Part 94 (1/2)
Gwendolen turned her eyes on him with the look of one athirst toward the sound of unseen waters. Deronda felt the look as if she had been stretching her arms toward him from a forsaken sh.o.r.e. His voice took an affectionate imploringness when he said--
”This sorrow, which has cut down to the root, has come to you while you are so young--try to think of it not as a spoiling of your life, but as a preparation for it. Let it be a preparation----” Any one overhearing his tones would have thought he was entreating for his own happiness.
”See! you have been saved from the worst evils that might have come from your marriage, which you feel was wrong. You have had a vision of injurious, selfish action--a vision of possible degradation; think that a severe angel, seeing you along the road of error, grasped you by the wrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. And it has come to you in your spring-time. Think of it as a preparation. You can, you will, be among the best of women, such as make others glad that they were born.”
The words were like the touch of a miraculous hand to Gwendolen.
Mingled emotions streamed through her frame with a strength that seemed the beginning of a new existence, having some new power or other which stirred in her vaguely. So pregnant is the divine hope of moral recovery with the energy that fulfills it. So potent in us is the infused action of another soul, before which we bow in complete love.
But the new existence seemed inseparable from Deronda: the hope seemed to make his presence permanent. It was not her thought, that he loved her, and would cling to her--a thought would have tottered with improbability; it was her spiritual breath. For the first time since that terrible moment on the sea a flush rose and spread over her cheek, brow and neck, deepened an instant or two, and then gradually disappeared. She did not speak.
Deronda advanced and put out his hand, saying, ”I must not weary you.”
She was startled by the sense that he was going, and put her hand in his, still without speaking.
”You look ill yet--unlike yourself,” he added, while he held her hand.
”I can't sleep much,” she answered, with some return of her dispirited manner. ”Things repeat themselves in me so. They come back--they will all come back,” she ended, shudderingly, a chill fear threatening her.
”By degrees they will be less insistent,” said Deronda. He could not drop her hand or move away from her abruptly.
”Sir Hugo says he shall come to stay at Diplow,” said Gwendolen, s.n.a.t.c.hing at previously intended words which had slipped away from her.
”You will come too.”
”Probably,” said Deronda, and then feeling that the word was cold, he added, correctively, ”Yes, I shall come,” and then released her hand, with the final friendly pressure of one who has virtually said good-bye.
”And not again here, before I leave town?” said Gwendolen, with timid sadness, looking as pallid as ever.
What could Deronda say? ”If I can be of any use--if you wish me--certainly I will.”
”I must wish it,” said Gwendolen, impetuously; ”you know I must wish it. What strength have I? Who else is there?” Again a sob was rising.
Deronda felt a pang, which showed itself in his face. He looked miserable as he said, ”I will certainly come.”
Gwendolen perceived the change in his face; but the intense relief of expecting him to come again could not give way to any other feeling, and there was a recovery of the inspired hope and courage in her.
”Don't be unhappy about me,” she said, in a tone of affectionate a.s.surance. ”I shall remember your words--every one of them. I shall remember what you believe about me; I shall try.”
She looked at him firmly, and put out her hand again as if she had forgotten what had pa.s.sed since those words of his which she promised to remember. But there was no approach to a smile on her lips. She had never smiled since her husband's death. When she stood still and in silence, she looked like a melancholy statue of the Gwendolen whose laughter had once been so ready when others were grave.
It is only by remembering the searching anguish which had changed the aspect of the world for her that we can understand her behavior to Deronda--the unreflecting openness, nay, the importunate pleading, with which she expressed her dependence on him. Considerations such as would have filled the minds of indifferent spectators could not occur to her, any more than if flames had been mounting around her, and she had flung herself into his open arms and clung about his neck that he might carry her into safety. She identified him with the struggling regenerative process in her which had begun with his action. Is it any wonder that she saw her own necessity reflected in his feeling? She was in that state of unconscious reliance and expectation which is a common experience with us when we are preoccupied with our own trouble or our own purposes. We diffuse our feeling over others, and count on their acting from our motives. Her imagination had not been turned to a future union with Deronda by any other than the spiritual tie which had been continually strengthening; but also it had not been turned toward a future separation from him. Love-making and marriage--how could they now be the imagery in which poor Gwendolen's deepest attachment could spontaneously clothe itself? Mighty Love had laid his hand upon her; but what had he demanded of her? Acceptance of rebuke--the hard task of self-change--confession--endurance. If she cried toward him, what then?
She cried as the child cries whose little feet have fallen backward--cried to be taken by the hand, lest she should lose herself.
The cry pierced Deronda. What position could have been more difficult for a man full of tenderness, yet with clear foresight? He was the only creature who knew the real nature of Gwendolen's trouble: to withdraw himself from any appeal of hers would be to consign her to a dangerous loneliness. He could not reconcile himself to the cruelty of apparently rejecting her dependence on him; and yet in the nearer or farther distance he saw a coming wrench, which all present strengthening of their bond would make the harder.
He was obliged to risk that. He went once and again to Park Lane before Gwendolen left; but their interviews were in the presence of Mrs.
Davilow, and were therefore less agitating. Gwendolen, since she had determined to accept her income, had conceived a project which she liked to speak of: it was, to place her mother and sisters with herself in Offendene again, and, as she said, piece back her life unto that time when they first went there, and when everything was happiness about her, only she did not know it. The idea had been mentioned to Sir Hugo, who was going to exert himself about the letting of Gadsmere for a rent which would more than pay the rent of Offendene. All this was told to Deronda, who willingly dwelt on a subject that seemed to give some soothing occupation to Gwendolen. He said nothing and she asked nothing, of what chiefly occupied himself. Her mind was fixed on his coming to Diplow before the autumn was over; and she no more thought of the Lapidoths--the little Jewess and her brother--as likely to make a difference in her destiny, than of the fermenting political and social leaven which was making a difference in the history of the world. In fact poor Gwendolen's memory had been stunned, and all outside the lava-lit track of her troubled conscience, and her effort to get deliverance from it, lay for her in dim forgetfulness.
CHAPTER LXVI.