by George Eliot
“Why did you marry again, mamma? It would have been nicer if you had not.”
Mrs. Davilow colored deeply, a slight convulsive movement passed over her face, and straightway shutting up the memorials she said, with a violence quite unusual in her—
“You have no feeling, child!”
Gwendolen, who was fond of her mamma, felt hurt and ashamed, and had never since dared to ask a question about her father.
This was not the only instance in which she had brought on herself the pain of some filial compunction. It was always arranged, when possible, that she should have a small bed in her mamma’s room; for Mrs. Davilow’s motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had been born in her happier time. One night under an attack of pain she found that the specific regularly placed by her bedside had been forgotten, and begged Gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her. That healthy young lady, snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little couch, objected to step out into the cold, and lying perfectly still, grumbling a refusal. Mrs. Davilow went without the medicine and never reproached her daughter; but the next day Gwendolen was keenly conscious of what must be in her mamma’s mind, and tried to make amends by caresses which cost her no effort. Having always been the pet and pride of the household, waited on by mother, sisters, governess and maids, as if she had been a princess in exile, she naturally found it difficult to think her own pleasure less important than others made it, and when it was positively thwarted felt an astonished resentment apt, in her cruder days, to vent itself in one of those passionate acts which look like a contradiction of habitual tendencies. Though never even as a child thoughtlessly cruel, nay delighting to rescue drowning insects and watch their recovery, there was a disagreeable silent remembrance of her having strangled her sister’s canary-bird in a final fit of exasperation at its shrill singing which had again and again jarringly interrupted her own. She had taken pains to buy a white mouse for her sister in retribution, and though inwardly excusing herself on the ground of a peculiar sensitiveness which was a mark of her general superiority, the thought of that infelonious murder had always made her wince. Gwendolen’s nature was not remorseless, but she liked to make her penances easy, and now that she was twenty and more, some of her native force had turned into a self-control by which she guarded herself from penitential humiliation. There was more show of fire and will in her than ever, but there was more calculation underneath it.
On this day of arrival at Offendene, which not even Mrs. Davilow had seen before—the place having been taken for her by her brother-in-law, Mr. Gascoigne—when all had got down from the carriage, and were standing under the porch in front of the open door, so that they could have a general view of the place and a glimpse of the stone hall and staircase hung with sombre pictures, but enlivened by a bright wood fire, no one spoke; mamma, the four sisters and the governess all looked at Gwendolen, as if their feelings depended entirely on her decision. Of the girls, from Alice in her sixteenth year to Isabel in her tenth, hardly anything could be said on a first view, but that they were girlish, and that their black dresses were getting shabby. Miss Merry was elderly and altogether neutral in expression. Mrs. Davilow’s worn beauty seemed the more pathetic for the look of entire appeal which she cast at Gwendolen, who was glancing round at the house, the landscape and the entrance hall with an air of rapid judgment. Imagine a young race-horse in the paddock among untrimmed ponies and patient hacks.
“Well, dear, what do you think of the place,” said Mrs. Davilow at last, in a gentle, deprecatory tone.
“I think it is charming,” said Gwendolen, quickly. “A romantic place; anything delightful may happen in it; it would be a good background for anything. No one need be ashamed of living here.”
“There is certainly nothing common about it.”
“Oh, it would do for fallen royalty or any sort of grand poverty. We ought properly to have been living in splendor, and have come down to this. It would have been as romantic as could be. But I thought my uncle and aunt Gascoigne would be here to meet us, and my cousin Anna,” added Gwendolen, her tone changed to sharp surprise.
“We are early,” said Mrs. Davilow, and entering the hall, she said to the housekeeper who came forward, “You expect Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne?”
“Yes, madam; they were here yesterday to give particular orders about the fires and the dinner. But as to fires, I’ve had ‘em in all the rooms for the last week, and everything is well aired. I could wish some of the furniture paid better for all the cleaning it’s had, but I think you’ll see the brasses have been done justice to. I think when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne come, they’ll tell you nothing has been neglected. They’ll be here at five, for certain.”
This satisfied Gwendolen, who was not prepared to have their arrival treated with indifference; and after tripping a little way up the matted stone staircase to take a survey there, she tripped down again, and followed by all the girls looked into each of the rooms opening from the hall—the dining-room all dark oak and worn red satin damask, with a copy of snarling, worrying dogs from Snyders over the side-board, and a Christ breaking bread over the mantelpiece; the library with a general aspect and smell of old brown-leather; and lastly, the drawing-room, which was entered through a small antechamber crowded with venerable knick-knacks.
