Chapter Two
This was the letter Gwendolen found on her table:
‘DEAREST CHILD. – I have been expecting to hear from you. In your last letter you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn for Baden. How could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in uncertainty about your address? I am in the greatest anxiety lest this should not reach you. I must entreat you to return as quickly as possible, for if you spent all your money I would be powerless to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the Langens, for I could not repay them.
‘This is the sad truth, my child – a dreadful calamity has befallen us all. You know nothing about business and will not understand it; but Grapnell & Co. have failed for a million, and we are totally ruined – your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, except that your uncle’s benefice means that they can manage. All the property our poor father saved for us is gone. There is nothing I can call my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my heart to have to tell it you. We cannot help thinking what a pity it was that you went away just when you did; but I shall never reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I could.
‘On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for changes. We shall leave Offendene. Of course we cannot go to the rectory – there is not a corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us, and live on your uncle Gascoigne’s charity, until I see what else can be done. Summon your fortitude, my dear child; we must resign ourselves to God’s will. But it is hard to resign one’s self to the wicked recklessness which was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry and give me no help. If you were here, there might be a break in the cloud – I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant for poverty. Come as soon as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma,
‘FANNY DAVILOW.’
The first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. Her confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease, where any trouble would be well provided for, had been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma’s, fed by her youth and her sense of superior claims. It was almost as difficult for her to believe suddenly in her poverty and humiliating dependence, as it would have been for her to take into her strong blooming life the chill sense that her death would really come.
She stood motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off her hat and automatically looked in the glass. The coils of her smooth light-brown hair were still in perfect order. On other nights, Gwendolen might have looked lingeringly at herself for pleasure; but now she took no note of her beauty, and simply stared before her. By-and-by she threw herself onto the sofa and read the letter again twice, letting it at last fall on the ground, while she sat still, shedding no tears. Her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than to wail over it. There was no pity for “Poor mamma!” Her mamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and Gwendolen would rather have bestowed any pity on herself.
But it was anger, it was resistance that possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost her gains at roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this one day she would have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might have gone on playing and won enough to support them all.
Even now was it not possible? She had little money left in her purse, but she had some ornaments which she could sell: a practice so common in stylish society here that there was no need to be ashamed of it. Even if she had not received her mamma’s letter, she would probably have decided to get money for an Etruscan necklace which she had not worn since her arrival. With money and a return of her former luck, which seemed probable, what could she do better than go on playing for a few days? If her friends at home disapproved, as they certainly would, still the money would be there.
Gwendolen imagined following this course and its agreeable consequences, but not with the unbroken confidence of a committed gambler. She had gone to the roulette-table not because of passion, but in search of it: and while the chance of winning allured her, the chance of losing made a vision from which her pride shrank.
For she was resolved not to tell the Langens that any misfortune had befallen her family, or to make herself in any way indebted to their compassion; and if they were to see her part with her jewellery, they would interfere. The least risky course was to sell her necklace early in the morning, tell the Langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving a reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening.
Instead of going to bed she began to pack, all the while foreseeing the events of the coming day – the tiresome explanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed home; or the alternative of staying just another day and standing again at the roulette-table. But always in this latter scene there was the presence of Deronda, watching her with exasperating irony, and seeing her again forsaken by luck. She resolved on departing immediately.
By the time she finishing packing, the faint dawn was stealing through the blinds. What was the use of going to bed? A slight trace of fatigue about the eyes only made her look more interesting. Before six o’clock she was equipped in her grey travelling dress, for she meant to walk out as soon as other ladies would be on their way to the springs.
Seated before the mirror, she turned to look at herself, leaning on the back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her portrait. She had a naïve delight in herself, which may be forgiven in a girl who had every day seen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends’ flattery as well as in the looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles, while she sat gazing at her image in the growing light, her face gathered a gradual complacency. Her beautiful lips curled into a more and more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward and kissed the cold glass. How could she believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries.
Madame von Langen never went out before breakfast, so Gwendolen could safely walk up to the shop she needed, which was sure to be open after seven. At that hour any observers would be either on their walks towards the springs, or still in their bedrooms; but certainly there was one grand hotel, the Czarina, from which eyes might follow her up to Mr. Wiener’s shop. This was a risk: she remembered that the Czarina was Deronda’s hotel; but she was already far up the road, and walked on with her usual floating movement, every line in her figure and drapery falling in gentle curves attractive to all eyes except those which saw in them too close a resemblance to the serpent.
She looked neither to right nor left on the way, and transacted her business in the shop with a coolness which gave little Mr. Weiner nothing to remark except her proud grace of manner, and the superior quality of the three central turquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a chain once her father’s: but she had never known her father; and the necklace was the ornament she could most conveniently part with.
Gwendolen’s chief regret was that she added only nine louis to the four in her purse: these Jew dealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians unfortunate at play! But she was the Langens’ guest in their apartment, and had nothing to pay there. Thirteen louis would do more than take her home; even if she decided to risk three, the remaining ten would suffice.
As she turned homeward and seated herself in the salon to await her friends and breakfast, she still wavered as to her immediate departure. She had resolved to tell the Langens simply that she had had a letter from her mamma desiring her return, and to leave it undecided when she should start. By now rather tired and hungry, she was leaning back when she heard some one enter. She rose expecting to see one of the Langens; but it was the servant bringing in a small packet for Miss Harleth, which had just been left at the door.
Gwendolen took it and immediately hurried to her room, paler and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma’s
letter. Something – she never quite knew what – revealed to her before she opened the packet that it contained the necklace she had just parted with. It was wrapped in a handkerchief, and with it was a scrap of note-paper, on which was written, in clear but rapid handwriting– “A stranger who has found Miss Harleth’s necklace returns it to her with the hope that she will not again risk the loss of it.”
Gwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. A large corner of the handkerchief seemed to have been torn off to get rid of an owner’s mark; but she at once believed in the first image of “the stranger” that presented itself to her mind. It was Deronda; he must have seen her go into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after and repurchased the necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and had placed her in a hateful position.
What could she do? – Not, certainly, straightway send the necklace back to him: for she might be mistaken. But even if the “stranger” were he, it would be too gross to let him know that she had realised this, and to meet him again with that recognition in their minds. He knew very well that he was causing her helpless humiliation: it was another way of smiling at her ironically.
Gwendolen felt bitter tears of mortification rolling down her cheeks. No one had ever before dared to treat her with irony and contempt. One thing was clear: she must leave at once; it was impossible for her to reappear in the salon, still less stand at the gaming-table with the risk of seeing Deronda.
There came a knock at the door: breakfast was ready. Gwendolen passionately thrust necklace, cambric, paper and all into her bag, pressed her handkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute to summon her proud self-control, went to join her friends. Her signs of tears and fatigue seemed accordant enough with the account she gave of her having sat up to do her packing. Her friends protested against her travelling alone, but she refused any companion. She would be put into the ladies’ compartment and go right on. She could rest exceedingly well in the train, and was afraid of nothing.
In this way it happened that Gwendolen never reappeared at the roulette-table, but that Thursday evening left Leubronn for Brussels, and on Saturday morning arrived at Offendene, the home to which she and her family were soon to say a last good-bye.