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

under it. Her own meanings being usually literal and in intention innocent; and she said with a distressed brow:

“Don’t talk in that way, child, for heaven’s sake! you do read such books⁠—they give you such ideas of everything. I declare when your aunt and I were your age we knew nothing about wickedness. I think it was better so.”

“Why did you not bring me up in that way, mamma?” said Gwendolen. But immediately perceiving in the crushed look and rising sob that she had given a deep wound, she tossed down her hat and knelt at her mother’s feet crying,

“Mamma, mamma! I was only speaking in fun. I meant nothing.”

“How could I, Gwendolen?” said poor Mrs. Davilow, unable to hear the retraction, and sobbing violently while she made the effort to speak. “Your will was always too strong for me⁠—if everything else had been different.”

This disjoined logic was intelligible enough to the daughter. “Dear mamma, I don’t find fault with you⁠—I love you,” said Gwendolen, really compunctious. “How can you help what I am? Besides, I am very charming. Come, now.” Here Gwendolen with her handkerchief gently rubbed away her mother’s tears. “Really⁠—I am contented with myself. I like myself better than I should have liked my aunt and you. How dreadfully dull you must have been!”

Such tender cajolery served to quiet the mother, as it had often done before after like collisions. Not that the collisions had often been repeated at the same point; for in the memory of both they left an association of dread with the particular topics which had occasioned them: Gwendolen dreaded the unpleasant sense of compunction toward her mother, which was the nearest approach to self-condemnation and self-distrust that she had known; and Mrs. Davilow’s timid maternal conscience dreaded whatever had brought on the slightest hint of reproach. Hence, after this little scene, the two concurred in excluding Mr. Grandcourt from their conversation.

When Mr. Gascoigne once or twice referred to him, Mrs. Davilow feared least Gwendolen should betray some of her alarming keen-sightedness about what was probably in her uncle’s mind; but the fear was not justified. Gwendolen knew certain differences in the characters with which she was concerned as birds know climate and weather; and for the very reason that she was determined to evade her uncle’s control, she was determined not to clash with him. The good understanding between them was much fostered by their enjoyment of archery together: Mr. Gascoigne, as one of the best bowmen in Wessex, was gratified to find the elements of like skill in his niece; and Gwendolen was the more careful not to lose the shelter of his fatherly indulgence, because since the trouble with Rex both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna had been unable to hide what she felt to be a very unreasonable alienation from her. Toward Anna she took some pains to behave with a regretful affectionateness; but neither of them dared to mention Rex’s name, and Anna, to whom the thought of him was part of the air she breathed, was ill at ease with the lively cousin who had ruined his happiness. She tried dutifully to repress any sign of her changed feeling; but who in pain can imitate the glance and hand-touch of pleasure.

This unfair resentment had rather a hardening effect on Gwendolen, and threw her into a more defiant temper. Her uncle too might be offended if she refused the next person who fell in love with her; and one day when that idea was in her mind she said,

“Mamma, I see now why girls are glad to be married⁠—to escape being expected to please everybody but themselves.”

Happily, Mr. Middleton was gone without having made any avowal; and notwithstanding the admiration for the handsome Miss Harleth, extending perhaps over thirty square miles in a part of Wessex well studded with families whose numbers included several disengaged young men, each glad to seat himself by the lively girl with whom it was so easy to get on in conversation⁠—notwithstanding these grounds for arguing that Gwendolen was likely to have other suitors more explicit than the cautious curate, the fact was not so.

Care has been taken not only that the trees should not sweep the stars down, but also that every man who admires a fair girl should not be enamored of her, and even that every man who is enamored should not necessarily declare himself. There are various refined shapes in which the price of corn, known to be potent cause in their relation, might, if inquired into, show why a young lady, perfect in person, accomplishments, and costume, has not the trouble of rejecting many offers; and nature’s order is certainly benignant in not obliging us one and all to be desperately in love with the most admirable mortal we have ever seen. Gwendolen, we know, was far from holding that supremacy in the minds of all observers. Besides, it was but a poor eight months since she had come to Offendene, and some inclinations become manifest slowly, like the sunward creeping of plants.

In face of this fact that not one of the eligible young men already in the neighborhood had made Gwendolen an offer, why should Mr. Grandcourt be thought of as likely to do what they had left undone?

Perhaps because he was thought of as still more eligible; since a great deal of what passes for likelihood in the world is simply the reflex of a wish. Mr. and Mrs. Arrowpoint, for example, having no anxiety that Miss Harleth should make a brilliant marriage, had quite a different likelihood in their minds.

X 1st Gent.

What woman should be? Sir, consult the taste
Of marriageable men. This planet’s store
In iron, cotton, wool, or chemicals⁠—
All matter rendered to our plastic skill,
Is wrought in shapes responsive to demand;
The market’s pulse makes index high or low,
By rule sublime. Our daughters must be wives,
And to the wives must be what men will choose;
Men’s taste is woman’s test. You mark the phrase?
’Tis good, I think?⁠—the sense well-winged and poised
With