Kabanata Kabanata 24 · Chapter XXIV

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“I question things but do not find

One that will answer to my mind:

And all the world appears unkind.”

—WORDSWORTH.

Gwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with Klesmer

before meeting her uncle and aunt. She had made up her mind now that

there were only disagreeables before her, and she felt able to maintain

a dogged calm in the face of any humiliation that might be proposed.

The meeting did not happen until the Monday, when Gwendolen went to the

rectory with her mamma. They had called at Sawyer’s Cottage by the way,

and had seen every cranny of the narrow rooms in a midday light,

unsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by

gleanings from the rectory had not yet begun.

“How _shall_ you endure it, mamma?” said Gwendolen, as they walked

away. She had not opened her lips while they were looking round at the

bare walls and floors, and the little garden with the cabbage-stalks,

and the yew arbor all dust and cobwebs within. “You and the four girls

all in that closet of a room, with the green and yellow paper pressing

on your eyes? And without me?”

“It will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear.”

“If it were not that I must get some money, I would rather be there

than go to be a governess.”

“Don’t set yourself against it beforehand, Gwendolen. If you go to the

palace you will have every luxury about you. And you know how much you

have always cared for that. You will not find it so hard as going up

and down those steep narrow stairs, and hearing the crockery rattle

through the house, and the dear girls talking.”

“It is like a bad dream,” said Gwendolen, impetuously. “I cannot

believe that my uncle will let you go to such a place. He ought to have

taken some other steps.”

“Don’t be unreasonable, dear child. What could he have done?”

“That was for him to find out. It seems to me a very extraordinary

world if people in our position must sink in this way all at once,”

said Gwendolen, the other worlds with which she was conversant being

constructed with a sense of fitness that arranged her own future

agreeably.

It was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new

pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the

vicissitudes in other people’s lives, though it was never her

aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly—a point

to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse

than she was.

And, notwithstanding the keen sense of her own bruises, she was capable

of some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with a more

affectionate kindness than they had ever shown before. She could not

but be struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of

the necessary economies in their way of living, and in the education of

the boys. Mr. Gascoigne’s worth of character, a little obscured by

worldly opportunities—as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the

demands of fashionable dressing—showed itself to great advantage under

this sudden reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had set

himself not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn

suits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without

periodicals, to get Edwy from school and arrange hours of study for all

the boys under himself, and to order the whole establishment on the

sparest footing possible. For all healthy people economy has its

pleasures; and the rector’s spirit had spread through the household.

Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna, who always made papa their model, really did

not miss anything they cared about for themselves, and in all sincerity

felt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for Mrs.

Davilow and her children.

Anna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of Rex in

her sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne was disposed to hope

that trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without

thinking it her duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the

salutariness. They had both been busy devising how to get blinds and

curtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate

feeling they left these matters in the background, and talked at first

of Gwendolen’s journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her

at home again.

In fact there was nothing for Gwendolen to take as a justification for

extending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around

her, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call

to drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a

voice of firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making

to get her a situation which would offer her as many advantages as

possible. Mr. Gascoigne had not forgotten Grandcourt, but the

possibility of further advances from that quarter was something too

vague for a man of his good sense to be determined by it: uncertainties

of that kind must not now slacken his action in doing the best he could

for his niece under actual conditions.

“I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in

a good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had

at a moment’s notice. And however long we waited we could hardly find

one where you would be better off than at Bishop Mompert’s. I am known

to both him and Mrs. Mompert, and that of course is an advantage to

you. Our correspondence has gone on favorably; but I cannot be

surprised that Mrs. Mompert wishes to see you before making an absolute

engagement. She thinks of arranging for you to meet her at Wanchester

when she is on her way to town. I dare say you will feel the interview

rather trying for you, my dear; but you will have a little time to

prepare your mind.”

“Do you know _why_ she wants to see me, uncle?” said Gwendolen, whose

mind had quickly gone over various reasons that an imaginary Mrs.

Mompert with three daughters might be supposed to entertain, reasons

all of a disagreeable kind to the person presenting herself for

inspection.

The rector smiled. “Don’t be alarmed, my dear. She would like to have a

more precise idea of you than my report can give. And a mother is

naturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. I have told

her you are very young. But she herself exercises a close supervision

over her daughters’ education, and that makes her less anxious as to

age. She is a woman of taste and also of strict principle, and objects

to having a French person in the house. I feel sure that she will think

your manners and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find; and

over the religious and moral tone of the education she, and indeed the

bishop himself, will preside.”

