“Then you will wish to hear this: I wanted to make him tell me why he objected to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon.”
“Excuse me the sermon,” Grandcourt said. I should have taken careful note of the ice in his voice. He cared about my speaking to you, and he very much cared at my telling him to ride on. I was not to be allowed such impertinence again.
Grandcourt delivered me to Offendene, bade me farewell, then left that evening for his unspecified journey—to see Mrs. Glasher and his four children at Gadsmere.
* * *
IN THE BRIEF days of my engagement there was much to arrange: the dress, my trousseau, the wedding invitations. Only in the silence of night did doubt overwhelm me: your disapproval at the gambling tables, my broken promise to Lydia Glasher, self-disgust that I had agreed to a mendacious contract, alarm at the life in store for me as Grandcourt’s wife. I feared I had lost hold of the direction of my life and was falling, an endless fall.
Thought of your wise words and still demeanor calmed me. And thoughts of the lavish life I soon would lead: maids winding my watches, servants lighting the candles, my horses in the best of stables, my gowns pressed, my every whim indulged. I blocked my apprehension that marriage would entail more than Grandcourt’s hated kissing of my neck below my ear. I closed my mind to what might happen when I went through the bedroom door.
* * *
THE DAY OF my wedding was bright, clear, and cold. Half of Pennicote lined the pathway to the church to watch me walk from my carriage. Mine was a rags-to-riches tale: Grandcourt, the romantic hero, must be hopelessly in love to save a penniless girl from a governess’s fate and her mother from Sawyer’s Cottage. I was the princess bride, my dress of silk and satin, trimmed with Honiton appliqué lace, my coronet of jasmine and stephanotis. Mama’s eyes were pink from crying, Anna was a bridesmaid, and she too cried, though perhaps on behalf of Rex. I was exultant, defiant, but my ecstasy was unreal, as if I had taken an opiate, and my cheeks as white as my bridegroom’s hands. I made the vows in a steady voice. Grandcourt slipped the gold ring onto my finger.
“Thank God you take it so well, my darling,” Mama said when, back at Offendene in our room, she helped me from my bridal gown and into my traveling clothes. She made it sound like a tooth-pulling. I teased her tearful face. “I am Mrs. Grandcourt,” I said, and spread my arms wide. “You might have said that if I’d been going to Mrs. Mompert. Remember, you were ready to die with vexation when you thought I would not be Mrs. Grandcourt? Now I shall have everything: splendid houses, horses, diamonds … I shall be Lady Certainly and Lady This and That and very grand, and always loving you better than anybody else in the world.”
“My dearest Gwen,” Mama said, “I shall not be jealous if you love your husband better, and he will expect to be first.” I told her that was a ridiculous expectation but that I would not treat him ill unless he deserved it.
I jested with the optimism of ignorance, of a playful creature who supposes the dark to be just a tunnel with light at its end. But then I wept, for I so wished Mama was coming with me into this new uncertain life.
In the porch Uncle consoled her, and they waved good-bye as Grandcourt led me from Offendene to the waiting carriage.
We were to go to Ryelands. A train journey of some fifty miles took us to the nearest railway station, where a carriage waited. It was twilight when we at last arrived at the gates. I was aware of a long winding drive, shadowy vistas of parkland, woodland, lakes, and formal gardens, then a large white house, an imposing entrance porch, a pavilion tower, oriel windows. Even in the gloaming and my febrile state, I knew this was all as far from the Momperts as are diamonds from coal dust.
I chatted incessantly, excitedly. Grandcourt held my hand and squeezed it. I grasped his hand with both mine to stop this. “Here we are at home,” he said, and for the first time kissed me on the lips, but I scarcely noticed; it was simply a gesture; a piece of theater, part of the absorbing show.
Uniformed lackeys opened doors. I was shown long corridors, stately rooms with Corinthian columns, high ceilings, gilded zephyrs blowing trumpets, painted garlands, glittering chandeliers, formal portraits, Olympian statues. We ascended the tulip staircase like a king and queen.
“These are our dens,” Grandcourt said, showing me into rooms three times the size of Sawyer’s Cottage. “You will like to be quiet here until dinner. We shall dine early.” He pressed my hand to his lips, then left.
