Daniel Deronda

Chapter 6

But Gwendolen did not like to dwell on facts which threw an unfavorable

light on itself. The musical Magus who had so suddenly widened her horizon

was not always on the scene; and his being constantly backward and forward

between London and Quetcham soon began to be thought of as offering

opportunities for converting him to a more admiring state of mind.

Meanwhile, in the manifest pleasure her singing gave at Brackenshaw

Castle, the Firs, and elsewhere, she recovered her equanimity, being

disposed to think approval more trustworthy than objection, and not being

one of the exceptional persons who have a parching thirst for a perfection

undemanded by their neighbors. Perhaps it would have been rash to say then

that she was at all exceptional inwardly, or that the unusual in her was

more than her rare grace of movement and bearing, and a certain daring

which gave piquancy to a very common egoistic ambition, such as exists

under many clumsy exteriors and is taken no notice of. For I suppose that

the set of the head does not really determine the hunger of the inner self

for supremacy: it only makes a difference sometimes as to the way in which

the supremacy is held attainable, and a little also to the degree in which

it can be attained; especially when the hungry one is a girl, whose

passion for doing what is remarkable has an ideal limit in consistency

with the highest breeding and perfect freedom from the sordid need of

income. Gwendolen was as inwardly rebellious against the restraints of

family conditions, and as ready to look through obligations into her own

fundamental want of feeling for them, as if she had been sustained by the

boldest speculations; but she really had no such speculations, and would

at once have marked herself off from any sort of theoretical or

practically reforming women by satirizing them. She rejoiced to feel

herself exceptional; but her horizon was that of the genteel romance where

the heroine's soul poured out in her journal is full of vague power,

originality, and general rebellion, while her life moves strictly in the

sphere of fashion; and if she wanders into a swamp, the pathos lies

partly, so to speak, in her having on her satin shoes. Here is a restraint

which nature and society have provided on the pursuit of striking

adventure; so that a soul burning with a sense of what the universe is

not, and ready to take all existence as fuel, is nevertheless held captive

by the ordinary wirework of social forms and does nothing particular.

This commonplace result was what Gwendolen found herself threatened with

even in the novelty of the first winter at Offendene. What she was clear

upon was, that she did not wish to lead the same sort of life as ordinary

young ladies did; but what she was not clear upon was, how she should set

about leading any other, and what were the particular acts which she would

assert her freedom by doing. Offendene remained a good background, if

anything would happen there; but on the whole the neighborhood was in

fault.

Beyond the effect of her beauty on a first presentation, there was not

much excitement to be got out of her earliest invitations, and she came

home after little sallies of satire and knowingness, such as had offended

Mrs. Arrowpoint, to fill the intervening days with the most girlish

devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her individual

claims was to leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle that Alice was

more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her with Miss Merry, and

the maid who was understood to wait on all the ladies, in helping to

arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen pleased herself with

having in readiness for some future occasions of acting in charades or

theatrical pieces, occasions which she meant to bring about by force of

will or contrivance. She had never acted--only made a figure in _tableaux

vivans_ at school; but she felt assured that she could act well, and

having been once or twice to the Th***** Fran****, and also heard her

mamma speak of Rachel, her waking dreams and cogitations as to how she

would manage her destiny sometimes turned on the question whether she

would become an actress like Rachel, since she was more beautiful than

that thin Jewess. Meanwhile the wet days before Christmas were passed

pleasantly in the preparation of costumes, Greek, Oriental, and Composite,

in which Gwendolen attitudinized and speechified before a domestic

audience, including even the housekeeper, who was once pressed into it

that she might swell the notes of applause; but having shown herself

unworthy by observing that Miss Harleth looked far more like a queen in

her own dress than in that baggy thing with her arms all bare, she was not

invited a second time.

"Do I look as well as Rachel, mamma?" said Gwendolen, one day when she had

been showing herself in her Greek dress to Anna, and going through scraps

of scenes with much tragic intention.

"You have better arms than Rachel," said Mrs. Davilow, "your arms would do

for anything, Gwen. But your voice is not so tragic as hers; it is not so

deep."

"I can make it deeper, if I like," said Gwendolen, provisionally; then she

added, with decision, "I think a higher voice is more tragic: it is more

feminine; and the more feminine a woman is, the more tragic it seems when

she does desperate actions."

"There may be something in that," said Mrs. Davilow, languidly. "But I

don't know what good there is in making one's blood creep. And if there is

anything horrible to be done, I should like it to be left to the men."

