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.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.We passed through a wood of pines and beeches, I reined Criterion, Grandcourt also paused, I waved my whip, and affecting playful imperiousness, I 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 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 that consequently 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.”I urged Criterion on to join Grandcourt.Who was worse than piqued.His silence and stillness warned.“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 to 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.Thought of your wise words and still demeanor calmed me.And thoughts of the lavish life I soon would 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.Mama’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, and my cheeks as white as my bridegroom’s hands.I made the vows in a steady voice.Grandcourt slipped the gold ring onto my finger.“Thank God you take it so well, my darling,” Mama said when, back at Offendene in our room, she helped me from my bridal gown and into my traveling 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 else in the world.”“My dearest Gwen,” Mama 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 Mama was coming with me into this new uncertain life.In the porch Uncle consoled her, and they waved good-bye 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 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 theater, 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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]