Hudson, my maid, trained by the housekeeper, took my hat and cloak, curtsied, then left. I threw myself into a chair by a glowing hearth. The room was decorated in pale green satin, and I and it were reflected infinitely in mirrored panels. I wanted to be alone to absorb the warmth and luxury and get some grasp of who and where I was. The housekeeper knocked and entered. She was holding something. I asked her to tell Hudson to put my dress out, then leave me until I rang for her. She said, “Here is a packet, madam, which I was ordered to give into nobody’s hands but yours when you were alone. The person who brought it said it was a present ordered by Mr. Grandcourt but that he was not to know of its arrival until he saw you wear it.”
I had already guessed that here was the parure of diamonds Grandcourt said I was to have. I had not worn diamonds before. In the packet was a box containing a jewel case within which, as I opened it, the diamonds sparkled. Lying on them was a letter. I knew the handwriting. It was as if an adder was lying there. My hands trembled as I unfolded the thin paper.
These diamonds, which were once given with ardent love to Lydia Glasher, she passes on to you.
You have broken your word to her that you might possess what was hers.
Perhaps you think of being happy as she once was and of having beautiful children such as hers who will thrust hers aside. God is too just for that. The man you have married has a withered heart …
My eyes skimmed the letter. I read it fast and once only. Its words etched into me. To this day I remember them: broken your word … The man you have married has a withered heart … You had your warning … I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried … You will have your punishment … You took him with your eyes open … The willing wrong you have done me will be your curse …
I trembled and gasped for air, then turned and threw the letter into the fire. As I did so the jewel case fell to the floor and the diamonds scattered. You had your warning … His best young love was mine … He would have married me … You chose to injure me and my children … You will have your punishment. I desire it with all my soul … I collapsed back into the chair, I do not know for how long. Grandcourt tapped at the door and entered dressed for dinner. My breathing turned to screams.
So began my husband’s tyranny. He closed the door but made no move toward me. He said, “Stop screaming.” It was a command. He did not, he said, want his servants thinking he had married some harpy from the gutter. “You are,” he said, “Mrs. Grandcourt now.”
I became silent, though I trembled still. “Pick up the diamonds,” he said, “and put them into their case.” I crawled the floor. “There is another under the chair,” he said. “Pick it up.” I picked it up.
“I shall tell you when I wish you to wear them,” he said. His voice was uninflectioned, quiet, controlled, but oh so different from the morning and brief yesterdays of courtship. He was, he said, going down to dinner and would wait for me at the table. I was to dress; he would send a servant for me in fifteen minutes. “You are tired,” he said, “after the journey. You are overwrought. We will retire early.” At the door he turned and added with what seemed like vitriol, “Mrs. Grandcourt.” I cannot tell you how absolute my sense of isolation was.
The door closed. My explosion of terror was replaced by more vigilant fear. I wanted to run from this terrible place. I willed myself to be calm, breathe evenly, and stop trembling. I longed for Mama to comfort me, longed for our black and gold bedroom and my annoying sisters. I longed for you.
I put on my trousseau clothes
. Hudson knocked at the door to say the master was waiting in the blue room. Under a sparkling chandelier a small table was set for two. Grandcourt behaved as if nothing had happened and nothing was amiss, but his voice now had authority unlaced with compliment and when I looked at him, which I tried not to do, I felt revulsion: the thin mustache, white skin, bald head, and ice-cold eyes. The death’s head and figure in flight were now incarnate.
A butler stood with silver dishes: shellfish, poultry, cheese. My plight was more terrible in this luxurious setting. I could not eat, but I drank my wine. When the servant made to refill my glass, Grandcourt waved him away. The terms of the relationship were thus defined. Grandcourt’s slanting gray eyes fixed on me and saw what they chose. I was his prey. His voice drawled. He talked of where we would go and when.
An eternity passed. I said I was tired after the events of the day. I wanted, needed, to sit alone in my room by the fire. Eventually, he told me I might go. As I rose to leave, he said he would join me in an hour. I froze with apprehension at what might ensue.
In my room the windows were now shuttered, the cover turned down on the large bed, the organza drawn back between its posts. Candles flickered. I dared not look at the shadows of their flames on the walls lest they transform into the death’s head, the snake coiled on the diamonds.
