Gwendolen

by Diana Souhami

  “Take my arm,” Grandcourt said. I did so, we left the room, he waited in the hall; I hurried to the bedroom, kissed Mama on both cheeks, announced there would be no Sawyer’s Cottage, no scrutiny by Mrs. Mompert, and everything from now on would be as I chose and as I liked. “Come down, Mama, and see Mr. Grandcourt,” I said. “I am engaged to him.”

  * * *

  I WAS THE heroine of the fairy tale. The turning wheel of my fortune in three weeks had spun from hope to fear to loss and now to resolution. Here was my husband-to-be, who would do everything for me, take nothing from me, who was courteous, solicitous, protective. Mrs. Glasher was locked away like the death’s head in the wainscot to which I held the key. You were out of sight.

  Mama, Alice, Bertha, Fanny, Isabel, Miss Merry, and Jocasta Bugle viewed me as their savior. That same evening Uncle, Aunt, and Anna came to Offendene. Uncle commended Grandcourt’s generosity, my aunt warned me there was now no room for caprice and that I had a debt of gratitude to a man who persevered with such an offer, Anna, who hoped the troubles might have softened my heart toward Rex, was quiet and tearful, but the evening and all glory were mine.

  Mama wanted to know about the estates to which I would eventually be chatelaine: Ryelands, Diplow, the London town house. Ryelands, Uncle said, was one of the finest seats in the land, the house designed by Inigo Jones, its ceilings painted in Italian style, its parkland and woods extensive, the income from it twelve thousand pounds a year. He spoke of a baronetcy, a peerage. Grandcourt would become Lord Stannery and I Lady of It All.

  “You must lose no time in writing to Mrs. Mompert, Henry,” my aunt told him. “It’s a good thing you have an engagement of marriage to offer as an excuse, or she might have felt offended. She is rather a high woman.”

  Again that night I slept feverishly. I had closed my ears to the lion’s roar, but in the dark I heard it nearby. Grandcourt smoothly made vows and promises to me, but what vows and promises had he given Lydia Glasher? He had rendered her miserable; might he do the same with me? And might Lush still snake in the undergrowth of this affluent paradise? All I thought I longed for: fine houses, dresses, diamonds, heads turned in admiration, release from Mama’s low expectations—all were now waiting for me, but with them came the taint of wrongdoing and the taste of poison.

  In a dream the door of the wainscot again snapped open, then the death’s head and fleeing figure leaped out. The head was that of the woman at Cardell Chase; it hovered in front of me, emaciated, the eyes large and angry. Her words coiled in my thoughts: My life has been broken up and embittered … not fair that he should be happy and I miserable and my boy thrust out of sight for another. I cried out to Mama, she lit a candle, I joined her, and in the comfort of her arms I dreamed of dancing.

  * * *

  LATE NEXT MORNING Mama woke me. Grandcourt’s groom had brought Criterion with a message that he was to be my horse. He had also delivered a small packet. In it, within a jewelry box, a diamond ring glittered. The accompanying note was on colored paper.

  Pray wear this ring when I come at twelve in sign of our betrothal. I enclose a check drawn in the name of Mr. Gascoigne for immediate expenses. Of course Mrs. Davilow will remain at Offendene at least for some time. I hope when I come you will have granted me an early day for when you may begin to command me at a shorter distance.

  Yours devotedly,

  H. M. Grandcourt

  The check was for five hundred pounds. Mama evinced pleasure and relief but irked me by saying she did not want to be dependent on a son-in-law and hoped I was not marrying for her sake. I was marrying for many reasons, most of them understandable, though not many of them good. Yes, Mama’s security was one, but so was my own deliverance and saving of face. And there was a private matter: my acceptance of Grandcourt had much to do with the fact that he did not touch me. I was reassured by his restraint, cool flattery, and lack of any physical move toward me. I was spared the horror of expressed desire. Because I shunned this, I thought he would not impose it on me.

