It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavor to its one roast with the burned souls of many generations. Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various with a new six days' work; comes Ignorance drunk on the seventh, with a firkin of oil and a match and an easy "Let there not be," and the many-colored creation is shriveled up in blackness. Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried Babylon. And looking at life parcel-wise, in the growth of a single lot, who having a practiced vision may not see that ignorance of the true bond between events, and false conceit of means whereby sequences may be compelled--like that falsity of eyesight which overlooks the gradations of distance, seeing that which is afar off as if it were within a step or a grasp--precipitates the mistaken soul on destruction?
It was half-past ten in the morning when Gwendolen Harleth, after her gloomy journey from Leubronn, arrived at the station from which she must drive to Offendene. No carriage or friend was awaiting her, for in the telegram she had sent from Dover she had mentioned a later train, and in her impatience of lingering at a London station she had set off without picturing what it would be to arrive unannounced at half an hour's drive from home--at one of those stations which have been fixed on not as near anywhere, but as equidistant from everywhere. Deposited as a _femme sole_ with her large trunks, and having to wait while a vehicle was being got from the large-sized lantern called the Railway Inn, Gwendolen felt that the dirty paint in the waiting-room, the dusty decanter of flat water, and the texts in large letters calling on her to repent and be converted, were part of the dreary prospect opened by her family troubles; and she hurried away to the outer door looking toward the lane and fields. But here the very gleams of sunshine seemed melancholy, for the autumnal leaves and grass were shivering, and the wind was turning up the feathers of a cock and two croaking hens which had doubtless parted with their grown-up offspring and did not know what to do with themselves. The railway official also seemed without resources, and his innocent demeanor in observing Gwendolen and her trunks was rendered intolerable by the cast in his eye; especially since, being a new man, he did not know her, and must conclude that she was not very high in the world. The vehicle--a dirty old barouche--was within sight, and was being slowly prepared by an elderly laborer. Contemptible details these, to make part of a history; yet the turn of most lives is hardly to be accounted for without them. They are continually entering with cumulative force into a mood until it gets the mass and momentum of a theory or a motive. Even philosophy is not quite free from such determining influences; and to be dropped solitary at an ugly, irrelevant-looking spot, with a sense of no income on the mind, might well prompt a man to discouraging speculation on the origin of things and the reason of a world where a subtle thinker found himself so badly off. How much more might such trifles tell on a young lady equipped for society with a fastidious taste, an Indian shawl over her arm, some twenty cubic feet of trunks by her side, and a mortal dislike to the new consciousness of poverty which was stimulating her imagination of disagreeables? At any rate they told heavily on poor Gwendolen, and helped to quell her resistant spirit. What was the good of living in the midst of hardships, ugliness, and humiliation? This was the beginning of being at home again, and it was a sample of what she had to expect.
Here was the theme on which her discontent rung its sad changes during her slow drive in the uneasy barouche, with one great trunk squeezing the meek driver, and the other fastened with a rope on the seat in front of her. Her ruling vision all the way from Leubronn had been that the family would go abroad again; for of course there must be some little income left--her mamma did not mean that they would have literally nothing. To go to a dull place abroad and live poorly, was the dismal future that threatened her: she had seen plenty of poor English people abroad and imagined herself plunged in the despised dullness of their ill-plenished lives, with Alice, Bertha, Fanny and Isabel all growing up in tediousness around her, while she advanced toward thirty and her mamma got more and more melancholy. But she did not mean to submit, and let misfortune do what it would with her: she had not yet quite believed in the misfortune; but weariness and disgust with this wretched arrival had begun to affect her like an uncomfortable waking, worse than the uneasy dreams which had gone before. The self-delight with which she had kissed her image in the glass had faded before the sense of futility in being anything whatever--charming, clever, resolute--what was the good of it all? Events might turn out anyhow, and men were hateful. Yes, men were hateful. But in these last hours, a certain change had come over their meaning. It is one thing to hate stolen goods, and another thing to hate them the more because their being stolen hinders us from making use of them. Gwendolen had begun to be angry with Grandcourt for being what had hindered her from marrying him, angry with him as the cause of her present dreary lot.
But the slow drive was nearly at an end, and the lumbering vehicle coming up the avenue was within sight of the windows. A figure appearing under the portico brought a rush of new and less selfish feeling in Gwendolen, and when springing from the carriage she saw the dear beautiful face with fresh lines of sadness in it, she threw her arms round her mother's neck, and for the moment felt all sorrows only in relation to her mother's feeling about them.
Behind, of course, were the sad faces of the four superfluous girls, each, poor thing--like those other many thousand sisters of us all--having her peculiar world which was of no importance to any one else, but all of them feeling Gwendolen's presence to be somehow a relenting of misfortune: where Gwendolen was, something interesting would happen; even her hurried submission to their kisses, and "Now go away, girls," carried the sort of comfort which all weakness finds in decision and authoritativeness. Good Miss Merry, whose air of meek depression, hitherto held unaccountable in a governess affectionately attached to the family, was now at the general level of circumstances, did not expect any greeting, but busied herself with the trunks and the coachman's pay; while Mrs. Davilow and Gwendolen hastened up-stairs and shut themselves in the black and yellow bedroom.
"Never mind, mamma dear," said Gwendolen, tenderly pressing her handkerchief against the tears that were rolling down Mrs. Davilow's cheeks. "Never mind. I don't mind. I will do something. I will be something. Things will come right. It seemed worse because I was away. Come now! you must be glad because I am here."
Gwendolen felt every word of that speech. A rush of compassionate tenderness stirred all her capability of generous resolution; and the self-confident projects which had vaguely glanced before her during her journey sprang instantaneously into new definiteness. Suddenly she seemed to perceive how she could be "something." It was one of her best moments, and the fond mother, forgetting everything below that tide mark, looked at her with a sort of adoration. She said,
"Bless you, my good, good darling! I can be happy, if you can!"
