Gwendolen

by Diana Souhami

  It was my joy and sorrow to manage a visit to Jodson’s alone. Mama’s hair was more silvery, my sisters more grown-up. They wanted to hear firsthand about my city life: the fashions, scandals, plays, parties, and opera. I told them about Mirah Lapidoth and her brother, Mordecai. Fanny could not imagine what Jews believed, Alice was sure she could not bear them whoever they were, Isabel wondered if they talked and looked the same as other people, and Miss Merry suspected that Mirah and her brother lacked education. Mama said Society Jewish families in Paris and London were quite what they ought to be, but the vulgar unconverted ones were objectionable. I was calm in this female company, the bright chatter, the murmurs of the garden, the sound from the lane of hoofs and carriage wheels, but I yearned for Offendene and the life I had lost.

  * * *

  ONE MORNING GRANDCOURT came to my room, hat and gloves in hand, and said, “I am going out. I want Lush to come and explain some business about property to you. He knows about these things. I suppose you’ll not mind.”

  “You know that I mind,” I said. “I shall not see him.” I tried to leave, but he barred my way.

  “It’s no use making a fuss. There are brutes in the world one has to talk to. People with savoir vivre don’t fuss about such things. Some business must be done. If I employ Lush, the proper thing for you is to take it as a matter of course. Not to make a fuss. Not to toss your head and bite your lips.”

  I had no savoir faire. I tossed my head and chafed like a horse. I moved back from him, he moved toward me. What was the point? I was bored with my hatred, so deadening in its repetitiveness. If I did not hear whatever it was from Lush, I would hear it from this husband, whom I loathed even more.

  “I have arranged for him to come up now while I am out,” Grandcourt said. “I shall come back in time to ride, if you would like to get ready.” He tipped my chin and kissed my neck.

  Lush was announced. I noted his fat hands and smarmed hair and nodded toward a chair. I might have thought him risible were he not so repulsive. With his bulging eyes and oily voice, he was like an incidental character from a novel by Charles Dickens. He held a piece of folded paper and began a nasal oration: “I need hardly say I should not have presented myself had not Mr. Grandcourt expressed his strong wish to that effect. My having been in Mr. Grandcourt’s confidence for fifteen years or more gives me a peculiar position. He can speak to me of affairs he could not mention to anyone else. But there is something I have to say by way of introduction—which I hope you’ll pardon me for, if it’s not quite agreeable.”

  “Get to the point,” I chided, my temper tried.

  “I have to remind you of something that occurred before your engagement to Mr. Grandcourt. You met a lady in Cardell Chase who spoke to you of her position with regard to Mr. Grandcourt. She had children with her—one a very fine boy. Mr. Grandcourt is aware that you were acquainted with this unfortunate affair beforehand, and he thinks it only right that his position and intentions should be made quite clear to you. It is an affair of property and prospects. If you have any objections to make, Mr. Grandcourt wishes that you make these to me. It is a subject about which, of course, he would rather not speak himself. If you will be good enough just to read this.”

  He unfolded the piece of paper he held. I instructed him to leave it on the table and go to the next room; I did not want him to see my trembling hands. Now I had heard it outright: Grandcourt knew all along of my unvoiced collusion with his wrongdoing, knew I had full knowledge of the terms on which I married him. I was as tainted as he. I deserved to be in his power and taunted by him even beyond the grave.

  I absorbed the paper at one reading like the wedding day letter: If I had no son in this marriage, the Glasher boy, Henleigh, would be Grandcourt’s heir. There was some contingent provision for me, but I did not care to read the particulars. I straightened my back, walked to the door of the next room, said, “Tell Mr. Grandcourt his arrangements are just what I desired,” went back to my room, and closed the door. When Grandcourt returned I was ready in my riding clothes.

  Lush and the wretched piece of paper freed me. I would collude with the deception of silence. Never again would I let Grandcourt see me hysterical or emotional. I would take exceptional care of my dress and toilette, show no sign that might be interpreted as jealousy, and match his coldness if not his violence. I would safeguard within myself a strength that could not be reached or broken by his abuse and goading. I had atoned. Mrs. Glasher could feel victorious. Her boy was to be his heir.

