Daniel Deronda

Chapter 29

He was sitting sideways on a sofa in the drawing-room at Offendene, one

hand and elbow resting on the back, and the other hand thrust between his

crossed knees--in the attitude of a man who is much interested in watching

the person next to him. Gwendolen, who had always disliked needlework, had

taken to it with apparent zeal since her engagement, and now held a piece

of white embroidery which, on examination, would have shown many false

stitches. During the last eight or nine days their hours had been chiefly

spent on horseback, but some margin had always been left for this more

difficult sort of companionship, which, however, Gwendolen had not found

disagreeable. She was very well satisfied with Grandcourt. His answers to

her lively questions about what he had seen and done in his life, bore

drawling very well. From the first she had noticed that he knew what to

say; and she was constantly feeling not only that he had nothing of the

fool in his composition, but that by some subtle means he communicated to

her the impression that all the folly lay with other people, who did what

he did not care to do. A man who seems to have been able to command the

best, has a sovereign power of depreciation. Then Grandcourt's behavior as

a lover had hardly at all passed the limit of an amorous homage which was

inobtrusive as a wafted odor of roses, and spent all its effects in a

gratified vanity. One day, indeed, he had kissed not her cheek but her

neck a little below her ear; and Gwendolen, taken by surprise, had started

up with a marked agitation which made him rise too and say, "I beg your

pardon--did I annoy you?" "Oh, it was nothing," said Gwendolen, rather

afraid of herself, "only I cannot bear--to be kissed under my ear." She

sat down again with a little playful laugh, but all the while she felt her

heart beating with a vague fear: she was no longer at liberty to flout him

as she had flouted poor Rex. Her agitation seemed not uncomplimentary, and

he had been contented not to transgress again.

To-day a slight rain hindered riding; but to compensate, a package had

come from London, and Mrs. Davilow had just left the room after bringing

in for admiration the beautiful things (of Grandcourt's ordering) which

lay scattered about on the tables. Gwendolen was just then enjoying the

scenery of her life. She let her hands fall on her lap, and said with a

pretty air of perversity--

"Why is to-morrow the only day?"

"Because the next day is the first with the hounds," said Grandcourt.

"And after that?"

"After that I must go away for a couple of days--it's a bore--but I shall

go one day and come back the next." Grandcourt noticed a change in her

face, and releasing his hand from under his knees, he laid it on hers, and

said, "You object to my going away?"

"It's no use objecting," said Gwendolen, coldly. She was resisting to the

utmost her temptation to tell him that she suspected to whom he was going

--the temptation to make a clean breast, speaking without restraint.

"Yes it is," said Grandcourt, enfolding her hand. "I will put off going.

And I will travel at night, so as only to be away one day." He thought

that he knew the reason of what he inwardly called this bit of temper, and

she was particularly fascinating to him at this moment.

"Then don't put off going, but travel at night," said Gwendolen, feeling

that she could command him, and finding in this peremptoriness a small

outlet for her irritation.

"Then you will go to Diplow to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes, if you wish it," said Gwendolen, in a high tone of careless

assent. Her concentration in other feelings had really hindered her from

taking notice that her hand was being held.

"How you treat us poor devils of men!" said Grandcourt, lowering his tone.

"We are always getting the worst of it."

"_Are_ you?" said Gwendolen, in a tone of inquiry, looking at him more

na***** than usual. She longed to believe this commonplace _badinage_ as

the serious truth about her lover: in that case, she too was justified. If

she knew everything, Mrs. Glasher would appear more blamable than

Grandcourt. "_Are_ you always getting the worst?"

"Yes. Are you as kind to me as I am to you?" said Grandcourt, looking into

her eyes with his narrow gaze.

Gwendolen felt herself stricken. She was conscious of having received so

much, that her sense of command was checked, and sank away in the

perception that, look around her as she might, she could not turn back: it

was as if she had consented to mount a chariot where another held the

reins; and it was not in her nature to leap out in the eyes of the world.

She had not consented in ignorance, and all she could say now would be a

confession that she had not been ignorant. Her right to explanation was

gone. All she had to do now was to adjust herself, so that the spikes of

that unwilling penance which conscience imposed should not gall her. With

a sort of mental shiver, she resolutely changed her mental attitude. There

had been a little pause, during which she had not turned away her eyes;

and with a sudden break into a smile, she said--

"If I were as kind to you as you are to me, that would spoil your

generosity: it would no longer be as great as it could be--and it is that

now."

"Then I am not to ask for one kiss," said Grandcourt, contented to pay a

large price for this new kind of love-making, which introduced marriage by

the finest contrast.

