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Home -> George Eliot -> Daniel Deronda -> Chapter 31

Daniel Deronda - Chapter 31

1. Book I, Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Book II, Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

19. Book III, Chapter 19

20. Chapter 20

21. Chapter 21

22. Chapter 22

23. Chapter 23

24. Chapter 24

25. Chapter 25

26. Chapter 26

27. Chapter 27

28. Book IV, Chapter 28

29. Chapter 29

30. Chapter 30

31. Chapter 31

32. Chapter 32

33. Chapter 33

34. Chapter 34

35. Book V, Chapter 35

36. Chapter 36

37. Chapter 37

38. Chapter 38

39. Chapter 39

40. Chapter 40

41. Book VI, Chapter 41

42. Chapter 42

43. Chapter 43

44. Chapter 44

45. Chapter 45

46. Chapter 46

47. Chapter 47

48. Chapter 48

49. Chapter 49

50. Book VII, Chapter 50

51. Chapter 51

52. Chapter 52

53. Chapter 53

54. Chapter 54

55. Chapter 55

56. Chapter 56

57. Chapter 57

58. Book VIII, Chapter 58

59. Chapter 59

60. Chapter 60

61. Chapter 61

62. Chapter 62

63. Chapter 63

64. Chapter 64

65. Chapter 65

66. Chapter 66

67. Chapter 67

68. Chapter 68

69. Chapter 69

70. Chapter 70







CHAPTER XXXI.

"A wild dedication of yourselves
To unpath'd waters, undreamed shores."
--SHAKESPEARE.


On the day when Gwendolen Harleth was married and became Mrs. Grandcourt,
the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low a slight frost
crisped the leaves. The bridal party was worth seeing, and half Pennicote
turned out to see it, lining the pathway up to the church. An old friend
of the rector's performed the marriage ceremony, the rector himself acting
as father, to the great advantage of the procession. Only two faces, it
was remarked, showed signs of sadness--Mrs. Davilow's and Anna's. The
mother's delicate eyelids were pink, as if she had been crying half the
night; and no one was surprised that, splendid as the match was, she
should feel the parting from a daughter who was the flower of her children
and of her own life. It was less understood why Anna should be troubled
when she was being so well set off by the bridesmaid's dress. Every one
else seemed to reflect the brilliancy of the occasion--the bride most of
all. Of her it was agreed that as to figure and carriage she was worthy to
be a "lady o' title": as to face, perhaps it might be thought that a title
required something more rosy; but the bridegroom himself not being fresh-
colored--being indeed, as the miller's wife observed, very much of her own
husband's complexion--the match was the more complete. Anyhow he must be
very fond of her; and it was to be hoped that he would never cast it up to
her that she had been going out to service as a governess, and her mother
to live at Sawyer's Cottage--vicissitudes which had been much spoken of in
the village. The miller's daughter of fourteen could not believe that high
gentry behaved badly to their wives, but her mother instructed her--"Oh,
child, men's men: gentle or simple, they're much of a muchness. I've heard
my mother say Squire Pelton used to take his dogs and a long whip into his
wife's room, and flog 'em there to frighten her; and my mother was lady's-
maid there at the very time."

"That's unlucky talk for a wedding, Mrs. Girdle," said the tailor. "A
quarrel may end wi' the whip, but it begins wi' the tongue, and it's the
women have got the most o' that."

"The Lord gave it 'em to use, I suppose," said Mrs. Girdle. "_He_ never
meant you to have it all your own way."

"By what I can make out from the gentleman as attends to the grooming at
Offendene," said the tailor, "this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful little
tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering."

"Then he's the more whip, I doubt," said Mrs. Girdle. "_She's_ got tongue
enough, I warrant her. See, there they come out together!"

"What wonderful long corners she's got to her eyes!" said the tailor. "She
makes you feel comical when she looks at you."

