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diff --git a/7469-0.txt b/7469-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32283ae --- /dev/null +++ b/7469-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32268 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Daniel Deronda + +Author: George Eliot + +Release Date: May 5, 2003 [eBook #7469] +[Most recently updated: January 28, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Anne Soulard, Tiffany Vergon, the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team and David Widger +Revised by Richard Tonsing. + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL DERONDA *** + + + + +DANIEL DERONDA + + +By George Eliot + + + Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: + There, ’mid the throng of hurrying desires + That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, + Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible + As exhalations laden with slow death, + And o’er the fairest troop of captured joys + Breathes pallid pestilence. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + BOOK I.—THE SPOILED CHILD + „ II.—MEETING STREAMS + „ III.—MAIDENS CHOOSING + „ IV.—GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE + „ V.—MORDECAI + „ VI.—REVELATIONS + „ VII.—THE MOTHER AND THE SON + „ VIII.—FRUIT AND SEED + + + + +DANIEL DERONDA. + + + + +BOOK I.—THE SPOILED CHILD. + + +CHAPTER I. + + Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even + science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe + unit, and must fix on a point in the stars’ unceasing journey when his + sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurate + grandmother Poetry has always been understood to start in the middle; + but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very different + from his; since Science, too, reckons backward as well as forward, + divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at Nought + really sets off _in medias res_. No retrospect will take us to + the true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth, + it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our + story sets out. + + +Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or +expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance? Was the good +or the evil genius dominant in those beams? Probably the evil; else why +was the effect that of unrest rather than of undisturbed charm? Why was +the wish to look again felt as coercion and not as a longing in which +the whole being consents? + +She who raised these questions in Daniel Deronda’s mind was occupied in +gambling: not in the open air under a southern sky, tossing coppers on +a ruined wall, with rags about her limbs; but in one of those splendid +resorts which the enlightenment of ages has prepared for the same +species of pleasure at a heavy cost of gilt mouldings, dark-toned +color and chubby nudities, all correspondingly heavy—forming a +suitable condenser for human breath belonging, in great part, to the +highest fashion, and not easily procurable to be breathed in elsewhere +in the like proportion, at least by persons of little fashion. + +It was near four o’clock on a September day, so that the atmosphere was +well-brewed to a visible haze. There was deep stillness, broken only by +a light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an +occasional monotone in French, such as might be expected to issue from +an ingeniously constructed automaton. Round two long tables were +gathered two serried crowds of human beings, all save one having their +faces and attention bent on the tables. The one exception was a +melancholy little boy, with his knees and calves simply in their +natural clothing of epidermis, but for the rest of his person in a +fancy dress. He alone had his face turned toward the doorway, and +fixing on it the blank gaze of a bedizened child stationed as a +masquerading advertisement on the platform of an itinerant show, stood +close behind a lady deeply engaged at the roulette-table. + +About this table fifty or sixty persons were assembled, many in the +outer rows, where there was occasionally a deposit of new-comers, being +mere spectators, only that one of them, usually a woman, might now and +then be observed putting down a five-franc with a simpering air, just +to see what the passion of gambling really was. Those who were taking +their pleasure at a higher strength, and were absorbed in play, showed +very distant varieties of European type: Livonian and Spanish, +Graeco-Italian and miscellaneous German, English aristocratic and +English plebeian. Here certainly was a striking admission of human +equality. The white bejewelled fingers of an English countess were very +near touching a bony, yellow, crab-like hand stretching a bared wrist +to clutch a heap of coin—a hand easy to sort with the square, gaunt +face, deep-set eyes, grizzled eyebrows, and ill-combed scanty hair +which seemed a slight metamorphosis of the vulture. And where else +would her ladyship have graciously consented to sit by that dry-lipped +feminine figure prematurely old, withered after short bloom like her +artificial flowers, holding a shabby velvet reticule before her, and +occasionally putting in her mouth the point with which she pricked her +card? There too, very near the fair countess, was a respectable London +tradesman, blonde and soft-handed, his sleek hair scrupulously parted +behind and before, conscious of circulars addressed to the nobility and +gentry, whose distinguished patronage enabled him to take his holidays +fashionably, and to a certain extent in their distinguished company. +Not his the gambler’s passion that nullifies appetite, but a well-fed +leisure, which, in the intervals of winning money in business and +spending it showily, sees no better resource than winning money in play +and spending it yet more showily—reflecting always that Providence had +never manifested any disapprobation of his amusement, and dispassionate +enough to leave off if the sweetness of winning much and seeing others +lose had turned to the sourness of losing much and seeing others win. +For the vice of gambling lay in losing money at it. In his bearing +there might be something of the tradesman, but in his pleasures he was +fit to rank with the owners of the oldest titles. Standing close to his +chair was a handsome Italian, calm, statuesque, reaching across him to +place the first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by +an envoy with a scrolled mustache. The pile was in half a minute pushed +over to an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. There +was a slight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old +woman; but the statuesque Italian remained impassive, and—probably +secure in an infallible system which placed his foot on the neck of +chance—immediately prepared a new pile. So did a man with the air of +an emaciated beau or worn-out libertine, who looked at life through one +eye-glass, and held out his hand tremulously when he asked for change. +It could surely be no severity of system, but rather some dream of +white crows, or the induction that the eighth of the month was lucky, +which inspired the fierce yet tottering impulsiveness of his play. + +But, while every single player differed markedly from every other, +there was a certain uniform negativeness of expression which had the +effect of a mask—as if they had all eaten of some root that for the +time compelled the brains of each to the same narrow monotony of action. + +Deronda’s first thought when his eyes fell on this scene of dull, +gas-poisoned absorption, was that the gambling of Spanish shepherd-boys +had seemed to him more enviable:—so far Rousseau might be justified in +maintaining that art and science had done a poor service to mankind. +But suddenly he felt the moment become dramatic. His attention was +arrested by a young lady who, standing at an angle not far from him, +was the last to whom his eyes traveled. She was bending and speaking +English to a middle-aged lady seated at play beside her: but the next +instant she returned to her play, and showed the full height of a +graceful figure, with a face which might possibly be looked at without +admiration, but could hardly be passed with indifference. + +The inward debate which she raised in Deronda gave to his eyes a +growing expression of scrutiny, tending farther and farther away from +the glow of mingled undefined sensibilities forming admiration. At one +moment they followed the movements of the figure, of the arms and +hands, as this problematic sylph bent forward to deposit her stake with +an air of firm choice; and the next they returned to the face which, at +present unaffected by beholders, was directed steadily toward the game. +The sylph was a winner; and as her taper fingers, delicately gloved in +pale-gray, were adjusting the coins which had been pushed toward her in +order to pass them back again to the winning point, she looked round +her with a survey too markedly cold and neutral not to have in it a +little of that nature which we call art concealing an inward exultation. + +But in the course of that survey her eyes met Deronda’s, and instead of +averting them as she would have desired to do, she was unpleasantly +conscious that they were arrested—how long? The darting sense that he +was measuring her and looking down on her as an inferior, that he was of +different quality from the human dross around her, that he felt himself +in a region outside and above her, and was examining her as a specimen +of a lower order, roused a tingling resentment which stretched the +moment with conflict. It did not bring the blood to her cheeks, but it +sent it away from her lips. She controlled herself by the help of an +inward defiance, and without other sign of emotion than this +lip-paleness turned to her play. But Deronda’s gaze seemed to have acted +as an evil eye. Her stake was gone. No matter; she had been winning ever +since she took to roulette with a few napoleons at command, and had a +considerable reserve. She had begun to believe in her luck, others had +begun to believe in it: she had visions of being followed by a _cortège_ +who would worship her as a goddess of luck and watch her play as a +directing augury. Such things had been known of male gamblers; why +should not a woman have a like supremacy? Her friend and chaperon who +had not wished her to play at first was beginning to approve, only +administering the prudent advice to stop at the right moment and carry +money back to England—advice to which Gwendolen had replied that she +cared for the excitement of play, not the winnings. On that supposition +the present moment ought to have made the flood-tide in her eager +experience of gambling. Yet, when her next stake was swept away, she +felt the orbits of her eyes getting hot, and the certainty she had +(without looking) of that man still watching her was something like a +pressure which begins to be torturing. The more reason to her why she +should not flinch, but go on playing as if she were indifferent to loss +or gain. Her friend touched her elbow and proposed that they should quit +the table. For reply Gwendolen put ten louis on the same spot: she was +in that mood of defiance in which the mind loses sight of any end beyond +the satisfaction of enraged resistance; and with the puerile stupidity +of a dominant impulse includes luck among its objects of defiance. Since +she was not winning strikingly, the next best thing was to lose +strikingly. She controlled her muscles, and showed no tremor of mouth or +hands. Each time her stake was swept off she doubled it. Many were now +watching her, but the sole observation she was conscious of was +Deronda’s, who, though she never looked toward him, she was sure had not +moved away. Such a drama takes no long while to play out: development +and catastrophe can often be measured by nothing clumsier than the +moment-hand. “Faites votre jeu, mesdames et messieurs,” said the +automatic voice of destiny from between the mustache and imperial of the +croupier: and Gwendolen’s arm was stretched to deposit her last poor +heap of napoleons. “Le jeu ne va plus,” said destiny. And in five +seconds Gwendolen turned from the table, but turned resolutely with her +face toward Deronda and looked at him. There was a smile of irony in his +eyes as their glances met; but it was at least better that he should +have kept his attention fixed on her than that he disregarded her as one +of an insect swarm who had no individual physiognomy. Besides, in spite +of his superciliousness and irony, it was difficult to believe that he +did not admire her spirit as well as her person: he was young, handsome, +distinguished in appearance—not one of these ridiculous and dowdy +Philistines who thought it incumbent on them to blight the gaming-table +with a sour look of protest as they passed by it. The general conviction +that we are admirable does not easily give way before a single negative; +rather when any of Vanity’s large family, male or female, find their +performance received coldly, they are apt to believe that a little more +of it will win over the unaccountable dissident. In Gwendolen’s habits +of mind it had been taken for granted that she knew what was admirable +and that she herself was admired. This basis of her thinking had +received a disagreeable concussion, and reeled a little, but was not +easily to be overthrown. + +In the evening the same room was more stiflingly heated, was brilliant +with gas and with the costumes of ladies who floated their trains along +it or were seated on the ottomans. + +The Nereid in sea-green robes and silver ornaments, with a pale +sea-green feather fastened in silver falling backward over her green +hat and light brown hair, was Gwendolen Harleth. She was under the +wing, or rather soared by the shoulder, of the lady who had sat by her +at the roulette-table; and with them was a gentleman with a white +mustache and clipped hair: solid-browed, stiff and German. They were +walking about or standing to chat with acquaintances, and Gwendolen was +much observed by the seated groups. + +“A striking girl—that Miss Harleth—unlike others.” + +“Yes, she has got herself up as a sort of serpent now—all green and +silver, and winds her neck about a little more than usual.” + +“Oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. She is that kind +of girl, I fancy. Do you think her pretty, Mr. Vandernoodt?” + +“Very. A man might risk hanging for her—I mean a fool might.” + +“You like a _nez retroussé_, then, and long narrow eyes?” + +“When they go with such an _ensemble_.” + +“The _ensemble du serpent_?” + +“If you will. Woman was tempted by a serpent; why not man?” + +“She is certainly very graceful; but she wants a tinge of color in her +cheeks. It is a sort of Lamia beauty she has.” + +“On the contrary, I think her complexion one of her chief charms. It is +a warm paleness; it looks thoroughly healthy. And that delicate nose +with its gradual little upward curve is distracting. And then her +mouth—there never was a prettier mouth, the lips curled backward so +finely, eh, Mackworth?” + +“Think so? I cannot endure that sort of mouth. It looks so +self-complacent, as if it knew its own beauty—the curves are too +immovable. I like a mouth that trembles more.” + +“For my part, I think her odious,” said a dowager. “It is wonderful +what unpleasant girls get into vogue. Who are these Langens? Does +anybody know them?” + +“They are quite _comme il faut_. I have dined with them several times +at the _Russie_. The baroness is English. Miss Harleth calls her +cousin. The girl herself is thoroughly well-bred, and as clever as +possible.” + +“Dear me! and the baron?”. + +“A very good furniture picture.” + +“Your baroness is always at the roulette-table,” said Mackworth. “I +fancy she has taught the girl to gamble.” + +“Oh, the old woman plays a very sober game; drops a ten-franc piece +here and there. The girl is more headlong. But it is only a freak.” + +“I hear she has lost all her winnings to-day. Are they rich? Who knows?” + +“Ah, who knows? Who knows that about anybody?” said Mr. Vandernoodt, +moving off to join the Langens. + +The remark that Gwendolen wound her neck about more than usual this +evening was true. But it was not that she might carry out the serpent +idea more completely: it was that she watched for any chance of seeing +Deronda, so that she might inquire about this stranger, under whose +measuring gaze she was still wincing. At last her opportunity came. + +“Mr. Vandernoodt, you know everybody,” said Gwendolen, not too eagerly, +rather with a certain languor of utterance which she sometimes gave to +her clear soprano. “Who is that near the door?” + +“There are half a dozen near the door. Do you mean that old Adonis in +the George the Fourth wig?” + +“No, no; the dark-haired young man on the right with the dreadful +expression.” + +“Dreadful, do you call it? I think he is an uncommonly fine fellow.” + +“But who is he?” + +“He is lately come to our hotel with Sir Hugo Mallinger.” + +“Sir Hugo Mallinger?” + +“Yes. Do you know him?” + +“No.” (Gwendolen colored slightly.) “He has a place near us, but he +never comes to it. What did you say was the name of that gentleman near +the door?” + +“Deronda—Mr. Deronda.” + +“What a delightful name! Is he an Englishman?” + +“Yes. He is reported to be rather closely related to the baronet. You +are interested in him?” + +“Yes. I think he is not like young men in general.” + +“And you don’t admire young men in general?” + +“Not in the least. I always know what they will say. I can’t at all +guess what this Mr. Deronda would say. What _does_ he say?” + +“Nothing, chiefly. I sat with his party for a good hour last night on +the terrace, and he never spoke—and was not smoking either. He looked +bored.” + +“Another reason why I should like to know him. I am always bored.” + +“I should think he would be charmed to have an introduction. Shall I +bring it about? Will you allow it, baroness?” + +“Why not?—since he is related to Sir Hugo Mallinger. It is a new +_rôle_ of yours, Gwendolen, to be always bored,” continued Madame von +Langen, when Mr. Vandernoodt had moved away. “Until now you have always +seemed eager about something from morning till night.” + +“That is just because I am bored to death. If I am to leave off play I +must break my arm or my collar-bone. I must make something happen; +unless you will go into Switzerland and take me up the Matterhorn.” + +“Perhaps this Mr. Deronda’s acquaintance will do instead of the +Matterhorn.” + +“Perhaps.” + +But Gwendolen did not make Deronda’s acquaintance on this occasion. Mr. +Vandernoodt did not succeed in bringing him up to her that evening, and +when she re-entered her own room she found a letter recalling her home. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + This man contrives a secret ’twixt us two, + That he may quell me with his meeting eyes + Like one who quells a lioness at bay. + + +This was the letter Gwendolen found on her table: + + DEAREST CHILD.—I have been expecting to hear from you for a week. In + your last you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn and going + to Baden. How could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in + uncertainty about your address? I am in the greatest anxiety lest this + should not reach you. In any case, you were to come home at the end of + September, and I must now entreat you to return as quickly as + possible, for if you spent all your money it would be out of my power + to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the Langens, for I + could not repay them. This is the sad truth, my child—I wish I could + prepare you for it better—but a dreadful calamity has befallen us + all. You know nothing about business and will not understand it; but + Grapnell & Co. have failed for a million, and we are totally + ruined—your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, only that your uncle has his + benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest + for the boys, the family can go on. All the property our poor father + saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. There is nothing I can call + my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my + heart to have to tell it you. Of course we cannot help thinking what a + pity it was that you went away just when you did. But I shall never + reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I + could. On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the + change you will find. We shall perhaps leave Offendene at once, for we + hope that Mr. Haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it + off my hands. Of course we cannot go to the rectory—there is not a + corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us, + and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne’s charity, until I see what + else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the + tradesmen besides the servants’ wages. Summon up your fortitude, my + dear child; we must resign ourselves to God’s will. But it is hard to + resign one’s self to Mr. Lassman’s wicked recklessness, which they say + was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me + and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in + the cloud—I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant + for poverty. If the Langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put + yourself under some one else’s care for the journey. But come as soon + as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma, + + FANNY DAVILOW. + +The first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. The +implicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease, +where any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for, +had been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma’s, being fed there +by her youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a +large part of her consciousness. It was almost as difficult for her to +believe suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of +humiliating dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong +current of her blooming life the chill sense that her death would +really come. She stood motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off +her hat and automatically looked in the glass. The coils of her smooth +light-brown hair were still in order perfect enough for a ball-room; +and as on other nights, Gwendolen might have looked lingeringly at +herself for pleasure (surely an allowable indulgence); but now she took +no conscious note of her reflected beauty, and simply stared right +before her as if she had been jarred by a hateful sound and was waiting +for any sign of its cause. By-and-by she threw herself in the corner of +the red velvet sofa, took up the letter again and read it twice +deliberately, letting it at last fall on the ground, while she rested +her clasped hands on her lap and sat perfectly still, shedding no +tears. Her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than +to wail over it. There was no inward exclamation of “Poor mamma!” Her +mamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and if +Gwendolen had been at this moment disposed to feel pity she would have +bestowed it on herself—for was she not naturally and rightfully the +chief object of her mamma’s anxiety too? But it was anger, it was +resistance that possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost +her gains at roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this +one day she would have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might +have gone on playing and won enough to support them all. Even now was +it not possible? She had only four napoleons left in her purse, but she +possessed some ornaments which she could sell: a practice so common in +stylish society at German baths that there was no need to be ashamed of +it; and even if she had not received her mamma’s letter, she would +probably have decided to get money for an Etruscan necklace which she +happened not to have been wearing since her arrival; nay, she might +have done so with an agreeable sense that she was living with some +intensity and escaping humdrum. With ten louis at her disposal and a +return of her former luck, which seemed probable, what could she do +better than go on playing for a few days? If her friends at home +disapproved of the way in which she got the money, as they certainly +would, still the money would be there. Gwendolen’s imagination dwelt on +this course and created agreeable consequences, but not with unbroken +confidence and rising certainty as it would have done if she had been +touched with the gambler’s mania. She had gone to the roulette-table +not because of passion, but in search of it: her mind was still sanely +capable of picturing balanced probabilities, and while the chance of +winning allured her, the chance of losing thrust itself on her with +alternate strength and made a vision from which her pride sank +sensitively. For she was resolved not to tell the Langens that any +misfortune had befallen her family, or to make herself in any way +indebted to their compassion; and if she were to part with her jewelry +to any observable extent, they would interfere by inquiries and +remonstrances. The course that held the least risk of intolerable +annoyance was to raise money on her necklace early in the morning, tell +the Langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving +a reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening. She had no maid +with her, and the Langens might make difficulties about her returning +home, but her will was peremptory. + +Instead of going to bed she made as brilliant a light as she could and +began to pack, working diligently, though all the while visited by the +scenes that might take place on the coming day—now by the tiresome +explanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed +home, now by the alternative of staying just another day and standing +again at the roulette-table. But always in this latter scene there was +the presence of that Deronda, watching her with exasperating irony, +and—the two keen experiences were inevitably revived +together—beholding her again forsaken by luck. This importunate image +certainly helped to sway her resolve on the side of immediate +departure, and to urge her packing to the point which would make a +change of mind inconvenient. It had struck twelve when she came into +her room, and by the time she was assuring herself that she had left +out only what was necessary, the faint dawn was stealing through the +white blinds and dulling her candles. What was the use of going to bed? +Her cold bath was refreshment enough, and she saw that a slight trace +of fatigue about the eyes only made her look the more interesting. +Before six o’clock she was completely equipped in her gray traveling +dress even to her felt hat, for she meant to walk out as soon as she +could count on seeing other ladies on their way to the springs. And +happening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between +her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the +back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her +portrait. It is possible to have a strong self-love without any +self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more +intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a +supreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had +a _naïve_ delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest +saintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day +seen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends’ flattery as +well as in the looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles, +while for lack of anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in +the growing light, her face gathered a complacency gradual as the +cheerfulness of the morning. Her beautiful lips curled into a more and +more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward +and kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. How could she +believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it, +to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything +seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great +or small. + +Madame von Langen never went out before breakfast, so that Gwendolen +could safely end her early walk by taking her way homeward through the +Obere Strasse in which was the needed shop, sure to be open after +seven. At that hour any observers whom she minded would be either on +their walks in the region of the springs, or would be still in their +bedrooms; but certainly there was one grand hotel, the _Czarina_ from +which eyes might follow her up to Mr. Wiener’s door. This was a chance +to be risked: might she not be going in to buy something which had +struck her fancy? This implicit falsehood passed through her mind as +she remembered that the _Czarina_ was Deronda’s hotel; but she was then +already far up the Obere Strasse, and she walked on with her usual +floating movement, every line in her figure and drapery falling in +gentle curves attractive to all eyes except those which discerned in +them too close a resemblance to the serpent, and objected to the +revival of serpent-worship. She looked neither to the right hand nor to +the left, and transacted her business in the shop with a coolness which +gave little Mr. Wiener nothing to remark except her proud grace of +manner, and the superior size and quality of the three central +turquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a +chain once her father’s: but she had never known her father; and the +necklace was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently +part with. Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be +superstitious and rationalizing at the same time? Roulette encourages a +romantic superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most +prosaic rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of +raising needful money. Gwendolen’s dominant regret was that after all +she had only nine louis to add to the four in her purse: these Jew +dealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians +unfortunate at play! But she was the Langens’ guest in their hired +apartment, and had nothing to pay there: thirteen louis would do more +than take her home; even if she determined on risking three, the +remaining ten would more than suffice, since she meant to travel right +on, day and night. As she turned homeward, nay, entered and seated +herself in the _salon_ to await her friends and breakfast, she still +wavered as to her immediate departure, or rather she had concluded to +tell the Langens simply that she had had a letter from her mamma +desiring her return, and to leave it still undecided when she should +start. It was already the usual breakfast-time, and hearing some one +enter as she was leaning back rather tired and hungry with her eyes +shut, she rose expecting to see one or other of the Langens—the words +which might determine her lingering at least another day, ready-formed +to pass her lips. But it was the servant bringing in a small packet for +Miss Harleth, which had at that moment been left at the door. Gwendolen +took it in her hand and immediately hurried into her own room. She +looked paler and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma’s +letter. Something—she never quite knew what—revealed to her before +she opened the packet that it contained the necklace she had just +parted with. Underneath the paper it was wrapped in a cambric +handkerchief, and within this was a scrap of torn-off note-paper, on +which was written with a pencil, in clear but rapid handwriting—“_A +stranger who has found Miss Harleth’s necklace returns it to her with +the hope that she will not again risk the loss of it._” + +Gwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. A large corner +of the handkerchief seemed to have been recklessly torn off to get rid +of a mark; but she at once believed in the first image of “the +stranger” that presented itself to her mind. It was Deronda; he must +have seen her go into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after +and repurchased the necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and +had dared to place her in a thoroughly hateful position. What could she +do?—Not, assuredly, act on her conviction that it was he who had sent +her the necklace and straightway send it back to him: that would be to +face the possibility that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the +“stranger” were he and no other, it would be something too gross for +her to let him know that she had divined this, and to meet him again +with that recognition in their minds. He knew very well that he was +entangling her in helpless humiliation: it was another way of smiling +at her ironically, and taking the air of a supercilious mentor. +Gwendolen felt the bitter tears of mortification rising and rolling +down her cheeks. No one had ever before dared to treat her with irony +and contempt. One thing was clear: she must carry out her resolution to +quit this place at once; it was impossible for her to reappear in the +public _salon_, still less stand at the gaming-table with the risk of +seeing Deronda. Now came an importunate knock at the door: breakfast +was ready. Gwendolen with a passionate movement thrust necklace, +cambric, scrap of paper, and all into her _nécessaire_, pressed her +handkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute or two to +summon back her proud self-control, went to join her friends. Such +signs of tears and fatigue as were left seemed accordant enough with +the account she at once gave of her having sat up to do her packing, +instead of waiting for help from her friend’s maid. There was much +protestation, as she had expected, against her traveling alone, but she +persisted in refusing any arrangements for companionship. She would be +put into the ladies’ compartment and go right on. She could rest +exceedingly well in the train, and was afraid of nothing. + +In this way it happened that Gwendolen never reappeared at the +roulette-table, but that Thursday evening left Leubronn for Brussels, +and on Saturday morning arrived at Offendene, the home to which she and +her family were soon to say a last good-bye. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + “Let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown ourselves with + rosebuds before they be withered.”—BOOK OF WISDOM. + + +Pity that Offendene was not the home of Miss Harleth’s childhood, or +endeared to her by family memories! A human life, I think, should be +well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of +tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, +for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that +early home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening +of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be +inwrought with affection, and—kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, +even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and +reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. At five years old, +mortals are not prepared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated +by abstract nouns, to soar above preference into impartiality; and that +prejudice in favor of milk with which we blindly begin, is a type of +the way body and soul must get nourished at least for a time. The best +introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a +little lot of stars belonging to one’s own homestead. + +But this blessed persistence in which affection can take root had been +wanting in Gwendolen’s life. It was only a year before her recall from +Leubronn that Offendene had been chosen as her mamma’s home, simply for +its nearness to Pennicote Rectory, and that Mrs. Davilow, Gwendolen, +and her four half-sisters (the governess and the maid following in +another vehicle) had been driven along the avenue for the first time, +on a late October afternoon when the rooks were crawing loudly above +them, and the yellow elm-leaves were whirling. + +The season suited the aspect of the old oblong red-brick house, rather +too anxiously ornamented with stone at every line, not excepting the +double row of narrow windows and the large square portico. The stone +encouraged a greenish lichen, the brick a powdery gray, so that though +the building was rigidly rectangular there was no harshness in the +physiognomy which it turned to the three avenues cut east, west and +south in the hundred yards’ breadth of old plantation encircling the +immediate grounds. One would have liked the house to have been lifted +on a knoll, so as to look beyond its own little domain to the long +thatched roofs of the distant villages, the church towers, the +scattered homesteads, the gradual rise of surging woods, and the green +breadths of undulating park which made the beautiful face of the earth +in that part of Wessex. But though standing thus behind a screen amid +flat pastures, it had on one side a glimpse of the wider world in the +lofty curves of the chalk downs, grand steadfast forms played over by +the changing days. + +The house was but just large enough to be called a mansion, and was +moderately rented, having no manor attached to it, and being rather +difficult to let with its sombre furniture and faded upholstery. But +inside and outside it was what no beholder could suppose to be +inhabited by retired trades-people: a certainty which was worth many +conveniences to tenants who not only had the taste that shrinks from +new finery, but also were in that border-territory of rank where +annexation is a burning topic: and to take up her abode in a house +which had once sufficed for dowager countesses gave a perceptible tinge +to Mrs. Davilow’s satisfaction in having an establishment of her own. +This, rather mysteriously to Gwendolen, appeared suddenly possible on +the death of her step-father, Captain Davilow, who had for the last +nine years joined his family only in a brief and fitful manner, enough +to reconcile them to his long absences; but she cared much more for the +fact than for the explanation. All her prospects had become more +agreeable in consequence. She had disliked their former way of life, +roving from one foreign watering-place or Parisian apartment to +another, always feeling new antipathies to new suites of hired +furniture, and meeting new people under conditions which made her +appear of little importance; and the variation of having passed two +years at a showy school, where, on all occasions of display, she had +been put foremost, had only deepened her sense that so exceptional a +person as herself could hardly remain in ordinary circumstances or in a +social position less than advantageous. Any fear of this latter evil +was banished now that her mamma was to have an establishment; for on +the point of birth Gwendolen was quite easy. She had no notion how her +maternal grandfather got the fortune inherited by his two daughters; +but he had been a West Indian—which seemed to exclude further +question; and she knew that her father’s family was so high as to take +no notice of her mamma, who nevertheless preserved with much pride the +miniature of a Lady Molly in that connection. She would probably have +known much more about her father but for a little incident which +happened when she was twelve years old. Mrs. Davilow had brought out, +as she did only at wide intervals, various memorials of her first +husband, and while showing his miniature to Gwendolen recalled with a +fervor which seemed to count on a peculiar filial sympathy, the fact +that dear papa had died when his little daughter was in long clothes. +Gwendolen, immediately thinking of the unlovable step-father whom she +had been acquainted with the greater part of her life while her frocks +were short, said, + +“Why did you marry again, mamma? It would have been nicer if you had +not.” + +Mrs. Davilow colored deeply, a slight convulsive movement passed over +her face, and straightway shutting up the memorials she said, with a +violence quite unusual in her, + +“You have no feeling, child!” + +Gwendolen, who was fond of her mamma, felt hurt and ashamed, and had +never since dared to ask a question about her father. + +This was not the only instance in which she had brought on herself the +pain of some filial compunction. It was always arranged, when possible, +that she should have a small bed in her mamma’s room; for Mrs. +Davilow’s motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had +been born in her happier time. One night under an attack of pain she +found that the specific regularly placed by her bedside had been +forgotten, and begged Gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her. +That healthy young lady, snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little +couch, objected to step out into the cold, and lying perfectly still, +grumbling a refusal. Mrs. Davilow went without the medicine and never +reproached her daughter; but the next day Gwendolen was keenly +conscious of what must be in her mamma’s mind, and tried to make amends +by caresses which cost her no effort. Having always been the pet and +pride of the household, waited on by mother, sisters, governess and +maids, as if she had been a princess in exile, she naturally found it +difficult to think her own pleasure less important than others made it, +and when it was positively thwarted felt an astonished resentment apt, +in her cruder days, to vent itself in one of those passionate acts +which look like a contradiction of habitual tendencies. Though never +even as a child thoughtlessly cruel, nay delighting to rescue drowning +insects and watch their recovery, there was a disagreeable silent +remembrance of her having strangled her sister’s canary-bird in a final +fit of exasperation at its shrill singing which had again and again +jarringly interrupted her own. She had taken pains to buy a white mouse +for her sister in retribution, and though inwardly excusing herself on +the ground of a peculiar sensitiveness which was a mark of her general +superiority, the thought of that infelonious murder had always made her +wince. Gwendolen’s nature was not remorseless, but she liked to make +her penances easy, and now that she was twenty and more, some of her +native force had turned into a self-control by which she guarded +herself from penitential humiliation. There was more show of fire and +will in her than ever, but there was more calculation underneath it. + +On this day of arrival at Offendene, which not even Mrs. Davilow had +seen before—the place having been taken for her by her brother-in-law, +Mr. Gascoigne—when all had got down from the carriage, and were +standing under the porch in front of the open door, so that they could +have a general view of the place and a glimpse of the stone hall and +staircase hung with sombre pictures, but enlivened by a bright wood +fire, no one spoke; mamma, the four sisters and the governess all +looked at Gwendolen, as if their feelings depended entirely on her +decision. Of the girls, from Alice in her sixteenth year to Isabel in +her tenth, hardly anything could be said on a first view, but that they +were girlish, and that their black dresses were getting shabby. Miss +Merry was elderly and altogether neutral in expression. Mrs. Davilow’s +worn beauty seemed the more pathetic for the look of entire appeal +which she cast at Gwendolen, who was glancing round at the house, the +landscape and the entrance hall with an air of rapid judgment. Imagine +a young race-horse in the paddock among untrimmed ponies and patient +hacks. + +“Well, dear, what do you think of the place,” said Mrs. Davilow at +last, in a gentle, deprecatory tone. + +“I think it is charming,” said Gwendolen, quickly. “A romantic place; +anything delightful may happen in it; it would be a good background for +anything. No one need be ashamed of living here.” + +“There is certainly nothing common about it.” + +“Oh, it would do for fallen royalty or any sort of grand poverty. We +ought properly to have been living in splendor, and have come down to +this. It would have been as romantic as could be. But I thought my +uncle and aunt Gascoigne would be here to meet us, and my cousin Anna,” +added Gwendolen, her tone changed to sharp surprise. + +“We are early,” said Mrs. Davilow, and entering the hall, she said to +the housekeeper who came forward, “You expect Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne?” + +“Yes, madam; they were here yesterday to give particular orders about +the fires and the dinner. But as to fires, I’ve had ’em in all the +rooms for the last week, and everything is well aired. I could wish +some of the furniture paid better for all the cleaning it’s had, but I +_think_ you’ll see the brasses have been done justice to. I _think_ +when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne come, they’ll tell you nothing has been +neglected. They’ll be here at five, for certain.” + +This satisfied Gwendolen, who was not prepared to have their arrival +treated with indifference; and after tripping a little way up the +matted stone staircase to take a survey there, she tripped down again, +and followed by all the girls looked into each of the rooms opening +from the hall—the dining-room all dark oak and worn red satin damask, +with a copy of snarling, worrying dogs from Snyders over the +side-board, and a Christ breaking bread over the mantel-piece; the +library with a general aspect and smell of old brown-leather; and +lastly, the drawing-room, which was entered through a small antechamber +crowded with venerable knick-knacks. + +“Mamma, mamma, pray come here!” said Gwendolen, Mrs. Davilow having +followed slowly in talk with the housekeeper. “Here is an organ. I will +be Saint Cecilia: some one shall paint me as Saint Cecilia. Jocosa +(this was her name for Miss Merry), let down my hair. See, mamma?” + +She had thrown off her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the +organ in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and +sad Jocosa took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and +then shook out the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far +below its owner’s slim waist. + +Mrs. Davilow smiled and said, “A charming picture, my dear!” not +indifferent to the display of her pet, even in the presence of a +housekeeper. Gwendolen rose and laughed with delight. All this seemed +quite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a +background. + +“What a queer, quaint, picturesque room!” she went on, looking about +her. “I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the +wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the +ribs—nothing but ribs and darkness—I should think that is Spanish, +mamma.” + +“Oh, Gwendolen!” said the small Isabel, in a tone of astonishment, +while she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of +the room. + +Every one, Gwendolen first, went to look. The opened panel had +disclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure +figure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms. “How horrible!” +said Mrs. Davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered +silently, and Isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an +alarming memory, said, + +“You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen.” + +“How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse +little creature?” said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone. Then snatching +the panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily, +saying, “There is a lock—where is the key? Let the key be found, or +else let one be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the +key be brought to me.” + +At this command to everybody in general Gwendolen turned with a face +which was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, “Let us +go up to our own room, mamma.” + +The housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet +close by the panel, and presently handed it to Bugle, the lady’s-maid, +telling her significantly to give it to her Royal Highness. + +“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Startin,” said Bugle, who had been +busy up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather +offended at this irony in a new servant. + +“I mean the young lady that’s to command us all—and well worthy for +looks and figure,” replied Mrs. Startin in propitiation. “She’ll know +what key it is.” + +“If you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, Bugle,” +Gwendolen had said, when she and Mrs. Davilow entered their black and +yellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the +side of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. “I will +help mamma.” + +But her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the +windows, which reflected herself and the room completely, while her +mamma sat down and also looked at the reflection. + +“That is a becoming glass, Gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color +that sets you off?” said Mrs. Davilow, as Gwendolen stood obliquely +with her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand +brushing back the stream of hair. + +“I should make a tolerable St. Cecilia with some white roses on my +head,” said Gwendolen,—“only how about my nose, mamma? I think saint’s +noses never in the least turn up. I wish you had given me your +perfectly straight nose; it would have done for any sort of +character—a nose of all work. Mine is only a happy nose; it would not +do so well for tragedy.” + +“Oh, my dear, any nose will do to be miserable with in this world,” +said Mrs. Davilow, with a deep, weary sigh, throwing her black bonnet +on the table, and resting her elbow near it. + +“Now, mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a strongly remonstrant tone, turning +away from the glass with an air of vexation, “don’t begin to be dull +here. It spoils all my pleasure, and everything may be so happy now. +What have you to be gloomy about _now_?” + +“Nothing, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, seeming to rouse herself, and +beginning to take off her dress. “It is always enough for me to see you +happy.” + +“But you should be happy yourself,” said Gwendolen, still +discontentedly, though going to help her mamma with caressing touches. +“Can nobody be happy after they are quite young? You have made me feel +sometimes as if nothing were of any use. With the girls so troublesome, +and Jocosa so dreadfully wooden and ugly, and everything make-shift +about us, and you looking so dull—what was the use of my being +anything? But now you _might_ be happy.” + +“So I shall, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, patting the cheek that was +bending near her. + +“Yes, but really. Not with a sort of make-believe,” said Gwendolen, +with resolute perseverance. “See what a hand and arm!—much more +beautiful than mine. Any one can see you were altogether more +beautiful.” + +“No, no, dear; I was always heavier. Never half so charming as you are.” + +“Well, but what is the use of my being charming, if it is to end in my +being dull and not minding anything? Is that what marriage always comes +to?” + +“No, child, certainly not. Marriage is the only happy state for a +woman, as I trust you will prove.” + +“I will not put up with it if it is not a happy state. I am determined +to be happy—at least not to go on muddling away my life as other +people do, being and doing nothing remarkable. I have made up my mind +not to let other people interfere with me as they have done. Here is +some warm water ready for you, mamma,” Gwendolen ended, proceeding to +take off her own dress and then waiting to have her hair wound up by +her mamma. + +There was silence for a minute or two, till Mrs. Davilow said, while +coiling the daughter’s hair, “I am sure I have never crossed you, +Gwendolen.” + +“You often want me to do what I don’t like.” + +“You mean, to give Alice lessons?” + +“Yes. And I have done it because you asked me. But I don’t see why I +should, else. It bores me to death, she is so slow. She has no ear for +music, or language, or anything else. It would be much better for her +to be ignorant, mamma: it is her _rôle_, she would do it well.” + +“That is a hard thing to say of your poor sister, Gwendolen, who is so +good to you, and waits on you hand and foot.” + +“I don’t see why it is hard to call things by their right names, and +put them in their proper places. The hardship is for me to have to +waste my time on her. Now let me fasten up your hair, mamma.” + +“We must make haste; your uncle and aunt will be here soon. For +heaven’s sake, don’t be scornful to _them_, my dear child! or to your +cousin Anna, whom you will always be going out with. Do promise me, +Gwendolen. You know, you can’t expect Anna to be equal to you.” + +“I don’t want her to be equal,” said Gwendolen, with a toss of her head +and a smile, and the discussion ended there. + +When Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne and their daughter came, Gwendolen, far +from being scornful, behaved as prettily as possible to them. She was +introducing herself anew to relatives who had not seen her since the +comparatively unfinished age of sixteen, and she was anxious—no, not +anxious, but resolved that they should admire her. + +Mrs. Gascoigne bore a family likeness to her sister. But she was darker +and slighter, her face was unworn by grief, her movements were less +languid, her expression more alert and critical as that of a rector’s +wife bound to exert a beneficent authority. Their closest resemblance +lay in a non-resistant disposition, inclined to imitation and +obedience; but this, owing to the difference in their circumstances, +had led them to very different issues. The younger sister had been +indiscreet, or at least unfortunate in her marriages; the elder +believed herself the most enviable of wives, and her pliancy had ended +in her sometimes taking shapes of surprising definiteness. Many of her +opinions, such as those on church government and the character of +Archbishop Laud, seemed too decided under every alteration to have been +arrived at otherwise than by a wifely receptiveness. And there was much +to encourage trust in her husband’s authority. He had some agreeable +virtues, some striking advantages, and the failings that were imputed +to him all leaned toward the side of success. + +One of his advantages was a fine person, which perhaps was even more +impressive at fifty-seven than it had been earlier in life. There were +no distinctively clerical lines in the face, no tricks of starchiness +or of affected ease: in his Inverness cape he could not have been +identified except as a gentleman with handsome dark features, a nose +which began with an intention to be aquiline but suddenly became +straight, and iron-gray hair. Perhaps he owed this freedom from the +sort of professional make-up which penetrates skin, tones and gestures +and defies all drapery, to the fact that he had once been Captain +Gaskin, having taken orders and a diphthong but shortly before his +engagement to Miss Armyn. If any one had objected that his preparation +for the clerical function was inadequate, his friends might have asked +who made a better figure in it, who preached better or had more +authority in his parish? He had a native gift for administration, being +tolerant both of opinions and conduct, because he felt himself able to +overrule them, and was free from the irritations of conscious +feebleness. He smiled pleasantly at the foible of a taste which he did +not share—at floriculture or antiquarianism for example, which were +much in vogue among his fellow-clergyman in the diocese: for himself, +he preferred following the history of a campaign, or divining from his +knowledge of Nesselrode’s motives what would have been his conduct if +our cabinet had taken a different course. Mr. Gascoigne’s tone of +thinking after some long-quieted fluctuations had become ecclesiastical +rather than theological; not the modern Anglican, but what he would +have called sound English, free from nonsense; such as became a man who +looked at a national religion by daylight, and saw it in its relation +to other things. No clerical magistrate had greater weight at sessions, +or less of mischievous impracticableness in relation to worldly +affairs. Indeed, the worst imputation thrown out against him was +worldliness: it could not be proved that he forsook the less fortunate, +but it was not to be denied that the friendships he cultivated were of +a kind likely to be useful to the father of six sons and two daughters; +and bitter observers—for in Wessex, say ten years ago, there were +persons whose bitterness may now seem incredible—remarked that the +color of his opinions had changed in consistency with this principle of +action. But cheerful, successful worldliness has a false air of being +more selfish than the acrid, unsuccessful kind, whose secret history is +summed up in the terrible words, “Sold, but not paid for.” + +Gwendolen wondered that she had not better remembered how very fine a +man her uncle was; but at the age of sixteen she was a less capable and +more indifferent judge. At present it was a matter of extreme interest +to her that she was to have the near countenance of a dignified male +relative, and that the family life would cease to be entirely, +insipidly feminine. She did not intend that her uncle should control +her, but she saw at once that it would be altogether agreeable to her +that he should be proud of introducing her as his niece. And there was +every sign of his being likely to feel that pride. He certainly looked +at her with admiration as he said, + +“You have outgrown Anna, my dear,” putting his arm tenderly round his +daughter, whose shy face was a tiny copy of his own, and drawing her +forward. “She is not so old as you by a year, but her growing days are +certainly over. I hope you will be excellent companions.” + +He did give a comparing glance at his daughter, but if he saw her +inferiority, he might also see that Anna’s timid appearance and +miniature figure must appeal to a different taste from that which was +attracted by Gwendolen, and that the girls could hardly be rivals. +Gwendolen at least, was aware of this, and kissed her cousin with real +cordiality as well as grace, saying, “A companion is just what I want. +I am so glad we are come to live here. And mamma will be much happier +now she is near you, aunt.” + +The aunt trusted indeed that it would be so, and felt it a blessing +that a suitable home had been vacant in their uncle’s parish. Then, of +course, notice had to be taken of the four other girls, whom Gwendolen +had always felt to be superfluous: all of a girlish average that made +four units utterly unimportant, and yet from her earliest days an +obtrusive influential fact in her life. She was conscious of having +been much kinder to them than could have been expected. And it was +evident to her that her uncle and aunt also felt it a pity there were +so many girls:—what rational person could feel otherwise, except poor +mamma, who never would see how Alice set up her shoulders and lifted +her eyebrows till she had no forehead left, how Bertha and Fanny +whispered and tittered together about everything, or how Isabel was +always listening and staring and forgetting where she was, and treading +on the toes of her suffering elders? + +“You have brothers, Anna,” said Gwendolen, while the sisters were being +noticed. “I think you are enviable there.” + +“Yes,” said Anna, simply. “I am very fond of them; but of course their +education is a great anxiety to papa. He used to say they made me a +tomboy. I really was a great romp with Rex. I think you will like Rex. +He will come home before Christmas.” + +“I remember I used to think you rather wild and shy; but it is +difficult now to imagine you a romp,” said Gwendolen, smiling. + +“Of course, I am altered now; I am come out, and all that. But in +reality I like to go blackberrying with Edwy and Lotta as well as ever. +I am not very fond of going out; but I dare say I shall like it better +now you will be often with me. I am not at all clever, and I never know +what to say. It seems so useless to say what everybody knows, and I can +think of nothing else, except what papa says.” + +“I shall like going out with you very much,” said Gwendolen, well +disposed toward this _naïve_ cousin. “Are you fond of riding?” + +“Yes, but we have only one Shetland pony amongst us. Papa says he can’t +afford more, besides the carriage-horses and his own nag; he has so +many expenses.” + +“I intend to have a horse and ride a great deal now,” said Gwendolen, +in a tone of decision. “Is the society pleasant in this neighborhood?” + +“Papa says it is, very. There are the clergymen all about, you know; +and the Quallons, and the Arrowpoints, and Lord Brackenshaw, and Sir +Hugo Mallinger’s place, where there is nobody—that’s very nice, +because we make picnics there—and two or three families at Wanchester: +oh, and old Mrs. Vulcany, at Nuttingwood, and—” + +But Anna was relieved of this tax on her descriptive powers by the +announcement of dinner, and Gwendolen’s question was soon indirectly +answered by her uncle, who dwelt much on the advantages he had secured +for them in getting a place like Offendene. Except the rent, it +involved no more expense than an ordinary house at Wanchester would +have done. + +“And it is always worth while to make a little sacrifice for a good +style of house,” said Mr. Gascoigne, in his easy, pleasantly confident +tone, which made the world in general seem a very manageable place of +residence: “especially where there is only a lady at the head. All the +best people will call upon you; and you need give no expensive dinners. +Of course, I have to spend a good deal in that way; it is a large item. +But then I get my house for nothing. If I had to pay three hundred a +year for my house I could not keep a table. My boys are too great a +drain on me. You are better off than we are, in proportion; there is no +great drain on you now, after your house and carriage.” + +“I assure you, Fanny, now that the children are growing up, I am +obliged to cut and contrive,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. “I am not a good +manager by nature, but Henry has taught me. He is wonderful for making +the best of everything; he allows himself no extras, and gets his +curates for nothing. It is rather hard that he has not been made a +prebendary or something, as others have been, considering the friends +he has made and the need there is for men of moderate opinions in all +respects. If the Church is to keep its position, ability and character +ought to tell.” + +“Oh, my dear Nancy, you forget the old story—thank Heaven, there are +three hundred as good as I. And ultimately, we shall have no reason to +complain, I am pretty sure. There could hardly be a more thorough +friend than Lord Brackenshaw—your landlord, you know, Fanny. Lady +Brackenshaw will call upon you. And I have spoken for Gwendolen to be a +member of our Archery Club—the Brackenshaw Archery Club—the most +select thing anywhere. That is, if she has no objection,” added Mr. +Gascoigne, looking at Gwendolen with pleasant irony. + +“I should like it of all things,” said Gwendolen. “There is nothing I +enjoy more than taking aim—and hitting,” she ended, with a pretty nod +and smile. + +“Our Anna, poor child, is too short-sighted for archery. But I consider +myself a first-rate shot, and you shall practice with me. I must make +you an accomplished archer before our great meeting in July. In fact, +as to neighborhood, you could hardly be better placed. There are the +Arrowpoints—they are some of our best people. Miss Arrowpoint is a +delightful girl—she has been presented at Court. They have a +magnificent place—Quetcham Hall—worth seeing in point of art; and +their parties, to which you are sure to be invited, are the best things +of the sort we have. The archdeacon is intimate there, and they have +always a good kind of people staying in the house. Mrs. Arrowpoint is +peculiar, certainly; something of a caricature, in fact; but +well-meaning. And Miss Arrowpoint is as nice as possible. It is not all +young ladies who have mothers as handsome and graceful as yours and +Anna’s.” + +Mrs. Davilow smiled faintly at this little compliment, but the husband +and wife looked affectionately at each other, and Gwendolen thought, +“My uncle and aunt, at least, are happy: they are not dull and dismal.” +Altogether, she felt satisfied with her prospects at Offendene, as a +great improvement on anything she had known. Even the cheap curates, +she incidentally learned, were almost always young men of family, and +Mr. Middleton, the actual curate, was said to be quite an acquisition: +it was only a pity he was so soon to leave. + +But there was one point which she was so anxious to gain that she could +not allow the evening to pass without taking her measures toward +securing it. Her mamma, she knew, intended to submit entirely to her +uncle’s judgment with regard to expenditure; and the submission was not +merely prudential, for Mrs. Davilow, conscious that she had always been +seen under a cloud as poor dear Fanny, who had made a sad blunder with +her second marriage, felt a hearty satisfaction in being frankly and +cordially identified with her sister’s family, and in having her +affairs canvassed and managed with an authority which presupposed a +genuine interest. Thus the question of a suitable saddle-horse, which +had been sufficiently discussed with mamma, had to be referred to Mr. +Gascoigne; and after Gwendolen had played on the piano, which had been +provided from Wanchester, had sung to her hearers’ admiration, and had +induced her uncle to join her in a duet—what more softening influence +than this on any uncle who would have sung finely if his time had not +been too much taken up by graver matters?—she seized the opportune +moment for saying, “Mamma, you have not spoken to my uncle about my +riding.” + +“Gwendolen desires above all things to have a horse to ride—a pretty, +light, lady’s horse,” said Mrs. Davilow, looking at Mr. Gascoigne. “Do +you think we can manage it?” + +Mr. Gascoigne projected his lower lip and lifted his handsome eyebrows +sarcastically at Gwendolen, who had seated herself with much grace on +the elbow of her mamma’s chair. + +“We could lend her the pony sometimes,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, watching +her husband’s face, and feeling quite ready to disapprove if he did. + +“That might be inconveniencing others, aunt, and would be no pleasure +to me. I cannot endure ponies,” said Gwendolen. “I would rather give up +some other indulgence and have a horse.” (Was there ever a young lady +or gentleman not ready to give up an unspecified indulgence for the +sake of the favorite one specified?) + +“She rides so well. She has had lessons, and the riding-master said she +had so good a seat and hand she might be trusted with any mount,” said +Mrs. Davilow, who, even if she had not wished her darling to have the +horse, would not have dared to be lukewarm in trying to get it for her. + +“There is the price of the horse—a good sixty with the best chance, +and then his keep,” said Mr. Gascoigne, in a tone which, though +demurring, betrayed the inward presence of something that favored the +demand. “There are the carriage-horses—already a heavy item. And +remember what you ladies cost in toilet now.” + +“I really wear nothing but two black dresses,” said Mrs. Davilow, +hastily. “And the younger girls, of course, require no toilet at +present. Besides, Gwendolen will save me so much by giving her sisters +lessons.” Here Mrs. Davilow’s delicate cheek showed a rapid blush. “If +it were not for that, I must really have a more expensive governess, +and masters besides.” + +Gwendolen felt some anger with her mamma, but carefully concealed it. + +“That is good—that is decidedly good,” said Mr. Gascoigne, heartily, +looking at his wife. And Gwendolen, who, it must be owned, was a deep +young lady, suddenly moved away to the other end of the long +drawing-room, and busied herself with arranging pieces of music. + +“The dear child has had no indulgences, no pleasures,” said Mrs. +Davilow, in a pleading undertone. “I feel the expense is rather +imprudent in this first year of our settling. But she really needs the +exercise—she needs cheering. And if you were to see her on horseback, +it is something splendid.” + +“It is what we could not afford for Anna,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. “But +she, dear child, would ride Lotta’s donkey and think it good enough.” +(Anna was absorbed in a game with Isabel, who had hunted out an old +back-gammon-board, and had begged to sit up an extra hour.) + +“Certainly, a fine woman never looks better than on horseback,” said +Mr. Gascoigne. “And Gwendolen has the figure for it. I don’t say the +thing should not be considered.” + +“We might try it for a time, at all events. It can be given up, if +necessary,” said Mrs. Davilow. + +“Well, I will consult Lord Brackenshaw’s head groom. He is my _fidus +Achates_ in the horsey way.” + +“Thanks,” said Mrs. Davilow, much relieved. “You are very kind.” + +“That he always is,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. And later that night, when +she and her husband were in private, she said, + +“I thought you were almost too indulgent about the horse for Gwendolen. +She ought not to claim so much more than your own daughter would think +of. Especially before we see how Fanny manages on her income. And you +really have enough to do without taking all this trouble on yourself.” + +“My dear Nancy, one must look at things from every point of view. This +girl is really worth some expense: you don’t often see her equal. She +ought to make a first-rate marriage, and I should not be doing my duty +if I spared my trouble in helping her forward. You know yourself she +has been under a disadvantage with such a father-in-law, and a second +family, keeping her always in the shade. I feel for the girl, And I +should like your sister and her family now to have the benefit of your +having married rather a better specimen of our kind than she did.” + +“Rather better! I should think so. However, it is for me to be grateful +that you will take so much on your shoulders for the sake of my sister +and her children. I am sure I would not grudge anything to poor Fanny. +But there is one thing I have been thinking of, though you have never +mentioned it.” + +“What is that?” + +“The boys. I hope they will not be falling in love with Gwendolen.” + +“Don’t presuppose anything of the kind, my dear, and there will be no +danger. Rex will never be at home for long together, and Warham is +going to India. It is the wiser plan to take it for granted that +cousins will not fall in love. If you begin with precautions, the +affair will come in spite of them. One must not undertake to act for +Providence in these matters, which can no more be held under the hand +than a brood of chickens. The boys will have nothing, and Gwendolen +will have nothing. They can’t marry. At the worst there would only be a +little crying, and you can’t save boys and girls from that.” + +Mrs. Gascoigne’s mind was satisfied: if anything did happen, there was +the comfort of feeling that her husband would know what was to be done, +and would have the energy to do it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + “_Gorgibus._— * * * Je te dis que le mariage est une chose sainte + et sacrée: et que c’est faire en honnêtes gens, que de débuter par là. + + “_Madelon._—Mon Dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un + roman serait bientôt fini! La belle chose que ce serait, si d’abord + Cyrus épousait Mandane, et qu’Aronce de plain-pied fût marié à Clélie! + * * * Laissez-nous faire à loisir le tissu de notre roman, et n’en + pressez pas tant la conclusion.” + MOLIÈRE. _Les Précieuses Ridicules._ + + +It would be a little hard to blame the rector of Pennicote that in the +course of looking at things from every point of view, he looked at +Gwendolen as a girl likely to make a brilliant marriage. Why should he +be expected to differ from his contemporaries in this matter, and wish +his niece a worse end of her charming maidenhood than they would +approve as the best possible? It is rather to be set down to his credit +that his feelings on the subject were entirely good-natured. And in +considering the relation of means to ends, it would have been mere +folly to have been guided by the exceptional and idyllic—to have +recommended that Gwendolen should wear a gown as shabby as Griselda’s +in order that a marquis might fall in love with her, or to have +insisted that since a fair maiden was to be sought, she should keep +herself out of the way. Mr. Gascoigne’s calculations were of the kind +called rational, and he did not even think of getting a too frisky +horse in order that Gwendolen might be threatened with an accident and +be rescued by a man of property. He wished his niece well, and he meant +her to be seen to advantage in the best society of the neighborhood. + +Her uncle’s intention fell in perfectly with Gwendolen’s own wishes. +But let no one suppose that she also contemplated a brilliant marriage +as the direct end of her witching the world with her grace on +horseback, or with any other accomplishment. That she was to be married +some time or other she would have felt obliged to admit; and that her +marriage would not be of a middling kind, such as most girls were +contented with, she felt quietly, unargumentatively sure. But her +thoughts never dwelt on marriage as the fulfillment of her ambition; +the dramas in which she imagined herself a heroine were not wrought up +to that close. To be very much sued or hopelessly sighed for as a bride +was indeed an indispensable and agreeable guarantee of womanly power; +but to become a wife and wear all the domestic fetters of that +condition, was on the whole a vexatious necessity. Her observation of +matrimony had inclined her to think it rather a dreary state in which a +woman could not do what she liked, had more children than were +desirable, was consequently dull, and became irrevocably immersed in +humdrum. Of course marriage was social promotion; she could not look +forward to a single life; but promotions have sometimes to be taken +with bitter herbs—a peerage will not quite do instead of leadership to +the man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of twenty +meant to lead. For such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. In +Gwendolen’s, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and +had no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the +balance of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort +of standing-room or length of lever could have been expected to move +the world. She meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking +manner; or rather, whatever she could do so as to strike others with +admiration and get in that reflected way a more ardent sense of living, +seemed pleasant to her fancy. + +“Gwendolen will not rest without having the world at her feet,” said +Miss Merry, the meek governess: hyperbolical words which have long come +to carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private +persons having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen +items of flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And +words could hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that +made a hazy largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young +self-exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, +and to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in +which no will was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no +longer be sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would +make the very best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer +circumstances by her exceptional cleverness. Certainly, to be settled +at Offendene, with the notice of Lady Brackenshaw, the archery club, +and invitations to dine with the Arrowpoints, as the highest lights in +her scenery, was not a position that seemed to offer remarkable +chances; but Gwendolen’s confidence lay chiefly in herself. She felt +well equipped for the mastery of life. With regard to much in her lot +hitherto, she held herself rather hardly dealt with, but as to her +“education,” she would have admitted that it had left her under no +disadvantages. In the school-room her quick mind had taken readily that +strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves +ignorance from any painful sense of limpness; and what remained of all +things knowable, she was conscious of being sufficiently acquainted +with through novels, plays and poems. About her French and music, the +two justifying accomplishments of a young lady, she felt no ground for +uneasiness; and when to all these qualifications, negative and +positive, we add the spontaneous sense of capability some happy persons +are born with, so that any subject they turn their attention to +impresses them with their own power of forming a correct judgment on +it, who can wonder if Gwendolen felt ready to manage her own destiny? + +There were many subjects in the world—perhaps the majority—in which +she felt no interest, because they were stupid; for subjects are apt to +appear stupid to the young as light seems dull to the old; but she +would not have felt at all helpless in relation to them if they had +turned up in conversation. It must be remembered that no one had +disputed her power or her general superiority. As on the arrival at +Offendene, so always, the first thought of those about her had been, +what will Gwendolen think?—if the footman trod heavily in creaking +boots, or if the laundress’s work was unsatisfactory, the maid said, +“This will never do for Miss Harleth”; if the wood smoked in the +bedroom fire-place, Mrs. Davilow, whose own weak eyes suffered much from +this inconvenience, spoke apologetically of it to Gwendolen. If, when +they were under the stress of traveling, she did not appear at the +breakfast table till every one else had finished, the only question +was, how Gwendolen’s coffee and toast should still be of the hottest +and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed +light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma’s hand to +coil it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx +from under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be +tolerant—to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up +her shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of +pushing up to her and asking questions, would go away to Miss Merry. + +Always she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have +her breakfast-roll made of the finest-bolted flour from the seven thin +ears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver fork +kept out of the baggage. How was this to be accounted for? The answer +may seem to lie quite on the surface:—in her beauty, a certain +unusualness about her, a decision of will which made itself felt in her +graceful movements and clear unhesitating tones, so that if she came +into the room on a rainy day when everybody else was flaccid and the +use of things in general was not apparent to them, there seemed to be a +sudden, sufficient reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even +the waiters at hotels showed the more alacrity in doing away with +crumbs and creases and dregs with struggling flies in them. This potent +charm, added to the fact that she was the eldest daughter, toward whom +her mamma had always been in an apologetic state of mind for the evils +brought on her by a step-father, may seem so full a reason for +Gwendolen’s domestic empire, that to look for any other would be to ask +the reason of daylight when the sun is shining. But beware of arriving +at conclusions without comparison. I remember having seen the same +assiduous, apologetic attention awarded to persons who were not at all +beautiful or unusual, whose firmness showed itself in no very graceful +or euphonious way, and who were not eldest daughters with a tender, +timid mother, compunctious at having subjected them to inconveniences. +Some of them were a very common sort of men. And the only point of +resemblance among them all was a strong determination to have what was +pleasant, with a total fearlessness in making themselves disagreeable +or dangerous when they did not get it. Who is so much cajoled and +served with trembling by the weak females of a household as the +unscrupulous male—capable, if he has not free way at home, of going +and doing worse elsewhere? Hence I am forced to doubt whether even +without her potent charm and peculiar filial position Gwendolen might +not still have played the queen in exile, if only she had kept her +inborn energy of egoistic desire, and her power of inspiring fear as to +what she might say or do. However, she had the charm, and those who +feared her were also fond of her; the fear and the fondness being +perhaps both heightened by what may be called the iridescence of her +character—the play of various, nay, contrary tendencies. For Macbeth’s +rhetoric about the impossibility of being many opposite things in the +same moment, referred to the clumsy necessities of action and not to +the subtler possibilities of feeling. We cannot speak a loyal word and +be meanly silent; we cannot kill and not kill in the same moment; but a +moment is wide enough for the loyal and mean desire, for the outlash of +a murderous thought and the sharp backward stroke of repentance. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + “Her wit + Values itself so highly, that to her + All matter else seems weak.” + —_Much Ado About Nothing._ + + +Gwendolen’s reception in the neighborhood fulfilled her uncle’s +expectations. From Brackenshaw Castle to the Firs at Wanchester, where +Mr. Quallon the banker kept a generous house, she was welcomed with +manifest admiration, and even those ladies who did not quite like her, +felt a comfort in having a new, striking girl to invite; for hostesses +who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up +their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking. Then, in order +to have Gwendolen as a guest, it was not necessary to ask any one who +was disagreeable, for Mrs. Davilow always made a quiet, picturesque +figure as a chaperon, and Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere in request for +his own sake. + +Among the houses where Gwendolen was not quite liked, and yet invited, +was Quetcham Hall. One of her first invitations was to a large +dinner-party there, which made a sort of general introduction for her +to the society of the neighborhood; for in a select party of thirty and +of well-composed proportions as to age, few visitable families could be +entirely left out. No youthful figure there was comparable to +Gwendolen’s as she passed through the long suite of rooms adorned with +light and flowers, and, visible at first as a slim figure floating +along in white drapery, approached through one wide doorway after +another into fuller illumination and definiteness. She had never had +that sort of promenade before, and she felt exultingly that it befitted +her: any one looking at her for the first time might have supposed that +long galleries and lackeys had always been a matter of course in her +life; while her cousin Anna, who was really more familiar with these +things, felt almost as much embarrassed as a rabbit suddenly deposited +in that well-lit-space. + +“Who is that with Gascoigne?” said the archdeacon, neglecting a +discussion of military manoeuvres on which, as a clergyman, he was +naturally appealed to. And his son, on the other side of the room—a +hopeful young scholar, who had already suggested some “not less elegant +than ingenious,” emendations of Greek texts—said nearly at the same +time, “By George! who is that girl with the awfully well-set head and +jolly figure?” + +But to a mind of general benevolence, wishing everybody to look well, +it was rather exasperating to see how Gwendolen eclipsed others: how +even the handsome Miss Lawe, explained to be the daughter of Lady Lawe, +looked suddenly broad, heavy and inanimate; and how Miss Arrowpoint, +unfortunately also dressed in white, immediately resembled a +_carte-de-visite_ in which one would fancy the skirt alone to have been +charged for. Since Miss Arrowpoint was generally liked for the amiable +unpretending way in which she wore her fortunes, and made a softening +screen for the oddities of her mother, there seemed to be some +unfitness in Gwendolen’s looking so much more like a person of social +importance. + +“She is not really so handsome if you come to examine her features,” +said Mrs. Arrowpoint, later in the evening, confidentially to Mrs. +Vulcany. “It is a certain style she has, which produces a great effect +at first, but afterward she is less agreeable.” + +In fact, Gwendolen, not intending it, but intending the contrary, had +offended her hostess, who, though not a splenetic or vindictive woman, +had her susceptibilities. Several conditions had met in the Lady of +Quetcham which to the reasoners in that neighborhood seemed to have an +essential connection with each other. It was occasionally recalled that +she had been the heiress of a fortune gained by some moist or dry +business in the city, in order fully to account for her having a squat +figure, a harsh parrot-like voice, and a systematically high +head-dress; and since these points made her externally rather +ridiculous, it appeared to many only natural that she should have what +are called literary tendencies. A little comparison would have shown +that all these points are to be found apart; daughters of aldermen +being often well-grown and well-featured, pretty women having sometimes +harsh or husky voices, and the production of feeble literature being +found compatible with the most diverse forms of _physique_, masculine +as well as feminine. + +Gwendolen, who had a keen sense of absurdity in others, but was kindly +disposed toward any one who could make life agreeable to her, meant to +win Mrs. Arrowpoint by giving her an interest and attention beyond what +others were probably inclined to show. But self-confidence is apt to +address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are +well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor, and those who are in the +prime of life raise their voice and talk artificially to seniors, +hastily conceiving them to be deaf and rather imbecile. Gwendolen, with +all her cleverness and purpose to be agreeable, could not escape that +form of stupidity: it followed in her mind, unreflectingly, that +because Mrs. Arrowpoint was ridiculous she was also likely to be +wanting in penetration, and she went through her little scenes without +suspicion that the various shades of her behavior were all noted. + +“You are fond of books as well as of music, riding, and archery, I +hear,” Mrs. Arrowpoint said, going to her for a _tête-à-tête_ in the +drawing-room after dinner. “Catherine will be very glad to have so +sympathetic a neighbor.” This little speech might have seemed the most +graceful politeness, spoken in a low, melodious tone; but with a twang, +fatally loud, it gave Gwendolen a sense of exercising patronage when +she answered, gracefully: + +“It is I who am fortunate. Miss Arrowpoint will teach me what good +music is. I shall be entirely a learner. I hear that she is a thorough +musician.” + +“Catherine has certainly had every advantage. We have a first-rate +musician in the house now—Herr Klesmer; perhaps you know all his +compositions. You must allow me to introduce him to you. You sing, I +believe. Catherine plays three instruments, but she does not sing. I +hope you will let us hear you. I understand you are an accomplished +singer.” + +“Oh, no!—‘die Kraft ist schwach, allein die Lust ist gross,’ as +Mephistopheles says.” + +“Ah, you are a student of Goethe. Young ladies are so advanced now. I +suppose you have read everything.” + +“No, really. I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I +have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but +there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell +musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How +delightful it must be to write books after one’s own taste instead of +reading other people’s! Home-made books must be so nice.” + +For an instant Mrs. Arrowpoint’s glance was a little sharper, but the +perilous resemblance to satire in the last sentence took the hue of +girlish simplicity when Gwendolen added, + +“I would give anything to write a book!” + +“And why should you not?” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, encouragingly. “You +have but to begin as I did. Pen, ink, and paper are at everybody’s +command. But I will send you all I have written with pleasure.” + +“Thanks. I shall be so glad to read your writings. Being acquainted +with authors must give a peculiar understanding of their books: one +would be able to tell then which parts were funny and which serious. I +am sure I often laugh in the wrong place.” Here Gwendolen herself +became aware of danger, and added quickly, “In Shakespeare, you know, +and other great writers that we can never see. But I always want to +know more than there is in the books.” + +“If you are interested in any of my subjects I can lend you many extra +sheets in manuscript,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint—while Gwendolen felt +herself painfully in the position of the young lady who professed to +like potted sprats. + +“These are things I dare say I shall publish eventually: several +friends have urged me to do so, and one doesn’t like to be obstinate. +My Tasso, for example—I could have made it twice the size.” + +“I dote on Tasso,” said Gwendolen. + +“Well, you shall have all my papers, if you like. So many, you know, +have written about Tasso; but they are all wrong. As to the particular +nature of his madness, and his feelings for Leonora, and the real cause +of his imprisonment, and the character of Leonora, who, in my opinion, +was a cold-hearted woman, else she would have married him in spite of +her brother—they are all wrong. I differ from everybody.” + +“How very interesting!” said Gwendolen. “I like to differ from +everybody. I think it is so stupid to agree. That is the worst of +writing your opinions; you make people agree with you.” This speech +renewed a slight suspicion in Mrs. Arrowpoint, and again her glance +became for a moment examining. But Gwendolen looked very innocent, and +continued with a docile air: + +“I know nothing of Tasso except the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, which we +read and learned by heart at school.” + +“Ah, his life is more interesting than his poetry, I have constructed +the early part of his life as a sort of romance. When one thinks of his +father Bernardo, and so on, there is much that must be true.” + +“Imagination is often truer than fact,” said Gwendolen, decisively, +though she could no more have explained these glib words than if they +had been Coptic or Etruscan. “I shall be so glad to learn all about +Tasso—and his madness especially. I suppose poets are always a little +mad.” + +“To be sure—‘the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling’; and somebody +says of Marlowe, + + ‘For that fine madness still he did maintain, + Which always should possess the poet’s brain.’” + +“But it was not always found out, was it?” said Gwendolen innocently. +“I suppose some of them rolled their eyes in private. Mad people are +often very cunning.” + +Again a shade flitted over Mrs. Arrowpoint’s face; but the entrance of +the gentlemen prevented any immediate mischief between her and this too +quick young lady, who had over-acted her _naïveté_. + +“Ah, here comes Herr Klesmer,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, rising; and +presently bringing him to Gwendolen, she left them to a dialogue which +was agreeable on both sides, Herr Klesmer being a felicitous +combination of the German, the Sclave and the Semite, with grand +features, brown hair floating in artistic fashion, and brown eyes in +spectacles. His English had little foreignness except its fluency; and +his alarming cleverness was made less formidable just then by a certain +softening air of silliness which will sometimes befall even Genius in +the desire of being agreeable to Beauty. + +Music was soon begun. Miss Arrowpoint and Herr Klesmer played a +four-handed piece on two pianos, which convinced the company in general +that it was long, and Gwendolen in particular that the neutral, +placid-faced Miss Arrowpoint had a mastery of the instrument which put +her own execution out of question—though she was not discouraged as to +her often-praised touch and style. After this every one became anxious +to hear Gwendolen sing; especially Mr. Arrowpoint; as was natural in a +host and a perfect gentleman, of whom no one had anything to say but +that he married Miss Cuttler and imported the best cigars; and he led +her to the piano with easy politeness. Herr Klesmer closed the +instrument in readiness for her, and smiled with pleasure at her +approach; then placed himself at a distance of a few feet so that he +could see her as she sang. + +Gwendolen was not nervous; what she undertook to do she did without +trembling, and singing was an enjoyment to her. Her voice was a +moderately powerful soprano (some one had told her it was like Jenny +Lind’s), her ear good, and she was able to keep in tune, so that her +singing gave pleasure to ordinary hearers, and she had been used to +unmingled applause. She had the rare advantage of looking almost +prettier when she was singing than at other times, and that Herr +Klesmer was in front of her seemed not disagreeable. Her song, +determined on beforehand, was a favorite aria of Belini’s, in which she +felt quite sure of herself. + +“Charming!” said Mr. Arrowpoint, who had remained near, and the word +was echoed around without more insincerity than we recognize in a +brotherly way as human. But Herr Klesmer stood like a statue—if a +statue can be imagined in spectacles; at least, he was as mute as a +statue. Gwendolen was pressed to keep her seat and double the general +pleasure, and she did not wish to refuse; but before resolving to do +so, she moved a little toward Herr Klesmer, saying with a look of +smiling appeal, “It would be too cruel to a great musician. You cannot +like to hear poor amateur singing.” + +“No, truly; but that makes nothing,” said Herr Klesmer, suddenly +speaking in an odious German fashion with staccato endings, quite +unobservable in him before, and apparently depending on a change of +mood, as Irishmen resume their strongest brogue when they are fervid or +quarrelsome. “That makes nothing. It is always acceptable to see you +sing.” + +Was there ever so unexpected an assertion of superiority—at least +before the late Teutonic conquest? Gwendolen colored deeply, but, with +her usual presence of mind, did not show an ungraceful resentment by +moving away immediately; and Miss Arrowpoint, who had been near enough +to overhear (and also to observe that Herr Klesmer’s mode of looking at +Gwendolen was more conspicuously admiring than was quite consistent +with good taste), now with the utmost tact and kindness came close to +her and said, + +“Imagine what I have to go through with this professor! He can hardly +tolerate anything we English do in music. We can only put up with his +severity, and make use of it to find out the worst that can be said of +us. It is a little comfort to know that; and one can bear it when every +one else is admiring.” + +“I should be very much obliged to him for telling me the worst,” said +Gwendolen, recovering herself. “I dare say I have been extremely ill +taught, in addition to having no talent—only liking for music.” This +was very well expressed considering that it had never entered her mind +before. + +“Yes, it is true: you have not been well taught,” said Herr Klesmer, +quietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. “Still, you are +not quite without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair +organ. But you produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing +is beneath you. It is a form of melody which expresses a puerile state +of culture—a dawdling, canting, see-saw kind of stuff—the passion and +thought of people without any breadth of horizon. There is a sort of +self-satisfied folly about every phrase of such melody; no cries of +deep, mysterious passion—no conflict—no sense of the universal. It +makes men small as they listen to it. Sing now something larger. And I +shall see.” + +“Oh, not now—by-and-by,” said Gwendolen, with a sinking of heart at +the sudden width of horizon opened round her small musical performance. +For a lady desiring to lead, this first encounter in her campaign was +startling. But she was bent on not behaving foolishly, and Miss +Arrowpoint helped her by saying, “Yes, by-and-by. I always require half +an hour to get up my courage after being criticised by Herr Klesmer. We +will ask him to play to us now: he is bound to show us what is good +music.” + +To be quite safe on this point Herr Klesmer played a composition of his +own, a fantasia called _Freudvoll, Leidvoll, Gedankenvoll_—an +extensive commentary on some melodic ideas not too grossly evident; and +he certainly fetched as much variety and depth of passion out of the +piano as that moderately responsive instrument lends itself to, having +an imperious magic in his fingers that seem to send a nerve-thrill +through ivory key and wooden hammer, and compel the strings to make a +quivering lingering speech for him. Gwendolen, in spite of her wounded +egoism, had fullness of nature enough to feel the power of this +playing, and it gradually turned her inward sob of mortification into +an excitement which lifted her for the moment into a desperate +indifference about her own doings, or at least a determination to get a +superiority over them by laughing at them as if they belonged to +somebody else. Her eyes had become brighter, her cheeks slightly +flushed, and her tongue ready for any mischievous remarks. + +“I wish you would sing to us again, Miss Harleth,” said young Clintock, +the archdeacon’s classical son, who had been so fortunate as to take +her to dinner, and came up to renew conversation as soon as Herr +Klesmer’s performance was ended, “That is the style of music for me. I +never can make anything of this tip-top playing. It is like a jar of +leeches, where you can never tell either beginnings or endings. I could +listen to your singing all day.” + +“Yes, we should be glad of something popular now—another song from you +would be a relaxation,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, who had also come near +with polite intentions. + +“That must be because you are in a puerile state of culture, and have +no breadth of horizon. I have just learned that. I have been taught how +bad my taste is, and am feeling growing pains. They are never +pleasant,” said Gwendolen, not taking any notice of Mrs. Arrowpoint, +and looking up with a bright smile at young Clintock. + +Mrs. Arrowpoint was not insensible to this rudeness, but merely said, +“Well, we will not press anything disagreeably,” and as there was a +perceptible outburst of imprisoned conversation just then, and a +movement of guests seeking each other, she remained seated where she +was, and looked around her with the relief of a hostess at finding she +is not needed. + +“I am glad you like this neighborhood,” said young Clintock, +well-pleased with his station in front of Gwendolen. + +“Exceedingly. There seems to be a little of everything and not much of +anything.” + +“That is rather equivocal praise.” + +“Not with me. I like a little of everything; a little absurdity, for +example, is very amusing. I am thankful for a few queer people; but +much of them is a bore.” + +(Mrs. Arrowpoint, who was hearing this dialogue, perceived quite a new +tone in Gwendolen’s speech, and felt a revival of doubt as to her +interest in Tasso’s madness.) + +“I think there should be more croquet, for one thing,” said young Clintock; +“I am usually away, but if I were more here I should go in for a +croquet club. You are one of the archers, I think. But depend upon it +croquet is the game of the future. It wants writing up, though. One of +our best men has written a poem on it, in four cantos;—as good as +Pope. I want him to publish it—You never read anything better.” + +“I shall study croquet to-morrow. I shall take to it instead of +singing.” + +“No, no, not that; but do take to croquet. I will send you Jenning’s +poem if you like. I have a manuscript copy.” + +“Is he a great friend of yours?” + +“Well, rather.” + +“Oh, if he is only rather, I think I will decline. Or, if you send it +to me, will you promise not to catechise me upon it and ask me which +part I like best? Because it is not so easy to know a poem without +reading it as to know a sermon without listening.” + +“Decidedly,” Mrs. Arrowpoint thought, “this girl is double and +satirical. I shall be on my guard against her.” + +But Gwendolen, nevertheless, continued to receive polite attentions +from the family at Quetcham, not merely because invitations have larger +grounds than those of personal liking, but because the trying little +scene at the piano had awakened a kindly solicitude toward her in the +gentle mind of Miss Arrowpoint, who managed all the invitations and +visits, her mother being otherwise occupied. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + “Croyez-vous m’avoir humiliée pour m’avoir appris que la terre tourne + autour du soleil? Je vous jure que je ne m’en estime pas moins.” + —FONTENELLE: _Pluralité des Mondes_. + + +That lofty criticism had caused Gwendolen a new sort of pain. She would +not have chosen to confess how unfortunate she thought herself in not +having had Miss Arrowpoint’s musical advantages, so as to be able to +question Herr Klesmer’s taste with the confidence of thorough +knowledge; still less, to admit even to herself that Miss Arrowpoint +each time they met raised an unwonted feeling of jealousy in her: not +in the least because she was an heiress, but because it was really +provoking that a girl whose appearance you could not characterize +except by saying that her figure was slight and of middle stature, her +features small, her eyes tolerable, and her complexion sallow, had +nevertheless a certain mental superiority which could not be explained +away—an exasperating thoroughness in her musical accomplishment, a +fastidious discrimination in her general tastes, which made it +impossible to force her admiration and kept you in awe of her standard. +This insignificant-looking young lady of four-and-twenty, whom any +one’s eyes would have passed over negligently if she had not been Miss +Arrowpoint, might be suspected of a secret opinion that Miss Harleth’s +acquirements were rather of a common order, and such an opinion was not +made agreeable to think of by being always veiled under a perfect +kindness of manner. + +But Gwendolen did not like to dwell on facts which threw an unfavorable +light on itself. The musical Magus who had so suddenly widened her +horizon was not always on the scene; and his being constantly backward +and forward between London and Quetcham soon began to be thought of as +offering opportunities for converting him to a more admiring state of +mind. Meanwhile, in the manifest pleasure her singing gave at +Brackenshaw Castle, the Firs, and elsewhere, she recovered her +equanimity, being disposed to think approval more trustworthy than +objection, and not being one of the exceptional persons who have a +parching thirst for a perfection undemanded by their neighbors. Perhaps +it would have been rash to say then that she was at all exceptional +inwardly, or that the unusual in her was more than her rare grace of +movement and bearing, and a certain daring which gave piquancy to a +very common egoistic ambition, such as exists under many clumsy +exteriors and is taken no notice of. For I suppose that the set of the +head does not really determine the hunger of the inner self for +supremacy: it only makes a difference sometimes as to the way in which +the supremacy is held attainable, and a little also to the degree in +which it can be attained; especially when the hungry one is a girl, +whose passion for doing what is remarkable has an ideal limit in +consistency with the highest breeding and perfect freedom from the +sordid need of income. Gwendolen was as inwardly rebellious against the +restraints of family conditions, and as ready to look through +obligations into her own fundamental want of feeling for them, as if +she had been sustained by the boldest speculations; but she really had +no such speculations, and would at once have marked herself off from +any sort of theoretical or practically reforming women by satirizing +them. She rejoiced to feel herself exceptional; but her horizon was +that of the genteel romance where the heroine’s soul poured out in her +journal is full of vague power, originality, and general rebellion, +while her life moves strictly in the sphere of fashion; and if she +wanders into a swamp, the pathos lies partly, so to speak, in her +having on her satin shoes. Here is a restraint which nature and society +have provided on the pursuit of striking adventure; so that a soul +burning with a sense of what the universe is not, and ready to take all +existence as fuel, is nevertheless held captive by the ordinary +wirework of social forms and does nothing particular. + +This commonplace result was what Gwendolen found herself threatened +with even in the novelty of the first winter at Offendene. What she was +clear upon was, that she did not wish to lead the same sort of life as +ordinary young ladies did; but what she was not clear upon was, how she +should set about leading any other, and what were the particular acts +which she would assert her freedom by doing. Offendene remained a good +background, if anything would happen there; but on the whole the +neighborhood was in fault. + +Beyond the effect of her beauty on a first presentation, there was not +much excitement to be got out of her earliest invitations, and she came +home after little sallies of satire and knowingness, such as had +offended Mrs. Arrowpoint, to fill the intervening days with the most +girlish devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her +individual claims was to leave out Alice’s lessons (on the principle +that Alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her +with Miss Merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the +ladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen +pleased herself with having in readiness for some future occasions of +acting in charades or theatrical pieces, occasions which she meant to +bring about by force of will or contrivance. She had never acted—only +made a figure in _tableaux vivans_ at school; but she felt assured that +she could act well, and having been once or twice to the Théâtre +Français, and also heard her mamma speak of Rachel, her waking dreams +and cogitations as to how she would manage her destiny sometimes turned +on the question whether she would become an actress like Rachel, since +she was more beautiful than that thin Jewess. Meanwhile the wet days +before Christmas were passed pleasantly in the preparation of costumes, +Greek, Oriental, and Composite, in which Gwendolen attitudinized and +speechified before a domestic audience, including even the housekeeper, +who was once pressed into it that she might swell the notes of +applause; but having shown herself unworthy by observing that Miss +Harleth looked far more like a queen in her own dress than in that +baggy thing with her arms all bare, she was not invited a second time. + +“Do I look as well as Rachel, mamma?” said Gwendolen, one day when she +had been showing herself in her Greek dress to Anna, and going through +scraps of scenes with much tragic intention. + +“You have better arms than Rachel,” said Mrs. Davilow, “your arms would +do for anything, Gwen. But your voice is not so tragic as hers; it is +not so deep.” + +“I can make it deeper, if I like,” said Gwendolen, provisionally; then +she added, with decision, “I think a higher voice is more tragic: it is +more feminine; and the more feminine a woman is, the more tragic it +seems when she does desperate actions.” + +“There may be something in that,” said Mrs. Davilow, languidly. “But I +don’t know what good there is in making one’s blood creep. And if there +is anything horrible to be done, I should like it to be left to the +men.” + +“Oh, mamma, you are so dreadfully prosaic! As if all the great poetic +criminals were not women! I think the men are poor cautious creatures.” + +“Well, dear, and you—who are afraid to be alone in the night—I don’t +think you would be very bold in crime, thank God.” + +“I am not talking about reality, mamma,” said Gwendolen, impatiently. +Then her mamma being called out of the room, she turned quickly to her +cousin, as if taking an opportunity, and said, “Anna, do ask my uncle +to let us get up some charades at the rectory. Mr. Middleton and Warham +could act with us—just for practice. Mamma says it will not do to have +Mr. Middleton consulting and rehearsing here. He is a stick, but we +could give him suitable parts. Do ask, or else I will.” + +“Oh, not till Rex comes. He is so clever, and such a dear old thing, +and he will act Napoleon looking over the sea. He looks just like +Napoleon. Rex can do anything.” + +“I don’t in the least believe in your Rex, Anna,” said Gwendolen, +laughing at her. “He will turn out to be like those wretched blue and +yellow water-colors of his which you hang up in your bedroom and +worship.” + +“Very well, you will see,” said Anna. “It is not that I know what is +clever, but he has got a scholarship already, and papa says he will get +a fellowship, and nobody is better at games. He is cleverer than Mr. +Middleton, and everybody but you call Mr. Middleton clever.” + +“So he may be in a dark-lantern sort of way. But he _is_ a stick. If he +had to say, ‘Perdition catch my soul, but I do love her,’ he would say +it in just the same tone as, ‘Here endeth the second lesson.’” + +“Oh, Gwendolen!” said Anna, shocked at these promiscuous allusions. +“And it is very unkind of you to speak so of him, for he admires you +very much. I heard Warham say one day to mamma, ‘Middleton is regularly +spooney upon Gwendolen.’ She was very angry with him; but I know what +it means. It is what they say at college for being in love.” + +“How can I help it?” said Gwendolen, rather contemptuously. “Perdition +catch my soul if I love _him_.” + +“No, of course; papa, I think, would not wish it. And he is to go away +soon. But it makes me sorry when you ridicule him.” + +“What shall you do to me when I ridicule Rex?” said Gwendolen, wickedly. + +“Now, Gwendolen, dear, you _will not_?” said Anna, her eyes filling +with tears. “I could not bear it. But there really is nothing in him to +ridicule. Only you may find out things. For no one ever thought of +laughing at Mr. Middleton before you. Every one said he was +nice-looking, and his manners perfect. I am sure I have always been +frightened at him because of his learning and his square-cut coat, and +his being a nephew of the bishop’s, and all that. But you will not +ridicule Rex—promise me.” Anna ended with a beseeching look which +touched Gwendolen. + +“You are a dear little coz,” she said, just touching the tip of Anna’s +chin with her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t ever want to do anything +that will vex you. Especially if Rex is to make everything come +off—charades and everything.” + +And when at last Rex was there, the animation he brought into the life +of Offendene and the rectory, and his ready partnership in Gwendolen’s +plans, left her no inclination for any ridicule that was not of an open +and flattering kind, such as he himself enjoyed. He was a fine +open-hearted youth, with a handsome face strongly resembling his +father’s and Anna’s, but softer in expression than the one, and larger +in scale than the other: a bright, healthy, loving nature, enjoying +ordinary innocent things so much that vice had no temptation for him, +and what he knew of it lay too entirely in the outer courts and +little-visited chambers of his mind for him to think of it with great +repulsion. Vicious habits were with him “what some fellows +did”—“stupid stuff” which he liked to keep aloof from. He returned +Anna’s affection as fully as could be expected of a brother whose +pleasures apart from her were more than the sum total of hers; and he +had never known a stronger love. + +The cousins were continually together at the one house or the +other—chiefly at Offendene, where there was more freedom, or rather +where there was a more complete sway for Gwendolen; and whatever she +wished became a ruling purpose for Rex. The charades came off according +to her plans; and also some other little scenes not contemplated by her +in which her acting was more impromptu. It was at Offendene that the +charades and _tableaux_ were rehearsed and presented, Mrs. Davilow +seeing no objection even to Mr. Middleton’s being invited to share in +them, now that Rex too was there—especially as his services were +indispensable: Warham, who was studying for India with a Wanchester +“coach,” having no time to spare, and being generally dismal under a +cram of everything except the answers needed at the forthcoming +examination, which might disclose the welfare of our Indian Empire to +be somehow connected with a quotable knowledge of Browne’s Pastorals. + +Mr. Middleton was persuaded to play various grave parts, Gwendolen +having flattered him on his enviable immobility of countenance; and at +first a little pained and jealous at her comradeship with Rex, he +presently drew encouragement from the thought that this sort of +cousinly familiarity excluded any serious passion. Indeed, he +occasionally felt that her more formal treatment of himself was such a +sign of favor as to warrant his making advances before he left +Pennicote, though he had intended to keep his feelings in reserve until +his position should be more assured. Miss Gwendolen, quite aware that +she was adored by this unexceptionable young clergyman with pale +whiskers and square-cut collar, felt nothing more on the subject than +that she had no objection to being adored: she turned her eyes on him +with calm mercilessness and caused him many mildly agitating hopes by +seeming always to avoid dramatic contact with him—for all meanings, we +know, depend on the key of interpretation. + +Some persons might have thought beforehand that a young man of Anglican +leanings, having a sense of sacredness much exercised on small things +as well as great, rarely laughing save from politeness, and in general +regarding the mention of spades by their naked names as rather coarse, +would not have seen a fitting bride for himself in a girl who was +daring in ridicule, and showed none of the special grace required in +the clergyman’s wife; or, that a young man informed by theological +reading would have reflected that he was not likely to meet the taste +of a lively, restless young lady like Miss Harleth. But are we always +obliged to explain why the facts are not what some persons thought +beforehand? The apology lies on their side, who had that erroneous way +of thinking. + +As for Rex, who would possibly have been sorry for poor Middleton if he +had been aware of the excellent curate’s inward conflict, he was too +completely absorbed in a first passion to have observation for any +person or thing. He did not observe Gwendolen; he only felt what she +said or did, and the back of his head seemed to be a good organ of +information as to whether she was in the room or out. Before the end of +the first fortnight he was so deeply in love that it was impossible for +him to think of his life except as bound up with Gwendolen’s. He could +see no obstacles, poor boy; his own love seemed a guarantee of hers, +since it was one with the unperturbed delight in her image, so that he +could no more dream of her giving him pain than an Egyptian could dream +of snow. She sang and played to him whenever he liked, was always glad +of his companionship in riding, though his borrowed steeds were often +comic, was ready to join in any fun of his, and showed a right +appreciation of Anna. No mark of sympathy seemed absent. That because +Gwendolen was the most perfect creature in the world she was to make a +grand match, had not occurred to him. He had no conceit—at least not +more than goes to make up the necessary gum and consistence of a +substantial personality: it was only that in the young bliss of loving +he took Gwendolen’s perfection as part of that good which had seemed +one with life to him, being the outcome of a happy, well-embodied +nature. + +One incident which happened in the course of their dramatic attempts +impressed Rex as a sign of her unusual sensibility. It showed an aspect +of her nature which could not have been preconceived by any one who, +like him, had only seen her habitual fearlessness in active exercises +and her high spirits in society. + +After a good deal of rehearsing it was resolved that a select party +should be invited to Offendene to witness the performances which went +with so much satisfaction to the actors. Anna had caused a pleasant +surprise; nothing could be neater than the way in which she played her +little parts; one would even have suspected her of hiding much sly +observation under her simplicity. And Mr. Middleton answered very well +by not trying to be comic. The main source of doubt and retardation had +been Gwendolen’s desire to appear in her Greek dress. No word for a +charade would occur to her either waking or dreaming that suited her +purpose of getting a statuesque pose in this favorite costume. To +choose a motive from Racine was of no use, since Rex and the others +could not declaim French verse, and improvised speeches would turn the +scene into burlesque. Besides, Mr. Gascoigne prohibited the acting of +scenes from plays: he usually protested against the notion that an +amusement which was fitting for every one else was unfitting for a +clergyman; but he would not in this matter overstep the line of decorum +as drawn in that part of Wessex, which did not exclude his sanction of +the young people’s acting charades in his sister-in-law’s house—a very +different affair from private theatricals in the full sense of the word. + +Everybody of course was concerned to satisfy this wish of Gwendolen’s, +and Rex proposed that they should wind up with a tableau in which the +effect of her majesty would not be marred by any one’s speech. This +pleased her thoroughly, and the only question was the choice of the +tableau. + +“Something pleasant, children, I beseech you,” said Mrs. Davilow; “I +can’t have any Greek wickedness.” + +“It is no worse than Christian wickedness, mamma,” said Gwendolen, +whose mention of Rachelesque heroines had called forth that remark. + +“And less scandalous,” said Rex. “Besides, one thinks of it as all gone +by and done with. What do you say to Briseis being led away? I would be +Achilles, and you would be looking round at me—after the print we have +at the rectory.” + +“That would be a good attitude for me,” said Gwendolen, in a tone of +acceptance. But afterward she said with decision, “No. It will not do. +There must be three men in proper costume, else it will be ridiculous.” + +“I have it,” said Rex, after a little reflection. “Hermione as the +statue in Winter’s Tale? I will be Leontes, and Miss Merry, Paulina, +one on each side. Our dress won’t signify,” he went on laughingly; “it +will be more Shakespearian and romantic if Leontes looks like Napoleon, +and Paulina like a modern spinster.” + +And Hermione was chosen; all agreeing that age was of no consequence, +but Gwendolen urged that instead of the mere tableau there should be +just enough acting of the scene to introduce the striking up of the +music as a signal for her to step down and advance; when Leontes, +instead of embracing her, was to kneel and kiss the hem of her garment, +and so the curtain was to fall. The antechamber with folding doors lent +itself admirably to the purpose of a stage, and the whole of the +establishment, with the addition of Jarrett the village carpenter, was +absorbed in the preparations for an entertainment, which, considering +that it was an imitation of acting, was likely to be successful, since +we know from ancient fable that an imitation may have more chance of +success than the original. + +Gwendolen was not without a special exultation in the prospect of this +occasion, for she knew that Herr Klesmer was again at Quetcham, and she +had taken care to include him among the invited. + +Klesmer came. He was in one of his placid, silent moods, and sat in +serene contemplation, replying to all appeals in benignant-sounding +syllables more or less articulate—as taking up his cross meekly in a +world overgrown with amateurs, or as careful how he moved his lion paws +lest he should crush a rampant and vociferous mouse. + +Everything indeed went off smoothly and according to expectation—all +that was improvised and accidental being of a probable sort—until the +incident occurred which showed Gwendolen in an unforeseen phase of +emotion. How it came about was at first a mystery. + +The tableau of Hermione was doubly striking from its dissimilarity with +what had gone before: it was answering perfectly, and a murmur of +applause had been gradually suppressed while Leontes gave his +permission that Paulina should exercise her utmost art and make the +statue move. + +Hermione, her arm resting on a pillar, was elevated by about six +inches, which she counted on as a means of showing her pretty foot and +instep, when at the given signal she should advance and descend. + +“Music, awake her, strike!” said Paulina (Mrs. Davilow, who, by special +entreaty, had consented to take the part in a white burnous and hood). + +Herr Klesmer, who had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the +piano, struck a thunderous chord—but in the same instant, and before +Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line +with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed +the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought out in +pale definiteness by the position of the wax-lights. Everyone was +startled, but all eyes in the act of turning toward the open panel were +recalled by a piercing cry from Gwendolen, who stood without change of +attitude, but with a change of expression that was terrifying in its +terror. She looked like a statue into which a soul of Fear had entered: +her pallid lips were parted; her eyes, usually narrowed under their +long lashes, were dilated and fixed. Her mother, less surprised than +alarmed, rushed toward her, and Rex, too, could not help going to her +side. But the touch of her mother’s arm had the effect of an electric +charge; Gwendolen fell on her knees and put her hands before her face. +She was still trembling, but mute, and it seemed that she had +self-consciousness enough to aim at controlling her signs of terror, +for she presently allowed herself to be raised from her kneeling +posture and led away, while the company were relieving their minds by +explanation. + +“A magnificent bit of _plastik_ that!” said Klesmer to Miss Arrowpoint. +And a quick fire of undertoned question and answer went round. + +“Was it part of the play?” + +“Oh, no, surely not. Miss Harleth was too much affected. A sensitive +creature!” + +“Dear me! I was not aware that there was a painting behind that panel; +were you?” + +“No; how should I? Some eccentricity in one of the Earl’s family long +ago, I suppose.” + +“How very painful! Pray shut it up.” + +“Was the door locked? It is very mysterious. It must be the spirits.” + +“But there is no medium present.” + +“How do you know that? We must conclude that there is, when such things +happen.” + +“Oh, the door was not locked; it was probably the sudden vibration from +the piano that sent it open.” + +This conclusion came from Mr. Gascoigne, who begged Miss Merry if +possible to get the key. But this readiness to explain the mystery was +thought by Mrs. Vulcany unbecoming in a clergyman, and she observed in +an undertone that Mr. Gascoigne was always a little too worldly for her +taste. However, the key was produced, and the rector turned it in the +lock with an emphasis rather offensively rationalizing—as who should +say, “it will not start open again”—putting the key in his pocket as a +security. + +However, Gwendolen soon reappeared, showing her usual spirits, and +evidently determined to ignore as far as she could the striking change +she had made in the part of Hermione. + +But when Klesmer said to her, “We have to thank you for devising a +perfect climax: you could not have chosen a finer bit of _plastik_,” +there was a flush of pleasure in her face. She liked to accept as a +belief what was really no more than delicate feigning. He divined that +the betrayal into a passion of fear had been mortifying to her, and +wished her to understand that he took it for good acting. Gwendolen +cherished the idea that now he was struck with her talent as well as +her beauty, and her uneasiness about his opinion was half turned to +complacency. + +But too many were in the secret of what had been included in the +rehearsals, and what had not, and no one besides Klesmer took the +trouble to soothe Gwendolen’s imagined mortification. The general +sentiment was that the incident should be let drop. + +There had really been a medium concerned in the starting open of the +panel: one who had quitted the room in haste and crept to bed in much +alarm of conscience. It was the small Isabel, whose intense curiosity, +unsatisfied by the brief glimpse she had had of the strange picture on +the day of arrival at Offendene, had kept her on the watch for an +opportunity of finding out where Gwendolen had put the key, of stealing +it from the discovered drawer when the rest of the family were out, and +getting on a stool to unlock the panel. While she was indulging her +thirst for knowledge in this way, a noise which she feared was an +approaching footstep alarmed her: she closed the door and attempted +hurriedly to lock it, but failing and not daring to linger, she +withdrew the key and trusted that the panel would stick, as it seemed +well inclined to do. In this confidence she had returned the key to its +former place, stilling any anxiety by the thought that if the door were +discovered to be unlocked nobody would know how the unlocking came +about. The inconvenient Isabel, like other offenders, did not foresee +her own impulse to confession, a fatality which came upon her the +morning after the party, when Gwendolen said at the breakfast-table, “I +know the door was locked before the housekeeper gave me the key, for I +tried it myself afterward. Some one must have been to my drawer and +taken the key.” + +It seemed to Isabel that Gwendolen’s awful eyes had rested on her more +than on the other sisters, and without any time for resolve, she said, +with a trembling lip: + +“Please forgive me, Gwendolen.” + +The forgiveness was sooner bestowed than it would have been if +Gwendolen had not desired to dismiss from her own and every one else’s +memory any case in which she had shown her susceptibility to terror. +She wondered at herself in these occasional experiences, which seemed +like a brief remembered madness, an unexplained exception from her +normal life; and in this instance she felt a peculiar vexation that her +helpless fear had shown itself, not, as usual, in solitude, but in +well-lit company. Her ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in +braving dangers, both moral and physical; and though her practice fell +far behind her ideal, this shortcoming seemed to be due to the +pettiness of circumstances, the narrow theatre which life offers to a +girl of twenty, who cannot conceive herself as anything else than a +lady, or as in any position which would lack the tribute of respect. +She had no permanent consciousness of other fetters, or of more +spiritual restraints, having always disliked whatever was presented to +her under the name of religion, in the same way that some people +dislike arithmetic and accounts: it had raised no other emotion in her, +no alarm, no longing; so that the question whether she believed it had +not occurred to her any more than it had occurred to her to inquire +into the conditions of colonial property and banking, on which, as she +had had many opportunities of knowing, the family fortune was +dependent. All these facts about herself she would have been ready to +admit, and even, more or less indirectly, to state. What she +unwillingly recognized, and would have been glad for others to be +unaware of, was that liability of hers to fits of spiritual dread, +though this fountain of awe within her had not found its way into +connection with the religion taught her or with any human relations. +She was ashamed and frightened, as at what might happen again, in +remembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone, when, for +example, she was walking without companionship and there came some +rapid change in the light. Solitude in any wide scene impressed her +with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in +the midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself. +The little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her +imagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when +some one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in +which she seemed an exile; she found again her usual world in which her +will was of some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to +this world was no more identified for her with those uneasy impressions +of awe than her uncle’s surplices seen out of use at the rectory. With +human ears and eyes about her, she had always hitherto recovered her +confidence, and felt the possibility of winning empire. + +To her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were +sufficiently accounted for by her “sensitiveness” or the “excitability +of her nature”; but these explanatory phrases required conciliation +with much that seemed to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery. +Heat is a great agent and a useful word, but considered as a means of +explaining the universe it requires an extensive knowledge of +differences; and as a means of explaining character “sensitiveness” is +in much the same predicament. But who, loving a creature like +Gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard every peculiarity in her as +a mark of pre-eminence? That was what Rex did. After the Hermione scene +he was more persuaded than ever that she must be instinct with all +feeling, and not only readier to respond to a worshipful love, but able +to love better than other girls. Rex felt the summer on his young wings +and soared happily. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + “_Perigot_. As the bonny lasse passed by, + _Willie_. Hey, ho, bonnilasse! + _P_. She roode at me with glauncing eye, + _W_. As clear as the crystal glasse. + _P_. All as the sunny beame so bright, + _W_. Hey, ho, the sunnebeame! + _P_. Glaunceth from Phoebus’ face forthright, + _W_. So love into thy heart did streame.” + —SPENSER: _Shepard’s Calendar_. + + “The kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish + state of youth; the nourisher and destroyer of hopeful wits; * * * the + servitude above freedom; the gentle mind’s religion; the liberal + superstition.”—CHARLES LAMB. + + +The first sign of the unimagined snow-storm was like the transparent +white cloud that seems to set off the blue. Anna was in the secret of +Rex’s feeling; though for the first time in their lives he had said +nothing to her about what he most thought of, and he only took it for +granted that she knew it. For the first time, too, Anna could not say +to Rex what was continually in her mind. Perhaps it might have been a +pain which she would have had to conceal, that he should so soon care +for some one else more than for herself, if such a feeling had not been +thoroughly neutralized by doubt and anxiety on his behalf. Anna admired +her cousin—would have said with simple sincerity, “Gwendolen is always +very good to me,” and held it in the order of things for herself to be +entirely subject to this cousin; but she looked at her with mingled +fear and distrust, with a puzzled contemplation as of some wondrous and +beautiful animal whose nature was a mystery, and who, for anything Anna +knew, might have an appetite for devouring all the small creatures that +were her own particular pets. And now Anna’s heart was sinking under +the heavy conviction which she dared not utter, that Gwendolen would +never care for Rex. What she herself held in tenderness and reverence +had constantly seemed indifferent to Gwendolen, and it was easier to +imagine her scorning Rex than returning any tenderness of his. Besides, +she was always thinking of being something extraordinary. And poor Rex! +Papa would be angry with him if he knew. And of course he was too young +to be in love in that way; and she, Anna had thought that it would be +years and years before any thing of that sort came, and that she would +be Rex’s housekeeper ever so long. But what a heart must that be which +did not return his love! Anna, in the prospect of his suffering, was +beginning to dislike her too fascinating cousin. + +It seemed to her, as it did to Rex, that the weeks had been filled with +a tumultuous life evident to all observers: if he had been questioned +on the subject he would have said that he had no wish to conceal what +he hoped would be an engagement which he should immediately tell his +father of: and yet for the first time in his life he was reserved not +only about his feelings but—which was more remarkable to Anna—about +certain actions. She, on her side, was nervous each time her father or +mother began to speak to her in private lest they should say anything +about Rex and Gwendolen. But the elders were not in the least alive to +this agitating drama, which went forward chiefly in a sort of pantomime +extremely lucid in the minds thus expressing themselves, but easily +missed by spectators who were running their eyes over the _Guardian_ or +the _Clerical Gazette_, and regarded the trivialities of the young ones +with scarcely more interpretation than they gave to the action of +lively ants. + +“Where are you going, Rex?” said Anna one gray morning when her father +had set off in his carriage to the sessions, Mrs. Gascoigne with him, +and she had observed that her brother had on his antigropelos, the +utmost approach he possessed to a hunting equipment. + +“Going to see the hounds throw off at the Three Barns.” + +“Are you going to take Gwendolen?” said Anna, timidly. + +“She told you, did she?” + +“No, but I thought—Does papa know you are going?” + +“Not that I am aware of. I don’t suppose he would trouble himself about +the matter.” + +“You are going to use his horse?” + +“He knows I do that whenever I can.” + +“Don’t let Gwendolen ride after the hounds, Rex,” said Anna, whose +fears gifted her with second-sight. + +“Why not?” said Rex, smiling rather provokingly. + +“Papa and mamma and aunt Davilow all wish her not to. They think it is +not right for her.” + +“Why should you suppose she is going to do what is not right?” + +“Gwendolen minds nobody sometimes,” said Anna getting bolder by dint of +a little anger. + +“Then she would not mind me,” said Rex, perversely making a joke of +poor Anna’s anxiety. + +“Oh Rex, I cannot bear it. You will make yourself very unhappy.” Here +Anna burst into tears. + +“Nannie, Nannie, what on earth is the matter with you?” said Rex, a +little impatient at being kept in this way, hat on and whip in hand. + +“She will not care for you one bit—I know she never will!” said the +poor child in a sobbing whisper. She had lost all control of herself. + +Rex reddened and hurried away from her out of the hall door, leaving +her to the miserable consciousness of having made herself disagreeable +in vain. + +He did think of her words as he rode along; they had the unwelcomeness +which all unfavorable fortune-telling has, even when laughed at; but he +quickly explained them as springing from little Anna’s tenderness, and +began to be sorry that he was obliged to come away without soothing +her. Every other feeling on the subject, however, was quickly merged in +a resistant belief to the contrary of hers, accompanied with a new +determination to prove that he was right. This sort of certainty had +just enough kinship to doubt and uneasiness to hurry on a confession +which an untouched security might have delayed. + +Gwendolen was already mounted and riding up and down the avenue when +Rex appeared at the gate. She had provided herself against +disappointment in case he did not appear in time by having the groom +ready behind her, for she would not have waited beyond a reasonable +time. But now the groom was dismissed, and the two rode away in +delightful freedom. Gwendolen was in her highest spirits, and Rex +thought that she had never looked so lovely before; her figure, her +long white throat, and the curves of her cheek and chin were always set +off to perfection by the compact simplicity of her riding dress. He +could not conceive a more perfect girl; and to a youthful lover like +Rex it seems that the fundamental identity of the good, the true and +the beautiful, is already extant and manifest in the object of his +love. Most observers would have held it more than equally accountable +that a girl should have like impressions about Rex, for in his handsome +face there was nothing corresponding to the undefinable stinging +quality—as it were a trace of demon ancestry—which made some +beholders hesitate in their admiration of Gwendolen. + +It was an exquisite January morning in which there was no threat of +rain, but a gray sky making the calmest background for the charms of a +mild winter scene—the grassy borders of the lanes, the hedgerows +sprinkled with red berries and haunted with low twitterings, the purple +bareness of the elms, the rich brown of the furrows. The horses’ hoofs +made a musical chime, accompanying their young voices. She was laughing +at his equipment, for he was the reverse of a dandy, and he was +enjoying her laughter; the freshness of the morning mingled with the +freshness of their youth; and every sound that came from their clear +throats, every glance they gave each other, was the bubbling outflow +from a spring of joy. It was all morning to them, within and without. +And thinking of them in these moments one is tempted to that futile +sort of wishing—if only things could have been a little otherwise +then, so as to have been greatly otherwise after—if only these two +beautiful young creatures could have pledged themselves to each other +then and there, and never through life have swerved from that pledge! +For some of the goodness which Rex believed in was there. Goodness is a +large, often a prospective word; like harvest, which at one stage when +we talk of it lies all underground, with an indeterminate future; is +the germ prospering in the darkness? at another, it has put forth +delicate green blades, and by-and-by the trembling blossoms are ready +to be dashed off by an hour of rough wind or rain. Each stage has its +peculiar blight, and may have the healthy life choked out of it by a +particular action of the foul land which rears or neighbors it, or by +damage brought from foulness afar. + +“Anna had got it into her head that you would want to ride after the +hounds this morning,” said Rex, whose secret associations with Anna’s +words made this speech seem quite perilously near the most momentous of +subjects. + +“Did she?” said Gwendolen, laughingly. “What a little clairvoyant she +is!” + +“Shall you?” said Rex, who had not believed in her intending to do it +if the elders objected, but confided in her having good reasons. + +“I don’t know. I can’t tell what I shall do till I get there. +Clairvoyants are often wrong: they foresee what is likely. I am not +fond of what is likely: it is always dull. I do what is unlikely.” + +“Ah, there you tell me a secret. When once I knew what people in +general would be likely to do, I should know you would do the opposite. +So you would have come round to a likelihood of your own sort. I shall +be able to calculate on you. You couldn’t surprise me.” + +“Yes, I could. I should turn round and do what was likely for people in +general,” said Gwendolen, with a musical laugh. + +“You see you can’t escape some sort of likelihood. And +contradictoriness makes the strongest likelihood of all. You must give +up a plan.” + +“No, I shall not. My plan is to do what pleases me.” (Here should any +young lady incline to imitate Gwendolen, let her consider the set of +her head and neck: if the angle there had been different, the chin +protrusive, and the cervical vertebrae a trifle more curved in their +position, ten to one Gwendolen’s words would have had a jar in them for +the sweet-natured Rex. But everything odd in her speech was humor and +pretty banter, which he was only anxious to turn toward one point.) + +“Can you manage to feel only what pleases you?” said he. + +“Of course not; that comes from what other people do. But if the world +were pleasanter, one would only feel what was pleasant. Girls’ lives +are so stupid: they never do what they like.” + +“I thought that was more the case of the men. They are forced to do +hard things, and are often dreadfully bored, and knocked to pieces too. +And then, if we love a girl very dearly we want to do as she likes, so +after all you have your own way.” + +“I don’t believe it. I never saw a married woman who had her own way.” + +“What should you like to do?” said Rex, quite guilelessly, and in real +anxiety. + +“Oh, I don’t know!—go to the North Pole, or ride steeple-chases, or go +to be a queen in the East like Lady Hester Stanhope,” said Gwendolen, +flightily. Her words were born on her lips, but she would have been at +a loss to give an answer of deeper origin. + +“You don’t mean you would never be married?” + +“No; I didn’t say that. Only when I married, I should not do as other +women do.” + +“You might do just as you liked if you married a man who loved you more +dearly than anything else in the world,” said Rex, who, poor youth, was +moving in themes outside the curriculum in which he had promised to win +distinction. “I know one who does.” + +“Don’t talk of Mr. Middleton, for heaven’s sake,” said Gwendolen, +hastily, a quick blush spreading over her face and neck; “that is +Anna’s chant. I hear the hounds. Let us go on.” + +She put her chestnut to a canter, and Rex had no choice but to follow +her. Still he felt encouraged. Gwendolen was perfectly aware that her +cousin was in love with her; but she had no idea that the matter was of +any consequence, having never had the slightest visitation of painful +love herself. She wished the small romance of Rex’s devotion to fill up +the time of his stay at Pennicote, and to avoid explanations which +would bring it to an untimely end. Besides, she objected, with a sort +of physical repulsion, to being directly made love to. With all her +imaginative delight in being adored, there was a certain fierceness of +maidenhood in her. + +But all other thoughts were soon lost for her in the excitement of the +scene at the Three Barns. Several gentlemen of the hunt knew her, and +she exchanged pleasant greetings. Rex could not get another word with +her. The color, the stir of the field had taken possession of Gwendolen +with a strength which was not due to habitual associations, for she had +never yet ridden after the hounds—only said she should like to do it, +and so drawn forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and +her uncle declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent +exercise unseemly in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other +parts of the country, no lady of good position followed the Wessex +hunt: no one but Mrs. Gadsby, the yeomanry captain’s wife, who had been +a kitchenmaid and still spoke like one. This last argument had some +effect on Gwendolen, and had kept her halting between her desire to +assert her freedom and her horror of being classed with Mrs. Gadsby. + +Some of the most unexceptionable women in the neighborhood occasionally +went to see the hounds throw off; but it happened that none of them +were present this morning to abstain from following, while Mrs. Gadsby, +with her doubtful antecedents, grammatical and otherwise, was not +visible to make following seem unbecoming. Thus Gwendolen felt no check +on the animal stimulus that came from the stir and tongue of the +hounds, the pawing of the horses, the varying voices of men, the +movement hither and thither of vivid color on the background of green +and gray stillness:—that utmost excitement of the coming chase which +consists in feeling something like a combination of dog and horse, with +the superadded thrill of social vanities and consciousness of +centaur-power which belongs to humankind. + +Rex would have felt more of the same enjoyment if he could have kept +nearer to Gwendolen, and not seen her constantly occupied with +acquaintances, or looked at by would-be acquaintances, all on lively +horses which veered about and swept the surrounding space as +effectually as a revolving lever. + +“Glad to see you here this fine morning, Miss Harleth,” said Lord +Brackenshaw, a middle-aged peer of aristocratic seediness in stained +pink, with easy-going manners which would have made the threatened +deluge seem of no consequence. “We shall have a first-rate run. A pity +you didn’t go with us. Have you ever tried your little chestnut at a +ditch? you wouldn’t be afraid, eh?” + +“Not the least in the world,” said Gwendolen. And that was true: she +was never fearful in action and companionship. “I have often taken him +at some rails and a ditch too, near—” + +“Ah, by Jove!” said his lordship, quietly, in notation that something +was happening which must break off the dialogue: and as he reined off +his horse, Rex was bringing his sober hackney up to Gwendolen’s side +when—the hounds gave tongue, and the whole field was in motion as if +the whirl of the earth were carrying it; Gwendolen along with +everything else; no word of notice to Rex, who without a second thought +followed too. Could he let Gwendolen go alone? under other +circumstances he would have enjoyed the run, but he was just now +perturbed by the check which had been put on the impetus to utter his +love, and get utterance in return, an impetus which could not at once +resolve itself into a totally different sort of chase, at least with +the consciousness of being on his father’s gray nag, a good horse +enough in his way, but of sober years and ecclesiastical habits. +Gwendolen on her spirited little chestnut was up with the best, and +felt as secure as an immortal goddess, having, if she had thought of +risk, a core of confidence that no ill luck would happen to her. But +she thought of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might +be for her cousin. If she had thought of him, it would have struck her +as a droll picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and +looking round in search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must +be panting with all the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a +wizard’s spell on a stiff clerical hackney, would have made her laugh +with a sense of fun much too strong for her to reflect on his +mortification. But Gwendolen was apt to think rather of those who saw +her than of those whom she could not see; and Rex was soon so far +behind that if she had looked she would not have seen him. For I grieve +to say that in the search for a gate, along a lane lately mended, +Primrose fell, broke his knees, and undesignedly threw Rex over his +head. + +Fortunately a blacksmith’s son who also followed the hounds under +disadvantages, namely, on foot (a loose way of hunting which had struck +some even frivolous minds as immoral), was naturally also in the rear, +and happened to be within sight of Rex’s misfortune. He ran to give +help which was greatly needed, for Rex was a great deal stunned, and +the complete recovery of sensation came in the form of pain. Joel Dagge +on this occasion showed himself that most useful of personages, whose +knowledge is of a kind suited to the immediate occasion: he not only +knew perfectly well what was the matter with the horse, how far they +were both from the nearest public-house and from Pennicote Rectory, and +could certify to Rex that his shoulder was only a bit out of joint, but +also offered experienced surgical aid. + +“Lord, sir, let me shove it in again for you! I’s seen Nash, the +bone-setter, do it, and done it myself for our little Sally twice over. +It’s all one and the same, shoulders is. If you’ll trusten to me and +tighten your mind up a bit, I’ll do it for you in no time.” + +“Come then, old fellow,” said Rex, who could tighten his mind better +than his seat in the saddle. And Joel managed the operation, though not +without considerable expense of pain to his patient, who turned so +pitiably pale while tightening his mind, that Joel remarked, “Ah, sir, +you aren’t used to it, that’s how it is. I’s see lots and lots o’ +joints out. I see a man with his eye pushed out once—that was a rum go +as ever I see. You can’t have a bit o’ fun wi’out such sort o’ things. +But it went in again. I’s swallowed three teeth mysen, as sure as I’m +alive. Now, sirrey” (this was addressed to Primrose), “come alonk—you +musn’t make believe as you can’t.” + +Joel being clearly a low character, it is, happily, not necessary to +say more of him to the refined reader, than that he helped Rex to get +home with as little delay as possible. There was no alternative but to +get home, though all the while he was in anxiety about Gwendolen, and +more miserable in the thought that she, too, might have had an +accident, than in the pain of his own bruises and the annoyance he was +about to cause his father. He comforted himself about her by reflecting +that every one would be anxious to take care of her, and that some +acquaintance would be sure to conduct her home. + +Mr. Gascoigne was already at home, and was writing letters in his +study, when he was interrupted by seeing poor Rex come in with a face +which was not the less handsome and ingratiating for being pale and a +little distressed. He was secretly the favorite son, and a young +portrait of the father; who, however, never treated him with any +partiality—rather, with an extra rigor. Mr. Gascoigne having inquired +of Anna, knew that Rex had gone with Gwendolen to the meet at the Three +Barns. + +“What is the matter?” he said hastily, not laying down his pen. + +“I’m very sorry, sir; Primrose has fallen down and broken his knees.” + +“Where have you been with him?” said Mr. Gascoigne, with a touch of +severity. He rarely gave way to temper. + +“To the Three Barns to see the hounds throw off.” + +“And you were fool enough to follow?” + +“Yes, sir. I didn’t go at any fences, but the horse got his leg into a +hole.” + +“And you got hurt yourself, I hope, eh!” + +“I got my shoulder put out, but a young blacksmith put it in again for +me. I’m just a little battered, that’s all.” + +“Well, sit down.” + +“I’m very sorry about the horse, sir; I knew it would be a vexation to +you.” + +“And what has become of Gwendolen?” said Mr. Gascoigne, abruptly. Rex, +who did not imagine that his father had made any inquiries about him, +answered at first with a blush, which was the more remarkable for his +previous paleness. Then he said, nervously, + +“I am anxious to know—I should like to go or send at once to +Offendene—but she rides so well, and I think she would keep up—there +would most likely be many round her.” + +“I suppose it was she who led you on, eh?” said Mr. Gascoigne, laying +down his pen, leaning back in his chair, and looking at Rex with more +marked examination. + +“It was natural for her to want to go: she didn’t intend it +beforehand—she was led away by the spirit of the thing. And, of +course, I went when she went.” + +Mr. Gascoigne left a brief interval of silence, and then said, with +quiet irony,—“But now you observe, young gentleman, that you are not +furnished with a horse which will enable you to play the squire to your +cousin. You must give up that amusement. You have spoiled my nag for +me, and that is enough mischief for one vacation. I shall beg you to +get ready to start for Southampton to-morrow and join Stilfox, till you +go up to Oxford with him. That will be good for your bruises as well as +your studies.” + +Poor Rex felt his heart swelling and comporting itself as if it had +been no better than a girl’s. + +“I hope you will not insist on my going immediately, sir.” + +“Do you feel too ill?” + +“No, not that—but—” here Rex bit his lips and felt the tears +starting, to his great vexation; then he rallied and tried to say more +firmly, “I want to go to Offendene, but I can go this evening.” + +“I am going there myself. I can bring word about Gwendolen, if that is +what you want.” + +Rex broke down. He thought he discerned an intention fatal to his +happiness, nay, his life. He was accustomed to believe in his father’s +penetration, and to expect firmness. “Father, I can’t go away without +telling her that I love her, and knowing that she loves me.” + +Mr. Gascoigne was inwardly going through some self-rebuke for not being +more wary, and was now really sorry for the lad; but every +consideration was subordinate to that of using the wisest tactics in +the case. He had quickly made up his mind and to answer the more +quietly, + +“My dear boy, you are too young to be taking momentous, decisive steps +of that sort. This is a fancy which you have got into your head during +an idle week or two: you must set to work at something and dismiss it. +There is every reason against it. An engagement at your age would be +totally rash and unjustifiable; and moreover, alliances between first +cousins are undesirable. Make up your mind to a brief disappointment. +Life is full of them. We have all got to be broken in; and this is a +mild beginning for you.” + +“No, not mild. I can’t bear it. I shall be good for nothing. I +shouldn’t mind anything, if it were settled between us. I could do +anything then,” said Rex, impetuously. “But it’s of no use to pretend +that I will obey you. I can’t do it. If I said I would, I should be +sure to break my word. I should see Gwendolen again.” + +“Well, wait till to-morrow morning, that we may talk of the matter +again—you will promise me that,” said Mr. Gascoigne, quietly; and Rex +did not, could not refuse. + +The rector did not even tell his wife that he had any other reason for +going to Offendene that evening than his desire to ascertain that +Gwendolen had got home safely. He found her more than safe—elated. Mr. +Quallon, who had won the brush, had delivered the trophy to her, and +she had brought it before her, fastened on the saddle; more than that, +Lord Brackenshaw had conducted her home, and had shown himself +delighted with her spirited riding. All this was told at once to her +uncle, that he might see how well justified she had been in acting +against his advice; and the prudential rector did feel himself in a +slight difficulty, for at that moment he was particularly sensible that +it was his niece’s serious interest to be well regarded by the +Brackenshaws, and their opinion as to her following the hounds really +touched the essence of his objection. However, he was not obliged to +say anything immediately, for Mrs. Davilow followed up Gwendolen’s +brief triumphant phrases with, + +“Still, I do hope you will not do it again, Gwendolen. I should never +have a moment’s quiet. Her father died by an accident, you know.” + +Here Mrs. Davilow had turned away from Gwendolen, and looked at Mr. +Gascoigne. + +“Mamma, dear,” said Gwendolen, kissing her merrily, and passing over +the question of the fears which Mrs. Davilow had meant to account for, +“children don’t take after their parents in broken legs.” + +Not one word had yet been said about Rex. In fact there had been no +anxiety about him at Offendene. Gwendolen had observed to her mamma, +“Oh, he must have been left far behind, and gone home in despair,” and +it could not be denied that this was fortunate so far as it made way +for Lord Brackenshaw’s bringing her home. But now Mr. Gascoigne said, +with some emphasis, looking at Gwendolen, + +“Well, the exploit has ended better for you than for Rex.” + +“Yes, I dare say he had to make a terrible round. You have not taught +Primrose to take the fences, uncle,” said Gwendolen, without the +faintest shade of alarm in her looks and tone. + +“Rex has had a fall,” said Mr. Gascoigne, curtly, throwing himself into +an arm-chair resting his elbows and fitting his palms and fingers +together, while he closed his lips and looked at Gwendolen, who said, + +“Oh, poor fellow! he is not hurt, I hope?” with a correct look of +anxiety such as elated mortals try to super-induce when their pulses +are all the while quick with triumph; and Mrs. Davilow, in the same +moment, uttered a low “Good heavens! There!” + +Mr. Gascoigne went on: “He put his shoulder out, and got some bruises, +I believe.” Here he made another little pause of observation; but +Gwendolen, instead of any such symptoms as pallor and silence, had only +deepened the compassionateness of her brow and eyes, and said again, +“Oh, poor fellow! it is nothing serious, then?” and Mr. Gascoigne held +his diagnosis complete. But he wished to make assurance doubly sure, +and went on still with a purpose. + +“He got his arm set again rather oddly. Some blacksmith—not a +parishioner of mine—was on the field—a loose fish, I suppose, but +handy, and set the arm for him immediately. So after all, I believe, I +and Primrose come off worst. The horse’s knees are cut to pieces. He +came down in a hole, it seems, and pitched Rex over his head.” + +Gwendolen’s face had allowably become contented again, since Rex’s arm +had been reset; and now, at the descriptive suggestions in the latter +part of her uncle’s speech, her elated spirits made her features less +unmanageable than usual; the smiles broke forth, and finally a +descending scale of laughter. + +“You are a pretty young lady—to laugh at other people’s calamities,” +said Mr. Gascoigne, with a milder sense of disapprobation than if he +had not had counteracting reasons to be glad that Gwendolen showed no +deep feeling on the occasion. + +“Pray forgive me, uncle. Now Rex is safe, it is so droll to fancy the +figure he and Primrose would cut—in a lane all by themselves—only a +blacksmith running up. It would make a capital caricature of ‘Following +the Hounds.’” + +Gwendolen rather valued herself on her superior freedom in laughing +where others might only see matter for seriousness. Indeed, the +laughter became her person so well that her opinion of its gracefulness +was often shared by others; and it even entered into her uncle’s course +of thought at this moment, that it was no wonder a boy should be +fascinated by this young witch—who, however, was more mischievous than +could be desired. + +“How can you laugh at broken bones, child?” said Mrs. Davilow, still +under her dominant anxiety. “I wish we had never allowed you to have +the horse. You will see that we were wrong,” she added, looking with a +grave nod at Mr. Gascoigne—“at least I was, to encourage her in asking +for it.” + +“Yes, seriously, Gwendolen,” said Mr. Gascoigne, in a judicious tone of +rational advice to a person understood to be altogether rational, “I +strongly recommend you—I shall ask you to oblige me so far—not to +repeat your adventure of to-day. Lord Brackenshaw is very kind, but I +feel sure that he would concur with me in what I say. To be spoken of +as ‘the young lady who hunts’ by way of exception, would give a tone to +the language about you which I am sure you would not like. Depend upon +it, his lordship would not choose that Lady Beatrice or Lady Maria +should hunt in this part of the country, if they were old enough to do +so. When you are married, it will be different: you may do whatever +your husband sanctions. But if you intend to hunt, you must marry a man +who can keep horses.” + +“I don’t know why I should do anything so horrible as to marry without +_that_ prospect, at least,” said Gwendolen, pettishly. Her uncle’s +speech had given her annoyance, which she could not show more directly; +but she felt that she was committing herself, and after moving +carelessly to another part of the room, went out. + +“She always speaks in that way about marriage,” said Mrs. Davilow; “but +it will be different when she has seen the right person.” + +“Her heart has never been in the least touched, that you know of?” said +Mr. Gascoigne. + +Mrs. Davilow shook her head silently. “It was only last night she said +to me, ‘Mamma, I wonder how girls manage to fall in love. It is easy to +make them do it in books. But men are too ridiculous.’” + +Mr. Gascoigne laughed a little, and made no further remark on the +subject. The next morning at breakfast he said, + +“How are your bruises, Rex?” + +“Oh, not very mellow yet, sir; only beginning to turn a little.” + +“You don’t feel quite ready for a journey to Southampton?” + +“Not quite,” answered Rex, with his heart metaphorically in his mouth. + +“Well, you can wait till to-morrow, and go to say good-bye to them at +Offendene.” + +Mrs. Gascoigne, who now knew the whole affair, looked steadily at her +coffee lest she also should begin to cry, as Anna was doing already. + +Mr. Gascoigne felt that he was applying a sharp remedy to poor Rex’s +acute attack, but he believed it to be in the end the kindest. To let +him know the hopelessness of his love from Gwendolen’s own lips might +be curative in more ways than one. + +“I can only be thankful that she doesn’t care about him,” said Mrs. +Gascoigne, when she joined her husband in his study. “There are things +in Gwendolen I cannot reconcile myself to. My Anna is worth two of her, +with all her beauty and talent. It looks very ill in her that she will +not help in the schools with Anna—not even in the Sunday-school. What +you or I advise is of no consequence to her: and poor Fannie is +completely under her thumb. But I know you think better of her,” Mrs. +Gascoigne ended with a deferential hesitation. + +“Oh, my dear, there is no harm in the girl. It is only that she has a +high spirit, and it will not do to hold the reins too tight. The point +is, to get her well married. She has a little too much fire in her for +her present life with her mother and sisters. It is natural and right +that she should be married soon—not to a poor man, but one who can +give her a fitting position.” + +Presently Rex, with his arm in a sling, was on his two miles’ walk to +Offendene. He was rather puzzled by the unconditional permission to see +Gwendolen, but his father’s real ground of action could not enter into +his conjectures. If it had, he would first have thought it horribly +cold-blooded, and then have disbelieved in his father’s conclusions. + +When he got to the house, everybody was there but Gwendolen. The four +girls, hearing him speak in the hall, rushed out of the library, which +was their school-room, and hung round him with compassionate inquiries +about his arm. Mrs. Davilow wanted to know exactly what had happened, +and where the blacksmith lived, that she might make him a present; +while Miss Merry, who took a subdued and melancholy part in all family +affairs, doubted whether it would not be giving too much encouragement +to that kind of character. Rex had never found the family troublesome +before, but just now he wished them all away and Gwendolen there, and +he was too uneasy for good-natured feigning. When at last he had said, +“Where is Gwendolen?” and Mrs. Davilow had told Alice to go and see if +her sister were come down, adding, “I sent up her breakfast this +morning. She needed a long rest.” Rex took the shortest way out of his +endurance by saying, almost impatiently, “Aunt, I want to speak to +Gwendolen—I want to see her alone.” + +“Very well, dear; go into the drawing-room. I will send her there,” +said Mrs. Davilow, who had observed that he was fond of being with +Gwendolen, as was natural, but had not thought of this as having any +bearing on the realities of life: it seemed merely part of the +Christmas holidays which were spinning themselves out. + +Rex for his part thought that the realities of life were all hanging on +this interview. He had to walk up and down the drawing-room in +expectation for nearly ten minutes—ample space for all imaginative +fluctuations; yet, strange to say, he was unvaryingly occupied in +thinking what and how much he could do, when Gwendolen had accepted +him, to satisfy his father that the engagement was the most prudent +thing in the world, since it inspired him with double energy for work. +He was to be a lawyer, and what reason was there why he should not rise +as high as Eldon did? He was forced to look at life in the light of his +father’s mind. + +But when the door opened and she whose presence he was longing for +entered, there came over him suddenly and mysteriously a state of +tremor and distrust which he had never felt before. Miss Gwendolen, +simple as she stood there, in her black silk, cut square about the +round white pillar of her throat, a black band fastening her hair which +streamed backward in smooth silky abundance, seemed more queenly than +usual. Perhaps it was that there was none of the latent fun and +tricksiness which had always pierced in her greeting of Rex. How much +of this was due to her presentiment from what he had said yesterday +that he was going to talk of love? How much from her desire to show +regret about his accident? Something of both. But the wisdom of ages +has hinted that there is a side of the bed which has a malign influence +if you happen to get out on it; and this accident befalls some charming +persons rather frequently. Perhaps it had befallen Gwendolen this +morning. The hastening of her toilet, the way in which Bugle used the +brush, the quality of the shilling serial mistakenly written for her +amusement, the probabilities of the coming day, and, in short, social +institutions generally, were all objectionable to her. It was not that +she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands +of her fine organism. + +However it might be, Rex saw an awful majesty about her as she entered +and put out her hand to him, without the least approach to a smile in +eyes or mouth. The fun which had moved her in the evening had quite +evaporated from the image of his accident, and the whole affair seemed +stupid to her. But she said with perfect propriety, “I hope you are not +much hurt, Rex; I deserve that you should reproach me for your +accident.” + +“Not at all,” said Rex, feeling the soul within him spreading itself +like an attack of illness. “There is hardly any thing the matter with +me. I am so glad you had the pleasure: I would willingly pay for it by +a tumble, only I was sorry to break the horse’s knees.” + +Gwendolen walked to the hearth and stood looking at the fire in the +most inconvenient way for conversation, so that he could only get a +side view of her face. + +“My father wants me to go to Southampton for the rest of the vacation,” +said Rex, his baritone trembling a little. + +“Southampton! That’s a stupid place to go to, isn’t it?” said +Gwendolen, chilly. + +“It would be to me, because you would not be there.” Silence. + +“Should you mind about me going away, Gwendolen?” + +“Of course. Every one is of consequence in this dreary country,” said +Gwendolen, curtly. The perception that poor Rex wanted to be tender +made her curl up and harden like a sea-anemone at the touch of a finger. + +“Are you angry with me, Gwendolen? Why do you treat me in this way all +at once?” said Rex, flushing, and with more spirit in his voice, as if +he too were capable of being angry. + +Gwendolen looked round at him and smiled. “Treat you? Nonsense! I am +only rather cross. Why did you come so very early? You must expect to +find tempers in dishabille.” + +“Be as cross with me as you like—only don’t treat me with +indifference,” said Rex, imploringly. “All the happiness of my life +depends on your loving me—if only a little—better than any one else.” + +He tried to take her hand, but she hastily eluded his grasp and moved +to the other end of the hearth, facing him. + +“Pray don’t make love to me! I hate it!” she looked at him fiercely. + +Rex turned pale and was silent, but could not take his eyes off her, +and the impetus was not yet exhausted that made hers dart death at him. +Gwendolen herself could not have foreseen that she should feel in this +way. It was all a sudden, new experience to her. The day before she had +been quite aware that her cousin was in love with her; she did not mind +how much, so that he said nothing about it; and if any one had asked +her why she objected to love-making speeches, she would have said, +laughingly, “Oh I am tired of them all in the books.” But now the life +of passion had begun negatively in her. She felt passionately averse to +this volunteered love. + +To Rex at twenty the joy of life seemed at an end more absolutely than +it can do to a man at forty. But before they had ceased to look at each +other, he did speak again. + +“Is that last word you have to say to me, Gwendolen? Will it always be +so?” + +She could not help seeing his wretchedness and feeling a little regret +for the old Rex who had not offended her. Decisively, but yet with some +return of kindness, she said, + +“About making love? Yes. But I don’t dislike you for anything else.” + +There was just a perceptible pause before he said a low “good-bye,” and +passed out of the room. Almost immediately after, she heard the heavy +hall door bang behind him. + +Mrs. Davilow, too, had heard Rex’s hasty departure, and presently came +into the drawing-room, where she found Gwendolen seated on the low +couch, her face buried, and her hair falling over her figure like a +garment. She was sobbing bitterly. “My child, my child, what is it?” +cried the mother, who had never before seen her darling struck down in +this way, and felt something of the alarmed anguish that women, feel at +the sight of overpowering sorrow in a strong man; for this child had +been her ruler. Sitting down by her with circling arms, she pressed her +cheek against Gwendolen’s head, and then tried to draw it upward. +Gwendolen gave way, and letting her head rest against her mother, cried +out sobbingly, “Oh, mamma, what can become of my life? there is nothing +worth living for!” + +“Why, dear?” said Mrs. Davilow. Usually she herself had been rebuked by +her daughter for involuntary signs of despair. + +“I shall never love anybody. I can’t love people. I hate them.” + +“The time will come, dear, the time will come.” + +Gwendolen was more and more convulsed with sobbing; but putting her +arms round her mother’s neck with an almost painful clinging, she said +brokenly, “I can’t bear any one to be very near me but you.” + +Then the mother began to sob, for this spoiled child had never shown +such dependence on her before: and so they clung to each other. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + What name doth Joy most borrow + When life is fair? + “To-morrow.” + What name doth best fit Sorrow + In young despair? + “To-morrow.” + + +There was a much more lasting trouble at the rectory. Rex arrived there +only to throw himself on his bed in a state of apparent apathy, +unbroken till the next day, when it began to be interrupted by more +positive signs of illness. Nothing could be said about his going to +Southampton: instead of that, the chief thought of his mother and Anna +was how to tend this patient who did not want to be well, and from +being the brightest, most grateful spirit in the household, was +metamorphosed into an irresponsive, dull-eyed creature who met all +affectionate attempts with a murmur of “Let me alone.” His father +looked beyond the crisis, and believed it to be the shortest way out of +an unlucky affair; but he was sorry for the inevitable suffering, and +went now and then to sit by him in silence for a few minutes, parting +with a gentle pressure of his hand on Rex’s blank brow, and a “God +bless you, my boy.” Warham and the younger children used to peep round +the edge of the door to see this incredible thing of their lively +brother being laid low; but fingers were immediately shaken at them to +drive them back. The guardian who was always there was Anna, and her +little hand was allowed to rest within her brother’s, though he never +gave it a welcoming pressure. Her soul was divided between anguish for +Rex and reproach of Gwendolen. + +“Perhaps it is wicked of me, but I think I never _can_ love her again,” +came as the recurrent burden of poor little Anna’s inward monody. And +even Mrs. Gascoigne had an angry feeling toward her niece which she +could not refrain from expressing (apologetically) to her husband. + +“I know of course it is better, and we ought to be thankful that she is +not in love with the poor boy; but really. Henry, I think she is hard; +she has the heart of a coquette. I can not help thinking that she must +have made him believe something, or the disappointment would not have +taken hold of him in that way. And some blame attaches to poor Fanny; +she is quite blind about that girl.” + +Mr. Gascoigne answered imperatively: “The less said on that point the +better, Nancy. I ought to have been more awake myself. As to the boy, +be thankful if nothing worse ever happens to him. Let the thing die out +as quickly as possible; and especially with regard to Gwendolen—let it +be as if it had never been.” + +The rector’s dominant feeling was that there had been a great escape. +Gwendolen in love with Rex in return would have made a much harder +problem, the solution of which might have been taken out of his hands. +But he had to go through some further difficulty. + +One fine morning Rex asked for his bath, and made his toilet as usual. +Anna, full of excitement at this change, could do nothing but listen +for his coming down, and at last hearing his step, ran to the foot of +the stairs to meet him. For the first time he gave her a faint smile, +but it looked so melancholy on his pale face that she could hardly help +crying. + +“Nannie!” he said gently, taking her hand and leading her slowly along +with him to the drawing-room. His mother was there, and when she came +to kiss him, he said: “What a plague I am!” + +Then he sat still and looked out of the bow-window on the lawn and +shrubs covered with hoar-frost, across which the sun was sending faint +occasional gleams:—something like that sad smile on Rex’s face, Anna +thought. He felt as if he had had a resurrection into a new world, and +did not know what to do with himself there, the old interests being +left behind. Anna sat near him, pretending to work, but really watching +him with yearning looks. Beyond the garden hedge there was a road where +wagons and carts sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was +made in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump +of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came +along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand +muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to +guide the leader’s head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into +attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber +had disappeared, and then walked once or twice along the room. Mrs. +Gascoigne was no longer there, and when he came to sit down again, +Anna, seeing a return of speech in her brother’s eyes, could not resist +the impulse to bring a little stool and seat herself against his knee, +looking up at him with an expression which seemed to say, “Do speak to +me.” And he spoke. + +“I’ll tell you what I’m thinking of, Nannie. I will go to Canada, or +somewhere of that sort.” (Rex had not studied the character of our +colonial possessions.) + +“Oh, Rex, not for always!” + +“Yes, to get my bread there. I should like to build a hut, and work +hard at clearing, and have everything wild about me, and a great wide +quiet.” + +“And not take me with you?” said Anna, the big tears coming fast. + +“How could I?” + +“I should like it better than anything; and settlers go with their +families. I would sooner go there than stay here in England. I could +make the fires, and mend the clothes, and cook the food; and I could +learn how to make the bread before we went. It would be nicer than +anything—like playing at life over again, as we used to do when we +made our tent with the drugget, and had our little plates and dishes.” + +“Father and mother would not let you go.” + +“Yes, I think they would, when I explained everything. It would save +money; and papa would have more to bring up the boys with.” + +There was further talk of the same practical kind at intervals, and it +ended in Rex’s being obliged to consent that Anna should go with him +when he spoke to his father on the subject. + +Of course it was when the rector was alone in his study. Their mother +would become reconciled to whatever he decided on, but mentioned to her +first, the question would have distressed her. + +“Well, my children!” said Mr. Gascoigne, cheerfully, as they entered. +It was a comfort to see Rex about again. + +“May we sit down with you a little, papa?” said Anna. “Rex has +something to say.” + +“With all my heart.” + +It was a noticeable group that these three creatures made, each of them +with a face of the same structural type—the straight brow, the nose +suddenly straightened from an intention of being aquiline, the short +upper lip, the short but strong and well-hung chin: there was even the +same tone of complexion and set of the eye. The gray-haired father was +at once massive and keen-looking; there was a perpendicular line in his +brow which when he spoke with any force of interest deepened; and the +habit of ruling gave him an air of reserved authoritativeness. Rex +would have seemed a vision of his father’s youth, if it had been +possible to imagine Mr. Gascoigne without distinct plans and without +command, smitten with a heart sorrow, and having no more notion of +concealment than a sick animal; and Anna was a tiny copy of Rex, with +hair drawn back and knotted, her face following his in its changes of +expression, as if they had one soul between them. + +“You know all about what has upset me, father,” Rex began, and Mr. +Gascoigne nodded. + +“I am quite done up for life in this part of the world. I am sure it +will be no use my going back to Oxford. I couldn’t do any reading. I +should fail, and cause you expense for nothing. I want to have your +consent to take another course, sir.” + +Mr. Gascoigne nodded more slowly, the perpendicular line on his brow +deepened, and Anna’s trembling increased. + +“If you would allow me a small outfit, I should like to go to the +colonies and work on the land there.” Rex thought the vagueness of the +phrase prudential; “the colonies” necessarily embracing more +advantages, and being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground +than any particular settlement. + +“Oh, and with me, papa,” said Anna, not bearing to be left out from the +proposal even temporarily. “Rex would want some one to take care of +him, you know—some one to keep house. And we shall never, either of +us, be married. And I should cost nothing, and I should be so happy. I +know it would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the +others to bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more.” + +Anna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going +closer to her papa as she spoke. He did not smile, but he drew her on +his knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the +question while he spoke to Rex. + +“You will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for +you, and that I can probably guide you in practical matters better than +you can guide yourself?” + +Rex was obliged to say, “Yes, sir.” + +“And perhaps you will admit—though I don’t wish to press that +point—that you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?” + +“I have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir.” Rex in his +secret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies, +but to go to Oxford again—which was the point in question. + +“But you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash +and foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which +my experience of life assures me of. You think, I suppose, that you +have had a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied +your brains, unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you +a dislike to society? Is that what you believe?” + +“Something like that. I shall never be up to the sort of work I must do +to live in this part of the world. I have not the spirit for it. I +shall never be the same again. And without any disrespect to you, +father, I think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of +life, if he does nobody any harm. There are plenty to stay at home, and +those who like might be allowed to go where there are empty places.” + +“But suppose I am convinced on good evidence—as I am—that this state +of mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose, +you would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip +back from the point you have been gaining by your education till now? +Have you not strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on +my assurance for a time, and test it? In my opinion, so far from +agreeing with you that you should be free to turn yourself into a +colonist and work in your shirt-sleeves with spade and hatchet—in my +opinion you have no right whatever to expatriate yourself until you +have honestly endeavored to turn to account the education you have +received here. I say nothing of the grief to your mother and me.” + +“I’m very sorry; but what can I do? I can’t study—that’s certain,” +said Rex. + +“Not just now, perhaps. You will have to miss a term. I have made +arrangements for you—how you are to spend the next two months. But I +confess I am disappointed in you, Rex. I thought you had more sense +than to take up such ideas—to suppose that because you have fallen +into a very common trouble, such as most men have to go through, you +are loosened from all bonds of duty—just as if your brain had softened +and you were no longer a responsible being.” + +What could Rex say? Inwardly he was in a state of rebellion, but he had +no arguments to meet his father’s; and while he was feeling, in spite +of any thing that might be said, that he should like to go off to “the +colonies” to-morrow, it lay in a deep fold of his consciousness that he +ought to feel—if he had been a better fellow he would have felt—more +about his old ties. This is the sort of faith we live by in our soul +sicknesses. + +Rex got up from his seat, as if he held the conference to be at an end. +“You assent to my arrangement, then?” said Mr. Gascoigne, with that +distinct resolution of tone which seems to hold one in a vise. + +There was a little pause before Rex answered, “I’ll try what I can do, +sir. I can’t promise.” His thought was, that trying would be of no use. + +Her father kept Anna, holding her fast, though she wanted to follow +Rex. “Oh, papa,” she said, the tears coming with her words when the +door had closed; “it is very hard for him. Doesn’t he look ill?” + +“Yes, but he will soon be better; it will all blow over. And now, Anna, +be as quiet as a mouse about it all. Never let it be mentioned when he +is gone.” + +“No, papa. But I would not be like Gwendolen for any thing—to have +people fall in love with me so. It is very dreadful.” + +Anna dared not say that she was disappointed at not being allowed to go +to the colonies with Rex; but that was her secret feeling, and she +often afterward went inwardly over the whole affair, saying to herself, +“I should have done with going out, and gloves, and crinoline, and +having to talk when I am taken to dinner—and all that!” + +I like to mark the time, and connect the course of individual lives +with the historic stream, for all classes of thinkers. This was the +period when the broadening of gauge in crinolines seemed to demand an +agitation for the general enlargement of churches, ball-rooms, and +vehicles. But Anna Gascoigne’s figure would only allow the size of +skirt manufactured for young ladies of fourteen. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + I’ll tell thee, Berthold, what men’s hopes are like: + A silly child that, quivering with joy, + Would cast its little mimic fishing-line + Baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys + In the salt ocean. + + +Eight months after the arrival of the family at Offendene, that is to +say in the end of the following June, a rumor was spread in the +neighborhood which to many persons was matter of exciting interest. It +had no reference to the results of the American war, but it was one +which touched all classes within a certain circuit round Wanchester: +the corn-factors, the brewers, the horse-dealers, and saddlers, all +held it a laudable thing, and one which was to be rejoiced in on +abstract grounds, as showing the value of an aristocracy in a free +country like England; the blacksmith in the hamlet of Diplow felt that +a good time had come round; the wives of laboring men hoped their +nimble boys of ten or twelve would be taken into employ by the +gentlemen in livery; and the farmers about Diplow admitted, with a +tincture of bitterness and reserve, that a man might now again perhaps +have an easier market or exchange for a rick of old hay or a wagon-load +of straw. If such were the hopes of low persons not in society, it may +be easily inferred that their betters had better reasons for +satisfaction, probably connected with the pleasures of life rather than +its business. Marriage, however, must be considered as coming under +both heads; and just as when a visit of majesty is announced, the dream +of knighthood or a baronetcy is to be found under various municipal +nightcaps, so the news in question raised a floating indeterminate +vision of marriage in several well-bred imaginations. + +The news was that Diplow Hall, Sir Hugo Mallinger’s place, which had +for a couple of years turned its white window-shutters in a painfully +wall-eyed manner on its fine elms and beeches, its lilied pool and +grassy acres specked with deer, was being prepared for a tenant, and +was for the rest of the summer and through the hunting season to be +inhabited in a fitting style both as to house and stable. But not by +Sir Hugo himself: by his nephew, Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt, who was +presumptive heir to the baronetcy, his uncle’s marriage having produced +nothing but girls. Nor was this the only contingency with which fortune +flattered young Grandcourt, as he was pleasantly called; for while the +chance of the baronetcy came through his father, his mother had given a +baronial streak to his blood, so that if certain intervening persons +slightly painted in the middle distance died, he would become a baron +and peer of this realm. + +It is the uneven allotment of nature that the male bird alone has the +tuft, but we have not yet followed the advice of hasty philosophers who +would have us copy nature entirely in these matters; and if Mr. +Mallinger Grandcourt became a baronet or a peer, his wife would share +the title—which in addition to his actual fortune was certainly a +reason why that wife, being at present unchosen, should be thought of +by more than one person with a sympathetic interest as a woman sure to +be well provided for. + +Some readers of this history will doubtless regard it as incredible +that people should construct matrimonial prospects on the mere report +that a bachelor of good fortune and possibilities was coming within +reach, and will reject the statement as a mere outflow of gall: they +will aver that neither they nor their first cousins have minds so +unbridled; and that in fact this is not human nature, which would know +that such speculations might turn out to be fallacious, and would +therefore not entertain them. But, let it be observed, nothing is here +narrated of human nature generally: the history in its present stage +concerns only a few people in a corner of Wessex—whose reputation, +however, was unimpeached, and who, I am in the proud position of being +able to state, were all on visiting terms with persons of rank. + +There were the Arrowpoints, for example, in their beautiful place at +Quetcham: no one could attribute sordid views in relation to their +daughter’s marriage to parents who could leave her at least half a +million; but having affectionate anxieties about their Catherine’s +position (she having resolutely refused Lord Slogan, an unexceptionable +Irish peer, whose estate wanted nothing but drainage and population), +they wondered, perhaps from something more than a charitable impulse, +whether Mr. Grandcourt was good-looking, of sound constitution, +virtuous, or at least reformed, and if liberal-conservative, not too +liberal-conservative; and without wishing anybody to die, thought his +succession to the title an event to be desired. + +If the Arrowpoints had such ruminations, it is the less surprising that +they were stimulated in Mr. Gascoigne, who for being a clergyman was +not the less subject to the anxieties of a parent and guardian; and we +have seen how both he and Mrs. Gascoigne might by this time have come +to feel that he was overcharged with the management of young creatures +who were hardly to be held in with bit or bridle, or any sort of +metaphor that would stand for judicious advice. + +Naturally, people did not tell each other all they felt and thought +about young Grandcourt’s advent: on no subject is this openness found +prudently practicable—not even on the generation of acids, or the +destination of the fixed stars: for either your contemporary with a +mind turned toward the same subjects may find your ideas ingenious and +forestall you in applying them, or he may have other views on acids and +fixed stars, and think ill of you in consequence. Mr. Gascoigne did not +ask Mr. Arrowpoint if he had any trustworthy source of information +about Grandcourt considered as a husband for a charming girl; nor did +Mrs. Arrowpoint observe to Mrs. Davilow that if the possible peer +sought a wife in the neighborhood of Diplow, the only reasonable +expectation was that he would offer his hand to Catherine, who, +however, would not accept him unless he were in all respects fitted to +secure her happiness. Indeed, even to his wife the rector was silent as +to the contemplation of any matrimonial result, from the probability +that Mr. Grandcourt would see Gwendolen at the next Archery Meeting; +though Mrs. Gascoigne’s mind was very likely still more active in the +same direction. She had said interjectionally to her sister, “It would +be a mercy, Fanny, if that girl were well married!” to which Mrs. +Davilow discerning some criticism of her darling in the fervor of that +wish, had not chosen to make any audible reply, though she had said +inwardly, “You will not get her to marry for your pleasure”; the mild +mother becoming rather saucy when she identified herself with her +daughter. + +To her husband Mrs. Gascoigne said, “I hear Mr. Grandcourt has got two +places of his own, but he comes to Diplow for the hunting. It is to be +hoped he will set a good example in the neighborhood. Have you heard +what sort of a young man he is, Henry?” + +Mr. Gascoigne had not heard; at least, if his male acquaintances had +gossiped in his hearing, he was not disposed to repeat their gossip, or +to give it any emphasis in his own mind. He held it futile, even if it +had been becoming, to show any curiosity as to the past of a young man +whose birth, wealth, and consequent leisure made many habits venial +which under other circumstances would have been inexcusable. Whatever +Grandcourt had done, he had not ruined himself; and it is well-known +that in gambling, for example, whether of the business or holiday sort, +a man who has the strength of mind to leave off when he has only ruined +others, is a reformed character. This is an illustration merely: Mr. +Gascoigne had not heard that Grandcourt had been a gambler; and we can +hardly pronounce him singular in feeling that a landed proprietor with +a mixture of noble blood in his veins was not to be an object of +suspicious inquiry like a reformed character who offers himself as your +butler or footman. Reformation, where a man can afford to do without +it, can hardly be other than genuine. Moreover, it was not certain on +any other showing hitherto, that Mr. Grandcourt had needed reformation +more than other young men in the ripe youth of five-and-thirty; and, at +any rate, the significance of what he had been must be determined by +what he actually was. + +Mrs. Davilow, too, although she would not respond to her sister’s +pregnant remark, could not be inwardly indifferent to an advent that +might promise a brilliant lot for Gwendolen. A little speculation on +“what may be” comes naturally, without encouragement—comes inevitably +in the form of images, when unknown persons are mentioned; and Mr. +Grandcourt’s name raised in Mrs. Davilow’s mind first of all the +picture of a handsome, accomplished, excellent young man whom she would +be satisfied with as a husband for her daughter; but then came the +further speculation—would Gwendolen be satisfied with him? There was +no knowing what would meet that girl’s taste or touch her +affections—it might be something else than excellence; and thus the +image of the perfect suitor gave way before a fluctuating combination +of qualities that might be imagined to win Gwendolen’s heart. In the +difficulty of arriving at the particular combination which would insure +that result, the mother even said to herself, “It would not signify +about her being in love, if she would only accept the right person.” +For whatever marriage had been for herself, how could she the less +desire it for her daughter? The difference her own misfortunes made +was, that she never dared to dwell much to Gwendolen on the +desirableness of marriage, dreading an answer something like that of +the future Madame Roland, when her gentle mother urging the acceptance +of a suitor, said, “Tu seras heureuse, ma chère.” “Oui, maman, comme +toi.” + +In relation to the problematic Mr. Grandcourt least of all would Mrs. +Davilow have willingly let fall a hint of the aerial castle-building +which she had the good taste to be ashamed of; for such a hint was +likely enough to give an adverse poise to Gwendolen’s own thought, and +make her detest the desirable husband beforehand. Since that scene +after poor Rex’s farewell visit, the mother had felt a new sense of +peril in touching the mystery of her child’s feeling, and in rashly +determining what was her welfare: only she could think of welfare in no +other shape than marriage. + +The discussion of the dress that Gwendolen was to wear at the Archery +Meeting was a relevant topic, however; and when it had been decided +that as a touch of color on her white cashmere, nothing, for her +complexion, was comparable to pale green—a feather which she was +trying in her hat before the looking-glass having settled the +question—Mrs. Davilow felt her ears tingle when Gwendolen, suddenly +throwing herself into the attitude of drawing her bow, said with a look +of comic enjoyment, + +“How I pity all the other girls at the Archery Meeting—all thinking of +Mr. Grandcourt! And they have not a shadow of a chance.” + +Mrs. Davilow had not the presence of mind to answer immediately, and +Gwendolen turned round quickly toward her, saying, wickedly, + +“Now you know they have not, mamma. You and my uncle and aunt—you all +intend him to fall in love with me.” + +Mrs. Davilow, piqued into a little stratagem, said, “Oh, my dear, that +is not so certain. Miss Arrowpoint has charms which you have not.” + +“I know, but they demand thought. My arrow will pierce him before he +has time for thought. He will declare himself my slave—I shall send +him round the world to bring me back the wedding ring of a happy +woman—in the meantime all the men who are between him and the title +will die of different diseases—he will come back Lord Grandcourt—but +without the ring—and fall at my feet. I shall laugh at him—he will +rise in resentment—I shall laugh more—he will call for his steed and +ride to Quetcham, where he will find Miss Arrowpoint just married to a +needy musician, Mrs. Arrowpoint tearing her cap off, and Mr. Arrowpoint +standing by. Exit Lord Grandcourt, who returns to Diplow, and, like M. +Jabot, _change de linge_.” + +Was ever any young witch like this? You thought of hiding things from +her—sat upon your secret and looked innocent, and all the while she +knew by the corner of your eye that it was exactly five pounds ten you +were sitting on! As well turn the key to keep out the damp! It was +probable that by dint of divination she already knew more than any one +else did of Mr. Grandcourt. That idea in Mrs. Davilow’s mind prompted +the sort of question which often comes without any other apparent +reason than the faculty of speech and the not knowing what to do with +it. + +“Why, what kind of a man do you imagine him to be, Gwendolen?” + +“Let me see!” said the witch, putting her forefinger to her lips, with +a little frown, and then stretching out the finger with decision. +“Short—just above my shoulder—trying to make himself tall by turning +up his mustache and keeping his beard long—a glass in his right eye to +give him an air of distinction—a strong opinion about his waistcoat, +but uncertain and trimming about the weather, on which he will try to +draw me out. He will stare at me all the while, and the glass in his +eye will cause him to make horrible faces, especially when he smiles in +a flattering way. I shall cast down my eyes in consequence, and he will +perceive that I am not indifferent to his attentions. I shall dream +that night that I am looking at the extraordinary face of a magnified +insect—and the next morning he will make an offer of his hand; the +sequel as before.” + +“That is a portrait of some one you have seen already, Gwen. Mr. +Grandcourt may be a delightful young man for what you know.” + +“Oh, yes,” said Gwendolen, with a high note of careless admission, +taking off her best hat and turning it round on her hand +contemplatively. “I wonder what sort of behavior a delightful young man +would have? I know he would have hunters and racers, and a London house +and two country-houses—one with battlements and another with a +veranda. And I feel sure that with a little murdering he might get a +title.” + +The irony of this speech was of the doubtful sort that has some genuine +belief mixed up with it. Poor Mrs. Davilow felt uncomfortable under it. +Her own meanings being usually literal and in intention innocent; and +she said with a distressed brow: + +“Don’t talk in that way, child, for heaven’s sake! you do read such +books—they give you such ideas of everything. I declare when your aunt +and I were your age we knew nothing about wickedness. I think it was +better so.” + +“Why did you not bring me up in that way, mamma?” said Gwendolen. But +immediately perceiving in the crushed look and rising sob that she had +given a deep wound, she tossed down her hat and knelt at her mother’s +feet crying, + +“Mamma, mamma! I was only speaking in fun. I meant nothing.” + +“How could I, Gwendolen?” said poor Mrs. Davilow, unable to hear the +retraction, and sobbing violently while she made the effort to speak. +“Your will was always too strong for me—if everything else had been +different.” + +This disjoined logic was intelligible enough to the daughter. “Dear +mamma, I don’t find fault with you—I love you,” said Gwendolen, really +compunctious. “How can you help what I am? Besides, I am very charming. +Come, now.” Here Gwendolen with her handkerchief gently rubbed away her +mother’s tears. “Really—I am contented with myself. I like myself +better than I should have liked my aunt and you. How dreadfully dull +you must have been!” + +Such tender cajolery served to quiet the mother, as it had often done +before after like collisions. Not that the collisions had often been +repeated at the same point; for in the memory of both they left an +association of dread with the particular topics which had occasioned +them: Gwendolen dreaded the unpleasant sense of compunction toward her +mother, which was the nearest approach to self-condemnation and +self-distrust that she had known; and Mrs. Davilow’s timid maternal +conscience dreaded whatever had brought on the slightest hint of +reproach. Hence, after this little scene, the two concurred in +excluding Mr. Grandcourt from their conversation. + +When Mr. Gascoigne once or twice referred to him, Mrs. Davilow feared +least Gwendolen should betray some of her alarming keen-sightedness +about what was probably in her uncle’s mind; but the fear was not +justified. Gwendolen knew certain differences in the characters with +which she was concerned as birds know climate and weather; and for the +very reason that she was determined to evade her uncle’s control, she +was determined not to clash with him. The good understanding between +them was much fostered by their enjoyment of archery together: Mr. +Gascoigne, as one of the best bowmen in Wessex, was gratified to find +the elements of like skill in his niece; and Gwendolen was the more +careful not to lose the shelter of his fatherly indulgence, because +since the trouble with Rex both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna had been unable +to hide what she felt to be a very unreasonable alienation from her. +Toward Anna she took some pains to behave with a regretful +affectionateness; but neither of them dared to mention Rex’s name, and +Anna, to whom the thought of him was part of the air she breathed, was +ill at ease with the lively cousin who had ruined his happiness. She +tried dutifully to repress any sign of her changed feeling; but who in +pain can imitate the glance and hand-touch of pleasure. + +This unfair resentment had rather a hardening effect on Gwendolen, and +threw her into a more defiant temper. Her uncle too might be offended +if she refused the next person who fell in love with her; and one day +when that idea was in her mind she said, + +“Mamma, I see now why girls are glad to be married—to escape being +expected to please everybody but themselves.” + +Happily, Mr. Middleton was gone without having made any avowal; and +notwithstanding the admiration for the handsome Miss Harleth, extending +perhaps over thirty square miles in a part of Wessex well studded with +families whose numbers included several disengaged young men, each glad +to seat himself by the lively girl with whom it was so easy to get on +in conversation,—notwithstanding these grounds for arguing that +Gwendolen was likely to have other suitors more explicit than the +cautious curate, the fact was not so. + +Care has been taken not only that the trees should not sweep the stars +down, but also that every man who admires a fair girl should not be +enamored of her, and even that every man who is enamored should not +necessarily declare himself. There are various refined shapes in which +the price of corn, known to be potent cause in their relation, might, +if inquired into, show why a young lady, perfect in person, +accomplishments, and costume, has not the trouble of rejecting many +offers; and nature’s order is certainly benignant in not obliging us +one and all to be desperately in love with the most admirable mortal we +have ever seen. Gwendolen, we know, was far from holding that supremacy +in the minds of all observers. Besides, it was but a poor eight months +since she had come to Offendene, and some inclinations become manifest +slowly, like the sunward creeping of plants. + +In face of this fact that not one of the eligible young men already in +the neighborhood had made Gwendolen an offer, why should Mr. Grandcourt +be thought of as likely to do what they had left undone? + +Perhaps because he was thought of as still more eligible; since a great +deal of what passes for likelihood in the world is simply the reflex of +a wish. Mr. and Mrs. Arrowpoint, for example, having no anxiety that +Miss Harleth should make a brilliant marriage, had quite a different +likelihood in their minds. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + _1st Gent._ What woman should be? Sir, consult the taste + Of marriageable men. This planet’s store + In iron, cotton, wool, or chemicals— + All matter rendered to our plastic skill, + Is wrought in shapes responsive to demand; + The market’s pulse makes index high or low, + By rule sublime. Our daughters must be wives, + And to the wives must be what men will choose; + Men’s taste is woman’s test. You mark the phrase? + ’Tis good, I think?—the sense well-winged and poised + With t’s and s’s. + _2nd Gent._ Nay, but turn it round; + Give us the test of taste. A fine _menu_— + Is it to-day what Roman epicures + Insisted that a gentleman must eat + To earn the dignity of dining well? + + +Brackenshaw Park, where the archery meeting was held, looked out from +its gentle heights far over the neighboring valley to the outlying +eastern downs and the broad, slow rise of cultivated country, hanging +like a vast curtain toward the west. The castle which stood on the +highest platform of the clustered hills, was built of rough-hewn +limestone, full of lights and shadows made by the dark dust of lichens +and the washings of the rain. Masses of beech and fir sheltered it on +the north, and spread down here and there along the green slopes like +flocks seeking the water which gleamed below. The archery-ground was a +carefully-kept enclosure on a bit of table-land at the farthest end of +the park, protected toward the south-west by tall elms and a thick +screen of hollies, which kept the gravel walk and the bit of newly-mown +turf where the targets were placed in agreeable afternoon shade. The +Archery Hall with an arcade in front showed like a white temple against +the greenery on the north side. + +What could make a better background for the flower-groups of ladies, +moving and bowing and turning their necks as it would become the +leisurely lilies to do if they took to locomotion. The sounds too were +very pleasant to hear, even when the military band from Wanchester +ceased to play: musical laughs in all the registers and a harmony of +happy, friendly speeches, now rising toward mild excitement, now +sinking to an agreeable murmur. + +No open-air amusement could be much freer from those noisy, crowding +conditions which spoil most modern pleasures; no Archery Meeting could +be more select, the number of friends accompanying the members being +restricted by an award of tickets, so as to keep the maximum within the +limits of convenience for the dinner and ball to be held in the castle. +Within the enclosure no plebeian spectators were admitted except Lord +Brackenshaw’s tenants and their families, and of these it was chiefly +the feminine members who used the privilege, bringing their little boys +and girls or younger brothers and sisters. The males among them +relieved the insipidity of the entertainment by imaginative betting, in +which the stake was “anything you like,” on their favorite archers; but +the young maidens, having a different principle of discrimination, were +considering which of those sweetly-dressed ladies they would choose to +be, if the choice were allowed them. Probably the form these rural +souls would most have striven for as a tabernacle, was some other than +Gwendolen’s—one with more pink in her cheeks and hair of the most +fashionable yellow; but among the male judges in the ranks immediately +surrounding her there was unusual unanimity in pronouncing her the +finest girl present. + +No wonder she enjoyed her existence on that July day. Pre-eminence is +sweet to those who love it, even under mediocre circumstances. Perhaps +it was not quite mythical that a slave has been proud to be bought +first; and probably a barn-door fowl on sale, though he may not have +understood himself to be called the best of a bad lot, may have a +self-informed consciousness of his relative importance, and strut +consoled. But for complete enjoyment the outward and the inward must +concur. And that concurrence was happening to Gwendolen. + +Who can deny that bows and arrows are among the prettiest weapons in +the world for feminine forms to play with? They prompt attitudes full +of grace and power, where that fine concentration of energy seen in all +markmanship, is freed from associations of bloodshed. The time-honored +British resource of “killing something” is no longer carried on with +bow and quiver; bands defending their passes against an invading nation +fight under another sort of shade than a cloud of arrows; and poisoned +darts are harmless survivals either in rhetoric or in regions +comfortably remote. Archery has no ugly smell of brimstone; breaks +nobody’s shins, breeds no athletic monsters; its only danger is that of +failing, which for generous blood is enough to mould skilful action. +And among the Brackenshaw archers the prizes were all of the nobler +symbolic kind; not properly to be carried off in a parcel, degrading +honor into gain; but the gold arrow and the silver, the gold star and +the silver, to be worn for a long time in sign of achievement and then +transferred to the next who did excellently. These signs of +pre-eminence had the virtue of wreaths without their inconveniences, +which might have produced a melancholy effect in the heat of the +ball-room. Altogether the Brackenshaw Archery Club was an institution +framed with good taste, so as not to have by necessity any ridiculous +incidents. + +And to-day all incalculable elements were in its favor. There was mild +warmth, and no wind to disturb either hair or drapery or the course of +the arrow; all skillful preparation had fair play, and when there was a +general march to extract the arrows, the promenade of joyous young +creatures in light speech and laughter, the graceful movement in common +toward a common object, was a show worth looking at. Here Gwendolen +seemed a Calypso among her nymphs. It was in her attitudes and +movements that every one was obliged to admit her surpassing charm. + +“That girl is like a high-mettled racer,” said Lord Brackenshaw to +young Clintock, one of the invited spectators. + +“First chop! tremendously pretty too,” said the elegant Grecian, who +had been paying her assiduous attention; “I never saw her look better.” + +Perhaps she had never looked so well. Her face was beaming with young +pleasure in which there was no malign rays of discontent; for being +satisfied with her own chances, she felt kindly toward everybody and +was satisfied with the universe. Not to have the highest distinction in +rank, not to be marked out as an heiress, like Miss Arrowpoint, gave an +added triumph in eclipsing those advantages. For personal +recommendation she would not have cared to change the family group +accompanying her for any other: her mamma’s appearance would have +suited an amiable duchess; her uncle and aunt Gascoigne with Anna made +equally gratifying figures in their way; and Gwendolen was too full of +joyous belief in herself to feel in the least jealous though Miss +Arrowpoint was one of the best archeresses. + +Even the reappearance of the formidable Herr Klesmer, which caused some +surprise in the rest of the company, seemed only to fall in with +Gwendolen’s inclination to be amused. Short of Apollo himself, what +great musical _maestro_ could make a good figure at an archery meeting? +There was a very satirical light in Gwendolen’s eyes as she looked +toward the Arrowpoint party on their first entrance, when the contrast +between Klesmer and the average group of English country people seemed +at its utmost intensity in the close neighborhood of his hosts—or +patrons, as Mrs. Arrowpoint would have liked to hear them called, that +she might deny the possibility of any longer patronizing genius, its +royalty being universally acknowledged. The contrast might have amused +a graver personage than Gwendolen. We English are a miscellaneous +people, and any chance fifty of us will present many varieties of +animal architecture or facial ornament; but it must be admitted that +our prevailing expression is not that of a lively, impassioned race, +preoccupied with the ideal and carrying the real as a mere make-weight. +The strong point of the English gentleman pure is the easy style of his +figure and clothing; he objects to marked ins and outs in his costume, +and he also objects to looking inspired. + +Fancy an assemblage where the men had all that ordinary stamp of the +well-bred Englishman, watching the entrance of Herr Klesmer—his mane +of hair floating backward in massive inconsistency with the chimney-pot +hat, which had the look of having been put on for a joke above his +pronounced but well-modeled features and powerful clear-shaven mouth +and chin; his tall, thin figure clad in a way which, not being strictly +English, was all the worse for its apparent emphasis of intention. +Draped in a loose garment with a Florentine _berretta_ on his head, he +would have been fit to stand by the side of Leonardo de Vinci; but how +when he presented himself in trousers which were not what English +feeling demanded about the knees?—and when the fire that showed itself +in his glances and the movements of his head, as he looked round him +with curiosity, was turned into comedy by a hat which ruled that +mankind should have well-cropped hair and a staid demeanor, such, for +example, as Mr. Arrowsmith’s, whose nullity of face and perfect +tailoring might pass everywhere without ridicule? One feels why it is +often better for greatness to be dead, and to have got rid of the +outward man. + +Many present knew Klesmer, or knew of him; but they had only seen him +on candle-light occasions when he appeared simply as a musician, and he +had not yet that supreme, world-wide celebrity which makes an artist +great to the most ordinary people by their knowledge of his great +expensiveness. It was literally a new light for them to see him +in—presented unexpectedly on this July afternoon in an exclusive +society: some were inclined to laugh, others felt a little disgust at +the want of judgment shown by the Arrowpoints in this use of an +introductory card. + +“What extreme guys those artistic fellows usually are!” said young +Clintock to Gwendolen. “Do look at the figure he cuts, bowing with his +hand on his heart to Lady Brackenshaw—and Mrs. Arrowpoint’s feather +just reaching his shoulder.” + +“You are one of the profane,” said Gwendolen. “You are blind to the +majesty of genius. Herr Klesmer smites me with awe; I feel crushed in +his presence; my courage all oozes from me.” + +“Ah, you understand all about his music.” + +“No, indeed,” said Gwendolen, with a light laugh; “it is he who +understands all about mine and thinks it pitiable.” Klesmer’s verdict +on her singing had been an easier joke to her since he had been struck +by her _plastik_. + +“It is not addressed to the ears of the future, I suppose. I’m glad of +that: it suits mine.” + +“Oh, you are very kind. But how remarkably well Miss Arrowpoint looks +to-day! She would make quite a fine picture in that gold-colored dress.” + +“Too splendid, don’t you think?” + +“Well, perhaps a little too symbolical—too much like the figure of +Wealth in an allegory.” + +This speech of Gwendolen’s had rather a malicious sound, but it was not +really more than a bubble of fun. She did not wish Miss Arrowpoint or +any one else to be out of the way, believing in her own good fortune +even more than in her skill. The belief in both naturally grew stronger +as the shooting went on, for she promised to achieve one of the best +scores—a success which astonished every one in a new member; and to +Gwendolen’s temperament one success determined another. She trod on +air, and all things pleasant seemed possible. The hour was enough for +her, and she was not obliged to think what she should do next to keep +her life at the due pitch. + +“How does the scoring stand, I wonder?” said Lady Brackenshaw, a +gracious personage who, adorned with two little girls and a boy of +stout make, sat as lady paramount. Her lord had come up to her in one +of the intervals of shooting. “It seems to me that Miss Harleth is +likely to win the gold arrow.” + +“Gad, I think she will, if she carries it on! she is running Juliet +Fenn hard. It is wonderful for one in her first year. Catherine is not +up to her usual mark,” continued his lordship, turning to the heiress’s +mother who sat near. “But she got the gold arrow last time. And there’s +a luck even in these games of skill. That’s better. It gives the hinder +ones a chance.” + +“Catherine will be very glad for others to win,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, +“she is so magnanimous. It was entirely her considerateness that made +us bring Herr Klesmer instead of Canon Stopley, who had expressed a +wish to come. For her own pleasure, I am sure she would rather have +brought the Canon; but she is always thinking of others. I told her it +was not quite _en règle_ to bring one so far out of our own set; but +she said, ‘Genius itself is not _en règle_; it comes into the world to +make new rules.’ And one must admit that.” + +“Ay, to be sure,” said Lord Brackenshaw, in a tone of careless +dismissal, adding quickly, “For my part, I am not magnanimous; I should +like to win. But, confound it! I never have the chance now. I’m getting +old and idle. The young ones beat me. As old Nestor says—the gods +don’t give us everything at one time: I was a young fellow once, and +now I am getting an old and wise one. Old, at any rate; which is a gift +that comes to everybody if they live long enough, so it raises no +jealousy.” The Earl smiled comfortably at his wife. + +“Oh, my lord, people who have been neighbors twenty years must not talk +to each other about age,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “Years, as the Tuscans +say, are made for the letting of houses. But where is our new neighbor? +I thought Mr. Grandcourt was to be here to-day.” + +“Ah, by the way, so he was. The time’s getting on too,” said his +lordship, looking at his watch. “But he only got to Diplow the other +day. He came to us on Tuesday and said he had been a little bothered. +He may have been pulled in another direction. Why, Gascoigne!”—the +rector was just then crossing at a little distance with Gwendolen on +his arm, and turned in compliance with the call—“this is a little too +bad; you not only beat us yourself, but you bring up your niece to beat +all the archeresses.” + +“It _is_ rather scandalous in her to get the better of elder members,” +said Mr. Gascoigne, with much inward satisfaction curling his short +upper lip. “But it is not my doing, my lord. I only meant her to make a +tolerable figure, without surpassing any one.” + +“It is not my fault, either,” said Gwendolen, with pretty archness. “If +I am to aim, I can’t help hitting.” + +“Ay, ay, that may be a fatal business for some people,” said Lord +Brackenshaw, good-humoredly; then taking out his watch and looking at +Mrs. Arrowpoint again—“The time’s getting on, as you say. But +Grandcourt is always late. I notice in town he’s always late, and he’s +no bowman—understands nothing about it. But I told him he must come; +he would see the flower of the neighborhood here. He asked about +you—had seen Arrowpoint’s card. I think you had not made his +acquaintance in town. He has been a good deal abroad. People don’t know +him much.” + +“No; we are strangers,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “But that is not what +might have been expected. For his uncle Sir Hugo Mallinger and I are +great friends when we meet.” + +“I don’t know; uncles and nephews are not so likely to be seen together +as uncles and nieces,” said his lordship, smiling toward the rector. +“But just come with me one instant, Gascoigne, will you? I want to +speak a word about the clout-shooting.” + +Gwendolen chose to go too and be deposited in the same group with her +mamma and aunt until she had to shoot again. That Mr. Grandcourt might +after all not appear on the archery-ground, had begun to enter into +Gwendolen’s thought as a possible deduction from the completeness of +her pleasure. Under all her saucy satire, provoked chiefly by her +divination that her friends thought of him as a desirable match for +her, she felt something very far from indifference as to the impression +she would make on him. True, he was not to have the slightest power +over her (for Gwendolen had not considered that the desire to conquer +is itself a sort of subjection); she had made up her mind that he was +to be one of those complimentary and assiduously admiring men of whom +even her narrow experience had shown her several with various-colored +beards and various styles of bearing; and the sense that her friends +would want her to think him delightful, gave her a resistant +inclination to presuppose him ridiculous. But that was no reason why +she could spare his presence: and even a passing prevision of trouble +in case she despised and refused him, raised not the shadow of a wish +that he should save her that trouble by showing no disposition to make +her an offer. Mr. Grandcourt taking hardly any notice of her, and +becoming shortly engaged to Miss Arrowpoint, was not a picture which +flattered her imagination. + +Hence Gwendolen had been all ear to Lord Brackenshaw’s mode of +accounting for Grandcourt’s non-appearance; and when he did arrive, no +consciousness—not even Mrs. Arrowpoint’s or Mr. Gascoigne’s—was more +awake to the fact than hers, although she steadily avoided looking +toward any point where he was likely to be. There should be no +slightest shifting of angles to betray that it was of any consequence +to her whether the much-talked-of Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt presented +himself or not. She became again absorbed in the shooting, and so +resolutely abstained from looking round observantly that, even +supposing him to have taken a conspicuous place among the spectators, +it might be clear she was not aware of him. And all the while the +certainty that he was there made a distinct thread in her +consciousness. Perhaps her shooting was the better for it: at any rate, +it gained in precision, and she at last raised a delightful storm of +clapping and applause by three hits running in the gold—a feat which +among the Brackenshaw archers had not the vulgar reward of a shilling +poll-tax, but that of a special gold star to be worn on the breast. +That moment was not only a happy one to herself—it was just what her +mamma and her uncle would have chosen for her. There was a general +falling into ranks to give her space that she might advance +conspicuously to receive the gold star from the hands of Lady +Brackenshaw; and the perfect movement of her fine form was certainly a +pleasant thing to behold in the clear afternoon light when the shadows +were long and still. She was the central object of that pretty picture, +and every one present must gaze at her. That was enough: she herself +was determined to see nobody in particular, or to turn her eyes any way +except toward Lady Brackenshaw, but her thoughts undeniably turned in +other ways. It entered a little into her pleasure that Herr Klesmer +must be observing her at a moment when music was out of the question, +and his superiority very far in the background; for vanity is as ill +at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it +cannot return; and the unconquered Klesmer threw a trace of his malign +power even across her pleasant consciousness that Mr. Grandcourt was +seeing her to the utmost advantage, and was probably giving her an +admiration unmixed with criticism. She did not expect to admire _him_, +but that was not necessary to her peace of mind. + +Gwendolen met Lady Brackenshaw’s gracious smile without blushing (which +only came to her when she was taken by surprise), but with a charming +gladness of expression, and then bent with easy grace to have the star +fixed near her shoulder. That little ceremony had been over long enough +for her to have exchanged playful speeches and received congratulations +as she moved among the groups who were now interesting themselves in +the results of the scoring; but it happened that she stood outside +examining the point of an arrow with rather an absent air when Lord +Brackenshaw came up to her and said, + +“Miss Harleth, here is a gentleman who is not willing to wait any +longer for an introduction. He has been getting Mrs. Davilow to send me +with him. Will you allow me to introduce Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt?” + + + + +BOOK II.—MEETING STREAMS. + + +CHAPTER XI. + + The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to + get a definite outline for our ignorance. + + +Mr. Grandcourt’s wish to be introduced had no suddenness for Gwendolen; +but when Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured +stranger to come forward and she felt herself face to face with the +real man, there was a little shock which flushed her cheeks and +vexatiously deepened with her consciousness of it. The shock came from +the reversal of her expectations: Grandcourt could hardly have been +more unlike all her imaginary portraits of him. He was slightly taller +than herself, and their eyes seemed to be on a level; there was not the +faintest smile on his face as he looked at her, not a trace of +self-consciousness or anxiety in his bearing: when he raised his hat he +showed an extensive baldness surrounded with a mere fringe of +reddish-blonde hair, but he also showed a perfect hand; the line of +feature from brow to chin undisguised by beard was decidedly handsome, +with only moderate departures from the perpendicular, and the slight +whisker too was perpendicular. It was not possible for a human aspect +to be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings: also it was perhaps +not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated. The +correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity, +assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill, +suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with +some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt’s bearing +had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had +a faded fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the +artificial white and red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing +but indifference. Attempts at description are stupid: who can all at +once describe a human being? Even when he is presented to us we only +begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by +innumerable impressions under differing circumstances. We recognize the +alphabet; we are not sure of the language. I am only mentioning the +point that Gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the +first minutes of her meeting with Grandcourt: they were summed up in +the words, “He is not ridiculous.” But forthwith Lord Brackenshaw was +gone, and what is called conversation had begun, the first and constant +element in it being that Grandcourt looked at Gwendolen persistently +with a slightly exploring gaze, but without change of expression, while +she only occasionally looked at him with a flash of observation a +little softened by coquetry. Also, after her answers there was a longer +or shorter pause before he spoke again. + +“I used to think archery was a great bore,” Grandcourt began. He spoke +with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a +distinguished personage with a distinguished cold on his chest. + +“Are you converted to-day?” said Gwendolen. + +(Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion +about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.) + +“Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally +sees people missing and simpering.” + +“I suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle.” + +(Pause, during which Gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of +Grandcourt, made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite +hearer.) + +“I have left off shooting.” + +“Oh, then, you are a formidable person. People who have done things once +and left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using +cast-off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I +practice a great many.” + +(Pause, during which Gwendolen made several interpretations of her own +speech.) + +“What do you call follies?” + +“Well, in general, I think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But +you have not left off hunting, I hear.” + +(Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about +Grandcourt’s position, and decided that he was the most +aristocratic-looking man she had ever seen.) + +“One must do something.” + +“And do you care about the turf?—or is that among the things you have +left off?” + +(Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm, +cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, +and not likely to interfere with his wife’s preferences.) + +“I run a horse now and then; but I don’t go in for the thing as some +men do. Are you fond of horses?” + +“Yes, indeed; I never like my life so well as when I am on horseback, +having a great gallop. I think of nothing. I only feel myself strong +and happy.” + +(Pause, wherein Gwendolen wondered whether Grandcourt would like what +she said, but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her +tastes.) + +“Do you like danger?” + +“I don’t know. When I am on horseback I never think of danger. It seems +to me that if I broke my bones I should not feel it. I should go at +anything that came in my way.” + +(Pause during which Gwendolen had run through a whole hunting season +with two chosen hunters to ride at will.) + +“You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some of +that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff +after that.” + +“_You_ are fond of danger, then?” + +(Pause, wherein Gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of +coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her +own insight, supposing the question had to be decided.) + +“One must have something or other. But one gets used to it.” + +“I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new to me: +it is only that I can’t get enough of it. I am not used to anything +except being dull, which I should like to leave off as you have left +off shooting.” + +(Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold and +distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the +other hand she thought that most persons were dull, that she had not +observed husbands to be companions—and that after all she was not +going to accept Grandcourt.) + +“Why are you dull?” + +“This is a dreadful neighborhood. There is nothing to be done in it. +That is why I practiced my archery.” + +(Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried +woman who could not go about and had no command of anything must +necessarily be dull through all degrees of comparison as time went on.) + +“You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the first +prize.” + +“I don’t know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how well +Miss Arrowpoint shot?” + +(Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to +choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled +several experiences of that kind in novels.) + +“Miss Arrowpoint. No—that is, yes.” + +“Shall we go now and hear what the scoring says? Every one is going to +the other end now—shall we join them? I think my uncle is looking +toward me. He perhaps wants me.” + +Gwendolen found a relief for herself by thus changing the situation: +not that the _tête-à-tête_ was quite disagreeable to her; but while it +lasted she apparently could not get rid of the unwonted flush in her +cheeks and the sense of surprise which made her feel less mistress of +herself than usual. And this Mr. Grandcourt, who seemed to feel his own +importance more than he did hers—a sort of unreasonableness few of us +can tolerate—must not take for granted that he was of great moment to +her, or that because others speculated on him as a desirable match she +held herself altogether at his beck. How Grandcourt had filled up the +pauses will be more evident hereafter. + +“You have just missed the gold arrow, Gwendolen,” said Mr. Gascoigne. +“Miss Juliet Fenn scores eight above you.” + +“I am very glad to hear it. I should have felt that I was making myself +too disagreeable—taking the best of everything,” said Gwendolen, quite +easily. + +It was impossible to be jealous of Juliet Fenn, a girl as middling as +midday market in everything but her archery and plainness, in which +last she was noticeable like her father: underhung and with receding +brow resembling that of the more intelligent fishes. (Surely, +considering the importance which is given to such an accident in female +offspring, marriageable men, or what the new English calls “intending +bridegrooms,” should look at themselves dispassionately in the glass, +since their natural selection of a mate prettier than themselves is not +certain to bar the effect of their own ugliness.) + +There was now a lively movement in the mingling groups, which carried +the talk along with it. Every one spoke to every one else by turns, and +Gwendolen, who chose to see what was going on around her now, observed +that Grandcourt was having Klesmer presented to him by some one unknown +to her—a middle-aged man, with dark, full face and fat hands, who +seemed to be on the easiest terms with both, and presently led the way +in joining the Arrowpoints, whose acquaintance had already been made by +both him and Grandcourt. Who this stranger was she did not care much to +know; but she wished to observe what was Grandcourt’s manner toward +others than herself. Precisely the same: except that he did not look +much at Miss Arrowpoint, but rather at Klesmer, who was speaking with +animation—now stretching out his long fingers horizontally, now +pointing downward with his forefinger, now folding his arms and +tossing his mane, while he addressed himself first to one and then to +the other, including Grandcourt, who listened with an impassive face +and narrow eyes, his left forefinger in his waistcoat-pocket, and his +right slightly touching his thin whisker. + +“I wonder which style Miss Arrowpoint admires most,” was a thought that +glanced through Gwendolen’s mind, while her eyes and lips gathered +rather a mocking expression. But she would not indulge her sense of +amusement by watching, as if she were curious, and she gave all her +animation to those immediately around her, determined not to care +whether Mr. Grandcourt came near her again or not. + +He did come, however, and at a moment when he could propose to +conduct Mrs. Davilow to her carriage, “Shall we meet again in the +ball-room?” she said as he raised his hat at parting. The “yes” in +reply had the usual slight drawl and perfect gravity. + +“You were wrong for once, Gwendolen,” said Mrs. Davilow, during their +few minutes’ drive to the castle. + +“In what, mamma?” + +“About Mr. Grandcourt’s appearance and manners. You can’t find anything +ridiculous in him.” + +“I suppose I could if I tried, but I don’t want to do it,” said +Gwendolen, rather pettishly; and her mother was afraid to say more. + +It was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine +apart, so that the dinner might make a time of comparative ease and +rest for both. Indeed, the gentlemen had a set of archery stories about +the epicurism of the ladies, who had somehow been reported to show a +revolting masculine judgment in venison, even asking for the fat—a +proof of the frightful rate at which corruption might go on in women, +but for severe social restraint, and every year the amiable Lord +Brackenshaw, who was something of a _gourmet_, mentioned Byron’s +opinion that a woman should never be seen eating,—introducing it with +a confidential—“The fact is” as if he were for the first time +admitting his concurrence in that sentiment of the refined poet. + +In the ladies’ dining-room it was evident that Gwendolen was not a +general favorite with her own sex: there were no beginnings of intimacy +between her and other girls, and in conversation they rather noticed +what she said than spoke to her in free exchange. Perhaps it was that +she was not much interested in them, and when left alone in their +company had a sense of empty benches. Mrs. Vulcany once remarked that +Miss Harleth was too fond of the gentlemen; but we know that she was +not in the least fond of them—she was only fond of their homage—and +women did not give her homage. The exception to this willing aloofness +from her was Miss Arrowpoint, who often managed unostentatiously to be +by her side, and talked to her with quiet friendliness. + +“She knows, as I do, that our friends are ready to quarrel over a +husband for us,” thought Gwendolen, “and she is determined not to enter +into the quarrel.” + +“I think Miss Arrowpoint has the best manners I ever saw,” said Mrs. +Davilow, when she and Gwendolen were in a dressing-room with Mrs. +Gascoigne and Anna, but at a distance where they could have their talk +apart. + +“I wish I were like her,” said Gwendolen. + +“Why? Are you getting discontented with yourself, Gwen?” + +“No; but I am discontented with things. She seems contented.” + +“I am sure you ought to be satisfied to-day. You must have enjoyed the +shooting. I saw you did.” + +“Oh, that is over now, and I don’t know what will come next,” said +Gwendolen, stretching herself with a sort of moan and throwing up her +arms. They were bare now; it was the fashion to dance in the archery +dress, throwing off the jacket; and the simplicity of her white +cashmere with its border of pale green set off her form to the utmost. +A thin line of gold round her neck, and the gold star on her breast, +were her only ornaments. Her smooth soft hair piled up into a grand +crown made a clear line about her brow. Sir Joshua would have been glad +to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the +historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the +truth of change—only to give stability to one beautiful moment. + +“The dancing will come next,” said Mrs. Davilow “You are sure to enjoy +that.” + +“I shall only dance in the quadrille. I told Mr. Clintock so. I shall +not waltz or polk with any one.” + +“Why in the world do you say that all on a sudden?” + +“I can’t bear having ugly people so near me.” + +“Whom do you mean by ugly people?” + +“Oh, plenty.” + +“Mr. Clintock, for example, is not ugly.” Mrs. Davilow dared not +mention Grandcourt. + +“Well, I hate woolen cloth touching me.” + +“Fancy!” said Mrs. Davilow to her sister who now came up from the other +end of the room. “Gwendolen says she will not waltz or polk.” + +“She is rather given to whims, I think,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, gravely. +“It would be more becoming in her to behave as other young ladies do on +such an occasion as this; especially when she has had the advantage of +first-rate dancing lessons.” + +“Why should I dance if I don’t like it, aunt? It is not in the +catechism.” + +“My _dear_!” said Mrs. Gascoigne, in a tone of severe check, and Anna +looked frightened at Gwendolen’s daring. But they all passed on without +saying any more. + +Apparently something had changed Gwendolen’s mood since the hour of +exulting enjoyment in the archery-ground. But she did not look the +worse under the chandeliers in the ball-room, where the soft splendor +of the scene and the pleasant odors from the conservatory could not but +be soothing to the temper, when accompanied with the consciousness of +being preeminently sought for. Hardly a dancing man but was anxious to +have her for a partner, and each whom she accepted was in a state of +melancholy remonstrance that she would not waltz or polk. + +“Are you under a vow, Miss Harleth?”—“Why are you so cruel to us +all?”—“You waltzed with me in February.”—“And you who waltz so +perfectly!” were exclamations not without piquancy for her. The ladies +who waltzed naturally thought that Miss Harleth only wanted to make +herself particular; but her uncle when he overheard her refusal, +supported her by saying, + +“Gwendolen has usually good reasons.” He thought she was certainly more +distinguished in not waltzing, and he wished her to be distinguished. +The archery ball was intended to be kept at the subdued pitch that +suited all dignities clerical and secular; it was not an escapement for +youthful high spirits, and he himself was of opinion that the +fashionable dances were too much of a romp. + +Among the remonstrant dancing men, however, Mr. Grandcourt was not +numbered. After standing up for a quadrille with Miss Arrowpoint, it +seemed that he meant to ask for no other partner. Gwendolen observed +him frequently with the Arrowpoints, but he never took an opportunity +of approaching her. Mr. Gascoigne was sometimes speaking to him; but +Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere. It was in her mind now that she would +probably after all not have the least trouble about him: perhaps he had +looked at her without any particular admiration, and was too much used +to everything in the world to think of her as more than one of the +girls who were invited in that part of the country. Of course! It was +ridiculous of elders to entertain notions about what a man would do, +without having seen him even through a telescope. Probably he meant to +marry Miss Arrowpoint. Whatever might come, she, Gwendolen, was not +going to be disappointed: the affair was a joke whichever way it +turned, for she had never committed herself even by a silent confidence +in anything Mr. Grandcourt would do. Still, she noticed that he did +sometimes quietly and gradually change his position according to hers, +so that he could see her whenever she was dancing, and if he did not +admire her—so much the worse for him. + +This movement for the sake of being in sight of her was more direct +than usual rather late in the evening, when Gwendolen had accepted +Klesmer as a partner; and that wide-glancing personage, who saw +everything and nothing by turns, said to her when they were walking, +“Mr. Grandcourt is a man of taste. He likes to see you dancing.” + +“Perhaps he likes to look at what is against his taste,” said +Gwendolen, with a light laugh; she was quite courageous with Klesmer +now. “He may be so tired of admiring that he likes disgust for variety.” + +“Those words are not suitable to your lips,” said Klesmer, quickly, +with one of his grand frowns, while he shook his hand as if to banish +the discordant sounds. + +“Are you as critical of words as of music?” + +“Certainly I am. I should require your words to be what your face and +form are—always among the meanings of a noble music.” + +“That is a compliment as well as a correction. I am obliged for both. +But do you know I am bold enough to wish to correct _you_, and require +you to understand a joke?” + +“One may understand jokes without liking them,” said the terrible +Klesmer. “I have had opera books sent me full of jokes; it was just +because I understood them that I did not like them. The comic people +are ready to challenge a man because he looks grave. ‘You don’t see the +witticism, sir?’ ‘No, sir, but I see what you meant.’ Then I am what we +call ticketed as a fellow without _esprit_. But, in fact,” said +Klesmer, suddenly dropping from his quick narrative to a reflective +tone, with an impressive frown, “I am very sensible to wit and humor.” + +“I am glad you tell me that,” said Gwendolen, not without some +wickedness of intention. But Klesmer’s thoughts had flown off on the +wings of his own statement, as their habit was, and she had the +wickedness all to herself. “Pray, who is that standing near the +card-room door?” she went on, seeing there the same stranger with whom +Klesmer had been in animated talk on the archery ground. “He is a +friend of yours, I think.” + +“No, no; an amateur I have seen in town; Lush, a Mr. Lush—too fond of +Meyerbeer and Scribe—too fond of the mechanical-dramatic.” + +“Thanks. I wanted to know whether you thought his face and form +required that his words should be among the meanings of noble music?” +Klesmer was conquered, and flashed at her a delightful smile which made +them quite friendly until she begged to be deposited by the side of her +mamma. + +Three minutes afterward her preparations for Grandcourt’s indifference +were all canceled. Turning her head after some remark to her mother, +she found that he had made his way up to her. + +“May I ask if you are tired of dancing, Miss Harleth?” he began, +looking down with his former unperturbed expression. + +“Not in the least.” + +“Will you do me the honor—the next—or another quadrille?” + +“I should have been very happy,” said Gwendolen looking at her card, +“but I am engaged for the next to Mr. Clintock—and indeed I perceive +that I am doomed for every quadrille; I have not one to dispose of.” +She was not sorry to punish Mr. Grandcourt’s tardiness, yet at the same +time she would have liked to dance with him. She gave him a charming +smile as she looked up to deliver her answer, and he stood still +looking down at her with no smile at all. + +“I am unfortunate in being too late,” he said, after a moment’s pause. + +“It seemed to me that you did not care for dancing,” said Gwendolen. “I +thought it might be one of the things you had left off.” + +“Yes, but I have not begun to dance with you,” said Grandcourt. Always +there was the same pause before he took up his cue. “You make dancing a +new thing, as you make archery.” + +“Is novelty always agreeable?” + +“No, no—not always.” + +“Then I don’t know whether to feel flattered or not. When you had once +danced with me there would be no more novelty in it.” + +“On the contrary, there would probably be much more.” + +“That is deep. I don’t understand.” + +“It is difficult to make Miss Harleth understand her power?” Here +Grandcourt had turned to Mrs. Davilow, who, smiling gently at her +daughter, said, + +“I think she does not generally strike people as slow to understand.” + +“Mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a deprecating tone, “I am adorably stupid, +and want everything explained to me—when the meaning is pleasant.” + +“If you are stupid, I admit that stupidity is adorable,” returned +Grandcourt, after the usual pause, and without change of tone. But +clearly he knew what to say. + +“I begin to think that my cavalier has forgotten me,” Gwendolen +observed after a little while. “I see the quadrille is being formed.” + +“He deserves to be renounced,” said Grandcourt. + +“I think he is very pardonable,” said Gwendolen. + +“There must have been some misunderstanding,” said Mrs. Davilow. “Mr. +Clintock was too anxious about the engagement to have forgotten it.” + +But now Lady Brackenshaw came up and said, “Miss Harleth, Mr. Clintock +has charged me to express to you his deep regret that he was obliged to +leave without having the pleasure of dancing with you again. An express +came from his father, the archdeacon; something important; he was to +go. He was _au désespoir_.” + +“Oh, he was very good to remember the engagement under the +circumstances,” said Gwendolen. “I am sorry he was called away.” It was +easy to be politely sorrowful on so felicitous an occasion. + +“Then I can profit by Mr. Clintock’s misfortune?” said Grandcourt. “May +I hope that you will let me take his place?” + +“I shall be very happy to dance the next quadrille with you.” + +The appropriateness of the event seemed an augury, and as Gwendolen +stood up for the quadrille with Grandcourt, there was a revival in her +of the exultation—the sense of carrying everything before her, which +she had felt earlier in the day. No man could have walked through the +quadrille with more irreproachable ease than Grandcourt; and the +absence of all eagerness in his attention to her suited his partner’s +taste. She was now convinced that he meant to distinguish her, to mark +his admiration of her in a noticeable way; and it began to appear +probable that she would have it in her power to reject him, whence +there was a pleasure in reckoning up the advantages which would make +her rejection splendid, and in giving Mr. Grandcourt his utmost value. +It was also agreeable to divine that this exclusive selection of her to +dance with, from among all the unmarried ladies present, would attract +observation; though she studiously avoided seeing this, and at the end +of the quadrille walked away on Grandcourt’s arm as if she had been one +of the shortest sighted instead of the longest and widest sighted of +mortals. They encountered Miss Arrowpoint, who was standing with Lady +Brackenshaw and a group of gentlemen. The heiress looked at Gwendolen +invitingly and said, “I hope you will vote with us, Miss Harleth, and +Mr. Grandcourt too, though he is not an archer.” Gwendolen and +Grandcourt paused to join the group, and found that the voting turned +on the project of a picnic archery meeting to be held in Cardell Chase, +where the evening entertainment would be more poetic than a ball under +chandeliers—a feast of sunset lights along the glades and through the +branches and over the solemn tree-tops. + +Gwendolen thought the scheme delightful—equal to playing Robin Hood +and Maid Marian: and Mr. Grandcourt, when appealed to a second time, +said it was a thing to be done; whereupon Mr. Lush, who stood behind +Lady Brackenshaw’s elbow, drew Gwendolen’s notice by saying with a +familiar look and tone to Grandcourt, “Diplow would be a good place for +the meeting, and more convenient: there’s a fine bit between the oaks +toward the north gate.” + +Impossible to look more unconscious of being addressed than Grandcourt; +but Gwendolen took a new survey of the speaker, deciding, first, that +he must be on terms of intimacy with the tenant of Diplow, and, +secondly, that she would never, if she could help it, let him come +within a yard of her. She was subject to physical antipathies, and Mr. +Lush’s prominent eyes, fat though not clumsy figure, and strong black +gray-besprinkled hair of frizzy thickness, which, with the rest of his +prosperous person, was enviable to many, created one of the strongest +of her antipathies. To be safe from his looking at her, she murmured to +Grandcourt, “I should like to continue walking.” + +He obeyed immediately; but when they were thus away from any audience, +he spoke no word for several minutes, and she, out of a half-amused, +half-serious inclination for experiment, would not speak first. They +turned into the large conservatory, beautifully lit up with Chinese +lamps. The other couples there were at a distance which would not have +interfered with any dialogue, but still they walked in silence until +they had reached the farther end where there was a flush of pink light, +and the second wide opening into the ball-room. Grandcourt, when they +had half turned round, paused and said languidly, + +“Do you like this kind of thing?” + +If the situation had been described to Gwendolen half an hour before, +she would have laughed heartily at it, and could only have imagined +herself returning a playful, satirical answer. But for some mysterious +reason—it was a mystery of which she had a faint wondering +consciousness—she dared not be satirical: she had begun to feel a wand +over her that made her afraid of offending Grandcourt. + +“Yes,” she said, quietly, without considering what “kind of thing” was +meant—whether the flowers, the scents, the ball in general, or this +episode of walking with Mr. Grandcourt in particular. And they returned +along the conservatory without farther interpretation. She then +proposed to go and sit down in her old place, and they walked among +scattered couples preparing for the waltz to the spot where Mrs. +Davilow had been seated all the evening. As they approached it her seat +was vacant, but she was coming toward it again, and, to Gwendolen’s +shuddering annoyance, with Mr. Lush at her elbow. There was no avoiding +the confrontation: her mamma came close to her before they had reached +the seats, and, after a quiet greeting smile, said innocently, +“Gwendolen, dear, let me present Mr. Lush to you.” Having just made the +acquaintance of this personage, as an intimate and constant companion +of Mr. Grandcourt’s, Mrs. Davilow imagined it altogether desirable that +her daughter also should make the acquaintance. + +It was hardly a bow that Gwendolen gave—rather, it was the slightest +forward sweep of the head away from the physiognomy that inclined +itself toward her, and she immediately moved toward her seat, saying, +“I want to put on my burnous.” No sooner had she reached it, than Mr. +Lush was there, and had the burnous in his hand: to annoy this +supercilious young lady, he would incur the offense of forestalling +Grandcourt; and, holding up the garment close to Gwendolen, he said, +“Pray, permit me?” But she, wheeling away from him as if he had been a +muddy hound, glided on to the ottoman, saying, “No, thank you.” + +A man who forgave this would have much Christian feeling, supposing he +had intended to be agreeable to the young lady; but before he seized +the burnous Mr. Lush had ceased to have that intention. Grandcourt +quietly took the drapery from him, and Mr. Lush, with a slight bow, +moved away. “You had perhaps better put it on,” said Mr. Grandcourt, +looking down on her without change of expression. + +“Thanks; perhaps it would be wise,” said Gwendolen, rising, and +submitting very gracefully to take the burnous on her shoulders. + +After that, Mr. Grandcourt exchanged a few polite speeches with Mrs. +Davilow, and, in taking leave, asked permission to call at Offendene +the next day. He was evidently not offended by the insult directed +toward his friend. Certainly Gwendolen’s refusal of the burnous from +Mr. Lush was open to the interpretation that she wished to receive it +from Mr. Grandcourt. But she, poor child, had no design in this action, +and was simply following her antipathy and inclination, confiding in +them as she did in the more reflective judgments into which they +entered as sap into leafage. Gwendolen had no sense that these men were +dark enigmas to her, or that she needed any help in drawing conclusions +about them—Mr. Grandcourt at least. The chief question was, how far +his character and ways might answer her wishes; and unless she were +satisfied about that, she had said to herself that she would not accept +his offer. + +Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history +than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of +the way in which she could make her life pleasant?—in a time, too, +when ideas were with fresh vigor making armies of themselves, and the +universal kinship was declaring itself fiercely; when women on the +other side of the world would not mourn for the husbands and sons who +died bravely in a common cause, and men stinted of bread on our side of +the world heard of that willing loss and were patient: a time when the +soul of man was walking to pulses which had for centuries been beating +in him unfelt, until their full sum made a new life of terror or of joy. + +What in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind +visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are +enduring and fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward +through the ages the treasure of human affections. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + “O gentlemen, the time of life is short; + To spend that shortness basely were too long, + If life did ride upon a dial’s point, + Still ending at the arrival of an hour.” + —SHAKESPEARE: _Henry IV_. + + +On the second day after the archery meeting, Mr. Henleigh Mallinger +Grandcourt was at his breakfast-table with Mr. Lush. Everything around +them was agreeable: the summer air through the open windows, at which +the dogs could walk in from the old green turf on the lawn; the soft, +purplish coloring of the park beyond, stretching toward a mass of +bordering wood; the still life in the room, which seemed the stiller +for its sober antiquated elegance, as if it kept a conscious, well-bred +silence, unlike the restlessness of vulgar furniture. + +Whether the gentlemen were agreeable to each other was less evident. +Mr. Grandcourt had drawn his chair aside so as to face the lawn, and +with his left leg over another chair, and his right elbow on the table, +was smoking a large cigar, while his companion was still eating. The +dogs—half-a-dozen of various kinds were moving lazily in and out, +taking attitudes of brief attention—gave a vacillating preference +first to one gentleman, then to the other; being dogs in such good +circumstances that they could play at hunger, and liked to be served +with delicacies which they declined to put in their mouths; all except +Fetch, the beautiful liver-colored water-spaniel, which sat with its +forepaws firmly planted and its expressive brown face turned upward, +watching Grandcourt with unshaken constancy. He held in his lap a tiny +Maltese dog with a tiny silver collar and bell, and when he had a hand +unused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested on this small parcel of animal +warmth. I fear that Fetch was jealous, and wounded that her master gave +her no word or look; at last it seemed that she could bear this neglect +no longer, and she gently put her large silky paw on her master’s leg. +Grandcourt looked at her with unchanged face for half a minute, and +then took the trouble to lay down his cigar while he lifted the +unimpassioned Fluff close to his chin and gave it caressing pats, all +the while gravely watching Fetch, who, poor thing, whimpered +interruptedly, as if trying to repress that sign of discontent, and at +last rested her head beside the appealing paw, looking up with piteous +beseeching. So, at least, a lover of dogs must have interpreted Fetch, +and Grandcourt kept so many dogs that he was reputed to love them; at +any rate, his impulse to act just in that way started from such an +interpretation. But when the amusing anguish burst forth in a howling +bark, Grandcourt pushed Fetch down without speaking, and, depositing +Fluff carelessly on the table (where his black nose predominated over a +salt-cellar), began to look to his cigar, and found, with some +annoyance against Fetch as the cause, that the brute of a cigar +required relighting. Fetch, having begun to wail, found, like others of +her sex, that it was not easy to leave off; indeed, the second howl was +a louder one, and the third was like unto it. + +“Turn out that brute, will you?” said Grandcourt to Lush, without +raising his voice or looking at him—as if he counted on attention to +the smallest sign. + +And Lush immediately rose, lifted Fetch, though she was rather heavy, +and he was not fond of stooping, and carried her out, disposing of her +in some way that took him a couple of minutes before he returned. He +then lit a cigar, placed himself at an angle where he could see +Grandcourt’s face without turning, and presently said, + +“Shall you ride or drive to Quetcham to-day?” + +“I am not going to Quetcham.” + +“You did not go yesterday.” + +Grandcourt smoked in silence for half a minute, and then said, + +“I suppose you sent my card and inquiries.” + +“I went myself at four, and said you were sure to be there shortly. +They would suppose some accident prevented you from fulfilling the +intention. Especially if you go to-day.” + +Silence for a couple of minutes. Then Grandcourt said, “What men are +invited here with their wives?” + +Lush drew out a note-book. “The Captain and Mrs. Torrington come next +week. Then there are Mr. Hollis and Lady Flora, and the Cushats and the +Gogoffs.” + +“Rather a ragged lot,” remarked Grandcourt, after a while. “Why did you +ask the Gogoffs? When you write invitations in my name, be good enough +to give me a list, instead of bringing down a giantess on me without my +knowledge. She spoils the look of the room.” + +“You invited the Gogoffs yourself when you met them in Paris.” + +“What has my meeting them in Paris to do with it? I told you to give me +a list.” + +Grandcourt, like many others, had two remarkably different voices. +Hitherto we have heard him speaking in a superficial interrupted drawl +suggestive chiefly of languor and _ennui_. But this last brief speech +was uttered in subdued inward, yet distinct, tones, which Lush had long +been used to recognize as the expression of a peremptory will. + +“Are there any other couples you would like to invite?” + +“Yes; think of some decent people, with a daughter or two. And one of +your damned musicians. But not a comic fellow.” + +“I wonder if Klesmer would consent to come to us when he leaves +Quetcham. Nothing but first-class music will go down with Miss +Arrowpoint.” + +Lush spoke carelessly, but he was really seizing an opportunity and +fixing an observant look on Grandcourt, who now for the first time, +turned his eyes toward his companion, but slowly and without speaking +until he had given two long luxuriant puffs, when he said, perhaps in a +lower tone than ever, but with a perceptible edge of contempt, + +“What in the name of nonsense have I to do with Miss Arrowpoint and her +music?” + +“Well, something,” said Lush, jocosely. “You need not give yourself +much trouble, perhaps. But some forms must be gone through before a man +can marry a million.” + +“Very likely. But I am not going to marry a million.” + +“That’s a pity—to fling away an opportunity of this sort, and knock +down your own plans.” + +“_Your_ plans, I suppose you mean.” + +“You have some debts, you know, and things may turn out inconveniently, +after all. The heirship is not _absolutely_ certain.” + +Grandcourt did not answer, and Lush went on. + +“It really is a fine opportunity. The father and mother ask for nothing +better, I can see, and the daughter’s looks and manners require no +allowances, any more than if she hadn’t a sixpence. She is not +beautiful; but equal to carrying any rank. And she is not likely to +refuse such prospects as you can offer her.” + +“Perhaps not.” + +“The father and mother would let you do anything you like with them.” + +“But I should not like to do anything with them.” + +Here it was Lush who made a little pause before speaking again, and +then he said in a deep voice of remonstrance, “Good God, Grandcourt! +after your experience, will you let a whim interfere with your +comfortable settlement in life?” + +“Spare your oratory. I know what I am going to do.” + +“What?” Lush put down his cigar and thrust his hands into his side +pockets, as if he had to face something exasperating, but meant to keep +his temper. + +“I am going to marry the other girl.” + +“Have you fallen in love?” This question carried a strong sneer. + +“I am going to marry her.” + +“You have made her an offer already, then?” + +“No.” + +“She is a young lady with a will of her own, I fancy. Extremely well +fitted to make a rumpus. She would know what she liked.” + +“She doesn’t like you,” said Grandcourt, with the ghost of a smile. + +“Perfectly true,” said Lush, adding again in a markedly sneering tone. +“However, if you and she are devoted to each other, that will be +enough.” + +Grandcourt took no notice of this speech, but sipped his coffee, rose, +and strolled out on the lawn, all the dogs following him. + +Lush glanced after him a moment, then resumed his cigar and lit it, but +smoked slowly, consulting his beard with inspecting eyes and fingers, +till he finally stroked it with an air of having arrived at some +conclusion, and said in a subdued voice, + +“Check, old boy!” + +Lush, being a man of some ability, had not known Grandcourt for fifteen +years without learning what sort of measures were useless with him, +though what sort might be useful remained often dubious. In the +beginning of his career he held a fellowship, and was near taking +orders for the sake of a college living, but, not being fond of that +prospect, accepted instead the office of traveling companion to a +marquess, and afterward to young Grandcourt, who had lost his father +early, and who found Lush so convenient that he had allowed him to +become prime minister in all his more personal affairs. The habit of +fifteen years had made Grandcourt more and more in need of Lush’s +handiness, and Lush more and more in need of the lazy luxury to which +his transactions on behalf of Grandcourt made no interruption worth +reckoning. I cannot say that the same lengthened habit had intensified +Grandcourt’s want of respect for his companion since that want had been +absolute from the beginning, but it had confirmed his sense that he +might kick Lush if he chose—only he never did choose to kick any +animal, because the act of kicking is a compromising attitude, and a +gentleman’s dogs should be kicked for him. He only said things which +might have exposed himself to be kicked if his confidant had been a man +of independent spirit. But what son of a vicar who has stinted his wife +and daughters of calico in order to send his male offspring to Oxford, +can keep an independent spirit when he is bent on dining with high +discrimination, riding good horses, living generally in the most +luxuriant honey-blossomed clover—and all without working? Mr. Lush had +passed for a scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he +was not trying to remember much of it; but the bachelor’s and other +arts which soften manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; +and Lush’s present comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not +requiring more than the odor of departed learning. He was not +unconscious of being held kickable, but he preferred counting that +estimate among the peculiarities of Grandcourt’s character, which made +one of his incalculable moods or judgments as good as another. Since in +his own opinion he had never done a bad action, it did not seem +necessary to consider whether he should be likely to commit one if his +love of ease required it. Lush’s love of ease was well-satisfied at +present, and if his puddings were rolled toward him in the dust, he +took the inside bits and found them relishing. + +This morning, for example, though he had encountered more annoyance +than usual, he went to his private sitting-room and played a good hour +on the violoncello. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + “Philistia, be thou glad of me!” + + +Grandcourt having made up his mind to marry Miss Harleth, showed a +power of adapting means to ends. During the next fortnight there was +hardly a day on which by some arrangement or other he did not see her, +or prove by emphatic attentions that she occupied his thoughts. His +cousin, Mrs. Torrington, was now doing the honors of his house, so that +Mrs. Davilow and Gwendolen could be invited to a large party at Diplow +in which there were many witnesses how the host distinguished the +dowerless beauty, and showed no solicitude about the heiress. The +world—I mean Mr. Gascoigne and all the families worth speaking of +within visiting distance of Pennicote—felt an assurance on the subject +which in the rector’s mind converted itself into a resolution to do his +duty by his niece and see that the settlements were adequate. Indeed +the wonder to him and Mrs. Davilow was that the offer for which so many +suitable occasions presented themselves had not been already made; and +in this wonder Grandcourt himself was not without a share. When he had +told his resolution to Lush he had thought that the affair would be +concluded more quickly, and to his own surprise he had repeatedly +promised himself in a morning that he would to-day give Gwendolen the +opportunity of accepting him, and had found in the evening that the +necessary formality was still unaccomplished. This remarkable fact +served to heighten his determination on another day. He had never +admitted to himself that Gwendolen might refuse him, but—heaven help +us all!—we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection +to a contrary issue (were it possible) is so strong that it rises like +a spectral illusion between us and our certainty; we are rationally +sure that the blind worm can not bite us mortally, but it would be so +intolerable to be bitten, and the creature has a biting look—we +decline to handle it. + +He had asked leave to have a beautiful horse of his brought for +Gwendolen to ride. Mrs. Davilow was to accompany her in the carriage, +and they were to go to Diplow to lunch, Grandcourt conducting them. It +was a fine mid-harvest time, not too warm for a noonday ride of five +miles to be delightful; the poppies glowed on the borders of the +fields, there was enough breeze to move gently like a social spirit +among the ears of uncut corn, and to wing the shadow of a cloud across +the soft gray downs; here the sheaves were standing, there the horses +were straining their muscles under the last load from a wide space of +stubble, but everywhere the green pasture made a broader setting for +the corn-fields, and the cattle took their rest under wide branches. +The road lay through a bit of country where the dairy-farms looked much +as they did in the days of our forefathers—where peace and permanence +seemed to find a home away from the busy change that sent the railway +train flying in the distance. + +But the spirit of peace and permanence did not penetrate poor Mrs. +Davilow’s mind so as to overcome her habit of uneasy foreboding. +Gwendolen and Grandcourt cantering in front of her, and then slackening +their pace to a conversational walk till the carriage came up with them +again, made a gratifying sight; but it served chiefly to keep up the +conflict of hopes and fears about her daughter’s lot. Here was an +irresistible opportunity for a lover to speak and put an end to all +uncertainties, and Mrs. Davilow could only hope with trembling that +Gwendolen’s decision would be favorable. Certainly if Rex’s love had +been repugnant to her, Mr. Grandcourt had the advantage of being in +complete contrast with Rex; and that he had produced some quite novel +impression on her seemed evident in her marked abstinence from +satirical observations, nay, her total silence about his +characteristics, a silence which Mrs. Davilow did not dare to break. +“Is he a man she would be happy with?”—was a question that inevitably +arose in the mother’s mind. “Well, perhaps as happy as she would be +with any one else—or as most other women are”—was the answer with +which she tried to quiet herself; for she could not imagine Gwendolen +under the influence of any feeling which would make her satisfied in +what we traditionally call “mean circumstances.” + +Grandcourt’s own thought was looking in the same direction: he wanted +to have done with the uncertainty that belonged to his not having +spoken. As to any further uncertainty—well, it was something without +any reasonable basis, some quality in the air which acted as an +irritant to his wishes. + +Gwendolen enjoyed the riding, but her pleasure did not break forth in +girlish unpremeditated chat and laughter as it did on that morning with +Rex. She spoke a little, and even laughed, but with a lightness as of a +far-off echo: for her too there was some peculiar quality in the +air—not, she was sure, any subjugation of her will by Mr. Grandcourt, +and the splendid prospects he meant to offer her; for Gwendolen desired +every one, that dignified gentleman himself included, to understand +that she was going to do just as she liked, and that they had better +not calculate on her pleasing them. If she chose to take this husband, +she would have him know that she was not going to renounce her freedom, +or according to her favorite formula, “not going to do as other women +did.” + +Grandcourt’s speeches this morning were, as usual, all of that brief +sort which never fails to make a conversational figure when the speaker +is held important in his circle. Stopping so soon, they give signs of a +suppressed and formidable ability so say more, and have also the +meritorious quality of allowing lengthiness to others. + +“How do you like Criterion’s paces?” he said, after they had entered +the park and were slacking from a canter to a walk. + +“He is delightful to ride. I should like to have a leap with him, if it +would not frighten mamma. There was a good wide channel we passed five +minutes ago. I should like to have a gallop back and take it.” + +“Pray do. We can take it together.” + +“No, thanks. Mamma is so timid—if she saw me it might make her ill.” + +“Let me go and explain. Criterion would take it without fail.” + +“No—indeed—you are very kind—but it would alarm her too much. I dare +take any leap when she is not by; but I do it and don’t tell her about +it.” + +“We can let the carriage pass and then set off.” + +“No, no, pray don’t think of it any more: I spoke quite randomly,” said +Gwendolen; she began to feel a new objection to carrying out her own +proposition. + +“But Mrs. Davilow knows I shall take care of you.” + +“Yes, but she would think of you as having to take care of my broken +neck.” + +There was a considerable pause before Grandcourt said, looking toward +her, “I should like to have the right always to take care of you.” + +Gwendolen did not turn her eyes on him; it seemed to her a long while +that she was first blushing, and then turning pale, but to Grandcourt’s +rate of judgment she answered soon enough, with the lightest flute-tone +and a careless movement of the head, “Oh, I am not sure that I want to +be taken care of: if I chose to risk breaking my neck, I should like to +be at liberty to do it.” + +She checked her horse as she spoke, and turned in her saddle, looking +toward the advancing carriage. Her eyes swept across Grandcourt as she +made this movement, but there was no language in them to correct the +carelessness of her reply. At that very moment she was aware that she +was risking something—not her neck, but the possibility of finally +checking Grandcourt’s advances, and she did not feel contented with the +possibility. + +“Damn her!” thought Grandcourt, as he too checked his horse. He was not +a wordy thinker, and this explosive phrase stood for mixed impressions +which eloquent interpreters might have expanded into some sentences +full of an irritated sense that he was being mystified, and a +determination that this girl should not make a fool of him. Did she +want him to throw himself at her feet and declare that he was dying for +her? It was not by that gate that she could enter on the privileges he +could give her. Or did she expect him to write his proposals? Equally a +delusion. He would not make his offer in any way that could place him +definitely in the position of being rejected. But as to her accepting +him, she had done it already in accepting his marked attentions: and +anything which happened to break them off would be understood to her +disadvantage. She was merely coquetting, then? + +However, the carriage came up, and no further _tête-à-tête_ could well +occur before their arrival at the house, where there was abundant +company, to whom Gwendolen, clad in riding-dress, with her hat laid +aside, clad also in the repute of being chosen by Mr. Grandcourt, was +naturally a centre of observation; and since the objectionable Mr. Lush +was not there to look at her, this stimulus of admiring attention +heightened her spirits, and dispersed, for the time, the uneasy +consciousness of divided impulses which threatened her with repentance +of her own acts. Whether Grandcourt had been offended or not there was +no judging: his manners were unchanged, but Gwendolen’s acuteness had +not gone deeper than to discern that his manners were no clue for her, +and because these were unchanged she was not the less afraid of him. + +She had not been at Diplow before except to dine; and since certain +points of view from the windows and the garden were worth showing, Lady +Flora Hollis proposed after luncheon, when some of the guests had +dispersed, and the sun was sloping toward four o’clock, that the +remaining party should make a little exploration. Here came frequent +opportunities when Grandcourt might have retained Gwendolen apart, and +have spoken to her unheard. But no! He indeed spoke to no one else, but +what he said was nothing more eager or intimate than it had been in +their first interview. He looked at her not less than usual; and some +of her defiant spirit having come back, she looked full at him in +return, not caring—rather preferring—that his eyes had no expression +in them. + +But at last it seemed as if he entertained some contrivance. After they +had nearly made the tour of the grounds, the whole party stopped by the +pool to be amused with Fetch’s accomplishment of bringing a water lily +to the bank like Cowper’s spaniel Beau, and having been disappointed in +his first attempt insisted on his trying again. + +Here Grandcourt, who stood with Gwendolen outside the group, turned +deliberately, and fixing his eyes on a knoll planted with American +shrubs, and having a winding path up it, said languidly, + +“This is a bore. Shall we go up there?” + +“Oh, certainly—since we are exploring,” said Gwendolen. She was rather +pleased, and yet afraid. + +The path was too narrow for him to offer his arm, and they walked up in +silence. When they were on the bit of platform at the summit, +Grandcourt said, + +“There is nothing to be seen here: the thing was not worth climbing.” + +How was it that Gwendolen did not laugh? She was perfectly silent, +holding up the folds of her robe like a statue, and giving a harder +grasp to the handle of her whip, which she had snatched up +automatically with her hat when they had first set off. + +“What sort of a place do you prefer?” said Grandcourt. + +“Different places are agreeable in their way. On the whole, I think, I +prefer places that are open and cheerful. I am not fond of anything +sombre.” + +“Your place of Offendene is too sombre....”. + +“It is, rather.” + +“You will not remain there long, I hope.” + +“Oh, yes, I think so. Mamma likes to be near her sister.” + +Silence for a short space. + +“It is not to be supposed that _you_ will always live there, though +Mrs. Davilow may.” + +“I don’t know. We women can’t go in search of adventures—to find out +the North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in +the East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to +transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as +we can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about the +plants; they are often bored, and that is the reason why some of them +have got poisonous. What do you think?” Gwendolen had run on rather +nervously, lightly whipping the rhododendron bush in front of her. + +“I quite agree. Most things are bores,” said Grandcourt, his mind +having been pushed into an easy current, away from its intended track. +But, after a moment’s pause, he continued in his broken, refined drawl, + +“But a woman can be married.” + +“Some women can.” + +“You, certainly, unless you are obstinately cruel.” + +“I am not sure that I am not both cruel and obstinate.” Here Gwendolen +suddenly turned her head and looked full at Grandcourt, whose eyes she +had felt to be upon her throughout their conversation. She was +wondering what the effect of looking at him would be on herself rather +than on him. + +He stood perfectly still, half a yard or more away from her; and it +flashed through her mind what a sort of lotus-eater’s stupor had begun +in him and was taking possession of her. Then he said, + +“Are you as uncertain about yourself as you make others about you?” + +“I am quite uncertain about myself; I don’t know how uncertain others +may be.” + +“And you wish them to understand that you don’t care?” said Grandcourt, +with a touch of new hardness in his tone. + +“I did not say that,” Gwendolen replied, hesitatingly, and turning her +eyes away whipped the rhododendron bush again. She wished she were on +horseback that she might set off on a canter. It was impossible to set +off running down the knoll. + +“You do care, then,” said Grandcourt, not more quickly, but with a +softened drawl. + +“Ha! my whip!” said Gwendolen, in a little scream of distress. She had +let it go—what could be more natural in a slight agitation?—and—but +this seemed less natural in a gold-handled whip which had been left +altogether to itself—it had gone with some force over the immediate +shrubs, and had lodged itself in the branches of an azalea half-way +down the knoll. She could run down now, laughing prettily, and +Grandcourt was obliged to follow; but she was beforehand with him in +rescuing the whip, and continued on her way to the level ground, when +she paused and looked at Grandcourt with an exasperating brightness in +her glance and a heightened color, as if she had carried a triumph, and +these indications were still noticeable to Mrs. Davilow when Gwendolen +and Grandcourt joined the rest of the party. + +“It is all coquetting,” thought Grandcourt; “the next time I beckon she +will come down.” + +It seemed to him likely that this final beckoning might happen the very +next day, when there was to be a picnic archery meeting in Cardell +Chase, according to the plan projected on the evening of the ball. + +Even in Gwendolen’s mind that result was one of two likelihoods that +presented themselves alternately, one of two decisions toward which she +was being precipitated, as if they were two sides of a boundary-line, +and she did not know on which she should fall. This subjection to a +possible self, a self not to be absolutely predicted about, caused her +some astonishment and terror; her favorite key of life—doing as she +liked—seemed to fail her, and she could not foresee what at a given +moment she might like to do. The prospect of marrying Grandcourt really +seemed more attractive to her than she had believed beforehand that any +marriage could be: the dignities, the luxuries, the power of doing a +great deal of what she liked to do, which had now come close to her, +and within her choice to secure or to lose, took hold of her nature as +if it had been the strong odor of what she had only imagined and longed +for before. And Grandcourt himself? He seemed as little of a flaw in +his fortunes as a lover and husband could possibly be. Gwendolen wished +to mount the chariot and drive the plunging horses herself, with a +spouse by her side who would fold his arms and give her his countenance +without looking ridiculous. Certainly, with all her perspicacity, and +all the reading which seemed to her mamma dangerously instructive, her +judgment was consciously a little at fault before Grandcourt. He was +adorably quiet and free from absurdities—he would be a husband to suit +with the best appearance a woman could make. But what else was he? He +had been everywhere, and seen everything. _That_ was desirable, and +especially gratifying as a preamble to his supreme preference for +Gwendolen Harleth. He did not appear to enjoy anything much. That was +not necessary: and the less he had of particular tastes, or desires, +the more freedom his wife was likely to have in following hers. +Gwendolen conceived that after marriage she would most probably be able +to manage him thoroughly. + +How was it that he caused her unusual constraint now?—that she was +less daring and playful in her talk with him than with any other +admirer she had known? That absence of demonstrativeness which she was +glad of, acted as a charm in more senses than one, and was slightly +benumbing. Grandcourt after all was formidable—a handsome lizard of a +hitherto unknown species, not of the lively, darting kind. But +Gwendolen knew hardly anything about lizards, and ignorance gives one a +large range of probabilities. This splendid specimen was probably +gentle, suitable as a boudoir pet: what may not a lizard be, if you +know nothing to the contrary? Her acquaintance with Grandcourt was such +that no accomplishment suddenly revealed in him would have surprised +her. And he was so little suggestive of drama, that it hardly occurred +to her to think with any detail how his life of thirty-six years had +been passed: in general, she imagined him always cold and dignified, +not likely ever to have committed himself. He had hunted the tiger—had +he ever been in love or made love? The one experience and the other +seemed alike remote in Gwendolen’s fancy from the Mr. Grandcourt who +had come to Diplow in order apparently to make a chief epoch in her +destiny—perhaps by introducing her to that state of marriage which she +had resolved to make a state of greater freedom than her girlhood. And +on the whole she wished to marry him; he suited her purpose; her +prevailing, deliberate intention was, to accept him. + +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 more +emphasis, + +“Have you any doubt of that yourself, my dear?” + +“I suppose that is what he has been thinking of. But he may have +changed his mind to-morrow,” said Gwendolen. + +“Why to-morrow? Has he made advances which you have discouraged?” + +“I think he meant—he began to make advances—but I did not encourage +them. I turned the conversation.” + +“Will you confide in me so far as to tell me your reasons?” + +“I am not sure that I had any reasons, uncle.” Gwendolen laughed rather +artificially. + +“You are quite capable of reflecting, Gwendolen. You are aware that +this is not a trivial occasion, and it concerns your establishment for +life under circumstances which may not occur again. You have a duty +here both to yourself and your family. I wish to understand whether you +have any ground for hesitating as to your acceptance of Mr. Grandcourt.” + +“I suppose I hesitate without grounds.” Gwendolen spoke rather +poutingly, and her uncle grew suspicious. + +“Is he disagreeable to you personally?” + +“No.” + +“Have you heard anything of him which has affected you disagreeably?” +The rector thought it impossible that Gwendolen could have heard the +gossip he had heard, but in any case he must endeavor to put all things +in the right light for her. + +“I have heard nothing about him except that he is a great match,” said +Gwendolen, with some sauciness; “and that affects me very agreeably.” + +“Then, my dear Gwendolen, I have nothing further to say than this: you +hold your fortune in your own hands—a fortune such as rarely happens +to a girl in your circumstances—a fortune in fact which almost takes +the question out of the range of mere personal feeling, and makes your +acceptance of it a duty. If Providence offers you power and +position—especially when unclogged by any conditions that are +repugnant to you—your course is one of responsibility, into which +caprice must not enter. A man does not like to have his attachment +trifled with: he may not be at once repelled—these things are matters +of individual disposition. But the trifling may be carried too far. And +I must point out to you that in case Mr. Grandcourt were repelled +without your having refused him—without your having intended +ultimately to refuse him, your situation would be a humiliating and +painful one. I, for my part, should regard you with severe +disapprobation, as the victim of nothing else than your own coquetry +and folly.” + +Gwendolen became pallid as she listened to this admonitory speech. The +ideas it raised had the force of sensations. Her resistant courage +would not help her here, because her uncle was not urging her against +her own resolve; he was pressing upon her the motives of dread which +she already felt; he was making her more conscious of the risks that +lay within herself. She was silent, and the rector observed that he had +produced some strong effect. + +“I mean this in kindness, my dear.” His tone had softened. + +“I am aware of that, uncle,” said Gwendolen, rising and shaking her +head back, as if to rouse herself out of painful passivity. “I am not +foolish. I know that I must be married some time—before it is too +late. And I don’t see how I could do better than marry Mr. Grandcourt. +I mean to accept him, if possible.” She felt as if she were reinforcing +herself by speaking with this decisiveness to her uncle. + +But the rector was a little startled by so bare a version of his own +meaning from those young lips. He wished that in her mind his advice +should be taken in an infusion of sentiments proper to a girl, and such +as are presupposed in the advice of a clergyman, although he may not +consider them always appropriate to be put forward. He wished his niece +parks, carriages, a title—everything that would make this world a +pleasant abode; but he wished her not to be cynical—to be, on the +contrary, religiously dutiful, and have warm domestic affections. + +“My dear Gwendolen,” he said, rising also, and speaking with benignant +gravity, “I trust that you will find in marriage a new fountain of duty +and affection. Marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a +woman, and if your marriage with Mr. Grandcourt should be happily +decided upon, you will have, probably, an increasing power, both of +rank and wealth, which may be used for the benefit of others. These +considerations are something higher than romance! You are fitted by +natural gifts for a position which, considering your birth and early +prospects, could hardly be looked forward to as in the ordinary course +of things; and I trust that you will grace it, not only by those +personal gifts, but by a good and consistent life.” + +“I hope mamma will be the happier,” said Gwendolen, in a more cheerful +way, lifting her hands backward to her neck and moving toward the door. +She wanted to waive those higher considerations. + +Mr. Gascoigne felt that he had come to a satisfactory understanding +with his niece, and had furthered her happy settlement in life by +furthering her engagement to Grandcourt. Meanwhile there was another +person to whom the contemplation of that issue had been a motive for +some activity, and who believed that he, too, on this particular day +had done something toward bringing about a favorable decision in _his_ +sense—which happened to be the reverse of the rector’s. + +Mr. Lush’s absence from Diplow during Gwendolen’s visit had been due, +not to any fear on his part of meeting that supercilious young lady, or +of being abashed by her frank dislike, but to an engagement from which +he expected important consequences. He was gone, in fact, to the +Wanchester station to meet a lady, accompanied by a maid and two +children, whom he put into a fly, and afterward followed to the hotel +of the Golden Keys, in that town. An impressive woman, whom many would +turn to look at again in passing; her figure was slim and sufficiently +tall, her face rather emaciated, so that its sculpturesque beauty was +the more pronounced, her crisp hair perfectly black, and her large, +anxious eyes what we call black. Her dress was soberly correct, her +age, perhaps, physically more advanced than the number of years would +imply, but hardly less than seven-and-thirty. An uneasy-looking woman: +her glance seemed to presuppose that the people and things were going +to be unfavorable to her, while she was, nevertheless, ready to meet +them with resolution. The children were lovely—a dark-haired girl of +six or more, a fairer boy of five. When Lush incautiously expressed +some surprise at her having brought the children, she said, with a +sharp-toned intonation, + +“Did you suppose I should come wandering about here by myself? Why +should I not bring all four if I liked?” + +“Oh, certainly,” said Lush, with his usual fluent _nonchalance_. + +He stayed an hour or so in conference with her, and rode back to Diplow +in a state of mind that was at once hopeful and busily anxious as to +the execution of the little plan on which his hopefulness was based. +Grandcourt’s marriage to Gwendolen Harleth would not, he believed, be +much of a good to either of them, and it would plainly be fraught with +disagreeables to himself. But now he felt confident enough to say +inwardly, “I will take, nay, I will lay odds that the marriage will +never happen.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + I will not clothe myself in wreck—wear gems + Sawed from cramped finger-bones of women drowned; + Feel chilly vaporous hands of ireful ghosts + Clutching my necklace: trick my maiden breast + With orphans’ heritage. Let your dead love + Marry its dead. + + +Gwendolen looked lovely and vigorous as a tall, newly-opened lily the +next morning: there was a reaction of young energy in her, and +yesterday’s self-distrust seemed no more than the transient shiver on +the surface of a full stream. The roving archery match in Cardell Chase +was a delightful prospect for the sport’s sake: she felt herself +beforehand moving about like a wood-nymph under the beeches (in +appreciative company), and the imagined scene lent a charm to further +advances on the part of Grandcourt—not an impassioned lyrical Daphnis +for the wood-nymph, certainly: but so much the better. To-day Gwendolen +foresaw him making slow conversational approaches to a declaration, and +foresaw herself awaiting and encouraging it according to the rational +conclusion which she had expressed to her uncle. + +When she came down to breakfast (after every one had left the table +except Mrs. Davilow) there were letters on her plate. One of them she +read with a gathering smile, and then handed it to her mamma, who, on +returning it, smiled also, finding new cheerfulness in the good spirits +her daughter had shown ever since waking, and said, + +“You don’t feel inclined to go a thousand miles away?” + +“Not exactly so far.” + +“It was a sad omission not to have written again before this. Can’t you +write now—before we set out this morning?” + +“It is not so pressing. To-morrow will do. You see they leave town +to-day. I must write to Dover. They will be there till Monday.” + +“Shall I write for you, dear—if it teases you?” + +Gwendolen did not speak immediately, but after sipping her coffee, +answered brusquely, “Oh no, let it be; I will write to-morrow.” Then, +feeling a touch of compunction, she looked up and said with playful +tenderness, “Dear, old, beautiful mamma!” + +“Old, child, truly.” + +“Please don’t, mamma! I meant old for darling. You are hardly +twenty-five years older than I am. When you talk in that way my life +shrivels up before me.” + +“One can have a great deal of happiness in twenty-five years, my dear.” + +“I must lose no time in beginning,” said Gwendolen, merrily. “The +sooner I get my palaces and coaches the better.” + +“And a good husband who adores you, Gwen,” said Mrs. Davilow, +encouragingly. + +Gwendolen put out her lips saucily and said nothing. + +It was a slight drawback on her pleasure in starting that the rector +was detained by magistrate’s business, and would probably not be able +to get to Cardell Chase at all that day. She cared little that Mrs. +Gascoigne and Anna chose not to go without him, but her uncle’s +presence would have seemed to make it a matter of course that the +decision taken would be acted on. For decision in itself began to be +formidable. Having come close to accepting Grandcourt, Gwendolen felt +this lot of unhoped-for fullness rounding itself too definitely. When +we take to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon +turns into mere limitation and exclusion. Still there was the +reassuring thought that marriage would be the gate into a larger +freedom. + +The place of meeting was a grassy spot called Green Arbor, where a bit +of hanging wood made a sheltering amphitheatre. It was here that the +coachful of servants with provisions had to prepare the picnic meal; +and the warden of the Chase was to guide the roving archers so as to +keep them within the due distance from this centre, and hinder them +from wandering beyond the limit which had been fixed on—a curve that +might be drawn through certain well-known points, such as the double +Oak, the Whispering Stones, and the High Cross. The plan was to take +only a preliminary stroll before luncheon, keeping the main roving +expedition for the more exquisite lights of the afternoon. The muster +was rapid enough to save every one from dull moments of waiting, and +when the groups began to scatter themselves through the light and +shadow made here by closely neighboring beeches and there by rarer +oaks, one may suppose that a painter would have been glad to look on. +This roving archery was far prettier than the stationary game, but +success in shooting at variable marks were less favored by practice, +and the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise +than they would have been in target-shooting. From this cause, perhaps, +as well as from the twofold distraction of being preoccupied and +wishing not to betray her preoccupation, Gwendolen did not greatly +distinguish herself in these first experiments, unless it were by the +lively grace with which she took her comparative failure. She was in +white and green as on the day of the former meeting, when it made an +epoch for her that she was introduced to Grandcourt; he was continually +by her side now, yet it would have been hard to tell from mere looks +and manners that their relation to each other had at all changed since +their first conversation. Still there were other grounds that made most +persons conclude them to be, if not engaged already, on the eve of +being so. And she believed this herself. As they were all returning +toward Green Arbor in divergent groups, not thinking at all of taking +aim but merely chattering, words passed which seemed really the +beginning of that end—the beginning of her acceptance. Grandcourt +said, “Do you know how long it is since I first saw you in this dress?” + +“The archery meeting was on the 25th, and this is the 13th,” said +Gwendolen, laughingly. “I am not good at calculating, but I will +venture to say that it must be nearly three weeks.” + +A little pause, and then he said, “That is a great loss of time.” + +“That your knowing me has caused you? Pray don’t be uncomplimentary; I +don’t like it.” + +Pause again. “It is because of the gain that I feel the loss.” + +Here Gwendolen herself left a pause. She was thinking, “He is really +very ingenious. He never speaks stupidly.” Her silence was so unusual +that it seemed the strongest of favorable answers, and he continued: + +“The gain of knowing you makes me feel the time I lose in uncertainty. +Do _you_ like uncertainty?” + +“I think I do, rather,” said Gwendolen, suddenly beaming on him with a +playful smile. “There is more in it.” + +Grandcourt met her laughing eyes with a slow, steady look right into +them, which seemed like vision in the abstract, and then said, “Do you +mean more torment for me?” + +There was something so strange to Gwendolen in this moment that she was +quite shaken out of her usual self-consciousness. Blushing and turning +away her eyes, she said, “No, that would make me sorry.” + +Grandcourt would have followed up this answer, which the change in her +manner made apparently decisive of her favorable intention; but he was +not in any way overcome so as to be unaware that they were now, within +sight of everybody, descending the space into Green Arbor, and +descending it at an ill-chosen point where it began to be +inconveniently steep. This was a reason for offering his hand in the +literal sense to help her; she took it, and they came down in silence, +much observed by those already on the level—among others by Mrs. +Arrowpoint, who happened to be standing with Mrs. Davilow. That lady +had now made up her mind that Grandcourt’s merits were not such as +would have induced Catherine to accept him, Catherine having so high a +standard as to have refused Lord Slogan. Hence she looked at the tenant +of Diplow with dispassionate eyes. + +“Mr. Grandcourt is not equal as a man to his uncle, Sir Hugo +Mallinger—too languid. To be sure, Mr. Grandcourt is a much younger +man, but I shouldn’t wonder if Sir Hugo were to outlive him, +notwithstanding the difference of years. It is ill calculating on +successions,” concluded Mrs. Arrowpoint, rather too loudly. + +“It is indeed,” said Mrs. Davilow, able to assent with quiet +cheerfulness, for she was so well satisfied with the actual situation +of affairs that her habitual melancholy in their general +unsatisfactoriness was altogether in abeyance. + +I am not concerned to tell of the food that was eaten in that green +refectory, or even to dwell on the stories of the forest scenery that +spread themselves out beyond the level front of the hollow; being just +now bound to tell a story of life at a stage when the blissful beauty +of earth and sky entered only by narrow and oblique inlets into the +consciousness, which was busy with a small social drama almost as +little penetrated by a feeling of wider relations as if it had been a +puppet-show. It will be understood that the food and champagne were of +the best—the talk and laughter too, in the sense of belonging to the +best society, where no one makes an invidious display of anything in +particular, and the advantages of the world are taken with that +high-bred depreciation which follows from being accustomed to them. +Some of the gentlemen strolled a little and indulged in a cigar, there +being a sufficient interval before four o’clock—the time for +beginning to rove again. Among these, strange to say, was Grandcourt; +but not Mr. Lush, who seemed to be taking his pleasure quite generously +to-day by making himself particularly serviceable, ordering everything +for everybody, and by this activity becoming more than ever a blot on +the scene to Gwendolen, though he kept himself amiably aloof from her, +and never even looked at her obviously. When there was a general move +to prepare for starting, it appeared that the bows had all been put +under the charge of Lord Brackenshaw’s valet, and Mr. Lush was +concerned to save ladies the trouble of fetching theirs from the +carriage where they were propped. He did not intend to bring +Gwendolen’s, but she, fearful lest he should do so, hurried to fetch it +herself. The valet, seeing her approach, met her with it, and in giving +it into her hand gave also a letter addressed to her. She asked no +question about it, perceived at a glance that the address was in a +lady’s handwriting (of the delicate kind which used to be esteemed +feminine before the present uncial period), and moving away with her +bow in her hand, saw Mr. Lush coming to fetch other bows. To avoid +meeting him she turned aside and walked with her back toward the stand +of carriages, opening the letter. It contained these words, + + If Miss Harleth is in doubt whether she should accept Mr. Grandcourt, + let her break from her party after they have passed the Whispering + Stones and return to that spot. She will then hear something to decide + her; but she can only hear it by keeping this letter a strict secret + from every one. If she does not act according to this letter, she will + repent, as the woman who writes it has repented. The secrecy Miss + Harleth will feel herself bound in honor to guard. + +Gwendolen felt an inward shock, but her immediate thought was, “It is +come in time.” It lay in her youthfulness that she was absorbed by the +idea of the revelation to be made, and had not even a momentary +suspicion of contrivance that could justify her in showing the letter. +Her mind gathered itself up at once into the resolution, that she would +manage to go unobserved to the Whispering Stones; and thrusting the +letter into her pocket she turned back to rejoin the company, with that +sense of having something to conceal which to her nature had a bracing +quality and helped her to be mistress of herself. + +It was a surprise to every one that Grandcourt was not, like the other +smokers, on the spot in time to set out roving with the rest. “We shall +alight on him by-and-by,” said Lord Brackenshaw; “he can’t be gone +far.” At any rate, no man could be waited for. This apparent +forgetfulness might be taken for the distraction of a lover so absorbed +in thinking of the beloved object as to forget an appointment which +would bring him into her actual presence. And the good-natured Earl +gave Gwendolen a distant jocose hint to that effect, which she took +with suitable quietude. But the thought in her mind was “Can he too be +starting away from a decision?” It was not exactly a pleasant thought +to her; but it was near the truth. “Starting away,” however, was not +the right expression for the languor of intention that came over +Grandcourt, like a fit of diseased numbness, when an end seemed within +easy reach: to desist then, when all expectation was to the contrary, +became another gratification of mere will, sublimely independent of +definite motive. At that moment he had begun a second large cigar in a +vague, hazy obstinacy which, if Lush or any other mortal who might be +insulted with impunity had interrupted by overtaking him with a request +for his return, would have expressed itself by a slow removal of his +cigar, to say in an undertone, “You’ll be kind enough to go to the +devil, will you?” + +But he was not interrupted, and the rovers set off without any visible +depression of spirits, leaving behind only a few of the less vigorous +ladies, including Mrs. Davilow, who preferred a quiet stroll free from +obligation to keep up with others. The enjoyment of the day was soon at +its highest pitch, the archery getting more spirited and the changing +scenes of the forest from roofed grove to open glade growing lovelier +with the lengthening shadows, and the deeply-felt but undefinable +gradations of the mellowing afternoon. It was agreed that they were +playing an extemporized _As you like it_; and when a pretty compliment +had been turned to Gwendolen about her having the part of Rosalind, she +felt the more compelled to be surpassing in loveliness. This was not +very difficult to her, for the effect of what had happened to-day was +an excitement which needed a vent—a sense of adventure rather than +alarm, and a straining toward the management of her retreat, so as not +to be impeded. + +The roving had been lasting nearly an hour before the arrival at the +Whispering Stones, two tall conical blocks that leaned toward each +other like gigantic gray-mantled figures. They were soon surveyed and +passed by with the remark that they would be good ghosts on a starlit +night. But a soft sunlight was on them now, and Gwendolen felt daring. +The stones were near a fine grove of beeches, where the archers found +plenty of marks. + +“How far are we from Green Arbor now?” said Gwendolen, having got in +front by the side of the warden. + +“Oh, not more than half a mile, taking along the avenue we’re going to +cross up there: but I shall take round a couple of miles, by the High +Cross.” + +She was falling back among the rest, when suddenly they seemed all to +be hurrying obliquely forward under the guidance of Mr. Lush, and +lingering a little where she was, she perceived her opportunity of +slipping away. Soon she was out of sight, and without running she +seemed to herself to fly along the ground and count the moments nothing +till she found herself back again at the Whispering Stones. They turned +their blank gray sides to her: what was there on the other side? If +there were nothing after all? That was her only dread now—to have to +turn back again in mystification; and walking round the right-hand +stone without pause, she found herself in front of some one whose large +dark eyes met hers at a foot’s distance. In spite of expectation, she +was startled and shrank bank, but in doing so she could take in the +whole figure of this stranger and perceive that she was unmistakably a +lady, and one who must have been exceedingly handsome. She perceived, +also, that a few yards from her were two children seated on the grass. + +“Miss Harleth?” said the lady. + +“Yes.” All Gwendolen’s consciousness was wonder. + +“Have you accepted Mr. Grandcourt?” + +“No.” + +“I have promised to tell you something. And you will promise to keep my +secret. However you may decide you will not tell Mr. Grandcourt, or any +one else, that you have seen me?” + +“I promise.” + +“My name is Lydia Glasher. Mr. Grandcourt ought not to marry any one +but me. I left my husband and child for him nine years ago. Those two +children are his, and we have two others—girls—who are older. My +husband is dead now, and Mr. Grandcourt ought to marry me. He ought to +make that boy his heir.” + +She looked at the boy as she spoke, and Gwendolen’s eyes followed hers. +The handsome little fellow was puffing out his cheeks in trying to blow +a tiny trumpet which remained dumb. His hat hung backward by a string, +and his brown curls caught the sun-rays. He was a cherub. + +The two women’s eyes met again, and Gwendolen said proudly, “I will not +interfere with your wishes.” She looked as if she were shivering, and +her lips were pale. + +“You are very attractive, Miss Harleth. But when he first knew me, I +too was young. Since then my life has been broken up and embittered. It +is not fair that he should be happy and I miserable, and my boy thrust +out of sight for another.” + +These words were uttered with a biting accent, but with a determined +abstinence from anything violent in tone or manner. Gwendolen, watching +Mrs. Glasher’s face while she spoke, felt a sort of terror: it was as +if some ghastly vision had come to her in a dream and said, “I am a +woman’s life.” + +“Have you anything more to say to me?” she asked in a low tone, but +still proud and coldly. The revulsion within her was not tending to +soften her. Everyone seemed hateful. + +“Nothing. You know what I wished you to know. You can inquire about me +if you like. My husband was Colonel Glasher.” + +“Then I will go,” said Gwendolen, moving away with a ceremonious +inclination, which was returned with equal grace. + +In a few minutes Gwendolen was in the beech grove again but her party +had gone out of sight and apparently had not sent in search of her, for +all was solitude till she had reached the avenue pointed out by the +warden. She determined to take this way back to Green Arbor, which she +reached quickly; rapid movements seeming to her just now a means of +suspending the thoughts which might prevent her from behaving with due +calm. She had already made up her mind what step she would take. + +Mrs. Davilow was of course astonished to see Gwendolen returning alone, +and was not without some uneasiness which the presence of other ladies +hindered her from showing. In answer to her words of surprise Gwendolen +said, + +“Oh, I have been rather silly. I lingered behind to look at the +Whispering Stones, and the rest hurried on after something, so I lost +sight of them. I thought it best to come home by the short way—the +avenue that the warden had told me of. I’m not sorry after all. I had +had enough walking.” + +“Your party did not meet Mr. Grandcourt, I presume,” said Mrs. +Arrowpoint, not without intention. + +“No,” said Gwendolen, with a little flash of defiance, and a light +laugh. “And we didn’t see any carvings on the trees, either. Where can +he be? I should think he has fallen into the pool or had an apoplectic +fit.” + +With all Gwendolen’s resolve not to betray any agitation, she could not +help it that her tone was unusually high and hard, and her mother felt +sure that something unpropitious had happened. + +Mrs. Arrowpoint thought that the self-confident young lady was much +piqued, and that Mr. Grandcourt was probably seeing reason to change +his mind. + +“If you have no objection, mamma, I will order the carriage,” said +Gwendolen. “I am tired. And every one will be going soon.” + +Mrs. Davilow assented; but by the time the carriage was announced as +ready—the horses having to be fetched from the stables on the warden’s +premises—the roving party reappeared, and with them Mr. Grandcourt. + +“Ah, there you are!” said Lord Brackenshaw, going up to Gwendolen, who +was arranging her mamma’s shawl for the drive. “We thought at first you +had alighted on Grandcourt and he had taken you home. Lush said so. But +after that we met Grandcourt. However, we didn’t suppose you could be +in any danger. The warden said he had told you a near way back.” + +“You are going?” said Grandcourt, coming up with his usual air, as if +he did not conceive that there had been any omission on his part. Lord +Brackenshaw gave place to him and moved away. + +“Yes, we are going,” said Gwendolen, looking busily at her scarf, which +she was arranging across her shoulders Scotch fashion. + +“May I call at Offendene to-morrow?” + +“Oh yes, if you like,” said Gwendolen, sweeping him from a distance +with her eyelashes. Her voice was light and sharp as the first touch of +frost. + +Mrs. Davilow accepted his arm to lead her to the carriage; but while +that was happening, Gwendolen with incredible swiftness had got in +advance of them, and had sprung into the carriage. + +“I got in, mamma, because I wished to be on this side,” she said, +apologetically. But she had avoided Grandcourt’s touch: he only lifted +his hat and walked away—with the not unsatisfactory impression that +she meant to show herself offended by his neglect. + +The mother and daughter drove for five minutes in silence. Then +Gwendolen said, “I intend to join the Langens at Dover, mamma. I shall +pack up immediately on getting home, and set off by the early train. I +shall be at Dover almost as soon as they are; we can let them know by +telegraph.” + +“Good heavens, child! what can be your reason for saying so?” + +“My reason for saying it, mamma, is that I mean to do it.” + +“But why do you mean to do it?” + +“I wish to go away.” + +“Is it because you are offended with Mr. Grandcourt’s odd behavior in +walking off to-day?” + +“It is useless to enter into such questions. I am not going in any case +to marry Mr. Grandcourt. Don’t interest yourself further about it.” + +“What can I say to your uncle, Gwendolen? Consider the position you +place me in. You led him to believe only last night that you had made +up your mind in favor of Mr. Grandcourt.” + +“I am very sorry to cause you annoyance, mamma, dear, but I can’t help +it,” said Gwendolen, with still harder resistance in her tone. +“Whatever you or my uncle may think or do, I shall not alter my +resolve, and I shall not tell my reason. I don’t care what comes of it. +I don’t care if I never marry any one. There is nothing worth caring +for. I believe all men are bad, and I hate them.” + +“But need you set off in this way, Gwendolen?” said Mrs. Davilow, +miserable and helpless. + +“Now mamma, don’t interfere with me. If you have ever had any trouble +in your own life, remember it and don’t interfere with me. If I am to +be miserable, let it be by my own choice.” + +The mother was reduced to trembling silence. She began to see that the +difficulty would be lessened if Gwendolen went away. + +And she did go. The packing was all carefully done that evening, and +not long after dawn the next day Mrs. Davilow accompanied her daughter +to the railway station. The sweet dews of morning, the cows and horses +looking over the hedges without any particular reason, the early +travelers on foot with their bundles, seemed all very melancholy and +purposeless to them both. The dingy torpor of the railway station, +before the ticket could be taken, was still worse. Gwendolen had +certainly hardened in the last twenty-four hours: her mother’s trouble +evidently counted for little in her present state of mind, which did +not essentially differ from the mood that makes men take to worse +conduct when their belief in persons or things is upset. Gwendolen’s +uncontrolled reading, though consisting chiefly in what are called +pictures of life, had somehow not prepared her for this encounter with +reality. Is that surprising? It is to be believed that attendance at +the _opéra bouffe_ in the present day would not leave men’s minds +entirely without shock, if the manners observed there with some +applause were suddenly to start up in their own families. Perspective, +as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp +huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through +aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish +over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and +artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other +painful effects when presented in our personal experience. + +Mrs. Davilow felt Gwendolen’s new phase of indifference keenly, and as +she drove back alone, the brightening morning was sadder to her than +before. + +Mr. Grandcourt called that day at Offendene, but nobody was at home. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + “_Festina lente_—celerity should be contempered with + cunctation.”—SIR THOMAS BROWNE. + + +Gwendolen, we have seen, passed her time abroad in the new excitement +of gambling, and in imagining herself an empress of luck, having +brought from her late experience a vague impression that in this +confused world it signified nothing what any one did, so that they +amused themselves. We have seen, too, that certain persons, +mysteriously symbolized as Grapnell & Co., having also thought of +reigning in the realm of luck, and being also bent on amusing +themselves, no matter how, had brought about a painful change in her +family circumstances; whence she had returned home—carrying with her, +against her inclination, a necklace which she had pawned and some one +else had redeemed. + +While she was going back to England, Grandcourt was coming to find her; +coming, that is, after his own manner—not in haste by express straight +from Diplow to Leubronn, where she was understood to be; but so +entirely without hurry that he was induced by the presence of some +Russian acquaintances to linger at Baden-Baden and make various +appointments with them, which, however, his desire to be at Leubronn +ultimately caused him to break. Grandcourt’s passions were of the +intermittent, flickering kind: never flaming out strongly. But a great +deal of life goes on without strong passion: myriads of cravats are +carefully tied, dinners attended, even speeches made proposing the +health of august personages without the zest arising from a strong +desire. And a man may make a good appearance in high social +positions—may be supposed to know the classics, to have his reserves +on science, a strong though repressed opinion on politics, and all the +sentiments of the English gentleman, at a small expense of vital +energy. Also, he may be obstinate or persistent at the same low rate, +and may even show sudden impulses which have a false air of daemonic +strength because they seem inexplicable, though perhaps their secret +lies merely in the want of regulated channels for the soul to move +in—good and sufficient ducts of habit without which our nature easily +turns to mere ooze and mud, and at any pressure yields nothing but a +spurt or a puddle. + +Grandcourt had not been altogether displeased by Gwendolen’s running +away from the splendid chance he was holding out to her. The act had +some piquancy for him. He liked to think that it was due to resentment +of his careless behavior in Cardell Chase, which, when he came to +consider it, did appear rather cool. To have brought her so near a +tender admission, and then to have walked headlong away from further +opportunities of winning the consent which he had made her understand +him to be asking for, was enough to provoke a girl of spirit; and to be +worth his mastering it was proper that she should have some spirit. +Doubtless she meant him to follow her, and it was what he meant too. +But for a whole week he took no measures toward starting, and did not +even inquire where Miss Harleth was gone. Mr. Lush felt a triumph that +was mingled with much distrust; for Grandcourt had said no word to him +about her, and looked as neutral as an alligator; there was no telling +what might turn up in the slowly-churning chances of his mind. Still, +to have put off a decision was to have made room for the waste of +Grandcourt’s energy. + +The guests at Diplow felt more curiosity than their host. How was it +that nothing more was heard of Miss Harleth? Was it credible that she +had refused Mr. Grandcourt? Lady Flora Hollis, a lively middle-aged +woman, well endowed with curiosity, felt a sudden interest in making a +round of calls with Mrs. Torrington, including the rectory, Offendene, +and Quetcham, and thus not only got twice over, but also discussed with +the Arrowpoints, the information that Miss Harleth was gone to +Leubronn, with some old friends, the Baron and Baroness von Langen; for +the immediate agitation and disappointment of Mrs. Davilow and the +Gascoignes had resolved itself into a wish that Gwendolen’s +disappearance should not be interpreted as anything eccentric or +needful to be kept secret. The rector’s mind, indeed, entertained the +possibility that the marriage was only a little deferred, for Mrs. +Davilow had not dared to tell him of the bitter determination with +which Gwendolen had spoken. And in spite of his practical ability, some +of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations. Amaryllis +fleeing desired that her hiding-place should be known; and that love +will find out the way “over the mountain and over the wave” may be said +without hyperbole in this age of steam. Gwendolen, he conceived, was an +Amaryllis of excellent sense but coquettish daring; the question was +whether she had dared too much. + +Lady Flora, coming back charged with news about Miss Harleth, saw no +good reason why she should not try whether she could electrify Mr. +Grandcourt by mentioning it to him at the table; and in doing so shot a +few hints of a notion having got abroad that he was a disappointed +adorer. Grandcourt heard with quietude, but with attention; and the +next day he ordered Lush to bring about a decent reason for breaking up +the party at Diplow by the end of another week, as he meant to go +yachting to the Baltic or somewhere—it being impossible to stay at +Diplow as if he were a prisoner on parole, with a set of people whom he +had never wanted. Lush needed no clearer announcement that Grandcourt +was going to Leubronn; but he might go after the manner of a creeping +billiard-ball and stick on the way. What Mr. Lush intended was to make +himself indispensable so that he might go too, and he succeeded; +Gwendolen’s repulsion for him being a fact that only amused his patron, +and made him none the less willing to have Lush always at hand. + +This was how it happened that Grandcourt arrived at the _Czarina_ on +the fifth day after Gwendolen had left Leubronn, and found there his +uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger, with his family, including Deronda. It is +not necessarily a pleasure either to the reigning power or the heir +presumptive when their separate affairs—a touch of gout, say, in the +one, and a touch of willfulness in the other—happen to bring them to +the same spot. Sir Hugo was an easy-tempered man, tolerant both of +differences and defects; but a point of view different from his own +concerning the settlement of the family estates fretted him rather more +than if it had concerned Church discipline or the ballot, and faults +were the less venial for belonging to a person whose existence was +inconvenient to him. In no case could Grandcourt have been a nephew +after his own heart; but as the presumptive heir to the Mallinger +estates he was the sign and embodiment of a chief grievance in the +baronet’s life—the want of a son to inherit the lands, in no portion +of which had he himself more than a life-interest. For in the +ill-advised settlement which his father, Sir Francis, had chosen to +make by will, even Diplow with its modicum of land had been left under +the same conditions as the ancient and wide inheritance of the two +Toppings—Diplow, where Sir Hugo had lived and hunted through many a +season in his younger years, and where his wife and daughters ought to +have been able to retire after his death. + +This grievance had naturally gathered emphasis as the years advanced, +and Lady Mallinger, after having had three daughters in quick +succession, had remained for eight years till now that she was over +forty without producing so much as another girl; while Sir Hugo, almost +twenty years older, was at a time of life when, notwithstanding the +fashionable retardation of most things from dinners to marriages, a +man’s hopefulness is apt to show signs of wear, until restored by +second childhood. + +In fact, he had begun to despair of a son, and this confirmation of +Grandcourt’s interest in the estates certainly tended to make his image +and presence the more unwelcome; but, on the other hand, it carried +circumstances which disposed Sir Hugo to take care that the relation +between them should be kept as friendly as possible. It led him to +dwell on a plan which had grown up side by side with his disappointment +of an heir; namely, to try and secure Diplow as a future residence for +Lady Mallinger and her daughters, and keep this pretty bit of the +family inheritance for his own offspring in spite of that +disappointment. Such knowledge as he had of his nephew’s disposition +and affairs encouraged the belief that Grandcourt might consent to a +transaction by which he would get a good sum of ready money, as an +equivalent for his prospective interest in the domain of Diplow and the +moderate amount of land attached to it. If, after all, the unhoped-for +son should be born, the money would have been thrown away, and +Grandcourt would have been paid for giving up interests that had turned +out good for nothing; but Sir Hugo set down this risk as _nil_, and of +late years he had husbanded his fortune so well by the working of mines +and the sale of leases that he was prepared for an outlay. + +Here was an object that made him careful to avoid any quarrel with +Grandcourt. Some years before, when he was making improvements at the +Abbey, and needed Grandcourt’s concurrence in his felling an +obstructive mass of timber on the demesne, he had congratulated himself +on finding that there was no active spite against him in his nephew’s +peculiar mind; and nothing had since occurred to make them hate each +other more than was compatible with perfect politeness, or with any +accommodation that could be strictly mutual. + +Grandcourt, on his side, thought his uncle a superfluity and a bore, +and felt that the list of things in general would be improved whenever +Sir Hugo came to be expunged. But he had been made aware through Lush, +always a useful medium, of the baronet’s inclinations concerning +Diplow, and he was gratified to have the alternative of the money in +his mind: even if he had not thought it in the least likely that he +would choose to accept it, his sense of power would have been flattered +by his being able to refuse what Sir Hugo desired. The hinted +transaction had told for something among the motives which had made him +ask for a year’s tenancy of Diplow, which it had rather annoyed Sir +Hugo to grant, because the excellent hunting in the neighborhood might +decide Grandcourt not to part with his chance of future possession;—a +man who has two places, in one of which the hunting is less good, +naturally desiring a third where it is better. Also, Lush had thrown +out to Sir Hugo the probability that Grandcourt would woo and win Miss +Arrowpoint, and in that case ready money might be less of a temptation +to him. Hence, on this unexpected meeting at Leubronn, the baronet felt +much curiosity to know how things had been going on at Diplow, was bent +on being as civil as possible to his nephew, and looked forward to some +private chat with Lush. + +Between Deronda and Grandcourt there was a more faintly-marked but +peculiar relation, depending on circumstances which have yet to be made +known. But on no side was there any sign of suppressed chagrin on the +first meeting at the _table d’hôte_, an hour after Grandcourt’s +arrival; and when the quartette of gentlemen afterward met on the +terrace, without Lady Mallinger, they moved off together to saunter +through the rooms, Sir Hugo saying as they entered the large _saal_, + +“Did you play much at Baden, Grandcourt?” + +“No; I looked on and betted a little with some Russians there.” + +“Had you luck?” + +“What did I win, Lush?” + +“You brought away about two hundred,” said Lush. + +“You are not here for the sake of the play, then?” said Sir Hugo. + +“No; I don’t care about play now. It’s a confounded strain,” said +Grandcourt, whose diamond ring and demeanor, as he moved along playing +slightly with his whisker, were being a good deal stared at by rouged +foreigners interested in a new milord. + +“The fact is, somebody should invent a mill to do amusements for you, +my dear fellow,” said Sir Hugo, “as the Tartars get their praying done. +But I agree with you; I never cared for play. It’s monotonous—knits +the brain up into meshes. And it knocks me up to watch it now. I +suppose one gets poisoned with the bad air. I never stay here more than +ten minutes. But where’s your gambling beauty, Deronda? Have you seen +her lately?” + +“She’s gone,” said Deronda, curtly. + +“An uncommonly fine girl, a perfect Diana,” said Sir Hugo, turning to +Grandcourt again. “Really worth a little straining to look at her. I +saw her winning, and she took it as coolly as if she had known it all +beforehand. The same day Deronda happened to see her losing like +wildfire, and she bore it with immense pluck. I suppose she was cleaned +out, or was wise enough to stop in time. How do you know she’s gone?” + +“Oh, by the Visitor-list, ...” said Deronda, with a scarcely perceptible +shrug. “Vandernoodt told me her name was Harleth, and she was with the +Baron and Baroness von Langen. I saw by the list that Miss Harleth was +no longer there.” + +This held no further information for Lush than that Gwendolen had been +gambling. He had already looked at the list, and ascertained that +Gwendolen had gone, but he had no intention of thrusting this knowledge +on Grandcourt before he asked for it; and he had not asked, finding it +enough to believe that the object of search would turn up somewhere or +other. + +But now Grandcourt had heard what was rather piquant, and not a word +about Miss Harleth had been missed by him. After a moment’s pause he +said to Deronda, + +“Do you know those people—the Langens?” + +“I have talked with them a little since Miss Harleth went away. I knew +nothing of them before.” + +“Where is she gone—do you know?” + +“She is gone home,” said Deronda, coldly, as if he wished to say no +more. But then, from a fresh impulse, he turned to look markedly at +Grandcourt, and added, “But it is possible you know her. Her home is +not far from Diplow: Offendene, near Winchester.” + +Deronda, turning to look straight at Grandcourt, who was on his left +hand, might have been a subject for those old painters who liked +contrasts of temperament. There was a calm intensity of life and +richness of tint in his face that on a sudden gaze from him was rather +startling, and often made him seem to have spoken, so that servants and +officials asked him automatically, “What did you say, sir?” when he had +been quite silent. Grandcourt himself felt an irritation, which he did +not show except by a slight movement of the eyelids, at Deronda’s +turning round on him when he was not asked to do more than speak. But +he answered, with his usual drawl, “Yes, I know her,” and paused with +his shoulder toward Deronda, to look at the gambling. + +“What of her, eh?” asked Sir Hugo of Lush, as the three moved on a +little way. “She must be a new-comer at Offendene. Old Blenny lived +there after the dowager died.” + +“A little too much of her,” said Lush, in a low, significant tone; not +sorry to let Sir Hugo know the state of affairs. + +“Why? how?” said the baronet. They all moved out of the _salon_ into an +airy promenade. + +“He has been on the brink of marrying her,” Lush went on. “But I hope +it’s off now. She’s a niece of the clergyman—Gascoigne—at Pennicote. +Her mother is a widow with a brood of daughters. This girl will have +nothing, and is as dangerous as gunpowder. It would be a foolish +marriage. But she has taken a freak against him, for she ran off here +without notice, when he had agreed to call the next day. The fact is, +he’s here after her; but he was in no great hurry, and between his +caprice and hers they are likely enough not to get together again. But +of course he has lost his chance with the heiress.” + +Grandcourt joining them said, “What a beastly den this is!—a worse +hole than Baden. I shall go back to the hotel.” + +When Sir Hugo and Deronda were alone, the baronet began, + +“Rather a pretty story. That girl has something in her. She must be +worth running after—has _de l’imprévu_. I think her appearance on the +scene has bettered my chance of getting Diplow, whether the marriage +comes off or not.” + +“I should hope a marriage like that would not come off,” said Deronda, +in a tone of disgust. + +“What! are you a little touched with the sublime lash?” said Sir Hugo, +putting up his glasses to help his short sight in looking at his +companion. “Are you inclined to run after her?” + +“On the contrary,” said Deronda, “I should rather be inclined to run +away from her.” + +“Why, you would easily cut out Grandcourt. A girl with her spirit would +think you the finer match of the two,” said Sir Hugo, who often tried +Deronda’s patience by finding a joke in impossible advice. (A +difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.) + +“I suppose pedigree and land belong to a fine match,” said Deronda, +coldly. + +“The best horse will win in spite of pedigree, my boy. You remember +Napoleon’s _mot—Je suis un ancêtre_” said Sir Hugo, who habitually +undervalued birth, as men after dining well often agree that the good +of life is distributed with wonderful equality. + +“I am not sure that I want to be an ancestor,” said Deronda. “It +doesn’t seem to me the rarest sort of origination.” + +“You won’t run after the pretty gambler, then?” said Sir Hugo, putting +down his glasses. + +“Decidedly not.” + +This answer was perfectly truthful; nevertheless it had passed through +Deronda’s mind that under other circumstances he should have given way +to the interest this girl had raised in him, and tried to know more of +her. But his history had given him a stronger bias in another +direction. He felt himself in no sense free. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + Men, like planets, have both a visible and an invisible history. The + astronomer threads the darkness with strict deduction, accounting so + for every visible arc in the wanderer’s orbit; and the narrator of + human actions, if he did his work with the same completeness, would + have to thread the hidden pathways of feeling and thought which lead + up to every moment of action, and to those moments of intense + suffering which take the quality of action—like the cry of + Prometheus, whose chained anguish seems a greater energy than the sea + and sky he invokes and the deity he defies. + + +Deronda’s circumstances, indeed, had been exceptional. One moment had +been burned into his life as its chief epoch—a moment full of July +sunshine and large pink roses shedding their last petals on a grassy +court enclosed on three sides by a gothic cloister. Imagine him in such +a scene: a boy of thirteen, stretched prone on the grass where it was +in shadow, his curly head propped on his arms over a book, while his +tutor, also reading, sat on a camp-stool under shelter. Deronda’s book +was Sismondi’s _History of the Italian Republics_; the lad had a +passion for history, eager to know how time had been filled up since +the flood, and how things were carried on in the dull periods. Suddenly +he let down his left arm and looked at his tutor, saying in purest +boyish tones, + +“Mr. Fraser, how was it that the popes and cardinals always had so many +nephews?” + +The tutor, an able young Scotchman, who acted as Sir Hugo Mallinger’s +secretary, roused rather unwillingly from his political economy, +answered with the clear-cut emphatic chant which makes a truth doubly +telling in Scotch utterance, + +“Their own children were called nephews.” + +“Why?” said Deronda. + +“It was just for the propriety of the thing; because, as you know very +well, priests don’t marry, and the children were illegitimate.” + +Mr. Fraser, thrusting out his lower lip and making his chant of the +last word the more emphatic for a little impatience at being +interrupted, had already turned his eyes on his book again, while +Deronda, as if something had stung him, started up in a sitting +attitude with his back to the tutor. + +He had always called Sir Hugo Mallinger his uncle, and when it once +occurred to him to ask about his father and mother, the baronet had +answered, “You lost your father and mother when you were quite a little +one; that is why I take care of you.” Daniel then straining to discern +something in that early twilight, had a dim sense of having been kissed +very much, and surrounded by thin, cloudy, scented drapery, till his +fingers caught in something hard, which hurt him, and he began to cry. +Every other memory he had was of the little world in which he still +lived. And at that time he did not mind about learning more, for he was +too fond of Sir Hugo to be sorry for the loss of unknown parents. Life +was very delightful to the lad, with an uncle who was always indulgent +and cheerful—a fine man in the bright noon of life, whom Daniel +thought absolutely perfect, and whose place was one of the finest in +England, at once historical, romantic, and home-like: a picturesque +architectural outgrowth from an abbey, which had still remnants of the +old monastic trunk. Diplow lay in another county, and was a +comparatively landless place which had come into the family from a rich +lawyer on the female side who wore the perruque of the restoration; +whereas the Mallingers had the grant of Monk’s Topping under Henry the +Eighth, and ages before had held the neighboring lands of King’s +Topping, tracing indeed their origin to a certain Hugues le Malingre, +who came in with the Conqueror—and also apparently with a sickly +complexion which had been happily corrected in his descendants. Two +rows of these descendants, direct and collateral, females of the male +line, and males of the female, looked down in the gallery over the +cloisters on the nephew Daniel as he walked there: men in armor with +pointed beards and arched eyebrows, pinched ladies in hoops and ruffs +with no face to speak of; grave-looking men in black velvet and stuffed +hips, and fair, frightened women holding little boys by the hand; +smiling politicians in magnificent perruques, and ladies of the +prize-animal kind, with rosebud mouths and full eyelids, according to +Lely; then a generation whose faces were revised and embellished in the +taste of Kneller; and so on through refined editions of the family +types in the time of Reynolds and Romney, till the line ended with Sir +Hugo and his younger brother Henleigh. This last had married Miss +Grandcourt, and taken her name along with her estates, thus making a +junction between two equally old families, impaling the three Saracens’ +heads proper and three bezants of the one with the tower and falcons +_argent_ of the other, and, as it happened, uniting their highest +advantages in the prospects of that Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt who +is at present more of an acquaintance to us than either Sir Hugo or his +nephew Daniel Deronda. + +In Sir Hugo’s youthful portrait with rolled collar and high cravat, Sir +Thomas Lawrence had done justice to the agreeable alacrity of +expression and sanguine temperament still to be seen in the original, +but had done something more than justice in slightly lengthening the +nose, which was in reality shorter than might have been expected in a +Mallinger. Happily the appropriate nose of the family reappeared in his +younger brother, and was to be seen in all its refined regularity in +his nephew Mallinger Grandcourt. But in the nephew Daniel Deronda the +family faces of various types, seen on the walls of the gallery, found +no reflex. Still he was handsomer than any of them, and when he was +thirteen might have served as model for any painter who wanted to image +the most memorable of boys: you could hardly have seen his face +thoroughly meeting yours without believing that human creatures had +done nobly in times past, and might do more nobly in time to come. The +finest childlike faces have this consecrating power, and make us +shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the +world, lest they should enter here and defile. + +But at this moment on the grass among the rose-petals, Daniel Deronda +was making a first acquaintance with those griefs. A new idea had +entered his mind, and was beginning to change the aspect of his +habitual feelings as happy careless voyagers are changed with the sky +suddenly threatened and the thought of danger arises. He sat perfectly +still with his back to the tutor, while his face expressed rapid inward +transition. The deep blush, which had come when he first started up, +gradually subsided; but his features kept that indescribable look of +subdued activity which often accompanies a new mental survey of +familiar facts. He had not lived with other boys, and his mind showed +the same blending of child’s ignorance with surprising knowledge which +is oftener seen in bright girls. Having read Shakespeare as well as a +great deal of history, he could have talked with the wisdom of a +bookish child about men who were born out of wedlock and were held +unfortunate in consequence, being under disadvantages which required +them to be a sort of heroes if they were to work themselves up to an +equal standing with their legally born brothers. But he had never +brought such knowledge into any association with his own lot, which had +been too easy for him ever to think about it—until this moment when +there had darted into his mind with the magic of quick comparison, the +possibility that here was the secret of his own birth, and that the man +whom he called uncle was really his father. Some children, even younger +than Daniel, have known the first arrival of care, like an ominous +irremovable guest in their tender lives, on the discovery that their +parents, whom they had imagined able to buy everything, were poor and +in hard money troubles. Daniel felt the presence of a new guest who +seemed to come with an enigmatic veiled face, and to carry +dimly-conjectured, dreaded revelations. The ardor which he had given to +the imaginary world in his books suddenly rushed toward his own history +and spent its pictorial energy there, explaining what he knew, +representing the unknown. The uncle whom he loved very dearly took the +aspect of a father who held secrets about him—who had done him a +wrong—yes, a wrong: and what had become of his mother, for whom he +must have been taken away?—Secrets about which he, Daniel, could never +inquire; for to speak or to be spoken to about these new thoughts +seemed like falling flakes of fire to his imagination. Those who have +known an impassioned childhood will understand this dread of utterance +about any shame connected with their parents. The impetuous advent of +new images took possession of him with the force of fact for the first +time told, and left him no immediate power for the reflection that he +might be trembling at a fiction of his own. The terrible sense of +collision between a strong rush of feeling and the dread of its +betrayal, found relief at length in big slow tears, which fell without +restraint until the voice of Mr. Fraser was heard saying: + +“Daniel, do you see that you are sitting on the bent pages of your +book?” + +Daniel immediately moved the book without turning round, and after +holding it before him for an instant, rose with it and walked away into +the open grounds, where he could dry his tears unobserved. The first +shock of suggestion past, he could remember that he had no certainty +how things really had been, and that he had been making conjectures +about his own history, as he had often made stories about Pericles or +Columbus, just to fill up the blanks before they became famous. Only +there came back certain facts which had an obstinate reality, almost +like the fragments of a bridge, telling you unmistakably how the arches +lay. And again there came a mood in which his conjectures seemed like a +doubt of religion, to be banished as an offense, and a mean prying +after what he was not meant to know; for there was hardly a delicacy of +feeling this lad was not capable of. But the summing-up of all his +fluctuating experience at this epoch was, that a secret impression had +come to him which had given him something like a new sense in relation +to all the elements of his life. And the idea that others probably knew +things concerning which they did not choose to mention, set up in him a +premature reserve which helped to intensify his inward experience. His +ears open now to words which before that July day would have passed by +him unnoted; and round every trivial incident which imagination could +connect with his suspicions, a newly-roused set of feelings were ready +to cluster themselves. + +One such incident a month later wrought itself deeply into his life. +Daniel had not only one of those thrilling boy voices which seem to +bring an idyllic heaven and earth before our eyes, but a fine musical +instinct, and had early made out accompaniments for himself on the +piano, while he sang from memory. Since then he had had some teaching, +and Sir Hugo, who delighted in the boy, used to ask for his music in +the presence of guests. One morning after he had been singing “Sweet +Echo” before a small party of gentlemen whom the rain had kept in the +house, the baronet, passing from a smiling remark to his next neighbor +said: + +“Come here, Dan!” + +The boy came forward with unusual reluctance. He wore an embroidered +holland blouse which set off the rich coloring of his head and throat, +and the resistant gravity about his mouth and eyes as he was being +smiled upon, made their beauty the more impressive. Every one was +admiring him. + +“What do you say to being a great singer? Should you like to be adored +by the world and take the house by storm, like Mario and Tamberlik?” + +Daniel reddened instantaneously, but there was a just perceptible +interval before he answered with angry decision, + +“No; I should hate it!” + +“Well, well, well!” said Sir Hugo, with surprised kindliness intended +to be soothing. But Daniel turned away quickly, left the room, and +going to his own chamber threw himself on the broad window-sill, which +was a favorite retreat of his when he had nothing particular to do. +Here he could see the rain gradually subsiding with gleams through the +parting clouds which lit up a great reach of the park, where the old +oaks stood apart from each other, and the bordering wood was pierced +with a green glade which met the eastern sky. This was a scene which +had always been part of his home—part of the dignified ease which had +been a matter of course in his life. And his ardent clinging nature had +appropriated it all with affection. He knew a great deal of what it was +to be a gentleman by inheritance, and without thinking much about +himself—for he was a boy of active perceptions and easily forgot his +own existence in that of Robert Bruce—he had never supposed that he +could be shut out from such a lot, or have a very different part in the +world from that of the uncle who petted him. It is possible (though not +greatly believed in at present) to be fond of poverty and take it for a +bride, to prefer scoured deal, red quarries and whitewash for one’s +private surroundings, to delight in no splendor but what has open doors +for the whole nation, and to glory in having no privileges except such +as nature insists on; and noblemen have been known to run away from +elaborate ease and the option of idleness, that they might bind +themselves for small pay to hard-handed labor. But Daniel’s tastes were +altogether in keeping with his nurture: his disposition was one in +which everyday scenes and habits beget not _ennui_ or rebellion, but +delight, affection, aptitudes; and now the lad had been stung to the +quick by the idea that his uncle—perhaps his father—thought of a +career for him which was totally unlike his own, and which he knew very +well was not thought of among possible destinations for the sons of +English gentlemen. He had often stayed in London with Sir Hugo, who to +indulge the boy’s ear had carried him to the opera to hear the great +tenors, so that the image of a singer taking the house by storm was +very vivid to him; but now, spite of his musical gift, he set himself +bitterly against the notion of being dressed up to sing before all +those fine people, who would not care about him except as a wonderful +toy. That Sir Hugo should have thought of him in that position for a +moment, seemed to Daniel an unmistakable proof that there was something +about his birth which threw him out from the class of gentlemen to +which the baronet belonged. Would it ever be mentioned to him? Would +the time come when his uncle would tell him everything? He shrank from +the prospect: in his imagination he preferred ignorance. If his father +had been wicked—Daniel inwardly used strong words, for he was feeling +the injury done him as a maimed boy feels the crushed limb which for +others is merely reckoned in an average of accidents—if his father had +done any wrong, he wished it might never be spoken of to him: it was +already a cutting thought that such knowledge might be in other minds. +Was it in Mr. Fraser’s? probably not, else he would not have spoken in +that way about the pope’s nephews. Daniel fancied, as older people do, +that every one else’s consciousness was as active as his own on a +matter which was vital to him. Did Turvey the valet know?—and old Mrs. +French the housekeeper?—and Banks the bailiff, with whom he had ridden +about the farms on his pony?