"Oh, mamma, you are so dreadfully prosaic! As if all the great poetic

criminals were not women! I think the men are poor cautious creatures."

"Well, dear, and you--who are afraid to be alone in the night--I don't

think you would be very bold in crime, thank God."

"I am not talking about reality, mamma," said Gwendolen, impatiently. Then

her mamma being called out of the room, she turned quickly to her cousin,

as if taking an opportunity, and said, "Anna, do ask my uncle to let us

get up some charades at the rectory. Mr. Middleton and Warham could act

with us--just for practice. Mamma says it will not do to have Mr.

Middleton consulting and rehearsing here. He is a stick, but we could give

him suitable parts. Do ask, or else I will."

"Oh, not till Rex comes. He is so clever, and such a dear old thing, and

he will act Napoleon looking over the sea. He looks just like Napoleon.

Rex can do anything."

"I don't in the least believe in your Rex, Anna," said Gwendolen, laughing

at her. "He will turn out to be like those wretched blue and yellow water-

colors of his which you hang up in your bedroom and worship."

"Very well, you will see," said Anna. "It is not that I know what is

clever, but he has got a scholarship already, and papa says he will get a

fellowship, and nobody is better at games. He is cleverer than Mr.

Middleton, and everybody but you call Mr. Middleton clever."

"So he may be in a dark-lantern sort of way. But he _is_ a stick. If he

had to say, 'Perdition catch my soul, but I do love her,' he would say it

in just the same tone as, 'Here endeth the second lesson.'"

"Oh, Gwendolen!" said Anna, shocked at these promiscuous allusions. "And

it is very unkind of you to speak so of him, for he admires you very much.

I heard Warham say one day to mamma, 'Middleton is regularly spooney upon

Gwendolen.' She was very angry with him; but I know what it means. It is

what they say at college for being in love."

"How can I help it?" said Gwendolen, rather contemptuously. "Perdition

catch my soul if I love _him_."

"No, of course; papa, I think, would not wish it. And he is to go away

soon. But it makes me sorry when you ridicule him."

"What shall you do to me when I ridicule Rex?" said Gwendolen, wickedly.

"Now, Gwendolen, dear, you _will not_?" said Anna, her eyes filling with

tears. "I could not bear it. But there really is nothing in him to

ridicule. Only you may find out things. For no one ever thought of

laughing at Mr. Middleton before you. Every one said he was nice-looking,

and his manners perfect. I am sure I have always been frightened at him

because of his learning and his square-cut coat, and his being a nephew of

the bishop's, and all that. But you will not ridicule Rex--promise me."

Anna ended with a beseeching look which touched Gwendolen.

"You are a dear little coz," she said, just touching the tip of Anna's

chin with her thumb and forefinger. "I don't ever want to do anything that

will vex you. Especially if Rex is to make everything come off--charades

and everything."

And when at last Rex was there, the animation he brought into the life of

Offendene and the rectory, and his ready partnership in Gwendolen's plans,

left her no inclination for any ridicule that was not of an open and

flattering kind, such as he himself enjoyed. He was a fine open-hearted

youth, with a handsome face strongly resembling his father's and Anna's,

but softer in expression than the one, and larger in scale than the other:

a bright, healthy, loving nature, enjoying ordinary innocent things so

much that vice had no temptation for him, and what he knew of it lay too

entirely in the outer courts and little-visited chambers of his mind for

him to think of it with great repulsion. Vicious habits were with him

"what some fellows did"--"stupid stuff" which he liked to keep aloof from.

He returned Anna's affection as fully as could be expected of a brother

whose pleasures apart from her were more than the sum total of hers; and

he had never known a stronger love.

The cousins were continually together at the one house or the other--

chiefly at Offendene, where there was more freedom, or rather where there

was a more complete sway for Gwendolen; and whatever she wished became a

ruling purpose for Rex. The charades came off according to her plans; and

also some other little scenes not contemplated by her in which her acting

was more impromptu. It was at Offendene that the charades and _tableaux_

were rehearsed and presented, Mrs. Davilow seeing no objection even to Mr.

Middleton's being invited to share in them, now that Rex too was there--

especially as his services were indispensable: Warham, who was studying

for India with a Wanchester "coach," having no time to spare, and being

generally dismal under a cram of everything except the answers needed at

the forthcoming examination, which might disclose the welfare of our

Indian Empire to be somehow connected with a quotable knowledge of

Browne's Pastorals.

