by George Eliot
“You can conceive no motive?” said Klesmer, folding his arms.
“None that seems in the least probable.”
“Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in the world—the throned lady whose colors I carry between my heart and my armor.”
Catherine’s hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the paper: still less could her lips utter a word. Klesmer went on—
“This would be the last impertinence in me, if I meant to found anything upon it. That is out of the question. I meant no such thing. But you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you of being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men’s imputing to you the folly of believing that they courted you for your own sake. Did you not say so?”
“Very likely,” was the answer, in a low murmur.
“It was a bitter word. Well, at least one man who has seen women as plenty as flowers in May has lingered about you for your own sake. And since he is one whom you can never marry, you will believe him. There is an argument in favor of some other man. But don’t give yourself for a meal to a minotaur like Bult. I shall go now and pack. I shall make my excuses to Mrs. Arrowpoint.” Klesmer rose as he ended, and walked quickly toward the door.
“You must take this heap of manuscript,” then said Catherine, suddenly making a desperate effort. She had risen to fetch the heap from another table. Klesmer came back, and they had the length of the folio sheets between them.
“Why should I not marry the man who loves me, if I love him?” said Catherine. To her the effort was something like the leap of a woman from the deck into the lifeboat.
“It would be too hard—impossible—you could not carry it through. I am not worth what you would have to encounter. I will not accept the sacrifice. It would be thought a mesalliance for you and I should be liable to the worst accusations.”
“Is it the accusations you are afraid of? I am afraid of nothing but that we should miss the passing of our lives together.”
The decisive word had been spoken: there was no doubt concerning the end willed by each: there only remained the way of arriving at it, and Catherine determined to take the straightest possible. She went to her father and mother in the library, and told them that she had promised to marry Klesmer.
Mrs. Arrowpoint’s state of mind was pitiable. Imagine Jean Jacques, after his essay on the corrupting influence of the arts, waking up among children of nature who had no idea of grilling the raw bone they offered him for breakfast with the primitive flint knife; or Saint Just, after fervidly denouncing all recognition of preeminence, receiving a vote of thanks for the unbroken mediocrity of his speech, which warranted the dullest patriots in delivering themselves at equal length. Something of the same sort befell the authoress of “Tasso,” when what she had safely demanded of the dead Leonora was enacted by her own Catherine. It is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and are liable to heavy dining. Besides, it has long been understood that the proprieties of literature are not those of practical life. Mrs. Arrowpoint naturally wished for the best of everything. She not only liked to feel herself at a higher level of literary sentiment than the ladies with whom she associated; she wished not to be behind them in any point of social consideration. While Klesmer was seen in the light of a patronized musician, his peculiarities were picturesque and acceptable: but to see him by a sudden flash in the light of her son-in-law gave her a burning sense of what the world would say. And the poor lady had been used to represent her Catherine as a model of excellence.
Under the first shock she forgot everything but her anger, and snatched at any phrase that would serve as a weapon.
“If Klesmer has presumed to offer himself to you, your father shall horsewhip him off the premises. Pray, speak, Mr. Arrowpoint.”
The father took his cigar from his mouth, and rose to the occasion by saying, “This will never do, Cath.”
“Do!” cried Mrs. Arrowpoint; “who in their senses ever thought it would do? You might as well say poisoning and strangling will not do. It is a comedy you have got up, Catherine. Else you are mad.”
“I am quite sane and serious, mamma, and Herr Klesmer is not to blame. He never thought of my marrying him. I found out that he loved me, and loving him, I told him I would marry him.”
“Leave that unsaid, Catherine,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, bitterly. “Every one else will say that for you. You will be a public fable. Every one will say that you must have made an offer to a man who has been paid to come to the house—who is nobody knows what—a gypsy, a Jew, a mere bubble of the earth.”
“Never mind, mamma,” said Catherine, indignant in her turn. “We all know he is a genius—as Tasso was.”
“Those times were not these, nor is Klesmer Tasso,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, getting more heated. “There is no sting in that sarcasm, except the sting of undutifulness.”
“I am sorry to hurt you, mamma. But I will not give up the happiness of my life to ideas that I don’t believe in and customs I have no respect for.”
“You have lost all sense of duty, then? You have forgotten that you are our only child—that it lies with you to place a great property in the right hands?”
“What are the right hands? My grandfather gained the property in trade.”
“Mr. Arrowpoint, will you sit by and hear this without speaking?”
“I am a gentleman, Cath. We expect you to marry a gentleman,” said the father, exerting himself.
“And a man connected with the institutions of this country,” said the mother. “A woman in your position has serious duties. Where duty and inclination clash, she must follow duty.”
“I don’t deny that,” said Catherine, getting colder in proportion to her mother’s heat. “But one may say very true things and apply them falsely. People can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what they desire any one else to do.”
“Your parent’s desire makes no duty for you, then?”
“Yes, within reason. But before I give up the happiness of my life—”
“Catherine, Catherine, it will not be your happiness,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, in her most raven-like tones.
