Chapter Chapter 27 · Chapter XXVII

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Desire has trimmed the sails, and Circumstance

Brings but the breeze to fill them.

While Grandcourt on his beautiful black Yarico, the groom behind him on

Criterion, was taking the pleasant ride from Diplow to Offendene,

Gwendolen was seated before the mirror while her mother gathered up the

lengthy mass of light-brown hair which she had been carefully brushing.

“Only gather it up easily and make a coil, mamma,” said Gwendolen.

“Let me bring you some earrings, Gwen,” said Mrs. Davilow, when the

hair was adjusted, and they were both looking at the reflection in the

glass. It was impossible for them not to notice that the eyes looked

brighter than they had done of late, that there seemed to be a shadow

lifted from the face, leaving all the lines once more in their placid

youthfulness. The mother drew some inference that made her voice rather

cheerful. “You do want your earrings?”

“No, mamma; I shall not wear any ornaments, and I shall put on my black

silk. Black is the only wear when one is going to refuse an offer,”

said Gwendolen, with one of her old smiles at her mother, while she

rose to throw off her dressing-gown.

“Suppose the offer is not made after all,” said Mrs. Davilow, not

without a sly intention.

“Then that will be because I refuse it beforehand,” said Gwendolen. “It

comes to the same thing.”

There was a proud little toss of the head as she said this; and when

she walked down-stairs in her long black robes, there was just that

firm poise of head and elasticity of form which had lately been

missing, as in a parched plant. Her mother thought, “She is quite

herself again. It must be pleasure in his coming. Can her mind be

really made up against him?”

Gwendolen would have been rather angry if that thought had been

uttered; perhaps all the more because through the last twenty hours,

with a brief interruption of sleep, she had been so occupied with

perpetually alternating images and arguments for and against the

possibility of her marrying Grandcourt, that the conclusion which she

had determined on beforehand ceased to have any hold on her

consciousness: the alternate dip of counterbalancing thoughts begotten

of counterbalancing desires had brought her into a state in which no

conclusion could look fixed to her. She would have expressed her

resolve as before; but it was a form out of which the blood had been

sucked—no more a part of quivering life than the “God’s will be done”

of one who is eagerly watching chances. She did not mean to accept

Grandcourt; from the first moment of receiving his letter she had meant

to refuse him; still, that could not but prompt her to look the

unwelcome reasons full in the face until she had a little less awe of

them, could not hinder her imagination from filling out her knowledge

in various ways, some of which seemed to change the aspect of what she

knew. By dint of looking at a dubious object with a constructive

imagination, one can give it twenty different shapes. Her indistinct

grounds of hesitation before the interview at the Whispering Stones, at

present counted for nothing; they were all merged in the final

repulsion. If it had not been for that day in Cardell Chase, she said

to herself now, there would have been no obstacle to her marrying

Grandcourt. On that day and after it, she had not reasoned and

balanced; she had acted with a force of impulse against which all

questioning was no more than a voice against a torrent. The impulse had

come—not only from her maidenly pride and jealousy, not only from the

shock of another woman’s calamity thrust close on her vision, but—from

her dread of wrong-doing, which was vague, it was true, and aloof from

the daily details of her life, but not the less strong. Whatever was

accepted as consistent with being a lady she had no scruple about; but

from the dim region of what was called disgraceful, wrong, guilty, she

shrunk with mingled pride and terror; and even apart from shame, her

feeling would have made her place any deliberate injury of another in

the region of guilt.

But now—did she know exactly what was the state of the case with

regard to Mrs. Glasher and her children? She had given a sort of

promise—had said, “I will not interfere with your wishes.” But would

another woman who married Grandcourt be in fact the decisive obstacle

to her wishes, or be doing her and her boy any real injury? Might it

not be just as well, nay better, that Grandcourt should marry? For what

could not a woman do when she was married, if she knew how to assert

herself? Here all was constructive imagination. Gwendolen had about as

accurate a conception of marriage—that is to say, of the mutual

influences, demands, duties of man and woman in the state of

matrimony—as she had of magnetic currents and the law of storms.

“Mamma managed badly,” was her way of summing up what she had seen of

her mother’s experience: she herself would manage quite differently.

And the trials of matrimony were the last theme into which Mrs. Davilow

could choose to enter fully with this daughter.

“I wonder what mamma and my uncle would say if they knew about Mrs.

