Daniel Deronda, George Eliot [portable ebook reader .TXT] 📗

of its gracefulness was often shared by others; and it even entered into her uncle’s course of thought at this moment, that it was no wonder a boy should be fascinated by this young witch⁠—who, however, was more mischievous than could be desired.

“How can you laugh at broken bones, child?” said Mrs. Davilow, still under her dominant anxiety. “I wish we had never allowed you to have the horse. You will see that we were wrong,” she added, looking with a grave nod at Mr. Gascoigne⁠—“at least I was, to encourage her in asking for it.”

“Yes, seriously, Gwendolen,” said Mr. Gascoigne, in a judicious tone of rational advice to a person understood to be altogether rational, “I strongly recommend you⁠—I shall ask you to oblige me so far⁠—not to repeat your adventure of today. Lord Brackenshaw is very kind, but I feel sure that he would concur with me in what I say. To be spoken of as ‘the young lady who hunts’ by way of exception, would give a tone to the language about you which I am sure you would not like. Depend upon it, his lordship would not choose that Lady Beatrice or Lady Maria should hunt in this part of the country, if they were old enough to do so. When you are married, it will be different: you may do whatever your husband sanctions. But if you intend to hunt, you must marry a man who can keep horses.”

“I don’t know why I should do anything so horrible as to marry without that prospect, at least,” said Gwendolen, pettishly. Her uncle’s speech had given her annoyance, which she could not show more directly; but she felt that she was committing herself, and after moving carelessly to another part of the room, went out.

“She always speaks in that way about marriage,” said Mrs. Davilow; “but it will be different when she has seen the right person.”

“Her heart has never been in the least touched, that you know of?” said Mr. Gascoigne.

Mrs. Davilow shook her head silently. “It was only last night she said to me, ‘Mamma, I wonder how girls manage to fall in love. It is easy to make them do it in books. But men are too ridiculous.’ ”

Mr. Gascoigne laughed a little, and made no further remark on the subject. The next morning at breakfast he said,

“How are your bruises, Rex?”

“Oh, not very mellow yet, sir; only beginning to turn a little.”

“You don’t feel quite ready for a journey to Southampton?”

“Not quite,” answered Rex, with his heart metaphorically in his mouth.

“Well, you can wait till tomorrow, and go to say goodbye to them at Offendene.”

Mrs. Gascoigne, who now knew the whole affair, looked steadily at her coffee lest she also should begin to cry, as Anna was doing already.

Mr. Gascoigne felt that he was applying a sharp remedy to poor Rex’s acute attack, but he believed it to be in the end the kindest. To let him know the hopelessness of his love from Gwendolen’s own lips might be curative in more ways than one.

“I can only be thankful that she doesn’t care about him,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, when she joined her husband in his study. “There are things in Gwendolen I cannot reconcile myself to. My Anna is worth two of her, with all her beauty and talent. It looks very ill in her that she will not help in the schools with Anna⁠—not even in the Sunday-school. What you or I advise is of no consequence to her: and poor Fannie is completely under her thumb. But I know you think better of her,” Mrs. Gascoigne ended with a deferential hesitation.

“Oh, my dear, there is no harm in the girl. It is only that she has a high spirit, and it will not do to hold the reins too tight. The point is, to get her well married. She has a little too much fire in her for her present life with her mother and sisters. It is natural and right that she should be married soon⁠—not to a poor man, but one who can give her a fitting position.”

Presently Rex, with his arm in a sling, was on his two miles’ walk to Offendene. He was rather puzzled by the unconditional permission to see Gwendolen, but his father’s real ground of action could not enter into his conjectures. If it had, he would first have thought it horribly cold-blooded, and then have disbelieved in his father’s conclusions.

When he got to the house, everybody was there but Gwendolen. The four girls, hearing him speak in the hall, rushed out of the library, which was their schoolroom, and hung round him with compassionate inquiries about his arm. Mrs. Davilow wanted to know exactly what had happened, and where the blacksmith lived, that she might make him a present; while Miss Merry, who took a subdued and melancholy part in all family affairs, doubted whether it would not be giving too much encouragement to that kind of character. Rex had never found the family troublesome before, but just now he wished them all away and Gwendolen there, and he was too uneasy for good-natured feigning. When at last he had said, “Where is Gwendolen?” and Mrs. Davilow had told Alice to go and see if her sister were come down, adding, “I sent up her breakfast this morning. She needed a long rest.” Rex took the shortest way out of his endurance by saying, almost impatiently, “Aunt, I want to speak to Gwendolen⁠—I want to see her alone.”

“Very well, dear; go into the drawing-room. I will send her there,” said Mrs. Davilow, who had observed that he was fond of being with Gwendolen, as was natural, but had not thought of this as having any bearing on the realities of life: it seemed merely part of the Christmas holidays which were spinning themselves out.

Rex for his part thought that the realities of life were all hanging on this interview. He had to walk up and down the drawing-room in expectation for nearly ten minutes⁠—ample space for all imaginative