But later in the day there was an ebb; the old slippery rocks, the old weedy places reappeared. Naturally, there was a shrinking of courage as misfortune ceased to be a mere announcement, and began to disclose itself as a grievous tyrannical inmate. At first--that ugly drive at an end--it was still Offendene that Gwendolen had come home to, and all surroundings of immediate consequence to her were still there to secure her personal ease; the roomy stillness of the large solid house while she rested; all the luxuries of her toilet cared for without trouble to her; and a little tray with her favorite food brought to her in private. For she had said, "Keep them all away from us to-day, mamma. Let you and me be alone together."
When Gwendolen came down into the drawing-room, fresh as a newly-dipped swan, and sat leaning against the cushions of the settee beside her mamma, their misfortune had not yet turned its face and breath upon her. She felt prepared to hear everything, and began in a tone of deliberate intention,
"What have you thought of doing, exactly, mamma?"
"Oh, my dear, the next thing to be done is to move away from this house. Mr. Haynes most fortunately is as glad to have it now as he would have been when we took it. Lord Brackenshaw's agent is to arrange everything with him to the best advantage for us: Bazley, you know; not at all an ill-natured man."
"I cannot help thinking that Lord Brackenshaw would let you stay here rent-free, mamma," said Gwendolen, whose talents had not been applied to business so much as to discernment of the admiration excited by her charms.
"My dear child, Lord Brackenshaw is in Scotland, and knows nothing about us. Neither your uncle nor I would choose to apply to him. Besides, what could we do in this house without servants, and without money to warm it? The sooner we are out the better. We have nothing to carry but our clothes, you know?"
"I suppose you mean to go abroad, then?" said Gwendolen. After all, this is what she had familiarized her mind with.
"Oh, no, dear, no. How could we travel? You never did learn anything about income and expenses," said Mrs. Davilow, trying to smile, and putting her hand on Gwendolen's as she added, mournfully, "that makes it so much harder for you, my pet."
"But where are we to go?" said Gwendolen, with a trace of sharpness in her tone. She felt a new current of fear passing through her.
"It is all decided. A little furniture is to be got in from the rectory--all that can be spared." Mrs. Davilow hesitated. She dreaded the reality for herself less than the shock she must give to Gwendolen, who looked at her with tense expectancy, but was silent.
"It is Sawyer's Cottage we are to go to."
At first, Gwendolen remained silent, paling with anger--justifiable anger, in her opinion. Then she said with haughtiness,
"That is impossible. Something else than that ought to have been thought of. My uncle ought not to allow that. I will not submit to it."
"My sweet child, what else could have been thought of? Your uncle, I am sure, is as kind as he can be: but he is suffering himself; he has his family to bring up. And do you quite understand? You must remember--we have nothing. We shall have absolutely nothing except what he and my sister give us. They have been as wise and active as possible, and we must try to earn something. I and the girls are going to work a table-cloth border for the Ladies' Charity at Winchester, and a communion cloth that the parishioners are to present to Pennicote Church."
Mrs. Davilow went into these details timidly: but how else was she to bring the fact of their position home to this poor child who, alas! must submit at present, whatever might be in the background for her? and she herself had a superstition that there must be something better in the background.
"But surely somewhere else than Sawyer's Cottage might have been found," Gwendolen persisted--taken hold of (as if in a nightmare) by the image of this house where an exciseman had lived.
"No, indeed, dear. You know houses are scarce, and we may be thankful to get anything so private. It is not so very bad. There are two little parlors and four bedrooms. You shall sit alone whenever you like."
The ebb of sympathetic care for her mamma had gone so low just now, that Gwendolen took no notice of these deprecatory words.
"I cannot conceive that all your property is gone at once, mamma. How can you be sure in so short a time? It is not a week since you wrote to me."
"The first news came much earlier, dear. But I would not spoil your pleasure till it was quite necessary."
"Oh, how vexatious!" said Gwendolen, coloring with fresh anger. "If I had known, I could have brought home the money I had won: and for want of knowing, I stayed and lost it. I had nearly two hundred pounds, and it would have done for us to 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 some one 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 some one 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 to-morrow?"
"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, good mamma," said Gwendolen, reseating herself a moment to give atoning caresses. "I mean to do something. Never mind what until it is all settled. And then you shall be comforted. The dear face!--it is ten years older in these three weeks. Now, now, now! don't cry"--Gwendolen, holding her mamma's head with both hands, kissed the trembling eyelids. "But mind you don't contradict me or put hindrances in my way. I must decide for myself. I cannot be dictated to by my uncle or any one else. My life is my own affair. And I think"--here her tone took an edge of scorn--"I think I can do better for you than let you live in Sawyer's Cottage."
In uttering this last sentence Gwendolen again rose, and went to a desk where she wrote the following note to Klesmer:,
Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Herr Klesmer, and ventures to request of him the very great favor that he will call upon her, if possible, to-morrow. Her reason for presuming so far on his kindness is of a very serious nature. Unfortunate family circumstances have obliged her to take a course in which she can only turn for advice to the great knowledge and judgment of Herr Klesmer.
"Pray get this sent to Quetcham at once, mamma," said Gwendolen, as she addressed the letter. "The man must be told to wait for an answer. Let no time be lost."