  I was carried along by the whirlwind of events that swirled around me. Had I searched my heart, the only person whom I might have loved was you. It was the seedling of love, but all it might grow into was coded there. My feelings for Grandcourt were unformed. Perhaps I ignored intimation of his viciousness. Perhaps I sought punishment for the betrayal of a promise.

  It was for me to put the ring on my own finger. This marriage was to be managed by me. Grandcourt was not going to kneel. I should have despised him had he done so. Here was a man whom I would rule. Married, I would urge him to be generous to Mrs. Glasher and the children. I did not want children of my own; my needs were not excessive. Grandcourt could leave his estates to the boy. There was enough money, enough property, to provide for all.

  I was triumphant for Mama and exalted in our newfound wealth. On the first day of my engagement, in anticipation of Grandcourt’s arrival, I told her to dress like a duchess with her point lace over her head. When he came, he raised my hand to his lips and kissed the diamond. I graciously thanked him for thinking of everything.

  “You will tell me if there is anything I forget,” he said.

  “I am unreasonable in my wishes” was my pert response.

  “I expect that. Women always are.” His voice had an edge, which I noticed but thought nothing of. I did not imbue the remark with the misogyny I was to find it held; I was more intent on my pretty reply. “Then I will not be unreasonable,” I said. “I will not be told that I am what women always are.”

  “I did not say that,” Grandcourt said in his careful manner. “You are what no other woman is.”

  “And what is that, pray?” I asked, safe in this realm of teasing banter, so much in command, my heart so uninvolved.

  “You are the woman I love,” he said, and I smiled, for he must have said that to another woman or with her fathered four children out of wedlock using language of another sort.

  “What nice speeches,” I said, wondering about the others.

  “Give me a nice speech in return,” he said. “Say when we are to be married.”

  “Not till we have had a gallop over the downs,” I said, with Criterion in mind. “I can think of nothing else. I long for the hunting to begin. It will begin in ten days’ time.”

  “Let us be married in ten days then,” said Grandcourt. “So we won’t be bored hanging around the stables.”

  “What do women always say in answer to that?”

  “They agree to it.”

  “Then I will not.”

  Oh, we were both so carefully clever and insincere. He portrayed himself as the complaisant husband: obliging, devoted, and deferential. I was the pert girl-wife. Galloping across the downs was splendid and glorious. On my wonderful horse I felt so free. I agreed for the marriage to be three weeks away.

  * * *

  I WAS TO repent for my haste. Grandcourt only pretended to bend to my wishes. He had no taste for a woman who was all tenderness and willing obedience. It thrilled him for me to shrink from his advances. He wanted to master a woman who would have liked to have mastered him and was capable of mastering a different man. He anticipated the pleasure it would give him to cause me to kneel, against my inclination but at his command, like a horse trained for the circus arena. He did not believe I was in love with him. He supposed, accurately, that had penury not subdued my family, I should have refused him.

  What a tainted equation it was.

  * * *

  ENGAGEMENT TO GRANDCOURT was a formal exchange of niceties. He spoke of yachting in European ports; I pretended to do needlework. We rode most days. He said it was not in his power to protect me from all harm and that if I chose to hunt on Criterion, he could not prevent my having a fall. He advised me that when married I was to have a parure of diamonds, which his mother had requested should go to his bride.

  Once he kissed not my cheek but my neck a little below the ear, and I shuddered and recoiled as if from a snakebite. He said, “I
beg your pardon—did I annoy you?”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied. “Only I cannot bear to be kissed under my ear.”

  I did not read his expression, but he spoke of my unkindness to “us poor devils of men.” “Are you as kind to me as I am to you?” he asked, and I felt guilt and in his debt. I had sold the right to be candid. I could not tell him how repellent it was to me—the sensation of his mouth on my neck. I could not speak of the fear that dredged through me as I realized I was not at liberty to flout him as I had Rex. I replied archly, “If I was 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?” Grandcourt asked. “Not one,” I replied, so he lifted my hand and brushed it with his lips, which I found acceptable. I again blocked my mind as to what might follow when we were married. I chose to believe in his reticence, chose to believe he respected and matched my resistance.