Gwendolen dared not answer, but the repression of her decided dislike

to the whole prospect sent an unusually deep flush over her face and

neck, subsiding as quickly as it came. Anna, full of tender fears, put

her little hand into her cousin’s, and Mr. Gascoigne was too kind a man

not to conceive something of the trial which this sudden change must be

for a girl like Gwendolen. Bent on giving a cheerful view of things, he

went on, in an easy tone of remark, not as if answering supposed

objections,

“I think so highly of the position, that I should have been tempted to

try and get it for Anna, if she had been at all likely to meet Mrs.

Mompert’s wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education

in the highest sense: ‘governess’ is a misnomer. The bishop’s views are

of a more decidedly Low Church color than my own—he is a close friend

of Lord Grampian’s; but, though privately strict, he is not by any

means narrow in public matters. Indeed, he has created as little

dislike in his diocese as any bishop on the bench. He has always

remained friendly to me, though before his promotion, when he was an

incumbent of this diocese, we had a little controversy about the Bible

Society.”

The rector’s words were too pregnant with satisfactory meaning to

himself for him to imagine the effect they produced in the mind of his

niece. “Continuance of education”—“bishop’s views”—“privately

strict”—“Bible Society,”—it was as if he had introduced a few snakes

at large for the instruction of ladies who regarded them as all alike

furnished with poison-bags, and, biting or stinging, according to

convenience. To Gwendolen, already shrinking from the prospect open to

her, such phrases came like the growing heat of a burning glass—not at

all as the links of persuasive reflection which they formed for the

good uncle. She began, desperately, to seek an alternative.

“There was another situation, I think, mamma spoke of?” she said, with

determined self-mastery.

“Yes,” said the rector, in rather a deprecatory tone; “but that is in

a school. I should not have the same satisfaction in your taking that.

It would be much harder work, you are aware, and not so good in any

other respect. Besides, you have not an equal chance of getting it.”

“Oh dear no,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, “it would be much harder for you, my

dear—it would be much less appropriate. You might not have a bedroom to

yourself.” And Gwendolen’s memories of school suggested other

particulars which forced her to admit to herself that this alternative

would be no relief. She turned to her uncle again and said, apparently

in acceptance of his ideas,

“When is Mrs. Mompert likely to send for me?”

“That is rather uncertain, but she has promised not to entertain any

other proposal till she has seen you. She has entered with much feeling

into your position. It will be within the next fortnight, probably. But

I must be off now. I am going to let part of my glebe uncommonly well.”

The rector ended very cheerfully, leaving the room with the

satisfactory conviction that Gwendolen was going to adapt herself to

circumstances like a girl of good sense. Having spoken appropriately,

he naturally supposed that the effects would be appropriate; being

accustomed, as a household and parish authority, to be asked to “speak

to” refractory persons, with the understanding that the measure was

morally coercive.

“What a stay Henry is to us all!” said Mrs. Gascoigne, when her husband

had left the room.

“He is indeed,” said Mrs. Davilow, cordially. “I think cheerfulness is

a fortune in itself. I wish I had it.”

“And Rex is just like him,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. “I must tell you the

comfort we have had in a letter from him. I must read you a little

bit,” she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked

rather frightened—she did not know why, except that it had been a rule

with her not to mention Rex before Gwendolen.

The proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to

read aloud. But apparently she had found it sown with what might seem

to be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she

looked up, folding the letter, and saying,

“However, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a

reason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take

pupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most

remarkable. The letter is full of fun—just like him. He says, ‘Tell

mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working

son, in time to hinder me from taking ship; and I offer myself for the

place.’ The letter came on Friday. I never saw my husband so much moved

by anything since Rex was born. It seemed a gain to balance our loss.”

This letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna

to show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very

amiably about it, smiling at Anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to

say, “Nothing is wrong with you now, is it?” She had no gratuitously

ill-natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She

only had an intense objection to their making her miserable.

