Chapter Chapter 31 · Chapter XXXI

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“A wild dedication of yourselves

To unpath’d waters, undreamed shores.”

—SHAKESPEARE.

On the day when Gwendolen Harleth was married and became Mrs.

Grandcourt, the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low

a slight frost crisped the leaves. The bridal party was worth seeing,

and half Pennicote turned out to see it, lining the pathway up to the

church. An old friend of the rector’s performed the marriage ceremony,

the rector himself acting as father, to the great advantage of the

procession. Only two faces, it was remarked, showed signs of

sadness—Mrs. Davilow’s and Anna’s. The mother’s delicate eyelids were

pink, as if she had been crying half the night; and no one was

surprised that, splendid as the match was, she should feel the parting

from a daughter who was the flower of her children and of her own life.

It was less understood why Anna should be troubled when she was being

so well set off by the bridesmaid’s dress. Every one else seemed to

reflect the brilliancy of the occasion—the bride most of all. Of her

it was agreed that as to figure and carriage she was worthy to be a

“lady o’ title”: as to face, perhaps it might be thought that a title

required something more rosy; but the bridegroom himself not being

fresh-colored—being indeed, as the miller’s wife observed, very much

of her own husband’s complexion—the match was the more complete.

Anyhow he must be very fond of her; and it was to be hoped that he

would never cast it up to her that she had been going out to service as

a governess, and her mother to live at Sawyer’s Cottage—vicissitudes

which had been much spoken of in the village. The miller’s daughter of

fourteen could not believe that high gentry behaved badly to their

wives, but her mother instructed her—“Oh, child, men’s men: gentle or

simple, they’re much of a muchness. I’ve heard my mother say Squire

Pelton used to take his dogs and a long whip into his wife’s room, and

flog ’em there to frighten her; and my mother was lady’s-maid there at

the very time.”

“That’s unlucky talk for a wedding, Mrs. Girdle,” said the tailor. “A

quarrel may end wi’ the whip, but it begins wi’ the tongue, and it’s

the women have got the most o’ that.”

“The Lord gave it ’em to use, I suppose,” said Mrs. Girdle. “_He_ never

meant you to have it all your own way.”

“By what I can make out from the gentleman as attends to the grooming

at Offendene,” said the tailor, “this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful

little tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering.”

“Then he’s the more whip, I doubt,” said Mrs. Girdle. “_She’s_ got

tongue enough, I warrant her. See, there they come out together!”

“What wonderful long corners she’s got to her eyes!” said the tailor.

“She makes you feel comical when she looks at you.”

Gwendolen, in fact, never showed more elasticity in her bearing, more

lustre in her long brown glance: she had the brilliancy of strong

excitement, which will sometimes come even from pain. It was not pain,

however, that she was feeling: she had wrought herself up to much the

same condition as that in which she stood at the gambling-table when

Deronda was looking at her, and she began to lose. There was an

enjoyment in it: whatever uneasiness a growing conscience had created

was disregarded as an ailment might have been, amidst the gratification

of that ambitious vanity and desire for luxury within her which it

would take a great deal of slow poisoning to kill. This morning she

could not have said truly that she repented her acceptance of

Grandcourt, or that any fears in hazy perspective could hinder the

glowing effect of the immediate scene in which she was the central

object. That she was doing something wrong—that a punishment might be

hanging over her—that the woman to whom she had given a promise and

broken it, was thinking of her in bitterness and misery with a just

reproach—that Deronda with his way of looking into things very likely

despised her for marrying Grandcourt, as he had despised her for

gambling—above all, that the cord which united her with this lover and

which she had heretofore held by the hand, was now being flung over her

neck,—all this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts with vague

but deep impressions, and with images half real, half fantastic, had

been disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement. Was that

agitating experience nullified this morning? No: it was surmounted and

thrust down with a sort of exulting defiance as she felt herself

standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything

to win much—or if to lose, still with _éclat_ and a sense of

importance. But this morning a losing destiny for herself did not press

upon her as a fear: she thought that she was entering on a fuller power

of managing circumstances—with all the official strength of marriage,

which some women made so poor a use of. That intoxication of youthful

egoism out of which she had been shaken by trouble, humiliation, and a

new sense of culpability, had returned upon her under a newly-fed

strength of the old fumes. She did not in the least present the ideal

of the tearful, tremulous bride. Poor Gwendolen, whom some had judged

much too forward and instructed in the world’s ways!—with her erect

head and elastic footstep she was walking among illusions; and yet,

too, there was an under-consciousness of her that she was a little

intoxicated.

