each other scandalized no observer: the staff and crew regarded them as a model couple in high life. Their companionship consisted chiefly in a well-bred silence. Grandcourt had no humorous observations at which Gwendolen could refuse to smile. He was perfectly polite in arranging a garment over her when needful, and in handing her any object that he perceived her to need, and she could not fall into the vulgarity of rejecting such politeness rudely.

  Grandcourt put up his telescope and said, “There’s a plantation of sugar-canes there; should you like to look?”

  Gwendolen said, “Yes, please,” remembering that she must try and interest herself in sugar-canes as something outside her personal affairs. Then Grandcourt would walk up and down and smoke, pausing occasionally to point out a sail on the horizon, and at last would seat himself and look at Gwendolen with his narrow immovable gaze, as if she were part of the yacht; while she was exerting her ingenuity not to meet his eyes.

  At dinner he would remark that the fruit was getting stale, and they must put in somewhere for more; or, observing that she did not drink the wine, asked if she would like another kind better. A lady was obliged to respond to these things suitably; and in any case, quarrelling with Grandcourt was impossible; she might as well have made angry remarks to a dangerous serpent ornamentally coiled in her cabin.

  Grandcourt had intense satisfaction in leading his wife captive after this fashion; it gave their life on a small scale a royal representation which satisfied his taste for despotism.

  To Gwendolen, the medium that now thrust itself everywhere before her view was this husband and her relation to him. The beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed gentleman or lady who barely passes for a human being, with petty standards, low suspicions and loveless boredom, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the minds of those who live with them. Gwendolen had that kind of window before her.

  Some unhappy wives are soothed by the possibility of becoming mothers; but Gwendolen felt that to desire a child would have meant consenting to the completion of the injury she had been guilty of. She dreaded becoming a mother. It was not the image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance: her only gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on an accident was a refuge from worse temptation.

  The embitterment of hatred is often, like devoted love, out of direct relation with any outward causes. Passion finds nourishment within, directs all currents toward itself, and makes the whole life its tributary. And the intensest form of hatred is that rooted in fear, which compels to silence and leads to an imaginary annihilation of the detested object, like hidden rites of vengeance.

  Such rites went on in the secrecy of Gwendolen’s mind, with the effect of a struggling terror. Side by side with the dread of her husband had grown the self-dread, which urged her to flee from the images wrought by her pent-up impulse. The vision of her past wrong-doing cast a ghastly illumination over every imagined deed that was a rash effort at freedom.

  Moreover, she had learned to see all her acts through the impression they would make on Deronda, and the judgment of her that would be created in his mind. She could not recall one word of flattery or indulgence from him that might weaken his restraining power over her (in this way Deronda’s effort over himself was repaid); and amid the dreary uncertainties of her spoiled life, the possible remedies in his mind, and her feeling for him, made her only hope. He seemed to her a terrible-browed angel, from whom she could not think of concealing any deed.

  But her vision of what she had to dread took more decidedly than ever
the form of some fiercely impulsive deed, committed as in a dream that she would instantaneously wake from to find the effects: to find death under her hands, guilt and terror – a white dead face from which she was forever trying to flee and forever held back. She remembered Deronda’s words: they were continually recurring in her thought–

  “Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing your remorse. Take your fear as a safeguard, like quickness of hearing, that will warn you of consequences.”

  And so it was. In Gwendolen’s consciousness temptation and dread met and stared like two pale phantoms, while her fuller self beheld the apparitions and sobbed for deliverance from them.

  Inarticulate prayers often swept out from her into the vast silence, unbroken except by her husband’s breathing or the plash of the wave; but if ever she thought of help, it took the form of Deronda’s presence and words, of his sympathy and direction. It was sometimes after a white-lipped temptation with murdering fingers had made its demon-visit that these best moments of inward crying for rescue would come to her, and she would lie with wide-open eyes in which the rising tears seemed a blessing, and the thought, “I will not mind if I can keep from getting wicked,” seemed an answer to her prayer.

  So the days passed, taking them with light breezes about the Balearic Isles, and then to Sardinia, and then persuading them northward toward Corsica. But this peaceful, gentle-wafted existence was becoming a nightmare to Gwendolen.

  “How long are we to be yachting?” she ventured to ask one day after they had touched at Ajaccio, and the mere fact of going ashore was a relief.

  “What else should we do?” said Grandcourt. “I’m not tired of it. I don’t see why we shouldn’t stay out any length of time. And where would you go to? I’m sick of foreign places. Would you rather be at Ryelands?”

  “Oh, no,” said Gwendolen, indifferently, finding all places alike undescribable as soon as she imagined her husband in them. “I only wondered how long you would like this.”