  Of course I was neither free nor consistent in this resolve. I longed to withdraw from a contract I should never have made. My longing to be free from Grandcourt was wild. Over and over again I traveled the same ground: The marriage brought Mama a meager maintenance. If I returned to her as the disgraced Mrs. Grandcourt, she would again be destitute. How would I manage her tears and Uncle’s command to return? Mrs. Grandcourt deserting her husband after seven months would be a more pitiable creature than Gwendolen Harleth, condemned to teach the bishop’s daughters under the critical inspection of Mrs. Mompert. And Grandcourt had power to compel me to return. There was nothing I could allege against him in law. I knew of his prior commitments. Marital rape was not a crime.

  I longed to see you but did not know what you could or would do for me. I suspected, even if you knew everything, you would again tell me to bear what I had brought on myself, unless I was sure I could be a better woman and lead a better life by taking another course. But I knew of no other course to take.

  I locked Grandcourt’s will in my desk. I had no intention to look at it again. Daily, I schooled myself in suppression of feeling. Day after day the situation stayed unchanged. May went into June. I played the part of Grandcourt’s wife: scented, plumed, bejeweled, church at one end of the week, opera at the other. I wished him dead.

  * * *

  ONE DAY IN July I heard from Lush that Mrs. Glasher was in town to shop for her children. From him she must have found the hour at which Grandcourt and I rode on Rotten Row. She positioned herself conspicuously against a railing, holding hands with one of her daughters and her son. As we passed she stared at me with her dark eyes. I returned the stare. I saw her as Medusa, vindictive and jealous, with snakes in her hair. Grandcourt rode by as if he noticed nothing. His ignoring her shocked me more than the apparition of her again standing there, as at Cardell Cross. I wanted to say, “You might at least have raised your hat to her.” I said nothing.

  Some days later he and I went to a concert at the Klesmers, now living magnificently in Grosvenor Place. The party was large. You were there. I could scarcely bear the irritation of any conversation but yours, but you seemed unaware of me and talked calmly to others. When I at last managed to get close to you I asked, though both Sir Hugo and Lady Mallinger could hear, “I wish you would come and see me tomorrow between five and six, Mr. Deronda.”

  “Certainly,” you replied, though with hesitation and alarm in your voice.

  I moved away, hoping Grandcourt had not noticed, but defiant if he had. I had resolved to confess to you my loathing of this husband, the sexual humiliation I nightly endured, my fear of his white fingers around my neck, the knife I did not dare take from my traveling case, Cardell Chase and Mrs. Glasher, my longing for the life I had lost.

  Between five and six was the hour Grandcourt and I rode in the park. His power to divine my plans, no matter how masked and glacial I appeared, made me superstitious. The next day I waited until the horses were delivered to the door before saying I did not feel well enough to go with him. I was afraid he too would stay at home and was exultant when he left.

  I sent down instruction that you and only you were to be admitted. I was wearing black. Repeatedly I paced the two drawing rooms checking my appearance in the long mirror. You were announced. We exchanged a curt “How do you do.” You seemed uneasy. We both stood, you holding your hat in one hand. My courage faltered. I had spoken to you many times of how troubled I was, how wrong I fel
t, but I now determined to tell you the details.

  But I could not begin to find the words. I stuttered, then other words spilled out in a torrent: “You will wonder why I begged you to come. I need to ask you … You said I was ignorant. That is true, but what can I do but ask you what I should do to alter that. I have become contemptible, wicked, because of hating people. I try to plan how to go away from everybody, but there is too much to hinder me. There’s no path I can take.”

  I said I was always thinking of your advice, but what use was it to me if I could not make myself different? I had to go on. I could alter nothing. It was of no use, but if I went on the way things were, I would get worse. I needed not to get worse, I wanted to be what you wished me to be; I wanted to be good and to enjoy great things. “You think perhaps I don’t mind. But I do mind. I am afraid of everything. I am afraid of getting wicked. Tell me what I can do.”

