scattered.
You had your warning … His best young love was mine … He had meant to marry me … You have chosen to injure me and my children … You will have your punishment. I desire it with all my soul …
I collapsed back into the chair, I do not know for how long. Grandcourt tapped at the door and entered dressed for dinner. My breathing turned to screams.
So began my husband’s tyranny. He closed the door but made no move towards me. He said, ‘Stop screaming.’ It was a command. He did not, he said, want his servants to think he had married some harpy from the gutter. ‘You are,’ he said, ‘Mrs Grandcourt now.’
I became silent though I trembled still.
‘Pick up the diamonds,’ he said, ‘and put them into their case.’ I crawled the floor. ‘There is another under the chair,’ he said. ‘Pick it up.’ I picked it up.
‘I shall tell you when I wish you to wear them,’ he said. His voice was uninflected, quiet, controlled, but oh so different from the morning and brief yesterdays of courtship. He was, he said, going down to dinner and would wait for me at table. I was to dress; he would send a servant for me in fifteen minutes. ‘You are tired,’ he said, ‘after the journey. You are overwrought. We will retire early.’ At the door he turned and added with what seemed like vitriol, ‘Mrs Grandcourt.’ I cannot tell you how absolute my sense of isolation was.
*
The door closed. My explosion of terror was replaced by more vigilant fear. I wanted to run from this terrible place. I willed myself to be calm, breathe evenly and stop trembling. I longed for mamma to comfort me, longed for our black and yellow bedroom and my annoying sisters. I longed for you.
I put on my trousseau clothes. Hudson knocked at the door to say the master was waiting in the blue room. Under a sparkling chandelier a small table was set for two. Grandcourt behaved as if nothing had happened and nothing was amiss, but his voice now had authority unlaced with compliment and when I looked at him, which I tried not to do, I felt revulsion: the thin moustache, white skin, bald head and ice-cold eyes. The death’s head and figure in flight were now incarnate.
A butler stood with silver dishes: shellfish, poultry, cheese. My plight was more terrible in this luxurious setting. I could not eat; I drank my wine. When the servant made to refill my glass, Grandcourt waved him away. The terms of the relationship were thus defined. Grandcourt’s slanting grey eyes fixed on me and saw what they chose. I was his prey. His voice drawled. He talked of where we would go and when.
An eternity passed. I said I was tired after the events of the day. I wanted, needed, to sit alone in my room by the fire. Eventually he told me I might go. As I rose to leave, he said he would join me in an hour. I froze with apprehension at what might ensue.
In my room the windows were now shuttered, the cover turned down on the large bed, the organza drawn back between its posts. Candles flickered. I dared not look at the shadows of their flames on the walls lest they transform into the death’s head, the snake coiled on the diamonds.
In the dressing table mirror I looked into my frightened eyes. I would not again kiss my own image. There was now, I knew, no way out. I tried to empty my mind and stifle my fear. I was unaware of the passing of time. The door handle turned.
He wore a nightshirt, his face was impassive, his movements unhurried. He asked why I was not in my nightclothes, why I was not in bed. I didn’t know if there was derision in his voice. I said I felt homesick. There was no expression in his eyes. He held out his hand; I did not take it. I was to learn that any gesture from him, however small, was a command. He took my arm and raised me from the chair. I was wraith-like, a condemned soul.
*
Oh Deronda, please remember I had not so much as kissed a man or been caressed. My revulsion was absolute. Any suggestion of lovemaking felt
You had your warning … His best young love was mine … He had meant to marry me … You have chosen to injure me and my children … You will have your punishment. I desire it with all my soul …
I collapsed back into the chair, I do not know for how long. Grandcourt tapped at the door and entered dressed for dinner. My breathing turned to screams.
So began my husband’s tyranny. He closed the door but made no move towards me. He said, ‘Stop screaming.’ It was a command. He did not, he said, want his servants to think he had married some harpy from the gutter. ‘You are,’ he said, ‘Mrs Grandcourt now.’
I became silent though I trembled still.
‘Pick up the diamonds,’ he said, ‘and put them into their case.’ I crawled the floor. ‘There is another under the chair,’ he said. ‘Pick it up.’ I picked it up.
‘I shall tell you when I wish you to wear them,’ he said. His voice was uninflected, quiet, controlled, but oh so different from the morning and brief yesterdays of courtship. He was, he said, going down to dinner and would wait for me at table. I was to dress; he would send a servant for me in fifteen minutes. ‘You are tired,’ he said, ‘after the journey. You are overwrought. We will retire early.’ At the door he turned and added with what seemed like vitriol, ‘Mrs Grandcourt.’ I cannot tell you how absolute my sense of isolation was.
*
The door closed. My explosion of terror was replaced by more vigilant fear. I wanted to run from this terrible place. I willed myself to be calm, breathe evenly and stop trembling. I longed for mamma to comfort me, longed for our black and yellow bedroom and my annoying sisters. I longed for you.
I put on my trousseau clothes. Hudson knocked at the door to say the master was waiting in the blue room. Under a sparkling chandelier a small table was set for two. Grandcourt behaved as if nothing had happened and nothing was amiss, but his voice now had authority unlaced with compliment and when I looked at him, which I tried not to do, I felt revulsion: the thin moustache, white skin, bald head and ice-cold eyes. The death’s head and figure in flight were now incarnate.
A butler stood with silver dishes: shellfish, poultry, cheese. My plight was more terrible in this luxurious setting. I could not eat; I drank my wine. When the servant made to refill my glass, Grandcourt waved him away. The terms of the relationship were thus defined. Grandcourt’s slanting grey eyes fixed on me and saw what they chose. I was his prey. His voice drawled. He talked of where we would go and when.
An eternity passed. I said I was tired after the events of the day. I wanted, needed, to sit alone in my room by the fire. Eventually he told me I might go. As I rose to leave, he said he would join me in an hour. I froze with apprehension at what might ensue.
In my room the windows were now shuttered, the cover turned down on the large bed, the organza drawn back between its posts. Candles flickered. I dared not look at the shadows of their flames on the walls lest they transform into the death’s head, the snake coiled on the diamonds.
In the dressing table mirror I looked into my frightened eyes. I would not again kiss my own image. There was now, I knew, no way out. I tried to empty my mind and stifle my fear. I was unaware of the passing of time. The door handle turned.
He wore a nightshirt, his face was impassive, his movements unhurried. He asked why I was not in my nightclothes, why I was not in bed. I didn’t know if there was derision in his voice. I said I felt homesick. There was no expression in his eyes. He held out his hand; I did not take it. I was to learn that any gesture from him, however small, was a command. He took my arm and raised me from the chair. I was wraith-like, a condemned soul.
*
Oh Deronda, please remember I had not so much as kissed a man or been caressed. My revulsion was absolute. Any suggestion of lovemaking felt
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