Gwendolen (11 page)

He was entirely in control, though more angered than he chose to say. He took off his nightshirt. He had no awkwardness. I had never seen a naked man. I hated him clothed, naked he was my executioner. He tore my dress and dropped it to the floor. I tried to check myself so I would not scream. To punish my screams would be his triumph. He said again, ‘Mrs Grandcourt.' To myself I whispered my name,
Gwendolen Harleth
. I tried to think of mamma, to think of you. He pinioned my hands above my head, held me down on the bed, told me twice to open my eyes, stared at me, moved his body against mine, then lunged into me. He was silent, he did not seem to breathe, he stank of cigars. I felt a sear of pain then nothing. I tried to scream but no sound came. I tried to block my senses, not to listen, smell or feel. He said it again, ‘Mrs Grandcourt,' then stabbed into me again and again until I bled. When I tried to free myself he became more vicious. I do not know how long it went on. Until he made a strange guttural sound and I did not know if it was my blood or his seed that seeped over me. I wanted to die. He was silent. I thought he might hit me or spit. Then he said, ‘That's what women are,' threw the covers over me, put on his nightshirt, said, ‘Now you can be alone,' and closed the door quietly as he left the room.

I felt myself pulled backward as if into a black tunnel. I think I fainted. I do not know how long it was before I rose to stem the bleeding and wash my body, rinse my mouth. My legs buckled under me; there were bruises on my neck. I was not beyond fear, I was at its silent core. I thought, There is no one I can tell of this, there are no words for this, this has no voice. I could not run into the night to mamma, call for a doctor, inform the police. What Grandcourt had done to me, would do to me, was not illegal. I was his wife. I had no right or power to refuse him. Consent was immaterial. I was, as he told me, Mrs Grandcourt.

*

And so it crashed upon me, the punishment Lydia Glasher desired with all her soul. For days I kept to my room. I believe Grandcourt went away, I supposed to her. I was feverish. The housekeeper, Hudson, and the maids replaced the bedding and brought hot water, light soups and custards but made no comment. I did not read or look at other rooms. I lay in bed and ceased to be. I and my life had no definition. All doors had closed. ‘
Tu sera heureuse, ma chère.
' ‘
Oui, maman, comme toi.
'

What options were there for me? If I ran away where might I go or to whom? My husband would command my return. If I sought divorce all calumny would fall on me, I would be seen as an ingrate, an hysteric, deserving of the gutter, consigned to penury. No Momperts would hire me as their governess, no school as their teacher; poor mamma would have nothing.

Hatred bred evil in my heart. I wanted Grandcourt dead. I had a knife, a thin blade like a long willow leaf, encased in a silver sheath. I imagined driving it into his throat, stabbing it into his withered heart. I wanted always to keep it near. I wanted to keep it under my pillow but I never did. Had I done so I would have used it. I knew I was capable of murder. I remembered how, with scarce provocation, I killed Alice's caged bird. I locked the knife in the drawer of my dressing case. I dared not unlock the drawer.

*

For five days I stayed in my room. On the sixth afternoon I was summoned to the conservatory. The day was unusually mild and a door was open to the lawn. Grandcourt languished, smoking a cigar and sipping coffee. Half a dozen dogs of various kinds were grouped around him. Hitherto I had supposed him to be a dog-lover. Fetch, the spaniel, as ever sat at his feet and watched him constantly, her head on her forepaws.

Grandcourt asked me nothing about myself. He talked as if nothing had happened. He told me of visits, dinner parties and tours we were to make: the Brackenshaws, the Mallingers, Paris, Basel, Homburg, Venice.

On his lap he fondled Fluff, a tiny Maltese, a sweet puff of white fur with a silver collar and bell. Fetch, jealous, put her paw on Grandcourt's leg. He stared at her, put down his cigar, lifted Fluff to his face and looked at me. Fetch whimpered, tried to restrain her anguish, then rested her head on his knee. Grandcourt continued to caress the Maltese while shifting his stare between Fetch and me. After a minute Fetch, unable to bear the torment, howled. Grandcourt dumped the miniature dog on a table, called to a servant and, referring to Fetch, ordered him to ‘turn that brute out'.

