Gwendolen (10 page)

*

It was not my way to mope or dwell on obstacles. Morning brought the prospect of the hunt. We started at dawn, the Master sounded his horn, the hounds picked up the scent, Criterion was perfect and we went so fast and far through brush, undergrowth and meadows, jumping brooks and logs, I had no moments to doubt or fret. But as dusk came on that grey November afternoon, and the setting sun drew a streak of yellow in the west, I felt crushed by disappointment, for the day was gone, and you and I had not talked at all.

The Diplow party were escorting me home to Offendene; Grandcourt rode beside me, Mrs Torrington and her husband were just in front. I heard your horse behind me and the desire to speak with you overwhelmed me. As we passed through a wood of pines and beeches. I reined Criterion; Grandcourt also paused, so I waved my whip and affecting playful imperiousness said, ‘Go on. I want to speak to Mr Deronda.' He could not deny me. We were not married.

He rode on slowly. I waited for you. You came up alongside me. There was tacit acceptance now that it was you who had sent the necklace. I asked, ‘Why did you think it wrong of me to gamble? Is it because I am a woman?'

It was not only that, you said, though you regretted it the more because I was a woman, but you thought gambling an unhealthy thing and to rake in a heap of money at someone else's cost and loss revolted you. I pleaded we could not always help profiting at someone else's expense. You agreed, and said because of that we should help it where we could.

Self-reproach and doubt about my impending marriage washed through me. I resorted to flippancy. Why, I asked, should you the more regret my gambling because I was a woman?

You said, ‘Perhaps because men need that you should be better than we are.'

‘But suppose
women
need that men should be better than
we
are?' I countered.

‘That is a difficulty,' you said. ‘Perhaps I should have said we each of us think it would be better for the other to be good.'

‘There. You see?' I said. ‘I needed you to be better than I was and you thought the same,' and I urged Criterion on to join Grandcourt, who was worse than piqued.

‘Don't you want to know what I had to say to Mr Deronda?' I asked.

‘No' was his laconic reply. I chided him for his first impoliteness, but I was not yet cowed by him. ‘I wish to hear what you say to me – not to other men,' Grandcourt said.

I should have heeded this warning.

‘Then you will wish to hear this: I wanted to make him tell me why he objected to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon.'

‘Excuse me the sermon,' Grandcourt said.

I should have taken careful note of the ice in his voice.
He cared about my speaking to you, and he very much cared at my telling him to ride on. I was not to be allowed such impertinence again.

Grandcourt delivered me to Offendene, bade me farewell, then left that evening for his unspecified journey – to see Mrs Glasher and his four children at Gadsmere.

*

In the brief days of my engagement there was much to arrange: the dress, my trousseau, the wedding invitations. Only in the silence of night did doubt overwhelm me: your disapproval at the gambling tables, my broken promise to Lydia Glasher, self-disgust that I had agreed a mendacious contract, alarm at the life in store for me as Grandcourt's wife. I feared I had lost hold of the direction of my life and was falling, an endless fall.

Thoughts of your wise words and still demeanour calmed me. And thoughts of the lavish life I would soon lead: maids winding my watches, servants lighting the candles, my horses in the best of stables, my gowns pressed, my every whim indulged. I blocked my apprehension that marriage would entail more than Grandcourt's hated kissing of my neck below my ear. I closed my mind to what might happen when I went through the bedroom door.

*

The day of my wedding was bright, clear and cold. Half of Pennicote lined the pathway to the church to watch me walk from my carriage. Mine was a rags-to-riches tale: Grandcourt, the romantic hero, must be hopelessly in love to save a penniless girl from a governess's fate and her mother from Sawyer's Cottage. I was the princess bride, my dress of silk and satin, trimmed with Honiton appliqué lace, my coronet of jasmine and stephanotis. Mamma's eyes were pink from crying; Anna was a bridesmaid and she too cried, though perhaps on behalf of Rex. I was exultant, defiant, but my ecstasy was unreal, as if I had taken an opiate, my cheeks as white as my bridegroom's hands. I made the vows in a steady voice. Grandcourt slipped the gold ring on to my finger.