“Mamma, mamma, pray come here!” said Gwendolen, Mrs. Davilow having followed slowly in talk with the housekeeper. “Here is an organ. I will be Saint Cecilia: some one shall paint me as Saint Cecilia. Jocosa (this was her name for Miss Merry), let down my hair. See, mamma?”
She had thrown off her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the organ in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and sad Jocosa took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and then shook out the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far below its owner’s slim waist.
Mrs. Davilow smiled and said, “A charming picture, my dear!” not indifferent to the display of her pet, even in the presence of a housekeeper. Gwendolen rose and laughed with delight. All this seemed quite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a background.
“What a queer, quaint, picturesque room!” she went on, looking about her. “I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the ribs—nothing but ribs and darkness—I should think that is Spanish, mamma.”
“Oh, Gwendolen!” said the small Isabel, in a tone of astonishment, while she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of the room.
Every one, Gwendolen first, went to look. The opened panel had disclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure figure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms. “How horrible!” said Mrs. Davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered silently, and Isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an alarming memory, said—
“You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen.”
“How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse little creature?” said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone. Then snatching the panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily, saying, “There is a lock—where is the key? Let the key be found, or else let one be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the key be brought to me.”
At this command to everybody in general Gwendolen turned with a face which was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, “Let us go up to our own room, mamma.”
The housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet close by the panel, and presently handed it to Bugle, the lady’s-maid, telling her significantly to give it to her Royal Highness.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Startin,” said Bugle, who had been busy up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather offended at this irony in a new servant.
“I mean the young lady that’s to command us all-and well worthy for looks and figure,” replied M
rs. Startin in propitiation. “She’ll know what key it is.”
“If you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, Bugle,” Gwendolen had said, when she and Mrs. Davilow entered their black and yellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the side of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. “I will help mamma.”
But her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the windows, which reflected herself and the room completely, while her mamma sat down and also looked at the reflection.
“That is a becoming glass, Gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color that sets you off?” said Mrs. Davilow, as Gwendolen stood obliquely with her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand brushing back the stream of hair.
“I should make a tolerable St. Cecilia with some white roses on my head,” said Gwendolen,—”only how about my nose, mamma? I think saint’s noses never in the least turn up. I wish you had given me your perfectly straight nose; it would have done for any sort of character—a nose of all work. Mine is only a happy nose; it would not do so well for tragedy.”
“Oh, my dear, any nose will do to be miserable with in this world,” said Mrs. Davilow, with a deep, weary sigh, throwing her black bonnet on the table, and resting her elbow near it.
“Now, mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a strongly remonstrant tone, turning away from the glass with an air of vexation, “don’t begin to be dull here. It spoils all my pleasure, and everything may be so happy now. What have you to be gloomy about now?”
“Nothing, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, seeming to rouse herself, and beginning to take off her dress. “It is always enough for me to see you happy.”
“But you should be happy yourself,” said Gwendolen, still discontentedly, though going to help her mamma with caressing touches. “Can nobody be happy after they are quite young? You have made me feel sometimes as if nothing were of any use. With the girls so troublesome, and Jocosa so dreadfully wooden and ugly, and everything makeshift about us, and you looking so dull—what was the use of my being anything? But now you might be happy.”
“So I shall, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, patting the cheek that was bending near her.
“Yes, but really. Not with a sort of make-believe,” said Gwendolen, with resolute perseverance. “See what a hand and arm!—much more beautiful than mine. Any one can see you were altogether more beautiful.”
“No, no, dear; I was always heavier. Never half so charming as you are.”
“Well, but what is the use of my being charming, if it is to end in my being dull and not minding anything? Is that what marriage always comes to?”
“No, child, certainly not. Marriage is the only happy state for a woman, as I trust you will prove.”
“I will not put up with it if it is not a happy state. I am determined to be happy—at least not to go on muddling away my life as other people do, being and doing nothing remarkable. I have made up my mind not to let other people interfere with me as they have done. Here is some warm water ready for you, mamma,” Gwendolen ended, proceeding to take off her own dress and then waiting to have her hair wound up by her mamma.
There was silence for a minute or two, till Mrs. Davilow said, while coiling the daughter’s hair, “I am sure I have never crossed you, Gwendolen.”
“You often want me to do what I don’t like.”
“You mean, to give Alice lessons?”
