Gwendolen

by Diana Souhami

  Only seldom were she and I allowed to meet. Once Grandcourt arranged for her to be fetched with my uncle and aunt for lunch and dinner. They were driven back next morning soon after breakfast. Twice, I was permitted a brief visit to Offendene while he waited outside on horseback. Mama, bewildered, thought the distance at which she was kept was because of my indifference to her now that I was exalted by this marriage.

  My only consolation was that financially she was better off, though I knew that between her penury and my misery she would choose the former. On our wedding day Grandcourt had given her a letter saying the rent on Offendene was paid until the following June and that he would grant her eight hundred pounds a year. That meant Miss Merry could stay and the gardener, Robert Crane, be paid to do the outdoors work.

  Grandcourt also suggested that if a cottage on the Ryelands estate became free, Mama and my sisters might like to live there. Mama anticipated this move, but I dissuaded her. I said Ryelands was splendid but we were not much there; she would feel adrift and alone and would miss my aunt and uncle. Nonetheless, I thanked Grandcourt for providing for her. I did not want him to punish her too. “You took a great deal on yourself in marrying a girl who had nothing but relations belonging to her,” I said.

  “Of course I was not going to let Mrs. Davilow live like a gamekeeper’s mother” was his reply.

  And so I appeared on the social scene as Mrs. Grandcourt and did not reveal to the world my revulsion and despair at the role. My bleeding was stemmed, my bruises were covered with lace and velvet. Grandcourt’s choices of compliance became mine: riding, hunting, visiting, entertaining. I told Mama I was happy.

  II • Deronda

  So Grandcourt broke me and isolated me. In Society I appeared as his bride, his wife. At night I endured the quiet opening of the door, the brutal commands and savage attack. Then he would leave and go to his room. What I felt went beyond hate. Hate was my daylight emotion. I longed for the time of my menses, for then he kept away. Before marriage, I felt enervated by my monthly cycle; when I married, it became a remission. I waited for signs of my blood. My terror was that I might become pregnant and give birth to a Frankenstein monster in his image.

  I dreamed of ways to avoid my life. I thought gambling might divert me, but I feared it would increase my self-contempt. I yearned for your wise counsel. I wanted you to know I was not contemptible but in trouble.

  Of course I knew nothing of your life. Only later did I learn of your absorption into Jewish identity, your Jewish parents, the Jewish girl you saved from drowning, how you roamed the East End of London, worshipped in synagogues, read weighty books about Hebrew matters, and planned for a life about which I knew nothing and which excluded me.

  At the end of December we met again at Topping Abbey, your home with the Mallingers. I had been married six weeks, though time had ceased to have a dimension. Sir Hugo decreed the seasonal party he gave that year be in honor of the marriage of Grandcourt, heir to the Abbey, and me, his new and beautiful bride.

  The Abbey was a place of romantic enchantment, far superior to the boastful affluence of Ryelands. I felt shame to suppose I might one day become the false chatelaine and this historic home turn to my prison with Grandcourt my jailer.

  Snow was falling when our carriage turned into the drive. I looked out at white meadowland and frosted trees. As we entered the house my heart beat hard at the thought of seeing you. Liveried footmen guided us past full-length portraits set in cedar paneling, oak boughs burning in huge fires under ceilings painted with coats of arms. I came into the Great Hall on Grandcourt’s arm. I was wearing white and at his command the poisoned infestation of diamonds around my neck, in my ears, my hair.

  I saw you instantly. I did not look in your direction. You were talking to Mr. Vandernoodt. I heard him say sotto voce, “By George, I think she’s handsomer if anything.” A short time previously I might have preened. Now what was I but an adornment, a badge of triumph for an evil man whom I loathed. I again felt your gaze on me. I thought if I met your eyes, my degradation would flood out, the diamonds shatter, and I would sink to my knees. Yet through your eyes was the only place where I longed to be seen.