  I was oblivious to everything except that, for you to give me courage and strength to continue, I must voice the details of my misery. The burden of my isolation was too strong. I was not crying. I was far beyond tears. You were my confessor, my counselor, my only chance of repose. My voice was a rushed whisper. I marked my body with the jewels on my fingers that I pressed so hard against my heart.

  You walked to the window, turned to face me, then said, “My only regret is that I can be of so little use to you.” Hope leached out of me. You looked at me with deep concern and were going to say more. Perhaps you would have advised me to tell everything to my husband and leave nothing concealed. Perhaps that is what you might have said, or perhaps you might have told me to flee to the hills. But at that point Grandcourt entered. He nodded to you, glanced at me, then sat at a little distance and trifled with his handkerchief.

  My interview with you was over. You put out your hand, but I did not take it. I could not say good-bye. You nodded to Grandcourt and left. I collapsed into a chair. Grandcourt said nothing. He was satisfied to create and keep a foreboding silence. He had let me know I had not deceived him and that once again victory was his. He went out that evening and accepted my plea of being ill. I thought I would pay that night with sexual humiliation, but he did not come to my room.

  The next morning at breakfast he said, “I am going yachting in the Mediterranean.” My heart took a leap of hope. “When?” I asked.

  “The day after tomorrow. The yacht is at Marseilles. Lush has gone to get everything ready.”

  “Shall I have Mama to stay with me then?” I felt a small burst of hope, like a shimmer of sunlight, at the chance for a time of peace and affection, however brief.

  “No. You will go with me.”

  * * *

  I HAD ALWAYS said I liked the sea. The weather was fine, the yacht pretty. The cabin, fitted to perfection, was lined with cedar, hung with silk, and adorned with mirrors. The bronzed crew were solicitous. To an onlooker such boating might seem an enviable indulgence of the rich, but by taking me yachting alone with him in the Mediterranean Grandcourt confined me to the ultimate prison.

  The sea was calm and shimmered blue. I reclined on cushions. The idle beauty, luxury, and isolation provoked anguish in me. Grandcourt sauntered up and down the deck, and down and up. I feared he would stop near me, look at me or speak to me. In my purse was the key to the drawer of my dressing case in which was locked the silver willow-shaped blade. I thought so often and hungrily of thrusting it into his neck, stabbing, stabbing it into his heart, that, untrusting of my restraint, I dropped it into the water.

  Grandcourt could not know the measure of my hatred, nor would he have cared. Alone together he and I were silent. He made no jokes to elicit a false smile, no chitchat observations to compel me to agree. He was polite in arranging a shawl over me as the evening chilled, or in handing me any object he perceived I might need. His solicitousness was just an aspect of his dominance. I accepted such attentions with apparent courtesy.

  He smoked, pointed at a distant sail, sat, or gazed at me as if I was as much his possession as the sea and cliffs. At dinner he might remark that the fruit was bruised and we must put in somewhere for more. If I did not drink the wine, he asked if I would prefer another sort. My replies were civil. At night he ravaged me.

  Every movement of his, every remark he made, his contentment with inactivity, the way he fingered his mustache, his drawling voice, the manner in which he addressed the crew or ate his food—all of it repelled me. I hoped for a brutal accident to befall him. I thought I might casually push him from the yacht, then act as if nothing had happened. I read my book and dreamed of you.

  With me held captive on his wretched yacht he was satisfied. I was denied all hope of seeing you. Here was his unchallenged kingdom. The crew and I provided what was expected by him; any private resistance added piquancy to his rule.

  Each hour that passed I hated him more. I could not accept that this was my life and it would not change. And I hated myself. My life was spoiled, and I could blame no one but myself. My only hope of redemption was in my feeling for you. Tied in this pact to Grandcourt, I thought continually of your words: Turn your fear into a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing your remorse. It may make consequences passionately present to you.

  Your advice did not prove useful. Now that time has passed, and I am wiser and more confident, my advice to myself would have been “Leave Leave Leave, whatever the social cost, or price of penury.” I could not accept such degradation. But you were to me a force for good. Through you I believed there was a place to go where I might be at peace; you made me unafraid of the dead face in the wainscot, or of the night sky, or of Grandcourt.

