Gwendolen (17 page)

Sir Hugo learned from Lush of the bad feeling between Grandcourt and me and about Mrs Glasher and their children. The will stipulated, as I knew, that Grandcourt's estate go to Mrs Glasher's boy. I was bequeathed two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere.

It was not that Grandcourt cared overly for his son but he would not tolerate the notion that financed by him I might enjoy time with you. He knew you belonged to Topping Abbey, and that it pained me for you to be denied your home on his account. Sir Hugo was disgusted. Grandcourt, he said, intended his death to put an extinguisher on me. He had married me so should have made provision for me to continue living in a style fitting to the rank to which he raised me. Sir Hugo thought I ought to have had four or five thousand a year and the London house for life. He said he was not obliged to think better of the man because he had drowned, and in his view nothing in Grandcourt's life became him like the leaving of it. Nor did Sir Hugo hide his satisfaction that Grandcourt was not to be master of the Abbey. Your view was that Grandcourt's wrongdoing was in marrying me, not in leaving his estate to his son.

Uncle, deeply offended by the will, blamed himself for omitting at the time of the marriage to bind Grandcourt to provision for me. Only now did he choose to remember rumours of entanglements and dissipation which previously he found convenient to overlook. He resisted telling mamma about Mrs Glasher and her children, but mamma, though too diffident to question me, had intuited something was wrong. I told her I was unsure what I would accept from the will and she must not try to persuade or dissuade me on such matters. I implored her not to cry, promised to ensure she would have eight hundred a year and said I intended to be so wise, good and sweet to her she would not know me.

You told Sir Hugo about my unhappiness in the marriage and how you thought I would not mind about the disposal of the property. He said this made me unlike other women, but you were right: I wanted nothing from Grandcourt and no reminder of him.

That same day you left for Mainz. I resolved to ask you, on your return, whether I ought to refuse to accept any of Grandcourt's money.

*

Within two days we all left Genoa. I never wanted to see the Mediterranean again. In a trance I did what was expected of me. I was compliant but not present. I could not talk to mamma about my marriage or the true manner of Grandcourt's death out of fear of causing anxiety to her.

*

I did not want to re-enter any of the houses I had lived in with Grandcourt. Kind Sir Hugo asked me to look on him as my protector and friend, called me ‘my dear', said my being badly treated made him feel nearer to me, opened his Park Lane house to mamma and me while mourning and other matters were attended to and for as long as we liked after that, and arranged for my possessions to be collected from Grosvenor Square and taken there. At Park Lane a bed was made up for me in the same room as mamma's. At night she lay wakeful, hoping to help me. I cried out for her but when she suggested giving me a sleeping draught I chastised her.

Sir Hugo absolved me from any dealings with Lush or my uncle on practical matters to do with the will. He informed me I would have enough money to provide for mamma and my sisters and, as Offendene was again free, advised us to return there and try to recreate life as it had been only a year before.

*

Grandcourt's body was not washed ashore. A memorial service was held which Mrs Glasher and her children attended. We eyed each other from behind our veils. I offered my hand to her but she turned away.

*

Sir Hugo spent some days at the Abbey then returned to help me. I said in front of mamma, ‘Sir Hugo, I wish to see Mr Deronda again as soon as possible. I don't know his address. Will you tell it me or let him know I want to see him?'

He said, ‘I am sure he will want to obey your wish,' and that when you returned from Mainz, if you went to the Abbey he would give you the message, or send a note to your chambers. Sir Hugo was convinced of my passionate attachment to you, and supposed you to be in love with me. Though plans and expectations were not to be countenanced, mere days after Grandcourt's death, he viewed it as natural and right we should be together now the apparent obstacle to our being so had been removed.

*

You agreed to come to Park Lane. I waited alone for you in the white and crimson drawing room, with the lions on the pilasters of the chimney piece and Lady Mallinger's smiling portrait looking down. I thought of how, when we sat together on the small settee at her musical party, despite Grandcourt's surveillance I told you my life depended on your not forsaking me, but it was Miss Lapidoth who sang ‘Per pieta, non dirmi addio': ‘For pity's sake, do not leave me.'