For the moment, the absorbing purpose was to get the letter dispatched; but when she had been assured on this point, another anxiety arose and kept her in a state of uneasy excitement. If Klesmer happened not to be at Quetcham, what could she do next? Gwendolen's belief in her star, so to speak, had had some bruises. Things had gone against her. A splendid marriage which presented itself within reach had shown a hideous flaw. The chances of roulette had not adjusted themselves to her claims; and a man of whom she knew nothing had thrust himself between her and her intentions. The conduct of those uninteresting people who managed the business of the world had been culpable just in the points most injurious to her in particular. Gwendolen Harleth, with all her beauty and conscious force, felt the close threats of humiliation: for the first time the conditions of this world seemed to her like a hurrying roaring crowd in which she had got astray, no more cared for and protected than a myriad of other girls, in spite of its being a peculiar hardship to her. If Klesmer were not at Quetcham--that would be all of a piece with the rest: the unwelcome negative urged itself as a probability, and set her brain working at desperate alternatives which might deliver her from Sawyer's Cottage or the ultimate necessity of "taking a situation," a phrase that summed up for her the disagreeables most wounding to her pride, most irksome to her tastes; at least so far as her experience enabled her to imagine disagreeables.
Still Klesmer might be there, and Gwendolen thought of the result in that case with a hopefulness which even cast a satisfactory light over her peculiar troubles, as what might well enter into the biography of celebrities and remarkable persons. And if she had heard her immediate acquaintances cross-examined as to whether they thought her remarkable, the first who said "No" would have surprised her.

It was half-past ten in the morning when Gwendolen Harleth, after her gloomy journey from Leubronn, arrived at the station near Offendene. No one was awaiting her, for in her impatience she had set off on an earlier train than the one her telegraph had mentioned to her family. Deposited alone on the platform with her trunks, and waiting while a vehicle was being got from the Railway Inn, Gwendolen felt that the dirty paint in the waiting-room matched the dreary prospect opened by her family troubles. The vehicle was a shabby old barouche: such trifles must tell on a fastidious lady with an Indian shawl over her arm, some twenty cubic feet of trunks, and a mortal dislike of her new consciousness of poverty. This ugliness and humiliation was the beginning of being at home again, and a sample of what she must expect.
On this theme her discontent rung its sad changes during her slow drive in the uneasy barouche. She imagined that the family would go abroad again; for of course there must be some little income left - her mamma did not mean that they would have literally nothing. To go to a dull place abroad and live poorly, was the dismal future that threatened her: she imagined herself plunged into dullness with her tedious sisters. But she did not mean to submit to her misfortune. She had not yet quite believed in it, but now it began to affect her like an uncomfortable waking.
The self-delight with which she had kissed her image in the glass had faded before the sense of futility in being anything - charming, clever, resolute - what was the good of it all? Events might turn out anyhow, and men were hateful. Gwendolen had begun to be angry with Grandcourt for being what had hindered her from marrying him, and causing her present dreary lot.
But now the house was in sight. A figure appearing under the portico brought a rush of new, less selfish feeling, and when she saw the dear beautiful face with fresh lines of sadness, she threw her arms round her mother's neck, and for the moment felt only her mother's sorrow.
Behind were the sad faces of the four superfluous girls, each having her own world which was of no importance to anyone else, but all of them feeling Gwendolen's presence to be somehow a relenting of misfortune: where Gwendolen was, something interesting would happen. Even her hurried submission to their kisses, and "Now go away, girls," carried the comfort which weakness finds in decision and authoritativeness. Miss Merry busied herself with the trunks, while Mrs. Davilow and Gwendolen hastened upstairs and shut themselves in the bedroom.
"Never mind, mamma dear," said Gwendolen, tenderly pressing her handkerchief against Mrs. Davilow's tearful cheeks. "Never mind. I don't mind. I will do something. I will be something. Things will come right. It seemed worse because I was away. Come now! you must be glad because I am here."
Gwendolen felt every word of that speech. A rush of tenderness stirred her into generous resolution; and the self-confident projects which had vaguely occurred to her during her journey acquired new definiteness. She seemed to perceive how she could be "something." Her fond mother looked at her with adoration, saying,
"Bless you, my good darling! I can be happy, if you can!"
But later in the day there was an ebb; the old slippery rocks reappeared as Gwendolen's courage shrank. At first, her surroundings still ensured her personal ease: the roomy stillness of the house while she rested; her little luxuries supplied without trouble to her; and a tray of her favourite food brought to her in private. For she had said, "Keep them all away from us today, mamma. Let you and me be alone together."
When Gwendolen came down into the drawing-room, fresh as a newly-dipped swan, she sat on the settee beside her mamma, prepared to hear everything, and began-
"What have you thought of doing, exactly, mamma?"
"Oh, my dear, we must leave this house. Mr. Haynes most fortunately is glad to rent it. Lord Brackenshaw's agent is to arrange everything."
"I cannot help thinking that Lord Brackenshaw would let you stay here rent-free, mamma," said Gwendolen, who had paid less attention to business than to the admiration excited by her charms.
"My dear child, Lord Brackenshaw is in Scotland, and knows nothing about us. Neither your uncle nor I would choose to apply to him. Besides, what could we do in this house without servants, and without money to warm it? The sooner we are out the better."
"I suppose you mean to go abroad, then?"
"Oh, no, dear, no. How could we travel? You never did learn anything about income and expenses," said Mrs. Davilow, trying to smile.
"But where are we to go?" said Gwendolen, with a trace of sharpness and fear.
"It is all decided. A little furniture is to be got from the rectory - all that can be spared." Mrs. Davilow hesitated, dreading the shock she must give to Gwendolen. "It is Sawyer's Cottage we are to go to."
Gwendolen was silent, paling with anger. Then she said haughtily,
"That is impossible. My uncle ought not to allow that. I will not submit to it."
"My sweet child, your uncle is as kind as he can be: but he is suffering with losses himself; he has his family to bring up. You must remember - we have absolutely nothing except what he and my sister give us. They have been as wise and active as possible, and we must try to earn something. I and the girls are going to work a table-cloth border for the Ladies' Charity at Winchester." Mrs. Davilow said this timidly.
"But surely somewhere else than Sawyer's Cottage might have been found," Gwendolen persisted.