  On board that yacht my malevolent prayers merged with the wide ocean, the plash of the waves, the creaking of the mast, the smoke from my hated husband’s cigars. The days elided. We wafted to the Balearic Isles, Sardinia, Corsica, I was not sure where. We went ashore at Ajaccio, and it was some relief to see people, life. We visited the house where Napoleon was born, aimlessly wandered the streets, then sat by the harbor. I asked Grandcourt how long we were to go on with this. For an indefinite time, he answered. He was not tired of yachting so we would continue. “Where would you rather be,” he asked, “Ryelands?”

  “Oh no,” I said, and did not add that any place in which he was was odious to me. “I only wondered how long you would like this.” He replied he liked yachting better than he liked anything else, but he supposed I was bored with it. “Women are so confoundedly whimsical,” he said. “They expect everything to give way to them.”

  “Oh dear, no,” I said. “I never expect you to give way.”

  “Why should I?” he said, and peeled an orange.

  So on we sailed, in his wretched yacht, to Italy and who knows where, until one day there was a squall, which made me rather ill, and the skipper told Grandcourt the yacht was damaged so we should have to stay at Genoa for a week while repairs were made. “It will be a change,” I ventured, and said a silent prayer of gratitude. Grandcourt wanted no change and announced he did not intend to broil in Genoa: the city was intolerable, the roads were crowded, the hotels stifling, and he would go out in another boat and manage it himself.

  The prospect of hours freed from his company made me more cheerful, which he noticed. I hoped the wind might blow him into the deep. I thought of running away, I had no idea where to. That evening I watched the sunset with less aching loneliness than on previous nights. Asleep, I dreamed I was escaping to France over Mont Cenis and I marveled as I climbed to freedom that I found it warm on the snow even in moonlight, but then I met you, and you told me to go back.

  * * *

  I WOKE TO the sound of the crew casting anchor in Genoa harbor, and within an hour I actually met you—on the staircase of the Italia Hotel as we went up to our rooms. I was wearing a thin woolen dress and straw hat. Grandcourt was by my side. You started, raised your hat, and passed on. It felt like a continuation of my dream. I did not question what had broug
ht you to the city; it seemed meant to be. Months later I learned from Sir Hugo the extraordinary story of why you were there. Grandcourt supposed your presence to have been in some way contrived by me, though how that was possible was hard even for him to fathom. What was certain in his suspicions was that I would seek to meet you if for a moment his back was turned.

  In our sitting room he ordered coffee and stared at me. I knew I looked beautiful: the sea air, the prospect of hours of separation from him, the omen of your being in the same city, the same hotel. He observed my anticipation, my hope, told me to order dinner to be served at three, took out a cigar, reached for his hat, and said he was going to instruct Angus, his valet, to find a little sailing boat for us to go out in alone: one he could manage with me at the tiller. My stomach lurched. I said I would rather not go in the boat, I had been unwell, would he please take someone else.

  “Very well,” he said. “If you don’t go, neither shall I. We shall stay suffocating here.”

  “I can’t bear going in a boat,” I said.

  “Then we shall stay indoors.” He smoked and stared from the window. I went into my bedroom, an evil anger rushing through me. After half an hour he followed, sat in front of me, and asked with a drawl if I had come round yet or if I found it agreeable to be out of temper. “You make things uncommonly unpleasant for me,” he said.

  I began to cry. “Why do you want to make them unpleasant for me?” I asked.

  “What is it you have to complain of?” Grandcourt said. “That I stay indoors when you stay?”

  I could not answer. I could neither confirm that truth nor tell him more. He knew I would prefer a minute of your company to an eternity of his. In despair, anger, and humiliation, I cried without control.

  He called my tears confoundedly unpleasant, said all women were wretches and that we would remain stifling indoors for an interminable afternoon while we might have been having a pleasant sail. “Let us go then, perhaps we shall be drowned,” I said. And cried the more.