“Well, what seems to me my happiness—before I give it up, I must see some better reason than the wish that I should marry a nobleman, or a man who votes with a party that he may be turned into a nobleman. I feel at liberty to marry the man I love and think worthy, unless some higher duty forbids.”
“And so it does, Catherine, though you are blinded and cannot see it. It is a woman’s duty not to lower herself. You are lowering yourself. Mr. Arrowpoint, will you tell your daughter what is her duty?”
“You must see, Catherine, that Klesmer is not the man for you,” said Mr. Arrowpoint. “He won’t do at the head of estates. He has a deuced foreign look—is an unpractical man.”
“I really can’t see what that has to do with it, papa. The land of England has often passed into the hands of foreigners—Dutch soldiers, sons of foreign women of bad character:—if our land were sold tomorrow it would very likely pass into the hands of some foreign merchant on ‘Change. It is in everybody’s mouth that successful swindlers may buy up half the land in the country. How can I stem that tide?”
“It will never do to argue about marriage, Cath,” said Mr. Arrowpoint. “It’s no use getting up the subject like a parliamentary question. We must do as other people do. We must think of the nation and the public good.”
“I can’t see any public good concerned here, papa,” said Catherine. “Why is it to be expected of any heiress that she should carry the property gained in trade into the hands of a certain class? That seems to be a ridiculous mishmash of superannuated customs and false ambition. I should call it a public evil. People had better make a new sort of public good by changing their ambitions.”
“That is mere sophistry, Catherine,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “Because you don’t wish
to marry a nobleman, you are not obliged to marry a mountebank or a charlatan.”
“I cannot understand the application of such words, mamma.”
“No, I dare say not,” rejoined Mrs. Arrowpoint, with significant scorn. “You have got to a pitch at which we are not likely to understand each other.”
“It can’t be done, Cath,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, wishing to substitute a better-humored reasoning for his wife’s impetuosity. “A man like Klesmer can’t marry such a property as yours. It can’t be done.”
“It certainly will not be done,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, imperiously. “Where is the man? Let him be fetched.”
“I cannot fetch him to be insulted,” said Catherine. “Nothing will be achieved by that.”
“I suppose you would wish him to know that in marrying you he will not marry your fortune,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
“Certainly; if it were so, I should wish him to know it.”
“Then you had better fetch him.”
Catherine only went into the music-room and said, “Come.” She felt no need to prepare Klesmer.
“Herr Klesmer,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, with a rather contemptuous stateliness, “it is unnecessary to repeat what has passed between us and our daughter. Mr. Arrowpoint will tell you our resolution.”
“Your marrying is out of the question,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, rather too heavily weighted with his task, and standing in an embarrassment unrelieved by a cigar. “It is a wild scheme altogether. A man has been called out for less.”
“You have taken a base advantage of our confidence,” burst in Mrs. Arrowpoint, unable to carry out her purpose and leave the burden of speech to her husband.
Klesmer made a low bow in silent irony.
“The pretension is ridiculous. You had better give it up and leave the house at once,” continued Mr. Arrowpoint. He wished to do without mentioning the money.
“I can give up nothing without reference to your daughter’s wish,” said Klesmer. “My engagement is to her.”
“It is useless to discuss the question,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “We shall never consent to the marriage. If Catherine disobeys us we shall disinherit her. You will not marry her fortune. It is right you should know that.”
“Madam, her fortune has been the only thing I have had to regret about her. But I must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater than I am worthy of.”
“It is no sacrifice to me,” said Catherine, “except that I am sorry to hurt my father and mother. I have always felt my fortune to be a wretched fatality of my life.”
“You mean to defy us, then?” said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
“I mean to marry Herr Klesmer,” said Catherine, firmly.
“He had better not count on our relenting,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, whose manners suffered from that impunity in insult which has been reckoned among the privileges of women.
“Madam,” said Klesmer, “certain reasons forbid me to retort. But understand that I consider it out of the power either of you, or of your fortune, to confer on me anything that I value. My rank as an artist is of my own winning, and I would not exchange it for any other. I am able to maintain your daughter, and I ask for no change in my life but her companionship.”
“You will leave the house, however,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
“I go at once,” said Klesmer, bowing and quitting the room.
“Let there be no misunderstanding, mamma,” said Catherine; “I consider myself engaged to Herr Klesmer, and I intend to marry him.”
The mother turned her head away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal.
“It’s all very fine,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, when Catherine was gone; “but what the deuce are we to do with the property?”
“There is Harry Brendall. He can take the name.”
“Harry Brendall will get through it all in no time,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, relighting his cigar.
And thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers, Klesmer had left Quetcham.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Among the heirs of Art, as is the division of the promised land, each has to win his portion by hard fighting: the bestowal is after the manner of prophecy, and is a title without possession. To carry the map of an ungotten estate in your pocket is a poor sort of copyhold. And in fancy to cast his shoe over Eden is little warrant that a man shall ever set the sole of his foot on an acre of his own there.