"No, indeed, dear. Houses are scarce. It is not so very bad. There are two little parlours and four bedrooms. You shall sit alone whenever you like."
The ebb of sympathy for her mamma had gone so low just now, that Gwendolen took no notice of these words.
"I cannot conceive that all your property is gone at once, mamma. How can you be sure in so short a time? It is not a week since you wrote to me."
"The first news came much earlier, dear. But I would not spoil your pleasure till it was quite necessary."
"Oh, how vexatious!" said Gwendolen, colouring with fresh anger. "If I had known, I could have brought home the money I had won, instead of staying to lose it. I had nearly two hundred pounds, and we could have lived on it a little while, till I could carry out some plan. Everything has gone against me. People have come near me only to blight me."
Among "people" she was including Deronda. If he had not interfered in her life she would have gone to the gaming-table again, 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 gambling, but not daring to say more. She felt sure that "people" meant Grandcourt, about whom her lips were sealed.
"I don't call other people's wickedness Providence. Can't we go to law and recover our fortune? My uncle ought to take action. We ought to go to law."
"My dear child, law can never bring back money lost in speculation in that way. Your uncle says it is milk spilled upon the ground. Besides, one must have a fortune to get any law. And 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. I shall not do it. I shall do what is more befitting our rank and education."
"I am sure your uncle will approve of that, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, glad of an unexpected opening for speaking on a difficult subject. "Your uncle and aunt have already heard of something that, with your education, is within your reach."
"What is that, mamma?" Gwendolen's anger gave way to interest and romantic conjectures.
"Two situations 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 your manners 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- "perhaps you would accept one of the two."
"What! be a teacher? 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. I don't see that it would be pleasanter to be looked down on in a bishop's family than anywhere else. Besides, you know I hate teaching. Fancy me shut up with three awkward girls like Alice! I would rather emigrate."
What it precisely was to emigrate, Gwendolen was not called on to explain. Mrs. Davilow was mute, thinking with dread of the collision that might happen when Gwendolen met her aunt and uncle. Her daughter's haughty, resistant speeches implied that she had a plan in reserve, and Mrs. Davilow could not help believing in the force of her will.
"I could sell some ornaments, mamma," said Gwendolen. "I want a little sum - just to go on with. I dare say Marshall, at Wanchester, would take them: 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. She wanted me to take all her savings - her three hundred pounds. I told her to set up a little school with it."
"Oh, recommend her for the bishop's daughters," said Gwendolen, with a sudden laugh. "I am sure she will do better than I should."
"Do not say such things to your uncle," said Mrs. Davilow. "He will be hurt at your despising the post he has found. But I dare say you have something else in your mind that he might not disapprove, if you consulted him."
"There is some one else I want to consult first. Are the Arrowpoints at Quetcham still, and is Herr Klesmer there?"
"The Arrowpoints are at Quetcham. But I don't know about Herr Klesmer."
"I will write a note," said Gwendolen, rising.
"What can you be thinking of, Gwen?" said Mrs. Davilow, relieved by signs of her better humour.
"Don't mind what, there's a dear, good mamma, until it is all settled. And then you shall be comforted. Now, now! don't cry." Gwendolen kissed the trembling eyelids. "But don't hinder me. I cannot be dictated to. My life is my own affair. And I think" - her tone took an edge of scorn - "I think I can do better for you than Sawyer's Cottage."
With this, Gwendolen went to a desk where she wrote this note to Klesmer:
'Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Herr Klesmer, and ventures to request that he will call upon her tomorrow. Unfortunate family circumstances have obliged her to take a course in which she can only turn for advice to the great knowledge of Herr Klesmer.'
"Pray get this sent to Quetcham at once, mamma," said Gwendolen.
She was in a state of uneasy excitement. If Klesmer was not at Quetcham, what could she do next? Gwendolen's belief in her star had had some bruises. Things had gone against her. A prospective splendid marriage had shown a hideous flaw. The chances of roulette had not adjusted themselves to her claims; and a strange man had thrust himself between her and her intentions. Gwendolen Harleth, with all her beauty and conscious force, felt the threats of humiliation. If Klesmer were not at Quetcham, that would be all of a piece with the rest.
Still Klesmer might be there, and Gwendolen thought of the result in that case with hope, as if her present troubles were only such as might enter the biography of celebrities and remarkable people. And if she had heard her acquaintances being asked whether they thought her remarkable, a "No" would have surprised her.


"I question things but do not find One that will answer to my mind: And all the world appears unkind." --WORDSWORTH.
Gwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with Klesmer before meeting her uncle and aunt. She had made up her mind now that there were only disagreeables before her, and she felt able to maintain a dogged calm in the face of any humiliation that might be proposed.
The meeting did not happen until the Monday, when Gwendolen went to the rectory with her mamma. They had called at Sawyer's Cottage by the way, and had seen every cranny of the narrow rooms in a mid-day light, unsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by gleanings from the rectory had not yet begun.
"How _shall_ you endure it, mamma?" said Gwendolen, as they walked away. She had not opened her lips while they were looking round at the bare walls and floors, and the little garden with the cabbage-stalks, and the yew arbor all dust and cobwebs within. "You and the four girls all in that closet of a room, with the green and yellow paper pressing on your eyes? And without me?"
"It will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear."
"If it were not that I must get some money, I would rather be there than go to be a governess."
"Don't set yourself against it beforehand, Gwendolen. If you go to the palace you will have every luxury about you. And you know how much you have always cared for that. You will not find it so hard as going up and down those steep narrow stairs, and hearing the crockery rattle through the house, and the dear girls talking."
"It is like a bad dream," said Gwendolen, impetuously. "I cannot believe that my uncle will let you go to such a place. He ought to have taken some other steps."
"Don't be unreasonable, dear child. What could he have done?"
"That was for him to find out. It seems to me a very extraordinary world if people in our position must sink in this way all at once," said Gwendolen, the other worlds with which she was conversant being constructed with a sense of fitness that arranged her own future agreeably.