—And now there came back the recollection +of a day some years before when he was drinking Mrs. Banks’s whey, and +Banks said to his wife with a wink and a cunning laugh, “He features +the mother, eh?” At that time little Daniel had merely thought that +Banks made a silly face, as the common farming men often did, laughing +at what was not laughable; and he rather resented being winked at and +talked of as if he did not understand everything. But now that small +incident became information: it was to be reasoned on. How could he be +like his mother and not like his father? His mother must have been a +Mallinger, if Sir Hugo were his uncle. But no! His father might have +been Sir Hugo’s brother and have changed his name, as Mr. Henleigh +Mallinger did when he married Miss Grandcourt. But then, why had he +never heard Sir Hugo speak of his brother Deronda, as he spoke of his +brother Grandcourt? Daniel had never before cared about the family +tree—only about that ancestor who had killed three Saracens in one +encounter. But now his mind turned to a cabinet of estate-maps in the +library, where he had once seen an illuminated parchment hanging out, +that Sir Hugo said was the family tree. The phrase was new and odd to +him—he was a little fellow then—hardly more than half his present +age—and he gave it no precise meaning. He knew more now and wished +that he could examine that parchment. He imagined that the cabinet was +always locked, and longed to try it. But here he checked himself. He +might be seen: and he would never bring himself near even a silent +admission of the sore that had opened in him. + +It is in such experiences of a boy or girlhood, while elders are +debating whether most education lies in science or literature, that the +main lines of character are often laid down. If Daniel had been of a +less ardently affectionate nature, the reserve about himself and the +supposition that others had something to his disadvantage in their +minds, might have turned into a hard, proud antagonism. But inborn +lovingness was strong enough to keep itself level with resentment. +There was hardly any creature in his habitual world that he was not +fond of; teasing them occasionally, of course—all except his uncle, or +“Nunc,” as Sir Hugo had taught him to say; for the baronet was the +reverse of a strait-laced man, and left his dignity to take care of +itself. Him Daniel loved in that deep-rooted filial way which makes +children always the happier for being in the same room with father or +mother, though their occupations may be quite apart. Sir Hugo’s +watch-chain and seals, his handwriting, his mode of smoking and of +talking to his dogs and horses, had all a rightness and charm about +them to the boy which went along with the happiness of morning and +breakfast time. That Sir Hugo had always been a Whig, made Tories and +Radicals equally opponents of the truest and best; and the books he had +written were all seen under the same consecration of loving belief +which differenced what was his from what was not his, in spite of +general resemblance. Those writings were various, from volumes of +travel in the brilliant style, to articles on things in general, and +pamphlets on political crises; but to Daniel they were alike in having +an unquestionable rightness by which other people’s information could +be tested. + +Who cannot imagine the bitterness of a first suspicion that something +in this object of complete love was _not_ quite right? Children demand +that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: +perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is hardly a less +revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall +of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in +maturer life. + +But some time after this renewal of Daniel’s agitation it appeared that +Sir Hugo must have been making a merely playful experiment in his +question about the singing. He sent for Daniel into the library, and +looking up from his writing as the boy entered threw himself sideways +in his arm-chair. “Ah, Dan!” he said kindly, drawing one of the old +embroidered stools close to him. “Come and sit down here.” + +Daniel obeyed, and Sir Hugo put a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking +at him affectionately. + +“What is it, my boy? Have you heard anything that has put you out of +spirits lately?” + +Daniel was determined not to let the tears come, but he could not speak. + +“All changes are painful when people have been happy, you know,” said +Sir Hugo, lifting his hand from the boy’s shoulder to his dark curls +and rubbing them gently. “You can’t be educated exactly as I wish you +to be without our parting. And I think you will find a great deal to +like at school.” + +This was not what Daniel expected, and was so far a relief, which gave +him spirit to answer, + +“Am I to go to school?” + +“Yes, I mean you to go to Eton. I wish you to have the education of an +English gentleman; and for that it is necessary that you should go to a +public school in preparation for the university: Cambridge I mean you +to go to; it was my own university.” + +Daniel’s color came and went. + +“What do you say, Sirrah?” said Sir Hugo, smiling. + +“I should like to be a gentleman,” said Daniel, with firm distinctness, +“and go to school, if that is what a gentleman’s son must do.” + +Sir Hugo watched him silently for a few moments, thinking he understood +now why the lad had seemed angry at the notion of becoming a singer. +Then he said tenderly, + +“And so you won’t mind about leaving your old Nunc?” + +“Yes, I shall,” said Daniel, clasping Sir Hugo’s caressing arm with +both his hands. “But sha’n’t I come home and be with you in the +holidays?” + +“Oh yes, generally,” said Sir Hugo. “But now I mean you to go at once +to a new tutor, to break the change for you before you go to Eton.” + +After this interview Daniel’s spirit rose again. He was meant to be a +gentleman, and in some unaccountable way it might be that his +conjectures were all wrong. The very keenness of the lad taught him to +find comfort in his ignorance. While he was busying his mind in the +construction of possibilities, it became plain to him that there must +be possibilities of which he knew nothing. He left off brooding, young +joy and the spirit of adventure not being easily quenched within him, +and in the interval before his going away he sang about the house, +danced among the old servants, making them parting gifts, and insisted +many times to the groom on the care that was to be taken of the black +pony. + +“Do you think I shall know much less than the other boys, Mr. Fraser?” +said Daniel. It was his bent to think that every stranger would be +surprised at his ignorance. + +“There are dunces to be found everywhere,” said the judicious Fraser. +“You’ll not be the biggest; but you’ve not the makings of a Porson in +you, or a Leibnitz either.” + +“I don’t want to be a Porson or a Leibnitz,” said Daniel. “I would +rather be a greater leader, like Pericles or Washington.” + +“Ay, ay; you’ve a notion they did with little parsing, and less +algebra,” said Fraser. But in reality he thought his pupil a remarkable +lad, to whom one thing was as easy as another, if he had only a mind to +it. + +Things went on very well with Daniel in his new world, except that a +boy with whom he was at once inclined to strike up a close friendship +talked to him a great deal about his home and parents, and seemed to +expect a like expansiveness in return. Daniel immediately shrank into +reserve, and this experience remained a check on his naturally strong +bent toward the formation of intimate friendship. Every one, his tutor +included, set him down as a reserved boy, though he was so good-humored +and unassuming, as well as quick, both at study and sport, that nobody +called his reserve disagreeable. Certainly his face had a great deal to +do with that favorable interpretation; but in this instance the beauty +of the closed lips told no falsehood. + +A surprise that came to him before his first vacation strengthened the +silent consciousness of a grief within, which might be compared in some +ways with Byron’s susceptibility about his deformed foot. Sir Hugo +wrote word that he was married to Miss Raymond, a sweet lady, whom +Daniel must remember having seen. The event would make no difference +about his spending the vacation at the Abbey; he would find Lady +Mallinger a new friend whom he would be sure to love—and much more to +the usual effect when a man, having done something agreeable to +himself, is disposed to congratulate others on his own good fortune, +and the deducible satisfactoriness of events in general. + +Let Sir Hugo be partly excused until the grounds of his action can be +more fully known. The mistakes in his behavior to Deronda were due to +that dullness toward what may be going on in other minds, especially +the minds of children, which is among the commonest deficiencies, even +in good-natured men like him, when life has been generally easy to +themselves, and their energies have been quietly spent in feeling +gratified. No one was better aware than he that Daniel was generally +suspected to be his own son. But he was pleased with that suspicion; +and his imagination had never once been troubled with the way in which +the boy himself might be affected, either then or in the future, by the +enigmatic aspect of his circumstances. He was as fond of him as could +be, and meant the best by him. And, considering the lightness with +which the preparation of young lives seem to lie on respectable +consciences, Sir Hugo Mallinger can hardly be held open to exceptional +reproach. He had been a bachelor till he was five-and-forty, had always +been regarded as a fascinating man of elegant tastes; what could be +more natural, even according to the index of language, than that he +should have a beautiful boy like the little Deronda to take care of? +The mother might even, perhaps, be in the great world—met with in Sir +Hugo’s residence abroad. The only person to feel any objection was the +boy himself, who could not have been consulted. And the boy’s +objections had never been dreamed of by anybody but himself. + +By the time Deronda was ready to go to Cambridge, Lady Mallinger had +already three daughters—charming babies, all three, but whose sex was +announced as a melancholy alternative, the offspring desired being a +son; if Sir Hugo had no son the succession must go to his nephew, +Mallinger Grandcourt. Daniel no longer held a wavering opinion about +his own birth. His fuller knowledge had tended to convince him that Sir +Hugo was his father, and he conceived that the baronet, since he never +approached a communication on the subject, wished him to have a tacit +understanding of the fact, and to accept in silence what would be +generally considered more than the due love and nurture. Sir Hugo’s +marriage might certainly have been felt as a new ground of resentment +by some youths in Deronda’s position, and the timid Lady Mallinger with +her fast-coming little ones might have been images to scowl at, as +likely to divert much that was disposable in the feelings and +possessions of the baronet from one who felt his own claim to be prior. +But hatred of innocent human obstacles was a form of moral stupidity +not in Deronda’s grain; even the indignation which had long mingled +itself with his affection for Sir Hugo took the quality of pain rather +than of temper; and as his mind ripened to the idea of tolerance toward +error, he habitually liked the idea with his own silent grievances. + +The sense of an entailed disadvantage—the deformed foot doubtfully +hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and +easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But +in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one +among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and +makes the imagination tender. Deronda’s early-weakened susceptibility, +charged at first with ready indignation and resistant pride, had raised +in him a premature reflection on certain questions of life; it had +given a bias to his conscience, a sympathy with certain ills, and a +tension of resolve in certain directions, who marked him off from other +youths much more than any talents he possessed. + +One day near the end of the long vacation, when he had been making a +tour in the Rhineland with his Eton tutor, and was come for a farewell +stay at the Abbey before going to Cambridge, he said to Sir Hugo, + +“What do you intend me to be, sir?” They were in the library, and it +was the fresh morning. Sir Hugo had called him in to read a letter from +a Cambridge Don who was to be interested in him; and since the baronet +wore an air at once business-like and leisurely, the moment seemed +propitious for entering on a grave subject which had never yet been +thoroughly discussed. + +“Whatever your inclination leads you to, my boy. I thought it right to +give you the option of the army, but you shut the door on that, and I +was glad. I don’t expect you to choose just yet—by-and-by, when you +have looked about you a little more and tried your mettle among older +men. The university has a good wide opening into the forum. There are +prizes to be won, and a bit of good fortune often gives the turn to a +man’s taste. From what I see and hear, I should think you can take up +anything you like. You are in the deeper water with your classics than +I ever got into, and if you are rather sick of that swimming, Cambridge +is the place where you can go into mathematics with a will, and disport +yourself on the dry sand as much as you like. I floundered along like a +carp.” + +“I suppose money will make some difference, sir,” said Daniel blushing. +“I shall have to keep myself by-and-by.” + +“Not exactly. I recommend you not to be extravagant—yes, yes, I +know—you are not inclined to that—but you need not take up anything +against the grain. You will have a bachelor’s income—enough for you to +look about with. Perhaps I had better tell you that you may consider +yourself secure of seven hundred a year. You might make yourself a +barrister—be a writer—take up politics. I confess that is what would +please me best. I should like to have you at my elbow and pulling with +me.” + +Deronda looked embarrassed. He felt that he ought to make some sign of +gratitude, but other feelings clogged his tongue. A moment was passing +by in which a question about his birth was throbbing within him, and +yet it seemed more impossible than ever that the question should find +vent—more impossible than ever that he could hear certain things from +Sir Hugo’s lips. The liberal way in which he was dealt with was the +more striking because the baronet had of late cared particularly for +money, and for making the utmost of his life-interest in the estate by +way of providing for his daughters; and as all this flashed through +Daniel’s mind it was momentarily within his imagination that the +provision for him might come in some way from his mother. But such +vaporous conjecture passed away as quickly as it came. + +Sir Hugo appeared not to notice anything peculiar in Daniel’s manner, +and presently went on with his usual chatty liveliness. + +“I am glad you have done some good reading outside your classics, and +have got a grip of French and German. The truth is, unless a man can +get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it’s +hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself +and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse +you’ll give him as a cue. That’s all very fine, but in practical life +nobody does give you the cue for pages of Greek. In fact, it’s a nicety +of conversation which I would have you attend to—much quotation of any +sort, even in English is bad. It tends to choke ordinary remark. One +couldn’t carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the +fact that everything had been said better than we can put it ourselves. +But talking of Dons, I have seen Dons make a capital figure in society; +and occasionally he can shoot you down a cart-load of learning in the +right place, which will tell in politics. Such men are wanted; and if +you have any turn for being a Don, I say nothing against it.” + +“I think there’s not much chance of that. Quicksett and Puller are both +stronger than I am. I hope you will not be much disappointed if I don’t +come out with high honors.” + +“No, no. I should like you to do yourself credit, but for God’s sake +don’t come out as a superior expensive kind of idiot, like young +Brecon, who got a Double First, and has been learning to knit braces +ever since. What I wish you to get is a passport in life. I don’t go +against our university system: we want a little disinterested culture +to make head against cotton and capital, especially in the House. My +Greek has all evaporated; if I had to construe a verse on a sudden, I +should get an apoplectic fit. But it formed my taste. I dare say my +English is the better for it.” + +On this point Daniel kept a respectful silence. The enthusiastic belief +in Sir Hugo’s writings as a standard, and in the Whigs as the chosen +race among politicians, had gradually vanished along with the seraphic +boy’s face. He had not been the hardest of workers at Eton. Though some +kinds of study and reading came as easily as boating to him, he was not +of the material that usually makes the first-rate Eton scholar. There +had sprung up in him a meditative yearning after wide knowledge which +is likely always to abate ardor in the fight for prize acquirement in +narrow tracks. Happily he was modest, and took any second-rateness in +himself simply as a fact, not as a marvel necessarily to be accounted +for by a superiority. Still, Mr. Fraser’s high opinion of the lad had +not been altogether belied by the youth: Daniel had the stamp of rarity +in a subdued fervor of sympathy, an activity of imagination on behalf +of others which did not show itself effusively, but was continually +seen in acts of considerateness that struck his companions as moral +eccentricity. “Deronda would have been first-rate if he had had more +ambition,” was a frequent remark about him. But how could a fellow push +his way properly when he objected to swop for his own advantage, +knocked under by choice when he was within an inch of victory, and, +unlike the great Clive, would rather be the calf than the butcher? It +was a mistake, however, to suppose that Deronda had not his share of +ambition. We know he had suffered keenly from the belief that there was +a tinge of dishonor in his lot; but there are some cases, and his was +one of them, in which the sense of injury breeds—not the will to +inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but, a hatred of all +injury. He had his flashes of fierceness and could hit out upon +occasion, but the occasions were not always what might have been +expected. For in what related to himself his resentful impulses had +been early checked by a mastering affectionateness. Love has a habit of +saying “Never mind” to angry self, who, sitting down for the nonce in +the lower place, by-and-by gets used to it. So it was that as Deronda +approached manhood his feeling for Sir Hugo, while it was getting more +and more mixed with criticism, was gaining in that sort of allowance +which reconciles criticism with tenderness. The dear old beautiful home +and everything within it, Lady Mallinger and her little ones included, +were consecrated for the youth as they had been for the boy—only with +a certain difference of light on the objects. The altarpiece was no +longer miraculously perfect, painted under infallible guidance, but the +human hand discerned in the work was appealing to a reverent tenderness +safer from the gusts of discovery. Certainly Deronda’s ambition, even +in his spring-time, lay exceptionally aloof from conspicuous, vulgar +triumph, and from other ugly forms of boyish energy; perhaps because he +was early impassioned by ideas, and burned his fire on those heights. +One may spend a good deal of energy in disliking and resisting what +others pursue, and a boy who is fond of somebody else’s pencil-case may +not be more energetic than another who is fond of giving his own +pencil-case away. Still it was not Deronda’s disposition to escape from +ugly scenes; he was more inclined to sit through them and take care of +the fellow least able to take care of himself. It had helped to make +him popular that he was sometimes a little compromised by this apparent +comradeship. For a meditative interest in learning how human miseries +are wrought—as precocious in him as another sort of genius in the poet +who writes a Queen Mab at nineteen—was so infused with kindliness that +it easily passed for comradeship. Enough. In many of our neighbors’ +lives there is much not only of error and lapse, but of a certain +exquisite goodness which can never be written or even spoken—only +divined by each of us, according to the inward instruction of our own +privacy. + +The impression he made at Cambridge corresponded to his position at +Eton. Every one interested in him agreed that he might have taken a +high place if his motives had been of a more pushing sort, and if he +had not, instead of regarding studies as instruments of success, +hampered himself with the notion that they were to feed motive and +opinion—a notion which set him criticising methods and arguing against +his freight and harness when he should have been using all his might to +pull. In the beginning his work at the university had a new zest for +him: indifferent to the continuation of Eton classical drill, he +applied himself vigorously to mathematics, for which he had shown an +early aptitude under Mr. Fraser, and he had the delight of feeling his +strength in a comparatively fresh exercise of thought. That delight, +and the favorable opinion of his tutor, determined him to try for a +mathematical scholarship in the Easter of his second year: he wished to +gratify Sir Hugo by some achievement, and the study of the higher +mathematics, having the growing fascination inherent in all thinking +which demands intensity, was making him a more exclusive worker than he +had been before. + +But here came the old check which had been growing with his growth. He +found the inward bent toward comprehension and thoroughness diverging +more and more from the track marked out by the standards of +examination: he felt a heightening discontent with the wearing futility +and enfeebling strain of a demand for excessive retention and dexterity +without any insight into the principles which form the vital +connections of knowledge. (Deronda’s undergraduateship occurred fifteen +years ago, when the perfection of our university methods was not yet +indisputable.) In hours when his dissatisfaction was strong upon him he +reproached himself for having been attracted by the conventional +advantage of belonging to an English university, and was tempted toward +the project of asking Sir Hugo to let him quit Cambridge and pursue a +more independent line of study abroad. The germs of this inclination +had been already stirring in his boyish love of universal history, +which made him want to be at home in foreign countries, and follow in +imagination the traveling students of the middle ages. He longed now to +have the sort of apprenticeship to life which would not shape him too +definitely, and rob him of the choice that might come from a free +growth. One sees that Deronda’s demerits were likely to be on the side +of reflective hesitation, and this tendency was encouraged by his +position; there was no need for him to get an immediate income, or to +fit himself in haste for a profession; and his sensibility to the +half-known facts of his parentage made him an excuse for lingering +longer than others in a state of social neutrality. Other men, he +inwardly said, had a more definite place and duties. But the project +which flattered his inclination might not have gone beyond the stage of +ineffective brooding, if certain circumstances had not quickened it +into action. + +The circumstances arose out of an enthusiastic friendship which +extended into his after-life. Of the same year with himself, and +occupying small rooms close to his, was a youth who had come as an +exhibitioner from Christ’s Hospital, and had eccentricities enough for +a Charles Lamb. Only to look at his pinched features and blonde hair +hanging over his collar reminded one of pale quaint heads by early +German painters; and when this faint coloring was lit up by a joke, +there came sudden creases about the mouth and eyes which might have +been moulded by the soul of an aged humorist. His father, an engraver +of some distinction, had been dead eleven years, and his mother had +three girls to educate and maintain on a meagre annuity. Hans +Meyrick—he had been daringly christened after Holbein—felt himself +the pillar, or rather the knotted and twisted trunk, round which these +feeble climbing plants must cling. There was no want of ability or of +honest well-meaning affection to make the prop trustworthy: the ease +and quickness with which he studied might serve him to win prizes at +Cambridge, as he had done among the Blue Coats, in spite of +irregularities. The only danger was, that the incalculable tendencies +in him might be fatally timed, and that his good intentions might be +frustrated by some act which was not due to habit but to capricious, +scattered impulses. He could not be said to have any one bad habit; yet +at longer or shorter intervals he had fits of impish recklessness, and +did things that would have made the worst habits. + +Hans in his right mind, however, was a lovable creature, and in Deronda +he had happened to find a friend who was likely to stand by him with +the more constancy, from compassion for these brief aberrations that +might bring a long repentance. Hans, indeed, shared Deronda’s rooms +nearly as much as he used his own: to Deronda he poured himself out on +his studies, his affairs, his hopes; the poverty of his home, and his +love for the creatures there; the itching of his fingers to draw, and +his determination to fight it away for the sake of getting some sort of +a plum that he might divide with his mother and the girls. He wanted no +confidence in return, but seemed to take Deronda as an Olympian who +needed nothing—an egotism in friendship which is common enough with +mercurial, expansive natures. Deronda was content, and gave Meyrick all +the interest he claimed, getting at last a brotherly anxiety about him, +looking after him in his erratic moments, and contriving by adroitly +delicate devices not only to make up for his friend’s lack of pence, +but to save him from threatening chances. Such friendship easily +becomes tender: the one spreads strong sheltering wings that delight in +spreading, the other gets the warm protection which is also a delight. +Meyrick was going in for a classical scholarship, and his success, in +various ways momentous, was the more probable from the steadying +influence of Deronda’s friendship. + +But an imprudence of Meyrick’s, committed at the beginning of the +autumn term, threatened to disappoint his hopes. With his usual +alternation between unnecessary expense and self-privation, he had +given too much money for an old engraving which fascinated him, and to +make up for it, had come from London in a third-class carriage with his +eyes exposed to a bitter wind and any irritating particles the wind +might drive before it. The consequence was a severe inflammation of the +eyes, which for some time hung over him the threat of a lasting injury. +This crushing trouble called out all Deronda’s readiness to devote +himself, and he made every other occupation secondary to that of being +companion and eyes to Hans, working with him and for him at his +classics, that if possible his chance of the classical scholarship +might be saved. Hans, to keep the knowledge of his suffering from his +mother and sisters, alleged his work as a reason for passing the +Christmas at Cambridge, and his friend stayed up with him. + +Meanwhile Deronda relaxed his hold on his mathematics, and Hans, +reflecting on this, at length said: “Old fellow, while you are hoisting +me you are risking yourself. With your mathematical cram one may be +like Moses or Mohammed or somebody of that sort who had to cram, and +forgot in one day what it had taken him forty to learn.” + +Deronda would not admit that he cared about the risk, and he had really +been beguiled into a little indifference by double sympathy: he was +very anxious that Hans should not miss the much-needed scholarship, and +he felt a revival of interest in the old studies. Still, when Hans, +rather late in the day, got able to use his own eyes, Deronda had +tenacity enough to try hard and recover his lost ground. He failed, +however; but he had the satisfaction of seeing Meyrick win. + +Success, as a sort of beginning that urged completion, might have +reconciled Deronda to his university course; but the emptiness of all +things, from politics to pastimes, is never so striking to us as when +we fail in them. The loss of the personal triumph had no severity for +him, but the sense of having spent his time ineffectively in a mode of +working which had been against the grain, gave him a distaste for any +renewal of the process, which turned his imagined project of quitting +Cambridge into a serious intention. In speaking of his intention to +Meyrick he made it appear that he was glad of the turn events had +taken—glad to have the balance dip decidedly, and feel freed from his +hesitations; but he observed that he must of course submit to any +strong objection on the part of Sir Hugo. + +Meyrick’s joy and gratitude were disturbed by much uneasiness. He +believed in Deronda’s alleged preference, but he felt keenly that in +serving him Daniel had placed himself at a disadvantage in Sir Hugo’s +opinion, and he said mournfully, “If you had got the scholarship, Sir +Hugo would have thought that you asked to leave us with a better grace. +You have spoiled your luck for my sake, and I can do nothing to amend +it.” + +“Yes, you can; you are to be a first-rate fellow. I call that a +first-rate investment of my luck.” + +“Oh, confound it! You save an ugly mongrel from drowning, and expect +him to cut a fine figure. The poets have made tragedies enough about +signing one’s self over to wickedness for the sake of getting something +plummy; I shall write a tragedy of a fellow who signed himself over to +be good, and was uncomfortable ever after.” + +But Hans lost no time in secretly writing the history of the affair to +Sir Hugo, making it plain that but for Deronda’s generous devotion he +could hardly have failed to win the prize he had been working for. + +The two friends went up to town together: Meyrick to rejoice with his +mother and the girls in their little home at Chelsea; Deronda to carry +out the less easy task of opening his mind to Sir Hugo. He relied a +little on the baronet’s general tolerance of eccentricities, but he +expected more opposition than he met with. He was received with even +warmer kindness than usual, the failure was passed over lightly, and +when he detailed his reasons for wishing to quit the university and go +to study abroad, Sir Hugo sat for some time in a silence which was +rather meditative than surprised. At last he said, looking at Daniel +with examination, “So you don’t want to be an Englishman to the +backbone after all?” + +“I want to be an Englishman, but I want to understand other points of +view. And I want to get rid of a merely English attitude in studies.” + +“I see; you don’t want to be turned out in the same mould as every +other youngster. And I have nothing to say against your doffing some of +our national prejudices. I feel the better myself for having spent a +good deal of my time abroad. But, for God’s sake, keep an English cut, +and don’t become indifferent to bad tobacco! And, my dear boy, it is +good to be unselfish and generous; but don’t carry that too far. It +will not do to give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the +tallow-trade; you must know where to find yourself. However, I shall +put no veto on your going. Wait until I can get off Committee, and I’ll +run over with you.” + +So Deronda went according to his will. But not before he had spent some +hours with Hans Meyrick, and been introduced to the mother and sisters +in the Chelsea home. The shy girls watched and registered every look of +their brother’s friend, declared by Hans to have been the salvation of +him, a fellow like nobody else, and, in fine, a brick. They so +thoroughly accepted Deronda as an ideal, that when he was gone the +youngest set to work, under the criticism of the two elder girls, to +paint him as Prince Camaralzaman. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + “This is true the poet sings, + That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow + Is remembering happier things.” + —TENNYSON: _In Memoriam_. + + +On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on +the Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to +England, with the understanding that his education was finished, and +that he was somehow to take his place in English society; but though, +in deference to Sir Hugo’s wish, and to fence off idleness, he had +begun to read law, this apparent decision had been without other result +than to deepen the roots of indecision. His old love of boating had +revived with the more force now that he was in town with the +Mallingers, because he could nowhere else get the same still seclusion +which the river gave him. He had a boat of his own at Putney, and +whenever Sir Hugo did not want him, it was his chief holiday to row +till past sunset and come in again with the stars. Not that he was in a +sentimental stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative mood +perhaps more common in the young men of our day—that of questioning +whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I +mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of +questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which +somebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a +splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be +hampered with ideas which, since they left an accomplished Whig like +himself unobstructed, could be no better than spectral illusions; +especially as Deronda set himself against authorship—a vocation which +is understood to turn foolish thinking into funds. + +Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped, +his mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only +disguised traces of the seraphic boy “trailing clouds of glory.” Still, +even one who had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at +him with slow recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze +which Gwendolen chose to call “dreadful,” though it had really a very +mild sort of scrutiny. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches +of song, had turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at +his lithe, powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have +been enough for an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing +tenor such as nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his +hands: they are not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem +to have only a deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, +firmly-grasping hands, such as Titian has painted in a picture where he +wanted to show the combination of refinement with force. And there is +something of a likeness, too, between the faces belonging to the +hands—in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the perpendicular brow, the +calmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer: thoroughly +terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a human +dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations. + +Such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a +workman, for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting +his eyes to answer our question about the road. And often the grand +meanings of faces as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the +impressions that happen just now to be of importance in relation to +Deronda, rowing on the Thames in a very ordinary equipment for a young +Englishman at leisure, and passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of +an adventure in which his appearance was likely to play any part. In +fact, he objected very strongly to the notion, which others had not +allowed him to escape, that his appearance was of a kind to draw +attention; and hints of this, intended to be complimentary, found an +angry resonance in him, coming from mingled experiences, to which a +clue has already been given. His own face in the glass had during many +years associated for him with thoughts of some one whom he must be +like—one about whose character and lot he continually wondered, and +never dared to ask. + +In the neighborhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o’clock, the +river was no solitude. Several persons were sauntering on the +towing-path, and here and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been +rowing fast to get over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great +barge advancing toward him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his +oar within a couple of yards of the river-brink. He was all the while +unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his +throat all the way up the river—the gondolier’s song in the _Otello_, +where Rossini has worthily set to music the immortal words of Dante, + + “Nessun maggior dolore + Che ricordarsi del tempo felice + Nella miseria”:[*] + + [* Dante’s words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines at + the head of the chapter.] + +and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail +“nella miseria” was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three +or four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing +the bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman +in the boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal +sounds came with more significance than if they had been an +insect-murmur amidst the sum of current noises. Deronda, awaiting the +barge, now turning his head to the river-side, and saw at a few yards’ +distant from him a figure which might have been an impersonation of the +misery he was unconsciously giving voice to: a girl hardly more than +eighteen, of low slim figure, with most delicate little face, her dark +curls pushed behind her ears under a large black hat, a long woolen +cloak over her shoulders. Her hands were hanging down clasped before +her, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look of immovable, +statue-like despair. This strong arrest of his attention made him cease +singing: apparently his voice had entered her inner world without her +taking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased she +changed her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened +glance, met Deronda’s face. It was but a couple of moments, but that +seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her +look was something like that of a fawn or other gentle animal before it +turns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity +which yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. In +fact, it seemed to Deronda that she was only half conscious of her +surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of +bewilderment? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her; +but the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring +bench under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her: +poorly-dressed, melancholy women are common sights; it was only the +delicate beauty, picturesque lines and color of the image that was +exceptional, and these conditions made it more markedly impossible that +he should obtrude his interest upon her. He began to row away and was +soon far up the river; but no other thoughts were busy enough quite to +expel that pale image of unhappy girlhood. He fell again and again to +speculating on the probable romance that lay behind that loneliness and +look of desolation; then to smile at his own share in the prejudice +that interesting faces must have interesting adventures; then to +justify himself for feeling that sorrow was the more tragic when it +befell delicate, childlike beauty. + +“I should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly +and vulgar,” he said to himself. But there was no denying that the +attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was clear to +him as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with +small, small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over +the girl-tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as +if they were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless +drag wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the +red moment-hand of their own death. Deronda of late, in his solitary +excursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties about his own +course; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont +to have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that +the new image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed +to him the strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting +into that routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its +wrong-doing, and take opinions as mere professional equipment—why he +should not draw strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled +scheme of things. + +He used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken +back by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn +passivity which easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow +light, when thinking and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what +in other hours may have seemed argument takes the quality of passionate +vision. By the time he had come back again with the tide past Richmond +Bridge the sun was near setting: and the approach of his favorite +hour—with its deepening stillness and darkening masses of tree and +building between the double glow of the sky and the river—disposed him +to linger as if they had been an unfinished strain of music. He looked +out for a perfectly solitary spot where he could lodge his boat against +the bank, and, throwing himself on his back with his head propped on +the cushions, could watch out the light of sunset and the opening of +that bead-roll which some oriental poet describes as God’s call to the +little stars, who each answer, “Here am I.” He chose a spot in the bend +of the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where he had a great breadth of +water before him reflecting the glory of the sky, while he himself was +in shadow. He lay with his hands behind his head, propped on a level +with the boat’s edge, so that he could see all round him, but could not +be seen by any one at a few yards’ distance; and for a long while he +never turned his eyes from the view right in front of him. He was +forgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-involuntary +identification of himself with the objects he was looking at, thinking +how far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till his +own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape—when +the sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was +bordered by a line of willow bushes, made him turn his glance +thitherward. In the first moment he had a darting presentiment about +the moving figure; and now he could see the small face with the strange +dying sunlight upon it. He feared to frighten her by a sudden movement, +and watched her with motionless attention. She looked round, but seemed +only to gather security from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among +the willows, and immediately took off her woolen cloak. Presently she +seated herself and deliberately dipped the cloak in the water, holding +it there a little while, then taking it out with effort, rising from +her seat as she did so. By this time Deronda felt sure that she meant +to wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no +longer time to hesitate about frightening her. He rose and seized his +oar to ply across; happily her position lay a little below him. The +poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery from the +opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding her cloak half out +of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if she kept a faint +hope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was accidentally +coming toward her. But soon he was within brief space of her, steadying +his boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently, + +“Don’t be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can +do to help you.” + +She raised her head and looked up at him. His face now was toward the +light, and she knew it again. But she did not speak for a few moments +which were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. At last she +said in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested +foreignness and yet was not foreign, “I saw you before,” and then added +dreamily, after a like pause, “nella miseria.” + +Deronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed +that her mind was weakened by distress and hunger. + +“It was you, singing?” she went on, hesitatingly—“Nessun maggior +dolore.” The mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones +seemed to give the melody to Deronda’s ear. + +“Ah, yes,” he said, understanding now, “I am often singing them. But I +fear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me take you in my +boat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak—let me take it.” + +He would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he +should scare her. Even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and +clutched the cloak more tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him +with a question in them as she said, “You look good. Perhaps it is +God’s command.” + +“Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm +come to you.” + +She rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak +and then letting it fall on the ground—it was too heavy for her tired +arms. Her little woman’s figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands +together one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward +while she leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face, +was unspeakably touching. + +“Great God!” the words escaped Deronda in a tone so low and solemn that +they seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. The agitating +impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that +lay close to his deepest interest in the fates of women—“perhaps my +mother was like this one.” The old thought had come now with a new +impetus of mingled feeling, and urged that exclamation in which both +East and West have for ages concentrated their awe in the presence of +inexorable calamity. + +The low-toned words seemed to have some reassurance in them for the +hearer: she stepped forward close to the boat’s side, and Deronda put +out his hand, hoping now that she would let him help her in. She had +already put her tiny hand into his which closed around it, when some +new thought struck her, and drawing back she said, + +“I have nowhere to go—nobody belonging to me in all this land.” + +“I will take you to a lady who has daughters,” said Deronda, +immediately. He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched +home and cruel friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in +the near background. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly than +ever, + +“Do you belong to the theatre?” + +“No; I have nothing to do with the theatre,” said Deronda, in a decided +tone. Then beseechingly, “I will put you in perfect safety at once; +with a lady, a good woman; I am sure she will be kind. Let us lose no +time: you will make yourself ill. Life may still become sweet to you. +There are good people—there are good women who will take care of you.” + +She drew backward no more, but stepped in easily, as if she were used +to such action, and sat down on the cushions. + +“You had a covering for your head,” said Deronda. + +“My hat?” (She lifted up her hands to her head.) “It is quite hidden in +the bush.” + +“I will find it,” said Deronda, putting out his hand deprecatingly as +she attempted to rise. “The boat is fixed.” + +He jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak, +wringing it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat. + +“We must carry the cloak away, to prevent any one who may have noticed +you from thinking you have been drowned,” he said, cheerfully, as he +got in again and presented the old hat to her. “I wish I had any other +garment than my coat to offer you. But shall you mind throwing it over +your shoulders while we are on the water? It is quite an ordinary thing +to do, when people return late and are not enough provided with wraps.” +He held out the coat toward her with a smile, and there came a faint +melancholy smile in answer, as she took it and put it on very cleverly. + +“I have some biscuits—should you like them?” said Deronda. + +“No; I cannot eat. I had still some money left to buy bread.” + +He began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along +swiftly for many minutes without speaking. She did not look at him, but +was watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if +she were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the +prospect of life instead of death. The twilight was deepening; the red +flush was all gone and the little stars were giving their answer one +after another. The moon was rising, but was still entangled among the +trees and buildings. The light was not such that he could distinctly +discern the expression of her features or her glance, but they were +distinctly before him nevertheless—features and a glance which seemed +to have given a fuller meaning for him to the human face. Among his +anxieties one was dominant: his first impression about her, that her +mind might be disordered, had not been quite dissipated: the project of +suicide was unmistakable, and given a deeper color to every other +suspicious sign. He longed to begin a conversation, but abstained, +wishing to encourage the confidence that might induce her to speak +first. At last she did speak. + +“I like to listen to the oar.” + +“So do I.” + +“If you had not come, I should have been dead now.” + +“I cannot bear you to speak of that. I hope you will never be sorry +that I came.” + +“I cannot see how I shall be glad to live. The _maggior dolore_ and the +_miseria_ have lasted longer than the _tempo felice_.” She paused and +then went on dreamily,—“_Dolore—miseria_—I think those words are +alive.” + +Deronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he +shrank from appearing to claim the authority of a benefactor, or to +treat her with the less reverence because she was in distress. She went +on musingly, + +“I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the +Eternal. I know our fathers slew their children and then slew +themselves, to keep their souls pure. I meant it so. But now I am +commanded to live. I cannot see how I shall live.” + +“You will find friends. I will find them for you.” + +She shook her head and said mournfully, “Not my mother and brother. I +cannot find them.” + +“You are English? You must be—speaking English so perfectly.” + +She did not answer immediately, but looked at Deronda again, straining +to see him in the double light. Until now she had been watching the +oar. It seemed as if she were half roused, and wondered which part of +her impression was dreaming and which waking. Sorrowful isolation had +benumbed her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward +and inward was continually slipping away from her. Her look was full of +wondering timidity such as the forsaken one in the desert might have +lifted to the angelic vision before she knew whether his message was in +anger or in pity. + +“You want to know if I am English?” she said at last, while Deronda was +reddening nervously under a gaze which he felt more fully than he saw. + +“I want to know nothing except what you like to tell me,” he said, +still uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. “Perhaps it is +not good for you to talk.” + +“Yes, I will tell you. I am English-born. But I am a Jewess.” + +Deronda was silent, inwardly wondering that he had not said this to +himself before, though any one who had seen delicate-faced Spanish +girls might simply have guessed her to be Spanish. + +“Do you despise me for it?” she said presently in low tones, which had +a sadness that pierced like a cry from a small dumb creature in fear. + +“Why should I?” said Deronda. “I am not so foolish.” + +“I know many Jews are bad.” + +“So are many Christians. But I should not think it fair for you to +despise me because of that.” + +“My mother and brother were good. But I shall never find them. I am +come a long way—from abroad. I ran away; but I cannot tell you—I +cannot speak of it. I thought I might find my mother again—God would +guide me. But then I despaired. This morning when the light came, I +felt as if one word kept sounding within me—Never! never! But now—I +begin—to think—” her words were broken by rising sobs—“I am +commanded to live—perhaps we are going to her.” + +With an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. He hoped +that this passionate weeping might relieve her excitement. Meanwhile he +was inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present +himself with her in Park Lane—the course which he had at first +unreflectingly determined on. No one kinder and more gentle than Lady +Mallinger; but it was hardly probable that she would be at home; and he +had a shuddering sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful +image of womanhood—of glaring lights and fine staircases, and perhaps +chilling suspicious manners from lady’s maid and housekeeper, that +might scare the mind already in a state of dangerous susceptibility. +But to take her to any other shelter than a home already known to him +was not to be contemplated: he was full of fears about the issue of the +adventure which had brought on him a responsibility all the heavier for +the strong and agitating impression this childlike creature had made on +him. But another resource came to mind: he could venture to take her to +Mrs. Meyrick’s—to the small house at Chelsea—where he had been often +enough since his return from abroad to feel sure that he could appeal +there to generous hearts, which had a romantic readiness to believe in +innocent need and to help it. Hans Meyrick was safe away in Italy, and +Deronda felt the comfort of presenting himself with his charge at a +house where he would be met by a motherly figure of quakerish neatness, +and three girls who hardly knew of any evil closer to them than what +lay in history-books, and dramas, and would at once associate a lovely +Jewess with Rebecca in _Ivanhoe_, besides thinking that everything they +did at Deronda’s request would be done for their idol, Hans. The vision +of the Chelsea home once raised, Deronda no longer hesitated. + +The rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed +long. Happily his charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and +submitted like a tired child. When they were in the cab, she laid down +her hat and tried to rest her head, but the jolting movement would not +let it rest. Still she dozed, and her sweet head hung helpless, first +on one side, then on the other. + +“They are too good to have any fear about taking her in,” thought +Deronda. Her person, her voice, her exquisite utterance, were one +strong appeal to belief and tenderness. Yet what had been the history +which had brought her to this desolation? He was going on a strange +errand—to ask shelter for this waif. Then there occurred to him the +beautiful story Plutarch somewhere tells of the Delphic women: how when +the Maenads, outworn with their torch-lit wanderings, lay down to sleep +in the market-place, the matrons came and stood silently round them to +keep guard over their slumbers; then, when they waked, ministered to +them tenderly and saw them safely to their own borders. He could trust +the women he was going to for having hearts as good. + +Deronda felt himself growing older this evening and entering on a new +phase in finding a life to which his own had come—perhaps as a rescue; +but how to make sure that snatching from death was rescue? The moment +of finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and +exultation as the moment of finding an idea. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + Life is a various mother: now she dons + Her plumes and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs + With head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes + On lackeys who attend her; now she dwells + Grim-clad, up darksome alleys, breathes hot gin, + And screams in pauper riot. + + But to these + She came a frugal matron, neat and deft, + With cheerful morning thoughts and quick device + To find the much in little. + + +Mrs. Meyrick’s house was not noisy: the front parlor looked on the +river, and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to +her daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the +small double room where a lamp and two candles were burning. The +candles were on a table apart for Kate, who was drawing illustrations +for a publisher; the lamp was not only for the reader but for Amy and +Mab, who were embroidering satin cushions for “the great world.” + +Outside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light +through the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame; +but it is pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space +in our foggy London have been and still are the homes of a culture the +more spotlessly free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered +everything like display an impersonal question, and all the grand shows +of the world simply a spectacle which rouses petty rivalry or vain +effort after possession. + +The Meyricks’ was a home of that kind: and they all clung to this +particular house in a row because its interior was filled with objects +always in the same places, which, for the mother held memories of her +marriage time, and for the young ones seemed as necessary and +uncriticised a part of their world as the stars of the Great Bear seen +from the back windows. Mrs. Meyrick had borne much stint of other +matters that she might be able to keep some engravings specially +cherished by her husband; and the narrow spaces of wall held a world +history in scenes and heads which the children had early learned by +heart. The chairs and tables were also old friends preferred to new. +But in these two little parlors with no furniture that a broker would +have cared to cheapen except the prints and piano, there was space and +apparatus for a wide-glancing, nicely-select life, opened to the +highest things in music, painting and poetry. I am not sure that in the +times of greatest scarcity, before Kate could get paid-work, these +ladies had always had a servant to light their fires and sweep their +rooms; yet they were fastidious in some points, and could not believe +that the manners of ladies in the fashionable world were so full of +coarse selfishness, petty quarreling, and slang as they are represented +to be in what are called literary photographs. The Meyricks had their +little oddities, streaks of eccentricity from the mother’s blood as +well as the father’s, their minds being like mediæval houses with +unexpected recesses and openings from this into that, flights of steps +and sudden outlooks. + +But mother and daughters were all united by a triple bond—family love; +admiration for the finest work, the best action; and habitual industry. +Hans’ desire to spend some of his money in making their lives more +luxurious had been resisted by all of them, and both they and he had +been thus saved from regrets at the threatened triumphs of his yearning +for art over the attractions of secured income—a triumph that would +by-and-by oblige him to give up his fellowship. They could all afford +to laugh at his Gavarni-caricatures and to hold him blameless in +following a natural bent which their unselfishness and independence had +left without obstacle. It was enough for them to go on in their old +way, only having a grand treat of opera-going (to the gallery) when +Hans came home on a visit. + +Seeing the group they made this evening, one could hardly wish them to +change their way of life. They were all alike small, and so in due +proportion to their miniature rooms. Mrs. Meyrick was reading aloud +from a French book; she was a lively little woman, half French, half +Scotch, with a pretty articulateness of speech that seemed to make +daylight in her hearer’s understanding. Though she was not yet fifty, +her rippling hair, covered by a quakerish net cap, was chiefly gray, +but her eyebrows were brown as the bright eyes below them; her black +dress, almost like a priest’s cassock with its rows of buttons, suited +a neat figure hardly five feet high. The daughters were to match the +mother, except that Mab had Hans’ light hair and complexion, with a +bossy, irregular brow, and other quaintnesses that reminded one of him. +Everything about them was compact, from the firm coils of their hair, +fastened back _à la Chinoise_, to their gray skirts in Puritan +nonconformity with the fashion, which at that time would have demanded +that four feminine circumferences should fill all the free space in the +front parlor. All four, if they had been wax-work, might have been +packed easily in a fashionable lady’s traveling trunk. Their faces +seemed full of speech, as if their minds had been shelled, after the +manner of horse-chestnuts, and become brightly visible. The only large +thing of its kind in the room was Hafiz, the Persian cat, comfortably +poised on the brown leather back of a chair, and opening his large eyes +now and then to see that the lower animals were not in any mischief. + +The book Mrs. Meyrick had before her was Erckmann-Chatrian’s _Historie +d’un Conscrit_. She had just finished reading it aloud, and Mab, who +had let her work fall on the ground while she stretched her head +forward and fixed her eyes on the reader, exclaimed, + +“I think that is the finest story in the world.” + +“Of course, Mab!” said Amy, “it is the last you have heard. Everything +that pleases you is the best in its turn.” + +“It is hardly to be called a story,” said Kate. “It is a bit of history +brought near us with a strong telescope. We can see the soldiers’ +faces: no, it is more than that—we can hear everything—we can almost +hear their hearts beat.” + +“I don’t care what you call it,” said Mab, flirting away her thimble. +“Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something +good, something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me +like Schiller—I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. I must +kiss you instead, little mother!” She threw her arms round her mother’s +neck. + +“Whenever you are in that mood, Mab, down goes your work,” said Amy. +“It would be doing something good to finish your cushion without +soiling it.” + +“Oh—oh—oh!” groaned Mab, as she stooped to pick up her work and +thimble. “I wish I had three wounded conscripts to take care of.” + +“You would spill their beef tea while you were talking,” said Amy. + +“Poor Mab! don’t be hard on her,” said the mother. “Give me the +embroidery now, child. You go on with your enthusiasm, and I will go on +with the pink and white poppy.” + +“Well, ma, I think you are more caustic than Amy,” said Kate, while she +drew her head back to look at her drawing. + +“Oh—oh—oh!” cried Mab again, rising and stretching her arms. “I wish +something wonderful would happen. I feel like the deluge. The waters of +the great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened. I +must sit down and play the scales.” + +Mab was opening the piano while the others were laughing at this +climax, when a cab stopped before the house, and there forthwith came a +quick rap of the knocker. + +“Dear me!” said Mrs. Meyrick, starting up, “it is after ten, and Phœbe +is gone to bed.” She hastened out, leaving the parlor door open. + +“Mr. Deronda!” The girls could hear this exclamation from their mamma. +Mab clasped her hands, saying in a loud whisper, “There now! something +_is_ going to happen.” Kate and Amy gave up their work in amazement. +But Deronda’s tone in reply was so low that they could not hear his +words, and Mrs. Meyrick immediately closed the parlor door. + +“I know I am trusting to your goodness in a most extraordinary way,” +Deronda went on, after giving his brief narrative; “but you can imagine +how helpless I feel with a young creature like this on my hands. I +could not go with her among strangers, and in her nervous state I +should dread taking her into a house full of servants. I have trusted +to your mercy. I hope you will not think my act unwarrantable.” + +“On the contrary. You have honored me by trusting me. I see your +difficulty. Pray bring her in. I will go and prepare the girls.” + +While Deronda went back to the cab, Mrs. Meyrick turned into the parlor +again and said: “Here is somebody to take care of instead of your +wounded conscripts, Mab: a poor girl who was going to drown herself in +despair. Mr. Deronda found her only just in time to save her. He +brought her along in his boat, and did not know what else it would be +safe to do with her, so he has trusted us and brought her here. It +seems she is a Jewess, but quite refined, he says—knowing Italian and +music.” + +The three girls, wondering and expectant, came forward and stood near +each other in mute confidence that they were all feeling alike under +this appeal to their compassion. Mab looked rather awe-stricken, as if +this answer to her wish were something preternatural. + +Meanwhile Deronda going to the door of the cab where the pale face was +now gazing out with roused observation, said, “I have brought you to +some of the kindest people in the world: there are daughters like you. +It is a happy home. Will you let me take you to them?” + +She stepped out obediently, putting her hand in his and forgetting her +hat; and when Deronda led her into the full light of the parlor where +the four little women stood awaiting her, she made a picture that would +have stirred much duller sensibilities than theirs. At first she was a +little dazed by the sudden light, and before she had concentrated her +glance he had put her hand into the mother’s. He was inwardly rejoicing +that the Meyricks were so small: the dark-curled head was the highest +among them. The poor wanderer could not be afraid of these gentle faces +so near hers: and now she was looking at each of them in turn while the +mother said, “You must be weary, poor child.” + +“We will take care of you—we will comfort you—we will love you,” +cried Mab, no longer able to restrain herself, and taking the small +right hand caressingly between both her own. This gentle welcoming +warmth was penetrating the bewildered one: she hung back just enough to +see better the four faces in front of her, whose good will was being +reflected in hers, not in any smile, but in that undefinable change +which tells us that anxiety is passing in contentment. For an instant +she looked up at Deronda, as if she were referring all this mercy to +him, and then again turning to Mrs. Meyrick, said with more +collectedness in her sweet tones than he had heard before, + +“I am a stranger. I am a Jewess. You might have thought I was wicked.” + +“No, we are sure you are good,” burst out Mab. + +“We think no evil of you, poor child. You shall be safe with us,” said +Mrs. Meyrick. “Come now and sit down. You must have some food, and then +you must go to rest.” + +The stranger looked up again at Deronda, who said, + +“You will have no more fears with these friends? You will rest +to-night?” + +“Oh, I should not fear. I should rest. I think these are the +ministering angels.” + +Mrs. Meyrick wanted to lead her to seat, but again hanging back gently, +the poor weary thing spoke as if with a scruple at being received +without a further account of herself. + +“My name is Mirah Lapidoth. I am come a long way, all the way from +Prague by myself. I made my escape. I ran away from dreadful things. I +came to find my mother and brother in London. I had been taken from my +mother when I was little, but I thought I could find her again. I had +trouble—the houses were all gone—I could not find her. It has been a +long while, and I had not much money. That is why I am in distress.” + +“Our mother will be good to you,” cried Mab. “See what a nice little +mother she is!” + +“Do sit down now,” said Kate, moving a chair forward, while Amy ran to +get some tea. + +Mirah resisted no longer, but seated herself with perfect grace, +crossing her little feet, laying her hands one over the other on her +lap, and looking at her friends with placid reverence; whereupon Hafiz, +who had been watching the scene restlessly came forward with tail erect +and rubbed himself against her ankles. Deronda felt it time to go. + +“Will you allow me to come again and inquire—perhaps at five +to-morrow?” he said to Mrs. Meyrick. + +“Yes, pray; we shall have had time to make acquaintance then.” + +“Good-bye,” said Deronda, looking down at Mirah, and putting out his +hand. She rose as she took it, and the moment brought back to them both +strongly the other moment when she had first taken that outstretched +hand. She lifted her eyes to his and said with reverential fervor, “The +God of our fathers bless you and deliver you from all evil as you have +delivered me. I did not believe there was any man so good. None before +have thought me worthy of the best. You found me poor and miserable, +yet you have given me the best.” + +Deronda could not speak, but with silent adieux to the Meyricks, +hurried away. + + + + +BOOK III.—MAIDENS CHOOSING. + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + “I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say, ‘’Tis + all barren’: and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not + cultivate the fruits it offers.”—STERNE: _Sentimental Journey_. + + +To say that Deronda was romantic would be to misrepresent him; but +under his calm and somewhat self-repressed exterior there was a fervor +which made him easily find poetry and romance among the events of +everyday life. And perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever +in the world except for those phlegmatic natures who I suspect would in +any age have regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. They +exist very easily in the same room with the microscope and even in +railway carriages: what banishes them in the vacuum in gentlemen and +lady passengers. How should all the apparatus of heaven and earth, from +the farthest firmament to the tender bosom of the mother who nourished +us, make poetry for a mind that had no movements of awe and tenderness, +no sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, and +back again from the distant to the near? + +To Deronda this event of finding Mirah was as heart-stirring as +anything that befell Orestes or Rinaldo. He sat up half the night, +living again through the moments since he had first discerned Mirah on +the river-brink, with the fresh and fresh vividness which belongs to +emotive memory. When he took up a book to try and dull this urgency of +inward vision, the printed words were no more than a network through +which he saw and heard everything as clearly as before—saw not only +the actual events of two hours, but possibilities of what had been and +what might be which those events were enough to feed with the warm +blood of passionate hope and fear. Something in his own experience +caused Mirah’s search after her mother to lay hold with peculiar force +on his imagination. The first prompting of sympathy was to aid her in +her search: if given persons were extant in London there were ways of +finding them, as subtle as scientific experiment, the right machinery +being set at work. But here the mixed feelings which belonged to +Deronda’s kindred experience naturally transfused themselves into his +anxiety on behalf of Mirah. + +The desire to know his own mother, or to know about her, was constantly +haunted with dread; and in imagining what might befall Mirah it quickly +occurred to him that finding the mother and brother from whom she had +been parted when she was a little one might turn out to be a calamity. +When she was in the boat she said that her mother and brother were +good; but the goodness might have been chiefly in her own ignorant +innocence and yearning memory, and the ten or twelve years since the +parting had been time enough for much worsening. Spite of his strong +tendency to side with the objects of prejudice, and in general with +those who got the worst of it, his interest had never been practically +drawn toward existing Jews, and the facts he knew about them, whether +they walked conspicuous in fine apparel or lurked in by-streets, were +chiefly of a sort most repugnant to him. Of learned and accomplished +Jews he took it for granted that they had dropped their religion, and +wished to be merged in the people of their native lands. Scorn flung at +a Jew as such would have roused all his sympathy in griefs of +inheritance; but the indiscriminate scorn of a race will often strike a +specimen who has well earned it on his own account, and might fairly be +gibbeted as a rascally son of Adam. It appears that the Caribs, who +know little of theology, regard thieving as a practice peculiarly +connected with Christian tenets, and probably they could allege +experimental grounds for this opinion. Deronda could not escape (who +can?) knowing ugly stories of Jewish characteristics and occupations; +and though one of his favorite protests was against the severance of +past and present history, he was like others who shared his protest, in +never having cared to reach any more special conclusions about actual +Jews than that they retained the virtues and vices of a long-oppressed +race. But now that Mirah’s longing roused his mind to a closer survey +of details, very disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might +be to find out this middle-aged Jewess and her son. To be sure, there +was the exquisite refinement and charm of the creature herself to make +a presumption in favor of her immediate kindred, but—he must wait to +know more: perhaps through Mrs. Meyrick he might gather some guiding +hints from Mirah’s own lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks—all the +sweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him +shrink the more from giving her, either ideally or practically, an +association with what was hateful or contaminating. But these fine +words with which we fumigate and becloud unpleasant facts are not the +language in which we think. Deronda’s thinking went on in rapid images +of what might be: he saw himself guided by some official scout into a +dingy street; he entered through a dim doorway, and saw a hawk-eyed +woman, rough-headed, and unwashed, cheapening a hungry girl’s last bit +of finery; or in some quarter only the more hideous for being smarter, +he found himself under the breath of a young Jew talkative and +familiar, willing to show his acquaintance with gentlemen’s tastes, and +not fastidious in any transactions with which they would favor him—and +so on through the brief chapter of his experience in this kind. Excuse +him: his mind was not apt to run spontaneously into insulting ideas, or +to practice a form of wit which identifies Moses with the advertisement +sheet; but he was just now governed by dread, and if Mirah’s parents +had been Christian, the chief difference would have been that his +forebodings would have been fed with wider knowledge. It was the habit +of his mind to connect dread with unknown parentage, and in this case +as well as his own there was enough to make the connection reasonable. + +But what was to be done with Mirah? She needed shelter and protection +in the fullest sense, and all his chivalrous sentiment roused itself to +insist that the sooner and the more fully he could engage for her the +interest of others besides himself, the better he should fulfill her +claims on him. He had no right to provide for her entirely, though he +might be able to do so; the very depth of the impression she had +produced made him desire that she should understand herself to be +entirely independent of him; and vague visions of the future which he +tried to dispel as fantastic left their influence in an anxiety +stronger than any motive he could give for it, that those who saw his +actions closely should be acquainted from the first with the history of +his relation to Mirah. He had learned to hate secrecy about the grand +ties and obligations of his life—to hate it the more because a strong +spell of interwoven sensibilities hindered him from breaking such +secrecy. Deronda had made a vow to himself that—since the truths which +disgrace mortals are not all of their own making—the truth should +never be made a disgrace to another by his act. He was not without +terror lest he should break this vow, and fall into the apologetic +philosophy which explains the world into containing nothing better than +one’s own conduct. + +At one moment he resolved to tell the whole of his adventure to Sir +Hugo and Lady Mallinger the next morning at breakfast, but the +possibility that something quite new might reveal itself on his next +visit to Mrs. Meyrick’s checked this impulse, and he finally went to +sleep on the conclusion that he would wait until that visit had been +made. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + “It will hardly be denied that even in this frail and corrupted world, + we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well + as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a signature and stamp of + virtue, as to make our judgment of them a matter of intuition rather + than the result of continued examination.”—ALEXANDER KNOX: quoted in + Southey’s Life of Wesley. + + +Mirah said that she had slept well that night; and when she came down +in Mab’s black dress, her dark hair curling in fresh fibrils as it +gradually dried from its plenteous bath, she looked like one who was +beginning to take comfort after the long sorrow and watching which had +paled her cheek and made blue semicircles under her eyes. It was Mab +who carried her breakfast and ushered her down—with some pride in the +effect produced by a pair of tiny felt slippers which she had rushed +out to buy because there were no shoes in the house small enough for +Mirah, whose borrowed dress ceased about her ankles and displayed the +cheap clothing that, moulding itself on her feet, seemed an adornment +as choice as the sheaths of buds. The farthing buckles were bijoux. + +“Oh, if you please, mamma?” cried Mab, clasping her hands and stooping +toward Mirah’s feet, as she entered the parlor; “look at the slippers, +how beautiful they fit! I declare she is like the Queen Budoor—‘two +delicate feet, the work of the protecting and all-recompensing Creator, +support her; and I wonder how they can sustain what is above them.’” + +Mirah looked down at her own feet in a childlike way and then smiled at +Mrs. Meyrick, who was saying inwardly, “One could hardly imagine this +creature having an evil thought. But wise people would tell me to be +cautious.” She returned Mirah’s smile and said, “I fear the feet have +had to sustain their burden a little too often lately. But to-day she +will rest and be my companion.” + +“And she will tell you so many things and I shall not hear them,” +grumbled Mab, who felt herself in the first volume of a delightful +romance and obliged to miss some chapters because she had to go to +pupils. + +Kate was already gone to make sketches along the river, and Amy was +away on business errands. It was what the mother wished, to be alone +with this stranger, whose story must be a sorrowful one, yet was +needful to be told. + +The small front parlor was as good as a temple that morning. The +sunlight was on the river and soft air came in through the open window; +the walls showed a glorious silent cloud of witnesses—the Virgin +soaring amid her cherubic escort; grand Melancholia with her solemn +universe; the Prophets and Sibyls; the School of Athens; the Last +Supper; mystic groups where far-off ages made one moment; grave Holbein +and Rembrandt heads; the Tragic Muse; last-century children at their +musings or their play; Italian poets—all were there through the medium +of a little black and white. The neat mother who had weathered her +troubles, and come out of them with a face still cheerful, was sorting +colored wools for her embroidery. Hafiz purred on the window-ledge, the +clock on the mantle-piece ticked without hurry, and the occasional +sound of wheels seemed to lie outside the more massive central quiet. +Mrs. Meyrick thought that this quiet might be the best invitation to +speech on the part of her companion, and chose not to disturb it by +remark. Mirah sat opposite in her former attitude, her hands clasped on +her lap, her ankles crossed, her eyes at first traveling slowly over +the objects around her, but finally resting with a sort of placid +reverence on Mrs. Meyrick. At length she began to speak softly. + +“I remember my mother’s face better than anything; yet I was not seven +when I was taken away, and I am nineteen now.” + +“I can understand that,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “There are some earliest +things that last the longest.” + +“Oh, yes, it was the earliest. I think my life began with waking up and +loving my mother’s face: it was so near to me, and her arms were round +me, and she sang to me. One hymn she sang so often, so often: and then +she taught me to sing it with her: it was the first I ever sang. They +were always Hebrew hymns she sang; and because I never knew the meaning +of the words they seemed full of nothing but our love and happiness. +When I lay in my little bed and it was all white above me, she used to +bend over me, between me and the white, and sing in a sweet, low voice. +I can dream myself back into that time when I am awake, and it often +comes back to me in my sleep—my hand is very little, I put it up to +her face and she kisses it. Sometimes in my dreams I begin to tremble +and think that we are both dead; but then I wake up and my hand lies +like this, and for a moment I hardly know myself. But if I could see my +mother again I should know her.” + +“You must expect some change after twelve years,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +gently. “See my grey hair: ten years ago it was bright brown. The days +and months pace over us like restless little birds, and leave the marks +of their feet backward and forward; especially when they are like birds +with heavy hearts—then they tread heavily.” + +“Ah, I am sure her heart has been heavy for want of me. But to feel her +joy if we could meet again, and I could make her know I love her and +give her deep comfort after all her mourning! If that could be, I +should mind nothing; I should be glad that I have lived through my +trouble. I did despair. The world seemed miserable and wicked; none +helped me so that I could bear their looks and words; I felt that my +mother was dead, and death was the only way to her. But then in the +last moment—yesterday, when I longed for the water to close over +me—and I thought that death was the best image of mercy—then goodness +came to me living, and I felt trust in the living. And—it is +strange—but I began to hope that she was living too. And now I with +you—here—this morning, peace and hope have come into me like a flood. +I want nothing; I can wait; because I hope and believe and am +grateful—oh, so grateful! You have not thought evil of me—you have +not despised me.” + +Mirah spoke with low-toned fervor, and sat as still as a picture all +the while. + +“Many others would have felt as we do, my dear,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +feeling a mist come over her eyes as she looked at her work. + +“But I did not meet them—they did not come to me.” + +“How was it that you were taken from your mother?” + +“Ah, I am a long while coming to that. It is dreadful to speak of, yet +I must tell you—I must tell you everything. My father—it was he that +took me away. I thought we were only going on a little journey; and I +was pleased. There was a box with all my little things in. But we went +on board a ship, and got farther and farther away from the land. Then I +was ill; and I thought it would never end—it was the first misery, and +it seemed endless. But at last we landed. I knew nothing then, and +believed what my father said. He comforted me, and told me I should go +back to my mother. But it was America we had reached, and it was long +years before we came back to Europe. At first I often asked my father +when we were going back; and I tried to learn writing fast, because I +wanted to write to my mother; but one day when he found me trying to +write a letter, he took me on his knee and told me that my mother and +brother were dead; that was why we did not go back. I remember my +brother a little; he carried me once; but he was not always at home. I +believed my father when he said that they were dead. I saw them under +the earth when he said they were there, with their eyes forever closed. +I never thought of its not being true; and I used to cry every night in +my bed for a long while. Then when she came so often to me, in my +sleep, I thought she must be living about me though I could not always +see her, and that comforted me. I was never afraid in the dark, because +of that; and very often in the day I used to shut my eyes and bury my +face and try to see her and to hear her singing. I came to do that at +last without shutting my eyes.” + +Mirah paused with a sweet content in her face, as if she were having +her happy vision, while she looked out toward the river. + +“Still your father was not unkind to you, I hope,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +after a minute, anxious to recall her. + +“No; he petted me, and took pains to teach me. He was an actor; and I +found out, after, that the ‘Coburg’ I used to hear of his going to at +home was a theatre. But he had more to do with the theatre than acting. +He had not always been an actor; he had been a teacher, and knew many +languages. His acting was not very good; I think, but he managed the +stage, and wrote and translated plays. An Italian lady, a singer, lived +with us a long time. They both taught me, and I had a master besides, +who made me learn by heart and recite. I worked quite hard, though I +was so little; and I was not nine when I first went on the stage. I +could easily learn things, and I was not afraid. But then and ever +since I hated our way of life. My father had money, and we had finery +about us in a disorderly way; always there were men and women coming +and going; there was loud laughing and disputing, strutting, snapping +of fingers, jeering, faces I did not like to look at—though many +petted and caressed me. But then I remembered my mother. Even at first +when I understood nothing, I shrank away from all those things outside +me into companionship with thoughts that were not like them; and I +gathered thoughts very fast, because I read many things—plays and +poetry, Shakespeare and Schiller, and learned evil and good. My father +began to believe that I might be a great singer: my voice was +considered wonderful for a child; and he had the best teaching for me. +But it was painful that he boasted of me, and set me to sing for show +at any minute, as if I had been a musical box. Once when I was nine +years old, I played the part of a little girl who had been forsaken and +did not know it, and sat singing to herself while she played with +flowers. I did it without any trouble; but the clapping and all the +sounds of the theatre were hateful to me; and I never liked the praise +I had, because it all seemed very hard and unloving: I missed the love +and trust I had been born into. I made a life in my own thoughts quite +different from everything about me: I chose what seemed to me beautiful +out of the plays and everything, and made my world out of it; and it +was like a sharp knife always grazing me that we had two sorts of life +which jarred so with each other—women looking good and gentle on the +stage, and saying good things as if they felt them, and directly after +I saw them with coarse, ugly manners. My father sometimes noticed my +shrinking ways; and Signora said one day, when I had been rehearsing, +‘She will never be an artist: she has no notion of being anybody but +herself. That does very well now, but by-and-by you will see—she will +have no more face and action than a singing-bird.’ My father was angry, +and they quarreled. I sat alone and cried, because what she had said +was like a long unhappy future unrolled before me. I did not want to be +an artist; but this was what my father expected of me. After a while +Signora left us, and a governess used to come and give me lessons in +different things, because my father began to be afraid of my singing +too much; but I still acted from time to time. Rebellious feelings grew +stronger in me, and I wished to get away from this life; but I could +not tell where to go, and I dreaded the world. Besides, I felt it would +be wrong to leave my father: I dreaded doing wrong, for I thought I +might get wicked and hateful to myself, in the same way that many +others seemed hateful to me. For so long, so long I had never felt my +outside world happy; and if I got wicked I should lose my world of +happy thoughts where my mother lived with me. That was my childish +notion all through those years. Oh how long they were!” + +Mirah fell to musing again. + +“Had you no teaching about what was your duty?” said Mrs. Meyrick. She +did not like to say “religion”—finding herself on inspection rather +dim as to what the Hebrew religion might have turned into at this date. + +“No—only that I ought to do what my father wished. He did not follow +our religion at New York, and I think he wanted me not to know much +about it. But because my mother used to take me to the synagogue, and I +remembered sitting on her knee and looking through the railing and +hearing the chanting and singing, I longed to go. One day when I was +quite small I slipped out and tried to find the synagogue, but I lost +myself a long while till a peddler questioned me and took me home. My +father, missing me, had been much in fear, and was very angry. I too +had been so frightened at losing myself that it was long before I +thought of venturing out again. But after Signora left us we went to +rooms where our landlady was a Jewess and observed her religion. I +asked her to take me with her to the synagogue; and I read in her +prayer-books and Bible, and when I had money enough I asked her to buy +me books of my own, for these books seemed a closer companionship with +my mother: I knew that she must have looked at the very words and said +them. In that way I have come to know a little of our religion, and the +history of our people, besides piecing together what I read in plays +and other books about Jews and Jewesses; because I was sure my mother +obeyed her religion. I had left off asking my father about her. It is +very dreadful to say it, but I began to disbelieve him. I had found +that he did not always tell the truth, and made promises without +meaning to keep them; and that raised my suspicion that my mother and +brother were still alive though he had told me they were dead. For in +going over the past again as I got older and knew more, I felt sure +that my mother had been deceived, and had expected to see us back again +after a very little while; and my father taking me on his knee and +telling me that my mother and brother were both dead seemed to me now +but a bit of acting, to set my mind at rest. The cruelty of that +falsehood sank into me, and I hated all untruth because of it. I wrote +to my mother secretly: I knew the street, Colman Street, where we +lived, and that it was not Blackfriars Bridge and the Coburg, and that +our name was Cohen then, though my father called us Lapidoth, because, +he said, it was a name of his forefathers in Poland. I sent my letter +secretly; but no answer came, and I thought there was no hope for me. +Our life in America did not last much longer. My father suddenly told +me we were to pack up and go to Hamburg, and I was rather glad. I hoped +we might get among a different sort of people, and I knew German quite +well—some German plays almost all by heart. My father spoke it better +than he spoke English. I was thirteen then, and I seemed to myself +quite old—I knew so much, and yet so little. I think other children +cannot feel as I did. I had often wished that I had been drowned when I +was going away from my mother. But I set myself to obey and suffer: +what else could I do? One day when we were on our voyage, a new thought +came into my mind. I was not very ill that time, and I kept on deck a +good deal. My father acted and sang and joked to amuse people on board, +and I used often to hear remarks about him. One day, when I was looking +at the sea and nobody took notice of me, I overheard a gentleman say, +‘Oh, he is one of those clever Jews—a rascal, I shouldn’t wonder. +There’s no race like them for cunning in the men and beauty in the +women. I wonder what market he means that daughter for.’ When I heard +this it darted into my mind that the unhappiness in my life came from +my being a Jewess, and that always to the end the world would think +slightly of me and that I must bear it, for I should be judged by that +name; and it comforted me to believe that my suffering was part of the +affliction of my people, my part in the long song of mourning that has +been going on through ages and ages. For if many of our race were +wicked and made merry in their wickedness—what was that but part of +the affliction borne by the just among them, who were despised for the +sins of their brethren?—But you have not rejected me.” + +Mirah had changed her tone in this last sentence, having suddenly +reflected that at this moment she had reason not for complaint but for +gratitude. + +“And we will try to save you from being judged unjustly by others, my +poor child,” said Mrs. Meyrick, who had now given up all attempt at +going on with her work, and sat listening with folded hands and a face +hardly less eager than Mab’s would have been. “Go on, go on: tell me +all.” + +“After that we lived in different towns—Hamburg and Vienna, the +longest. I began to study singing again: and my father always got money +about the theatres. I think he brought a good deal of money from +America, I never knew why we left. For some time he was in great +spirits about my singing, and he made me rehearse parts and act +continually. He looked forward to my coming out in the opera. But +by-and-by it seemed that my voice would never be strong enough—it did +not fulfill its promise. My master at Vienna said, ‘Don’t strain it +further: it will never do for the public:—it is gold, but a thread of +gold dust.’ My father was bitterly disappointed: we were not so well +off at that time. I think I have not quite told you what I felt about +my father. I knew he was fond of me and meant to indulge me, and that +made me afraid of hurting him; but he always mistook what would please +me and give me happiness. It was his nature to take everything lightly; +and I soon left off asking him any questions about things that I cared +for much, because he always turned them off with a joke. He would even +ridicule our own people; and once when he had been imitating their +movements and their tones in praying, only to make others laugh, I +could not restrain myself—for I always had an anger in my heart about +my mother—and when we were alone, I said, ‘Father, you ought not to +mimic our own people before Christians who mock them: would it not be +bad if I mimicked you, that they might mock you?’ But he only shrugged +his shoulders and laughed and pinched my chin, and said, ‘You couldn’t +do it, my dear.’ It was this way of turning off everything, that made a +great wall between me and my father, and whatever I felt most I took +the most care to hide from him. For there were some things—when they +were laughed at I could not bear it: the world seemed like a hell to +me. Is this world and all the life upon it only like a farce or a +vaudeville, where you find no great meanings? Why then are there +tragedies and grand operas, where men do difficult things and choose to +suffer? I think it is silly to speak of all things as a joke. And I saw +that his wishing me to sing the greatest music, and parts in grand +operas, was only wishing for what would fetch the greatest price. That +hemmed in my gratitude for his affectionateness, and the tenderest +feeling I had toward him was pity. Yes, I did sometimes pity him. He +had aged and changed. Now he was no longer so lively. I thought he +seemed worse—less good to others than to me. Every now and then in the +latter years his gaiety went away suddenly, and he would sit at home +silent and gloomy; or he would come in and fling himself down and sob, +just as I have done myself when I have been in trouble. If I put my +hand on his knee and say, ‘What is the matter, father?’ he would make +no answer, but would draw my arm round his neck and put his arm round +me and go on crying. There never came any confidence between us; but +oh, I was sorry for him. At those moments I knew he must feel his life +bitter, and I pressed my cheek against his head and prayed. Those +moments were what most bound me to him; and I used to think how much my +mother once loved him, else she would not have married him. + +“But soon there came the dreadful time. We had been at Pesth and we +came back to Vienna. In spite of what my master Leo had said, my father +got me an engagement, not at the opera, but to take singing parts at a +suburb theatre in Vienna. He had nothing to do with the theatre then; I +did not understand what he did, but I think he was continually at a +gambling house, though he was careful always about taking me to the +theatre. I was very miserable. The plays I acted in were detestable to +me. Men came about us and wanted to talk to me: women and men seemed to +look at me with a sneering smile; it was no better than a fiery +furnace. Perhaps I make it worse than it was—you don’t know that life: +but the glare and the faces, and my having to go on and act and sing +what I hated, and then see people who came to stare at me behind the +scenes—it was all so much worse than when I was a little girl. I went +through with it; I did it; I had set my mind to obey my father and +work, for I saw nothing better that I could do. But I felt that my +voice was getting weaker, and I knew that my acting was not good except +when it was not really acting, but the part was one that I could be +myself in, and some feeling within me carried me along. That was seldom. + +“Then, in the midst of all this, the news came to me one morning that +my father had been taken to prison, and he had sent for me. He did not +tell me the reason why he was there, but he ordered me to go to an +address he gave me, to see a Count who would be able to get him +released. The address was to some public rooms where I was to ask for +the Count, and beg him to come to my father. I found him, and +recognized him as a gentleman whom I had seen the other night for the +first time behind the scenes. That agitated me, for I remembered his +way of looking at me and kissing my hand—I thought it was in mockery. +But I delivered my errand, and he promised to go immediately to my +father, who came home again that very evening, bringing the Count with +him. I now began to feel a horrible dread of this man, for he worried +me with his attentions, his eyes were always on me: I felt sure that +whatever else there might be in his mind toward me, below it all there +was scorn for the Jewess and the actress. And when he came to me the +next day in the theatre and would put my shawl around me, a terror took +hold of me; I saw that my father wanted me to look pleased. The Count +was neither very young nor very old; his hair and eyes were pale; he +was tall and walked heavily, and his face was heavy and grave except +when he looked at me. He smiled at me, and his smile went through me +with horror: I could not tell why he was so much worse to me than other +men. Some feelings are like our hearing: they come as sounds do, before +we know their reason. My father talked to me about him when we were +alone, and praised him—said what a good friend he had been. I said +nothing, because I supposed he had got my father out of prison. When +the Count came again, my father left the room. He asked me if I liked +being on the stage. I said No, I only acted in obedience to my father. +He always spoke French, and called me _petite ange_ and such things, +which I felt insulting. I knew he meant to make love to me, and I had +it firmly in my mind that a nobleman and one who was not a Jew could +have no love for me that was not half contempt. But then he told me +that I need not act any longer; he wished me to visit him at his +beautiful place, where I might be queen of everything. It was difficult +to me to speak, I felt so shaken with anger: I could only say, ‘I would +rather stay on the stage forever,’ and I left him there. Hurrying out +of the room I saw my father sauntering in the passage. My heart was +crushed. I went past him and locked myself up. It had sunk into me that +my father was in a conspiracy with that man against me. But the next +day he persuaded me to come out: he said that I had mistaken +everything, and he would explain: if I did not come out and act and +fulfill my engagement, we should be ruined and he must starve. So I +went on acting, and for a week or more the Count never came near me. My +father changed our lodgings, and kept at home except when he went to +the theatre with me. He began one day to speak discouragingly of my +acting, and say, I could never go on singing in public—I should lose +my voice—I ought to think of my future, and not put my nonsensical +feelings between me and my fortune. He said, ‘What will you do? You +will be brought down to sing and beg at people’s doors. You have had a +splendid offer and ought to accept it.’ I could not speak: a horror +took possession of me when I thought of my mother and of him. I felt +for the first time that I should not do wrong to leave him. But the +next day he told me that he had put an end to my engagement at the +theatre, and that we were to go to Prague. I was getting suspicious of +everything, and my will was hardening to act against him. It took us +two days to pack and get ready; and I had it in my mind that I might be +obliged to run away from my father, and then I would come to London and +try if it were possible to find my mother. I had a little money, and I +sold some things to get more. I packed a few clothes in a little bag +that I could carry with me, and I kept my mind on the watch. My +father’s silence—his letting drop that subject of the Count’s +offer—made me feel sure that there was a plan against me. I felt as if +it had been a plan to take me to a madhouse. I once saw a picture of a +madhouse, that I could never forget; it seemed to me very much like +some of the life I had seen—the people strutting, quarreling, +leering—the faces with cunning and malice in them. It was my will to +keep myself from wickedness; and I prayed for help. I had seen what +despised women were: and my heart turned against my father, for I saw +always behind him that man who made me shudder. You will think I had +not enough reason for my suspicions, and perhaps I had not, outside my +own feeling; but it seemed to me that my mind had been lit up, and all +that might be stood out clear and sharp. If I slept, it was only to see +the same sort of things, and I could hardly sleep at all. Through our +journey I was everywhere on the watch. I don’t know why, but it came +before me like a real event, that my father would suddenly leave me and +I should find myself with the Count where I could not get away from +him. I thought God was warning me: my mother’s voice was in my soul. It +was dark when we reached Prague, and though the strange bunches of +lamps were lit it was difficult to distinguish faces as we drove along +the street. My father chose to sit outside—he was always smoking +now—and I watched everything in spite of the darkness. I do believe I +could see better then than I ever did before: the strange clearness +within seemed to have got outside me. It was not my habit to notice +faces and figures much in the street; but this night I saw every one; +and when we passed before a great hotel I caught sight only of a back +that was passing in—the light of the great bunch of lamps a good way +off fell on it. I knew it—before the face was turned, as it fell into +shadow, I knew who it was. Help came to me. I feel sure help came. I +did not sleep that night. I put on my plainest things—the cloak and +hat I have worn ever since; and I sat watching for the light and the +sound of the doors being unbarred. Some one rose early—at four +o’clock, to go to the railway. That gave me courage. I slipped out, +with my little bag under my cloak, and none noticed me. I had been a +long while attending to the railway guide that I might learn the way to +England; and before the sun had risen I was in the train for Dresden. +Then I cried for joy. I did not know whether my money would last out, +but I trusted. I could sell the things in my bag, and the little rings +in my ears, and I could live on bread only. My only terror was lest my +father should follow me. But I never paused. I came on, and on, and on, +only eating bread now and then. When I got to Brussels I saw that I +should not have enough money, and I sold all that I could sell; but +here a strange thing happened. Putting my hand into the pocket of my +cloak, I found a half-napoleon. Wondering and wondering how it came +there, I remembered that on the way from Cologne there was a young +workman sitting against me. I was frightened at every one, and did not +like to be spoken to. At first he tried to talk, but when he saw that I +did not like it, he left off. It was a long journey; I ate nothing but +a bit of bread, and he once offered me some of the food he brought in, +but I refused it. I do believe it was he who put that bit of gold in my +pocket. Without it I could hardly have got to Dover, and I did walk a +good deal of the way from Dover to London. I knew I should look like a +miserable beggar-girl. I wanted not to look very miserable, because if +I found my mother it would grieve her to see me so. But oh, how vain my +hope was that she would be there to see me come! As soon as I set foot +in London, I began to ask for Lambeth and Blackfriars Bridge, but they +were a long way off, and I went wrong. At last I got to Blackfriars +Bridge and asked for Colman Street. People shook their heads. None knew +it. I saw it in my mind—our doorsteps, and the white tiles hung in the +windows, and the large brick building opposite with wide doors. But +there was nothing like it. At last when I asked a tradesman where the +Coburg Theatre and Colman Street were, he said, ‘Oh, my little woman, +that’s all done away with. The old streets have been pulled down; +everything is new.’ I turned away and felt as if death had laid a hand +on me. He said: ‘Stop, stop! young woman; what is it you’re wanting +with Colman Street, eh?’ meaning well, perhaps. But his tone was what I +could not bear; and how could I tell him what I wanted? I felt blinded +and bewildered with a sudden shock. I suddenly felt that I was very +weak and weary, and yet where could I go? for I looked so poor and +dusty, and had nothing with me—I looked like a street-beggar. And I +was afraid of all places where I could enter. I lost my trust. I +thought I was forsaken. It seemed that I had been in a fever of +hope—delirious—all the way from Prague: I thought that I was helped, +and I did nothing but strain my mind forward and think of finding my +mother; and now—there I stood in a strange world. All who saw me would +think ill of me, and I must herd with beggars. I stood on the bridge +and looked along the river. People were going on to a steamboat. Many +of them seemed poor, and I felt as if it would be a refuge to get away +from the streets; perhaps the boat would take me where I could soon get +into a solitude. I had still some pence left, and I bought a loaf when +I went on the boat. I wanted to have a little time and strength to +think of life and death. How could I live? And now again it seemed that +if ever I were to find my mother again, death was the way to her. I +ate, that I might have strength to think. The boat set me down at a +place along the river—I don’t know where—and it was late in the +evening. I found some large trees apart from the road, and I sat down +under them that I might rest through the night. Sleep must have soon +come to me, and when I awoke it was morning. The birds were singing, +and the dew was white about me, I felt chill and oh, so lonely! I got +up and walked and followed the river a long way and then turned back +again. There was no reason why I should go anywhere. The world about me +seemed like a vision that was hurrying by while I stood still with my +pain. My thoughts were stronger than I was; they rushed in and forced +me to see all my life from the beginning; ever since I was carried away +from my mother I had felt myself a lost child taken up and used by +strangers, who did not care what my life was to me, but only what I +could do for them. It seemed all a weary wandering and +heart-loneliness—as if I had been forced to go to merrymakings without +the expectation of joy. And now it was worse. I was lost again, and I +dreaded lest any stranger should notice me and speak to me. I had a +terror of the world. None knew me; all would mistake me. I had seen so +many in my life who made themselves glad with scorning, and laughed at +another’s shame. What could I do? This life seemed to be closing in +upon me with a wall of fire—everywhere there was scorching that made +me shrink. The high sunlight made me shrink. And I began to think that +my despair was the voice of God telling me to die. But it would take me +long to die of hunger. Then I thought of my people, how they had been +driven from land to land and been afflicted, and multitudes had died of +misery in their wandering—was I the first? And in the wars and +troubles when Christians were cruelest, our fathers had sometimes slain +their children and afterward themselves: it was to save them from being +false apostates. That seemed to make it right for me to put an end to +my life; for calamity had closed me in too, and I saw no pathway but to +evil. But my mind got into war with itself, for there were contrary +things in it. I knew that some had held it wrong to hasten their own +death, though they were in the midst of flames; and while I had some +strength left it was a longing to bear if I ought to bear—else where +was the good of all my life? It had not been happy since the first +years: when the light came every morning I used to think, ‘I will bear +it.’ But always before I had some hope; now it was gone. With these +thoughts I wandered and wandered, inwardly crying to the Most High, +from whom I should not flee in death more than in life—though I had no +strong faith that He cared for me. The strength seemed departing from +my soul; deep below all my cries was the feeling that I was alone and +forsaken. The more I thought the wearier I got, till it seemed I was +not thinking at all, but only the sky and the river and the Eternal God +were in my soul. And what was it whether I died or lived? If I lay down +to die in the river, was it more than lying down to sleep?—for there +too I committed my soul—I gave myself up. I could not bear memories +any more; I could only feel what was present in me—it was all one +longing to cease from my weary life, which seemed only a pain outside +the great peace that I might enter into. That was how it was. When the +evening came and the sun was gone, it seemed as if that was all I had +to wait for. And a new strength came into me to will what I would do. +You know what I did. I was going to die. You know what happened—did he +not tell you? Faith came to me again; I was not forsaken. He told you +how he found me?” + +Mrs. Meyrick gave no audible answer, but pressed her lips against +Mirah’s forehead. + + * * * * * + +“She’s just a pearl; the mud has only washed her,” was the fervid +little woman’s closing commentary when, _tête-à-tête_ with Deronda in +the back parlor that evening, she had conveyed Mirah’s story to him +with much vividness. + +“What is your feeling about a search for this mother?” said Deronda. +“Have you no fears? I have, I confess.” + +“Oh, I believe the mother’s good,” said Mrs. Meyrick, with rapid +decisiveness; “or _was_ good. She may be dead—that’s my fear. A good +woman, you may depend: you may know it by the scoundrel the father is. +Where did the child get her goodness from? Wheaten flour has to be +accounted for.” + +Deronda was rather disappointed at this answer; he had wanted a +confirmation of his own judgment, and he began to put in demurrers. The +argument about the mother would not apply to the brother; and Mrs. +Meyrick admitted that the brother might be an ugly likeness of the +father. Then, as to advertising, if the name was Cohen, you might as +well advertise for two undescribed terriers; and here Mrs. Meyrick +helped him, for the idea of an advertisement, already mentioned to +Mirah, had roused the poor child’s terror; she was convinced that her +father would see it—he saw everything in the papers. Certainly there +were safer means than advertising; men might be set to work whose +business it was to find missing persons; but Deronda wished Mrs. +Meyrick to feel with him that it would be wiser to wait, before seeking +a dubious—perhaps a deplorable result; especially as he was engaged to +go abroad the next week for a couple of months. If a search were made, +he would like to be at hand, so that Mrs. Meyrick might not be unaided +in meeting any consequences—supposing that she would generously +continue to watch over Mirah. + +“We should be very jealous of any one who took the task from us,” said +Mrs. Meyrick. “She will stay under my roof; there is Hans’s old room +for her.” + +“Will she be content to wait?” said Deronda, anxiously. + +“No trouble there. It is not her nature to run into planning and +devising: only to submit. See how she submitted to that father! It was +a wonder to herself how she found the will and contrivance to run away +from him. About finding her mother, her only notion now is to trust; +since you were sent to save her and we are good to her, she trusts that +her mother will be found in the same unsought way. And when she is +talking I catch her feeling like a child.” + +Mrs. Meyrick hoped that the sum Deronda put into her hands as a +provision for Mirah’s wants was more than would be needed; after a +little while Mirah would perhaps like to occupy herself as the other +girls did, and make herself independent. Deronda pleaded that she must +need a long rest. “Oh, yes; we will hurry nothing,” said Mrs. Meyrick. + +“Rely upon it, she shall be taken tender care of. If you like to give +me your address abroad, I will write to let you know how we get on. It +is not fair that we should have all the pleasure of her salvation to +ourselves. And besides, I want to make believe that I am doing +something for you as well as for Mirah.” + +“That is no make-believe. What should I have done without you last +night? Everything would have gone wrong. I shall tell Hans that the +best of having him for a friend is, knowing his mother.” + +After that they joined the girls in the other room, where Mirah was +seated placidly, while the others were telling her what they knew about +Mr. Deronda—his goodness to Hans, and all the virtues that Hans had +reported of him. + +“Kate burns a pastille before his portrait every day,” said Mab. “And I +carry his signature in a little black-silk bag round my neck to keep +off the cramp. And Amy says the multiplication-table in his name. We +must all do something extra in honor of him, now he has brought you to +us.” + +“I suppose he is too great a person to want anything,” said Mirah, +smiling at Mab, and appealing to the graver Amy. “He is perhaps very +high in the world?” + +“He is very much above us in rank,” said Amy. “He is related to grand +people. I dare say he leans on some of the satin cushions we prick our +fingers over.” + +“I am glad he is of high rank,” said Mirah, with her usual quietness. + +“Now, why are you glad of that?” said Amy, rather suspicious of this +sentiment, and on the watch for Jewish peculiarities which had not +appeared. + +“Because I have always disliked men of high rank before.” + +“Oh, Mr. Deronda is not so very high,” said Kate, “He need not hinder +us from thinking ill of the whole peerage and baronetage if we like.” + +When he entered, Mirah rose with the same look of grateful reverence +that she had lifted to him the evening before: impossible to see a +creature freer at once from embarrassment and boldness. Her theatrical +training had left no recognizable trace; probably her manners had not +much changed since she played the forsaken child at nine years of age; +and she had grown up in her simplicity and truthfulness like a little +flower-seed that absorbs the chance confusion of its surrounding into +its own definite mould of beauty. Deronda felt that he was making +acquaintance with something quite new to him in the form of womanhood. +For Mirah was not childlike from ignorance: her experience of evil and +trouble was deeper and stranger than his own. He felt inclined to watch +her and listen to her as if she had come from a far off shore inhabited +by a race different from our own. + +But for that very reason he made his visit brief with his usual +activity of imagination as to how his conduct might affect others, he +shrank from what might seem like curiosity or the assumption of a right +to know as much as he pleased of one to whom he had done a service. For +example, he would have liked to hear her sing, but he would have felt +the expression of such a wish to be rudeness in him—since she could +not refuse, and he would all the while have a sense that she was being +treated like one whose accomplishments were to be ready on demand. And +whatever reverence could be shown to woman, he was bent on showing to +this girl. Why? He gave himself several good reasons; but whatever one +does with a strong unhesitating outflow of will has a store of motive +that it would be hard to put into words. Some deeds seem little more +than interjections which give vent to the long passion of a life. + +So Deronda soon took his farewell for the two months during which he +expected to be absent from London, and in a few days he was on his way +with Sir Hugo and Lady Mallinger to Leubronn. + +He had fulfilled his intention of telling them about Mirah. The baronet +was decidedly of opinion that the search for the mother and brother had +better be let alone. Lady Mallinger was much interested in the poor +girl, observing that there was a society for the conversion of the +Jews, and that it was to be hoped Mirah would embrace Christianity; but +perceiving that Sir Hugo looked at her with amusement, she concluded +that she had said something foolish. Lady Mallinger felt apologetically +about herself as a woman who had produced nothing but daughters in a +case where sons were required, and hence regarded the apparent +contradictions of the world as probably due to the weakness of her own +understanding. But when she was much puzzled, it was her habit to say +to herself, “I will ask Daniel.” Deronda was altogether a convenience +in the family; and Sir Hugo too, after intending to do the best for +him, had begun to feel that the pleasantest result would be to have +this substitute for a son always ready at his elbow. + +This was the history of Deronda, so far as he knew it, up to the time +of that visit to Leubronn in which he saw Gwendolen Harleth at the +gaming-table. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly + considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly + builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through + patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of + it; Ignorance, wanting its day’s dinner, lights a fire with the + record, and gives a flavor to its one roast with the burned souls of + many generations. Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and + multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various + with a new six days’ work; comes Ignorance drunk on the seventh, with + a firkin of oil and a match and an easy “Let there not be,” and the + many-colored creation is shriveled up in blackness. Of a truth, + Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a + conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a + blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to + seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, + and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried Babylon. And looking + at life parcel-wise, in the growth of a single lot, who having a + practiced vision may not see that ignorance of the true bond between + events, and false conceit of means whereby sequences may be + compelled—like that falsity of eyesight which overlooks the gradations of + distance, seeing that which is afar off as if it were within a step or + a grasp—precipitates the mistaken soul on destruction? + + +It was half-past ten in the morning when Gwendolen Harleth, after her +gloomy journey from Leubronn, arrived at the station from which she +must drive to Offendene. No carriage or friend was awaiting her, for in +the telegram she had sent from Dover she had mentioned a later train, +and in her impatience of lingering at a London station she had set off +without picturing what it would be to arrive unannounced at half an +hour’s drive from home—at one of those stations which have been fixed +on not as near anywhere, but as equidistant from everywhere. Deposited +as a _femme sole_ with her large trunks, and having to wait while a +vehicle was being got from the large-sized lantern called the Railway +Inn, Gwendolen felt that the dirty paint in the waiting-room, the dusty +decanter of flat water, and the texts in large letters calling on her +to repent and be converted, were part of the dreary prospect opened by +her family troubles; and she hurried away to the outer door looking +toward the lane and fields. But here the very gleams of sunshine seemed +melancholy, for the autumnal leaves and grass were shivering, and the +wind was turning up the feathers of a cock and two croaking hens which +had doubtless parted with their grown-up offspring and did not know +what to do with themselves. The railway official also seemed without +resources, and his innocent demeanor in observing Gwendolen and her +trunks was rendered intolerable by the cast in his eye; especially +since, being a new man, he did not know her, and must conclude that she +was not very high in the world. The vehicle—a dirty old barouche—was +within sight, and was being slowly prepared by an elderly laborer. +Contemptible details these, to make part of a history; yet the turn of +most lives is hardly to be accounted for without them. They are +continually entering with cumulative force into a mood until it gets +the mass and momentum of a theory or a motive. Even philosophy is not +quite free from such determining influences; and to be dropped solitary +at an ugly, irrelevant-looking spot, with a sense of no income on the +mind, might well prompt a man to discouraging speculation on the origin +of things and the reason of a world where a subtle thinker found +himself so badly off. How much more might such trifles tell on a young +lady equipped for society with a fastidious taste, an Indian shawl over +her arm, some twenty cubic feet of trunks by her side, and a mortal +dislike to the new consciousness of poverty which was stimulating her +imagination of disagreeables? At any rate they told heavily on poor +Gwendolen, and helped to quell her resistant spirit. What was the good +of living in the midst of hardships, ugliness, and humiliation? This +was the beginning of being at home again, and it was a sample of what +she had to expect. + +Here was the theme on which her discontent rung its sad changes during +her slow drive in the uneasy barouche, with one great trunk squeezing +the meek driver, and the other fastened with a rope on the seat in +front of her. Her ruling vision all the way from Leubronn had been that +the family would go abroad again; for of course there must be some +little income left—her mamma did not mean that they would have +literally nothing. To go to a dull place abroad and live poorly, was +the dismal future that threatened her: she had seen plenty of poor +English people abroad and imagined herself plunged in the despised +dullness of their ill-plenished lives, with Alice, Bertha, Fanny and +Isabel all growing up in tediousness around her, while she advanced +toward thirty and her mamma got more and more melancholy. But she did +not mean to submit, and let misfortune do what it would with her: she +had not yet quite believed in the misfortune; but weariness and disgust +with this wretched arrival had begun to affect her like an +uncomfortable waking, worse than the uneasy dreams which had gone +before. The self-delight with which she had kissed her image in the +glass had faded before the sense of futility in being anything +whatever—charming, clever, resolute—what was the good of it all? +Events might turn out anyhow, and men were hateful. Yes, men were +hateful. But in these last hours, a certain change had come over their +meaning. It is one thing to hate stolen goods, and another thing to +hate them the more because their being stolen hinders us from making +use of them. Gwendolen had begun to be angry with Grandcourt for being +what had hindered her from marrying him, angry with him as the cause of +her present dreary lot. + +But the slow drive was nearly at an end, and the lumbering vehicle +coming up the avenue was within sight of the windows. A figure +appearing under the portico brought a rush of new and less selfish +feeling in Gwendolen, and when springing from the carriage she saw the +dear beautiful face with fresh lines of sadness in it, she threw her +arms round her mother’s neck, and for the moment felt all sorrows only +in relation to her mother’s feeling about them. + +Behind, of course, were the sad faces of the four superfluous girls, +each, poor thing—like those other many thousand sisters of us +all—having her peculiar world which was of no importance to any one +else, but all of them feeling Gwendolen’s presence to be somehow a +relenting of misfortune: where Gwendolen was, something interesting +would happen; even her hurried submission to their kisses, and “Now go +away, girls,” carried the sort of comfort which all weakness finds in +decision and authoritativeness. Good Miss Merry, whose air of meek +depression, hitherto held unaccountable in a governess affectionately +attached to the family, was now at the general level of circumstances, +did not expect any greeting, but busied herself with the trunks and the +coachman’s pay; while Mrs. Davilow and Gwendolen hastened up-stairs and +shut themselves in the black and yellow bedroom. + +“Never mind, mamma dear,” said Gwendolen, tenderly pressing her +handkerchief against the tears that were rolling down Mrs. Davilow’s +cheeks. “Never mind. I don’t mind. I will do something. I will be +something. Things will come right. It seemed worse because I was away. +Come now! you must be glad because I am here.” + +Gwendolen felt every word of that speech. A rush of compassionate +tenderness stirred all her capability of generous resolution; and the +self-confident projects which had vaguely glanced before her during her +journey sprang instantaneously into new definiteness. Suddenly she +seemed to perceive how she could be “something.” It was one of her best +moments, and the fond mother, forgetting everything below that tide +mark, looked at her with a sort of adoration. She said, + +“Bless you, my good, good darling! I can be happy, if you can!” + +But later in the day there was an ebb; the old slippery rocks, the old +weedy places reappeared. Naturally, there was a shrinking of courage as +misfortune ceased to be a mere announcement, and began to disclose +itself as a grievous tyrannical inmate. At first—that ugly drive at an +end—it was still Offendene that Gwendolen had come home to, and all +surroundings of immediate consequence to her were still there to secure +her personal ease; the roomy stillness of the large solid house while +she rested; all the luxuries of her toilet cared for without trouble to +her; and a little tray with her favorite food brought to her in +private. For she had said, “Keep them all away from us to-day, mamma. +Let you and me be alone together.” + +When Gwendolen came down into the drawing-room, fresh as a newly-dipped +swan, and sat leaning against the cushions of the settee beside her +mamma, their misfortune had not yet turned its face and breath upon +her. She felt prepared to hear everything, and began in a tone of +deliberate intention, + +“What have you thought of doing, exactly, mamma?” + +“Oh, my dear, the next thing to be done is to move away from this +house. Mr. Haynes most fortunately is as glad to have it now as he +would have been when we took it. Lord Brackenshaw’s agent is to arrange +everything with him to the best advantage for us: Bazley, you know; not +at all an ill-natured man.” + +“I cannot help thinking that Lord Brackenshaw would let you stay here +rent-free, mamma,” said Gwendolen, whose talents had not been applied +to business so much as to discernment of the admiration excited by her +charms. + +“My dear child, Lord Brackenshaw is in Scotland, and knows nothing +about us. Neither your uncle nor I would choose to apply to him. +Besides, what could we do in this house without servants, and without +money to warm it? The sooner we are out the better. We have nothing to +carry but our clothes, you know?” + +“I suppose you mean to go abroad, then?” said Gwendolen. After all, +this is what she had familiarized her mind with. + +“Oh, no, dear, no. How could we travel? You never did learn anything +about income and expenses,” said Mrs. Davilow, trying to smile, and +putting her hand on Gwendolen’s as she added, mournfully, “that makes +it so much harder for you, my pet.” + +“But where are we to go?” said Gwendolen, with a trace of sharpness in +her tone. She felt a new current of fear passing through her. + +“It is all decided. A little furniture is to be got in from the +rectory—all that can be spared.” Mrs. Davilow hesitated. She dreaded +the reality for herself less than the shock she must give to Gwendolen, +who looked at her with tense expectancy, but was silent. + +“It is Sawyer’s Cottage we are to go to.” + +At first, Gwendolen remained silent, paling with anger—justifiable +anger, in her opinion. Then she said with haughtiness, + +“That is impossible. Something else than that ought to have been +thought of. My uncle ought not to allow that. I will not submit to it.” + +“My sweet child, what else could have been thought of? Your uncle, I am +sure, is as kind as he can be: but he is suffering himself; he has his +family to bring up. And do you quite understand? You must remember—we +have nothing. We shall have absolutely nothing except what he and my +sister give us. They have been as wise and active as possible, and we +must try to earn something. I and the girls are going to work a +table-cloth border for the Ladies’ Charity at Winchester, and a +communion cloth that the parishioners are to present to Pennicote +Church.” + +Mrs. Davilow went into these details timidly: but how else was she to +bring the fact of their position home to this poor child who, alas! +must submit at present, whatever might be in the background for her? +and she herself had a superstition that there must be something better +in the background. + +“But surely somewhere else than Sawyer’s Cottage might have been +found,” Gwendolen persisted—taken hold of (as if in a nightmare) by +the image of this house where an exciseman had lived. + +“No, indeed, dear. You know houses are scarce, and we may be thankful +to get anything so private. It is not so very bad. There are two little +parlors and four bedrooms. You shall sit alone whenever you like.” + +The ebb of sympathetic care for her mamma had gone so low just now, +that Gwendolen took no notice of these deprecatory words. + +“I cannot conceive that all your property is gone at once, mamma. How +can you be sure in so short a time? It is not a week since you wrote to +me.” + +“The first news came much earlier, dear. But I would not spoil your +pleasure till it was quite necessary.” + +“Oh, how vexatious!” said Gwendolen, coloring with fresh anger. “If I +had known, I could have brought home the money I had won: and for want +of knowing, I stayed and lost it. I had nearly two hundred pounds, and +it would have done for us to live on a little while, till I could carry +out some plan.” She paused an instant and then added more impetuously, +“Everything has gone against me. People have come near me only to +blight me.” + +Among the “people” she was including Deronda. If he had not interfered +in her life she would have gone to the gaming-table again with a few +napoleons, and might have won back her losses. + +“We must resign ourselves to the will of Providence, my child,” said +poor Mrs. Davilow, startled by this revelation of the gambling, but not +daring to say more. She felt sure that “people” meant Grandcourt, about +whom her lips were sealed. And Gwendolen answered immediately, + +“But I don’t resign myself. I shall do what I can against it. What is +the good of calling the people’s wickedness Providence? You said in +your letter it was Mr. Lassman’s fault we had lost our money. Has he +run away with it all?” + +“No, dear, you don’t understand. There were great speculations: he +meant to gain. It was all about mines and things of that sort. He +risked too much.” + +“I don’t call that Providence: it was his improvidence with our money, +and he ought to be punished. Can’t we go to law and recover our +fortune? My uncle ought to take measures, and not sit down by such +wrongs. We ought to go to law.” + +“My dear child, law can never bring back money lost in that way. Your +uncle says it is milk spilled upon the ground. Besides, one must have a +fortune to get any law: there is no law for people who are ruined. And +our money has only gone along with other people’s. We are not the +only sufferers: others have to resign themselves besides us.” + +“But I don’t resign myself to live at Sawyer’s Cottage and see you +working for sixpences and shillings because of that. I shall not do it. +I shall do what is more befitting our rank and education.” + +“I am sure your uncle and all of us will approve of that, dear, and +admire you the more for it,” said Mrs. Davilow, glad of an unexpected +opening for speaking on a difficult subject. “I didn’t mean that you +should resign yourself to worse when anything better offered itself. +Both your uncle and aunt have felt that your abilities and education +were a fortune for you, and they have already heard of something within +your reach.” + +“What is that, mamma?” some of Gwendolen’s anger gave way to interest, +and she was not without romantic conjectures. + +“There are two situations that offer themselves. One is in a bishop’s +family, where there are three daughters, and the other is in quite a +high class of school; and in both, your French, and music, and +dancing—and then your manners and habits as a lady, are exactly what +is wanted. Each is a hundred a year—and—just for the present,”—Mrs. +Davilow had become frightened and hesitating,—“to save you from the +petty, common way of living that we must go to—you would perhaps +accept one of the two.” + +“What! be like Miss Graves at Madame Meunier’s? No.” + +“I think, myself, that Dr. Monpert’s would be more suitable. There +could be no hardship in a bishop’s family.” + +“Excuse me, mamma. There are hardships everywhere for a governess. And +I don’t see that it would be pleasanter to be looked down on in a +bishop’s family than in any other. Besides, you know very well I hate +teaching. Fancy me shut up with three awkward girls something like +Alice! I would rather emigrate than be a governess.” + +What it precisely was to emigrate, Gwendolen was not called on to +explain. Mrs. Davilow was mute, seeing no outlet, and thinking with +dread of the collision that might happen when Gwendolen had to meet her +uncle and aunt. There was an air of reticence in Gwendolen’s haughty, +resistant speeches which implied that she had a definite plan in +reserve; and her practical ignorance continually exhibited, could not +nullify the mother’s belief in the effectiveness of that forcible will +and daring which had held mastery over herself. + +“I have some ornaments, mamma, and I could sell them,” said Gwendolen. +“They would make a sum: I want a little sum—just to go on with. I dare +say Marshall, at Wanchester, would take them: I know he showed me some +bracelets once that he said he had bought from a lady. Jocosa might go +and ask him. Jocosa is going to leave us, of course. But she might do +that first.” + +“She would do anything she could, poor, dear soul. I have not told you +yet—she wanted me to take all her savings—her three hundred pounds. I +tell her to set up a little school. It will be hard for her to go into +a new family now she has been so long with us.” + +“Oh, recommend her for the bishop’s daughters,” said Gwendolen, with a +sudden gleam of laughter in her face. “I am sure she will do better +than I should.” + +“Do take care not to say such things to your uncle,” said Mrs. Davilow. +“He will be hurt at your despising what he has exerted himself about. +But I dare say you have something else in your mind that he might not +disapprove, if you consulted him.” + +“There is some one else I want to consult first. Are the Arrowpoints +at Quetcham still, and is Herr Klesmer there? But I daresay you know +nothing about it, poor, dear mamma. Can Jeffries go on horseback with a +note?” + +“Oh, my dear, Jeffries is not here, and the dealer has taken the +horses. But some one could go for us from Leek’s farm. The Arrowpoints +are at Quetcham, I know. Miss Arrowpoint left her card the other day: I +could not see her. But I don’t know about Herr Klesmer. Do you want to +send before to-morrow?” + +“Yes, as soon as possible. I will write a note,” said Gwendolen, rising. + +“What can you be thinking of, Gwen?” said Mrs. Davilow, relieved in the +midst of her wonderment by signs of alacrity and better humor. + +“Don’t mind what, there’s a dear, good mamma,” said Gwendolen, +reseating herself a moment to give atoning caresses. “I mean to do +something. Never mind what until it is all settled. And then you shall +be comforted. The dear face!—it is ten years older in these three +weeks. Now, now, now! don’t cry”—Gwendolen, holding her mamma’s head +with both hands, kissed the trembling eyelids. “But mind you don’t +contradict me or put hindrances in my way. I must decide for myself. I +cannot be dictated to by my uncle or any one else. My life is my own +affair. And I think”—here her tone took an edge of scorn—“I think I +can do better for you than let you live in Sawyer’s Cottage.” + +In uttering this last sentence Gwendolen again rose, and went to a desk +where she wrote the following note to Klesmer:— + + Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Herr Klesmer, and ventures + to request of him the very great favor that he will call upon her, if + possible, to-morrow. Her reason for presuming so far on his kindness + is of a very serious nature. Unfortunate family circumstances have + obliged her to take a course in which she can only turn for advice to + the great knowledge and judgment of Herr Klesmer. + +“Pray get this sent to Quetcham at once, mamma,” said Gwendolen, as she +addressed the letter. “The man must be told to wait for an answer. Let +no time be lost.” + +For the moment, the absorbing purpose was to get the letter dispatched; +but when she had been assured on this point, another anxiety arose and +kept her in a state of uneasy excitement. If Klesmer happened not to be +at Quetcham, what could she do next? Gwendolen’s belief in her star, so +to speak, had had some bruises. Things had gone against her. A splendid +marriage which presented itself within reach had shown a hideous flaw. +The chances of roulette had not adjusted themselves to her claims; and +a man of whom she knew nothing had thrust himself between her and her +intentions. The conduct of those uninteresting people who managed the +business of the world had been culpable just in the points most +injurious to her in particular. Gwendolen Harleth, with all her beauty +and conscious force, felt the close threats of humiliation: for the +first time the conditions of this world seemed to her like a hurrying +roaring crowd in which she had got astray, no more cared for and +protected than a myriad of other girls, in spite of its being a +peculiar hardship to her. If Klesmer were not at Quetcham—that would +be all of a piece with the rest: the unwelcome negative urged itself as +a probability, and set her brain working at desperate alternatives +which might deliver her from Sawyer’s Cottage or the ultimate necessity +of “taking a situation,” a phrase that summed up for her the +disagreeables most wounding to her pride, most irksome to her tastes; +at least so far as her experience enabled her to imagine disagreeables. + +Still Klesmer might be there, and Gwendolen thought of the result in +that case with a hopefulness which even cast a satisfactory light over +her peculiar troubles, as what might well enter into the biography of +celebrities and remarkable persons. And if she had heard her immediate +acquaintances cross-examined as to whether they thought her remarkable, +the first who said “No” would have surprised her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + We please our fancy with ideal webs + Of innovation, but our life meanwhile + Is in the loom, where busy passion plies + The shuttle to and fro, and gives our deeds + The accustomed pattern. + + +Gwendolen’s note, coming “pat betwixt too early and too late,” was put +into Klesmer’s hands just when he was leaving Quetcham, and in order to +meet her appeal to his kindness he, with some inconvenience to himself +spent the night at Wanchester. There were reasons why he would not +remain at Quetcham. + +That magnificent mansion, fitted with regard to the greatest expense, +had in fact became too hot for him, its owners having, like some great +politicians, been astonished at an insurrection against the established +order of things, which we plain people after the event can perceive to +have been prepared under their very noses. + +There were as usual many guests in the house, and among them one in +whom Miss Arrowpoint foresaw a new pretender to her hand: a political +man of good family who confidently expected a peerage, and felt on +public grounds that he required a larger fortune to support the title +properly. Heiresses vary, and persons interested in one of them +beforehand are prepared to find that she is too yellow or too red, tall +and toppling or short and square, violent and capricious or moony and +insipid; but in every case it is taken for granted that she will +consider herself an appendage to her fortune, and marry where others +think her fortunes ought to go. Nature, however, not only accommodates +herself ill to our favorite practices by making “only children” +daughters, but also now and then endows the misplaced daughter with a +clear head and a strong will. The Arrowpoints had already felt some +anxiety owing to these endowments of their Catherine. She would not +accept the view of her social duty which required her to marry a needy +nobleman or a commoner on the ladder toward nobility; and they were not +without uneasiness concerning her persistence in declining suitable +offers. As to the possibility of her being in love with Klesmer they +were not at all uneasy—a very common sort of blindness. For in general +mortals have a great power of being astonished at the presence of an +effect toward which they have done everything, and at the absence of an +effect toward which they had done nothing but desire it. Parents are +astonished at the ignorance of their sons, though they have used the +most time-honored and expensive means of securing it; husbands and +wives are mutually astonished at the loss of affection which they have +taken no pains to keep; and all of us in our turn are apt to be +astonished that our neighbors do not admire us. In this way it happens +that the truth seems highly improbable. The truth is something +different from the habitual lazy combinations begotten by our wishes. +The Arrowpoints’ hour of astonishment was come. + +When there is a passion between an heiress and a proud +independent-spirited man, it is difficult for them to come to an +understanding; but the difficulties are likely to be overcome unless +the proud man secures himself by a constant _alibi_. Brief meetings +after studied absence are potent in disclosure: but more potent still +is frequent companionship, with full sympathy in taste and admirable +qualities on both sides; especially where the one is in the position of +teacher and the other is delightedly conscious of receptive ability +which also gives the teacher delight. The situation is famous in +history, and has no less charm now than it had in the days of Abelard. + +But this kind of comparison had not occurred to the Arrowpoints when +they first engaged Klesmer to come down to Quetcham. To have a +first-rate musician in your house is a privilege of wealth; Catherine’s +musical talent demanded every advantage; and she particularly desired +to use her quieter time in the country for more thorough study. Klesmer +was not yet a Liszt, understood to be adored by ladies of all European +countries with the exception of Lapland: and even with that +understanding it did not follow that he would make proposals to an +heiress. No musician of honor would do so. Still less was it +conceivable that Catherine would give him the slightest pretext for +such daring. The large check that Mr. Arrowpoint was to draw in +Klesmer’s name seemed to make him as safe an inmate as a footman. Where +marriage is inconceivable, a girl’s sentiments are safe. + +Klesmer was eminently a man of honor, but marriages rarely begin with +formal proposals, and moreover, Catherine’s limit of the conceivable +did not exactly correspond with her mother’s. + +Outsiders might have been more apt to think that Klesmer’s position was +dangerous for himself if Miss Arrowpoint had been an acknowledged +beauty; not taking into account that the most powerful of all beauty is +that which reveals itself after sympathy and not before it. There is a +charm of eye and lip which comes with every little phrase that +certifies delicate perception or fine judgment, with every +unostentatious word or smile that shows a heart awake to others; and no +sweep of garment or turn of figure is more satisfying than that which +enters as a restoration of confidence that one person is present on +whom no intention will be lost. What dignity of meaning goes on +gathering in frowns and laughs which are never observed in the wrong +place; what suffused adorableness in a human frame where there is a +mind that can flash out comprehension and hands that can execute +finely! The more obvious beauty, also adorable sometimes—one may say +it without blasphemy—begins by being an apology for folly, and ends +like other apologies in becoming tiresome by iteration; and that +Klesmer, though very susceptible to it, should have a passionate +attachment to Miss Arrowpoint, was no more a paradox than any other +triumph of a manifold sympathy over a monotonous attraction. We object +less to be taxed with the enslaving excess of our passions than with +our deficiency in wider passion; but if the truth were known, our +reputed intensity is often the dullness of not knowing what else to do +with ourselves. Tannhäuser, one suspects, was a knight of ill-furnished +imagination, hardly of larger discourse than a heavy Guardsman; Merlin +had certainly seen his best days, and was merely repeating himself, +when he fell into that hopeless captivity; and we know that Ulysses +felt so manifest an _ennui_ under similar circumstances that Calypso +herself furthered his departure. There is indeed a report that he +afterward left Penelope; but since she was habitually absorbed in +worsted work, and it was probably from her that Telemachus got his +mean, pettifogging disposition, always anxious about the property and +the daily consumption of meat, no inference can be drawn from this +already dubious scandal as to the relation between companionship and +constancy. + +Klesmer was as versatile and fascinating as a young Ulysses on a +sufficient acquaintance—one whom nature seemed to have first made +generously and then to have added music as a dominant power using all +the abundant rest, and, as in Mendelssohn, finding expression for +itself not only in the highest finish of execution, but in that fervor +of creative work and theoretic belief which pierces the whole future of +a life with the delight of congruous devoted purpose. His foibles of +arrogance and vanity did not exceed such as may be found in the best +English families; and Catherine Arrowpoint had no corresponding +restlessness to clash with his: notwithstanding her native kindliness +she was perhaps too coolly firm and self-sustained. But she was one of +those satisfactory creatures whose intercourse has the charm of +discovery; whose integrity of faculty and expression begets a wish to +know what they will say on all subjects or how they will perform +whatever they undertake; so that they end by raising not only a +continual expectation but a continual sense of fulfillment—the systole +and diastole of blissful companionship. In such cases the outward +presentment easily becomes what the image is to the worshipper. It was +not long before the two became aware that each was interesting to the +other; but the “how far” remained a matter of doubt. Klesmer did not +conceive that Miss Arrowpoint was likely to think of him as a possible +lover, and she was not accustomed to think of herself as likely to stir +more than a friendly regard, or to fear the expression of more from any +man who was not enamored of her fortune. Each was content to suffer some +unshared sense of denial for the sake of loving the other’s society a +little too well; and under these conditions no need had been felt to +restrict Klesmer’s visits for the last year either in country or in +town. He knew very well that if Miss Arrowpoint had been poor he would +have made ardent love to her instead of sending a storm through the +piano, or folding his arms and pouring out a hyperbolical tirade about +something as impersonal as the north pole; and she was not less aware +that if it had been possible for Klesmer to wish for her hand she would +have found overmastering reasons for giving it to him. Here was the +safety of full cups, which are as secure from overflow as the half-empty, +always supposing no disturbance. Naturally, silent feeling had +not remained at the same point any more than the stealthly dial-hand, +and in the present visit to Quetcham, Klesmer had begun to think that he +would not come again; while Catherine was more sensitive to his frequent +_brusquerie_, which she rather resented as a needless effort to assert +his footing of superior in every sense except the conventional. + +Meanwhile enters the expectant peer, Mr. Bult, an esteemed party man +who, rather neutral in private life, had strong opinions concerning the +districts of the Niger, was much at home also in Brazils, spoke with +decision of affairs in the South Seas, was studious of his +Parliamentary and itinerant speeches, and had the general solidity and +suffusive pinkness of a healthy Briton on the central table-land of +life. Catherine, aware of a tacit understanding that he was an +undeniable husband for an heiress, had nothing to say against him but +that he was thoroughly tiresome to her. Mr. Bult was amiably confident, +and had no idea that his insensibility to counterpoint could ever be +reckoned against him. Klesmer he hardly regarded in the light of a +serious human being who ought to have a vote; and he did not mind Miss +Arrowpoint’s addiction to music any more than her probable expenses in +antique lace. He was consequently a little amazed at an after-dinner +outburst of Klesmer’s on the lack of idealism in English politics, +which left all mutuality between distant races to be determined simply +by the need of a market; the crusades, to his mind, had at least this +excuse, that they had a banner of sentiment round which generous +feelings could rally: of course, the scoundrels rallied too, but what +then? they rally in equal force round your advertisement van of “Buy +cheap, sell dear.” On this theme Klesmer’s eloquence, gesticulatory and +other, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally +ignited, and then sank into immovable silence. Mr. Bult was not +surprised that Klesmer’s opinions should be flighty, but was astonished +at his command of English idiom and his ability to put a point in a way +that would have told at a constituents’ dinner—to be accounted for +probably by his being a Pole, or a Czech, or something of that +fermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism which had obliged +him to make a profession of his music; and that evening in the +drawing-room he for the first time went up to Klesmer at the piano, +Miss Arrowpoint being near, and said, + +“I had no idea before that you were a political man.” + +Klesmer’s only answer was to fold his arms, put out his nether lip, and +stare at Mr. Bult. + +“You must have been used to public speaking. You speak uncommonly well, +though I don’t agree with you. From what you said about sentiment, I +fancy you are a Panslavist.” + +“No; my name is Elijah. I am the Wandering Jew,” said Klesmer, flashing +a smile at Miss Arrowpoint, and suddenly making a mysterious, wind-like +rush backward and forward on the piano. Mr. Bult felt this buffoonery +rather offensive and Polish, but—Miss Arrowpoint being there—did not +like to move away. + +“Herr Klesmer has cosmopolitan ideas,” said Miss Arrowpoint, trying to +make the best of the situation. “He looks forward to a fusion of races.” + +“With all my heart,” said Mr. Bult, willing to be gracious. “I was sure +he had too much talent to be a mere musician.” + +“Ah, sir, you are under some mistake there,” said Klesmer, firing up. +“No man has too much talent to be a musician. Most men have too little. +A creative artist is no more a mere musician than a great statesman is +a mere politician. We are not ingenious puppets, sir, who live in a box +and look out on the world only when it is gaping for amusement. We help +to rule the nations and make the age as much as any other public men. +We count ourselves on level benches with legislators. And a man who +speaks effectively through music is compelled to something more +difficult than parliamentary eloquence.” + +With the last word Klesmer wheeled from the piano and walked away. + +Miss Arrowpoint colored, and Mr. Bult observed, with his usual +phlegmatic stolidity, “Your pianist does not think small beer of +himself.” + +“Herr Klesmer is something more than a pianist,” said Miss Arrowpoint, +apologetically. “He is a great musician in the fullest sense of the +word. He will rank with Schubert and Mendelssohn.” + +“Ah, you ladies understand these things,” said Mr. Bult, none the less +convinced that these things were frivolous because Klesmer had shown +himself a coxcomb. + +Catherine, always sorry when Klesmer gave himself airs, found an +opportunity the next day in the music-room to say, “Why were you so +heated last night with Mr. Bult? He meant no harm.” + +“You wish me to be complaisant to him?” said Klesmer, rather fiercely. + +“I think it is hardly worth your while to be other than civil.” + +“You find no difficulty in tolerating him, then?—you have a respect +for a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he +can’t turn into political capital. You think his monumental obtuseness +suited to the dignity of the English gentleman.” + +“I did not say that.” + +“You mean that I acted without dignity, and you are offended with me.” + +“Now you are slightly nearer the truth,” said Catherine, smiling. + +“Then I had better put my burial-clothes in my portmanteau and set off +at once.” + +“I don’t see that. If I have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you +should not mind my criticism of your impatience.” + +“But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant +impertinence about a ‘mere musician’ without letting him know his +place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But +I beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even +you can’t understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste +for you.” + +“That is true,” said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. “He is +of a caste to which I look up—a caste above mine.” + +Klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up +and walked to a little distance, from which he said, + +“That is finely felt—I am grateful. But I had better go, all the same. +I have made up my mind to go, for good and all. You can get on +exceedingly well without me: your operetta is on wheels—it will go of +itself. And your Mr. Bull’s company fits me ‘wie die Faust ins Auge.’ I +am neglecting my engagements. I must go off to St. Petersburg.” + +There was no answer. + +“You agree with me that I had better go?” said Klesmer, with some +irritation. + +“Certainly; if that is what your business and feeling prompt. I have +only to wonder that you have consented to give us so much of your time +in the last year. There must be treble the interest to you anywhere +else. I have never thought of you consenting to come here as anything +else than a sacrifice.” + +“Why should I make the sacrifice?” said Klesmer, going to seat himself +at the piano, and touching the keys so as to give with the delicacy of +an echo in the far distance a melody which he had set to Heine’s “Ich +hab’ dich geliebet und liebe dich noch.” + +“That is the mystery,” said Catherine, not wanting to affect anything, +but from mere agitation. From the same cause she was tearing a piece of +paper into minute morsels, as if at a task of utmost multiplication +imposed by a cruel fairy. + +“You can conceive no motive?” said Klesmer, folding his arms. + +“None that seems in the least probable.” + +“Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in +the world—the throned lady whose colors I carry between my heart and +my armor.” + +Catherine’s hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the +paper: still less could her lips utter a word. Klesmer went on, + +“This would be the last impertinence in me, if I meant to found +anything upon it. That is out of the question. I meant no such thing. +But you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you +of being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men’s imputing +to you the folly of believing that they courted you for your own sake. +Did you not say so?” + +“Very likely,” was the answer, in a low murmur. + +“It was a bitter word. Well, at least one man who has seen women as +plenty as flowers in May has lingered about you for your own sake. And +since he is one whom you can never marry, you will believe him. There +is an argument in favor of some other man. But don’t give yourself for +a meal to a minotaur like Bult. I shall go now and pack. I shall make +my excuses to Mrs. Arrowpoint.” Klesmer rose as he ended, and walked +quickly toward the door. + +“You must take this heap of manuscript,” then said Catherine, suddenly +making a desperate effort. She had risen to fetch the heap from another +table. Klesmer came back, and they had the length of the folio sheets +between them. + +“Why should I not marry the man who loves me, if I love him?” said +Catherine. To her the effort was something like the leap of a woman +from the deck into the lifeboat. + +“It would be too hard—impossible—you could not carry it through. I am +not worth what you would have to encounter. I will not accept the +sacrifice. It would be thought a _mésalliance_ for you and I should be +liable to the worst accusations.” + +“Is it the accusations you are afraid of? I am afraid of nothing but +that we should miss the passing of our lives together.” + +The decisive word had been spoken: there was no doubt concerning the +end willed by each: there only remained the way of arriving at it, and +Catherine determined to take the straightest possible. She went to her +father and mother in the library, and told them that she had promised +to marry Klesmer. + +Mrs. Arrowpoint’s state of mind was pitiable. Imagine Jean Jacques, +after his essay on the corrupting influence of the arts, waking up among +children of nature who had no idea of grilling the raw bone they offered +him for breakfast with the primitive couvert of a flint knife; or Saint +Just, after fervidly denouncing all recognition of pre-eminence, +receiving a vote of thanks for the unbroken mediocrity of his speech, +which warranted the dullest patriots in delivering themselves at equal +length. Something of the same sort befell the authoress of “Tasso,” when +what she had safely demanded of the dead Leonora was enacted by her own +Catherine. It is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep +pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and +are liable to heavy dining. Besides, it has long been understood that +the proprieties of literature are not those of practical life. Mrs. +Arrowpoint naturally wished for the best of everything. She not only +liked to feel herself at a higher level of literary sentiment than the +ladies with whom she associated; she wished not to be behind them in any +point of social consideration. While Klesmer was seen in the light of a +patronized musician, his peculiarities were picturesque and acceptable: +but to see him by a sudden flash in the light of her son-in-law gave her +a burning sense of what the world would say. And the poor lady had been +used to represent her Catherine as a model of excellence. + +Under the first shock she forgot everything but her anger, and snatched +at any phrase that would serve as a weapon. + +“If Klesmer has presumed to offer himself to you, your father shall +horsewhip him off the premises. Pray, speak, Mr. Arrowpoint.” + +The father took his cigar from his mouth, and rose to the occasion by +saying, “This will never do, Cath.” + +“Do!” cried Mrs. Arrowpoint; “who in their senses ever thought it would +do? You might as well say poisoning and strangling will not do. It is a +comedy you have got up, Catherine. Else you are mad.” + +“I am quite sane and serious, mamma, and Herr Klesmer is not to blame. +He never thought of my marrying him. I found out that he loved me, and +loving him, I told him I would marry him.” + +“Leave that unsaid, Catherine,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, bitterly. “Every +one else will say that for you. You will be a public fable. Every one +will say that you must have made an offer to a man who has been paid to +come to the house—who is nobody knows what—a gypsy, a Jew, a mere +bubble of the earth.” + +“Never mind, mamma,” said Catherine, indignant in her turn. “We all +know he is a genius—as Tasso was.” + +“Those times were not these, nor is Klesmer Tasso,” said Mrs. +Arrowpoint, getting more heated. “There is no sting in _that_ sarcasm, +except the sting of undutifulness.” + +“I am sorry to hurt you, mamma. But I will not give up the happiness of +my life to ideas that I don’t believe in and customs I have no respect +for.” + +“You have lost all sense of duty, then? You have forgotten that you are +our only child—that it lies with you to place a great property in the +right hands?” + +“What are the right hands? My grandfather gained the property in trade.” + +“Mr. Arrowpoint, _will_ you sit by and hear this without speaking?” + +“I am a gentleman, Cath. We expect you to marry a gentleman,” said the +father, exerting himself. + +“And a man connected with the institutions of this country,” said the +mother. “A woman in your position has serious duties. Where duty and +inclination clash, she must follow duty.” + +“I don’t deny that,” said Catherine, getting colder in proportion to +her mother’s heat. “But one may say very true things and apply them +falsely. People can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what +they desire any one else to do.” + +“Your parent’s desire makes no duty for you, then?” + +“Yes, within reason. But before I give up the happiness of my life—” + +“Catherine, Catherine, it will not be your happiness,” said Mrs. +Arrowpoint, in her most raven-like tones. + +“Well, what seems to me my happiness—before I give it up, I must see +some better reason than the wish that I should marry a nobleman, or a +man who votes with a party that he may be turned into a nobleman. I +feel at liberty to marry the man I love and think worthy, unless some +higher duty forbids.” + +“And so it does, Catherine, though you are blinded and cannot see it. +It is a woman’s duty not to lower herself. You are lowering yourself. +Mr. Arrowpoint, will you tell your daughter what is her duty?” + +“You must see, Catherine, that Klesmer is not the man for you,” said +Mr. Arrowpoint. “He won’t do at the head of estates. He has a deuced +foreign look—is an unpractical man.” + +“I really can’t see what that has to do with it, papa. The land of +England has often passed into the hands of foreigners—Dutch soldiers, +sons of foreign women of bad character:—if our land were sold +to-morrow it would very likely pass into the hands of some foreign +merchant on ’Change. It is in everybody’s mouth that successful +swindlers may buy up half the land in the country. How can I stem that +tide?” + +“It will never do to argue about marriage, Cath,” said Mr. Arrowpoint. +“It’s no use getting up the subject like a parliamentary question. We +must do as other people do. We must think of the nation and the public +good.” + +“I can’t see any public good concerned here, papa,” said Catherine. +“Why is it to be expected of any heiress that she should carry the +property gained in trade into the hands of a certain class? That seems +to be a ridiculous mishmash of superannuated customs and false +ambition. I should call it a public evil. People had better make a new +sort of public good by changing their ambitions.” + +“That is mere sophistry, Catherine,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “Because you +don’t wish to marry a nobleman, you are not obliged to marry a +mountebank or a charlatan.” + +“I cannot understand the application of such words, mamma.” + +“No, I dare say not,” rejoined Mrs. Arrowpoint, with significant scorn. +“You have got to a pitch at which we are not likely to understand each +other.” + +“It can’t be done, Cath,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, wishing to substitute a +better-humored reasoning for his wife’s impetuosity. “A man like +Klesmer can’t marry such a property as yours. It can’t be done.” + +“It certainly will not be done,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, imperiously. +“Where is the man? Let him be fetched.” + +“I cannot fetch him to be insulted,” said Catherine. “Nothing will be +achieved by that.” + +“I suppose you would wish him to know that in marrying you he will not +marry your fortune,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. + +“Certainly; if it were so, I should wish him to know it.” + +“Then you had better fetch him.” + +Catherine only went into the music-room and said, “Come.” She felt no +need to prepare Klesmer. + +“Herr Klesmer,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, with a rather contemptuous +stateliness, “it is unnecessary to repeat what has passed between us +and our daughter. Mr. Arrowpoint will tell you our resolution.” + +“Your marrying is out of the question,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, rather too +heavily weighted with his task, and standing in an embarrassment +unrelieved by a cigar. “It is a wild scheme altogether. A man has been +called out for less.” + +“You have taken a base advantage of our confidence,” burst in Mrs. +Arrowpoint, unable to carry out her purpose and leave the burden of +speech to her husband. + +Klesmer made a low bow in silent irony. + +“The pretension is ridiculous. You had better give it up and leave the +house at once,” continued Mr. Arrowpoint. He wished to do without +mentioning the money. + +“I can give up nothing without reference to your daughter’s wish,” said +Klesmer. “My engagement is to her.” + +“It is useless to discuss the question,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “We +shall never consent to the marriage. If Catherine disobeys us we shall +disinherit her. You will not marry her fortune. It is right you should +know that.” + +“Madam, her fortune has been the only thing I have had to regret about +her. But I must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater +than I am worthy of.” + +“It is no sacrifice to me,” said Catherine, “except that I am sorry to +hurt my father and mother. I have always felt my fortune to be a +wretched fatality of my life.” + +“You mean to defy us, then?” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. + +“I mean to marry Herr Klesmer,” said Catherine, firmly. + +“He had better not count on our relenting,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, whose +manners suffered from that impunity in insult which has been reckoned +among the privileges of women. + +“Madam,” said Klesmer, “certain reasons forbid me to retort. But +understand that I consider it out of the power of either of you, or of +your fortune, to confer on me anything that I value. My rank as an +artist is of my own winning, and I would not exchange it for any other. +I am able to maintain your daughter, and I ask for no change in my life +but her companionship.” + +“You will leave the house, however,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. + +“I go at once,” said Klesmer, bowing and quitting the room. + +“Let there be no misunderstanding, mamma,” said Catherine; “I consider +myself engaged to Herr Klesmer, and I intend to marry him.” + +The mother turned her head away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal. + +“It’s all very fine,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, when Catherine was gone; +“but what the deuce are we to do with the property?” + +“There is Harry Brendall. He can take the name.” + +“Harry Brendall will get through it all in no time,” said Mr. +Arrowpoint, relighting his cigar. + +And thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers, +Klesmer had left Quetcham. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + Among the heirs of Art, as is the division of the promised land, each + has to win his portion by hard fighting: the bestowal is after the + manner of prophecy, and is a title without possession. To carry the + map of an ungotten estate in your pocket is a poor sort of copyhold. + And in fancy to cast his shoe over Eden is little warrant that a man + shall ever set the sole of his foot on an acre of his own there. + + The most obstinate beliefs that mortals entertain about themselves are + such as they have no evidence for beyond a constant, spontaneous + pulsing of their self-satisfaction—as it were a hidden seed of + madness, a confidence that they can move the world without precise + notion of standing-place or lever. + + +“Pray go to church, mamma,” said Gwendolen the next morning. “I prefer +seeing Herr Klesmer alone.” (He had written in reply to her note that +he would be with her at eleven.) + +“That is hardly correct, I think,” said Mrs. Davilow, anxiously. + +“Our affairs are too serious for us to think of such nonsensical +rules,” said Gwendolen, contemptuously. “They are insulting as well as +ridiculous.” + +“You would not mind Isabel sitting with you? She would be reading in a +corner.” + +“No; she could not: she would bite her nails and stare. It would be too +irritating. Trust my judgment, mamma, I must be alone. Take them all to +church.” + +Gwendolen had her way, of course; only that Miss Merry and two of the +girls stayed at home, to give the house a look of habitation by sitting +at the dining-room windows. + +It was a delicious Sunday morning. The melancholy waning sunshine of +autumn rested on the half-strown grass and came mildly through the +windows in slanting bands of brightness over the old furniture, and the +glass panel that reflected the furniture; over the tapestried chairs +with their faded flower-wreaths, the dark enigmatic pictures, the +superannuated organ at which Gwendolen had pleased herself with acting +Saint Cecelia on her first joyous arrival, the crowd of pallid, dusty +knick-knacks seen through the open doors of the antechamber where she had +achieved the wearing of her Greek dress as Hermione. This last memory +was just now very busy in her; for had not Klesmer then been struck +with admiration of her pose and expression? Whatever he had said, +whatever she imagined him to have thought, was at this moment pointed +with keenest interest for her: perhaps she had never before in her life +felt so inwardly dependent, so consciously in need of another person’s +opinion. There was a new fluttering of spirit within her, a new element +of deliberation in her self-estimate which had hitherto been a blissful +gift of intuition. Still it was the recurrent burden of her inward +soliloquy that Klesmer had seen but little of her, and any unfavorable +conclusion of his must have too narrow a foundation. She really felt +clever enough for anything. + +To fill up the time she collected her volumes and pieces of music, and +laying them on the top of the piano, set herself to classify them. Then +catching the reflection of her movements in the glass panel, she was +diverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it. +Dressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm +whiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair +and her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try +again the Roman trick of a statue in black, white, and tawny marble. +Seeing her image slowly advancing, she thought “I _am_ beautiful”—not +exultingly, but with grave decision. Being beautiful was after all the +condition on which she most needed external testimony. If any one +objected to the turn of her nose or the form of her neck and chin, she +had not the sense that she could presently show her power of attainment +in these branches of feminine perfection. + +There was not much time to fill up in this way before the sound of +wheels, the loud ring, and the opening doors assured her that she was +not by any accident to be disappointed. This slightly increased her +inward flutter. In spite of her self-confidence, she dreaded Klesmer as +part of that unmanageable world which was independent of her +wishes—something vitriolic that would not cease to burn because you +smiled or frowned at it. Poor thing! she was at a higher crisis of her +woman’s fate than in her last experience with Grandcourt. The +questioning then, was whether she should take a particular man as a +husband. The inmost fold of her questioning now was whether she need +take a husband at all—whether she could not achieve substantially for +herself and know gratified ambition without bondage. + +Klesmer made his most deferential bow in the wide doorway of the +antechamber—showing also the deference of the finest gray kerseymere +trousers and perfect gloves (the ‘masters of those who know’ are +happily altogether human). Gwendolen met him with unusual gravity, and +holding out her hand said, “It is most kind of you to come, Herr +Klesmer. I hope you have not thought me presumptuous.” + +“I took your wish as a command that did me honor,” said Klesmer, with +answering gravity. He was really putting by his own affairs in order to +give his utmost attention to what Gwendolen might have to say; but his +temperament was still in a state of excitation from the events of +yesterday, likely enough to give his expressions a more than usually +biting edge. + +Gwendolen for once was under too great a strain of feeling to remember +formalities. She continued standing near the piano, and Klesmer took +his stand near the other end of it with his back to the light and his +terribly omniscient eyes upon her. No affectation was of use, and she +began without delay. + +“I wish to consult you, Herr Klesmer. We have lost all our fortune; we +have nothing. I must get my own bread, and I desire to provide for my +mamma, so as to save her from any hardship. The only way I can think +of—and I should like it better than anything—is to be an actress—to +go on the stage. But, of course, I should like to take a high position, +and I thought—if you thought I could”—here Gwendolen became a little +more nervous—“it would be better for me to be a singer—to study +singing also.” + +Klesmer put down his hat upon the piano, and folded his arms as if to +concentrate himself. + +“I know,” Gwendolen resumed, turning from pale to pink and back +again—“I know that my method of singing is very defective; but I have +been ill taught. I could be better taught; I could study. And you will +understand my wish:—to sing and act too, like Grisi, is a much higher +position. Naturally, I should wish to take as high rank as I can. And I +can rely on your judgment. I am sure you will tell me the truth.” + +Gwendolen somehow had the conviction that now she made this serious +appeal the truth would be favorable. + +Still Klesmer did not speak. He drew off his gloves quickly, tossed +them into his hat, rested his hands on his hips, and walked to the +other end of the room. He was filled with compassion for this girl: he +wanted to put a guard on his speech. When he turned again, he looked at +her with a mild frown of inquiry, and said with gentle though quick +utterance, “You have never seen anything, I think, of artists and their +lives?—I mean of musicians, actors, artists of that kind?” + +“Oh, no,” said Gwendolen, not perturbed by a reference to this obvious +fact in the history of a young lady hitherto well provided for. + +“You are—pardon me,” said Klesmer, again pausing near the piano—“in +coming to a conclusion on such a matter as this, everything must be +taken into consideration—you are perhaps twenty?” + +“I am twenty-one,” said Gwendolen, a slight fear rising in her. “Do you +think I am too old?” + +Klesmer pouted his under lip and shook his long fingers upward in a +manner totally enigmatic. + +“Many persons begin later than others,” said Gwendolen, betrayed by her +habitual consciousness of having valuable information to bestow. + +Klesmer took no notice, but said with more studied gentleness than +ever, “You have probably not thought of an artistic career until now: +you did not entertain the notion, the longing—what shall I say?—you +did not wish yourself an actress, or anything of that sort, till the +present trouble?” + +“Not exactly: but I was fond of acting. I have acted; you saw me, if +you remember—you saw me here in charades, and as Hermione,” said +Gwendolen, really fearing that Klesmer had forgotten. + +“Yes, yes,” he answered quickly, “I remember—I remember perfectly,” +and again walked to the other end of the room. It was difficult for him +to refrain from this kind of movement when he was in any argument +either audible or silent. + +Gwendolen felt that she was being weighed. The delay was unpleasant. +But she did not yet conceive that the scale could dip on the wrong +side, and it seemed to her only graceful to say, “I shall be very much +obliged to you for taking the trouble to give me your advice, whatever +it maybe.” + +“Miss Harleth,” said Klesmer, turning toward her and speaking with a +slight increase of accent, “I will veil nothing from you in this +matter. I should reckon myself guilty if I put a false visage on +things—made them too black or too white. The gods have a curse for him +who willingly tells another the wrong road. And if I misled one who is +so young, so beautiful—who, I trust, will find her happiness along the +right road, I should regard myself as a—_Bösewicht_.” In the last word +Klesmer’s voice had dropped to a loud whisper. + +Gwendolen felt a sinking of heart under this unexpected solemnity, and +kept a sort of fascinated gaze on Klesmer’s face, as he went on. + +“You are a beautiful young lady—you have been brought up in ease—you +have done what you would—you have not said to yourself, ‘I must know +this exactly,’ ‘I must understand this exactly,’ ‘I must do this +exactly,’”—in uttering these three terrible _musts_, Klesmer lifted up +three long fingers in succession. “In sum, you have not been called +upon to be anything but a charming young lady, whom it is an +impoliteness to find fault with.” + +He paused an instant; then resting his fingers on his hips again, and +thrusting out his powerful chin, he said, + +“Well, then, with that preparation, you wish to try the life of an +artist; you wish to try a life of arduous, unceasing work, +and—uncertain praise. Your praise would have to be earned, like your +bread; and both would come slowly, scantily—what do I say?—they may +hardly come at all.” + +This tone of discouragement, which Klesmer had hoped might suffice +without anything more unpleasant, roused some resistance in Gwendolen. +With a slight turn of her head away from him, and an air of pique, she +said, + +“I thought that you, being an artist, would consider the life one of +the most honorable and delightful. And if I can do nothing better?—I +suppose I can put up with the same risks as other people do.” + +“Do nothing better?” said Klesmer, a little fired. “No, my dear Miss +Harleth, you could do nothing better—neither man nor woman could do +anything better—if you could do what was best or good of its kind. I +am not decrying the life of the true artist. I am exalting it. I say, +it is out of the reach of any but choice organizations—natures framed +to love perfection and to labor for it; ready, like all true lovers, to +endure, to wait, to say, I am not yet worthy, but she—Art, my +mistress—is worthy, and I will live to merit her. An honorable life? +Yes. But the honor comes from the inward vocation and the hard-won +achievement: there is no honor in donning the life as a livery.” + +Some excitement of yesterday had revived in Klesmer and hurried him +into speech a little aloof from his immediate friendly purpose. He had +wished as delicately as possible to rouse in Gwendolen a sense of her +unfitness for a perilous, difficult course; but it was his wont to be +angry with the pretensions of incompetence, and he was in danger of +getting chafed. Conscious of this, he paused suddenly. But Gwendolen’s +chief impression was that he had not yet denied her the power of doing +what would be good of its kind. Klesmer’s fervor seemed to be a sort of +glamor such as he was prone to throw over things in general; and what +she desired to assure him of was that she was not afraid of some +preliminary hardships. The belief that to present herself in public on +the stage must produce an effect such as she had been used to feel +certain of in private life, was like a bit of her flesh—it was not to +be peeled off readily, but must come with blood and pain. She said, in +a tone of some insistence; + +“I am quite prepared to bear hardships at first. Of course no one can +become celebrated all at once. And it is not necessary that every one +should be first-rate—either actresses or singers. If you would be so +kind as to tell me what steps I should take, I shall have the courage +to take them. I don’t mind going up hill. It will be easier than the +dead level of being a governess. I will take any steps you recommend.” + +Klesmer was convinced now that he must speak plainly. + +“I will tell you the steps, not that I recommend, but that will be +forced upon you. It is all one, so far, what your goal will +be—excellence, celebrity, second, third rateness—it is all one. You +must go to town under the protection of your mother. You must put +yourself under training—musical, dramatic, theatrical:—whatever you +desire to do you have to learn”—here Gwendolen looked as if she were +going to speak, but Klesmer lifted up his hand and said, decisively, “I +know. You have exercised your talents—you recite—you sing—from the +drawing-room _Standpunkt_. My dear Fräulein, you must unlearn all that. +You have not yet conceived what excellence is: you must unlearn your +mistaken admirations. You must know what you have to strive for, and +then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. Your +mind, I say. For you must not be thinking of celebrity: put that candle +out of your eyes, and look only at excellence. You would of course earn +nothing—you could get no engagement for a long while. You would need +money for yourself and your family. But that,” here Klesmer frowned and +shook his fingers as if to dismiss a triviality, “that could perhaps be +found.” + +Gwendolen turned pink and pale during this speech. Her pride had felt a +terrible knife-edge, and the last sentence only made the smart keener. +She was conscious of appearing moved, and tried to escape from her +weakness by suddenly walking to a seat and pointing out a chair to +Klesmer. He did not take it, but turned a little in order to face her +and leaned against the piano. At that moment she wished that she had +not sent for him: this first experience of being taken on some other +ground than that of her social rank and her beauty was becoming bitter +to her. Klesmer, preoccupied with a serious purpose, went on without +change of tone. + +“Now, what sort of issue might be fairly expected from all this +self-denial? You would ask that. It is right that your eyes should be +open to it. I will tell you truthfully. This issue would be uncertain, +and, most probably, would not be worth much.” + +At these relentless words Klesmer put out his lip and looked through +his spectacles with the air of a monster impenetrable by beauty. + +Gwendolen’s eyes began to burn, but the dread of showing weakness urged +her to added self-control. She compelled herself to say, in a hard +tone, + +“You think I want talent, or am too old to begin.” + +Klesmer made a sort of hum, and then descended on an emphatic “Yes! The +desire and the training should have begun seven years ago—or a good +deal earlier. A mountebank’s child who helps her father to earn +shillings when she is six years old—a child that inherits a singing +throat from a long line of choristers and learns to sing as it learns +to talk, has a likelier beginning. Any great achievement in acting or +in music grows with the growth. Whenever an artist has been able to +say, ‘I came, I saw, I conquered,’ it has been at the end of patient +practice. Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for +receiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine dexterity of +the juggler with his cups and balls, require a shaping of the organs +toward a finer and finer certainty of effect. Your muscles—your whole +frame—must go like a watch, true, true to a hair. That is the work of +spring-time, before habits have been determined.” + +“I did not pretend to genius,” said Gwendolen, still feeling that she +might somehow do what Klesmer wanted to represent as impossible. “I +only suppose that I might have a little talent—enough to improve.” + +“I don’t deny that,” said Klesmer. “If you had been put in the right +track some years ago and had worked well you might now have made a +public singer, though I don’t think your voice would have counted for +much in public. For the stage your personal charms and intelligence +might then have told without the present drawback of inexperience—lack +of discipline—lack of instruction.” + +Certainly Klesmer seemed cruel, but his feeling was the reverse of +cruel. Our speech, even when we are most single-minded, can never take +its line absolutely from one impulse; but Klesmer’s was, as far as +possible, directed by compassion for poor Gwendolen’s ignorant +eagerness to enter on a course of which he saw all the miserable +details with a definiteness which he could not if he would have +conveyed to her mind. + +Gwendolen, however, was not convinced. Her self-opinion rallied, and +since the counselor whom she had called in gave a decision of such +severe peremptoriness, she was tempted to think that his judgment was +not only fallible but biased. It occurred to her that a simpler and +wiser step for her to have taken would have been to send a letter +through the post to the manager of a London theatre, asking him to make +an appointment. She would make no further reference to her singing; +Klesmer, she saw, had set himself against her singing. But she felt +equal to arguing with him about her going on the stage, and she +answered in a resistant tone, + +“I understood, of course, that no one can be a finished actress at +once. It may be impossible to tell beforehand whether I should succeed; +but that seems to me a reason why I should try. I should have thought +that I might have taken an engagement at a theatre meanwhile, so as to +earn money and study at the same time.” + +“Can’t be done, my dear Miss Harleth—I speak plainly—it can’t be +done. I must clear your mind of these notions which have no more +resemblance to reality than a pantomime. Ladies and gentlemen think +that when they have made their toilet and drawn on their gloves they +are as presentable on the stage as in a drawing-room. No manager thinks +that. With all your grace and charm, if you were to present yourself as +an aspirant to the stage, a manager would either require you to pay as +an amateur for being allowed to perform or he would tell you to go and +be taught—trained to bear yourself on the stage, as a horse, however +beautiful, must be trained for the circus; to say nothing of that study +which would enable you to personate a character consistently, and +animate it with the natural language of face, gesture, and tone. For +you to get an engagement fit for you straight away is out of the +question.” + +“I really cannot understand that,” said Gwendolen, rather +haughtily—then, checking herself, she added in another tone—“I shall +be obliged to you if you will explain how it is that such poor +actresses get engaged. I have been to the theatre several times, and I +am sure there were actresses who seemed to me to act not at all well +and who were quite plain.” + +“Ah, my dear Miss Harleth, that is the easy criticism of the buyer. We +who buy slippers toss away this pair and the other as clumsy; but there +went an apprenticeship to the making of them. Excuse me; you could not +at present teach one of those actresses; but there is certainly much +that she could teach you. For example, she can pitch her voice so as to +be heard: ten to one you could not do it till after many trials. Merely +to stand and move on the stage is an art—requires practice. It is +understood that we are not now talking of a _comparse_ in a petty +theatre who earns the wages of a needle-woman. That is out of the +question for you.” + +“Of course I must earn more than that,” said Gwendolen, with a sense of +wincing rather than of being refuted, “but I think I could soon learn +to do tolerably well all those little things you have mentioned. I am +not so very stupid. And even in Paris, I am sure, I saw two actresses +playing important ladies’ parts who were not at all ladies and quite +ugly. I suppose I have no particular talent, but I _must_ think it is +an advantage, even on the stage, to be a lady and not a perfect fright.” + +“Ah, let us understand each other,” said Klesmer, with a flash of new +meaning. “I was speaking of what you would have to go through if you +aimed at becoming a real artist—if you took music and the drama as a +higher vocation in which you would strive after excellence. On that +head, what I have said stands fast. You would find—after your +education in doing things slackly for one-and-twenty years—great +difficulties in study; you would find mortifications in the treatment +you would get when you presented yourself on the footing of skill. You +would be subjected to tests; people would no longer feign not to see +your blunders. You would at first only be accepted on trial. You would +have to bear what I may call a glaring insignificance: any success must +be won by the utmost patience. You would have to keep your place in a +crowd, and after all it is likely you would lose it and get out of +sight. If you determine to face these hardships and still try, you will +have the dignity of a high purpose, even though you may have chosen +unfortunately. You will have some merit, though you may win no prize. +You have asked my judgment on your chances of winning. I don’t pretend +to speak absolutely; but measuring probabilities, my judgment is:—you +will hardly achieve more than mediocrity.” + +Klesmer had delivered himself with emphatic rapidity, and now paused a +moment. Gwendolen was motionless, looking at her hands, which lay over +each other on her lap, till the deep-toned, long-drawn “_But_,” with +which he resumed, had a startling effect, and made her look at him +again. + +“But—there are certainly other ideas, other dispositions with which a +young lady may take up an art that will bring her before the public. +She may rely on the unquestioned power of her beauty as a passport. She +may desire to exhibit herself to an admiration which dispenses with +skill. This goes a certain way on the stage: not in music: but on the +stage, beauty is taken when there is nothing more commanding to be had. +Not without some drilling, however: as I have said before, +technicalities have in any case to be mastered. But these excepted, we +have here nothing to do with art. The woman who takes up this career is +not an artist: she is usually one who thinks of entering on a luxurious +life by a short and easy road—perhaps by marriage—that is her most +brilliant chance, and the rarest. Still, her career will not be +luxurious to begin with: she can hardly earn her own poor bread +independently at once, and the indignities she will be liable to are +such as I will not speak of.” + +“I desire to be independent,” said Gwendolen, deeply stung and +confusedly apprehending some scorn for herself in Klesmer’s words. +“That was my reason for asking whether I could not get an immediate +engagement. Of course I cannot know how things go on about theatres. +But I thought that I could have made myself independent. I have no +money, and I will not accept help from any one.” + +Her wounded pride could not rest without making this disclaimer. It was +intolerable to her that Klesmer should imagine her to have expected +other help from him than advice. + +“That is a hard saying for your friends,” said Klesmer, recovering the +gentleness of tone with which he had begun the conversation. “I have +given you pain. That was inevitable. I was bound to put the truth, the +unvarnished truth, before you. I have not said—I will not say—you +will do wrong to choose the hard, climbing path of an endeavoring +artist. You have to compare its difficulties with those of any less +hazardous—any more private course which opens itself to you. If you +take that more courageous resolve I will ask leave to shake hands with +you on the strength of our freemasonry, where we are all vowed to the +service of art, and to serve her by helping every fellow-servant.” + +Gwendolen was silent, again looking at her hands. She felt herself very +far away from taking the resolve that would enforce acceptance; and +after waiting an instant or two, Klesmer went on with deepened +seriousness. + +“Where there is the duty of service there must be the duty of accepting +it. The question is not one of personal obligation. And in relation to +practical matters immediately affecting your future—excuse my +permitting myself to mention in confidence an affair of my own. I am +expecting an event which would make it easy for me to exert myself on +your behalf in furthering your opportunities of instruction and +residence in London—under the care, that is, of your family—without +need for anxiety on your part. If you resolve to take art as a +bread-study, you need only undertake the study at first; the bread will +be found without trouble. The event I mean is my marriage—in fact—you +will receive this as a matter of confidence—my marriage with Miss +Arrowpoint, which will more than double such right as I have to be +trusted by you as a friend. Your friendship will have greatly risen in +value for _her_ by your having adopted that generous labor.” + +Gwendolen’s face had begun to burn. That Klesmer was about to marry +Miss Arrowpoint caused her no surprise, and at another moment she would +have amused herself in quickly imagining the scenes that must have +occurred at Quetcham. But what engrossed her feeling, what filled her +imagination now, was the panorama of her own immediate future that +Klesmer’s words seemed to have unfolded. The suggestion of Miss +Arrowpoint as a patroness was only another detail added to its +repulsiveness: Klesmer’s proposal to help her seemed an additional +irritation after the humiliating judgment he had passed on her +capabilities. His words had really bitten into her self-confidence and +turned it into the pain of a bleeding wound; and the idea of presenting +herself before other judges was now poisoned with the dread that they +also might be harsh; they also would not recognize the talent she was +conscious of. But she controlled herself, and rose from her seat before +she made any answer. It seemed natural that she should pause. She went +to the piano and looked absently at leaves of music, pinching up the +corners. At last she turned toward Klesmer and said, with almost her +usual air of proud equality, which in this interview had not been +hitherto perceptible. + +“I congratulate you sincerely, Herr Klesmer. I think I never saw any +one so admirable as Miss Arrowpoint. And I have to thank you for every +sort of kindness this morning. But I can’t decide now. If I make the +resolve you have spoken of, I will use your permission—I will let you +know. But I fear the obstacles are too great. In any case, I am deeply +obliged to you. It was very bold of me to ask you to take this trouble.” + +Klesmer’s inward remark was, “She will never let me know.” But with the +most thorough respect in his manner, he said, “Command me at any time. +There is an address on this card which will always find me with little +delay.” + +When he had taken up his hat and was going to make his bow, Gwendolen’s +better self, conscious of an ingratitude which the clear-seeing Klesmer +must have penetrated, made a desperate effort to find its way above the +stifling layers of egoistic disappointment and irritation. Looking at +him with a glance of the old gayety, she put out her hand, and said +with a smile, “If I take the wrong road, it will not be because of your +flattery.” + +“God forbid that you should take any road but one where you will find +and give happiness!” said Klesmer, fervently. Then, in foreign fashion, +he touched her fingers lightly with his lips, and in another minute she +heard the sound of his departing wheels getting more distant on the +gravel. + +Gwendolen had never in her life felt so miserable. No sob came, no +passion of tears, to relieve her. Her eyes were burning; and the +noonday only brought into more dreary clearness the absence of interest +from her life. All memories, all objects, the pieces of music +displayed, the open piano—the very reflection of herself in the +glass—seemed no better than the packed-up shows of a departing fair. +For the first time since her consciousness began, she was having a +vision of herself on the common level, and had lost the innate sense +that there were reasons why she should not be slighted, elbowed, +jostled—treated like a passenger with a third-class ticket, in spite +of private objections on her own part. She did not move about; the +prospects begotten by disappointment were too oppressively +preoccupying; she threw herself into the shadiest corner of a settee, +and pressed her fingers over her burning eyelids. Every word that +Klesmer had said seemed to have been branded into her memory, as most +words are which bring with them a new set of impressions and make an +epoch for us. Only a few hours before, the dawning smile of +self-contentment rested on her lips as she vaguely imagined a future +suited to her wishes: it seemed but the affair of a year or so for her +to become the most approved Juliet of the time: or, if Klesmer +encouraged her idea of being a singer, to proceed by more gradual steps +to her place in the opera, while she won money and applause by +occasional performances. Why not? At home, at school, among +acquaintances, she had been used to have her conscious superiority +admitted; and she had moved in a society where everything, from low +arithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind, politely supposed to +fall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies are not +obliged to do more than they like—otherwise they would probably give +forth abler writings, and show themselves more commanding artists than +any the world is at present obliged to put up with. The self-confident +visions that had beguiled her were not of a highly exceptional kind; +and she had at least shown some rationality in consulting the person +who knew the most and had flattered her the least. In asking Klesmer’s +advice, however, she had rather been borne up by a belief in his latent +admiration than bent on knowing anything more unfavorable that might +have lain behind his slight objections to her singing; and the truth +she had asked for, with an expectation that it would be agreeable, had +come like a lacerating thong. + +“Too old—should have begun seven years ago—you will not, at best, +achieve more than mediocrity—hard, incessant work, uncertain +praise—bread coming slowly, scantily, perhaps not at +all—mortifications, people no longer feigning not to see your +blunders—glaring insignificance”—all these phrases rankled in her; +and even more galling was the hint that she could only be accepted on +the stage as a beauty who hoped to get a husband. The “indignities” +that she might be visited with had no very definite form for her, but +the mere association of anything called “indignity” with herself, +roused a resentful alarm. And along with the vaguer images which were +raised by those biting words, came the precise conception of +disagreeables which her experience enabled her to imagine. How could +she take her mamma and the four sisters to London, if it were not +possible for her to earn money at once? And as for submitting to be a +_protégée_, and asking her mamma to submit with her to the humiliation +of being supported by Miss Arrowpoint—that was as bad as being a +governess; nay, worse; for suppose the end of all her study to be as +worthless as Klesmer clearly expected it to be, the sense of favors +received and never repaid, would embitter the miseries of +disappointment. Klesmer doubtless had magnificent ideas about helping +artists; but how could he know the feelings of ladies in such matters? +It was all over: she had entertained a mistaken hope; and there was an +end of it. + +“An end of it!” said Gwendolen, aloud, starting from her seat as she +heard the steps and voices of her mamma and sisters coming in from +church. She hurried to the piano and began gathering together her +pieces of music with assumed diligence, while the expression on her +pale face and in her burning eyes was what would have suited a woman +enduring a wrong which she might not resent, but would probably revenge. + +“Well, my darling,” said gentle Mrs. Davilow, entering, “I see by the +wheel-marks that Klesmer has been here. Have you been satisfied with +the interview?” She had some guesses as to its object, but felt timid +about implying them. + +“Satisfied, mamma? oh, yes,” said Gwendolen, in a high, hard tone, for +which she must be excused, because she dreaded a scene of emotion. If +she did not set herself resolutely to feign proud indifference, she +felt that she must fall into a passionate outburst of despair, which +would cut her mamma more deeply than all the rest of their calamities. + +“Your uncle and aunt were disappointed at not seeing you,” said Mrs. +Davilow, coming near the piano, and watching Gwendolen’s movements. “I +only said that you wanted rest.” + +“Quite right, mamma,” said Gwendolen, in the same tone, turning to put +away some music. + +“Am I not to know anything now, Gwendolen? Am I always to be in the +dark?” said Mrs. Davilow, too keenly sensitive to her daughter’s manner +and expression not to fear that something painful had occurred. + +“There is really nothing to tell now, mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a +still higher voice. “I had a mistaken idea about something I could do. +Herr Klesmer has undeceived me. That is all.” + +“Don’t look and speak in that way, my dear child: I cannot bear it,” +said Mrs. Davilow, breaking down. She felt an undefinable terror. + +Gwendolen looked at her a moment in silence, biting her inner lip; then +she went up to her, and putting her hands on her mamma’s shoulders, +said, with a drop in her voice to the lowest undertone, “Mamma, don’t +speak to me now. It is useless to cry and waste our strength over what +can’t be altered. You will live at Sawyer’s Cottage, and I am going to +the bishop’s daughters. There is no more to be said. Things cannot be +altered, and who cares? It makes no difference to any one else what we +do. We must try not to care ourselves. We must not give way. I dread +giving way. Help me to be quiet.” + +Mrs. Davilow was like a frightened child under her daughter’s face and +voice; her tears were arrested and she went away in silence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + “I question things but do not find + One that will answer to my mind: + And all the world appears unkind.” + —WORDSWORTH. + + +Gwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with Klesmer +before meeting her uncle and aunt. She had made up her mind now that +there were only disagreeables before her, and she felt able to maintain +a dogged calm in the face of any humiliation that might be proposed. + +The meeting did not happen until the Monday, when Gwendolen went to the +rectory with her mamma. They had called at Sawyer’s Cottage by the way, +and had seen every cranny of the narrow rooms in a midday light, +unsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by +gleanings from the rectory had not yet begun. + +“How _shall_ you endure it, mamma?” said Gwendolen, as they walked +away. She had not opened her lips while they were looking round at the +bare walls and floors, and the little garden with the cabbage-stalks, +and the yew arbor all dust and cobwebs within. “You and the four girls +all in that closet of a room, with the green and yellow paper pressing +on your eyes? And without me?” + +“It will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear.” + +“If it were not that I must get some money, I would rather be there +than go to be a governess.” + +“Don’t set yourself against it beforehand, Gwendolen. If you go to the +palace you will have every luxury about you. And you know how much you +have always cared for that. You will not find it so hard as going up +and down those steep narrow stairs, and hearing the crockery rattle +through the house, and the dear girls talking.” + +“It is like a bad dream,” said Gwendolen, impetuously. “I cannot +believe that my uncle will let you go to such a place. He ought to have +taken some other steps.” + +“Don’t be unreasonable, dear child. What could he have done?” + +“That was for him to find out. It seems to me a very extraordinary +world if people in our position must sink in this way all at once,” +said Gwendolen, the other worlds with which she was conversant being +constructed with a sense of fitness that arranged her own future +agreeably. + +It was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new +pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the +vicissitudes in other people’s lives, though it was never her +aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly—a point +to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse +than she was. + +And, notwithstanding the keen sense of her own bruises, she was capable +of some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with a more +affectionate kindness than they had ever shown before. She could not +but be struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of +the necessary economies in their way of living, and in the education of +the boys. Mr. Gascoigne’s worth of character, a little obscured by +worldly opportunities—as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the +demands of fashionable dressing—showed itself to great advantage under +this sudden reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had set +himself not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn +suits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without +periodicals, to get Edwy from school and arrange hours of study for all +the boys under himself, and to order the whole establishment on the +sparest footing possible. For all healthy people economy has its +pleasures; and the rector’s spirit had spread through the household. +Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna, who always made papa their model, really did +not miss anything they cared about for themselves, and in all sincerity +felt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for Mrs. +Davilow and her children. + +Anna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of Rex in +her sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne was disposed to hope +that trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without +thinking it her duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the +salutariness. They had both been busy devising how to get blinds and +curtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate +feeling they left these matters in the background, and talked at first +of Gwendolen’s journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her +at home again. + +In fact there was nothing for Gwendolen to take as a justification for +extending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around +her, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call +to drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a +voice of firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making +to get her a situation which would offer her as many advantages as +possible. Mr. Gascoigne had not forgotten Grandcourt, but the +possibility of further advances from that quarter was something too +vague for a man of his good sense to be determined by it: uncertainties +of that kind must not now slacken his action in doing the best he could +for his niece under actual conditions. + +“I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in +a good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had +at a moment’s notice. And however long we waited we could hardly find +one where you would be better off than at Bishop Mompert’s. I am known +to both him and Mrs. Mompert, and that of course is an advantage to +you. Our correspondence has gone on favorably; but I cannot be +surprised that Mrs. Mompert wishes to see you before making an absolute +engagement. She thinks of arranging for you to meet her at Wanchester +when she is on her way to town. I dare say you will feel the interview +rather trying for you, my dear; but you will have a little time to +prepare your mind.” + +“Do you know _why_ she wants to see me, uncle?” said Gwendolen, whose +mind had quickly gone over various reasons that an imaginary Mrs. +Mompert with three daughters might be supposed to entertain, reasons +all of a disagreeable kind to the person presenting herself for +inspection. + +The rector smiled. “Don’t be alarmed, my dear. She would like to have a +more precise idea of you than my report can give. And a mother is +naturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. I have told +her you are very young. But she herself exercises a close supervision +over her daughters’ education, and that makes her less anxious as to +age. She is a woman of taste and also of strict principle, and objects +to having a French person in the house. I feel sure that she will think +your manners and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find; and +over the religious and moral tone of the education she, and indeed the +bishop himself, will preside.” + +Gwendolen dared not answer, but the repression of her decided dislike +to the whole prospect sent an unusually deep flush over her face and +neck, subsiding as quickly as it came. Anna, full of tender fears, put +her little hand into her cousin’s, and Mr. Gascoigne was too kind a man +not to conceive something of the trial which this sudden change must be +for a girl like Gwendolen. Bent on giving a cheerful view of things, he +went on, in an easy tone of remark, not as if answering supposed +objections, + +“I think so highly of the position, that I should have been tempted to +try and get it for Anna, if she had been at all likely to meet Mrs. +Mompert’s wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education +in the highest sense: ‘governess’ is a misnomer. The bishop’s views are +of a more decidedly Low Church color than my own—he is a close friend +of Lord Grampian’s; but, though privately strict, he is not by any +means narrow in public matters. Indeed, he has created as little +dislike in his diocese as any bishop on the bench. He has always +remained friendly to me, though before his promotion, when he was an +incumbent of this diocese, we had a little controversy about the Bible +Society.” + +The rector’s words were too pregnant with satisfactory meaning to +himself for him to imagine the effect they produced in the mind of his +niece. “Continuance of education”—“bishop’s views”—“privately +strict”—“Bible Society,”—it was as if he had introduced a few snakes +at large for the instruction of ladies who regarded them as all alike +furnished with poison-bags, and, biting or stinging, according to +convenience. To Gwendolen, already shrinking from the prospect open to +her, such phrases came like the growing heat of a burning glass—not at +all as the links of persuasive reflection which they formed for the +good uncle. She began, desperately, to seek an alternative. + +“There was another situation, I think, mamma spoke of?” she said, with +determined self-mastery. + +“Yes,” said the rector, in rather a deprecatory tone; “but that is in +a school. I should not have the same satisfaction in your taking that. +It would be much harder work, you are aware, and not so good in any +other respect. Besides, you have not an equal chance of getting it.” + +“Oh dear no,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, “it would be much harder for you, my +dear—it would be much less appropriate. You might not have a bedroom to +yourself.” And Gwendolen’s memories of school suggested other +particulars which forced her to admit to herself that this alternative +would be no relief. She turned to her uncle again and said, apparently +in acceptance of his ideas, + +“When is Mrs. Mompert likely to send for me?” + +“That is rather uncertain, but she has promised not to entertain any +other proposal till she has seen you. She has entered with much feeling +into your position. It will be within the next fortnight, probably. But +I must be off now. I am going to let part of my glebe uncommonly well.” + +The rector ended very cheerfully, leaving the room with the +satisfactory conviction that Gwendolen was going to adapt herself to +circumstances like a girl of good sense. Having spoken appropriately, +he naturally supposed that the effects would be appropriate; being +accustomed, as a household and parish authority, to be asked to “speak +to” refractory persons, with the understanding that the measure was +morally coercive. + +“What a stay Henry is to us all!” said Mrs. Gascoigne, when her husband +had left the room. + +“He is indeed,” said Mrs. Davilow, cordially. “I think cheerfulness is +a fortune in itself. I wish I had it.” + +“And Rex is just like him,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. “I must tell you the +comfort we have had in a letter from him. I must read you a little +bit,” she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked +rather frightened—she did not know why, except that it had been a rule +with her not to mention Rex before Gwendolen. + +The proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to +read aloud. But apparently she had found it sown with what might seem +to be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she +looked up, folding the letter, and saying, + +“However, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a +reason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take +pupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most +remarkable. The letter is full of fun—just like him. He says, ‘Tell +mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working +son, in time to hinder me from taking ship; and I offer myself for the +place.’ The letter came on Friday. I never saw my husband so much moved +by anything since Rex was born. It seemed a gain to balance our loss.” + +This letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna +to show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very +amiably about it, smiling at Anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to +say, “Nothing is wrong with you now, is it?” She had no gratuitously +ill-natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She +only had an intense objection to their making her miserable. + +But when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not +roused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done +as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an +heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on +within her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect +allowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The +idea of presenting herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first instance, +to be approved or disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful +bruise; even as a governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was +liable to rejection. After she had done herself the violence to accept +the bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would +accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be +silent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of +self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound +incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on: +there was always to be Mrs. Mompert’s supervision; always something or +other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest +inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious +topics. Gwendolen, lately used to the social successes of a handsome +girl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the effect of wit, and +who six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of the bishop +rather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an +entrance into a penitentiary. Wild 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, 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 recognized 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. She had a +world-nausea upon her, and saw no reason all through her life why she +should wish to live. No religious view of trouble helped her: her +troubles had in her opinion all been caused by other people’s +disagreeable or wicked conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant +to be counted on in the world: that was her feeling; everything else +she had heard said about trouble was mere phrase-making not attractive +enough for her to have caught it up and repeated it. As to the +sweetness of labor and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and +outward activity; the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual +discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry, which it is mere +baseness not to pay toward the common burden; the supreme worth of the +teacher’s vocation;—these, even if they had been eloquently preached +to her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines: the +fact which wrought upon her was her invariable observation that for a +lady to become a governess—to “take a situation”—was to descend in +life and to be treated at best with a compassionate patronage. And poor +Gwendolen had never dissociated happiness from personal pre-eminence +and _éclat_. That where these threatened to forsake her, she should +take life to be hardly worth the having, cannot make her so unlike the +rest of us, men or women, that we should cast her out of our +compassion; our moments of temptation to a mean opinion of things in +general being usually dependent on some susceptibility about ourselves +and some dullness to subjects which every one else would consider more +important. Surely a young creature is pitiable who has the labyrinth of +life before her and no clue—to whom distrust in herself and her good +fortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that +she was treading carelessly. + +In spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected +her even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about +nothing; the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an +irritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed +unreasonable, because it did not include her feeling and was an +ignorant claim on her. It was not in her nature to busy herself with +the fancies of suicide to which disappointed young people are prone: +what occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing +for her but to live in a way she hated. She avoided going to the +rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if +she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest +about the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying on +purpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing. +Her mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when Anna +came to see her. For that calm which Gwendolen had promised herself to +maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, “I suppose +I shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?” + +Her mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the +habit of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined +that Gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give +way to the possibility of making her darling less miserable. + +One day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was +lingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging +Gwendolen’s articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the +casket which contained the ornaments. + +“Mamma,” she began, glancing over the upper layer, “I had forgotten +these things. Why didn’t you remind me of them? Do see about getting +them sold. You will not mind about parting with them. You gave them all +to me long ago.” + +She lifted the upper tray and looked below. + +“If we can do without them, darling, I would rather keep them for you,” +said Mrs. Davilow, seating herself beside Gwendolen with a feeling of +relief that she was beginning to talk about something. The usual +relation between them had become reversed. It was now the mother who +tried to cheer the daughter. “Why, how came you to put that pocket +handkerchief in here?” + +It was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which Gwendolen had +thrust in with the turquoise necklace. + +“It happened to be with the necklace—I was in a hurry,” said +Gwendolen, taking the handkerchief away and putting it in her pocket. +“Don’t sell the necklace, mamma,” she added, a new feeling having come +over her about that rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive. + +“No, dear, no; it was made out of your dear father’s chain. And I +should prefer not selling the other things. None of them are of any +great value. All my best ornaments were taken from me long ago.” + +Mrs. Davilow colored. She usually avoided any reference to such facts +about Gwendolen’s step-father as that he had carried off his wife’s +jewelry and disposed of it. After a moment’s pause she went on, + +“And these things have not been reckoned on for any expenses. Carry +them with you.” + +“That would be quite useless, mamma,” said Gwendolen, coldly. +“Governesses don’t wear ornaments. You had better get me a gray frieze +livery and a straw poke, such as my aunt’s charity children wear.” + +“No, dear, no; don’t take that view of it. I feel sure the Momperts +will like you the better for being graceful and elegant.” + +“I am not at all sure what the Momperts will like me to be. It is +enough that I am expected to be what they like,” said Gwendolen +bitterly. + +“If there is anything you would object to less—anything that could be +done—instead of your going to the bishop’s, do say so, Gwendolen. Tell +me what is in your heart. I will try for anything you wish,” said the +mother, beseechingly. “Don’t keep things away from me. Let us bear them +together.” + +“Oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. I can’t do anything better. I +must think myself fortunate if they will have me. I shall get some +money for you. That is the only thing I have to think of. I shall not +spend any money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. I don’t +know how far that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your +poor fingers to the bone, and stare away all the sight that the tears +have left in your dear eyes.” + +Gwendolen did not give any caresses with her words as she had been used +to do. She did not even look at her mother, but was looking at the +turquoise necklace as she turned it over her fingers. + +“Bless you for your tenderness, my good darling!” said Mrs. Davilow, +with tears in her eyes. “Don’t despair because there are clouds now. +You are so young. There may be great happiness in store for you yet.” + +“I don’t see any reason for expecting it, mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a +hard tone; and Mrs. Davilow was silent, thinking as she had often +thought before—“What did happen between her and Mr. Grandcourt?” + +“I _will_ keep this necklace, mamma,” said Gwendolen, laying it apart +and then closing the casket. “But do get the other things sold, even if +they will not bring much. Ask my uncle what to do with them. I shall +certainly not use them again. I am going to take the veil. I wonder if +all the poor wretches who have ever taken it felt as I do.” + +“Don’t exaggerate evils, dear.” + +“How can any one know that I exaggerate, when I am speaking of my own +feeling? I did not say what any one else felt.” + +She took out the torn handkerchief from her pocket again, and wrapped +it deliberately round the necklace. Mrs. Davilow observed the action +with some surprise, but the tone of her last words discouraged her from +asking any question. + +The “feeling” Gwendolen spoke of with an air of tragedy was not to be +explained by the mere fact that she was going to be a governess: she +was possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. It was not simply +that she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste +spread itself over the world outside her penitentiary, since she saw +nothing very pleasant in it that seemed attainable by her even if she +were free. Naturally her grievances did not seem to her smaller than +some of her male contemporaries held theirs to be when they felt a +profession too narrow for their powers, and had an _à priori_ +conviction that it was not worth while to put forth their latent +abilities. Because her education had been less expensive than theirs, +it did not follow that she should have wider emotions or a keener +intellectual vision. Her griefs were feminine; but to her as a woman +they were not the less hard to bear, and she felt an equal right to the +Promethean tone. + +But the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, to fold it +up in the handkerchief, and rise to put it in her _nécessaire_, where +she had first placed it when it had been returned to her, was more +peculiar, and what would be called less reasonable. It came from that +streak of superstition in her which attached itself both to her +confidence and her terror—a superstition which lingers in an intense +personality even in spite of theory and science; any dread or hope for +self being stronger than all reasons for or against it. Why she should +suddenly determine not to part with the necklace was not much clearer +to her than why she should sometimes have been frightened to find +herself in the fields alone: she had a confused state of emotion about +Deronda—was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and +exceptional trust? It was something vague and yet mastering, which +impelled her to this action about the necklace. There is a great deal +of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account +in an explanation of our gusts and storms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + How trace the why and wherefore in a mind reduced to the barrenness of + a fastidious egoism, in which all direct desires are dulled, and have + dwindled from motives into a vacillating expectation of motives: a + mind made up of moods, where a fitful impulse springs here and there + conspicuously rank amid the general weediness? ’Tis a condition apt to + befall a life too much at large, unmoulded by the pressure of + obligation. _Nam deteriores omnes sumus licentiæ_, or, as a more + familiar tongue might deliver it, _“As you like” is a bad finger-post._ + + +Potentates make known their intentions and affect the funds at a small +expense of words. So when Grandcourt, after learning that Gwendolen had +left Leubronn, incidentally pronounced that resort of fashion a beastly +hole, worse than Baden, the remark was conclusive to Mr. Lush that his +patron intended straightway to return to Diplow. The execution was sure +to be slower than the intention, and, in fact, Grandcourt did loiter +through the next day without giving any distinct orders about +departure—perhaps because he discerned that Lush was expecting them: +he lingered over his toilet, and certainly came down with a faded +aspect of perfect distinction which made fresh complexions and hands +with the blood in them, seem signs of raw vulgarity; he lingered on the +terrace, in the gambling-rooms, in the reading-room, occupying himself +in being indifferent to everybody and everything around him. When he +met Lady Mallinger, however, he took some trouble—raised his hat, +paused, and proved that he listened to her recommendation of the waters +by replying, “Yes; I heard somebody say how providential it was that +there always happened to be springs at gambling places.” + +“Oh, that was a joke,” said innocent Lady Mallinger, misled by +Grandcourt’s languid seriousness, “in imitation of the old one about +the towns and the rivers, you know.” + +“Ah, perhaps,” said Grandcourt, without change of expression. Lady +Mallinger thought this worth telling to Sir Hugo, who said, “Oh, my +dear, he is not a fool. You must not suppose that he can’t see a joke. +He can play his cards as well as most of us.” + +“He has never seemed to me a very sensible man,” said Lady Mallinger, +in excuse of herself. She had a secret objection to meeting Grandcourt, +who was little else to her than a large living sign of what she felt to +be her failure as a wife—the not having presented Sir Hugo with a son. +Her constant reflection was that her husband might fairly regret his +choice, and if he had not been very good might have treated her with +some roughness in consequence, gentlemen naturally disliking to be +disappointed. + +Deronda, too, had a recognition from Grandcourt, for which he was not +grateful, though he took care to return it with perfect civility. No +reasoning as to the foundations of custom could do away with the +early-rooted feeling that his birth had been attended with injury for +which his father was to blame; and seeing that but for this injury +Grandcourt’s prospects might have been his, he was proudly resolute not +to behave in any way that might be interpreted into irritation on that +score. He saw a very easy descent into mean unreasoning rancor and +triumph in others’ frustration; and being determined not to go down +that ugly pit, he turned his back on it, clinging to the kindlier +affections within him as a possession. Pride certainly helped him +well—the pride of not recognizing a disadvantage for one’s self which +vulgar minds are disposed to exaggerate, such as the shabby equipage of +poverty: he would not have a man like Grandcourt suppose himself envied +by him. But there is no guarding against interpretation. Grandcourt did +believe that Deronda, poor devil, who he had no doubt was his cousin by +the father’s side, inwardly winced under their mutual position; +wherefore the presence of that less lucky person was more agreeable to +him than it would otherwise have been. An imaginary envy, the idea that +others feel their comparative deficiency, is the ordinary _cortège_ of +egoism; and his pet dogs were not the only beings that Grandcourt liked +to feel his power over in making them jealous. Hence he was civil +enough to exchange several words with Deronda on the terrace about the +hunting round Diplow, and even said, “You had better come over for a +run or two when the season begins.” + +Lush, not displeased with delay, amused himself very well, partly in +gossiping with Sir Hugo and in answering his questions about +Grandcourt’s affairs so far as they might affect his willingness to +part with his interest in Diplow. Also about Grandcourt’s personal +entanglements, the baronet knew enough already for Lush to feel +released from silence on a sunny autumn day, when there was nothing +more agreeable to do in lounging promenades than to speak freely of a +tyrannous patron behind his back. Sir Hugo willingly inclined his ear +to a little good-humored scandal, which he was fond of calling _traits +de mœurs_; but he was strict in keeping such communications from +hearers who might take them too seriously. Whatever knowledge he had of +his nephew’s secrets, he had never spoken of it to Deronda, who +considered Grandcourt a pale-blooded mortal, but was far from wishing +to hear how the red corpuscles had been washed out of him. It was +Lush’s policy and inclination to gratify everybody when he had no +reason to the contrary; and the baronet always treated him well, as one +of those easy-handled personages who, frequenting the society of +gentlemen, without being exactly gentlemen themselves, can be the more +serviceable, like the second-best articles of our wardrobe, which we +use with a comfortable freedom from anxiety. + +“Well, you will let me know the turn of events,” said Sir Hugo, “if +this marriage seems likely to come off after all, or if anything else +happens to make the want of money pressing. My plan would be much +better for him than burdening Ryelands.” + +“That’s true,” said Lush, “only it must not be urged on him—just +placed in his way that the scent may tickle him. Grandcourt is not a +man to be always led by what makes for his own interest; especially if +you let him see that it makes for your interest too. I’m attached to +him, of course. I’ve given up everything else for the sake of keeping +by him, and it has lasted a good fifteen years now. He would not easily +get any one else to fill my place. He’s a peculiar character, is +Henleigh Grandcourt, and it has been growing on him of late years. +However, I’m of a constant disposition, and I’ve been a sort of +guardian to him since he was twenty; an uncommonly fascinating fellow +he was then, to be sure—and could be now, if he liked. I’m attached to +him; and it would be a good deal worse for him if he missed me at his +elbow.” + +Sir Hugo did not think it needful to express his sympathy or even +assent, and perhaps Lush himself did not expect this sketch of his +motives to be taken as exact. But how can a man avoid himself as a +subject in conversation? And he must make some sort of decent toilet in +words, as in cloth and linen. Lush’s listener was not severe: a member +of Parliament could allow for the necessities of verbal toilet; and the +dialogue went on without any change of mutual estimate. + +However, Lush’s easy prospect of indefinite procrastination was cut off +the next morning by Grandcourt’s saluting him with the question, + +“Are you making all the arrangements for our starting by the Paris +train?” + +“I didn’t know you meant to start,” said Lush, not exactly taken by +surprise. + +“You might have known,” said Grandcourt, looking at the burned length +of his cigar, and speaking in that lowered tone which was usual with +him when he meant to express disgust and be peremptory. “Just see to +everything, will you? and mind no brute gets into the same carriage +with us. And leave my P. P. C. at the Mallingers’.” + +In consequence they were at Paris the next day; but here Lush was +gratified by the proposal or command that he should go straight on to +Diplow and see that everything was right, while Grandcourt and the +valet remained behind; and it was not until several days later that +Lush received the telegram ordering the carriage to the Wanchester +station. + +He had used the interim actively, not only in carrying out Grandcourt’s +orders about the stud and household, but in learning all he could of +Gwendolen, and how things were going on at Offendene. What was the +probable effect that the news of the family misfortunes would have on +Grandcourt’s fitful obstinacy he felt to be quite incalculable. So far +as the girl’s poverty might be an argument that she would accept an +offer from him now in spite of any previous coyness, it might remove +that bitter objection to risk a repulse which Lush divined to be one of +Grandcourt’s deterring motives; on the other hand, the certainty of +acceptance was just “the sort of thing” to make him lapse hither and +thither with no more apparent will than a moth. Lush had had his patron +under close observation for many years, and knew him perhaps better +than he knew any other subject; but to know Grandcourt was to doubt +what he would do in any particular case. It might happen that he would +behave with an apparent magnanimity, like the hero of a modern French +drama, whose sudden start into moral splendor after much lying and +meanness, leaves you little confidence as to any part of his career +that may follow the fall of the curtain. Indeed, what attitude would +have been more honorable for a final scene than that of declining to +seek an heiress for her money, and determining to marry the attractive +girl who had none? But Lush had some general certainties about +Grandcourt, and one was that of all inward movements those of +generosity were least likely to occur in him. Of what use, however, is +a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head +hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus +that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths? Thus +Lush was much at fault as to the probable issue between Grandcourt and +Gwendolen, when what he desired was a perfect confidence that they +would never be married. He would have consented willingly that +Grandcourt should marry an heiress, or that he should marry Mrs. +Glasher: in the one match there would have been the immediate abundance +that prospective heirship could not supply, in the other there would +have been the security of the wife’s gratitude, for Lush had always +been Mrs. Glasher’s friend; and that the future Mrs. Grandcourt should +not be socially received could not affect his private comfort. He would +not have minded, either, that there should be no marriage in question +at all; but he felt himself justified in doing his utmost to hinder a +marriage with a girl who was likely to bring nothing but trouble to her +husband—not to speak of annoyance if not ultimate injury to her +husband’s old companion, whose future Mr. Lush earnestly wished to make +as easy as possible, considering that he had well deserved such +compensation for leading a dog’s life, though that of a dog who enjoyed +many tastes undisturbed, and who profited by a large establishment. He +wished for himself what he felt to be good, and was not conscious of +wishing harm to any one else; unless perhaps it were just now a little +harm to the inconvenient and impertinent Gwendolen. But the +easiest-humored of luxury and music, the toad-eater the least liable to +nausea, must be expected to have his susceptibilities. And Mr. Lush was +accustomed to be treated by the world in general as an apt, agreeable +fellow: he had not made up his mind to be insulted by more than one +person. + +With this imperfect preparation of a war policy, Lush was awaiting +Grandcourt’s arrival, doing little more than wondering how the campaign +would begin. The first day Grandcourt was much occupied with the +stables, and amongst other things he ordered a groom to put a +side-saddle on Criterion and let him review the horse’s paces. This +marked indication of purpose set Lush on considering over again whether +he should incur the ticklish consequences of speaking first, while he +was still sure that no compromising step had been taken; and he rose +the next morning almost resolved that if Grandcourt seemed in as good a +humor as yesterday and entered at all into talk, he would let drop the +interesting facts about Gwendolen and her family, just to see how they +would work, and to get some guidance. But Grandcourt did not enter into +talk, and in answer to a question even about his own convenience, no +fish could have maintained a more unwinking silence. After he had read +his letters he gave various orders to be executed or transmitted by +Lush, and then thrust his shoulder toward that useful person, who +accordingly rose to leave the room. But before he was out of the door +Grandcourt turned his head slightly and gave a broken, languid “Oh.” + +“What is it?” said Lush, who, it must have been observed, did not take +his dusty puddings with a respectful air. + +“Shut the door, will you? I can’t speak into the corridor.” + +Lush closed the door, came forward, and chose to sit down. + +After a little pause Grandcourt said, “Is Miss Harleth at Offendene?” +He was quite certain that Lush had made it his business to inquire +about her, and he had some pleasure in thinking that Lush did not want +_him_ to inquire. + +“Well, I hardly know,” said Lush, carelessly. “The family’s utterly +done up. They and the Gascoignes too have lost all their money. It’s +owing to some rascally banking business. The poor mother hasn’t a +_sou_, it seems. She and the girls have to huddle themselves into a +little cottage like a laborer’s.” + +“Don’t lie to me, if you please,” said Grandcourt, in his lowest +audible tone. “It’s not amusing, and it answers no other purpose.” + +“What do you mean?” said Lush, more nettled than was common with +him—the prospect before him being more than commonly disturbing. + +“Just tell me the truth, will you?” + +“It’s no invention of mine. I have heard the story from +several—Bazley, Brackenshaw’s man, for one. He is getting a new tenant +for Offendene.” + +“I don’t mean that. Is Miss Harleth there, or is she not?” said +Grandcourt, in his former tone. + +“Upon my soul, I can’t tell,” said Lush, rather sulkily. “She may have +left yesterday. I heard she had taken a situation as governess; she may +be gone to it for what I know. But if you wanted to see her no doubt +the mother would send for her back.” This sneer slipped off his tongue +without strict intention. + +“Send Hutchins to inquire whether she will be there to-morrow.” Lush did +not move. Like many persons who have thought over beforehand what they +shall say in given cases, he was impelled by an unexpected irritation +to say some of those prearranged things before the cases were given. +Grandcourt, in fact, was likely to get into a scrape so tremendous that +it was impossible to let him take the first step toward it without +remonstrance. Lush retained enough caution to use a tone of rational +friendliness, still he felt his own value to his patron, and was +prepared to be daring. + +“It would be as well for you to remember, Grandcourt, that you are +coming under closer fire now. There can be none of the ordinary +flirting done, which may mean everything or nothing. You must make up +your mind whether you wish to be accepted; and more than that, how you +would like being refused. Either one or the other. You can’t be +philandering after her again for six weeks.” + +Grandcourt said nothing, but pressed the newspaper down on his knees +and began to light another cigar. Lush took this as a sign that he was +willing to listen, and was the more bent on using the opportunity; he +wanted, if possible, to find out which would be the more potent cause +of hesitation—probable acceptance or probable refusal. + +“Everything has a more serious look now than it had before. There is +her family to be provided for. You could not let your wife’s mother +live in beggary. It will be a confoundedly hampering affair. Marriage +will pin you down in a way you haven’t been used to; and in point of +money you have not too much elbow-room. And after all, what will you +get by it? You are master over your estates, present or future, as far +as choosing your heir goes; it’s a pity to go on encumbering them for a +mere whim, which you may repent of in a twelvemonth. I should be sorry +to see you making a mess of your life in that way. If there were +anything solid to be gained by the marriage, that would be a different +affair.” + +Lush’s tone had gradually become more and more unctuous in its +friendliness of remonstrance, and he was almost in danger of forgetting +that he was merely gambling in argument. When he left off, Grandcourt +took his cigar out of his mouth, and looking steadily at the moist end +while he adjusted the leaf with his delicate finger-tips, said, + +“I knew before that you had an objection to my marrying Miss Harleth.” +Here he made a little pause before he continued. “But I never +considered that a reason against it.” + +“I never supposed you did,” answered Lush, not unctuously but dryly. +“It was not _that_ I urged as a reason. I should have thought it might +have been a reason against it, after all your experience, that you +would be acting like the hero of a ballad, and making yourself +absurd—and all for what? You know you couldn’t make up your mind +before. It’s impossible you can care much about her. And as for the +tricks she is likely to play, you may judge of that from what you heard +at Leubronn. However, what I wished to point out to you was, that there +can be no shilly-shally now.” + +“Perfectly,” said Grandcourt, looking round at Lush and fixing him with +narrow eyes; “I don’t intend that there should be. I dare say it’s +disagreeable to you. But if you suppose I care a damn for that you are +most stupendously mistaken.” + +“Oh, well,” said Lush, rising with his hands in his pockets, and +feeling some latent venom still within him, “if you have made up your +mind!—only there’s another aspect of the affair. I have been speaking +on the supposition that it was absolutely certain she would accept you, +and that destitution would have no choice. But I am not so sure that +the young lady is to be counted on. She is kittle cattle to shoe, I +think. And she had her reasons for running away before.” Lush had moved +a step or two till he stood nearly in front of Grandcourt, though at +some distance from him. He did not feel himself much restrained by +consequences, being aware that the only strong hold he had on his +present position was his serviceableness; and even after a quarrel the +want of him was likely sooner or later to recur. He foresaw that +Gwendolen would cause him to be ousted for a time, and his temper at +this moment urged him to risk a quarrel. + +“She had her reasons,” he repeated more significantly. + +“I had come to that conclusion before,” said Grandcourt, with +contemptuous irony. + +“Yes, but I hardly think you know what her reasons were.” + +“You do, apparently,” said Grandcourt, not betraying by so much as an +eyelash that he cared for the reasons. + +“Yes, and you had better know too, that you may judge of the influence +you have over her if she swallows her reasons and accepts you. For my +own part I would take odds against it. She saw Lydia in Cardell Chase +and heard the whole story.” + +Grandcourt made no immediate answer, and only went on smoking. He was +so long before he spoke that Lush moved about and looked out of the +windows, unwilling to go away without seeing some effect of his daring +move. He had expected that Grandcourt would tax him with having +contrived the affair, since Mrs. Glasher was then living at Gadsmere, a +hundred miles off, and he was prepared to admit the fact: what he cared +about was that Grandcourt should be staggered by the sense that his +intended advances must be made to a girl who had that knowledge in her +mind and had been scared by it. At length Grandcourt, seeing Lush turn +toward him, looked at him again and said, contemptuously, “What +follows?” + +Here certainly was a “mate” in answer to Lush’s “check”; and though his +exasperation with Grandcourt was perhaps stronger than it had ever been +before, it would have been idiocy to act as if any further move could +be useful. He gave a slight shrug with one shoulder, and was going to +walk away, when Grandcourt, turning on his seat toward the table, said, +as quietly as if nothing had occurred, “Oblige me by pushing that pen +and paper here, will you?” + +No thunderous, bullying superior could have exercised the imperious +spell that Grandcourt did. Why, instead of being obeyed, he had never +been told to go to a warmer place, was perhaps a mystery to those who +found themselves obeying him. The pen and paper were pushed to him, and +as he took them he said, “Just wait for this letter.” + +He scrawled with ease, and the brief note was quickly addressed. “Let +Hutchins go with it at once, will you?” said Grandcourt, pushing the +letter away from him. + +As Lush had expected, it was addressed to Miss Harleth, Offendene. When +his irritation had cooled down he was glad there had been no explosive +quarrel; but he felt sure that there was a notch made against him, and +that somehow or other he was intended to pay. It was also clear to him +that the immediate effect of his revelation had been to harden +Grandcourt’s previous determination. But as to the particular movements +that made this process in his baffling mind, Lush could only toss up +his chin in despair of a theory. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + He brings white asses laden with the freight + Of Tyrian vessels, purple, gold and balm, + To bribe my will: I’ll bid them chase him forth, + Nor let him breathe the taint of his surmise + On my secure resolve. + Ay, ’tis secure: + And therefore let him come to spread his freight. + For firmness hath its appetite and craves + The stronger lure, more strongly to resist; + Would know the touch of gold to fling it off; + Scent wine to feel its lip the soberer; + Behold soft byssus, ivory, and plumes + To say, “They’re fair, but I will none of them,” + And flout Enticement in the very face. + + +Mr. Gascoigne one day came to Offendene with what he felt to be the +satisfactory news that Mrs. Mompert had fixed Tuesday in the following +week for her interview with Gwendolen at Wanchester. He said nothing of +his having incidentally heard that Mr. Grandcourt had returned to +Diplow; knowing no more than she did that Leubronn had been the goal of +her admirer’s journeying, and feeling that it would be unkind uselessly +to revive the memory of a brilliant prospect under the present +reverses. In his secret soul he thought of his niece’s unintelligible +caprice with regret, but he vindicated her to himself by considering +that Grandcourt had been the first to behave oddly, in suddenly walking +away when there had the best opportunity for crowning his marked +attentions. The rector’s practical judgment told him that his chief +duty to his niece now was to encourage her resolutely to face the +change in her lot, since there was no manifest promise of any event +that would avert it. + +“You will find an interest in varied experience, my dear, and I have no +doubt you will be a more valuable woman for having sustained such a +part as you are called to.” + +“I cannot pretend to believe that I shall like it,” said Gwendolen, for +the first time showing her uncle some petulance. “But I am quite aware +that I am obliged to bear it.” + +She remembered having submitted to his admonition on a different +occasion when she was expected to like a very different prospect. + +“And your good sense will teach you to behave suitably under it,” said +Mr. Gascoigne, with a shade more gravity. “I feel sure that Mrs. +Mompert will be pleased with you. You will know how to conduct yourself +to a woman who holds in all senses the relation of a superior to you. +This trouble has come on you young, but that makes it in some respects +easier, and there is a benefit in all chastisement if we adjust our +minds to it.” + +This was precisely what Gwendolen was unable to do; and after her uncle +was gone, the bitter tears, which had rarely come during the late +trouble, rose and fell slowly as she sat alone. Her heart denied that +the trouble was easier because she was young. When was she to have any +happiness, if it did not come while she was young? Not that her visions +of possible happiness for herself were as unmixed with necessary evil +as they used to be—not that she could still imagine herself plucking +the fruits of life without suspicion of their core. But this general +disenchantment with the world—nay, with herself, since it appeared +that she was not made for easy pre-eminence—only intensified her sense +of forlornness; it was a visibly sterile distance enclosing the dreary +path at her feet, in which she had no courage to tread. She was in that +first crisis of passionate youthful rebellion against what is not fitly +called pain, but rather the absence of joy—that first rage of +disappointment in life’s morning, which we whom the years have subdued +are apt to remember but dimly as part of our own experience, and so to +be intolerant of its self-enclosed unreasonableness and impiety. What +passion seems more absurd, when we have got outside it and looked at +calamity as a collective risk, than this amazed anguish that I and not +Thou, He or She, should be just the smitten one? Yet perhaps some who +have afterward made themselves a willing fence before the breast of +another, and have carried their own heart-wound in heroic silence—some +who have made their deeds great, nevertheless began with this angry +amazement at their own smart, and on the mere denial of their fantastic +desires raged as if under the sting of wasps which reduced the universe +for them to an unjust infliction of pain. This was nearly poor +Gwendolen’s condition. What though such a reverse as hers had often +happened to other girls? The one point she had been all her life +learning to care for was that it had happened to _her_: it was what +_she_ felt under Klesmer’s demonstration that she was not remarkable +enough to command fortune by force of will and merit; it was what _she_ +would feel under the rigors of Mrs. Mompert’s constant expectation, +under the dull demand that she should be cheerful with three Miss +Momperts, under the necessity of showing herself entirely submissive, +and keeping her thoughts to herself. To be a queen disthroned is not so +hard as some other down-stepping: imagine one who had been made to +believe in his own divinity finding all homage withdrawn, and himself +unable to perform a miracle that would recall the homage and restore +his own confidence. Something akin to this illusion and this +helplessness had befallen the poor spoiled child, with the lovely lips +and eyes and the majestic figure—which seemed now to have no magic in +them. + +She rose from the low ottoman where she had been sitting purposeless, +and walked up and down the drawing-room, resting her elbow on one palm +while she leaned down her cheek on the other, and a slow tear fell. She +thought, “I have always, ever since I was little, felt that mamma was +not a happy woman; and now I dare say I shall be more unhappy than she +has been.” + +Her mind dwelt for a few moments on the picture of herself losing her +youth and ceasing to enjoy—not minding whether she did this or that: +but such picturing inevitably brought back the image of her mother. + +“Poor mamma! it will be still worse for her now. I can get a little +money for her—that is all I shall care about now.” And then with an +entirely new movement of her imagination, she saw her mother getting +quite old and white, and herself no longer young but faded, and their +two faces meeting still with memory and love, and she knowing what was +in her mother’s mind—“Poor Gwen too is sad and faded now”—and then, +for the first time, she sobbed, not in anger, but with a sort of tender +misery. + +Her face was toward the door, and she saw her mother enter. She barely +saw that; for her eyes were large with tears, and she pressed her +handkerchief against them hurriedly. Before she took it away she felt +her mother’s arms round her, and this sensation, which seemed a +prolongation of her inward vision, overcame her will to be reticent; +she sobbed anew in spite of herself, as they pressed their cheeks +together. + +Mrs. Davilow had brought something in her hand which had already caused +her an agitating anxiety, and she dared not speak until her darling had +become calmer. But Gwendolen, with whom weeping had always been a +painful manifestation to be resisted, if possible, again pressed her +handkerchief against her eyes, and, with a deep breath, drew her head +backward and looked at her mother, who was pale and tremulous. + +“It was nothing, mamma,” said Gwendolen, thinking that her mother had +been moved in this way simply by finding her in distress. “It is all +over now.” + +But Mrs. Davilow had withdrawn her arms, and Gwendolen perceived a +letter in her hand. + +“What is that letter?—worse news still?” she asked, with a touch of +bitterness. + +“I don’t know what you will think it, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, keeping +the letter in her hand. “You will hardly guess where it comes from.” + +“Don’t ask me to guess anything,” said Gwendolen, rather impatiently, +as if a bruise were being pressed. + +“It is addressed to you, dear.” + +Gwendolen gave the slightest perceptible toss of the head. + +“It comes from Diplow,” said Mrs. Davilow, giving her the letter. + +She knew Grandcourt’s indistinct handwriting, and her mother was not +surprised to see her blush deeply; but watching her as she read, and +wondering much what was the purport of the letter, she saw the color +die out. Gwendolen’s lips even were pale as she turned the open note +toward her mother. The words were few and formal: + +Mr. Grandcourt presents his compliments to Miss Harleth, and begs to +know whether he may be permitted to call at Offendene to-morrow after +two and to see her alone. Mr. Grandcourt has just returned from +Leubronn, where he had hoped to find Miss Harleth. + +Mrs. Davilow read, and then looked at her daughter inquiringly, leaving +the note in her hand. Gwendolen let it fall to the floor, and turned +away. + +“It must be answered, darling,” said Mrs. Davilow, timidly. “The man +waits.” + +Gwendolen sank on the settee, clasped her hands, and looked straight +before her, not at her mother. She had the expression of one who had +been startled by a sound and was listening to know what would come of +it. The sudden change of the situation was bewildering. A few minutes +before she was looking along an inescapable path of repulsive monotony, +with hopeless inward rebellion against the imperious lot which left her +no choice: and lo, now, a moment of choice was come. Yet—was it +triumph she felt most or terror? Impossible for Gwendolen not to feel +some triumph in a tribute to her power at a time when she was first +tasting the bitterness of insignificance: again she seemed to be +getting a sort of empire over her own life. But how to use it? Here +came the terror. Quick, quick, like pictures in a book beaten open with +a sense of hurry, came back vividly, yet in fragments, all that she had +gone through in relation to Grandcourt—the allurements, the +vacillations, the resolve to accede, the final repulsion; the incisive +face of that dark-eyed lady with the lovely boy: her own pledge (was it +a pledge not to marry him?)—the new disbelief in the worth of men and +things for which that scene of disclosure had become a symbol. That +unalterable experience made a vision at which in the first agitated +moment, before tempering reflections could suggest themselves, her +native terror shrank. + +Where was the good of choice coming again? What did she wish? Anything +different? No! And yet in the dark seed-growths of consciousness a new +wish was forming itself—“I wish I had never known it!” Something, +anything she wished for that would have saved her from the dread to let +Grandcourt come. + +It was no long while—yet it seemed long to Mrs. Davilow, before she +thought it well to say, gently, + +“It will be necessary for you to write, dear. Or shall I write an +answer for you—which you will dictate?” + +“No, mamma,” said Gwendolen, drawing a deep breath. “But please lay me +out the pen and paper.” + +That was gaining time. Was she to decline Grandcourt’s visit—close the +shutters—not even look out on what would happen?—though with the +assurance that she should remain just where she was? The young activity +within her made a warm current through her terror and stirred toward +something that would be an event—toward an opportunity in which she +could look and speak with the former effectiveness. The interest of the +morrow was no longer at a deadlock. + +“There is really no reason on earth why you should be so alarmed at the +man’s waiting a few minutes, mamma,” said Gwendolen, remonstrantly, as +Mrs. Davilow, having prepared the writing materials, looked toward her +expectantly. “Servants expect nothing else than to wait. It is not to +be supposed that I must write on the instant.” + +“No, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, in the tone of one corrected, turning to +sit down and take up a bit of work that lay at hand; “he can wait +another quarter of an hour, if you like.” + +It was very simple speech and action on her part, but it was what might +have been subtly calculated. Gwendolen felt a contradictory desire to +be hastened: hurry would save her from deliberate choice. + +“I did not mean him to wait long enough for that needlework to be +finished,” she said, lifting her hands to stroke the backward curves of +her hair, while she rose from her seat and stood still. + +“But if you don’t feel able to decide?” said Mrs. Davilow, +sympathizingly. + +“I _must_ decide,” said Gwendolen, walking to the writing-table and +seating herself. All the while there was a busy under-current in her, +like the thought of a man who keeps up a dialogue while he is +considering how he can slip away. Why should she not let him come? It +bound her to nothing. He had been to Leubronn after her: of course he +meant a direct unmistakable renewal of the suit which before had been +only implied. What then? She could reject him. Why was she to deny +herself the freedom of doing this—which she would like to do? + +“If Mr. Grandcourt has only just returned from Leubronn,” said Mrs. +Davilow, observing that Gwendolen leaned back in her chair after taking +the pen in her hand—“I wonder whether he has heard of our misfortunes?” + +“That could make no difference to a man in his position,” said +Gwendolen, rather contemptuously, + +“It would to some men,” said Mrs. Davilow. “They would not like to take +a wife from a family in a state of beggary almost, as we are. Here we +are at Offendene with a great shell over us, as usual. But just imagine +his finding us at Sawyer’s Cottage. Most men are afraid of being bored +or taxed by a wife’s family. If Mr. Grandcourt did know, I think it a +strong proof of his attachment to you.” + +Mrs. Davilow spoke with unusual emphasis: it was the first time she had +ventured to say anything about Grandcourt which would necessarily seem +intended as an argument in favor of him, her habitual impression being +that such arguments would certainly be useless and might be worse. The +effect of her words now was stronger than she could imagine: they +raised a new set of possibilities in Gwendolen’s mind—a vision of what +Grandcourt might do for her mother if she, Gwendolen, did—what she was +not going to do. She was so moved by a new rush of ideas that, like one +conscious of being urgently called away, she felt that the immediate +task must be hastened: the letter must be written, else it might be +endlessly deferred. After all, she acted in a hurry, as she had wished +to do. To act in a hurry was to have a reason for keeping away from an +absolute decision, and to leave open as many issues as possible. + +She wrote: “Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Mr. Grandcourt. +She will be at home after two o’clock to-morrow.” + +Before addressing the note she said, “Pray ring the bell, mamma, if +there is any one to answer it.” She really did not know who did the +work of the house. + +It was not till after the letter had been taken away and Gwendolen had +risen again, stretching out one arm and then resting it on her head, +with a low moan which had a sound of relief in it, that Mrs. Davilow +ventured to ask, + +“What did you say, Gwen?” + +“I said that I should be at home,” answered Gwendolen, rather loftily. +Then after a pause, “You must not expect, because Mr. Grandcourt is +coming, that anything is going to happen, mamma.” + +“I don’t allow myself to expect anything, dear. I desire you to follow +your own feeling. You have never told me what that was.” + +“What is the use of telling?” said Gwendolen, hearing a reproach in +that true statement. “When I have anything pleasant to tell, you may be +sure I will tell you.” + +“But Mr. Grandcourt will consider that you have already accepted him, +in allowing him to come. His note tells you plainly enough that he is +coming to make you an offer.” + +“Very well; and I wish to have the pleasure of refusing him.” + +Mrs. Davilow looked up in wonderment, but Gwendolen implied her wish +not to be questioned further by saying, + +“Put down that detestable needlework, and let us walk in the avenue. I +am stifled.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + Desire has trimmed the sails, and Circumstance + Brings but the breeze to fill them. + + +While Grandcourt on his beautiful black Yarico, the groom behind him on +Criterion, was taking the pleasant ride from Diplow to Offendene, +Gwendolen was seated before the mirror while her mother gathered up the +lengthy mass of light-brown hair which she had been carefully brushing. + +“Only gather it up easily and make a coil, mamma,” said Gwendolen. + +“Let me bring you some earrings, Gwen,” said Mrs. Davilow, when the +hair was adjusted, and they were both looking at the reflection in the +glass. It was impossible for them not to notice that the eyes looked +brighter than they had done of late, that there seemed to be a shadow +lifted from the face, leaving all the lines once more in their placid +youthfulness. The mother drew some inference that made her voice rather +cheerful. “You do want your earrings?” + +“No, mamma; I shall not wear any ornaments, and I shall put on my black +silk. Black is the only wear when one is going to refuse an offer,” +said Gwendolen, with one of her old smiles at her mother, while she +rose to throw off her dressing-gown. + +“Suppose the offer is not made after all,” said Mrs. Davilow, not +without a sly intention. + +“Then that will be because I refuse it beforehand,” said Gwendolen. “It +comes to the same thing.” + +There was a proud little toss of the head as she said this; and when +she walked down-stairs in her long black robes, there was just that +firm poise of head and elasticity of form which had lately been +missing, as in a parched plant. Her mother thought, “She is quite +herself again. It must be pleasure in his coming. Can her mind be +really made up against him?” + +Gwendolen would have been rather angry if that thought had been +uttered; perhaps all the more because through the last twenty hours, +with a brief interruption of sleep, she had been so occupied with +perpetually alternating images and arguments for and against the +possibility of her marrying Grandcourt, that the conclusion which she +had determined on beforehand ceased to have any hold on her +consciousness: the alternate dip of counterbalancing thoughts begotten +of counterbalancing desires had brought her into a state in which no +conclusion could look fixed to her. She would have expressed her +resolve as before; but it was a form out of which the blood had been +sucked—no more a part of quivering life than the “God’s will be done” +of one who is eagerly watching chances. She did not mean to accept +Grandcourt; from the first moment of receiving his letter she had meant +to refuse him; still, that could not but prompt her to look the +unwelcome reasons full in the face until she had a little less awe of +them, could not hinder her imagination from filling out her knowledge +in various ways, some of which seemed to change the aspect of what she +knew. By dint of looking at a dubious object with a constructive +imagination, one can give it twenty different shapes. Her indistinct +grounds of hesitation before the interview at the Whispering Stones, at +present counted for nothing; they were all merged in the final +repulsion. If it had not been for that day in Cardell Chase, she said +to herself now, there would have been no obstacle to her marrying +Grandcourt. On that day and after it, she had not reasoned and +balanced; she had acted with a force of impulse against which all +questioning was no more than a voice against a torrent. The impulse had +come—not only from her maidenly pride and jealousy, not only from the +shock of another woman’s calamity thrust close on her vision, but—from +her dread of wrong-doing, which was vague, it was true, and aloof from +the daily details of her life, but not the less strong. Whatever was +accepted as consistent with being a lady she had no scruple about; but +from the dim region of what was called disgraceful, wrong, guilty, she +shrunk with mingled pride and terror; and even apart from shame, her +feeling would have made her place any deliberate injury of another in +the region of guilt. + +But now—did she know exactly what was the state of the case with +regard to Mrs. Glasher and her children? She had given a sort of +promise—had said, “I will not interfere with your wishes.” But would +another woman who married Grandcourt be in fact the decisive obstacle +to her wishes, or be doing her and her boy any real injury? Might it +not be just as well, nay better, that Grandcourt should marry? For what +could not a woman do when she was married, if she knew how to assert +herself? Here all was constructive imagination. Gwendolen had about as +accurate a conception of marriage—that is to say, of the mutual +influences, demands, duties of man and woman in the state of +matrimony—as she had of magnetic currents and the law of storms. + +“Mamma managed badly,” was her way of summing up what she had seen of +her mother’s experience: she herself would manage quite differently. +And the trials of matrimony were the last theme into which Mrs. Davilow +could choose to enter fully with this daughter. + +“I wonder what mamma and my uncle would say if they knew about Mrs. +Glasher!” thought Gwendolen in her inward debating; not that she could +imagine herself telling them, even if she had not felt bound to +silence. “I wonder what anybody would say; or what they would say to +Mr. Grandcourt’s marrying some one else and having other children!” To +consider what “anybody” would say, was to be released from the +difficulty of judging where everything was obscure to her when feeling +had ceased to be decisive. She had only to collect her memories, which +proved to her that “anybody” regarded the illegitimate children as more +rightfully to be looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than +illegitimate fathers. The verdict of “anybody” seemed to be that she +had no reason to concern herself greatly on behalf of Mrs. Glasher and +her children. + +But there was another way in which they had caused her concern. What +others might think could not do away with a feeling which in the first +instance would hardly be too strongly described as indignation and +loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an +outworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly +felt than any association with _her_. True, the question of love on her +own part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to Grandcourt. +The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other +feeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom +the advances depended. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt’s +way of being enamored before she had had that glimpse of his past, +which she resented as if it had been a deliberate offense against her. +His advances to _her_ were deliberate, and she felt a retrospective +disgust for them. Perhaps other men’s lives were of the same kind—full +of secrets which made the ignorant suppositions of the women they +wanted to marry a farce at which they were laughing in their sleeves. + +These feelings of disgust and indignation had sunk deep; and though +other troublous experience in the last weeks had dulled them from +passion into remembrance, it was chiefly their reverberating activity +which kept her firm to the understanding with herself, that she was not +going to accept Grandcourt. She had never meant to form a new +determination; she had only been considering what might be thought or +said. If anything could have induced her to change, it would have been +the prospect of making all things easy for “poor mamma:” that, she +admitted, was a temptation. But no! she was going to refuse him. +Meanwhile, the thought that he was coming to be refused was +inspiriting: she had the white reins in her hands again; there was a +new current in her frame, reviving her from the beaten-down +consciousness in which she had been left by the interview with Klesmer. +She was not now going to crave an opinion of her capabilities; she was +going to exercise her power. + +Was this what made her heart palpitate annoyingly when she heard the +horse’s footsteps on the gravel?—when Miss Merry, who opened the door +to Grandcourt, came to tell her that he was in the drawing-room? The +hours of preparation and the triumph of the situation were apparently +of no use: she might as well have seen Grandcourt coming suddenly on +her in the midst of her despondency. While walking into the +drawing-room, she had to concentrate all her energy in that +self-control, which made her appear gravely gracious—as she gave her +hand to him, and answered his hope that she was quite well in a voice +as low and languid as his own. A moment afterward, when they were both +of them seated on two of the wreath-painted chairs—Gwendolen upright +with downcast eyelids, Grandcourt about two yards distant, leaning one +arm over the back of his chair and looking at her, while he held his +hat in his left hand—any one seeing them as a picture would have +concluded that they were in some stage of love-making suspense. And +certainly the love-making had begun: she already felt herself being +wooed by this silent man seated at an agreeable distance, with the +subtlest atmosphere of attar of roses and an attention bent wholly on +her. And he also considered himself to be wooing: he was not a man to +suppose that his presence carried no consequences; and he was exactly +the man to feel the utmost piquancy in a girl whom he had not found +quite calculable. + +“I was disappointed not to find you at Leubronn,” he began, his usual +broken drawl having just a shade of amorous languor in it. “The place +was intolerable without you. A mere kennel of a place. Don’t you think +so?” + +“I can’t judge what it would be without myself,” said Gwendolen, +turning her eyes on him, with some recovered sense of mischief. “_With_ +myself I like it well enough to have stayed longer, if I could. But I +was obliged to come home on account of family troubles.” + +“It was very cruel of you to go to Leubronn,” said Grandcourt, taking +no notice of the troubles, on which Gwendolen—she hardly knew +why—wished that there should be a clear understanding at once. “You +must have known that it would spoil everything: you knew you were the +heart and soul of everything that went on. Are you quite reckless about +me?” + +It would be impossible to say “yes” in a tone that would be taken +seriously; equally impossible to say “no;” but what else could she say? +In her difficulty, she turned down her eyelids again and blushed over +face and neck. Grandcourt saw her in a new phase, and believed that she +was showing her inclination. But he was determined that she should show +it more decidedly. + +“Perhaps there is some deeper interest? Some attraction—some +engagement—which it would have been only fair to make me aware of? Is +there any man who stands between us?” + +Inwardly the answer framed itself. “No; but there is a woman.” Yet how +could she utter this? Even if she had not promised that woman to be +silent, it would have been impossible for her to enter on the subject +with Grandcourt. But how could she arrest his wooing by beginning to +make a formal speech—“I perceive your intention—it is most +flattering, etc.”? A fish honestly invited to come and be eaten has a +clear course in declining, but how if it finds itself swimming against +a net? And apart from the network, would she have dared at once to say +anything decisive? Gwendolen had not time to be clear on that point. As +it was, she felt compelled to silence, and after a pause, Grandcourt +said, + +“Am I to understand that some one else is preferred?” + +Gwendolen, now impatient of her own embarrassment, determined to rush +at the difficulty and free herself. She raised her eyes again and said +with something of her former clearness and defiance, “No”—wishing him +to understand, “What then? I may not be ready to take _you_.” There was +nothing that Grandcourt could not understand which he perceived likely +to affect his _amour propre_. + +“The last thing I would do, is to importune you. I should not hope to +win you by making myself a bore. If there were no hope for me, I would +ask you to tell me so at once, that I might just ride away to—no +matter where.” + +Almost to her own astonishment, Gwendolen felt a sudden alarm at the +image of Grandcourt finally riding away. What would be left her then? +Nothing but the former dreariness. She liked him to be there. She +snatched at the subject that would defer any decisive answer. + +“I fear you are not aware of what has happened to us. I have lately had +to think so much of my mamma’s troubles, that other subjects have been +quite thrown into the background. She has lost all her fortune, and we +are going to leave this place. I must ask you to excuse my seeming +preoccupied.” + +In eluding a direct appeal Gwendolen recovered some of her +self-possession. She spoke with dignity and looked straight at +Grandcourt, whose long, narrow, impenetrable eyes met hers, and +mysteriously arrested them: mysteriously; for the subtly-varied drama +between man and woman is often such as can hardly be rendered in words +put together like dominoes, according to obvious fixed marks. The word +of all work, Love, will no more express the myriad modes of mutual +attraction, than the word Thought can inform you what is passing +through your neighbor’s mind. It would be hard to tell on which +side—Gwendolen’s or Grandcourt’s—the influence was more mixed. At +that moment his strongest wish was to be completely master of this +creature—this piquant combination of maidenliness and mischief: that +she knew things which had made her start away from him, spurred him to +triumph over that repugnance; and he was believing that he should +triumph. And she—ah, piteous equality in the need to dominate!—she +was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water +in the desert, overcome by the suffused sense that here in this man’s +homage to her lay the rescue from helpless subjection to an oppressive +lot. + +All the while they were looking at each other; and Grandcourt said, +slowly and languidly, as if it were of no importance, other things +having been settled, + +“You will tell me now, I hope, that Mrs. Davilow’s loss of fortune will +not trouble you further. You will trust me to prevent it from weighing +upon her. You will give me the claim to provide against that.” + +The little pauses and refined drawlings with which this speech was +uttered, gave time for Gwendolen to go through the dream of a life. As +the words penetrated her, they had the effect of a draught of wine, +which suddenly makes all things easier, desirable things not so wrong, +and people in general less disagreeable. She had a momentary phantasmal +love for this man who chose his words so well, and who was a mere +incarnation of delicate homage. Repugnance, dread, scruples—these were +dim as remembered pains, while she was already tasting relief under the +immediate pain of hopelessness. She imagined herself already springing +to her mother, and being playful again. Yet when Grandcourt had ceased +to speak, there was an instant in which she was conscious of being at +the turning of the ways. + +“You are very generous,” she said, not moving her eyes, and speaking +with a gentle intonation. + +“You accept what will make such things a matter of course?” said +Grandcourt, without any new eagerness. “You consent to become my wife?” + +This time Gwendolen remained quite pale. Something made her rise from +her seat in spite of herself and walk to a little distance. Then she +turned and with her hands folded before her stood in silence. + +Grandcourt immediately rose too, resting his hat on the chair, but +still keeping hold of it. The evident hesitation of this destitute girl +to take his splendid offer stung him into a keenness of interest such +as he had not known for years. None the less because he attributed her +hesitation entirely to her knowledge about Mrs. Glasher. In that +attitude of preparation, he said, + +“Do you command me to go?” No familiar spirit could have suggested to +him more effective words. + +“No,” said Gwendolen. She could not let him go: that negative was a +clutch. She seemed to herself to be, after all, only drifted toward the +tremendous decision—but drifting depends on something besides the +currents when the sails have been set beforehand. + +“You accept my devotion?” said Grandcourt, holding his hat by his side +and looking straight into her eyes, without other movement. Their eyes +meeting in that way seemed to allow any length of pause: but wait as +long as she would, how could she contradict herself? What had she +detained him for? He had shut out any explanation. + +“Yes,” came as gravely from Gwendolen’s lips as if she had been +answering to her name in a court of justice. He received it gravely, +and they still looked at each other in the same attitude. Was there +ever such a way before of accepting the bliss-giving “Yes”? Grandcourt +liked better to be at that distance from her, and to feel under a +ceremony imposed by an indefinable prohibition that breathed from +Gwendolen’s bearing. + +But he did at length lay down his hat and advance to take her hand, +just pressing his lips upon it and letting it go again. She thought his +behavior perfect, and gained a sense of freedom which made her almost +ready to be mischievous. Her “Yes” entailed so little at this moment +that there was nothing to screen the reversal of her gloomy prospects; +her vision was filled by her own release from the Momperts, and her +mother’s release from Sawyer’s Cottage. With a happy curl of the lips, +she said, + +“Will you not see mamma? I will fetch her.” + +“Let us wait a little,” said Grandcourt, in his favorite attitude, +having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with +his right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near Gwendolen and +looked at her—not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous introduction +at an evening party. + +“Have you anything else to say to me?” said Gwendolen, playfully. + +“Yes—I know having things said to you is a great bore,” said +Grandcourt, rather sympathetically. + +“Not when they are things I like to hear.” + +“Will it bother you to be asked how soon we can be married?” + +“I think it will, to-day,” said Gwendolen, putting up her chin saucily. + +“Not to-day, then, but to-morrow. Think of it before I come to-morrow. +In a fortnight—or three weeks—as soon as possible.” + +“Ah, you think you will be tired of my company,” said Gwendolen. “I +notice when people are married the husband is not so much with his wife +as when they are engaged. But perhaps I shall like that better, too.” + +She laughed charmingly. + +“You shall have whatever you like,” said Grandcourt. + +“And nothing that I don’t like?—please say that; because I think I +dislike what I don’t like more than I like what I like,” said +Gwendolen, finding herself in the woman’s paradise, where all her +nonsense is adorable. + +Grandcourt paused; these were subtilties in which he had much +experience of his own. “I don’t know—this is such a brute of a world, +things are always turning up that one doesn’t like. I can’t always +hinder your being bored. If you like to ride Criterion, I can’t hinder +his coming down by some chance or other.” + +“Ah, my friend Criterion, how is he?” + +“He is outside: I made the groom ride him, that you might see him. He +had the side-saddle on for an hour or two yesterday. Come to the window +and look at him.” + +They could see the two horses being taken slowly round the sweep, and +the beautiful creatures, in their fine grooming, sent a thrill of +exultation through Gwendolen. They were the symbols of command and +luxury, in delightful contrast with the ugliness of poverty and +humiliation at which she had lately been looking close. + +“Will you ride Criterion to-morrow?” said Grandcourt. “If you will, +everything shall be arranged.” + +“I should like it of all things,” said Gwendolen. “I want to lose +myself in a gallop again. But now I must go and fetch mamma.” + +“Take my arm to the door, then,” said Grandcourt, and she accepted. +Their faces were very near each other, being almost on a level, and he +was looking at her. She thought his manners as a lover more agreeable +than any she had seen described. She had no alarm lest he meant to kiss +her, and was so much at her ease, that she suddenly paused in the +middle of the room and said half archly, half earnestly, + +“Oh, while I think of it—there is something I dislike that you can +save me from. I do _not_ like Mr. Lush’s company.” + +“You shall not have it. I’ll get rid of him.” + +“You are not fond of him yourself?” + +“Not in the least. I let him hang on me because he has always been a +poor devil,” said Grandcourt, in an _adagio_ of utter indifference. +“They got him to travel with me when I was a lad. He was always that +coarse-haired kind of brute—sort of cross between a hog and a +_dilettante_.” + +Gwendolen laughed. All that seemed kind and natural enough: +Grandcourt’s fastidiousness enhanced the kindness. And when they +reached the door, his way of opening it for her was the perfection of +easy homage. Really, she thought, he was likely to be the least +disagreeable of husbands. + +Mrs. Davilow was waiting anxiously in her bedroom when Gwendolen +entered, stepped toward her quickly, and kissing her on both cheeks +said in a low tone, “Come down, mamma, and see Mr. Grandcourt. I am +engaged to him.” + +“My darling child,” said Mrs. Davilow, with a surprise that was rather +solemn than glad. + +“Yes,” said Gwendolen, in the same tone, and with a quickness which +implied that it was needless to ask questions. “Everything is settled. +You are not going to Sawyer’s Cottage, I am not going to be inspected +by Mrs. Mompert, and everything is to be as I like. So come down with +me immediately.” + + + + +BOOK IV.—GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + “Il est plus aisé de connoître l’homme en général que de connoître un + homme en particulier.”—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. + + +An hour after Grandcourt had left, the important news of Gwendolen’s +engagement was known at the rectory, and Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne, with +Anna, spent the evening at Offendene. + +“My dear, let me congratulate you on having created a strong +attachment,” said the rector. “You look serious, and I don’t wonder at +it: a life-long union is a solemn thing. But from the way Mr. Grandcourt +has acted and spoken I think we may already see some good arising out +of our adversity. It has given you an opportunity of observing your +future husband’s delicate liberality.” + +Mr. Gascoigne referred to Grandcourt’s mode of implying that he would +provide for Mrs. Davilow—a part of the love-making which Gwendolen had +remembered to cite to her mother with perfect accuracy. + +“But I have no doubt that Mr. Grandcourt would have behaved quite as +handsomely if you had not gone away to Germany, Gwendolen, and had been +engaged to him, as you no doubt might have been, more than a month +ago,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, feeling that she had to discharge a duty on +this occasion. “But now there is no more room for caprice; indeed, I +trust you have no inclination to any. A woman has a great debt of +gratitude to a man who perseveres in making her such an offer. But no +doubt you feel properly.” + +“I am not at all sure that I do, aunt,” said Gwendolen, with saucy +gravity. “I don’t know everything it is proper to feel on being +engaged.” + +The rector patted her shoulder and smiled as at a bit of innocent +naughtiness, and his wife took his behavior as an indication that she +was not to be displeased. As for Anna, she kissed Gwendolen and said, +“I do hope you will be happy,” but then sank into the background and +tried to keep the tears back too. In the late days she had been +imagining a little romance about Rex—how if he still longed for +Gwendolen her heart might be softened by trouble into love, so that +they could by-and-by be married. And the romance had turned to a prayer +that she, Anna, might be able to rejoice like a good sister, and only +think of being useful in working for Gwendolen, as long as Rex was not +rich. But now she wanted grace to rejoice in something else. Miss Merry +and the four girls, Alice with the high shoulders, Bertha and Fanny the +whisperers, and Isabel the listener, were all present on this family +occasion, when everything seemed appropriately turning to the honor and +glory of Gwendolen, and real life was as interesting as “Sir Charles +Grandison.” The evening passed chiefly in decisive remarks from the +rector, in answer to conjectures from the two elder ladies. According +to him, the case was not one in which he could think it his duty to +mention settlements: everything must, and doubtless would safely be +left to Mr. Grandcourt. + +“I should like to know exactly what sort of places Ryelands and +Gadsmere are,” said Mrs. Davilow. + +“Gadsmere, I believe, is a secondary place,” said Mr. Gascoigne; “But +Ryelands I know to be one of our finest seats. The park is extensive +and the woods of a very valuable order. The house was built by Inigo +Jones, and the ceilings are painted in the Italian style. The estate is +said to be worth twelve thousand a year, and there are two livings, one +a rectory, in the gift of the Grandcourts. There may be some burdens on +the land. Still, Mr. Grandcourt was an only child.” + +“It would be most remarkable,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, “if he were to +become Lord Stannery in addition to everything else. Only think: there +is the Grandcourt estate, the Mallinger estate, _and_ the baronetcy, +_and_ the peerage,”—she was marking off the items on her fingers, and +paused on the fourth while she added, “but they say there will be no +land coming to him with the peerage.” It seemed a pity there was +nothing for the fifth finger. + +“The peerage,” said the rector, judiciously, “must be regarded as a +remote chance. There are two cousins between the present peer and Mr. +Grandcourt. It is certainly a serious reflection how death and other +causes do sometimes concentrate inheritances on one man. But an excess +of that kind is to be deprecated. To be Sir Mallinger Grandcourt +Mallinger—I suppose that will be his style—with corresponding +properties, is a valuable talent enough for any man to have committed +to him. Let us hope it will be well used.” + +“And what a position for the wife, Gwendolen!” said Mrs. Gascoigne; “a +great responsibility indeed. But you must lose no time in writing to +Mrs. Mompert, Henry. It is a good thing that you have an engagement of +marriage to offer as an excuse, else she might feel offended. She is +rather a high woman.” + +“I am rid of that horror,” thought Gwendolen, to whom the name of +Mompert had become a sort of Mumbo-jumbo. She was very silent through +the evening, and that night could hardly sleep at all in her little +white bed. It was a rarity in her strong youth to be wakeful: and +perhaps a still greater rarity for her to be careful that her mother +should not know of her restlessness. But her state of mind was +altogether new: she who had been used to feel sure of herself, and +ready to manage others, had just taken a decisive step which she had +beforehand thought that she would not take—nay, perhaps, was bound not +to take. She could not go backward now; she liked a great deal of what +lay before her; and there was nothing for her to like if she went back. +But her resolution was dogged by the shadow of that previous resolve +which had at first come as the undoubting movement of her whole being. +While she lay on her pillow with wide-open eyes, “looking on darkness +which the blind do see,” she was appalled by the idea that she was +going to do what she had once started away from with repugnance. It was +new to her that a question of right or wrong in her conduct should +rouse her terror; she had known no compunction that atoning caresses +and presents could not lay to rest. But here had come a moment when +something like a new consciousness was awaked. She seemed on the edge +of adopting deliberately, as a notion for all the rest of her life, +what she had rashly said in her bitterness, when her discovery had +driven her away to Leubronn:—that it did not signify what she did; she +had only to amuse herself as best she could. That lawlessness, that +casting away of all care for justification, suddenly frightened her: it +came to her with the shadowy array of possible calamity behind +it—calamity which had ceased to be a mere name for her; and all the +infiltrated influences of disregarded religious teaching, as well as +the deeper impressions of something awful and inexorable enveloping +her, seemed to concentrate themselves in the vague conception of +avenging power. The brilliant position she had longed for, the imagined +freedom she would create for herself in marriage, the deliverance from +the dull insignificance of her girlhood—all immediately before her; +and yet they had come to her hunger like food with the taint of +sacrilege upon it, which she must snatch with terror. In the darkness +and loneliness of her little bed, her more resistant self could not act +against the first onslaught of dread after her irrevocable decision. +That unhappy-faced woman and her children—Grandcourt and his relations +with her—kept repeating themselves in her imagination like the +clinging memory of a disgrace, and gradually obliterated all other +thought, leaving only the consciousness that she had taken those scenes +into her life. Her long wakefulness seemed a delirium; a faint, faint +light penetrated beside the window-curtain; the chillness increased. +She could bear it no longer, and cried “Mamma!” + +“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, immediately, in a wakeful voice. + +“Let me come to you.” + +She soon went to sleep on her mother’s shoulder, and slept on till +late, when, dreaming of a lit-up ball-room, she opened her eyes on her +mother standing by the bedside with a small packet in her hand. + +“I am sorry to wake you, darling, but I thought it better to give you +this at once. The groom has brought Criterion; he has come on another +horse, and says he is to stay here.” + +Gwendolen sat up in bed and opened the packet. It was a delicate +enameled casket, and inside was a splendid diamond ring with a letter +which contained a folded bit of colored paper and these words: + + Pray wear this ring when I come at twelve in sign of our betrothal. I + enclose a check drawn in the name of Mr. Gascoigne, for immediate + expenses. Of course Mrs. Davilow will remain at Offendene, at least + for some time. I hope, when I come, you will have granted me an early + day, when you may begin to command me at a shorter distance.—Yours + devotedly, + + H. M. GRANDCOURT. + +The check was for five hundred pounds, and Gwendolen turned it toward +her mother, with the letter. + +“How very kind and delicate!” said Mrs. Davilow, with much feeling. +“But I really should like better not to be dependent on a son-in-law. I +and the girls could get along very well.” + +“Mamma, if you say that again, I will not marry him,” said Gwendolen, +angrily. + +“My dear child, I trust you are not going to marry only for my sake,” +said Mrs. Davilow, deprecatingly. + +Gwendolen tossed her head on the pillow away from her mother, and let +the ring lie. She was irritated at this attempt to take away a motive. +Perhaps the deeper cause of her irritation was the consciousness that +she was not going to marry solely for her mamma’s sake—that she was +drawn toward the marriage in ways against which stronger reasons than +her mother’s renunciation were yet not strong enough to hinder her. She +had waked up to the signs that she was irrevocably engaged, and all the +ugly visions, the alarms, the arguments of the night, must be met by +daylight, in which probably they would show themselves weak. “What I +long for is your happiness, dear,” continued Mrs. Davilow, pleadingly. +“I will not say anything to vex you. Will you not put on the ring?” + +For a few moments Gwendolen did not answer, but her thoughts were +active. At last she raised herself with a determination to do as she +would do if she had started on horseback, and go on with spirit, +whatever ideas might be running in her head. + +“I thought the lover always put on the betrothal ring himself,” she +said laughingly, slipping the ring on her finger, and looking at it +with a charming movement of her head. “I know why he has sent it,” she +added, nodding at her mamma. + +“Why?” + +“He would rather make me put it on than ask me to let him do it. Aha! +he is very proud. But so am I. We shall match each other. I should hate +a man who went down on his knees, and came fawning on me. He really is +not disgusting.” + +“That is very moderate praise, Gwen.” + +“No, it is not, for a man,” said Gwendolen gaily. “But now I must get +up and dress. Will you come and do my hair, mamma, dear,” she went on, +drawing down her mamma’s face to caress it with her own cheeks, “and +not be so naughty any more as to talk of living in poverty? You must +bear to be made comfortable, even if you don’t like it. And Mr. +Grandcourt behaves perfectly, now, does he not?” + +“Certainly he does,” said Mrs. Davilow, encouraged, and persuaded that +after all Gwendolen was fond of her betrothed. She herself thought him +a man whose attentions were likely to tell on a girl’s feeling. Suitors +must often be judged as words are, by the standing and the figure they +make in polite society: it is difficult to know much else of them. And +all the mother’s anxiety turned not on Grandcourt’s character, but on +Gwendolen’s mood in accepting him. + +The mood was necessarily passing through a new phase this morning. Even +in the hour of making her toilet, she had drawn on all the knowledge +she had for grounds to justify her marriage. And what she most dwelt on +was the determination, that when she was Grandcourt’s wife, she would +urge him to the most liberal conduct toward Mrs. Glasher’s children. + +“Of what use would it be to her that I should not marry him? He could +have married her if he liked; but he did _not_ like. Perhaps she is to +blame for that. There must be a great deal about her that I know +nothing of. And he must have been good to her in many ways, else she +would not have wanted to marry him.” + +But that last argument at once began to appear doubtful. Mrs. Glasher +naturally wished to exclude other children who would stand between +Grandcourt and her own: and Gwendolen’s comprehension of this feeling +prompted another way of reconciling claims. + +“Perhaps we shall have no children. I hope we shall not. And he might +leave the estate to the pretty little boy. My uncle said that Mr. +Grandcourt could do as he liked with the estates. Only when Sir Hugo +Mallinger dies there will be enough for two.” + +This made Mrs. Glasher appear quite unreasonable in demanding that her +boy should be sole heir; and the double property was a security that +Grandcourt’s marriage would do her no wrong, when the wife was +Gwendolen Harleth with all her proud resolution not to be fairly +accused. This maiden had been accustomed to think herself blameless; +other persons only were faulty. + +It was striking, that in the hold which this argument of her doing no +wrong to Mrs. Glasher had taken on her mind, her repugnance to the idea +of Grandcourt’s past had sunk into a subordinate feeling. The terror +she had felt in the night-watches at overstepping the border of +wickedness by doing what she had at first felt to be wrong, had dulled +any emotions about his conduct. She was thinking of him, whatever he +might be, as a man over whom she was going to have indefinite power; +and her loving him having never been a question with her, any +agreeableness he had was so much gain. Poor Gwendolen had no awe of +unmanageable forces in the state of matrimony, but regarded it as +altogether a matter of management, in which she would know how to act. +In relation to Grandcourt’s past she encouraged new doubts whether he +were likely to have differed much from other men; and she devised +little schemes for learning what was expected of men in general. + +But whatever else might be true in the world, her hair was dressed +suitably for riding, and she went down in her riding-habit, to avoid +delay before getting on horseback. She wanted to have her blood stirred +once more with the intoxication of youth, and to recover the daring +with which she had been used to think of her course in life. Already a +load was lifted off her; for in daylight and activity it was less +oppressive to have doubts about her choice, than to feel that she had +no choice but to endure insignificance and servitude. + +“Go back and make yourself look like a duchess, mamma,” she said, +turning suddenly as she was going down-stairs. “Put your point-lace +over your head. I must have you look like a duchess. You must not take +things humbly.” + +When Grandcourt raised her left hand gently and looked at the ring, she +said gravely, “It was very good of you to think of everything and send +me that packet.” + +“You will tell me if there is anything I forget?” he said, keeping the +hand softly within his own. “I will do anything you wish.” + +“But I am very unreasonable in my wishes,” said Gwendolen, smiling. + +“Yes, I expect that. Women always are.” + +“Then I will not be unreasonable,” said Gwendolen, taking away her hand +and tossing her head saucily. “I will not be told that I am what women +always are.” + +“I did not say that,” said Grandcourt, looking at her with his usual +gravity. “You are what no other woman is.” + +“And what is that, pray?” said Gwendolen, moving to a distance with a +little air of menace. + +Grandcourt made his pause before he answered. “You are the woman I +love.” + +“Oh, what nice speeches!” said Gwendolen, laughing. The sense of that +love which he must once have given to another woman under strange +circumstances was getting familiar. + +“Give me a nice speech in return. Say when we are to be married.” + +“Not yet. Not till we have had a gallop over the downs. I am so thirsty +for that, I can think of nothing else. I wish the hunting had begun. +Sunday the twentieth, twenty-seventh, Monday, Tuesday.” Gwendolen was +counting on her fingers with the prettiest nod while she looked at +Grandcourt, and at last swept one palm over the other while she said +triumphantly, “It will begin in ten days!” + +“Let us be married in ten days, then,” said Grandcourt, “and we shall +not be bored about the stables.” + +“What do women always say in answer to that?” said Gwendolen, +mischievously. + +“They agree to it,” said the lover, rather off his guard. + +“Then I will not!” said Gwendolen, taking up her gauntlets and putting +them on, while she kept her eyes on him with gathering fun in them. + +The scene was pleasant on both sides. A cruder lover would have lost +the view of her pretty ways and attitudes, and spoiled all by stupid +attempts at caresses, utterly destructive of drama. Grandcourt +preferred the drama; and Gwendolen, left at ease, found her spirits +rising continually as she played at reigning. Perhaps if Klesmer had +seen more of her in this unconscious kind of acting, instead of when +she was trying to be theatrical, he might have rated her chance higher. + +When they had had a glorious gallop, however, she was in a state of +exhilaration that disposed her to think well of hastening the marriage +which would make her life all of apiece with this splendid kind of +enjoyment. She would not debate any more about an act to which she had +committed herself; and she consented to fix the wedding on that day +three weeks, notwithstanding the difficulty of fulfilling the customary +laws of the _trousseau_. + +Lush, of course, was made aware of the engagement by abundant signs, +without being formally told. But he expected some communication as a +consequence of it, and after a few days he became rather impatient +under Grandcourt’s silence, feeling sure that the change would affect +his personal prospects, and wishing to know exactly how. His tactics no +longer included any opposition—which he did not love for its own sake. +He might easily cause Grandcourt a great deal of annoyance, but it +would be to his own injury, and to create annoyance was not a motive +with him. Miss Gwendolen he would certainly not have been sorry to +frustrate a little, but—after all there was no knowing what would +come. It was nothing new that Grandcourt should show a perverse +wilfulness; yet in his freak about this girl he struck Lush rather +newly as something like a man who was _fey_—led on by an ominous +fatality; and that one born to his fortune should make a worse business +of his life than was necessary, seemed really pitiable. Having +protested against the marriage, Lush had a second-sight for its evil +consequences. Grandcourt had been taking the pains to write letters and +give orders himself instead of employing Lush, and appeared to be +ignoring his usefulness, even choosing, against the habit of years, to +breakfast alone in his dressing-room. But a _tête-à-tête_ was not to be +avoided in a house empty of guests; and Lush hastened to use an +opportunity of saying—it was one day after dinner, for there were +difficulties in Grandcourt’s dining at Offendene, + +“And when is the marriage to take place?” + +Grandcourt, who drank little wine, had left the table and was lounging, +while he smoked, in an easy chair near the hearth, where a fire of oak +boughs was gaping to its glowing depths, and edging them with a +delicate tint of ashes delightful to behold. The chair of red-brown +velvet brocade was a becoming background for his pale-tinted, well-cut +features and exquisite long hands. Omitting the cigar, you might have +imagined him a portrait by Moroni, who would have rendered wonderfully +the impenetrable gaze and air of distinction; and a portrait by that +great master would have been quite as lively a companion as Grandcourt +was disposed to be. But he answered without unusual delay. + +“On the tenth.” + +“I suppose you intend to remain here.” + +“We shall go to Ryelands for a little while; but we shall return here +for the sake of the hunting.” + +After this word there was the languid inarticulate sound frequent with +Grandcourt when he meant to continue speaking, and Lush waited for +something more. Nothing came, and he was going to put another question, +when the inarticulate sound began again and introduced the mildly +uttered suggestion, + +“You had better make some new arrangement for yourself.” + +“What! I am to cut and run?” said Lush, prepared to be good-tempered on +the occasion. + +“Something of that kind.” + +“The bride objects to me. I hope she will make up to you for the want +of my services.” + +“I can’t help your being so damnably disagreeable to women,” said +Grandcourt, in soothing apology. + +“To one woman, if you please.” + +“It makes no difference since she is the one in question.” + +“I suppose I am not to be turned adrift after fifteen years without +some provision.” + +“You must have saved something out of me.” + +“Deuced little. I have often saved something for you.” + +“You can have three hundred a year. But you must live in town and be +ready to look after things when I want you. I shall be rather hard up.” + +“If you are not going to be at Ryelands this winter, I might run down +there and let you know how Swinton goes on.” + +“If you like. I don’t care a toss where you are, so that you keep out +of sight.” + +“Much obliged,” said Lush, able to take the affair more easily than he +had expected. He was supported by the secret belief that he should +by-and-by be wanted as much as ever. + +“Perhaps you will not object to packing up as soon as possible,” said +Grandcourt. “The Torringtons are coming, and Miss Harleth will be +riding over here.” + +“With all my heart. Can’t I be of use in going to Gadsmere?” + +“No. I am going myself.” + +“About your being rather hard up. Have you thought of that plan—” + +“Just leave me alone, will you?” said Grandcourt, in his lowest audible +tone, tossing his cigar into the fire, and rising to walk away. + +He spent the evening in the solitude of the smaller drawing-room, +where, with various new publications on the table of the kind a +gentleman may like to have on hand without touching, he employed +himself (as a philosopher might have done) in sitting meditatively on +the sofa and abstaining from literature—political, comic, cynical, or +romantic. In this way hours may pass surprisingly soon, without the +arduous invisible chase of philosophy; not from love of thought, but +from hatred of effort—from a state of the inward world, something like +premature age, where the need for action lapses into a mere image of +what has been, is, and may or might be; where impulse is born and dies +in a phantasmal world, pausing in rejection of even a shadowy +fulfillment. That is a condition which often comes with whitening hair; +and sometimes, too, an intense obstinacy and tenacity of rule, like the +main trunk of an exorbitant egoism, conspicuous in proportion as the +varied susceptibilities of younger years are stripped away. + +But Grandcourt’s hair, though he had not much of it, was of a fine, +sunny blonde, and his moods were not entirely to be explained as ebbing +energy. We mortals have a strange spiritual chemistry going on within +us, so that a lazy stagnation or even a cottony milkiness may be +preparing one knows not what biting or explosive material. The navvy +waking from sleep and without malice heaving a stone to crush the life +out of his still sleeping comrade, is understood to lack the trained +motive which makes a character fairly calculable in its actions; but by +a roundabout course even a gentleman may make of himself a chancy +personage, raising an uncertainty as to what he may do next, that sadly +spoils companionship. + +Grandcourt’s thoughts this evening were like the circlets one sees in a +dark pool, continually dying out and continually started again by some +impulse from below the surface. The deeper central impulse came from +the image of Gwendolen; but the thoughts it stirred would be +imperfectly illustrated by a reference to the amatory poets of all +ages. It was characteristic that he got none of his satisfaction from +the belief that Gwendolen was in love with him; and that love had +overcome the jealous resentment which had made her run away from him. +On the contrary, he believed that this girl was rather exceptional in +the fact that, in spite of his assiduous attention to her, she was not +in love with him; and it seemed to him very likely that if it had not +been for the sudden poverty which had come over her family, she would +not have accepted him. From the very first there had been an +exasperating fascination in the tricksiness with which she had—not met +his advances, but—wheeled away from them. She had been brought to +accept him in spite of everything—brought to kneel down like a horse +under training for the arena, though she might have an objection to it +all the while. On the whole, Grandcourt got more pleasure out of this +notion than he could have done out of winning a girl of whom he was +sure that she had a strong inclination for him personally. And yet this +pleasure in mastering reluctance flourished along with the habitual +persuasion that no woman whom he favored could be quite indifferent to +his personal influence; and it seemed to him not unlikely that +by-and-by Gwendolen might be more enamored of him than he of her. In +any case, she would have to submit; and he enjoyed thinking of her as +his future wife, whose pride and spirit were suited to command every +one but himself. He had no taste for a woman who was all tenderness to +him, full of petitioning solicitude and willing obedience. He meant to +be master of a woman who would have liked to master him, and who +perhaps would have been capable of mastering another man. + +Lush, having failed in his attempted reminder to Grandcourt, thought it +well to communicate with Sir Hugo, in whom, as a man having perhaps +interest enough to command the bestowal of some place where the work +was light, gentlemanly, and not ill-paid, he was anxious to cultivate a +sense of friendly obligation, not feeling at all secure against the +future need of such a place. He wrote the following letter, and +addressed it to Park Lane, whither he knew the family had returned from +Leubronn: + + MY DEAR SIR HUGO—Since we came home the marriage has been absolutely + decided on, and is to take place in less than three weeks. It is so + far the worse for him that her mother has lately lost all her fortune, + and he will have to find supplies. Grandcourt, I know, is feeling the + want of cash; and unless some other plan is resorted to, he will be + raising money in a foolish way. I am going to leave Diplow + immediately, and I shall not be able to start the topic. What I should + advise is, that Mr. Deronda, who I know has your confidence, should + propose to come and pay a short visit here, according to invitation + (there are going to be other people in the house), and that you should + put him fully in possession of your wishes and the possible extent of + your offer. Then, that he should introduce the subject to Grandcourt + so as not to imply that you suspect any particular want of money on + his part, but only that there is a strong wish on yours. What I have + formerly said to him has been in the way of a conjecture that you + might be willing to give a good sum for his chance of Diplow; but if + Mr. Deronda came armed with a definite offer, that would take another + sort of hold. Ten to one he will not close for some time to come; but + the proposal will have got a stronger lodgment in his mind; and though + at present he has a great notion of the hunting here, I see a + likelihood, under the circumstances, that he will get a distaste for + the neighborhood, and there will be the notion of the money sticking + by him without being urged. I would bet on your ultimate success. As I + am not to be exiled to Siberia, but am to be within call, it is + possible that, by and by, I may be of more service to you. But at + present I can think of no medium so good as Mr. Deronda. Nothing puts + Grandcourt in worse humor than having the lawyers thrust their paper + under his nose uninvited. + + Trusting that your visit to Leubronn has put you in excellent + condition for the winter, I remain, my dear Sir Hugo, yours very + faithfully, + + THOMAS CRANMER LUSH. + +Sir Hugo, having received this letter at breakfast, handed it to +Deronda, who, though he had chambers in town, was somehow hardly ever +in them, Sir Hugo not being contented without him. The chatty baronet +would have liked a young companion even if there had been no peculiar +reasons for attachment between them: one with a fine harmonious +unspoiled face fitted to keep up a cheerful view of posterity and +inheritance generally, notwithstanding particular disappointments; and +his affection for Deronda was not diminished by the deep-lying though +not obtrusive difference in their notions and tastes. Perhaps it was +all the stronger; acting as the same sort of difference does between a +man and a woman in giving a piquancy to the attachment which subsists +in spite of it. Sir Hugo did not think unapprovingly of himself; but he +looked at men and society from a liberal-menagerie point of view, and +he had a certain pride in Deronda’s differing from him, which, if it +had found voice, might have said—“You see this fine young fellow—not +such as you see every day, is he?—he belongs to me in a sort of way. I +brought him up from a child; but you would not ticket him off easily, +he has notions of his own, and he’s as far as the poles asunder from +what I was at his age.” This state of feeling was kept up by the mental +balance in Deronda, who was moved by an affectionateness such as we are +apt to call feminine, disposing him to yield in ordinary details, while +he had a certain inflexibility of judgment, and independence of +opinion, held to be rightfully masculine. + +When he had read the letter, he returned it without speaking, inwardly +wincing under Lush’s mode of attributing a neutral usefulness to him in +the family affairs. + +“What do you say, Dan? It would be pleasant enough for you. You have +not seen the place for a good many years now, and you might have a +famous run with the harriers if you went down next week,” said Sir Hugo. + +“I should not go on that account,” said Deronda, buttering his bread +attentively. He had an objection to this transparent kind of +persuasiveness, which all intelligent animals are seen to treat with +indifference. If he went to Diplow he should be doing something +disagreeable to oblige Sir Hugo. + +“I think Lush’s notion is a good one. And it would be a pity to lose +the occasion.” + +“That is a different matter—if you think my going of importance to +your object,” said Deronda, still with that aloofness of manner which +implied some suppression. He knew that the baronet had set his heart on +the affair. + +“Why, you will see the fair gambler, the Leubronn Diana, I shouldn’t +wonder,” said Sir Hugo, gaily. “We shall have to invite her to the +Abbey, when they are married,” he added, turning to Lady Mallinger, as +if she too had read the letter. + +“I cannot conceive whom you mean,” said Lady Mallinger, who in fact had +not been listening, her mind having been taken up with her first sips +of coffee, the objectionable cuff of her sleeve, and the necessity of +carrying Theresa to the dentist—innocent and partly laudable +preoccupations, as the gentle lady’s usually were. Should her +appearance be inquired after, let it be said that she had reddish +blonde hair (the hair of the period), a small Roman nose, rather +prominent blue eyes and delicate eyelids, with a figure which her +thinner friends called fat, her hands showing curves and dimples like a +magnified baby’s. + +“I mean that Grandcourt is going to marry the girl you saw at +Leubronn—don’t you remember her—the Miss Harleth who used to play at +roulette.” + +“Dear me! Is that a good match for him?” + +“That depends on the sort of goodness he wants,” said Sir Hugo, +smiling. “However, she and her friends have nothing, and she will bring +him expenses. It’s a good match for my purposes, because if I am +willing to fork out a sum of money, he may be willing to give up his +chance of Diplow, so that we shall have it out and out, and when I die +you will have the consolation of going to the place you would like to +go to—wherever I may go.” + +“I wish you would not talk of dying in that light way, dear.” + +“It’s rather a heavy way, Lou, for I shall have to pay a heavy +sum—forty thousand, at least.” + +“But why are we to invite them to the Abbey?” said Lady Mallinger. “I +do _not_ like women who gamble, like Lady Cragstone.” + +“Oh, you will not mind her for a week. Besides, she is not like Lady +Cragstone because she gambled a little, any more than I am like a +broker because I’m a Whig. I want to keep Grandcourt in good humor, and +to let him see plenty of this place, that he may think the less of +Diplow. I don’t know yet whether I shall get him to meet me in this +matter. And if Dan were to go over on a visit there, he might hold out +the bait to him. It would be doing me a great service.” This was meant +for Deronda. + +“Daniel is not fond of Mr. Grandcourt, I think, is he?” said Lady +Mallinger, looking at Deronda inquiringly. + +“There is no avoiding everybody one doesn’t happen to be fond of,” said +Deronda. “I will go to Diplow—I don’t know that I have anything better +to do—since Sir Hugo wishes it.” + +“That’s a trump!” said Sir Hugo, well pleased. “And if you don’t find +it very pleasant, it’s so much experience. Nothing used to come amiss +to me when I was young. You must see men and manners.” + +“Yes; but I have seen that man, and something of his manners too,” said +Deronda. + +“Not nice manners, I think,” said Lady Mallinger. + +“Well, you see they succeed with your sex,” said Sir Hugo, provokingly. +“And he was an uncommonly good-looking fellow when he was two or three +and twenty—like his father. He doesn’t take after his father in +marrying the heiress, though. If he had got Miss Arrowpoint and my land +too, confound him, he would have had a fine principality.” + +Deronda, in anticipating the projected visit, felt less disinclination +than when consenting to it. The story of that girl’s marriage did +interest him: what he had heard through Lush of her having run away +from the suit of the man she was now going to take as a husband, had +thrown a new sort of light on her gambling; and it was probably the +transition from that fevered worldliness into poverty which had urged +her acceptance where she must in some way have felt repulsion. All this +implied a nature liable to difficulty and struggle—elements of life +which had a predominant attraction for his sympathy, due perhaps to his +early pain in dwelling on the conjectured story of his own existence. +Persons attracted him, as Hans Meyrick had done, in proportion to the +possibility of his defending them, rescuing them, telling upon their +lives with some sort of redeeming influence; and he had to resist an +inclination, easily accounted for, to withdraw coldly from the +fortunate. But in the movement which had led him to repurchase +Gwendolen’s necklace for her, and which was at work in him still, there +was something beyond his habitual compassionate fervor—something due +to the fascination of her womanhood. He was very open to that sort of +charm, and mingled it with the consciously Utopian pictures of his own +future; yet any one able to trace the folds of his character might have +conceived that he would be more likely than many less passionate men to +love a woman without telling her of it. Sprinkle food before a +delicate-eared bird: there is nothing he would more willingly take, yet +he keeps aloof, because of his sensibility to checks which to you are +imperceptible. And one man differs from another, as we all differ from +the Bosjesman, in a sensibility to checks, that come from variety of +needs, spiritual or other. It seemed to foreshadow that capability of +reticence in Deronda that his imagination was much occupied with two +women, to neither of whom would he have held it possible that he should +ever make love. Hans Meyrick had laughed at him for having something of +the knight-errant in his disposition; and he would have found his proof +if he had known what was just now going on in Deronda’s mind about +Mirah and Gwendolen. + +Deronda wrote without delay to announce his visit to Diplow, and +received in reply a polite assurance that his coming would give great +pleasure. That was not altogether untrue. Grandcourt thought it +probable that the visit was prompted by Sir Hugo’s desire to court him +for a purpose which he did not make up his mind to resist; and it was +not a disagreeable idea to him that this fine fellow, whom he believed +to be his cousin under the rose, would witness, perhaps with some +jealousy, Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt play the commanding part of +betrothed lover to a splendid girl whom the cousin had already looked +at with admiration. + +Grandcourt himself was not jealous of anything unless it threatened his +mastery—which he did not think himself likely to lose. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + “Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, + him or her I shall follow. + As the water follows the moon, silently, + with fluid steps anywhere around the globe.” + —WALT WHITMAN. + + +“Now my cousins are at Diplow,” said Grandcourt, “will you go +there?—to-morrow? The carriage shall come for Mrs. Davilow. You can +tell me what you would like done in the rooms. Things must be put in +decent order while we are away at Ryelands. And to-morrow is the only +day.” + +He was sitting sideways on a sofa in the drawing-room at Offendene, one +hand and elbow resting on the back, and the other hand thrust between +his crossed knees—in the attitude of a man who is much interested in +watching the person next to him. Gwendolen, who had always disliked +needlework, had taken to it with apparent zeal since her engagement, +and now held a piece of white embroidery which, on examination, would +have shown many false stitches. During the last eight or nine days +their hours had been chiefly spent on horseback, but some margin had +always been left for this more difficult sort of companionship, which, +however, Gwendolen had not found disagreeable. She was very well +satisfied with Grandcourt. His answers to her lively questions about +what he had seen and done in his life, bore drawling very well. From +the first she had noticed that he knew what to say; and she was +constantly feeling not only that he had nothing of the fool in his +composition, but that by some subtle means he communicated to her the +impression that all the folly lay with other people, who did what he +did not care to do. A man who seems to have been able to command the +best, has a sovereign power of depreciation. Then Grandcourt’s behavior +as a lover had hardly at all passed the limit of an amorous homage +which was inobtrusive as a wafted odor of roses, and spent all its +effects in a gratified vanity. One day, indeed, he had kissed not her +cheek but her neck a little below her ear; and Gwendolen, taken by +surprise, had started up with a marked agitation which made him rise +too and say, “I beg your pardon—did I annoy you?” “Oh, it was +nothing,” said Gwendolen, rather afraid of herself, “only I cannot +bear—to be kissed under my ear.” She sat down again with a little +playful laugh, but all the while she felt her heart beating with a +vague fear: she was no longer at liberty to flout him as she had +flouted poor Rex. Her agitation seemed not uncomplimentary, and he had +been contented not to transgress again. + +To-day a slight rain hindered riding; but to compensate, a package had +come from London, and Mrs. Davilow had just left the room after +bringing in for admiration the beautiful things (of Grandcourt’s +ordering) which lay scattered about on the tables. Gwendolen was just +then enjoying the scenery of her life. She let her hands fall on her +lap, and said with a pretty air of perversity, + +“Why is to-morrow the only day?” + +“Because the next day is the first with the hounds,” said Grandcourt. + +“And after that?” + +“After that I must go away for a couple of days—it’s a bore—but I +shall go one day and come back the next.” Grandcourt noticed a change +in her face, and releasing his hand from under his knees, he laid it on +hers, and said, “You object to my going away?” + +“It’s no use objecting,” said Gwendolen, coldly. She was resisting to +the utmost her temptation to tell him that she suspected to whom he was +going—the temptation to make a clean breast, speaking without +restraint. + +“Yes it is,” said Grandcourt, enfolding her hand. “I will put off +going. And I will travel at night, so as only to be away one day.” He +thought that he knew the reason of what he inwardly called this bit of +temper, and she was particularly fascinating to him at this moment. + +“Then don’t put off going, but travel at night,” said Gwendolen, +feeling that she could command him, and finding in this peremptoriness +a small outlet for her irritation. + +“Then you will go to Diplow to-morrow?” + +“Oh, yes, if you wish it,” said Gwendolen, in a high tone of careless +assent. Her concentration in other feelings had really hindered her +from taking notice that her hand was being held. + +“How you treat us poor devils of men!” said Grandcourt, lowering his +tone. “We are always getting the worst of it.” + +“_Are_ you?” said Gwendolen, in a tone of inquiry, looking at him more +naively than usual. She longed to believe this commonplace _badinage_ +as the serious truth about her lover: in that case, she too was +justified. If she knew everything, Mrs. Glasher would appear more +blamable than Grandcourt. “_Are_ you always getting the worst?” + +“Yes. Are you as kind to me as I am to you?” said Grandcourt, looking +into her eyes with his narrow gaze. + +Gwendolen felt herself stricken. She was conscious of having received +so much, that her sense of command was checked, and sank away in the +perception that, look around her as she might, she could not turn back: +it was as if she had consented to mount a chariot where another held +the reins; and it was not in her nature to leap out in the eyes of the +world. She had not consented in ignorance, and all she could say now +would be a confession that she had not been ignorant. Her right to +explanation was gone. All she had to do now was to adjust herself, so +that the spikes of that unwilling penance which conscience imposed +should not gall her. With a sort of mental shiver, she resolutely +changed her mental attitude. There had been a little pause, during +which she had not turned away her eyes; and with a sudden break into a +smile, she said, + +“If I were as kind to you as you are to me, that would spoil your +generosity: it would no longer be as great as it could be—and it is +that now.” + +“Then I am not to ask for one kiss,” said Grandcourt, contented to pay +a large price for this new kind of love-making, which introduced +marriage by the finest contrast. + +“Not one?” said Gwendolen, getting saucy, and nodding at him defiantly. + +He lifted her little left hand to his lips, and then released it +respectfully. Clearly it was faint praise to say of him that he was not +disgusting: he was almost charming; and she felt at this moment that it +was not likely she could ever have loved another man better than this +one. His reticence gave her some inexplicable, delightful consciousness. + +“Apropos,” she said, taking up her work again, “is there any one +besides Captain and Mrs. Torrington at Diplow?—or do you leave them +_tête-à-tête_? I suppose he converses in cigars, and she answers with +her chignon.” + +“She has a sister with her,” said Grandcourt, with his shadow of a +smile, “and there are two men besides—one of them you know, I believe.” + +“Ah, then, I have a poor opinion of him,” said Gwendolen, shaking her +head. + +“You saw him at Leubronn—young Deronda—a young fellow with the +Mallingers.” + +Gwendolen felt as if her heart were making a sudden gambol, and her +fingers, which tried to keep a firm hold on her work, got cold. + +“I never spoke to him,” she said, dreading any discernible change in +herself. “Is he not disagreeable?” + +“No, not particularly,” said Grandcourt, in his most languid way. “He +thinks a little too much of himself. I thought he had been introduced +to you.” + +“No. Some one told me his name the evening before I came away. That was +all. What is he?” + +“A sort of ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger’s. Nothing of any consequence.” + +“Oh, poor creature! How very unpleasant for him!” said Gwendolen, +speaking from the lip, and not meaning any sarcasm. “I wonder if it has +left off raining!” she added, rising and going to look out of the +window. + +Happily it did not rain the next day, and Gwendolen rode to Diplow on +Criterion as she had done on that former day when she returned with her +mother in the carriage. She always felt the more daring for being in +her riding-dress; besides having the agreeable belief that she looked +as well as possible in it—a sustaining consciousness in any meeting +which seems formidable. Her anger toward Deronda had changed into a +superstitious dread—due, perhaps, to the coercion he had exercised +over her thought—lest the first interference of his in her life might +foreshadow some future influence. It is of such stuff that +superstitions are commonly made: an intense feeling about ourselves +which makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, and the +blessing of a beggar encourage us. And superstitions carry consequences +which often verify their hope or their foreboding. + +The time before luncheon was taken up for Gwendolen by going over the +rooms with Mrs. Torrington and Mrs. Davilow; and she thought it likely +that if she saw Deronda, there would hardly be need for more than a bow +between them. She meant to notice him as little as possible. + +And after all she found herself under an inward compulsion too strong +for her pride. From the first moment of their being in the room +together, she seemed to herself to be doing nothing but notice him; +everything else was automatic performance of an habitual part. + +When he took his place at lunch, Grandcourt had said, “Deronda, Miss +Harleth tells me you were not introduced to her at Leubronn?” + +“Miss Harleth hardly remembers me, I imagine,” said Deronda, looking at +her quite simply, as they bowed. “She was intensely occupied when I saw +her.” + +Now, did he suppose that she had not suspected him of being the person +who redeemed her necklace? + +“On the contrary. I remember you very well,” said Gwendolen, feeling +rather nervous, but governing herself and looking at him in return with +new examination. “You did not approve of my playing at roulette.” + +“How did you come to that conclusion?” said Deronda, gravely. + +“Oh, you cast an evil eye on my play,” said Gwendolen, with a turn of +her head and a smile. “I began to lose as soon as you came to look on. +I had always been winning till then.” + +“Roulette in such a kennel as Leubronn is a horrid bore,” said +Grandcourt. + +“_I_ found it a bore when I began to lose,” said Gwendolen. Her face +was turned toward Grandcourt as she smiled and spoke, but she gave a +sidelong glance at Deronda, and saw his eyes fixed on her with a look +so gravely penetrating that it had a keener edge for her than his +ironical smile at her losses—a keener edge than Klesmer’s judgment. +She wheeled her neck round as if she wanted to listen to what was being +said by the rest, while she was only thinking of Deronda. His face had +that disturbing kind of form and expression which threatens to affect +opinion—as if one’s standard was somehow wrong. (Who has not seen men +with faces of this corrective power till they frustrated it by speech +or action?) His voice, heard now for the first time, was to +Grandcourt’s toneless drawl, which had been in her ears every day, as +the deep notes of a violoncello to the broken discourse of poultry and +other lazy gentry in the afternoon sunshine. Grandcourt, she inwardly +conjectured, was perhaps right in saying that Deronda thought too much +of himself:—a favorite way of explaining a superiority that +humiliates. However the talk turned on the rinderpest and Jamaica, and +no more was said about roulette. Grandcourt held that the Jamaica negro +was a beastly sort of baptist Caliban; Deronda said he had always felt +a little with Caliban, who naturally had his own point of view and +could sing a good song; Mrs. Davilow observed that her father had an +estate in Barbadoes, but that she herself had never been in the West +Indies; Mrs. Torrington was sure she should never sleep in her bed if +she lived among blacks; her husband corrected her by saying that the +blacks would be manageable enough if it were not for the half-breeds; +and Deronda remarked that the whites had to thank themselves for the +half-breeds. + +While this polite pea-shooting was going on, Gwendolen trifled with her +jelly, and looked at every speaker in turn that she might feel at ease +in looking at Deronda. + +“I wonder what he thinks of me, really? He must have felt interested in +me, else he would not have sent me my necklace. I wonder what he thinks +of my marriage? What notions has he to make him so grave about things? +Why is he come to Diplow?” + +These questions ran in her mind as the voice of an uneasy longing to be +judged by Deronda with unmixed admiration—a longing which had had its +seed in her first resentment at his critical glance. Why did she care +so much about the opinion of this man who was “nothing of any +consequence”? She had no time to find the reason—she was too much +engaged in caring. In the drawing-room, when something had called +Grandcourt away, she went quite unpremeditatedly up to Deronda, who was +standing at a table apart, turning over some prints, and said to him, + +“Shall you hunt to-morrow, Mr. Deronda?” + +“Yes, I believe so.” + +“You don’t object to hunting, then?” + +“I find excuses for it. It is a sin I am inclined to—when I can’t get +boating or cricketing.” + +“Do you object to my hunting?” said Gwendolen, with a saucy movement of +the chin. + +“I have no right to object to anything you choose to do.” + +“You thought you had a right to object to my gambling,” persisted +Gwendolen. + +“I was sorry for it. I am not aware that I told you of my objection,” +said Deronda, with his usual directness of gaze—a large-eyed gravity, +innocent of any intention. His eyes had a peculiarity which has drawn +many men into trouble; they were of a dark yet mild intensity which +seemed to express a special interest in every one on whom he fixed +them, and might easily help to bring on him those claims which ardently +sympathetic people are often creating in the minds of those who need +help. In mendicant fashion we make the goodness of others a reason for +exorbitant demands on them. That sort of effect was penetrating +Gwendolen. + +“You hindered me from gambling again,” she answered. But she had no +sooner spoken than she blushed over face and neck; and Deronda blushed, +too, conscious that in the little affair of the necklace he had taken a +questionable freedom. + +It was impossible to speak further; and she turned away to a window, +feeling that she had stupidly said what she had not meant to say, and +yet being rather happy that she had plunged into this mutual +understanding. Deronda also did not dislike it. Gwendolen seemed more +decidedly attractive than before; and certainly there had been changes +going on within her since that time at Leubronn: the struggle of mind +attending a conscious error had wakened something like a new soul, +which had better, but also worse, possibilities than her former poise +of crude self-confidence: among the forces she had come to dread was +something within her that troubled satisfaction. + +That evening Mrs. Davilow said, “Was it really so, or only a joke of +yours, about Mr. Deronda’s spoiling your play, Gwen?” + +Her curiosity had been excited, and she could venture to ask a question +that did not concern Mr. Grandcourt. + +“Oh, it merely happened that he was looking on when I began to lose,” +said Gwendolen, carelessly. “I noticed him.” + +“I don’t wonder at that: he is a striking young man. He puts me in mind +of Italian paintings. One would guess, without being told, that there +was foreign blood in his veins.” + +“Is there?” said Gwendolen. + +“Mrs. Torrington says so. I asked particularly who he was, and she told +me that his mother was some foreigner of high rank.” + +“His mother?” said Gwendolen, rather sharply. “Then who was his father?” + +“Well—every one says he is the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger, who brought +him up; though he passes for a ward. She says, if Sir Hugo Mallinger +could have done as he liked with his estates, he would have left them +to this Mr. Deronda, since he has no legitimate son.” + +Gwendolen was silent; but her mother observed so marked an effect in +her face that she was angry with herself for having repeated Mrs. +Torrington’s gossip. It seemed, on reflection, unsuited to the ear of +her daughter, for whom Mrs. Davilow disliked what is called knowledge +of the world; and indeed she wished that she herself had not had any of +it thrust upon her. + +An image which had immediately arisen in Gwendolen’s mind was that of +the unknown mother—no doubt a dark-eyed woman—probably sad. Hardly +any face could be less like Deronda’s than that represented as Sir +Hugo’s in a crayon portrait at Diplow. A dark-eyed woman, no longer +young, had become “stuff o’ the conscience” to Gwendolen. + +That night when she had got into her little bed, and only a dim light +was burning, she said, + +“Mamma, have men generally children before they are married?” + +“No, dear, no,” said Mrs. Davilow. “Why do you ask such a question?” +(But she began to think that she saw the why.) + +“If it were so, I ought to know,” said Gwendolen, with some indignation. + +“You are thinking of what I said about Mr. Deronda and Sir Hugo +Mallinger. That is a very unusual case, dear.” + +“Does Lady Mallinger know?” + +“She knows enough to satisfy her. That is quite clear, because Mr. +Deronda has lived with them.” + +“And people think no worse of him?” + +“Well, of course he is under some disadvantage: it is not as if he were +Lady Mallinger’s son. He does not inherit the property, and he is not +of any consequence in the world. But people are not obliged to know +anything about his birth; you see, he is very well received.” + +“I wonder whether he knows about it; and whether he is angry with his +father?” + +“My dear child, why should you think of that?” + +“Why?” said Gwendolen, impetuously, sitting up in her bed. “Haven’t +children reason to be angry with their parents? How can they help their +parents marrying or not marrying?” + +But a consciousness rushed upon her, which made her fall back again on +her pillow. It was not only what she would have felt months +before—that she might seem to be reproaching her mother for that +second marriage of hers; what she chiefly felt now was that she had +been led on to a condemnation which seemed to make her own marriage a +forbidden thing. + +There was no further talk, and till sleep came over her Gwendolen lay +struggling with the reasons against that marriage—reasons which +pressed upon her newly now that they were unexpectedly mirrored in the +story of a man whose slight relations with her had, by some hidden +affinity, bitten themselves into the most permanent layers of feeling. +It was characteristic that, with all her debating, she was never +troubled by the question whether the indefensibleness of her marriage +did not include the fact that she had accepted Grandcourt solely as a +man whom it was convenient for her to marry, not in the least as one to +whom she would be binding herself in duty. Gwendolen’s ideas were +pitiably crude; but many grand difficulties of life are apt to force +themselves on us in our crudity. And to judge wisely, I suppose we must +know how things appear to the unwise; that kind of appearance making +the larger part of the world’s history. + +In the morning there was a double excitement for her. She was going to +hunt, from which scruples about propriety had threatened to hinder her, +until it was found that Mrs. Torrington was horsewoman enough to +accompany her—going to hunt for the first time since her escapade with +Rex; and she was going again to see Deronda, in whom, since last night, +her interest had so gathered that she expected, as people do about +revealed celebrities, to see something in his appearance which she had +missed before. + +What was he going to be? What sort of life had he before him—he being +nothing of any consequence? And with only a little difference in events +he might have been as important as Grandcourt, nay—her imagination +inevitably went into that direction—might have held the very estates +which Grandcourt was to have. But now, Deronda would probably some day +see her mistress of the Abbey at Topping, see her bearing the title +which would have been his own wife’s. These obvious, futile thoughts of +what might have been, made a new epoch for Gwendolen. She, whose +unquestionable habit it had been to take the best that came to her for +less than her own claim, had now to see the position which tempted her +in a new light, as a hard, unfair exclusion of others. What she had now +heard about Deronda seemed to her imagination to throw him into one +group with Mrs. Glasher and her children; before whom she felt herself +in an attitude of apology—she who had hitherto been surrounded by a +group that in her opinion had need be apologetic to her. Perhaps +Deronda himself was thinking of these things. Could he know of Mrs. +Glasher? If he knew that she knew, he would despise her; but he could +have no such knowledge. Would he, without that, despise her for +marrying Grandcourt? His possible judgment of her actions was telling +on her as importunately as Klesmer’s judgment of her powers; but she +found larger room for resistance to a disapproval of her marriage, +because it is easier to make our conduct seem justifiable to ourselves +than to make our ability strike others. “How can I help it?” is not our +favorite apology for incompetency. But Gwendolen felt some strength in +saying, + +“How can I help what other people have done? Things would not come +right if I were to turn round now and declare that I would not marry +Mr. Grandcourt.” And such turning round was out of the question. The +horses in the chariot she had mounted were going at full speed. + +This mood of youthful, elated desperation had a tidal recurrence. She +could dare anything that lay before her sooner than she could choose to +go backward, into humiliation; and it was even soothing to think that +there would now be as much ill-doing in the one as in the other. But +the immediate delightful fact was the hunt, where she would see +Deronda, and where he would see her; for always lurking ready to +obtrude before other thoughts about him was the impression that he was +very much interested in her. But to-day she was resolved not to repeat +her folly of yesterday, as if she were anxious to say anything to him. +Indeed, the hunt would be too absorbing. + +And so it was for a long while. Deronda was there, and within her sight +very often; but this only added to the stimulus of a pleasure which +Gwendolen had only once before tasted, and which seemed likely always +to give a delight independent of any crosses, except such as took away +the chance of riding. No accident happened to throw them together; the +run took them within convenient reach of home, and the agreeable +sombreness of the gray November afternoon, with a long stratum of +yellow light in the west, Gwendolen was returning with the company from +Diplow, who were attending her on the way to Offendene. Now the sense +of glorious excitement was over and gone, she was getting irritably +disappointed that she had had no opportunity of speaking to Deronda, +whom she would not see again, since he was to go away in a couple of +days. What was she going to say? That was not quite certain. She wanted +to speak to him. Grandcourt was by her side; Mrs. Torrington, her +husband, and another gentleman in advance; and Deronda’s horse she +could hear behind. The wish to speak to him and have him speaking to +her was becoming imperious; and there was no chance of it unless she +simply asserted her will and defied everything. Where the order of +things could give way to Miss Gwendolen, it must be made to do so. They +had lately emerged from a wood of pines and beeches, where the twilight +stillness had a repressing effect, which increased her impatience. The +horse-hoofs again heard behind at some little distance were a growing +irritation. She reined in her horse and looked behind her; Grandcourt +after a few paces, also paused; but she, waving her whip and nodding +sideways with playful imperiousness, said, “Go on! I want to speak to +Mr. Deronda.” + +Grandcourt hesitated; but that he would have done after any +proposition. It was an awkward situation for him. No gentleman, before +marriage, could give the emphasis of refusal to a command delivered in +this playful way. He rode on slowly, and she waited till Deronda came +up. He looked at her with tacit inquiry, and she said at once, letting +her horse go alongside of his, + +“Mr. Deronda, you must enlighten my ignorance. I want to know why you +thought it wrong for me to gamble. Is it because I am a woman?” + +“Not altogether; but I regretted it the more because you were a woman,” +said Deronda, with an irrepressible smile. Apparently it must be +understood between them now that it was he who sent the necklace. “I +think it would be better for men not to gamble. It is a besotting kind +of taste, likely to turn into a disease. And, besides, there is +something revolting to me in raking a heap of money together, and +internally chuckling over it, when others are feeling the loss of it. I +should even call it base, if it were more than an exceptional lapse. +There are enough inevitable turns of fortune which force us to see that +our gain is another’s loss:—that is one of the ugly aspects of life. +One would like to reduce it as much as one could, not get amusement out +of exaggerating it.” Deronda’s voice had gathered some indignation +while he was speaking. + +“But you do admit that we can’t help things,” said Gwendolen, with a +drop in her tone. The answer had not been anything like what she had +expected. “I mean that things are so in spite of us; we can’t always +help it that our gain is another’s loss.” + +“Clearly. Because of that, we should help it where we can.” + +Gwendolen, biting her lip inside, paused a moment, and then forcing +herself to speak with an air of playfulness again, said, + +“But why should you regret it more because I am a woman?” + +“Perhaps because we need that you should be better than we are.” + +“But suppose _we_ need that men should be better than we are,” said +Gwendolen with a little air of “check!” + +“That is rather a difficulty,” said Deronda, smiling. “I suppose I +should have said, we each of us think it would be better for the other +to be good.” + +“You see, I needed you to be better than I was—and you thought so,” +said Gwendolen, nodding and laughing, while she put her horse forward +and joined Grandcourt, who made no observation. + +“Don’t you want to know what I had to say to Mr. Deronda?” said +Gwendolen, whose own pride required her to account for her conduct. + +“A—no,” said Grandcourt, coldly. + +“Now that is the first impolite word you have spoken—that you don’t +wish to hear what I had to say,” said Gwendolen, playing at a pout. + +“I wish to hear what you say to me—not to other men,” said Grandcourt. + +“Then you wish to hear this. I wanted to make him tell me why he +objected to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon.” + +“Yes—but excuse me the sermon.” If Gwendolen imagined that Grandcourt +cared about her speaking to Deronda, he wished her to understand that +she was mistaken. But he was not fond of being told to ride on. She saw +he was piqued, but did not mind. She had accomplished her object of +speaking again to Deronda before he raised his hat and turned with the +rest toward Diplow, while her lover attended her to Offendene, where he +was to bid farewell before a whole day’s absence on the unspecified +journey. Grandcourt had spoken truth in calling the journey a bore: he +was going by train to Gadsmere. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + No penitence and no confessional, + No priest ordains it, yet they’re forced to sit + Amid deep ashes of their vanished years. + + +Imagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of gray stone, +and red-tiled, a round tower jutting at one of the corners, the mellow +darkness of its conical roof surmounted by a weather-cock making an +agreeable object either amidst the gleams and greenth of summer or the +low-hanging clouds and snowy branches of winter: the ground shady with +spreading trees: a great tree flourishing on one side, backward some +Scotch firs on a broken bank where the roots hung naked, and beyond, a +rookery: on the other side a pool overhung with bushes, where the +water-fowl fluttered and screamed: all around, a vast meadow which +might be called a park, bordered by an old plantation and guarded by +stone lodges which looked like little prisons. Outside the gate the +country, once entirely rural and lovely, now black with coal mines, was +chiefly peopled by men and brethren with candles stuck in their hats, +and with a diabolic complexion which laid them peculiarly open to +suspicion in the eyes of the children at Gadsmere—Mrs. Glasher’s four +beautiful children, who had dwelt there for about three years. Now, in +November, when the flower-beds were empty, the trees leafless, and the +pool blackly shivering, one might have said that the place was sombrely +in keeping with the black roads and black mounds which seemed to put +the district in mourning;—except when the children were playing on the +gravel with the dogs for their companions. But Mrs. Glasher, under her +present circumstances, liked Gadsmere as well as she would have liked +any other abode. The complete seclusion of the place, which the +unattractiveness of the country secured, was exactly to her taste. When +she drove her two ponies with a waggonet full of children, there were +no gentry in carriages to be met, only men of business in gigs; at +church there were no eyes she cared to avoid, for the curate’s wife and +the curate himself were either ignorant of anything to her +disadvantage, or ignored it: to them she was simply a widow lady, the +tenant of Gadsmere; and the name of Grandcourt was of little interest +in that district compared with the names of Fletcher and Gawcome, the +lessees of the collieries. + +It was full ten years since the elopement of an Irish officer’s +beautiful wife with young Grandcourt, and a consequent duel where the +bullets wounded the air only, had made some little noise. Most of those +who remembered the affair now wondered what had become of that Mrs. +Glasher, whose beauty and brilliancy had made her rather conspicuous to +them in foreign places, where she was known to be living with young +Grandcourt. + +That he should have disentangled himself from that connection seemed +only natural and desirable. As to her, it was thought that a woman who +was understood to have forsaken her child along with her husband had +probably sunk lower. Grandcourt had of course got weary of her. He was +much given to the pursuit of women: but a man in his position would by +this time desire to make a suitable marriage with the fair young +daughter of a noble house. No one talked of Mrs. Glasher now, any more +than they talked of the victim in a trial for manslaughter ten years +before: she was a lost vessel after whom nobody would send out an +expedition of search; but Grandcourt was seen in harbor with his colors +flying, registered as seaworthy as ever. + +Yet, in fact, Grandcourt had never disentangled himself from Mrs. +Glasher. His passion for her had been the strongest and most lasting he +had ever known; and though it was now as dead as the music of a cracked +flute, it had left a certain dull disposedness, which, on the death of +her husband three years before, had prompted in him a vacillating +notion of marrying her, in accordance with the understanding often +expressed between them during the days of his first ardor. At that +early time Grandcourt would willingly have paid for the freedom to be +won by a divorce; but the husband would not oblige him, not wanting to +be married again himself, and not wishing to have his domestic habits +printed in evidence. + +The altered poise which the years had brought in Mrs. Glasher was just +the reverse. At first she was comparatively careless about the +possibility of marriage. It was enough that she had escaped from a +disagreeable husband and found a sort of bliss with a lover who had +completely fascinated her—young, handsome, amorous, and living in the +best style, with equipage and conversation of the kind to be expected +in young men of fortune who have seen everything. She was an +impassioned, vivacious woman, fond of adoration, exasperated by five +years of marital rudeness; and the sense of release was so strong upon +her that it stilled anxiety for more than she actually enjoyed. An +equivocal position was of no importance to her then; she had no envy +for the honors of a dull, disregarded wife: the one spot which spoiled +her vision of her new pleasant world, was the sense that she left her +three-year-old boy, who died two years afterward, and whose first tones +saying “mamma” retained a difference from those of the children that +came after. But now the years had brought many changes besides those in +the contour of her cheek and throat; and that Grandcourt should marry +her had become her dominant desire. The equivocal position which she +had not minded about for herself was now telling upon her through her +children, whom she loved with a devotion charged with the added passion +of atonement. She had no repentance except in this direction. If +Grandcourt married her, the children would be none the worse off for +what had passed: they would see their mother in a dignified position, +and they would be at no disadvantage with the world: her son could be +made his father’s heir. It was the yearning for this result which gave +the supreme importance to Grandcourt’s feeling for her; her love for +him had long resolved itself into anxiety that he should give her the +unique, permanent claim of a wife, and she expected no other happiness +in marriage than the satisfaction of her maternal love and +pride—including her pride for herself in the presence of her children. +For the sake of that result she was prepared even with a tragic +firmness to endure anything quietly in marriage; and she had acuteness +enough to cherish Grandcourt’s flickering purpose negatively, by not +molesting him with passionate appeals and with scene-making. In her, as +in every one else who wanted anything of him, his incalculable turns, +and his tendency to harden under beseeching, had created a reasonable +dread:—a slow discovery, of which no presentiment had been given in +the bearing of a youthful lover with a fine line of face and the +softest manners. But reticence had necessarily cost something to this +impassioned woman, and she was the bitterer for it. There is no +quailing—even that forced on the helpless and injured—which has not +an ugly obverse: the withheld sting was gathering venom. She was +absolutely dependent on Grandcourt; for though he had been always +liberal in expenses for her, he had kept everything voluntary on his +part; and with the goal of marriage before her, she would ask for +nothing less. He had said that he would never settle anything except by +will; and when she was thinking of alternatives for the future it often +occurred to her that, even if she did not become Grandcourt’s wife, he +might never have a son who would have a legitimate claim on him, and +the end might be that her son would be made heir to the best part of +his estates. No son at that early age could promise to have more of his +father’s physique. But her becoming Grandcourt’s wife was so far from +being an extravagant notion of possibility, that even Lush had +entertained it, and had said that he would as soon bet on it as on any +other likelihood with regard to his familiar companion. Lush, indeed, +on inferring that Grandcourt had a preconception of using his residence +at Diplow in order to win Miss Arrowpoint, had thought it well to fan +that project, taking it as a tacit renunciation of the marriage with +Mrs. Glasher, which had long been a mark for the hovering and wheeling +of Grandcourt’s caprice. But both prospects had been negatived by +Gwendolen’s appearance on the scene; and it was natural enough for Mrs. +Glasher to enter with eagerness into Lush’s plan of hindering that new +danger by setting up a barrier in the mind of the girl who was being +sought as a bride. She entered into it with an eagerness which had +passion in it as well as purpose, some of the stored-up venom +delivering itself in that way. + +After that, she had heard from Lush of Gwendolen’s departure, and the +probability that all danger from her was got rid of; but there had been +no letter to tell her that the danger had returned and had become a +certainty. She had since then written to Grandcourt, as she did +habitually, and he had been longer than usual in answering. She was +inferring that he might intend coming to Gadsmere at the time when he +was actually on the way; and she was not without hope—what +construction of another’s mind is not strong wishing equal to?—that a +certain sickening from that frustrated courtship might dispose him to +slip the more easily into the old track of intention. + +Grandcourt had two grave purposes in coming to Gadsmere: to convey the +news of his approaching marriage in person, in order to make this first +difficulty final; and to get from Lydia his mother’s diamonds, which +long ago he had confided to her and wished her to wear. Her person +suited diamonds, and made them look as if they were worth some of the +money given for them. These particular diamonds were not mountains of +light—they were mere peas and haricots for the ears, neck and hair; +but they were worth some thousands, and Grandcourt necessarily wished +to have them for his wife. Formerly when he had asked Lydia to put them +into his keeping again, simply on the ground that they would be safer +and ought to be deposited at the bank, she had quietly but absolutely +refused, declaring that they were quite safe; and at last had said, “If +you ever marry another woman I will give them up to her: are you going +to marry another woman?” At that time Grandcourt had no motive which +urged him to persist, and he had this grace in him, that the +disposition to exercise power either by cowing or disappointing others +or exciting in them a rage which they dared not express—a disposition +which was active in him as other propensities became languid—had +always been in abeyance before Lydia. A severe interpreter might say +that the mere facts of their relation to each other, the melancholy +position of this woman who depended on his will, made a standing +banquet for his delight in dominating. But there was something else +than this in his forbearance toward her: there was the surviving though +metamorphosed effect of the power she had had over him; and it was this +effect, the fitful dull lapse toward solicitations that once had the +zest now missing from life, which had again and again inclined him to +espouse a familiar past rather than rouse himself to the expectation of +novelty. But now novelty had taken hold of him and urged him to make +the most of it. + +Mrs. Glasher was seated in the pleasant room where she habitually +passed her mornings with her children round her. It had a square +projecting window and looked on broad gravel and grass, sloping toward +a little brook that entered the pool. The top of a low, black cabinet, +the old oak table, the chairs in tawny leather, were littered with the +children’s toys, books and garden garments, at which a maternal lady in +pastel looked down from the walls with smiling indulgence. The children +were all there. The three girls, seated round their mother near the +window, were miniature portraits of her—dark-eyed, delicate-featured +brunettes with a rich bloom on their cheeks, their little nostrils and +eyebrows singularly finished as if they were tiny women, the eldest +being barely nine. The boy was seated on the carpet at some distance, +bending his blonde head over the animals from a Noah’s ark, admonishing +them separately in a voice of threatening command, and occasionally +licking the spotted ones to see if the colors would hold. Josephine, +the eldest, was having her French lesson; and the others, with their +dolls on their laps, sat demurely enough for images of the Madonna. +Mrs. Glasher’s toilet had been made very carefully—each day now she +said to herself that Grandcourt might come in. Her head, which, spite +of emaciation, had an ineffaceable beauty in the fine profile, crisp +curves of hair, and clearly-marked eyebrows, rose impressively above +her bronze-colored silk and velvet, and the gold necklace which +Grandcourt had first clasped round her neck years ago. Not that she had +any pleasure in her toilet; her chief thought of herself seen in the +glass was, “How changed!”—but such good in life as remained to her she +would keep. If her chief wish were fulfilled, she could imagine herself +getting the comeliness of a matron fit for the highest rank. The little +faces beside her, almost exact reductions of her own, seemed to tell of +the blooming curves which had once been where now was sunken pallor. +But the children kissed the pale cheeks and never found them deficient. +That love was now the one end of her life. + +Suddenly Mrs. Glasher turned away her head from Josephine’s book and +listened. “Hush, dear! I think some one is coming.” + +Henleigh the boy jumped up and said, “Mamma, is it the miller with my +donkey?” + +He got no answer, and going up to his mamma’s knee repeated his +question in an insistent tone. But the door opened, and the servant +announced Mr. Grandcourt. Mrs. Glasher rose in some agitation. Henleigh +frowned at him in disgust at his not being the miller, and the three +little girls lifted up their dark eyes to him timidly. They had none of +them any particular liking for this friend of mamma’s—in fact, when he +had taken Mrs. Glasher’s hand and then turned to put his other hand on +Henleigh’s head, that energetic scion began to beat the friend’s arm +away with his fists. The little girls submitted bashfully to be patted +under the chin and kissed, but on the whole it seemed better to send +them into the garden, where they were presently dancing and chatting +with the dogs on the gravel. + +“How far are you come?” said Mrs. Glasher, as Grandcourt put away his +hat and overcoat. + +“From Diplow,” he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her and +looking at her with an unnoting gaze which she noted. + +“You are tired, then.” + +“No, I rested at the Junction—a hideous hole. These railway journeys +are always a confounded bore. But I had coffee and smoked.” + +Grandcourt drew out his handkerchief, rubbed his face, and in returning +the handkerchief to his pocket looked at his crossed knee and blameless +boot, as if any stranger were opposite to him, instead of a woman +quivering with a suspense which every word and look of his was to +incline toward hope or dread. But he was really occupied with their +interview and what it was likely to include. Imagine the difference in +rate of emotion between this woman whom the years had worn to a more +conscious dependence and sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were +dulling into a more neutral obstinacy. + +“I expected to see you—it was so long since I had heard from you. I +suppose the weeks seem longer at Gadsmere than they do at Diplow,” said +Mrs. Glasher. She had a quick, incisive way of speaking that seemed to +go with her features, as the tone and _timbre_ of a violin go with its +form. + +“Yes,” drawled Grandcourt. “But you found the money paid into the bank.” + +“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. Always +before—at least she fancied so—Grandcourt had taken more notice of +her and the children than he did to-day. + +“Yes,” he resumed, playing with his whisker, and at first not looking +at her, “the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace with me; +generally it is slow enough. But there has been a good deal happening, +as you know”—here he turned his eyes upon her. + +“What do I know?” said she, sharply. + +He left a pause before he said, without change of manner, “That I was +thinking of marrying. You saw Miss Harleth?” + +“_She_ told you that?” + +The pale cheeks looked even paler, perhaps from the fierce brightness +in the eyes above them. + +“No. Lush told me,” was the slow answer. It was as if the thumb-screw +and the iron boot were being placed by creeping hands within sight of +the expectant victim. + +“Good God! say at once that you are going to marry her,” she burst out, +passionately, her knees shaking and her hands tightly clasped. + +“Of course, this kind of thing must happen some time or other, Lydia,” +said he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the +pain worse. + +“You didn’t always see the necessity.” + +“Perhaps not. I see it now.” + +In those few undertoned words of Grandcourt’s she felt as absolute a +resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron +door. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any +appeal—shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, +only to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. She did not +weep nor speak; she was too hard pressed by the sudden certainty which +had as much of chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. The +defeated clutch of struggling hope gave her in these first moments a +horrible sensation. At last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, +unconscious of every thing but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead +against the hard, cold glass of the window. The children, playing on +the gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted them, and, running +forward, stood in front of her with their sweet faces upturned +expectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them +off, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back in the nearest +chair. + +Grandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed—at the scene itself, +and at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it; +but the task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative +necessity of arranging things so that there should be as little +annoyance as possible in the future. He was leaning against the corner +of the fire-place. She looked up at him and said, bitterly, + +“All this is of no consequence to you. I and the children are +importunate creatures. You wish to get away again and be with Miss +Harleth.” + +“Don’t make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. Lydia. It is +of no use to harp on things that can’t be altered. Of course, its +deucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. I’ve +taken this journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to—you +and the children will be provided for as usual—and there’s an end of +it.” + +Silence. She dared not answer. This woman with the intense, eager look +had had the iron of the mother’s anguish in her soul, and it had made +her sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and +struggle. But underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and +vindictiveness: she wished that the marriage might make two others +wretched, besides herself. Presently he went on, + +“It will be better for you. You may go on living here. But I think of +by-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live +where you like. There will be nothing for you to complain of then. +Whatever happens, you will feel secure. Nothing could be done +beforehand. Every thing has gone on in a hurry.” + +Grandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. He did not expect her +to thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented; +if it were possible for Lydia to be contented. She showed no change, +and after a minute he said, + +“You have never had any reason to fear that I should be illiberal. I +don’t care a curse about the money.” + +“If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us,” said +Lydia. The sarcasm was irrepressible. + +“That’s a devilishly unfair thing to say,” Grandcourt replied, in a +lower tone; “and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again.” + +“Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?” In spite of +herself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other. + +“There is no question about leaving the children in beggary,” said +Grandcourt, still in his low voice. “I advise you not to say things +that you will repent of.” + +“I am used to repenting,” said she, bitterly. “Perhaps you will repent. +You have already repented of loving me.” + +“All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again. +What friend have you besides me?” + +“Quite true.” + +The words came like a low moan. At the same moment there flashed +through her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness +than that he had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness +which would drive him back to her to find some memory of a time when he +was young, glad, and hopeful. But no! he would go scathless; it was she +that had to suffer. + +With this the scorching words were ended. Grandcourt had meant to stay +till evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable +train earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still +to speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a +second surgical operation seemed to require an interval. The hours had +to go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in—all this +mechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of +constraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind. +To Lydia it was some slight relief for her stifled fury to have the +children present: she felt a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it +would taunt Grandcourt with his indifference to her and them—a secret +darting of venom which was strongly imaginative. He acquitted himself +with all the advantage of a man whose grace of bearing has long been +moulded on an experience of boredom—nursed the little Antonia, who sat +with her hands crossed and eyes upturned to his bald head, which struck +her as worthy of observation—and propitiated Henleigh by promising him +a beautiful saddle and bridle. It was only the two eldest girls who had +known him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had +overlaid their infantine memories with a bashfulness which Grandcourt’s +bearing was not likely to dissipate. He and Lydia occasionally, in the +presence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they +never spoke; and the stagnant thought in Grandcourt’s mind all the +while was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds, +which obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking about them. He had +an ingrained care for what he held to belong to his caste, and about +property he liked to be lordly; also he had a consciousness of +indignity to himself in having to ask for anything in the world. But +however he might assert his independence of Mrs. Glasher’s past, he had +made a past for himself which was a stronger yoke than any he could +impose. He must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to Gwendolen. + +At last they were alone again, with the candles above them, face to +face with each other. Grandcourt looked at his watch, and then said, in +an apparently indifferent drawl, “There is one thing I had to mention, +Lydia. My diamonds—you have them.” + +“Yes, I have them,” she answered promptly, rising and standing with her +arms thrust down and her fingers threaded, while Grandcourt sat still. +She had expected the topic, and made her resolve about it. But she +meant to carry out her resolve, if possible, without exasperating him. +During the hours of silence she had longed to recall the words which +had only widened the breach between them. + +“They are in this house, I suppose?” + +“No; not in this house.” + +“I thought you said you kept them by you.” + +“When I said so it was true. They are in the bank at Dudley.” + +“Get them away, will you? I must make an arrangement for your +delivering them to some one.” + +“Make no arrangement. They shall be delivered to the person you +intended them for. _I_ will make the arrangement.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“What I say. I have always told you that I would give them up to your +wife. I shall keep my word. She is not your wife yet.” + +“This is foolery,” said Grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. It was too +irritating that this indulgence of Lydia had given her a sort of +mastery over him in spite of dependent condition. + +She did not speak. He also rose now, but stood leaning against the +mantle-piece with his side-face toward her. + +“The diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage,” he began +again. + +“What is your wedding-day?” + +“The tenth. There is no time to be lost.” + +“And where do you go after the marriage?” + +He did not reply except by looking more sullen. Presently he said, “You +must appoint a day before then, to get them from the bank and meet +me—or somebody else I will commission;—it’s a great nuisance. Mention +a day.” + +“No; I shall not do that. They shall be delivered to her safely. I +shall keep my word.” + +“Do you mean to say,” said Grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face +her, “that you will not do as I tell you?” + +“Yes, I mean that,” was the answer that leaped out, while her eyes +flashed close to him. The poor creature was immediately conscious that +if her words had any effect on her own lot, the effect must be +mischievous, and might nullify all the remaining advantage of her long +patience. But the word had been spoken. + +He was in a position the most irritating to him. He could not shake her +nor touch her hostilely; and if he could, the process would not bring +his mother’s diamonds. He shrank from the only sort of threat that +would frighten her—if she believed it. And in general, there was +nothing he hated more than to be forced into anything like violence +even in words: his will must impose itself without trouble. After +looking at her for a moment, he turned his side-face toward her again, +leaning as before, and said, + +“Infernal idiots that women are!” + +“Why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? I +could be at the wedding if I liked, and learn in that way,” said Lydia, +not shrinking from the one suicidal form of threat within her power. + +“Of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman,” said Grandcourt, +with _sotto voce_ scorn. “It is not to be supposed that you will wait +to think what good will come of it—or what you owe to me.” + +He was in a state of disgust and embitterment quite new in the history +of their relation to each other. It was undeniable that this woman, +whose life he had allowed to send such deep suckers into his, had a +terrible power of annoyance in her; and the rash hurry of his +proceedings had left her opportunities open. His pride saw very ugly +possibilities threatening it, and he stood for several minutes in +silence reviewing the situation—considering how he could act upon her. +Unlike himself she was of a direct nature, with certain simple +strongly-colored tendencies, and there was one often-experienced effect +which he thought he could count upon now. As Sir Hugo had said of him, +Grandcourt knew how to play his cards upon occasion. + +He did not speak again, but looked at his watch, rang the bell, and +ordered the vehicle to be brought round immediately. Then he removed +farther from her, walked as if in expectation of a summons, and +remained silent without turning his eyes upon her. + +She was suffering the horrible conflict of self-reproach and tenacity. +She saw beforehand Grandcourt leaving her without even looking at her +again—herself left behind in lonely uncertainty—hearing nothing from +him—not knowing whether she had done her children harm—feeling that +she had perhaps made him hate her;—all the wretchedness of a creature +who had defeated her own motives. And yet she could not bear to give up +a purpose which was a sweet morsel to her vindictiveness. If she had +not been a mother she would willingly have sacrificed herself to her +revenge—to what she felt to be the justice of hindering another from +getting happiness by willingly giving her over to misery. The two +dominant passions were at struggle. She must satisfy them both. + +“Don’t let us part in anger, Henleigh,” she began, without changing her +voice or attitude: “it is a very little thing I ask. If I were refusing +to give anything up that you call yours it would be different: that +would be a reason for treating me as if you hated me. But I ask such a +little thing. If you will tell me where you are going on the +wedding-day I will take care that the diamonds shall be delivered to +her without scandal. Without scandal,” she repeated entreatingly. + +“Such preposterous whims make a woman odious,” said Grandcourt, not +giving way in look or movement. “What is the use of talking to mad +people?” + +“Yes, I am foolish—loneliness has made me foolish—indulge me.” Sobs +rose as she spoke. “If you will indulge me in this one folly I will be +very meek—I will never trouble you.” She burst into hysterical crying, +and said again almost with a scream—“I will be very meek after that.” + +There was a strange mixture of acting and reality in this passion. She +kept hold of her purpose as a child might tighten its hand over a small +stolen thing, crying and denying all the while. Even Grandcourt was +wrought upon by surprise: this capricious wish, this childish violence, +was as unlike Lydia’s bearing as it was incongruous with her person. +Both had always had a stamp of dignity on them. Yet she seemed more +manageable in this state than in her former attitude of defiance. He +came close up to her again, and said, in his low imperious tone, “Be +quiet, and hear what I tell you, I will never forgive you if you +present yourself again and make a scene.” + +She pressed her handkerchief against her face, and when she could speak +firmly said, in the muffled voice that follows sobbing, “I will not—if +you will let me have my way—I promise you not to thrust myself forward +again. I have never broken my word to you—how many have you broken to +me? When you gave me the diamonds to wear you were not thinking of +having another wife. And I now give them up—I don’t reproach you—I +only ask you to let me give them up in my own way. Have I not borne it +well? Everything is to be taken away from me, and when I ask for a +straw, a chip—you deny it me.” She had spoken rapidly, but after a +little pause she said more slowly, her voice freed from its muffled +tone: “I will not bear to have it denied me.” + +Grandcourt had a baffling sense that he had to deal with something like +madness; he could only govern by giving way. The servant came to say +the fly was ready. When the door was shut again Grandcourt said +sullenly, “We are going to Ryelands then.” + +“They shall be delivered to her there,” said Lydia, with decision. + +“Very well, I am going.” He felt no inclination even to take her hand: +she had annoyed him too sorely. But now that she had gained her point, +she was prepared to humble herself that she might propitiate him. + +“Forgive me; I will never vex you again,” she said, with beseeching +looks. Her inward voice said distinctly—“It is only I who have to +forgive.” Yet she was obliged to ask forgiveness. + +“You had better keep that promise. You have made me feel uncommonly ill +with your folly,” said Grandcourt, apparently choosing this statement +as the strongest possible use of language. + +“Poor thing!” cried Lydia, with a faint smile;—was he aware of the +minor fact that he made her feel ill this morning? + +But with the quick transition natural to her, she was now ready to coax +him if he would let her, that they might part in some degree +reconciled. She ventured to lay her hand on his shoulder, and he did +not move away from her: she had so far succeeded in alarming him, that +he was not sorry for these proofs of returned subjection. + +“Light a cigar,” she said, soothingly, taking the case from his +breast-pocket and opening it. + +Amidst such caressing signs of mutual fear they parted. The effect that +clung and gnawed within Grandcourt was a sense of imperfect mastery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + “A wild dedication of yourselves + To unpath’d waters, undreamed shores.” + —SHAKESPEARE. + + +On the day when Gwendolen Harleth was married and became Mrs. +Grandcourt, the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low +a slight frost crisped the leaves. The bridal party was worth seeing, +and half Pennicote turned out to see it, lining the pathway up to the +church. An old friend of the rector’s performed the marriage ceremony, +the rector himself acting as father, to the great advantage of the +procession. Only two faces, it was remarked, showed signs of +sadness—Mrs. Davilow’s and Anna’s. The mother’s delicate eyelids were +pink, as if she had been crying half the night; and no one was +surprised that, splendid as the match was, she should feel the parting +from a daughter who was the flower of her children and of her own life. +It was less understood why Anna should be troubled when she was being +so well set off by the bridesmaid’s dress. Every one else seemed to +reflect the brilliancy of the occasion—the bride most of all. Of her +it was agreed that as to figure and carriage she was worthy to be a +“lady o’ title”: as to face, perhaps it might be thought that a title +required something more rosy; but the bridegroom himself not being +fresh-colored—being indeed, as the miller’s wife observed, very much +of her own husband’s complexion—the match was the more complete. +Anyhow he must be very fond of her; and it was to be hoped that he +would never cast it up to her that she had been going out to service as +a governess, and her mother to live at Sawyer’s Cottage—vicissitudes +which had been much spoken of in the village. The miller’s daughter of +fourteen could not believe that high gentry behaved badly to their +wives, but her mother instructed her—“Oh, child, men’s men: gentle or +simple, they’re much of a muchness. I’ve heard my mother say Squire +Pelton used to take his dogs and a long whip into his wife’s room, and +flog ’em there to frighten her; and my mother was lady’s-maid there at +the very time.” + +“That’s unlucky talk for a wedding, Mrs. Girdle,” said the tailor. “A +quarrel may end wi’ the whip, but it begins wi’ the tongue, and it’s +the women have got the most o’ that.” + +“The Lord gave it ’em to use, I suppose,” said Mrs. Girdle. “_He_ never +meant you to have it all your own way.” + +“By what I can make out from the gentleman as attends to the grooming +at Offendene,” said the tailor, “this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful +little tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering.” + +“Then he’s the more whip, I doubt,” said Mrs. Girdle. “_She’s_ got +tongue enough, I warrant her. See, there they come out together!” + +“What wonderful long corners she’s got to her eyes!” said the tailor. +“She makes you feel comical when she looks at you.” + +Gwendolen, in fact, never showed more elasticity in her bearing, more +lustre in her long brown glance: she had the brilliancy of strong +excitement, which will sometimes come even from pain. It was not pain, +however, that she was feeling: she had wrought herself up to much the +same condition as that in which she stood at the gambling-table when +Deronda was looking at her, and she began to lose. There was an +enjoyment in it: whatever uneasiness a growing conscience had created +was disregarded as an ailment might have been, amidst the gratification +of that ambitious vanity and desire for luxury within her which it +would take a great deal of slow poisoning to kill. This morning she +could not have said truly that she repented her acceptance of +Grandcourt, or that any fears in hazy perspective could hinder the +glowing effect of the immediate scene in which she was the central +object. That she was doing something wrong—that a punishment might be +hanging over her—that the woman to whom she had given a promise and +broken it, was thinking of her in bitterness and misery with a just +reproach—that Deronda with his way of looking into things very likely +despised her for marrying Grandcourt, as he had despised her for +gambling—above all, that the cord which united her with this lover and +which she had heretofore held by the hand, was now being flung over her +neck,—all this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts with vague +but deep impressions, and with images half real, half fantastic, had +been disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement. Was that +agitating experience nullified this morning? No: it was surmounted and +thrust down with a sort of exulting defiance as she felt herself +standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything +to win much—or if to lose, still with _éclat_ and a sense of +importance. But this morning a losing destiny for herself did not press +upon her as a fear: she thought that she was entering on a fuller power +of managing circumstances—with all the official strength of marriage, +which some women made so poor a use of. That intoxication of youthful +egoism out of which she had been shaken by trouble, humiliation, and a +new sense of culpability, had returned upon her under a newly-fed +strength of the old fumes. She did not in the least present the ideal +of the tearful, tremulous bride. Poor Gwendolen, whom some had judged +much too forward and instructed in the world’s ways!—with her erect +head and elastic footstep she was walking among illusions; and yet, +too, there was an under-consciousness of her that she was a little +intoxicated. + +“Thank God you bear it so well, my darling!” said Mrs. Davilow, when +she had helped Gwendolen to doff her bridal white and put on her +traveling dress. All the trembling had been done by the poor mother, +and her agitation urged Gwendolen doubly to take the morning as if it +were a triumph. + +“Why, you might have said that, if I had been going to Mrs. Mompert’s, +you dear, sad, incorrigible mamma!” said Gwendolen just putting her +hands to her mother’s cheeks with laughing tenderness—then retreating +a little and spreading out her arms as if to exhibit herself: “Here am +I—Mrs. Grandcourt! what else would you have me, but what I am sure to +be? You know you were ready to die with vexation when you thought that +I would not be Mrs. Grandcourt.” + +“Hush, hush, my child, for heaven’s sake!” said Mrs. Davilow, almost in +a whisper. “How can I help feeling it when I am parting from you. But I +can bear anything gladly if you are happy.” + +“Not gladly, mamma, no!” said Gwendolen, shaking her head, with a +bright smile. “Willingly you would bear it, but always sorrowfully. +Sorrowing is your sauce; you can take nothing without it.” Then, +clasping her mother’s shoulders and raining kisses first on one cheek +and then on the other between her words, she said, gaily, “And you +shall sorrow over my having everything at my beck—and enjoying +everything glorious—splendid houses—and horses—and diamonds, I shall +have diamonds—and going to court—and being Lady Certainly—and Lady +Perhaps—and grand here—and tantivy there—and always loving you +better than anybody else in the world.” + +“My sweet child!—But I shall not be jealous if you love your husband +better; and he will expect to be first.” + +Gwendolen thrust out her lips and chin with a pretty grimace, saying, +“Rather a ridiculous expectation. However, I don’t mean to treat him +ill, unless he deserves it.” + +Then the two fell into a clinging embrace, and Gwendolen could not +hinder a rising sob when she said, “I wish you were going with me, +mamma.” + +But the slight dew on her long eyelashes only made her the more +charming when she gave her hand to Grandcourt to be led to the carriage. + +The rector looked in on her to give a final “Good-bye; God bless you; +we shall see you again before long,” and then returned to Mrs. Davilow, +saying half cheerfully, half solemnly, + +“Let us be thankful, Fanny. She is in a position well suited to her, +and beyond what I should have dared to hope for. And few women can have +been chosen more entirely for their own sake. You should feel yourself +a happy mother.” + + * * * * * + +There was a railway journey of some fifty miles before the new husband +and wife reached the station near Ryelands. The sky had veiled itself +since the morning, and it was hardly more than twilight when they +entered the park-gates, but still Gwendolen, looking out of the +carriage-window as they drove rapidly along, could see the grand +outlines and the nearer beauties of the scene—the long winding drive +bordered with evergreens backed by huge gray stems: then the opening of +wide grassy spaces and undulations studded with dark clumps; till at +last came a wide level where the white house could be seen, with a +hanging wood for a background, and the rising and sinking balustrade +of a terrace in front. + +Gwendolen had been at her liveliest during the journey, chatting +incessantly, ignoring any change in their mutual position since +yesterday; and Grandcourt had been rather ecstatically quiescent, while +she turned his gentle seizure of her hand into a grasp of his hand by +both hers, with an increased vivacity as of a kitten that will not sit +quiet to be petted. She was really getting somewhat febrile in her +excitement; and now in this drive through the park her usual +susceptibility to changes of light and scenery helped to make her heart +palpitate newly. Was it at the novelty simply, or the almost incredible +fulfilment about to be given to her girlish dreams of being +“somebody”—walking through her own furlong of corridor and under her +own ceilings of an out-of-sight loftiness, where her own painted Spring +was shedding painted flowers, and her own fore-shortened Zephyrs were +blowing their trumpets over her; while her own servants, lackeys in +clothing but men in bulk and shape, were as nought in her presence, and +revered the propriety of her insolence to them:—being in short the +heroine of an admired play without the pains of art? Was it alone the +closeness of this fulfilment which made her heart flutter? or was it +some dim forecast, the insistent penetration of suppressed experience, +mixing the expectation of a triumph with the dread of a crisis? Hers +was one of the natures in which exultation inevitably carries an +infusion of dread ready to curdle and declare itself. + +She fell silent in spite of herself as they approached the gates, and +when her husband said, “Here we are at home!” and for the first time +kissed her on the lips, she hardly knew of it: it was no more than the +passive acceptance of a greeting in the midst of an absorbing show. Was +not all her hurrying life of the last three months a show, in which her +consciousness was a wondering spectator? After the half-willful +excitement of the day, a numbness had come over her personality. + +But there was a brilliant light in the hall—warmth, matting, carpets, +full-length portraits, Olympian statues, assiduous servants. Not many +servants, however: only a few from Diplow in addition to those +constantly in charge of the house; and Gwendolen’s new maid, who had +come with her, was taken under guidance by the housekeeper. Gwendolen +felt herself being led by Grandcourt along a subtly-scented corridor, +into an ante-room where she saw an open doorway sending out a rich glow +of light and color. + +“These are our dens,” said Grandcourt. “You will like to be quiet here +till dinner. We shall dine early.” + +He pressed her hand to his lips and moved away, more in love than he +had ever expected to be. + +Gwendolen, yielded up her hat and mantle, threw herself into a chair by +the glowing hearth, and saw herself repeated in glass panels with all +her faint-green satin surroundings. The housekeeper had passed into +this boudoir from the adjoining dressing-room and seemed disposed to +linger, Gwendolen thought, in order to look at the new mistress of +Ryelands, who, however, being impatient for solitude said to her, “Will +you tell Hudson when she has put out my dress to leave everything? I +shall not want her again, unless I ring.” + +The housekeeper, coming forward, said, “Here is a packet, madam, which +I was ordered to give into nobody’s hands but yours, when you were +alone. The person who brought it said it was a present particularly +ordered by Mr. Grandcourt; but he was not to know of its arrival till +he saw you wear it. Excuse me, madam; I felt it right to obey orders.” + +Gwendolen took the packet and let it lie on her lap till she heard the +doors close. It came into her mind that the packet might contain the +diamonds which Grandcourt had spoken of as being deposited somewhere +and to be given to her on her marriage. In this moment of confused +feeling and creeping luxurious languor she was glad of this +diversion—glad of such an event as having her own diamonds to try on. + +Within all the sealed paper coverings was a box, but within the box +there _was_ a jewel-case; and now she felt no doubt that she had the +diamonds. But on opening the case, in the same instant that she saw +them gleam she saw a letter lying above them. She knew the handwriting +of the address. It was as if an adder had lain on them. Her heart gave +a leap which seemed to have spent all her strength; and as she opened +the bit of thin paper, it shook with the trembling of her hands. But it +was legible as print, and thrust its words upon her. + + These diamonds, which were once given with ardent love to Lydia + Glasher, she passes on to you. You have broken your word to her, that + you might possess what was hers. Perhaps you think of being happy, as + she once was, and of having beautiful children such as hers, who will + thrust hers aside. God is too just for that. The man you have married + has a withered heart. His best young love was mine: you could not take + that from me when you took the rest. It is dead: but I am the grave + in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. You had + your warning. You have chosen to injure me and my children. He had + meant to marry me. He would have married me at last, if you had not + broken your word. You will have your punishment. I desire it with all + my soul. + + Will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us + more—me and my children? Shall you like to stand before your husband + with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and + yours? Will he think you have any right to complain when he has made + you miserable? You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you + have done me will be your curse. + +It seemed at first as if Gwendolen’s eyes were spell-bound in reading +the horrible words of the letter over and over again as a doom of +penance; but suddenly a new spasm of terror made her lean forward and +stretch out the paper toward the fire, lest accusation and proof at +once should meet all eyes. It flew like a feather from her trembling +fingers and was caught up in a great draught of flame. In her movement +the casket fell on the floor and the diamonds rolled out. She took no +notice, but fell back in her chair again helpless. She could not see +the reflections of herself then; they were like so many women petrified +white; but coming near herself you might have seen the tremor in her +lips and hands. She sat so for a long while, knowing little more than +that she was feeling ill, and that those written words kept repeating +themselves to her. + +Truly here were poisoned gems, and the poison had entered into this +poor young creature. + +After that long while, there was a tap at the door and Grandcourt +entered, dressed for dinner. The sight of him brought a new nervous +shock, and Gwendolen screamed again and again with hysterical violence. +He had expected to see her dressed and smiling, ready to be led down. +He saw her pallid, shrieking as it seemed with terror, the jewels +scattered around her on the floor. Was it a fit of madness? + +In some form or other the furies had crossed his threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + In all ages it hath been a favorite text that a potent love hath the + nature of an isolated fatality, whereto the mind’s opinions and wonted + resolves are altogether alien; as, for example, Daphnis his frenzy, + wherein it had little availed him to have been convinced of Heraclitus + his doctrine; or the philtre-bred passion of Tristan, who, though he + had been as deep as Duns Scotus, would have had his reasoning marred + by that cup too much; or Romeo in his sudden taking for Juliet, + wherein any objections he might have held against Ptolemy had made + little difference to his discourse under the balcony. Yet all love is + not such, even though potent; nay, this passion hath as large scope as + any for allying itself with every operation of the soul: so that it + shall acknowledge an effect from the imagined light of unproven + firmaments, and have its scale set to the grander orbits of what hath + been and shall be. + + +Deronda, on his return to town, could assure Sir Hugo of his having +lodged in Grandcourt’s mind a distinct understanding that he could get +fifty thousand pounds by giving up a prospect which was probably +distant, and not absolutely certain; but he had no further sign of +Grandcourt’s disposition in the matter than that he was evidently +inclined to keep up friendly communications. + +“And what did you think of the future bride on a nearer survey?” said +Sir Hugo. + +“I thought better of her than I did in Leubronn. Roulette was not a +good setting for her; it brought out something of the demon. At Diplow +she seemed much more womanly and attractive—less hard and +self-possessed. I thought her mouth and eyes had quite a different +expression.” + +“Don’t flirt with her too much, Dan,” said Sir Hugo, meaning to be +agreeably playful. “If you make Grandcourt savage when they come to the +Abbey at Christmas, it will interfere with my affairs.” + +“I can stay in town, sir.” + +“No, no. Lady Mallinger and the children can’t do without you at +Christmas. Only don’t make mischief—unless you can get up a duel, and +manage to shoot Grandcourt, which might be worth a little +inconvenience.” + +“I don’t think you ever saw me flirt,” said Deronda, not amused. + +“Oh, haven’t I, though?” said Sir Hugo, provokingly. “You are always +looking tenderly at the women, and talking to them in a Jesuitical way. +You are a dangerous young fellow—a kind of Lovelace who will make the +Clarissas run after you instead of you running after them.” + +What was the use of being exasperated at a tasteless joke?—only the +exasperation comes before the reflection on utility. Few friendly +remarks are more annoying than the information that we are always +seeming to do what we never mean to do. Sir Hugo’s notion of flirting, +it was to be hoped, was rather peculiar; for his own part, Deronda was +sure that he had never flirted. But he was glad that the baronet had no +knowledge about the repurchase of Gwendolen’s necklace to feed his +taste for this kind of rallying. + +He would be on his guard in future; for example, in his behavior at +Mrs. Meyrick’s, where he was about to pay his first visit since his +arrival from Leubronn. For Mirah was certainly a creature in whom it +was difficult not to show a tender kind of interest both by looks and +speech. + +Mrs. Meyrick had not failed to send Deronda a report of Mirah’s +well-being in her family. “We are getting fonder of her every day,” she +had written. “At breakfast-time we all look toward the door with +expectation to see her come in; and we watch her and listen to her as +if she were a native from a new country. I have not heard a word from +her lips that gives me a doubt about her. She is quite contented and +full of gratitude. My daughters are learning from her, and they hope to +get her other pupils; for she is anxious not to eat the bread of +idleness, but to work, like my girls. Mab says our life has become like +a fairy tale, and all she is afraid of is that Mirah will turn into a +nightingale again and fly away from us. Her voice is just perfect: not +loud and strong, but searching and melting, like the thoughts of what +has been. That is the way old people like me feel a beautiful voice.” + +But Mrs. Meyrick did not enter into particulars which would have +required her to say that Amy and Mab, who had accompanied Mirah to the +synagogue, found the Jewish faith less reconcilable with their wishes +in her case than in that of Scott’s Rebecca. They kept silence out of +delicacy to Mirah, with whom her religion was too tender a subject to +be touched lightly; but after a while Amy, who was much of a practical +reformer, could not restrain a question. + +“Excuse me, Mirah, but _does_ it seem quite right to you that the women +should sit behind rails in a gallery apart?” + +“Yes, I never thought of anything else,” said Mirah, with mild surprise. + +“And you like better to see the men with their hats on?” said Mab, +cautiously proposing the smallest item of difference. + +“Oh, yes. I like what I have always seen there, because it brings back +to me the same feelings—the feelings I would not part with for +anything else in the world.” + +After this, any criticism, whether of doctrine or practice, would have +seemed to these generous little people an inhospitable cruelty. Mirah’s +religion was of one fibre with her affections, and had never presented +itself to her as a set of propositions. + +“She says herself she is a very bad Jewess, and does not half know her +people’s religion,” said Amy, when Mirah was gone to bed. “Perhaps it +would gradually melt away from her, and she would pass into +Christianity like the rest of the world, if she got to love us very +much, and never found her mother. It is so strange to be of the Jews’ +religion now.” + +“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Mab. “I wish I were not such a hideous Christian. +How can an ugly Christian, who is always dropping her work, convert a +beautiful Jewess, who has not a fault?” + +“It may be wicked of me,” said shrewd Kate, “but I cannot help wishing +that her mother may not be found. There might be something unpleasant.” + +“I don’t think it, my dear,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “I believe Mirah is cut +out after the pattern of her mother. And what a joy it would be to her +to have such a daughter brought back again! But a mother’s feelings are +not worth reckoning, I suppose” (she shot a mischievous glance at her +own daughters), “and a dead mother is worth more than a living one?” + +“Well, and so she may be, little mother,” said Kate; “but we would +rather hold you cheaper, and have you alive.” + +Not only the Meyricks, whose various knowledge had been acquired by the +irregular foraging to which clever girls have usually been reduced, but +Deronda himself, with all his masculine instruction, had been roused by +this apparition of Mirah to the consciousness of knowing hardly +anything about modern Judaism or the inner Jewish history. The Chosen +People have been commonly treated as a people chosen for the sake of +somebody else; and their thinking as something (no matter exactly what) +that ought to have been entirely otherwise; and Deronda, like his +neighbors, had regarded Judaism as a sort of eccentric fossilized form +which an accomplished man might dispense with studying, and leave to +specialists. But Mirah, with her terrified flight from one parent, and +her yearning after the other, had flashed on him the hitherto neglected +reality that Judaism was something still throbbing in human lives, +still making for them the only conceivable vesture of the world; and in +the idling excursion on which he immediately afterward set out with Sir +Hugo he began to look for the outsides of synagogues, and the title of +books about the Jews. This awakening of a new interest—this passing +from the supposition that we hold the right opinions on a subject we +are careless about, to a sudden care for it, and a sense that our +opinions were ignorance—is an effectual remedy for _ennui_, which, +unhappily, cannot be secured on a physician’s prescription; but Deronda +had carried it with him, and endured his weeks of lounging all the +better. It was on this journey that he first entered a Jewish +synagogue—at Frankfort—where his party rested on a Friday. In +exploring the Juden-gasse, which he had seen long before, he remembered +well enough its picturesque old houses; what his eyes chiefly dwelt on +now were the human types there; and his thought, busily connecting them +with the past phases of their race, stirred that fibre of historic +sympathy which had helped to determine in him certain traits worth +mentioning for those who are interested in his future. True, when a +young man has a fine person, no eccentricity of manners, the education +of a gentleman, and a present income, it is not customary to feel a +prying curiosity about his way of thinking, or his peculiar tastes. He +may very well be settled in life as an agreeable clever young fellow +without passing a special examination on those heads. Later, when he is +getting rather slovenly and portly, his peculiarities are more +distinctly discerned, and it is taken as a mercy if they are not highly +objectionable. But any one wishing to understand the effect of +after-events on Deronda should know a little more of what he was at +five-and-twenty than was evident in ordinary intercourse. + +It happened that the very vividness of his impressions had often made +him the more enigmatic to his friends, and had contributed to an +apparent indefiniteness in his sentiments. His early-wakened +sensibility and reflectiveness had developed into a many-sided +sympathy, which threatened to hinder any persistent course of action: +as soon as he took up any antagonism, though only in thought, he seemed +to himself like the Sabine warriors in the memorable story—with +nothing to meet his spear but flesh of his flesh, and objects that he +loved. His imagination had so wrought itself to the habit of seeing +things as they probably appeared to others, that a strong partisanship, +unless it were against an immediate oppression, had become an +insincerity for him. His plenteous, flexible sympathy had ended by +falling into one current with that reflective analysis which tends to +neutralize sympathy. Few men were able to keep themselves clearer of +vices than he; yet he hated vices mildly, being used to think of them +less in the abstract than as a part of mixed human natures having an +individual history, which it was the bent of his mind to trace with +understanding and pity. With the same innate balance he was fervidly +democratic in his feeling for the multitude, and yet, through his +affections and imagination, intensely conservative; voracious of +speculations on government and religion, yet loth to part with +long-sanctioned forms which, for him, were quick with memories and +sentiments that no argument could lay dead. We fall on the leaning +side; and Deronda suspected himself of loving too well the losing +causes of the world. Martyrdom changes sides, and he was in danger of +changing with it, having a strong repugnance to taking up that clue of +success which the order of the world often forces upon us and makes it +treason against the common weal to reject. And yet his fear of falling +into an unreasoning narrow hatred made a check for him: he apologized +for the heirs of privilege; he shrank with dislike from the loser’s +bitterness and the denunciatory tone of the unaccepted innovator. A too +reflective and diffusive sympathy was in danger of paralyzing in him +that indignation against wrong and that selectness of fellowship which +are the conditions of moral force; and in the last few years of +confirmed manhood he had become so keenly aware of this that what he +most longed for was either some external event, or some inward light, +that would urge him into a definite line of action, and compress his +wandering energy. He was ceasing to care for knowledge—he had no +ambition for practice—unless they could both be gathered up into one +current with his emotions; and he dreaded, as if it were a +dwelling-place of lost souls, that dead anatomy of culture which turns +the universe into a mere ceaseless answer to queries, and knows, not +everything, but everything else about everything—as if one should be +ignorant of nothing concerning the scent of violets except the scent +itself for which one had no nostril. But how and whence was the needed +event to come?—the influence that would justify partiality, and make +him what he longed to be, yet was unable to make himself—an organic +part of social life, instead of roaming in it like a yearning +disembodied spirit, stirred with a vague social passion, but without +fixed local habitation to render fellowship real? To make a little +difference for the better was what he was not contented to live +without; but how to make it? It is one thing to see your road, another +to cut it. He found some of the fault in his birth and the way he had +been brought up, which had laid no special demands on him and had given +him no fixed relationship except one of a doubtful kind; but he did not +attempt to hide from himself that he had fallen into a meditative +numbness, and was gliding farther and farther from that life of +practically energetic sentiment which he would have proclaimed (if he +had been inclined to proclaim anything) to be the best of all life, and +for himself the only way worth living. He wanted some way of keeping +emotion and its progeny of sentiments—which make the savors of +life—substantial and strong in the face of a reflectiveness that +threatened to nullify all differences. To pound the objects of +sentiment into small dust, yet keep sentiment alive and active, was +something like the famous recipe for making cannon—to first take a +round hole and then enclose it with iron; whatever you do keeping fast +hold of your round hole. Yet how distinguish what our will may wisely +save in its completeness, from the heaping of cat-mummies and the +expensive cult of enshrined putrefactions? + +Something like this was the common under-current in Deronda’s mind +while he was reading law or imperfectly attending to polite +conversation. Meanwhile he had not set about one function in particular +with zeal and steadiness. Not an admirable experience, to be proposed +as an ideal; but a form of struggle before break of day which some +young men since the patriarch have had to pass through, with more or +less of bruising if not laming. + +I have said that under his calm exterior he had a fervor which made him +easily feel the presence of poetry in everyday events; and the forms of +the Juden-gasse, rousing the sense of union with what is remote, set +him musing on two elements of our historic life which that sense raises +into the same region of poetry;—the faint beginnings of faiths and +institutions, and their obscure lingering decay; the dust and withered +remnants with which they are apt to be covered, only enhancing for the +awakened perception the impressiveness either of a sublimely +penetrating life, as in the twin green leaves that will become the +sheltering tree, or of a pathetic inheritance in which all the grandeur +and the glory have become a sorrowing memory. + +This imaginative stirring, as he turned out of the Juden-gasse, and +continued to saunter in the warm evening air, meaning to find his way +to the synagogue, neutralized the repellent effect of certain ugly +little incidents on his way. Turning into an old book-shop to ask the +exact time of service at the synagogue, he was affectionately directed +by a precocious Jewish youth, who entered cordially into his wanting, +not the fine new building of the Reformed but the old Rabbinical school +of the orthodox; and then cheated him like a pure Teuton, only with +more amenity, in his charge for a book quite out of request as one +“nicht so leicht zu bekommen.” Meanwhile at the opposite counter a deaf +and grisly tradesman was casting a flinty look at certain cards, +apparently combining advantages of business with religion, and +shoutingly proposed to him in Jew-dialect by a dingy man in a tall coat +hanging from neck to heel, a bag in hand, and a broad low hat +surmounting his chosen nose—who had no sooner disappeared than another +dingy man of the same pattern issued from the background glooms of the +shop and also shouted in the same dialect. In fact, Deronda saw various +queer-looking Israelites not altogether without guile, and just +distinguishable from queer-looking Christians of the same mixed +_morale_. In his anxiety about Mirah’s relatives, he had lately been +thinking of vulgar Jews with a sort of personal alarm. But a little +comparison will often diminish our surprise and disgust at the +aberrations of Jews and other dissidents whose lives do not offer a +consistent or lovely pattern of their creed; and this evening Deronda, +becoming more conscious that he was falling into unfairness and +ridiculous exaggeration, began to use that corrective comparison: he +paid his thaler too much, without prejudice to his interests in the +Hebrew destiny, or his wish to find the _Rabbinische Schule_, which he +arrived at by sunset, and entered with a good congregation of men. + +He happened to take his seat in a line with an elderly man from whom he +was distant enough to glance at him more than once as rather a +noticeable figure—his ample white beard and felt hat framing a profile +of that fine contour which may as easily be Italian as Hebrew. He +returned Deronda’s notice till at last their eyes met; an undesirable +chance with unknown persons, and a reason to Deronda for not looking +again; but he immediately found an open prayer-book pushed toward him +and had to bow his thanks. However, the congregation had mustered, the +reader had mounted to the _almemor_ or platform, and the service began. +Deronda, having looked enough at the German translation of the Hebrew +in the book before him to know that he was chiefly hearing Psalms and +Old Testament passages or phrases, gave himself up to that strongest +effect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal +meaning—like the effect of an Allegri’s _Miserere_ or a Palestrina’s +_Magnificat_. The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is +the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape +from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good +to enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of +Gladness, a _Gloria in excelsis_ that such Good exists; both the +yearning and the exaltation gathering their utmost force from the sense +of communion in a form which has expressed them both, for long +generations of struggling fellow-men. The Hebrew liturgy, like others, +has its transitions of litany, lyric, proclamation, dry statement and +blessing; but this evening, all were one for Deronda: the chant of the +_Chazaris_ or Reader’s grand wide-ranging voice with its passage from +monotony to sudden cries, the outburst of sweet boys’ voices from the +little choir, the devotional swaying of men’s bodies backward and +forward, the very commonness of the building and shabbiness of the +scene where a national faith, which had penetrated the thinking of half +the world, and moulded the splendid forms of that world’s religion, was +finding a remote, obscure echo—all were blent for him as one +expression of a binding history, tragic and yet glorious. He wondered +at the strength of his own feeling; it seemed beyond the occasion—what +one might imagine to be a divine influx in the darkness, before there +was any vision to interpret. The whole scene was a coherent strain, its +burden a passionate regret, which, if he had known the liturgy for the +Day of Reconciliation, he might have clad in its antithetic burden; +“Happy the eye which saw all these things; but verily to hear only of +them afflicts our soul. Happy the eye that saw our temple and the joy +of our congregation; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul. +Happy the eye that saw the fingers when tuning every kind of song; but +verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul.” + +But with the cessation of the devotional sounds and the movement of +many indifferent faces and vulgar figures before him there darted into +his mind the frigid idea that he had probably been alone in his +feeling, and perhaps the only person in the congregation for whom the +service was more than a dull routine. There was just time for this +chilling thought before he had bowed to his civil neighbor and was +moving away with the rest—when he felt a hand on his arm, and turning +with the rather unpleasant sensation which this abrupt sort of claim is +apt to bring, he saw close to him the white-bearded face of that +neighbor, who said to him in German, “Excuse me, young gentleman—allow +me—what is your parentage—your mother’s family—her maiden name?” + +Deronda had a strongly resistant feeling: he was inclined to shake off +hastily the touch on his arm; but he managed to slip it away and said +coldly, “I am an Englishman.” + +The questioner looked at him dubiously still for an instant, then just +lifted his hat and turned away; whether under a sense of having made a +mistake or of having been repulsed, Deronda was uncertain. In his walk +back to the hotel he tried to still any uneasiness on the subject by +reflecting that he could not have acted differently. How could he say +that he did not know the name of his mother’s family to that total +stranger?—who indeed had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the +abruptness of his question, dictated probably by some fancy of likeness +such as often occurs without real significance. The incident, he said +to himself, was trivial; but whatever import it might have, his inward +shrinking on the occasion was too strong for him to be sorry that he +had cut it short. It was a reason, however, for his not mentioning the +synagogue to the Mallingers—in addition to his usual inclination to +reticence on anything that the baronet would have been likely to call +Quixotic enthusiasm. Hardly any man could be more good-natured than Sir +Hugo; indeed in his kindliness especially to women, he did actions +which others would have called romantic; but he never took a romantic +view of them, and in general smiled at the introduction of motives on a +grand scale, or of reasons that lay very far off. This was the point of +strongest difference between him and Deronda, who rarely ate at +breakfast without some silent discursive flight after grounds for +filling up his day according to the practice of his contemporaries. + +This halt at Frankfort was taken on their way home, and its impressions +were kept the more actively vibrating in him by the duty of caring for +Mirah’s welfare. That question about his parentage, which if he had not +both inwardly and outwardly shaken it off as trivial, would have seemed +a threat rather than a promise of revelation, and reinforced his +anxiety as to the effect of finding Mirah’s relatives and his resolve +to proceed with caution. If he made any unpleasant discovery, was he +bound to a disclosure that might cast a new net of trouble around her? +He had written to Mrs. Meyrick to announce his visit at four o’clock, +and he found Mirah seated at work with only Mrs. Meyrick and Mab, the +open piano, and all the glorious company of engravings. The dainty +neatness of her hair and dress, the glow of tranquil happiness in a +face where a painter need have changed nothing if he had wanted to put +it in front of the host singing “peace on earth and good will to men,” +made a contrast to his first vision of her that was delightful to +Deronda’s eyes. Mirah herself was thinking of it, and immediately on +their greeting said, + +“See how different I am from the miserable creature by the river! all +because you found me and brought me to the very best.” + +“It was my good chance to find you,” said Deronda. “Any other man would +have been glad to do what I did.” + +“That is not the right way to be thinking about it,” said Mirah, +shaking her head with decisive gravity, “I think of what really was. It +was you, and not another, who found me and were good to me.” + +“I agree with Mirah,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “Saint Anybody is a bad saint +to pray to.” + +“Besides, Anybody could not have brought me to you,” said Mirah, +smiling at Mrs. Meyrick. “And I would rather be with you than with any +one else in the world except my mother. I wonder if ever a poor little +bird, that was lost and could not fly, was taken and put into a warm +nest where was a mother and sisters who took to it so that everything +came naturally, as if it had been always there. I hardly thought before +that the world could ever be as happy and without fear as it is to me +now.” She looked meditative a moment, and then said, “sometimes I am a +_little_ afraid.” + +“What is it you are afraid of?” said Deronda with anxiety. + +“That when I am turning at the corner of a street I may meet my father. +It seems dreadful that I should be afraid of meeting him. That is my +only sorrow,” said Mirah, plaintively. + +“It is surely not very probable,” said Deronda, wishing that it were +less so; then, not to let the opportunity escape—“Would it be a great +grief to you now if you were never to meet your mother?” + +She did not answer immediately, but meditated again, with her eyes +fixed on the opposite wall. Then she turned them on Deronda and said +firmly, as if she had arrived at the exact truth, “I want her to know +that I have always loved her, and if she is alive I want to comfort +her. She may be dead. If she were I should long to know where she was +buried; and to know whether my brother lives, to say Kaddish in memory +of her. But I will try not to grieve. I have thought much for so +many years of her being dead. And I shall have her with me in my mind, +as I have always had. We can never be really parted. I think I have +never sinned against her. I have always tried not to do what would hurt +her. Only, she might be sorry that I was not a good Jewess.” + +“In what way are you not a good Jewess?” said Deronda. + +“I am ignorant, and we never observed the laws, but lived among +Christians just as they did. But I have heard my father laugh at the +strictness of the Jews about their food and all customs, and their not +liking Christians. I think my mother was strict; but she could never +want me not to like those who are better to me than any of my own +people I have ever known. I think I could obey in other things that she +wished but not in that. It is so much easier to me to share in love +than in hatred. I remember a play I read in German—since I have been +here it has come into my mind—where the heroine says something like +that.” + +“_Antigone_,” said Deronda. + +“Ah, you know it. But I do not believe that my mother would wish me not +to love my best friends. She would be grateful to them.” Here Mirah had +turned to Mrs. Meyrick, and with a sudden lighting up of her whole +countenance, she said, “Oh, if we ever do meet and know each other as +we are now, so that I could tell what would comfort her—I should be so +full of blessedness my soul would know no want but to love her!” + +“God bless you, child!” said Mrs. Meyrick, the words escaping +involuntarily from her motherly heart. But to relieve the strain of +feeling she looked at Deronda and said, “It is curious that Mirah, who +remembers her mother so well it is as if she saw her, cannot recall her +brother the least bit—except the feeling of having been carried by him +when she was tired, and of his being near her when she was in her +mother’s lap. It must be that he was rarely at home. He was already +grown up. It is a pity her brother should be quite a stranger to her.” + +“He is good; I feel sure Ezra is good,” said Mirah, eagerly. “He loved +my mother—he would take care of her. I remember more of him than that. +I remember my mother’s voice once calling, ‘Ezra!’ and then his +answering from a distance ‘Mother!’”—Mirah had changed her voice a +little in each of these words and had given them a loving +intonation—“and then he came close to us. I feel sure he is good. I +have always taken comfort from that.” + +It was impossible to answer this either with agreement or doubt. Mrs. +Meyrick and Deronda exchanged a quick glance: about this brother she +felt as painfully dubious as he did. But Mirah went on, absorbed in her +memories, + +“Is it not wonderful how I remember the voices better than anything +else? I think they must go deeper into us than other things. I have +often fancied heaven might be made of voices.” + +“Like your singing—yes,” said Mab, who had hitherto kept a modest +silence, and now spoke bashfully, as was her wont in the presence of +Prince Camaralzaman—“Ma, do ask Mirah to sing. Mr. Deronda has not +heard her.” + +“Would it be disagreeable to you to sing now?” said Deronda, with a +more deferential gentleness than he had ever been conscious of before. + +“Oh, I shall like it,” said Mirah. “My voice has come back a little +with rest.” + +Perhaps her ease of manner was due to something more than the +simplicity of her nature. The circumstances of her life made her think +of everything she did as work demanded from her, in which affectation +had nothing to do; and she had begun her work before self-consciousness +was born. + +She immediately rose and went to the piano—a somewhat worn instrument +that seemed to get the better of its infirmities under the firm touch +of her small fingers as she preluded. Deronda placed himself where he +could see her while she sang; and she took everything as quietly as if +she had been a child going to breakfast. + +Imagine her—it is always good to imagine a human creature in whom +bodily loveliness seems as properly one with the entire being as the +bodily loveliness of those wondrous transparent orbs of life that we +find in the sea—imagine her with her dark hair brushed from her +temples, but yet showing certain tiny rings there which had cunningly +found their own way back, the mass of it hanging behind just to the +nape of the little neck in curly fibres, such as renew themselves at +their own will after being bathed into straightness like that of +water-grasses. Then see the perfect cameo her profile makes, cut in a +duskish shell, where by some happy fortune there pierced a gem-like +darkness for the eye and eyebrow; the delicate nostrils defined enough +to be ready for sensitive movements, the finished ear, the firm curves +of the chin and neck, entering into the expression of a refinement +which was not feebleness. + +She sang Beethoven’s “Per pietà non dirmi addio” with a subdued but +searching pathos which had that essential of perfect singing, the +making one oblivious of art or manner, and only possessing one with the +song. It was the sort of voice that gives the impression of being meant +like a bird’s wooing for an audience near and beloved. Deronda began by +looking at her, but felt himself presently covering his eyes with his +hand, wanting to seclude the melody in darkness; then he refrained from +what might seem oddity, and was ready to meet the look of mute appeal +which she turned toward him at the end. + +“I think I never enjoyed a song more than that,” he said, gratefully. + +“You like my singing? I am so glad,” she said, with a smile of delight. +“It has been a great pain to me, because it failed in what it was +wanted for. But now we think I can use it to get my bread. I have +really been taught well. And now I have two pupils, that Miss Meyrick +found for me. They pay me nearly two crowns for their two lessons.” + +“I think I know some ladies who would find you many pupils after +Christmas,” said Deronda. “You would not mind singing before any one +who wished to hear you?” + +“Oh no, I want to do something to get money. I could teach reading and +speaking, Mrs. Meyrick thinks. But if no one would learn of me, that is +difficult.” Mirah smiled with a touch of merriment he had not seen in +her before. “I dare say I should find her poor—I mean my mother. I +should want to get money for her. And I can not always live on charity; +though”—here she turned so as to take all three of her companions in +one glance—“it is the sweetest charity in all the world.” + +“I should think you can get rich,” said Deronda, smiling. “Great ladies +will perhaps like you to teach their daughters. We shall see. But now +do sing again to us.” + +She went on willingly, singing with ready memory various things by +Gordigiani and Schubert; then, when she had left the piano, Mab said, +entreatingly, “Oh, Mirah, if you would not mind singing the little +hymn.” + +“It is too childish,” said Mirah. “It is like lisping.” + +“What is the hymn?” said Deronda. + +“It is the Hebrew hymn she remembers her mother singing over her when +she lay in her cot,” said Mrs. Meyrick. + +“I should like very much to hear it,” said Deronda, “if you think I am +worthy to hear what is so sacred.” + +“I will sing it if you like,” said Mirah, “but I don’t sing real +words—only here and there a syllable like hers—the rest is lisping. +Do you know Hebrew? because if you do, my singing will seem childish +nonsense.” + +Deronda shook his head. “It will be quite good Hebrew to me.” + +Mirah crossed her little feet and hands in her easiest attitude, and +then lifted up her head at an angle which seemed to be directed to some +invisible face bent over her, while she sang a little hymn of quaint +melancholy intervals, with syllables that really seemed childish +lisping to her audience; the voice in which she gave it forth had +gathered even a sweeter, more cooing tenderness than was heard in her +other songs. + +“If I were ever to know the real words, I should still go on in my old +way with them,” said Mirah, when she had repeated the hymn several +times. + +“Why not?” said Deronda. “The lisped syllables are very full of +meaning.” + +“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “A mother hears something of a lisp +in her children’s talk to the very last. Their words are not just what +everybody else says, though they may be spelled the same. If I were to +live till my Hans got old, I should still see the boy in him. A +mother’s love, I often say, is like a tree that has got all the wood in +it, from the very first it made.” + +“Is not that the way with friendship, too?” said Deronda, smiling. “We +must not let the mothers be too arrogant.” + +The little woman shook her head over her darning. + +“It is easier to find an old mother than an old friend. Friendships +begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up. Mother’s +love begins deeper down.” + +“Like what you were saying about the influence of voices,” said +Deronda, looking at Mirah. “I don’t think your hymn would have had more +expression for me if I had known the words. I went to the synagogue at +Frankfort before I came home, and the service impressed me just as much +as if I had followed the words—perhaps more.” + +“Oh, was it great to you? Did it go to your heart?” said Mirah, +eagerly. “I thought none but our people would feel that. I thought it +was all shut away like a river in a deep valley, where only heaven +saw—I mean—” she hesitated, feeling that she could not disentangle +her thought from its imagery. + +“I understand,” said Deronda. “But there is not really such a +separation—deeper down, as Mrs. Meyrick says. Our religion is chiefly +a Hebrew religion; and since Jews are men, their religious feelings +must have much in common with those of other men—just as their poetry, +though in one sense peculiar, has a great deal in common with the +poetry of other nations. Still it is to be expected that a Jew would +feel the forms of his people’s religion more than one of another +race—and yet”—here Deronda hesitated in his turn—“that is perhaps +not always so.” + +“Ah no,” said Mirah, sadly. “I have seen that. I have seen them mock. +Is it not like mocking your parents?—like rejoicing in your parents’ +shame?” + +“Some minds naturally rebel against whatever they were brought up in, +and like the opposite; they see the faults in what is nearest to them,” +said Deronda apologetically. + +“But you are not like that,” said Mirah, looking at him with +unconscious fixedness. + +“No, I think not,” said Deronda; “but you know I was not brought up as +a Jew.” + +“Ah, I am always forgetting,” said Mirah, with a look of disappointed +recollection, and slightly blushing. + +Deronda also felt rather embarrassed, and there was an awkward pause, +which he put an end to by saying playfully, + +“Whichever way we take it, we have to tolerate each other; for if we +all went in opposition to our teaching, we must end in difference, just +the same.” + +“To be sure. We should go on forever in zig-zags,” said Mrs. Meyrick. +“I think it is very weak-minded to make your creed up by the rule of +the contrary. Still one may honor one’s parents, without following +their notions exactly, any more than the exact cut of their clothing. +My father was a Scotch Calvinist and my mother was a French Calvinist; +I am neither quite Scotch, nor quite French, nor two Calvinists rolled +into one, yet I honor my parents’ memory.” + +“But I could not make myself not a Jewess,” said Mirah, insistently, +“even if I changed my belief.” + +“No, my dear. But if Jews and Jewesses went on changing their religion, +and making no difference between themselves and Christians, there would +come a time when there would be no Jews to be seen,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +taking that consummation very cheerfully. + +“Oh, please not to say that,” said Mirah, the tears gathering. “It is +the first unkind thing you ever said. I will not begin that. I will +never separate myself from my mother’s people. I was forced to fly from +my father; but if he came back in age and weakness and want, and needed +me, should I say, ‘This is not my father’? If he had shame, I must +share it. It was he who was given to me for my father, and not another. +And so it is with my people. I will always be a Jewess. I will love +Christians when they are good, like you. But I will always cling to my +people. I will always worship with them.” + +As Mirah had gone on speaking she had become possessed with a sorrowful +passion—fervent, not violent. Holding her little hands tightly clasped +and looking at Mrs. Meyrick with beseeching, she seemed to Deronda a +personification of that spirit which impelled men after a long +inheritance of professed Catholicism to leave wealth and high place and +risk their lives in flight, that they might join their own people and +say, “I am a Jew.” + +“Mirah, Mirah, my dear child, you mistake me!” said Mrs. Meyrick, +alarmed. “God forbid I should want you to do anything against your +conscience. I was only saying what might be if the world went on. But I +had better have left the world alone, and not wanted to be over-wise. +Forgive me, come! we will not try to take you from anybody you feel has +more right to you.” + +“I would do anything else for you. I owe you my life,” said Mirah, not +yet quite calm. + +“Hush, hush, now,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “I have been punished enough for +wagging my tongue foolishly—making an almanac for the Millennium, as +my husband used to say.” + +“But everything in the world must come to an end some time. We must +bear to think of that,” said Mab, unable to hold her peace on this +point. She had already suffered from a bondage of tongue which +threatened to become severe if Mirah were to be too much indulged in +this inconvenient susceptibility to innocent remarks. + +Deronda smiled at the irregular, blonde face, brought into strange +contrast by the side of Mirah’s—smiled, Mab thought, rather +sarcastically as he said, “That prospect of everything coming to an +end will not guide us far in practice. Mirah’s feelings, she tells us, +are concerned with what is.” + +Mab was confused and wished she had not spoken, since Mr. Deronda +seemed to think that she had found fault with Mirah; but to have spoken +once is a tyrannous reason for speaking again, and she said, + +“I only meant that we must have courage to hear things, else there is +hardly anything we can talk about.” Mab felt herself unanswerable here, +inclining to the opinion of Socrates: “What motive has a man to live, +if not for the pleasure of discourse?” + +Deronda took his leave soon after, and when Mrs. Meyrick went outside +with him to exchange a few words about Mirah, he said, “Hans is to +share my chambers when he comes at Christmas.” + +“You have written to Rome about that?” said Mrs. Meyrick, her face +lighting up. “How very good and thoughtful of you! You mentioned Mirah, +then?” + +“Yes, I referred to her. I concluded he knew everything from you.” + +“I must confess my folly. I have not yet written a word about her. I +have always been meaning to do it, and yet have ended my letter without +saying a word. And I told the girls to leave it to me. However!—Thank +you a thousand times.” + +Deronda divined something of what was in the mother’s mind, and his +divination reinforced a certain anxiety already present in him. His +inward colloquy was not soothing. He said to himself that no man could +see this exquisite creature without feeling it possible to fall in love +with her; but all the fervor of his nature was engaged on the side of +precaution. There are personages who feel themselves tragic because +they march into a palpable morass, dragging another with them, and then +cry out against all the gods. Deronda’s mind was strongly set against +imitating them. + +“I have my hands on the reins now,” he thought, “and I will not drop +them. I shall go there as little as possible.” + +He saw the reasons acting themselves out before him. How could he be +Mirah’s guardian and claim to unite with Mrs. Meyrick, to whose charge +he had committed her, if he showed himself as a lover—whom she did not +love—whom she would not marry? And if he encouraged any germ of +lover’s feeling in himself it would lead up to that issue. Mirah’s was +not a nature that would bear dividing against itself; and even if love +won her consent to marry a man who was not of her race and religion, +she would never be happy in acting against that strong native bias +which would still reign in her conscience as remorse. + +Deronda saw these consequences as we see any danger of marring our own +work well begun. It was a delight to have rescued this child acquainted +with sorrow, and to think of having placed her little feet in protected +paths. The creature we help to save, though only a half-reared linnet, +bruised and lost by the wayside—how we watch and fence it, and dote on +its signs of recovery! Our pride becomes loving, our self is a not-self +for whose sake we become virtuous, when we set to some hidden work of +reclaiming a life from misery and look for our triumph in the secret +joy—“This one is the better for me.” + +“I would as soon hold out my finger to be bitten off as set about +spoiling her peace,” said Deronda. “It was one of the rarest bits of +fortune that I should have had friends like the Meyricks to place her +with—generous, delicate friends without any loftiness in their ways, +so that her dependence on them is not only safety but happiness. There +could be no refuge to replace that, if it were broken up. But what is +the use of my taking the vows and settling everything as it should be, +if that marplot Hans comes and upsets it all?” + +Few things were more likely. Hans was made for mishaps: his very limbs +seemed more breakable than other people’s—his eyes more of a resort +for uninvited flies and other irritating guests. But it was impossible +to forbid Hans’s coming to London. He was intending to get a studio +there and make it his chief home; and to propose that he should defer +coming on some ostensible ground, concealing the real motive of winning +time for Mirah’s position to become more confirmed and independent, was +impracticable. Having no other resource Deronda tried to believe that +both he and Mrs. Meyrick were foolishly troubling themselves about one +of those endless things called probabilities, which never occur; but he +did not quite succeed in his trying; on the contrary, he found himself +going inwardly through a scene where on the first discovery of Hans’s +inclination he gave him a very energetic warning—suddenly checked, +however, by the suspicion of personal feeling that his warmth might be +creating in Hans. He could come to no result, but that the position was +peculiar, and that he could make no further provision against dangers +until they came nearer. To save an unhappy Jewess from drowning +herself, would not have seemed a startling variation among police +reports; but to discover in her so rare a creature as Mirah, was an +exceptional event which might well bring exceptional consequences. +Deronda would not let himself for a moment dwell on any supposition +that the consequences might enter deeply into his own life. The image +of Mirah had never yet had that penetrating radiation which would have +been given to it by the idea of her loving him. When this sort of +effluence is absent from the fancy (whether from the fact or not) a man +may go far in devotedness without perturbation. + +As to the search for Mirah’s mother and brother, Deronda took what she +had said to-day as a warrant for deferring any immediate measures. His +conscience was not quite easy in this desire for delay, any more than +it was quite easy in his not attempting to learn the truth about his +own mother: in both cases he felt that there might be an unfulfilled +duty to a parent, but in both cases there was an overpowering +repugnance to the possible truth, which threw a turning weight into the +scale of argument. + +“At least, I will look about,” was his final determination. “I may find +some special Jewish machinery. I will wait till after Christmas.” + +What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a +disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by +which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which +it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + “No man,” says a Rabbi, by way of indisputable instance, “may turn the + bones of his father and mother into spoons”—sure that his hearers + felt the checks against that form of economy. The market for spoons + has never expanded enough for any one to say, “Why not?” and to argue + that human progress lies in such an application of material. The only + check to be alleged is a sentiment, which will coerce none who do not + hold that sentiments are the better part of the world’s wealth. + + +Deronda meanwhile took to a less fashionable form of exercise than +riding in Rotten Row. He went often rambling in those parts of London +which are most inhabited by common Jews. He walked to the synagogues at +times of service, he looked into shops, he observed faces:—a process +not very promising of particular discovery. Why did he not address +himself to an influential Rabbi or other member of a Jewish community, +to consult on the chances of finding a mother named Cohen, with a son +named Ezra, and a lost daughter named Mirah? He thought of doing +so—after Christmas. The fact was, notwithstanding all his sense of +poetry in common things, Deronda, where a keen personal interest was +aroused, could not, more than the rest of us, continuously escape +suffering from the pressure of that hard unaccommodating Actual, which +has never consulted our taste and is entirely unselect. Enthusiasm, we +know, dwells at ease among ideas, tolerates garlic breathed in the +middle ages, and sees no shabbiness in the official trappings of +classic processions: it gets squeamish when ideals press upon it as +something warmly incarnate, and can hardly face them without fainting. +Lying dreamily in a boat, imagining one’s self in quest of a beautiful +maiden’s relatives in Cordova elbowed by Jews in the time of +Ibn-Gebirol, all the physical incidents can be borne without shock. Or +if the scenery of St. Mary Axe and Whitechapel were imaginatively +transported to the borders of the Rhine at the end of the eleventh +century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the Messiah, the +Hep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and +in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand +the crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect, heroic, +flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death—what +would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of +contemplative emotion? But the fervor of sympathy with which we +contemplate a grandiose martyrdom is feeble compared with the +enthusiasm that keeps unslacked where there is no danger, no +challenge—nothing but impartial midday falling on commonplace, perhaps +half-repulsive, objects which are really the beloved ideas made flesh. +Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: in the force of +imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating +among cloud-pictures. To glory in a prophetic vision of knowledge +covering the earth, is an easier exercise of believing imagination than +to see its beginning in newspaper placards, staring at you from the +bridge beyond the corn-fields; and it might well happen to most of us +dainty people that we were in the thick of the battle of Armageddon +without being aware of anything more than the annoyance of a little +explosive smoke and struggling on the ground immediately about us. + +It lay in Deronda’s nature usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious +sympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with +Mirah before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care +for, he saw every common Jew and Jewess in the light of a comparison +with her, and had a presentiment of the collision between her idea of +the unknown mother and brother and the discovered fact—a presentiment +all the keener in him because of a suppressed consciousness that a not +unlike possibility of collision might lie hidden in his own lot. Not +that he would have looked with more complacency of expectation at +wealthy Jews, outdoing the lords of the Philistines in their sports; +but since there was no likelihood of Mirah’s friends being found among +that class, their habits did not immediately affect him. In this mood +he rambled, without expectation of a more pregnant result than a little +preparation of his own mind, perhaps for future theorizing as well as +practice—very much as if, Mirah being related to Welsh miners, he had +gone to look more closely at the ways of those people, not without +wishing at the same time to get a little light of detail on the history +of Strikes. + +He really did not long to find anybody in particular; and when, as his +habit was, he looked at the name over a shop door, he was well content +that it was not Ezra Cohen. I confess, he particularly desired that +Ezra Cohen should not keep a shop. Wishes are held to be ominous; +according to which belief the order of the world is so arranged that if +you have an impious objection to a squint, your offspring is the more +likely to be born with one; also, that if you happened to desire a +squint you would not get it. This desponding view of probability the +hopeful entirely reject, taking their wishes as good and sufficient +security for all kinds of fulfilment. Who is absolutely neutral? +Deronda happening one morning to turn into a little side street out of +the noise and obstructions of Holborn, felt the scale dip on the +desponding side. + +He was rather tired of the streets and had paused to hail a hansom cab +which he saw coming, when his attention was caught by some fine old +clasps in chased silver displayed in the window at his right hand. His +first thought was that Lady Mallinger, who had a strictly Protestant +taste for such Catholic spoils, might like to have these missal-clasps +turned into a bracelet: then his eyes traveled over the other contents +of the window, and he saw that the shop was that kind of pawnbroker’s +where the lead is given to jewelry, lace and all equivocal objects +introduced as _bric-à-brac_. A placard in one corner +announced—_Watches and Jewelry exchanged and repaired_. But his survey +had been noticed from within, and a figure appeared at the door, +looking round at him and saying in a tone of cordial encouragement, +“Good day, sir.” The instant was enough for Deronda to see the face, +unmistakably Jewish, belonged to a young man about thirty, and wincing +from the shopkeeper’s persuasiveness that would probably follow, he had +no sooner returned the “good day,” than he passed to the other side of +the street and beckoned to the cabman to draw up there. From that +station he saw the name over the shop window—_Ezra Cohen_. + +There might be a hundred Ezra Cohens lettered above shop windows, but +Deronda had not seen them. Probably the young man interested in a +possible customer was Ezra himself; and he was about the age to be +expected in Mirah’s brother, who was grown up while she was still a +little child. But Deronda’s first endeavor as he drove homeward was to +convince himself that there was not the slightest warrantable +presumption of this Ezra being Mirah’s brother; and next, that even if, +in spite of good reasoning, he turned out to be that brother, while on +inquiry the mother was found to be dead, it was not +his—Deronda’s—duty to make known the discovery to Mirah. In +inconvenient disturbance of this conclusion there came his +lately-acquired knowledge that Mirah would have a religious desire to +know of her mother’s death, and also to learn whether her brother were +living. How far was he justified in determining another life by his own +notions? Was it not his secret complaint against the way in which +others had ordered his own life, that he had not open daylight on all +its relations, so that he had not, like other men, the full guidance of +primary duties? + +The immediate relief from this inward debate was the reflection that he +had not yet made any real discovery, and that by looking into the facts +more closely he should be certified that there was no demand on him for +any decision whatever. He intended to return to that shop as soon as he +could conveniently, and buy the clasps for Lady Mallinger. But he was +hindered for several days by Sir Hugo, who, about to make an +after-dinner speech on a burning topic, wanted Deronda to forage for +him on the legal part of the question, besides wasting time every day +on argument which always ended in a drawn battle. As on many other +questions, they held different sides, but Sir Hugo did not mind this, +and when Deronda put his point well, said, with a mixture of +satisfaction and regret, + +“Confound it, Dan! why don’t you make an opportunity of saying these +things in public? You’re wrong, you know. You won’t succeed. You’ve got +the massive sentiment—the heavy artillery of the country against you. +But it’s all the better ground for a young man to display himself on. +When I was your age, I should have taken it. And it would be quite as +well for you to be in opposition to me here and there. It would throw +you more into relief. If you would seize an occasion of this sort to +make an impression, you might be in Parliament in no time. And you know +that would gratify me.” + +“I am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir,” said Deronda. “But +I cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession.” + +“Why not? if a man is not born into public life by his position in the +country, there’s no way for him but to embrace it by his own efforts. +The business of the country must be done—her Majesty’s Government +carried on, as the old Duke said. And it never could be, my boy, if +everybody looked at politics as if they were prophecy, and demanded an +inspired vocation. If you are to get into Parliament, it won’t do to +sit still and wait for a call either from heaven or constituents.” + +“I don’t want to make a living out of opinions,” said Deronda; +“especially out of borrowed opinions. Not that I mean to blame other +men. I dare say many better fellows than I don’t mind getting on to a +platform to praise themselves, and giving their word of honor for a +party.” + +“I’ll tell you what, Dan,” said Sir Hugo, “a man who sets his face +against every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable +fellow. There’s a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good +style—one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible. If you are +to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas; and I agree +with the Archbishop at Naples who had a St. Januarius procession +against the plague. It’s no use having an Order in Council against +popular shallowness. There is no action possible without a little +acting.” + +“One may be obliged to give way to an occasional necessity,” said +Deronda. “But it is one thing to say, ‘In this particular case I am +forced to put on this foolscap and grin,’ and another to buy a pocket +foolscap and practice myself in grinning. I can’t see any real public +expediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of +deviation from the direct path. But if I were to set up for a public +man I might mistake my success for public expediency.” + +It was after this dialogue, which was rather jarring to him, that +Deronda set out on his meditated second visit to Ezra Cohen’s. He +entered the street at the end opposite to the Holborn entrance, and an +inward reluctance slackened his pace while his thoughts were +transferring what he had just been saying about public expediency to +the entirely private difficulty which brought him back again into this +unattractive thoroughfare. It might soon become an immediate practical +question with him how far he could call it a wise expediency to conceal +the fact of close kindred. Such questions turning up constantly in life +are often decided in a rough-and-ready way; and to many it will appear +an over-refinement in Deronda that he should make any great point of a +matter confined to his own knowledge. But we have seen the reasons why +he had come to regard concealment as a bane of life, and the necessity +of concealment as a mark by which lines of action were to be avoided. +The prospect of being urged against the confirmed habit of his mind was +naturally grating. He even paused here and there before the most +plausible shop-windows for a gentleman to look into, half inclined to +decide that he would not increase his knowledge about that modern Ezra, +who was certainly not a leader among his people—a hesitation which +proved how, in a man much given to reasoning, a bare possibility may +weigh more than the best-clad likelihood; for Deronda’s reasoning had +decided that all likelihood was against this man’s being Mirah’s +brother. + +One of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand +book-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages +was represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer +to the mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was +judicious was apparent from Deronda’s finding in it something that he +wanted—namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the +Polish Jew, Salomon Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his +pocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for, +expecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that +_nonchalance_ about sales which seems to belong universally to the +second-hand book-business. In most other trades you find generous men +who are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even +a Jew will not urge Simson’s Euclid on you with an affectionate +assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes +he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. One is led +to fear that a second-hand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class +of men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by, +yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their +vocation. + +But instead of the ordinary tradesman, he saw, on the dark background +of books in the long narrow shop, a figure that was somewhat startling +in its unusualness. A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was +difficult to guess—from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh, +something like an old ivory carving—was seated on a stool against some +bookshelves that projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more +remarkable than reading yesterday’s _Times_; but when he let the paper +rest on his lap and looked at the incoming customer, the thought +glanced through Deronda that precisely such a physiognomy as that might +possibly have been seen in a prophet of the Exile, or in some New +Hebrew poet of the mediæval time. It was a fine typical Jewish face, +wrought into intensity of expression apparently by a strenuous eager +experience in which all the satisfaction had been indirect and far off, +and perhaps by some bodily suffering also, which involved that absence +of ease in the present. The features were clear-cut, not large; the +brow not high but broad, and fully defined by the crisp black hair. It +might never have been a particularly handsome face, but it must always +have been forcible; and now with its dark, far-off gaze, and yellow +pallor in relief on the gloom of the backward shop, one might have +imagined one’s self coming upon it in some past prison of the +Inquisition, which a mob had suddenly burst upon; while the look fixed +on an incidental customer seemed eager and questioning enough to have +been turned on one who might have been a messenger either of delivery +or of death. The figure was probably familiar and unexciting enough to +the inhabitants of this street; but to Deronda’s mind it brought so +strange a blending of the unwonted with the common, that there was a +perceptible interval of mutual observation before he asked his +question; “What is the price of this book?” + +After taking the book and examining the fly-leaves without rising, the +supposed bookseller said, “There is no mark, and Mr. Ram is not in now. +I am keeping the shop while he is gone to dinner. What are you disposed +to give for it?” He held the book close on his lap with his hand on it +and looked examiningly at Deronda, over whom there came the +disagreeable idea, that possibly this striking personage wanted to see +how much could be got out of a customer’s ignorance of prices. But +without further reflection he said, “Don’t you know how much it is +worth?” + +“Not its market-price. May I ask have you read it?” + +“No. I have read an account of it, which makes me want to buy it.” + +“You are a man of learning—you are interested in Jewish history?” This +was said in a deepened tone of eager inquiry. + +“I am certainly interested in Jewish history,” said Deronda, quietly, +curiosity overcoming his dislike to the sort of inspection as well as +questioning he was under. + +But immediately the strange Jew rose from his sitting posture, and +Deronda felt a thin hand pressing his arm tightly, while a hoarse, +excited voice, not much above a loud whisper, said, + +“You are perhaps of our race?” + +Deronda colored deeply, not liking the grasp, and then answered with a +slight shake of the head, “No.” The grasp was relaxed, the hand +withdrawn, the eagerness of the face collapsed into uninterested +melancholy, as if some possessing spirit which had leaped into the eyes +and gestures had sunk back again to the inmost recesses of the frame; +and moving further off as he held out the little book, the stranger +said in a tone of distant civility, “I believe Mr. Ram will be +satisfied with half-a-crown, sir.” + +The effect of this change on Deronda—he afterward smiled when he +recalled it—was oddly embarrassing and humiliating, as if some high +dignitary had found him deficient and given him his _congé_. There was +nothing further to be said, however: he paid his half-crown and carried +off his _Salomon Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte_ with a mere “good-morning.” + +He felt some vexation at the sudden arrest of the interview, and the +apparent prohibition that he should know more of this man, who was +certainly something out of the common way—as different probably as a +Jew could well be from Ezra Cohen, through whose door Deronda was +presently entering, and whose flourishing face glistening on the way to +fatness was hanging over the counter in negotiation with some one on +the other side of the partition, concerning two plated stoppers and +three teaspoons, which lay spread before him. Seeing Deronda enter, he +called out “Mother! Mother!” and then with a familiar nod and smile, +said, “Coming, sir—coming directly.” + +Deronda could not help looking toward the door from the back with some +anxiety, which was not soothed when he saw a vigorous woman beyond +fifty enter and approach to serve him. Not that there was anything very +repulsive about her: the worst that could be said was that she had that +look of having made her toilet with little water, and by twilight, +which is common to unyouthful people of her class, and of having +presumably slept in her large earrings, if not in her rings and +necklace. In fact, what caused a sinking of heart in Deronda was her +not being so coarse and ugly as to exclude the idea of her being +Mirah’s mother. Any one who has looked at a face to try and discern +signs of known kinship in it will understand his process of +conjecture—how he tried to think away the fat which had gradually +disguised the outlines of youth, and to discern what one may call the +elementary expressions of the face. He was sorry to see no absolute +negative to his fears. Just as it was conceivable that this Ezra, +brought up to trade, might resemble the scapegrace father in everything +but his knowledge and talent, so it was not impossible that this mother +might have had a lovely refined daughter whose type of feature and +expression was like Mirah’s. The eyebrows had a vexatious similarity of +line; and who shall decide how far a face may be masked when the +uncherishing years have thrust it far onward in the ever-new procession +of youth and age? The good-humor of the glance remained and shone out +in a motherly way at Deronda, as she said, in a mild guttural tone, + +“How can I serve you, sir?” + +“I should like to look at the silver clasps in the window,” said +Deronda; “the larger ones, please, in the corner there.” + +They were not quite easy to get at from the mother’s station, and the +son seeing this called out, “I’ll reach ’em, mother; I’ll reach ’em,” +running forward with alacrity, and then handing the clasps to Deronda +with the smiling remark, + +“Mother’s too proud: she wants to do everything herself. That’s why I +called her to wait on you, sir. When there’s a particular gentleman +customer, sir, I daren’t do any other than call her. But I can’t let +her do herself mischief with stretching.” + +Here Mr. Cohen made way again for his parent, who gave a little +guttural, amiable laugh while she looked at Deronda, as much as to say, +“This boy will be at his jokes, but you see he’s the best son in the +world,” and evidently the son enjoyed pleasing her, though he also +wished to convey an apology to his distinguished customer for not +giving him the advantage of his own exclusive attention. + +Deronda began to examine the clasps as if he had many points to observe +before he could come to a decision. + +“They are only three guineas, sir,” said the mother, encouragingly. + +“First-rate workmanship, sir—worth twice the money; only I get ’em a +bargain from Cologne,” said the son, parenthetically, from a distance. + +Meanwhile two new customers entered, and the repeated call, “Addy!” +brought from the back of the shop a group that Deronda turned frankly +to stare at, feeling sure that the stare would be held complimentary. +The group consisted of a black-eyed young woman who carried a +black-eyed little one, its head already covered with black curls, and +deposited it on the counter, from which station it looked round with +even more than the usual intelligence of babies: also a robust boy of +six and a younger girl, both with black eyes and black-ringed +hair—looking more Semitic than their parents, as the puppy lions show +the spots of far-off progenitors. The young woman answering to +“Addy”—a sort of paroquet in a bright blue dress, with coral necklace +and earrings, her hair set up in a huge bush—looked as complacently +lively and unrefined as her husband; and by a certain difference from +the mother deepened in Deronda the unwelcome impression that the latter +was not so utterly common a Jewess as to exclude her being the mother +of Mirah. While that thought was glancing through his mind, the boy had +run forward into the shop with an energetic stamp, and setting himself +about four feet from Deronda, with his hands in the pockets of his +miniature knickerbockers, looked at him with a precocious air of +survey. Perhaps it was chiefly with a diplomatic design to linger and +ingratiate himself that Deronda patted the boy’s head, saying, + +“What is your name, sirrah?” + +“Jacob Alexander Cohen,” said the small man, with much ease and +distinctness. + +“You are not named after your father, then?” + +“No, after my grandfather; he sells knives and razors and scissors—my +grandfather does,” said Jacob, wishing to impress the stranger with +that high connection. “He gave me this knife.” Here a pocket-knife was +drawn forth, and the small fingers, both naturally and artificially +dark, opened two blades and a cork-screw with much quickness. + +“Is not that a dangerous plaything?” said Deronda, turning to the +grandmother. + +“_He_’ll never hurt himself, bless you!” said she, contemplating her +grandson with placid rapture. + +“Have _you_ got a knife?” says Jacob, coming closer. His small voice +was hoarse in its glibness, as if it belonged to an aged commercial +soul, fatigued with bargaining through many generations. + +“Yes. Do you want to see it?” said Deronda, taking a small penknife +from his waistcoat-pocket. + +Jacob seized it immediately and retreated a little, holding the two +knives in his palms and bending over them in meditative comparison. By +this time the other clients were gone, and the whole family had +gathered to the spot, centering their attention on the marvelous Jacob: +the father, mother, and grandmother behind the counter, with baby held +staggering thereon, and the little girl in front leaning at her +brother’s elbow to assist him in looking at the knives. + +“Mine’s the best,” said Jacob, at last, returning Deronda’s knife as if +he had been entertaining the idea of exchange and had rejected it. + +Father and mother laughed aloud with delight. “You won’t find Jacob +choosing the worst,” said Mr. Cohen, winking, with much confidence in +the customer’s admiration. Deronda, looking at the grandmother, who had +only an inward silent laugh, said, + +“Are these the only grandchildren you have?” + +“All. This is my only son,” she answered in a communicative tone, +Deronda’s glance and manner as usual conveying the impression of +sympathetic interest—which on this occasion answered his purpose well. +It seemed to come naturally enough that he should say, + +“And you have no daughter?” + +There was an instantaneous change in the mother’s face. Her lips closed +more firmly, she looked down, swept her hands outward on the counter, +and finally turned her back on Deronda to examine some Indian +handkerchiefs that hung in pawn behind her. Her son gave a significant +glance, set up his shoulders an instant and just put his fingers to his +lips,—then said quickly, “I think you’re a first-rate gentleman in the +city, sir, if I may be allowed to guess.” + +“No,” said Deronda, with a preoccupied air, “I have nothing to do with +the city.” + +“That’s a bad job. I thought you might be the young principal of a +first-rate firm,” said Mr. Cohen, wishing to make amends for the check +on his customer’s natural desire to know more of him and his. “But you +understand silver-work, I see.” + +“A little,” said Deronda, taking up the clasps a moment and laying them +down again. That unwelcome bit of circumstantial evidence had made his +mind busy with a plan which was certainly more like acting than +anything he had been aware of in his own conduct before. But the bare +possibility that more knowledge might nullify the evidence now +overpowered the inclination to rest in uncertainty. + +“To tell you the truth,” he went on, “my errand is not so much to buy +as to borrow. I dare say you go into rather heavy transactions +occasionally.” + +“Well, sir, I’ve accommodated gentlemen of distinction—I’m proud to +say it. I wouldn’t exchange my business with any in the world. There’s +none more honorable, nor more charitable, nor more necessary for all +classes, from the good lady who wants a little of the ready for the +baker, to a gentleman like yourself, sir, who may want it for +amusement. I like my business, I like my street, and I like my shop. I +wouldn’t have it a door further down. And I wouldn’t be without a +pawn-shop, sir, to be the Lord Mayor. It puts you in connection with +the world at large. I say it’s like the government revenue—it embraces +the brass as well as the gold of the country. And a man who doesn’t get +money, sir, can’t accommodate. Now, what can I do for _you_, sir?” + +If an amiable self-satisfaction is the mark of earthly bliss, Solomon +in all his glory was a pitiable mortal compared with Mr. Cohen—clearly +one of those persons, who, being in excellent spirits about themselves, +are willing to cheer strangers by letting them know it. While he was +delivering himself with lively rapidity, he took the baby from his wife +and holding it on his arm presented his features to be explored by its +small fists. Deronda, not in a cheerful mood, was rashly pronouncing +this Ezra Cohen to be the most unpoetic Jew he had ever met with in +books or life: his phraseology was as little as possible like that of +the Old Testament: and no shadow of a suffering race distinguished his +vulgarity of soul from that of a prosperous, pink-and-white huckster of +the purest English lineage. It is naturally a Christian feeling that a +Jew ought not to be conceited. However, this was no reason for not +persevering in his project, and he answered at once in adventurous +ignorance of technicalities, + +“I have a fine diamond ring to offer as security—not with me at this +moment, unfortunately, for I am not in the habit of wearing it. But I +will come again this evening and bring it with me. Fifty pounds at once +would be a convenience to me.” + +“Well, you know, this evening is the Sabbath, young gentleman,” said +Cohen, “and I go to the _Shool_. The shop will be closed. But +accommodation is a work of charity; if you can’t get here before, and +are any ways pressed—why, I’ll look at your diamond. You’re perhaps +from the West End—a longish drive?” + +“Yes; and your Sabbath begins early at this season. I could be here by +five—will that do?” Deronda had not been without hope that by asking +to come on a Friday evening he might get a better opportunity of +observing points in the family character, and might even be able to put +some decisive question. + +Cohen assented; but here the marvelous Jacob, whose _physique_ +supported a precocity that would have shattered a Gentile of his years, +showed that he had been listening with much comprehension by saying, +“You are coming again. Have you got any more knives at home?” + +“I think I have one,” said Deronda, smiling down at him. + +“Has it two blades and a hook—and a white handle like that?” said +Jacob, pointing to the waistcoat-pocket. + +“I dare say it has.” + +“Do you like a cork-screw?” said Jacob, exhibiting that article in his +own knife again, and looking up with serious inquiry. + +“Yes,” said Deronda, experimentally. + +“Bring your knife, then, and we’ll shwop,” said Jacob, returning the +knife to his pocket, and stamping about with the sense that he had +concluded a good transaction. + +The grandmother had now recovered her usual manners, and the whole +family watched Deronda radiantly when he caressingly lifted the little +girl, to whom he had not hitherto given attention, and seating her on +the counter, asked for her name also. She looked at him in silence, and +put her fingers to her gold earrings, which he did not seem to have +noticed. + +“Adelaide Rebekah is her name,” said her mother, proudly. “Speak to the +gentleman, lovey.” + +“Shlav’m Shabbes fyock on,” said Adelaide Rebekah. + +“Her Sabbath frock, she means,” said the father, in explanation. +“She’ll have her Sabbath frock on this evening.” + +“And will you let me see you in it, Adelaide?” said Deronda, with that +gentle intonation which came very easily to him. + +“Say yes, lovey—yes, if you please, sir,” said her mother, enchanted +with this handsome young gentleman, who appreciated remarkable children. + +“And will you give me a kiss this evening?” said Deronda with a hand on +each of her little brown shoulders. + +Adelaide Rebekah (her miniature crinoline and monumental features +corresponded with the combination of her names) immediately put up her +lips to pay the kiss in advance; whereupon her father rising in still +more glowing satisfaction with the general meritoriousness of his +circumstances, and with the stranger who was an admiring witness, said +cordially, + +“You see there’s somebody will be disappointed if you don’t come this +evening, sir. You won’t mind sitting down in our family place and +waiting a bit for me, if I’m not in when you come, sir? I’ll stretch a +point to accommodate a gent of your sort. Bring the diamond, and I’ll +see what I can do for you.” + +Deronda thus left the most favorable impression behind him, as a +preparation for more easy intercourse. But for his own part those +amenities had been carried on under the heaviest spirits. If these were +really Mirah’s relatives, he could not imagine that even her fervid +filial piety could give the reunion with them any sweetness beyond such +as could be found in the strict fulfillment of a painful duty. What did +this vaunting brother need? And with the most favorable supposition +about the hypothetic mother, Deronda shrank from the image of a first +meeting between her and Mirah, and still more from the idea of Mirah’s +domestication with this family. He took refuge in disbelief. To find an +Ezra Cohen when the name was running in your head was no more +extraordinary than to find a Josiah Smith under like circumstances; and +as to the coincidence about the daughter, it would probably turn out to +be a difference. If, however, further knowledge confirmed the more +undesirable conclusion, what would be wise expediency?—to try and +determine the best consequences by concealment, or to brave other +consequences for the sake of that openness which is the sweet fresh air +of our moral life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + “Er ist geheissen + Israel. Ihn hat verwandelt + Hexenspruch in einen Hund. + * * * * * + Aber jeden Freitag Abend, + In der Dämm’rungstunde, plötzlich + Weicht der Zauber, und der Hund + Wird aufs Neu’ ein menschlich Wesen.” + —HEINE: _Prinzessin Sabbath_. + + +When Deronda arrived at five o’clock, the shop was closed and the door +was opened for him by the Christian servant. When she showed him into +the room behind the shop he was surprised at the prettiness of the +scene. The house was old, and rather extensive at the back: probably +the large room he now entered was gloomy by daylight, but now it was +agreeably lit by a fine old brass lamp with seven oil-lights hanging +above the snow-white cloth spread on the central table. The ceiling and +walls were smoky, and all the surroundings were dark enough to throw +into relief the human figures, which had a Venetian glow of coloring. +The grandmother was arrayed in yellowish brown with a large gold chain +in lieu of the necklace, and by this light her yellow face with its +darkly-marked eyebrows and framing roll of gray hair looked as handsome +as was necessary for picturesque effect. Young Mrs. Cohen was clad in +red and black, with a string of large artificial pearls wound round and +round her neck: the baby lay asleep in the cradle under a scarlet +counterpane; Adelaide Rebekah was in braided amber, and Jacob Alexander +was in black velveteen with scarlet stockings. As the four pairs of +black eyes all glistened a welcome at Deronda, he was almost ashamed of +the supercilious dislike these happy-looking creatures had raised in +him by daylight. Nothing could be more cordial than the greeting he +received, and both mother and grandmother seemed to gather more dignity +from being seen on the private hearth, showing hospitality. He looked +round with some wonder at the old furniture: the oaken bureau and high +side-table must surely be mere matters of chance and economy, and not +due to the family taste. A large dish of blue and yellow ware was set +up on the side-table, and flanking it were two old silver vessels; in +front of them a large volume in darkened vellum with a deep-ribbed +back. In the corner at the farther end was an open door into an inner +room, where there was also a light. + +Deronda took in these details by parenthetic glances while he met +Jacob’s pressing solicitude about the knife. He had taken the pains to +buy one with the requisites of the hook and white handle, and produced +it on demand, saying, + +“Is that the sort of thing you want, Jacob?” + +It was subjected to a severe scrutiny, the hook and blades were opened, +and the article of barter with the cork-screw was drawn forth for +comparison. + +“Why do you like a hook better than a cork-screw?” said Deronda. + +“’Caush I can get hold of things with a hook. A cork-screw won’t go into +anything but corks. But it’s better for you, you can draw corks.” + +“You agree to change, then?” said Deronda, observing that the +grandmother was listening with delight. + +“What else have you got in your pockets?” said Jacob, with deliberative +seriousness. + +“Hush, hush, Jacob, love,” said the grandmother. And Deronda, mindful +of discipline, answered, + +“I think I must not tell you that. Our business was with the knives.” + +Jacob looked up into his face scanningly for a moment or two, and +apparently arriving at his conclusions, said gravely, + +“I’ll shwop,” handing the cork-screw knife to Deronda, who pocketed it +with corresponding gravity. + +Immediately the small son of Shem ran off into the next room, whence +his voice was heard in rapid chat; and then ran back again—when, +seeing his father enter, he seized a little velveteen hat which lay on +a chair and put it on to approach him. Cohen kept on his own hat, and +took no notice of the visitor, but stood still while the two children +went up to him and clasped his knees: then he laid his hands on each in +turn and uttered his Hebrew benediction; whereupon the wife, who had +lately taken baby from the cradle, brought it up to her husband and +held it under his outstretched hands, to be blessed in its sleep. For +the moment, Deronda thought that this pawnbroker, proud of his +vocation, was not utterly prosaic. + +“Well, sir, you found your welcome in my family, I think,” said Cohen, +putting down his hat and becoming his former self. “And you’ve been +punctual. Nothing like a little stress here,” he added, tapping his +side pocket as he sat down. “It’s good for us all in our turn. I’ve +felt it when I’ve had to make up payments. I began to fit every sort of +box. It’s bracing to the mind. Now then! let us see, let us see.” + +“That is the ring I spoke of,” said Deronda, taking it from his finger. +“I believe it cost a hundred pounds. It will be a sufficient pledge to +you for fifty, I think. I shall probably redeem it in a month or so.” + +Cohen’s glistening eyes seemed to get a little nearer together as he +met the ingenuous look of this crude young gentleman, who apparently +supposed that redemption was a satisfaction to pawnbrokers. He took the +ring, examined and returned it, saying with indifference, “Good, good. +We’ll talk of it after our meal. Perhaps you’ll join us, if you’ve no +objection. Me and my wife’ll feel honored, and so will mother; won’t +you, mother?” + +The invitation was doubly echoed, and Deronda gladly accepted it. All +now turned and stood round the table. No dish was at present seen +except one covered with a napkin; and Mrs. Cohen had placed a china +bowl near her husband that he might wash his hands in it. But after +putting on his hat again, he paused, and called in a loud voice, +“Mordecai!” + +Can this be part of the religious ceremony? thought Deronda, not +knowing what might be expected of the ancient hero. But he heard a +“Yes” from the next room, which made him look toward the open door; and +there, to his astonishment, he saw the figure of the enigmatic Jew whom +he had this morning met with in the book-shop. Their eyes met, and +Mordecai looked as much surprised as Deronda—neither in his surprise +making any sign of recognition. But when Mordecai was seating himself +at the end of the table, he just bent his head to the guest in a cold +and distant manner, as if the disappointment of the morning remained a +disagreeable association with this new acquaintance. + +Cohen now washed his hands, pronouncing Hebrew words the while: +afterward, he took off the napkin covering the dish and disclosed the +two long flat loaves besprinkled with seed—the memorial of the manna +that fed the wandering forefathers—and breaking off small pieces gave +one to each of the family, including Adelaide Rebekah, who stood on the +chair with her whole length exhibited in her amber-colored garment, her +little Jewish nose lengthened by compression of the lip in the effort +to make a suitable appearance. Cohen then uttered another Hebrew +blessing, and after that, the male heads were uncovered, all seated +themselves, and the meal went on without any peculiarity that +interested Deronda. He was not very conscious of what dishes he ate +from; being preoccupied with a desire to turn the conversation in a way +that would enable him to ask some leading question; and also thinking +of Mordecai, between whom and himself there was an exchange of +fascinated, half-furtive glances. Mordecai had no handsome Sabbath +garment, but instead of the threadbare rusty black coat of the morning +he wore one of light drab, which looked as if it had once been a +handsome loose paletot now shrunk with washing; and this change of +clothing gave a still stronger accentuation to his dark-haired, eager +face which might have belonged to the prophet Ezekiel—also probably +not modish in the eyes of contemporaries. It was noticeable that the +thin tails of the fried fish were given to Mordecai; and in general the +sort of share assigned to a poor relation—no doubt a “survival” of +prehistoric practice, not yet generally admitted to be superstitious. + +Mr. Cohen kept up the conversation with much liveliness, introducing as +subjects always in taste (the Jew is proud of his loyalty) the Queen +and the Royal Family, the Emperor and Empress of the French—into which +both grandmother and wife entered with zest. Mrs. Cohen the younger +showed an accurate memory of distinguished birthdays; and the elder +assisted her son in informing the guest of what occurred when the +Emperor and Empress were in England and visited the city ten years +before. + +“I dare say you know all about it better than we do, sir,” said Cohen, +repeatedly, by way of preface to full information; and the interesting +statements were kept up in a trio. + +“Our baby is named _Eu_genie Esther,” said young Mrs. Cohen, +vivaciously. + +“It’s wonderful how the Emperor’s like a cousin of mine in the face,” +said the grandmother; “it struck me like lightning when I caught sight +of him. I couldn’t have thought it.” + +“Mother and me went to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal +Palace,” said Mr. Cohen. “I had a fine piece of work to take care of, +mother; she might have been squeezed flat—though she was pretty near +as lusty then as she is now. I said if I had a hundred mothers I’d +never take one of ’em to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal +Palace again; and you may think a man can’t afford it when he’s got but +one mother—not if he’d ever so big an insurance on her.” He stroked +his mother’s shoulder affectionately, and chuckled a little at his own +humor. + +“Your mother has been a widow a long while, perhaps,” said Deronda, +seizing his opportunity. “That has made your care for her the more +needful.” + +“Ay, ay, it’s a good many _yore-zeit_ since I had to manage for her and +myself,” said Cohen quickly. “I went early to it. It’s that makes you a +sharp knife.” + +“What does—what makes a sharp knife, father?” said Jacob, his cheek +very much swollen with sweet-cake. + +The father winked at his guest and said, “Having your nose put on the +grindstone.” + +Jacob slipped from his chair with the piece of sweet-cake in his hand, +and going close up to Mordecai, who had been totally silent hitherto, +said, “What does that mean—putting my nose to the grindstone?” + +“It means that you are to bear being hurt without making a noise,” said +Mordecai, turning his eyes benignantly on the small face close to his. +Jacob put the corner of the cake into Mordecai’s mouth as an invitation +to bite, saying meanwhile, “I shan’t though,” and keeping his eyes on +the cake to observe how much of it went in this act of generosity. +Mordecai took a bite and smiled, evidently meaning to please the lad, +and the little incident made them both look more lovable. Deronda, +however, felt with some vexation that he had taken little by his +question. + +“I fancy that is the right quarter for learning,” said he, carrying on +the subject that he might have an excuse for addressing Mordecai, to +whom he turned and said, “You have been a great student, I imagine?” + +“I have studied,” was the quiet answer. “And you?—You know German by +the book you were buying.” + +“Yes, I have studied in Germany. Are you generally engaged in +bookselling?” said Deronda. + +“No; I only go to Mr. Ram’s shop every day to keep it while he goes to +meals,” said Mordecai, who was now looking at Deronda with what seemed +a revival of his original interest: it seemed as if the face had some +attractive indication for him which now neutralized the former +disappointment. After a slight pause, he said, “Perhaps you know +Hebrew?” + +“I am sorry to say, not at all.” + +Mordecai’s countenance fell: he cast down his eyelids, looking at his +hands, which lay crossed before him, and said no more. Deronda had now +noticed more decisively than in their former interview a difficulty in +breathing, which he thought must be a sign of consumption. + +“I’ve had something else to do than to get book-learning,” said Mr. +Cohen,—“I’ve had to make myself knowing about useful things. I know +stones well,”—here he pointed to Deronda’s ring. “I’m not afraid of +taking that ring of yours at my own valuation. But now,” he added, with +a certain drop in his voice to a lower, more familiar nasal, “what do +you want for it?” + +“Fifty or sixty pounds,” Deronda answered, rather too carelessly. + +Cohen paused a little, thrust his hands into his pockets, fixed on +Deronda a pair of glistening eyes that suggested a miraculous +guinea-pig, and said, “Couldn’t do you that. Happy to oblige, but +couldn’t go that lengths. Forty pound—say forty—I’ll let you have +forty on it.” + +Deronda was aware that Mordecai had looked up again at the words +implying a monetary affair, and was now examining him again, while he +said, “Very well, I shall redeem it in a month or so.” + +“Good. I’ll make you out the ticket by-and-by,” said Cohen, +indifferently. Then he held up his finger as a sign that conversation +must be deferred. He, Mordecai and Jacob put on their hats, and Cohen +opened a thanksgiving, which was carried on by responses, till Mordecai +delivered himself alone at some length, in a solemn chanting tone, with +his chin slightly uplifted and his thin hands clasped easily before +him. Not only in his accent and tone, but in his freedom from the +self-consciousness which has reference to others’ approbation, there +could hardly have been a stronger contrast to the Jew at the other end +of the table. It was an unaccountable conjunction—the presence among +these common, prosperous, shopkeeping types, of a man who, in an +emaciated threadbare condition, imposed a certain awe on Deronda, and +an embarrassment at not meeting his expectations. + +No sooner had Mordecai finished his devotional strain, than rising, +with a slight bend of his head to the stranger, he walked back into his +room, and shut the door behind him. + +“That seems to be rather a remarkable man,” said Deronda, turning to +Cohen, who immediately set up his shoulders, put out his tongue +slightly, and tapped his own brow. It was clearly to be understood that +Mordecai did not come up to the standard of sanity which was set by Mr. +Cohen’s view of men and things. + +“Does he belong to your family?” said Deronda. + +This idea appeared to be rather ludicrous to the ladies as well as to +Cohen, and the family interchanged looks of amusement. + +“No, no,” said Cohen. “Charity! charity! he worked for me, and when he +got weaker and weaker I took him in. He’s an incumbrance; but he brings +a blessing down, and he teaches the boy. Besides, he does the repairing +at the watches and jewelry.” + +Deronda hardly abstained from smiling at this mixture of kindliness and +the desire to justify it in the light of a calculation; but his +willingness to speak further of Mordecai, whose character was made the +more enigmatically striking by these new details, was baffled. Mr. +Cohen immediately dismissed the subject by reverting to the +“accommodation,” which was also an act of charity, and proceeded to +make out the ticket, get the forty pounds, and present them both in +exchange for the diamond ring. Deronda, feeling that it would be hardly +delicate to protract his visit beyond the settlement of the business +which was its pretext, had to take his leave, with no more decided +result than the advance of forty pounds and the pawn-ticket in his +breast-pocket, to make a reason for returning when he came up to town +after Christmas. He was resolved that he would then endeavor to gain a +little more insight into the character and history of Mordecai; from +whom also he might gather something decisive about the Cohens—for +example, the reason why it was forbidden to ask Mrs. Cohen the elder +whether she had a daughter. + + + + +BOOK V.—MORDECAI. + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + Were uneasiness of conscience measured by extent of crime, human + history had been different, and one should look to see the contrivers + of greedy wars and the mighty marauders of the money-market in one + troop of self-lacerating penitents with the meaner robber and + cut-purse and the murderer that doth his butchery in small with his own + hand. No doubt wickedness hath its rewards to distribute; but who so + wins in this devil’s game must needs be baser, more cruel, more brutal + than the order of this planet will allow for the multitude born of + woman, the most of these carrying a form of conscience—a fear which + is the shadow of justice, a pity which is the shadow of love—that + hindereth from the prize of serene wickedness, itself difficult of + maintenance in our composite flesh. + + +On the twenty-ninth of December Deronda knew that the Grandcourts had +arrived at the Abbey, but he had had no glimpse of them before he went +to dress for dinner. There had been a splendid fall of snow, allowing +the party of children the rare pleasures of snow-balling and +snow-building, and in the Christmas holidays the Mallinger girls were +content with no amusement unless it were joined in and managed by +“cousin,” as they had always called Deronda. After that outdoor +exertion he had been playing billiards, and thus the hours had passed +without his dwelling at all on the prospect of meeting Gwendolen at +dinner. Nevertheless that prospect was interesting to him; and when, a +little tired and heated with working at amusement, he went to his room +before the half-hour bell had rung, he began to think of it with some +speculation on the sort of influence her marriage with Grandcourt would +have on her, and on the probability that there would be some +discernible shades of change in her manner since he saw her at Diplow, +just as there had been since his first vision of her at Leubronn. + +“I fancy there are some natures one could see growing or degenerating +every day, if one watched them,” was his thought. “I suppose some of us +go on faster than others: and I am sure she is a creature who keeps +strong traces of anything that has once impressed her. That little +affair of the necklace, and the idea that somebody thought her gambling +wrong, had evidently bitten into her. But such impressibility leads +both ways: it may drive one to desperation as soon as to anything +better. And whatever fascinations Grandcourt may have for capricious +tastes—good heavens! who can believe that he would call out the tender +affections in daily companionship? One might be tempted to horsewhip +him for the sake of getting some show of passion into his face and +speech. I’m afraid she married him out of ambition—to escape poverty. +But why did she run out of his way at first? The poverty came after, +though. Poor thing! she may have been urged into it. How can one feel +anything else than pity for a young creature like that—full of unused +life—ignorantly rash—hanging all her blind expectations on that +remnant of a human being.” + +Doubtless the phrases which Deronda’s meditation applied to the +bridegroom were the less complimentary for the excuses and pity in +which it clad the bride. His notion of Grandcourt as a “remnant” was +founded on no particular knowledge, but simply on the impression which +ordinary polite intercourse had given him that Grandcourt had worn out +all his natural healthy interest in things. + +In general, one may be sure that whenever a marriage of any mark takes +place, male acquaintances are likely to pity the bride, female +acquaintances the bridegroom: each, it is thought, might have done +better; and especially where the bride is charming, young gentlemen on +the scene are apt to conclude that she can have no real attachment to a +fellow so uninteresting to themselves as her husband, but has married +him on other grounds. Who, under such circumstances, pities the +husband? Even his female friends are apt to think his position +retributive: he should have chosen some one else. But perhaps Deronda +may be excused that he did not prepare any pity for Grandcourt, who had +never struck acquaintances as likely to come out of his experiences +with more suffering than he inflicted; whereas, for Gwendolen, young, +headlong, eager for pleasure, fed with the flattery which makes a +lovely girl believe in her divine right to rule—how quickly might life +turn from expectancy to a bitter sense of the irremediable! After what +he had seen of her he must have had rather dull feelings not to have +looked forward with some interest to her entrance into the room. Still, +since the honeymoon was already three weeks in the distance, and +Gwendolen had been enthroned, not only at Ryelands, but at Diplow, she +was likely to have composed her countenance with suitable manifestation +or concealment, not being one who would indulge the curious by a +helpless exposure of her feelings. + +A various party had been invited to meet the new couple; the old +aristocracy was represented by Lord and Lady Pentreath; the old gentry +by young Mr. and Mrs. Fitzadam of the Worcestershire branch of the +Fitzadams; politics and the public good, as specialized in the cider +interest, by Mr. Fenn, member for West Orchards, accompanied by his two +daughters; Lady Mallinger’s family, by her brother, Mr. Raymond, and +his wife; the useful bachelor element by Mr. Sinker, the eminent +counsel, and by Mr. Vandernoodt, whose acquaintance Sir Hugo had found +pleasant enough at Leubronn to be adopted in England. + +All had assembled in the drawing-room before the new couple appeared. +Meanwhile, the time was being passed chiefly in noticing the +children—various little Raymonds, nephews and nieces of Lady +Mallinger’s with her own three girls, who were always allowed to appear +at this hour. The scene was really delightful—enlarged by full-length +portraits with deep back-grounds, inserted in the cedar +paneling—surmounted by a ceiling that glowed with the rich colors of +the coats of arms ranged between the sockets—illuminated almost as +much by the red fire of oak-boughs as by the pale wax-lights—stilled +by the deep-piled carpet and by the high English breeding that subdues +all voices; while the mixture of ages, from the white-haired Lord and +Lady Pentreath to the four-year-old Edgar Raymond, gave a varied charm +to the living groups. Lady Mallinger, with fair matronly roundness and +mildly prominent blue eyes, moved about in her black velvet, carrying a +tiny white dog on her arm as a sort of finish to her costume; the +children were scattered among the ladies, while most of the gentlemen +were standing rather aloof, conversing with that very moderate vivacity +observable during the long minutes before dinner. Deronda was a little +out of the circle in a dialogue fixed upon him by Mr. Vandernoodt, a +man of the best Dutch blood imported at the revolution: for the rest, +one of those commodious persons in society who are nothing particular +themselves, but are understood to be acquainted with the best in every +department; close-clipped, pale-eyed, _nonchalant_, as good a foil as +could well be found to the intense coloring and vivid gravity of +Deronda. + +He was talking of the bride and bridegroom, whose appearance was being +waited for. Mr. Vandernoodt was an industrious gleaner of personal +details, and could probably tell everything about a great philosopher +or physicist except his theories or discoveries; he was now implying +that he had learned many facts about Grandcourt since meeting him at +Leubronn. + +“Men who have seen a good deal of life don’t always end by choosing +their wives so well. He has had rather an anecdotic history—gone +rather deep into pleasures, I fancy, lazy as he is. But, of course, you +know all about him.” + +“No, really,” said Deronda, in an indifferent tone. “I know little more +of him than that he is Sir Hugo’s nephew.” + +But now the door opened and deferred any satisfaction of Mr. +Vandernoodt’s communicativeness. + +The scene was one to set off any figure of distinction that entered on +it, and certainly when Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt entered, no beholder +could deny that their figures had distinction. The bridegroom had +neither more nor less easy perfection of costume, neither more nor less +well-cut impassibility of face, than before his marriage. It was to be +supposed of him that he would put up with nothing less than the best in +outward equipment, wife included; and the bride was what he might have +been expected to choose. “By George, I think she’s handsomer, if +anything!” said Mr. Vandernoodt. And Deronda was of the same opinion, +but he said nothing. The white silk and diamonds—it may seem strange, +but she did wear diamonds on her neck, in her ears, in her hair—might +have something to do with the new imposingness of her beauty, which +flashed on him as more unquestionable if not more thoroughly +satisfactory than when he had first seen her at the gaming-table. Some +faces which are peculiar in their beauty are like original works of +art: for the first time they are almost always met with question. But +in seeing Gwendolen at Diplow, Deronda had discerned in her more than +he had expected of that tender appealing charm which we call womanly. +Was there any new change since then? He distrusted his impressions; but +as he saw her receiving greetings with what seemed a proud cold +quietude and a superficial smile, there seemed to be at work within her +the same demonic force that had possessed her when she took him in her +resolute glance and turned away a loser from the gaming-table. There +was no time for more of a conclusion—no time even for him to give his +greeting before the summons to dinner. + +He sat not far from opposite to her at table, and could sometimes hear +what she said in answer to Sir Hugo, who was at his liveliest in +conversation with her; but though he looked toward her with the +intention of bowing, she gave him no opportunity of doing so for some +time. At last Sir Hugo, who might have imagined that they had already +spoken to each other, said, “Deronda, you will like to hear what Mrs. +Grandcourt tells me about your favorite Klesmer.” + +Gwendolen’s eyelids had been lowered, and Deronda, already looking at +her, thought he discovered a quivering reluctance as she was obliged to +raise them and return his unembarrassed bow and smile, her own smile +being one of the lip merely. It was but an instant, and Sir Hugo +continued without pause, + +“The Arrowpoints have condoned the marriage, and he is spending the +Christmas with his bride at Quetcham.” + +“I suppose he will be glad of it for the sake of his wife, else I dare +say he would not have minded keeping at a distance,” said Deronda. + +“It’s a sort of troubadour story,” said Lady Pentreath, an easy, +deep-voiced old lady; “I’m glad to find a little romance left among us. +I think our young people now are getting too worldly wise.” + +“It shows the Arrowpoints’ good sense, however, to have adopted the +affair, after the fuss in the paper,” said Sir Hugo. “And disowning +your own child because of a _mésalliance_ is something like disowning +your one eye: everybody knows it’s yours, and you have no other to make +an appearance with.” + +“As to _mésalliance_, there’s no blood on any side,” said Lady +Pentreath. “Old Admiral Arrowpoint was one of Nelson’s men, you know—a +doctor’s son. And we all know how the mother’s money came.” + +“If they were any _mésalliance_ in the case, I should say it was on +Klesmer’s side,” said Deronda. + +“Ah, you think it is a case of the immortal marrying the mortal. What +is your opinion?” said Sir Hugo, looking at Gwendolen. + +“I have no doubt that Herr Klesmer thinks himself immortal. But I dare +say his wife will burn as much incense before him as he requires,” said +Gwendolen. She had recovered any composure that she might have lost. + +“Don’t you approve of a wife burning incense before her husband?” said +Sir Hugo, with an air of jocoseness. + +“Oh, yes,” said Gwendolen, “if it were only to make others believe in +him.” She paused a moment and then said with more gayety, “When Herr +Klesmer admires his own genius, it will take off some of the absurdity +if his wife says Amen.” + +“Klesmer is no favorite of yours, I see,” said Sir Hugo. + +“I think very highly of him, I assure you,” said Gwendolen. “His genius +is quite above my judgment, and I know him to be exceedingly generous.” + +She spoke with the sudden seriousness which is often meant to correct +an unfair or indiscreet sally, having a bitterness against Klesmer in +her secret soul which she knew herself unable to justify. Deronda was +wondering what he should have thought of her if he had never heard of +her before: probably that she put on a little hardness and defiance by +way of concealing some painful consciousness—if, indeed, he could +imagine her manners otherwise than in the light of his suspicion. But +why did she not recognize him with more friendliness? + +Sir Hugo, by way of changing the subject, said to her, “Is not this a +beautiful room? It was part of the refectory of the Abbey. There was a +division made by those pillars and the three arches, and afterward they +were built up. Else it was half as large again originally. There used +to be rows of Benedictines sitting where we are sitting. Suppose we +were suddenly to see the lights burning low and the ghosts of the old +monks rising behind all our chairs!” + +“Please don’t!” said Gwendolen, with a playful shudder. “It is very +nice to come after ancestors and monks, but they should know their +places and keep underground. I should be rather frightened to go about +this house all alone. I suppose the old generations must be angry with +us because we have altered things so much.” + +“Oh, the ghosts must be of all political parties,” said Sir Hugo. “And +those fellows who wanted to change things while they lived and couldn’t +do it must be on our side. But if you would not like to go over the +house alone, you will like to go in company, I hope. You and Grandcourt +ought to see it all. And we will ask Deronda to go round with us. He is +more learned about it than I am.” The baronet was in the most +complaisant of humors. + +Gwendolen stole a glance at Deronda, who must have heard what Sir Hugo +said, for he had his face turned toward them helping himself to an +_entrée_; but he looked as impassive as a picture. At the notion of +Deronda’s showing her and Grandcourt the place which was to be theirs, +and which she with painful emphasis remembered might have been his +(perhaps, if others had acted differently), certain thoughts had rushed +in—thoughts repeated within her, but now returning on an occasion +embarrassingly new; and was conscious of something furtive and awkward +in her glance which Sir Hugo must have noticed. With her usual +readiness of resource against betrayal, she said, playfully, “You don’t +know how much I am afraid of Mr. Deronda.” + +“How’s that? Because you think him too learned?” said Sir Hugo, whom +the peculiarity of her glance had not escaped. + +“No. It is ever since I first saw him at Leubronn. Because when he came +to look on at the roulette-table, I began to lose. He cast an evil eye +on my play. He didn’t approve it. He has told me so. And now whatever I +do before him, I am afraid he will cast an evil eye upon it.” + +“Gad! I’m rather afraid of him myself when he doesn’t approve,” said +Sir Hugo, glancing at Deronda; and then turning his face toward +Gwendolen, he said less audibly, “I don’t think ladies generally object +to have his eyes upon them.” The baronet’s small chronic complaint of +facetiousness was at this moment almost as annoying to Gwendolen as it +often was to Deronda. + +“I object to any eyes that are critical,” she said, in a cool, high +voice, with a turn of her neck. “Are there many of these old rooms left +in the Abbey?” + +“Not many. There is a fine cloistered court with a long gallery above +it. But the finest bit of all is turned into stables. It is part of the +old church. When I improved the place I made the most of every other +bit; but it was out of my reach to change the stables, so the horses +have the benefit of the fine old choir. You must go and see it.” + +“I shall like to see the horses as well as the building,” said +Gwendolen. + +“Oh, I have no stud to speak of. Grandcourt will look with contempt at +my horses,” said Sir Hugo. “I’ve given up hunting, and go on in a +jog-trot way, as becomes an old gentlemen with daughters. The fact is, +I went in for doing too much at this place. We all lived at Diplow for +two years while the alterations were going on: Do you like Diplow?” + +“Not particularly,” said Gwendolen, with indifference. One would have +thought that the young lady had all her life had more family seats than +she cared to go to. + +“Ah! it will not do after Ryelands,” said Sir Hugo, well pleased. +“Grandcourt, I know, took it for the sake of the hunting. But he found +something so much better there,” added the baronet, lowering his voice, +“that he might well prefer it to any other place in the world.” + +“It has one attraction for me,” said Gwendolen, passing over this +compliment with a chill smile, “that it is within reach of Offendene.” + +“I understand that,” said Sir Hugo, and then let the subject drop. + +What amiable baronet can escape the effect of a strong desire for a +particular possession? Sir Hugo would have been glad that Grandcourt, +with or without reason, should prefer any other place to Diplow; but +inasmuch as in the pure process of wishing we can always make the +conditions of our gratification benevolent, he did wish that +Grandcourt’s convenient disgust for Diplow should not be associated +with his marriage with this very charming bride. Gwendolen was much to +the baronet’s taste, but, as he observed afterward to Lady Mallinger, +he should never have taken her for a young girl who had married beyond +her expectations. + +Deronda had not heard much of this conversation, having given his +attention elsewhere, but the glimpses he had of Gwendolen’s manner +deepened the impression that it had something newly artificial. + +Later, in the drawing-room, Deronda, at somebody’s request, sat down to +the piano and sang. Afterward, Mrs. Raymond took his place; and on +rising he observed that Gwendolen had left her seat, and had come to +this end of the room, as if to listen more fully, but was now standing +with her back to every one, apparently contemplating a fine cowled head +carved in ivory which hung over a small table. He longed to go to her +and speak. Why should he not obey such an impulse, as he would have +done toward any other lady in the room? Yet he hesitated some moments, +observing the graceful lines of her back, but not moving. + +If you have any reason for not indulging a wish to speak to a fair +woman, it is a bad plan to look long at her back: the wish to see what +it screens becomes the stronger. There may be a very sweet smile on the +other side. Deronda ended by going to the end of the small table, at +right angles to Gwendolen’s position, but before he could speak she had +turned on him no smile, but such an appealing look of sadness, so +utterly different from the chill effort of her recognition at table, +that his speech was checked. For what was an appreciative space of time +to both, though the observation of others could not have measured it, +they looked at each other—she seeming to take the deep rest of +confession, he with an answering depth of sympathy that neutralized all +other feelings. + +“Will you not join in the music?” he said, by way of meeting the +necessity for speech. + +That her look of confession had been involuntary was shown by that just +perceptible shake and change of countenance with which she roused +herself to reply calmly, “I join in it by listening. I am fond of +music.” + +“Are you not a musician?” + +“I have given a great deal of time to music. But I have not talent +enough to make it worth while. I shall never sing again.” + +“But if you are fond of music, it will always be worth while in +private, for your own delight. I make it a virtue to be content with my +middlingness,” said Deronda, smiling; “it is always pardonable, so that +one does not ask others to take it for superiority.” + +“I cannot imitate you,” said Gwendolen, recovering her tone of +artificial vivacity. “To be middling with me is another phrase for +being dull. And the worst fault I have to find with the world is that +it is dull. Do you know, I am going to justify gambling in spite of +you. It is a refuge from dullness.” + +“I don’t admit the justification,” said Deronda. “I think what we call +the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how can any one +find an intense interest in life? And many do.” + +“Ah, I see! The fault I find in the world is my own fault,” said +Gwendolen, smiling at him. Then after a moment, looking up at the ivory +again, she said, “Do _you_ never find fault with the world or with +others?” + +“Oh, yes. When I am in a grumbling mood.” + +“And hate people? Confess you hate them when they stand in your +way—when their gain is your loss? That is your own phrase, you know.” + +“We are often standing in each other’s way when we can’t help it. I +think it is stupid to hate people on that ground.” + +“But if they injure you and could have helped it?” said Gwendolen with +a hard intensity unaccountable in incidental talk like this. + +Deronda wondered at her choice of subjects. A painful impression +arrested his answer a moment, but at last he said, with a graver, +deeper intonation, “Why, then, after all, I prefer my place to theirs.” + +“There I believe you are right,” said Gwendolen, with a sudden little +laugh, and turned to join the group at the piano. + +Deronda looked around for Grandcourt, wondering whether he followed his +bride’s movements with any attention; but it was rather undiscerning to +him to suppose that he could find out the fact. Grandcourt had a +delusive mood of observing whatever had an interest for him, which +could be surpassed by no sleepy-eyed animal on the watch for prey. At +that moment he was plunged in the depth of an easy chair, being talked +to by Mr. Vandernoodt, who apparently thought the acquaintance of such +a bridegroom worth cultivating; and an incautious person might have +supposed it safe to telegraph secrets in front of him, the common +prejudice being that your quick observer is one whose eyes have quick +movements. Not at all. If you want a respectable witness who will see +nothing inconvenient, choose a vivacious gentleman, very much on the +alert, with two eyes wide open, a glass in one of them, and an entire +impartiality as to the purpose of looking. If Grandcourt cared to keep +any one under his power he saw them out of the corners of his long +narrow eyes, and if they went behind him he had a constructive process +by which he knew what they were doing there. He knew perfectly well +where his wife was, and how she was behaving. Was he going to be a +jealous husband? Deronda imagined that to be likely; but his +imagination was as much astray about Grandcourt as it would have been +about an unexplored continent where all the species were peculiar. He +did not conceive that he himself was a likely subject of jealousy, or +that he should give any pretext for it; but the suspicion that a wife +is not happy naturally leads one to speculate on the husband’s private +deportment; and Deronda found himself after one o’clock in the morning +in the rather ludicrous position of sitting up severely holding a +Hebrew grammar in his hands (for somehow, in deference to Mordecai, he +had begun to study Hebrew), with the consciousness that he had been in +that attitude nearly an hour, and had thought of nothing but Gwendolen +and her husband. To be an unusual young man means for the most part to +get a difficult mastery over the usual, which is often like the sprite +of ill-luck you pack up your goods to escape from, and see grinning at +you from the top of your luggage van. The peculiarities of Deronda’s +nature had been acutely touched by the brief incident and words which +made the history of his intercourse with Gwendolen; and this evening’s +slight addition had given them an importunate recurrence. It was not +vanity—it was ready sympathy that had made him alive to a certain +appealingness in her behavior toward him; and the difficulty with which +she had seemed to raise her eyes to bow to him, in the first instance, +was to be interpreted now by that unmistakable look of involuntary +confidence which she had afterward turned on him under the +consciousness of his approach. + +“What is the use of it all?” thought Deronda, as he threw down his +grammar, and began to undress. “I can’t do anything to help her—nobody +can, if she has found out her mistake already. And it seems to me that +she has a dreary lack of the ideas that might help her. Strange and +piteous to think what a center of wretchedness a delicate piece of +human flesh like that might be, wrapped round with fine +raiment, her ears pierced for gems, her head held loftily, her mouth +all smiling pretense, the poor soul within her sitting in sick distaste +of all things! But what do I know of her? There may be a demon in her +to match the worst husband, for what I can tell. She was clearly an +ill-educated, worldly girl: perhaps she is a coquette.” + +This last reflection, not much believed in, was a self-administered +dose of caution, prompted partly by Sir Hugo’s much-contemned joking on +the subject of flirtation. Deronda resolved not to volunteer any +_tête-à-tête_ with Gwendolen during the days of her stay at the Abbey; +and he was capable of keeping a resolve in spite of much inclination to +the contrary. + +But a man cannot resolve about a woman’s actions, least of all about +those of a woman like Gwendolen, in whose nature there was a +combination of proud reserve with rashness, of perilously poised terror +with defiance, which might alternately flatter and disappoint control. +Few words could less represent her than “coquette.” She had native love +of homage, and belief in her own power; but no cold artifice for the +sake of enslaving. And the poor thing’s belief in her power, with her +other dreams before marriage, had often to be thrust aside now like the +toys of a sick child, which it looks at with dull eyes, and has no +heart to play with, however it may try. + +The next day at lunch Sir Hugo said to her, “The thaw has gone on like +magic, and it’s so pleasant out of doors just now—shall we go and see +the stables and the other odd bits about the place?” + +“Yes, pray,” said Gwendolen. “You will like to see the stables, +Henleigh?” she added, looking at her husband. + +“Uncommonly,” said Grandcourt, with an indifference which seemed to +give irony to the word, as he returned her look. It was the first time +Deronda had seen them speak to each other since their arrival, and he +thought their exchange of looks as cold or official as if it had been a +ceremony to keep up a charter. Still, the English fondness for reserve +will account for much negation; and Grandcourt’s manners with an extra +veil of reserve over them might be expected to present the extreme type +of the national taste. + +“Who else is inclined to make the tour of the house and premises?” said +Sir Hugo. “The ladies must muffle themselves; there is only just about +time to do it well before sunset. You will go, Dan, won’t you?” + +“Oh, yes,” said Deronda, carelessly, knowing that Sir Hugo would think +any excuse disobliging. + +“All meet in the library, then, when they are ready—say in half an +hour,” said the baronet. Gwendolen made herself ready with wonderful +quickness, and in ten minutes came down into the library in her sables, +plume, and little thick boots. As soon as she entered the room she was +aware that some one else was there: it was precisely what she had hoped +for. Deronda was standing with his back toward her at the far end of +the room, and was looking over a newspaper. How could little thick +boots make any noise on an Axminster carpet? And to cough would have +seemed an intended signaling which her pride could not condescend to; +also, she felt bashful about walking up to him and letting him know +that she was there, though it was her hunger to speak to him which had +set her imagination on constructing this chance of finding him, and had +made her hurry down, as birds hover near the water which they dare not +drink. Always uneasily dubious about his opinion of her, she felt a +peculiar anxiety to-day, lest he might think of her with contempt, as +one triumphantly conscious of being Grandcourt’s wife, the future lady +of this domain. It was her habitual effort now to magnify the +satisfactions of her pride, on which she nourished her strength; but +somehow Deronda’s being there disturbed them all. There was not the +faintest touch of coquetry in the attitude of her mind toward him: he +was unique to her among men, because he had impressed her as being not +her admirer but her superior: in some mysterious way he was becoming a +part of her conscience, as one woman whose nature is an object of +reverential belief may become a new conscience to a man. + +And now he would not look round and find out that she was there! The +paper crackled in his hand, his head rose and sank, exploring those +stupid columns, and he was evidently stroking his beard; as if this +world were a very easy affair to her. Of course all the rest of the +company would soon be down, and the opportunity of her saying something +to efface her flippancy of the evening before, would be quite gone. She +felt sick with irritation—so fast do young creatures like her absorb +misery through invisible suckers of their own fancies—and her face had +gathered that peculiar expression which comes with a mortification to +which tears are forbidden. + +At last he threw down the paper and turned round. + +“Oh, you are there already,” he said, coming forward a step or two: “I +must go and put on my coat.” + +He turned aside and walked out of the room. This was behaving quite +badly. Mere politeness would have made him stay to exchange some words +before leaving her alone. It was true that Grandcourt came in with Sir +Hugo immediately after, so that the words must have been too few to be +worth anything. As it was, they saw him walking from the library door. + +“A—you look rather ill,” said Grandcourt, going straight up to her, +standing in front of her, and looking into her eyes. “Do you feel equal +to the walk?” + +“Yes, I shall like it,” said Gwendolen, without the slightest movement +except this of the lips. + +“We could put off going over the house, you know, and only go out of +doors,” said Sir Hugo, kindly, while Grandcourt turned aside. + +“Oh, dear no!” said Gwendolen, speaking with determination; “let us put +off nothing. I want a long walk.” + +The rest of the walking party—two ladies and two gentlemen besides +Deronda—had now assembled; and Gwendolen rallying, went with due +cheerfulness by the side of Sir Hugo, paying apparently an equal +attention to the commentaries Deronda was called upon to give on the +various architectural fragments, to Sir Hugo’s reasons for not +attempting to remedy the mixture of the undisguised modern with the +antique—which in his opinion only made the place the more truly +historical. On their way to the buttery and kitchen they took the +outside of the house and paused before a beautiful pointed doorway, +which was the only old remnant in the east front. + +“Well, now, to my mind,” said Sir Hugo, “that is more interesting +standing as it is in the middle of what is frankly four centuries +later, than if the whole front had been dressed up in a pretense of the +thirteenth century. Additions ought to smack of the time when they are +made and carry the stamp of their period. I wouldn’t destroy any old +bits, but that notion of reproducing the old is a mistake, I think. At +least, if a man likes to do it he must pay for his whistle. Besides, +where are you to stop along that road—making loopholes where you don’t +want to peep, and so on? You may as well ask me to wear out the stones +with kneeling; eh, Grandcourt?” + +“A confounded nuisance,” drawled Grandcourt. “I hate fellows wanting to +howl litanies—acting the greatest bores that have ever existed.” + +“Well, yes, that’s what their romanticism must come to,” said Sir Hugo, +in a tone of confidential assent—“that is if they carry it out +logically.” + +“I think that way of arguing against a course because it may be ridden +down to an absurdity would soon bring life to a standstill,” said +Deronda. “It is not the logic of human action, but of a roasting-jack, +that must go on to the last turn when it has been once wound up. We can +do nothing safely without some judgment as to where we are to stop.” + +“I find the rule of the pocket the best guide,” said Sir Hugo, +laughingly. “And as for most of your new-old building, you had need to +hire men to scratch and chip it all over artistically to give it an +elderly-looking surface; which at the present rate of labor would not +answer.” + +“Do you want to keep up the old fashions, then, Mr. Deronda?” said +Gwendolen, taking advantage of the freedom of grouping to fall back a +little, while Sir Hugo and Grandcourt went on. + +“Some of them. I don’t see why we should not use our choice there as we +do elsewhere—or why either age or novelty by itself is an argument for +or against. To delight in doing things because our fathers did them is +good if it shuts out nothing better; it enlarges the range of +affection—and affection is the broadest basis of good in life.” + +“Do you think so?” said Gwendolen with a little surprise. “I should +have thought you cared most about ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and all +that.” + +“But to care about _them_ is a sort of affection,” said Deronda, +smiling at her sudden _naïveté_. “Call it attachment; interest, willing +to bear a great deal for the sake of being with them and saving them +from injury. Of course, it makes a difference if the objects of +interest are human beings; but generally in all deep affections the +objects are a mixture—half persons and half ideas—sentiments and +affections flow in together.” + +“I wonder whether I understand that,” said Gwendolen, putting up her +chin in her old saucy manner. “I believe I am not very affectionate; +perhaps you mean to tell me, that is the reason why I don’t see much +good in life.” + +“No, I did _not_ mean to tell you that; but I admit that I should think +it true if I believed what you say of yourself,” said Deronda, gravely. + +Here Sir Hugo and Grandcourt turned round and paused. + +“I never can get Mr. Deronda to pay me a compliment,” said Gwendolen. +“I have quite a curiosity to see whether a little flattery can be +extracted from him.” + +“Ah!” said Sir Hugo, glancing at Deronda, “the fact is, it is useless +to flatter a bride. We give it up in despair. She has been so fed on +sweet speeches that every thing we say seems tasteless.” + +“Quite true,” said Gwendolen, bending her head and smiling. “Mr. +Grandcourt won me by neatly-turned compliments. If there had been one +word out of place it would have been fatal.” + +“Do you hear that?” said Sir Hugo, looking at the husband. + +“Yes,” said Grandcourt, without change of countenance. “It’s a deucedly +hard thing to keep up, though.” + +All this seemed to Sir Hugo a natural playfulness between such a +husband and wife; but Deronda wondered at the misleading alternations +in Gwendolen’s manner, which at one moment seemed to excite sympathy by +childlike indiscretion, at another to repel it by proud concealment. He +tried to keep out of her way by devoting himself to Miss Juliet Fenn, a +young lady whose profile had been so unfavorably decided by +circumstances over which she had no control, that Gwendolen some months +ago had felt it impossible to be jealous of her. Nevertheless, when +they were seeing the kitchen—a part of the original building in +perfect preservation—the depth of shadow in the niches of the +stone-walls and groined vault, the play of light from the huge glowing +fire on polished tin, brass, and copper, the fine resonance that came +with every sound of voice or metal, were all spoiled for Gwendolen, and +Sir Hugo’s speech about them was made rather importunate, because +Deronda was discoursing to the other ladies and kept at a distance from +her. It did not signify that the other gentlemen took the opportunity +of being near her: of what use in the world was their admiration while +she had an uneasy sense that there was some standard in Deronda’s mind +which measured her into littleness? Mr. Vandernoodt, who had the mania +of always describing one thing while you were looking at another, was +quite intolerable with his insistence on Lord Blough’s kitchen, which +he had seen in the north. + +“Pray don’t ask us to see two kitchens at once. It makes the heat +double. I must really go out of it,” she cried at last, marching +resolutely into the open air, and leaving the others in the rear. +Grandcourt was already out, and as she joined him, he said, + +“I wondered how long you meant to stay in that damned place”—one of +the freedoms he had assumed as a husband being the use of his strongest +epithets. Gwendolen, turning to see the rest of the party approach, +said, + +“It was certainly rather too warm in one’s wraps.” + +They walked on the gravel across a green court, where the snow still +lay in islets on the grass, and in masses on the boughs of the great +cedar and the crenelated coping of the stone walls, and then into a +larger court, where there was another cedar, to find the beautiful +choir long ago turned into stables, in the first instance perhaps after +an impromptu fashion by troopers, who had a pious satisfaction in +insulting the priests of Baal and the images of Ashtoreth, the queen of +heaven. The exterior—its west end, save for the stable door, walled in +with brick and covered with ivy—was much defaced, maimed of finial and +gargoyle, the friable limestone broken and fretted, and lending its +soft gray to a powdery dark lichen; the long windows, too, were filled +in with brick as far as the springing of the arches, the broad +clerestory windows with wire or ventilating blinds. With the low wintry +afternoon sun upon it, sending shadows from the cedar boughs, and +lighting up the touches of snow remaining on every ledge, it had still +a scarcely disturbed aspect of antique solemnity, which gave the scene +in the interior rather a startling effect; though, ecclesiastical or +reverential indignation apart, the eyes could hardly help dwelling with +pleasure on its piquant picturesqueness. Each finely-arched chapel was +turned into a stall, where in the dusty glazing of the windows there +still gleamed patches of crimson, orange, blue, and palest violet; for +the rest, the choir had been gutted, the floor leveled, paved, and +drained according to the most approved fashion, and a line of loose +boxes erected in the middle: a soft light fell from the upper windows +on sleek brown or gray flanks and haunches; on mild equine faces +looking out with active nostrils over the varnished brown boarding; on +the hay hanging from racks where the saints once looked down from the +altar-pieces, and on the pale golden straw scattered or in heaps; on a +little white-and-liver-colored spaniel making his bed on the back of an +elderly hackney, and on four ancient angels, still showing signs of +devotion like mutilated martyrs—while over all, the grand pointed +roof, untouched by reforming wash, showed its lines and colors +mysteriously through veiling shadow and cobweb, and a hoof now and then +striking against the boards seemed to fill the vault with thunder, +while outside there was the answering bay of the blood-hounds. + +“Oh, this is glorious!” Gwendolen burst forth, in forgetfulness of +everything but the immediate impression: there had been a little +intoxication for her in the grand spaces of courts and building, and +the fact of her being an important person among them. “This _is_ +glorious! Only I wish there were a horse in every one of the boxes. I +would ten times rather have these stables than those at Diplow.” + +But she had no sooner said this than some consciousness arrested her, +and involuntarily she turned her eyes toward Deronda, who oddly enough +had taken off his felt hat and stood holding it before him as if they +had entered a room or an actual church. He, like others, happened to be +looking at her, and their eyes met—to her intense vexation, for it +seemed to her that by looking at him she had betrayed the reference of +her thoughts, and she felt herself blushing: she exaggerated the +impression that even Sir Hugo as well as Deronda would have of her bad +taste in referring to the possession of anything at the Abbey: as for +Deronda, she had probably made him despise her. Her annoyance at what +she imagined to be the obviousness of her confusion robbed her of her +usual facility in carrying it off by playful speech, and turning up her +face to look at the roof, she wheeled away in that attitude. If any had +noticed her blush as significant, they had certainly not interpreted it +by the secret windings and recesses of her feeling. A blush is no +language: only a dubious flag-signal which may mean either of two +contradictories. Deronda alone had a faint guess at some part of her +feeling; but while he was observing her he was himself under +observation. + +“Do you take off your hat to horses?” said Grandcourt, with a slight +sneer. + +“Why not?” said Deronda, covering himself. He had really taken off the +hat automatically, and if he had been an ugly man might doubtless have +done so with impunity; ugliness having naturally the air of involuntary +exposure, and beauty, of display. + +Gwendolen’s confusion was soon merged in the survey of the horses, +which Grandcourt politely abstained from appraising, languidly +assenting to Sir Hugo’s alternate depreciation and eulogy of the same +animal, as one that he should not have bought when he was younger, and +piqued himself on his horses, but yet one that had better qualities +than many more expensive brutes. + +“The fact is, stables dive deeper and deeper into the pocket nowadays, +and I am very glad to have got rid of that _démangeaison_,” said Sir +Hugo, as they were coming out. + +“What is a man to do, though?” said Grandcourt. “He must ride. I don’t +see what else there is to do. And I don’t call it riding to sit astride +a set of brutes with every deformity under the sun.” + +This delicate diplomatic way of characterizing Sir Hugo’s stud did not +require direct notice; and the baronet, feeling that the conversation +had worn rather thin, said to the party generally, “Now we are going to +see the cloister—the finest bit of all—in perfect preservation; the +monks might have been walking there yesterday.” + +But Gwendolen had lingered behind to look at the kenneled blood-hounds, +perhaps because she felt a little dispirited; and Grandcourt waited for +her. + +“You had better take my arm,” he said, in his low tone of command; and +she took it. + +“It’s a great bore being dragged about in this way, and no cigar,” said +Grandcourt. + +“I thought you would like it.” + +“Like it!