But was she going to fulfill her deliberate intention? She began to be afraid of herself, and to find out a certain difficulty in doing as she liked. Already her assertion of independence in evading his advances had been carried farther than was necessary, and she was thinking with some anxiety what she might do on the next occasion.
Seated according to her habit with her back to the horses on their drive homeward, she was completely under the observation of her mamma, who took the excitement and changefulness in the expression of her eyes, her unwonted absence of mind and total silence, as unmistakable signs that something unprecedented had occurred between her and Grandcourt. Mrs. Davilow’s uneasiness determined her to risk some speech on the subject: the Gascoignes were to dine at Offendene, and in what had occurred this morning there might be some reason for consulting the rector; not that she expected him anymore than herself to influence Gwendolen, but that her anxious mind wanted to be disburdened.
“Something has happened, dear?” she began, in a tender tone of question.
Gwendolen looked round, and seeming to be roused to the consciousness of her physical self, took off her gloves and then her hat, that the soft breeze might blow on her head. They were in a retired bit of the road, where the long afternoon shadows from the bordering trees fell across it and no observers were within sight. Her eyes continued to meet her mother’s, but she did not speak.
“Mr. Grandcourt has been saying something?—Tell me, dear.” The last words were uttered beseechingly.
“What am I to tell you, mamma?” was the perverse answer.
“I am sure something has agitated you. You ought to confide in me, Gwen. You ought not to leave me in doubt and anxiety.” Mrs. Davilow’s eyes filled with tears.
“Mamma, dear, please don’t be miserable,” said Gwendolen, with pettish remonstrance. “It only makes me more so. I am in doubt myself.”
“About Mr. Grandcourt’s intentions?” said Mrs. Davilow, gathering determination from her alarms.
“No; not at all,” said Gwendolen, with some curtness, and a pretty little toss of the head as she put on her hat again.
“About whether you will accept him, then?”
“Precisely.”
“Have you given him a doubtful answer?”
“I have given him no answer at all.”
“He has spoken so that you could not misunderstand him?”
“As far as I would let him speak.”
“You expect him to persevere?” Mrs. Davilow put this question rather anxiously, and receiving no answer, asked another: “You don’t consider that you have discouraged him?”
“I dare say not.”
“I thought you liked him, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, timidly.
“So I do, mamma, as liking goes. There is less to dislike about him than about most men. He is quiet and distingué.” Gwendolen so far spoke with a pouting sort of gravity; but suddenly she recovered some of her mischievousness, and her face broke into a smile as she added—“Indeed he has all the qualities that would make a husband tolerable—battlement, veranda, stable, etc., no grins and no glass in his eye.”
“Do be serious with me for a moment, dear. Am I to understand that you mean to accept him?”
“Oh, pray, mamma, leave me to myself,” said Gwendolen, with a pettish distress in her voice.
And Mrs. Davilow said no more.
When they got home Gwendolen declared that she would not dine. She was tired, and would come down in the evening after she had taken some rest. The probability that her uncle would hear what had passed did not trouble her. She was convinced that whatever he might say would be on the side of her accepting Grandcourt, and she wished to accept him if she could. At this moment she would willingly have had weights hung on her own caprice.
Mr. Gascoigne did hear—not Gwendolen’s answers repeated verbatim, but a softened generalized account of them. The mother conveyed as vaguely as the keen rector’s questions would let her the impression that Gwendolen was in some uncertainty about her own mind, but inclined on the whole to acceptance. The result was that the uncle felt himself called on to interfere; he did not conceive that he should do his duty in witholding direction from his niece in a momentous crisis of this kind. Mrs. Davilow ventured a hesitating opinion that perhaps it would be safer to say nothing—Gwendolen was so sensitive (she did not like to say willful). But the rector’s was a firm mind, grasping its first judgments tenaciously and acting on them promptly, whence counter-judgments were no more for him than shadows fleeting across the solid ground to which he adjusted himself.
This match with Grandcourt presented itself to him as a sort of public affair; perhaps there were ways in which it might even strengthen the establishment. To the rector, whose father (nobody would have suspected it, and nobody was told) had risen to be a provincial corn-dealer, aristocratic heirship resembled regal heirship in excepting its possessor from the ordinary standard of moral judgments, Grandcourt, the almost certain baronet, the probable peer, was to be ranged with public personages, and was a match to be accepted on broad general grounds national and ecclesiastical. Such public personages, it is true, are often in the nature of giants which an ancient community may have felt pride and safety in possessing, though, regarded privately, these born eminences must often have been inconvenient and even noisome. But of the future husband personally Mr. Gascoigne was disposed to think the best. Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. But if Grandcourt had really made any deeper or more unfortunate experiments in folly than were common in young men of high prospects, he was of an age to have finished them. All accounts can be suitably wound up when a man has not ruined himself, and the expense may be taken as an insurance against future error. This was the view of practical wisdom; with reference to higher views, repentance had a supreme moral and religious value. There was every reason to believe that a woman of well-regulated mind would be happy with Grandcourt.
It was no surprise to Gwendolen on coming down to tea to be told that her uncle wished to see her in the dining-room. He threw aside the paper as she entered and greeted her with his usual kindness. As his wife had remarked, he always “made much” of Gwendolen, and her importance had risen of late. “My dear,” he said, in a fatherly way, moving a chair for her as he held her hand, “I want to speak to you on a subject which is more momentous than any other with regard to your welfare. You will guess what I mean. But I shall speak to you with perfect directness: in such matters I consider myself bound to act as your father. You have no objection, I hope?”
“Oh dear, no, uncle. You have always been very kind to me,” said Gwendolen, frankly. This evening she was willing, if it were possible, to be a little fortified against her troublesome self, and her resistant temper was in abeyance. The rector’s mode of speech always conveyed a thrill of authority, as of a word of command: it seemed to take for granted that there could be no wavering in the audience, and that every one was going to be rationally obedient.
“It is naturally a satisfaction to me that the prospect of a marriage for you—advantageous in the highest degree—has presented itself so early. I do not know exactly what has passed between you and Mr. Grandcourt, but I presume there can be little doubt, from the way in which he has distinguished you, that he desires to make you his wife.”
Gwendolen did not speak immediately, and her uncle said with