It was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the vicissitudes in other people's lives, though it was never her aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly--a point to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse than she was.
And, notwithstanding the keen sense of her own bruises, she was capable of some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with a more affectionate kindness than they had ever shown before. She could not but be struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of the necessary economies in their way of living, and in the education of the boys. Mr. Gascoigne's worth of character, a little obscured by worldly opportunities--as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the demands of fashionable dressing--showed itself to great advantage under this sudden reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had set himself not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn suits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without periodicals, to get Edwy from school and arrange hours of study for all the boys under himself, and to order the whole establishment on the sparest footing possible. For all healthy people economy has its pleasures; and the rector's spirit had spread through the household. Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna, who always made papa their model, really did not miss anything they cared about for themselves, and in all sincerity felt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for Mrs. Davilow and her children.
Anna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of Rex in her sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne was disposed to hope that trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without thinking it her duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the salutariness. They had both been busy devising how to get blinds and curtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate feeling they left these matters in the back-ground, and talked at first of Gwendolen's journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her at home again.
In fact there was nothing for Gwendolen to take as a justification for extending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around her, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call to drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a voice of firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making to get her a situation which would offer her as many advantages as possible. Mr. Gascoigne had not forgotten Grandcourt, but the possibility of further advances from that quarter was something too vague for a man of his good sense to be determined by it: uncertainties of that kind must not now slacken his action in doing the best he could for his niece under actual conditions.
"I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in a good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had at a moment's notice. And however long we waited we could hardly find one where you would be better off than at Bishop Mompert's. I am known to both him and Mrs. Mompert, and that of course is an advantage to you. Our correspondence has gone on favorably; but I cannot be surprised that Mrs. Mompert wishes to see you before making an absolute engagement. She thinks of arranging for you to meet her at Wanchester when she is on her way to town. I dare say you will feel the interview rather trying for you, my dear; but you will have a little time to prepare your mind."
"Do you know _why_ she wants to see me, uncle?" said Gwendolen, whose mind had quickly gone over various reasons that an imaginary Mrs. Mompert with three daughters might be supposed to entertain, reasons all of a disagreeable kind to the person presenting herself for inspection.
The rector smiled. "Don't be alarmed, my dear. She would like to have a more precise idea of you than my report can give. And a mother is naturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. I have told her you are very young. But she herself exercises a close supervision over her daughters' education, and that makes her less anxious as to age. She is a woman of taste and also of strict principle, and objects to having a French person in the house. I feel sure that she will think your manners and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find; and over the religious and moral tone of the education she, and indeed the bishop himself, will preside."
Gwendolen dared not answer, but the repression of her decided dislike to the whole prospect sent an unusually deep flush over her face and neck, subsiding as quickly as it came. Anna, full of tender fears, put her little hand into her cousin's, and Mr. Gascoigne was too kind a man not to conceive something of the trial which this sudden change must be for a girl like Gwendolen. Bent on giving a cheerful view of things, he went on, in an easy tone of remark, not as if answering supposed objections,
"I think so highly of the position, that I should have been tempted to try and get it for Anna, if she had been at all likely to meet Mrs. Mompert's wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education in the highest sense: 'governess' is a misnomer. The bishop's views are of a more decidedly Low Church color than my own--he is a close friend of Lord Grampian's; but, though privately strict, he is not by any means narrow in public matters. Indeed, he has created as little dislike in his diocese as any bishop on the bench. He has always remained friendly to me, though before his promotion, when he was an incumbent of this diocese, we had a little controversy about the Bible Society."
The rector's words were too pregnant with satisfactory meaning to himself for him to imagine the effect they produced in the mind of his niece. "Continuance of education"--"bishop's views"--"privately strict"--"Bible Society,"--it was as if he had introduced a few snakes at large for the instruction of ladies who regarded them as all alike furnished with poison-bags, and, biting or stinging, according to convenience. To Gwendolen, already shrinking from the prospect open to her, such phrases came like the growing heat of a burning glass--not at all as the links of persuasive reflection which they formed for the good uncle. She began, desperately, to seek an alternative.
"There was another situation, I think, mamma spoke of?" she said, with determined self-mastery.
'"Yes," said the rector, in rather a depreciatory tone; "but that is in a school. I should not have the same satisfaction in your taking that. It would be much harder work, you are aware, and not so good in any other respect. Besides, you have not an equal chance of getting it."
"Oh dear no," said Mrs. Gascoigne, "it would be much harder for you, my dear--it would be much less appropriate. You might not have a bedroom to yourself." And Gwendolen's memories of school suggested other particulars which forced her to admit to herself that this alternative would be no relief. She turned to her uncle again and said, apparently in acceptance of his ideas,
"When is Mrs. Mompert likely to send for me?"
"That is rather uncertain, but she has promised not to entertain any other proposal till she has seen you. She has entered with much feeling into your position. It will be within the next fortnight, probably. But I must be off now. I am going to let part of my glebe uncommonly well."
The rector ended very cheerfully, leaving the room with the satisfactory conviction that Gwendolen was going to adapt herself to circumstances like a girl of good sense. Having spoken appropriately, he naturally supposed that the effects would be appropriate; being accustomed, as a household and parish authority, to be asked to "speak to" refractory persons, with the understanding that the measure was morally coercive.
"What a stay Henry is to us all!" said Mrs. Gascoigne, when her husband had left the room.
"He is indeed," said Mrs. Davilow, cordially. "I think cheerfulness is a fortune in itself. I wish I had it."
"And Rex is just like him," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "I must tell you the comfort we have had in a letter from him. I must read you a little bit," she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked rather frightened--she did not know why, except that it had been a rule with her not to mention Rex before Gwendolen.
The proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to read aloud. But apparently she had found it sown with what might seem to be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she looked up, folding the letter, and saying,
"However, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a reason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take pupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most remarkable. The letter is full of fun--just like him. He says, 'Tell mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working son, in time to hinder me from taking ship; and I offer myself for the place.' The letter came on Friday. I never saw my husband so much moved by anything since Rex was born. It seemed a gain to balance our loss."
This letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna to show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very amiably about it, smiling at Anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to say, "Nothing is wrong with you now, is it?" She had no gratuitously ill-natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She only had an intense objection to their making her miserable.
But when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not roused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on within her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect allowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The idea of presenting herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first instance, to be approved or disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful bruise; even as a governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was liable to rejection. After she had done herself the violence to accept the bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be silent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on: there was always to be Mrs. Mompert's supervision; always something or other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious topics. Gwendolen, lately used to the social successes of a handsome girl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the effect of wit, and who six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of the bishop rather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an entrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to be an actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting amongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity--odious men, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong grating of polite society. Gwendolen's daring was not in the least that of the adventuress; the demand to be held a lady was in her very marrow; and when she had dreamed that she might be the heroine of the gaming-table, it was with the understanding that no one should treat her with the less consideration, or presume to look at her with irony as Deronda had done. To be protected and petted, and to have her susceptibilities consulted in every detail, had gone along with her food and clothing as matters of course in her life: even without any such warning as Klesmer's she could not have thought it an attractive freedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the doubtful civility of strangers. The endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was less repulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be petted or have her susceptibilities consulted. Her rebellion against this hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the world--to her whom all circumstances had concurred in preparing for something quite different--was exaggerated instead of diminished as one hour followed another, with the imagination of what she might have expected in her lot and what it was actually to be. The family troubles, she thought, were easier for every one than for her--even for poor dear mamma, because she had always used herself to not enjoying. As to hoping that if she went to the Momperts' and was patient a little while, things might get better--it would be stupid to entertain hopes for herself after all that had happened: her talents, it appeared, would never be recognized as anything remarkable, and there was not a single direction in which probability seemed to flatter her wishes. Some beautiful girls who, like her, had read romances where even plain governesses are centres of attraction and are sought in marriage, might have solaced themselves a little by transporting such pictures into their own future; but even if Gwendolen's experience had led her to dwell on love-making and marriage as her elysium, her heart was too much oppressed by what was near to her, in both the past and the future, for her to project her anticipations very far off. She had a world-nausea upon her, and saw no reason all through her life why she should wish to live. No religious view of trouble helped her: her troubles had in her opinion all been caused by other people's disagreeable or wicked conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant to be counted on in the world: that was her feeling; everything else she had heard said about trouble was mere phrase-making not attractive enough for her to have caught it up and repeated it. As to the sweetness of labor and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and outward activity; the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry, which it is mere baseness not to pay toward the common burden; the supreme worth of the teacher's vocation;--these, even if they had been eloquently preached to her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines: the fact which wrought upon her was her invariable observation that for a lady to become a governess--to "take a situation"--was to descend in life and to be treated at best with a compassionate patronage. And poor Gwendolen had never dissociated happiness from personal pre-eminence and _clat_. That where these threatened to forsake her, she should take life to be hardly worth the having, cannot make her so unlike the rest of us, men or women, that we should cast her out of our compassion; our moments of temptation to a mean opinion of things in general being usually dependent on some susceptibility about ourselves and some dullness to subjects which every one else would consider more important. Surely a young creature is pitiable who has the labyrinth of life before her and no clue--to whom distrust in herself and her good fortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that she was treading carelessly.
In spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected her even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about nothing; the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an irritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed unreasonable, because it did not include her feeling and was an ignorant claim on her. It was not in her nature to busy herself with the fancies of suicide to which disappointed young people are prone: what occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing for her but to live in a way she hated. She avoided going to the rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest about the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying on purpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing. Her mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when Anna came to see her. For that calm which Gwendolen had promised herself to maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, "I suppose I shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?"
Her mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the habit of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined that Gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give way to the possibility of making her darling less miserable.
One day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was lingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging Gwendolen's articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the casket which contained the ornaments.
"Mamma," she began, glancing over the upper layer, "I had forgotten these things. Why didn't you remind me of them? Do see about getting them sold. You will not mind about parting with them. You gave them all to me long ago."
She lifted the upper tray and looked below.
"If we can do without them, darling, I would rather keep them for you," said Mrs. Davilow, seating herself beside Gwendolen with a feeling of relief that she was beginning to talk about something. The usual relation between them had become reversed. It was now the mother who tried to cheer the daughter. "Why, how came you to put that pocket handkerchief in here?"
It was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which Gwendolen had thrust in with the turquoise necklace.
"It happened to be with the necklace--I was in a hurry," said Gwendolen, taking the handkerchief away and putting it in her pocket. "Don't sell the necklace, mamma," she added, a new feeling having come over her about that rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive.
"No, dear, no; it was made out of your dear father's chain. And I should prefer not selling the other things. None of them are of any great value. All my best ornaments were taken from me long ago."
Mrs. Davilow colored. She usually avoided any reference to such facts about Gwendolen's step-father as that he had carried off his wife's jewelry and disposed of it. After a moment's pause she went on,
"And these things have not been reckoned on for any expenses. Carry them with you."
"That would be quite useless, mamma," said Gwendolen, coldly. "Governesses don't wear ornaments. You had better get me a gray frieze livery and a straw poke, such as my aunt's charity children wear."
"No, dear, no; don't take that view of it. I feel sure the Momperts will like you the better for being graceful and elegant."
"I am not at all sure what the Momperts will like me to be. It is enough that I am expected to be what they like," said Gwendolen bitterly.