I was joyous I could now see you without fear of reprisal. I wore black and no jewellery except the turquoise chain. You looked apprehensive. I said, it was good of you to come and that I wanted your advice: you knew the terms of my husband's will. Ought I, in the light of my wrongdoing, take anything that had once been his? I admitted I married Grandcourt because I was afraid of penury and the dreary confinement of life as a governess, but in the marriage I had borne far worse things and could be poor now if you thought that right, though it would be hard for me to see mamma in poverty again. I was selfish, but I loved her, and even at my most miserable and desperate, knowing she was better off had in a small way comforted me. I was very precious to her and Grandcourt had taken me from her and tried to keep us apart … If, I asked you, I took enough to provide for her but nothing for myself, would that still be wrong?

My tears came, though I tried to be calm. Your view was clear: I should abide by the provisions of the will. The case was straightforward and I should not punish myself further. Grandcourt chose to enter my life and affect its course in the most momentous way. He had an obligation to provide for me and mamma. If I took just £800 for her and abjured the rest it would create an uncomfortable predicament for her. She would not want income from me from which I was cut out. ‘You are conscious of something which you feel to be a crime towards one who is dead,' you said. ‘You think you have forfeited all claim as a wife. You shrink from taking what was his.' You advised me not to speak about my guilt to mamma or anyone else, and to let my remorse show in the use I made of my monetary independence.

You took up your hat. You wanted to leave. It was as if, having had a duty to perform, you now wanted to turn to other matters. As ever, my heart lurched at the prospect of your going. I stood up, I said I would do as you advised but what else must I do? I tried to check my tears as again on your face I saw that mix of compassion and desire to be gone. You asked if I was going with mamma to the country. In a week or ten days, I said. That was the best I could do at this time, you thought – to be with her and my sisters. Other plans would follow. ‘Think that a severe angel seeing you along the road of error grasped you by the wrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. It has come to you in your springtime. Think of it as a preparation. You can, you will, be among the best of women, such as make others glad that they were born.'

I felt unreal. You spoke of the promise of salvation and the prospect of a new life, but I had no idea what that life might be. I felt inseparable from you. With all the longing of my heart I wanted you in my life. Again you held my hand. You said you must not weary me, that I looked ill and unlike myself. I tried to be calm. I said I could not sleep, memories tormented me: Grandcourt's face as he rose from the sea, the woman at the Whispering Stones. In time such memories would lessen, you said, but I did not know how, or with what they might be replaced.

I would have said anything, done anything, to make you stay but pleading was importunate. Again I asked if you intended to stay at Diplow or at the Abbey with Sir Hugo.

You were noncommittal, you gave a vague assurance you would visit Diplow, then moved to the door. I asked you to come to Park Lane once more before I left town. If you could be of use, you said, if I wished it, but there was reluctance in your face and hesitation in your words. I cried the more, implored you, said I had no strength without you. Yes, you would come, you said, but you looked miserable. I tried to control myself and to appear brave. I said I would remember your words, remember your belief in me; I asked you not to be unhappy about me.

*

You were my world. I trusted and admired you and yearned for you to be with me, to redeem me, for you to know my better nature not just my troubled heart. I had not consciously thought of marriage to you but I could not bear separation from you. I loved you.

*

I endured a difficult week then dared to ask you to visit again. I was in limbo, overwhelmed by the horror of what I had done. My summons disturbed you. You had seen too much of my despair. I was making demands on you that you were unable to fulfil. A year previously you might have moved to save me from sorrow and to carry to a conclusion the rescue begun with your redemption of the necklace. But unbeknown to me momentous things had happened to you. I was to learn of these. I was too absorbed in my own world to observe anything of yours other than that you pitied me but could not respond to my appeal.