Glasher!” thought Gwendolen in her inward debating; not that she could

imagine herself telling them, even if she had not felt bound to

silence. “I wonder what anybody would say; or what they would say to

Mr. Grandcourt’s marrying some one else and having other children!” To

consider what “anybody” would say, was to be released from the

difficulty of judging where everything was obscure to her when feeling

had ceased to be decisive. She had only to collect her memories, which

proved to her that “anybody” regarded the illegitimate children as more

rightfully to be looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than

illegitimate fathers. The verdict of “anybody” seemed to be that she

had no reason to concern herself greatly on behalf of Mrs. Glasher and

her children.

But there was another way in which they had caused her concern. What

others might think could not do away with a feeling which in the first

instance would hardly be too strongly described as indignation and

loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an

outworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly

felt than any association with _her_. True, the question of love on her

own part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to Grandcourt.

The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other

feeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom

the advances depended. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt’s

way of being enamored before she had had that glimpse of his past,

which she resented as if it had been a deliberate offense against her.

His advances to _her_ were deliberate, and she felt a retrospective

disgust for them. Perhaps other men’s lives were of the same kind—full

of secrets which made the ignorant suppositions of the women they

wanted to marry a farce at which they were laughing in their sleeves.

These feelings of disgust and indignation had sunk deep; and though

other troublous experience in the last weeks had dulled them from

passion into remembrance, it was chiefly their reverberating activity

which kept her firm to the understanding with herself, that she was not

going to accept Grandcourt. She had never meant to form a new

determination; she had only been considering what might be thought or

said. If anything could have induced her to change, it would have been

the prospect of making all things easy for “poor mamma:” that, she

admitted, was a temptation. But no! she was going to refuse him.

Meanwhile, the thought that he was coming to be refused was

inspiriting: she had the white reins in her hands again; there was a

new current in her frame, reviving her from the beaten-down

consciousness in which she had been left by the interview with Klesmer.

She was not now going to crave an opinion of her capabilities; she was

going to exercise her power.

Was this what made her heart palpitate annoyingly when she heard the

horse’s footsteps on the gravel?—when Miss Merry, who opened the door

to Grandcourt, came to tell her that he was in the drawing-room? The

hours of preparation and the triumph of the situation were apparently

of no use: she might as well have seen Grandcourt coming suddenly on

her in the midst of her despondency. While walking into the

drawing-room, she had to concentrate all her energy in that

self-control, which made her appear gravely gracious—as she gave her

hand to him, and answered his hope that she was quite well in a voice

as low and languid as his own. A moment afterward, when they were both

of them seated on two of the wreath-painted chairs—Gwendolen upright

with downcast eyelids, Grandcourt about two yards distant, leaning one

arm over the back of his chair and looking at her, while he held his

hat in his left hand—any one seeing them as a picture would have

concluded that they were in some stage of love-making suspense. And

certainly the love-making had begun: she already felt herself being

wooed by this silent man seated at an agreeable distance, with the

subtlest atmosphere of attar of roses and an attention bent wholly on

her. And he also considered himself to be wooing: he was not a man to

suppose that his presence carried no consequences; and he was exactly

the man to feel the utmost piquancy in a girl whom he had not found

quite calculable.

“I was disappointed not to find you at Leubronn,” he began, his usual

broken drawl having just a shade of amorous languor in it. “The place

was intolerable without you. A mere kennel of a place. Don’t you think

so?”

“I can’t judge what it would be without myself,” said Gwendolen,

turning her eyes on him, with some recovered sense of mischief. “_With_

myself I like it well enough to have stayed longer, if I could. But I

was obliged to come home on account of family troubles.”

“It was very cruel of you to go to Leubronn,” said Grandcourt, taking

no notice of the troubles, on which Gwendolen—she hardly knew

why—wished that there should be a clear understanding at once. “You

must have known that it would spoil everything: you knew you were the

heart and soul of everything that went on. Are you quite reckless about

me?”

It would be impossible to say “yes” in a tone that would be taken

seriously; equally impossible to say “no;” but what else could she say?

In her difficulty, she turned down her eyelids again and blushed over

face and neck. Grandcourt saw her in a new phase, and believed that she

was showing her inclination. But he was determined that she should show

it more decidedly.

“Perhaps there is some deeper interest? Some attraction—some

engagement—which it would have been only fair to make me aware of? Is

there any man who stands between us?”