—one eternal chatter. And encouraging those ugly +girls—inviting one to meet such monsters. How that _fat_ Deronda can +bear looking at her——” + +“Why do you call him a _fat_? Do you object to him so much?” + +“Object? no. What do I care about his being a _fat_? It’s of no +consequence to me. I’ll invite him to Diplow again if you like.” + +“I don’t think he would come. He is too clever and learned to care +about _us_,” said Gwendolen, thinking it useful for her husband to be +told (privately) that it was possible for him to be looked down upon. + +“I never saw that make much difference in a man. Either he is a +gentleman, or he is not,” said Grandcourt. + +That a new husband and wife should snatch a moment’s _tête-à-tête_ was +what could be understood and indulged; and the rest of the party left +them in the rear till, re-entering the garden, they all paused in that +cloistered court where, among the falling rose-petals thirteen years +before, we saw a boy becoming acquainted with his first sorrow. This +cloister was built of a harder stone than the church, and had been in +greater safety from the wearing weather. It was a rare example of a +northern cloister with arched and pillared openings not intended for +glazing, and the delicately-wrought foliage of the capitals seemed +still to carry the very touches of the chisel. Gwendolen had dropped +her husband’s arm and joined the other ladies, to whom Deronda was +noticing the delicate sense which had combined freedom with accuracy in +the imitation of natural forms. + +“I wonder whether one oftener learns to love real objects through their +representations, or the representations through the real objects,” he +said, after pointing out a lovely capital made by the curled leaves of +greens, showing their reticulated under-side with the firm gradual +swell of its central rib. “When I was a little fellow these capitals +taught me to observe and delight in the structure of leaves.” + +“I suppose you can see every line of them with your eyes shut,” said +Juliet Fenn. + +“Yes. I was always repeating them, because for a good many years this +court stood for me as my only image of a convent, and whenever I read +of monks and monasteries, this was my scenery for them.” + +“You must love this place very much,” said Miss Fenn, innocently, not +thinking of inheritance. “So many homes are like twenty others. But +this is unique, and you seem to know every cranny of it. I dare say you +could never love another home so well.” + +“Oh, I carry it with me,” said Deronda, quietly, being used to all +possible thoughts of this kind. “To most men their early home is no +more than a memory of their early years, and I’m not sure but they have +the best of it. The image is never marred. There’s no disappointment in +memory, and one’s exaggerations are always on the good side.” + +Gwendolen felt sure that he spoke in that way out of delicacy to her +and Grandcourt—because he knew they must hear him; and that he +probably thought of her as a selfish creature who only cared about +possessing things in her own person. But whatever he might say, it must +have been a secret hardship to him that any circumstances of his birth +had shut him out from the inheritance of his father’s position; and if +he supposed that she exulted in her husband’s taking it, what could he +feel for her but scornful pity? Indeed it seemed clear to her that he +was avoiding her, and preferred talking to others—which nevertheless +was not kind in him. + +With these thoughts in her mind she was prevented by a mixture of pride +and timidity from addressing him again, and when they were looking at +the rows of quaint portraits in the gallery above the cloisters, she +kept up her air of interest and made her vivacious remarks without any +direct appeal to Deronda. But at the end she was very weary of her +assumed spirits, and as Grandcourt turned into the billiard-room, she went +to the pretty boudoir which had been assigned to her, and shut herself +up to look melancholy at her ease. No chemical process shows a more +wonderful activity than the transforming influence of the thoughts we +imagine to be going on in another. Changes in theory, religion, +admirations, may begin with a suspicion of dissent or disapproval, even +when the grounds of disapproval are but matter of searching conjecture. + +Poor Gwendolen was conscious of an uneasy, transforming process—all +the old nature shaken to its depths, its hopes spoiled, its pleasures +perturbed, but still showing wholeness and strength in the will to +reassert itself. After every new shock of humiliation she tried to +adjust herself and seize her old supports—proud concealment, trust in +new excitements that would make life go by without much thinking; trust +in some deed of reparation to nullify her self-blame and shield her +from a vague, ever-visiting dread of some horrible calamity; trust in +the hardening effect of use and wont that would make her indifferent to +her miseries. + +Yes—miseries. This beautiful, healthy young creature, with her +two-and-twenty years and her gratified ambition, no longer felt +inclined to kiss her fortunate image in the glass. She looked at it +with wonder that she could be so miserable. One belief which had +accompanied her through her unmarried life as a self-cajoling +superstition, encouraged by the subordination of every one about +her—the belief in her own power of dominating—was utterly gone. +Already, in seven short weeks, which seemed half her life, her husband +had gained a mastery which she could no more resist than she could have +resisted the benumbing effect from the touch of a torpedo. Gwendolen’s +will had seemed imperious in its small girlish sway; but it was the +will of a creature with a large discourse of imaginative fears: a +shadow would have been enough to relax its hold. And she had found a +will like that of a crab or a boa-constrictor, which goes on pinching +or crushing without alarm at thunder. Not that Grandcourt was without +calculation of the intangible effects which were the chief means of +mastery; indeed, he had a surprising acuteness in detecting that +situation of feeling in Gwendolen which made her proud and rebellious +spirit dumb and helpless before him. + +She had burned Lydia Glasher’s letter with an instantaneous terror lest +other eyes should see it, and had tenaciously concealed from Grandcourt +that there was any other cause of her violent hysterics than the +excitement and fatigue of the day: she had been urged into an implied +falsehood. “Don’t ask me—it was my feeling about everything—it was +the sudden change from home.” The words of that letter kept repeating +themselves, and hung on her consciousness with the weight of a +prophetic doom. “I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is +buried as well as mine. You had your warning. You have chosen to injure +me and my children. He had meant to marry me. He would have married me +at last, if you had not broken your word. You will have your +punishment. I desire it with all my soul. Will you give him this letter +to set him against me and ruin us more—me and my children? Shall you +like to stand before your husband with these diamonds on you, and these +words of mine in his thoughts and yours? Will he think you have any +right to complain when he has made you miserable? You took him with +your eyes open. The willing wrong you have done me will be your curse.” + +The words had nestled their venomous life within her, and stirred +continually the vision of the scene at the Whispering Stones. That +scene was now like an accusing apparition: she dreaded that Grandcourt +should know of it—so far out of her sight now was that possibility she +had once satisfied herself with, of speaking to him about Mrs. Glasher +and her children, and making them rich amends. Any endurance seemed +easier than the mortal humiliation of confessing that she knew all +before she married him, and in marrying him had broken her word. For +the reasons by which she had justified herself when the marriage +tempted her, and all her easy arrangement of her future power over her +husband to make him do better than he might be inclined to do, were now +as futile as the burned-out lights which set off a child’s pageant. Her +sense of being blameworthy was exaggerated by a dread both definite and +vague. The definite dread was lest the veil of secrecy should fall +between her and Grandcourt, and give him the right to taunt her. With +the reading of that letter had begun her husband’s empire of fear. + +And her husband all the while knew it. He had not, indeed, any distinct +knowledge of her broken promise, and would not have rated highly the +effect of that breach on her conscience; but he was aware not only of +what Lush had told him about the meeting at the Whispering Stones, but +also of Gwendolen’s concealment as to the cause of her sudden illness. +He felt sure that Lydia had enclosed something with the diamonds, and +that this something, whatever it was, had at once created in Gwendolen +a new repulsion for him and a reason for not daring to manifest it. He +did not greatly mind, or feel as many men might have felt, that his +hopes in marriage were blighted: he had wanted to marry Gwendolen, and +he was not a man to repent. Why should a gentleman whose other +relations in life are carried on without the luxury of sympathetic +feeling, be supposed to require that kind of condiment in domestic +life? What he chiefly felt was that a change had come over the +conditions of his mastery, which, far from shaking it, might establish +it the more thoroughly. And it was established. He judged that he had +not married a simpleton unable to perceive the impossibility of escape, +or to see alternative evils: he had married a girl who had spirit and +pride enough not to make a fool of herself by forfeiting all the +advantages of a position which had attracted her; and if she wanted +pregnant hints to help her in making up her mind properly he would take +care not to withhold them. + +Gwendolen, indeed, with all that gnawing trouble in her consciousness, +had hardly for a moment dropped the sense that it was her part to bear +herself with dignity, and appear what is called happy. In disclosure of +disappointment or sorrow she saw nothing but a humiliation which would +have been vinegar to her wounds. Whatever her husband might have come +at last to be to her, she meant to wear the yoke so as not to be +pitied. For she did think of the coming years with presentiment: she +was frightened at Grandcourt. The poor thing had passed from her +girlish sauciness of superiority over this inert specimen of personal +distinction into an amazed perception of her former ignorance about the +possible mental attitude of a man toward the woman he sought in +marriage—of her present ignorance as to what their life with each +other might turn into. For novelty gives immeasurableness to fear, and +fills the early time of all sad changes with phantoms of the future. +Her little coquetries, voluntary or involuntary, had told on Grandcourt +during courtship, and formed a medium of communication between them, +showing him in the light of a creature such as she could understand and +manage: but marriage had nullified all such interchange, and Grandcourt +had become a blank uncertainty to her in everything but this, that he +would do just what he willed, and that she had neither devices at her +command to determine his will, nor any rational means of escaping it. + +What had occurred between them and her wearing the diamonds was +typical. One evening, shortly before they came to the Abbey, they were +going to dine at Brackenshaw Castle. Gwendolen had said to herself that +she would never wear those diamonds: they had horrible words clinging +and crawling about them, as from some bad dream, whose images lingered +on the perturbed sense. She came down dressed in her white, with only a +streak of gold and a pendant of emeralds, which Grandcourt had given +her, round her neck, and the little emerald stars in her ears. + +Grandcourt stood with his back to the fire and looked at her as she +entered. + +“Am I altogether as you like?” she said, speaking rather gaily. She was +not without enjoyment in this occasion of going to Brackenshaw Castle +with her new dignities upon her, as men whose affairs are sadly +involved will enjoy dining out among persons likely to be under a +pleasant mistake about them. + +“No,” said Grandcourt. + +Gwendolen felt suddenly uncomfortable, wondering what was to come. She +was not unprepared for some struggle about the diamonds; but suppose he +were going to say, in low, contemptuous tones, “You are not in any way +what I like.” It was very bad for her to be secretly hating him; but it +would be much worse when he gave the first sign of hating her. + +“Oh, mercy!” she exclaimed, the pause lasting till she could bear it no +longer. “How am I to alter myself?” + +“Put on the diamonds,” said Grandcourt, looking straight at her with +his narrow glance. + +Gwendolen paused in her turn, afraid of showing any emotion, and +feeling that nevertheless there was some change in her eyes as they met +his. But she was obliged to answer, and said as indifferently as she +could, “Oh, please not. I don’t think diamonds suit me.” + +“What you think has nothing to do with it,” said Grandcourt, his _sotto +voce_ imperiousness seeming to have an evening quietude and finish, +like his toilet. “I wish you to wear the diamonds.” + +“Pray excuse me; I like these emeralds,” said Gwendolen, frightened in +spite of her preparation. That white hand of his which was touching his +whisker was capable, she fancied, of clinging round her neck and +threatening to throttle her; for her fear of him, mingling with the +vague foreboding of some retributive calamity which hung about her +life, had reached a superstitious point. + +“Oblige me by telling me your reason for not wearing the diamonds when +I desire it,” said Grandcourt. His eyes were still fixed upon her, and +she felt her own eyes narrowing under them as if to shut out an +entering pain. + +Of what use was the rebellion within her? She could say nothing that +would not hurt her worse than submission. Turning slowly and covering +herself again, she went to her dressing-room. As she reached out the +diamonds, it occurred to her that her unwillingness to wear them might +have already raised a suspicion in Grandcourt that she had some +knowledge about them which he had not given her. She fancied that his +eyes showed a delight in torturing her. How could she be defiant? She +had nothing to say that would touch him—nothing but what would give +him a more painful grasp on her consciousness. + +“He delights in making the dogs and horses quail: that is half his +pleasure in calling them his,” she said to herself, as she opened the +jewel-case with a shivering sensation. + +“It will come to be so with me; and I shall quail. What else is there +for me? I will not say to the world, ‘Pity me.’” + +She was about to ring for her maid when she heard the door open behind +her. It was Grandcourt who came in. + +“You want some one to fasten them,” he said, coming toward her. + +She did not answer, but simply stood still, leaving him to take out the +ornaments and fasten them as he would. Doubtless he had been used to +fasten them on some one else. With a bitter sort of sarcasm against +herself, Gwendolen thought, “What a privilege this is, to have robbed +another woman of!” + +“What makes you so cold?” said Grandcourt, when he had fastened the +last ear-ring. “Pray put plenty of furs on. I hate to see a woman come +into a room looking frozen. If you are to appear as a bride at all, +appear decently.” + +This marital speech was not exactly persuasive, but it touched the +quick of Gwendolen’s pride and forced her to rally. The words of the +bad dream crawled about the diamonds still, but only for her: to others +they were brilliants that suited her perfectly, and Grandcourt inwardly +observed that she answered to the rein. + +“Oh, yes, mamma, quite happy,” Gwendolen had said on her return to +Diplow. “Not at all disappointed in Ryelands. It is a much finer place +than this—larger in every way. But don’t you want some more money?” + +“Did you not know that Mr. Grandcourt left me a letter on your +wedding-day? I am to have eight hundred a year. He wishes me to keep +Offendene for the present, while you are at Diplow. But if there were +some pretty cottage near the park at Ryelands we might live there +without much expense, and I should have you most of the year, perhaps.” + +“We must leave that to Mr. Grandcourt, mamma.” + +“Oh, certainly. It is exceedingly handsome of him to say that he will +pay the rent for Offendene till June. And we can go on very +well—without any man-servant except Crane, just for out-of-doors. Our +good Merry will stay with us and help me to manage everything. It is +natural that Mr. Grandcourt should wish me to live in a good style of +house in your neighborhood, and I cannot decline. So he said nothing +about it to you?” + +“No; he wished me to hear it from you, I suppose.” + +Gwendolen in fact had been very anxious to have some definite knowledge +of what would be done for her mother, but at no moment since her +marriage had she been able to overcome the difficulty of mentioning the +subject to Grandcourt. Now, however, she had a sense of obligation +which would not let her rest without saying to him, “It is very good of +you to provide for mamma. You took a great deal on yourself in marrying +a girl who had nothing but relations belonging to her.” + +Grandcourt was smoking, and only said carelessly, “Of course I was not +going to let her live like a gamekeeper’s mother.” + +“At least he is not mean about money,” thought Gwendolen, “and mamma is +the better off for my marriage.” + +She often pursued the comparison between what might have been, if she +had not married Grandcourt, and what actually was, trying to persuade +herself that life generally was barren of satisfaction, and that if she +had chosen differently she might now have been looking back with a +regret as bitter as the feeling she was trying to argue away. Her +mother’s dullness, which used to irritate her, she was at present +inclined to explain as the ordinary result of woman’s experience. True, +she still saw that she would “manage differently from mamma;” but her +management now only meant that she would carry her troubles with +spirit, and let none suspect them. By and by she promised herself that +she should get used to her heart-sores, and find excitements that would +carry her through life, as a hard gallop carried her through some of +the morning hours. There was gambling: she had heard stories at +Leubronn of fashionable women who gambled in all sorts of ways. It +seemed very flat to her at this distance, but perhaps if she began to +gamble again, the passion might awake. Then there was the pleasure of +producing an effect by her appearance in society: what did celebrated +beauties do in town when their husbands could afford display? All men +were fascinated by them: they had a perfect equipage and toilet, walked +into public places, and bowed, and made the usual answers, and walked +out again, perhaps they bought china, and practiced accomplishments. If +she could only feel a keen appetite for those pleasures—could only +believe in pleasure as she used to do! Accomplishments had ceased to +have the exciting quality of promising any pre-eminence to her; and as +for fascinated gentlemen—adorers who might hover round her with +languishment, and diversify married life with the romantic stir of +mystery, passion, and danger, which her French reading had given her +some girlish notion of—they presented themselves to her imagination +with the fatal circumstance that, instead of fascinating her in return, +they were clad in her own weariness and disgust. The admiring male, +rashly adjusting the expression of his features and the turn of his +conversation to her supposed tastes, had always been an absurd object +to her, and at present seemed rather detestable. Many courses are +actually pursued—follies and sins both convenient and +inconvenient—without pleasure or hope of pleasure; but to solace +ourselves with imagining any course beforehand, there must be some +foretaste of pleasure in the shape of appetite; and Gwendolen’s +appetite had sickened. Let her wander over the possibilities of her +life as she would, an uncertain shadow dogged her. Her confidence in +herself and her destiny had turned into remorse and dread; she trusted +neither herself nor her future. + +This hidden helplessness gave fresh force to the hold Deronda had from +the first taken on her mind, as one who had an unknown standard by +which he judged her. Had he some way of looking at things which might +be a new footing for her—an inward safeguard against possible events +which she dreaded as stored-up retribution? It is one of the secrets in +that change of mental poise which has been fitly named conversion, that +to many among us neither heaven nor earth has any revelation till some +personality touches theirs with a peculiar influence, subduing them +into receptiveness. It had been Gwendolen’s habit to think of the +persons around her as stale books, too familiar to be interesting. +Deronda had lit up her attention with a sense of novelty: not by words +only, but by imagined facts, his influence had entered into the current +of that self-suspicion and self-blame which awakens a new consciousness. + +“I wish he could know everything about me without my telling him,” was +one of her thoughts, as she sat leaning over the end of a couch, +supporting her head with her hand, and looking at herself in a +mirror—not in admiration, but in a sad kind of companionship. “I wish +he knew that I am not so contemptible as he thinks me; that I am in +deep trouble, and want to be something better if I could.” Without the +aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man, +only a few years older than herself, into a priest; a sort of trust +less rare than the fidelity that guards it. Young reverence for one who +is also young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of +temptation, and the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force—not +suspected to be a mere residue from weary experience. + +But the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence. +Those who trust us educate us. And perhaps in that ideal consecration +of Gwendolen’s, some education was being prepared for Deronda. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + “Rien ne pèse tant qu’un secret + Le porter loin est difficile aux dames: + Et je sçais mesme sur ce fait + Bon nombre d’hommes qui sont femmes.” + —LA FONTAINE. + + +Meanwhile Deronda had been fastened and led off by Mr. Vandernoodt, who +wished for a brisker walk, a cigar, and a little gossip. Since we +cannot tell a man his own secrets, the restraint of being in his +company often breeds a desire to pair off in conversation with some +more ignorant person, and Mr. Vandernoodt presently said, + +“What a washed-out piece of cambric Grandcourt is! But if he is a +favorite of yours, I withdraw the remark.” + +“Not the least in the world,” said Deronda. + +“I thought not. One wonders how he came to have a great passion again; +and he must have had—to marry in this way. Though Lush, his old chum, +hints that he married this girl out of obstinacy. By George! it was a +very accountable obstinacy. A man might make up his mind to marry her +without the stimulus of contradiction. But he must have made himself a +pretty large drain of money, eh?” + +“I know nothing of his affairs.” + +“What! not of the other establishment he keeps up?” + +“Diplow? Of course. He took that of Sir Hugo. But merely for the year.” + +“No, no; not Diplow: Gadsmere. Sir Hugo knows, I’ll answer for it.” + +Deronda said nothing. He really began to feel some curiosity, but he +foresaw that he should hear what Mr. Vandernoodt had to tell, without +the condescension of asking. + +“Lush would not altogether own to it, of course. He’s a confident and +go-between of Grandcourt’s. But I have it on the best authority. The +fact is, there’s another lady with four children at Gadsmere. She has +had the upper hand of him these ten years and more, and by what I can +understand has it still—left her husband for him, and used to travel +with him everywhere. Her husband’s dead now; I found a fellow who was +in the same regiment with him, and knew this Mrs. Glasher before she +took wing. A fiery dark-eyed woman—a noted beauty at that time—he +thought she was dead. They say she has Grandcourt under her thumb +still, and it’s a wonder he didn’t marry her, for there’s a very fine +boy, and I understand Grandcourt can do absolutely as he pleases with +the estates. Lush told me as much as that.” + +“What right had he to marry this girl?” said Deronda, with disgust. + +Mr. Vandernoodt, adjusting the end of his cigar, shrugged his shoulders +and put out his lips. + +“_She_ can know nothing of it,” said Deronda, emphatically. But that +positive statement was immediately followed by an inward query—“Could +she have known anything of it?” + +“It’s rather a piquant picture,” said Mr. Vandernoodt—“Grandcourt +between two fiery women. For depend upon it this light-haired one has +plenty of devil in her. I formed that opinion of her at Leubronn. It’s +a sort of Medea and Creüsa business. Fancy the two meeting! Grandcourt +is a new kind of Jason: I wonder what sort of a part he’ll make of it. +It’s a dog’s part at best. I think I hear Ristori now, saying, ‘Jasone! +Jasone!’ These fine women generally get hold of a stick.” + +“Grandcourt can bite, I fancy,” said Deronda. “He is no stick.” + +“No, no; I meant Jason. I can’t quite make out Grandcourt. But he’s a +keen fellow enough—uncommonly well built too. And if he comes into all +this property, the estates will bear dividing. This girl, whose friends +had come to beggary, I understand, may think herself lucky to get him. +I don’t want to be hard on a man because he gets involved in an affair +of that sort. But he might make himself more agreeable. I was telling +him a capital story last night, and he got up and walked away in the +middle. I felt inclined to kick him. Do you suppose that is inattention +or insolence, now?” + +“Oh, a mixture. He generally observes the forms: but he doesn’t listen +much,” said Deronda. Then, after a moment’s pause, he went on, “I +should think there must be some exaggeration or inaccuracy in what you +have heard about this lady at Gadsmere.” + +“Not a bit, depend upon it; it has all lain snug of late years. People +have forgotten all about it. But there the nest is, and the birds are +in it. And I know Grandcourt goes there. I have good evidence that he +goes there. However, that’s nobody’s business but his own. The affair +has sunk below the surface.” + +“I wonder you could have learned so much about it,” said Deronda, +rather drily. + +“Oh, there are plenty of people who knew all about it; but such stories +get packed away like old letters. They interest me. I like to know the +manners of my time—contemporary gossip, not antediluvian. These +Dryasdust fellows get a reputation by raking up some small scandal +about Semiramis or Nitocris, and then we have a thousand and one poems +written upon it by all the warblers big and little. But I don’t care a +straw about the _faux pas_ of the mummies. You do, though. You are one +of the historical men—more interested in a lady when she’s got a rag +face and skeleton toes peeping out. Does that flatter your imagination?” + +“Well, if she had any woes in her love, one has the satisfaction of +knowing that she’s well out of them.” + +“Ah, you are thinking of the Medea, I see.” + +Deronda then chose to point to some giant oaks worth looking at in +their bareness. He also felt an interest in this piece of contemporary +gossip, but he was satisfied that Mr. Vandernoodt had no more to tell +about it. + +Since the early days when he tried to construct the hidden story of his +own birth, his mind had perhaps never been so active in weaving +probabilities about any private affair as it had now begun to be about +Gwendolen’s marriage. This unavowed relation of Grandcourt’s—could she +have gained some knowledge of it, which caused her to shrink from the +match—a shrinking finally overcome by the urgence of poverty? He could +recall almost every word she had said to him, and in certain of these +words he seemed to discern that she was conscious of having done some +wrong—inflicted some injury. His own acute experience made him alive +to the form of injury which might affect the unavowed children and +their mother. Was Mrs. Grandcourt, under all her determined show of +satisfaction, gnawed by a double, a treble-headed grief—self-reproach, +disappointment, jealousy? He dwelt especially on all the slight signs +of self-reproach: he was inclined to judge her tenderly, to excuse, to +pity. He thought he had found a key now by which to interpret her more +clearly: what magnifying of her misery might not a young creature get +into who had wedded her fresh hopes to old secrets! He thought he saw +clearly enough now why Sir Hugo had never dropped any hint of this +affair to him; and immediately the image of this Mrs. Glasher became +painfully associated with his own hidden birth. Gwendolen knowing of +that woman and her children, marrying Grandcourt, and showing herself +contented, would have been among the most repulsive of beings to him; +but Gwendolen tasting the bitterness of remorse for having contributed +to their injury was brought very near to his fellow-feeling. If it were +so, she had got to a common plane of understanding with him on some +difficulties of life which a woman is rarely able to judge of with any +justice or generosity; for, according to precedent, Gwendolen’s view of +her position might easily have been no other than that her husband’s +marriage with her was his entrance on the path of virtue, while Mrs. +Glasher represented his forsaken sin. And Deronda had naturally some +resentment on behalf of the Hagars and Ishmaels. + +Undeniably Deronda’s growing solicitude about Gwendolen depended +chiefly on her peculiar manner toward him; and I suppose neither man +nor woman would be the better for an utter insensibility to such +appeals. One sign that his interest in her had changed its footing was +that he dismissed any caution against her being a coquette setting +snares to involve him in a vulgar flirtation, and determined that he +would not again evade any opportunity of talking to her. He had shaken +off Mr. Vandernoodt, and got into a solitary corner in the twilight; +but half an hour was long enough to think of those possibilities in +Gwendolen’s position and state of mind; and on forming the +determination not to avoid her, he remembered that she was likely to be +at tea with the other ladies in the drawing-room. The conjecture was +true; for Gwendolen, after resolving not to go down again for the next +four hours, began to feel, at the end of one, that in shutting herself +up she missed all chances of seeing and hearing, and that her visit +would only last two days more. She adjusted herself, put on her little +air of self-possession, and going down, made herself resolutely +agreeable. Only ladies were assembled, and Lady Pentreath was amusing +them with a description of a drawing-room under the Regency, and the +figure that was cut by ladies and gentlemen in 1819, the year she was +presented—when Deronda entered. + +“Shall I be acceptable?” he said. “Perhaps I had better go back and +look for the others. I suppose they are in the billiard-room.” + +“No, no; stay where you are,” said Lady Pentreath. “They were all +getting tired of me; let us hear what _you_ have to say.” + +“That is rather an embarrassing appeal,” said Deronda, drawing up a +chair near Lady Mallinger’s elbow at the tea-table. “I think I had +better take the opportunity of mentioning our songstress,” he added, +looking at Lady Mallinger—“unless you have done so.” + +“Oh, the little Jewess!” said Lady Mallinger. “No, I have not mentioned +her. It never entered my head that any one here wanted singing lessons.” + +“All ladies know some one else who wants singing lessons,” said +Deronda. “I have happened to find an exquisite singer,”—here he turned +to Lady Pentreath. “She is living with some ladies who are friends of +mine—the mother and sisters of a man who was my chum at Cambridge. She +was on the stage at Vienna; but she wants to leave that life, and +maintain herself by teaching.” + +“There are swarms of those people, aren’t there?” said the old lady. +“Are her lessons to be very cheap or very expensive? Those are the two +baits I know of.” + +“There is another bait for those who hear her,” said Deronda. “Her +singing is something quite exceptional, I think. She has had such +first-rate teaching—or rather first-rate instinct with her +teaching—that you might imagine her singing all came by nature.” + +“Why did she leave the stage, then?” said Lady Pentreath. “I’m too old +to believe in first-rate people giving up first-rate chances.” + +“Her voice was too weak. It is a delicious voice for a room. You who +put up with my singing of Schubert would be enchanted with hers,” said +Deronda, looking at Mrs. Raymond. “And I imagine she would not object +to sing at private parties or concerts. Her voice is quite equal to +that.” + +“I am to have her in my drawing-room when we go up to town,” said Lady +Mallinger. “You shall hear her then. I have not heard her myself yet; +but I trust Daniel’s recommendation. I mean my girls to have lessons of +her.” + +“Is it a charitable affair?” said Lady Pentreath. “I can’t bear +charitable music.” + +Lady Mallinger, who was rather helpless in conversation, and felt +herself under an engagement not to tell anything of Mirah’s story, had +an embarrassed smile on her face, and glanced at Deronda. + +“It is a charity to those who want to have a good model of feminine +singing,” said Deronda. “I think everybody who has ears would benefit +by a little improvement on the ordinary style. If you heard Miss +Lapidoth”—here he looked at Gwendolen—“perhaps you would revoke your +resolution to give up singing.” + +“I should rather think my resolution would be confirmed,” said +Gwendolen. “I don’t feel able to follow your advice of enjoying my own +middlingness.” + +“For my part,” said Deronda, “people who do anything finely always +inspirit me to try. I don’t mean that they make me believe I can do it +as well. But they make the thing, whatever it may be, seem worthy to be +done. I can bear to think my own music not good for much, but the world +would be more dismal if I thought music itself not good for much. +Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual +wealth of the world.” + +“But then, if we can’t imitate it, it only makes our own life seem the +tamer,” said Gwendolen, in a mood to resent encouragement founded on +her own insignificance. + +“That depends on the point of view, I think,” said Deronda. “We should +have a poor life of it if we were reduced for all our pleasure to our +own performances. A little private imitation of what is good is a sort +of private devotion to it, and most of us ought to practice art only in +the light of private study—preparation to understand and enjoy what +the few can do for us. I think Miss Lapidoth is one of the few.” + +“She must be a very happy person, don’t you think?” said Gwendolen, +with a touch of sarcasm, and a turn of her neck toward Mrs. Raymond. + +“I don’t know,” answered the independent lady; “I must hear more of her +before I say that.” + +“It may have been a bitter disappointment to her that her voice failed +her for the stage,” said Juliet Fenn, sympathetically. + +“I suppose she’s past her best, though,” said the deep voice of Lady +Pentreath. + +“On the contrary, she has not reached it,” said Deronda. “She is barely +twenty.” + +“And very pretty,” interposed Lady Mallinger, with an amiable wish to +help Deronda. “And she has very good manners. I’m sorry she’s a bigoted +Jewess; I should not like it for anything else, but it doesn’t matter +in singing.” + +“Well, since her voice is too weak for her to scream much, I’ll tell +Lady Clementina to set her on my nine granddaughters,” said Lady +Pentreath; “and I hope she’ll convince eight of them that they have not +voice enough to sing anywhere but at church. My notion is, that many of +our girls nowadays want lessons not to sing.” + +“I have had my lessons in that,” said Gwendolen, looking at Deronda. +“You see Lady Pentreath is on my side.” + +While she was speaking, Sir Hugo entered with some of the other +gentlemen, including Grandcourt, and standing against the group at the +low tea-table said, + +“What imposition is Deronda putting on you, ladies—slipping in among +you by himself?” + +“Wanting to pass off an obscurity on us as better than any celebrity,” +said Lady Pentreath—“a pretty singing Jewess who is to astonish these +young people. You and I, who heard Catalani in her prime, are not so +easily astonished.” + +Sir Hugo listened with his good-humored smile as he took a cup of tea +from his wife, and then said, “Well, you know, a Liberal is bound to +think that there have been singers since Catalani’s time.” + +“Ah, you are younger than I am. I dare say you are one of the men who +ran after Alcharisi. But she married off and left you all in the lurch.” + +“Yes, yes; it’s rather too bad when these great singers marry +themselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. And +the husband is a public robber. I remember Leroux saying, ‘A man might +as well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the +steppes,’ said Sir Hugo, setting down his cup and turning away, while +Deronda, who had moved from his place to make room for others, and felt +that he was not in request, sat down a little apart. Presently he +became aware that, in the general dispersion of the group, Gwendolen +had extricated herself from the attentions of Mr. Vandernoodt and had +walked to the piano, where she stood apparently examining the music +which lay on the desk. Will any one be surprised at Deronda’s +concluding that she wished him to join her? Perhaps she wanted to make +amends for the unpleasant tone of resistance with which she had met his +recommendation of Mirah, for he had noticed that her first impulse +often was to say what she afterward wished to retract. He went to her +side and said, + +“Are you relenting about the music and looking for something to play or +sing?” + +“I am not looking for anything, but I _am_ relenting,” said Gwendolen, +speaking in a submissive tone. + +“May I know the reason?” + +“I should like to hear Miss Lapidoth and have lessons from her, since +you admire her so much—that is, of course, when we go to town. I mean +lessons in rejoicing at her excellence and my own deficiency,” said +Gwendolen, turning on him a sweet, open smile. + +“I shall be really glad for you to see and hear her,” said Deronda, +returning the smile in kind. + +“Is she as perfect in every thing else as in her music?” + +“I can’t vouch for that exactly. I have not seen enough of her. But I +have seen nothing in her that I could wish to be different. She has had +an unhappy life. Her troubles began in early childhood, and she has +grown up among very painful surroundings. But I think you will say that +no advantages could have given her more grace and truer refinement.” + +“I wonder what sort of trouble hers were?” + +“I have not any very precise knowledge. But I know that she was on the +brink of drowning herself in despair.” + +“And what hindered her?” said Gwendolen, quickly, looking at Deronda. + +“Some ray or other came—which made her feel that she ought to +live—that it was good to live,” he answered, quietly. “She is full of +piety, and seems capable of submitting to anything when it takes the +form of duty.” + +“Those people are not to be pitied,” said Gwendolen, impatiently. “I +have no sympathy with women who are always doing right. I don’t believe +in their great sufferings.” Her fingers moved quickly among the edges +of the music. + +“It is true,” said Deronda, “that the consciousness of having done +wrong is something deeper, more bitter. I suppose we faulty creatures +can never feel so much for the irreproachable as for those who are +bruised in the struggle with their own faults. It is a very ancient +story, that of the lost sheep—but it comes up afresh every day.” + +“That is a way of speaking—it is not acted upon, it is not real,” said +Gwendolen, bitterly. “You admire Miss Lapidoth because you think her +blameless, perfect. And you know you would despise a woman who had done +something you thought very wrong.” + +“That would depend entirely upon her own view of what she had done,” +said Deronda. + +“You would be satisfied if she were very wretched, I suppose,” said +Gwendolen, impetuously. + +“No, not satisfied—full of sorrow for her. It was not a mere way of +speaking. I did not mean to say that the finer nature is not more +adorable; I meant that those who would be comparatively uninteresting +beforehand may become worthier of sympathy when they do something that +awakens in them a keen remorse. Lives are enlarged in different ways. I +dare say some would never get their eyes opened if it were not for a +violent shock from the consequences of their own actions. And when they +are suffering in that way one must care for them more than for the +comfortably self-satisfied.” Deronda forgot everything but his vision +of what Gwendolen’s experience had probably been, and urged by +compassion let his eyes and voice express as much interest as they +would. + +Gwendolen had slipped on to the music-stool, and looked up at him with +pain in her long eyes, like a wounded animal asking for help. + +“Are you persuading Mrs. Grandcourt to play to us, Dan?” said Sir Hugo, +coming up and putting his hand on Deronda’s shoulder with a gentle, +admonitory pinch. + +“I cannot persuade myself,” said Gwendolen, rising. + +Others had followed Sir Hugo’s lead, and there was an end of any +liability to confidences for that day. But the next was New Year’s Eve; +and a grand dance, to which the chief tenants were invited, was to be +held in the picture-gallery above the cloister—the sort of +entertainment in which numbers and general movement may create privacy. +When Gwendolen was dressing, she longed, in remembrance of Leubronn, to +put on the old turquoise necklace for her sole ornament; but she dared +not offend her husband by appearing in that shabby way on an occasion +when he would demand her utmost splendor. Determined to wear the +memorial necklace somehow, she wound it thrice round her wrist and made +a bracelet of it—having gone to her room to put it on just before the +time of entering the ball-room. + +It was always a beautiful scene, this dance on New Year’s Eve, which +had been kept up by the family tradition as nearly in the old fashion +as inexorable change would allow. Red carpet was laid down for the +occasion: hot-house plants and evergreens were arranged in bowers at +the extremities and in every recess of the gallery; and the old +portraits stretching back through generations, even to the +pre-portraying period, made a piquant line of spectators. Some +neighboring gentry, major and minor, were invited; and it was certainly +an occasion when a prospective master and mistress of Abbott’s and +King’s Topping might see their future glory in an agreeable light, as a +picturesque provincial supremacy with a rent-roll personified by the +most prosperous-looking tenants. Sir Hugo expected Grandcourt to feel +flattered by being asked to the Abbey at a time which included this +festival in honor of the family estate; but he also hoped that his own +hale appearance might impress his successor with the probable length of +time that would elapse before the succession came, and with the wisdom +of preferring a good actual sum to a minor property that must be waited +for. All present, down to the least important farmer’s daughter, knew +that they were to see “young Grandcourt,” Sir Hugo’s nephew, the +presumptive heir and future baronet, now visiting the Abbey with his +bride after an absence of many years; any coolness between uncle and +nephew having, it is understood, given way to a friendly warmth. The +bride opening the ball with Sir Hugo was necessarily the cynosure of +all eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could have +shown Gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself +moving in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she +held in her hands a life full of favorable chances which her cleverness +and spirit would enable her to make the best of. And now she was +wondering that she could get so little joy out of the exaltation to +which she had been suddenly lifted, away from the distasteful petty +empire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction and +superfluity of sisters. She would have been glad to be even +unreasonably elated, and to forget everything but the flattery of the +moment; but she was like one courting sleep, in whom thoughts insist +like willful tormentors. + +Wondering in this way at her own dullness, and all the while longing +for an excitement that would deaden importunate aches, she was passing +through files of admiring beholders in the country-dance with which it +was traditional to open the ball, and was being generally regarded by +her own sex as an enviable woman. It was remarked that she carried +herself with a wonderful air, considering that she had been nobody in +particular, and without a farthing to her fortune. If she had been a +duke’s daughter, or one of the royal princesses, she could not have +taken the honors of the evening more as a matter of course. Poor +Gwendolen! It would by-and-by become a sort of skill in which she was +automatically practiced to bear this last great gambling loss with an +air of perfect self-possession. + +The next couple that passed were also worth looking at. Lady Pentreath +had said, “I shall stand up for one dance, but I shall choose my +partner. Mr. Deronda, you are the youngest man, I mean to dance with +you. Nobody is old enough to make a good pair with me. I must have a +contrast.” And the contrast certainly set off the old lady to the +utmost. She was one of those women who are never handsome till they are +old, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the beauty of age as early +as possible. What might have seemed harshness in her features when she +was young, had turned now into a satisfactory strength of form and +expression which defied wrinkles, and was set off by a crown of white +hair; her well-built figure was well covered with black drapery, her +ears and neck comfortably caressed with lace, showing none of those +withered spaces which one would think it a pitiable condition of +poverty to expose. She glided along gracefully enough, her dark eyes +still with a mischievous smile in them as she observed the company. Her +partner’s young richness of tint against the flattened hues and rougher +forms of her aged head had an effect something like that of a fine +flower against a lichenous branch. Perhaps the tenants hardly +appreciated this pair. Lady Pentreath was nothing more than a straight, +active old lady: Mr. Deronda was a familiar figure regarded with +friendliness; but if he had been the heir, it would have been regretted +that his face was not as unmistakably English as Sir Hugo’s. + +Grandcourt’s appearance when he came up with Lady Mallinger was not +impeached with foreignness: still the satisfaction in it was not +complete. It would have been matter of congratulation if one who had +the luck to inherit two old family estates had had more hair, a fresher +color, and a look of greater animation; but that fine families dwindled +off into females, and estates ran together into the single heirship of +a mealy-complexioned male, was a tendency in things which seemed to be +accounted for by a citation of other instances. It was agreed that Mr. +Grandcourt could never be taken for anything but what he was—a born +gentleman; and that, in fact, he looked like an heir. Perhaps the +person least complacently disposed toward him at that moment was Lady +Mallinger, to whom going in procession up this country-dance with +Grandcourt was a blazonment of herself as the infelicitous wife who had +produced nothing but daughters, little better than no children, poor +dear things, except for her own fondness and for Sir Hugo’s wonderful +goodness to them. But such inward discomfort could not prevent the +gentle lady from looking fair and stout to admiration, or her full blue +eyes from glancing mildly at her neighbors. All the mothers and fathers +held it a thousand pities that she had not had a fine boy, or even +several—which might have been expected, to look at her when she was +first married. + +The gallery included only three sides of the quadrangle, the fourth +being shut off as a lobby or corridor: one side was used for dancing, +and the opposite side for the supper-table, while the intermediate part +was less brilliantly lit, and fitted with comfortable seats. Later in +the evening Gwendolen was in one of these seats, and Grandcourt was +standing near her. They were not talking to each other: she was leaning +backward in her chair, and he against the wall; and Deronda, happening +to observe this, went up to ask her if she had resolved not to dance +any more. Having himself been doing hard duty in this way among the +guests, he thought he had earned the right to sink for a little while +into the background, and he had spoken little to Gwendolen since their +conversation at the piano the day before. Grandcourt’s presence would +only make it the easier to show that pleasure in talking to her even +about trivialities which would be a sign of friendliness; and he +fancied that her face looked blank. A smile beamed over it as she saw +him coming, and she raised herself from her leaning posture. Grandcourt +had been grumbling at the _ennui_ of staying so long in this stupid +dance, and proposing that they should vanish: she had resisted on the +ground of politeness—not without being a little frightened at the +probability that he was silently angry with her. She had her reason +for staying, though she had begun to despair of the opportunity for the +sake of which she had put the old necklace on her wrist. But now at +last Deronda had come. + +“Yes; I shall not dance any more. Are you not glad?” she said, with +some gayety, “you might have felt obliged humbly to offer yourself as a +partner, and I feel sure you have danced more than you like already.” + +“I will not deny that,” said Deronda, “since you have danced as much as +you like.” + +“But will you take trouble for me in another way, and fetch me a glass +of that fresh water?” + +It was but a few steps that Deronda had to go for the water. Gwendolen +was wrapped in the lightest, softest of white woolen burnouses, under +which her hands were hidden. While he was gone she had drawn off her +glove, which was finished with a lace ruffle, and when she put up her +hand to take the glass and lifted it to her mouth, the +necklace-bracelet, which in its triple winding adapted itself clumsily +to her wrist, was necessarily conspicuous. Grandcourt saw it, and saw +that it was attracting Deronda’s notice. + +“What is that hideous thing you have got on your wrist?” said the +husband. + +“That?” said Gwendolen, composedly, pointing to the turquoises, while +she still held the glass; “it is an old necklace I like to wear. I lost +it once, and someone found it for me.” + +With that she gave the glass again to Deronda, who immediately carried +it away, and on returning said, in order to banish any consciousness +about the necklace, + +“It is worth while for you to go and look out at one of the windows on +that side. You can see the finest possible moonlight on the stone +pillars and carving, and shadows waving across it in the wind.” + +“I should like to see it. Will you go?” said Gwendolen, looking up at +her husband. + +He cast his eyes down at her, and saying, “No, Deronda will take you,” +slowly moved from his leaning attitude, and walked away. + +Gwendolen’s face for a moment showed a fleeting vexation: she resented +this show of indifference toward her. Deronda felt annoyed, chiefly for +her sake; and with a quick sense, that it would relieve her most to +behave as if nothing peculiar had occurred, he said, “Will you take my +arm and go, while only servants are there?” He thought that he +understood well her action in drawing his attention to the necklace: +she wished him to infer that she had submitted her mind to rebuke—her +speech and manner had from the first fluctuated toward that +submission—and that she felt no lingering resentment. Her evident +confidence in his interpretation of her appealed to him as a peculiar +claim. + +When they were walking together, Gwendolen felt as if the annoyance +which had just happened had removed another film of reserve from +between them, and she had more right than before to be as open as she +wished. She did not speak, being filled with the sense of silent +confidence, until they were in front of the window looking out on the +moonlit court. A sort of bower had been made round the window, turning +it into a recess. Quitting his arm, she folded her hands in her +burnous, and pressed her brow against the glass. He moved slightly +away, and held the lapels of his coat with his thumbs under the collar +as his manner was: he had a wonderful power of standing perfectly +still, and in that position reminded one sometimes of Dante’s _spiriti +magni con occhi tardi e gravi_. (Doubtless some of these danced in +their youth, doubted of their own vocation, and found their own times +too modern.) He abstained from remarking on the scene before them, +fearing that any indifferent words might jar on her: already the calm +light and shadow, the ancient steadfast forms, and aloofness enough +from those inward troubles which he felt sure were agitating her. And +he judged aright: she would have been impatient of polite conversation. +The incidents of the last minute or two had receded behind former +thoughts which she had imagined herself uttering to Deronda, which now +urged themselves to her lips. In a subdued voice, she said, + +“Suppose I had gambled again, and lost the necklace again, what should +you have thought of me?” + +“Worse than I do now.” + +“Then you are mistaken about me. You wanted me not to do that—not to +make my gain out of another’s loss in that way—and I have done a great +deal worse.” + +“I can’t imagine temptations,” said Deronda. “Perhaps I am able to +understand what you mean. At least I understand self-reproach.” In +spite of preparation he was almost alarmed at Gwendolen’s precipitancy +of confidence toward him, in contrast with her habitual resolute +concealment. + +“What should you do if you were like me—feeling that you were wrong +and miserable, and dreading everything to come?” It seemed that she was +hurrying to make the utmost use of this opportunity to speak as she +would. + +“That is not to be amended by doing one thing only—but many,” said +Deronda, decisively. + +“What?” said Gwendolen, hastily, moving her brow from the glass and +looking at him. + +He looked full at her in return, with what she thought was severity. He +felt that it was not a moment in which he must let himself be tender, +and flinch from implying a hard opinion. + +“I mean there are many thoughts and habits that may help us to bear +inevitable sorrow. Multitudes have to bear it.” + +She turned her brow to the window again, and said impatiently, “You +must tell me then what to think and what to do; else why did you not +let me go on doing as I liked and not minding? If I had gone on +gambling I might have won again, and I might have got not to care for +anything else. You would not let me do that. Why shouldn’t I do as I +like, and not mind? Other people do.” Poor Gwendolen’s speech expressed +nothing very clearly except her irritation. + +“I don’t believe you would ever get not to mind,” said Deronda, with +deep-toned decision. “If it were true that baseness and cruelty made an +escape from pain, what difference would that make to people who can’t +be quite base or cruel? Idiots escape some pain; but you can’t be an +idiot. Some may do wrong to another without remorse; but suppose one +does feel remorse? I believe you could never lead an injurious +life—all reckless lives are injurious, pestilential—without feeling +remorse.” Deronda’s unconscious fervor had gathered as he went on: he +was uttering thoughts which he had used for himself in moments of +painful meditation. + +“Then tell me what better I can do,” said Gwendolen, insistently. + +“Many things. Look on other lives besides your own. See what their +troubles are, and how they are borne. Try to care about something in +this vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires. Try +to care for what is best in thought and action—something that is good +apart from the accidents of your own lot.” + +For an instant or two Gwendolen was mute. Then, again moving her brow +from the glass, she said, + +“You mean that I am selfish and ignorant.” + +He met her fixed look in silence before he answered firmly—“You will +not go on being selfish and ignorant!” + +She did not turn away her glance or let her eyelids fall, but a change +came over her face—that subtle change in nerve and muscle which will +sometimes give a childlike expression even to the elderly: it is the +subsidence of self-assertion. + +“Shall I lead you back?” said Deronda, gently, turning and offering her +his arm again. She took it silently, and in that way they came in sight +of Grandcourt, who was walking slowly near their former place. +Gwendolen went up to him and said, “I am ready to go now. Mr. Deronda +will excuse us to Lady Mallinger.” + +“Certainly,” said Deronda. “Lord and Lady Pentreath disappeared some +time ago.” + +Grandcourt gave his arm in silent compliance, nodding over his shoulder +to Deronda, and Gwendolen too only half turned to bow and say, +“Thanks.” The husband and wife left the gallery and paced the corridors +in silence. When the door had closed on them in the boudoir, Grandcourt +threw himself into a chair and said, with undertoned peremptoriness, +“Sit down.” She, already in the expectation of something unpleasant, +had thrown off her burnous with nervous unconsciousness, and +immediately obeyed. Turning his eyes toward her, he began, + +“Oblige me in future by not showing whims like a mad woman in a play.” + +“What do you mean?” said Gwendolen. + +“I suppose there is some understanding between you and Deronda about +that thing you have on your wrist. If you have anything to say to him, +say it. But don’t carry on a telegraphing which other people are +supposed not to see. It’s damnably vulgar.” + +“You can know all about the necklace,” said Gwendolen, her angry pride +resisting the nightmare of fear. + +“I don’t want to know. Keep to yourself whatever you like.” Grandcourt +paused between each sentence, and in each his speech seemed to become +more preternaturally distinct in its inward tones. “What I care to know +I shall know without your telling me. Only you will please to behave as +becomes my wife. And not make a spectacle of yourself.” + +“Do you object to my talking to Mr. Deronda?” + +“I don’t care two straws about Deronda, or any other conceited +hanger-on. You may talk to him as much as you like. He is not going to +take my place. You are my wife. And you will either fill your place +properly—to the world and to me—or you will go to the devil.” + +“I never intended anything but to fill my place properly,” said +Gwendolen, with bitterest mortification in her soul. + +“You put that thing on your wrist, and hid it from me till you wanted +him to see it. Only fools go into that deaf and dumb talk, and think +they’re secret. You will understand that you are not to compromise +yourself. Behave with dignity. That’s all I have to say.” + +With that last word Grandcourt rose, turned his back to the fire and +looked down on her. She was mute. There was no reproach that she dared +to fling back at him in return for these insulting admonitions, and the +very reason she felt them to be insulting was that their purport went +with the most absolute dictate of her pride. What she would least like +to incur was the making a fool of herself and being compromised. It was +futile and irrelevant to try and explain that Deronda too had only been +a monitor—the strongest of all monitors. Grandcourt was contemptuous, +not jealous; contemptuously certain of all the subjection he cared for. +Why could she not rebel and defy him? She longed to do it. But she +might as well have tried to defy the texture of her nerves and the +palpitation of her heart. Her husband had a ghostly army at his back, +that could close round her wherever she might turn. She sat in her +splendid attire, like a white image of helplessness, and he seemed to +gratify himself with looking at her. She could not even make a +passionate exclamation, or throw up her arms, as she would have done in +her maiden days. The sense of his scorn kept her still. + +“Shall I ring?” he said, after what seemed to her a long while. She +moved her head in assent, and after ringing he went to his +dressing-room. + +Certain words were gnawing within her. “The wrong you have done me will +be your own curse.” As he closed the door, the bitter tears rose, and +the gnawing words provoked an answer: “Why did you put your fangs into +me and not into him?” It was uttered in a whisper, as the tears came up +silently. But she immediately pressed her handkerchief against her +eyes, and checked her tendency to sob. + +The next day, recovered from the shuddering fit of this evening scene, +she determined to use the charter which Grandcourt had scornfully given +her, and to talk as much as she liked with Deronda; but no +opportunities occurred, and any little devices she could imagine for +creating them were rejected by her pride, which was now doubly active. +Not toward Deronda himself—she was singularly free from alarm lest he +should think her openness wanting in dignity: it was part of his power +over her that she believed him free from all misunderstanding as to the +way in which she appealed to him; or rather, that he should +misunderstand her had never entered into her mind. But the last morning +came, and still she had never been able to take up the dropped thread +of their talk, and she was without devices. She and Grandcourt were to +leave at three o’clock. It was too irritating that after a walk in the +grounds had been planned in Deronda’s hearing, he did not present +himself to join in it. Grandcourt was gone with Sir Hugo to King’s +Topping, to see the old manor-house; others of the gentlemen were +shooting; she was condemned to go and see the decoy and the water-fowl, +and everything else that she least wanted to see, with the ladies, with +old Lord Pentreath and his anecdotes, with Mr. Vandernoodt and his +admiring manners. The irritation became too strong for her; without +premeditation, she took advantage of the winding road to linger a +little out of sight, and then set off back to the house, almost running +when she was safe from observation. She entered by a side door, and the +library was on her left hand; Deronda, she knew, was often there; why +might she not turn in there as well as into any other room in the +house? She had been taken there expressly to see the illuminated family +tree, and other remarkable things—what more natural than that she +should like to look in again? The thing most to be feared was that the +room would be empty of Deronda, for the door was ajar. She pushed it +gently, and looked round it. He was there, writing busily at a distant +table, with his back toward the door (in fact, Sir Hugo had asked him +to answer some constituents’ letters which had become pressing). An +enormous log fire, with the scent of Russia from the books, made the +great room as warmly odorous as a private chapel in which the censers +have been swinging. It seemed too daring to go in—too rude to speak +and interrupt him; yet she went in on the noiseless carpet, and stood +still for two or three minutes, till Deronda, having finished a letter, +pushed it aside for signature, and threw himself back to consider +whether there were anything else for him to do, or whether he could +walk out for the chance of meeting the party which included Gwendolen, +when he heard her voice saying, “Mr. Deronda.” + +It was certainly startling. He rose hastily, turned round, and pushed +away his chair with a strong expression of surprise. + +“Am I wrong to come in?” said Gwendolen. + +“I thought you were far on your walk,” said Deronda. + +“I turned back,” said Gwendolen. + +“Do you intend to go out again? I could join you now, if you would +allow me.” + +“No; I want to say something, and I can’t stay long,” said Gwendolen, +speaking quickly in a subdued tone, while she walked forward and rested +her arms and muff on the back of the chair he had pushed away from him. +“I want to tell you that it is really so—I can’t help feeling remorse +for having injured others. That was what I meant when I said that I had +done worse than gamble again and pawn the necklace again—something +more injurious, as you called it. And I can’t alter it. I am punished, +but I can’t alter it. You said I could do many things. Tell me again. +What should you do—what should you feel if you were in my place?” + +The hurried directness with which she spoke—the absence of all her +little airs, as if she were only concerned to use the time in getting +an answer that would guide her, made her appeal unspeakably touching. + +Deronda said, “I should feel something of what you feel—deep sorrow.” + +“But what would you try to do?” said Gwendolen, with urgent quickness. + +“Order my life so as to make any possible amends, and keep away from +doing any sort of injury again,” said Deronda, catching her sense that +the time for speech was brief. + +“But I can’t—I can’t; I must go on,” said Gwendolen, in a passionate +loud whisper. “I have thrust out others—I have made my gain out of +their loss—tried to make it—tried. And I must go on. I can’t alter +it.” + +It was impossible to answer this instantaneously. Her words had +confirmed his conjecture, and the situation of all concerned rose in +swift images before him. His feeling for those who had been thrust out +sanctioned her remorse; he could not try to nullify it, yet his heart +was full of pity for her. But as soon as he could he answered—taking +up her last words, + +“That is the bitterest of all—to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing. +But if you submitted to that as men submit to maiming or life-long +incurable disease?—and made the unalterable wrong a reason for more +effort toward a good, that may do something to counterbalance the evil? +One who has committed irremediable errors may be scourged by that +consciousness into a higher course than is common. There are many +examples. Feeling what it is to have spoiled one life may well make us +long to save other lives from being spoiled.” + +“But you have not wronged any one, or spoiled their lives,” said +Gwendolen, hastily. “It is only others who have wronged _you_.” + +Deronda colored slightly, but said immediately—“I suppose our keen +feeling for ourselves might end in giving us a keen feeling for others, +if, when we are suffering acutely, we were to consider that others go +through the same sharp experience. That is a sort of remorse before +commission. Can’t you understand that?” + +“I think I do—now,” said Gwendolen. “But you were right—I _am_ +selfish. I have never thought much of any one’s feelings, except my +mother’s. I have not been fond of people. But what can I do?” she went +on, more quickly. “I must get up in the morning and do what every one +else does. It is all like a dance set beforehand. I seem to see all +that can be—and I am tired and sick of it. And the world is all +confusion to me”—she made a gesture of disgust. “You say I am +ignorant. But what is the good of trying to know more, unless life were +worth more?” + +“This good,” said Deronda promptly, with a touch of indignant severity, +which he was inclined to encourage as his own safeguard; “life _would_ +be worth more to you: some real knowledge would give you an interest in +the world beyond the small drama of personal desires. It is the curse +of your life—forgive me—of so many lives, that all passion is spent +in that narrow round, for want of ideas and sympathies to make a larger +home for it. Is there any single occupation of mind that you care about +with passionate delight or even independent interest?” + +Deronda paused, but Gwendolen, looking startled and thrilled as by an +electric shock, said nothing, and he went on more insistently, + +“I take what you said of music for a small example—it answers for all +larger things—you will not cultivate it for the sake of a private joy +in it. What sort of earth or heaven would hold any spiritual wealth in +it for souls pauperized by inaction? If one firmament has no stimulus +for our attention and awe, I don’t see how four would have it. We +should stamp every possible world with the flatness of our own +inanity—which is necessarily impious, without faith or fellowship. The +refuge you are needing from personal trouble is the higher, the +religious life, which holds an enthusiasm for something more than our +own appetites and vanities. The few may find themselves in it simply by +an elevation of feeling; but for us who have to struggle for our +wisdom, the higher life must be a region in which the affections are +clad with knowledge.” + +The half-indignant remonstrance that vibrated in Deronda’s voice came, +as often happens, from the habit of inward argument with himself rather +than from severity toward Gwendolen: but it had a more beneficial +effect on her than any soothings. Nothing is feebler than the indolent +rebellion of complaint; and to be roused into self-judgment is +comparative activity. For the moment she felt like a shaken +child—shaken out of its wailing into awe, and she said humbly, + +“I will try. I will think.” + +They both stood silent for a minute, as if some third presence had +arrested them,—for Deronda, too, was under that sense of pressure +which is apt to come when our own winged words seem to be hovering +around us,—till Gwendolen began again, + +“You said affection was the best thing, and I have hardly any—none +about me. If I could, I would have mamma; but that is impossible. +Things have changed to me so—in such a short time. What I used not to +like I long for now. I think I am almost getting fond of the old things +now they are gone.” Her lip trembled. + +“Take the present suffering as a painful letting in of light,” said +Deronda, more gently. “You are conscious of more beyond the round of +your own inclinations—you know more of the way in which your life +presses on others, and their life on yours. I don’t think you could +have escaped the painful process in some form or other.” + +“But it is a very cruel form,” said Gwendolen, beating her foot on the +ground with returning agitation. “I am frightened at everything. I am +frightened at myself. When my blood is fired I can do daring +things—take any leap; but that makes me frightened at myself.” She was +looking at nothing outside her; but her eyes were directed toward the +window, away from Deronda, who, with quick comprehension said, + +“Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of +increasing that remorse which is so bitter to you. Fixed meditation may +do a great deal toward defining our longing or dread. We are not always +in a state of strong emotion, and when we are calm we can use our +memories and gradually change the bias of our fear, as we do our +tastes. Take your fear as a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing. +It may make consequences passionately present to you. Try to take hold +of your sensibility, and use it as if it were a faculty, like vision.” +Deronda uttered each sentence more urgently; he felt as if he were +seizing a faint chance of rescuing her from some indefinite danger. + +“Yes, I know; I understand what you mean,” said Gwendolen in her loud +whisper, not turning her eyes, but lifting up her small gloved hand and +waving it in deprecation of the notion that it was easy to obey that +advice. “But if feelings rose—there are some feelings—hatred and +anger—how can I be good when they keep rising? And if there came a +moment when I felt stifled and could bear it no longer——” She broke +off, and with agitated lips looked at Deronda, but the expression on +his face pierced her with an entirely new feeling. He was under the +baffling difficulty of discerning that what he had been urging on her +was thrown into the pallid distance of mere thought before the outburst +of her habitual emotion. It was as if he saw her drowning while his +limbs were bound. The pained compassion which was spread over his +features as he watched her, affected her with a compunction unlike any +she had felt before, and in a changed and imploring tone she said, + +“I am grieving you. I am ungrateful. You _can_ help me. I will think of +everything. I will try. Tell me—it will not be a pain to you that I +have dared to speak of my trouble to you? You began it, you know, when +you rebuked me.” There was a melancholy smile on her lips as she said +that, but she added more entreatingly, “It will not be a pain to you?” + +“Not if it does anything to save you from an evil to come,” said +Deronda, with strong emphasis; “otherwise, it will be a lasting pain.” + +“No—no—it shall not be. It may be—it shall be better with me because +I have known you.” She turned immediately, and quitted the room. + +When she was on the first landing of the staircase, Sir Hugo passed +across the hall on his way to the library, and saw her. Grandcourt was +not with him. + +Deronda, when the baronet entered, was standing in his ordinary +attitude, grasping his coat-collar, with his back to the table, and +with that indefinable expression by which we judge that a man is still +in the shadow of a scene which he has just gone through. He moved, +however, and began to arrange the letters. + +“Has Mrs. Grandcourt been in here?” said Sir Hugo. + +“Yes, she has.” + +“Where are the others?” + +“I believe she left them somewhere in the grounds.” + +After a moment’s silence, in which Sir Hugo looked at a letter without +reading it, he said “I hope you are not playing with fire, Dan—you +understand me?” + +“I believe I do, sir,” said Deronda, after a slight hesitation, which +had some repressed anger in it. “But there is nothing answering to your +metaphor—no fire, and therefore no chance of scorching.” + +Sir Hugo looked searchingly at him, and then said, “So much the better. +For, between ourselves, I fancy there may be some hidden gunpowder in +that establishment.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + + _Aspern._ Pardon, my lord—I speak for Sigismund. + _Fronsberg._ For him? Oh, ay—for him I always hold + A pardon safe in bank, sure he will draw + Sooner or later on me. What his need? + Mad project broken? fine mechanic wings + That would not fly? durance, assault on watch, + Bill for Epernay, not a crust to eat? + _Aspern._ Oh, none of these, my lord; he has escaped + From Circe’s herd, and seeks to win the love + Of your fair ward Cecilia: but would win + First your consent. You frown. + _Fronsberg._ Distinguish words. + I said I held a pardon, not consent. + + +In spite of Deronda’s reasons for wishing to be in town again—reasons +in which his anxiety for Mirah was blent with curiosity to know more of +the enigmatic Mordecai—he did not manage to go up before Sir Hugo, who +preceded his family that he might be ready for the opening of +Parliament on the sixth of February. Deronda took up his quarters in +Park Lane, aware that his chambers were sufficiently tenanted by Hans +Meyrick. This was what he expected; but he found other things not +altogether according to his expectations. + +Most of us remember Retzsch’s drawing of destiny in the shape of +Mephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which +we may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves +so as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away +from the true point of attack. The fiend makes preparation his favorite +object of mockery, that he may fatally persuade us against our taking +out waterproofs when he is well aware the sky is going to clear, +foreseeing that the imbecile will turn this delusion into a prejudice +against waterproofs instead of giving a closer study to the +weather-signs. It is a peculiar test of a man’s mettle when, after he +has painfully adjusted himself to what seems a wise provision, he finds +all his mental precaution a little beside the mark, and his excellent +intentions no better than miscalculated dovetails, accurately cut from +a wrong starting-point. His magnanimity has got itself ready to meet +misbehavior, and finds quite a different call upon it. Something of +this kind happened to Deronda. + +His first impression was one of pure pleasure and amusement at finding +his sitting-room transformed into an _atelier_ strewed with +miscellaneous drawings and with the contents of two chests from Rome, +the lower half of the windows darkened with baize, and the blonde Hans +in his weird youth as the presiding genius of the littered place—his +hair longer than of old, his face more whimsically creased, and his +high voice as usual getting higher under the excitement of rapid talk. +The friendship of the two had been kept up warmly since the memorable +Cambridge time, not only by correspondence but by little episodes of +companionship abroad and in England, and the original relation of +confidence on one side and indulgence on the other had been developed +in practice, as is wont to be the case where such spiritual borrowing +and lending has been well begun. + +“I knew you would like to see my casts and antiquities,” said Hans, +after the first hearty greetings and inquiries, “so I didn’t scruple to +unlade my chests here. But I’ve found two rooms at Chelsea not many +hundred yards from my mother and sisters, and I shall soon be ready to +hang out there—when they’ve scraped the walls and put in some new +lights. That’s all I’m waiting for. But you see I don’t wait to begin +work: you can’t conceive what a great fellow I’m going to be. The seed +of immortality has sprouted within me.” + +“Only a fungoid growth, I dare say—a growing disease in the lungs,” +said Deronda, accustomed to treat Hans in brotherly fashion. He was +walking toward some drawings propped on the ledge of his bookcases; +five rapidly-sketched heads—different aspects of the same face. He +stood at a convenient distance from them, without making any remark. +Hans, too, was silent for a minute, took up his palette and began +touching the picture on his easel. + +“What do you think of them?” he said at last. + +“The full face looks too massive; otherwise the likenesses are good,” +said Deronda, more coldly than was usual with him. + +“No, it is not too massive,” said Hans, decisively. “I have noted that. +There is always a little surprise when one passes from the profile to +the full face. But I shall enlarge her scale for Berenice. I am making +a Berenice series—look at the sketches along there—and now I think of +it, you are just the model I want for the Agrippa.” Hans, still with +pencil and palette in hand, had moved to Deronda’s side while he said +this, but he added hastily, as if conscious of a mistake, “No, no, I +forgot; you don’t like sitting for your portrait, confound you! +However, I’ve picked up a capital Titus. There are to be five in the +series. The first is Berenice clasping the knees of Gessius Florus and +beseeching him to spare her people; I’ve got that on the easel. Then, +this, where she is standing on the Xystus with Agrippa, entreating the +people not to injure themselves by resistance.” + +“Agrippa’s legs will never do,” said Deronda. + +“The legs are good realistically,” said Hans, his face creasing drolly; +“public men are often shaky about the legs—’ Their legs, the emblem of +their various thought,’ as somebody says in the _Rehearsal._” + +“But these are as impossible as the legs of Raphael’s Alcibiades,” said +Deronda. + +“Then they are good ideally,” said Hans. “Agrippa’s legs were possibly +bad; I idealize that and make them impossibly bad. Art, my Eugenius, +must intensify. But never mind the legs now: the third sketch in the +series is Berenice exulting in the prospects of being Empress of Rome, +when the news has come that Vespasian is declared Emperor and her lover +Titus his successor.” + +“You must put a scroll in her mouth, else people will not understand +that. You can’t tell that in a picture.” + +“It will make them feel their ignorance then—an excellent æsthetic +effect. The fourth is, Titus sending Berenice away from Rome after she +has shared his palace for ten years—both reluctant, both sad—_invitus +invitam_, as Suetonius hath it. I’ve found a model for the Roman brute.” + +“Shall you make Berenice look fifty? She must have been that.” + +“No, no; a few mature touches to show the lapse of time. Dark-eyed +beauty wears well, hers particularly. But now, here is the fifth: +Berenice seated lonely on the ruins of Jerusalem. That is pure +imagination. That is what ought to have been—perhaps was. Now, see how +I tell a pathetic negative. Nobody knows what became of her—that is +finely indicated by the series coming to a close. There is no sixth +picture.” Here Hans pretended to speak with a gasping sense of +sublimity, and drew back his head with a frown, as if looking for a +like impression on Deronda. “I break off in the Homeric style. The +story is chipped off, so to speak, and passes with a ragged edge into +nothing—_le néant_; can anything be more sublime, especially in +French? The vulgar would desire to see her corpse and burial—perhaps +her will read and her linen distributed. But now come and look at this +on the easel. I have made some way there.” + +“That beseeching attitude is really good,” said Deronda, after a +moment’s contemplation. “You have been very industrious in the +Christmas holidays; for I suppose you have taken up the subject since +you came to London.” Neither of them had yet mentioned Mirah. + +“No,” said Hans, putting touches to his picture, “I made up my mind to +the subject before. I take that lucky chance for an augury that I am +going to burst on the world as a great painter. I saw a splendid woman +in the Trastevere—the grandest women there are half Jewesses—and she +set me hunting for a fine situation of a Jewess at Rome. Like other men +of vast learning, I ended by taking what lay on the surface. I’ll show +you a sketch of the Trasteverina’s head when I can lay my hands on it.” + +“I should think she would be a more suitable model for Berenice,” said +Deronda, not knowing exactly how to express his discontent. + +“Not a bit of it. The model ought to be the most beautiful Jewess in +the world, and I have found her.” + +“Have you made yourself sure that she would like to figure in that +character? I should think no woman would be more abhorrent to her. Does +she quite know what you are doing?” + +“Certainly. I got her to throw herself precisely into this attitude. +Little mother sat for Gessius Florus, and Mirah clasped her knees.” +Here Hans went a little way off and looked at the effect of his touches. + +“I dare say she knows nothing about Berenice’s history,” said Deronda, +feeling more indignation than he would have been able to justify. + +“Oh, yes, she does—ladies’ edition. Berenice was a fervid patriot, but +was beguiled by love and ambition into attaching herself to the +arch-enemy of her people. Whence the Nemesis. Mirah takes it as a +tragic parable, and cries to think what the penitent Berenice suffered +as she wandered back to Jerusalem and sat desolate amidst desolation. +That was her own phrase. I couldn’t find it in my heart to tell her I +invented that part of the story.” + +“Show me your Trasteverina,” said Deronda, chiefly in order to hinder +himself from saying something else. + +“Shall you mind turning over that folio?” said Hans. “My studies of +heads are all there. But they are in confusion. You will perhaps find +her next to a crop-eared undergraduate.” + +After Deronda had been turning over the drawings a minute or two, he +said, + +“These seem to be all Cambridge heads and bits of country. Perhaps I +had better begin at the other end.” + +“No; you’ll find her about the middle. I emptied one folio into +another.” + +“Is this one of your undergraduates?” said Deronda, holding up a +drawing. “It’s an unusually agreeable face.” + +“That! Oh, that’s a man named Gascoigne—Rex Gascoigne. An uncommonly +good fellow; his upper lip, too, is good. I coached him before he got +his scholarship. He ought to have taken honors last Easter. But he was +ill, and has had to stay up another year. I must look him up. I want to +know how he’s going on.” + +“Here she is, I suppose,” said Deronda, holding up a sketch of the +Trasteverina. + +“Ah,” said Hans, looking at it rather contemptuously, “too coarse. I +was unregenerate then.” + +Deronda was silent while he closed the folio, leaving the Trasteverina +outside. Then clasping his coat-collar, and turning toward Hans, he +said, “I dare say my scruples are excessive, Meyrick, but I must ask +you to oblige me by giving up this notion.” + +Hans threw himself into a tragic attitude, and screamed, “What! my +series—my immortal Berenice series? Think of what you are saying, +man—destroying, as Milton says, not a life but an immortality. Wait +before you answer, that I may deposit the implements of my art and be +ready to uproot my hair.” + +Here Hans laid down his pencil and palette, threw himself backward into +a great chair, and hanging limply over the side, shook his long hair +over his face, lifted his hooked fingers on each side his head, and +looked up with comic terror at Deronda, who was obliged to smile, as he +said, + +“Paint as many Berenices as you like, but I wish you could feel with +me—perhaps you will, on reflection—that you should choose another +model.” + +“Why?” said Hans, standing up, and looking serious again. + +“Because she may get into such a position that her face is likely to be +recognized. Mrs. Meyrick and I are anxious for her that she should be +known as an admirable singer. It is right, and she wishes it, that she +should make herself independent. And she has excellent chances. One +good introduction is secured already, and I am going to speak to +Klesmer. Her face may come to be very well known, and—well, it is +useless to attempt to explain, unless you feel as I do. I believe that +if Mirah saw the circumstances clearly, she would strongly object to +being exhibited in this way—to allowing herself to be used as a model +for a heroine of this sort.” + +As Hans stood with his thumbs in the belt of his blouse, listening to +this speech, his face showed a growing surprise melting into amusement, +that at last would have its way in an explosive laugh: but seeing that +Deronda looked gravely offended, he checked himself to say, “Excuse my +laughing, Deronda. You never gave me an advantage over you before. If +it had been about anything but my own pictures, I should have swallowed +every word because you said it. And so you actually believe that I +should get my five pictures hung on the line in a conspicuous position, +and carefully studied by the public? Zounds, man! cider-cup and conceit +never gave me half such a beautiful dream. My pictures are likely to +remain as private as the utmost hypersensitiveness could desire.” + +Hans turned to paint again as a way of filling up awkward pauses. +Deronda stood perfectly still, recognizing his mistake as to publicity, +but also conscious that his repugnance was not much diminished. He was +the reverse of satisfied either with himself or with Hans; but the +power of being quiet carries a man well through moments of +embarrassment. Hans had a reverence for his friend which made him feel +a sort of shyness at Deronda’s being in the wrong; but it was not in +his nature to give up anything readily, though it were only a whim—or +rather, especially if it were a whim, and he presently went on, +painting the while, + +“But even supposing I had a public rushing after my pictures as if they +were a railway series including nurses, babies and bonnet-boxes, I +can’t see any justice in your objection. Every painter worth +remembering has painted the face he admired most, as often as he could. +It is a part of his soul that goes out into his pictures. He diffuses +its influence in that way. He puts what he hates into a caricature. He +puts what he adores into some sacred, heroic form. If a man could paint +the woman he loves a thousand times as the _Stella Maris_ to put courage +into the sailors on board a thousand ships, so much the more honor to +her. Isn’t that better than painting a piece of staring immodesty and +calling it by a worshipful name?” + +“Every objection can be answered if you take broad ground enough, Hans: +no special question of conduct can be properly settled in that way,” +said Deronda, with a touch of peremptoriness. “I might admit all your +generalities, and yet be right in saying you ought not to publish +Mirah’s face as a model for Berenice. But I give up the question of +publicity. I was unreasonable there.” Deronda hesitated a moment. +“Still, even as a private affair, there might be good reasons for your +not indulging yourself too much in painting her from the point of view +you mention. You must feel that her situation at present is a very +delicate one; and until she is in more independence, she should be kept +as carefully as a bit of Venetian glass, for fear of shaking her out of +the safe place she is lodged in. Are you quite sure of your own +discretion? Excuse me, Hans. My having found her binds me to watch over +her. Do you understand me?” + +“Perfectly,” said Hans, turning his face into a good-humored smile. +“You have the very justifiable opinion of me that I am likely to +shatter all the glass in my way, and break my own skull into the +bargain. Quite fair. Since I got into the scrape of being born, +everything I have liked best has been a scrape either for myself or +somebody else. Everything I have taken to heartily has somehow turned +into a scrape. My painting is the last scrape; and I shall be all my +life getting out of it. You think now I shall get into a scrape at +home. No; I am regenerate. You think I must be over head and ears in +love with Mirah. Quite right; so I am. But you think I shall scream and +plunge and spoil everything. There you are mistaken—excusably, but +transcendently mistaken. I have undergone baptism by immersion. Awe +takes care of me. Ask the little mother.” + +“You don’t reckon a hopeless love among your scrapes, then,” said +Deronda, whose voice seemed to get deeper as Hans’s went higher. + +“I don’t mean to call mine hopeless,” said Hans, with provoking +coolness, laying down his tools, thrusting his thumbs into his belt, +and moving away a little, as if to contemplate his picture more +deliberately. + +“My dear fellow, you are only preparing misery for yourself,” said +Deronda, decisively. “She would not marry a Christian, even if she +loved him. Have you heard her—of course you have—heard her speak of +her people and her religion?” + +“That can’t last,” said Hans. “She will see no Jew who is tolerable. +Every male of that race is insupportable—‘insupportably +advancing’—his nose.” + +“She may rejoin her family. That is what she longs for. Her mother and +brother are probably strict Jews.” + +“I’ll turn proselyte, if she wishes it,” said Hans, with a shrug and a +laugh. + +“Don’t talk nonsense, Hans. I thought you professed a serious love for +her,” said Deronda, getting heated. + +“So I do. You think it desperate, but I don’t.” + +“I know nothing; I can’t tell what has happened. We must be prepared +for surprises. But I can hardly imagine a greater surprise to me than +that there should have seemed to be anything in Mirah’s sentiments for +you to found a romantic hope on.” Deronda felt that he was too +contemptuous. + +“I don’t found my romantic hopes on a woman’s sentiments,” said Hans, +perversely inclined to be the merrier when he was addressed with +gravity. “I go to science and philosophy for my romance. Nature +designed Mirah to fall in love with me. The amalgamation of races +demands it—the mitigation of human ugliness demands it—the affinity +of contrasts assures it. I am the utmost contrast to Mirah—a bleached +Christian, who can’t sing two notes in tune. Who has a chance against +me?” + +“I see now; it was all _persiflage_. You don’t mean a word you say, +Meyrick,” said Deronda, laying his hand on Meyrick’s shoulder, and +speaking in a tone of cordial relief. “I was a wiseacre to answer you +seriously.” + +“Upon my honor I do mean it, though,” said Hans, facing round and +laying his left hand on Deronda’s shoulder, so that their eyes fronted +each other closely. “I am at the confessional. I meant to tell you as +soon as you came. My mother says you are Mirah’s guardian, and she +thinks herself responsible to you for every breath that falls on Mirah +in her house. Well, I love her—I worship her—I won’t despair—I mean +to deserve her.” + +“My dear fellow, you can’t do it,” said Deronda, quickly. + +“I should have said, I mean to try.” + +“You can’t keep your resolve, Hans. You used to resolve what you would +do for your mother and sisters.” + +“You have a right to reproach me, old fellow,” said Hans, gently. + +“Perhaps I am ungenerous,” said Deronda, not apologetically, however. +“Yet it can’t be ungenerous to warn you that you are indulging mad, +Quixotic expectations.” + +“Who will be hurt but myself, then?” said Hans, putting out his lip. “I +am not going to say anything to her unless I felt sure of the answer. I +dare not ask the oracles: I prefer a cheerful caliginosity, as Sir +Thomas Browne might say. I would rather run my chance there and lose, +than be sure of winning anywhere else. And I don’t mean to swallow the +poison of despair, though you are disposed to thrust it on me. I am +giving up wine, so let me get a little drunk on hope and vanity.” + +“With all my heart, if it will do you any good,” said Deronda, loosing +Hans’s shoulder, with a little push. He made his tone kindly, but his +words were from the lip only. As to his real feeling he was silenced. + +He was conscious of that peculiar irritation which will sometimes +befall the man whom others are inclined to trust as a mentor—the +irritation of perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the +same plane of desire and temptation as those who confess to him. Our +guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the +best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes. +Throughout their friendship Deronda had been used to Hans’s egotism, +but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually +pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any +detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, had soon forgotten +it. Deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgent—nay, +satisfied. But now he had noted with some indignation, all the stronger +because it must not be betrayed, Hans’s evident assumption that for any +danger of rivalry or jealousy in relation to Mirah, Deronda was not as +much out of the question as the angel Gabriel. It is one thing to be +resolute in placing one’s self out of the question, and another to +endure that others should perform that exclusion for us. He had +expected that Hans would give him trouble: what he had not expected was +that the trouble would have a strong element of personal feeling. And +he was rather ashamed that Hans’s hopes caused him uneasiness in spite +of his well-warranted conviction that they would never be fulfilled. +They had raised an image of Mirah changing; and however he might +protest that the change would not happen, the protest kept up the +unpleasant image. Altogether poor Hans seemed to be entering into +Deronda’s experience in a disproportionate manner—going beyond his +part of rescued prodigal, and rousing a feeling quite distinct from +compassionate affection. + +When Deronda went to Chelsea he was not made as comfortable as he ought +to have been by Mrs. Meyrick’s evident release from anxiety about the +beloved but incalculable son. Mirah seemed livelier than before, and +for the first time he saw her laugh. It was when they were talking of +Hans, he being naturally the mother’s first topic. Mirah wished to know +if Deronda had seen Mr. Hans going through a sort of character piece +without changing his dress. + +“He passes from one figure to another as if he were a bit of flame +where you fancied the figures without seeing them,” said Mirah, full of +her subject; “he is so wonderfully quick. I used never to like comic +things on the stage—they were dwelt on too long; but all in one minute +Mr. Hans makes himself a blind bard, and then Rienzi addressing the +Romans, and then an opera-dancer, and then a desponding young +gentleman—I am sorry for them all, and yet I laugh, all in one”—here +Mirah gave a little laugh that might have entered into a song. + +“We hardly thought that Mirah could laugh till Hans came,” said Mrs. +Meyrick, seeing that Deronda, like herself, was observing the pretty +picture. + +“Hans seems in great force just now,” said Deronda in a tone of +congratulation. “I don’t wonder at his enlivening you.” + +“He’s been just perfect ever since he came back,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +keeping to herself the next clause—“if it will but last.” + +“It is a great happiness,” said Mirah, “to see the son and brother come +into this dear home. And I hear them all talk about what they did +together when they were little. That seems like heaven, and to have a +mother and brother who talk in that way. I have never had it.” + +“Nor I,” said Deronda, involuntarily. + +“No?” said Mirah, regretfully. “I wish you had. I wish you had had +every good.” The last words were uttered with a serious ardor as if +they had been part of a litany, while her eyes were fixed on Deronda, +who with his elbow on the back of his chair was contemplating her by +the new light of the impression she had made on Hans, and the +possibility of her being attracted by that extraordinary contrast. It +was no more than what had happened on each former visit of his, that +Mirah appeared to enjoy speaking of what she felt very much as a little +girl fresh from school pours forth spontaneously all the long-repressed +chat for which she has found willing ears. For the first time in her +life Mirah was among those whom she entirely trusted, and her original +visionary impression that Deronda was a divinely-sent messenger hung +about his image still, stirring always anew the disposition to reliance +and openness. It was in this way she took what might have been the +injurious flattery of admiring attention into which her helpless +dependence had been suddenly transformed. Every one around her watched +for her looks and words, and the effect on her was simply that of +having passed from a trifling imprisonment into an exhilarating air +which made speech and action a delight. To her mind it was all a gift +from others’ goodness. But that word of Deronda’s implying that there +had been some lack in his life which might be compared with anything +she had known in hers, was an entirely new inlet of thought about him. +After her first expression of sorrowful surprise she went on, + +“But Mr. Hans said yesterday that you thought so much of others you +hardly wanted anything for yourself. He told us a wonderful story of +Buddha giving himself to the famished tigress to save her and her +little ones from starving. And he said you were like Buddha. That is +what we all imagine of you.” + +“Pray don’t imagine that,” said Deronda, who had lately been finding +such suppositions rather exasperating. “Even if it were true that I +thought so much of others, it would not follow that I had no wants for +myself. When Buddha let the tigress eat him he might have been very +hungry himself.” + +“Perhaps if he was starved he would not mind so much about being +eaten,” said Mab, shyly. + +“Please don’t think that, Mab; it takes away the beauty of the action,” +said Mirah. + +“But if it were true, Mirah?” said the rational Amy, having a +half-holiday from her teaching; “you always take what is beautiful as +if it were true.” + +“So it is,” said Mirah, gently. “If people have thought what is the +most beautiful and the best thing, it must be true. It is always there.” + +“Now, Mirah, what do you mean?” said Amy. + +“I understand her,” said Deronda, coming to the rescue. + +“It is a truth in thought though it may never have been carried out in +action. It lives as an idea. Is that it?” He turned to Mirah, who was +listening with a blind look in her lovely eyes. + +“It must be that, because you understand me, but I cannot quite +explain,” said Mirah, rather abstractedly—still searching for some +expression. + +“But _was_ it beautiful for Buddha to let the tiger eat him?” said Amy, +changing her ground. “It would be a bad pattern.” + +“The world would get full of fat tigers,” said Mab. + +Deronda laughed, but defended the myth. “It is like a passionate word,” +he said; “the exaggeration is a flash of fervor. It is an extreme image +of what is happening every day—the transmutation of self.” + +“I think I can say what I mean, now,” said Mirah, who had not heard the +intermediate talk. “When the best thing comes into our thoughts, it is +like what my mother has been to me. She has been just as really with me +as all the other people about me—often more really with me.” + +Deronda, inwardly wincing under this illustration, which brought other +possible realities about that mother vividly before him, presently +turned the conversation by saying, “But we must not get too far away +from practical matters. I came, for one thing, to tell of an interview +I had yesterday, which I hope Mirah will find to have been useful to +her. It was with Klesmer, the great pianist.” + +“Ah?” said Mrs. Meyrick, with satisfaction. “You think he will help +her?” + +“I hope so. He is very much occupied, but has promised to fix a time +for receiving and hearing Miss Lapidoth, as we must learn to call +her”—here Deronda smiled at Mirah—“If she consents to go to him.” + +“I shall be very grateful,” said Mirah. “He wants to hear me sing, +before he can judge whether I ought to be helped.” + +Deronda was struck with her plain sense about these matters of +practical concern. + +“It will not be at all trying to you, I hope, if Mrs. Meyrick will +kindly go with you to Klesmer’s house.” + +“Oh, no, not at all trying. I have been doing that all my life—I mean, +told to do things that others may judge of me. And I have gone through +a bad trial of that sort. I am prepared to bear it, and do some very +small thing. Is Klesmer a severe man?” + +“He is peculiar, but I have not had experience enough of him to know +whether he would be what you would call severe.” + +“I know he is kind-hearted—kind in action, if not in speech.” + +“I have been used to be frowned at and not praised,” said Mirah. + +“By the by, Klesmer frowns a good deal,” said Deronda, “but there is +often a sort of smile in his eyes all the while. Unhappily he wears +spectacles, so you must catch him in the right light to see the smile.” + +“I shall not be frightened,” said Mirah. “If he were like a roaring +lion, he only wants me to sing. I shall do what I can.” + +“Then I feel sure you will not mind being invited to sing in Lady +Mallinger’s drawing-room,” said Deronda. “She intends to ask you next +month, and will invite many ladies to hear you, who are likely to want +lessons from you for their daughters.” + +“How fast we are mounting!” said Mrs. Meyrick, with delight. “You never +thought of getting grand so quickly, Mirah.” + +“I am a little frightened at being called Miss Lapidoth,” said Mirah, +coloring with a new uneasiness. “Might I be called Cohen?” + +“I understand you,” said Deronda, promptly. “But I assure you, you must +not be called Cohen. The name is inadmissible for a singer. This is one +of the trifles in which we must conform to vulgar prejudice. We could +choose some other name, however—such as singers ordinarily choose—an +Italian or Spanish name, which would suit your _physique_.” To Deronda +just now the name Cohen was equivalent to the ugliest of yellow badges. + +Mirah reflected a little, anxiously, then said, “No. If Cohen will not +do, I will keep the name I have been called by. I will not hide myself. +I have friends to protect me. And now—if my father were very miserable +and wanted help—no,” she said, looking at Mrs. Meyrick, “I should +think, then, that he was perhaps crying as I used to see him, and had +nobody to pity him, and I had hidden myself from him. He had none +belonging to him but me. Others that made friends with him always left +him.” + +“Keep to what you feel right, my dear child,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “_I_ +would not persuade you to the contrary.” For her own part she had no +patience or pity for that father, and would have left him to his crying. + +Deronda was saying to himself, “I am rather base to be angry with Hans. +How can he help being in love with her? But it is too absurdly +presumptuous for him even to frame the idea of appropriating her, and a +sort of blasphemy to suppose that she could possibly give herself to +him.” + +What would it be for Daniel Deronda to entertain such thoughts? He was +not one who could quite naively introduce himself where he had just +excluded his friend, yet it was undeniable that what had just happened +made a new stage in his feeling toward Mirah. But apart from other +grounds for self-repression, reasons both definite and vague made him +shut away that question as he might have shut up a half-opened writing +that would have carried his imagination too far, and given too much +shape to presentiments. Might there not come a disclosure which would +hold the missing determination of his course? What did he really know +about his origin? Strangely in these latter months when it seemed right +that he should exert his will in the choice of a destination, the +passion of his nature had got more and more locked by this uncertainty. +The disclosure might bring its pain, indeed the likelihood seemed to +him to be all on that side; but if it helped him to make his life a +sequence which would take the form of duty—if it saved him from having +to make an arbitrary selection where he felt no preponderance of +desire? Still more, he wanted to escape standing as a critic outside +the activities of men, stiffened into the ridiculous attitude of +self-assigned superiority. His chief tether was his early inwrought +affection for Sir Hugo, making him gratefully deferential to wishes +with which he had little agreement: but gratitude had been sometimes +disturbed by doubts which were near reducing it to a fear of being +ungrateful. Many of us complain that half our birthright is sharp duty: +Deronda was more inclined to complain that he was robbed of this half; +yet he accused himself, as he would have accused another, of being +weakly self-conscious and wanting in resolve. He was the reverse of +that type painted for us in Faulconbridge and Edmund of Gloster, whose +coarse ambition for personal success is inflamed by a defiance of +accidental disadvantages. To Daniel the words Father and Mother had the +altar-fire in them; and the thought of all closest relations of our +nature held still something of the mystic power which had made his neck +and ears burn in boyhood. The average man may regard this sensibility +on the question of birth as preposterous and hardly credible; but with +the utmost respect for his knowledge as the rock from which all other +knowledge is hewn, it must be admitted that many well-proved facts are +dark to the average man, even concerning the action of his own heart +and the structure of his own retina. A century ago he and all his +forefathers had not had the slightest notion of that electric discharge +by means of which they had all wagged their tongues mistakenly; any +more than they were awake to the secluded anguish of exceptional +sensitiveness into which many a carelessly-begotten child of man is +born. + +Perhaps the ferment was all the stronger in Deronda’s mind because he +had never had a confidant to whom he could open himself on these +delicate subjects. He had always been leaned on instead of being +invited to lean. Sometimes he had longed for the sort of friend to whom +he might possibly unfold his experience: a young man like himself who +sustained a private grief and was not too confident about his own +career; speculative enough to understand every moral difficulty, yet +socially susceptible, as he himself was, and having every outward sign +of equality either in bodily or spiritual wrestling—for he had found +it impossible to reciprocate confidences with one who looked up to him. +But he had no expectation of meeting the friend he imagined. Deronda’s +was not one of those quiveringly-poised natures that lend themselves to +second-sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + There be who hold that the deeper tragedy were a Prometheus Bound + not _after_ but _before_ he had well got the celestial fire into + the νάρθηξ whereby it might be conveyed to mortals: thrust by the + Kratos and Bia of instituted methods into a solitude of despised + ideas, fastened in throbbing helplessness by the fatal pressure of + poverty and disease—a solitude where many pass by, but none + regard. + +“Second-sight” is a flag over disputed ground. But it is matter of +knowledge that there are persons whose yearnings, conceptions—nay, +traveled conclusions—continually take the form of images which have a +foreshadowing power; the deed they would do starts up before them in +complete shape, making a coercive type; the event they hunger for or +dread rises into vision with a seed-like growth, feeding itself fast on +unnumbered impressions. They are not always the less capable of the +argumentative process, nor less sane than the commonplace calculators +of the market: sometimes it may be that their natures have manifold +openings, like the hundred-gated Thebes, where there may naturally be a +greater and more miscellaneous inrush than through a narrow +beadle-watched portal. No doubt there are abject specimens of the +visionary, as there is a minim mammal which you might imprison in the +finger of your glove. That small relative of the elephant has no harm +in him; but what great mental or social type is free from specimens +whose insignificance is both ugly and noxious? One is afraid to think +of all that the genus “patriot” embraces; or of the elbowing there +might be at the day of judgment for those who ranked as authors, and +brought volumes either in their hands or on trucks. + +This apology for inevitable kinship is meant to usher in some facts +about Mordecai, whose figure had bitten itself into Deronda’s mind as a +new question which he felt an interest in getting answered. But the +interest was no more than a vaguely-expectant suspense: the +consumptive-looking Jew, apparently a fervid student of some kind, +getting his crust by a quiet handicraft, like Spinoza, fitted into none +of Deronda’s anticipations. + +It was otherwise with the effect of their meeting on Mordecai. For many +winters, while he had been conscious of an ebbing physical life, and as +widening spiritual loneliness, all his passionate desire had +concentrated itself in the yearning for some young ear into which he +could pour his mind as a testament, some soul kindred enough to accept +the spiritual product of his own brief, painful life, as a mission to +be executed. It was remarkable that the hopefulness which is often the +beneficent illusion of consumptive patients, was in Mordecai wholly +diverted from the prospect of bodily recovery and carried into the +current of this yearning for transmission. The yearning, which had +panted upward from out of over-whelming discouragements, had grown into +a hope—the hope into a confident belief, which, instead of being +checked by the clear conception he had of his hastening decline, took +rather the intensity of expectant faith in a prophecy which has only +brief space to get fulfilled in. + +Some years had now gone since he had first begun to measure men with a +keen glance, searching for a possibility which became more and more a +distinct conception. Such distinctness as it had at first was reached +chiefly by a method of contrast: he wanted to find a man who differed +from himself. Tracing reasons in that self for the rebuffs he had met +with and the hindrances that beset him, he imagined a man who would +have all the elements necessary for sympathy with him, but in an +embodiment unlike his own: he must be a Jew, intellectually cultured, +morally fervid—in all this a nature ready to be plenished from +Mordecai’s; but his face and frame must be beautiful and strong, he +must have been used to all the refinements of social life, his voice +must flow with a full and easy current, his circumstances be free from +sordid need: he must glorify the possibilities of the Jew, not sit and +wonder as Mordecai did, bearing the stamp of his people amid the sign +of poverty and waning breath. Sensitive to physical characteristics, he +had, both abroad and in England, looked at pictures as well as men, and +in a vacant hour he had sometimes lingered in the National Gallery in +search of paintings which might feed his hopefulness with grave and +noble types of the human form, such as might well belong to men of his +own race. But he returned in disappointment. The instances are +scattered but thinly over the galleries of Europe, in which the fortune +or selection even of the chief masters has given to art a face at once +young, grand, and beautiful, where, if there is any melancholy, it is +no feeble passivity, but enters into the foreshadowed capability of +heroism. + +Some observant persons may perhaps remember his emaciated figure, and +dark eyes deep in their sockets, as he stood in front of a picture that +had touched him either to new or habitual meditation: he commonly wore +a cloth cap with black fur round it, which no painter would have asked +him to take off. But spectators would be likely to think of him as an +odd-looking Jew who probably got money out of pictures; and Mordecai, +when he looked at them, was perfectly aware of the impression he made. +Experience had rendered him morbidly alive to the effect of a man’s +poverty and other physical disadvantages in cheapening his ideas, +unless they are those of a Peter the Hermit who has a tocsin for the +rabble. But he was too sane and generous to attribute his spiritual +banishment solely to the excusable prejudices of others; certain +incapacities of his own had made the sentence of exclusion; and hence +it was that his imagination had constructed another man who would be +something more ample than the second soul bestowed, according to the +notion of the Cabalists, to help out the insufficient first—who would +be a blooming human life, ready to incorporate all that was worthiest +in an existence whose visible, palpable part was burning itself fast +away. His inward need for the conception of this expanded, prolonged +self was reflected as an outward necessity. The thoughts of his heart +(that ancient phrase best shadows the truth) seemed to him too +precious, too closely interwoven with the growth of things not to have +a further destiny. And as the more beautiful, the stronger, the more +executive self took shape in his mind, he loved it beforehand with an +affection half identifying, half contemplative and grateful. + +Mordecai’s mind wrought so constantly in images, that his coherent +trains of thought often resembled the significant dreams attributed to +sleepers by waking persons in their most inventive moments: nay, they +often resembled genuine dreams in their way of breaking off the passage +from the known to the unknown. Thus, for a long while, he habitually +thought of the Being answering to his need as one distantly approaching +or turning his back toward him, darkly painted against a golden sky. +The reason of the golden sky lay in one of Mordecai’s habits. He was +keenly alive to some poetic aspects of London; and a favorite resort of +his, when strength and leisure allowed, was to some of the bridges, +especially about sunrise or sunset. Even when he was bending over +watch-wheels and trinkets, or seated in a small upper room looking out +on dingy bricks and dingy cracked windows, his imagination +spontaneously planted him on some spot where he had a far-stretching +scene; his thoughts went on in wide spaces; and whenever he could, he +tried to have in reality the influences of a large sky. Leaning on the +parapet of Blackfriar’s Bridge, and gazing meditatively, the breadth +and calm of the river, with its long vista half hazy, half luminous, +the grand dim masses of tall forms of buildings which were the signs of +world-commerce, the oncoming of boats and barges from the still +distance into sound and color, entered into his mood and blent +themselves indistinguishably with his thinking, as a fine symphony to +which we can hardly be said to listen, makes a medium that bears up our +spiritual wings. Thus it happened that the figure representative of +Mordecai’s longing was mentally seen darkened by the excess of light in +the aerial background. But in the inevitable progress of his +imagination toward fuller detail, he ceased to see the figure with its +back toward him. It began to advance, and a face became discernible; +the words youth, beauty, refinement, Jewish birth, noble gravity, +turned into hardly individual but typical form and color: gathered from +his memory of faces seen among the Jews of Holland and Bohemia, and +from the paintings which revived that memory. Reverently let it be said +of this mature spiritual need that it was akin to the boy’s and girl’s +picturing of the future beloved; but the stirrings of such young desire +are feeble compared with the passionate current of an ideal life +straining to embody itself, made intense by resistance to imminent +dissolution. The visionary form became a companion and auditor; keeping +a place not only in the waking imagination, but in those dreams of +lighter slumber of which it is truest to say, “I sleep, but my heart +waketh”—when the disturbing trivial story of yesterday is charged with +the impassioned purpose of years. + +Of late the urgency of irremediable time, measured by the gradual +choking of life, had turned Mordecai’s trust into an agitated watch for +the fulfillment that must be at hand. Was the bell on the verge of +tolling, the sentence about to be executed? The deliverer’s footstep +must be near—the deliverer who was to rescue Mordecai’s spiritual +travail from oblivion, and give it an abiding-place in the best +heritage of his people. An insane exaggeration of his own value, even +if his ideas had been as true and precious as those of Columbus or +Newton, many would have counted this yearning, taking it as the +sublimer part for a man to say, “If not I, then another,” and to hold +cheap the meaning of his own life. But the fuller nature desires to be +an agent, to create, and not merely to look on: strong love hungers to +bless, and not merely to behold blessing. And while there is warmth +enough in the sun to feed an energetic life, there will still be men to +feel, “I am lord of this moment’s change, and will charge it with my +soul.” + +But with that mingling of inconsequence which belongs to us all, and +not unhappily, since it saves us from many effects of mistake, +Mordecai’s confidence in the friend to come did not suffice to make him +passive, and he tried expedients, pathetically humble, such as happened +to be within his reach, for communicating something of himself. It was +now two years since he had taken up his abode under Ezra Cohen’s roof, +where he was regarded with much good-will as a compound of workman, +dominie, vessel of charity, inspired idiot, man of piety, and (if he +were inquired into) dangerous heretic. During that time little Jacob +had advanced into knickerbockers, and into that quickness of +apprehension which has been already made manifest in relation to +hardware and exchange. He had also advanced in attachment to Mordecai, +regarding him as an inferior, but liking him none the worse, and taking +his helpful cleverness as he might have taken the services of an +enslaved Djinn. As for Mordecai, he had given Jacob his first lessons, +and his habitual tenderness easily turned into the teacher’s +fatherhood. Though he was fully conscious of the spiritual distance +between the parents and himself, and would never have attempted any +communication to them from his peculiar world, the boy moved him with +that idealizing affection which merges the qualities of the individual +child in the glory of childhood and the possibilities of a long future. +And this feeling had drawn him on, at first without premeditation, and +afterward with conscious purpose, to a sort of outpouring in the ear of +the boy which might have seemed wild enough to any excellent man of +business who overheard it. But none overheard when Jacob went up to +Mordecai’s room one day, for example, in which there was little work to +be done, or at an hour when the work was ended, and after a brief +lesson in English reading or in numeration, was induced to remain +standing at his teacher’s knees, or chose to jump astride them, often +to the patient fatigue of the wasted limbs. The inducement was perhaps +the mending of a toy, or some little mechanical device in which +Mordecai’s well-practiced finger-tips had an exceptional skill; and +with the boy thus tethered, he would begin to repeat a Hebrew poem of +his own, into which years before he had poured his first youthful +ardors for that conception of a blended past and future which was the +mistress of his soul, telling Jacob to say the words after him. + +“The boy will get them engraved within him,” thought Mordecai; “it is a +way of printing.” + +None readier than Jacob at this fascinating game of imitating +unintelligible words; and if no opposing diversion occurred he would +sometimes carry on his share in it as long as the teacher’s breath +would last out. For Mordecai threw into each repetition the fervor +befitting a sacred occasion. In such instances, Jacob would show no +other distraction than reaching out and surveying the contents of his +pockets; or drawing down the skin of his cheeks to make his eyes look +awful, and rolling his head to complete the effect; or alternately +handling his own nose and Mordecai’s as if to test the relation of +their masses. Under all this the fervid reciter would not pause, +satisfied if the young organs of speech would submit themselves. But +most commonly a sudden impulse sent Jacob leaping away into some antic +or active amusement, when, instead of following the recitation he would +return upon the foregoing words most ready to his tongue, and mouth or +gabble, with a see-saw suited to the action of his limbs, a verse on +which Mordecai had spent some of his too scanty heart’s blood. Yet he +waited with such patience as a prophet needs, and began his strange +printing again undiscouraged on the morrow, saying inwardly, + +“My words may rule him some day. Their meaning may flash out on him. It +is so with a nation—after many days.” + +Meanwhile Jacob’s sense of power was increased and his time enlivened +by a store of magical articulation with which he made the baby crow, or +drove the large cat into a dark corner, or promised himself to frighten +any incidental Christian of his own years. One week he had +unfortunately seen a street mountebank, and this carried off his +muscular imitativeness in sad divergence from New Hebrew poetry, after +the model of Jehuda ha-Levi. Mordecai had arrived at a fresh passage in +his poem; for as soon as Jacob had got well used to one portion, he was +led on to another, and a fresh combination of sounds generally answered +better in keeping him fast for a few minutes. The consumptive voice, +generally a strong high baritone, with its variously mingling +hoarseness, like a haze amidst illuminations, and its occasional +incipient gasp had more than the usual excitement, while it gave forth +Hebrew verses with a meaning something like this: + + “Away from me the garment of forgetfulness. + Withering the heart; + The oil and wine from presses of the Goyim, + Poisoned with scorn. + Solitude is on the sides of Mount Nebo, + In its heart a tomb: + There the buried ark and golden cherubim + Make hidden light: + There the solemn gaze unchanged, + The wings are spread unbroken: + Shut beneath in silent awful speech + The Law lies graven. + Solitude and darkness are my covering, + And my heart a tomb; + Smite and shatter it, O Gabriel! + Shatter it as the clay of the founder + Around the golden image.” + +In the absorbing enthusiasm with which Mordecai had intoned rather than +spoken this last invocation, he was unconscious that Jacob had ceased +to follow him and had started away from his knees; but pausing he saw, +as by a sudden flash, that the lad had thrown himself on his hands with +his feet in the air, mountebank fashion, and was picking up with his +lips a bright farthing which was a favorite among his pocket treasures. +This might have been reckoned among the tricks Mordecai was used to, +but at this moment it jarred him horribly, as if it had been a Satanic +grin upon his prayer. + +“Child! child!” he called out with a strange cry that startled Jacob to +his feet, and then he sank backward with a shudder, closing his eyes. + +“What?” said Jacob, quickly. Then, not getting an immediate answer, he +pressed Mordecai’s knees with a shaking movement, in order to rouse +him. Mordecai opened his eyes with a fierce expression in them, leaned +forward, grasped the little shoulders, and said in a quick, hoarse +whisper, + +“A curse is on your generation, child. They will open the mountain and +drag forth the golden wings and coin them into money, and the solemn +faces they will break up into earrings for wanton women! And they +shall get themselves a new name, but the angel of ignominy, with the +fiery brand, shall know them, and their heart shall be the tomb of dead +desires that turn their life to rottenness.” + +The aspect and action of Mordecai were so new and mysterious to +Jacob—they carried such a burden of obscure threat—it was as if the +patient, indulgent companion had turned into something unknown and +terrific: the sunken dark eyes and hoarse accents close to him, the +thin grappling fingers, shook Jacob’s little frame into awe, and while +Mordecai was speaking he stood trembling with a sense that the house +was tumbling in and they were not going to have dinner any more. But +when the terrible speech had ended and the pinch was relaxed, the shock +resolved itself into tears; Jacob lifted up his small patriarchal +countenance and wept aloud. This sign of childish grief at once +recalled Mordecai to his usual gentle self: he was not able to speak +again at present, but with a maternal action he drew the curly head +toward him and pressed it tenderly against his breast. On this Jacob, +feeling the danger well-nigh over, howled at ease, beginning to imitate +his own performance and improve upon it—a sort of transition from +impulse into art often observable. Indeed, the next day he undertook to +terrify Adelaide Rebekah in like manner, and succeeded very well. + +But Mordecai suffered a check which lasted long, from the consciousness +of a misapplied agitation; sane as well as excitable, he judged +severely his moments of aberration into futile eagerness, and felt +discredited with himself. All the more his mind was strained toward the +discernment of that friend to come, with whom he would have a calm +certainty of fellowship and understanding. + +It was just then that, in his usual midday guardianship of the old +book-shop, he was struck by the appearance of Deronda, and it is +perhaps comprehensible now why Mordecai’s glance took on a sudden eager +interest as he looked at the new-comer: he saw a face and frame which +seemed to him to realize the long-conceived type. But the disclaimer of +Jewish birth was for the moment a backward thrust of double severity, +the particular disappointment tending to shake his confidence in the +more indefinite expectation. Nevertheless, when he found Deronda seated +at the Cohens’ table, the disclaimer was for the moment nullified: the +first impression returned with added force, seeming to be guaranteed by +this second meeting under circumstance more peculiar than the former; +and in asking Deronda if he knew Hebrew, Mordecai was so possessed by +the new inrush of belief, that he had forgotten the absence of any +other condition to the fulfillment of his hopes. But the answering “No” +struck them all down again, and the frustration was more painful than +before. After turning his back on the visitor that Sabbath evening, +Mordecai went through days of a deep discouragement, like that of men +on a doomed ship, who having strained their eyes after a sail, and +beheld it with rejoicing, behold it never advance, and say, “Our sick +eyes make it.” But the long-contemplated figure had come as an +emotional sequence of Mordecai’s firmest theoretic convictions; it had +been wrought from the imagery of his most passionate life; and it +inevitably reappeared—reappeared in a more specific self-asserting +form than ever. Deronda had that sort of resemblance to the +preconceived type which a finely individual bust or portrait has to the +more generalized copy left in our minds after a long interval: we renew +our memory with delight, but we hardly know with how much correction. +And now, his face met Mordecai’s inward gaze as it had always belonged +to the awaited friend, raying out, moreover, some of that influence +which belongs to breathing flesh; till by-and-by it seemed that +discouragement had turned into a new obstinacy of resistance, and the +ever-recurrent vision had the force of an outward call to disregard +counter-evidence, and keep expectation awake. It was Deronda now who +was seen in the often painful night-watches, when we are all liable to +be held with the clutch of a single thought—whose figure, never with +its back turned, was seen in moments of soothed reverie or soothed +dozing, painted on that golden sky which was the doubly blessed symbol +of advancing day and of approaching rest. + +Mordecai knew that the nameless stranger was to come and redeem his +ring; and, in spite of contrary chances, the wish to see him again was +growing into a belief that he should see him. In the January weeks, he +felt an increasing agitation of that subdued hidden quality which +hinders nervous people from any steady occupation on the eve of an +anticipated change. He could not go on with his printing of Hebrew on +little Jacob’s mind; or with his attendance at a weekly club, which was +another effort of the same forlorn hope: something else was coming. The +one thing he longed for was to get as far as the river, which he could +do but seldom and with difficulty. He yearned with a poet’s yearning +for the wide sky, the far-reaching vista of bridges, the tender and +fluctuating lights on the water which seems to breathe with a life that +can shiver and mourn, be comforted and rejoice. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + + + “Vor den Wissenden sich stellen, + Sicher ist’s in allen Fällen! + Wenn du lange dich gequälet, + Weiß er gleich, wo dir es fehlet. + Auch auf Beifall darfst du hoffen; + Denn er weiß, wo du’s getroffen.” + + —GOETHE: _West-östlicher Divan_. + + +Momentous things happened to Deronda the very evening of that visit to +the small house at Chelsea, when there was the discussion about Mirah’s +public name. But for the family group there, what appeared to be the +chief sequence connected with it occurred two days afterward. About +four o’clock wheels paused before the door, and there came one of those +knocks with an accompanying ring which serve to magnify the sense of +social existence in a region where the most enlivening signals are +usually those of the muffin-man. All the girls were at home, and the +two rooms were thrown together to make space for Kate’s drawing, as +well as a great length of embroidery which had taken the place of the +satin cushions—a sort of _pièce de résistance_ in the courses of +needlework, taken up by any clever fingers that happened to be at +liberty. It stretched across the front room picturesquely enough, Mrs. +Meyrick bending over it on one corner, Mab in the middle, and Amy at +the other end. Mirah, whose performances in point of sewing were on the +make-shift level of the tailor-bird’s, her education in that branch +having been much neglected, was acting as reader to the party, seated +on a camp-stool; in which position she also served Kate as model for a +title-page vignette, symbolizing a fair public absorbed in the +successive volumes of the family tea-table. She was giving forth with +charming distinctness the delightful Essay of Elia, “The Praise of +Chimney-Sweeps,” and all were smiling over the “innocent blackness,” +when the imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to loftier +spheres, and they looked up in wonderment. + +“Dear me!” said Mrs. Meyrick; “can it be Lady Mallinger? Is there a +grand carriage, Amy?” + +“No—only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman.” + +“The Prime Minister, I should think,” said Kate dryly. “Hans says the +greatest man in London may get into a hansom cab.” + +“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Mab. “Suppose it should be Lord Russell!” + +The five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servant +bringing in a card distractedly left the parlor-door open, and there +was seen bowing toward Mrs. Meyrick a figure quite unlike that of the +respected Premier—tall and physically impressive even in his kid and +kerseymere, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: in +fact, as Mrs. Meyrick saw from the card, _Julius Klesmer_. + +Even embarrassment could hardly have made the “little mother” awkward, +but quick in her perceptions she was at once aware of the situation, +and felt well satisfied that the great personage had come to Mirah +instead of requiring her to come to him; taking it as a sign of active +interest. But when he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the +cottage piano, Mab thought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire +family existence as petty and private as an establishment of mice in +the Tuileries. Klesmer’s personality, especially his way of glancing +round him, immediately suggested vast areas and a multitudinous +audience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his +consciousness, for we all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual +locus where there is a presence of other souls, and those who take in a +larger sweep than their neighbors are apt to seem mightily vain and +affected. Klesmer was vain, but not more so than many contemporaries of +heavy aspect, whose vanity leaps out and startles one like a spear out +of a walking-stick; as to his carriage and gestures, these were as +natural to him as the length of his fingers; and the rankest +affectation he could have shown would have been to look diffident and +demure. While his grandiose air was making Mab feel herself a +ridiculous toy to match the cottage piano, he was taking in the details +around him with a keen and thoroughly kind sensibility. He remembered a +home no longer than this on the outskirts of Bohemia; and in the +figurative Bohemia too he had had large acquaintance with the variety +and romance which belong to small incomes. He addressed Mrs. Meyrick +with the utmost deference. + +“I hope I have not taken too great a freedom. Being in the +neighborhood, I ventured to save time by calling. Our friend, Mr. +Deronda, mentioned to me an understanding that I was to have the honor +of becoming acquainted with a young lady here—Miss Lapidoth.” + +Klesmer had really discerned Mirah in the first moment of entering, +but, with subtle politeness, he looked round bowingly at the three +sisters as if he were uncertain which was the young lady in question. + +“Those are my daughters: this is Miss Lapidoth,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +waving her hand toward Mirah. + +“Ah,” said Klesmer, in a tone of gratified expectation, turning a +radiant smile and deep bow to Mirah, who, instead of being in the least +taken by surprise, had a calm pleasure in her face. She liked the look +of Klesmer, feeling sure that he would scold her, like a great musician +and a kind man. + +“You will not object to beginning our acquaintance by singing to me,” +he added, aware that they would all be relieved by getting rid of +preliminaries. + +“I shall be very glad. It is good of you to be willing to listen to +me,” said Mirah, moving to the piano. “Shall I accompany myself?” + +“By all means,” said Klesmer, seating himself, at Mrs. Meyrick’s +invitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. The acute +little mother would not have acknowledged the weakness, but she really +said to herself, “He will like her singing better if he sees her.” + +All the feminine hearts except Mirah’s were beating fast with anxiety, +thinking Klesmer terrific as he sat with his listening frown on, and +only daring to look at him furtively. If he did say anything severe it +would be so hard for them all. They could only comfort themselves with +thinking that Prince Camaralzaman, who had heard the finest things, +preferred Mirah’s singing to any other: also she appeared to be doing +her very best, as if she were more instead of less at ease than usual. + +The song she had chosen was a fine setting of some words selected from +Leopardi’s grand Ode to Italy:, + + “_O patria mia, vedo le mura c gli archi + E le colonne e i simula-cri e l’erme + Torridegli avi nostri_”, + +This was recitative: then followed, + + “_Ma la gloria—non vedo_”, + +a mournful melody, a rhythmic plaint. After this came a climax of +devout triumph—passing from the subdued adoration of a happy Andante +in the words, + + “_Beatissimi voi. + Che offriste il petto alle nemiche lance + Per amor di costei che al sol vi diede_”, + +to the joyous outburst of an exultant Allegro in, + + “_Oh viva, oh viva: + Beatissimi voi + Mentre nel monde si favelli o scriva._” + +When she had ended, Klesmer said after a moment, + +“That is old Leo’s music.” + +“Yes, he was my last master—at Vienna: so fierce and so good,” said +Mirah, with a melancholy smile. “He prophesied that my voice would not +do for the stage. And he was right.” + +“_Con_tinue, if you please,” said Klesmer, putting out his lips and +shaking his long fingers, while he went on with a smothered +articulation quite unintelligible to the audience. + +The three girls detested him unanimously for not saying one word of +praise. Mrs. Meyrick was a little alarmed. + +Mirah, simply bent on doing what Klesmer desired, and imagining that he +would now like to hear her sing some German, went through Prince +Radzivill’s music to Gretchen’s songs in the _Faust_, one after the +other without any interrogatory pause. When she had finished he rose +and walked to the extremity of the small space at command, then walked +back to the piano, where Mirah had risen from her seat and stood +looking toward him with her little hands crossed before her, meekly +awaiting judgment; then with a sudden unknitting of his brow and with +beaming eyes, he stretched out his hand and said abruptly, “Let us +shake hands: you are a musician.” + +Mab felt herself beginning to cry, and all the three girls held Klesmer +adorable. Mrs. Meyrick took a long breath. + +But straightway the frown came again, the long hand, back uppermost, +was stretched out in quite a different sense to touch with finger-tip +the back of Mirah’s, and with protruded lip he said, + +“Not for great tasks. No high roofs. We are no skylarks. We must be +modest.” Klesmer paused here. And Mab ceased to think him adorable: “as +if Mirah had shown the least sign of conceit!” + +Mirah was silent, knowing that there was a specific opinion to be +waited for, and Klesmer presently went on—“I would not advise—I would +not further your singing in any larger space than a private +drawing-room. But you will do there. And here in London that is one of +the best careers open. Lessons will follow. Will you come and sing at a +private concert at my house on Wednesday?” + +“Oh, I shall be grateful,” said Mirah, putting her hands together +devoutly. “I would rather get my bread in that way than by anything +more public. I will try to improve. What should I work at most?” + +Klesmer made a preliminary answer in noises which sounded like words +bitten in two and swallowed before they were half out, shaking his +fingers the while, before he said, quite distinctly, “I shall introduce +you to Astorga: he is the foster-father of good singing and will give +you advice.” Then addressing Mrs. Meyrick, he added, “Mrs. Klesmer will +call before Wednesday, with your permission.” + +“We shall feel that to be a great kindness,” said Mrs. Meyrick. + +“You will sing to her,” said Klesmer, turning again to Mirah. “She is a +thorough musician, and has a soul with more ears to it than you will +often get in a musician. Your singing will satisfy her: + + ‘Vor den Wissenden sich stellen;’ + +you know the rest?” + + “‘Sicher ist’s in allen Fällen.’” + +said Mirah, promptly. And Klesmer saying “Schön!” put out his hand +again as a good-by. + +He had certainly chosen the most delicate way of praising Mirah, and +the Meyrick girls had now given him all their esteem. But imagine Mab’s +feeling when suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, “That +young lady is musical, I see!” She was a mere blush and sense of +scorching. + +“Yes,” said Mirah, on her behalf. “And she has a touch.” + +“Oh, please, Mirah—a scramble, not a touch,” said Mab, in anguish, +with a horrible fear of what the next thing might be: this dreadful +divining personage—evidently Satan in gray trousers—might order her +to sit down to the piano, and her heart was like molten wax in the +midst of her. But this was cheap payment for her amazed joy when +Klesmer said benignantly, turning to Mrs. Meyrick, “Will she like to +accompany Miss Lapidoth and hear the music on Wednesday?” + +“There could hardly be a greater pleasure for her,” said Mrs. Meyrick. +“She will be most glad and grateful.” + +Thereupon Klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than +they had ever been bowed to before. Altogether it was an amusing +picture—the little room with so much of its diagonal taken up in +Klesmer’s magnificent bend to the small feminine figures like images a +little less than life-size, the grave Holbein faces on the walls, as +many as were not otherwise occupied, looking hard at this stranger who +by his face seemed a dignified contemporary of their own, but whose +garments seemed a deplorable mockery of the human form. + +Mrs. Meyrick could not help going out of the room with Klesmer and +closing the door behind her. He understood her, and said with a +frowning nod, + +“She will do: if she doesn’t attempt too much and her voice holds out, +she can make an income. I know that is the great point: Deronda told +me. You are taking care of her. She looks like a good girl.” + +“She is an angel,” said the warm-hearted woman. + +“No,” said Klesmer, with a playful nod; “she is a pretty Jewess: the +angels must not get the credit of her. But I think she has found a +guardian angel,” he ended, bowing himself out in this amiable way. + +The four young creatures had looked at each other mutely till the door +banged and Mrs. Meyrick re-entered. Then there was an explosion. Mab +clapped her hands and danced everywhere inconveniently; Mrs. Meyrick +kissed Mirah and blessed her; Amy said emphatically, “We can never get +her a new dress before Wednesday!” and Kate exclaimed, “Thank heaven my +table is not knocked over!” + +Mirah had reseated herself on the music-stool without speaking, and the +tears were rolling down her cheeks as she looked at her friends. + +“Now, now, Mab!” said Mrs. Meyrick; “come and sit down reasonably and +let us talk?” + +“Yes, let us talk,” said Mab, cordially, coming back to her low seat +and caressing her knees. “I am beginning to feel large again. Hans said +he was coming this afternoon. I wish he had been here—only there would +have been no room for him. Mirah, what are you looking sad for?” + +“I am too happy,” said Mirah. “I feel so full of gratitude to you all; +and he was so very kind.” + +“Yes, at last,” said Mab, sharply. “But he might have said something +encouraging sooner. I thought him dreadfully ugly when he sat frowning, +and only said, ‘_Con_tinue.’ I hated him all the long way from the top +of his hair to the toe of his polished boot.” + +“Nonsense, Mab; he has a splendid profile,” said Kate. + +“_Now_, but not _then_. I cannot bear people to keep their minds +bottled up for the sake of letting them off with a pop. They seem to +grudge making you happy unless they can make you miserable beforehand. +However, I forgive him everything,” said Mab, with a magnanimous air, +“but he has invited me. I wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one? +Was it because I have a bulging forehead, ma, and peep from under it +like a newt from under a stone?” + +“It was your way of listening to the singing, child,” said Mrs. +Meyrick. “He has magic spectacles and sees everything through them, +depend upon it. But what was that German quotation you were so ready +with, Mirah—you learned puss?” + +“Oh, that was not learning,” said Mirah, her tearful face breaking into +an amused smile. “I said it so many times for a lesson. It means that +it is safer to do anything—singing or anything else—before those who +know and understand all about it.” + +“That was why you were not one bit frightened, I suppose,” said Amy. +“But now, what we have to talk about is a dress for you on Wednesday.” + +“I don’t want anything better than this black merino,” said Mirah, +rising to show the effect. “Some white gloves and some new _bottines_.” +She put out her little foot, clad in the famous felt slipper. + +“There comes Hans,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “Stand still, and let us hear +what he says about the dress. Artists are the best people to consult +about such things.” + +“You don’t consult me, ma,” said Kate, lifting up her eyebrow with a +playful complainingness. “I notice mothers are like the people I deal +with—the girls’ doings are always priced low.” + +“My dear child, the boys are such a trouble—we could never put up with +them, if we didn’t make believe they were worth more,” said Mrs. +Meyrick, just as her boy entered. “Hans, we want your opinion about +Mirah’s dress. A great event has happened. Klesmer has been here, and +she is going to sing at his house on Wednesday among grand people. She +thinks this dress will do.” + +“Let me see,” said Hans. Mirah in her childlike way turned toward him +to be looked at; and he, going to a little further distance, knelt with +one knee on a hassock to survey her. + +“This would be thought a very good stage-dress for me,” she said, +pleadingly, “in a part where I was to come on as a poor Jewess and sing +to fashionable Christians.” + +“It would be effective,” said Hans, with a considering air; “it would +stand out well among the fashionable _chiffons_.” + +“But you ought not to claim all the poverty on your side, Mirah,” said +Amy. “There are plenty of poor Christians and dreadfully rich Jews and +fashionable Jewesses.” + +“I didn’t mean any harm,” said Mirah. “Only I have been used to +thinking about my dress for parts in plays. And I almost always had a +part with a plain dress.” + +“That makes me think it questionable,” said Hans, who had suddenly +become as fastidious and conventional on this occasion as he had +thought Deronda was, apropos of the Berenice-pictures. “It looks a +little too theatrical. We must not make you a _rôle_ of the poor +Jewess—or of being a Jewess at all.” Hans had a secret desire to +neutralize the Jewess in private life, which he was in danger of not +keeping secret. + +“But it is what I am really. I am not pretending anything. I shall +never be anything else,” said Mirah. “I always feel myself a Jewess.” + +“But we can’t feel that about you,” said Hans, with a devout look. +“What does it signify whether a perfect woman is a Jewess or not?” + +“That is your kind way of praising me; I never was praised so before,” +said Mirah, with a smile, which was rather maddening to Hans and made +him feel still more of a cosmopolitan. + +“People don’t think of me as a British Christian,” he said, his face +creasing merrily. “They think of me as an imperfectly handsome young +man and an unpromising painter.” + +“But you are wandering from the dress,” said Amy. “If that will not do, +how are we to get another before Wednesday? and to-morrow Sunday?” + +“Indeed this will do,” said Mirah, entreatingly. “It is all real, you +know,” here she looked at Hans—“even if it seemed theatrical. Poor +Berenice sitting on the ruins—any one might say that was theatrical, +but I know that this is just what she would do.” + +“I am a scoundrel,” said Hans, overcome by this misplaced trust. “That +is my invention. Nobody knows that she did that. Shall you forgive me +for not saying so before?” + +“Oh, yes,” said Mirah, after a momentary pause of surprise. “You knew +it was what she would be sure to do—a Jewess who had not been +faithful—who had done what she did and was penitent. She could have no +joy but to afflict herself; and where else would she go? I think it is +very beautiful that you should enter so into what a Jewess would feel.” + +“The Jewesses of that time sat on ruins,” said Hans, starting up with a +sense of being checkmated. “That makes them convenient for pictures.” + +“But the dress—the dress,” said Amy; “is it settled?” + +“Yes; is it not?” said Mirah, looking doubtfully at Mrs. Meyrick, who +in her turn looked up at her son, and said, “What do you think, Hans?” + +“That dress will not do,” said Hans, decisively. “She is not going to +sit on ruins. You must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go +to Regent Street. It’s plenty of time to get anything you like—a black +silk dress such as ladies wear. She must not be taken for an object of +charity. She has talents to make people indebted to her.” + +“I think it is what Mr. Deronda would like—for her to have a handsome +dress,” said Mrs. Meyrick, deliberating. + +“Of course it is,” said Hans, with some sharpness. “You may take my +word for what a gentleman would feel.” + +“I wish to do what Mr. Deronda would like me to do,” said Mirah, +gravely, seeing that Mrs. Meyrick looked toward her; and Hans, turning +on his heel, went to Kate’s table and took up one of her drawings as if +his interest needed a new direction. + +“Shouldn’t you like to make a study of Klesmer’s head, Hans?” said +Kate. “I suppose you have often seen him?” + +“Seen him!” exclaimed Hans, immediately throwing back his head and +mane, seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were +surveying an amphitheatre, while he held his fingers down +perpendicularly toward the keys. But then in another instant he wheeled +round on the stool, looked at Mirah and said, half timidly—“Perhaps +you don’t like this mimicry; you must always stop my nonsense when you +don’t like it.” + +Mirah had been smiling at the swiftly-made image, and she smiled still, +but with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said—“Thank +you. But you have never done anything I did not like. I hardly think he +could, belonging to you,” she added, looking at Mrs. Meyrick. + +In this way Hans got food for his hope. How could the rose help it when +several bees in succession took its sweet odor as a sign of personal +attachment? + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + + “Within the soul a faculty abides, + That with interpositions, which would hide + And darken, so can deal, that they become + Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt + Her native brightness, as the ample moon, + In the deep stillness of a summer even, + Rising behind a thick and lofty grove, + Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, + In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides + Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil + Into a substance glorious as her own, + Yea, with her own incorporated, by power + Capacious and serene.” + —WORDSWORTH: _Excursion_, B. IV. + + +Deronda came out of the narrow house at Chelsea in a frame of mind that +made him long for some good bodily exercise to carry off what he was +himself inclined to call the fumes of his temper. He was going toward +the city, and the sight of the Chelsea Stairs with the waiting boats at +once determined him to avoid the irritating inaction of being driven in +a cab, by calling a wherry and taking an oar. + +His errand was to go to Ram’s book-shop, where he had yesterday arrived +too late for Mordecai’s midday watch, and had been told that he +invariably came there again between five and six. Some further +acquaintance with this remarkable inmate of the Cohens was particularly +desired by Deronda as a preliminary to redeeming his ring: he wished +that their conversation should not again end speedily with that drop of +Mordecai’s interest which was like the removal of a drawbridge, and +threatened to shut out any easy communication in future. As he got +warmed with the use of the oar, fixing his mind on the errand before +him and the ends he wanted to achieve on Mirah’s account, he +experienced, as was wont with him, a quick change of mental light, +shifting his point of view to that of the person whom he had been +thinking of hitherto chiefly as serviceable to his own purposes, and +was inclined to taunt himself with being not much better than an +enlisting sergeant, who never troubles himself with the drama that +brings him the needful recruits. + +“I suppose if I got from this man the information I am most anxious +about,” thought Deronda, “I should be contented enough if he felt no +disposition to tell me more of himself, or why he seemed to have some +expectation from me which was disappointed. The sort of curiosity he +stirs would die out; and yet it might be that he had neared and parted +as one can imagine two ships doing, each freighted with an exile who +would have recognized the other if the two could have looked out face +to face. Not that there is any likelihood of a peculiar tie between me +and this poor fellow, whose voyage, I fancy, must soon be over. But I +wonder whether there is much of that momentous mutual missing between +people who interchange blank looks, or even long for one another’s +absence in a crowded place. However, one makes one’s self chances of +missing by going on the recruiting sergeant’s plan.” + +When the wherry was approaching Blackfriars Bridge, where Deronda meant +to land, it was half-past four, and the gray day was dying gloriously, +its western clouds all broken into narrowing purple strata before a +wide-spreading saffron clearness, which in the sky had a monumental +calm, but on the river, with its changing objects, was reflected as a +luminous movement, the alternate flash of ripples or currents, the +sudden glow of the brown sail, the passage of laden barges from +blackness into color, making an active response to that brooding glory. + +Feeling well heated by this time, Deronda gave up the oar and drew over +him again his Inverness cape. As he lifted up his head while fastening +the topmost button his eyes caught a well-remembered face looking +toward him over the parapet of the bridge—brought out by the western +light into startling distinctness and brilliancy—an illuminated type +of bodily emaciation and spiritual eagerness. It was the face of +Mordecai, who also, in his watch toward the west, had caught sight of +the advancing boat, and had kept it fast within his gaze, at first +simply because it was advancing, then with a recovery of impressions +that made him quiver as with a presentiment, till at last the nearing +figure lifted up its face toward him—the face of his visions—and then +immediately, with white uplifted hand, beckoned again and again. + +For Deronda, anxious that Mordecai should recognize and await him, had +lost no time before signaling, and the answer came straightway. +Mordecai lifted his cap and waved it—feeling in that moment that his +inward prophecy was fulfilled. Obstacles, incongruities, all melted +into the sense of completion with which his soul was flooded by this +outward satisfaction of his longing. His exultation was not widely +different from that of the experimenter, bending over the first +stirrings of change that correspond to what in the fervor of +concentrated prevision his thought has foreshadowed. The prefigured +friend had come from the golden background, and had signaled to him: +this actually was: the rest was to be. + +In three minutes Deronda had landed, had paid his boatman, and was +joining Mordecai, whose instinct it was to stand perfectly still and +wait for him. + +“I was very glad to see you standing here,” said Deronda, “for I was +intending to go on to the book-shop and look for you again. I was there +yesterday—perhaps they mentioned it to you?” + +“Yes,” said Mordecai; “that was the reason I came to the bridge.” + +This answer, made with simple gravity, was startlingly mysterious to +Deronda. Were the peculiarities of this man really associated with any +sort of mental alienation, according to Cohen’s hint? + +“You knew nothing of my being at Chelsea?” he said, after a moment. + +“No; but I expected you to come down the river. I have been waiting for +you these five years.” Mordecai’s deep-sunk eyes were fixed on those of +the friend who had at last arrived with a look of affectionate +dependence, at once pathetic and solemn. Deronda’s sensitiveness was +not the less responsive because he could not but believe that this +strangely-disclosed relation was founded on an illusion. + +“It will be a satisfaction to me if I can be of any real use to you,” +he answered, very earnestly. “Shall we get into a cab and drive +to—wherever you wish to go? You have probably had walking enough with +your short breath.” + +“Let us go to the book-shop. It will soon be time for me to be there. +But now look up the river,” said Mordecai, turning again toward it and +speaking in undertones of what may be called an excited calm—so +absorbed by a sense of fulfillment that he was conscious of no barrier +to a complete understanding between him and Deronda. “See the sky, how +it is slowly fading. I have always loved this bridge: I stood on it +when I was a little boy. It is a meeting-place for the spiritual +messengers. It is true—what the Masters said—that each order of +things has its angel: that means the full message of each from what is +afar. Here I have listened to the messages of earth and sky; when I was +stronger I used to stay and watch for the stars in the deep heavens. +But this time just about sunset was always what I loved best. It has +sunk into me and dwelt with me—fading, slowly fading: it was my own +decline: it paused—it waited, till at last it brought me my new +life—my new self—who will live when this breath is all breathed out.” + +Deronda did not speak. He felt himself strangely wrought upon. The +first-prompted suspicion that Mordecai might be liable to +hallucinations of thought—might have become a monomaniac on some +subject which had given too severe a strain to his diseased +organism—gave way to a more submissive expectancy. His nature was too +large, too ready to conceive regions beyond his own experience, to rest +at once in the easy explanation, “madness,” whenever a consciousness +showed some fullness and conviction where his own was blank. It +accorded with his habitual disposition that he should meet rather than +resist any claim on him in the shape of another’s need; and this claim +brought with it a sense of solemnity which seemed a radiation from +Mordecai, as utterly nullifying his outward poverty and lifting him +into authority as if he had been that preternatural guide seen in the +universal legend, who suddenly drops his mean disguise and stands a +manifest Power. That impression was the more sanctioned by a sort of +resolved quietude which the persuasion of fulfillment had produced in +Mordecai’s manner. After they had stood a moment in silence he said, +“Let us go now,” and when they were riding he added, “We will get down +at the end of the street and walk to the shop. You can look at the +books, and Mr. Ram will be going away directly and leave us alone.” + +It seemed that this enthusiast was just as cautious, just as much alive +to judgments in other minds as if he had been that antipode of all +enthusiasm called “a man of the world.” + +While they were rattling along in the cab, Mirah was still present with +Deronda in the midst of this strange experience, but he foresaw that +the course of conversation would be determined by Mordecai, not by +himself: he was no longer confident what questions he should be able to +ask; and with a reaction on his own mood, he inwardly said, “I suppose +I am in a state of complete superstition, just as if I were awaiting +the destiny that could interpret the oracle. But some strong relation +there must be between me and this man, since he feels it strongly. +Great heaven! what relation has proved itself more potent in the world +than faith even when mistaken—than expectation even when perpetually +disappointed? Is my side of the relation to be disappointing or +fulfilling?