"Not one?" said Gwendolen, getting saucy, and nodding at him defiantly.

He lifted her little left hand to his lips, and then released it

respectfully. Clearly it was faint praise to say of him that he was not

disgusting: he was almost charming; and she felt at this moment that it

was not likely she could ever have loved another man better than this one.

His reticence gave her some inexplicable, delightful consciousness.

"Apropos," she said, taking up her work again, "is there any one besides

Captain and Mrs. Torrington at Diplow?--or do you leave them _tete-*-

tete_? I suppose he converses in cigars, and she answers with her

chignon."

"She has a sister with her," said Grandcourt, with his shadow of a smile,

"and there are two men besides--one of them you know, I believe."

"Ah, then, I have a poor opinion of him," said Gwendolen, shaking her

head.

"You saw him at Leubronn--young Deronda--a young fellow with the

Mallingers."

Gwendolen felt as if her heart were making a sudden gambol, and her

fingers, which tried to keep a firm hold on her work got cold.

"I never spoke to him," she said, dreading any discernible change in

herself. "Is he not disagreeable?"

"No, not particularly," said Grandcourt, in his most languid way. "He

thinks a little too much of himself. I thought he had been introduced to

you."

"No. Some one told me his name the evening before I came away? that was

all. What is he?"

"A sort of ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger's. Nothing of any consequence."

"Oh, poor creature! How very unpleasant for him!" said Gwendolen, speaking

from the lip, and not meaning any sarcasm. "I wonder if it has left off

raining!" she added, rising and going to look out of the window.

Happily it did not rain the next day, and Gwendolen rode to Diplow on

Criterion as she had done on that former day when she returned with her

mother in the carriage. She always felt the more daring for being in her

riding-dress; besides having the agreeable belief that she looked as well

as possible in it--a sustaining consciousness in any meeting which seems

formidable. Her anger toward Deronda had changed into a superstitious

dread--due, perhaps, to the coercion he had exercised over her thought--

lest the first interference of his in her life might foreshadow some

future influence. It is of such stuff that superstitions are commonly

made: an intense feeling about ourselves which makes the evening star

shine at us with a threat, and the blessing of a beggar encourage us. And

superstitions carry consequences which often verify their hope or their

foreboding.

The time before luncheon was taken up for Gwendolen by going over the

rooms with Mrs. Torrington and Mrs. Davilow; and she thought it likely

that if she saw Deronda, there would hardly be need for more than a bow

between them. She meant to notice him as little as possible.

And after all she found herself under an inward compulsion too strong for

her pride. From the first moment of their being in the room together, she

seemed to herself to be doing nothing but notice him; everything else was

automatic performance of an habitual part.

When he took his place at lunch, Grandcourt had said, "Deronda, Miss

Harleth tells me you were not introduced to her at Leubronn?"

"Miss Harleth hardly remembers me, I imagine," said Deronda, looking at

her quite simply, as they bowed. "She was intensely occupied when I saw

her."

Now, did he suppose that she had not suspected him of being the person

who redeemed her necklace?

"On the contrary. I remember you very well," said Gwendolen, feeling

rather nervous, but governing herself and looking at him in return with

new examination. "You did not approve of my playing at roulette."

"How did you come to that conclusion?" said Deronda, gravely.

"Oh, you cast an evil eye on my play," said Gwendolen, with a turn of her

head and a smile. "I began to lose as soon as you came to look on. I had

always been winning till then."

"Roulette in such a kennel as Leubronn is a horrid bore," said Grandcourt.

"_I_ found it a bore when I began to lose," said Gwendolen. Her face was

turned toward Grandcourt as she smiled and spoke, but she gave a sidelong

glance at Deronda, and saw his eyes fixed on her with a look so gravely

penetrating that it had a keener edge for her than his ironical smile at

her losses--a keener edge than Klesmer's judgment. She wheeled her neck

round as if she wanted to listen to what was being said by the rest, while

she was only thinking of Deronda. His face had that disturbing kind of

form and expression which threatens to affect opinion--as if one's

standard was somehow wrong. (Who has not seen men with faces of this

corrective power till they frustrated it by speech or action?) His voice,

heard now for the first time, was to Grandcourt's toneless drawl, which

had been in her ears every day, as the deep notes of a violoncello to the

broken discourse of poultry and other lazy gentry in the afternoon

sunshine. Grandcourt, she inwardly conjectured, was perhaps right in

saying that Deronda thought too much of himself:--a favorite way of

explaining a superiority that humiliates. However the talk turned on the

rinderpest and Jamaica, and no more was said about roulette. Grandcourt

held that the Jamaica n***o was a beastly sort of baptist Caliban; Deronda

said he had always felt a little with Caliban, who naturally had his own

point of view and could sing a good song; Mrs. Davilow observed that her

father had an estate in Barbadoes, but that she herself had never been in

the West Indies; Mrs. Torrington was sure she should never sleep in her

bed if she lived among blacks; her husband corrected her by saying that

the blacks would be manageable enough if it were not for the half-breeds;

and Deronda remarked that the whites had to thank themselves for the half-

breeds.