But when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not

roused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done

as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an

heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on

within her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect

allowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The

idea of presenting herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first instance,

to be approved or disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful

bruise; even as a governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was

liable to rejection. After she had done herself the violence to accept

the bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would

accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be

silent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of

self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound

incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on:

there was always to be Mrs. Mompert’s supervision; always something or

other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest

inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious

topics. Gwendolen, lately used to the social successes of a handsome

girl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the effect of wit, and

who six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of the bishop

rather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an

entrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to be an

actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but

his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride

and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting

amongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity—odious

men, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong

grating of polite society. Gwendolen’s daring was not in the least that

of the adventuress; the demand to be held a lady was in her very

marrow; and when she had dreamed that she might be the heroine of the

gaming-table, it was with the understanding that no one should treat

her with the less consideration, or presume to look at her with irony

as Deronda had done. To be protected and petted, and to have her

susceptibilities consulted in every detail, had gone along with her

food and clothing as matters of course in her life: even without any

such warning as Klesmer’s she could not have thought it an attractive

freedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the doubtful civility of

strangers. The endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was less

repulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be

petted or have her susceptibilities consulted. Her rebellion against

this hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the

world—to her whom all circumstances had concurred in preparing for

something quite different—was exaggerated instead of diminished as one

hour followed another, with the imagination of what she might have

expected in her lot and what it was actually to be. The family

troubles, she thought, were easier for every one than for her—even for

poor dear mamma, because she had always used herself to not enjoying.

As to hoping that if she went to the Momperts’ and was patient a little

while, things might get better—it would be stupid to entertain hopes

for herself after all that had happened: her talents, it appeared,

would never be recognized as anything remarkable, and there was not a

single direction in which probability seemed to flatter her wishes.

Some beautiful girls who, like her, had read romances where even plain

governesses are centres of attraction and are sought in marriage, might

have solaced themselves a little by transporting such pictures into

their own future; but even if Gwendolen’s experience had led her to

dwell on love-making and marriage as her elysium, her heart was too

much oppressed by what was near to her, in both the past and the

future, for her to project her anticipations very far off. She had a

world-nausea upon her, and saw no reason all through her life why she

should wish to live. No religious view of trouble helped her: her

troubles had in her opinion all been caused by other people’s

disagreeable or wicked conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant

to be counted on in the world: that was her feeling; everything else

she had heard said about trouble was mere phrase-making not attractive

enough for her to have caught it up and repeated it. As to the

sweetness of labor and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and

outward activity; the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual

discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry, which it is mere

baseness not to pay toward the common burden; the supreme worth of the

teacher’s vocation;—these, even if they had been eloquently preached

to her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines: the

fact which wrought upon her was her invariable observation that for a

lady to become a governess—to “take a situation”—was to descend in

life and to be treated at best with a compassionate patronage. And poor

Gwendolen had never dissociated happiness from personal pre-eminence

and _éclat_. That where these threatened to forsake her, she should

take life to be hardly worth the having, cannot make her so unlike the

rest of us, men or women, that we should cast her out of our

compassion; our moments of temptation to a mean opinion of things in

general being usually dependent on some susceptibility about ourselves

and some dullness to subjects which every one else would consider more

important. Surely a young creature is pitiable who has the labyrinth of

life before her and no clue—to whom distrust in herself and her good

fortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that

she was treading carelessly.

In spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected

her even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about

nothing; the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an

irritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed

unreasonable, because it did not include her feeling and was an

ignorant claim on her. It was not in her nature to busy herself with

the fancies of suicide to which disappointed young people are prone:

what occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing

for her but to live in a way she hated. She avoided going to the

rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if

she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest

about the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying on

purpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing.

Her mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when Anna

came to see her. For that calm which Gwendolen had promised herself to

maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, “I suppose

I shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?”

Her mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the

habit of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined

that Gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give

way to the possibility of making her darling less miserable.

One day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was

lingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging

Gwendolen’s articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the

casket which contained the ornaments.

“Mamma,” she began, glancing over the upper layer, “I had forgotten

these things. Why didn’t you remind me of them? Do see about getting

them sold. You will not mind about parting with them. You gave them all

to me long ago.”

She lifted the upper tray and looked below.

“If we can do without them, darling, I would rather keep them for you,”

said Mrs. Davilow, seating herself beside Gwendolen with a feeling of

relief that she was beginning to talk about something. The usual

relation between them had become reversed. It was now the mother who

tried to cheer the daughter. “Why, how came you to put that pocket

handkerchief in here?”

