Daniel Deronda

Chapter 24

The meeting did not happen until the Monday, when Gwendolen went to the

rectory with her mamma. They had called at Sawyer's Cottage by the way,

and had seen every cranny of the narrow rooms in a mid-day light,

unsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by

gleanings from the rectory had not yet begun.

"How _shall_ you endure it, mamma?" said Gwendolen, as they walked away.

She had not opened her lips while they were looking round at the bare

walls and floors, and the little garden with the cabbage-stalks, and the

yew arbor all dust and cobwebs within. "You and the four girls all in that

closet of a room, with the green and yellow paper pressing on your eyes?

And without me?"

"It will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear."

"If it were not that I must get some money, I would rather be there than

go to be a governess."

"Don't set yourself against it beforehand, Gwendolen. If you go to the

palace you will have every luxury about you. And you know how much you

have always cared for that. You will not find it so hard as going up and

down those steep narrow stairs, and hearing the crockery rattle through

the house, and the dear girls talking."

"It is like a bad dream," said Gwendolen, impetuously. "I cannot believe

that my uncle will let you go to such a place. He ought to have taken some

other steps."

"Don't be unreasonable, dear child. What could he have done?"

"That was for him to find out. It seems to me a very extraordinary world

if people in our position must sink in this way all at once," said

Gwendolen, the other worlds with which she was conversant being

constructed with a sense of fitness that arranged her own future

agreeably.

It was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new

pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the vicissitudes

in other people's lives, though it was never her aspiration to express

herself virtuously so much as cleverly--a point to be remembered in

extenuation of her words, which were usually worse than she was.

And, notwithstanding the keen sense of her own bruises, she was capable of

some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with a more

affectionate kindness than they had ever shown before. She could not but

be struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of the

necessary economies in their way of living, and in the education of the

boys. Mr. Gascoigne's worth of character, a little obscured by worldly

opportunities--as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the demands of

fashionable dressing--showed itself to great advantage under this sudden

reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had set himself not only

to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn suits of clothes, to

leave off meat for breakfast, to do without periodicals, to get Edwy from

school and arrange hours of study for all the boys under himself, and to

order the whole establishment on the sparest footing possible. For all

healthy people economy has its pleasures; and the rector's spirit had

spread through the household. Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna, who always made

papa their model, really did not miss anything they cared about for

themselves, and in all sincerity felt that the saddest part of the family

losses was the change for Mrs. Davilow and her children.

Anna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of Rex in her

sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne was disposed to hope that

trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without thinking it her

duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the salutariness. They had

both been busy devising how to get blinds and curtains for the cottage out

of the household stores; but with delicate feeling they left these matters

in the back-ground, and talked at first of Gwendolen's journey, and the

comfort it was to her mamma to have her at home again.

In fact there was nothing for Gwendolen to take as a justification for

extending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around

her, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call to

drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a voice of

firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making to get her

a situation which would offer her as many advantages as possible. Mr.

Gascoigne had not forgotten Grandcourt, but the possibility of further

advances from that quarter was something too vague for a man of his good

sense to be determined by it: uncertainties of that kind must not now

slacken his action in doing the best he could for his niece under actual

conditions.

"I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in a

good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had at a

moment's notice. And however long we waited we could hardly find one where

you would be better off than at Bishop Mompert's. I am known to both him

and Mrs. Mompert, and that of course is an advantage to you. Our

correspondence has gone on favorably; but I cannot be surprised that Mrs.

Mompert wishes to see you before making an absolute engagement. She thinks

of arranging for you to meet her at Wanchester when she is on her way to

town. I dare say you will feel the interview rather trying for you, my

dear; but you will have a little time to prepare your mind."

"Do you know _why_ she wants to see me, uncle?" said Gwendolen, whose mind

had quickly gone over various reasons that an imaginary Mrs. Mompert with

three daughters might be supposed to entertain, reasons all of a

disagreeable kind to the person presenting herself for inspection.

The rector smiled. "Don't be alarmed, my dear. She would like to have a

more precise idea of you than my report can give. And a mother is

naturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. I have told her

you are very young. But she herself exercises a close supervision over her

daughters' education, and that makes her less anxious as to age. She is a

woman of taste and also of strict principle, and objects to having a

French person in the house. I feel sure that she will think your manners

and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find; and over the

religious and moral tone of the education she, and indeed the bishop

himself, will preside."

