Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (436 page)

“How far are you come?” said Mrs. Glasher, as Grandcourt put away his hat and overcoat.

“From Diplow,” he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her and looking at her with an unnoting gaze which she noted.

“You are tired, then.”

“No, I rested at the Junction — a hideous hole. These railway journeys are always a confounded bore. But I had coffee and smoked.”

Grandcourt drew out his handkerchief, rubbed his face, and in returning the handkerchief to his pocket looked at his crossed knee and blameless boot, as if any stranger were opposite to him, instead of a woman quivering with a suspense which every word and look of his was to incline toward hope or dread. But he was really occupied with their interview and what it was likely to include. Imagine the difference in rate of emotion between this woman whom the years had worn to a more conscious dependence and sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were dulling into a more neutral obstinacy.

“I expected to see you — it was so long since I had heard from you. I suppose the weeks seem longer at Gadsmere than they do at Diplow,” said Mrs. Glasher. She had a quick, incisive way of speaking that seemed to go with her features, as the tone and
timbre
of a violin go with its form.

“Yes,” drawled Grandcourt. “But you found the money paid into the bank.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. Always before — at least she fancied so — Grandcourt had taken more notice of her and the children than he did to-day.

“Yes,” he resumed, playing with his whisker, and at first not looking at her, “the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace with me; generally it is slow enough. But there has been a good deal happening, as you know” — here he turned his eyes upon her.

“What do I know?” said she, sharply.

He left a pause before he said, without change of manner, “That I was thinking of marrying. You saw Miss Harleth?”

“
She
told you that?”

The pale cheeks looked even paler, perhaps from the fierce brightness in the eyes above them.

“No. Lush told me,” was the slow answer. It was as if the thumb-screw and the iron boot were being placed by creeping hands within sight of the expectant victim.

“Good God! say at once that you are going to marry her,” she burst out, passionately, her knees shaking and her hands tightly clasped.

“Of course, this kind of thing must happen some time or other, Lydia,” said he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the pain worse.

“You didn’t always see the necessity.”

“Perhaps not. I see it now.”

In those few under-toned words of Grandcourt’s she felt as absolute a resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron door. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any appeal — shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, only to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. She did not weep nor speak; she was too hard pressed by the sudden certainty which had as much of chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. The defeated clutch of struggling hope gave her in these first moments a horrible sensation. At last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, unconscious of every thing but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead against the hard, cold glass of the window. The children, playing on the gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted them, and, running forward, stood in front of her with their sweet faces upturned expectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them off, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back in the nearest chair.

Grandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed — at the scene itself, and at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it; but the task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative necessity of arranging things so that there should be as little annoyance as possible in the future. He was leaning against the corner of the fire-place. She looked up at him and said, bitterly —

“All this is of no consequence to you. I and the children are importunate creatures. You wish to get away again and be with Miss Harleth.”

“Don’t make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. Lydia. It is of no use to harp on things that can’t be altered. Of course, its deucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. I’ve taken this journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to — you and the children will be provided for as usual — and there’s an end of it.”

Silence. She dared not answer. This woman with the intense, eager look had had the iron of the mother’s anguish in her soul, and it had made her sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and struggle. But underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and vindictiveness: she wished that the marriage might make two others wretched, besides herself. Presently he went on —

“It will be better for you. You may go on living here. But I think of by-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live where you like. There will be nothing for you to complain of then. Whatever happens, you will feel secure. Nothing could be done beforehand. Every thing has gone on in a hurry.”

Grandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. He did not expect her to thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented; if it were possible for Lydia to be contented. She showed no change, and after a minute he said —

“You have never had any reason to fear that I should be illiberal. I don’t care a curse about the money.”

“If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us,” said
Lydia. The sarcasm was irrepressible.

“That’s a devilishly unfair thing to say,” Grandcourt replied, in a lower tone; “and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again.”

“Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?” In spite of herself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other.

“There is no question about leaving the children in beggary,” said Grandcourt, still in his low voice. “I advise you not to say things that you will repent of.”

“I am used to repenting,” said she, bitterly. “Perhaps you will repent.
You have already repented of loving me.”