Inwardly the answer framed itself. “No; but there is a woman.” Yet how

could she utter this? Even if she had not promised that woman to be

silent, it would have been impossible for her to enter on the subject

with Grandcourt. But how could she arrest his wooing by beginning to

make a formal speech—“I perceive your intention—it is most

flattering, etc.”? A fish honestly invited to come and be eaten has a

clear course in declining, but how if it finds itself swimming against

a net? And apart from the network, would she have dared at once to say

anything decisive? Gwendolen had not time to be clear on that point. As

it was, she felt compelled to silence, and after a pause, Grandcourt

said,

“Am I to understand that some one else is preferred?”

Gwendolen, now impatient of her own embarrassment, determined to rush

at the difficulty and free herself. She raised her eyes again and said

with something of her former clearness and defiance, “No”—wishing him

to understand, “What then? I may not be ready to take _you_.” There was

nothing that Grandcourt could not understand which he perceived likely

to affect his _amour propre_.

“The last thing I would do, is to importune you. I should not hope to

win you by making myself a bore. If there were no hope for me, I would

ask you to tell me so at once, that I might just ride away to—no

matter where.”

Almost to her own astonishment, Gwendolen felt a sudden alarm at the

image of Grandcourt finally riding away. What would be left her then?

Nothing but the former dreariness. She liked him to be there. She

snatched at the subject that would defer any decisive answer.

“I fear you are not aware of what has happened to us. I have lately had

to think so much of my mamma’s troubles, that other subjects have been

quite thrown into the background. She has lost all her fortune, and we

are going to leave this place. I must ask you to excuse my seeming

preoccupied.”

In eluding a direct appeal Gwendolen recovered some of her

self-possession. She spoke with dignity and looked straight at

Grandcourt, whose long, narrow, impenetrable eyes met hers, and

mysteriously arrested them: mysteriously; for the subtly-varied drama

between man and woman is often such as can hardly be rendered in words

put together like dominoes, according to obvious fixed marks. The word

of all work, Love, will no more express the myriad modes of mutual

attraction, than the word Thought can inform you what is passing

through your neighbor’s mind. It would be hard to tell on which

side—Gwendolen’s or Grandcourt’s—the influence was more mixed. At

that moment his strongest wish was to be completely master of this

creature—this piquant combination of maidenliness and mischief: that

she knew things which had made her start away from him, spurred him to

triumph over that repugnance; and he was believing that he should

triumph. And she—ah, piteous equality in the need to dominate!—she

was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water

in the desert, overcome by the suffused sense that here in this man’s

homage to her lay the rescue from helpless subjection to an oppressive

lot.

All the while they were looking at each other; and Grandcourt said,

slowly and languidly, as if it were of no importance, other things

having been settled,

“You will tell me now, I hope, that Mrs. Davilow’s loss of fortune will

not trouble you further. You will trust me to prevent it from weighing

upon her. You will give me the claim to provide against that.”

The little pauses and refined drawlings with which this speech was

uttered, gave time for Gwendolen to go through the dream of a life. As

the words penetrated her, they had the effect of a draught of wine,

which suddenly makes all things easier, desirable things not so wrong,

and people in general less disagreeable. She had a momentary phantasmal

love for this man who chose his words so well, and who was a mere

incarnation of delicate homage. Repugnance, dread, scruples—these were

dim as remembered pains, while she was already tasting relief under the

immediate pain of hopelessness. She imagined herself already springing

to her mother, and being playful again. Yet when Grandcourt had ceased

to speak, there was an instant in which she was conscious of being at

the turning of the ways.

“You are very generous,” she said, not moving her eyes, and speaking

with a gentle intonation.

“You accept what will make such things a matter of course?” said

Grandcourt, without any new eagerness. “You consent to become my wife?”

This time Gwendolen remained quite pale. Something made her rise from

her seat in spite of herself and walk to a little distance. Then she

turned and with her hands folded before her stood in silence.

Grandcourt immediately rose too, resting his hat on the chair, but

still keeping hold of it. The evident hesitation of this destitute girl

to take his splendid offer stung him into a keenness of interest such

as he had not known for years. None the less because he attributed her

hesitation entirely to her knowledge about Mrs. Glasher. In that

attitude of preparation, he said,

“Do you command me to go?” No familiar spirit could have suggested to

him more effective words.

“No,” said Gwendolen. She could not let him go: that negative was a

clutch. She seemed to herself to be, after all, only drifted toward the

tremendous decision—but drifting depends on something besides the

currents when the sails have been set beforehand.

“You accept my devotion?” said Grandcourt, holding his hat by his side

and looking straight into her eyes, without other movement. Their eyes

meeting in that way seemed to allow any length of pause: but wait as

long as she would, how could she contradict herself? What had she

detained him for? He had shut out any explanation.