Gwendolen dared not answer, but the repression of her decided dislike to

the whole prospect sent an unusually deep flush over her face and neck,

subsiding as quickly as it came. Anna, full of tender fears, put her

little hand into her cousin's, and Mr. Gascoigne was too kind a man not to

conceive something of the trial which this sudden change must be for a

girl like Gwendolen. Bent on giving a cheerful view of things, he went on,

in an easy tone of remark, not as if answering supposed objections--

"I think so highly of the position, that I should have been tempted to try

and get it for Anna, if she had been at all likely to meet Mrs. Mompert's

wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education in the highest

sense: 'governess' is a misnomer. The bishop's views are of a more

decidedly Low Church color than my own--he is a close friend of Lord

Grampian's; but, though privately strict, he is not by any means narrow in

public matters. Indeed, he has created as little dislike in his diocese as

any bishop on the bench. He has always remained friendly to me, though

before his promotion, when he was an incumbent of this diocese, we had a

little controversy about the Bible Society."

The rector's words were too pregnant with satisfactory meaning to himself

for him to imagine the effect they produced in the mind of his niece.

"Continuance of education"--"bishop's views"--"privately strict"--"Bible

Society,"--it was as if he had introduced a few snakes at large for the

instruction of ladies who regarded them as all alike furnished with

poison-bags, and, biting or stinging, according to convenience. To

Gwendolen, already shrinking from the prospect open to her, such phrases

came like the growing heat of a burning glass--not at all as the links of

persuasive reflection which they formed for the good uncle. She began,

desperately, to seek an alternative.

"There was another situation, I think, mamma spoke of?" she said, with

determined self-mastery.

'"Yes," said the rector, in rather a depreciatory tone; "but that is in a

school. I should not have the same satisfaction in your taking that. It

would be much harder work, you are aware, and not so good in any other

respect. Besides, you have not an equal chance of getting it."

"Oh dear no," said Mrs. Gascoigne, "it would be much less appropriate, You

might not have a bedroom to yourself." And Gwendolen's memories of school

suggested other particulars which forced her to admit to herself that this

alternative would be no relief. She turned to her uncle again and said,

apparently in acceptance of his ideas--

"When is Mrs. Mompert likely to send for me?"

"That is rather uncertain, but she has promised not to entertain any other

proposal till she has seen you. She has entered with much feeling into

your position. It will be within the next fortnight, probably. But I must

be off now. I am going to let part of my glebe uncommonly well."

The rector ended very cheerfully, leaving the room with the satisfactory

conviction that Gwendolen was going to adapt herself to circumstances like

a girl of good sense. Having spoken appropriately, he naturally supposed

that the effects would be appropriate; being accustomed, as a household

and parish authority, to be asked to "speak to" refractory persons, with

the understanding that the measure was morally coercive.

"What a stay Henry is to us all?" said Mrs. Gascoigne, when her husband

had left the room.

"He is indeed," said Mrs. Davilow, cordially. "I think cheerfulness is a

fortune in itself. I wish I had it."

"And Rex is just like him," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "I must tell you the

comfort we have had in a letter from him. I must read you a little bit,"

she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked rather

frightened--she did not know why, except that it had been a rule with her

not to mention Rex before Gwendolen.

The proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to

read aloud. But apparently she had found it sown with what might seem to

be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she looked

up, folding the letter, and saying--

"However, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a

reason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take

pupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most

remarkable. The letter is full of fun--just like him. He says, 'Tell

mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working son,

in time to hinder me from taking ship; and I offer myself for the place.'

The letter came on Friday. I never saw my husband so much moved by

anything since Rex was born. It seemed a gain to balance our loss."

This letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna to

show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very amiably

about it, smiling at Anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to say,

"Nothing is wrong with you now, is it?" She had no gratuitously ill-

natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She only

had an intense objection to their making her miserable.

But when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not

roused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done as

much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an

heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on within

her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect allowed her,

was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The idea of presenting

herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first instance, to be approved or

disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful bruise; even as a

governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was liable to rejection.