The mocking look my husband then gave me defined his perverse control. He delighted in making us quail. That was the pleasure of calling us his. His rule was the obverse of love. I, the woman at the Whispering Stones, his horses, his dogs: he observed what a creature wanted, needed, then administered the opposite. Cruelty dispelled his boredom; without it he had no interest. My youth, vulnerability, chastity and reluctance ignited his desire.

*

Thus my marriage. Each night seemed prelude to murder. I dreaded the turn of the door handle. I learned in those nightly assaults to make no move of resistance. He waited for an excuse to be ever more vicious. I thought he would kill me. I tried never to look at him but I imagined his white slender fingers closing around my throat. I shut my eyes and thought of the knife in the drawer.

I vowed never to wear the rancid diamonds, emblems of my wrongdoing, my signature to this nightmare, to the face in the wainscot and to Mrs Glasher at the Whispering Stones. But a week or so later, on an evening when we were to dine at Brackenshaw Castle, I came downstairs dressed in white, a pendant of emeralds Grandcourt had given me around my neck, emerald stars in my ears. He smoked a cigar, lounged in a chair, scrutinised me, then told me I was not altogether as he liked.

‘Oh, mercy,' I said. ‘How am I to alter myself?'

‘Put on the diamonds.'

I tried not to show revulsion and fear but I suppose they were in my eyes. ‘Oh, please not. I don't think diamonds suit me.'

‘What you think has nothing to do with it,' he said, and stroked his moustache. He never raised his voice. ‘I wish you to wear the diamonds.'

‘Pray excuse me, I like these emeralds.'

‘Oblige me by telling me your reason for not wearing the diamonds when I desire it.'

I turned and went to my dressing room; he followed me. ‘You will want someone to fasten them,' he said. He took them from their case. His hands crawled at my neck, my hair, ears, breasts. I sat with my eyes closed.

What a privilege this is to have robbed another woman of, I thought.

‘What makes you so cold?' asked Grandcourt as he fastened the last earring. ‘Put plenty of furs on. I hate to see a woman come into a room looking frozen. If you are to appear as a bride at all, appear decently.' He kissed my neck below my ear.

Until this marriage I knew nothing of scathing domination. No one had ever spoken to me in a brutal way. Grandcourt made Klesmer seem like a flatterer.
The man you have married has a withered heart
. I put on the furs.

*

I appeared on the social scene as Mrs Grandcourt and could not reveal to the world my revulsion and despair at the role. My bleeding was stemmed, my bruises covered with lace and velvet. Grandcourt's choices of compliance became mine: riding, hunting, visiting, entertaining. I told mamma I was happy.

Mamma. How I missed and yearned for her and Offendene. Severance happened within weeks of the wedding. I ventured to ask Grandcourt if she and uncle might visit Diplow. After a silence he drawled, ‘We can't be having those people always.' That Gascoigne, he said, talked too much and was a bore. I could only infer mamma's unsuitability. I could not tell her she was not wanted, or let her observe the wretchedness of my married life.

Only seldom were she and I allowed to meet. Once Grandcourt arranged for her to be fetched with my uncle and aunt for lunch and dinner. They were driven back next morning soon after breakfast. Twice, I was permitted a brief visit to Offendene while he waited outside on horseback. Mamma, bewildered, thought the distance at which she was kept was because of my indifference to her now I was exalted by this marriage.

My only consolation was that financially she was better off, though I knew that between her penury and my misery she would choose the former. On our wedding day Grandcourt had given her a letter saying the rent on Offendene was paid until the following June and he would grant her eight hundred a year. That meant Miss Merry could stay and the gardener Robert Crane be paid to do the outdoor work.

Grandcourt also suggested that if a cottage on the Ryelands estate became free, mamma and my sisters might like to live there. Mamma anticipated this move but I dissuaded her. I said Ryelands was splendid but we were not much there, she would feel adrift and alone and would miss my aunt and uncle. None the less I thanked Grandcourt for providing for her. I did not want him to punish her too. ‘You took a great deal on yourself in marrying a girl who had nothing but relations belonging to her,' I said.