“Yes. And I have done it because you asked me. But I don’t see why I should, else. It bores me to death, she is so slow. She has no ear for music, or language, or anything else. It would be much better for her to be ignorant, mamma: it is her role, she would do it well.”
“That is a hard thing to say of your poor sister, Gwendolen, who is so good to you, and waits on you hand and foot.”
“I don’t see why it is hard to call things by their right names, and put them in their proper places. The hardship is for me to have to waste my time on her. Now let me fasten up your hair, mamma.”
“We must make haste; your uncle and aunt will be here soon. For heaven’s sake, don’t be scornful to them, my dear child! or to your cousin Anna, whom you will always be going out with. Do promise me, Gwendolen. You know, you can’t expect Anna to be equal to you.”
“I don’t want her to be equal,” said Gwendolen, with a toss of her head and a smile, and the discussion ended there.
When Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne and their daughter came, Gwendolen, far from being scornful, behaved as prettily as possible to them. She was introducing herself anew to relatives who had not seen her since the comparatively unfinished age of sixteen, and she was anxious—no, not anxious, but resolved that they should admire her.
Mrs. Gascoigne bore a family likeness to her sister. But she was darker and slighter, her face was unworn by grief, her movements were less languid, her expression more alert and critical as that of a rector’s wife bound to exert a beneficent authority. Their closest resemblance lay in a non-resistant disposition, inclined to imitation and obedience; but this, owing to the difference in their circumstances, had led them to very different issues. The younger sister had been indiscreet, or at least unfortunate in her marriages; the elder believed herself the most enviable of wives, and her pliancy had ended in her sometimes taking shapes of surprising definiteness. Many of her opinions, such as those on church government and the character of Archbishop Laud, seemed too decided under every alteration to have been arrived at otherwise than by a wifely receptiveness. And there was much to encourage trust in her husband’s authority. He had some agreeable virtues, some striking advantages, and the failings that were imputed to him all leaned toward the side of success.
One of his advantages was a fine person, which perhaps was even more impressive at fifty-seven than it had been earlier in life. There were no distinctively clerical lines in the face, no tricks of starchiness or of affected ease: in his Inverness cape he could not have been identified except as a gentleman with handsome dark features, a nose which began with an intention to be aquiline but suddenly became straight, and iron-gray, hair. Perhaps he owed this freedom from the sort of professional make-up which penetrates skin, tones and gestures and defies all drapery, to the fact that he had once been Captain Gaskin, having taken orders and a diphthong but shortly before his engagement to Miss Armyn. If any one had objected that his preparation for the clerical function was inadequate, his friends might have asked who made a better figure in it, who preached better or had more authority in his parish? He had a native gift for administration, being tolerant both of opinions and conduct, because he felt himself able to overrule them, and was free from the irritations of conscious feebleness. He smiled pleasantly at the foible of a taste which he did not share—at floriculture or antiquarianism for example, which were much in vogue among his fellow-clergyman in the diocese: for himself, he preferred following the history of a campaign, or divining from his knowledge of Nesselrode’s motives what would have been his conduct if our cabinet had taken a different course. Mr. Gascoigne’s tone of thinking after some long-quieted fluctuations had become ecclesiastical rather than theological; not the modern Anglican, but what he would have called sound English, free from nonsense; such as became a man who looked at a national religion by daylight, and saw it in its relation to other things. No clerical magistrate had greater weight at sessions, or less of mischievous impracticableness in relation to worldly affairs. Indeed, the worst imputation thrown out against him was worldliness: it could not be proved that he forsook the less fortunate, but it was not to be denied that the friendships he cultivated were of a kind likely to be useful to the father of six sons and two daughters; and bitter observers—for in Wessex, say ten years ago, there were persons whose bitterness may now seem incredible—remarked that the color of his opinions had changed in consistency with this principle of action. But cheerful, successful worldliness has a false air of being more selfish than the acrid, unsuccessful kind, whose secret history is summed up in the t
errible words, “Sold, but not paid for.”
Gwendolen wondered that she had not better remembered how very fine a man her uncle was; but at the age of sixteen she was a less capable and more indifferent judge. At present it was a matter of extreme interest to her that she was to have the near countenance of a dignified male relative, and that the family life would cease to be entirely, insipidly feminine. She did not intend that her uncle should control her, but she saw at once that it would be altogether agreeable to her that he should be proud of introducing her as his niece. And there was every sign of his being likely to feel that pride. He certainly looked at her with admiration as he said—