  Plump Lady Mallinger, with protruding blue eyes and red hair, clad in black velvet, and carrying a tiny white dog on her arm, moved graciously among her guests. I was introduced and exchanged courtesies with her four daughters, her brother Mr. Raymond and his wife, the Vandernoodts, Lord Pentreath (white-haired and patrician) and his wife, Mr. Fenn (a cider manufacturer and member of Parliament for West Orchards) and his two daughters, the lawyer Mr. Sinker, and Mr. and Mrs. George Lewes (who were authors—both very ugly, he vivacious, she intense, her voice low, her eyes observant). I had read and quite enjoyed two of Mrs. Lewes’s books: Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss. She published under the name George Eliot, which had made me wonder if she was a man. She seemed to appraise me with disapproval. Mama had not been invited.

  We were called to dinner. The dining room’s arches and pillars were now shadowed in candlelight, and long tables glittered with silver and glass. I sat as guest of honor beside Sir Hugo. You sat diagonally opposite me. Grandcourt was at the far end of the table with Lady Mallinger seated to his left and Mrs. Lewes to his right. His concentration, like a predatory mantis, was set on me alone.

  I was assiduous in not acknowledging you. My eyes would have said too much. Sir Hugo was attentive and kindly, for I was his special guest. He talked of Klesmer and Catherine and gave his view that the Arrowpoints showed sense in accepting the marriage after all the fuss in the papers. When I told him Klesmer was spending Christmas at Quetcham Hall, he said to you, “Deronda, you will like to hear what Mrs. Grandcourt tells me about your favorite, Klesmer,” and I was obliged to raise my eyes to meet your bow, your smile, and your questioning eyes. I blushed and could not speak.

  “For the Arrowpoints to disown their only child because of a misalliance would be like disowning their one eye,” Sir Hugo said. You rejoindered if there was a misalliance, it was on Klesmer’s part. “Ah,” Sir Hugo said to you, “you think it a case of the immortal marrying the mortal,” then asked my opinion. I failed to check my bitterness. I said, “I have no doubt Herr Klesmer thinks himself immortal, but I daresay his wife will burn as much incense before him as he requires.”

  “Klesmer is no favorite of yours, I see.” Sir Hugo looked at me in a questioning way.

  “I think very highly of him, I assure you. His genius is quite above my judgment, and I know him to be exceedingly generous.”

  Klesmer had contributed to my belittlement. I was in no mood to hear of his own wonderful union of talent, love, and wealth.

  Sir Hugo talked of the Abbey. Grandcourt and I, he said, must tour it in the morning with you, who knew and loved every detail, as our guide. At this mention of a strand of my guilt—that the Abbey would one day go to my unworthy husband—I glanced awkwardly at you, then to cover my discomfort said to Sir Hugo, “You don’t know how much I am afraid of Mr. Deronda.”

  “Because you think him too learned?” Sir Hugo asked.

  Not that, I said, then told him how at Homburg you watched and disapproved as I played roulette, how then I began to lose, and how now I feared lest any word or action of mine caused your opprobrium.

  I seemed compelled to return again and again to that first encounter, as if it had shaped my destiny and as if, were I now to find a way to escape from my devastating mistake, help must come from you.

  Sir Hugo confessed he too was rather afraid of you if he felt you did not approve, but then he facetiously said, “I don’t think ladies generally object to having Mr. Deronda’s eyes upon them.” I disliked his flippancy and innuendo, or perhaps I was jealous.

  “I object to any eyes that are critical,” I said.

  The conversation turned to the Abbey. Sir Hugo confessed he had overreached himself with extensive, costly renovations; particularly to the long gallery above the cloistered court and to the stables. “Yo
u must go and see for yourself,” he said. I told him I should like to see the horses as much as the building. Sir Hugo said he had given up riding and hunting and that Grandcourt would look with contempt on his horses.

  “Do you like Diplow?” he then asked.

  “Not particularly,” I replied. How could I say I hated the place and that it held more torment for me than Sawyer’s Cottage?

  Sir Hugo observed my discontent, looked quizzical, but chose not to question me more. “It will not do after Ryelands,” he said. “Grandcourt only likes it for the hunting. But he found something so much better there that he might well prefer it to any other place in the world.”