"If there is anything you would object to less--anything that could be done--instead of your going to the bishop's, do say so, Gwendolen. Tell me what is in your heart. I will try for anything you wish," said the mother, beseechingly. "Don't keep things away from me. Let us bear them together."
"Oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. I can't do anything better. I must think myself fortunate if they will have me. I shall get some money for you. That is the only thing I have to think of. I shall not spend any money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. I don't know how far that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your poor fingers to the bone, and stare away all the sight that the tears have left in your dear eyes."
Gwendolen did not give any caresses with her words as she had been used to do. She did not even look at her mother, but was looking at the turquoise necklace as she turned it over her fingers.
"Bless you for your tenderness, my good darling!" said Mrs. Davilow, with tears in her eyes. "Don't despair because there are clouds now. You are so young. There may be great happiness in store for you yet."
"I don't see any reason for expecting it, mamma," said Gwendolen, in a hard tone; and Mrs. Davilow was silent, thinking as she had often thought before--"What did happen between her and Mr. Grandcourt?"
"I _will_ keep this necklace, mamma," said Gwendolen, laying it apart and then closing the casket. "But do get the other things sold, even if they will not bring much. Ask my uncle what to do with them. I shall certainly not use them again. I am going to take the veil. I wonder if all the poor wretches who have ever taken it felt as I do."
"Don't exaggerate evils, dear."
"How can any one know that I exaggerate, when I am speaking of my own feeling? I did not say what any one else felt."
She took out the torn handkerchief from her pocket again, and wrapped it deliberately round the necklace. Mrs. Davilow observed the action with some surprise, but the tone of her last words discouraged her from asking any question.
The "feeling" Gwendolen spoke of with an air of tragedy was not to be explained by the mere fact that she was going to be a governess: she was possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. It was not simply that she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste spread itself over the world outside her penitentiary, since she saw nothing very pleasant in it that seemed attainable by her even if she were free. Naturally her grievances did not seem to her smaller than some of her male contemporaries held theirs to be when they felt a profession too narrow for their powers, and had an _ priori_ conviction that it was not worth while to put forth their latent abilities. Because her education had been less expensive than theirs, it did not follow that she should have wider emotions or a keener intellectual vision. Her griefs were feminine; but to her as a woman they were not the less hard to bear, and she felt an equal right to the Promethean tone.
But the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, to fold it up in the handkerchief, and rise to put it in her _ncessaire_, where she had first placed it when it had been returned to her, was more peculiar, and what would be called less reasonable. It came from that streak of superstition in her which attached itself both to her confidence and her terror--a superstition which lingers in an intense personality even in spite of theory and science; any dread or hope for self being stronger than all reasons for or against it. Why she should suddenly determine not to part with the necklace was not much clearer to her than why she should sometimes have been frightened to find herself in the fields alone: she had a confused state of emotion about Deronda--was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and exceptional trust? It was something vague and yet mastering, which impelled her to this action about the necklace. There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

Gwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with Klesmer before meeting her uncle and aunt. She had decided that there were only disagreeables before her, and she felt able to maintain a dogged calm in the face of any humiliation that might be proposed.
She went to the rectory with her mamma. They called at Sawyer's Cottage on the way, and saw the narrow rooms unsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by gleanings from the rectory had not yet begun.
"How shall you endure it, mamma?" said Gwendolen, as they walked away. She had been silent as they looked round at the bare rooms, the little garden with the cabbage-stalks, and the dusty yew arbour. "You and the four girls in that closet of a room? And without me?"
"It will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear."
"I would rather be there than be a governess."
"Don't set yourself against it beforehand, Gwendolen. At the bishop's palace you will have every luxury about you, and you have always cared for that. You will not find it so hard as going up and down those narrow stairs, with the noise carrying through the house."
"It is like a bad dream," said Gwendolen, impetuously. "I cannot believe that my uncle will let you go there. He ought to have taken some other steps."
"What could he have done?"
"That was for him to find out. It seems to me a very extraordinary world if people in our position must sink in this way all at once," said Gwendolen.
But despite the keen sense of her own bruises, she felt some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with affection and kindness. She was struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of the economies they must make. Mr. Gascoigne's worth of character showed itself to great advantage under this sudden reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had decided not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn suits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without periodicals, to teach his boys himself, and to order his establishment on the sparest footing possible.
The rector's spirit had spread through the household. Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna did not miss anything they cared about, and sincerely felt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for Mrs. Davilow and her children.
Anna submerged her resentment on behalf of Rex in her sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne hoped privately that trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece. They had both been busy devising how to get curtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate feeling they left these matters in the background, and talked at first of Gwendolen's journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her at home again.
Her uncle then began to tell her of his efforts to get her a situation with as many advantages as possible.
"I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in a good family is not to be had at a moment's notice. And you would hardly find a better one than at Bishop Mompert's. I am known to both him and Mrs. Mompert; she wishes to see you before making an absolute engagement. She thinks of arranging for you to meet her at Wanchester."
"Do you know why she wants to see me, uncle?" said Gwendolen, whose mind had quickly gone over various disagreeable reasons.
The rector smiled. "Don't be alarmed, my dear. She would like to have a more precise idea of you than my report can give. A mother is naturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. She is a woman of taste and also of strict principle, and closely supervises her daughters' education. I feel sure that she will think your manners and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find."
Gwendolen dared not answer, but her dislike to the whole prospect made her flush deeply. Anna tenderly put her hand into her cousin's, and Mr. Gascoigne was too kind not to understand what a trial this sudden change must be. Bent on cheerfulness, he went on-
"I should have been tempted to try and get the position for Anna, if she had been likely to meet Mrs. Mompert's wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education in the highest sense. The bishop's views are more decidedly Low Church than my own; but though privately strict, he is not by any means narrow in public matters. He has always been friendly to me, though before his promotion, we had a little controversy about the Bible Society."