Mamma spoke to you of the plan, now I had decided to accept my income, for us all to return as a family to Offendene, and of her hope I would piece back my life to what it was when we first went there and I was happy. You talked of the tranquillity of the countryside and the consolation and healing power of family life. I took your approval of the plan as rejection and a desire for others to bear the burden of caring for me. You revealed nothing of your life or intentions and I asked you no questions. Not even why you had been in Genoa.

*

Some weeks later, on your next visit to Sir Hugo at Diplow, but before mamma, my sisters and I had returned to Offendene, you called uninvited to see me at the White House. We sat alone together in the drawing room. I was composed. Jocasta brought us tea. I apologised for having caused you pain and being so full of grief and despair on your previous visit, and thanked you for all you had done for me in Genoa and after. You looked at me with concern. Hesitantly you said you were troubled: you had things to tell me affecting your own life and future which you should have told me before, had my own affairs not been so pressing. I thought you must be referring to matters concerning Sir Hugo and his property. I apologised for having been so bothersome and for giving you no choice but to try to help me.

Then you gave your startling news: in Genoa you had found out who your parents were. You had gone there at the summons of your unknown mother, who, when you were a baby and after your father's death, had given you away to Sir Hugo. You showed me a jewelled locket with her portrait in it. I supposed the locket had significance, like Grandcourt's diamonds. Her gaze was familiar: it was as if the portrait was of me; our colouring was different, she was dark and I fair, but I thought I saw reflected my own pride and loneliness.

She had sworn Sir Hugo to secrecy. Now, mortally ill, she had wanted before she died to explain to you her motives for abandoning you to him. ‘Her chief reason had been she did not wish me to know I was a Jew,' you said.

‘A
Jew
!' I am embarrassed to remember how I blurted the word and the look you then gave me of sharp reproach. To retract my blunder, I said, ‘What difference need that have made? I hope there is nothing to make you mind. You are just the same as if you were not a Jew.'

A chasm widened between us. You told me you were more than glad of it. You were overjoyed. I did not understand: why should you or anyone be overjoyed to be a Jew? Then you said how, in the past few months, you had become intimate with a remarkable Jew whose ideas so attracted you that you were going to devote the best part of your life to living out those ideas. To do this you must leave England for some years and travel to the East.

I did not know what you were talking about. I had no clue what those ideas could be or what living them out might mean, beyond my exclusion. What I did understand was that you were going away. Afflicted with anxiety at the prospect I felt my mouth tremble and I began to cry. I pleaded, ‘But you will come back?'

You huddled in your coat and moved to the mantelpiece. If you lived you would return at some time, you said.

‘What are you going to
do
?' I asked. ‘Can I understand the ideas or am I too ignorant?'

You said, or I think you said, you were journeying to the East to restore a political existence to ‘your people', the ‘chosen people', who, though in a covenant with God, were scattered in different countries. You wanted to help restore them to Palestine so as to form a nation again. You saw this as your duty according to the Jewish scriptures. You were resolved to devote your whole life to this cause and to awakening it in others' minds in the way it had been awakened in yours.

*

What was I to think? Who were these scattered people and how were you to find them and herd them in? I felt confused, crushed. I, it seemed, was not one of ‘your people', not one of the chosen. You intended a holy crusade from which I was excluded by birth. Your cause had nothing to do with me. I was the unchosen, without abiding connection to a people or place. I had no safeguard of birthright. I was to be consigned to Pennicote, in a rented house, my future without direction. ‘Marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a woman,' uncle had told me. For me it had proved false and unsatisfactory.

My life seemed small and unliveable. Before the lesson of my marriage I felt that existence and all that happened in it was in some predestined and intimate relationship to me, even the stars in the sky, and the sea in which Grandcourt was to drown. I had no curiosity about what lay on the other side of intimacy. It was as if I now stood alone with a void spinning round me into which you were disappearing. I felt like a speck of existence, an irrelevance, a nowhere person, unloved and unprotected.