Gwendolen (16 page)

I woke to the sound of the crew casting anchor in Genoa harbour, and within an hour I actually met you – on the staircase of the Hotel
Italia
I was wearing a thin woollen dress and straw hat. Grandcourt was by my side. You started, raised your hat and passed on. It felt like a continuation of my dream. I did not question what had brought you to the city; it seemed meant to be. Months later I learned from Sir Hugo of the extraordinary reason why you were there.

Grandcourt supposed your presence to have been in some way contrived by me, though how that was possible was hard even for him to fathom. What was certain in his suspicions was that I would seek to meet you if for a moment his back was turned.

In our rooms he ordered coffee and stared at me. I knew I looked beautiful: the sea air; the prospect of hours of separation from him; the omen of your being in the same city, the same hotel. He observed my anticipation, my hope, told me to order dinner to be served at three, took out a cigar, reached for his hat and said he was going to instruct Angus, his valet, to find a little sailing boat for us to go out in alone: one he could manage with me at the tiller. My stomach lurched. I said I would rather not go in the boat, I had been unwell, would he please take someone else.

‘Very well,' he said. ‘If you don't go, neither shall I. We shall stay suffocating here.'

‘I can't bear going in a boat,' I said.

‘Then we shall stay indoors.' He smoked and stared from the window. I went into my bedroom, an evil anger rushing through me. After half an hour he followed, sat in front of me and asked with a drawl if I had come round yet or if I found it agreeable to be out of temper. ‘You make things uncommonly unpleasant for me,' he said.

I began to cry. ‘Why do
you
want to make them unpleasant for
me
?' I asked.

‘What is it you have to complain of?' Grandcourt said. ‘That I stay indoors when you stay?'

I could not answer. I could neither confirm that truth nor tell him more. He knew I would prefer a minute of your company to a lifetime of his. In despair, anger and humiliation, I cried without control.

He called my tears confoundedly unpleasant, said all women were wretches and we would remain stifling indoors for an interminable afternoon while we might have been having a pleasant sail. ‘Let us go then, perhaps we shall be drowned,' I said. And cried the more.

He drew his chair close, grasped my hair, pulled back my head, pushed his face close to mine and said, ‘Just be quiet and listen. Let us understand each other. I know very well what this nonsense means. But if you suppose I am going to let you make a fool of me, just dismiss that notion from your mind. What are you to look forward to if you can't behave properly as my wife? There is disgrace for you if you choose it. And as for Deronda, you are not to converse with him.'

I said he could not in the least imagine what was in my mind. I had seen enough of the disgrace that came from bad behaviour and it would be better for him if he left me at liberty to speak with anyone I liked.

‘You will allow me to be judge of that.' He tugged at my hair, rose, and walked to the window. I felt such sense of capture, held by bit and bridle. He would keep on until I ceased to be restive, my spirit broken.

‘What decision have you come to?' he asked. ‘What orders shall I give?'

It was to seem, if not my choice, my consent. His words were thumbscrews, his presence the rack. ‘Oh, let us go,' I said.

*

The boat was ordered, we inspected it at midday and went to the quay at five in the afternoon. A group of onlookers admired the scene: this model couple indulging their monied idle life. A fisherman relayed warning about the gathering wind, but Grandcourt's manner made it clear he could as easily command a boat as a horse or a platoon.

I was afraid not of the wind or the dangers of the sea but of my violent hatred, which grew ever more keen. I guided the tiller under Grandcourt's eye and did exactly as he commanded. I kept to the thought of you. I was sure you would not leave Genoa. You would know I needed to talk with you, needed your help; you would save me from my murderous desires.

The boat was carried eastward by a gentle breeze, the grand city shimmered, the mountains loomed, the sun was setting, there were sails near and far.

‘Don't you find this pleasant?' he asked.

‘Very,' I replied.

‘You admit now we could not have done anything better.'

‘No, nothing better. We shall go on always, like the
Flying Dutchman
.'

He gave a warning glance. For as long as I hated him he would desire me. In my mind yet again I took that small sharp knife from its silver sheath.

