Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (480 page)

CHAPTER LVI
.

  ”The pang, the curse with which they died,
    Had never passed away:
  I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
    Nor lift them up to pray.”
                                  — COLERIDGE.

Deronda did not take off his clothes that night. Gwendolen, after insisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed, had been perfectly quiet, and had only asked him, with a whispering, repressed eagerness, to promise that he would come to her when she sent for him in the morning. Still, the possibility that a change might come over her, the danger of a supervening feverish condition, and the suspicion that something in the late catastrophe was having an effect which might betray itself in excited words, acted as a foreboding within him. He mentioned to her attendant that he should keep himself ready to be called if there were any alarming change of symptoms, making it understood by all concerned that he was in communication with her friends in England, and felt bound meanwhile to take all care on her behalf — a position which it was the easier for him to assume, because he was well known to Grandcourt’s valet, the only old servant who had come on the late voyage.

But when fatigue from the strangely various emotion of the day at last sent Deronda to sleep, he remained undisturbed except by the morning dreams, which came as a tangled web of yesterday’s events, and finally waked him, with an image drawn by his pressing anxiety.

Still, it was morning, and there had been no summons — an augury which cheered him while he made his toilet, and reflected that it was too early to send inquiries. Later, he learned that she had passed a too wakeful night, but had shown no violent signs of agitation, and was at last sleeping. He wondered at the force that dwelt in this creature, so alive to dread; for he had an irresistible impression that even under the effects of a severe physical shock she was mastering herself with a determination of concealment. For his own part, he thought that his sensibilities had been blunted by what he had been going through in the meeting with his mother: he seemed to himself now to be only fulfilling claims, and his more passionate sympathy was in abeyance. He had lately been living so keenly in an experience quite apart from Gwendolen’s lot, that his present cares for her were like a revisiting of scenes familiar in the past, and there was not yet a complete revival of the inward response to them.

Meanwhile he employed himself in getting a formal, legally recognized statement from the fisherman who had rescued Gwendolen. Few details came to light. The boat in which Grandcourt had gone out had been found drifting with its sail loose, and had been towed in. The fishermen thought it likely that he had been knocked overboard by the flapping of the sail while putting about, and that he had not known how to swim; but, though they were near, their attention had been first arrested by a cry which seemed like that of a man in distress, and while they were hastening with their oars, they heard a shriek from the lady, and saw her jump in.

On re-entering the hotel, Deronda was told that Gwendolen had risen, and was desiring to see him. He was shown into a room darkened by blinds and curtains, where she was seated with a white shawl wrapped round her, looking toward the opening door like one waiting uneasily. But her long hair was gathered up and coiled carefully, and, through all, the blue stars in her ears had kept their place: as she started impulsively to her full height, sheathed in her white shawl, her face and neck not less white, except for a purple line under her eyes, her lips a little apart with the peculiar expression of one accused and helpless, she looked like the unhappy ghost of that Gwendolen Harleth whom Deronda had seen turning with firm lips and proud self-possession from her losses at the gaming table. The sight pierced him with pity, and the effects of all their past relations began to revive within him.

“I beseech you to rest — not to stand,” said Deronda, as he approached her; and she obeyed, falling back into her chair again.

“Will you sit down near me?” she said. “I want to speak very low.”

She was in a large arm-chair, and he drew a small one near to her side.
The action seemed to touch her peculiarly: turning her pale face full
upon his, which was very near, she said, in the lowest audible tone,
“You know I am a guilty woman?”

Deronda himself turned paler as he said, “I know nothing.” He did not dare to say more.

“He is dead.” She uttered this with the same undertoned decision.

“Yes,” said Deronda, in a mournful suspense which made him reluctant to speak.

“His face will not be seen above the water again,” said Gwendolen, in a tone that was not louder, but of a suppressed eagerness, while she held both her hands clenched.

“No.”

“Not by any one else — only by me — a dead face — I shall never get away from it.”

It was with an inward voice of desperate self-repression that she spoke these last words, while she looked away from Deronda toward something at a distance from her on the floor. She was seeing the whole event — her own acts included — through an exaggerating medium of excitement and horror? Was she in a state of delirium into which there entered a sense of concealment and necessity for self-repression? Such thoughts glanced through Deronda as a sort of hope. But imagine the conflict of feeling that kept him silent. She was bent on confession, and he dreaded hearing her confession. Against his better will he shrank from the task that was laid on him: he wished, and yet rebuked the wish as cowardly, that she could bury her secrets in her own bosom. He was not a priest. He dreaded the weight of this woman’s soul flung upon his own with imploring dependence. But she spoke again, hurriedly, looking at him —

“You will not say that I ought to tell the world? you will not say that I ought to be disgraced? I could not do it. I could not bear it. I cannot have my mother know. Not if I were dead. I could not have her know. I must tell you; but you will not say that any one else should know.”

“I can say nothing in my ignorance,” said Deronda, mournfully, “except that I desire to help you.”

“I told you from the beginning — as soon as I could — I told you I was afraid of myself.” There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in which Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. “I felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit — contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got worse — all things got worse. That is why I asked you to come to me in town. I thought then I would tell you the worst about myself. I tried. But I could not tell everything. And
he
came in.”