Mr. Middleton was persuaded to play various grave parts, Gwendolen having

flattered him on his enviable immobility of countenance; and at first a

little pained and jealous at her comradeship with Rex, he presently drew

encouragement from the thought that this sort of cousinly familiarity

excluded any serious passion. Indeed, he occasionally felt that her more

formal treatment of himself was such a sign of favor as to warrant his

making advances before he left Pennicote, though he had intended to keep

his feelings in reserve until his position should be more assured. Miss

Gwendolen, quite aware that she was adored by this unexceptionable young

clergyman with pale whiskers and square-cut collar, felt nothing more on

the subject than that she had no objection to being adored: she turned her

eyes on him with calm mercilessness and caused him many mildly agitating

hopes by seeming always to avoid dramatic contact with him--for all

meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Some persons might have thought beforehand that a young man of Anglican

leanings, having a sense of sacredness much exercised on small things as

well as great, rarely laughing save from politeness, and in general

regarding the mention of spades by their naked names as rather coarse,

would not have seen a fitting bride for himself in a girl who was daring

in ridicule, and showed none of the special grace required in the

clergyman's wife; or, that a young man informed by theological reading

would have reflected that he was not likely to meet the taste of a lively,

restless young lady like Miss Harleth. But are we always obliged to

explain why the facts are not what some persons thought beforehand? The

apology lies on their side, who had that erroneous way of thinking.

As for Rex, who would possibly have been sorry for poor Middleton if he

had been aware of the excellent curate's inward conflict, he was too

completely absorbed in a first passion to have observation for any person

or thing. He did not observe Gwendolen; he only felt what she said or did,

and the back of his head seemed to be a good organ of information as to

whether she was in the room or out. Before the end of the first fortnight

he was so deeply in love that it was impossible for him to think of his

life except as bound up with Gwendolen's. He could see no obstacles, poor

boy; his own love seemed a guarantee of hers, since it was one with the

unperturbed delight in her image, so that he could no more dream of her

giving him pain than an Egyptian could dream of snow. She sang and played

to him whenever he liked, was always glad of his companionship in riding,

though his borrowed steeds were often comic, was ready to join in any fun

of his, and showed a right appreciation of Anna. No mark of sympathy

seemed absent. That because Gwendolen was the most perfect creature in the

world she was to make a grand match, had not occurred to him. He had no

conceit--at least not more than goes to make up the necessary gum and

consistence of a substantial personality: it was only that in the young

bliss of loving he took Gwendolen's perfection as part of that good which

had seemed one with life to him, being the outcome of a happy, well-

embodied nature.

One incident which happened in the course of their dramatic attempts

impressed Rex as a sign of her unusual sensibility. It showed an aspect of

her nature which could not have been preconceived by any one who, like

him, had only seen her habitual fearlessness in active exercises and her

high spirits in society.

After a good deal of rehearsing it was resolved that a select party should

be invited to Offendene to witness the performances which went with so

much satisfaction to the actors. Anna had caused a pleasant surprise;

nothing could be neater than the way in which she played her little parts;

one would even have suspected her of hiding much sly observation under her

simplicity. And Mr. Middleton answered very well by not trying to be

comic. The main source of doubt and retardation had been Gwendolen's

desire to appear in her Greek dress. No word for a charade would occur to

her either waking or dreaming that suited her purpose of getting a

statuesque pose in this favorite costume. To choose a motive from Racine

was of no use, since Rex and the others could not declaim French verse,

and improvised speeches would turn the scene into burlesque. Besides, Mr.

Gascoigne prohibited the acting of scenes from plays: he usually protested

against the notion that an amusement which was fitting for every one else

was unfitting for a clergyman; but he would not in this matter overstep

the line of decorum as drawn in that part of Wessex, which did not exclude

his sanction of the young people's acting charades in his sister-in-law's

house--a very different affair from private theatricals in the full sense

of the word.

Everybody of course was concerned to satisfy this wish of Gwendolen's, and

Rex proposed that they should wind up with a tableau in which the effect

of her majesty would not be marred by any one's speech. This pleased her

thoroughly, and the only question was the choice of the tableau.

"Something pleasant, children, I beseech you," said Mrs. Davilow; "I can't

have any Greek wickedness."

"It is no worse than Christian wickedness, mamma," said Gwendolen, whose

mention of Rachelesque heroines had called forth that remark.

"And less scandalous," said Rex. "Besides, one thinks of it as all gone by

and done with. What do you say to Briseis being led away? I would be

Achilles, and you would be looking round at me--after the print we have at

the rectory."

"That would be a good attitude for me," said Gwendolen, in a tone of

acceptance. But afterward she said with decision, "No. It will not do.

