第 二 章 · Chapter II

.

This man contrives a secret ’twixt us two,

That he may quell me with his meeting eyes

Like one who quells a lioness at bay.

This was the letter Gwendolen found on her table:

DEAREST CHILD.—I have been expecting to hear from you for a week. In

your last you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn and going

to Baden. How could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in

uncertainty about your address? I am in the greatest anxiety lest this

should not reach you. In any case, you were to come home at the end of

September, and I must now entreat you to return as quickly as

possible, for if you spent all your money it would be out of my power

to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the Langens, for I

could not repay them. This is the sad truth, my child—I wish I could

prepare you for it better—but a dreadful calamity has befallen us

all. You know nothing about business and will not understand it; but

Grapnell & Co. have failed for a million, and we are totally

ruined—your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, only that your uncle has his

benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest

for the boys, the family can go on. All the property our poor father

saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. There is nothing I can call

my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my

heart to have to tell it you. Of course we cannot help thinking what a

pity it was that you went away just when you did. But I shall never

reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I

could. On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the

change you will find. We shall perhaps leave Offendene at once, for we

hope that Mr. Haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it

off my hands. Of course we cannot go to the rectory—there is not a

corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us,

and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne’s charity, until I see what

else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the

tradesmen besides the servants’ wages. Summon up your fortitude, my

dear child; we must resign ourselves to God’s will. But it is hard to

resign one’s self to Mr. Lassman’s wicked recklessness, which they say

was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me

and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in

the cloud—I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant

for poverty. If the Langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put

yourself under some one else’s care for the journey. But come as soon

as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma,

FANNY DAVILOW.

The first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. The

implicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease,

where any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for,

had been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma’s, being fed there

by her youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a

large part of her consciousness. It was almost as difficult for her to

believe suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of

humiliating dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong

current of her blooming life the chill sense that her death would

really come. She stood motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off

her hat and automatically looked in the glass. The coils of her smooth

light-brown hair were still in order perfect enough for a ball-room;

and as on other nights, Gwendolen might have looked lingeringly at

herself for pleasure (surely an allowable indulgence); but now she took

no conscious note of her reflected beauty, and simply stared right

before her as if she had been jarred by a hateful sound and was waiting

for any sign of its cause. By-and-by she threw herself in the corner of

the red velvet sofa, took up the letter again and read it twice

deliberately, letting it at last fall on the ground, while she rested

her clasped hands on her lap and sat perfectly still, shedding no

tears. Her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than

to wail over it. There was no inward exclamation of “Poor mamma!” Her

mamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and if

Gwendolen had been at this moment disposed to feel pity she would have

bestowed it on herself—for was she not naturally and rightfully the

chief object of her mamma’s anxiety too? But it was anger, it was

resistance that possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost

her gains at roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this

one day she would have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might

have gone on playing and won enough to support them all. Even now was

it not possible? She had only four napoleons left in her purse, but she

possessed some ornaments which she could sell: a practice so common in

stylish society at German baths that there was no need to be ashamed of

it; and even if she had not received her mamma’s letter, she would

probably have decided to get money for an Etruscan necklace which she

happened not to have been wearing since her arrival; nay, she might

have done so with an agreeable sense that she was living with some

intensity and escaping humdrum. With ten louis at her disposal and a

return of her former luck, which seemed probable, what could she do

better than go on playing for a few days? If her friends at home

disapproved of the way in which she got the money, as they certainly

would, still the money would be there. Gwendolen’s imagination dwelt on

this course and created agreeable consequences, but not with unbroken

confidence and rising certainty as it would have done if she had been

touched with the gambler’s mania. She had gone to the roulette-table

not because of passion, but in search of it: her mind was still sanely

capable of picturing balanced probabilities, and while the chance of

winning allured her, the chance of losing thrust itself on her with

alternate strength and made a vision from which her pride sank

sensitively. For she was resolved not to tell the Langens that any

misfortune had befallen her family, or to make herself in any way

indebted to their compassion; and if she were to part with her jewelry

to any observable extent, they would interfere by inquiries and

remonstrances. The course that held the least risk of intolerable

annoyance was to raise money on her necklace early in the morning, tell

the Langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving

a reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening. She had no maid

with her, and the Langens might make difficulties about her returning

home, but her will was peremptory.

Instead of going to bed she made as brilliant a light as she could and

began to pack, working diligently, though all the while visited by the

scenes that might take place on the coming day—now by the tiresome

explanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed

home, now by the alternative of staying just another day and standing

again at the roulette-table. But always in this latter scene there was

the presence of that Deronda, watching her with exasperating irony,

and—the two keen experiences were inevitably revived

together—beholding her again forsaken by luck. This importunate image

certainly helped to sway her resolve on the side of immediate

departure, and to urge her packing to the point which would make a

change of mind inconvenient. It had struck twelve when she came into

her room, and by the time she was assuring herself that she had left

out only what was necessary, the faint dawn was stealing through the

white blinds and dulling her candles. What was the use of going to bed?

Her cold bath was refreshment enough, and she saw that a slight trace

of fatigue about the eyes only made her look the more interesting.