‘Of course I was not going to let Mrs Davilow live like a gamekeeper's mother' was his reply.

So Grandcourt broke me and isolated me. In Society I appeared as his bride, his wife. At night I endured the quiet opening of the door, the brutal commands and savage attack. Then he would leave and go to his room. What I felt went quite beyond hate, though hate was my daylight emotion. I longed for the time of my menses for then he kept away. Before marriage I felt enervated by my monthly cycle, married it became a remission. I waited for signs of my blood. My terror was that I might become pregnant and give birth to a Frankenstein monster in my husband's image.

I dreamed of ways to avoid my life. I thought gambling might divert me but I feared it would increase my self-contempt. My only abiding consolation was you. I yearned for your wise counsel. I wanted you to know I was not contemptible but in trouble.

Of course I knew nothing of your life. Only later did I learn of your absorption into Jewish identity, your Jewish parents, the Jewish girl you saved from drowning, how you roamed the East End of London, worshipped in synagogues, read weighty books about Hebrew matters and planned for a life about which I knew nothing and which excluded me.

*

At the end of December we met again at Topping Abbey, your home with the Mallingers. I had been married six weeks though time had ceased to have a dimension. Sir Hugo decreed the seasonal party he gave that year be in honour of the marriage of Grandcourt, heir to the Abbey, and me, his new and beautiful bride.

The Abbey was a place of romantic enchantment, far superior to the boastful affluence of Ryelands. I felt shame to suppose I might one day be the false chatelaine and that this historic home with Grandcourt in it would become my prison.

Snow was falling when our carriage turned into the drive. I looked out at white meadowland and frosted trees. As we entered the house my heart beat hard at the thought of seeing you. Liveried footmen guided us past full-length portraits set in cedar panelling, oak boughs burning in huge fires under ceilings painted with coats of arms. I came into the Great Hall on Grandcourt's arm. I was wearing white and at his command the poisoned infestation of diamonds around my neck, in my ears, my hair.

I saw you instantly. I did not look in your direction. You were talking to Mr Vandernoodt. I heard him say
soto voce
, ‘By George I think she's handsomer if anything.' A short time previously I might have preened. Now I met such a compliment with a bitter smile. What was I but an adornment, a badge of triumph for an evil man whom I loathed. I again felt your gaze on me. I thought if I met your eyes my degradation and need would flood out, the diamonds shatter and I would sink to my knees. And yet through your eyes was the only place where I longed to be seen.

Plump Lady Mallinger, with protruding blue eyes and red hair, clad in black velvet and carrying a tiny white dog on her arm, moved graciously among her guests. I was introduced and exchanged courtesies: with her four daughters, her brother Raymond and his wife, the Vandernoodts, Lord Pentreath, white-haired and patrician, Mr Fenn the cider manufacturer and his two daughters, the lawyer Mr Sinker, and Mr and Mrs George Lewes – they were authors – both very ugly, he vivacious, she intense, her voice low, her eyes observant. I had read and quite enjoyed two of her books:
Silas Marner
and
The Mill on the Floss.
She published under the name of George Eliot, so I had supposed her to be a man. She seemed to appraise me with disapproval. Mamma had not been invited.

*

We were called to dinner. The dining room's arches and pillars were now shadowed in candlelight and long tables glittered with silver and glass. I sat as guest of honour beside Sir Hugo. You sat diagonally opposite me. Grandcourt was at the far end of the table with Lady Mallinger seated to his left and Mrs Lewes to his right. I was aware of his concentration, like a predatory mantis, on me alone.

I was assiduous in not acknowledging you. I feared my eyes would say too much. No one else in the room mattered. Sir Hugo was attentive and kindly for I was his special guest. He talked of Klesmer and Catherine, and gave his view that the Arrowpoints showed sense in accepting the marriage after all the fuss in the papers. When I told him Klesmer was spending Christmas at Quetcham Hall, he said to you, ‘Deronda, you will like to hear what Mrs Grandcourt tells me about your favourite, Klesmer,' and I was obliged to raise my eyes to meet your bow, your smile and questioning eyes. I blushed and could not speak.