While this polite pea-shooting was going on, Gwendolen trifled with her

jelly, and looked at every speaker in turn that she might feel at ease in

looking at Deronda.

"I wonder what he thinks of me, really? He must have felt interested in

me, else he would not have sent me my necklace. I wonder what he thinks of

my marriage? What notions has he to make him so grave about things? Why is

he come to Diplow?"

These questions ran in her mind as the voice of an uneasy longing to be

judged by Deronda with unmixed admiration--a longing which had had its

seed in her first resentment at his critical glance. Why did she care so

much about the opinion of this man who was "nothing of any consequence"?

She had no time to find the reason--she was too much engaged in caring. In

the drawing-room, when something had called Grandcourt away, she went

quite unpremeditatedly up to Deronda, who was standing at a table apart,

turning over some prints, and said to him--

"Shall you hunt to-morrow, Mr. Deronda?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"You don't object to hunting, then?"

"I find excuses for it. It is a sin I am inclined to--when I can't get

boating or cricketing."

"Do you object to my hunting?" said Gwendolen, with a saucy movement of

the chin.

"I have no right to object to anything you choose to do."

"You thought you had a right to object to my gambling," persisted

Gwendolen.

"I was sorry for it. I am not aware that I told you of my objection," said

Deronda, with his usual directness of gaze--a large-eyed gravity, innocent

of any intention. His eyes had a peculiarity which has drawn many men into

trouble; they were of a dark yet mild intensity which seemed to express a

special interest in every one on whom he fixed them, and might easily help

to bring on him those claims which ardently sympathetic people are often

creating in the minds of those who need help. In mendicant fashion we make

the goodness of others a reason for exorbitant demands on them. That sort

of effect was penetrating Gwendolen.

"You hindered me from gambling again," she answered. But she had no sooner

spoken than she blushed over face and neck; and Deronda blushed, too,

conscious that in the little affair of the necklace he had taken a

questionable freedom.

It was impossible to speak further; and she turned away to a window,

feeling that she had stupidly said what she had not meant to say, and yet

being rather happy that she had plunged into this mutual understanding.

Deronda also did not like it. Gwendolen seemed more decidedly attractive

than before; and certainly there had been changes going on within her

since that time at Leubronn: the struggle of mind attending a conscious

error had wakened something like a new soul, which had better, but also

worse, possibilities than her former poise of crude self-confidence: among

the forces she had come to dread was something within her that troubled

satisfaction.

That evening Mrs. Davilow said, "Was it really so, or only a joke of

yours, about Mr. Deronda's spoiling your play, Gwen?"

Her curiosity had been excited, and she could venture to ask a question

that did not concern Mr. Grandcourt.

"Oh, it merely happened that he was looking on when I began to lose," said

Gwendolen, carelessly. "I noticed him."

"I don't wonder at that: he is a striking young man. He puts me in mind of

Italian paintings. One would guess, without being told, that there was

foreign blood in his veins."

"Is there?" said Gwendolen.

"Mrs. Torrington says so. I asked particularly who he was, and she told me

that his mother was some foreigner of high rank."

"His mother?" said Gwendolen, rather sharply. "Then who was his father?"

"Well--every one says he is the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger, who brought him

up; though he passes for a ward. She says, if Sir Hugo Mallinger could

have done as he liked with his estates, he would have left them to this

Mr. Deronda, since he has no legitimate son."

Gwendolen was silent; but her mother observed so marked an effect in her

face that she was angry with herself for having repeated Mrs. Torrington's

gossip. It seemed, on reflection, unsuited to the ear of her daughter, for

whom Mrs. Davilow disliked what is called knowledge of the world; and

indeed she wished that she herself had not had any of it thrust upon her.

An image which had immediately arisen in Gwendolen's mind was that of the

unknown mother--no doubt a dark-eyed woman--probably sad. Hardly any face

could be less like Deronda's than that represented as Sir Hugo's in a

crayon portrait at Diplow. A dark-eyed woman, no longer young, had become

"stuff o' the conscience" to Gwendolen.