In the dressing table mirror I looked into my frightened eyes. I would not again kiss my own image. There was now, I knew, no way out. I tried to empty my mind and stifle my fear. I sat by the fire unaware of the passing of time until the door handle turned.
He wore a nightshirt, his face was impassive, his movements were unhurried. He asked why I was not in my nightclothes, why I was not in bed. I did not know if there was derision in his voice. I said I felt homesick. There was no expression in his eyes. He held out his hand, I did not take it. I was to learn that any gesture from him, however small, was a command. He took my arm and raised me from the chair. I was wraithlike, a condemned soul.
* * *
OH, DERONDA, PLEASE remember I had not so much as kissed a man or been caressed. My revulsion was absolute. Any suggestion of lovemaking felt like an invasion. I had never felt desire for a man; I knew nothing of them beyond their admiration for me and my flirtation with them, which was laced with scorn. I grew up without them. I hated my stepfather to come home, the way he took Mama from me, his unwanted attention toward me. I had no father of my own, no brother. The only closeness I had had was when dancing the quadrille, the waltz, or polka, with Rex or Clintock or Mr. Middleton. Grandcourt had reassured me with his languid distance. I could not have known he sensed my profound terror, which fed his desire, that he had a torturer’s mind.
What happened next I have down the years hinted at but told no one. I tried to excise it from my mind. It took me not from being a girl into a woman but from bright hope to deep despair. Grandcourt led me to the bed, then gestured with a sweep of his arm for me to lie down. I trembled like a condemned creature, the lamb that smells the abattoir. I saw the writing of those terrible words: The man you have married has a withered heart. It was not that Grandcourt loved me more than Lydia Glasher; he wished to violate us equally.
He was entirely in control, though more angered than he chose to say. He took off his nightshirt. He had no awkwardness. I had never seen a naked man. I hated him clothed; naked, he was my executioner. He tore my dress and dropped it to the floor. I tried to check myself so I would not scream. To punish my screams would be his triumph. He said again, “Mrs. Grandcourt.” To myself I whispered my name, Gwendolen Harleth. I tried to think of Mama, to think of you. He pinioned my hands above my head, held me down on the bed, told me twice to open my eyes, stared at me, moved his body against mine, then lunged into me. He was silent, did not seem to breathe, and stank of cigars. I felt a sear of pain, then nothing. I tried to scream but no sound came. I tried to block my senses, not to listen, smell, or feel. He said it again, “Mrs. Grandcourt,” then stabbed into me again and again until I bled. When I tried to free myself, he became more vicious. I do not know how long the attack went on. Until he made a strange guttural sound, and I did not know if it was my blood or his seed that seeped over me. I wanted to die. He was silent. I thought he might hit me or spit. Then he said, “That’s what women are,” threw the covers over me, put on his nightshirt, said, “Now you can be alone,” and closed the door quietly as he left the room.
I felt myself pulled backward as if into a black tunnel. I think I fainted. I do not know how long it was before I rose to stem the bleeding and wash my body, rinse my mouth. My legs buckled under me. There were bruises on my neck. I was not beyond fear; I was at its silent core. I thought, There is no one I can tell of this, there are no words for this, this has no voice. I could not run into the night to Mama, call for a doctor, inform the police. What Grandcourt had done to me, would do to me, was not illegal. I was his wife. I had no right or power to refuse him. Consent was immaterial. I was, as he told me, Mrs. Grandcourt.
* * *
AND SO IT crashed upon me, the punishment Lydia Glasher desired with all her soul. For days I kept to my room. I believe Grandcourt went away, I supposed to her. I was feverish. The housekeeper, Hudson, the maids, replaced the bedding, brought hot water, light soups, and custards but made no comment. I did not read or look at other rooms. I lay in bed and ceased to be. Tu sera heureuse, ma chère? Oui, maman, comme toi.
What options were there for me? If I ran away, where might I go or to whom? My husband would command my return. If I sought divorce, all calumny would fall on me; I would be seen as an ingrate, a hysteric, deserving of the gutter. No Momperts would hire me as their governess, no school as their teacher. Poor Mama would have nothing.