It was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which Gwendolen had

thrust in with the turquoise necklace.

“It happened to be with the necklace—I was in a hurry,” said

Gwendolen, taking the handkerchief away and putting it in her pocket.

“Don’t sell the necklace, mamma,” she added, a new feeling having come

over her about that rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive.

“No, dear, no; it was made out of your dear father’s chain. And I

should prefer not selling the other things. None of them are of any

great value. All my best ornaments were taken from me long ago.”

Mrs. Davilow colored. She usually avoided any reference to such facts

about Gwendolen’s step-father as that he had carried off his wife’s

jewelry and disposed of it. After a moment’s pause she went on,

“And these things have not been reckoned on for any expenses. Carry

them with you.”

“That would be quite useless, mamma,” said Gwendolen, coldly.

“Governesses don’t wear ornaments. You had better get me a gray frieze

livery and a straw poke, such as my aunt’s charity children wear.”

“No, dear, no; don’t take that view of it. I feel sure the Momperts

will like you the better for being graceful and elegant.”

“I am not at all sure what the Momperts will like me to be. It is

enough that I am expected to be what they like,” said Gwendolen

bitterly.

“If there is anything you would object to less—anything that could be

done—instead of your going to the bishop’s, do say so, Gwendolen. Tell

me what is in your heart. I will try for anything you wish,” said the

mother, beseechingly. “Don’t keep things away from me. Let us bear them

together.”

“Oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. I can’t do anything better. I

must think myself fortunate if they will have me. I shall get some

money for you. That is the only thing I have to think of. I shall not

spend any money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. I don’t

know how far that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your

poor fingers to the bone, and stare away all the sight that the tears

have left in your dear eyes.”

Gwendolen did not give any caresses with her words as she had been used

to do. She did not even look at her mother, but was looking at the

turquoise necklace as she turned it over her fingers.

“Bless you for your tenderness, my good darling!” said Mrs. Davilow,

with tears in her eyes. “Don’t despair because there are clouds now.

You are so young. There may be great happiness in store for you yet.”

“I don’t see any reason for expecting it, mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a

hard tone; and Mrs. Davilow was silent, thinking as she had often

thought before—“What did happen between her and Mr. Grandcourt?”

“I _will_ keep this necklace, mamma,” said Gwendolen, laying it apart

and then closing the casket. “But do get the other things sold, even if

they will not bring much. Ask my uncle what to do with them. I shall

certainly not use them again. I am going to take the veil. I wonder if

all the poor wretches who have ever taken it felt as I do.”

“Don’t exaggerate evils, dear.”

“How can any one know that I exaggerate, when I am speaking of my own

feeling? I did not say what any one else felt.”

She took out the torn handkerchief from her pocket again, and wrapped

it deliberately round the necklace. Mrs. Davilow observed the action

with some surprise, but the tone of her last words discouraged her from

asking any question.

The “feeling” Gwendolen spoke of with an air of tragedy was not to be

explained by the mere fact that she was going to be a governess: she

was possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. It was not simply

that she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste

spread itself over the world outside her penitentiary, since she saw

nothing very pleasant in it that seemed attainable by her even if she

were free. Naturally her grievances did not seem to her smaller than

some of her male contemporaries held theirs to be when they felt a

profession too narrow for their powers, and had an _à priori_

conviction that it was not worth while to put forth their latent

abilities. Because her education had been less expensive than theirs,

it did not follow that she should have wider emotions or a keener

intellectual vision. Her griefs were feminine; but to her as a woman

they were not the less hard to bear, and she felt an equal right to the

Promethean tone.

But the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, to fold it

up in the handkerchief, and rise to put it in her _nécessaire_, where

she had first placed it when it had been returned to her, was more

peculiar, and what would be called less reasonable. It came from that

streak of superstition in her which attached itself both to her

confidence and her terror—a superstition which lingers in an intense

personality even in spite of theory and science; any dread or hope for

self being stronger than all reasons for or against it. Why she should

suddenly determine not to part with the necklace was not much clearer

to her than why she should sometimes have been frightened to find

herself in the fields alone: she had a confused state of emotion about

Deronda—was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and

exceptional trust? It was something vague and yet mastering, which

impelled her to this action about the necklace. There is a great deal

of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account

in an explanation of our gusts and storms.