*

‘Thank God you take it so well, my darling,' mamma said when, back at Offendene in our room, she helped me from my bridal gown and into my travelling clothes. She made it sound like a tooth-pulling. I teased her tearful face. ‘I am Mrs Grandcourt,' I said and spread my arms wide. ‘You might have said that if I'd been going to Mrs Mompert. Remember, you were ready to die with vexation when you thought I would
not
be Mrs Grandcourt. Now I shall have everything: splendid houses, horses, diamonds … I shall be Lady Certainly and Lady This and That, and very grand, and always loving you better than anybody in the world.'

‘My dearest Gwen,' mamma said, ‘I shall not be jealous if you love your husband better, and he will expect to be first.' I told her that was a ridiculous expectation but that I would not treat him ill unless he deserved it.

I jested with the optimism of ignorance, of a playful creature who supposes the dark to be just a tunnel with light at its end. But then I wept, for I so wished mamma was coming with me into this new uncertain life. Uncle consoled her and they waved goodbye as Grandcourt led me from Offendene to the waiting carriage.

*

We were to go to Ryelands. A train journey of some fifty miles took us to the nearest railway station, where a carriage waited. It was twilight when we at last arrived at the gates. I was aware of a long winding drive, shadowy vistas of parkland, woodland, lakes and formal gardens, then a large white house, an imposing entrance porch, a pavilion tower, oriel windows. Even in the gloaming and in my febrile state I knew this was all as far from the Momperts as are diamonds from coal dust.

I chatted incessantly, excitedly. Grandcourt held my hand and squeezed it. I grasped his hand with both mine to stop this. ‘Here we are at home,' he said and for the first time kissed me on the lips, but I scarcely noticed, it was simply a gesture; a piece of theatre, part of the absorbing show.

Uniformed lackeys opened doors. I was shown long corridors, stately rooms with Corinthian columns, high ceilings, gilded zephyrs blowing trumpets, painted garlands, glittering chandeliers, formal portraits, Olympian statues. We ascended the tulip staircase like a king and queen.

‘These are our dens,' Grandcourt said, showing me into rooms three times the size of Sawyer's Cottage. ‘You will like to be quiet here until dinner. We shall dine early.' He pressed my hand to his lips, then withdrew.

Hudson, my maid, trained by the housekeeper, took my hat and cloak, curtsied and left. I threw myself into a chair by a glowing hearth. The room was decorated in pale-green satin, and I and it were reflected infinitely in mirrored panels. I wanted to be alone to absorb the warmth and luxury and get some grasp of who and where I was. The housekeeper knocked and entered. She was holding something. I asked her to tell Hudson to put my dress out, then leave me until I rang for her. She 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 ordered by Mr Grandcourt but he was not to know of its arrival until he saw you wear it.'

I had already guessed that here was the parure of diamonds Grandcourt said I was to have. I had not before worn diamonds. In the packet was a box containing a jewel case within which, as I opened it, the diamonds sparkled. Lying on them was a letter. I knew the handwriting. It was as if an adder were lying there. My hands trembled as I unfolded the thin paper:

My eyes skimmed the letter. I read it fast and once only. Its words etched into me. To this day I remember them:
broken your word … The man you have married has a withered heart … You had your warning … I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried … You will have your punishment … You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you have done me will be your curse.

I trembled and gasped for air, then turned and threw the letter into the fire. As I did so the casket fell to the floor and the diamonds scattered.
You had your warning … His best young love was mine … He had meant to marry me … You have chosen to injure me and my children … You will have your punishment. I desire it with all my soul …

I collapsed back into the chair, I do not know for how long. Grandcourt tapped at the door and entered dressed for dinner. My breathing turned to screams.