  We were silent about much that needed to be said. Grandcourt pretended to defer to my will while imposing his own. I half knew that but closed my eyes to the abyss where I was heading. A week before the marriage he nonchalantly said he would be going away for a couple of days. He did not say where, but I knew it was to visit Mrs. Glasher. As if conceding to my unspoken vexation, he said he would travel at night so as to be gone only one day.

  Before that visit he invited me and Mama to luncheon at Diplow to say how I might want the rooms to be arranged. His cousins Captain and Mrs. Torrington would be there, and her sister and a gentleman whom I had met at Homburg: “Young Deronda, a young fellow with the Mallingers.” I embroidered my cloth, my heart leaped, my fingers froze. “I never spoke to him,” I said. “Is he disagreeable?”

  “Not particularly” was Grandcourt’s reply. “He thinks a little too much of himself. I thought he had been introduced to you.”

  “No. Someone 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 consequence.”

  “How very unpleasant for him.” I turned to the window. “I wonder if it has left off raining.”

  * * *

  I LATER LEARNED that your visit to Diplow was as Sir Hugo’s envoy. Vexed that Grandcourt was heir to all he owned, to safeguard a home for his wife and daughters, Sir Hugo wanted to buy Diplow in perpetuity for fifty thousand pounds. Grandcourt welcomed ready cash to maintain his existing properties, dependents, and lifestyle. Sir Hugo had asked you to put the proposition to him.

  I rode to Diplow on Criterion. Mama followed in a carriage. I had a superstitious dread of meeting you, as if that first encounter determined all that would ensue. I feared you were the moon to my tide and that it was not in my power to turn from you.

  Mrs. Torrington, Mama, and I viewed the rooms. I found I could not care about the house or its furnishings. I resolved to greet you with formal distance, but as we assembled for lunch my heart beat hard and I noticed you and no one else.

  “Deronda, Miss Harleth tells me you were not introduced at Homburg,” Grandcourt said.

  “Miss Harleth hardly remembers me, I imagine,” you replied, and bowed. “She was intensely occupied when I saw her.”

  I controlled my nerves. “On the contrary, I remember you very well,” I said. “You did not approve of my playing roulette.”

  “How did you come to that conclusion?” you asked.

  “Oh, you cast an evil eye on my play. I began to lose as soon as you looked at me. I had been winning until then.”

  “Roulette in a kennel like Homburg is a horrid bore,” said Grandcourt.

  “I found it a bore when I began to lose,” I said, my face turned to him, my attention fixed on you, your clear deep voice, your attentive gaze, the disturbing sense you gave of infallible judgment.

  At lunch I was so conscious of you I could not eat. The talk was of rinderpest and Jamaica. Grandcourt called the Jamaican Negro a beastly sort of Caliban; you said you had always sympathized with Caliban, who had his own point of view and could sing a good song; Mama spoke of her father’s sugar plantation, which she had never seen, in the West Indies. Mrs. Torrington said she was sure she would never sleep in her bed if she lived among blacks; Captain Torrington said the blacks would be manageable were it not for the half-breeds; you said the whites had themselves to blame for the half-breeds; I trifled with my jelly and looked at each speaker in turn so as not to be conspicuous for looking only at you.

  I had never seen a black person or thought about one. I was familiar only with the Wessex assumption of superiority. I had not, like you, been brought up in an atmosphere of splendor, diverse cultures, and liberal thinking, though Mama had always made sure I had nice gowns and pretty jewels.

  Grandcourt dismissed you as “a man of no consequence,” but no one was more consequential to me than you. I so minded what you thought of me, so wanted your approval, admiration, and advice on my impending marriage. I hoped you admired me in my riding gear. I wondered why you were solemn and apart. In the drawing room, when Grandcourt was distracted, I approached you and asked if you would hunt tomorrow. My heart thrilled when you said, “Yes, I believe so.”

  “You don’t object to hunting then?” I asked.