After she had done herself the violence to accept the bishop and his wife,

they were still to consider whether they would accept her; it was at her

peril that she was to look, speak, or be silent. And even when she had

entered on her dismal task of self-constraint in the society of three

girls whom she was bound incessantly to edify, the same process of

inspection was to go on: there was always to be Mrs. Mompert's

supervision; always something or other would be expected of her to which

she had not the slightest inclination; and perhaps the bishop would

examine her on serious topics. Gwendolen, lately used to the social

successes of a handsome girl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the

effect of wit, and who six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of

the bishop rather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before

her as an entrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to

be an actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom;

but his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride

and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting amongst

vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity--odious men, whose

grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong grating of polite

society. Gwendolen's daring was not in the least that of the adventuress;

the demand to be held a lady was in her very marrow; and when she had

dreamed that she might be the heroine of the gaming-table, it was with the

understanding that no one should treat her with the less consideration, or

presume to look at her with irony as Deronda had done. To be protected and

petted, and to have her susceptibilities consulted in every detail, had

gone along with her food and clothing as matters of course in her life:

even without any such warning as Klesmer's she could not have thought it

an attractive freedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the doubtful

civility of strangers. The endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was

less repulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be

petted or have her susceptibilities consulted. Her rebellion against this

hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the world--to

her whom all circumstances had concurred in preparing for something quite

different--was exaggerated instead of diminished as one hour followed

another, with the imagination of what she might have expected in her lot

and what it was actually to be. The family troubles, she thought, were

easier for every one than for her--even for poor dear mamma, because she

had always used herself to not enjoying. As to hoping that if she went to

the Momperts' and was patient a little while, things might get better--it

would be stupid to entertain hopes for herself after all that had

happened: her talents, it appeared, would never be recognized as anything

remarkable, and there was not a single direction in which probability

seemed to flatter her wishes. Some beautiful girls who, like her, had read

romances where even plain governesses are centres of attraction and are

sought in marriage, might have solaced themselves a little by transporting

such pictures into their own future; but even if Gwendolen's experience

had led her to dwell on love-making and marriage as her elysium, her heart

was too much oppressed by what was near to her, in both the past and the

future, for her to project her anticipations very far off. She had a

world-nausea upon her, and saw no reason all through her life why she

should wish to live. No religious view of trouble helped her: her troubles

had in her opinion all been caused by other people's disagreeable or

wicked conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant to be counted on in

the world: that was her feeling; everything else she had heard said about

trouble was mere phrase-making not attractive enough for her to have

caught it up and repeated it. As to the sweetness of labor and fulfilled

claims; the interest of inward and outward activity; the impersonal

delights of life as a perpetual discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude,

industry, which it is mere baseness not to pay toward the common burden;

the supreme worth of the teacher's vocation;--these, even if they had been

eloquently preached to her, could have been no more than faintly

apprehended doctrines: the fact which wrought upon her was her invariable

observation that for a lady to become a governess--to "take a situation"--

was to descend in life and to be treated at best with a compassionate

patronage. And poor Gwendolen had never dissociated happiness from

personal pre-eminence and _*****_. That where these threatened to forsake

her, she should take life to be hardly worth the having, cannot make her

so unlike the rest of us, men or women, that we should cast her out of our

compassion; our moments of temptation to a mean opinion of things in

general being usually dependent on some susceptibility about ourselves and

some dullness to subjects which every one else would consider more

important. Surely a young creature is pitiable who has the labyrinth of

life before her and no clue--to whom distrust in herself and her good

fortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that she

was treading carelessly.

In spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected her

even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about nothing;

the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an irritation

to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed unreasonable, because

it did not include her feeling and was an ignorant claim on her. It was

not in her nature to busy herself with the fancies of suicide to which

disappointed young people are prone: what occupied and exasperated her was

the sense that there was nothing for her but to live in a way she hated.

She avoided going to the rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to

look and talk as if she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to

show interest about the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was

staying on purpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of

thing. Her mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when

Anna came to see her. For that calm which Gwendolen had promised herself

to maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, "I suppose

I shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?"

Her mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the habit

of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined that

Gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give way to the

possibility of making her darling less miserable.

One day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was

lingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging Gwendolen's

articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the casket which

contained the ornaments.

"Mamma," she began, glancing over the upper layer, "I had forgotten these

things. Why didn't you remind me of them? Do see about getting them sold.

You will not mind about parting with them. You gave them all to me long

ago."

She lifted the upper tray and looked below.

"If we can do without them, darling, I would rather keep them for you,"

said Mrs. Davilow, seating herself beside Gwendolen with a feeling of

relief that she was beginning to talk about something. The usual relation

between them had become reversed. It was now the mother who tried to cheer

the daughter. "Why, how came you to put that pocket handkerchief in here?"