‘If you like we can go to Spezia in the morning and let the yacht meet us there.'

‘No, I should like nothing better than this.'

‘Very well, we'll do the same tomorrow.'

*

I hoped for forked lightning to strike him dead. I sat like a galley slave. To see you at the hotel was such joy and reassurance, but now, knowing you were near, the disappointment of being denied you was terrible. I did not look at my captor, who spoke only to order me to pull the tiller. As a child, when my hated stepfather came home, I used to imagine sailing away to a place where people were not forced to live with anyone they did not like. Now I was sailing with no hope of deliverance. My only avoidance of misery was to think of the life I might have, the woman I might be, were I with you.

I let go of the tiller and heard my voice say aloud, ‘God help me.'

‘What's the matter?' Grandcourt asked.

‘Oh, nothing.' I took the ropes again.

*

An eternity passed. It grew late. Clouds gathered and the wind picked up. He said, ‘I shall put about.' He turned the sail. I do not know if it was my mind or heart that acted. It was so quick. I think at the same time as the wind gusted I pulled the tiller the wrong way. The boom struck him and he fell from the boat. I saw him sink. My heart gave a lurch of joy. I did not move. I feared he would come up again and he did, though further off, for the boat moved fast with the tide. So quick. So quick. Like lightning. Like an arrow from a bow. ‘The rope!' he called in a voice not his own. I stooped for the rope. I felt sure he could swim and would come back whether I threw it or not. The rope was in my hands. I did not throw it. The words ‘He will come back' were in my mind.

*

When he pinned me to the bed in humiliation and assault I so longed for his death. In the mornings when I woke, often after dreaming of you, to the prison I was in, as I felt hope drain from me, I so wanted this moment of his drowning. But all the while I also yearned for you to stop me growing more wicked. You were the vision of love, goodness and redemption beyond the evil of my life.

*

He went down again. Then again his face rose above the water. He cried out. I held the rope in my hand and my heart said, Die. He sank, and I thought, It is done. I am wicked. I am lost. Then I let go of the rope and leapt into the water. I was leaping away from myself, thrashing at the waves not to save him but to save myself. And then there was his dead face close to me. I did not touch him. I could not. The sea churned. I thought I would drown too. He went down. Then there was a fishing boat rowed by two men; one jumped from it, held my chin, dragged me from the sea and into their boat. They wrapped me in pea jackets and a tarpaulin.

*

As we reached the shore I saw you standing before me as if by plan. I was always expecting you, always hoping against hope for you and at last had found you. The boatmen supported me. I stretched out my arms to you, I called, ‘It is come. It is come. He is dead.' You tried to silence me. The boatmen did not understand English. They told you they heard a cry, saw me jump in after my husband, then hurried to rescue me. The man had drowned. He was beneath the waves. He might in time be washed ashore.

The boat, drifting empty, was towed in, its sail loose. The fishermen were witness to the story you chose to believe and which became the formal, legally recognised account of what had happened.

You informed the fishermen you were connected to my husband, instructed them to take me to the
Italia
, and that when you had dealt with the police and harbour master you would come to me.

*

I waited in the hotel. I put on the turquoise necklace. You summoned doctors, telegraphed Sir Hugo and my uncle to come at once and bring mamma. I kept saying he was dead, that I was a murderess, that he had called for the rope which I did not throw, that I had let him drown. I implored you not to say I must tell the world what I had done, not to tell me I deserved disgrace. I could not bear mamma to know.

I was like two creatures: one overcome by joy at release, the other burdened by guilt. Words spilled out: I told you how each day and night hatred worked in me, at Ryelands, at Diplow, at Topping Abbey, at Grosvenor Square; that my consolation, my only way to free myself, was to contrive to kill him. I told you how I longed to use the knife locked in the drawer of my dressing case, how I dared not unlock the case and in the yacht I dropped the key into the sea, how I knew I must not act but I was always waiting for the chance and it came.

You drew a chair up close to where I sat and tried to reassure me. Grandcourt's death was an accident, you said. I could not have prevented it. He had fallen from the boat, he could not swim, I had leapt into the water with the impulse to save him.