  I smiled politely to conceal my loathing of the mere mention of my husband’s name.

  “It has one attraction for me,” I said. “It is within reach of Offendene.”

  “I understand that,” Sir Hugo said, and let the matter drop. Neither he nor anyone else could know how homesick I was, how I yearned for the old imperfect rented house, my small bed in the gold and black bedroom.

  We moved to another room. I stood with my back to everyone, looking at a carved ivory head. You stood nearby. I looked into your eyes, and with that look I confessed, admitted my suffering, fear, remorse, and love of and need for you. Your eyes showed sympathy and alarm. You said nothing. It was an exchange more intense than your first gaze of consternation in Homburg. Even now I feel and see it, as if we had been captured in a painting, your soul and mine fused into one. I was too fearful to speak of my plight, but I needed you to know how wretched I was. Did I appear full of airs: tall, elegant, my clothes silk and satin, diamonds in my ears and hair? Did you find me superficial: an avaricious creature who cared too much for possession and rank?

  Someone requested you should sing.

  “Will you join in the music?” you asked. I roused myself to say, “I join in by listening. I gave time to music, but I have not enough talent to make it worthwhile.”

  You said if I was fond of music, I should play and sing for my own delight. For yourself, you saw it as a virtue to be content with your own middlingness and not expect others to want more of you.

  I recovered my sparring manner: “To be middling in my thinking is another phrase for being dull,” I said. “And the worst fault I have to find with the world is that it is dull. The best thing about gambling is that it provides a refuge from dullness.”

  You did not admit the justification. Your view was that when we called life dull, it was because of our own shortcomings. I was again reprimanded. You had no quarrel with middlingness. You were convinced about what was right and what was wrong.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “So the fault I find with the world is my own fault. Do you never find fault with the world or with others?”

  “When I am in a grumbling mood,” you said.

  “And hate people?” I asked. “Confess you hate them when they stand in your way—when their gain is your loss? That is your own phrase, you know.”

  “We often stand in each other’s way when we can’t help it. It is stupid to hate people on that ground.”

  “But if they injure you and could have helped it?” The injury I had done, my broken promise, my sense of punishment deserved—all plagued my mind.

  “Why then, after all, I would prefer my place to theirs.”

  “There I believe you are right,” I said. I had my answer. Lydia Glasher’s curse had found its home. The assault I endured nightly from Grandcourt was just. I deserved my punishment.

  Or so I believed in that dark time. Now I am kinder to myself. I think on impulse I acted foolishly and events took a course. My mistakes were naïveté, rashness, and bad advice. Grandcourt had no worthy regard for Lydia Glasher. They were complicit in evil. He knew of her showing at Cardell Chase and that on my wedding day she would send a note with the diamonds. Too late I turned to you, the kindest of men. You would have urged me not to marry Grandcourt. Yet unintentionally you hurt me in the most enduring way. Unwittingly, you began something with which you could not follow through. On that New Year’s night I realized that the feelings and thoughts I had for you were of love but that time with you must always be stolen.

  You moved to the piano. Grandcourt of course had observed our exchange. Slumped in an easy chair, smoking, and half listening to Mr. Vandernoodt, he appeared bored but missed nothing in relation to me. Out of the corners of his narrow eyes he kept me under his rule. Seeing my desire and need for you, he would bide his time, then punish me.

  * * *

  BY THE NEXT afternoon the snow had mostly thawed. Sir Hugo recommended we meet in the library at three and tour the stables before dark. Longing to see you alone, I hurried down early in my sables, plumed hat, and little thick boots. You were reading a paper, and I dared not disturb you. You did not hear me come into the room. I waited by the door, dreading the arrival of the others. At last you saw me. “Oh, there you are already,” you said. “I must go and put on my coat,” and you left the room as Grandcourt and Sir Hugo came in. I felt a rush of disappointment. I had so wanted time with you.

  “You look rather ill,” Grandcourt said to me. “Do you feel equal to the walk?”

  “Yes, I shall like it,” I replied. I always now tried to avoid his eyes.

