Felix Holt, the Radical by George Eliot
CHAPTER XXXIX.
No man believes that many-textured knowledge and skill--as a just idea of the solar system, or the power of painting flesh, or of reading written harmonies--can come late and of a sudden; yet many will not stick at believing that happiness can come at any day and hour solely by a new disposition of events; though there is naught less capable of a magical production than a mortal's happiness, which is mainly a complex of habitual relations and dispositions not to be wrought by news from foreign parts, or any whirling of fortune's wheel for one on whose brow Time has written legibly.
Some days after Esther's arrival at Transome Court, Denner, coming todress Mrs. Transome before dinner--a labor of love for which she hadample leisure now--found her mistress seated with more than ever of amarble aspect of self-absorbed suffering, which to the waiting-woman'skeen observation had been gradually intensifying itself during the pastweek. She had tapped at the door without having been summoned, and shehad ventured to enter though she had heard no voice saying, "Come in."
Mrs. Transome had on a dark warm dressing-gown, hanging in thick foldsabout her, and she was seated before a mirror which filled a panel fromthe floor to the ceiling. The room was bright with the light of the fireand of wax candles. For some reason, contrary to her usual practice,Mrs. Transome had herself unfastened her abundant gray hair, whichrolled backward in a pale sunless stream over her dark dress. She wasseated before the mirror apparently looking at herself, her brow knit inone deep furrow, and her jewelled hands laid one above the other on herknee. Probably she had ceased to see the reflection in the mirror, forher eyes had the fixed wide-open look that belongs not to examination,but to reverie. Motionless in that way, her clear-cut features keepingdistinct record of past beauty, she looked like an image faded, dried,and bleached by uncounted suns, rather than a breathing woman who hadnumbered the years as they passed, and had a consciousness within herwhich was the slow deposit of those ceaseless roiling years.
Denner, with all her ingrained and systematic reserve, could not helpshowing signs that she was startled, when, peering from between herhalf-closed eyelids, she saw the motionless image in the mirror oppositeto her as she entered. Her gentle opening of the door had not roused hermistress, to whom the sensations produced by Denner's presence were aslittle disturbing as those of a favorite cat. But the slight cry, andthe start reflected in the glass, were unusual enough to break thereverie, Mrs. Transome moved, leaned back in her chair, and said--
"So you're come at last, Denner?"
"Yes, madam; it is not late. I'm sorry you should have undone your hairyourself."
"I undid it to see what an old hag I am. These fine clothes you put onme, Denner, are only a smart shroud."
"Pray don't talk so, madam. If there's anybody doesn't think it pleasantto look at you, so much the worse for them. For my part, I've seen noyoung ones fit to hold up your train. Look at your likeness down below;and though you're older now, what signifies? I wouldn't be Letty in thescullery because she's got red cheeks. She mayn't know she's a poorcreature, but I know it, and that's enough for me; I know what sort of adowdy draggletail she'll be in ten years' time. I would change withnobody, madam. And if troubles were put up to market, I'd sooner buy oldthan new. It's something to have seen the worst."
"A woman never has seen the worst till she is old, Denner," said Mrs.Transome, bitterly.
The keen little waiting-woman was not clear as to the cause of hermistress's added bitterness; but she rarely brought herself to askquestions, when Mrs. Transome did not authorize them by beginning togive her information. Banks the bailiff and the head-servant had noddedand winked a good deal over the certainty that Mr. Harold was "none sofond" of Jermyn, but this was a subject on which Mrs. Transome had nevermade up her mind to speak, and Denner knew nothing definite. Again, shefelt quite sure that there was some important secret connected withEsther's presence in the house; she suspected that the close Dominicknew the secret, and was more trusted than she was, in spite of herforty years' service; but any resentment on this ground would have beenan entertained reproach against her mistress, inconsistent with Denner'screed and character. She inclined to the belief that Esther was theimmediate cause of the new discontent.
"If there's anything worse coming to you, I should like to know what itis, madam," she said, after a moment's silence, speaking always in thesame low quick way, and keeping up her quiet labors. "When I awake atcock-crow, I'd sooner have one real grief on my mind than twenty false.It's better to know one's robbed than to think one's going to bemurdered."
"I believe you are the creature in the world that loves me best, Denner;yet you will never understand what I suffer. It's of no use telling you.There's no folly in you, and no heartache. You are made of iron. Youhave never had any trouble."
"I've had some of your trouble, madam."
"Yes, you good thing. But as a sick-nurse, that never caught the fever.You never even had a child."
"I can feel for things I never went through. I used to be sorry for thepoor French Queen when I was young; I'd have lain cold for her to liewarm. I know people have feelings according to their birth and station.And you always took things to heart, madam, beyond anybody else. But Ihope there's nothing new, to make you talk of the worst."
"Yes, Denner, there is--there is," said Mrs. Transome, speaking in a lowtone of misery, while she bent for her head-dress to be pinned on.
"Is it this young lady?"
"Why, what do you think about her, Denner?" said Mrs. Transome, in atone of more spirit, rather curious to hear what the old woman wouldsay.
"I don't deny she's graceful, and she has a pretty smile and very goodmanners: it's quite unaccountable by what Banks says about her father. Iknow nothing of those Treby townsfolk myself, but for my part I'mpuzzled. I'm fond of Mr. Harold. I always shall be, madam. I was at hisbringing into the world, and nothing but his doing wrong by you wouldturn me against him. But the servants all say he's in love with MissLyon."
"I wish it were true, Denner," said Mrs. Transome, energetically. "Iwish he were in love with her, so that she could master him, and makehim do what she pleased."
"Then it is not true--what they say?"
"Not true that she will ever master him. No woman ever will. He willmake her fond of him, and afraid of him. That's one of the things youhave never gone through, Denner. A woman's love is always freezing intofear. She wants everything, she is secure of nothing. This girl has afine spirit--plenty of fire and pride and wit. Men like such captives,as they like horses that champ the bit and paw the ground: they feelmore triumph in their mastery. What is the use of a woman's will?--ifshe tries, she doesn't get it, and she ceases to be loved. God was cruelwhen He made women."
Denner was used to such outbursts as this. Her mistress's rhetoric andtemper belonged to her superior rank, her grand person, and her piercingblack eyes. Mrs. Transome had a sense of impiety in her words which madethem all the more tempting to her impotent anger. The waiting-woman hadnone of that awe which could be turned into defiance: the Sacred Grovewas a common thicket to her.
"It mayn't be good luck to be a woman," she said. "But one begins withit from a baby: one gets used to it. And I shouldn't like to be aman--to cough so loud, and stand straddling about on a wet day, and beso wasteful with meat and drink. They're a coarse lot, I think. Then Ineedn't make a trouble of this young lady, madam," she added, after amoment's pause.
"No, Denner, I like her. If that were all--I should like Harold to marryher. It would be the best thing. If the truth were known--and it will beknown soon--the estate is hers by law--such law as it is. It's a strangestory: she's a Bycliffe really."
Denner did not look amazed, but went on fastening her mistress's dress,as she said--
"Well, madam, I was sure there was something wonderful at the bottom ofit. And turning the old lawsuits and everything else over in my mind, Ithought the law might have something to do with it. Then she is a bornlady?"
"
"We talked that over in the housekeeper's room--what a hand and aninstep she has, and how her head is set on her shoulders--almost likeyour own, madam. But her lightish complexion spoils her, to my thinking.And Dominic said Mr. Harold never admired that sort of woman before.There's nothing that smooth fellow couldn't tell you if he would: heknows the answer to riddles before they're made. However, he knows howto hold his tongue; I'll say that for him. And so do I, madam."
"Yes, yes; you will not talk of it till other people are talking of it."
"And so, if Mr. Harold married her, it would save all fuss andmischief?"
"Yes--about the estate."
"And he seems inclined; and she'll not refuse him, I'll answer for it.And you like her, madam. There's everything to set your mind at rest."
Denner was putting the finishing-touch to Mrs. Transome's dress bythrowing an Indian scarf over her shoulders, and so completing thecontrast between the majestic lady in costume and the dishevelledHecuba-like woman whom she had found half an hour before.
"I am not at rest!" Mrs. Transome said, with slow distinctness, movingfrom the mirror to the window, where the blind was not drawn down, andshe could see the chill white landscape and the far-off unheeding stars.
Denner, more distressed by her mistress's suffering than she could havebeen by anything else, took up with the instinct of affection a goldvinaigrette which Mrs. Transome often liked to carry with her, and goingup to her put it into her hand gently. Mrs. Transome grasped the littlewoman's hand hard, and held it so.
"Denner," she said, in a low tone, "if I could choose at this moment, Iwould choose that Harold should never have been born."
"Nay, my dear," (Denner had only once before in her life said "my dear"to her mistress), "it was a happiness to you then."
"I don't believe I felt the happiness then as I feel the misery now. Itis foolish to say people can't feel much when they are getting old. Notpleasure, perhaps--little comes. But they can feel they areforsaken--why, every fibre in me seems to be a memory that makes a pang.They can feel that all the love in their lives is turned to hatred orcontempt."
"Not mine, madam, not mine. Let what would be I should want to live foryour sake, for fear you should have nobody to do for you as I would."
"Ah, then you are a happy woman, Denner; you have loved somebody forforty years who is old and weak now, and can't do without you."
The sound of the dinner-gong resounded below, and Mrs. Transome let thefaithful hand fall again.