‘For the Arrowpoints to disown their only child because of a misalliance would be like disowning their one eye,' Sir Hugo said. You rejoindered if there was a misalliance it was on Klesmer's part. ‘Ah,' Sir Hugo said to you, ‘you think it a case of the immortal marrying the mortal,' then asked my opinion. I failed to check my bitterness. I said, ‘I have no doubt Herr Klesmer thinks himself immortal, but I daresay his wife will burn as much incense before him as he requires.'

‘Klesmer is no favourite of yours I see.' Sir Hugo looked at me in a questioning way.

‘I think very highly of him, I assure you. His genius is quite above my judgement and I know him to be exceedingly generous.'

Klesmer had contributed to my belittlement. I was in no mood to hear of his own wonderful union of talent, love and wealth.

Sir Hugo talked of the Abbey. Grandcourt and I, he said, must tour it in the morning with you, who knew and loved every detail, as our guide. At this mention of a strand of my guilt – that the Abbey would one day go to my unworthy husband – I glanced awkwardly at you, then to cover my discomfort said to Sir Hugo, ‘You don't know how much I am afraid of Mr Deronda.'

‘Because you think him too learned?' Sir Hugo asked.

Not that, I said, then told him how at Homburg you watched and disapproved as I played roulette, how then I began to lose, and how now I feared lest any word or action of mine caused your opprobrium.

I seemed compelled to return again and again to that first encounter, as if it shaped my destiny and as if, were I now to find a way to escape from my devastating mistake, help must come from you.

Sir Hugo confessed he too was rather afraid of you if he felt you did not approve, but then he said facetiously, ‘I don't think ladies generally object to having Mr Deronda's eyes upon them.' I disliked his flippancy and innuendo, or perhaps was jealous.

‘I object to any eyes that are critical,' I said. The conversation turned to the Abbey. Sir Hugo confessed he had overreached himself with extensive costly renovations: particularly to the long gallery above the cloistered court and to the stables. The horses were now housed in what once was the choir of the old church. ‘You must go and see for yourself,' he said. I told him I should like to see the horses as much as the building. Sir Hugo said he had given up hunting and Grandcourt would look with contempt on his horses.

‘Do you like Diplow?' he then asked.

‘Not particularly,' I replied. How could I say I hated the place and that it held more torment for me than Sawyer's Cottage?

Sir Hugo observed my discontent, looked quizzical, but chose not to question me more. ‘It will not do after Ryelands,' he said. ‘Grandcourt only took it for the hunting. But he found something so much better there that he might well prefer it to any other place in the world.'

I smiled politely to conceal my loathing of the mere mention of my husband's name.

‘It has one attraction for me,' I said. ‘It is within reach of Offendene.'

‘I understand that,' Sir Hugo said and let the matter drop. Neither he nor anyone could know how homesick I was, how I yearned for the old imperfect rented house, my small bed in the black and yellow bedroom.

*

We moved to another room. I turned my back on everyone and pretended interest in a carved ivory head. You stood nearby. I looked into your eyes and with that look I know I confessed, admitted the truth, showed my suffering, fear, remorse and love and need for you. Your eyes showed sympathy and alarm. You said nothing. It was an exchange more intense than your first gaze of consternation in Homburg. Even now I feel and see it clearly. It was as if we had been captured in a painting. Your soul and mine fused into one. I was too fearful to speak of my plight but I needed you to know how wretched I was. Did I appear full of airs: tall, elegant, my clothes silk and satin, diamonds in my ears and hair. Did you find me superficial: an avaricious creature who cared too much for possession and rank.

Someone requested you should sing.

‘Will you join in the music?' you asked. I roused myself to reply. ‘I join in by listening,' I said. ‘I gave time to music but I have not enough talent to make it worthwhile. I shall never sing again.'

You said if I was fond of music I should play and sing for my own delight. For yourself you saw it as a virtue to be content with your own middlingness and not expect others to want more of you.

I recovered my sparring manner: ‘To be middling in my thinking is another phrase for being dull,' I said. ‘And the worst fault I have to find with the world is that it is dull. The best thing about gambling is that it provides a refuge from dullness.'