—well, if it is ever possible for me to fulfill I will not +disappoint.” + +In ten minutes the two men, with as intense a consciousness as if they +had been two undeclared lovers, felt themselves alone in the small +gas-lit book-shop and turned face to face, each baring his head from an +instinctive feeling that they wished to see each other fully. Mordecai +came forward to lean his back against the little counter, while Deronda +stood against the opposite wall hardly more than four feet off. I wish +I could perpetuate those two faces, as Titian’s “Tribute Money” has +perpetuated two types presenting another sort of contrast. Imagine—we +all of us can—the pathetic stamp of consumption with its brilliancy of +glance to which the sharply-defined structure of features reminding one +of a forsaken temple, give already a far-off look as of one getting +unwillingly out of reach; and imagine it on a Jewish face naturally +accentuated for the expression of an eager mind—the face of a man +little above thirty, but with that age upon it which belongs to time +lengthened by suffering, the hair and beard, still black, throwing out +the yellow pallor of the skin, the difficult breathing giving more +decided marking to the mobile nostril, the wasted yellow hands +conspicuous on the folded arms: then give to the yearning consumptive +glance something of the slowly dying mother’s look, when her one loved +son visits her bedside, and the flickering power of gladness leaps out +as she says, “My boy!”—for the sense of spiritual perpetuation in +another resembles that maternal transference of self. + +Seeing such a portrait you would see Mordecai. And opposite to him was +a face not more distinctively oriental than many a type seen among what +we call the Latin races; rich in youthful health, and with a forcible +masculine gravity in its repose, that gave the value of judgment to the +reverence with which he met the gaze of this mysterious son of poverty +who claimed him as a long-expected friend. The more exquisite quality +of Deronda’s nature—that keenly perceptive sympathetic emotiveness +which ran along with his speculative tendency—was never more +thoroughly tested. He felt nothing that could be called belief in the +validity of Mordecai’s impressions concerning him or in the probability +of any greatly effective issue: what he felt was a profound sensibility +to a cry from the depths of another and accompanying that, the summons +to be receptive instead of superciliously prejudging. Receptiveness is +a rare and massive power, like fortitude; and this state of mind now +gave Deronda’s face its utmost expression of calm benignant force—an +expression which nourished Mordecai’s confidence and made an open way +before him. He began to speak. + +“You cannot know what has guided me to you and brought us together at +this moment. You are wondering.” + +“I am not impatient,” said Deronda. “I am ready to listen to whatever +you may wish to disclose.” + +“You see some of the reasons why I needed you,” said Mordecai, speaking +quietly, as if he wished to reserve his strength. “You see that I am +dying. You see that I am as one shut up behind bars by the wayside, who +if he spoke to any would be met only by head-shaking and pity. The day +is closing—the light is fading—soon we should not have been able to +discern each other. But you have come in time.” + +“I rejoice that I am come in time,” said Deronda, feelingly. He would +not say, “I hope you are not mistaken in me,”—the very word +“mistaken,” he thought, would be a cruelty at that moment. + +“But the hidden reasons why I need you began afar off,” said Mordecai; +“began in my early years when I was studying in another land. Then +ideas, beloved ideas, came to me, because I was a Jew. They were a +trust to fulfill, because I was a Jew. They were an inspiration, +because I was a Jew, and felt the heart of my race beating within me. +They were my life; I was not fully born till then. I counted this +heart, and this breath, and this right hand”—Mordecai had pathetically +pressed his hand upon his breast, and then stretched its wasted fingers +out before him—“I counted my sleep and my waking, and the work I fed +my body with, and the sights that fed my eyes—I counted them but as +fuel to the divine flame. But I had done as one who wanders and +engraves his thought in rocky solitudes, and before I could change my +course came care and labor and disease, and blocked the way before me, +and bound me with the iron that eats itself into the soul. Then I said, +‘How shall I save the life within me from being stifled with this +stifled breath?’” + +Mordecai paused to rest that poor breath which had been taxed by the +rising excitement of his speech. And also he wished to check that +excitement. Deronda dared not speak: the very silence in the narrow +space seemed alive with mingled awe and compassion before this +struggling fervor. And presently Mordecai went on: + +“But you may misunderstand me. I speak not as an ignorant dreamer—as +one bred up in the inland valleys, thinking ancient thoughts anew, and +not knowing them ancient, never having stood by the great waters where +the world’s knowledge passes to and fro. English is my mother-tongue, +England is the native land of this body, which is but as a breaking pot +of earth around the fruit-bearing tree, whose seed might make the +desert rejoice. But my true life was nourished in Holland at the feet +of my mother’s brother, a Rabbi skilled in special learning: and when +he died I went to Hamburg to study, and afterwards to Göttingen, that I +might take a larger outlook on my people, and on the Gentile world, and +drank knowledge at all sources. I was a youth; I felt free; I saw our +chief seats in Germany; I was not then in utter poverty. And I had +possessed myself of a handicraft. For I said, I care not if my lot be +as that of Joshua ben Chananja: after the last destruction he earned +his bread by making needles, but in his youth he had been a singer on +the steps of the Temple, and had a memory of what was before the glory +departed. I said, let my body dwell in poverty, and my hands be as the +hands of the toiler: but let my soul be as a temple of remembrance +where the treasures of knowledge enter and the inner sanctuary is hope. +I knew what I chose. They said, ‘He feeds himself on visions,’ and I +denied not; for visions are the creators and feeders of the world. I +see, I measure the world as it is, which the vision will create anew. +You are not listening to one who raves aloof from the lives of his +fellows.” + +Mordecai paused, and Deronda, feeling that the pause was expectant, +said, “Do me the justice to believe that I was not inclined to call +your words raving. I listen that I may know, without prejudgment. I +have had experience which gives me a keen interest in the story of a +spiritual destiny embraced willingly, and embraced in youth.” + +“A spiritual destiny embraced willingly—in youth?” Mordecai repeated +in a corrective tone. “It was the soul fully born within me, and it +came in my boyhood. It brought its own world—a mediaeval world, where +there are men who made the ancient language live again in new psalms of +exile. They had absorbed the philosophy of the Gentile into the faith +of the Jew, and they still yearned toward a center for our race. One of +their souls was born again within me, and awakened amid the memories of +their world. It traveled into Spain and Provence; it debated with +Aben-Ezra; it took ship with Jehuda ha-Levi; it heard the roar of the +Crusaders and the shrieks of tortured Israel. And when its dumb tongue +was loosed, it spoke the speech they had made alive with the new blood +of their ardor, their sorrow, and their martyred trust: it sang with +the cadence of their strain.” + +Mordecai paused again, and then said in a loud, hoarse whisper, + +“While it is imprisoned in me, it will never learn another.” + +“Have you written entirely in Hebrew, then?” said Deronda, remembering +with some anxiety the former question as to his own knowledge of that +tongue. + +“Yes—yes,” said Mordecai, in a tone of deep sadness: “in my youth I +wandered toward that solitude, not feeling that it was a solitude. I +had the ranks of the great dead around me; the martyrs gathered and +listened. But soon I found that the living were deaf to me. At first I +saw my life spread as a long future: I said part of my Jewish heritage +is an unbreaking patience; part is skill to seek divers methods and +find a rooting-place where the planters despair. But there came new +messengers from the Eternal. I had to bow under the yoke that presses +on the great multitude born of woman: family troubles called me—I had +to work, to care, not for myself alone. I was left solitary again; but +already the angel of death had turned to me and beckoned, and I felt +his skirts continually on my path. I loosed not my effort. I besought +hearing and help. I spoke; I went to men of our people—to the rich in +influence or knowledge, to the rich in other wealth. But I found none +to listen with understanding. I was rebuked for error; I was offered a +small sum in charity. No wonder. I looked poor; I carried a bundle of +Hebrew manuscript with me; I said, our chief teachers are misleading +the hope of our race. Scholar and merchant were both too busy to +listen. Scorn stood as interpreter between me and them. One said, ‘The +book of Mormon would never have answered in Hebrew; and if you mean to +address our learned men, it is not likely you can teach them anything.’ +He touched a truth there.” + +The last words had a perceptible irony in their hoarsened tone. + +“But though you had accustomed yourself to write in Hebrew, few, +surely, can use English better,” said Deronda, wanting to hint +consolation in a new effort for which he could smooth the way. + +Mordecai shook his head slowly, and answered, + +“Too late—too late. I can write no more. My writing would be like this +gasping breath. But the breath may wake the fount of pity—the writing +not. If I could write now and used English, I should be as one who +beats a board to summon those who have been used to no signal but a +bell. My soul has an ear to hear the faults of its own speech. New +writing of mine would be like this body”—Mordecai spread his +arms—“within it there might be the Ruach-ha-kodesh—the breath of +divine thought—but, men would smile at it and say, ‘A poor Jew!’ and +the chief smilers would be of my own people.” + +Mordecai let his hands fall, and his head sink in melancholy: for the +moment he had lost hold of his hope. Despondency, conjured up by his +own words, had floated in and hovered above him with eclipsing wings. +He had sunk into momentary darkness, + +“I feel with you—I feel strongly with you,” said Deronda, in a clear +deep voice which was itself a cordial, apart from the words of +sympathy. “But forgive me if I speak hastily—for what you have +actually written there need be no utter burial. The means of +publication are within reach. If you will rely on me, I can assure you +of all that is necessary to that end.” + +“That is not enough,” said Mordecai, quickly, looking up again with the +flash of recovered memory and confidence. “That is not all my trust in +you. You must be not only a hand to me, but a soul—believing my +belief—being moved by my reasons—hoping my hope—seeing the vision I +point to—beholding a glory where I behold it!”—Mordecai had taken a +step nearer as he spoke, and now laid his hand on Deronda’s arm with a +tight grasp; his face little more than a foot off had something like a +pale flame in it—an intensity of reliance that acted as a peremptory +claim, while he went on—“You will be my life: it will be planted +afresh; it will grow. You shall take the inheritance; it has been +gathering for ages. The generations are crowding on my narrow life as a +bridge: what has been and what is to be are meeting there; and the +bridge is breaking. But I have found you. You have come in time. You +will take the inheritance which the base son refuses because of the +tombs which the plow and harrow may not pass over or the gold-seeker +disturb: you will take the sacred inheritance of the Jew.” + +Deronda had become as pallid as Mordecai. Quick as an alarm of flood or +fire, there spread within him not only a compassionate dread of +discouraging this fellowman who urged a prayer as one in the last +agony, but also the opposing dread of fatally feeding an illusion, and +being hurried on to a self-committal which might turn into a falsity. +The peculiar appeal to his tenderness overcame the repulsion that most +of us experience under a grasp and speech which assumed to dominate. +The difficulty to him was to inflict the accents of hesitation and +doubt on this ardent suffering creature, who was crowding too much of +his brief being into a moment of perhaps extravagant trust. With +exquisite instinct, Deronda, before he opened his lips, placed his palm +gently on Mordecai’s straining hand—an act just then equal to many +speeches. And after that he said, without haste, as if conscious that +he might be wrong, + +“Do you forget what I told you when we first saw each other? Do you +remember that I said I was not of your race?” + +“It can’t be true,” Mordecai whispered immediately, with no sign of +shock. The sympathetic hand still upon him had fortified the feeling +which was stronger than those words of denial. There was a perceptible +pause, Deronda feeling it impossible to answer, conscious indeed that +the assertion “It can’t be true”—had the pressure of argument for him. +Mordecai, too entirely possessed by the supreme importance of the +relation between himself and Deronda to have any other care in his +speech, followed up that assertion by a second, which came to his lips +as a mere sequence of his long-cherished conviction—“You are not sure +of your own origin.” + +“How do you know that?” said Daniel, with an habitual shrinking which +made him remove his hands from Mordecai’s, who also relaxed his hold, +and fell back into his former leaning position. + +“I know it—I know it; what is my life else?” said Mordecai, with a low +cry of impatience. “Tell me everything: tell me why you deny.” + +He could have no conception what that demand was to the hearer—how +probingly it touched the hidden sensibility, the vividly conscious +reticence of years; how the uncertainty he was insisting on as part of +his own hope had always for Daniel been a threatening possibility of +painful revelation about his mother. But the moment had influences +which were not only new but solemn to Deronda; any evasion here might +turn out to be a hateful refusal of some task that belonged to him, +some act of due fellowship; in any case it would be a cruel rebuff to a +being who was appealing to him as a forlorn hope under the shadow of a +coming doom. After a few moments, he said, with a great effort over +himself—determined to tell all the truth briefly, + +“I have never known my mother. I have no knowledge about her. I have +never called any man father. But I am convinced that my father is an +Englishman.” + +Deronda’s deep tones had a tremor in them as he uttered this +confession; and all the while there was an under-current of amazement in +him at the strange circumstances under which he uttered it. It seemed +as if Mordecai were hardly overrating his own power to determine the +action of the friend whom he had mysteriously chosen. + +“It will be seen—it will be declared,” said Mordecai, triumphantly. +“The world grows, and its frame is knit together by the growing soul; +dim, dim at first, then clearer and more clear, the consciousness +discerns remote stirrings. As thoughts move within us darkly, and shake +us before they are fully discerned—so events—so beings: they are knit +with us in the growth of the world. You have risen within me like a +thought not fully spelled; my soul is shaken before the words are all +there. The rest will come—it will come.” + +“We must not lose sight of the fact that the outward event has not +always been a fulfillment of the firmest faith,” said Deronda, in a +tone that was made hesitating by the painfully conflicting desires, not +to give any severe blow to Mordecai, and not to give his confidence a +sanction which might have the severest of blows in reserve. + +Mordecai’s face, which had been illuminated to the utmost in that last +declaration of his confidence, changed under Deronda’s words, not only +into any show of collapsed trust: the force did not disappear from the +expression, but passed from the triumphant into the firmly resistant. + +“You would remind me that I may be under an illusion—that the history +of our people’s trust has been full of illusion. I face it all.” Here +Mordecai paused a moment. Then bending his head a little forward, he +said, in his hoarse whisper, “_So it might be with my trust, if you +would make it an illusion. But you will not._” + +The very sharpness with which these words penetrated Deronda made him +feel the more that here was a crisis in which he must be firm. + +“What my birth was does not lie in my will,” he answered. “My sense of +claims on me cannot be independent of my knowledge there. And I cannot +promise you that I will try to hasten a disclosure. Feelings which have +struck root through half my life may still hinder me from doing what I +have never been able to do. Everything must be waited for. I must know +more of the truth about my own life, and I must know more of what it +would become if it were made a part of yours.” + +Mordecai had folded his arms again while Deronda was speaking, and now +answered with equal firmness, though with difficult breathing, + +“You _shall_ know. What are we met for, but that you should know. Your +doubts lie as light as dust on my belief. I know the philosophies of +this time and of other times; if I chose I could answer a summons +before their tribunals. I could silence the beliefs which are the +mother-tongue of my soul and speak with the rote-learned language of a +system, that gives you the spelling of all things, sure of its alphabet +covering them all. I could silence them: may not a man silence his awe +or his love, and take to finding reasons, which others demand? But if +his love lies deeper than any reasons to be found? Man finds his +pathways: at first they were foot tracks, as those of the beast in the +wilderness: now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through +the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways +yet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it, +not knowing its pathway. Say, my expectation of you has grown but as +false hopes grow. That doubt is in your mind? Well, my expectation was +there, and you are come. Men have died of thirst. But I was thirsty, +and the water is on my lips! What are doubts to me? In the hour when +you come to me and say, ‘I reject your soul: I know that I am not a +Jew: we have no lot in common’—I shall not doubt. I shall be +certain—certain that I have been deluded. That hour will never come!” + +Deronda felt a new chord sounding in his speech: it was rather +imperious than appealing—had more of conscious power than of the +yearning need which had acted as a beseeching grasp on him before. And +usually, though he was the reverse of pugnacious, such a change of +attitude toward him would have weakened his inclination to admit a +claim. But here there was something that balanced his resistance and +kept it aloof. This strong man whose gaze was sustainedly calm and his +finger-nails pink with health, who was exercised in all questioning, +and accused of excessive mental independence, still felt a subduing +influence over him in the tenacious certitude of the fragile creature +before him, whose pallid yellow nostril was tense with effort as his +breath labored under the burthen of eager speech. The influence seemed +to strengthen the bond of sympathetic obligation. In Deronda at this +moment the desire to escape what might turn into a trying embarrassment +was no more likely to determine action than the solicitations of +indolence are likely to determine it in one with whom industry is a +daily law. He answered simply, + +“It is my wish to meet and satisfy your wishes wherever that is +possible to me. It is certain to me at least that I desire not to +undervalue your toil and your suffering. Let me know your thoughts. But +where can we meet?” + +“I have thought of that,” said Mordecai. “It is not hard for you to +come into this neighborhood later in the evening? You did so once.” + +“I can manage it very well occasionally,” said Deronda. “You live under +the same roof with the Cohens, I think?” + +Before Mordecai could answer, Mr. Ram re-entered to take his place +behind the counter. He was an elderly son of Abraham, whose childhood +had fallen on the evil times at the beginning of this century, and who +remained amid this smart and instructed generation as a preserved +specimen, soaked through and through with the effect of the poverty and +contempt which were the common heritage of most English Jews seventy +years ago. He had none of the oily cheerfulness observable in Mr. +Cohen’s aspect: his very features—broad and chubby—showed that +tendency to look mongrel without due cause, which, in a miscellaneous +London neighborhood, may perhaps be compared with the marvels of +imitation in insects, and may have been nature’s imperfect effort on +behalf of the pure Caucasian to shield him from the shame and spitting +to which purer features would have been exposed in the times of zeal. +Mr. Ram dealt ably in books, in the same way that he would have dealt +in tins of meat and other commodities—without knowledge or +responsibility as to the proportion of rottenness or nourishment they +might contain. But he believed in Mordecai’s learning as something +marvellous, and was not sorry that his conversation should be sought by +a bookish gentleman, whose visits had twice ended in a purchase. He +greeted Deronda with a crabbed good-will, and, putting on large silver +spectacles, appeared at once to abstract himself in the daily accounts. + +But Deronda and Mordecai were soon in the street together, and without +any explicit agreement as to their direction, were walking toward Ezra +Cohen’s. + +“We can’t meet there: my room is too narrow,” said Mordecai, taking up +the thread of talk where they had dropped it. “But there is a tavern +not far from here where I sometimes go to a club. It is the _Hand and +Banner_, in the street at the next turning, five doors down. We can +have the parlor there any evening.” + +“We can try that for once,” said Deronda. “But you will perhaps let me +provide you with some lodging, which would give you more freedom and +comfort than where you are.” + +“No; I need nothing. My outer life is as nought. I will take nothing +less precious from you than your soul’s brotherhood. I will think of +nothing else yet. But I am glad you are rich. You did not need money on +that diamond ring. You had some other motive for bringing it.” + +Deronda was a little startled by this clear-sightedness; but before he +could reply Mordecai added—“it is all one. Had you been in need of the +money, the great end would have been that we should meet again. But you +are rich?” he ended, in a tone of interrogation. + +“Not rich, except in the sense that every one is rich who has more than +he needs for himself.” + +“I desired that your life should be free,” said Mordecai, +dreamily—“mine has been a bondage.” + +It was clear that he had no interest in the fact of Deronda’s +appearance at the Cohens’ beyond its relation to his own ideal purpose. +Despairing of leading easily up to the question he wished to ask, +Deronda determined to put it abruptly, and said, + +“Can you tell me why Mrs. Cohen, the mother, must not be spoken to +about her daughter?” + +There was no immediate answer, and he thought that he should have to +repeat the question. The fact was that Mordecai had heard the words, +but had to drag his mind to a new subject away from his passionate +preoccupation. After a few moments, he replied with a careful effort +such as he would have used if he had been asked the road to Holborn: + +“I know the reason. But I will not speak even of trivial family affairs +which I have heard in the privacy of the family. I dwell in their tent +as in a sanctuary. Their history, so far as they injure none other, is +their own possession.” + +Deronda felt the blood mounting to his cheeks as a sort of rebuke he +was little used to, and he also found himself painfully baffled where +he had reckoned with some confidence on getting decisive knowledge. He +became the more conscious of emotional strain from the excitements of +the day; and although he had the money in his pocket to redeem his +ring, he recoiled from the further task of a visit to the Cohens’, +which must be made not only under the former uncertainty, but under a +new disappointment as to the possibility of its removal. + +“I will part from you now,” he said, just before they could reach +Cohen’s door; and Mordecai paused, looking up at him with an anxious +fatigued face under the gaslight. + +“When will you come back?” he said, with slow emphasis. + +“May I leave that unfixed? May I ask for you at the Cohens’ any evening +after your hour at the book-shop? There is no objection, I suppose, to +their knowing that you and I meet in private?” + +“None,” said Mordecai. “But the days I wait now are longer than the +years of my strength. Life shrinks: what was but a tithe is now the +half. My hope abides in you.” + +“I will be faithful,” said Deronda—he could not have left those words +unuttered. “I will come the first evening I can after seven: on +Saturday or Monday, if possible. Trust me.” + +He put out his ungloved hand. Mordecai, clasping it eagerly, seemed to +feel a new instreaming of confidence, and he said with some recovered +energy—“This is come to pass, and the rest will come.” + +That was their good-by. + + + + +BOOK VI.—REVELATIONS + + +CHAPTER XLI. + + “This, too is probable, according to that saying of Agathon: ‘It is a + part of probability that many improbable things will happen.’” + —ARISTOTLE: _Poetics_. + + +Imagine the conflict in a mind like Deronda’s given not only to feel +strongly but to question actively, on the evening after the interview +with Mordecai. To a young man of much duller susceptibilities the +adventure might have seemed enough out of the common way to divide his +thoughts; but it had stirred Deronda so deeply, that with the usual +reaction of his intellect he began to examine the grounds of his +emotion, and consider how far he must resist its guidance. The +consciousness that he was half dominated by Mordecai’s energetic +certitude, and still more by his fervent trust, roused his alarm. It +was his characteristic bias to shrink from the moral stupidity of +valuing lightly what had come close to him, and of missing blindly in +his own life of to-day the crisis which he recognized as momentous and +sacred in the historic life of men. If he had read of this incident as +having happened centuries ago in Rome, Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, +Cairo, to some man young as himself, dissatisfied with his neutral +life, and wanting some closer fellowship, some more special duty to +give him ardor for the possible consequences of his work, it would have +appeared to him quite natural that the incident should have created a +deep impression on that far-off man, whose clothing and action would +have been seen in his imagination as part of an age chiefly known to us +through its more serious effects. Why should he be ashamed of his own +agitated feeling merely because he dressed for dinner, wore a white +tie, and lived among people who might laugh at his owning any +conscience in the matter, as the solemn folly of taking himself too +seriously?—that bugbear of circles in which the lack of grave emotion +passes for wit. From such cowardice before modish ignorance and +obtuseness, Deronda shrank. But he also shrank from having his course +determined by mere contagion, without consent of reason; or from +allowing a reverential pity for spiritual struggle to hurry him along a +dimly-seen path. + +What, after all, had really happened? He knew quite accurately the +answer Sir Hugo would have given: “A consumptive Jew, possessed by a +fanaticism which obstacles and hastening death intensified, had fixed +on Deronda as the antitype of some visionary image, the offspring of +wedded hope and despair: despair of his own life, irrepressible hope in +the propagation of his fanatical beliefs. The instance was perhaps odd, +exceptional in its form, but substantially it was not rare. Fanaticism +was not so common as bankruptcy, but taken in all its aspects it was +abundant enough. While Mordecai was waiting on the bridge for the +fulfillment of his visions, another man was convinced that he had the +mathematical key of the universe which would supersede Newton, and +regarded all known physicists as conspiring to stifle his discovery and +keep the universe locked; another, that he had the metaphysical key, +with just that hair’s-breadth of difference from the old wards which +would make it fit exactly. Scattered here and there in every direction +you might find a terrible person, with more or less power of speech, +and with an eye either glittering or preternaturally dull, on the +look-out for the man who must hear him; and in most cases he had +volumes which it was difficult to get printed, or if printed to get +read. This Mordecai happened to have a more pathetic aspect, a more +passionate, penetrative speech than was usual with such monomaniacs; he +was more poetical than a social reformer with colored views of the new +moral world in parallelograms, or than an enthusiast in sewage; still +he came under the same class. It would be only right and kind to +indulge him a little, to comfort him with such help as was practicable; +but what likelihood was there that his notions had the sort of value he +ascribed to them? In such cases a man of the world knows what to think +beforehand. And as to Mordecai’s conviction that he had found a new +executive self, it might be preparing for him the worst of +disappointments—that which presents itself as final.” + +Deronda’s ear caught all these negative whisperings; nay, he repeated +them distinctly to himself. It was not the first but it was the most +pressing occasion on which he had had to face this question of the +family likeness among the heirs of enthusiasm, whether prophets or +dreamers of dreams, whether the + + “Great benefactors of mankind, deliverers,” + +or the devotees of phantasmal discovery—from the first believer in his +own unmanifested inspiration, down to the last inventor of an ideal +machine that will achieve perpetual motion. The kinship of human +passion, the sameness of mortal scenery, inevitably fill fact with +burlesque and parody. Error and folly have had their hecatombs of +martyrs. Reduce the grandest type of man hitherto known to an abstract +statement of his qualities and efforts, and he appears in dangerous +company: say that, like Copernicus and Galileo, he was immovably +convinced in the face of hissing incredulity; but so is the contriver +of perpetual motion. We cannot fairly try the spirits by this sort of +test. If we want to avoid giving the dose of hemlock or the sentence of +banishment in the wrong case, nothing will do but a capacity to +understand the subject-matter on which the immovable man is convinced, +and fellowship with human travail, both near and afar, to hinder us +from scanning any deep experience lightly. Shall we say, “Let the ages +try the spirits, and see what they are worth?” Why, we are the +beginning of the ages, which can only be just by virtue of just +judgments in separate human breasts—separate yet combined. Even +steam-engines could not have got made without that condition, but must +have stayed in the mind of James Watt. + +This track of thinking was familiar enough to Deronda to have saved him +from any contemptuous prejudgment of Mordecai, even if their +communication had been free from that peculiar claim on himself +strangely ushered in by some long-growing preparation in the Jew’s +agitated mind. This claim, indeed, considered in what is called a +rational way, might seem justifiably dismissed as illusory and even +preposterous; but it was precisely what turned Mordecai’s hold on him +from an appeal to his ready sympathy into a clutch on his struggling +conscience. Our consciences are not all of the same pattern, an inner +deliverance of fixed laws: they are the voice of sensibilities as +various as our memories (which also have their kinship and likeness). +And Deronda’s conscience included sensibilities beyond the common, +enlarged by his early habit of thinking himself imaginatively into the +experience of others. + +What was the claim this eager soul made upon him?—“You must believe my +beliefs—be moved by my reasons—hope my hopes—see the vision I point +to—behold a glory where I behold it!” To take such a demand in the +light of an obligation in any direct sense would have been +preposterous—to have seemed to admit it would have been dishonesty; +and Deronda, looking on the agitation of those moments, felt thankful +that in the midst of his compassion he had preserved himself from the +bondage of false concessions. The claim hung, too, on a supposition +which might be—nay, probably was—in discordance with the full fact: +the supposition that he, Deronda, was of Jewish blood. Was there ever a +more hypothetic appeal? + +But since the age of thirteen Deronda had associated the deepest +experience of his affections with what was a pure supposition, namely, +that Sir Hugo was his father: that was a hypothesis which had been the +source of passionate struggle within him; by its light he had been +accustomed to subdue feelings and to cherish them. He had been well +used to find a motive in a conception which might be disproved; and he +had been also used to think of some revelation that might influence his +view of the particular duties belonging to him. To be in a state of +suspense, which was also one of emotive activity and scruple, was a +familiar attitude of his conscience. + +And now, suppose that wish-begotten belief in his Jewish birth, and +that extravagant demand of discipleship, to be the foreshadowing of an +actual discovery and a genuine spiritual result: suppose that +Mordecai’s ideas made a real conquest over Deronda’s conviction? Nay, +it was conceivable that as Mordecai needed and believed that, he had +found an active replenishment of himself, so Deronda might receive from +Mordecai’s mind the complete ideal shape of that personal duty and +citizenship which lay in his own thought like sculptured fragments +certifying some beauty yearned after but not traceable by divination. + +As that possibility presented itself in his meditations, he was aware +that it would be called dreamy, and began to defend it. If the +influence he imagined himself submitting to had been that of some +honored professor, some authority in a seat of learning, some +philosopher who had been accepted as a voice of the age, would a +thorough receptiveness toward direction have been ridiculed? Only by +those who hold it a sign of weakness to be obliged for an idea, and +prefer to hint that they have implicitly held in a more correct form +whatever others have stated with a sadly short-coming explicitness. +After all, what was there but vulgarity in taking the fact that +Mordecai was a poor Jewish workman, and that he was to be met perhaps +on a sanded floor in the parlor of the _Hand and Banner_ as a reason +for determining beforehand that there was not some spiritual force +within him that might have a determining effect on a white-handed +gentleman? There is a legend told of the Emperor Domitian, that having +heard of a Jewish family, of the house of David, whence the ruler of +the world was to spring, he sent for its members in alarm, but quickly +released them on observing that they had the hands of +work-people—being of just the opposite opinion with that Rabbi who +stood waiting at the gate of Rome in confidence that the Messiah would +be found among the destitute who entered there. Both Emperor and Rabbi +were wrong in their trust of outward signs: poverty and poor clothes +are no sign of inspiration, said Deronda to his inward objector, but +they have gone with it in some remarkable cases. And to regard +discipleship as out of the question because of them, would be mere +dullness of imagination. + +A more plausible reason for putting discipleship out of the question +was the strain of visionary excitement in Mordecai, which turned his +wishes into overmastering impressions, and made him read outward facts +as fulfillment. Was such a temper of mind likely to accompany that wise +estimate of consequences which is the only safeguard from fatal error, +even to ennobling motive? But it remained to be seen whether that rare +conjunction existed or not in Mordecai: perhaps his might be one of the +natures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of +that passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes +in. The inspirations of the world have come in that way too: even +strictly-measuring science could hardly have got on without that +forecasting ardor which feels the agitations of discovery beforehand, +and has a faith in its preconception that surmounts many failures of +experiment. And in relation to human motives and actions, passionate +belief has a fuller efficacy. Here enthusiasm may have the validity of +proof, and happening in one soul, give the type of what will one day be +general. + +At least, Deronda argued, Mordecai’s visionary excitability was hardly +a reason for concluding beforehand that he was not worth listening to +except for pity’s sake. Suppose he had introduced himself as one of the +strictest reasoners. Do they form a body of men hitherto free from +false conclusions and illusory speculations? The driest argument has +its hallucinations, too hastily concluding that its net will now at +last be large enough to hold the universe. Men may dream in +demonstrations, and cut out an illusory world in the shape of axioms, +definitions, and propositions, with a final exclusion of fact signed +Q.E.D. No formulas for thinking will save us mortals from mistake in +our imperfect apprehension of the matter to be thought about. And since +the unemotional intellect may carry us into a mathematical dreamland +where nothing is but what is not, perhaps an emotional intellect may +have absorbed into its passionate vision of possibilities some truth of +what will be—the more comprehensive massive life feeding theory with +new material, as the sensibility of the artist seizes combinations +which science explains and justifies. At any rate, presumptions to the +contrary are not to be trusted. We must be patient with the inevitable +makeshift of our human thinking, whether in its sum total or in the +separate minds that have made the sum. Columbus had some impressions +about himself which we call superstitions, and used some arguments +which we disapprove; but he had also some sound physical conceptions, +and he had the passionate patience of genius to make them tell on +mankind. The world has made up its mind rather contemptuously about +those who were deaf to Columbus. + +“My contempt for them binds me to see that I don’t adopt their mistake +on a small scale,” said Deronda, “and make myself deaf with the +assumption that there cannot be any momentous relation between this Jew +and me, simply because he has clad it in illusory notions. What I can +be to him, or he to me, may not at all depend on his persuasion about +the way we came together. To me the way seems made up of plainly +discernible links. If I had not found Mirah, it is probable that I +should not have begun to be specially interested in the Jews, and +certainly I should not have gone on that loitering search after an Ezra +Cohen which made me pause at Ram’s book-shop and ask the price of +_Maimon_. Mordecai, on his side, had his visions of a disciple, and he +saw me by their light; I corresponded well enough with the image his +longing had created. He took me for one of his race. Suppose that his +impression—the elderly Jew at Frankfort seemed to have something like +it—suppose in spite of all presumptions to the contrary, that his +impression should somehow be proved true, and that I should come +actually to share any of the ideas he is devoted to? This is the only +question which really concerns the effect of our meeting on my life. + +“But if the issue should be quite different?—well, there will be +something painful to go through. I shall almost inevitably have to be +an active cause of that poor fellow’s crushing disappointment. Perhaps +this issue is the one I had need prepare myself for. I fear that no +tenderness of mine can make his suffering lighter. Would the +alternative—that I should not disappoint him—be less painful to me?” + +Here Deronda wavered. Feelings had lately been at work within him which +had very much modified the reluctance he would formerly have had to +think of himself as probably a Jew. And, if you like, he was romantic. +That young energy and spirit of adventure which have helped to create +the world-wide legions of youthful heroes going to seek the hidden +tokens of their birth and its inheritance of tasks, gave him a certain +quivering interest in the bare possibility that he was entering on a +like track —all the more because the track was one of thought as well +as action. + +“The bare possibility.” He could not admit it to be more. The belief +that his father was an Englishman only grew firmer under the weak +assaults of unwarranted doubt. And that a moment should ever come in +which that belief was declared a delusion, was something of which +Deronda would not say, “I should be glad.” His life-long affection for +Sir Hugo, stronger than all his resentment, made him shrink from +admitting that wish. + +Which way soever the truth might lie, he repeated to himself what he +had said to Mordecai—that he could not without farther reasons +undertake to hasten its discovery. Nay, he was tempted now to regard +his uncertainty as a condition to be cherished for the present. If +further intercourse revealed nothing but illusions as what he was +expected to share in, the want of any valid evidence that he was a Jew +might save Mordecai the worst shock in the refusal of fraternity. It +might even be justifiable to use the uncertainty on this point in +keeping up a suspense which would induce Mordecai to accept those +offices of friendship that Deronda longed to urge on him. + +These were the meditations that busied Deronda in the interval of four +days before he could fulfill his promise to call for Mordecai at Ezra +Cohen’s, Sir Hugo’s demands on him often lasting to an hour so late as +to put the evening expedition to Holborn out of the question. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + + “Wenn es eine Stufenleiter von Leiden giebt, so hat Israel die höchste + Staffel erstiegen; wen die Dauer der Schmerzen und die Geduld, mit + welcher sie ertragen werden, adeln, so nehmen es die Juden mit den + Hochgeborenen aller Länder auf; wenn eine Literatur reich genannt + wird, die wenige klassische Trauerspiele besitzt, welcher Platz + gebührt dann einer Tragodie die anderthalb Jahrtausende wahrt, + gedichtet und dargestellt von den Helden selber?”—ZUNZ: _Die + Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters._ + + +“If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the +nations—if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they +are borne ennoble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land—if +a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic +tragedies, what shall we say to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen +hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?” + +Deronda had lately been reading that passage of Zunz, and it occurred +to him by way of contrast when he was going to the Cohens, who +certainly bore no obvious stamp of distinction in sorrow or in any +other form of aristocracy. Ezra Cohen was not clad in the sublime +pathos of the martyr, and his taste for money-getting seemed to be +favored with that success which has been the most exasperating +difference in the greed of Jews during all the ages of their +dispersion. This Jeshurun of a pawnbroker was not a symbol of the great +Jewish tragedy; and yet was there not something typical in the fact +that a life like Mordecai’s—a frail incorporation of the national +consciousness, breathing with difficult breath—was nested in the +self-gratulating ignorant prosperity of the Cohens? + +Glistening was the gladness in their faces when Deronda reappeared +among them. Cohen himself took occasion to intimate that although the +diamond ring, let alone a little longer, would have bred more money, he +did not mind _that_—not a sixpence—when compared with the pleasure of +the women and children in seeing a young gentleman whose first visit +had been so agreeable that they had “done nothing but talk of it ever +since.” Young Mrs. Cohen was very sorry that baby was asleep, and then +very glad that Adelaide was not yet gone to bed, entreating Deronda not +to stay in the shop, but to go forthwith into the parlor to see “mother +and the children.” He willingly accepted the invitation, having +provided himself with portable presents; a set of paper figures for +Adelaide, and an ivory cup and ball for Jacob. + +The grandmother had a pack of cards before her and was making “plates” +with the children. A plate had just been thrown down and kept itself +whole. + +“Stop!” said Jacob, running to Deronda as he entered. “Don’t tread on +my plate. Stop and see me throw it up again.” + +Deronda complied, exchanging a smile of understanding with the +grandmother, and the plate bore several tossings before it came to +pieces; then the visitor was allowed to come forward and seat himself. +He observed that the door from which Mordecai had issued on the former +visit was now closed, but he wished to show his interest in the Cohens +before disclosing a yet stronger interest in their singular inmate. + +It was not until he had Adelaide on his knee, and was setting up the +paper figures in their dance on the table, while Jacob was already +practicing with the cup and ball, that Deronda said, + +“Is Mordecai in just now?” + +“Where is he, Addy?” said Cohen, who had seized an interval of business +to come and look on. + +“In the workroom there,” said his wife, nodding toward the closed door. + +“The fact is, sir,” said Cohen, “we don’t know what’s come to him this +last day or two. He’s always what I may call a little touched, you +know”—here Cohen pointed to his own forehead—“not quite so rational +in all things, like you and me; but he’s mostly wonderful regular and +industrious so far as a poor creature can be, and takes as much delight +in the boy as anybody could. But this last day or two he’s been moving +about like a sleep-walker, or else sitting as still as a wax figure.” + +“It’s the disease, poor dear creature,” said the grandmother, tenderly. +“I doubt whether he can stand long against it.” + +“No; I think its only something he’s got in his head,” said Mrs. Cohen +the younger. “He’s been turning over writing continually, and when I +speak to him it takes him ever so long to hear and answer.” + +“You may think us a little weak ourselves,” said Cohen, apologetically. +“But my wife and mother wouldn’t part with him if he was a still worse +incumbrance. It isn’t that we don’t know the long and short of matters, +but it’s our principle. There’s fools do business at a loss and don’t +know it. I’m not one of ’em.” + +“Oh, Mordecai carries a blessing inside him,” said the grandmother. + +“He’s got something the matter inside him,” said Jacob, coming up to +correct this erratum of his grandmother’s. “He said he couldn’t talk to +me, and he wouldn’t have a bit o’ bun.” + +“So far from wondering at your feeling for him,” said Deronda, “I +already feel something of the same sort myself. I have lately talked to +him at Ram’s book-shop—in fact, I promised to call for him here, that +we might go out together.” + +“That’s it, then!” said Cohen, slapping his knee. “He’s been expecting +you, and it’s taken hold of him. I suppose he talks about his learning +to you. It’s uncommonly kind of _you_, sir; for I don’t suppose there’s +much to be got out of it, else it wouldn’t have left him where he is. +But there’s the shop.” Cohen hurried out, and Jacob, who had been +listening inconveniently near to Deronda’s elbow, said to him with +obliging familiarity, “I’ll call Mordecai for you, if you like.” + +“No, Jacob,” said his mother; “open the door for the gentleman, and let +him go in himself Hush! Don’t make a noise.” + +Skillful Jacob seemed to enter into the play, and turned the handle of +the door as noiselessly as possible, while Deronda went behind him and +stood on the threshold. The small room was lit only by a dying fire and +one candle with a shade over it. On the board fixed under the window, +various objects of jewelry were scattered: some books were heaped in +the corner beyond them. Mordecai was seated on a high chair at the +board with his back to the door, his hands resting on each other and on +the board, a watch propped on a stand before him. He was in a state of +expectation as sickening as that of a prisoner listening for the +delayed deliverance—when he heard Deronda’s voice saying, “I am come +for you. Are you ready?” + +Immediately he turned without speaking, seized his furred cap which lay +near, and moved to join Deronda. It was but a moment before they were +both in the sitting-room, and Jacob, noticing the change in his +friend’s air and expression, seized him by the arm and said, “See my +cup and ball!” sending the ball up close to Mordecai’s face, as +something likely to cheer a convalescent. It was a sign of the relieved +tension in Mordecai’s mind that he could smile and say, “Fine, fine!” + +“You have forgotten your greatcoat and comforter,” said young Mrs. +Cohen, and he went back into the workroom and got them. + +“He’s come to life again, do you see?” said Cohen, who had +re-entered—speaking in an undertone. “I told you so: I’m mostly +right.” Then in his usual voice, “Well, sir, we mustn’t detain you now, +I suppose; but I hope this isn’t the last time we shall see you.” + +“Shall you come again?” said Jacob, advancing. “See, I can catch the +ball; I’ll bet I catch it without stopping, if you come again.” + +“He has clever hands,” said Deronda, looking at the grandmother. “Which +side of the family does he get them from?” + +But the grandmother only nodded towards her son, who said promptly, “My +side. My wife’s family are not in that line. But bless your soul! ours +is a sort of cleverness as good as gutta percha; you can twist it which +way you like. There’s nothing some old gentlemen won’t do if you set +’em to it.” Here Cohen winked down at Jacob’s back, but it was doubtful +whether this judicious allusiveness answered its purpose, for its +subject gave a nasal whinnying laugh and stamped about singing, “Old +gentlemen, old gentlemen,” in chiming cadence. + +Deronda thought, “I shall never know anything decisive about these +people until I ask Cohen pointblank whether he lost a sister named +Mirah when she was six years old.” The decisive moment did not yet seem +easy for him to face. Still his first sense of repulsion at the +commonness of these people was beginning to be tempered with kindlier +feeling. However unrefined their airs and speech might be, he was +forced to admit some moral refinement in their treatment of the +consumptive workman, whose mental distinction impressed them chiefly as +a harmless, silent raving. + +“The Cohens seem to have an affection for you,” said Deronda, as soon +as he and Mordecai were off the doorstep. + +“And I for them,” was the immediate answer. “They have the heart of the +Israelite within them, though they are as the horse and the mule, +without understanding beyond the narrow path they tread.” + +“I have caused you some uneasiness, I fear,” said Deronda, “by my +slowness in fulfilling my promise. I wished to come yesterday, but I +found it impossible.” + +“Yes—yes, I trusted you. But it is true I have been uneasy, for the +spirit of my youth has been stirred within me, and this body is not +strong enough to bear the beating of its wings. I am as a man bound and +imprisoned through long years: behold him brought to speech of his +fellow and his limbs set free: he weeps, he totters, the joy within him +threatens to break and overthrow the tabernacle of flesh.” + +“You must not speak too much in this evening air,” said Deronda, +feeling Mordecai’s words of reliance like so many cords binding him +painfully. “Cover your mouth with the woolen scarf. We are going to the +_Hand and Banner_, I suppose, and shall be in private there?” + +“No, that is my trouble that you did not come yesterday. For this is +the evening of the club I spoke of, and we might not have any minutes +alone until late, when all the rest are gone. Perhaps we had better +seek another place. But I am used to that only. In new places the outer +world presses on me and narrows the inward vision. And the people there +are familiar with my face.” + +“I don’t mind the club if I am allowed to go in,” said Deronda. “It is +enough that you like this place best. If we have not enough time I will +come again. What sort of club is it?” + +“It is called ‘The Philosophers.’ They are few—like the cedars of +Lebanon—poor men given to thought. But none so poor as I am: and +sometimes visitors of higher worldly rank have been brought. We are +allowed to introduce a friend, who is interested in our topics. Each +orders beer or some other kind of drink, in payment for the room. Most +of them smoke. I have gone when I could, for there are other men of my +race who come, and sometimes I have broken silence. I have pleased +myself with a faint likeness between these poor philosophers and the +Masters who handed down the thought of our race—the great +Transmitters, who labored with their hands for scant bread, but +preserved and enlarged for us the heritage of memory, and saved the +soul of Israel alive as a seed among the tombs. The heart pleases +itself with faint resemblances.” + +“I shall be very glad to go and sit among them, if that will suit you. +It is a sort of meeting I should like to join in,” said Deronda, not +without relief in the prospect of an interval before he went through +the strain of his next private conversation with Mordecai. + +In three minutes they had opened the glazed door with the red curtain, +and were in the little parlor, hardly much more than fifteen feet +square, where the gaslight shone through a slight haze of smoke on what +to Deronda was a new and striking scene. Half-a-dozen men of various +ages, from between twenty and thirty to fifty, all shabbily dressed, +most of them with clay pipes in their mouths, were listening with a +look of concentrated intelligence to a man in a pepper-and-salt dress, +with blonde hair, short nose, broad forehead and general breadth, who, +holding his pipe slightly uplifted in the left hand, and beating his +knee with the right, was just finishing a quotation from Shelley (the +comparison of the avalanche in his “Prometheus Unbound”) + + “As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth + Is loosened, and the nations echo round.” + +The entrance of the new-comers broke the fixity of attention, and +called for re-arrangement of seats in the too narrow semicircle round +the fire-place and the table holding the glasses, spare pipes and +tobacco. This was the soberest of clubs; but sobriety is no reason why +smoking and “taking something” should be less imperiously needed as a +means of getting a decent status in company and debate. Mordecai was +received with welcoming voices which had a slight cadence of compassion +in them, but naturally all glances passed immediately to his companion. + +“I have brought a friend who is interested in our subjects,” said +Mordecai. “He has traveled and studied much.” + +“Is the gentlemen anonymous? Is he a Great Unknown?” said the +broad-chested quoter of Shelley, with a humorous air. + +“My name is Daniel Deronda. I am unknown, but not in any sense great.” +The smile breaking over the stranger’s grave face as he said this was +so agreeable that there was a general indistinct murmur, equivalent to +a “Hear, hear,” and the broad man said, + +“You recommend the name, sir, and are welcome. Here, Mordecai, come to +this corner against me,” he added, evidently wishing to give the +coziest place to the one who most needed it. + +Deronda was well satisfied to get a seat on the opposite side, where +his general survey of the party easily included Mordecai, who remained +an eminently striking object in this group of sharply-characterized +figures, more than one of whom, even to Daniel’s little exercised +discrimination, seemed probably of Jewish descent. + +In fact pure English blood (if leech or lancet can furnish us with the +precise product) did not declare itself predominantly in the party at +present assembled. Miller, the broad man, an exceptional second-hand +bookseller who knew the insides of books, had at least grand-parents +who called themselves German, and possibly far-away ancestors who +denied themselves to be Jews; Buchan, the saddler, was Scotch; Pash, +the watchmaker, was a small, dark, vivacious, triple-baked Jew; Gideon, +the optical instrument maker, was a Jew of the red-haired, +generous-featured type easily passing for Englishmen of unusually +cordial manners: and Croop, the dark-eyed shoemaker, was probably more +Celtic than he knew. Only three would have been discernable everywhere +as Englishmen: the wood-inlayer Goodwin, well-built, open-faced, +pleasant-voiced; the florid laboratory assistant Marrables; and Lily, +the pale, neat-faced copying-clerk, whose light-brown hair was set up +in a small parallelogram above his well-filled forehead, and whose +shirt, taken with an otherwise seedy costume, had a freshness that +might be called insular, and perhaps even something narrower. + +Certainly a company select of the select among poor men, being drawn +together by a taste not prevalent even among the privileged heirs of +learning and its institutions; and not likely to amuse any gentleman in +search of crime or low comedy as the ground of interest in people whose +weekly income is only divisible into shillings. Deronda, even if he had +not been more than usually inclined to gravity under the influence of +what was pending between him and Mordecai, would not have set himself +to find food for laughter in the various shades of departure from the +tone of polished society sure to be observable in the air and talk of +these men who had probably snatched knowledge as most of us snatch +indulgences, making the utmost of scant opportunity. He looked around +him with the quiet air of respect habitual to him among equals, ordered +whisky and water, and offered the contents of his cigar-case, which, +characteristically enough, he always carried and hardly ever used for +his own behoof, having reasons for not smoking himself, but liking to +indulge others. Perhaps it was his weakness to be afraid of seeming +straight-laced, and turning himself into a sort of diagram instead of a +growth which can exercise the guiding attraction of fellowship. That he +made a decidedly winning impression on the company was proved by their +showing themselves no less at ease than before, and desirous of quickly +resuming their interrupted talk. + +“This is what I call one of our touch-and-go nights, sir,” said Miller, +who was implicitly accepted as a sort of moderator—on addressing +Deronda by way of explanation, and nodding toward each person whose +name he mentioned. “Sometimes we stick pretty close to the point. But +to-night our friend Pash, there, brought up the law of progress; and we +got on statistics; then Lily, there, saying we knew well enough before +counting that in the same state of society the same sort of things +would happen, and it was no more wonder that quantities should remain +the same, than that qualities should remain the same, for in relation +to society numbers are qualities—the number of drunkards is a quality +in society—the numbers are an index to the qualities, and give us no +instruction, only setting us to consider the causes of difference +between different social states—Lily saying this, we went off on the +causes of social change, and when you came in I was going upon the +power of ideas, which I hold to be the main transforming cause.” + +“I don’t hold with you there, Miller,” said Goodwin, the inlayer, more +concerned to carry on the subject than to wait for a word from the new +guest. “For either you mean so many sorts of things by ideas that I get +no knowledge by what you say, any more than if you said light was a +cause; or else you mean a particular sort of ideas, and then I go +against your meaning as too narrow. For, look at it in one way, all +actions men put a bit of thought into are ideas—say, sowing seed, or +making a canoe, or baking clay; and such ideas as these work themselves +into life and go on growing with it, but they can’t go apart from the +material that set them to work and makes a medium for them. It’s the +nature of wood and stone yielding to the knife that raises the idea of +shaping them, and with plenty of wood and stone the shaping will go on. +I look at it, that such ideas as are mixed straight away with all the +other elements of life are powerful along with ’em. The slower the +mixing, the less power they have. And as to the causes of social +change, I look at it in this way—ideas are a sort of parliament, but +there’s a commonwealth outside and a good deal of the commonwealth is +working at change without knowing what the parliament is doing.” + +“But if you take ready mixing as your test of power,” said Pash, “some +of the least practical ideas beat everything. They spread without being +understood, and enter into the language without being thought of.” + +“They may act by changing the distribution of gases,” said Marrables; +“instruments are getting so fine now, men may come to register the +spread of a theory by observed changes in the atmosphere and +corresponding changes in the nerves.” + +“Yes,” said Pash, his dark face lighting up rather impishly, “there is +the idea of nationalities; I dare say the wild asses are snuffing it, +and getting more gregarious.” + +“You don’t share that idea?” said Deronda, finding a piquant +incongruity between Pash’s sarcasm and the strong stamp of race on his +features. + +“Say, rather, he does not share that spirit,” said Mordecai, who had +turned a melancholy glance on Pash. “Unless nationality is a feeling, +what force can it have as an idea?” + +“Granted, Mordecai,” said Pash, quite good-humoredly. “And as the +feeling of nationality is dying, I take the idea to be no better than a +ghost, already walking to announce the death.” + +“A sentiment may seem to be dying and yet revive into strong life,” +said Deronda. “Nations have revived. We may live to see a great +outburst of force in the Arabs, who are being inspired with a new zeal.” + +“Amen, amen,” said Mordecai, looking at Deronda with a delight which +was the beginning of recovered energy: his attitude was more upright, +his face was less worn. + +“That may hold with backward nations,” said Pash, “but with us in +Europe the sentiment of nationality is destined to die out. It will +last a little longer in the quarters where oppression lasts, but +nowhere else. The whole current of progress is setting against it.” + +“Ay,” said Buchan, in a rapid thin Scotch tone which was like the +letting in of a little cool air on the conversation, “ye’ve done well +to bring us round to the point. Ye’re all agreed that societies +change—not always and everywhere—but on the whole and in the long +run. Now, with all deference, I would beg t’ observe that we have got +to examine the nature of changes before we have a warrant to call them +progress, which word is supposed to include a bettering, though I +apprehend it to be ill-chosen for that purpose, since mere motion +onward may carry us to a bog or a precipice. And the questions I would +put are three: Is all change in the direction of progress? if not, how +shall we discern which change is progress and which not? and thirdly, +how far and in what way can we act upon the course of change so as to +promote it where it is beneficial, and divert it where it is injurious?” + +But Buchan’s attempt to impose his method on the talk was a failure. +Lily immediately said, + +“Change and progress are merged in the idea of development. The laws of +development are being discovered, and changes taking place according to +them are necessarily progressive; that is to say, it we have any notion +of progress or improvement opposed to them, the notion is a mistake.” + +“I really can’t see how you arrive at that sort of certitude about +changes by calling them development,” said Deronda. “There will still +remain the degrees of inevitableness in relation to our own will and +acts, and the degrees of wisdom in hastening or retarding; there will +still remain the danger of mistaking a tendency which should be +resisted for an inevitable law that we must adjust ourselves to,—which +seems to me as bad a superstition or false god as any that has been set +up without the ceremonies of philosophizing.” + +“That is a truth,” said Mordecai. “Woe to the men who see no place for +resistance in this generation! I believe in a growth, a passage, and a +new unfolding of life whereof the seed is more perfect, more charged +with the elements that are pregnant with diviner form. The life of a +people grows, it is knit together and yet expanded, in joy and sorrow, +in thought and action; it absorbs the thought of other nations into its +own forms, and gives back the thought as new wealth to the world; it is +a power and an organ in the great body of the nations. But there may +come a check, an arrest; memories may be stifled, and love may be faint +for the lack of them; or memories may shrink into withered relics—the +soul of a people, whereby they know themselves to be one, may seem to +be dying for want of common action. But who shall say, ‘The fountain of +their life is dried up, they shall forever cease to be a nation?’ Who +shall say it? Not he who feels the life of his people stirring within +his own. Shall he say, ‘That way events are wending, I will not +resist?’ His very soul is resistance, and is as a seed of fire that may +enkindle the souls of multitudes, and make a new pathway for events.” + +“I don’t deny patriotism,” said Gideon, “but we all know you have a +particular meaning, Mordecai. You know Mordecai’s way of thinking, I +suppose.” Here Gideon had turned to Deronda, who sat next to him, but +without waiting for an answer he went on. “I’m a rational Jew myself. I +stand by my people as a sort of family relations, and I am for keeping +up our worship in a rational way. I don’t approve of our people getting +baptised, because I don’t believe in a Jew’s conversion to the Gentile +part of Christianity. And now we have political equality, there’s no +excuse for a pretense of that sort. But I am for getting rid of all of +our superstitions and exclusiveness. There’s no reason now why we +shouldn’t melt gradually into the populations we live among. That’s the +order of the day in point of progress. I would as soon my children +married Christians as Jews. And I’m for the old maxim, ‘A man’s country +is where he’s well off.’” + +“That country’s not so easy to find, Gideon,” said the rapid Pash, with +a shrug and grimace. “You get ten shillings a-week more than I do, and +have only half the number of children. If somebody will introduce a +brisk trade in watches among the ‘Jerusalem wares,’ I’ll go—eh, +Mordecai, what do you say?” + +Deronda, all ear for these hints of Mordecai’s opinion, was inwardly +wondering at his persistence in coming to this club. For an +enthusiastic spirit to meet continually the fixed indifference of men +familiar with the object of his enthusiasm is the acceptance of a slow +martyrdom, beside which the fate of a missionary tomahawked without any +considerate rejection of his doctrines seems hardly worthy of +compassion. But Mordecai gave no sign of shrinking: this was a moment +of spiritual fullness, and he cared more for the utterance of his faith +than for its immediate reception. With a fervor which had no temper in +it, but seemed rather the rush of feeling in the opportunity of speech, +he answered Pash:, + +“What I say is, let every man keep far away from the brotherhood and +inheritance he despises. Thousands on thousands of our race have mixed +with the Gentiles as Celt with Saxon, and they may inherit the blessing +that belongs to the Gentile. You cannot follow them. You are one of the +multitudes over this globe who must walk among the nations and be known +as Jews, and with words on their lips which mean, ‘I wish I had not +been born a Jew, I disown any bond with the long travail of my race, I +will outdo the Gentile in mocking at our separateness,’ they all the +while feel breathing on them the breath of contempt because they are +Jews, and they will breathe it back poisonously. Can a fresh-made +garment of citizenship weave itself straightway into the flesh and +change the slow deposit of eighteen centuries? What is the citizenship +of him who walks among a people he has no hardy kindred and fellowship +with, and has lost the sense of brotherhood with his own race? It is a +charter of selfish ambition and rivalry in low greed. He is an alien of +spirit, whatever he may be in form; he sucks the blood of mankind, he +is not a man, sharing in no loves, sharing in no subjection of the +soul, he mocks it all. Is it not truth I speak, Pash?” + +“Not exactly, Mordecai,” said Pash, “if you mean that I think the worse +of myself for being a Jew. What I thank our fathers for is that there +are fewer blockheads among us than among other races. But perhaps you +are right in thinking the Christians don’t like me so well for it.” + +“Catholics and Protestants have not liked each other much better,” said +the genial Gideon. “We must wait patiently for prejudices to die out. +Many of our people are on a footing with the best, and there’s been a +good filtering of our blood into high families. I am for making our +expectations rational.” + +“And so am I!” said Mordecai, quickly, leaning forward with the +eagerness of one who pleads in some decisive crisis, his long, thin +hands clasped together on his lap. “I, too, claim to be a rational Jew. +But what is it to be rational—what is it to feel the light of the +divine reason growing stronger within and without? It is to see more +and more of the hidden bonds that bind and consecrate change as a +dependent growth—yea, consecrate it with kinship: the past becomes my +parent and the future stretches toward me the appealing arms of +children. Is it rational to drain away the sap of special kindred that +makes the families of men rich in interchanged wealth, and various as +the forests are various with the glory of the cedar and the palm? When +it is rational to say, ‘I know not my father or my mother, let my +children be aliens to me, that no prayer of mine may touch them,’ then +it will be rational for the Jew to say, ‘I will seek to know no +difference between me and the Gentile, I will not cherish the prophetic +consciousness of our nationality—let the Hebrew cease to be, and let +all his memorials be antiquarian trifles, dead as the wall-paintings of +a conjectured race. Yet let his child learn by rote the speech of the +Greek, where he abjures his fellow-citizens by the bravery of those who +fought foremost at Marathon—let him learn to say that was noble in the +Greek, that is the spirit of an immortal nation! But the Jew has no +memories that bind him to action; let him laugh that his nation is +degraded from a nation; let him hold the monuments of his law which +carried within its frame the breath of social justice, of charity, and +of household sanctities—let him hold the energy of the prophets, the +patient care of the Masters, the fortitude of martyred generations, as +mere stuff for a professorship. The business of the Jew in all things +is to be even as the rich Gentile.’” + +Mordecai threw himself back in his chair, and there was a moment’s +silence. Not one member of the club shared his point of view or his +emotion; but his whole personality and speech had on them the effect of +a dramatic representation which had some pathos in it, though no +practical consequences; and usually he was at once indulged and +contradicted. Deronda’s mind went back upon what must have been the +tragic pressure of outward conditions hindering this man, whose force +he felt to be telling on himself, from making any world for his thought +in the minds of others—like a poet among people of a strange speech, +who may have a poetry of their own, but have no ear for his cadence, no +answering thrill to his discovery of the latent virtues in his mother +tongue. + +The cool Buchan was the first to speak, and hint the loss of time. “I +submit,” said he, “that ye’re traveling away from the questions I put +concerning progress.” + +“Say they’re levanting, Buchan,” said Miller, who liked his joke, and +would not have objected to be called Voltairian. “Never mind. Let us +have a Jewish night; we’ve not had one for a long while. Let us take +the discussion on Jewish ground. I suppose we’ve no prejudice here; +we’re all philosophers; and we like our friends Mordecai, Pash, and +Gideon, as well as if they were no more kin to Abraham than the rest of +us. We’re all related through Adam, until further showing to the +contrary, and if you look into history we’ve all got some discreditable +forefathers. So I mean no offence when I say I don’t think any great +things of the part the Jewish people have played in the world. What +then? I think they were iniquitously dealt by in past times. And I +suppose we don’t want any men to be maltreated, white, black, brown, or +yellow—I know I’ve just given my half-crown to the contrary. And that +reminds me, I’ve a curious old German book—I can’t read it myself, but +a friend of mine was reading out of it to me the other day—about the +prejudices against the Jews, and the stories used to be told against +’em, and what do you think one was? Why, that they’re punished with a +bad odor in their bodies; and _that_, says the author, date 1715 (I’ve +just been pricing and marking the book this very morning)—that is +true, for the ancients spoke of it. But then, he says, the other things +are fables, such as that the odor goes away all at once when they’re +baptized, and that every one of the ten tribes, mind you, all the ten +being concerned in the crucifixion, has got a particular punishment +over and above the smell:—Asher, I remember, has the right arm a +handbreadth shorter than the left, and Naphthali has pig’s ears and a +smell of live pork. What do you think of that? There’s been a good deal +of fun made of rabbinical fables, but in point of fables my opinion is, +that all over the world it’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. +However, as I said before, I hold with the philosophers of the last +century that the Jews have played no great part as a people, though +Pash will have it they’re clever enough to beat all the rest of the +world. But if so, I ask, why haven’t they done it?” + +“For the same reason that the cleverest men in the country don’t get +themselves or their ideas into Parliament,” said the ready Pash; +“because the blockheads are too many for ’em.” + +“That is a vain question,” said Mordecai, “whether our people would +beat the rest of the world. Each nation has its own work, and is a +member of the world, enriched by the work of each. But it is true, as +Jehuda-ha-Levi first said, that Israel is the heart of mankind, if we +mean by heart the core of affection which binds a race and its families +in dutiful love, and the reverence for the human body which lifts the +needs of our animal life into religion, and the tenderness which is +merciful to the poor and weak and to the dumb creature that wears the +yoke for us.” + +“They’re not behind any nation in arrogance,” said Lily; “and if they +have got in the rear, it has not been because they were over-modest.” + +“Oh, every nation brags in its turn,” said Miller. + +“Yes,” said Pash, “and some of them in the Hebrew text.” + +“Well, whatever the Jews contributed at one time, they are a +stand-still people,” said Lily. “They are the type of obstinate +adherence to the superannuated. They may show good abilities when they +take up liberal ideas, but as a race they have no development in them.” + +“That is false!” said Mordecai, leaning forward again with his former +eagerness. “Let their history be known and examined; let the seed be +sifted, let its beginning be traced to the weed of the wilderness—the +more glorious will be the energy that transformed it. Where else is +there a nation of whom it may be as truly said that their religion and +law and moral life mingled as the stream of blood in the heart and made +one growth—where else a people who kept and enlarged their spiritual +store at the very time when they are hated with a hatred as fierce as +the forest fires that chase the wild beast from his covert? There is a +fable of the Roman, that swimming to save his life he held the roll of +his writings between his teeth and saved them from the waters. But how +much more than that is true of our race? They struggled to keep their +place among the nations like heroes—yea, when the hand was hacked off, +they clung with their teeth; but when the plow and the harrow had +passed over the last visible signs of their national covenant, and the +fruitfulness of their land was stifled with the blood of the sowers and +planters, they said, ‘The spirit is alive, let us make it a lasting +habitation—lasting because movable—so that it may be carried from +generation to generation, and our sons unborn may be rich in the things +that have been, and possess a hope built on an unchangeable +foundation.’ They said it and they wrought it, though often breathing +with scant life, as in a coffin, or as lying wounded amid a heap of +slain. Hooted and scared like the unknown dog, the Hebrew made himself +envied for his wealth and wisdom, and was bled of them to fill the bath +of Gentile luxury; he absorbed knowledge, he diffused it; his dispersed +race was a new Phoenicia working the mines of Greece and carrying their +products to the world. The native spirit of our tradition was not to +stand still, but to use records as a seed and draw out the compressed +virtues of law and prophecy; and while the Gentile, who had said, ‘What +is yours is ours, and no longer yours,’ was reading the letter of our +law as a dark inscription, or was turning its parchments into +shoe-soles for an army rabid with lust and cruelty, our Masters were +still enlarging and illuminating with fresh-fed interpretation. But the +dispersion was wide, the yoke of oppression was a spiked torture as +well as a load; the exile was forced afar among brutish people, where +the consciousness of his race was no clearer to him than the light of +the sun to our fathers in the Roman persecution, who had their +hiding-place in a cave, and knew not that it was day save by the dimmer +burning of their candles. What wonder that multitudes of our people are +ignorant, narrow, superstitious? What wonder?” + +Here Mordecai, whose seat was next the fire-place, rose and leaned his +arm on the little shelf; his excitement had risen, though his voice, +which had begun with unusual strength, was getting hoarser. + +“What wonder? The night is unto them, that they have no vision; in +their darkness they are unable to divine; the sun is gone down over the +prophets, and the day is dark above them; their observances are as +nameless relics. But which among the chief of the Gentile nations has +not an ignorant multitude? They scorn our people’s ignorant observance; +but the most accursed ignorance is that which has no observance—sunk +to the cunning greed of the fox, to which all law is no more than a +trap or the cry of the worrying hound. There is a degradation deep down +below the memory that has withered into superstition. In the multitudes +of the ignorant on three continents who observe our rites and make the +confession of the divine Unity, the soul of Judaism is not dead. Revive +the organic centre: let the unity of Israel which has made the growth +and form of its religion be an outward reality. Looking toward a land +and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may +share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the +peoples of the East and the West—which will plant the wisdom and skill +of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and +understanding. Let that come to pass, and the living warmth will spread +to the weak extremities of Israel, and superstition will vanish, not in +the lawlessness of the renegade, but in the illumination of great facts +which widen feeling, and make all knowledge alive as the young +offspring of beloved memories.” + +Mordecai’s voice had sunk, but with the hectic brilliancy of his gaze +it was not the less impressive. His extraordinary excitement was +certainly due to Deronda’s presence: it was to Deronda that he was +speaking, and the moment had a testamentary solemnity for him which +rallied all his powers. Yet the presence of those other familiar men +promoted expression, for they embodied the indifference which gave a +resistant energy to his speech. Not that he looked at Deronda: he +seemed to see nothing immediately around him, and if any one had +grasped him he would probably not have known it. Again the former words +came back to Deronda’s mind,—“You must hope my hopes—see the vision I +point to—behold a glory where I behold it.” They came now with +gathered pathos. Before him stood, as a living, suffering reality, what +hitherto he had only seen as an effort of imagination, which, in its +comparative faintness, yet carried a suspicion, of being exaggerated: a +man steeped in poverty and obscurity, weakened by disease, consciously +within the shadow of advancing death, but living an intense life in an +invisible past and future, careless of his personal lot, except for its +possible making some obstruction to a conceived good which he would +never share except as a brief inward vision—a day afar off, whose sun +would never warm him, but into which he threw his soul’s desire, with a +passion often wanting to the personal motives of healthy youth. It was +something more than a grandiose transfiguration of the parental love +that toils, renounces, endures, resists the suicidal promptings of +despair—all because of the little ones, whose future becomes present +to the yearning gaze of anxiety. + +All eyes were fixed on Mordecai as he sat down again, and none with +unkindness; but it happened that the one who felt the most kindly was +the most prompted to speak in opposition. This was the genial and +rational Gideon, who also was not without a sense that he was +addressing the guest of the evening. He said, + +“You have your own way of looking at things, Mordecai, and as you say, +your own way seems to you rational. I know you don’t hold with the +restoration of Judea by miracle, and so on; but you are as well aware +as I am that the subject has been mixed with a heap of nonsense both by +Jews and Christians. And as to the connection of our race with +Palestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it’s as +demoralizing as the old poor-law. The raff and scum go there to be +maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by +the angel Gabriel when they die. It’s no use fighting against facts. We +must look where they point; that’s what I call rationality. The most +learned and liberal men among us who are attached to our religion are +for clearing our liturgy of all such notions as a literal fulfillment +of the prophecies about restoration, and so on. Prune it of a few +useless rites and literal interpretations of that sort, and our +religion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier, but a +union, between us and the rest of the world.” + +“As plain as a pike-staff,” said Pash, with an ironical laugh. “You +pluck it up by the roots, strip off the leaves and bark, shave off the +knots, and smooth it at top and bottom; put it where you will, it will +do no harm, it will never sprout. You may make a handle of it, or you +may throw it on the bonfire of scoured rubbish. I don’t see why our +rubbish is to be held sacred any more than the rubbish of Brahmanism or +Buddhism.” + +“No,” said Mordecai, “no, Pash, because you have lost the heart of the +Jew. Community was felt before it was called good. I praise no +superstition, I praise the living fountains of enlarging belief. What +is growth, completion, development? You began with that question, I +apply it to the history of our people. I say that the effect of our +separateness will not be completed and have its highest transformation +unless our race takes on again the character of a nationality. That is +the fulfillment of the religious trust that moulded them into a people, +whose life has made half the inspiration of the world. What is it to me +that the ten tribes are lost untraceably, or that multitudes of the +children of Judah have mixed themselves with the Gentile populations as +a river with rivers? Behold our people still! Their skirts spread afar; +they are torn and soiled and trodden on; but there is a jeweled +breastplate. Let the wealthy men, the monarchs of commerce, the learned +in all knowledge, the skilful in all arts, the speakers, the political +counselors, who carry in their veins the Hebrew blood which has +maintained its vigor in all climates, and the pliancy of the Hebrew +genius for which difficulty means new device—let them say, ‘we will +lift up a standard, we will unite in a labor hard but glorious like +that of Moses and Ezra, a labor which shall be a worthy fruit of the +long anguish whereby our fathers maintained their separateness, +refusing the ease of falsehood.’ They have wealth enough to redeem the +soil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skill of the +statesman to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. And is there +no prophet or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle +with shame at the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk +gazes at as at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena? +There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, +simple, just, like the old—a republic where there is equality of +protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our +ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western +freedom amid the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an +organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the +outraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the +outraged Englishmen of America. And the world will gain as Israel +gains. For there will be a community in the van of the East which +carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its +bosom: there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a +neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West. Difficulties? I +know there are difficulties. But let the spirit of sublime achievement +move in the great among our people, and the work will begin.” + +“Ay, we may safely admit that, Mordecai,” said Pash. “When there are +great men on ’Change, and high-flying professors converted to your +doctrine, difficulties will vanish like smoke.” + +Deronda, inclined by nature to take the side of those on whom the +arrows of scorn were falling, could not help replying to Pash’s +outfling, and said, + +“If we look back to the history of efforts which have made great +changes, it is astonishing how many of them seemed hopeless to those +who looked on in the beginning. + +“Take what we have all heard and seen something of—the effort after +the unity of Italy, which we are sure soon to see accomplished to the +very last boundary. Look into Mazzini’s account of his first yearning, +when he was a boy, after a restored greatness and a new freedom to +Italy, and of his first efforts as a young man to rouse the same +feelings in other young men, and get them to work toward a united +nationality. Almost everything seemed against him; his countrymen were +ignorant or indifferent, governments hostile, Europe incredulous. Of +course the scorners often seemed wise. Yet you see the prophecy lay +with him. As long as there is a remnant of national consciousness, I +suppose nobody will deny that there may be a new stirring of memories +and hopes which may inspire arduous action.” + +“Amen,” said Mordecai, to whom Deronda’s words were a cordial. “What is +needed is the leaven—what is needed is the seed of fire. The heritage +of Israel is beating in the pulses of millions; it lives in their veins +as a power without understanding, like the morning exultation of herds; +it is the inborn half of memory, moving as in a dream among writings on +the walls, which it sees dimly but cannot divide into speech. Let the +torch of visible community be lit! Let the reason of Israel disclose +itself in a great outward deed, and let there be another great +migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality whose members +may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of England +and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a +national hearth and a tribunal of national opinion. Will any say ‘It +cannot be’? Baruch Spinoza had not a faithful Jewish heart, though he +had sucked the life of his intellect at the breasts of Jewish +tradition. He laid bare his father’s nakedness and said, ‘They who +scorn him have the higher wisdom.’ Yet Baruch Spinoza confessed, he saw +not why Israel should not again be a chosen nation. Who says that the +history and literature of our race are dead? Are they not as living as +the history and literature of Greece and Rome, which have inspired +revolutions, enkindled the thought of Europe, and made the unrighteous +powers tremble? These were an inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an +inheritance that has never ceased to quiver in millions of human +frames.” + +Mordecai had stretched his arms upward, and his long thin hands +quivered in the air for a moment after he had ceased to speak. Gideon +was certainly a little moved, for though there was no long pause before +he made a remark in objection, his tone was more mild and deprecatory +than before; Pash, meanwhile, pressing his lips together, rubbing his +black head with both his hands and wrinkling his brow horizontally, +with the expression of one who differs from every speaker, but does not +think it worth while to say so. There is a sort of human paste that +when it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder +shape. + +“It may seem well enough on one side to make so much of our memories +and inheritance as you do, Mordecai,” said Gideon; “but there’s another +side. It isn’t all gratitude and harmless glory. Our people have +inherited a good deal of hatred. There’s a pretty lot of curses still +flying about, and stiff settled rancor inherited from the times of +persecution. How will you justify keeping one sort of memory and +throwing away the other? There are ugly debts standing on both sides.” + +“I justify the choice as all other choice is justified,” said Mordecai. +“I cherish nothing for the Jewish nation, I seek nothing for them, but +the good which promises good to all the nations. The spirit of our +religious life, which is one with our national life, is not hatred of +aught but wrong. The Master has said, an offence against man is worse +than an offence against God. But what wonder if there is hatred in the +breasts of Jews, who are children of the ignorant and oppressed—what +wonder, since there is hatred in the breasts of Christians? Our +national life was a growing light. Let the central fire be kindled +again, and the light will reach afar. The degraded and scorned of our +race will learn to think of their sacred land, not as a place for +saintly beggary to await death in loathsome idleness, but as a republic +where the Jewish spirit manifests itself in a new order founded on the +old, purified and enriched by the experience our greatest sons have +gathered from the life of the ages. How long is it?—only two centuries +since a vessel carried over the ocean the beginning of the great North +American nation. The people grew like meeting waters—they were various +in habit and sect—there came a time, a century ago, when they needed a +polity, and there were heroes of peace among them. What had they to +form a polity with but memories of Europe, corrected by the vision of a +better? Let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes. They have the +memories of the East and West, and they have the full vision of a +better. A new Persia with a purified religion magnified itself in art +and wisdom. So will a new Judea, poised between East and West—a +covenant of reconciliation. Will any say, the prophetic vision of your +race has been hopelessly mixed with folly and bigotry: the angel of +progress has no message for Judaism—it is a half-buried city for the +paid workers to lay open—the waters are rushing by it as a forsaken +field? I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human +choice. The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose +them. The Messianic time is the time when Israel shall will the +planting of the national ensign. The Nile overflowed and rushed onward: +the Egyptian could not choose the overflow, but he chose to work and +make channels for the fructifying waters, and Egypt became the land of +corn. Shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and +resolve, deny his rank and say, I am an onlooker, ask no choice or +purpose of me? That is the blasphemy of this time. The divine principle +of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us contradict the +blasphemy, and help to will our own better future and the better future +of the world—not renounce our higher gift and say, ‘Let us be as if we +were not among the populations;’ but choose our full heritage, claim +the brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new brotherhood with +the nations of the Gentiles. The vision is there; it will be fulfilled.” + +With the last sentence, which was no more than a loud whisper, Mordecai +let his chin sink on his breast and his eyelids fall. No one spoke. It +was not the first time that he had insisted on the same ideas, but he +was seen to-night in a new phase. The quiet tenacity of his ordinary +self differed as much from his present exaltation of mood as a man in +private talk, giving reasons for a revolution of which no sign is +discernable, differs from one who feels himself an agent in a +revolution begun. The dawn of fulfillment brought to his hope by +Deronda’s presence had wrought Mordecai’s conception into a state of +impassioned conviction, and he had found strength in his excitement to +pour forth the unlocked floods of emotive argument, with a sense of +haste as at a crisis which must be seized. But now there had come with +the quiescence of fatigue a sort of thankful wonder that he had +spoken—a contemplation of his life as a journey which had come at last +to this bourne. After a great excitement, the ebbing strength of +impulse is apt to leave us in this aloofness from our active self. And +in the moments after Mordecai had sunk his head, his mind was wandering +along the paths of his youth, and all the hopes which had ended in +bringing him hither. + +Every one felt that the talk was ended, and the tone of phlegmatic +discussion made unseasonable by Mordecai’s high-pitched solemnity. It +was as if they had come together to hear the blowing of the _shophar_, +and had nothing to do now but to disperse. The movement was unusually +general, and in less than ten minutes the room was empty of all except +Mordecai and Deronda. “Good-nights” had been given to Mordecai, but it +was evident he had not heard them, for he remained rapt and motionless. +Deronda would not disturb this needful rest, but waited for a +spontaneous movement. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + + “My spirit is too weak; mortality + Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, + And each imagined pinnacle and steep + Of godlike hardship tells me I must die + Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.” + —KEATS. + + +After a few minutes the unwonted stillness had penetrated Mordecai’s +consciousness, and he looked up at Deronda, not in the least with +bewilderment and surprise, but with a gaze full of reposing +satisfaction. Deronda rose and placed his chair nearer, where there +could be no imagined need for raising the voice. Mordecai felt the +action as a patient feels the gentleness that eases his pillow. He +began to speak in a low tone, as if he were only thinking articulately, +not trying to reach an audience. + +“In the doctrine of the Cabbala, souls are born again and again in new +bodies till they are perfected and purified, and a soul liberated from +a worn-out body may join the fellow-soul that needs it, that they may +be perfected together, and their earthly work accomplished. Then they +will depart from the mortal region, and leave place for new souls to be +born out of the store in the eternal bosom. It is the lingering +imperfection of the souls already born into the mortal region that +hinders the birth of new souls and the preparation of the Messianic +time:—thus the mind has given shape to what is hidden, as the shadow +of what is known, and has spoken truth, though it were only in parable. +When my long-wandering soul is liberated from this weary body, it will +join yours, and its work will be perfected.” + +Mordecai’s pause seemed an appeal which Deronda’s feeling would not let +him leave unanswered. He tried to make it truthful; but for Mordecai’s +ear it was inevitably filled with unspoken meaning. He only said, + +“Everything I can in conscience do to make your life effective I will +do.” + +“I know it,” said Mordecai, in a tone of quiet certainty which +dispenses with further assurance. “I heard it. You see it all—you are +by my side on the mount of vision, and behold the paths of fulfillment +which others deny.” + +He was silent a moment or two, and then went on meditatively, + +“You will take up my life where it was broken. I feel myself back in +that day when my life was broken. The bright morning sun was on the +quay—it was at Trieste—the garments of men from all nations shone +like jewels—the boats were pushing off—the Greek vessel that would +land us at Beyrout was to start in an hour. I was going with a merchant +as his clerk and companion. I said, I shall behold the lands and people +of the East, and I shall speak with a fuller vision. I breathed then as +you do, without labor; I had the light step and the endurance of youth, +I could fast, I could sleep on the hard ground. I had wedded poverty, +and I loved my bride—for poverty to me was freedom. My heart exulted +as if it had been the heart of Moses ben Maimon, strong with the +strength of three score years, and knowing the work that was to fill +them. It was the first time I had been south; the soul within me felt +its former sun; and standing on the quay, where the ground I stood on +seemed to send forth light, and the shadows had an azure glory as of +spirits become visible, I felt myself in the flood of a glorious life, +wherein my own small year-counted existence seemed to melt, so that I +knew it not; and a great sob arose within me as at the rush of waters +that were too strong a bliss. So I stood there awaiting my companion; +and I saw him not till he said: ‘Ezra, I have been to the post and +there is your letter.’” + +“Ezra!” exclaimed Deronda, unable to contain himself. + +“Ezra,” repeated Mordecai, affirmatively, engrossed in memory. “I was +expecting a letter; for I wrote continually to my mother. And that +sound of my name was like the touch of a wand that recalled me to the +body wherefrom I had been released as it were to mingle with the ocean +of human existence, free from the pressure of individual bondage. I +opened the letter; and the name came again as a cry that would have +disturbed me in the bosom of heaven, and made me yearn to reach where +that sorrow was—‘Ezra, my son!’” + +Mordecai paused again, his imagination arrested by the grasp of that +long-passed moment. Deronda’s mind was almost breathlessly suspended on +what was coming. A strange possibility had suddenly presented itself. +Mordecai’s eyes were cast down in abstracted contemplation, and in a +few moments he went on, + +“She was a mother of whom it might have come—yea, might have come to +be said, ‘Her children arise up and call her blessed.’ In her I +understood the meaning of that Master who, perceiving the footsteps of +his mother, rose up and said, ‘The Majesty of the Eternal cometh near!’ +And that letter was her cry from the depths of anguish and +desolation—the cry of a mother robbed of her little ones. I was her +eldest. Death had taken four babes one after the other. Then came, +late, my little sister, who was, more than all the rest, the desire of +my mother’s eyes; and the letter was a piercing cry to me—‘Ezra, my +son, I am robbed of her. He has taken her away and left disgrace +behind. They will never come again.’”—Here Mordecai lifted his eyes +suddenly, laid his hand on Deronda’s arm, and said, “Mine was the lot +of Israel. For the sin of the father my soul must go into exile. For +the sin of the father the work was broken, and the day of fulfilment +delayed. She who bore me was desolate, disgraced, destitute. I turned +back. On the instant I turned—her spirit and the spirit of her +fathers, who had worthy Jewish hearts, moved within me, and drew me. +God, in whom dwells the universe, was within me as the strength of +obedience. I turned and traveled with hardship—to save the scant money +which she would need. I left the sunshine, and traveled into freezing +cold. In the last stage I spent a night in exposure to cold and snow. +And that was the beginning of this slow death.” + +Mordecai let his eyes wander again and removed his hand. Deronda +resolutely repressed the questions which urged themselves within him. +While Mordecai was in this state of emotion, no other confidence must +be sought than what came spontaneously: nay, he himself felt a kindred +emotion which made him dread his own speech as too momentous. + +“But I worked. We were destitute—every thing had been seized. And she +was ill: the clutch of anguish was too strong for her, and wrought with +some lurking disease. At times she could not stand for the beating of +her heart, and the images in her brain became as chambers of terror, +where she beheld my sister reared in evil. In the dead of night I heard +her crying for her child. Then I rose, and we stretched forth our arms +together and prayed. We poured forth our souls in desire that Mirah +might be delivered from evil.” + +“Mirah?” Deronda repeated, wishing to assure, himself that his ears had +not been deceived by a forecasting imagination. “Did you say Mirah?” + +“That was my little sister’s name. After we had prayed for her, my +mother would rest awhile. It lasted hardly four years, and in the +minute before she died, we were praying the same prayer—I aloud, she +silently. Her soul went out upon its wings.” + +“Have you never since heard of your sister?” said Deronda, as quietly +as he could. + +“Never. Never have I heard whether she was delivered according to our +prayer. I know not, I know not. Who shall say where the pathways lie? +The poisonous will of the wicked is strong. It poisoned my life—it is +slowly stifling this breath. Death delivered my mother, and I felt it a +blessedness that I was alone in the winters of suffering. But what are +the winters now?—they are far off”—here Mordecai again rested his +hand on Deronda’s arm, and looked at him with that joy of the hectic +patient which pierces us to sadness—“there is nothing to wail in the +withering of my body. The work will be the better done. Once I said the +work of this beginning was mine, I am born to do it. Well, I shall do +it. I shall live in you. I shall live in you.” + +His grasp had become convulsive in its force, and Deronda, agitated as +he had never been before—the certainty that this was Mirah’s brother +suffusing his own strange relation to Mordecai with a new solemnity and +tenderness—felt his strong young heart beating faster and his lips +paling. He shrank from speech. He feared, in Mordecai’s present state +of exaltation (already an alarming strain on his feeble frame), to +utter a word of revelation about Mirah. He feared to make an answer +below that high pitch of expectation which resembled a flash from a +dying fire, making watchers fear to see it die the faster. His dominant +impulse was to do as he had once done before: he laid his firm, gentle +hand on the hand that grasped him. Mordecai’s, as if it had a soul of +its own—for he was not distinctly willing to do what he did—relaxed +its grasp, and turned upward under Deronda’s. As the two palms met and +pressed each other Mordecai recovered some sense of his surroundings, +and said, + +“Let us go now. I cannot talk any longer.” + +And in fact they parted at Cohen’s door without having spoken to each +other again—merely with another pressure of the hands. + +Deronda felt a weight on him which was half joy, half anxiety. The joy +of finding in Mirah’s brother a nature even more than worthy of that +relation to her, had the weight of solemnity and sadness; the reunion +of brother and sister was in reality the first stage of a supreme +parting—like that farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last +glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow. Then there +was the weight of anxiety about the revelation of the fact on both +sides, and the arrangements it would be desirable to make beforehand. I +suppose we should all have felt as Deronda did, without sinking into +snobbishness or the notion that the primal duties of life demand a +morning and an evening suit, that it was an admissible desire to free +Mirah’s first meeting with her brother from all jarring outward +conditions. His own sense of deliverance from the dreaded relationship +of the other Cohens, notwithstanding their good nature, made him +resolve if possible to keep them in the background for Mirah, until her +acquaintance with them would be an unmarred rendering of gratitude for +any kindness they had shown to her brother. On all accounts he wished +to give Mordecai surroundings not only more suited to his frail bodily +condition, but less of a hindrance to easy intercourse, even apart from +the decisive prospect of Mirah’s taking up her abode with her brother, +and tending him through the precious remnant of his life. In the heroic +drama, great recognitions are not encumbered with these details; and +certainly Deronda had as reverential an interest in Mordecai and Mirah +as he could have had in the offspring of Agamemnon; but he was caring +for destinies still moving in the dim streets of our earthly life, not +yet lifted among the constellations, and his task presented itself to +him as difficult and delicate, especially in persuading Mordecai to +change his abode and habits. Concerning Mirah’s feeling and resolve he +had no doubt: there would be a complete union of sentiment toward the +departed mother, and Mirah would understand her brother’s greatness. +Yes, greatness: that was the word which Deronda now deliberately chose +to signify the impression that Mordecai had made on him. He said to +himself, perhaps rather defiantly toward the more negative spirit +within him, that this man, however erratic some of his interpretations +might be—this consumptive Jewish workman in threadbare clothing, +lodged by charity, delivering himself to hearers who took his thoughts +without attaching more consequences to them than the Flemings to the +ethereal chimes ringing above their market-places—had the chief +elements of greatness; a mind consciously, energetically moving with +the larger march of human destinies, but not the less full of +conscience and tender heart for the footsteps that tread near and need +a leaning-place; capable of conceiving and choosing a life’s task with +far-off issues, yet capable of the unapplauded heroism which turns off +the road of achievement at the call of the nearer duty whose effect +lies within the beatings of the hearts that are close to us, as the +hunger of the unfledged bird to the breast of its parent. + +Deronda to-night was stirred with the feeling that the brief remnant +of this fervid life had become his charge. He had been peculiarly +wrought on by what he had seen at the club of the friendly indifference +which Mordecai must have gone on encountering. His own experience of +the small room that ardor can make for itself in ordinary minds had had +the effect of increasing his reserve; and while tolerance was the +easiest attitude to him, there was another bent in him also capable of +becoming a weakness—the dislike to appear exceptional or to risk an +ineffective insistence on his own opinion. But such caution appeared +contemptible to him just now, when he, for the first time, saw in a +complete picture and felt as a reality the lives that burn themselves +out in solitary enthusiasm: martyrs of obscure circumstance, exiled in +the rarity of their own minds, whose deliverances in other ears are no +more than a long passionate soliloquy—unless perhaps at last, when +they are nearing the invisible shores, signs of recognition and +fulfilment may penetrate the cloud of loneliness; or perhaps it may be +with them as with the dying Copernicus made to touch the first printed +copy of his book when the sense of touch was gone, seeing it only as a +dim object through the deepening dusk. + +Deronda had been brought near to one of those spiritual exiles, and it +was in his nature to feel the relation as a strong chain, nay, to feel +his imagination moving without repugnance in the direction of +Mordecai’s desires. With all his latent objection to schemes only +definite in their generality and nebulous in detail—in the poise of +his sentiments he felt at one with this man who had made a visionary +selection of him: the lines of what may be called their emotional +theory touched. He had not the Jewish consciousness, but he had a +yearning, grown the stronger for the denial which had been his +grievance, after the obligation of avowed filial and social ties. His +feeling was ready for difficult obedience. In this way it came that he +set about his new task ungrudgingly; and again he thought of Mrs. +Meyrick as his chief helper. To her first he must make known the +discovery of Mirah’s brother, and with her he must consult on all +preliminaries of bringing the mutually lost together. Happily the best +quarter for a consumptive patient did not lie too far off the small +house at Chelsea, and the first office Deronda had to perform for this +Hebrew prophet who claimed him as a spiritual inheritor, was to get him +a healthy lodging. Such is the irony of earthly mixtures, that the +heroes have not always had carpets and teacups of their own; and, seen +through the open window by the mackerel-vender, may have been invited +with some hopefulness to pay three hundred per cent, in the form of +fourpence. However, Deronda’s mind was busy with a prospective +arrangement for giving a furnished lodging some faint likeness to a +refined home by dismantling his own chambers of his best old books in +vellum, his easiest chair, and the bas-reliefs of Milton and Dante. + +But was not Mirah to be there? What furniture can give such finish to a +room as a tender woman’s face?—and is there any harmony of tints that +has such stirrings of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice? +Here is one good, at least, thought Deronda, that comes to Mordecai +from his having fixed his imagination on me. He has recovered a perfect +sister, whose affection is waiting for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + + Fairy folk a-listening + Hear the seed sprout in the spring. + And for music to their dance + Hear the hedgerows wake from trance, + Sap that trembles into buds + Sending little rhythmic floods + Of fairy sound in fairy ears. + Thus all beauty that appears + Has birth as sound to finer sense + And lighter-clad intelligence. + + +And Gwendolen? She was thinking of Deronda much more than he was +thinking of her—often wondering what were his ideas “about things,” +and how his life was occupied. But a lap-dog would be necessarily at a +loss in framing to itself the motives and adventures of doghood at +large; and it was as far from Gwendolen’s conception that Deronda’s +life could be determined by the historical destiny of the Jews, as that +he could rise into the air on a brazen horse, and so vanish from her +horizon in the form of a twinkling star. + +With all the sense of inferiority that had been forced upon her, it was +inevitable that she should imagine a larger place for herself in his +thoughts than she actually possessed. They must be rather old and wise +persons who are not apt to see their own anxiety or elation about +themselves reflected in other minds; and Gwendolen, with her youth and +inward solitude, may be excused for dwelling on signs of special +interest in her shown by the one person who had impressed her with the +feeling of submission, and for mistaking the color and proportion of +those signs in the mind of Deronda. + +Meanwhile, what would he tell her that she ought to do? “He said, I +must get more interest in others, and more knowledge, and that I must +care about the best things—but how am I to begin?” She wondered what +books he would tell her to take up to her own room, and recalled the +famous writers that she had either not looked into or had found the +most unreadable, with a half-smiling wish that she could mischievously +ask Deronda if they were not the books called “medicine for the mind.” +Then she repented of her sauciness, and when she was safe from +observation carried up a miscellaneous selection—Descartes, Bacon, +Locke, Butler, Burke, Guizot—knowing, as a clever young lady of +education, that these authors were ornaments of mankind, feeling sure +that Deronda had read them, and hoping that by dipping into them all in +succession, with her rapid understanding she might get a point of view +nearer to his level. + +But it was astonishing how little time she found for these vast mental +excursions. Constantly she had to be on the scene as Mrs. Grandcourt, +and to feel herself watched in that part by the exacting eyes of a +husband who had found a motive to exercise his tenacity—that of making +his marriage answer all the ends he chose, and with the more +completeness the more he discerned any opposing will in her. And she +herself, whatever rebellion might be going on within her, could not +have made up her mind to failure in her representation. No feeling had +yet reconciled her for a moment to any act, word, or look that would be +a confession to the world: and what she most dreaded in herself was any +violent impulse that would make an involuntary confession: it was the +will to be silent in every other direction that had thrown the more +impetuosity into her confidences toward Deronda, to whom her thought +continually turned as a help against herself. Her riding, her hunting, +her visiting and receiving of visits, were all performed in a spirit of +achievement which served instead of zest and young gladness, so that +all around Diplow, in those weeks of the new year, Mrs. Grandcourt was +regarded as wearing her honors with triumph. + +“She disguises it under an air of taking everything as a matter of +course,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “A stranger might suppose that she had +condescended rather than risen. I always noticed that doubleness in +her.” + +To her mother most of all Gwendolen was bent on acting complete +satisfaction, and poor Mrs. Davilow was so far deceived that she took +the unexpected distance at which she was kept, in spite of what she +felt to be Grandcourt’s handsome behavior in providing for her, as a +comparative indifference in her daughter, now that marriage had created +new interests. To be fetched to lunch and then to dinner along with the +Gascoignes, to be driven back soon after breakfast the next morning, +and to have brief calls from Gwendolen in which her husband waited for +her outside either on horseback or sitting in the carriage, was all the +intercourse allowed to her mother. + +The truth was, that the second time Gwendolen proposed to invite her +mother with Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne, Grandcourt had at first been +silent, and then drawled, “We can’t be having _those people_ always. +Gascoigne talks too much. Country clergy are always bores—with their +confounded fuss about everything.” + +That speech was full of foreboding for Gwendolen. To have her mother +classed under “those people” was enough to confirm the previous dread +of bringing her too near. Still, she could not give the true +reasons—she could not say to her mother, “Mr. Grandcourt wants to +recognize you as little as possible; and besides it is better you +should not see much of my married life, else you might find out that I +am miserable.” So she waived as lightly as she could every allusion to +the subject; and when Mrs. Davilow again hinted the possibility of her +having a house close to Ryelands, Gwendolen said, “It would not be so +nice for you as being near the rectory here, mamma. We shall perhaps be +very little at Ryelands. You would miss my aunt and uncle.” + +And all the while this contemptuous veto of her husband’s on any +intimacy with her family, making her proudly shrink from giving them +the aspect of troublesome pensioners, was rousing more inward +inclination toward them. She had never felt so kindly toward her uncle, +so much disposed to look back on his cheerful, complacent activity and +spirit of kind management, even when mistaken, as more of a comfort +than the neutral loftiness which was every day chilling her. And here +perhaps she was unconsciously finding some of that mental enlargement +which it was hard to get from her occasional dashes into difficult +authors, who instead of blending themselves with her daily agitations +required her to dismiss them. + +It was a delightful surprise one day when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne were +at Offendene to see Gwendolen ride up without her husband—with the +groom only. All, including the four girls and Miss Merry, seated in the +dining-room at lunch, could see the welcome approach; and even the +elder ones were not without something of Isabel’s romantic sense that +the beautiful sister on the splendid chestnut, which held its head as +if proud to bear her, was a sort of Harriet Byron or Miss Wardour +reappearing out of her “happiness ever after.” + +Her uncle went to the door to give her his hand, and she sprang from +her horse with an air of alacrity which might well encourage that +notion of guaranteed happiness; for Gwendolen was particularly bent +to-day on setting her mother’s heart at rest, and her unusual sense of +freedom in being able to make this visit alone enabled her to bear up +under the pressure of painful facts which were urging themselves anew. +The seven family kisses were not so tiresome as they used to be. + +“Mr. Grandcourt is gone out, so I determined to fill up the time by +coming to you, mamma,” said Gwendolen, as she laid down her hat and +seated herself next to her mother; and then looking at her with a +playfully monitory air, “That is a punishment to you for not wearing +better lace on your head. You didn’t think I should come and detect +you—you dreadfully careless-about-yourself mamma!” She gave a +caressing touch to the dear head. + +“Scold me, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, her delicate worn face flushing +with delight. “But I wish there was something you could eat after your +ride—instead of these scraps. Let Jocosa make you a cup of chocolate +in your old way. You used to like that.” + +Miss Merry immediately rose and went out, though Gwendolen said, “Oh, +no, a piece of bread, or one of those hard biscuits. I can’t think +about eating. I am come to say good-bye.” + +“What! going to Ryelands again?” said Mr. Gascoigne. + +“No, we are going to town,” said Gwendolen, beginning to break up a +piece of bread, but putting no morsel into her mouth. + +“It is rather early to go to town,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, “and Mr. +Grandcourt not in Parliament.” + +“Oh, there is only one more day’s hunting to be had, and Henleigh has +some business in town with lawyers, I think,” said Gwendolen. “I am +very glad. I shall like to go to town.” + +“You will see your house in Grosvenor Square,” said Mrs. Davilow. She +and the girls were devouring with their eyes every movement of their +goddess, soon to vanish. + +“Yes,” said Gwendolen, in a tone of assent to the interest of that +expectation. “And there is so much to be seen and done in town.” + +“I wish, my dear Gwendolen,” said Mr. Gascoigne, in a kind of cordial +advice, “that you would use your influence with Mr. Grandcourt to +induce him to enter Parliament. A man of his position should make his +weight felt in politics. The best judges are confident that the +ministry will have to appeal to the country on this question of further +Reform, and Mr. Grandcourt should be ready for the opportunity. I am +not quite sure that his opinions and mine accord entirely; I have not +heard him express himself very fully. But I don’t look at the matter +from that point of view. I am thinking of your husband’s standing in +the country. And he has now come to that stage of life when a man like +him should enter into public affairs. A wife has great influence with +her husband. Use yours in that direction, my dear.” + +The rector felt that he was acquitting himself of a duty here, and +giving something like the aspect of a public benefit to his niece’s +match. To Gwendolen the whole speech had the flavor of bitter comedy. +If she had been merry, she must have laughed at her uncle’s explanation +to her that he had not heard Grandcourt express himself very fully on +politics. And the wife’s great influence! General maxims about husbands +and wives seemed now of a precarious usefulness. Gwendolen herself had +once believed in her future influence as an omnipotence in +managing—she did not know exactly what. But her chief concern at +present was to give an answer that would be felt appropriate. + +“I should be very glad, uncle. But I think Mr. Grandcourt would not +like the trouble of an election—at least, unless it could be without +his making speeches. I thought candidates always made speeches.” + +“Not necessarily—to any great extent,” said Mr. Gascoigne. “A man of +position and weight can get on without much of it. A county member need +have very little trouble in that way, and both out of the House and in +it is liked the better for not being a speechifier. Tell Mr. Grandcourt +that I say so.” + +“Here comes Jocosa with my chocolate after all,” said Gwendolen, +escaping from a promise to give information that would certainly have +been received in a way inconceivable to the good rector, who, pushing +his chair a little aside from the table and crossing his leg, looked as +well as if he felt like a worthy specimen of a clergyman and magistrate +giving experienced advice. Mr. Gascoigne had come to the conclusion +that Grandcourt was a proud man, but his own self-love, calmed through +life by the consciousness of his general value and personal advantages, +was not irritable enough to prevent him from hoping the best about his +niece’s husband because her uncle was kept rather haughtily at a +distance. A certain aloofness must be allowed to the representative of +an old family; you would not expect him to be on intimate terms even +with abstractions. But Mrs. Gascoigne was less dispassionate on her +husband’s account, and felt Grandcourt’s haughtiness as something a +little blameable in Gwendolen. + +“Your uncle and Anna will very likely be in town about Easter,” she +said, with a vague sense of expressing a slight discontent. “Dear Rex +hopes to come out with honors and a fellowship, and he wants his father +and Anna to meet him in London, that they may be jolly together, as he +says. I shouldn’t wonder if Lord Brackenshaw invited them, he has been +so very kind since he came back to the Castle.” + +“I hope my uncle will bring Ann to stay in Grosvenor Square,” said +Gwendolen, risking herself so far, for the sake of the present moment, +but in reality wishing that she might never be obliged to bring any of +her family near Grandcourt again. “I am very glad of Rex’s good +fortune.” + +“We must not be premature, and rejoice too much beforehand,” said the +rector, to whom this topic was the happiest in the world, and +altogether allowable, now that the issue of that little affair about +Gwendolen had been so satisfactory. “Not but that I am in +correspondence with impartial judges, who have the highest hopes about +my son, as a singularly clear-headed young man. And of his excellent +disposition and principle I have had the best evidence.” + +“We shall have him a great lawyer some time,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. + +“How very nice!” said Gwendolen, with a concealed scepticism as to +niceness in general, which made the word quite applicable to lawyers. + +“Talking of Lord Brackenshaw’s kindness,” said Mrs. Davilow, “you don’t +know how delightful he has been, Gwendolen. He has begged me to +consider myself his guest in this house till I can get another that I +like—he did it in the most graceful way. But now a house has turned +up. Old Mr. Jodson is dead, and we can have his house. It is just what +I want; small, but with nothing hideous to make you miserable thinking +about it. And it is only a mile from the Rectory. You remember the low +white house nearly hidden by the trees, as we turn up the lane to the +church?” + +“Yes, but you have no furniture, poor mamma,” said Gwendolen, in a +melancholy tone. + +“Oh, I am saving money for that. You know who has made me rather rich, +dear,” said Mrs. Davilow, laying her hand on Gwendolen’s. “And Jocosa +really makes so little do for housekeeping—it is quite wonderful.” + +“Oh, please let me go up-stairs with you and arrange my hat, mamma,” +said Gwendolen, suddenly putting up her hand to her hair and perhaps +creating a desired disarrangement. Her heart was swelling, and she was +ready to cry. Her mother _must_ have been worse off, if it had not been +for Grandcourt. “I suppose I shall never see all this again,” said +Gwendolen, looking round her, as they entered the black and yellow +bedroom, and then throwing herself into a chair in front of the glass +with a little groan as of bodily fatigue. In the resolve not to cry she +had become very pale. + +“You are not well, dear?” said Mrs. Davilow. + +“No; that chocolate has made me sick,” said Gwendolen, putting up her +hand to be taken. + +“I should be allowed to come to you if you were ill, darling,” said +Mrs. Davilow, rather timidly, as she pressed the hand to her bosom. +Something had made her sure to-day that her child loved her—needed her +as much as ever. + +“Oh, yes,” said Gwendolen, leaning her head against her mother, though +speaking as lightly as she could. “But you know I never am ill. I am as +strong as possible; and you must not take to fretting about me, but +make yourself as happy as you can with the girls. They are better +children to you than I have been, you know.” She turned up her face +with a smile. + +“You have always been good, my darling. I remember nothing else.” + +“Why, what did I ever do that was good to you, except marry Mr. +Grandcourt?” said Gwendolen, starting up with a desperate resolve to be +playful, and keep no more on the perilous edge of agitation. “And I +should not have done that unless it had pleased myself.” She tossed up +her chin, and reached her hat. + +“God forbid, child! I would not have had you marry for my sake. Your +happiness by itself is half mine.” + +“Very well,” said Gwendolen, arranging her hat fastidiously, “then you +will please to consider that you are half happy, which is more than I +am used to seeing you.” With the last words she again turned with her +old playful smile to her mother. “Now I am ready; but oh, mamma, Mr. +Grandcourt gives me a quantity of money, and expects me to spend it, +and I can’t spend it; and you know I can’t bear charity children and +all that; and here are thirty pounds. I wish the girls would spend it +for me on little things for themselves when you go to the new house. +Tell them so.” Gwendolen put the notes into her mother’s hands and +looked away hastily, moving toward the door. + +“God bless you, dear,” said Mrs. Davilow. “It will please them so that +you should have thought of them in particular.” + +“Oh, they are troublesome things; but they don’t trouble me now,” said +Gwendolen, turning and nodding playfully. She hardly understood her own +feeling in this act toward her sisters, but at any rate she did not +wish it to be taken as anything serious. She was glad to have got out +of the bedroom without showing more signs of emotion, and she went +through the rest of her visit and all the good-byes with a quiet +propriety that made her say to herself sarcastically as she rode away, +“I think I am making a very good Mrs. Grandcourt.” + +She believed that her husband had gone to Gadsmere that day—had +inferred this, as she had long ago inferred who were the inmates of +what he had described as “a dog-hutch of a place in a black country;” +and the strange conflict of feeling within her had had the +characteristic effect of sending her to Offendene with a tightened +resolve—a form of excitement which was native to her. + +She wondered at her own contradictions. Why should she feel it bitter +to her that Grandcourt showed concern for the beings on whose account +she herself was undergoing remorse? Had she not before her marriage +inwardly determined to speak and act on their behalf?—and since he had +lately implied that he wanted to be in town because he was making +arrangements about his will, she ought to have been glad of any sign +that he kept a conscience awake toward those at Gadsmere; and yet, now +that she was a wife, the sense that Grandcourt was gone to Gadsmere was +like red heat near a burn. She had brought on herself this indignity in +her own eyes—this humiliation of being doomed to a terrified silence +lest her husband should discover with what sort of consciousness she +had married him; and as she had said to Deronda, she “must go on.” +After the intense moments of secret hatred toward this husband who from +the very first had cowed her, there always came back the spiritual +pressure which made submission inevitable. There was no effort at +freedoms that would not bring fresh and worse humiliation. Gwendolen +could dare nothing except an impulsive action—least of all could she +dare premeditatedly a vague future in which the only certain condition +was indignity. In spite of remorse, it still seemed the worst result of +her marriage that she should in any way make a spectacle of herself; +and her humiliation was lightened by her thinking that only Mrs. +Glasher was aware of the fact which caused it. For Gwendolen had never +referred the interview at the Whispering Stones to Lush’s agency; her +disposition to vague terror investing with shadowy omnipresence any +threat of fatal power over her, and so hindering her from imagining +plans and channels by which news had been conveyed to the woman who had +the poisoning skill of a sorceress. To Gwendolen’s mind the secret lay +with Mrs. Glasher, and there were words in the horrible letter which +implied that Mrs. Glasher would dread disclosure to the husband, as +much as the usurping Mrs. Grandcourt. + +Something else, too, she thought of as more of a secret from her +husband than it really was—namely that suppressed struggle of +desperate rebellion which she herself dreaded. Grandcourt could not +indeed fully imagine how things affected Gwendolen: he had no +imagination of anything in her but what affected the gratification of +his own will; but on this point he had the sensibility which seems like +divination. What we see exclusively we are apt to see with some mistake +of proportions; and Grandcourt was not likely to be infallible in his +judgments concerning this wife who was governed by many shadowy powers, +to him nonexistent. He magnified her inward resistance, but that did +not lessen his satisfaction in the mastery of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + + Behold my lady’s carriage stop the way. + With powdered lacquey and with charming bay; + She sweeps the matting, treads the crimson stair. + Her arduous function solely “to be there.” + Like Sirius rising o’er the silent sea. + She hides her heart in lustre loftily. + + +So the Grandcourts were in Grosvenor Square in time to receive a card +for the musical party at Lady Mallinger’s, there being reasons of +business which made Sir Hugo know beforehand that his ill-beloved +nephew was coming up. It was only the third evening after their +arrival, and Gwendolen made rather an absent-minded acquaintance with +her new ceilings and furniture, preoccupied with the certainty that she +was going to speak to Deronda again, and also to see the Miss Lapidoth +who had gone through so much, and was “capable of submitting to +anything in the form of duty.” For Gwendolen had remembered nearly +every word that Deronda had said about Mirah, and especially that +phrase, which she repeated to herself bitterly, having an ill-defined +consciousness that her own submission was something very different. She +would have been obliged to allow, if any one had said it to her, that +what she submitted to could not take the shape of duty, but was +submission to a yoke drawn on her by an action she was ashamed of, and +worn with a strength of selfish motives that left no weight for duty to +carry. + +The drawing-rooms in Park Lane, all white, gold, and pale crimson, were +agreeably furnished, and not crowded with guests, before Mr. and Mrs. +Grandcourt entered; and more than half an hour of instrumental music +was being followed by an interval of movement and chat. Klesmer was +there with his wife, and in his generous interest for Mirah he proposed +to accompany her singing of Leo’s “_O patria mia_,” which he had before +recommended her to choose, as more distinctive of her than better known +music. He was already at the piano, and Mirah was standing there +conspicuously, when Gwendolen, magnificent in her pale green velvet and +poisoned diamonds, was ushered to a seat of honor well in view of them. +With her long sight and self-command she had the rare power of quickly +distinguishing persons and objects on entering a full room, and while +turning her glance toward Mirah she did not neglect to exchange a bow +with Klesmer as she passed. The smile seemed to each a lightning-flash +back on that morning when it had been her ambition to stand as the +“little Jewess” was standing, and survey a grand audience from the +higher rank of her talent—instead of which she was one of the ordinary +crowd in silk and gems, whose utmost performance it must be to admire +or find fault. “He thinks I am in the right road now,” said the lurking +resentment within her. + +Gwendolen had not caught sight of Deronda in her passage, and while she +was seated acquitting herself in chat with Sir Hugo, she glanced round +her with careful ease, bowing a recognition here and there, and fearful +lest an anxious-looking exploration in search of Deronda might be +observed by her husband, and afterward rebuked as something “damnably +vulgar.” But all traveling, even that of a slow gradual glance round a +room, brings a liability to undesired encounters, and amongst the eyes +that met Gwendolen’s, forcing her into a slight bow, were those of the +“amateur too fond of Meyerbeer,” Mr. Lush, whom Sir Hugo continued to +find useful as a half-caste among gentlemen. He was standing near her +husband, who, however, turned a shoulder toward him, and was being +understood to listen to Lord Pentreath. How was it that at this moment, +for the first time, there darted through Gwendolen, like a disagreeable +sensation, the idea that this man knew all about her husband’s life? He +had been banished from her sight, according to her will, and she had +been satisfied; he had sunk entirely into the background of her +thoughts, screened away from her by the agitating figures that kept up +an inward drama in which Lush had no place. Here suddenly he reappeared +at her husband’s elbow, and there sprang up in her, like an +instantaneously fabricated memory in a dream, the sense of his being +connected with the secrets that made her wretched. She was conscious of +effort in turning her head away from him, trying to continue her +wandering survey as if she had seen nothing of more consequence than +the picture on the wall, till she discovered Deronda. But he was not +looking toward her, and she withdrew her eyes from him, without having +got any recognition, consoling herself with the assurance that he must +have seen her come in. In fact, he was not standing far from the door +with Hans Meyrick, whom he had been careful to bring into Lady +Mallinger’s list. They were both a little more anxious than was +comfortable lest Mirah should not be heard to advantage. Deronda even +felt himself on the brink of betraying emotion, Mirah’s presence now +being linked with crowding images of what had gone before and was to +come after—all centering in the brother he was soon to reveal to her; +and he had escaped as soon as he could from the side of Lady Pentreath, +who had said in her violoncello voice, + +“Well, your Jewess is pretty—there’s no denying that. But where is her +Jewish impudence? She looks as demure as a nun. I suppose she learned +that on the stage.” + +He was beginning to feel on Mirah’s behalf something of what he had +felt for himself in his seraphic boyish time, when Sir Hugo asked him +if he would like to be a great singer—an indignant dislike to her +being remarked on in a free and easy way, as if she were an imported +commodity disdainfully paid for by the fashionable public, and he +winced the more because Mordecai, he knew, would feel that the name +“Jewess” was taken as a sort of stamp like the lettering of Chinese +silk. In this susceptible mood he saw the Grandcourts enter, and was +immediately appealed to by Hans about “that Vandyke duchess of a +beauty.” Pray excuse Deronda that in this moment he felt a transient +renewal of his first repulsion from Gwendolen, as if she and her beauty +and her failings were to blame for the undervaluing of Mirah as a +woman—a feeling something like class animosity, which affection for +what is not fully recognized by others, whether in persons or in +poetry, rarely allows us to escape. To Hans admiring Gwendolen with his +habitual hyperbole, he answered, with a sarcasm that was not quite +good-natured, + +“I thought you could admire no style of woman but your Berenice.” + +“That is the style I worship—not admire,” said Hans. “Other styles of +women I might make myself wicked for, but for Berenice I could make +myself—well, pretty good, which is something much more difficult.” + +“Hush,” said Deronda, under the pretext that the singing was going to +begin. He was not so delighted with the answer as might have been +expected, and was relieved by Hans’s movement to a more advanced spot. + +Deronda had never before heard Mirah sing “_O patria mia_.” He knew +well Leopardi’s fine Ode to Italy (when Italy sat like a disconsolate +mother in chains, hiding her face on her knees and weeping), and the +few selected words were filled for him with the grandeur of the whole, +which seemed to breathe an inspiration through the music. Mirah singing +this, made Mordecai more than ever one presence with her. Certain words +not included in the song nevertheless rang within Deronda as harmonies +from the invisible, + + “Non ti difende + Nessun de’ tuoi! L’armi, qua l’armi: io solo + Combatterò, procomberò sol io”—[*] + + [* Do none of thy children defend thee? Arms! bring me arms! + alone I will fight, alone I will fall.] + +they seemed the very voice of that heroic passion which is falsely said +to devote itself in vain when it achieves the godlike end of +manifesting unselfish love. And that passion was present to Deronda now +as the vivid image of a man dying helplessly away from the possibility +of battle. + +Mirah was equal to his wishes. While the general applause was sounding, +Klesmer gave a more valued testimony, audible to her only—“Good, +good—the crescendo better than before.” But her chief anxiety was to +know that she had satisfied Mr. Deronda: any failure on her part this +evening would have pained her as an especial injury to him. Of course +all her prospects were due to what he had done for her; still, this +occasion of singing in the house that was his home brought a peculiar +demand. She looked toward him in the distance, and he saw that she did; +but he remained where he was, and watched the streams of emulous +admirers closing round her, till presently they parted to make way for +Gwendolen, who was taken up to be introduced by Mrs. Klesmer. Easier +now about “the little Jewess,” Daniel relented toward poor Gwendolen in +her splendor, and his memory went back, with some penitence for his +momentary hardness, over all the signs and confessions that she too +needed a rescue, and one much more difficult than that of the wanderer +by the river—a rescue for which he felt himself helpless. The silent +question—“But is it not cowardly to make that a reason for turning +away?” was the form in which he framed his resolve to go near her on +the first opportunity, and show his regard for her past confidence, in +spite of Sir Hugo’s unwelcome hints. + +Klesmer, having risen to Gwendolen as she approached, and being +included by her in the opening conversation with Mirah, continued near +them a little while, looking down with a smile, which was rather in his +eyes than on his lips, at the piquant contrast of the two charming +young creatures seated on the red divan. The solicitude seemed to be +all on the side of the splendid one. + +“You must let me say how much I am obliged to you,” said Gwendolen. “I +had heard from Mr. Deronda that I should have a great treat in your +singing, but I was too ignorant to imagine how great.” + +“You are very good to say so,” answered Mirah, her mind chiefly +occupied in contemplating Gwendolen. It was like a new kind of +stage-experience to her to be close to genuine grand ladies with +genuine brilliants and complexions, and they impressed her vaguely as +coming out of some unknown drama, in which their parts perhaps got more +tragic as they went on. + +“We shall all want to learn of you—I, at least,” said Gwendolen. “I +sing very badly, as Herr Klesmer will tell you,”—here she glanced +upward to that higher power rather archly, and continued—“but I have +been rebuked for not liking to be middling, since I can be nothing more. I +think that is a different doctrine from yours?” She was still looking +at Klesmer, who said quickly, + +“Not if it means that it would be worth while for you to study further, +and for Miss Lapidoth to have the pleasure of helping you.” With that +he moved away, and Mirah taking everything with _naïve_ seriousness, +said, + +“If you think I could teach you, I shall be very glad. I am anxious to +teach, but I have only just begun. If I do it well, it must be by +remembering how my master taught me.” + +Gwendolen was in reality too uncertain about herself to be prepared for +this simple promptitude of Mirah’s, and in her wish to change the +subject, said, with some lapse from the good taste of her first +address, + +“You have not been long in London, I think?—but you were perhaps +introduced to Mr. Deronda abroad?” + +“No,” said Mirah; “I never saw him before I came to England in the +summer.” + +“But he has seen you often and heard you sing a great deal, has he +not?” said Gwendolen, led on partly by the wish to hear anything about +Deronda, and partly by the awkwardness which besets the readiest +person, in carrying on a dialogue when empty of matter. “He spoke of +you to me with the highest praise. He seemed to know you quite well.” + +“Oh, I was poor and needed help,” said Mirah, in a new tone of feeling, +“and Mr. Deronda has given me the best friends in the world. That is +the only way he came to know anything about me—because he was sorry +for me. I had no friends when I came. I was in distress. I owe +everything to him.” + +Poor Gwendolen, who had wanted to be a struggling artist herself, could +nevertheless not escape the impression that a mode of inquiry which +would have been rather rude toward herself was an amiable condescension +to this Jewess who was ready to give her lessons. The only effect on +Mirah, as always on any mention of Deronda, was to stir reverential +gratitude and anxiety that she should be understood to have the deepest +obligation to him. + +But both he and Hans, who were noticing the pair from a distance, would +have felt rather indignant if they had known that the conversation had +led up to Mirah’s representation of herself in this light of neediness. +In the movement that prompted her, however, there was an exquisite +delicacy, which perhaps she could not have stated explicitly—the +feeling that she ought not to allow any one to assume in Deronda a +relation of more equality or less generous interest toward her than +actually existed. Her answer was delightful to Gwendolen: she thought +of nothing but the ready compassion which in another form she had +trusted in and found herself; and on the signals that Klesmer was about +to play she moved away in much content, entirely without presentiment +that this Jewish _protégé_ would ever make a more important difference +in her life than the possible improvement of her singing—if the +leisure and spirits of a Mrs. Grandcourt would allow of other lessons +than such as the world was giving her at rather a high charge. + +With her wonted alternation from resolute care of appearances to some +rash indulgence of an impulse, she chose, under the pretext of getting +farther from the instrument, not to go again to her former seat, but +placed herself on a settee where she could only have one neighbor. She +was nearer to Deronda than before: was it surprising that he came up in +time to shake hands before the music began—then, that after he had +stood a little while by the elbow of the settee at the empty end, the +torrent-like confluences of bass and treble seemed, like a convulsion +of nature, to cast the conduct of petty mortals into insignificance, +and to warrant his sitting down? + +But when at the end of Klesmer’s playing there came the outburst of +talk under which Gwendolen had hoped to speak as she would to Deronda, +she observed that Mr. Lush was within hearing, leaning against the wall +close by them. She could not help her flush of anger, but she tried to +have only an air of polite indifference in saying, + +“Miss Lapidoth is everything you described her to be.” + +“You have been very quick in discovering that,” said Deronda, +ironically. + +“I have not found out all the excellencies you spoke of—I don’t mean +that,” said Gwendolen; “but I think her singing is charming, and +herself, too. Her face is lovely—not in the least common; and she is +such a complete little person. I should think she will be a great +success.” + +This speech was grating on Deronda, and he would not answer it, but +looked gravely before him. She knew that he was displeased with her, +and she was getting so impatient under the neighborhood of Mr. Lush, +which prevented her from saying any word she wanted to say, that she +meditated some desperate step to get rid of it, and remained silent, +too. That constraint seemed to last a long while, neither Gwendolen nor +Deronda looking at the other, till Lush slowly relieved the wall of his +weight, and joined some one at a distance. + +Gwendolen immediately said, “You despise me for talking artificially.” + +“No,” said Deronda, looking at her coolly; “I think that is quite +excusable sometimes. But I did not think what you were last saying was +altogether artificial.” + +“There was something in it that displeased you,” said Gwendolen. “What +was it?” + +“It is impossible to explain such things,” said Deronda. “One can never +communicate niceties of feeling about words and manner.” + +“You think I am shut out from understanding them,” said Gwendolen, with +a slight tremor in her voice, which she was trying to conquer. “Have I +shown myself so very dense to everything you have said?” There was an +indescribable look of suppressed tears in her eyes, which were turned +on him. + +“Not at all,” said Deronda, with some softening of voice. “But +experience differs for different people. We don’t all wince at the same +things. I have had plenty of proof that you are not dense.” He smiled +at her. + +“But one may feel things and are not able to do anything better for all +that,” said Gwendolen, not smiling in return—the distance to which +Deronda’s words seemed to throw her chilling her too much. “I begin to +think we can only get better by having people about us who raise good +feelings. You must not be surprised at anything in me. I think it is +too late for me to alter. I don’t know how to set about being wise, as +you told me to be.” + +“I seldom find I do any good by my preaching. I might as well have kept +from meddling,” said Deronda, thinking rather sadly that his +interference about that unfortunate necklace might end in nothing but +an added pain to him in seeing her after all hardened to another sort +of gambling than roulette. + +“Don’t say that,” said Gwendolen, hurriedly, feeling that this might be +her only chance of getting the words uttered, and dreading the increase +of her own agitation. “If you despair of me, I shall despair. Your +saying that I should not go on being selfish and ignorant has been some +strength to me. If you say you wish you had not meddled—that means you +despair of me and forsake me. And then you will decide for me that I +shall not be good. It is you who will decide; because you might have +made me different by keeping as near to me as you could, and believing +in me.” + +She had not been looking at him as she spoke, but at the handle of the +fan which she held closed. With the last words she rose and left him, +returning to her former place, which had been left vacant; while every +one was settling into quietude in expectation of Mirah’s voice, which +presently, with that wonderful, searching quality of subdued song in +which the melody seems simply an effect of the emotion, gave forth, +_Per pietà non dirmi addio_. + +In Deronda’s ear the strain was for the moment a continuance of +Gwendolen’s pleading—a painful urging of something vague and +difficult, irreconcilable with pressing conditions, and yet cruel to +resist. However strange the mixture in her of a resolute pride and a +precocious air of knowing the world, with a precipitate, guileless +indiscretion, he was quite sure now that the mixture existed. Sir +Hugo’s hints had made him alive to dangers that his own disposition +might have neglected; but that Gwendolen’s reliance on him was +unvisited by any dream of his being a man who could misinterpret her +was as manifest as morning, and made an appeal which wrestled with his +sense of present dangers, and with his foreboding of a growing +incompatible claim on him in her mind. There was a foreshadowing of +some painful collision: on the one side the grasp of Mordecai’s dying +hand on him, with all the ideals and prospects it aroused; on the other +the fair creature in silk and gems, with her hidden wound and her +self-dread, making a trustful effort to lean and find herself +sustained. It was as if he had a vision of himself besought with +outstretched arms and cries, while he was caught by the waves and +compelled to mount the vessel bound for a far-off coast. That was the +strain of excited feeling in him that went along with the notes of +Mirah’s song; but when it ceased he moved from his seat with the +reflection that he had been falling into an exaggeration of his own +importance, and a ridiculous readiness to accept Gwendolen’s view of +himself, as if he could really have any decisive power over her. + +“What an enviable fellow you are,” said Hans to him, “sitting on a sofa +with that young duchess, and having an interesting quarrel with her!” + +“Quarrel with her?” repeated Deronda, rather uncomfortably. + +“Oh, about theology, of course; nothing personal. But she told you what +you ought to think, and then left you with a grand air which was +admirable. Is she an Antinomian—if so, tell her I am an Antinomian +painter, and introduce me. I should like to paint her and her husband. +He has the sort of handsome _physique_ that the Duke ought to have in +_Lucrezia Borgia_—if it could go with a fine baritone, which it can’t.” + +Deronda devoutly hoped that Hans’s account of the impression his +dialogue with Gwendolen had made on a distant beholder was no more than +a bit of fantastic representation, such as was common with him. + +And Gwendolen was not without her after-thoughts that her husband’s +eyes might have been on her, extracting something to reprove—some +offence against her dignity as his wife; her consciousness telling her +that she had not kept up the perfect air of equability in public which +was her own ideal. But Grandcourt made no observation on her behavior. +All he said as they were driving home was, + +“Lush will dine with us among the other people to-morrow. You will +treat him civilly.” + +Gwendolen’s heart began to beat violently. The words that she wanted to +utter, as one wants to return a blow, were. “You are breaking your +promise to me—the first promise you made me.” But she dared not utter +them. She was as frightened at a quarrel as if she had foreseen that it +would end with throttling fingers on her neck. After a pause, she said +in the tone rather of defeat than resentment, + +“I thought you did not intend him to frequent the house again.” + +“I want him just now. He is useful to me; and he must be treated +civilly.” + +Silence. There may come a moment when even an excellent husband who has +dropped smoking under more or less of a pledge during courtship, for +the first time will introduce his cigar-smoke between himself and his +wife, with the tacit understanding that she will have to put up with +it. Mr. Lush was, so to speak, a very large cigar. + +If these are the sort of lovers’ vows at which Jove laughs, he must +have a merry time of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + + “If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I + feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, + ‘Because it was he, because it was I.’ There is, beyond what I am able + to say, I know not what inexplicable power that brought on this + union.”—MONTAIGNE: _On Friendship_. + + +The time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the +restored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before +Mirah’s meeting with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick, to whom Deronda had +confided everything except Mordecai’s peculiar relation to himself, had +been active in helping him to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not +many minutes’ walk from her own house, so that the brother and sister +would be within reach of her motherly care. Her happy mixture of +Scottish fervor and Gaelic liveliness had enabled her to keep the +secret close from the girls as well as from Hans, any betrayal to them +being likely to reach Mirah in some way that would raise an agitating +suspicion, and spoil the important opening of that work which was to +secure her independence, as we rather arbitrarily call one of the more +arduous and dignified forms of our dependence. And both Mrs. Meyrick +and Deronda had more reasons than they could have expressed for +desiring that Mirah should be able to maintain herself. Perhaps “the +little mother” was rather helped in her secrecy by some dubiousness in +her sentiment about the remarkable brother described to her; and +certainly if she felt any joy and anticipatory admiration, it was due +to her faith in Deronda’s judgment. The consumption was a sorrowful +fact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was she to be very glad +of an enthusiasm which, to tell the truth, she could only contemplate +as Jewish pertinacity, and as rather an undesirable introduction among +them all of a man whose conversation would not be more modern and +encouraging than that of Scott’s Covenanters? Her mind was anything but +prosaic, and had her soberer share of Mab’s delight in the romance of +Mirah’s story and of her abode with them; but the romantic or unusual +in real life requires some adaptation. We sit up at night to read about +Sakya-Mouni, St. Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be +glad for any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still +more, to reveal himself as a new relation, is quite another affair. +Besides, Mrs. Meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the +intensity of Mirah’s feeling about Judaism would slowly subside, and be +merged in the gradually deepening current of loving interchange with +her new friends. In fact, her secret favorite continuation of the +romance had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but something much +more favorable to the hopes she discerned in Hans. And now—here was a +brother who would dip Mirah’s mind over again in the deepest dye of +Jewish sentiment. She could not help saying to Deronda, + +“I am as glad as you are that the pawnbroker is not her brother: there +are Ezras and Ezras in the world; and really it is a comfort to think +that all Jews are not like those shopkeepers who _will not_ let you get +out of their shops: and besides, what he said to you about his mother +and sister makes me bless him. I am sure he’s good. But I never did +like anything fanatical. I suppose I heard a little too much preaching +in my youth and lost my palate for it.” + +“I don’t think you will find that Mordecai obtrudes any preaching,” +said Deronda. “He is not what I should call fanatical. I call a man +fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he has +no sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men +who are out of his own track. Mordecai is an enthusiast; I should like +to keep that word for the highest order of minds—those who care +supremely for grand and general benefits to mankind. He is not a +strictly orthodox Jew, and is full of allowances for others; his +conformity in many things is an allowance for the condition of other +Jews. The people he lives with are as fond of him as possible, and they +can’t in the least understand his ideas.” + +“Oh, well, I can live up to the level of the pawnbroker’s mother, and +like him for what I see to be good in him; and for what I don’t see the +merits of I will take your word. According to your definition, I +suppose one might be fanatical in worshipping common-sense; for my poor +husband used to say the world would be a poor place if there were +nothing but common-sense in it. However, Mirah’s brother will have good +bedding—that I have taken care of; and I shall have this extra window +pasted up with paper to prevent draughts.” (The conversation was taking +place in the destined lodging.) “It is a comfort to think that the +people of the house are no strangers to me—no hypocritical harpies. +And when the children know, we shall be able to make the rooms much +prettier.” + +“The next stage of the affair is to tell all to Mordecai, and get him +to move—which may be a more difficult business,” said Deronda. + +“And will you tell Mirah before I say anything to the children?” said +Mrs. Meyrick. But Deronda hesitated, and she went on in a tone of +persuasive deliberation—“No, I think not. Let me tell Hans and the +girls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning?” + +“Yes, that will be best. But do justice to my account of Mordecai—or +Ezra, as I suppose Mirah will wish to call him: don’t assist their +imagination by referring to Habakkuk Mucklewrath,” said Deronda, +smiling—Mrs. Meyrick herself having used the comparison of the +Covenanters. + +“Trust me, trust me,” said the little mother. “I shall have to persuade +them so hard to be glad, that I shall convert myself. When I am +frightened I find it a good thing to have somebody to be angry with for +not being brave: it warms the blood.” + +Deronda might have been more argumentative or persuasive about the view +to be taken of Mirah’s brother, if he had been less anxiously +preoccupied with the more important task immediately before him, which +he desired to acquit himself of without wounding the Cohens. Mordecai, +by a memorable answer, had made it evident that he would be keenly +alive to any inadvertance in relation to their feelings. In the +interval, he had been meeting Mordecai at the _Hand and Banner_, but +now after due reflection he wrote to him saying that he had particular +reasons for wishing to see him in his own home the next evening, and +would beg to sit with him in his workroom for an hour, if the Cohens +would not regard it as an intrusion. He would call with the +understanding that if there were any objection, Mordecai would +accompany him elsewhere. Deronda hoped in this way to create a little +expectation that would have a preparatory effect. + +He was received with the usual friendliness, some additional costume in +the women and children, and in all the elders a slight air of wondering +which even in Cohen was not allowed to pass the bounds of silence—the +guest’s transactions with Mordecai being a sort of mystery which he was +rather proud to think lay outside the sphere of light which enclosed +his own understanding. But when Deronda said, “I suppose Mordecai is at +home and expecting me,” Jacob, who had profited by the family remarks, +went up to his knee and said, “What do you want to talk to Mordecai +about?” + +“Something that is very interesting to him,” said Deronda, pinching the +lad’s ear, “but that you can’t understand.” + +“Can you say this?” said Jacob, immediately giving forth a string of +his rote-learned Hebrew verses with a wonderful mixture of the throaty +and the nasal, and nodding his small head at his hearer, with a sense +of giving formidable evidence which might rather alter their mutual +position. + +“No, really,” said Deronda, keeping grave; “I can’t say anything like +it.” + +“I thought not,” said Jacob, performing a dance of triumph with his +small scarlet legs, while he took various objects out of the deep +pockets of his knickerbockers and returned them thither, as a slight +hint of his resources; after which, running to the door of the +workroom, he opened it wide, set his back against it, and said, +“Mordecai, here’s the young swell”—a copying of his father’s phrase, +which seemed to him well fitted to cap the recitation of Hebrew. + +He was called back with hushes by mother and grandmother, and Deronda, +entering and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had +been laid down, a chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in +sign of the Cohens’ respect. As Mordecai rose to greet him, Deronda was +struck with the air of solemn expectation in his face, such as would +have seemed perfectly natural if his letter had declared that some +revelation was to be made about the lost sister. Neither of them spoke, +till Deronda, with his usual tenderness of manner, had drawn the vacant +chair from the opposite side of the hearth and had seated himself near +to Mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty, + +“You are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for.” + +“It is true I have something very weighty to tell you—something I +trust that you will rejoice in,” said Deronda, on his guard against the +probability that Mordecai had been preparing himself for something +quite different from the fact. + +“It is all revealed—it is made clear to you,” said Mordecai, more +eagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands. “You are even as my +brother that sucked the breasts of my mother—the heritage is +yours—there is no doubt to divide us.” + +“I have learned nothing new about myself,” said Deronda. The +disappointment was inevitable: it was better not to let the feeling be +strained longer in a mistaken hope. + +Mordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was +really coming. The whole day his mind had been in a state of tension +toward one fulfillment. The reaction was sickening and he closed his +eyes. + +“Except,” Deronda went on gently, after a pause,—“except that I had +really some time ago come into another sort of hidden connection with +you, besides what you have spoken of as existing in your own feeling.” + +The eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids. + +“I had made the acquaintance of one in whom you are interested.” + +“One who is closely related to your departed mother,” Deronda went on +wishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking +movement in Mordecai, he added—“whom she and you held dear above all +others.” + +Mordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on Deronda’s +wrist; there was a great terror in him. And Deronda divined it. A +tremor was perceptible in his clear tones as he said, + +“What was prayed for has come to pass: Mirah has been delivered from +evil.” + +Mordecai’s grasp relaxed a little, but he was panting with a tearless +sob. + +Deronda went on: “Your sister is worthy of the mother you honored.” + +He waited there, and Mordecai, throwing himself backward in his chair, +again closed his eyes, uttering himself almost inaudibly for some +minutes in Hebrew, and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence. +Deronda, watching the expression in his uplifted face, could have +imagined that he was speaking with some beloved object: there was a new +suffused sweetness, something like that on the faces of the beautiful +dead. For the first time Deronda thought he discerned a family +resemblance to Mirah. + +Presently when Mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. But in +accounting for Mirah’s flight he made the statement about the father’s +conduct as vague as he could, and threw the emphasis on her yearning to +come to England as the place where she might find her mother. Also he +kept back the fact of Mirah’s intention to drown herself, and his own +part in rescuing her; merely describing the home she had found with +friends of his, whose interest in her and efforts for her he had +shared. What he dwelt on finally was Mirah’s feeling about her mother +and brother; and in relation to this he tried to give every detail. + +“It was in search of them,” said Deronda, smiling, “that I turned into +this house: the name Ezra Cohen was just then the most interesting name +in the world to me. I confess I had fear for a long while. Perhaps you +will forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder +Mrs. Cohen’s daughter. I cared very much what I should find Mirah’s +friends to be. But I had found a brother worthy of her when I knew that +her Ezra was disguised under the name of Mordecai.” + +“Mordecai is really my name—Ezra Mordecai Cohen.” + +“Is there any kinship between this family and yours?” said Deronda. + +“Only the kinship of Israel. My soul clings to these people, who have +sheltered me and given me succor out of the affection that abides in +Jewish hearts, as sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the +outer air. It is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound +to them in gratitude, that I may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of +the Jewish million, and not put impatient knowledge in the stead of +loving wisdom.” + +“But you don’t feel bound to continue with them now there is a closer +tie to draw you?” said Deronda, not without fear that he might find an +obstacle to overcome. “It seems to me right now—is it not?—that you +should live with your sister; and I have prepared a home to take you to +in the neighborhood of her friends, that she may join you there. Pray +grant me this wish. It will enable me to be with you often in the hours +when Mirah is obliged to leave you. That is my selfish reason. But the +chief reason is, that Mirah will desire to watch over you, and that you +ought to give her the guardianship of a brother’s presence. You shall +have books about you. I shall want to learn of you, and to take you out +to see the river and trees. And you will have the rest and comfort that +you will be more and more in need of—nay, that I need for you. This is +the claim I make on you, now that we have found each other.” + +Deronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he +might have used to a venerated elder brother. Mordecai’s eyes were +fixed on him with a listening contemplation, and he was silent for a +little while after Deronda had ceased to speak. Then he said, with an +almost reproachful emphasis, + +“And you would have me hold it doubtful whether you were born a Jew! +Have we not from the first touched each other with invisible +fibres—have we not quivered together like the leaves from a common +stem with stirring from a common root? I know what I am outwardly, I am +one among the crowd of poor—I am stricken, I am dying. But our souls +know each other. They gazed in silence as those who have long been +parted and meet again, but when they found voice they were assured, and +all their speech is understanding. The life of Israel is in your veins.” + +Deronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. It was +impossible either to deny or assent. He waited, hoping that Mordecai +would presently give him a more direct answer. And after a pause of +meditation he did say, firmly, + +“What you wish of me I will do. And our mother—may the blessing of the +Eternal be with her in our souls!