Gwendolen, in fact, never showed more elasticity in her bearing, more
lustre in her long brown glance: she had the brilliancy of strong
excitement, which will sometimes come even from pain. It was not pain,
however, that she was feeling: she had wrought herself up to much the same
condition as that in which she stood at the gambling-table when Deronda
was looking at her, and she began to lose. There was an enjoyment in it:
whatever uneasiness a growing conscience had created was disregarded as an
ailment might have been, amidst the gratification of that ambitious vanity
and desire for luxury within her which it would take a great deal of slow
poisoning to kill. This morning she could not have said truly that she
repented her acceptance of Grandcourt, or that any fears in hazy
perspective could hinder the glowing effect of the immediate scene in
which she was the central object. That she was doing something wrong--that
a punishment might be hanging over her--that the woman to whom she had
given a promise and broken it, was thinking of her in bitterness and
misery with a just reproach--that Deronda with his way of looking into
things very likely despised her for marrying Grandcourt, as he had
despised her for gambling--above all, that the cord which united her with
this lover and which she had heretofore held by the hand, was now being
flung over her neck,--all this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts
with vague but deep impressions, and with images half real, half
fantastic, had been disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement. Was
that agitating experience nullified this morning? No: it was surmounted
and thrust down with a sort of exulting defiance as she felt herself
standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything to
win much--or if to lose, still with _eclat_ and a sense of importance. But
this morning a losing destiny for herself did not press upon her as a
fear: she thought that she was entering on a fuller power of managing
circumstances--with all the official strength of marriage, which some
women made so poor a use of. That intoxication of youthful egoism out of
which she had been shaken by trouble, humiliation, and a new sense of
culpability, had returned upon her under a newly-fed strength of the old
fumes. She did not in the least present the ideal of the tearful,
tremulous bride. Poor Gwendolen, whom some had judged much too forward and
instructed in the world's ways!--with her erect head and elastic footstep
she was walking among illusions; and yet, too, there was an under-
consciousness of her that she was a little intoxicated.

"Thank God you bear it so well, my darling!" said Mrs. Davilow, when she
had helped Gwendolen to doff her bridal white and put on her traveling
dress. All the trembling had been done by the poor mother, and her
agitation urged Gwendolen doubly to take the morning as if it were a
triumph.

"Why, you might have said that, if I had been going to Mrs. Mompert's, you
dear, sad, incorrigible mamma!" said Gwendolen just putting her hands to
her mother's cheeks with laughing tenderness--then retreating a little and
spreading out her arms as if to exhibit herself: "Here am I--Mrs.
Grandcourt! what else would you have me, but what I am sure to be? You
know you were ready to die with vexation when you thought that I would not
be Mrs. Grandcourt."

"Hush, hush, my child, for heaven's sake!" said Mrs. Davilow, almost in a
whisper. "How can I help feeling it when I am parting from you. But I can
bear anything gladly if you are happy."

"Not gladly, mamma, no!" said Gwendolen, shaking her head, with a bright
smile. "Willingly you would bear it, but always sorrowfully. Sorrowing is
your sauce; you can take nothing without it." Then, clasping her mother's
shoulders and raining kisses first on one cheek and then on the other
between her words, she said, gaily, "And you shall sorrow over my having
everything at my beck---and enjoying everything glorious--splendid houses
--and horses--and diamonds, I shall have diamonds--and going to court--and
being Lady Certainly--and Lady Perhaps--and grand here--and tantivy there
--and always loving you better than anybody else in the world."

"My sweet child!--But I shall not be jealous if you love your husband
better; and he will expect to be first."

Gwendolen thrust out her lips and chin with a pretty grimace, saying,
"Rather a ridiculous expectation. However, I don't mean to treat him ill,
unless he deserves it."

Then the two fell into a clinging embrace, and Gwendolen could not hinder
a rising sob when she said, "I wish you were going with me, mamma."

But the slight dew on her long eyelashes only made her the more charming
when she gave her hand to Grandcourt to be led to the carriage.

The rector looked in on her to give a final "Good-bye; God bless you; we
shall see you again before long," and then returned to Mrs. Davilow,
saying half cheerfully, half solemnly--

"Let us be thankful, Fanny. She is in a position well suited to her, and
beyond what I should have dared to hope for. And few women can have been
chosen more entirely for their own sake. You should feel yourself a happy
mother."

* * * * *

There was a railway journey of some fifty miles before the new husband and
wife reached the station near Ryelands. The sky had veiled itself since
the morning, and it was hardly more than twilight when they entered the
park-gates, but still Gwendolen, looking out of the carriage-window as
they drove rapidly along, could see the grand outlines and the nearer
beauties of the scene--the long winding drive bordered with evergreens
backed by huge gray stems: then the opening of wide grassy spaces and
undulations studded with dark clumps; till at last came a wide level where
the white house could be seen, with a hanging wood for a back-ground, and
the rising and sinking balustrade of a terrace in front.