“Thank God you bear it so well, my darling!” said Mrs. Davilow, when

she had helped Gwendolen to doff her bridal white and put on her

traveling dress. All the trembling had been done by the poor mother,

and her agitation urged Gwendolen doubly to take the morning as if it

were a triumph.

“Why, you might have said that, if I had been going to Mrs. Mompert’s,

you dear, sad, incorrigible mamma!” said Gwendolen just putting her

hands to her mother’s cheeks with laughing tenderness—then retreating

a little and spreading out her arms as if to exhibit herself: “Here am

I—Mrs. Grandcourt! what else would you have me, but what I am sure to

be? You know you were ready to die with vexation when you thought that

I would not be Mrs. Grandcourt.”

“Hush, hush, my child, for heaven’s sake!” said Mrs. Davilow, almost in

a whisper. “How can I help feeling it when I am parting from you. But I

can bear anything gladly if you are happy.”

“Not gladly, mamma, no!” said Gwendolen, shaking her head, with a

bright smile. “Willingly you would bear it, but always sorrowfully.

Sorrowing is your sauce; you can take nothing without it.” Then,

clasping her mother’s shoulders and raining kisses first on one cheek

and then on the other between her words, she said, gaily, “And you

shall sorrow over my having everything at my beck—and enjoying

everything glorious—splendid houses—and horses—and diamonds, I shall

have diamonds—and going to court—and being Lady Certainly—and Lady

Perhaps—and grand here—and tantivy there—and always loving you

better than anybody else in the world.”

“My sweet child!—But I shall not be jealous if you love your husband

better; and he will expect to be first.”

Gwendolen thrust out her lips and chin with a pretty grimace, saying,

“Rather a ridiculous expectation. However, I don’t mean to treat him

ill, unless he deserves it.”

Then the two fell into a clinging embrace, and Gwendolen could not

hinder a rising sob when she said, “I wish you were going with me,

mamma.”

But the slight dew on her long eyelashes only made her the more

charming when she gave her hand to Grandcourt to be led to the carriage.

The rector looked in on her to give a final “Good-bye; God bless you;

we shall see you again before long,” and then returned to Mrs. Davilow,

saying half cheerfully, half solemnly,

“Let us be thankful, Fanny. She is in a position well suited to her,

and beyond what I should have dared to hope for. And few women can have

been chosen more entirely for their own sake. You should feel yourself

a happy mother.”

* * * * *

There was a railway journey of some fifty miles before the new husband

and wife reached the station near Ryelands. The sky had veiled itself

since the morning, and it was hardly more than twilight when they

entered the park-gates, but still Gwendolen, looking out of the

carriage-window as they drove rapidly along, could see the grand

outlines and the nearer beauties of the scene—the long winding drive

bordered with evergreens backed by huge gray stems: then the opening of

wide grassy spaces and undulations studded with dark clumps; till at

last came a wide level where the white house could be seen, with a

hanging wood for a background, and the rising and sinking balustrade

of a terrace in front.

Gwendolen had been at her liveliest during the journey, chatting

incessantly, ignoring any change in their mutual position since

yesterday; and Grandcourt had been rather ecstatically quiescent, while

she turned his gentle seizure of her hand into a grasp of his hand by

both hers, with an increased vivacity as of a kitten that will not sit

quiet to be petted. She was really getting somewhat febrile in her

excitement; and now in this drive through the park her usual

susceptibility to changes of light and scenery helped to make her heart

palpitate newly. Was it at the novelty simply, or the almost incredible

fulfilment about to be given to her girlish dreams of being

“somebody”—walking through her own furlong of corridor and under her

own ceilings of an out-of-sight loftiness, where her own painted Spring

was shedding painted flowers, and her own fore-shortened Zephyrs were

blowing their trumpets over her; while her own servants, lackeys in

clothing but men in bulk and shape, were as nought in her presence, and

revered the propriety of her insolence to them:—being in short the

heroine of an admired play without the pains of art? Was it alone the

closeness of this fulfilment which made her heart flutter? or was it

some dim forecast, the insistent penetration of suppressed experience,

mixing the expectation of a triumph with the dread of a crisis? Hers

was one of the natures in which exultation inevitably carries an

infusion of dread ready to curdle and declare itself.