*

But only thinking of what you would do made me pretend to try to save my gaoler, my tormentor. And in my heart I knew my attempt was a futile gesture and to my joy too late. Had you been overboard I would have thrown the rope, manoeuvred the boat and swum with all force to save you.

*

I poured out my confession: how I used to think I could never be wicked, wicked people were distant from me, but within so little time I became wicked. Everything became a punishment to me, the very daylight seemed red hot … I ought not to have married. That was the beginning and end of it. I broke my promise to Lydia Glasher.

And then I was a coward, I ought to have left and wandered like a beggar, not stayed to feel like a fiend. I thought he would kill me if I resisted his will. At night in the cabin of the yacht, the sea, the stillness, were punishment. You were my only hope. When I saw you in the
Italia
I thought if I told you everything – the locked drawer, the knife, the murderous thoughts, the temptation that frightened me – all would have less power over me. But he shut me off from speaking to you and took me out in the boat with no escape. And then the knowledge that at night his hated body would be on mine. Were he here again I would wish him dead. But now his dead face will rise from the sea and be in the room and I cannot bear more punishment.

*

You tried to quieten me. You said I had resisted temptation to the last, my fears were in my imagination, and what was done could not be altered. But you could not lessen my aversion to my worst self, for though I had not murdered, you saw, or I think you saw, that a criminal desire impelled my hesitation. I remember saying, ‘I make you very unhappy.'

You told me to say no more and to try to sleep. You would see me again after I had rested. I saw my torment was not yours. I felt your desire to be gone from me. You promised to come when I asked for you next day.

*

When you came to my rooms next morning you had not undressed or slept. I again implored you not to tell mamma or anyone how I resisted throwing the rope as Grandcourt drowned. Again you said my thoughts and hesitation would have made no difference: he could not swim, he must have been seized with cramp. And then at last I told you of Mrs Glasher, of their children, the will, the money and how I wanted none of it.

I implored you to be patient with me. What I wanted was for you to hold me, but I could not ask for that. Instead you gave me lofty advice and told me I might become worthier than I had been thus far. ‘No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love and desire to continue in and make no effort to escape from,' you said, then took my hand and held it in yours.

I had never before had from a man a physical sign of tenderness which I needed and wanted. The feel of your hand seemed my link to life. I said if you were close to me I could be different, but if you turned from me and forsook me I did not know what I would do.

I should not have said this. I was aware of urging you to make promises you would not know how to keep. Again I had gone too far.

You became pragmatic, said you would not leave Genoa before mamma, uncle and Sir Hugo arrived and that my mother's presence would be a comfort and I must save her from unnecessary pain. I asked if it was your plan to live with Sir Hugo at the Abbey or at Diplow. You reddened and said you were uncertain where you would live.

You looked worn down. You said you must go to your rooms and change your clothes and I must get well and calm before the others arrived. As you went through the door I felt like a banished soul, more alone than was bearable, with the distance between us too great for me to bridge. I sank to my knees and gave way to crying, and the attendant who found me thought my display was of grief and despair because my husband of less than a year had drowned in my presence.

When you held my hand in consolation, your touch was a revelation. For you it was an unmemorable exchange, a reassurance you would have offered any troubled soul. I could not tell you I would have liked you to kiss my neck below my ear. Forgive me, I could never have told you that. Nor could I tell you, because I could not utter the words, about the violation I endured from Grandcourt.

*

News of the drowning was in
The Times
. Mamma and uncle left for Genoa. They found me in a strange state of elation. I greeted them as liberators. Sir Hugo arrived two days later. His delay was because, as Grandcourt's executor, he had gone to London to consult with Lush about the will. In Genoa he wondered about ‘the entanglement of our horoscopes' as he put it, yours and mine, that led us to be in the same hotel when this drama broke, but he was a man who could go one better with most stories: once by chance he had stayed in a Paris hotel on the night a former lover of his was abandoned there, without money, by her husband, an Austrian baron.