  “I find excuses for it,” you said. “It is a sin I am inclined to when I can’t go boating or play cricket.”

  “Do you object to my hunting?”

  “I have no right to object to anything you choose to do.”

  “You thought you had a right to object to my gambling.”

  “I was sorry for it. I did not speak of objection.”

  “You hindered me from gambling again,” I said, and blushed. You blushed too.

  I turned away to a window, fearing I had gone too far. Your eyes were grave. I wanted to confide my impulsiveness, doubts, and muddle and for you to tell me what being good must be. I was awkward yet aware of a transparency between us, a lien of truth-telling, whatever that truth might be. I hoped you would not resist me. You had become so quickly my hero. My Deronda. My engagement to Grandcourt was two days old.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING, AT home at Offendene, Mama asked if it was true you had made me lose at the casino. I joked that it was simply I noticed you looking at me, which unnerved me, so I began to lose. Mama said she could understood why: you were striking to look at and put her in mind of Italian paintings. She had heard from Mrs. Torrington that your mother was some foreigner of high rank and that Sir Hugo, who was probably your father, would like to have left his estates to you as he had no legitimate son. Mama said she was unsurprised to hear there was foreign blood in you.

  I imagined a beautiful, dark-eyed princess who might be your mother. And then I thought of another once beautiful dark-eyed woman and was ashamed to think that you too, like Mrs. Glasher, might one day resent me for being the mistress of Topping Abbey. In a fairer world Sir Hugo’s estate would pass to you and his daughters, not to Grandcourt or Mrs. Glasher’s son and least of all to me. Were you to know of the existence of Mrs. Glasher and, even worse, know that I knew of her, I thought you would be compelled to despise me. I felt mired. I was betraying myself and my belief that for women marriage was a renunciation. That night in bed I quizzed Mama about my stepfather and spoke of my resentment at her marriage to him.

  * * *

  IT WAS NOT my way to mope or dwell on obstacles. Morning brought the prospect of the hunt. We started at dawn, the master sounded his horn, the hounds picked up the scent, Criterion was perfect, and we went so fast and far through brush, undergrowth, and meadows, jumping brooks and logs, I had no moments to doubt or fret. But as dusk came, on that gray November afternoon and the setting sun drew a streak of yellow in the west, I felt crushed by disappointment, for the day was gone, and you and I had not talked at all.

  The Diplow party were escorting me home to Offendene. Grandcourt rode beside me, Mrs. Torrington and her husband were just i
n front, I heard your horse behind me, and the desire to speak with you overwhelmed me. We passed through a wood of pines and beeches, I reined Criterion, Grandcourt also paused, I waved my whip, and affecting playful imperiousness, I said, “Go on. I want to speak to Mr. Deronda.” He could not deny me. We were not married.

  He rode on slowly. I waited for you. You came up alongside me. There was tacit acceptance now that it was you who sent the necklace. I asked, “Why did you think it wrong of me to gamble? Is it because I am a woman?”

  It was not only that, you said, though you regretted it the more because I was a woman, but you thought gambling an unhealthy thing, and to rake in a heap of money at someone else’s cost and loss revolted you. I pleaded we could not always help profiting at someone else’s expense. You agreed and said that consequently we should help it where we could.

  Self-reproach and doubt about my impending marriage washed through me. I resorted to flippancy. Why, I asked, should you the more regret my gambling because I was a woman?

  You said, “Perhaps because men need that you should be better than we are.”

  “But suppose women need that men should be better than we are?” I countered.

  “That is a difficulty,” you said. “Perhaps I should have said we each of us think it would be better for the other to be good.”

  “There. You see?” I said. “I needed you to be better than I was, and you thought the same.”

  I urged Criterion on to join Grandcourt. Who was worse than piqued. His silence and stillness warned. “Don’t you want to know what I had to say to Mr. Deronda?” I asked.

  “No” was his laconic reply. I chided him for his first impoliteness, but I was not yet cowed by him. “I wish to hear what you say to me, not to other men,” Grandcourt said.

  I should have heeded this warning.