She fell silent in spite of herself as they approached the gates, and

when her husband said, “Here we are at home!” and for the first time

kissed her on the lips, she hardly knew of it: it was no more than the

passive acceptance of a greeting in the midst of an absorbing show. Was

not all her hurrying life of the last three months a show, in which her

consciousness was a wondering spectator? After the half-willful

excitement of the day, a numbness had come over her personality.

But there was a brilliant light in the hall—warmth, matting, carpets,

full-length portraits, Olympian statues, assiduous servants. Not many

servants, however: only a few from Diplow in addition to those

constantly in charge of the house; and Gwendolen’s new maid, who had

come with her, was taken under guidance by the housekeeper. Gwendolen

felt herself being led by Grandcourt along a subtly-scented corridor,

into an ante-room where she saw an open doorway sending out a rich glow

of light and color.

“These are our dens,” said Grandcourt. “You will like to be quiet here

till dinner. We shall dine early.”

He pressed her hand to his lips and moved away, more in love than he

had ever expected to be.

Gwendolen, yielded up her hat and mantle, threw herself into a chair by

the glowing hearth, and saw herself repeated in glass panels with all

her faint-green satin surroundings. The housekeeper had passed into

this boudoir from the adjoining dressing-room and seemed disposed to

linger, Gwendolen thought, in order to look at the new mistress of

Ryelands, who, however, being impatient for solitude said to her, “Will

you tell Hudson when she has put out my dress to leave everything? I

shall not want her again, unless I ring.”

The housekeeper, coming forward, said, “Here is a packet, madam, which

I was ordered to give into nobody’s hands but yours, when you were

alone. The person who brought it said it was a present particularly

ordered by Mr. Grandcourt; but he was not to know of its arrival till

he saw you wear it. Excuse me, madam; I felt it right to obey orders.”

Gwendolen took the packet and let it lie on her lap till she heard the

doors close. It came into her mind that the packet might contain the

diamonds which Grandcourt had spoken of as being deposited somewhere

and to be given to her on her marriage. In this moment of confused

feeling and creeping luxurious languor she was glad of this

diversion—glad of such an event as having her own diamonds to try on.

Within all the sealed paper coverings was a box, but within the box

there _was_ a jewel-case; and now she felt no doubt that she had the

diamonds. But on opening the case, in the same instant that she saw

them gleam she saw a letter lying above them. She knew the handwriting

of the address. It was as if an adder had lain on them. Her heart gave

a leap which seemed to have spent all her strength; and as she opened

the bit of thin paper, it shook with the trembling of her hands. But it

was legible as print, and thrust its words upon her.

These diamonds, which were once given with ardent love to Lydia

Glasher, she passes on to you. You have broken your word to her, that

you might possess what was hers. Perhaps you think of being happy, as

she once was, and of having beautiful children such as hers, who will

thrust hers aside. God is too just for that. The man you have married

has a withered heart. His best young love was mine: you could not take

that from me when you took the rest. It is dead: but I am the grave

in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. You had

your warning. You have chosen to injure me and my children. He had

meant to marry me. He would have married me at last, if you had not

broken your word. You will have your punishment. I desire it with all

my soul.

Will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us

more—me and my children? Shall you like to stand before your husband

with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and

yours? Will he think you have any right to complain when he has made

you miserable? You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you

have done me will be your curse.

It seemed at first as if Gwendolen’s eyes were spell-bound in reading

the horrible words of the letter over and over again as a doom of

penance; but suddenly a new spasm of terror made her lean forward and

stretch out the paper toward the fire, lest accusation and proof at

once should meet all eyes. It flew like a feather from her trembling

fingers and was caught up in a great draught of flame. In her movement

the casket fell on the floor and the diamonds rolled out. She took no

notice, but fell back in her chair again helpless. She could not see

the reflections of herself then; they were like so many women petrified

white; but coming near herself you might have seen the tremor in her

lips and hands. She sat so for a long while, knowing little more than

that she was feeling ill, and that those written words kept repeating

themselves to her.

Truly here were poisoned gems, and the poison had entered into this

poor young creature.

After that long while, there was a tap at the door and Grandcourt

entered, dressed for dinner. The sight of him brought a new nervous

shock, and Gwendolen screamed again and again with hysterical violence.

He had expected to see her dressed and smiling, ready to be led down.

He saw her pallid, shrieking as it seemed with terror, the jewels

scattered around her on the floor. Was it a fit of madness?

In some form or other the furies had crossed his threshold.