That night when she had got into her little bed, and only a dim light was

burning, she said--

"Mamma, have men generally children before they are married?"

"No, dear, no," said Mrs. Davilow. "Why do you ask such a question?" (But

she began to think that she saw the why.)

"If it were so, I ought to know," said Gwendolen, with some indignation.

"You are thinking of what I said about Mr. Deronda and Sir Hugo Mallinger.

That is a very unusual case, dear."

"Does Lady Mallinger know?"

"She knows enough to satisfy her. That is quite clear, because Mr. Deronda

has lived with them."

"And people think no worse of him?"

"Well, of course he is under some disadvantage: it is not as if he were

Lady Mallinger's son. He does not inherit the property, and he is not of

any consequence in the world. But people are not obliged to know anything

about his birth; you see, he is very well received."

"I wonder whether he knows about it; and whether he is angry with his

father?"

"My dear child, why should you think of that?"

"Why?" said Gwendolen, impetuously, sitting up in her bed. "Haven't

children reason to be angry with their parents? How can they help their

parents marrying or not marrying?"

But a consciousness rushed upon her, which made her fall back again on her

pillow. It was not only what she would have felt months before--that she

might seem to be reproaching her mother for that second marriage of hers;

what she chiefly felt now was, that she had been led on to a condemnation

which seemed to make her own marriage a forbidden thing.

There was no further talk, and till sleep came over her Gwendolen lay

struggling with the reasons against that marriage--reasons which pressed

upon her newly now that they were unexpectedly mirrored in the story of a

man whose slight relations with her had, by some hidden affinity, bitten

themselves into the most permanent layers of feeling. It was

characteristic that, with all her debating, she was never troubled by the

question whether the indefensibleness of her marriage did not include the

fact that she had accepted Grandcourt solely as a man whom it was

convenient for her to marry, not in the least as one to whom she would be

binding herself in duty. Gwendolen's ideas were pitiably crude; but many

grand difficulties of life are apt to force themselves on us in our

crudity. And to judge wisely, I suppose we must know how things appear to

the unwise; that kind of appearance making the larger part of the world's

history.

In the morning there was a double excitement for her. She was going to

hunt, from which scruples about propriety had threatened to hinder her,

until it was found that Mrs. Torrington was horsewoman enough to accompany

her--going to hunt for the first time since her escapade with Rex; and she

was going again to see Deronda, in whom, since last night, her interest

had so gathered that she expected, as people do about revealed

celebrities, to see something in his appearance which she had missed

before.

What was he going to be? What sort of life had he before him--he being

nothing of any consequence? And with only a little difference in events he

might have been as important as Grandcourt, nay--her imagination

inevitably went into that direction--might have held the very estates

which Grandcourt was to have. But now, Deronda would probably some day see

her mistress of the Abbey at Topping, see her bearing the title which

would have been his own wife's. These obvious, futile thoughts of what

might have been, made a new epoch for Gwendolen. She, whose unquestionable

habit it had been to take the best that came to her for less than her own

claim, had now to see the position which tempted her in a new light, as a

hard, unfair exclusion of others. What she had now heard about Deronda

seemed to her imagination to throw him into one group with Mrs. Glasher

and her children; before whom she felt herself in an attitude of apology--

she who had hitherto been surrounded by a group that in her opinion had

need be apologetic to her. Perhaps Deronda himself was thinking of these

things. Could he know of Mrs. Glasher? If he knew that she knew, he would

despise her; but he could have no such knowledge. Would he, without that,

despise her for marrying Grandcourt? His possible judgment of her actions

was telling on her as importunately as Klesmer's judgment of her powers;

but she found larger room for resistance to a disapproval of her marriage,

because it is easier to make our conduct seem justifiable to ourselves

than to make our ability strike others. "How can I help it?" is not our

favorite apology for incompetency. But Gwendolen felt some strength in

saying--

"How can I help what other people have done? Things would not come right

if I were to turn round now and declare that I would not marry Mr.

Grandcourt." And such turning round was out of the question. The horses in

the chariot she had mounted were going at full speed.

This mood of youthful, elated desperation had a tidal recurrence. She

could dare anything that lay before her sooner than she could choose to go

backward, into humiliation; and it was even soothing to think that there

would now be as much ill-doing in the one as in the other. But the

immediate delightful fact was the hunt, where she would see Deronda, and

where he would see her; for always lurking ready to obtrude before other

thoughts about him was the impression that he was very much interested in

her. But to-day she was resolved not to repeat her folly of yesterday, as

if she were anxious to say anything to him. Indeed, the hunt would be too

absorbing.