  Sir Hugo suggested we put off the excursion if I wished. “Oh dear, no,” I said, “let us put off nothing. I want a long walk.”

  We were joined by Miss Juliet Fenn, Mr. and Mrs. Lewes, and others. You walked beside me. As we toured, you gave us the history of what once had been the sacristy, the chapter house, the dormitory. You told us when and why the bells were sold and where the monks were buried. I thought how perfect life would be were you and I to reside in such an ancient romantic English setting. You explained the significance of architectural fragments and embellishments and of niches in the stone walls. In the old kitchen, shadows from a huge fire flickered on polished tin, brass, and copper. Sir Hugo gave his reasons for mixing the modern and antique. He said we should be flexible about restoring old fashions. You agreed and said to delight in doing things because our fathers did them was good if it shut out nothing better, but that new things enlarge the range of affection and that affection was the basis of good in life.

  I expressed surprise. I said I thought you cared more about ideas and wisdom than affection. “But to care about them is a sort of affection, and an indivisible mix of people and ideas forms the deepest affections,” you said.

  I only half understood what you were saying. I told you I was not very affectionate. Was that, I asked, the reason why I did not see much good in life? You replied that if I sincerely believed that of myself, you should think it true.

  Sir Hugo and Grandcourt joined us. “I never can get Mr. Deronda to pay me a compliment,” I told them. “I have quite a curiosity to see whether a little flattery can be extracted from him.”

  “Ah,” Sir Hugo said, “the fact is, it is hopeless to flatter a bride. She has been so fed on sweet speeches that everything we say seems tasteless.”

  “Quite true,” I said. “Mr. Grandcourt won me by neatly turned compliments. If there had been one word out of place, it would have been fatal.”

  “Do you hear that?” Sir Hugo asked him, cautiously encouraging the banter.

  “Yes,” said Grandcourt, with a warning look to me. “It is a deucedly hard thing to keep up, though.”

  Sir Hugo only half thought it a tease, and I did not want to hear the truth spoken. I made light of my bitterness and contempt, but you had more than glimpsed into the casket where the serpent writhed over my diamonds. You turned your attention to the other ladies and kept out of my way.

  We walked the gravel paths; snow had massed on the boughs of a great cedar. The stables were formed from what once was the Abbey’s beautiful choir. The exterior brick wall was covered with ivy, but inside each finely arched chapel had been turned into a stall for beautiful, sleek, brown and gray horses. The original stained-glass windows were crimson, orange, blue, and
palest violet; there were four carved angels below the grand pointed roof; for the rest the choir was leveled, paved, and drained in modern fashion. Hay hung from racks where saints once looked down from altarpieces. A little white-and-liver-colored spaniel had made his bed in the back of an old hackney carriage.

  I cried out, “Why, this is glorious! I wish there were a horse in every box. I would ten times rather have these stables than those at Diplow,” then blushed with shame at such a blunder.

  “Now we are going to see the cloister,” Sir Hugo said. “It’s the finest bit of all, in perfect preservation. The monks might have been walking there yesterday.”

  My odious husband came to my side. “You had better take my arm,” he commanded. I took it. I did not now speak to him unless he addressed me or some practicality needed to be arranged. “It’s a great bore being dragged about in this way and with no cigar,” he said.

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  “Like it? Eternal chatter. And these ugly girls—inviting one to meet such monsters. That hideous Mrs. Lewes, and how that fat Deronda can bear looking at that Miss Fenn…”

  “Why do you call him fat? Do you object to him so much?”

  “Object? No. What do I care about his being fat? I’ll invite him to Diplow again if you like.”

  “I don’t think he’d come. He’s too learned and clever to care about us.”

  “That makes no difference. Either he is a gentleman, or he is not.”

  In all Grandcourt said I was warned; mild rebuke was punishment deferred. Irritation with me transmuted to violence against me. We moved to the cloistered court. You explained the arched and pillared openings, the delicately wrought foliage on the capitals. You said that when you were a boy, the carving on these capitals taught you to observe and delight in the structure of leaves, which made you wonder whether we learned to love real things through their representations or the other way around.