Hatred bred evil in my heart. I wanted Grandcourt dead. I had a knife, a thin blade like a long willow leaf, encased in a silver sheath. I imagined driving it into his throat, stabbing it into his withered heart. I wanted always to keep it near. I wanted to keep it under my pillow, but I never did. Had I done so, I would have used it. I remembered how, with scarce provocation, I killed Alice’s caged bird. I locked the knife in the drawer of my dressing case.
* * *
FOR FIVE DAYS I stayed in my room. On the sixth afternoon I was summoned to the conservatory. The day was unusually mild, and a door was open to the lawn. Grandcourt languished, smoking a cigar and sipping coffee. Half a dozen dogs of various kinds grouped around him. Hitherto I had supposed him to be a dog lover. Fetch, the spaniel, as ever sat at his feet and watched him constantly, her head on her forepaws.
Grandcourt asked me nothing about myself. He talked as if nothing had happened. He told me of visits, dinner parties, and tours we were to make: the Brackenshaws, the Mallingers, Paris, Basel, Homburg, Venice.
On his lap he fondled Fluff, a tiny Maltese, a sweet puff of white fur with a silver collar and bell. Fetch, jealous, put her paw on Grandcourt’s leg. Grandcourt stared at her, put down his cigar, lifted Fluff to his face, and looked at me. Fetch whimpered, tried to restrain her anguish, then rested her head on his leg. Grandcourt continued to caress the Maltese while shifting his stare between Fetch and me. After a minute Fetch, unable to bear the torment, howled. Grandcourt dumped the miniature dog on a table, called to a servant, and, referring to Fetch, ordered him to “turn that brute out.”
The mocking look my husband then gave me defined his perverse control. I, the woman at the Whispering Stones, his horses, his dogs—he observed what a creature wanted, needed, then administered the opposite. Cruelty dispelled his boredom; without it he had no interest. My youth, vulnerability, chastity, and reluctance ignited his desire.
Thus my marriage. Each night seemed prelude to murder. I dreaded the turn of the door handle. I learned in those nightly assaults to make no move of resistance. He waited for an excuse to be ever more vicious. I thought he would kill me. I tried never to look at him, but I imagined his white slender fingers closing around my throat. I closed my eyes and thought of the knife in the drawer.
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I vowed never to wear the rancid diamonds, emblems of my wrongdoing, my signature to this nightmare, to the face in the wainscot, and to Mrs. Glasher at the Whispering Stones. But a week or so later, on an evening when we were to dine at Brackenshaw Castle, I came downstairs dressed in white, a pendant of emeralds Grandcourt had given me around my neck, emerald stars in my ears. He smoked a cigar, lounged in a chair, scrutinized me, then told me I was not altogether as he liked.
“Oh mercy,” I said. “How am I to alter myself?”
“Put on the diamonds.”
I tried not to show revulsion and fear, but I suppose they were in my eyes. “Oh please, no. I don’t think diamonds suit me.”
“What you think has nothing to do with it,” he said, and stroked his mustache. He never raised his voice. “I wish you to wear the diamonds.”
“Pray excuse me, I like these emeralds.”
“Oblige me by telling me your reason for not wearing the diamonds when I desire it.”
I turned and went to my dressing room; he followed me. “You will want someone to fasten them,” he said. He took them from their case. His hands crawled at my neck, my hair, ears, breasts. I sat with my eyes closed. What a privilege this is to have robbed another woman of, I thought.
“What makes you so cold?” asked Grandcourt as he fastened the last earring. “Put plenty of furs on. I hate to see a woman come into a room looking frozen. If you are to appear as a bride at all, appear decently.” He kissed my neck below my ear.
Until this marriage I knew nothing of scathing domination. No one had ever spoken to me in a brutal way. Grandcourt made Klesmer seem like a flatterer. The man you have married has a withered heart. I put on the furs.
* * *
MAMA. HOW I missed and yearned for her and Offendene. Severance happened within weeks of the wedding. I ventured to ask Grandcourt if she and Uncle might visit Diplow. After a silence he drawled, “We can’t be having those people always.” That Gascoigne, he said, talked too much and was a bore. I could only infer Mama’s unsuitability. I could not tell her she was not wanted, or let her observe the wretchedness of my married life.
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