And so it was for a long while. Deronda was there, and within her sight

very often; but this only added to the stimulus of a pleasure which

Gwendolen had only once before tasted, and which seemed likely always to

give a delight independent of any crosses, except such as took away the

chance of riding. No accident happened to throw them together; the run

took them within convenient reach of home, and the agreeable sombreness of

the gray November afternoon, with a long stratum of yellow light in the

west, Gwendolen was returning with the company from Diplow, who were

attending her on the way to Offendene. Now the sense of glorious

excitement was over and gone, she was getting irritably disappointed that

she had had no opportunity of speaking to Deronda, whom she would not see

again, since he was to go away in a couple of days. What was she going to

say? That was not quite certain. She wanted to speak to him. Grandcourt

was by her side; Mrs. Torrington, her husband, and another gentleman in

advance; and Deronda's horse she could hear behind. The wish to speak to

him and have him speaking to her was becoming imperious; and there was no

chance of it unless she simply asserted her will and defied everything.

Where the order of things could give way to Miss Gwendolen, it must be

made to do so. They had lately emerged from a wood of pines and beeches,

where the twilight stillness had a repressing effect, which increased her

impatience. The horse-hoofs again heard behind at some little distance

were a growing irritation. She reined in her horse and looked behind her;

Grandcourt after a few paces, also paused; but she, waving her whip and

nodding sideways with playful imperiousness, said, "Go on! I want to speak

to Mr. Deronda."

Grandcourt hesitated; but that he would have done after any proposition.

It was an awkward situation for him. No gentleman, before marriage; could

give the emphasis of refusal to a command delivered in this playful way.

He rode on slowly, and she waited till Deronda came up. He looked at her

with tacit inquiry, and she said at once, letting her horse go alongside

of his--

"Mr. Deronda, you must enlighten my ignorance. I want to know why you

thought it wrong for me to gamble. Is it because I am a woman?"

"Not altogether; but I regretted it the more because you were a woman,"

said Deronda, with an irrepressible smile. Apparently it must be

understood between them now that it was he who sent the necklace. "I think

it would be better for men not to gamble. It is a besotting kind of taste,

likely to turn into a disease. And, besides, there is something revolting

to me in raking a heap of money together, and internally chuckling over

it, when others are feeling the loss of it. I should even call it base, if

it were more than an exceptional lapse. There are enough inevitable turns

of fortune which force us to see that our gain is another's loss:--that is

one of the ugly aspects of life. One would like to reduce it as much as

one could, not get amusement out of exaggerating it." Deronda's voice had

gathered some indignation while he was speaking.

"But you do admit that we can't help things," said Gwendolen, with a drop

in her tone. The answer had not been anything like what she had expected.

"I mean that things are so in spite of us; we can't always help it that

our gain is another's loss."

"Clearly. Because of that, we should help it where we can."

Gwendolen, biting her lip inside, paused a moment, and then forcing

herself to speak with an air of playfulness again, said--

"But why should you regret it more because I am a woman?"

"Perhaps because we need that you should be better than we are."

"But suppose _we_ need that men should be better than we are," said

Gwendolen with a little air of "check!"

"That is rather a difficulty," said Deronda, smiling. "I suppose I should

have said, we each of us think it would be better for the other to be

good."

"You see, I needed you to be better than I was--and you thought so," said

Gwendolen, nodding and laughing, while she put her horse forward and

joined Grandcourt, who made no observation.

"Don't you want to know what I had to say to Mr. Deronda?" said Gwendolen,

whose own pride required her to account for her conduct.

"A--no," said Grandcourt, coldly.

"Now that is the first impolite word you have spoken--that you don't wish

to hear what I had to say," said Gwendolen, playing at a pout.

"I wish to hear what you say to me--not to other men," said Grandcourt.

"Then you wish to hear this. I wanted to make him tell me why he objected

to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon."

"Yes--but excuse me the sermon." If Gwendolen imagined that Grandcourt

cared about her speaking to Deronda, he wished her to understand that she

was mistaken. But he was not fond of being told to ride on. She saw he was

piqued, but did not mind. She had accomplished her object of speaking

again to Deronda before he raised his hat and turned with the rest toward

Diplow, while her lover attended her to Offendene, where he was to bid

farewell before a whole day's absence on the unspecified journey.

Grandcourt had spoken truth in calling the journey a bore: he was going by

train to Gadsmere.