The most obstinate beliefs that mortals entertain about themselves are such as they have no evidence for beyond a constant, spontaneous pulsing of their self-satisfaction—as it were a hidden seed of madness, a confidence that they can move the world without precise notion of standing-place or lever.
“Pray go to church, mamma,” said Gwendolen the next morning. “I prefer seeing Herr Klesmer alone.” (He had written in reply to her note that he would be with her at eleven.)
“That is hardly correct, I think,” said Mrs. Davilow, anxiously.
“Our affairs are too serious for us to think of such nonsensical rules,” said Gwendolen, contemptuously. “They are insulting as well as ridiculous.”
“You would not mind Isabel sitting with you? She would be reading in a corner.”
“No; she could not: she would bite her nails and stare. It would be too irritating. Trust my judgment, mamma, I must be alone, Take them all to church.”
Gwendolen had her way, of course; only that Miss Merry and two of the girls stayed at home, to give the house a look of habitation by sitting at the dining-room windows.
It was a delicious Sunday morning. The melancholy waning sunshine of autumn rested on the half-strown grass and came mildly through the windows in slanting bands of brightness over the old furniture, and the glass panel that reflected the furniture; over the tapestried chairs with their faded flower-wreaths, the dark enigmatic pictures, the superannuated organ at which Gwendolen had pleased herself with acting Saint Cecelia on her first joyous arrival, the crowd of pallid, dusty knicknacks seen through the open doors of the antechamber where she had achieved the wearing of her Greek dress as Hermione. This last memory was just now very busy in her; for had not Klesmer then been struck with admiration of her pose and expression? Whatever he had said, whatever she imagined him to have thought, was at this moment pointed with keenest interest for her: perhaps she had never before in her life felt so inwardly dependent, so consciously in need of another person’s opinion. There was a new fluttering of spirit within her, a new element of deliberation in her self-estimate which had hitherto been a blissful gift of intuition. Still it was the recurrent burden of her inward soliloquy that Klesmer had seen but little of her, and any unfavorable conclusion of his must have too narrow a foundation. She really felt clever enough for anything.
To fill up the time she collected her volumes and pieces of music, and laying them on the top of the piano, set herself to classify them. Then catching the reflection of her movements in the glass panel, she was diverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it. Dressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm whiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair and her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try again the Roman trick of a statue in black, white, and tawny marble. Seeing her image slowly advancing, she thought “I am beautiful”—not exultingly, but with grave decision. Being beautiful was after all the condition on which she most needed external testimony. If any one objected to the turn of her nose or the form of her neck and chin, she had not the sense that she could presently show her power of attainment in these branches of feminine perfection.
There was not much time to fill up in this way before the sound of wheels, the loud ring, and the opening doors assured her that she was not by any accident to be disappointed. This slightly increased her inward flutter. In spite of her self-confidence, she dreaded Klesmer as part of that unmanageable world which was independent of her wishes—something vitriolic that would not cease to burn because you smiled or frow
ned at it. Poor thing! she was at a higher crisis of her woman’s fate than in her last experience with Grandcourt. The questioning then, was whether she should take a particular man as a husband. The inmost fold of her questioning now was whether she need take a husband at all—whether she could not achieve substantially for herself and know gratified ambition without bondage.
Klesmer made his most deferential bow in the wide doorway of the antechamber—showing also the deference of the finest gray kerseymere trousers and perfect gloves (the ‘masters of those who know’ are happily altogether human). Gwendolen met him with unusual gravity, and holding out her hand said, “It is most kind of you to come, Herr Klesmer. I hope you have not thought me presumptuous.”
“I took your wish as a command that did me honor,” said Klesmer, with answering gravity. He was really putting by his own affairs in order to give his utmost attention to what Gwendolen might have to say; but his temperament was still in a state of excitation from the events of yesterday, likely enough to give his expressions a more than usually biting edge.
Gwendolen for once was under too great a strain of feeling to remember formalities. She continued standing near the piano, and Klesmer took his stand near the other end of it with his back to the light and his terribly omniscient eyes upon her. No affectation was of use, and she began without delay.
“I wish to consult you, Herr Klesmer. We have lost all our fortune; we have nothing. I must get my own bread, and I desire to provide for my mamma, so as to save her from any hardship. The only way I can think of—and I should like it better than anything—is to be an actress—to go on the stage. But, of course, I should like to take a high position, and I thought—if you thought I could”—here Gwendolen became a little more nervous—”it would be better for me to be a singer—to study singing also.”
Klesmer put down his hat upon the piano, and folded his arms as if to concentrate himself.
“I know,” Gwendolen resumed, turning from pale to pink and back again—”I know that my method of singing is very defective; but I have been ill taught. I could be better taught; I could study. And you will understand my wish:—to sing and act too, like Grisi, is a much higher position. Naturally, I should wish to take as high rank as I can. And I can rely on your judgment. I am sure you will tell me the truth.”