Before six o’clock she was completely equipped in her gray traveling

dress even to her felt hat, for she meant to walk out as soon as she

could count on seeing other ladies on their way to the springs. And

happening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between

her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the

back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her

portrait. It is possible to have a strong self-love without any

self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more

intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a

supreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had

a _naïve_ delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest

saintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day

seen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends’ flattery as

well as in the looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles,

while for lack of anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in

the growing light, her face gathered a complacency gradual as the

cheerfulness of the morning. Her beautiful lips curled into a more and

more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward

and kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. How could she

believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it,

to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything

seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great

or small.

Madame von Langen never went out before breakfast, so that Gwendolen

could safely end her early walk by taking her way homeward through the

Obere Strasse in which was the needed shop, sure to be open after

seven. At that hour any observers whom she minded would be either on

their walks in the region of the springs, or would be still in their

bedrooms; but certainly there was one grand hotel, the _Czarina_ from

which eyes might follow her up to Mr. Wiener’s door. This was a chance

to be risked: might she not be going in to buy something which had

struck her fancy? This implicit falsehood passed through her mind as

she remembered that the _Czarina_ was Deronda’s hotel; but she was then

already far up the Obere Strasse, and she walked on with her usual

floating movement, every line in her figure and drapery falling in

gentle curves attractive to all eyes except those which discerned in

them too close a resemblance to the serpent, and objected to the

revival of serpent-worship. She looked neither to the right hand nor to

the left, and transacted her business in the shop with a coolness which

gave little Mr. Wiener nothing to remark except her proud grace of

manner, and the superior size and quality of the three central

turquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a

chain once her father’s: but she had never known her father; and the

necklace was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently

part with. Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be

superstitious and rationalizing at the same time? Roulette encourages a

romantic superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most

prosaic rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of

raising needful money. Gwendolen’s dominant regret was that after all

she had only nine louis to add to the four in her purse: these Jew

dealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians

unfortunate at play! But she was the Langens’ guest in their hired

apartment, and had nothing to pay there: thirteen louis would do more

than take her home; even if she determined on risking three, the

remaining ten would more than suffice, since she meant to travel right

on, day and night. As she turned homeward, nay, entered and seated

herself in the _salon_ to await her friends and breakfast, she still

wavered as to her immediate departure, or rather she had concluded to

tell the Langens simply that she had had a letter from her mamma

desiring her return, and to leave it still undecided when she should

start. It was already the usual breakfast-time, and hearing some one

enter as she was leaning back rather tired and hungry with her eyes

shut, she rose expecting to see one or other of the Langens—the words

which might determine her lingering at least another day, ready-formed

to pass her lips. But it was the servant bringing in a small packet for

Miss Harleth, which had at that moment been left at the door. Gwendolen

took it in her hand and immediately hurried into her own room. She

looked paler and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma’s

letter. Something—she never quite knew what—revealed to her before

she opened the packet that it contained the necklace she had just

parted with. Underneath the paper it was wrapped in a cambric

handkerchief, and within this was a scrap of torn-off note-paper, on

which was written with a pencil, in clear but rapid handwriting—“_A

stranger who has found Miss Harleth’s necklace returns it to her with

the hope that she will not again risk the loss of it._”

Gwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. A large corner

of the handkerchief seemed to have been recklessly torn off to get rid

of a mark; but she at once believed in the first image of “the

stranger” that presented itself to her mind. It was Deronda; he must

have seen her go into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after

and repurchased the necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and

had dared to place her in a thoroughly hateful position. What could she

do?—Not, assuredly, act on her conviction that it was he who had sent

her the necklace and straightway send it back to him: that would be to

face the possibility that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the

“stranger” were he and no other, it would be something too gross for

her to let him know that she had divined this, and to meet him again

with that recognition in their minds. He knew very well that he was

entangling her in helpless humiliation: it was another way of smiling

at her ironically, and taking the air of a supercilious mentor.

Gwendolen felt the bitter tears of mortification rising and rolling

down her cheeks. No one had ever before dared to treat her with irony

and contempt. One thing was clear: she must carry out her resolution to

quit this place at once; it was impossible for her to reappear in the

public _salon_, still less stand at the gaming-table with the risk of

seeing Deronda. Now came an importunate knock at the door: breakfast

was ready. Gwendolen with a passionate movement thrust necklace,

cambric, scrap of paper, and all into her _nécessaire_, pressed her

handkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute or two to

summon back her proud self-control, went to join her friends. Such

signs of tears and fatigue as were left seemed accordant enough with

the account she at once gave of her having sat up to do her packing,

instead of waiting for help from her friend’s maid. There was much

protestation, as she had expected, against her traveling alone, but she

persisted in refusing any arrangements for companionship. She would be

put into the ladies’ compartment and go right on. She could rest

exceedingly well in the train, and was afraid of nothing.

In this way it happened that Gwendolen never reappeared at the

roulette-table, but that Thursday evening left Leubronn for Brussels,

and on Saturday morning arrived at Offendene, the home to which she and

her family were soon to say a last good-bye.