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

live on a little while, till I could carry out some plan.” She paused an instant and then added more impetuously, “Everything has gone against me. People have come near me only to blight me.”

Among the “people” she was including Deronda. If he had not interfered in her life she would have gone to the gaming-table again with a few napoleons, and might have won back her losses.

“We must resign ourselves to the will of Providence, my child,” said poor Mrs. Davilow, startled by this revelation of the gambling, but not daring to say more. She felt sure that “people” meant Grandcourt, about whom her lips were sealed. And Gwendolen answered immediately,

“But I don’t resign myself. I shall do what I can against it. What is the good of calling the people’s wickedness Providence? You said in your letter it was Mr. Lassman’s fault we had lost our money. Has he run away with it all?”

“No, dear, you don’t understand. There were great speculations: he meant to gain. It was all about mines and things of that sort. He risked too much.”

“I don’t call that Providence: it was his improvidence with our money, and he ought to be punished. Can’t we go to law and recover our fortune? My uncle ought to take measures, and not sit down by such wrongs. We ought to go to law.”

“My dear child, law can never bring back money lost in that way. Your uncle says it is milk spilled upon the ground. Besides, one must have a fortune to get any law: there is no law for people who are ruined. And our money has only gone along with other people’s. We are not the only sufferers: others have to resign themselves besides us.”

“But I don’t resign myself to live at Sawyer’s Cottage and see you working for sixpences and shillings because of that. I shall not do it. I shall do what is more befitting our rank and education.”

“I am sure your uncle and all of us will approve of that, dear, and admire you the more for it,” said Mrs. Davilow, glad of an unexpected opening for speaking on a difficult subject. “I didn’t mean that you should resign yourself to worse when anything better offered itself. Both your uncle and aunt have felt that your abilities and education were a fortune for you, and they have already heard of something within your reach.”

“What is that, mamma?” some of Gwendolen’s anger gave way to interest, and she was not without romantic conjectures.

“There are two situations that offer themselves. One is in a bishop’s family, where there are three daughters, and the other is in quite a high class of school; and in both, your French, and music, and dancing⁠—and then your manners and habits as a lady, are exactly what is wanted. Each is a hundred a year⁠—and⁠—just for the present,”⁠—Mrs. Davilow had become frightened and hesitating⁠—“to save you from the petty, common way of living that we must go to⁠—you would perhaps accept one of the two.”

“What! be like Miss Graves at Madame Meunier’s? No.”

“I think, myself, that Dr. Monpert’s would be more suitable. There could be no hardship in a bishop’s family.”

“Excuse me, mamma. There are hardships everywhere for a governess. And I don’t see that it would be pleasanter to be looked down on in a bishop’s family than in any other. Besides, you know very well I hate teaching. Fancy me shut up with three awkward girls something like Alice! I would rather emigrate than be a governess.”

What it precisely was to emigrate, Gwendolen was not called on to explain. Mrs. Davilow was mute, seeing no outlet, and thinking with dread of the collision that might happen when Gwendolen had to meet her uncle and aunt. There was an air of reticence in Gwendolen’s haughty, resistant speeches which implied that she had a definite plan in reserve; and her practical ignorance continually exhibited, could not nullify the mother’s belief in the effectiveness of that forcible will and daring which had held mastery over herself.

“I have some ornaments, mamma, and I could sell them,” said Gwendolen. “They would make a sum: I want a little sum⁠—just to go on with. I dare say Marshall, at Wanchester, would take them: I know he showed me some bracelets once that he said he had bought from a lady. Jocosa might go and ask him. Jocosa is going to leave us, of course. But she might do that first.”

“She would do anything she could, poor, dear soul. I have not told you yet⁠—she wanted me to take all her savings⁠—her three hundred pounds. I tell her to set up a little school. It will be hard for her to go into a new family now she has been so long with us.”

“Oh, recommend her for the bishop’s daughters,” said Gwendolen, with a sudden gleam of laughter in her face. “I am sure she will do better than I should.”

“Do take care not to say such things to your uncle,” said Mrs. Davilow. “He will be hurt at your despising what he has exerted himself about. But I dare say you have something else in your mind that he might not disapprove, if you consulted him.”

“There is someone else I want to consult first. Are the Arrowpoints at Quetcham still, and is Herr Klesmer there? But I daresay you know nothing about it, poor, dear mamma. Can Jeffries go on horseback with a note?”

“Oh, my dear, Jeffries is not here, and the dealer has taken the horses. But someone could go for us from Leek’s farm. The Arrowpoints are at Quetcham, I know. Miss Arrowpoint left her card the other day: I could not see her. But I don’t know about Herr Klesmer. Do you want to send before tomorrow?”

“Yes, as soon as possible. I will write a note,” said Gwendolen, rising.

“What can you be thinking of, Gwen?” said Mrs. Davilow, relieved in the midst of her wonderment by signs of alacrity and better humor.

“Don’t mind what, there’s a dear,