There must be three men in proper costume, else it will be ridiculous."

"I have it," said Rex, after a little reflection. "Hermione as the statue

in Winter's Tale? I will be Leontes, and Miss Merry, Paulina, one on each

side. Our dress won't signify," he went on laughingly; "it will be more

Shakespearian and romantic if Leontes looks like Napoleon, and Paulina

like a modern spinster."

And Hermione was chosen; all agreeing that age was of no consequence, but

Gwendolen urged that instead of the mere tableau there should be just

enough acting of the scene to introduce the striking up of the music as a

signal for her to step down and advance; when Leontes, instead of

embracing her, was to kneel and kiss the hem of her garment, and so the

curtain was to fall. The antechamber with folding doors lent itself

admirably to the purpose of a stage, and the whole of the establishment,

with the addition of Jarrett the village carpenter, was absorbed in the

preparations for an entertainment, which, considering that it was an

imitation of acting, was likely to be successful, since we know from

ancient fable that an imitation may have more chance of success than the

original.

Gwendolen was not without a special exultation in the prospect of this

occasion, for she knew that Herr Klesmer was again at Quetcham, and she

had taken care to include him among the invited.

Klesmer came. He was in one of his placid, silent moods, and sat in serene

contemplation, replying to all appeals in benignant-sounding syllables

more or less articulate--as taking up his cross meekly in a world

overgrown with amateurs, or as careful how he moved his lion paws lest he

should crush a rampant and vociferous mouse.

Everything indeed went off smoothly and according to expectation--all that

was improvised and accidental being of a probable sort--until the incident

occurred which showed Gwendolen in an unforeseen phase of emotion. How it

came about was at first a mystery.

The tableau of Hermione was doubly striking from its dissimilarity with

what had gone before: it was answering perfectly, and a murmur of applause

had been gradually suppressed while Leontes gave his permission that

Paulina should exercise her utmost art and make the statue move.

Hermione, her arm resting on a pillar, was elevated by about six inches,

which she counted on as a means of showing her pretty foot and instep,

when at the given signal she should advance and descend.

"Music, awake her, strike!" said Paulina (Mrs. Davilow, who, by special

entreaty, had consented to take the part in a white burnous and hood).

Herr Klesmer, who had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the

piano, struck a thunderous chord--but in the same instant, and before

Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line

with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed

the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought out in pale

definiteness by the position of the wax-lights. Everyone was startled, but

all eyes in the act of turning toward the open panel were recalled by a

piercing cry from Gwendolen, who stood without change of attitude, but

with a change of expression that was terrifying in its terror. She looked

like a statue into which a soul of Fear had entered: her pallid lips were

parted; her eyes, usually narrowed under their long lashes, were dilated

and fixed. Her mother, less surprised than alarmed, rushed toward her, and

Rex, too, could not help going to her side. But the touch of her mother's

arm had the effect of an electric charge; Gwendolen fell on her knees and

put her hands before her face. She was still trembling, but mute, and it

seemed that she had self-consciousness enough to aim at controlling her

signs of terror, for she presently allowed herself to be raised from her

kneeling posture and led away, while the company were relieving their

minds by explanation.

"A magnificent bit of _plastik_ that!" said Klesmer to Miss Arrowpoint.

And a quick fire of undertoned question and answer went round.

"Was it part of the play?"

"Oh, no, surely not. Miss Harleth was too much affected. A sensitive

creature!"

"Dear me! I was not aware that there was a painting behind that panel;

were you?"

"No; how should I? Some eccentricity in one of the Earl's family long ago,

I suppose."

"How very painful! Pray shut it up."

"Was the door locked? It is very mysterious. It must be the spirits."

"But there is no medium present."

"How do you know that? We must conclude that there is, when such things

happen."

"Oh, the door was not locked; it was probably the sudden vibration from

the piano that sent it open."

This conclusion came from Mr. Gascoigne, who begged Miss Merry if possible

to get the key. But this readiness to explain the mystery was thought by

Mrs. Vulcany unbecoming in a clergyman, and she observed in an undertone

that Mr. Gascoigne was always a little too worldly for her taste. However,

the key was produced, and the rector turned it in the lock with an

emphasis rather offensively rationalizing--as who should say, "it will not

start open again"--putting the key in his pocket as a security.

However, Gwendolen soon reappeared, showing her usual spirits, and

evidently determined to ignore as far as she could the striking change she

had made in the part of Hermione.