“All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again.
What friend have you besides me?”

“Quite true.”

The words came like a low moan. At the same moment there flashed through her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness than that he had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness which would drive him back to her to find some memory of a time when he was young, glad, and hopeful. But no! he would go scathless; it was she that had to suffer.

With this the scorching words were ended. Grandcourt had meant to stay till evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable train earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still to speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a second surgical operation seemed to require an interval. The hours had to go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in — all this mechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of constraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind. To Lydia it was some slight relief for her stifled fury to have the children present: she felt a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it would taunt Grandcourt with his indifference to her and them — a secret darting of venom which was strongly imaginative. He acquitted himself with all the advantage of a man whose grace of bearing has long been moulded on an experience of boredom — nursed the little Antonia, who sat with her hands crossed and eyes upturned to his bald head, which struck her as worthy of observation — and propitiated Henleigh by promising him a beautiful saddle and bridle. It was only the two eldest girls who had known him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had overlaid their infantine memories with a bashfulness which Grandcourt’s bearing was not likely to dissipate. He and Lydia occasionally, in the presence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they never spoke; and the stagnant thought in Grandcourt’s mind all the while was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds, which obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking about them. He had an ingrained care for what he held to belong to his caste, and about property he liked to be lordly; also he had a consciousness of indignity to himself in having to ask for anything in the world. But however he might assert his independence of Mrs. Glasher’s past, he had made a past for himself which was a stronger yoke than any he could impose. He must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to Gwendolen.

At last they were alone again, with the candles above them, face to face with each other. Grandcourt looked at his watch, and then said, in an apparently indifferent drawl, “There is one thing I had to mention, Lydia. My diamonds — you have them.”

“Yes, I have them,” she answered promptly, rising and standing with her arms thrust down and her fingers threaded, while Grandcourt sat still. She had expected the topic, and made her resolve about it. But she meant to carry out her resolve, if possible, without exasperating him. During the hours of silence she had longed to recall the words which had only widened the breach between them.

“They are in this house, I suppose?”

“No; not in this house.”

“I thought you said you kept them by you.”

“When I said so it was true. They are in the bank at Dudley.”

“Get them away, will you? I must make an arrangement for your delivering them to some one.”

“Make no arrangement. They shall be delivered to the person you intended them for.
I
will make the arrangement.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say. I have always told you that I would give them up to your wife. I shall keep my word. She is not your wife yet.”

“This is foolery,” said Grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. It was too irritating that this indulgence of Lydia had given her a sort of mastery over him in spite of dependent condition.

She did not speak. He also rose now, but stood leaning against the mantle-piece with his side-face toward her.

“The diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage,” he began again.

“What is your wedding-day?”

“The tenth. There is no time to be lost.”

“And where do you go after the marriage?”

He did not reply except by looking more sullen. Presently he said, “You must appoint a day before then, to get them from the bank and meet me — or somebody else I will commission; — it’s a great nuisance, Mention a day.”

“No; I shall not do that. They shall be delivered to her safely. I shall keep my word.”

“Do you mean to say,” said Grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face her, “that you will not do as I tell you?”

“Yes, I mean that,” was the answer that leaped out, while her eyes flashed close to him. The poor creature was immediately conscious that if her words had any effect on her own lot, the effect must be mischievous, and might nullify all the remaining advantage of her long patience. But the word had been spoken.

He was in a position the most irritating to him. He could not shake her nor touch her hostilely; and if he could, the process would not bring his mother’s diamonds. He shrank from the only sort of threat that would frighten her — if she believed it. And in general, there was nothing he hated more than to be forced into anything like violence even in words: his will must impose itself without trouble. After looking at her for a moment, he turned his side-face toward her again, leaning as before, and said —

“Infernal idiots that women are!”

“Why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? I could be at the wedding if I liked, and learn in that way,” said Lydia, not shrinking from the one suicidal form of threat within her power.

“Of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman,” said Grandcourt, with
sotto voce
scorn. “It is not to be supposed that you will wait to think what good will come of it — or what you owe to me.”