So began my husband's tyranny. He closed the door but made no move towards me. He said, ‘Stop screaming.' It was a command. He did not, he said, want his servants to think he had married some harpy from the gutter. ‘You are,' he said, ‘Mrs Grandcourt now.'

I became silent though I trembled still.

‘Pick up the diamonds,' he said, ‘and put them into their case.' I crawled the floor. ‘There is another under the chair,' he said. ‘Pick it up.' I picked it up.

‘I shall tell you when I wish you to wear them,' he said. His voice was uninflected, quiet, controlled, but oh so different from the morning and brief yesterdays of courtship. He was, he said, going down to dinner and would wait for me at table. I was to dress; he would send a servant for me in fifteen minutes. ‘You are tired,' he said, ‘after the journey. You are overwrought. We will retire early.' At the door he turned and added with what seemed like vitriol, ‘Mrs Grandcourt.' I cannot tell you how absolute my sense of isolation was.

*

The door closed. My explosion of terror was replaced by more vigilant fear. I wanted to run from this terrible place. I willed myself to be calm, breathe evenly and stop trembling. I longed for mamma to comfort me, longed for our black and yellow bedroom and my annoying sisters. I longed for you.

I put on my trousseau clothes. Hudson knocked at the door to say the master was waiting in the blue room. Under a sparkling chandelier a small table was set for two. Grandcourt behaved as if nothing had happened and nothing was amiss, but his voice now had authority unlaced with compliment and when I looked at him, which I tried not to do, I felt revulsion: the thin moustache, white skin, bald head and ice-cold eyes. The death's head and figure in flight were now incarnate.

A butler stood with silver dishes: shellfish, poultry, cheese. My plight was more terrible in this luxurious setting. I could not eat; I drank my wine. When the servant made to refill my glass, Grandcourt waved him away. The terms of the relationship were thus defined. Grandcourt's slanting grey eyes fixed on me and saw what they chose. I was his prey. His voice drawled. He talked of where we would go and when.

An eternity passed. I said I was tired after the events of the day. I wanted, needed, to sit alone in my room by the fire. Eventually he told me I might go. As I rose to leave, he said he would join me in an hour. I froze with apprehension at what might ensue.

In my room the windows were now shuttered, the cover turned down on the large bed, the organza drawn back between its posts. Candles flickered. I dared not look at the shadows of their flames on the walls lest they transform into the death's head, the snake coiled on the diamonds.

In the dressing table mirror I looked into my frightened eyes. I would not again kiss my own image. There was now, I knew, no way out. I tried to empty my mind and stifle my fear. I was unaware of the passing of time. The door handle turned.

He wore a nightshirt, his face was impassive, his movements unhurried. He asked why I was not in my nightclothes, why I was not in bed. I didn't know if there was derision in his voice. I said I felt homesick. There was no expression in his eyes. He held out his hand; I did not take it. I was to learn that any gesture from him, however small, was a command. He took my arm and raised me from the chair. I was wraith-like, a condemned soul.

*

Oh Deronda, please remember I had not so much as kissed a man or been caressed. My revulsion was absolute. Any suggestion of lovemaking felt like invasion. Men; I knew nothing of them beyond their admiration for me, and my flirtation with them, which was laced with scorn. I grew up without them. I hated my stepfather to come home, the way he took mamma from me, the unwanted attention he paid to me. I had no father of my own, no brother. The only closeness I had had was to dance the quadrille, the waltz or polka, with Rex or Clintock or Mr Middleton. Grandcourt had reassured me with his languid distance. I could not have known he sensed my profound terror and that this fed his desire, that he had a torturer's mind.

*

What happened next I have down the years hinted at but told no one. I have tried to excise it from my mind. It took me not from being a girl into a woman but from bright hope to deep despair. Grandcourt led me to the bed then gestured with a sweep of his arm for me to lie down. I trembled like a condemned creature, the lamb that smells the abattoir. I saw the writing of those terrible words:
The man you have married has a withered heart.
It was not that Grandcourt loved me more than Lydia Glasher: he wished to violate us equally.