It was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which Gwendolen had

thrust in with the turquoise necklace.

"It happened to be with the necklace--I was in a hurry." said Gwendolen,

taking the handkerchief away and putting it in her pocket. "Don't sell the

necklace, mamma," she added, a new feeling having come over her about that

rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive.

"No, dear, no; it was made out of your dear father's chain. And I should

prefer not selling the other things. None of them are of any great value.

All my best ornaments were taken from me long ago."

Mrs. Davilow colored. She usually avoided any reference to such facts

about Gwendolen's step-father as that he had carried off his wife's

jewelry and disposed of it. After a moment's pause she went on--

"And these things have not been reckoned on for any expenses. Carry them

with you."

"That would be quite useless, mamma," said Gwendolen, coldly. "Governesses

don't wear ornaments. You had better get me a gray frieze livery and a

straw poke, such as my aunt's charity children wear."

"No, dear, no; don't take that view of it. I feel sure the Momperts will

like you the better for being graceful and elegant."

"I am not at all sure what the Momperts will like me to be. It is enough

that I am expected to be what they like," said Gwendolen bitterly.

"If there is anything you would object to less--anything that could be

done--instead of your going to the bishop's, do say so, Gwendolen. Tell me

what is in your heart. I will try for anything you wish," said the mother,

beseechingly. "Don't keep things away from me. Let us bear them together."

"Oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. I can't do anything better. I must

think myself fortunate if they will have me. I shall get some money for

you. That is the only thing I have to think of. I shall not spend any

money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. I don't know how far

that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your poor fingers to

the bone, and stare away all the sight that the tears have left in your

dear eyes."

Gwendolen did not give any caresses with her words as she had been used to

do. She did not even look at her mother, but was looking at the turquoise

necklace as she turned it over her fingers.

"Bless you for your tenderness, my good darling!" said Mrs. Davilow, with

tears in her eyes. "Don't despair because there are clouds now. You are so

young. There may be great happiness in store for you yet."

"I don't see any reason for expecting it, mamma," said Gwendolen, in a

hard tone; and Mrs. Davilow was silent, thinking as she had often thought

before--"What did happen between her and Mr. Grandcourt?"

"I _will_ keep this necklace, mamma," said Gwendolen, laying it apart and

then closing the casket. "But do get the other things sold, even if they

will not bring much. Ask my uncle what to do with them. I shall certainly

not use them again. I am going to take the veil. I wonder if all the poor

wretches who have ever taken it felt as I do."

"Don't exaggerate evils, dear."

"How can any one know that I exaggerate, when I am speaking of my own

feeling? I did not say what any one else felt."

She took out the torn handkerchief from her pocket again, and wrapped it

deliberately round the necklace. Mrs. Davilow observed the action with

some surprise, but the tone of her last words discouraged her from asking

any question.

The "feeling" Gwendolen spoke of with an air of tragedy was not to be

explained by the mere fact that she was going to be a governess: she was

possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. It was not simply that

she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste spread

itself over the world outside her penitentiary, since she saw nothing very

pleasant in it that seemed attainable by her even if she were free.

Naturally her grievances did not seem to her smaller than some of her male

contemporaries held theirs to be when they felt a profession too narrow

for their powers, and had an _* priori_ conviction that it was not worth

while to put forth their latent abilities. Because her education had been

less expensive than theirs, it did not follow that she should have wider

emotions or a keener intellectual vision. Her griefs were feminine; but to

her as a woman they were not the less hard to bear, and she felt an equal

right to the Promethean tone.

But the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, to fold it up

in the handkerchief, and rise to put it in her _n*********_, where she had

first placed it when it had been returned to her, was more peculiar, and

what would be called less reasonable. It came from that streak of

superstition in her which attached itself both to her confidence and her

terror--a superstition which lingers in an intense personality even in

spite of theory and science; any dread or hope for self being stronger

than all reasons for or against it. Why she should suddenly determine not

to part with the necklace was not much clearer to her than why she should

sometimes have been frightened to find herself in the fields alone: she

had a confused state of emotion about Deronda--was it wounded pride and

resentment, or a certain awe and exceptional trust? It was something vague

and yet mastering, which impelled her to this action about the necklace.

There, is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to

be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.