Gwendolen had been at her liveliest during the journey, chatting
incessantly, ignoring any change in their mutual position since yesterday;
and Grandcourt had been rather ecstatically quiescent, while she turned
his gentle seizure of her hand into a grasp of his hand by both hers, with
an increased vivacity as of a kitten that will not sit quiet to be petted.
She was really getting somewhat febrile in her excitement; and now in this
drive through the park her usual susceptibility to changes of light and
scenery helped to make her heart palpitate newly. Was it at the novelty
simply, or the almost incredible fulfilment about to be given to her
girlish dreams of being "somebody"--walking through her own furlong of
corridor and under her own ceilings of an out-of-sight loftiness, where
her own painted Spring was shedding painted flowers, and her own fore-
shortened Zephyrs were blowing their trumpets over her; while her own
servants, lackeys in clothing but men in bulk and shape, were as nought in
her presence, and revered the propriety of her insolence to them:--being
in short the heroine of an admired play without the pains of art? Was it
alone the closeness of this fulfilment which made her heart flutter? or
was it some dim forecast, the insistent penetration of suppressed
experience, mixing the expectation of a triumph with the dread of a
crisis? Hers was one of the natures in which exultation inevitably
carries an infusion of dread ready to curdle and declare itself.

She fell silent in spite of herself as they approached the gates, and when
her husband said, "Here we are at home!" and for the first time kissed her
on the lips, she hardly knew of it: it was no more than the passive
acceptance of a greeting in the midst of an absorbing show. Was not all
her hurrying life of the last three months a show, in which her
consciousness was a wondering spectator? After the half-willful excitement
of the day, a numbness had come over her personality.

But there was a brilliant light in the hall--warmth, matting, carpets,
full-length portraits, Olympian statues, assiduous servants. Not many
servants, however: only a few from Diplow in addition to those constantly
in charge of the house; and Gwendolen's new maid, who had come with her,
was taken under guidance by the housekeeper. Gwendolen felt herself being
led by Grandcourt along a subtly-scented corridor, into an ante-room where
she saw an open doorway sending out a rich glow of light and color.

"These are our dens," said Grandcourt. "You will like to be quiet here
till dinner. We shall dine early."

He pressed her hand to his lips and moved away, more in love than he had
ever expected to be.

Gwendolen, yielded up her hat and mantle, threw herself into a chair by
the glowing hearth, and saw herself repeated in glass panels with all her
faint-green satin surroundings. The housekeeper had passed into this
boudoir from the adjoining dressing-room and seemed disposed to linger,
Gwendolen thought, in order to look at the new mistress of Ryelands, who,
however, being impatient for solitude said to her, "Will you tell Hudson
when she has put out my dress to leave everything? I shall not want her
again, unless I ring."

The housekeeper, coming forward, 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 particularly ordered by
Mr. Grandcourt; but he was not to know of its arrival till he saw you wear
it. Excuse me, madam; I felt it right to obey orders."

Gwendolen took the packet and let it lie on her lap till she heard the
doors close. It came into her mind that the packet might contain the
diamonds which Grandcourt had spoken of as being deposited somewhere and
to be given to her on her marriage. In this moment of confused feeling and
creeping luxurious languor she was glad of this diversion--glad of such an
event as having her own diamonds to try on.

Within all the sealed paper coverings was a box, but within the box there
_was_ a jewel-case; and now she felt no doubt that she had the diamonds.
But on opening the case, in the same instant that she saw them gleam she
saw a letter lying above them. She knew the handwriting of the address. It
was as if an adder had lain on them. Her heart gave a leap which seemed to
have spent all her strength; and as she opened the bit of thin paper, it
shook with the trembling of her hands. But it was legible as print, and
thrust its words upon her.

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. His best young love was mine: you could not take
that from me when you took the rest. It is dead: but I am the grave
in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. You had
your warning. You have chosen to injure me and my children. He had
meant to marry me. He would have married me at last, if you had not
broken your word. You will have your punishment. I desire it with all
my soul.

Will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us more--
me and my children? Shall you like to stand before your husband with
these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and
yours? Will he think you have any right to complain when he has made
you miserable? You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you
have done me will be your curse.

It seemed at first as if Gwendolen's eyes were spell-bound in reading the
horrible words of the letter over and over again as a doom of penance; but
suddenly a new spasm of terror made her lean forward and stretch out the
paper toward the fire, lest accusation and proof at once should meet all
eyes. It flew like a feather from her trembling fingers and was caught up
in a great draught of flame. In her movement the casket fell on the floor
and the diamonds rolled out. She took no notice, but fell back in her
chair again helpless. She could not see the reflections of herself then;
they were like so many women petrified white; but coming near herself you
might have seen the tremor in her lips and hands. She sat so for a long
while, knowing little more than that she was feeling ill, and that those
written words kept repeating themselves to her.

Truly here were poisoned gems, and the poison had entered into this poor
young creature.

After that long while, there was a tap at the door and Grandcourt entered,
dressed for dinner. The sight of him brought a new nervous shock, and
Gwendolen screamed again and again with hysterical violence. He had
expected to see her dressed and smiling, ready to be led down. He saw her
pallid, shrieking as it seemed with terror, the jewels scattered around
her on the floor. Was it a fit of madness?

In some form or other the furies had crossed his threshold.




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