But when Klesmer said to her, "We have to thank you for devising a perfect

climax: you could not have chosen a finer bit of _plastik_," there was a

flush of pleasure in her face. She liked to accept as a belief what was

really no more than delicate feigning. He divined that the betrayal into a

passion of fear had been mortifying to her, and wished her to understand

that he took it for good acting. Gwendolen cherished the idea that now he

was struck with her talent as well as her beauty, and her uneasiness about

his opinion was half turned to complacency.

But too many were in the secret of what had been included in the

rehearsals, and what had not, and no one besides Klesmer took the trouble

to soothe Gwendolen's imagined mortification. The general sentiment was

that the incident should be let drop.

There had really been a medium concerned in the starting open of the

panel: one who had quitted the room in haste and crept to bed in much

alarm of conscience. It was the small Isabel, whose intense curiosity,

unsatisfied by the brief glimpse she had had of the strange picture on the

day of arrival at Offendene, had kept her on the watch for an opportunity

of finding out where Gwendolen had put the key, of stealing it from the

discovered drawer when the rest of the family were out, and getting on a

stool to unlock the panel. While she was indulging her thirst for

knowledge in this way, a noise which she feared was an approaching

footstep alarmed her: she closed the door and attempted hurriedly to lock

it, but failing and not daring to linger, she withdrew the key and trusted

that the panel would stick, as it seemed well inclined to do. In this

confidence she had returned the key to its former place, stilling any

anxiety by the thought that if the door were discovered to be unlocked

nobody would know how the unlocking came about. The inconvenient Isabel,

like other offenders, did not foresee her own impulse to confession, a

fatality which came upon her the morning after the party, when Gwendolen

said at the breakfast-table, "I know the door was locked before the

housekeeper gave me the key, for I tried it myself afterward. Some one

must have been to my drawer and taken the key."

It seemed to Isabel that Gwendolen's awful eyes had rested on her more

than on the other sisters, and without any time for resolve, she said,

with a trembling lip:

"Please forgive me, Gwendolen."

The forgiveness was sooner bestowed than it would have been if Gwendolen

had not desired to dismiss from her own and every one else's memory any

case in which she had shown her susceptibility to terror. She wondered at

herself in these occasional experiences, which seemed like a brief

remembered madness, an unexplained exception from her normal life; and in

this instance she felt a peculiar vexation that her helpless fear had

shown itself, not, as usual, in solitude, but in well-lit company. Her

ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in braving dangers, both

moral and physical; and though her practice fell far behind her ideal,

this shortcoming seemed to be due to the pettiness of circumstances, the

narrow theatre which life offers to a girl of twenty, who cannot conceive

herself as anything else than a lady, or as in any position which would

lack the tribute of respect. She had no permanent consciousness of other

fetters, or of more spiritual restraints, having always disliked whatever

was presented to her under the name of religion, in the same way that some

people dislike arithmetic and accounts: it had raised no other emotion in

her, no alarm, no longing; so that the question whether she believed it

had not occurred to her any more than it had occurred to her to inquire

into the conditions of colonial property and banking, on which, as she had

had many opportunities of knowing, the family fortune was dependent. All

these facts about herself she would have been ready to admit, and even,

more or less indirectly, to state. What she unwillingly recognized, and

would have been glad for others to be unaware of, was that liability of

hers to fits of spiritual dread, though this fountain of awe within her

had not found its way into connection with the religion taught her or with

any human relations. She was ashamed and frightened, as at what might

happen again, in remembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone,

when, for example, she was walking without companionship and there came

some rapid change in the light. Solitude in any wide scene impressed her

with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in the

midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself. The

little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her

imagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when some

one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in which she

seemed an exile; she found again her usual world in which her will was of

some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to this world was no

more identified for her with those uneasy impressions of awe than her

uncle's surplices seen out of use at the rectory. With human ears and eyes

about her, she had always hitherto recovered her confidence, and felt the

possibility of winning empire.

To her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were sufficiently

accounted for by her "sensitiveness" or the "excitability of her nature";

but these explanatory phrases required conciliation with much that seemed

to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery. Heat is a great agent and a

useful word, but considered as a means of explaining the universe it

requires an extensive knowledge of differences; and as a means of

explaining character "sensitiveness" is in much the same predicament. But

who, loving a creature like Gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard

every peculiarity in her as a mark of preeminence? That was what Rex did.

After the Hermione scene he was more persuaded than ever that she must be

instinct with all feeling, and not only readier to respond to a worshipful

love, but able to love better than other girls. Rex felt the summer on his

young wings and soared happily.