Daniel Deronda George Eliot (best book clubs TXT) đ
- Author: George Eliot
Book online «Daniel Deronda George Eliot (best book clubs TXT) đ». Author George Eliot
âWhy, you might have said that, if I had been going to Mrs. Mompertâs, you dear, sad, incorrigible mamma!â said Gwendolen just putting her hands to her motherâs cheeks with laughing tendernessâ âthen retreating a little and spreading out her arms as if to exhibit herself: âHere am Iâ âMrs. Grandcourt! what else would you have me, but what I am sure to be? You know you were ready to die with vexation when you thought that I would not be Mrs. Grandcourt.â
âHush, hush, my child, for heavenâs sake!â said Mrs. Davilow, almost in a whisper. âHow can I help feeling it when I am parting from you. But I can bear anything gladly if you are happy.â
âNot gladly, mamma, no!â said Gwendolen, shaking her head, with a bright smile. âWillingly you would bear it, but always sorrowfully. Sorrowing is your sauce; you can take nothing without it.â Then, clasping her motherâs shoulders and raining kisses first on one cheek and then on the other between her words, she said, gaily, âAnd you shall sorrow over my having everything at my beckâ âand enjoying everything gloriousâ âsplendid housesâ âand horsesâ âand diamonds, I shall have diamondsâ âand going to courtâ âand being Lady Certainlyâ âand Lady Perhapsâ âand grand hereâ âand tantivy thereâ âand always loving you better than anybody else in the world.â
âMy sweet child!â âBut I shall not be jealous if you love your husband better; and he will expect to be first.â
Gwendolen thrust out her lips and chin with a pretty grimace, saying, âRather a ridiculous expectation. However, I donât mean to treat him ill, unless he deserves it.â
Then the two fell into a clinging embrace, and Gwendolen could not hinder a rising sob when she said, âI wish you were going with me, mamma.â
But the slight dew on her long eyelashes only made her the more charming when she gave her hand to Grandcourt to be led to the carriage.
The rector looked in on her to give a final âGoodbye; God bless you; we shall see you again before long,â and then returned to Mrs. Davilow, saying half cheerfully, half solemnly,
âLet us be thankful, Fanny. She is in a position well suited to her, and beyond what I should have dared to hope for. And few women can have been chosen more entirely for their own sake. You should feel yourself a happy mother.â
There was a railway journey of some fifty miles before the new husband and wife reached the station near Ryelands. The sky had veiled itself since the morning, and it was hardly more than twilight when they entered the park-gates, but still Gwendolen, looking out of the carriage-window as they drove rapidly along, could see the grand outlines and the nearer beauties of the sceneâ âthe long winding drive bordered with evergreens backed by huge gray stems: then the opening of wide grassy spaces and undulations studded with dark clumps; till at last came a wide level where the white house could be seen, with a hanging wood for a background, and the rising and sinking balustrade of a terrace in front.
Gwendolen had been at her liveliest during the journey, chatting incessantly, ignoring any change in their mutual position since yesterday; and Grandcourt had been rather ecstatically quiescent, while she turned his gentle seizure of her hand into a grasp of his hand by both hers, with an increased vivacity as of a kitten that will not sit quiet to be petted. She was really getting somewhat febrile in her excitement; and now in this drive through the park her usual susceptibility to changes of light and scenery helped to make her heart palpitate newly. Was it at the novelty simply, or the almost incredible fulfilment about to be given to her girlish dreams of being âsomebodyââ âwalking through her own furlong of corridor and under her own ceilings of an out-of-sight loftiness, where her own painted Spring was shedding painted flowers, and her own foreshortened Zephyrs were blowing their trumpets over her; while her own servants, lackeys in clothing but men in bulk and shape, were as nought in her presence, and revered the propriety of her insolence to them:â âbeing in short the heroine of an admired play without the pains of art? Was it alone the closeness of this fulfilment which made her heart flutter? or was it some dim forecast, the insistent penetration of suppressed experience, mixing the expectation of a triumph with the dread of a crisis? Hers was one of the natures in which exultation inevitably carries an infusion of dread ready to curdle and declare itself.
She fell silent in spite of herself as they approached the gates, and when her husband said, âHere we are at home!â and for the first time kissed her on the lips, she hardly knew of it: it was no more than the passive acceptance of a greeting in the midst of an absorbing show. Was not all her hurrying life of the last three months a show, in which her consciousness was a wondering spectator? After the half-willful excitement of the day, a numbness had come over her personality.
But there was a brilliant light in the hallâ âwarmth, matting, carpets, full-length portraits, Olympian statues, assiduous servants. Not many servants, however: only a few from Diplow in addition to those constantly in charge of the house; and Gwendolenâs new maid, who had come with her, was taken under guidance by the housekeeper. Gwendolen felt herself being led by Grandcourt along a subtly-scented corridor, into an anteroom where she saw an open doorway sending out a rich glow of light and color.
âThese are our dens,â said Grandcourt. âYou will like to be quiet here till dinner. We shall dine early.â
He pressed her hand to his lips and moved away, more in love than he had ever expected to be.
Gwendolen, yielded up her hat and mantle, threw herself into a chair by the glowing hearth, and saw herself repeated in glass panels
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