“Yes,” came as gravely from Gwendolen’s lips as if she had been

answering to her name in a court of justice. He received it gravely,

and they still looked at each other in the same attitude. Was there

ever such a way before of accepting the bliss-giving “Yes”? Grandcourt

liked better to be at that distance from her, and to feel under a

ceremony imposed by an indefinable prohibition that breathed from

Gwendolen’s bearing.

But he did at length lay down his hat and advance to take her hand,

just pressing his lips upon it and letting it go again. She thought his

behavior perfect, and gained a sense of freedom which made her almost

ready to be mischievous. Her “Yes” entailed so little at this moment

that there was nothing to screen the reversal of her gloomy prospects;

her vision was filled by her own release from the Momperts, and her

mother’s release from Sawyer’s Cottage. With a happy curl of the lips,

she said,

“Will you not see mamma? I will fetch her.”

“Let us wait a little,” said Grandcourt, in his favorite attitude,

having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with

his right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near Gwendolen and

looked at her—not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous introduction

at an evening party.

“Have you anything else to say to me?” said Gwendolen, playfully.

“Yes—I know having things said to you is a great bore,” said

Grandcourt, rather sympathetically.

“Not when they are things I like to hear.”

“Will it bother you to be asked how soon we can be married?”

“I think it will, to-day,” said Gwendolen, putting up her chin saucily.

“Not to-day, then, but to-morrow. Think of it before I come to-morrow.

In a fortnight—or three weeks—as soon as possible.”

“Ah, you think you will be tired of my company,” said Gwendolen. “I

notice when people are married the husband is not so much with his wife

as when they are engaged. But perhaps I shall like that better, too.”

She laughed charmingly.

“You shall have whatever you like,” said Grandcourt.

“And nothing that I don’t like?—please say that; because I think I

dislike what I don’t like more than I like what I like,” said

Gwendolen, finding herself in the woman’s paradise, where all her

nonsense is adorable.

Grandcourt paused; these were subtilties in which he had much

experience of his own. “I don’t know—this is such a brute of a world,

things are always turning up that one doesn’t like. I can’t always

hinder your being bored. If you like to ride Criterion, I can’t hinder

his coming down by some chance or other.”

“Ah, my friend Criterion, how is he?”

“He is outside: I made the groom ride him, that you might see him. He

had the side-saddle on for an hour or two yesterday. Come to the window

and look at him.”

They could see the two horses being taken slowly round the sweep, and

the beautiful creatures, in their fine grooming, sent a thrill of

exultation through Gwendolen. They were the symbols of command and

luxury, in delightful contrast with the ugliness of poverty and

humiliation at which she had lately been looking close.

“Will you ride Criterion to-morrow?” said Grandcourt. “If you will,

everything shall be arranged.”

“I should like it of all things,” said Gwendolen. “I want to lose

myself in a gallop again. But now I must go and fetch mamma.”

“Take my arm to the door, then,” said Grandcourt, and she accepted.

Their faces were very near each other, being almost on a level, and he

was looking at her. She thought his manners as a lover more agreeable

than any she had seen described. She had no alarm lest he meant to kiss

her, and was so much at her ease, that she suddenly paused in the

middle of the room and said half archly, half earnestly,

“Oh, while I think of it—there is something I dislike that you can

save me from. I do _not_ like Mr. Lush’s company.”

“You shall not have it. I’ll get rid of him.”

“You are not fond of him yourself?”

“Not in the least. I let him hang on me because he has always been a

poor devil,” said Grandcourt, in an _adagio_ of utter indifference.

“They got him to travel with me when I was a lad. He was always that

coarse-haired kind of brute—sort of cross between a hog and a

_dilettante_.”

Gwendolen laughed. All that seemed kind and natural enough:

Grandcourt’s fastidiousness enhanced the kindness. And when they

reached the door, his way of opening it for her was the perfection of

easy homage. Really, she thought, he was likely to be the least

disagreeable of husbands.

Mrs. Davilow was waiting anxiously in her bedroom when Gwendolen

entered, stepped toward her quickly, and kissing her on both cheeks

said in a low tone, “Come down, mamma, and see Mr. Grandcourt. I am

engaged to him.”

“My darling child,” said Mrs. Davilow, with a surprise that was rather

solemn than glad.

“Yes,” said Gwendolen, in the same tone, and with a quickness which

implied that it was needless to ask questions. “Everything is settled.

You are not going to Sawyer’s Cottage, I am not going to be inspected

by Mrs. Mompert, and everything is to be as I like. So come down with

me immediately.”

BOOK IV.—GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE.