 thoughts of running away to
be an actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but
his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride and even
her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting amongst vulgar people
who would treat her with rude familiarity - odious men, whose grins and smirks
would not be seen through the strong grating of polite society. Gwendolen's
daring was not in the least that of the adventuress; the demand to be held a
lady was in her very marrow; and when she had dreamed that she might be the
heroine of the gaming-table, it was with the understanding that no one should
treat her with the less consideration, or presume to look at her with irony as
Deronda had done. To be protected and petted, and to have her susceptibilities
consulted in every detail, had gone along with her food and clothing as matters
of course in her life: even without any such warning as Klesmer's she could not
have thought it an attractive freedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the
doubtful civility of strangers. The endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was
less repulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be petted or
have her susceptibilities consulted. Her rebellion against this hard necessity
which had come just to her of all people in the world - to her whom all
circumstances had concurred in preparing for something quite different - was
exaggerated instead of diminished as one hour followed another, filled with the
imagination of what she might have expected in her lot and what it was actually
to be. The family troubles, she thought, were easier for every one than for her
- even for poor dear mamma, because she had always used herself to not enjoying.
As to hoping that if she went to the Momperts' and was patient a little while,
things might get better - it would be stupid to entertain hopes for herself
after all that had happened: her talents, it appeared, would never be recognised
as anything remarkable, and there was not a single direction in which
probability seemed to flatter her wishes. Some beautiful girls who, like her,
had read romances where even plain governesses are centres of attraction and are
sought in marriage, might have solaced themselves a little by transporting such
pictures into their own future; but even if Gwendolen's experience had led her
to dwell on love-making and marriage as her elysium, her heart was too much
oppressed by what was near to her, in both the past and the future, for her to
project her anticipations very far off.