  “I like yachting longer than anything else,” said Grandcourt. “I suppose you are beginning to tire of it. Women are so confoundedly whimsical. They expect everything to give way to them.”

  “Oh, dear, no!” said Gwendolen, letting out her scorn in a flute-like tone. “I never expect you to give way.”

  She made up her mind to a length of yachting that she could not see beyond; but the next day, after a squall which had made her rather ill for the first time, he said–

  “There’s been the devil’s own work in the night. The skipper says we shall have to stay at Genoa for a week while things are set right.”

  “Do you mind that?” said Gwendolen, who lay looking very white.

  “I should think so. Who wants to be broiling at Genoa?”

  “It will be a change,” said Gwendolen, made a little incautious.

  “I don’t want any change. The place is intolerable. I shall go out in a boat, and manage it myself for a few hours every day instead of striving in a damnable hotel.”

  Gwendolen thought with hope of hours when she would be alone, since Grandcourt would not want to take her in the said boat; and in her exultation at this unlooked-for relief, she had wild fancies of running away as an escape from her worse self.

  The fresh expectation revived her energies, and gave her an air of cheerfulness that was noticed by her husband. She watched the sinking of the moon with a vague impression that in this mighty frame of things there might be some preparation of rescue for her. This possibility of hope was like a first return of hunger to the long-languishing patient.

  The next morning she woke from dreams of meeting Deronda to find they had cast anchor in the port of Genoa. And an hour or so from that dream she actually met Deronda, on the palatial staircase of the Italia, with her husband by her side.

  Deronda started in surprise before raising his hat and passing on without further greeting. He was doubtful whether Grandcourt would be civilly inclined to him.

  The doubt might have been a disagreeable certainty, for Grandcourt, on this unaccountable appearance of Deronda at Genoa, immediately tried to conceive how there could have been an arrangement between him and Gwendolen. It is true that he quickly saw how difficult it would have been to make such an arrangement, being too cool-headed to believe that Gwendolen had posted a letter to Deronda from Marseilles or Barcelona, advising him to travel to Genoa on the chance of meeting her there – which must have implied a miraculous foreknowledge in her, and in Deronda a bird-like facility in flying about.

  For all that, Grandcourt was not disposed to admit that Deronda’s presence was a mere accident. It was a disgusting fact; that was enough; and no doubt she was well pleased. A man out of temper does not wait for proofs before feeling all things to be in a conspiracy against him. Grandcourt felt as if Gwendolen and Deronda conspired against him; and what he took for certain – and in this he guessed the truth – was that Gwendolen was counting on an interview with Deronda whenever her husband’s back was turned.

  As he sat taking his coffee at a convenient angle for observing her, he discerned some fresh ease in her movements, some peculiar meaning in her eyes. Certainly her troubles had not marred her beauty. Mrs. Grandcourt was handsomer than Gwendolen Harleth: her inward experience had given new play to her features; her person and air had the nameless something which often makes a woman more interesting after marriage than before, less confident that all things are according to her opinion, and yet with less of deer-like shyness – more fully a human being.

  This morning, as she rose from the table, she had no art to conceal her joyous expectation. Just as a terrier may perceive its master’s purpose by the slightest signs, and scuttle to the door ready to go out, so, in dog fashion, Grandcourt discerned the signs of Gwendolen’s intentions.

  “A – just ring, please, and order some dinner for us at three,” said Grandcourt, as he too rose and stretched his hand toward his hat. “I’m going to send Angus to find a little sailing-boat for us to go out in; one that I can manage, with you at the tiller. It’s uncommonly pleasant these fine evenings.”

  Gwendolen turned cold. There was not only the cruel disappointment; there was the immediate conviction that her husband had determined to take her because he would not leave her out of his sight; and probably this dual solitude in a boat was the more attractive to him because it would be wearisome to her.

  “I would rather not go in the boat,” she said. “Take some one else.”

  “Very well; if you don’t go, I shall not go,” said Grandcourt. “We shall stay suffocating here, that’s all.”

  “I can’t bear to go in a boat,” said Gwendolen, angrily.

  “That is a sudden change,” said Grandcourt, with a slight sneer. “But, since you decline, we shall stay indoors.”

  He laid down his hat again, lit a cigar, and walked up and down the room. Gwendolen knew that Grandcourt would not go without her; but if he must tyrannize over her, he should not do it as he chose. She would oblige him to stay in the hotel. Without speaking, she passed into the bedroom and threw herself angrily into a chair, feeling that the wave of evil had rushed back upon her, and dragged her away from her momentary breathing-space.