You did not admit the justification. Your view was that when we called life dull it was because of our own shortcomings. I was again reprimanded. You had no quarrel with middlingness. You were convinced about what was right and what was wrong. ‘Oh dear,' I said. ‘So the fault I find with the world is my own fault. Do you never find fault with the world or with others?'

‘When I am in a grumbling mood,' you said.

‘And hate people?' I asked. ‘Confess you hate them when they stand in your way – when their gain is your loss? That is your own phrase, you know.'

‘We often stand in each other's way when we can't help it. It is stupid to hate people on that ground.'

‘But if they injure you and could have helped it?' The injury I had done, my broken promise, my sense of punishment deserved: all plagued my mind.

‘Why then after all I prefer my place to theirs.'

‘There I believe you are right,' I said. I had my answer. Lydia Glasher's curse had found its home. The assault I endured nightly from Grandcourt was just. I deserved my punishment.

*

Or so I believed in that dark time. Now that I am kinder to myself I think on impulse I acted foolishly and events took a course. My mistakes were naïvety, rashness and bad advice. Grandcourt had no worthy regard for Lydia Glasher. Both he and she were complicit in evil. He knew of her showing at Cardell Chase and that on my wedding day she would send a note with the diamonds. Too late I turned to you. You would have urged me not to marry Grandcourt. Yet unintentionally you hurt me in the most enduring way. Unwittingly you began something you could not follow through. That evening at the Abbey I realised the feelings and thoughts I had for you were of love but that time with you must always be stolen.

*

You moved to the piano. Grandcourt of course had observed our exchange. Slumped in an easy chair, smoking and half listening to Mr Vandernoodt, he appeared bored but missed nothing in relation to me. Out of the corners of his narrow eyes he kept me under his rule. Seeing my desire and need for you he would bide his time then punish me.

*

By next afternoon the snow had mostly thawed. Sir Hugo recommended we meet in the library at three and tour the stables before dark. Longing to see you alone I hurried down early in my sables, plumed hat and little thick boots. You were reading a paper and I dared not disturb you. You did not hear me come into the room. I waited by the door dreading the arrival of the others. At last you saw me. ‘Oh, there you are already,' you said. ‘I must go and put on my coat,' and you left the room as Grandcourt and Sir Hugo came in. I felt a rush of disappointment. I had so wanted time with you.

‘You look rather ill,' Grandcourt said to me. ‘Do you feel equal to the walk?'

‘Yes, I shall like it,' I replied. I always now tried to avoid his eyes.

Sir Hugo suggested we put off the excursion if I wished. ‘Oh dear no,' I said, ‘let us put off nothing. I want a long walk.'

We were joined by Miss Fenn, Mr and Mrs Lewes and others. You walked beside me. As we toured you gave us the history of what once had been the sacristy, the chapter house, the dormitory. You told us when and why the bells were sold and where the monks were buried. I thought how perfect life would be were you and I to reside in such an ancient romantic English setting. You explained the significance of architectural fragments and embellishments and of niches in the stone walls. In the old kitchen, shadows from a huge fire flickered on polished tin, brass and copper. Sir Hugo gave his reasons for mixing the modern and antique. He said we should be flexible about restoring old fashions. You agreed and said to delight in doing things because our fathers did them was good if it shut out nothing better, but that new things enlarge the range of affection and that affection was the basis of good in life.

I expressed surprise. I said I thought you cared more about ideas and wisdom than affection.

‘But to care about
them
is a sort of affection and an indivisible mix of people and ideas form the deepest affections,' you said.

I only half understood what you were saying. I told you I was not very affectionate. Was that, I asked, the reason why I did not see much good in life? You replied if I sincerely believed that of myself you should think it true.

Sir Hugo and Grandcourt joined us. ‘I never can get Mr Deronda to pay me a compliment,' I told them. ‘I have quite a curiosity to see whether a little flattery can be extracted from him.'

‘Ah,' Sir Hugo said, ‘the fact is, it is hopeless to flatter a bride. She has been so fed on sweet speeches that everything we say seems tasteless.'

‘Quite true,' I said. ‘Mr Grandcourt won me by neatly turned compliments. If there had been one word out of place it would have been fatal.'