She paused, while a shudder passed through her; but soon went on.

“I will tell you everything now. Do you think a woman who cried, and prayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?”

“Great God!” said Deronda, in a deep, shaken voice, “don’t torture me needlessly. You have not murdered him. You threw yourself into the water with the impulse to save him. Tell me the rest afterward. This death was an accident that you could not have hindered.”

“Don’t be impatient with me.” The tremor, the childlike beseeching in these words compelled Deronda to turn his head and look at her face. The poor quivering lips went on. “You said — you used to say — you felt more for those who had done something wicked and were miserable; you said they might get better — they might be scourged into something better. If you had not spoken in that way, Everything would have been worse. I
did
remember all you said to me. It came to me always. It came to me at the very last — that was the reason why I — But now, if you cannot bear with me when I tell you everything — if you turn away from me and forsake me, what shall I do? Am I worse than I was when you found me and wanted to make me better? All the wrong I have done was in me then — and more — and more — if you had not come and been patient with me. And now — will you forsake me?”

Her hands, which had been so tightly clenched some minutes before, were now helplessly relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair. Her quivering lips remained parted as she ceased speaking. Deronda could not answer; he was obliged to look away. He took one of her hands, and clasped it as if they were going to walk together like two children: it was the only way in which he could answer, “I will not forsake you.” And all the while he felt as if he were putting his name to a blank paper which might be filled up terribly. Their attitude, his adverted face with its expression of a suffering which he was solemnly resolved to undergo, might have told half the truth of the situation to a beholder who had suddenly entered.

That grasp was an entirely new experience to Gwendolen: she had never before had from any man a sign of tenderness which her own being had needed, and she interpreted its powerful effect on her into a promise of inexhaustible patience and constancy. The stream of renewed strength made it possible for her to go on as she had begun — with that fitful, wandering confession where the sameness of experience seems to nullify the sense of time or of order in events. She began again in a fragmentary way —

“All sorts of contrivances in my mind — but all so difficult. And I fought against them — I was terrified at them — I saw his dead face” — here her voice sank almost to a whisper close to Deronda’s ear — “ever so long ago I saw it and I wished him to be dead. And yet it terrified me. I was like two creatures. I could not speak — I wanted to kill — it was as strong as thirst — and then directly — I felt beforehand I had done something dreadful, unalterable — that would make me like an evil spirit. And it came — it came.”

She was silent a moment or two, as if her memory had lost itself in a web where each mesh drew all the rest.

“It had all been in my mind when I first spoke to you — when we were at the Abbey. I had done something then. I could not tell you that. It was the only thing I did toward carrying out my thoughts. They went about over everything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams — all but one. I did one act — and I never undid it — it is there still — as long ago as when we were at Ryelands. There it was — something my fingers longed for among the beautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir — small and sharp like a long willow leaf in a silver sheath. I locked it in the drawer of my dressing-case. I was continually haunted with it and how I should use it. I fancied myself putting it under my pillow. But I never did. I never looked at it again. I dared not unlock the drawer: it had a key all to itself; and not long ago, when we were in the yacht, I dropped the key into the deep water. It was my wish to drop it and deliver myself. After that I began to think how I could open the drawer without the key: and when I found we were to stay at Genoa, it came into my mind that I could get it opened privately at the hotel. But then, when we were going up the stairs, I met you; and I thought I should talk to you alone and tell you this — everything I could not tell you in town; and then I was forced to go out in the boat.”

A sob had for the first time risen with the last words, and she sank back in her chair. The memory of that acute disappointment seemed for the moment to efface what had come since. Deronda did not look at her, but he said, insistently —

“And it has all remained in your imagination. It has gone on only in your thought. To the last the evil temptation has been resisted?”

There was silence. The tears had rolled down her cheeks. She pressed her handkerchief against them and sat upright. She was summoning her resolution; and again, leaning a little toward Deronda’s ear, she began in a whisper —

“No, no; I will tell you everything as God knows it. I will tell you no falsehood; I will tell you the exact truth. What should I do else? I used to think I could never be wicked. I thought of wicked people as if they were a long way off me. Since then I have been wicked. I have felt wicked. And everything has been a punishment to me — all the things I used to wish for — it is as if they had been made red-hot. The very daylight has often been a punishment to me. Because — you know — I ought not to have married. That was the beginning of it. I wronged some one else. I broke my promise. I meant to get pleasure for myself, and it all turned to misery. I wanted to make my gain out of another’s loss — you remember? — it was like roulette — and the money burned into me. And I could not complain. It was as if I had prayed that another should lose and I should win. And I had won, I knew it all — I knew I was guilty. When we were on the sea, and I lay awake at night in the cabin, I sometimes felt that everything I had done lay open without excuse — nothing was hidden — how could anything be known to me only? — it was not my own knowledge, it was God’s that had entered into me, and even the stillness — everything held a punishment for me — everything but you. I always thought that you would not want me to be punished — you would have tried and helped me to be better. And only thinking of that helped me. You will not change — you will not want to punish me now?”