  Presently Grandcourt came in and sat down in front of her, saying, in his drawl–

  “Have you come round yet? or do you find it agreeable to be out of temper? You make things uncommonly pleasant for me.”

  “Why do you want to make them unpleasant for me?” said Gwendolen, feeling the hot tears rise.

  “Now, what do you have to complain of?” said Grandcourt, using his most inward voice. “Is it that I stay indoors when you stay?”

  She could not answer. In her despair and humiliation she began to sob – something she had never done before in her husband’s presence.

  “I hope this is useful,” said Grandcourt, after a moment. “All I can say is, it’s most confoundedly unpleasant. What the devil women can see in this kind of thi
ng, I don’t know. All I can see is, that we are shut up here when we might be having a pleasant sail.”

  “Let us go, then,” said Gwendolen, impetuously. “Perhaps we shall be drowned.” She began to sob again.

  This extraordinary behaviour, which had evidently some relation to Deronda, gave more definiteness to Grandcourt’s conclusions. He drew his chair close to her, and said, in a low tone, “Just be quiet and listen, will you?”

  Gwendolen shrank and ceased to sob. She kept her eyelids down and clasped her hands tightly.

  “I know very well what this nonsense means,” said Grandcourt. “But if you suppose I am going to let you make a fool of me, just dismiss that notion from your mind. There is disgrace for you, if you like to have it, but as to Deronda, it’s quite clear that he hangs back from you.”

  “It’s all false!” said Gwendolen, bitterly. “You don’t in the least imagine what is in my mind. You had better leave me at liberty to speak with anyone I like. It will be better for you.”

  “You will allow me to judge of that,” said Grandcourt.

  Gwendolen’s words had so clear and tremendous a meaning for herself that she thought they must have expressed it to Grandcourt, and had no sooner uttered them than she dreaded their effect. But his soul was garrisoned against fears: he had the confidence of domination, and he was perfectly satisfied that he held his wife with bit and bridle. By the time they had been married a year she would cease to be restive. He stood with his air of indifference, till she felt him like an immovable obstruction in her life.

  “What decision have you come to?” he said presently.

  “Oh, let us go,” said Gwendolen. The walls had begun to be an imprisonment, and while there was breath in this man he would have the mastery over her. It was stupid to resist.

  So the boat was ordered. She even went down to the quay with him to see it before midday. Grandcourt had recovered his temper, and had a scornful satisfaction in the attention given to the milord, who being an Englishman was naturally at home on the sea. The sort of exultation he had discerned in Gwendolen this morning she now discerned in him; and it was true that he had set his mind on this boating with the gratified impulse of a strong will which had nothing better to exert itself upon. He had remarkable physical courage, and was proud of it. Moreover, he was ruling that Gwendolen should go with him.

  And when they came down again at five o’clock, equipped for their boating, beholders admired this handsome, fair-skinned English couple, both of them proud, pale, and calm, without a smile on their faces. The husband’s physique showed very well in his close-fitting dress, and the wife was declared to be like a statue.

  Some suggestions were proffered concerning a possible change in the breeze, and the necessary care in putting about, but Grandcourt’s manner made the speakers understand that they were too officious, and that he knew better than they.

  Gwendolen was not afraid of any outward dangers – she was afraid of her own wishes which were taking shapes possible and impossible, like a cloud of demon-faces. She was afraid of her own hatred, which under his cold iron touch today had gathered a fierce intensity. As she sat guiding the tiller under her husband’s eyes, doing just what he told her, the strife within her seemed like her own effort to escape from herself.

  She clung to the thought of Deronda: he would not go away while she was there – he knew that she needed help. The sense that he was there would save her from doing wrong. And yet quick, quick, came images, plans of evil, like furies preparing the deed that they would straightway avenge.

  They were taken out of the port and carried eastward by a gentle breeze. Some clouds tempered the sunlight, and the supreme beauty of evening was approaching. Sails larger and smaller made a cheerful companionship. The grand city shone, and the mountains looked out above it in stillness. Suddenly Gwendolen let her hands fall, and said in a scarcely audible tone, “God help me!”

  “What is the matter?” said Grandcourt.

  “Oh, nothing,” said Gwendolen, rousing herself and resuming the ropes.

  “Don’t you find this pleasant?” said Grandcourt.

  “Very.”

  “You admit now we couldn’t have done anything better?”

  “No – I see nothing better. I think we shall go on always, like the Flying Dutchman,” said Gwendolen wildly.

  Grandcourt gave her one of his narrow examining glances, and then said, “If you like, we can go to Spezia in the morning.”

  “No; I shall like nothing better than this.”

  “Very well: we’ll do the same tomorrow. But we must be turning in soon. I shall put about.”