The rector's words were too full of satisfactory meaning to himself for him to imagine the effect they produced on his niece. "Bishop's views" - "privately strict" - "Bible Society," - it was as if he had introduced a few snakes into the conversation. Gwendolen, shrinking from the prospect, began desperately to seek an alternative.
"There was another situation, I think, mamma spoke of?"
"Yes," said the rector, in rather a depreciatory tone; "but that is in a school. It would be much harder work, and not so good in other respects."
"Oh dear no," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "You might not have a bedroom to yourself."
Gwendolen said, apparently in acceptance, "When is Mrs. Mompert likely to send for me?"
"Within the next fortnight, probably. But I must be off now." The rector left the room with the cheerful conviction that Gwendolen was going to act like a girl of good sense.
"What a prop Henry is to us all!" said Mrs. Gascoigne. "And Rex is just like him. We have had such comfort in a letter from him. I must read you a little bit." She took the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked rather frightened, as she never mentioned Rex before Gwendolen.
But her mother apparently found no sentences to read aloud that were free from difficult allusions, for she folded up the letter, saying-
"He tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he means to work for a fellowship, to take pupils, and to set one of his brothers going. The letter is full of fun, just like him. He says, 'Tell mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working son, and I offer myself for the place.' I never saw my husband so much moved by anything as this letter. It seemed a gain to balance our loss."
This letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna to show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt glad. She had no egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She only had an intense objection to their making her miserable.
But when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage, Gwendolen could not show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt heroic in keeping her internal struggle to herself. She recoiled from the prospect of meeting Mrs. Mompert; even as a governess, she was to be tested and was liable to rejection. After she had done herself the violence to accept the bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would accept her. And when she had entered on her dismal task of edifying the three girls, there was always to be Mrs. Mompert's supervision.
Gwendolen, used to the social successes of a handsome girl, whose lively, venturesome talk has the effect of wit, saw the life before her as an entrance into a penitentiary. She felt a growing rebellion against this hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the world - to her, who was meant for something quite different. The family troubles, she thought, were easier for everyone than for her. If she went to the Momperts', her talents would never be recognized as anything remarkable.
Some girls, who had read romances where even plain governesses are sought in marriage, might have solaced themselves a little by such pictures; but even if Gwendolen was inclined to dwell on love-making as her elysium, her heart was too much oppressed. She saw no reason why she should wish to live. No religious view of trouble helped her: her troubles had in her opinion all been caused by other people's conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant to be counted on in the world.
As to the sweetness of labour, the interest of activity, the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual discovery, the dues of fortitude and industry, the supreme worth of the teacher's vocation;- these doctrines could have barely touched her: the only fact that mattered was that for a lady to become a governess was to descend in life. We should pity a young creature who has the labyrinth of life before her and no clue as to how to navigate it.
In spite of her healthy frame, she felt a sort of numbness and could set about nothing; the least urgency was an irritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed unreasonable, because it did not include her feeling. It was not in her nature to busy herself with fancies of suicide: what exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing for her but to live in a way she hated. She could not exert herself to visit the Gascoignes or to show interest about the furniture of the horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying to help; such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing. Her mother had to make excuses for her. The calm which Gwendolen had promised herself to maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, "I suppose I shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?"
Her mother watched her with silent distress, wishing only that she could make her darling less miserable.
One day when Gwendolen was in the bedroom with her mother, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the casket which contained the ornaments.
"Mamma," she began, "I had forgotten these things. Do see about getting them sold."
"I would rather keep them for you, darling," said Mrs. Davilow, relieved that Gwendolen was beginning to talk about something. "Why, how came you to put that handkerchief in here?" It was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which Gwendolen had thrust in with the turquoise necklace.
"It happened to be with the necklace - I was in a hurry. Don't sell the necklace, mamma," she said, a new feeling coming over her about that rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive.
"No, dear. And I should prefer not selling the other things. None of them are valuable. All my best ornaments were taken from me long ago." Mrs. Davilow coloured, for she usually avoided any such reference to Gwendolen's step-father, who had disposed of his wife's jewellery. "Take these things with you," she said.
"That would be quite useless, mamma," said Gwendolen, coldly. "Governesses don't wear ornaments. You had better get me a straw poke hat, such as charity children wear."
"No, dear, don't take that view. I feel sure the Momperts will like you to be graceful and elegant."
"I am not at all sure what the Momperts will like me to be. It is enough that I am expected to be what they like," said Gwendolen bitterly.
"If there is anything you would object to less than going to the bishop's, do tell me, Gwendolen. I will try for anything you wish," beseeched her mother.
"Oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. I must think myself fortunate if they will have me. I shall get some money for you, at least. I shall not spend any money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. I don't know how far that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your poor fingers to the bone." Gwendolen did not even look at her mother, but at the turquoise necklace as she turned it over her fingers.
"Bless you, my good darling!" said Mrs. Davilow, with tears in her eyes. "Don't despair. There may be great happiness in store for you yet."
"I don't see any reason for expecting it, mamma," said Gwendolen, in a hard tone; and Mrs. Davilow was silent, thinking as she had often thought before - "What did happen between her and Mr. Grandcourt?"
"I will keep this necklace, mamma," said Gwendolen, laying it aside. "But do get the other things sold, even if they will not bring much."
She wrapped the torn handkerchief around the necklace. Mrs. Davilow observed this with surprise, but felt unable to ask any question.
Gwendolen was possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. It was not simply that she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste spread itself over the world.
But the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, folded up in the handkerchief, was more peculiar. It came from that streak of superstition in her which attached itself both to her confidence and her terror - a superstition which lingers in an intense personality in spite of science. Why she should suddenly determine not to part with the necklace was not clear to her: she had a confused state of emotion about Deronda. Was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and trust? It was something vague and yet mastering, which impelled her to this action.