—would have wished it too. I will +accept what your loving kindness has prepared, and Mirah’s home shall +be mine.” He paused a moment, and then added in a more melancholy tone, +“But I shall grieve to part from these parents and the little ones. You +must tell them, for my heart would fail me.” + +“I felt that you would want me to tell them. Shall we go now at once?” +said Deronda, much relieved by this unwavering compliance. + +“Yes; let us not defer it. It must be done,” said Mordecai, rising with +the air of a man who has to perform a painful duty. Then came, as an +afterthought, “But do not dwell on my sister more than is needful.” + +When they entered the parlor he said to the alert Jacob, “Ask your +father to come, and tell Sarah to mind the shop. My friend has +something to say,” he continued, turning to the elder Mrs. Cohen. It +seemed part of Mordecai’s eccentricity that he should call this +gentleman his friend; and the two women tried to show their better +manners by warm politeness in begging Deronda to seat himself in the +best place. + +When Cohen entered with a pen behind his ear, he rubbed his hands and +said with loud satisfaction, “Well, sir! I’m glad you’re doing us the +honor to join our family party again. We are pretty comfortable, I +think.” + +He looked round with shiny gladness. And when all were seated on the +hearth the scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side Baby under her +scarlet quilt in the corner being rocked by the young mother, and +Adelaide Rebekah seated on the grandmother’s knee; on the other, Jacob +between his father’s legs; while the two markedly different figures of +Deronda and Mordecai were in the middle—Mordecai a little backward in +the shade, anxious to conceal his agitated susceptibility to what was +going on around him. The chief light came from the fire, which brought +out the rich color on a depth of shadow, and seemed to turn into speech +the dark gems of eyes that looked at each other kindly. + +“I have just been telling Mordecai of an event that makes a great +change in his life,” Deronda began, “but I hope you will agree with me +that it is a joyful one. Since he thinks of you as his best friends, he +wishes me to tell you for him at once.” + +“Relations with money, sir?” burst in Cohen, feeling a power of +divination which it was a pity to nullify by waiting for the fact. + +“No; not exactly,” said Deronda, smiling. “But a very precious relation +wishes to be reunited to him—a very good and lovely young sister, who +will care for his comfort in every way.” + +“Married, sir?” + +“No, not married.” + +“But with a maintenance?” + +“With talents which will secure her a maintenance. A home is already +provided for Mordecai.” + +There was silence for a moment or two before the grandmother said in a +wailing tone, + +“Well, well! and so you’re going away from us, Mordecai.” + +“And where there’s no children as there is here,” said the mother, +catching the wail. + +“No Jacob, and no Adelaide, and no Eugenie!” wailed the grandmother +again. + +“Ay, ay, Jacob’s learning ’ill all wear out of him. He must go to +school. It’ll be hard times for Jacob,” said Cohen, in a tone of +decision. + +In the wide-open ears of Jacob his father’s words sounded like a doom, +giving an awful finish to the dirge-like effect of the whole +announcement. His face had been gathering a wondering incredulous +sorrow at the notion of Mordecai’s going away: he was unable to imagine +the change as anything lasting; but at the mention of “hard times for +Jacob” there was no further suspense of feeling, and he broke forth in +loud lamentation. Adelaide Rebekah always cried when her brother cried, +and now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby +awaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the +cradle. A great deal of hushing was necessary, and Mordecai feeling the +cries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob, who in the midst of his +tears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general +observation. His father, who had been saying, “Never mind, old man; +you shall go to the riders,” now released him, and he went to Mordecai, +who clasped him, and laid his cheek on the little black head without +speaking. But Cohen, sensible that the master of the family must make +some apology for all this weakness, and that the occasion called for a +speech, addressed Deronda with some elevation of pitch, squaring his +elbows and resting a hand on each knee: + +“It’s not as we’re the people to grudge anybody’s good luck, sir, or +the portion of their cup being made fuller, as I may say. I’m not an +envious man, and if anybody offered to set up Mordecai in a shop of my +sort two doors lower down, _I_ shouldn’t make wry faces about it. I’m +not one of them that had need have a poor opinion of themselves, and be +frightened at anybody else getting a chance. If I’m offal, let a wise +man come and tell me, for I’ve never heard it yet. And in point of +business, I’m not a class of goods to be in danger. If anybody takes to +rolling me, I can pack myself up like a caterpillar, and find my feet +when I’m let alone. And though, as I may say, you’re taking some of our +good works from us, which is property bearing interest, I’m not saying +but we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good will +to wish and do for Mordecai to the last; and a Jew must not be like a +servant who works for reward—though I see nothing against a reward if +I can get it. And as to the extra outlay in schooling, I’m neither poor +nor greedy—I wouldn’t hang myself for sixpence, nor half a crown +neither. But the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of +Mordecai. You may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. A +Jewish man is bound to thank God, day by day, that he was not made a +woman; but a woman has to thank God that He has made her according to +His will. And we all know what He has made her—a child-bearing, +tender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. Her children are +mostly stout, as I think you’ll say Addy’s are, and she’s not mushy, +but her heart is tender. So you must excuse present company, sir, for +not being glad all at once. And as to this young lady—for by what you +say ‘young lady’ is the proper term”—Cohen here threw some additional +emphasis into his look and tone—“we shall all be glad for Mordecai’s +sake by-and-by, when we cast up our accounts and see where we are.” + +Before Deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech, +Mordecai exclaimed, + +“Friends, friends! For food and raiment and shelter I would not have +sought better than you have given me. You have sweetened the morsel +with love; and what I thought of as a joy that would be left to me even +in the last months of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad. +But now I am as one who had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and +used himself to making the grave his bed, when the divine command +sounded in his ears, ‘Arise, and go forth; the night is not yet come.’ +For no light matter would I have turned away from your kindness to take +another’s. But it has been taught us, as you know, that _the reward of +one duty is the power to fulfill another_—so said Ben Azai. You have +made your duty to one of the poor among your brethren a joy to you and +me; and your reward shall be that you will not rest without the joy of +like deeds in the time to come. And may not Jacob come and visit me?” + +Mordecai had turned with this question to Deronda, who said, + +“Surely that can be managed. It is no further than Brompton.” + +Jacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going +forward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word “visit” +having the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at his +grandfather’s, the dealer in knives. He danced away from Mordecai, and +took up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands +in his knickerbockers. + +“Well,” said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, “I hope +there’ll be nothing in the way of your getting _kosher_ meat, Mordecai. +For you’ll have to trust to those you live with.” + +“That’s all right, that’s all right, you may be sure, mother,” said +Cohen, as if anxious to cut off inquiry on matters in which he was +uncertain of the guest’s position. “So, sir,” he added, turning with a +look of amused enlightenment to Deronda, “it was better than learning +you had to talk to Mordecai about! I wondered to myself at the time. I +thought somehow there was a something.” + +“Mordecai will perhaps explain to you how it was that I was seeking +him,” said Deronda, feeling that he had better go, and rising as he +spoke. + +It was agreed that he should come again and the final move be made on +the next day but one; but when he was going Mordecai begged to walk +with him to the end of the street, and wrapped himself in coat and +comforter. It was a March evening, and Deronda did not mean to let him +go far, but he understood the wish to be outside the house with him in +communicative silence, after the exciting speech that had been filling +the last hour. No word was spoken until Deronda had proposed parting, +when he said, + +“Mirah would wish to thank the Cohens for their goodness. You would +wish her to do so—to come and see them, would you not?” + +Mordecai did not answer immediately, but at length said, + +“I cannot tell. I fear not. There is a family sorrow, and the sight of +my sister might be to them as the fresh bleeding of wounds. There is a +daughter and sister who will never be restored as Mirah is. But who +knows the pathways? We are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers—and +men in their careless deeds walk amidst invisible outstretched arms and +pleadings made in vain. In my ears I have the prayers of generations +past and to come. My life is as nothing to me but the beginning of +fulfilment. And yet I am only another prayer—which you will fulfil.” + +Deronda pressed his hand, and they parted. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + + “And you must love him ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love.” + —WORDSWORTH. + + +One might be tempted to envy Deronda providing new clothes for +Mordecai, and pleasing himself as if he were sketching a picture in +imagining the effect of the fine gray flannel shirts and a +dressing-gown very much like a Franciscan’s brown frock, with +Mordecai’s head and neck above them. Half his pleasure was the sense of +seeing Mirah’s brother through her eyes, and securing her fervid joy +from any perturbing impression. And yet, after he had made all things +ready, he was visited with doubt whether he were not mistaking her, and +putting the lower effect for the higher: was she not just as capable as +he himself had been of feeling the impressive distinction in her +brother all the more for that aspect of poverty which was among the +memorials of his past? But there were the Meyricks to be propitiated +toward this too Judaic brother; and Deronda detected himself piqued +into getting out of sight everything that might feed the ready +repugnance in minds unblessed with that precious “seeing,” that bathing +of all objects in a solemnity as of sun-set glow, which is begotten of +a loving reverential emotion. + +And his inclination would have been the more confirmed if he had heard +the dialogue round Mrs. Meyrick’s fire late in the evening, after Mirah +had gone to her room. Hans, settled now in his Chelsea rooms, had +stayed late, and Mrs. Meyrick, poking the fire into a blaze, said, + +“Now, Kate, put out your candle, and all come round the fire cosily. +Hans, dear, do leave off laughing at those poems for the ninety-ninth +time, and come too. I have something wonderful to tell.” + +“As if I didn’t know that, ma. I have seen it in the corner of your eye +ever so long, and in your pretense of errands,” said Kate, while the +girls came up to put their feet on the fender, and Hans, pushing his +chair near them, sat astride it, resting his fists and chin on the back. + +“Well, then, if you are so wise, perhaps you know that Mirah’s brother +is found!” said Mrs. Meyrick, in her clearest accents. + +“Oh, confound it!” said Hans, in the same moment. + +“Hans, that is wicked,” said Mab. “Suppose we had lost you?” + +“I _cannot_ help being rather sorry,” said Kate. “And her +mother?—where is she?” + +“Her mother is dead.” + +“I hope the brother is not a bad man,” said Amy. + +“Nor a fellow all smiles and jewelry—a Crystal Palace Assyrian with a +hat on,” said Hans, in the worst humor. + +“Were there ever such unfeeling children?” said Mrs. Meyrick, a little +strengthened by the need for opposition. “You don’t think the least bit +of Mirah’s joy in the matter.” + +“You know, ma, Mirah hardly remembers her brother,” said Kate. + +“People who are lost for twelve years should never come back again,” +said Hans. “They are always in the way.” + +“Hans!” said Mrs. Meyrick, reproachfully. “If you had lost me for +_twenty_ years, I should have thought—” + +“I said twelve years,” Hans broke in. “Anywhere about twelve years is +the time at which lost relations should keep out of the way.” + +“Well, but it’s nice finding people—there is something to tell,” said +Mab, clasping her knees. “Did Prince Camaralzaman find him?” + +Then Mrs. Meyrick, in her neat, narrative way, told all she knew +without interruption. “Mr. Deronda has the highest admiration for him,” +she ended—“seems quite to look up to him. And he says Mirah is just +the sister to understand this brother.” + +“Deronda is getting perfectly preposterous about those Jews,” said Hans +with disgust, rising and setting his chair away with a bang. “He wants +to do everything he can to encourage Mirah in her prejudices.” + +“Oh, for shame, Hans!—to speak in that way of Mr. Deronda,” said Mab. +And Mrs. Meyrick’s face showed something like an under-current of +expression not allowed to get to the surface. + +“And now we shall never be all together,” Hans went on, walking about +with his hands thrust into the pockets of his brown velveteen coat, +“but we must have this prophet Elijah to tea with us, and Mirah will +think of nothing but sitting on the ruins of Jerusalem. She will be +spoiled as an artist—mind that—she will get as narrow as a nun. +Everything will be spoiled—our home and everything. I shall take to +drinking.” + +“Oh, really, Hans,” said Kate, impatiently. “I do think men are the +most contemptible animals in all creation. Every one of them must have +everything to his mind, else he is unbearable.” + +“Oh, oh, oh, it’s very dreadful!” cried Mab. “I feel as if ancient +Nineveh were come again.” + +“I should like to know what is the good of having gone to the +university and knowing everything, if you are so childish, Hans,” said +Amy. “You ought to put up with a man that Providence sends you to be +kind to. _We_ shall have to put up with him.” + +“I hope you will all of you like the new Lamentations of Jeremiah—‘to +be continued in our next’—that’s all,” said Hans, seizing his +wide-awake. “It’s no use being one thing more than another if one has +to endure the company of those men with a fixed idea, staring blankly +at you, and requiring all your remarks to be small foot-notes to their +text. If you’re to be under a petrifying wall, you’d better be an old +boot. I don’t feel myself an old boot.” Then abruptly, “Good night, +little mother,” bending to kiss her brow in a hasty, desperate manner, +and condescendingly, on his way to the door, “Good-night, girls.” + +“Suppose Mirah knew how you are behaving,” said Kate. But her answer +was a slam of the door. “I _should_ like to see Mirah when Mr. Deronda +tells her,” she went on to her mother. “I know she will look so +beautiful.” + +But Deronda, on second thoughts, had written a letter, which Mrs. +Meyrick received the next morning, begging her to make the revelation +instead of waiting for him, not giving the real reason—that he shrank +from going again through a narrative in which he seemed to be making +himself important and giving himself a character of general +beneficence—but saying that he wished to remain with Mordecai while +Mrs. Meyrick would bring Mirah on what was to be understood as a visit, +so that there might be a little interval before that change of abode +which he expected that Mirah herself would propose. + +Deronda secretly felt some wondering anxiety how far Mordecai, after +years of solitary preoccupation with ideas likely to have become the +more exclusive from continual diminution of bodily strength, would +allow him to feel a tender interest in his sister over and above the +rendering of pious duties. His feeling for the Cohens, and especially +for little Jacob, showed a persistent activity of affection; but these +objects had entered into his daily life for years; and Deronda felt it +noticeable that Mordecai asked no new questions about Mirah, +maintaining, indeed, an unusual silence on all subjects, and appearing +simply to submit to the changes that were coming over his personal +life. He donned the new clothes obediently, but said afterward to +Deronda, with a faint smile, “I must keep my old garments by me for a +remembrance.” And when they were seated, awaiting Mirah, he uttered no +word, keeping his eyelids closed, but yet showing restless feeling in +his face and hands. In fact, Mordecai was undergoing that peculiar +nervous perturbation only known to those whose minds, long and +habitually moving with strong impetus in one current, are suddenly +compelled into a new or reopened channel. Susceptible people, whose +strength has been long absorbed by dormant bias, dread an interview +that imperiously revives the past, as they would dread a threatening +illness. Joy may be there, but joy, too, is terrible. + +Deronda felt the infection of excitement, and when he heard the ring at +the door, he went out, not knowing exactly why, that he might see and +greet Mirah beforehand. He was startled to find that she had on the hat +and cloak in which he had first seen her—the memorable cloak that had +once been wetted for a winding-sheet. She had come down-stairs equipped +in this way; and when Mrs. Meyrick said, in a tone of question, “You +like to go in that dress, dear?” she answered, “My brother is poor, and +I want to look as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from +me”—imagining that she should meet him in the workman’s dress. Deronda +could not make any remark, but felt secretly rather ashamed of his own +fastidious arrangements. They shook hands silently, for Mirah looked +pale and awed. + +When Deronda opened the door for her, Mordecai had risen, and had his +eyes turned toward it with an eager gaze. Mirah took only two or three +steps, and then stood still. They looked at each other, motionless. It +was less their own presence that they felt than another’s; they were +meeting first in memories, compared with which touch was no union. +Mirah was the first to break the silence, standing where she was. + +“Ezra,” she said, in exactly the same tone as when she was telling of +her mother’s call to him. + +Mordecai with a sudden movement advanced and laid his hand on her +shoulders. He was the head taller, and looked down at her tenderly +while he said, “That was our mother’s voice. You remember her calling +me?” + +“Yes, and how you answered her—‘Mother!’—and I knew you loved her.” +Mirah threw her arms round her brother’s neck, clasped her little hands +behind it, and drew down his face, kissing it with childlike +lavishness. Her hat fell backward on the ground and disclosed all her +curls. + +“Ah, the dear head, the dear head!” said Mordecai, in a low loving +tone, laying his thin hand gently on the curls. + +“You are very ill, Ezra,” said Mirah, sadly looking at him with more +observation. + +“Yes, dear child, I shall not be long with you in the body,” was the +quiet answer. + +“Oh, I will love you and we will talk to each other,” said Mirah, with +a sweet outpouring of her words, as spontaneous as bird-notes. “I will +tell you everything, and you will teach me:—you will teach me to be a +good Jewess—what she would have liked me to be. I shall always be with +you when I am not working. For I work now. I shall get money to keep +us. Oh, I have had such good friends.” + +Mirah until now had quite forgotten that any one was by, but here she +turned with the prettiest attitude, keeping one hand on her brother’s +arm while she looked at Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda. The little mother’s +happy emotion in witnessing this meeting of brother and sister had +already won her to Mordecai, who seemed to her really to have more +dignity and refinement than she had felt obliged to believe in from +Deronda’s account. + +“See this dear lady!” said Mirah. “I was a stranger, a poor wanderer, +and she believed in me, and has treated me as a daughter. Please give +my brother your hand,” she added, beseechingly, taking Mrs. Meyrick’s +hand and putting it in Mordecai’s, then pressing them both with her own +and lifting them to her lips. + +“The Eternal Goodness has been with you,” said Mordecai. “You have +helped to fulfill our mother’s prayer.” + +“I think we will go now, shall we?—and return later,” said Deronda, +laying a gentle pressure on Mrs. Meyrick’s arm, and she immediately +complied. He was afraid of any reference to the facts about himself +which he had kept back from Mordecai, and he felt no uneasiness now in +the thought of the brother and sister being alone together. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + + ’Tis hard and ill-paid task to order all things beforehand by the rule + of our own security, as is well hinted by Machiavelli concerning + Cæsar Borgia, who, saith he, had thought of all that might occur on + his father’s death, and had provided against every evil chance save + only one: it had never come into his mind that when his father died, + his own death would quickly follow. + + +Grandcourt’s importance as a subject of this realm was of the grandly +passive kind which consists in the inheritance of land. Political and +social movements touched him only through the wire of his rental, and +his most careful biographer need not have read up on +Schleswig-Holstein, the policy of Bismarck, trade-unions, household +suffrage, or even the last commercial panic. He glanced over the best +newspaper columns on these topics, and his views on them can hardly be +said to have wanted breadth, since he embraced all Germans, all +commercial men, and all voters liable to use the wrong kind of soap, +under the general epithet of “brutes;” but he took no action on these +much-agitated questions beyond looking from under his eyelids at any +man who mentioned them, and retaining a silence which served to shake +the opinions of timid thinkers. + +But Grandcourt, within his own sphere of interest, showed some of the +qualities which have entered into triumphal diplomacy of the wildest +continental sort. + +No movement of Gwendolen in relation to Deronda escaped him. He would +have denied that he was jealous; because jealousy would have implied +some doubt of his own power to hinder what he had determined against. +That his wife should have more inclination to another man’s society +than to his own would not pain him: what he required was that she +should be as fully aware as she would have been of a locked hand-cuff, +that her inclination was helpless to decide anything in contradiction +with his resolve. However much of vacillating whim there might have +been in his entrance on matrimony, there was no vacillating in his +interpretation of the bond. He had not repented of his marriage; it had +really brought more of aim into his life, new objects to exert his will +upon; and he had not repented of his choice. His taste was fastidious, +and Gwendolen satisfied it: he would not have liked a wife who had not +received some elevation of rank from him; nor one who did not command +admiration by her mien and beauty; nor one whose nails were not of the +right shape; nor one the lobe of whose ear was at all too large and +red; nor one who, even if her nails and ears were right, was at the +same time a ninny, unable to make spirited answers. These requirements +may not seem too exacting to refined contemporaries whose own ability +to fall in love has been held in suspense for lack of indispensable +details; but fewer perhaps may follow him in his contentment that his +wife should be in a temper which would dispose her to fly out if she +dared, and that she should have been urged into marrying him by other +feelings than passionate attachment. Still, for those who prefer +command to love, one does not see why the habit of mind should change +precisely at the point of matrimony. + +Grandcourt did not feel that he had chosen the wrong wife; and having +taken on himself the part of husband, he was not going in any way to be +fooled, or allow himself to be seen in a light that could be regarded +as pitiable. This was his state of mind—not jealousy; still, his +behavior in some respects was as like jealousy as yellow is to yellow, +which color we know may be the effect of very different causes. + +He had come up to town earlier than usual because he wished to be on +the spot for legal consultation as to the arrangements of his will, the +transference of mortgages, and that transaction with his uncle about +the succession to Diplow, which the bait of ready money, adroitly +dangled without importunity, had finally won him to agree upon. But +another acceptable accompaniment of his being in town was the +presentation of himself with the beautiful bride whom he had chosen to +marry in spite of what other people might have expected of him. It is +true that Grandcourt went about with the sense that he did not care a +languid curse for any one’s admiration: but this state of not-caring, +just as much as desire, required its related object—namely, a world of +admiring or envying spectators: for if you are fond of looking stonily +at smiling persons—the persons must be and they must smile—a +rudimentary truth which is surely forgotten by those who complain of +mankind as generally contemptible, since any other aspect of the race +must disappoint the voracity of their contempt. Grandcourt, in town for +the first time with his wife, had his non-caring abstinence from curses +enlarged and diversified by splendid receptions, by conspicuous rides +and drives, by presentations of himself with her on all distinguished +occasions. He wished her to be sought after; he liked that “fellows” +should be eager to talk with her and escort her within his observation; +there was even a kind of lofty coquetry on her part that he would not +have objected to. But what he did not like were her ways in relation to +Deronda. + +After the musical party at Lady Mallinger’s, when Grandcourt had +observed the dialogue on the settee as keenly as Hans had done, it was +characteristic of him that he named Deronda for invitation along with +the Mallingers, tenaciously avoiding the possible suggestion to +anybody concerned that Deronda’s presence or absence could be of the +least importance to him; and he made no direct observation to Gwendolen +on her behavior that evening, lest the expression of his disgust should +be a little too strong to satisfy his own pride. But a few days +afterward he remarked, without being careful of the _à propos_, + +“Nothing makes a woman more of a gawky than looking out after people +and showing tempers in public. A woman ought to have good manners. Else +it’s intolerable to appear with her.” + +Gwendolen made the expected application, and was not without alarm at +the notion of being a gawky. For she, too, with her melancholy distaste +for things, preferred that her distaste should include admirers. But +the sense of overhanging rebuke only intensified the strain of +expectation toward any meeting with Deronda. The novelty and excitement +of her town life was like the hurry and constant change of foreign +travel; whatever might be the inward despondency, there was a programme +to be fulfilled, not without gratification to many-sided self. But, as +always happens with a deep interest, the comparatively rare occasions +on which she could exchange any words with Deronda had a diffusive +effect in her consciousness, magnifying their communication with each +other, and therefore enlarging the place she imagined it to have in his +mind. How could Deronda help this? He certainly did not avoid her; +rather he wished to convince her by every delicate indirect means that +her confidence in him had not been indiscreet since it had not lowered +his respect. Moreover he liked being near her—how could it be +otherwise? She was something more than a problem: she was a lovely +woman, for the turn of whose mind and fate he had a care which, however +futile it might be, kept soliciting him as a responsibility, perhaps +all the more that, when he dared to think of his own future, he saw it +lying far away from this splendid sad-hearted creature, who, because he +had once been impelled to arrest her attention momentarily, as he might +have seized her arm with warning to hinder her from stepping where +there was danger, had turned to him with a beseeching persistent need. + +One instance in which Grandcourt stimulated a feeling in Gwendolen that +he would have liked to suppress without seeming to care about it, had +relation to Mirah. Gwendolen’s inclination lingered over the project of +the singing lessons as a sort of obedience to Deronda’s advice, but day +followed day with that want of perceived leisure which belongs to lives +where there is no work to mark off intervals; and the continual +liability to Grandcourt’s presence and surveillance seemed to flatten +every effort to the level of the boredom which his manner expressed; +his negative mind was as diffusive as fog, clinging to all objects, and +spoiling all contact. + +But one morning when they were breakfasting, Gwendolen, in a recurrent +fit of determination to exercise the old spirit, said, dallying +prettily over her prawns without eating them, + +“I think of making myself accomplished while we are in town, and having +singing lessons.” + +“Why?” said Grandcourt, languidly. + +“Why?” echoed Gwendolen, playing at sauciness; “because I can’t eat +_pâté de foie gras_ to make me sleepy, and I can’t smoke, and I can’t +go to the club to make me like to come away again—I want a variety of +_ennui_. What would be the most convenient time, when you are busy with +your lawyers and people, for me to have lessons from that little +Jewess, whose singing is getting all the rage.” + +“Whenever you like,” said Grandcourt, pushing away his plate, and +leaning back in his chair while he looked at her with his most +lizard-like expression and, played with the ears of the tiny spaniel on +his lap (Gwendolen had taken a dislike to the dogs because they fawned +on him). + +Then he said, languidly, “I don’t see why a lady should sing. Amateurs +make fools of themselves. A lady can’t risk herself in that way in +company. And one doesn’t want to hear squalling in private.” + +“I like frankness: that seems to me a husband’s great charm,” said +Gwendolen, with her little upward movement of her chin, as she turned +her eyes away from his, and lifting a prawn before her, looked at the +boiled ingenuousness of its eyes as preferable to the lizard’s. “But;” +she added, having devoured her mortification, “I suppose you don’t +object to Miss Lapidoth’s singing at our party on the fourth? I thought +of engaging her. Lady Brackenshaw had her, you know: and the Raymonds, +who are very particular about their music. And Mr. Deronda, who is a +musician himself and a first-rate judge, says there is no singing in +such good taste as hers for a drawing-room. I think his opinion is an +authority.” + +She meant to sling a small stone at her husband in that way. + +“It’s very indecent of Deronda to go about praising that girl,” said +Grandcourt in a tone of indifference. + +“Indecent!” exclaimed Gwendolen, reddening and looking at him again, +overcome by startled wonder, and unable to reflect on the probable +falsity of the phrase—“to go about praising.” + +“Yes; and especially when she is patronized by Lady Mallinger. He ought +to hold his tongue about her. Men can see what is his relation to her.” + +“Men who judge of others by themselves,” said Gwendolen, turning white +after her redness, and immediately smitten with a dread of her own +words. + +“Of course. And a woman should take their judgment—else she is likely +to run her head into the wrong place,” said Grandcourt, conscious of +using pinchers on that white creature. “I suppose you take Deronda for +a saint.” + +“Oh dear no!” said Gwendolen, summoning desperately her almost +miraculous power of self-control, and speaking in a high hard tone. +“Only a little less of a monster.” + +She rose, pushed her chair away without hurry, and walked out of the +room with something like the care of a man who is afraid of showing +that he has taken more wine than usual. She turned the keys inside her +dressing-room doors, and sat down for some time looking pale and quiet +as when she was leaving the breakfast-room. Even in the moments after +reading the poisonous letter she had hardly had more cruel sensations +than now; for emotion was at the acute point, where it is not +distinguishable from sensation. Deronda unlike what she had believed +him to be, was an image which affected her as a hideous apparition +would have done, quite apart from the way in which it was produced. It +had taken hold of her as pain before she could consider whether it were +fiction or truth; and further to hinder her power of resistance came +the sudden perception, how very slight were the grounds of her faith in +Deronda—how little she knew of his life—how childish she had been in +her confidence. His rebukes and his severity to her began to seem +odious, along with all the poetry and lofty doctrine in the world, +whatever it might be; and the grave beauty of his face seemed the most +unpleasant mask that the common habits of men could put on. + +All this went on in her with the rapidity of a sick dream; and her +start into resistance was very much like a waking. Suddenly from out +the gray sombre morning there came a stream of sunshine, wrapping her +in warmth and light where she sat in stony stillness. She moved gently +and looked round her—there was a world outside this bad dream, and the +dream proved nothing; she rose, stretching her arms upward and clasping +her hands with her habitual attitude when she was seeking relief from +oppressive feeling, and walked about the room in this flood of sunbeams. + +“It is not true! What does it matter whether _he_ believes it or not?” +This is what she repeated to herself—but this was not her faith come +back again; it was only the desperate cry of faith, finding suffocation +intolerable. And how could she go on through the day in this state? +With one of her impetuous alternations, her imagination flew to wild +actions by which she would convince herself of what she wished: she +would go to Lady Mallinger and question her about Mirah; she would +write to Deronda and upbraid him with making the world all false and +wicked and hopeless to her—to him she dared pour out all the bitter +indignation of her heart. No; she would go to Mirah. This last form +taken by her need was more definitely practicable, and quickly became +imperious. No matter what came of it. She had the pretext of asking +Mirah to sing at her party on the fourth. What was she going to say +beside? How satisfy? She did not foresee—she could not wait to +foresee. If that idea which was maddening her had been a living thing, +she would have wanted to throttle it without waiting to foresee what +would come of the act. She rang her bell and asked if Mr. Grandcourt +were gone out: finding that he was, she ordered the carriage, and began +to dress for the drive; then she went down, and walked about the large +drawing-room like an imprisoned dumb creature, not recognizing herself +in the glass panels, not noting any object around her in the painted +gilded prison. Her husband would probably find out where she had been, +and punish her in some way or other—no matter—she could neither +desire nor fear anything just now but the assurance that she had not +been deluding herself in her trust. + +She was provided with Mirah’s address. Soon she was on the way with all +the fine equipage necessary to carry about her poor uneasy heart, +depending in its palpitations on some answer or other to questioning +which she did not know how she should put. She was as heedless of what +happened before she found that Miss Lapidoth was at home, as one is of +lobbies and passages on the way to a court of justice—heedless of +everything till she was in a room where there were folding-doors, and +she heard Deronda’s voice behind it. Doubtless the identification was +helped by forecast, but she was as certain of it as if she had seen +him. She was frightened at her own agitation, and began to unbutton her +gloves that she might button them again, and bite her lips over the +pretended difficulty, while the door opened, and Mirah presented +herself with perfect quietude and a sweet smile of recognition. There +was relief in the sight of her face, and Gwendolen was able to smile in +return, while she put out her hand in silence; and as she seated +herself, all the while hearing the voice, she felt some reflux of +energy in the confused sense that the truth could not be anything that +she dreaded. Mirah drew her chair very near, as if she felt that the +sound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at her visitor +with placid expectation, while Gwendolen began in a low tone, with +something that seemed like bashfulness, + +“Perhaps you wonder to see me—perhaps I ought to have written—but I +wished to make a particular request.” + +“I am glad to see you instead of having a letter,” said Mirah, +wondering at the changed expression and manner of the “Vandyke +duchess,” as Hans had taught her to call Gwendolen. The rich color and +the calmness of her own face were in strong contrast with the pale +agitated beauty under the plumed hat. + +“I thought,” Gwendolen went on—“at least I hoped, you would not object +to sing at our house on the 4th—in the evening—at a party like Lady +Brackenshaw’s. I should be so much obliged.” + +“I shall be very happy to sing for you. At ten?” said Mirah, while +Gwendolen seemed to get more instead of less embarrassed. + +“At ten, please,” she answered; then paused, and felt that she had +nothing more to say. She could not go. It was impossible to rise and +say good-bye. Deronda’s voice was in her ears. She must say it—she +could contrive no other sentence, + +“Mr. Deronda is in the next room.” + +“Yes,” said Mirah, in her former tone. “He is reading Hebrew with my +brother.” + +“You have a brother?” said Gwendolen, who had heard this from Lady +Mallinger, but had not minded it then. + +“Yes, a dear brother who is ill—consumptive, and Mr. Deronda is the +best of friends to him, as he has been to me,” said Mirah, with the +impulse that will not let us pass the mention of a precious person +indifferently. + +“Tell me,” said Gwendolen, putting her hand on Mirah’s, and speaking +hardly above a whisper—“tell me—tell me the truth. You are sure he is +quite good. You know no evil of him. Any evil that people say of him is +false.” + +Could the proud-spirited woman have behaved more like a child? But the +strange words penetrated Mirah with nothing but a sense of solemnity +and indignation. With a sudden light in her eyes and a tremor in her +voice, she said, + +“Who are the people that say evil of him? I would not believe any evil +of him, if an angel came to tell it me. He found me when I was so +miserable—I was going to drown myself; I looked so poor and forsaken; +you would have thought I was a beggar by the wayside. And he treated me +as if I had been a king’s daughter. He took me to the best of women. He +found my brother for me. And he honors my brother—though he too was +poor—oh, almost as poor as he could be. And my brother honors him. +That is no light thing to say”—here Mirah’s tone changed to one of +profound emphasis, and she shook her head backward: “for my brother is +very learned and great-minded. And Mr. Deronda says there are few men +equal to him.” Some Jewish defiance had flamed into her indignant +gratitude and her anger could not help including Gwendolen since she +seemed to have doubted Deronda’s goodness. + +But Gwendolen was like one parched with thirst, drinking the fresh +water that spreads through the frame as a sufficient bliss. She did not +notice that Mirah was angry with her; she was not distinctly conscious +of anything but of the penetrating sense that Deronda and his life were +no more like her husband’s conception than the morning in the horizon +was like the morning mixed with street gas. Even Mirah’s words sank +into the indefiniteness of her relief. She could hardly have repeated +them, or said how her whole state of feeling was changed. She pressed +Mirah’s hand, and said, “Thank you, thank you,” in a hurried whisper, +then rose, and added, with only a hazy consciousness, “I must go, I +shall see you—on the fourth—I am so much obliged”—bowing herself out +automatically, while Mirah, opening the door for her, wondered at what +seemed a sudden retreat into chill loftiness. + +Gwendolen, indeed, had no feeling to spare in any effusiveness toward +the creature who had brought her relief. The passionate need of +contradiction to Grandcourt’s estimate of Deronda, a need which had +blunted her sensibility to everything else, was no sooner satisfied +than she wanted to be gone. She began to be aware that she was out of +place, and to dread Deronda’s seeing her. And once in the carriage +again, she had the vision of what awaited her at home. When she drew up +before the door in Grosvenor Square, her husband was arriving with a +cigar between his fingers. He threw it away and handed her out, +accompanying her up-stairs. She turned into the drawing-room, lest he +should follow her farther and give her no place to retreat to; then she +sat down with a weary air, taking off her gloves, rubbing her hand over +her forehead, and making his presence as much of a cipher as possible. +But he sat, too, and not far from her—just in front, where to avoid +looking at him must have the emphasis of effort. + +“May I ask where you have been at this extraordinary hour?” said +Grandcourt. + +“Oh, yes; I have been to Miss Lapidoth’s, to ask her to come and sing +for us,” said Gwendolen, laying her gloves on the little table beside +her, and looking down at them. + +“And to ask her about her relations with Deronda?” said Grandcourt, +with the coldest possible sneer in his low voice which in poor +Gwendolen’s ear was diabolical. + +For the first time since their marriage she flashed out upon him +without inward check. Turning her eyes full on his she said, in a +biting tone, + +“Yes; and what you said is false—a low, wicked falsehood.” + +“She told you so—did she?” returned Grandcourt, with a more thoroughly +distilled sneer. + +Gwendolen was mute. The daring anger within her was turned into the +rage of dumbness. What reasons for her belief could she give? All the +reasons that seemed so strong and living within her—she saw them +suffocated and shrivelled up under her husband’s breath. There was no +proof to give, but her own impression, which would seem to him her own +folly. She turned her head quickly away from him and looked angrily +toward the end of the room: she would have risen, but he was in her way. + +Grandcourt saw his advantage. “It’s of no consequence so far as her +singing goes,” he said, in his superficial drawl. “You can have her to +sing, if you like.” Then, after a pause, he added in his lowest +imperious tone, “But you will please to observe that you are not to go +near that house again. As my wife, you must take my word about what is +proper for you. When you undertook to be Mrs. Grandcourt, you undertook +not to make a fool of yourself. You have been making a fool of yourself +this morning; and if you were to go on as you have begun, you might +soon get yourself talked of at the clubs in a way you would not like. +What do _you_ know about the world? You have married _me_, and must be +guided by my opinion.” + +Every slow sentence of that speech had a terrific mastery in it for +Gwendolen’s nature. If the low tones had come from a physician telling +her that her symptoms were those of a fatal disease, and +prognosticating its course, she could not have been more helpless +against the argument that lay in it. But she was permitted to move now, +and her husband never again made any reference to what had occurred +this morning. He knew the force of his own words. If this white-handed +man with the perpendicular profile had been sent to govern a difficult +colony, he might have won reputation among his contemporaries. He had +certainly ability, would have understood that it was safer to +exterminate than to cajole superseded proprietors, and would not have +flinched from making things safe in that way. + +Gwendolen did not, for all this, part with her recovered +faith;—rather, she kept it with a more anxious tenacity, as a +Protestant of old kept his bible hidden or a Catholic his crucifix, +according to the side favored by the civil arm; and it was +characteristic of her that apart from the impression gained concerning +Deronda in that visit, her imagination was little occupied with Mirah +or the eulogised brother. The one result established for her was, that +Deronda had acted simply as a generous benefactor, and the phrase +“reading Hebrew” had fleeted unimpressively across her sense of +hearing, as a stray stork might have made its peculiar flight across +her landscape without rousing any surprised reflection on its natural +history. + +But the issue of that visit, as it regarded her husband, took a +strongly active part in the process which made an habitual conflict +within her, and was the cause of some external change perhaps not +observed by any one except Deronda. As the weeks went on bringing +occasional transient interviews with her, he thought that he perceived +in her an intensifying of her superficial hardness and resolute +display, which made her abrupt betrayals of agitation the more marked +and disturbing to him. + +In fact, she was undergoing a sort of discipline for the refractory +which, as little as possible like conversion, bends half the self with +a terrible strain, and exasperates the unwillingness of the other half. +Grandcourt had an active divination rather than discernment of +refractoriness in her, and what had happened about Mirah quickened his +suspicion that there was an increase of it dependent on the occasions +when she happened to see Deronda: there was some “confounded nonsense” +between them: he did not imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his +imagination in other branches was rather restricted; but it was +nonsense that evidently kept up a kind of simmering in her mind—an +inward action which might become disagreeable outward. Husbands in the +old time are known to have suffered from a threatening devoutness in +their wives, presenting itself first indistinctly as oddity, and ending +in that mild form of lunatic asylum, a nunnery: Grandcourt had a vague +perception of threatening moods in Gwendolen which the unity between +them in his views of marriage required him peremptorily to check. Among +the means he chose, one was peculiar, and was less ably calculated than +the speeches we have just heard. + +He determined that she should know the main purport of the will he was +making, but he could not communicate this himself, because it involved +the fact of his relation to Mrs. Glasher and her children; and that +there should be any overt recognition of this between Gwendolen and +himself was supremely repugnant to him. Like all proud, closely-wrapped +natures, he shrank from explicitness and detail, even on trivialities, +if they were personal: a valet must maintain a strict reserve with him +on the subject of shoes and stockings. And clashing was intolerable to +him; his habitual want was to put collision out of the question by the +quiet massive pressure of his rule. But he wished Gwendolen to know +that before he made her an offer it was no secret to him that she was +aware of his relations with Lydia, her previous knowledge being the +apology for bringing the subject before her now. Some men in his place +might have thought of writing what he wanted her to know, in the form +of a letter. But Grandcourt hated writing: even writing a note was a +bore to him, and he had long been accustomed to have all his writing +done by Lush. We know that there are persons who will forego their own +obvious interest rather than do anything so disagreeable as to write +letters; and it is not probable that these imperfect utilitarians would +rush into manuscript and syntax on a difficult subject in order to save +another’s feelings. To Grandcourt it did not even occur that he should, +would, or could write to Gwendolen the information in question; and the +only medium of communication he could use was Lush, who, to his mind, +was as much of an implement as pen and paper. But here too Grandcourt +had his reserves, and would not have uttered a word likely to encourage +Lush in an impudent sympathy with any supposed grievance in a marriage +which had been discommended by him. Who that has a confidant escapes +believing too little in his penetration, and too much in his +discretion? Grandcourt had always allowed Lush to know his external +affairs indiscriminately—irregularities, debts, want of ready money; +he had only used discrimination about what he would allow his confidant +to say to him; and he had been so accustomed to this human tool, that +the having him at call in London was a recovery of lost ease. It +followed that Lush knew all the provisions of the will more exactly +than they were known to the testator himself. + +Grandcourt did not doubt that Gwendolen, since she was a woman who +could put two and two together, knew or suspected Lush to be the +contriver of her interview with Lydia, and that this was the reason why +her first request was for his banishment. But the bent of a woman’s +inferences on mixed subjects which excites mixed passions is not +determined by her capacity for simple addition; and here Grandcourt +lacked the only organ of thinking that could have saved him from +mistake—namely, some experience of the mixed passions concerned. He +had correctly divined one-half of Gwendolen’s dread—all that related +to her personal pride, and her perception that his will must conquer +hers; but the remorseful half, even if he had known of her broken +promise, was as much out of his imagination as the other side of the +moon. What he believed her to feel about Lydia was solely a tongue-tied +jealousy, and what he believed Lydia to have written with the jewels +was the fact that she had once been used to wearing them, with other +amenities such as he imputed to the intercourse with jealous women. He +had the triumphant certainty that he could aggravate the jealousy and +yet smite it with a more absolute dumbness. His object was to engage +all his wife’s egoism on the same side as his own, and in his +employment of Lush he did not intend an insult to her: she ought to +understand that he was the only possible envoy. Grandcourt’s view of +things was considerably fenced in by his general sense, that what +suited him others must put up with. There is no escaping the fact that +want of sympathy condemns us to corresponding stupidity. Mephistopheles +thrown upon real life, and obliged to manage his own plots, would +inevitably make blunders. + +One morning he went to Gwendolen in the boudoir beyond the back +drawing-room, hat and gloves in hand, and said with his best-tempered, +most persuasive drawl, standing before her and looking down on her as +she sat with a book on her lap, + +“A—Gwendolen, there’s some business about property to be explained. I +have told Lush to come and explain it to you. He knows all about these +things. I am going out. He can come up now. He’s the only person who +can explain. I suppose you’ll not mind.” + +“You know that I do mind,” said Gwendolen, angrily, starting up. “I +shall not see him.” She showed the intention to dart away to the door. +Grandcourt was before her, with his back toward it. He was prepared for +her anger, and showed none in return, saying, with the same sort of +remonstrant tone that he might have used about an objection to dining +out, + +“It’s no use making a fuss. There are plenty of brutes in the world +that one has to talk to. People with any _savoir vivre_ don’t make a +fuss about such things. Some business must be done. You can’t expect +agreeable people to do it. If I employ Lush, the proper thing for you +is to take it as a matter of course. Not to make a fuss about it. Not +to toss your head and bite your lips about people of that sort.” + +The drawling and the pauses with which this speech was uttered gave +time for crowding reflections in Gwendolen, quelling her resistance. +What was there to be told her about property? This word had certain +dominant associations for her, first with her mother, then with Mrs. +Glasher and her children. What would be the use if she refused to see +Lush? Could she ask Grandcourt to tell her himself? That might be +intolerable, even if he consented, which it was certain he would not, +if he had made up his mind to the contrary. The humiliation of standing +an obvious prisoner, with her husband barring the door, was not to be +borne any longer, and she turned away to lean against a cabinet, while +Grandcourt again moved toward her. + +“I have arranged for Lush to come up now, while I am out,” he said, +after a long organ stop, during which Gwendolen made no sign. “Shall I +tell him he may come?” + +Yet another pause before she could say “Yes”—her face turned obliquely +and her eyes cast down. + +“I shall come back in time to ride, if you like to get ready,” said +Grandcourt. No answer. “She is in a desperate rage,” thought he. But +the rage was silent, and therefore not disagreeable to him. It followed +that he turned her chin and kissed her, while she still kept her +eyelids down, and she did not move them until he was on the other side +of the door. + +What was she to do? Search where she would in her consciousness, she +found no plea to justify a plaint. Any romantic illusions she had had +in marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked. +He was using her as he liked. + +She sat awaiting the announcement of Lush as a sort of searing +operation that she had to go through. The facts that galled her +gathered a burning power when she thought of their lying in his mind. +It was all a part of that new gambling, in which the losing was not +simply a _minus_, but a terrible _plus_ that had never entered into her +reckoning. + +Lush was neither quite pleased nor quite displeased with his task. +Grandcourt had said to him by way of conclusion, “Don’t make yourself +more disagreeable than nature obliges you.” + +“That depends,” thought Lush. But he said, “I will write a brief +abstract for Mrs. Grandcourt to read.” He did not suggest that he +should make the whole communication in writing, which was a proof that +the interview did not wholly displease him. + +Some provision was being made for himself in the will, and he had no +reason to be in a bad humor, even if a bad humor had been common with +him. He was perfectly convinced that he had penetrated all the secrets +of the situation; but he had no diabolical delight in it. He had only +the small movements of gratified self-loving resentment in discerning +that this marriage had fulfilled his own foresight in not being as +satisfactory as the supercilious young lady had expected it to be, and +as Grandcourt wished to feign that it was. He had no persistent spite +much stronger than what gives the seasoning of ordinary scandal to +those who repeat it and exaggerate it by their conjectures. With no +active compassion or good-will, he had just as little active +malevolence, being chiefly occupied in liking his particular pleasures, +and not disliking anything but what hindered those +pleasures—everything else ranking with the last murder and the last +_opéra bouffe_, under the head of things to talk about. Nevertheless, +he was not indifferent to the prospect of being treated uncivilly by a +beautiful woman, or to the counterbalancing fact that his present +commission put into his hands an official power of humiliating her. He +did not mean to use it needlessly; but there are some persons so gifted +in relation to us that their “How do you do?” seems charged with +offense. + +By the time that Mr. Lush was announced, Gwendolen had braced herself +to a bitter resolve that he should not witness the slightest betrayal +of her feeling, whatever he might have to tell. She invited him to sit +down with stately quietude. After all, what was this man to her? He was +not in the least like her husband. Her power of hating a coarse, +familiar-mannered man, with clumsy hands, was now relaxed by the +intensity with which she hated his contrast. + +He held a small paper folded in his hand while he spoke. + +“I need hardly say that I should not have presented myself if Mr. +Grandcourt had not expressed a strong wish to that effect—as no doubt +he has mentioned to you.” + +From some voices that speech might have sounded entirely reverential, +and even timidly apologetic. Lush had no intention to the contrary, but +to Gwendolen’s ear his words had as much insolence in them as his +prominent eyes, and the pronoun “you” was too familiar. He ought to +have addressed the folding-screen, and spoke of her as Mrs. Grandcourt. +She gave the smallest sign of a bow, and Lush went on, with a little +awkwardness, getting entangled in what is elegantly called tautology. + +“My having been in Mr. Grandcourt’s confidence for fifteen years or +more—since he was a youth, in fact—of course gives me a peculiar +position. He can speak to me of affairs that he could not mention to +any one else; and, in fact, he could not have employed any one else in +this affair. I have accepted the task out of friendship for him. Which +is my apology for accepting the task—if you would have preferred some +one else.” + +He paused, but she made no sign, and Lush, to give himself a +countenance in an apology which met no acceptance, opened the folded +paper, and looked at it vaguely before he began to speak again. + +“This paper contains some information about Mr. Grandcourt’s will, an +abstract of a part he wished you to know—if you’ll be good enough to +cast your eyes over it. But there is something I had to say by way of +introduction—which I hope you’ll pardon me for, if it’s not quite +agreeable.” Lush found that he was behaving better than he had +expected, and had no idea how insulting he made himself with his “not +quite agreeable.” + +“Say what you have to say without apologizing, please,” said Gwendolen, +with the air she might have bestowed on a dog-stealer come to claim a +reward for finding the dog he had stolen. + +“I have only to remind you of something that occurred before your +engagement to Mr. Grandcourt,” said Lush, not without the rise of some +willing insolence in exchange for her scorn. “You met a lady in Cardell +Chase, if you remember, who spoke to you of her position with regard to +Mr. Grandcourt. She had children with her—one a very fine boy.” + +Gwendolen’s lips were almost as pale as her cheeks; her passion had no +weapons—words were no better than chips. This man’s speech was like a +sharp knife-edge drawn across her skin: but even her indignation at the +employment of Lush was getting merged in a crowd of other feelings, dim +and alarming as a crowd of ghosts. + +“Mr. Grandcourt was aware that you were acquainted with this +unfortunate affair beforehand, and he thinks it only right that his +position and intentions should be made quite clear to you. It is an +affair of property and prospects; and if there were any objection you +had to make, if you would mention it to me—it is a subject which of +course he would rather not speak about himself—if you will be good +enough just to read this.” With the last words Lush rose and presented +the paper to her. + +When Gwendolen resolved that she would betray no feeling in the +presence of this man, she had not prepared herself to hear that her +husband knew the silent consciousness, the silently accepted terms on +which she had married him. She dared not raise her hand to take the +paper, least it should visibly tremble. For a moment Lush stood holding +it toward her, and she felt his gaze on her as ignominy, before she +could say even with low-toned haughtiness, + +“Lay it on the table. And go into the next room, please.” + +Lush obeyed, thinking as he took an easy-chair in the back +drawing-room, “My lady winces considerably. She didn’t know what would +be the charge for that superfine article, Henleigh Grandcourt.” But it +seemed to him that a penniless girl had done better than she had any +right to expect, and that she had been uncommonly knowing for her years +and opportunities: her words to Lydia meant nothing, and her running +away had probably been part of her adroitness. It had turned out a +master-stroke. + +Meanwhile Gwendolen was rallying her nerves to the reading of the +paper. She must read it. Her whole being—pride, longing for rebellion, +dreams of freedom, remorseful conscience, dread of fresh +visitation—all made one need to know what the paper contained. But at +first it was not easy to take in the meaning of the words. When she had +succeeded, she found that in the case of there being no son as issue of +her marriage, Grandcourt had made the small Henleigh his heir; that was +all she cared to extract from the paper with any distinctness. The +other statement as to what provision would be made for her in the same +case, she hurried over, getting only a confused perception of thousands +and Gadsmere. It was enough. She could dismiss the man in the next room +with the defiant energy which had revived in her at the idea that this +question of property and inheritance was meant as a finish to her +humiliations and her thraldom. + +She thrust the paper between the leaves of her book, which she took in +her hand, and walked with her stateliest air into the next room, where +Lush immediately arose, awaiting her approach. When she was four yards +from him, it was hardly an instant that she paused to say in a high +tone, while she swept him with her eyelashes, + +“Tell Mr. Grandcourt that his arrangements are just what I +desired”—passing on without haste, and leaving Lush time to mingle +some admiration of her graceful back with that half-amused sense of her +spirit and impertinence, which he expressed by raising his eyebrows and +just thrusting his tongue between his teeth. He really did not want her +to be worse punished, and he was glad to think that it was time to go +and lunch at the club, where he meant to have a lobster salad. + +What did Gwendolen look forward to? When her husband returned he found +her equipped in her riding-dress, ready to ride out with him. She was +not again going to be hysterical, or take to her bed and say she was +ill. That was the implicit resolve adjusting her muscles before she +could have framed it in words, as she walked out of the room, leaving +Lush behind her. She was going to act in the spirit of her message, and +not to give herself time to reflect. She rang the bell for her maid, +and went with the usual care through her change of toilet. Doubtless +her husband had meant to produce a great effect on her: by-and-by +perhaps she would let him see an effect the very opposite of what he +intended; but at present all that she could show was a defiant +satisfaction in what had been presumed to be disagreeable. It came as +an instinct rather than a thought, that to show any sign which could be +interpreted as jealousy, when she had just been insultingly reminded +that the conditions were what she had accepted with her eyes open, +would be the worst self-humiliation. She said to herself that she had +not time to-day to be clear about her future actions; all she could be +clear about was that she would match her husband in ignoring any ground +for excitement. She not only rode, but went out with him to dine, +contributing nothing to alter their mutual manner, which was never that +of rapid interchange in discourse; and curiously enough she rejected a +handkerchief on which her maid had by mistake put the wrong scent—a +scent that Grandcourt had once objected to. Gwendolen would not have +liked to be an object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she +liked all disgust to be on her side. + +But to defer thought in this way was something like trying to talk +without singing in her own ears. The thought that is bound up with our +passion is as penetrative as air—everything is porous to it; bows, +smiles, conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts +rushes freely, not always with a taste of honey. And without shutting +herself up in any solitude, Gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten +hours to have gone through a labyrinth of reflection, in which already +the same succession of prospects had been repeated, the same fallacious +outlets rejected, the same shrinking from the necessities of every +course. Already she was undergoing some hardening effect from feeling +that she was under eyes which saw her past actions solely in the light +of her lowest motives. She lived back in the scenes of her courtship, +with the new bitter consciousness of what had been in Grandcourt’s +mind—certain now, with her present experience of him, that he had a +peculiar triumph in conquering her dumb repugnance, and that ever since +their marriage he had had a cold exultation in knowing her fancied +secret. Her imagination exaggerated every tyrannical impulse he was +capable of. “I will insist on being separated from him”—was her first +darting determination; then, “I will leave him whether he consents or +not. If this boy becomes his heir, I have made an atonement.” But +neither in darkness nor in daylight could she imagine the scenes which +must carry out those determinations with the courage to feel them +endurable. How could she run away to her own family—carry distress +among them, and render herself an object of scandal in the society she +had left behind her? What future lay before her as Mrs. Grandcourt gone +back to her mother, who would be made destitute again by the rupture of +the marriage for which one chief excuse had been that it had brought +that mother a maintenance? She had lately been seeing her uncle and +Anna in London, and though she had been saved from any difficulty about +inviting them to stay in Grosvenor Square by their wish to be with Rex, +who would not risk a meeting with her, the transient visit she had had +from them helped now in giving stronger color to the picture of what it +would be for her to take refuge in her own family. What could she say +to justify her flight? Her uncle would tell her to go back. Her mother +would cry. Her aunt and Anna would look at her with wondering alarm. +Her husband would have power to compel her. She had absolutely nothing +that she could allege against him in judicious or judicial ears. And to +“insist on separation!” That was an easy combination of words; but +considered as an action to be executed against Grandcourt, it would be +about as practicable as to give him a pliant disposition and a dread of +other people’s unwillingness. How was she to begin? What was she to say +that would not be a condemnation of herself? “If I am to have misery +anyhow,” was the bitter refrain of her rebellious dreams, “I had better +have the misery that I can keep to myself.” Moreover, her capability of +rectitude told her again and again that she had no right to complain of +her contract, or to withdraw from it. + +And always among the images that drove her back to submission was +Deronda. The idea of herself separated from her husband, gave Deronda a +changed, perturbing, painful place in her consciousness: instinctively +she felt that the separation would be from him too, and in the +prospective vision of herself as a solitary, dubiously-regarded woman, +she felt some tingling bashfulness at the remembrance of her behavior +towards him. The association of Deronda with a dubious position for +herself was intolerable. And what would he say if he knew everything? +Probably that she ought to bear what she had brought on herself, unless +she were sure that she could make herself a better woman by taking any +other course. And what sort of woman was she to be—solitary, sickened +of life, looked at with a suspicious kind of pity?—even if she could +dream of success in getting that dreary freedom. Mrs. Grandcourt “run +away” would be a more pitiable creature than Gwendolen Harleth +condemned to teach the bishop’s daughters, and to be inspected by Mrs. +Mompert. + +One characteristic trait in her conduct is worth mentioning. She would +not look a second time at the paper Lush had given her; and before +ringing for her maid she locked it up in a traveling-desk which was at +hand, proudly resolved against curiosity about what was allotted to +herself in connection with Gadsmere—feeling herself branded in the +minds of her husband and his confidant with the meanness that would +accept marriage and wealth on any conditions, however dishonorable and +humiliating. + +Day after day the same pattern of thinking was repeated. There came +nothing to change the situation—no new elements in the sketch—only a +recurrence which engraved it. The May weeks went on into June, and +still Mrs. Grandcourt was outwardly in the same place, presenting +herself as she was expected to do in the accustomed scenes, with the +accustomed grace, beauty, and costume; from church at one end of the +week, through all the scale of desirable receptions, to opera at the +other. Church was not markedly distinguished in her mind from the other +forms of self-presentation, for marriage had included no instruction +that enabled her to connect liturgy and sermon with any larger order of +the world than that of unexplained and perhaps inexplicable social +fashions. While a laudable zeal was laboring to carry the light of +spiritual law up the alleys where law is chiefly known as the +policeman, the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt, condescending a little to a +fashionable rector and conscious of a feminine advantage over a learned +dean, was, so far as pastoral care and religious fellowship were +concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse. + +Can we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructive +rebellion? The combination is common enough, as we know from the number +of persons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous +unwearied statement of the reasons against their submitting to a +situation which, on inquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable +within their reach. Poor Gwendolen had both too much and too little +mental power and dignity to make herself exceptional. No wonder that +Deronda now marked some hardening in a look and manner which were +schooled daily to the suppression of feeling. + +For example. One morning, riding in Rotten Row with Grandcourt by her +side, she saw standing against the railing at the turn, just facing +them, a dark-eyed lady with a little girl and a blonde boy, whom she at +once recognized as the beings in all the world the most painful for her +to behold. She and Grandcourt had just slackened their pace to a walk; +he being on the outer side was the nearer to the unwelcome vision, and +Gwendolen had not presence of mind to do anything but glance away from +the dark eyes that met hers piercingly toward Grandcourt, who wheeled +past the group with an unmoved face, giving no sign of recognition. + +Immediately she felt a rising rage against him mingling with her shame +for herself, and the words, “You might at least have raised your hat to +her,” flew impetuously to her lips—but did not pass them. If as her +husband, in her company, he chose to ignore these creatures whom she +herself had excluded from the place she was filling, how could she be +the person to reproach him? She was dumb. + +It was not chance, but her own design, that had brought Mrs. Glasher +there with her boy. She had come to town under the pretext of making +purchases—really wanting educational apparatus for her children, and +had had interviews with Lush in which she had not refused to soothe her +uneasy mind by representing the probabilities as all on the side of her +ultimate triumph. Let her keep quiet, and she might live to see the +marriage dissolve itself in one way or other—Lush hinted at several +ways—leaving the succession assured to her boy. She had had an +interview with Grandcourt, too, who had as usual told her to behave +like a reasonable woman, and threatened punishment if she were +troublesome; but had, also as usual, vindicated himself from any wish +to be stingy, the money he was receiving from Sir Hugo on account of +Diplow encouraging him to be lavish. Lydia, feeding on the +probabilities in her favor, devoured her helpless wrath along with that +pleasanter nourishment; but she could not let her discretion go +entirely without the reward of making a Medusa-apparition before +Gwendolen, vindictiveness and jealousy finding relief in an outlet of +venom, though it were as futile as that of a viper already flung on the +other side of the hedge. Hence, each day, after finding out from Lush +the likely time for Gwendolen to be riding, she had watched at that +post, daring Grandcourt so far. Why should she not take little Henleigh +into the Park? + +The Medusa-apparition was made effective beyond Lydia’s conception by +the shock it gave Gwendolen actually to see Grandcourt ignoring this +woman who had once been the nearest in the world to him, along with the +children she had borne him. And all the while the dark shadow thus cast +on the lot of a woman destitute of acknowledged social dignity, spread +itself over her visions of a future that might be her own, and made +part of her dread on her own behalf. She shrank all the more from any +lonely action. What possible release could there be for her from this +hated vantage ground, which yet she dared not quit, any more than if +fire had been raining outside it? What release, but death? Not her own +death. Gwendolen was not a woman who could easily think of her own +death as a near reality, or front for herself the dark entrance on the +untried and invisible. It seemed more possible that Grandcourt should +die:—and yet not likely. The power of tyranny in him seemed a power of +living in the presence of any wish that he should die. The thought that +his death was the only possible deliverance for her was one with the +thought that deliverance would never come—the double deliverance from +the injury with which other beings might reproach her and from the yoke +she had brought on her own neck. No! she foresaw him always living, and +her own life dominated by him; the “always” of her young experience not +stretching beyond the few immediate years that seemed immeasurably long +with her passionate weariness. The thought of his dying would not +subsist: it turned as with a dream-change into the terror that she +should die with his throttling fingers on her neck avenging that +thought. Fantasies moved within her like ghosts, making no break in her +more acknowledged consciousness and finding no obstruction in it: dark +rays doing their work invisibly in the broad light. + +Only an evening or two after that encounter in the Park, there was a +grand concert at Klesmer’s, who was living rather magnificently now in +one of the large houses in Grosvenor Place, a patron and prince among +musical professors. Gwendolen had looked forward to this occasion as +one on which she was sure to meet Deronda, and she had been meditating +how to put a question to him which, without containing a word that she +would feel a dislike to utter, would yet be explicit enough for him to +understand it. The struggle of opposite feelings would not let her +abide by her instinct that the very idea of Deronda’s relation to her +was a discouragement to any desperate step towards freedom. The next +wave of emotion was a longing for some word of his to enforce a +resolve. The fact that her opportunities of conversation with him had +always to be snatched in the doubtful privacy of large parties, caused +her to live through them many times beforehand, imagining how they +would take place and what she would say. The irritation was +proportionate when no opportunity came; and this evening at Klesmer’s +she included Deronda in her anger, because he looked as calm as +possible at a distance from her, while she was in danger of betraying +her impatience to every one who spoke to her. She found her only safety +in a chill haughtiness which made Mr. Vandernoodt remark that Mrs. +Grandcourt was becoming a perfect match for her husband. When at last +the chances of the evening brought Deronda near her, Sir Hugo and Mrs. +Raymond were close by and could hear every word she said. No matter: +her husband was not near, and her irritation passed without check into +a fit of daring which restored the security of her self-possession. +Deronda was there at last, and she would compel him to do what she +pleased. Already and without effort rather queenly in her air as she +stood in her white lace and green leaves she threw a royal +permissiveness into her way of saying, “I wish you would come and see +me to-morrow between five and six, Mr. Deronda.” + +There could be but one answer at that moment: “Certainly,” with a tone +of obedience. + +Afterward it occurred to Deronda that he would write a note to excuse +himself. He had always avoided making a call at Grandcourt’s. He could +not persuade himself to any step that might hurt her, and whether his +excuse were taken for indifference or for the affectation of +indifference it would be equally wounding. He kept his promise. +Gwendolen had declined to ride out on the plea of not feeling well +enough having left her refusal to the last moment when the horses were +soon to be at the door—not without alarm lest her husband should say +that he too would stay at home. Become almost superstitious about his +power of suspicious divination, she had a glancing forethought of what +she would do in that case—namely, have herself denied as not well. But +Grandcourt accepted her excuse without remark, and rode off. + +Nevertheless when Gwendolen found herself alone, and had sent down the +order that only Mr. Deronda was to be admitted, she began to be alarmed +at what she had done, and to feel a growing agitation in the thought +that he would soon appear, and she should soon be obliged to speak: not +of trivialities, as if she had no serious motive in asking him to come: +and yet what she had been for hours determining to say began to seem +impossible. For the first time the impulse of appeal to him was being +checked by timidity, and now that it was too late she was shaken by the +possibility that he might think her invitation unbecoming. If so, she +would have sunk in his esteem. But immediately she resisted this +intolerable fear as an infection from her husband’s way of thinking. +That _he_ would say she was making a fool of herself was rather a +reason why such a judgment would be remote from Deronda’s mind. But +that she could not rid herself from this sudden invasion of womanly +reticence was manifest in a kind of action which had never occurred to +her before. In her struggle between agitation and the effort to +suppress it, she was walking up and down the length of the two +drawing-rooms, where at one end a long mirror reflected her in her +black dress, chosen in the early morning with a half-admitted reference +to this hour. But above this black dress her head on its white pillar +of a neck showed to advantage. Some consciousness of this made her turn +hastily and hurry to the boudoir, where again there was a glass, but +also, tossed over a chair, a large piece of black lace which she +snatched and tied over her crown of hair so as completely to conceal +her neck, and leave only her face looking out from the black frame. In +this manifest contempt of appearance, she thought it possible to be +freer from nervousness, but the black lace did not take away the +uneasiness from her eyes and lips. + +She was standing in the middle of the room when Deronda was announced, +and as he approached her she perceived that he too for some reason was +not his usual self. She could not have defined the change except by +saying that he looked less happy than usual, and appeared to be under +some effort in speaking to her. And yet the speaking was the slightest +possible. They both said, “How do you do?” quite curtly; and Gwendolen, +instead of sitting down, moved to a little distance, resting her arms +slightly on the tall back of a chair, while Deronda stood where he +was,—both feeling it difficult to say any more, though the +preoccupation in his mind could hardly have been more remote than it +was from Gwendolen’s conception. She naturally saw in his embarrassment +some reflection of her own. Forced to speak, she found all her training +in concealment and self-command of no use to her and began with timid +awkwardness, + +“You will wonder why I begged you to come. I wanted to ask you +something. You said I was ignorant. That is true. And what can I do but +ask you?” + +And at this moment she was feeling it utterly impossible to put the +questions she had intended. Something new in her nervous manner roused +Deronda’s anxiety lest there might be a new crisis. He said with the +sadness of affection in his voice, + +“My only regret is, that I can be of so little use to you.” The words +and the tone touched a new spring in her, and she went on with more +sense of freedom, yet still not saying anything she had designed to +say, and beginning to hurry, that she might somehow arrive at the right +words. + +“I wanted to tell you that I have always been thinking of your advice, +but is it any use?—I can’t make myself different, because things about +me raise bad feelings—and I must go on—I can alter nothing—it is no +use.” + +She paused an instant, with the consciousness that she was not finding +the right words, but began again hurriedly, “But if I go on I shall get +worse. I want not to get worse. I should like to be what you wish. +There are people who are good and enjoy great things—I know there are. +I am a contemptible creature. I feel as if I should get wicked with +hating people. I have tried to think that I would go away from +everybody. But I can’t. There are so many things to hinder me. You +think, perhaps, that I don’t mind. But I do mind. I am afraid of +everything. I am afraid of getting wicked. Tell me what I can do.” + +She had forgotten everything but that image of her helpless misery +which she was trying to make present to Deronda in broken allusive +speech—wishing to convey but not express all her need. Her eyes were +tearless, and had a look of smarting in their dilated brilliancy; there +was a subdued sob in her voice which was more and more veiled, till it +was hardly above a whisper. She was hurting herself with the jewels +that glittered on her tightly-clasped fingers pressed against her heart. + +The feeling Deronda endured in these moments he afterward called +horrible. Words seemed to have no more rescue in them than if he had +been beholding a vessel in peril of wreck—the poor ship with its +many-lived anguish beaten by the inescapable storm. How could he grasp +the long-growing process of this young creature’s wretchedness?—how +arrest and change it with a sentence? He was afraid of his own voice. +The words that rushed into his mind seemed in their feebleness nothing +better than despair made audible, or than that insensibility to +another’s hardship which applies precept to soothe pain. He felt +himself holding a crowd of words imprisoned within his lips, as if the +letting them escape would be a violation of awe before the mysteries of +our human lot. The thought that urged itself foremost was—“Confess +everything to your husband; have nothing concealed:”—the words carried +in his mind a vision of reasons which would have needed much fuller +expressions for Gwendolen to apprehend them, but before he had begun +those brief sentences, the door opened and the husband entered. + +Grandcourt had deliberately gone out and turned back to satisfy a +suspicion. What he saw was Gwendolen’s face of anguish framed black +like a nun’s, and Deronda standing three yards from her with a look of +sorrow such as he might have bent on the last struggle of life in a +beloved object. Without any show of surprise Grandcourt nodded to +Deronda, gave a second look at Gwendolen, passed on, and seated himself +easily at a little distance crossing his legs, taking out his +handkerchief and trifling with it elegantly. + +Gwendolen had shrunk and changed her attitude on seeing him, but she +did not turn or move from her place. It was not a moment in which she +could feign anything, or manifest any strong revulsion of feeling: the +passionate movement of her last speech was still too strong within her. +What she felt beside was a dull despairing sense that her interview +with Deronda was at an end: a curtain had fallen. But he, naturally, +was urged into self-possession and effort by susceptibility to what +might follow for her from being seen by her husband in this betrayal of +agitation; and feeling that any pretense of ease in prolonging his +visit would only exaggerate Grandcourt’s possible conjectures of +duplicity, he merely said, + +“I will not stay longer now. Good-bye.” + +He put out his hand, and she let him press her poor little chill +fingers; but she said no good-bye. + +When he had left the room, Gwendolen threw herself into a seat, with an +expectation as dull as her despair—the expectation that she was going +to be punished. But Grandcourt took no notice: he was satisfied to have +let her know that she had not deceived him, and to keep a silence which +was formidable with omniscience. He went out that evening, and her plea +of feeling ill was accepted without even a sneer. + +The next morning at breakfast he said, “I am going yachting to the +Mediterranean.” + +“When?” said Gwendolen, with a leap of heart which had hope in it. + +“The day after to-morrow. The yacht is at Marseilles. Lush is gone to +get everything ready.” + +“Shall I have mamma to stay with me, then?” said Gwendolen, the new +sudden possibility of peace and affection filling her mind like a burst +of morning light. + +“No; you will go with me.” + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + + Ever in his soul + That larger justice which makes gratitude + Triumphed above resentment. ’Tis the mark + Of regal natures, with the wider life. + And fuller capability of joy:— + Not wits exultant in the strongest lens + To show you goodness vanished into pulp + Never worth “thank you”—they’re the devil’s friars, + Vowed to be poor as he in love and trust, + Yet must go begging of a world that keeps + Some human property. + + +Deronda, in parting from Gwendolen, had abstained from saying, “I shall +not see you again for a long while: I am going away,” lest Grandcourt +should understand him to imply that the fact was of importance to her. + +He was actually going away under circumstances so momentous to himself +that when he set out to fulfill his promise of calling on her, he was +already under the shadow of a solemn emotion which revived the deepest +experience of his life. + +Sir Hugo had sent for him to his chambers with the note—“Come +immediately. Something has happened:” a preparation that caused him +some relief when, on entering the baronet’s study, he was received with +grave affection instead of the distress which he had apprehended. + +“It is nothing to grieve you, sir?” said Deronda, in a tone rather of +restored confidence than question, as he took the hand held out to him. +There was an unusual meaning in Sir Hugo’s look, and a subdued emotion +in his voice, as he said, + +“No, Dan, no. Sit down. I have something to say.” + +Deronda obeyed, not without presentiment. It was extremely rare for Sir +Hugo to show so much serious feeling. + +“Not to grieve me, my boy, no. At least, if there is nothing in it that +will grieve you too much. But I hardly expected that this—just +this—would ever happen. There have been reasons why I have never +prepared you for it. There have been reasons why I have never told you +anything about your parentage. But I have striven in every way not to +make that an injury to you.” + +Sir Hugo paused, but Deronda could not speak. He could not say, “I have +never felt it an injury.” Even if that had been true, he could not have +trusted his voice to say anything. Far more than any one but himself +could know of was hanging on this moment when the secrecy was to be +broken. Sir Hugo had never seen the grand face he delighted in so +pale—the lips pressed together with such a look of pain. He went on +with a more anxious tenderness, as if he had a new fear of wounding. + +“I have acted in obedience to your mother’s wishes. The secrecy was her +wish. But now she desires to remove it. She desires to see you. I will +put this letter into your hands, which you can look at by-and-by. It +will merely tell you what she wishes you to do, and where you will find +her.” + +Sir Hugo held out a letter written on foreign paper, which Deronda +thrust into his breast-pocket, with a sense of relief that he was not +called on to read anything immediately. The emotion on Daniel’s face +had gained on the baronet, and was visibly shaking his composure. Sir +Hugo found it difficult to say more. And Deronda’s whole soul was +possessed by a question which was the hardest in the world to utter. +Yet he could not bear to delay it. This was a sacramental moment. If he +let it pass, he could not recover the influences under which it was +possible to utter the words and meet the answer. For some moments his +eyes were cast down, and it seemed to both as if thoughts were in the +air between them. But at last Deronda looked at Sir Hugo, and said, +with a tremulous reverence in his voice—dreading to convey indirectly +the reproach that affection had for years been stifling, + +“Is my father also living?” + +The answer came immediately in a low emphatic tone—“No.” + +In the mingled emotions which followed that answer it was impossible to +distinguish joy from pain. + +Some new light had fallen on the past for Sir Hugo too in this +interview. After a silence in which Deronda felt like one whose creed +is gone before he has religiously embraced another, the baronet said, +in a tone of confession, + +“Perhaps I was wrong, Dan, to undertake what I did. And perhaps I liked +it a little too well—having you all to myself. But if you have had any +pain which I might have helped, I ask you to forgive me.” + +“The forgiveness has long been there,” said Deronda “The chief pain has +always been on account of some one else—whom I never knew—whom I am +now to know. It has not hindered me from feeling an affection for you +which has made a large part of all the life I remember.” + +It seemed one impulse that made the two men clasp each other’s hand for +a moment. + + + + +BOOK VII.—THE MOTHER AND THE SON + + +CHAPTER L. + + “If some mortal, born too soon, + Were laid away in some great trance—the ages + Coming and going all the while—till dawned + His true time’s advent; and could then record + The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed, + Then I might tell more of the breath so light + Upon my eyelids, and the fingers warm + Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never + So dull was I but, when that spirit passed, + I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns + A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep.” + —BROWNING: _Paracelsus_. + + +This was the letter which Sir Hugo put into Deronda’s hands:, + + TO MY SON, DANIEL DERONDA. + + My good friend and yours, Sir Hugo Mallinger, will have told you that + I wish to see you. My health is shaken, and I desire there should be + no time lost before I deliver to you what I have long withheld. Let + nothing hinder you from being at the _Albergo dell’ Italia_ in + Genoa by the fourteenth of this month. Wait for me there. I am + uncertain when I shall be able to make the journey from Spezia, where + I shall be staying. That will depend on several things. Wait for + me—the Princess Halm-Eberstein. Bring with you the diamond ring that + Sir Hugo gave you. I shall like to see it again.—Your unknown mother, + + LEONORA HALM-EBERSTEIN. + +This letter with its colorless wording gave Deronda no clue to what was +in reserve for him; but he could not do otherwise than accept Sir +Hugo’s reticence, which seemed to imply some pledge not to anticipate +the mother’s disclosures; and the discovery that his life-long +conjectures had been mistaken checked further surmise. Deronda could +not hinder his imagination from taking a quick flight over what seemed +possibilities, but he refused to contemplate any of them as more likely +than another, lest he should be nursing it into a dominant desire or +repugnance, instead of simply preparing himself with resolve to meet +the fact bravely, whatever it might turn out to be. + +In this state of mind he could not have communicated to any one the +reason for the absence which in some quarters he was obliged to mention +beforehand, least of all to Mordecai, whom it would affect as +powerfully as it did himself, only in rather a different way. If he +were to say, “I am going to learn the truth about my birth,” Mordecai’s +hope would gather what might prove a painful, dangerous excitement. To +exclude suppositions, he spoke of his journey as being undertaken by +Sir Hugo’s wish, and threw as much indifference as he could into his +manner of announcing it, saying he was uncertain of its duration, but +it would perhaps be very short. + +“I will ask to have the child Jacob to stay with me,” said Mordecai, +comforting himself in this way, after the first mournful glances. + +“I will drive round and ask Mrs. Cohen to let him come,” said Mirah. + +“The grandmother will deny you nothing,” said Deronda. “I’m glad you +were a little wrong as well as I,” he added, smiling at Mordecai. “You +thought that old Mrs. Cohen would not bear to see Mirah.” + +“I undervalued her heart,” said Mordecai. “She is capable of rejoicing +that another’s plant blooms though her own be withered.” + +“Oh, they are dear good people; I feel as if we all belonged to each +other,” said Mirah, with a tinge of merriment in her smile. + +“What should you have felt if that Ezra had been your brother?” said +Deronda, mischievously—a little provoked that she had taken kindly at +once to people who had caused him so much prospective annoyance on her +account. + +Mirah looked at him with a slight surprise for a moment, and then said, +“He is not a bad man—I think he would never forsake any one.” But when +she uttered the words she blushed deeply, and glancing timidly at +Mordecai, turned away to some occupation. Her father was in her mind, +and this was a subject on which she and her brother had a painful +mutual consciousness. “If he should come and find us!” was a thought +which to Mirah sometimes made the street daylight as shadowy as a +haunted forest where each turn screened for her an imaginary apparition. + +Deronda felt what was her involuntary allusion, and understood the +blush. How could he be slow to understand feelings which now seemed +nearer than ever to his own? for the words of his mother’s letter +implied that his filial relation was not to be freed from painful +conditions; indeed, singularly enough that letter which had brought his +mother nearer as a living reality had thrown her into more remoteness +for his affections. The tender yearning after a being whose life might +have been the worse for not having his care and love, the image of a +mother who had not had all her dues, whether of reverence or +compassion, had long been secretly present with him in his observation +of all the women he had come near. But it seemed now that this +picturing of his mother might fit the facts no better than his former +conceptions about Sir Hugo. He wondered to find that when this mother’s +very handwriting had come to him with words holding her actual +feeling, his affections had suddenly shrunk into a state of comparative +neutrality toward her. A veiled figure with enigmatic speech had thrust +away that image which, in spite of uncertainty, his clinging thought +had gradually modeled and made the possessor of his tenderness and +duteous longing. When he set off to Genoa, the interest really +uppermost in his mind had hardly so much relation to his mother as to +Mordecai and Mirah. + +“God bless you, Dan!” Sir Hugo had said, when they shook hands. +“Whatever else changes for you, it can’t change my being the oldest +friend you have known, and the one who has all along felt the most for +you. I couldn’t have loved you better if you’d been my own—only I +should have been better pleased with thinking of you always as the +future master of the Abbey instead of my fine nephew; and then you +would have seen it necessary for you to take a political line. +However—things must be as they may.” It was a defensive movement of +the baronet’s to mingle purposeless remarks with the expression of +serious feeling. + +When Deronda arrived at the _Italia_ in Genoa, no Princess +Halm-Eberstein was there; but on the second day there was a letter for +him, saying that her arrival might happen within a week, or might be +deferred a fortnight and more; she was under circumstances which made +it impossible for her to fix her journey more precisely, and she +entreated him to wait as patiently as he could. + +With this indefinite prospect of suspense on matters of supreme moment +to him, Deronda set about the difficult task of seeking amusement on +philosophic grounds, as a means of quieting excited feeling and giving +patience a lift over a weary road. His former visit to the superb city +had been only cursory, and left him much to learn beyond the prescribed +round of sight-seeing, by spending the cooler hours in observant +wandering about the streets, the quay, and the environs; and he often +took a boat that he might enjoy the magnificent view of the city and +harbor from the sea. All sights, all subjects, even the expected +meeting with his mother, found a central union in Mordecai and Mirah, +and the ideas immediately associated with them; and among the thoughts +that most filled his mind while his boat was pushing about within view +of the grand harbor was that of the multitudinous Spanish Jews +centuries ago driven destitute from their Spanish homes, suffered to +land from the crowded ships only for a brief rest on this grand quay of +Genoa, overspreading it with a pall of famine and plague—dying mothers +and dying children at their breasts—fathers and sons a-gaze at each +other’s haggardness, like groups from a hundred Hunger-towers turned +out beneath the midday sun. Inevitably dreamy constructions of a +possible ancestry for himself would weave themselves with historic +memories which had begun to have a new interest for him on his +discovery of Mirah, and now, under the influence of Mordecai, had +become irresistibly dominant. He would have sealed his mind against +such constructions if it had been possible, and he had never yet fully +admitted to himself that he wished the facts to verify Mordecai’s +conviction: he inwardly repeated that he had no choice in the matter, +and that wishing was folly—nay, on the question of parentage, wishing +seemed part of that meanness which disowns kinship: it was a disowning +by anticipation. What he had to do was simply to accept the fact; and +he had really no strong presumption to go upon, now that he was assured +of his mistake about Sir Hugo. There had been a resolved concealment +which made all inference untrustworthy, and the very name he bore might +be a false one. If Mordecai was wrong—if he, the so-called Daniel +Deronda, were held by ties entirely aloof from any such course as his +friend’s pathetic hope had marked out?—he would not say “I wish”; but +he could not help feeling on which side the sacrifice lay. + +Across these two importunate thoughts, which he resisted as much as one +can resist anything in that unstrung condition which belongs to +suspense, there came continually an anxiety which he made no effort to +banish—dwelling on it rather with a mournfulness, which often seems to +us the best atonement we can make to one whose need we have been unable +to meet. The anxiety was for Gwendolen. In the wonderful mixtures of +our nature there is a feeling distinct from that exclusive passionate +love of which some men and women (by no means all) are capable, which +yet is not the same with friendship, nor with a merely benevolent +regard, whether admiring or compassionate: a man, say—for it is a man +who is here concerned—hardly represents to himself this shade of +feeling toward a woman more nearly than in words, “I should have loved +her, if——”: the “if” covering some prior growth in the inclinations, +or else some circumstances which have made an inward prohibitory law as +a stay against the emotions ready to quiver out of balance. The “if” in +Deronda’s case carried reasons of both kinds; yet he had never +throughout his relations with Gwendolen been free from the nervous +consciousness that there was something to guard against not only on her +account but on his own—some precipitancy in the manifestations of +impulsive feeling—some ruinous inroad of what is but momentary on the +permanent chosen treasure of the heart—some spoiling of her trust, +which wrought upon him now as if it had been the retreating cry of a +creature snatched and carried out of his reach by swift horsemen or +swifter waves, while his own strength was only a stronger sense of +weakness. How could his feelings for Gwendolen ever be exactly like his +feelings for other women, even when there was one by whose side he +desired to stand apart from them? Strangely the figure entered into the +pictures of his present and future; strangely (and now it seemed sadly) +their two lots had come in contact, hers narrowly personal, his charged +with far-reaching sensibilities, perhaps with durable purposes, which +were hardly more present to her than the reasons why men migrate are +present to the birds that come as usual for the crumbs and find them no +more. Not that Deronda was too ready to imagine himself of supreme +importance to a woman; but her words of insistence that he must “remain +near her—must not forsake her”—continually recurred to him with the +clearness and importunity of imagined sounds, such as Dante has said +pierce us like arrows whose points carry the sharpness of pity, + + “Lamenti saettaron me diversi + Che di pietà ferrati avean gli strali”. + +Day after day passed, and the very air of Italy seemed to carry the +consciousness that war had been declared against Austria, and every day +was a hurrying march of crowded Time toward the world-changing battle +of Sadowa. Meanwhile, in Genoa, the noons were getting hotter, the +converging outer roads getting deeper with white dust, the oleanders in +the tubs along the wayside gardens looking more and more like fatigued +holiday-makers, and the sweet evening changing her office—scattering +abroad those whom the midday had sent under shelter, and sowing all +paths with happy social sounds, little tinklings of mule-bells and +whirrings of thrumbed strings, light footsteps and voices, if not +leisurely, then with the hurry of pleasure in them; while the +encircling heights, crowned with forts, skirted with fine dwellings and +gardens, seemed also to come forth and gaze in fullness of beauty after +their long siesta, till all strong color melted in the stream of +moonlight which made the Streets a new spectacle with shadows, both +still and moving, on cathedral steps and against the façades of massive +palaces; and then slowly with the descending moon all sank in deep +night and silence, and nothing shone but the port lights of the great +Lanterna in the blackness below, and the glimmering stars in the +blackness above. Deronda, in his suspense, watched this revolving of +the days as he might have watched a wonderful clock where the striking +of the hours was made solemn with antique figures advancing and +retreating in monitory procession, while he still kept his ear open for +another kind of signal which would have its solemnity too: He was +beginning to sicken of occupation, and found himself contemplating all +activity with the aloofness of a prisoner awaiting ransom. In his +letters to Mordecai and Hans, he had avoided writing about himself, but +he was really getting into that state of mind to which all subjects +become personal; and the few books he had brought to make him a refuge +in study were becoming unreadable, because the point of view that life +would make for him was in that agitating moment of uncertainty which is +close upon decision. + +Many nights were watched through by him in gazing from the open window +of his room on the double, faintly pierced darkness of the sea and the +heavens; often in struggling under the oppressive skepticism which +represented his particular lot, with all the importance he was allowing +Mordecai to give it, as of no more lasting effect than a dream—a set +of changes which made passion to him, but beyond his consciousness were +no more than an imperceptible difference of mass and shadow; sometimes +with a reaction of emotive force which gave even to sustained +disappointment, even to the fulfilled demand of sacrifice, the nature +of a satisfied energy, and spread over his young future, whatever it +might be, the attraction of devoted service; sometimes with a sweet +irresistible hopefulness that the very best of human possibilities +might befall him—the blending of a complete personal love in one +current with a larger duty; and sometimes again in a mood of rebellion +(what human creature escapes it?) against things in general because +they are thus and not otherwise, a mood in which Gwendolen and her +equivocal fate moved as busy images of what was amiss in the world +along with the concealments which he had felt as a hardship in his own +life, and which were acting in him now under the form of an afflicting +doubtfulness about the mother who had announced herself coldly and +still kept away. + +But at last she was come. One morning in his third week of waiting +there was a new kind of knock at the door. A servant in Chasseurs +livery entered and delivered in French the verbal message that, the +Princess Halm-Eberstein had arrived, that she was going to rest during +the day, but would be obliged if Monsieur would dine early, so as to be +at liberty at seven, when she would be able to receive him. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + + She held the spindle as she sat, + Errina with the thick-coiled mat + Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes, + Gazing with a sad surprise + At surging visions of her destiny— + To spin the byssus drearily + In insect-labor, while the throng + Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song. + + +When Deronda presented himself at the door of his mother’s apartment in +the _Italia_ he felt some revival of his boyhood with its premature +agitations. The two servants in the antechamber looked at him markedly, +a little surprised that the doctor their lady had come to consult was +this striking young gentleman whose appearance gave even the severe +lines of an evening dress the credit of adornment. But Deronda could +notice nothing until, the second door being opened, he found himself in +the presence of a figure which at the other end of the large room stood +awaiting his approach. + +She was covered, except as to her face and part of her arms, with black +lace hanging loosely from the summit of her whitening hair to the long +train stretching from her tall figure. Her arms, naked to the elbow, +except for some rich bracelets, were folded before her, and the fine +poise of her head made it look handsomer than it really was. But +Deronda felt no interval of observation before he was close in front of +her, holding the hand she had put out and then raising it to his lips. +She still kept her hand in his and looked at him examiningly; while his +chief consciousness was that her eyes were piercing and her face so +mobile that the next moment she might look like a different person. For +even while she was examining him there was a play of the brow and +nostril which made a tacit language. Deronda dared no movement, not +able to conceive what sort of manifestation her feeling demanded; but +he felt himself changing color like a girl, and yet wondering at his +own lack of emotion; he had lived through so many ideal meetings with +his mother, and they had seemed more real than this! He could not even +conjecture in what language she would speak to him. He imagined it +would not be English. Suddenly, she let fall his hand, and placed both +hers on his shoulders, while her face gave out a flash of admiration in +which every worn line disappeared and seemed to leave a restored youth. + +“You are a beautiful creature!” she said, in a low melodious voice, +with syllables which had what might be called a foreign but agreeable +outline. “I knew you would be.” Then she kissed him on each cheek, and +he returned the kisses. But it was something like a greeting between +royalties. + +She paused a moment while the lines were coming back into her face, and +then said in a colder tone, “I am your mother. But you can have no love +for me.” + +“I have thought of you more than of any other being in the world,” said +Deronda, his voice trembling nervously. + +“I am not like what you thought I was,” said the mother decisively, +withdrawing her hands from his shoulders, and folding her arms as +before, looking at him as if she invited him to observe her. He had +often pictured her face in his imagination as one which had a likeness +to his own: he saw some of the likeness now, but amidst more striking +differences. She was a remarkable looking being. What was it that gave +her son a painful sense of aloofness?—Her worn beauty had a +strangeness in it as if she were not quite a human mother, but a +Melusina, who had ties with some world which is independent of ours. + +“I used to think that you might be suffering,” said Deronda, anxious +above all not to wound her. “I used to wish that I could be a comfort +to you.” + +“I _am_ suffering. But with a suffering that you can’t comfort,” said +the Princess, in a harder voice than before, moving to a sofa where +cushions had been carefully arranged for her. “Sit down.” She pointed +to a seat near her; and then discerning some distress in Deronda’s +face, she added, more gently, “I am not suffering at this moment. I am +at ease now. I am able to talk.” + +Deronda seated himself and waited for her to speak again. It seemed as +if he were in the presence of a mysterious Fate rather than of the +longed-for mother. He was beginning to watch her with wonder, from the +spiritual distance to which she had thrown him. + +“No,” she began: “I did not send for you to comfort me. I could not +know beforehand—I don’t know now—what you will feel toward me. I have +not the foolish notion that you can love me merely because I am your +mother, when you have never seen or heard of me in all your life. But I +thought I chose something better for you than being with me. I did not +think I deprived you of anything worth having.” + +“You cannot wish me to believe that your affection would not have been +worth having,” said Deronda, finding that she paused as if she expected +him to make some answer. + +“I don’t mean to speak ill of myself,” said the princess, with proud +impetuosity, “But I had not much affection to give you. I did not want +affection. I had been stifled with it. I wanted to live out the life +that was in me, and not to be hampered with other lives. You wonder +what I was. I was no princess then.” She rose with a sudden movement, +and stood as she had done before. Deronda immediately rose too; he felt +breathless. + +“No princess in this tame life that I live in now. I was a great +singer, and I acted as well as I sang. All the rest were poor beside +me. Men followed me from one country to another. I was living a myriad +lives in one. I did not want a child.” + +There was a passionate self-defence in her tone. She had cast all +precedent out of her mind. Precedent had no excuse for her and she +could only seek a justification in the intensest words she could find +for her experience. She seemed to fling out the last words against some +possible reproach in the mind of her son, who had to stand and hear +them—clutching his coat-collar as if he were keeping himself above +water by it, and feeling his blood in the sort of commotion that might +have been excited if he had seen her going through some strange rite of +a religion which gave a sacredness to crime. What else had she to tell +him? She went on with the same intensity and a sort of pale +illumination in her face. + +“I did not want to marry. I was forced into marrying your +father—forced, I mean, by my father’s wishes and commands; and +besides, it was my best way of getting some freedom. I could rule my +husband, but not my father. I had a right to be free. I had a right to +seek my freedom from a bondage that I hated.” + +She seated herself again, while there was that subtle movement in her +eyes and closed lips which is like the suppressed continuation of +speech. Deronda continued standing, and after a moment or two she +looked up at him with a less defiant pleading as she said, + +“And the bondage I hated for myself I wanted to keep you from. What +better could the most loving mother have done? I relieved you from the +bondage of having been born a Jew.” + +“Then I _am_ a Jew?” Deronda burst out with a deep-voiced energy that +made his mother shrink a little backward against her cushions. “My +father was a Jew, and you are a Jewess?” + +“Yes, your father was my cousin,” said the mother, watching him with a +change in her look, as if she saw something that she might have to be +afraid of. + +“I am glad of it,” said Deronda, impetuously, in the veiled voice of +passion. He could not have imagined beforehand how he would have come +to say that which he had never hitherto admitted. He could not have +dreamed that it would be in impulsive opposition to his mother. He was +shaken by a mixed anger which no reflection could come soon enough to +check, against this mother who it seemed had borne him unwillingly, had +willingly made herself a stranger to him, and—perhaps—was now making +herself known unwillingly. This last suspicion seemed to flash some +explanation over her speech. + +But the mother was equally shaken by an anger differently mixed, and +her frame was less equal to any repression. The shaking with her was +visibly physical, and her eyes looked the larger for her pallid +excitement as she said violently, + +“Why do you say you are glad? You are an English gentleman. I secured +you that.” + +“You did not know what you secured me. How could you choose my +birthright for me?” said Deronda, throwing himself sideways into his +chair again, almost unconsciously, and leaning his arm over the back, +while he looked away from his mother. + +He was fired with an intolerance that seemed foreign to him. But he was +now trying hard to master himself and keep silence. A horror had swept +in upon his anger lest he should say something too hard in this moment +which made an epoch never to be recalled. There was a pause before his +mother spoke again, and when she spoke her voice had become more firmly +resistant in its finely varied tones: + +“I chose for you what I would have chosen for myself. How could I know +that you would have the spirit of my father in you? How could I know +that you would love what I hated?—if you really love to be a Jew.” The +last words had such bitterness in them that any one overhearing might +have supposed some hatred had arisen between the mother and son. + +But Deronda had recovered his fuller self. He was recalling his +sensibilities to what life had been and actually was for her whose best +years were gone, and who with the signs of suffering in her frame was +now exerting herself to tell him of a past which was not his alone but +also hers. His habitual shame at the acceptance of events as if they +were his only, helped him even here. As he looked at his mother +silently after her last words, his face regained some of its +penetrative calm; yet it seemed to have a strangely agitating influence +over her: her eyes were fixed on him with a sort of fascination, but +not with any repose of maternal delight. + +“Forgive me, if I speak hastily,” he said, with diffident gravity. “Why +have you resolved now on disclosing to me what you took care to have me +brought up in ignorance of? Why—since you seem angry that I should be +glad?” + +“Oh—the reasons of our actions!” said the Princess, with a ring of +something like sarcastic scorn. “When you are as old as I am, it will +not seem so simple a question—‘Why did you do this?’ People talk of +their motives in a cut and dried way. Every woman is supposed to have +the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. I am not a monster, +but I have not felt exactly what other women feel—or say they feel, +for fear of being thought unlike others. When you reproach me in your +heart for sending you away from me, you mean that I ought to say I felt +about you as other women say they feel about their children. I did +_not_ feel that. I was glad to be freed from you. But I did well for +you, and I gave you your father’s fortune. Do I seem now to be revoking +everything?—Well, there are reasons. I feel many things that I cannot +understand. A fatal illness has been growing in me for a year. I shall +very likely not live another year. I will not deny anything I have +done. I will not pretend to love where I have no love. But shadows are +rising round me. Sickness makes them. If I have wronged the dead—I +have but little time to do what I left undone.” + +The varied transitions of tone with which this speech was delivered +were as perfect as the most accomplished actress could have made them. +The speech was in fact a piece of what may be called sincere acting; +this woman’s nature was one in which all feeling—and all the more when +it was tragic as well as real—immediately became matter of conscious +representation: experience immediately passed into drama, and she acted +her own emotions. In a minor degree this is nothing uncommon, but in +the Princess the acting had a rare perfection of physiognomy, voice, +and gesture. It would not be true to say that she felt less because of +this double consciousness: she felt—that is, her mind went +through—all the more, but with a difference; each nucleus of pain or +pleasure had a deep atmosphere of the excitement or spiritual +intoxication which at once exalts and deadens. But Deronda made no +reflection of this kind. All his thoughts hung on the purport of what +his mother was saying; her tones and her wonderful face entered into +his agitation without being noted. What he longed for with an awed +desire was to know as much as she would tell him of the strange mental +conflict under which it seemed he had been brought into the world; what +his compassionate nature made the controlling idea within him were the +suffering and the confession that breathed through her later words, and +these forbade any further question, when she paused and remained +silent, with her brow knit, her head turned a little away from him, and +her large eyes fixed as if on something incorporeal. He must wait for +her to speak again. She did so with strange abruptness, turning her +eyes upon him suddenly, and saying more quickly, + +“Sir Hugo has written much about you. He tells me you have a wonderful +mind—you comprehend everything—you are wiser than he is with all his +sixty years. You say you are glad to know that you were born a Jew. I +am not going to tell you that I have changed my mind about that. Your +feelings are against mine. You don’t thank me for what I did. Shall you +comprehend your mother, or only blame her?” + +“There is not a fibre within me but makes me wish to comprehend her,” +said Deronda, meeting her sharp gaze solemnly. “It is a bitter reversal +of my longing to think of blaming her. What I have been most trying to +do for fifteen years is to have some understanding of those who differ +from myself.” + +“Then you have become unlike your grandfather in that.” said the +mother, “though you are a young copy of him in your face. He never +comprehended me, or if he did, he only thought of fettering me into +obedience. I was to be what he called ‘the Jewish woman’ under pain of +his curse. I was to feel everything I did not feel, and believe +everything I did not believe. I was to feel awe for the bit of +parchment in the _mezuza_ over the door; to dread lest a bit of butter +should touch a bit of meat; to think it beautiful that men should bind +the _tephillin_ on them, and women not,—to adore the wisdom of such +laws, however silly they might seem to me. I was to love the long +prayers in the ugly synagogue, and the howling, and the gabbling, and +the dreadful fasts, and the tiresome feasts, and my father’s endless +discoursing about our people, which was a thunder without meaning in my +ears. I was to care forever about what Israel had been; and I did not +care at all. I cared for the wide world, and all that I could represent +in it. I hated living under the shadow of my father’s strictness. +Teaching, teaching for everlasting—‘this you must be,’ ‘that you must +not be’—pressed on me like a frame that got tighter and tighter as I +grew. I wanted to live a large life, with freedom to do what every one +else did, and be carried along in a great current, not obliged to care. +Ah!”—here her tone changed to one of a more bitter incisiveness—“you +are glad to have been born a Jew. You say so. That is because you have +not been brought up as a Jew. That separateness seems sweet to you +because I saved you from it.” + +“When you resolved on that, you meant that I should never know my +origin?” said Deronda, impulsively. “You have at least changed in your +feeling on that point.” + +“Yes, that was what I meant. That is what I persevered in. And it is +not true to say that I have changed. Things have changed in spite of +me. I am still the same Leonora”—she pointed with her forefinger to +her breast—“here within me is the same desire, the same will, the same +choice, _but_”—she spread out her hands, palm upward, on each side of +her, as she paused with a bitter compression of her lip, then let her +voice fall into muffled, rapid utterance—“events come upon us like +evil enchantments: and thoughts, feelings, apparitions in the darkness +are events—are they not? I don’t consent. We only consent to what we +love. I obey something tyrannic”—she spread out her hands again—“I am +forced to be withered, to feel pain, to be dying slowly. Do I love +that? Well, I have been forced to obey my dead father. I have been +forced to tell you that you are a Jew, and deliver to you what he +commanded me to deliver.” + +“I beseech you to tell me what moved you—when you were young, I +mean—to take the course you did,” said Deronda, trying by this +reference to the past to escape from what to him was the heart-rending +piteousness of this mingled suffering and defiance. “I gather that my +grandfather opposed your bent to be an artist. Though my own experience +has been quite different, I enter into the painfulness of your +struggle. I can imagine the hardship of an enforced renunciation.” + +“No,” said the Princess, shaking her head and folding her arms with an +air of decision. “You are not a woman. You may try—but you can never +imagine what it is to have a man’s force of genius in you, and yet to +suffer the slavery of being a girl. To have a pattern cut out—‘this is +the Jewish woman; this is what you must be; this is what you are wanted +for; a woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must +be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as +cakes are, by a fixed receipt.’ That was what my father wanted. He +wished I had been a son; he cared for me as a make-shift link. His +heart was set on his Judaism. He hated that Jewish women should be +thought of by the Christian world as a sort of ware to make public +singers and actresses of. As if we were not the more enviable for that! +That is a chance of escaping from bondage.” + +“Was my grandfather a learned man?” said Deronda, eager to know +particulars that he feared his mother might not think of. + +She answered impatiently, putting up her hand, “Oh, yes,—and a clever +physician—and good: I don’t deny that he was good. A man to be admired +in a play—grand, with an iron will. Like the old Foscari before he +pardons. But such men turn their wives and daughters into slaves. They +would rule the world if they could; but not ruling the world, they +throw all the weight of their will on the necks and souls of women. But +nature sometimes thwarts them. My father had no other child than his +daughter, and she was like himself.” + +She had folded her arms again, and looked as if she were ready to face +some impending attempt at mastery. + +“Your father was different. Unlike me—all lovingness and affection. I +knew I could rule him; and I made him secretly promise me, before I +married him, that he would put no hindrance in the way of my being an +artist. My father was on his deathbed when we were married: from the +first he had fixed his mind on my marrying my cousin Ephraim. And when +a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half +her strength must be concealment. I meant to have my will in the end, +but I could only have it by seeming to obey. I had an awe of my +father—always I had had an awe of him: it was impossible to help it. I +hated to feel awed—I wished I could have defied him openly; but I +never could. It was what I could not imagine: I could not act it to +myself that I should begin to defy my father openly and succeed. And I +never would risk failure.” + +This last sentence was uttered with an abrupt emphasis, and she paused +after it as if the words had raised a crowd of remembrances which +obstructed speech. Her son was listening to her with feelings more and +more highly mixed; the first sense of being repelled by the frank +coldness which had replaced all his preconceptions of a mother’s tender +joy in the sight of him; the first impulses of indignation at what +shocked his most cherished emotions and principles—all these busy +elements of collision between them were subsiding for a time, and +making more and more room for that effort at just allowance and that +admiration of a forcible nature whose errors lay along high pathways, +which he would have felt if, instead of being his mother, she had been +a stranger who had appealed to his sympathy. Still it was impossible to +be dispassionate: he trembled lest the next thing she had to say would +be more repugnant to him than what had gone before: he was afraid of +the strange coercion she seemed to be under to lay her mind bare: he +almost wished he could say, “Tell me only what is necessary,” and then +again he felt the fascination which made him watch her and listen to +her eagerly. He tried to recall her to particulars by asking, + +“Where was my grandfather’s home?” + +“Here in Genoa, where I was married; and his family had lived here +generations ago. But my father had been in various countries.” + +“You must surely have lived in England?” + +“My mother was English—a Jewess of Portuguese descent. My father +married her in England. Certain circumstances of that marriage made all +the difference in my life: through that marriage my father thwarted his +own plans. My mother’s sister was a singer, and afterward she married +the English partner of a merchant’s house here in Genoa, and they came +and lived here eleven years. My mother died when I was eight years old, +and my father allowed me to be continually with my Aunt Leonora and be +taught under her eyes, as if he had not minded the danger of her +encouraging my wish to be a singer, as she had been. But this was it—I +saw it again and again in my father:—he did not guard against +consequences, because he felt sure he could hinder them if he liked. +Before my aunt left Genoa, I had had enough teaching to bring out the +born singer and actress within me: my father did not know everything +that was done; but he knew that I was taught music and singing—he knew +my inclination. That was nothing to him: he meant that I should obey +his will. And he was resolved that I should marry my cousin Ephraim, +the only one left of my father’s family that he knew. I wanted not to +marry. I thought of all plans to resist it, but at last I found that I +could rule my cousin, and I consented. My father died three weeks after +we were married, and then I had my way!” She uttered these words almost +exultantly; but after a little pause her face changed, and she said in +a biting tone, “It has not lasted, though. My father is getting his way +now.” + +She began to look more contemplatively again at her son, and presently +said, + +“You are like him—but milder—there is something of your own father in +you; and he made it the labor of his life to devote himself to me: +wound up his money-changing and banking, and lived to wait upon me—he +went against his conscience for me. As I loved the life of my art, so +he loved me. Let me look at your hand again: the hand with the ring on. +It was your father’s ring.” + +He drew his chair nearer to her and gave her his hand. We know what +kind of a hand it was: her own, very much smaller, was of the same +type. As he felt the smaller hand holding his, as he saw nearer to him +the face that held the likeness of his own, aged not by time but by +intensity, the strong bent of his nature toward a reverential +tenderness asserted itself above every other impression and in his most +fervent tone he said, + +“Mother! take us all into your heart—the living and the dead. Forgive +every thing that hurts you in the past. Take my affection.” + +She looked at him admiringly rather than lovingly, then kissed him on +the brow, and saying sadly, “I reject nothing, but I have nothing to +give,” she released his hand and sank back on her cushions. Deronda +turned pale with what seems always more of a sensation than an +emotion—the pain of repulsed tenderness. She noticed the expression of +pain, and said, still with melodious melancholy in her tones, + +“It is better so. We must part again soon and you owe me no duties. I +did not wish you to be born. I parted with you willingly. When your +father died I resolved that I would have no more ties, but such as I +could free myself from. I was the Alcharisi you have heard of: the name +had magic wherever it was carried. Men courted me. Sir Hugo Mallinger +was one who wished to marry me. He was madly in love with me. One day I +asked him, ‘Is there a man capable of doing something for love of me, +and expecting nothing in return?’ He said: ‘What is it you want done?’ +I said, ‘Take my boy and bring him up as an Englishman, and never let +him know anything about his parents.’ You were little more than two +years old, and were sitting on his foot. He declared that he would pay +money to have such a boy. I had not meditated much on the plan +beforehand, but as soon as I had spoken about it, it took possession of +me as something I could not rest without doing. At first he thought I +was not serious, but I convinced him, and he was never surprised at +anything. He agreed that it would be for your good, and the finest +thing for you. A great singer and actress is a queen, but she gives no +royalty to her son. All that happened at Naples. And afterward I made +Sir Hugo the trustee of your fortune. That is what I did; and I had a +joy in doing it. My father had tyrannized over me—he cared more about +a grandson to come than he did about me: I counted as nothing. You were +to be such a Jew as he; you were to be what he wanted. But you were my +son, and it was my turn to say what you should be. I said you should +not know you were a Jew.” + +“And for months events have been preparing me to be glad that I am a +Jew,” said Deronda, his opposition roused again. The point touched the +quick of his experience. “It would always have been better that I +should have known the truth. I have always been rebelling against the +secrecy that looked like shame. It is no shame to have Jewish +parents—the shame is to disown it.” + +“You say it was a shame to me, then, that I used that secrecy,” said +his mother, with a flash of new anger. “There is no shame attaching to +me. I have no reason to be ashamed. I rid myself of the Jewish tatters +and gibberish that make people nudge each other at sight of us, as if +we were tattooed under our clothes, though our faces are as whole as +theirs. I delivered you from the pelting contempt that pursues Jewish +separateness. I am not ashamed that I did it. It was the better for +you.” + +“Then why have you now undone the secrecy?—no, not undone it—the +effects will never be undone. But why have you now sent for me to tell +me that I am a Jew?” said Deronda, with an intensity of opposition in +feeling that was almost bitter. It seemed as if her words had called +out a latent obstinacy of race in him. + +“Why?—ah, why?” said the Princess, rising quickly and walking to the +other side of the room, where she turned round and slowly approached +him, as he, too, stood up. Then she began to speak again in a more +veiled voice. “I can’t explain; I can only say what is. I don’t love my +father’s religion now any more than I did then. Before I married the +second time I was baptized; I made myself like the people I lived +among. I had a right to do it; I was not like a brute, obliged to go +with my own herd. I have not repented; I will not say that I have +repented. But yet”—here she had come near to her son, and paused; then +again retreated a little and stood still, as if resolute not to give +way utterly to an imperious influence; but, as she went on speaking, +she became more and more unconscious of anything but the awe that +subdued her voice. “It is illness, I don’t doubt that it has been +gathering illness—my mind has gone back: more than a year ago it +began. You see my gray hair, my worn look: it has all come fast. +Sometimes I am in an agony of pain—I dare say I shall be to-night. +Then it is as if all the life I have chosen to live, all thoughts, all +will, forsook me and left me alone in spots of memory, and I can’t get +away: my pain seems to keep me there. My childhood—my girlhood—the +day of my marriage—the day of my father’s death—there seems to be +nothing since. Then a great horror comes over me: what do I know of +life or death? and what my father called ‘right’ may be a power that is +laying hold of me—that is clutching me now. Well, I will satisfy him. +I cannot go into the darkness without satisfying him. I have hidden +what was his. I thought once I would burn it. I have not burned it. I +thank God I have not burned it!” + +She threw herself on her cushions again, visibly fatigued. Deronda, +moved too strongly by her suffering for other impulses to act within +him, drew near her, and said, entreatingly, + +“Will you not spare yourself this evening? Let us leave the rest till +to-morrow.” + +“No,” she said decisively. “I will confess it all, now that I have come +up to it. Often when I am at ease it all fades away; my whole self +comes quite back; but I know it will sink away again, and the other +will come—the poor, solitary, forsaken remains of self, that can +resist nothing. It was my nature to resist, and say, ‘I have a right to +resist.’ Well, I say so still when I have any strength in me. You have +heard me say it, and I don’t withdraw it. But when my strength goes, +some other right forces itself upon me like iron in an inexorable hand; +and even when I am at ease, it is beginning to make ghosts upon the +daylight. And now you have made it worse for me,” she said, with a +sudden return of impetuosity; “but I shall have told you everything. +And what reproach is there against me,” she added bitterly, “since I +have made you glad to be a Jew? Joseph Kalonymos reproached me: he said +you had been turned into a proud Englishman, who resented being touched +by a Jew. I wish you had!” she ended, with a new marvelous alternation. +It was as if her mind were breaking into several, one jarring the other +into impulsive action. + +“Who is Joseph Kalonymos?” said Deronda, with a darting recollection of +that Jew who touched his arm in the Frankfort synagogue. + +“Ah! some vengeance sent him back from the East, that he might see you +and come to reproach me. He was my father’s friend. He knew of your +birth: he knew of my husband’s death, and once, twenty years ago, after +he had been away in the Levant, he came to see me and inquire about +you. I told him that you were dead: I meant you to be dead to all the +world of my childhood. If I had said that you were living, he would +have interfered with my plans: he would have taken on him to represent +my father, and have tried to make me recall what I had done. What could +I do but say you were dead? The act was done. If I had told him of it +there would have been trouble and scandal—and all to conquer me, who +would not have been conquered. I was strong then, and I would have had +my will, though there might have been a hard fight against me. I took +the way to have it without any fight. I felt then that I was not really +deceiving: it would have come to the same in the end; or if not to the +same, to something worse. He believed me and begged that I would give +up to him the chest that my father had charged me and my husband to +deliver to our eldest son. I knew what was in the chest—things that +had been dinned in my ears since I had had any understanding—things +that were thrust on my mind that I might feel them like a wall around +my life—my life that was growing like a tree. Once, after my husband +died, I was going to burn the chest. But it was difficult to burn; and +burning a chest and papers looks like a shameful act. I have committed +no shameful act—except what Jews would call shameful. I had kept the +chest, and I gave it to Joseph Kalonymos. He went away mournful, and +said, ‘If you marry again, and if another grandson is born to him who +is departed, I will deliver up the chest to him.’ I bowed in silence. I +meant not to marry again—no more than I meant to be the shattered +woman that I am now.” + +She ceased speaking, and her head sank back while she looked vaguely +before her. Her thought was traveling through the years, and when she +began to speak again her voice had lost its argumentative spirit, and +had fallen into a veiled tone of distress. + +“But months ago this Kalonymos saw you in the synagogue at Frankfort. +He saw you enter the hotel, and he went to ask your name. There was +nobody else in the world to whom the name would have told anything +about me.” + +“Then it is not my real name?” said Deronda, with a dislike even to +this trifling part of the disguise which had been thrown round him. + +“Oh, as real as another,” said his mother, indifferently. “The Jews +have always been changing their names. My father’s family had kept the +name of Charisi: my husband was a Charisi. When I came out as a singer, +we made it Alcharisi. But there had been a branch of the family my +father had lost sight of who called themselves Deronda, and when I +wanted a name for you, and Sir Hugo said, ‘Let it be a foreign name,’ I +thought of Deronda. But Joseph Kalonymos had heard my father speak of +the Deronda branch, and the name confirmed his suspicion. He began to +suspect what had been done. It was as if everything had been whispered +to him in the air. He found out where I was. He took a journey into +Russia to see me; he found me weak and shattered. He had come back +again, with his white hair, and with rage in his soul against me. He +said I was going down to the grave clad in falsehood and +robbery—falsehood to my father and robbery of my own child. He accused +me of having kept the knowledge of your birth from you, and having +brought you up as if you had been the son of an English gentleman. +Well, it was true; and twenty years before I would have maintained that +I had a right to do it. But I can maintain nothing now. No faith is +strong within me. My father may have God on his side. This man’s words +were like lion’s teeth upon me. My father’s threats eat into me with my +pain. If I tell everything—if I deliver up everything—what else can +be demanded of me? I cannot make myself love the people I have never +loved—is it not enough that I lost the life I did love?” + +She had leaned forward a little in her low-toned pleading, that seemed +like a smothered cry: her arms and hands were stretched out at full +length, as if strained in beseeching, Deronda’s soul was absorbed in +the anguish of compassion. He could not mind now that he had been +repulsed before. His pity made a flood of forgiveness within him. His +single impulse was to kneel by her and take her hand gently, between +his palms, while he said in that exquisite voice of soothing which +expresses oneness with the sufferer, + +“Mother, take comfort!” + +She did not seem inclined to repulse him now, but looked down at him +and let him take both her hands to fold between his. Gradually tears +gathered, but she pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and then +leaned her cheek against his brow, as if she wished that they should +not look at each other. + +“Is it not possible that I could be near you often and comfort you?” +said Deronda. He was under that stress of pity that propels us on +sacrifices. + +“No, not possible,” she answered, lifting up her head again and +withdrawing her hand as if she wished him to move away. “I have a +husband and five children. None of them know of your existence.” + +Deronda felt painfully silenced. He rose and stood at a little distance. + +“You wonder why I married,” she went on presently, under the influence +of a newly-recurring thought. “I meant never to marry again. I meant to +be free and to live for my art. I had parted with you. I had no bonds. +For nine years I was a queen. I enjoyed the life I had longed for. But +something befell me. It was like a fit of forgetfulness. I began to +sing out of tune. They told me of it. Another woman was thrusting +herself in my place. I could not endure the prospect of failure and +decline. It was horrible to me.” She started up again, with a shudder, +and lifted screening hands like one who dreads missiles. “It drove me +to marry. I made believe that I preferred being the wife of a Russian +noble to being the greatest lyric actress of Europe; I made believe—I +acted that part. It was because I felt my greatness sinking away from +me, as I feel my life sinking now. I would not wait till men said, ‘She +had better go.’” + +She sank into her seat again, and looked at the evening sky as she went +on: “I repented. It was a resolve taken in desperation. That singing +out of tune was only like a fit of illness; it went away. I repented; +but it was too late. I could not go back. All things hindered, me—all +things.” + +A new haggardness had come in her face, but her son refrained from +again urging her to leave further speech till the morrow: there was +evidently some mental relief for her in an outpouring such as she could +never have allowed herself before. He stood still while she maintained +silence longer than she knew, and the light was perceptibly fading. At +last she turned to him and said, + +“I can bear no more now.” She put out her hand, but then quickly +withdrew it saying, “Stay. How do I know that I can see you again? I +cannot bear to be seen when I am in pain.” + +She drew forth a pocket-book, and taking out a letter said, “This is +addressed to the banking-house in Mainz, where you are to go for your +grandfather’s chest. It is a letter written by Joseph Kalonymos: if he +is not there himself, this order of his will be obeyed.” + +When Deronda had taken the letter, she said, with effort but more +gently than before, “Kneel again, and let me kiss you.” + +He obeyed, and holding his head between her hands, she kissed him +solemnly on the brow. “You see, I had no life left to love you with,” +she said, in a low murmur. “But there is more fortune for you. Sir Hugo +was to keep it in reserve. I gave you all your father’s fortune. They +can never accuse me of robbery there.” + +“If you had needed anything I would have worked for you,” said Deronda, +conscious of disappointed yearning—a shutting out forever from long +early vistas of affectionate imagination. + +“I need nothing that the skill of man can give me,” said his mother, +still holding his head, and perusing his features. “But perhaps now I +have satisfied my father’s will, your face will come instead of +his—your young, loving face.” + +“But you will see me again?” said Deronda, anxiously. + +“Yes—perhaps. Wait, wait. Leave me now.” + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + + “La même fermeté qui sert à résister à l’amour sert aussi à le rendre + violent et durable; et les personnes faibles qui sont toujours + agitées des passions n’en sont presque jamais véritablement remplies.” + —LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. + + +Among Deronda’s letters the next morning was one from Hans Meyrick of +four quarto pages, in the small, beautiful handwriting which ran in the +Meyrick family. + + MY DEAR DERONDA,—In return for your sketch of Italian movements and + your view of the world’s affairs generally, I may say that here at + home the most judicious opinion going as to the effects of present + causes is that “time will show.” As to the present causes of past + effects, it is now seen that the late swindling telegrams account for + the last year’s cattle plague—which is a refutation of philosophy + falsely so called, and justifies the compensation to the farmers. My + own idea that a murrain will shortly break out in the commercial + class, and that the cause will subsequently disclose itself in the + ready sale of all rejected pictures, has been called an unsound use of + analogy; but there are minds that will not hesitate to rob even the + neglected painter of his solace. To my feeling there is great beauty + in the conception that some bad judge might give a high price for my + Berenice series, and that the men in the city would have already been + punished for my ill-merited luck. + + Meanwhile I am consoling myself for your absence by finding my + advantage in it—shining like Hesperus when Hyperion has departed; + sitting with our Hebrew prophet, and making a study of his head, in + the hours when he used to be occupied with you—getting credit with + him as a learned young Gentile, who would have been a Jew if he could + —and agreeing with him in the general principle, that whatever is + best is for that reason Jewish. I never held it my _forte_ to be + a severe reasoner, but I can see that if whatever is best is A, and B + happens to be best, B must be A, however little you might have + expected it beforehand. On that principle I could see the force of a + pamphlet I once read to prove that all good art was Protestant. + However, our prophet is an uncommonly interesting sitter—a better + model than Rembrandt had for his Rabbi—and I never come away from him + without a new discovery. For one thing, it is a constant wonder to me + that, with all his fiery feeling for his race and their traditions, he + is no straight-laced Jew, spitting after the word Christian, and + enjoying the prospect that the Gentile mouth will water in vain for a + slice of the roasted Leviathan, while Israel will be sending up plates + for more, _ad libitum_, (You perceive that my studies had taught + me what to expect from the orthodox Jew.) I confess that I have always + held lightly by your account of Mordecai, as apologetic, and merely + part of your disposition to make an antediluvian point of view lest + you should do injustice to the megatherium. But now I have given ear + to him in his proper person, I find him really a sort of + philosophical-allegorical-mystical believer, and yet with a sharp + dialectic point, so that any argumentative rattler of peas in a + bladder might soon be pricked in silence by him. The mixture may be + one of the Jewish prerogatives, for what I know. In fact, his mind + seems so broad that I find my own correct opinions lying in it quite + commodiously, and how they are to be brought into agreement with the + vast remainder is his affair, not mine. I leave it to him to settle + our basis, never yet having seen a basis which is not a + world-supporting elephant, more or less powerful and expensive to keep. + My means will not allow me to keep a private elephant. I go into mystery + instead, as cheaper and more lasting—a sort of gas which is likely to + be continually supplied by the decomposition of the elephants. And if + I like the look of an opinion, I treat it civilly, without suspicious + inquiries. I have quite a friendly feeling toward Mordecai’s notion + that a whole Christian is three-fourths a Jew, and that from the + Alexandrian time downward the most comprehensive minds have been + Jewish; for I think of pointing out to Mirah that, Arabic and other + incidents of life apart, there is really little difference between me + and—Maimonides. But I have lately been finding out that it is your + shallow lover who can’t help making a declaration. If Mirah’s ways + were less distracting, and it were less of a heaven to be in her + presence and watch her, I must long ago have flung myself at her feet, + and requested her to tell me, with less indirectness, whether she + wished me to blow my brains out. I have a knack of hoping, which is as + good as an estate in reversion, if one can keep from the temptation of + turning it into certainty, which may spoil all. My Hope wanders among + the orchard blossoms, feels the warm snow falling on it through the + sunshine, and is in doubt of nothing; but, catching sight of Certainty + in the distance, sees an ugly Janus-faced deity, with a dubious wink + on the hither side of him, and turns quickly away. But you, with your + supreme reasonableness, and self-nullification, and preparation for + the worst—you know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious + maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called + deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, + whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by + transformation. (You observe my new vein of allegory?) Seriously, + however, I must be permitted to allege that truth will prevail, that + prejudice will melt before it, that diversity, accompanied by merit, + will make itself felt as fascination, and that no virtuous aspiration + will be frustrated—all which, if I mistake not, are doctrines of the + schools, and they imply that the Jewess I prefer will prefer me. Any + blockhead can cite generalities, but the mind-master discerns the + particular cases they represent. + + I am less convinced that my society makes amends to Mordecai for your + absence, but another substitute occasionally comes in the form of + Jacob Cohen. It is worth while to catch our prophet’s expression when + he has that remarkable type of young Israel on his knee, and pours + forth some Semitic inspiration with a sublime look of melancholy + patience and devoutness. Sometimes it occurs to Jacob that Hebrew will + be more edifying to him if he stops his ears with his palms, and + imitates the venerable sounds as heard through that muffled medium. + When Mordecai gently draws down the little fists and holds them fast, + Jacob’s features all take on an extraordinary activity, very much as + if he was walking through a menagerie and trying to imitate every + animal in turn, succeeding best with the owl and the peccary. But I + dare say you have seen something of this. He treats me with the + easiest familiarity, and seems in general to look at me as a second-hand + Christian commodity, likely to come down in price; remarking on + my disadvantages with a frankness which seems to imply some thoughts + of future purchase. It is pretty, though, to see the change in him if + Mirah happens to come in. He turns child suddenly—his age usually + strikes one as being like the Israelitish garments in the desert, + perhaps near forty, yet with an air of recent production. But, with + Mirah, he reminds me of the dogs that have been brought up by women, + and remain manageable by them only. Still, the dog is fond of Mordecai + too, and brings sugar-plums to share with him, filling his own mouth + to rather an embarrassing extent, and watching how Mordecai deals with + a smaller supply. Judging from this modern Jacob at the age of six, my + astonishment is that his race has not bought us all up long ago, and + pocketed our feebler generations in the form of stock and scrip, as so + much slave property. There is one Jewess I should not mind being slave + to. But I wish I did not imagine that Mirah gets a little sadder, and + tries all the while to hide it. It is natural enough, of course, while + she has to watch the slow death of this brother, whom she has taken to + worshipping with such looks of loving devoutness that I am ready to + wish myself in his place. + + For the rest, we are a little merrier than usual. Rex Gascoigne—you + remember a head you admired among my sketches, a fellow with a good + upper lip, reading law—has got some rooms in town now not far off us, + and has had a neat sister (upper lip also good) staying with him the + last fortnight. I have introduced them both to my mother and the + girls, who have found out from Miss Gascoigne that she is cousin to + your Vandyke duchess!!! I put the notes of exclamation to mark the + surprise that the information at first produced on my feeble + understanding. On reflection I discovered that there was not the least + ground for surprise, unless I had beforehand believed that nobody + could be anybody’s cousin without my knowing it. This sort of + surprise, I take it, depends on a liveliness of the spine, with a more + or less constant nullity of brain. There was a fellow I used to meet + at Rome who was in an effervescence of surprise at contact with the + simplest information. Tell him what you would—that you were fond of + easy boots—he would always say, “No! are you?” with the same energy + of wonder: the very fellow of whom pastoral Browne wrote + prophetically, + + “A wretch so empty that if e’er there be + In nature found the least vacuity + ’Twill be in him.” + + I have accounted for it all—he had a lively spine. + + However, this cousinship with the duchess came out by chance one day + that Mirah was with them at home and they were talking about the + Mallingers. _Apropos_; I am getting so important that I have + rival invitations. Gascoigne wants me to go down with him to his + father’s rectory in August and see the country round there. But I + think self-interest well understood will take me to Topping Abbey, for + Sir Hugo has invited me, and proposes—God bless him for his rashness! + —that I should make a picture of his three daughters sitting on a + bank—as he says, in the Gainsborough style. He came to my studio the + other day and recommended me to apply myself to portrait. Of course I + know what that means.—“My good fellow, your attempts at the historic + and poetic are simply pitiable. Your brush is just that of a + successful portrait-painter—it has a little truth and a great + facility in falsehood—your idealism will never do for gods and + goddesses and heroic story, but it may fetch a high price as flattery. + Fate, my friend, has made you the hinder wheel—_rota posterior + curras, et in axe secundo_—run behind, because you can’t help it.” + —What great effort it evidently costs our friends to give us these + candid opinions! I have even known a man to take the trouble to call, + in order to tell me that I had irretrievably exposed my want of + judgment in treating my subject, and that if I had asked him we would + have lent me his own judgment. Such was my ingratitude and my + readiness at composition, that even while he was speaking I inwardly + sketched a Last Judgment with that candid friend’s physiognomy on the + left. But all this is away from Sir Hugo, whose manner of implying + that one’s gifts are not of the highest order is so exceedingly + good-natured and comfortable that I begin to feel it an advantage not + to be among those poor fellows at the tip-top. And his kindness to me + tastes all the better because it comes out of his love for you, old + boy. His chat is uncommonly amusing. By the way, he told me that your + Vandyke duchess is gone with her husband yachting to the Mediterranean. + I bethink me that it is possible to land from a yacht, or to be taken + on to a yacht from the land. Shall you by chance have an opportunity of + continuing your theological discussion with the fair Supralapsarian—I + think you said her tenets were of that complexion? Is Duke Alphonso + also theological?—perhaps an Arian who objects to triplicity. (Stage + direction. While D. is reading, a profound scorn gathers in his face + till at the last word he flings down the letter, grasps his coat-collar + in a statuesque attitude and so remains with a look generally + tremendous, throughout the following soliloquy, “O night, O blackness, + etc., etc.”) + + Excuse the brevity of this letter. You are not used to more from me + than a bare statement of facts, without comment or digression. One + fact I have omitted—that the Klesmers on the eve of departure have + behaved magnificently, shining forth as might be expected from the + planets of genius and fortune in conjunction. Mirah is rich with their + oriental gifts. + + What luck it will be if you come back and present yourself at the + Abbey while I am there! I am going to behave with consummate + discretion and win golden opinions, But I shall run up to town now and + then, just for a peep into Gad Eden. You see how far I have got in + Hebrew lore—up with my Lord Bolingbroke, who knew no Hebrew, but + “understood that sort of learning and what is writ about it.” If Mirah + commanded, I would go to a depth below the tri-literal roots. Already + it makes no difference to me whether the points are there or not. But + while her brother’s life lasts I suspect she would not listen to a + lover, even one whose “hair is like a flock of goats on Mount + Gilead”—and I flatter myself that few heads would bear that trying + comparison better than mine. So I stay with my hope among the + orchard-blossoms.—Your devoted, + + HANS MEYRICK. + +Some months before, this letter from Hans would have divided Deronda’s +thoughts irritatingly: its romancing, about Mirah would have had an +unpleasant edge, scarcely anointed with any commiseration for his +friend’s probable disappointment. But things had altered since March. +Mirah was no longer so critically placed with regard to the Meyricks, +and Deronda’s own position had been undergoing a change which had just +been crowned by the revelation of his birth. The new opening toward the +future, though he would not trust in any definite visions, inevitably +shed new lights, and influenced his mood toward past and present; +hence, what Hans called his hope now seemed to Deronda, not a +mischievous unreasonableness which roused his indignation, but an +unusually persistent bird-dance of an extravagant fancy, and he would +have felt quite able to pity any consequent suffering of his friend’s, +if he had believed in the suffering as probable. But some of the busy +thought filling that long day, which passed without his receiving any +new summons from his mother, was given to the argument that Hans +Meyrick’s nature was not one in which love could strike the deep roots +that turn disappointment into sorrow: it was too restless, too readily +excitable by novelty, too ready to turn itself into imaginative +material, and wear its grief as a fantastic costume. “Already he is +beginning to play at love: he is taking the whole affair as a comedy,” +said Deronda to himself; “he knows very well that there is no chance +for him. Just like him—never opening his eyes on any possible +objection I could have to receive his outpourings about Mirah. Poor old +Hans! If we were under a fiery hail together he would howl like a +Greek, and if I did not howl too it would never occur to him that I was +as badly off as he. And yet he is tender-hearted and affectionate in +intention, and I can’t say that he is not active in imagining what goes +on in other people—but then he always imagines it to fit his own +inclination.” + +With this touch of causticity Deronda got rid of the slight heat at +present raised by Hans’s naive expansiveness. The nonsense about +Gwendolen, conveying the fact that she was gone yachting with her +husband, only suggested a disturbing sequel to his own strange parting +with her. But there was one sentence in the letter which raised a more +immediate, active anxiety. Hans’s suspicion of a hidden sadness in +Mirah was not in the direction of his wishes, and hence, instead of +distrusting his observation here, Deronda began to conceive a cause for +the sadness. Was it some event that had occurred during his absence, or +only the growing fear of some event? Was it something, perhaps +alterable, in the new position which had been made for her? Or—had +Mordecai, against his habitual resolve, communicated to her those +peculiar cherished hopes about him, Deronda, and had her quickly +sensitive nature been hurt by the discovery that her brother’s will or +tenacity of visionary conviction had acted coercively on their +friendship—been hurt by the fear that there was more of pitying +self-suppression than of equal regard in Deronda’s relation to him? For +amidst all Mirah’s quiet renunciation, the evident thirst of soul with +which she received the tribute of equality implied a corresponding pain +if she found that what she had taken for a purely reverential regard +toward her brother had its mixture of condescension. + +In this last conjecture of Deronda’s he was not wrong as to the quality +in Mirah’s nature on which he was founding—the latent protest against +the treatment she had all her life being subject to until she met him. +For that gratitude which would not let her pass by any notice of their +acquaintance without insisting on the depth of her debt to him, took +half its fervor from the keen comparison with what others had thought +enough to render to her. Deronda’s affinity in feeling enabled him to +penetrate such secrets. But he was not near the truth in admitting the +idea that Mordecai had broken his characteristic reticence. To no soul +but Deronda himself had he yet breathed the history of their relation +to each other, or his confidence about his friend’s origin: it was not +only that these subjects were for him too sacred to be spoken of +without weighty reason, but that he had discerned Deronda’s shrinking +at any mention of his birth; and the severity of reserve which had +hindered Mordecai from answering a question on a private affair of the +Cohen family told yet more strongly here. + +“Ezra, how is it?” Mirah one day said to him—“I am continually going +to speak to Mr. Deronda as if he were a Jew?” + +He smiled at her quietly, and said, “I suppose it is because he treats +us as if he were our brother. But he loves not to have the difference +of birth dwelt upon.” + +“He has never lived with his parents, Mr. Hans, says,” continued Mirah, +to whom this was necessarily a question of interest about every one for +whom she had a regard. + +“Seek not to know such things from Mr. Hans,” said Mordecai, gravely, +laying his hand on her curls, as he was wont. “What Daniel Deronda +wishes us to know about himself is for him to tell us.” + +And Mirah felt herself rebuked, as Deronda had done. But to be rebuked +in this way by Mordecai made her rather proud. + +“I see no one so great as my brother,” she said to Mrs. Meyrick one day +that she called at the Chelsea house on her way home, and, according to +her hope, found the little mother alone. “It is difficult to think that +he belongs to the same world as those people I used to live amongst. I +told you once that they made life seem like a madhouse; but when I am +with Ezra he makes me feel that his life is a great good, though he has +suffered so much; not like me, who wanted to die because I had suffered +a little, and only for a little while. His soul is so full, it is +impossible for him to wish for death as I did. I get the same sort of +feeling from him that I got yesterday, when I was tired, and came home +through the park after the sweet rain had fallen and the sunshine lay +on the grass and flowers. Everything in the sky and under the sky +looked so pure and beautiful that the weariness and trouble and folly +seemed only a small part of what is, and I became more patient and +hopeful.” + +A dove-like note of melancholy in this speech caused Mrs. Meyrick to +look at Mirah with new examination. After laying down her hat and +pushing her curls flat, with an air of fatigue, she placed herself on a +chair opposite her friend in her habitual attitude, her feet and hands +just crossed; and at a distance she might have seemed a colored statue +of serenity. But Mrs. Meyrick discerned a new look of suppressed +suffering in her face, which corresponded to the hint that to be +patient and hopeful required some extra influence. + +“Is there any fresh trouble on your mind, my dear?” said Mrs. Meyrick, +giving up her needlework as a sign of concentrated attention. + +Mirah hesitated before she said, “I am too ready to speak of troubles, +I think. It seems unkind to put anything painful into other people’s +minds, unless one were sure it would hinder something worse. And +perhaps I am too hasty and fearful.” + +“Oh, my dear, mothers are made to like pain and trouble for the sake of +their children. Is it because the singing lessons are so few, and are +likely to fall off when the season comes to an end? Success in these +things can’t come all at once.” Mrs. Meyrick did not believe that she +was touching the real grief; but a guess that could be corrected would +make an easier channel for confidence. + +“No, not that,” said Mirah, shaking her head gently. “I have been a +little disappointed because so many ladies said they wanted me to give +them or their daughters lessons, and then I never heard of them again, +But perhaps after the holidays I shall teach in some schools. Besides, +you know, I am as rich as a princess now. I have not touched the +hundred pounds that Mrs. Klesmer gave me; and I should never be afraid +that Ezra would be in want of anything, because there is Mr. Deronda, +and he said, ‘It is the chief honor of my life that your brother will +share anything with me.’ Oh, no! Ezra and I can have no fears for each +other about such things as food and clothing.” + +“But there is some other fear on your mind,” said Mrs. Meyrick not +without divination—“a fear of something that may disturb your peace. +Don’t be forecasting evil, dear child, unless it is what you can guard +against. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can’t turn it into a +defense. But there’s no defense against all the things that might be. +Have you any more reason for being anxious now than you had a month +ago?” + +“Yes, I have,” said Mirah. “I have kept it from Ezra. I have not dared +to tell him. Pray forgive me that I can’t do without telling you. I +_have_ more reason for being anxious. It is five days ago now. I am +quite sure I saw my father.” + +Mrs. Meyrick shrank into a smaller space, packing her arms across her +chest and leaning forward—to hinder herself from pelting that father +with her worst epithets. + +“The year has changed him,” Mirah went on. “He had already been much +altered and worn in the time before I left him. You remember I said how +he used sometimes to cry. He was always excited one way or the other. I +have told Ezra everything that I told you, and he says that my father +had taken to gambling, which makes people easily distressed, and then +again exalted. And now—it was only a moment that I saw him—his face +was more haggard, and his clothes were shabby. He was with a much +worse-looking man, who carried something, and they were hurrying along +after an omnibus.” + +“Well, child, he did not see you, I hope?” + +“No. I had just come from Mrs. Raymond’s, and I was waiting to cross +near the Marble Arch. Soon he was on the omnibus and gone out of sight. +It was a dreadful moment. My old life seemed to have come back again, +and it was worse than it had ever been before. And I could not help +feeling it a new deliverance that he was gone out of sight without +knowing that I was there. And yet it hurt me that I was feeling so—it +seemed hateful in me—almost like words I once had to speak in a play, +that ‘I had warmed my hands in the blood of my kindred.’ For where +might my father be going? What may become of him? And his having a +daughter who would own him in spite of all, might have hindered the +worst. Is there any pain like seeing what ought to be the best things +in life turned into the worst? All those opposite feelings were meeting +and pressing against each other, and took up all my strength. No one +could act that. Acting is slow and poor to what we go through within. I +don’t know how I called a cab. I only remember that I was in it when I +began to think, ‘I cannot tell Ezra; he must not know.’” + +“You are afraid of grieving him?” Mrs. Meyrick asked, when Mirah had +paused a little. + +“Yes—and there is something more,” said Mirah, hesitatingly, as if she +were examining her feeling before she would venture to speak of it. “I +want to tell you; I cannot tell any one else. I could not have told my +own mother: I should have closed it up before her. I feel shame for my +father, and it is perhaps strange—but the shame is greater before Ezra +than before any one else in the world. He desired me to tell him all +about my life, and I obeyed him. But it is always like a smart to me to +know that those things about my father are in Ezra’s mind. And—can you +believe it? when the thought haunts me how it would be if my father +were to come and show himself before us both, what seems as if it would +scorch me most is seeing my father shrinking before Ezra. That is the +truth. I don’t know whether it is a right feeling. But I can’t help +thinking that I would rather try to maintain my father in secret, and +bear a great deal in that way, if I could hinder him from meeting my +brother.” + +“You must not encourage that feeling, Mirah,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +hastily. “It would be very dangerous; it would be wrong. You must not +have concealment of that sort.” + +“But ought I now to tell Ezra that I have seen my father?” said Mirah, +with deprecation in her tone. + +“No,” Mrs. Meyrick answered, dubitatively. “I don’t know that it is +necessary to do that. Your father may go away with the birds. It is not +clear that he came after you; you may never see him again. And then +your brother will have been spared a useless anxiety. But promise me +that if your father sees you—gets hold of you in any way again—and +you will let us all know. Promise me that solemnly, Mirah. I have a +right to ask it.” + +Mirah reflected a little, then leaned forward to put her hands in Mrs. +Meyrick’s, and said, “Since you ask it, I do promise. I will bear this +feeling of shame. I have been so long used to think that I must bear +that sort of inward pain. But the shame for my father burns me more +when I think of his meeting Ezra.” She was silent a moment or two, and +then said, in a new tone of yearning compassion, “And we are his +children—and he was once young like us—and my mother loved him. Oh! I +cannot help seeing it all close, and it hurts me like a cruelty.” + +Mirah shed no tears: the discipline of her whole life had been against +indulgence in such manifestation, which soon falls under the control of +strong motives; but it seemed that the more intense expression of +sorrow had entered into her voice. Mrs. Meyrick, with all her quickness +and loving insight, did not quite understand that filial feeling in +Mirah which had active roots deep below her indignation for the worst +offenses. She could conceive that a mother would have a clinging pity +and shame for a reprobate son, but she was out of patience with what +she held an exaggerated susceptibility on behalf of this father, whose +reappearance inclined her to wish him under the care of a turnkey. +Mirah’s promise, however, was some security against her weakness. + +That incident was the only reason that Mirah herself could have stated +for the hidden sadness which Hans had divined. Of one element in her +changed mood she could have given no definite account: it was something +as dim as the sense of approaching weather-change, and had extremely +slight external promptings, such as we are often ashamed to find all we +can allege in support of the busy constructions that go on within us, +not only without effort, but even against it, under the influence of +any blind emotional stirring. Perhaps the first leaven of uneasiness +was laid by Gwendolen’s behavior on that visit which was entirely +superfluous as a means of engaging Mirah to sing, and could have no +other motive than the excited and strange questioning about Deronda. +Mirah had instinctively kept the visit a secret, but the active +remembrance of it had raised a new susceptibility in her, and made her +alive as she had never been before to the relations Deronda must have +with that society which she herself was getting frequent glimpses of +without belonging to it. Her peculiar life and education had produced +in her an extraordinary mixture of unworldliness, with knowledge of the +world’s evil, and even this knowledge was a strange blending of direct +observation with the effects of reading and theatrical study. Her +memory was furnished with abundant passionate situation and intrigue, +which she never made emotionally her own, but felt a repelled aloofness +from, as she had done from the actual life around her. Some of that +imaginative knowledge began now to weave itself around Mrs. Grandcourt; +and though Mirah would admit no position likely to affect her reverence +for Deronda, she could not avoid a new painfully vivid association of +his general life with a world away from her own, where there might be +some involvement of his feeling and action with a woman like Gwendolen, +who was increasingly repugnant to her—increasingly, even after she had +ceased to see her; for liking and disliking can grow in meditation as +fast as in the more immediate kind of presence. Any disquietude +consciously due to the idea that Deronda’s deepest care might be for +something remote not only from herself but even from his friendship for +her brother, she would have checked with rebuking questions:—What was +she but one who had shared his generous kindness with many others? and +his attachment to her brother, was it not begun late to be soon ended? +Other ties had come before, and others would remain after this had been +cut by swift-coming death. But her uneasiness had not reached that +point of self-recognition in which she would have been ashamed of it as +an indirect, presumptuous claim on Deronda’s feeling. That she or any +one else should think of him as her possible lover was a conception +which had never entered her mind; indeed it was equally out of the +question with Mrs. Meyrick and the girls, who with Mirah herself +regarded his intervention in her life as something exceptional, and +were so impressed by his mission as her deliverer and guardian that +they would have held it an offense to him at his holding any other +relation toward her: a point of view which Hans also had readily +adopted. It is a little hard upon some men that they appear to sink for +us in becoming lovers. But precisely to this innocence of the Meyricks +was owing the disturbance of Mirah’s unconsciousness. The first +occasion could hardly have been more trivial, but it prepared her +emotive nature for a deeper effect from what happened afterward. + +It was when Anna Gascoigne, visiting the Meyricks; was led to speak of +her cousinship with Gwendolen. The visit had been arranged that Anna +might see Mirah; the three girls were at home with their mother, and +there was naturally a flux of talk among six feminine creatures, free +from the presence of a distorting male standard. Anna Gascoigne felt +herself much at home with the Meyrick girls, who knew what it was to +have a brother, and to be generally regarded as of minor importance in +the world; and she had told Rex that she thought the University very +nice, because brothers made friends there whose families were not rich +and grand, and yet (like the University) were very nice. The Meyricks +seemed to her almost alarmingly clever, and she consulted them much on +the best mode of teaching Lotta, confiding to them that she herself was +the least clever of her family. Mirah had lately come in, and there was +a complete bouquet of young faces around the tea-table—Hafiz, seated a +little aloft with large eyes on the alert, regarding the whole scene as +an apparatus for supplying his allowance of milk. + +“Think of our surprise, Mirah,” said Kate. “We were speaking of Mr. +Deronda and the Mallingers, and it turns out that Miss Gascoigne knows +them.” + +“I only knew about them,” said Anna, a little flushed with excitement, +what she had heard and now saw of the lovely Jewess being an almost +startling novelty to her. “I have not even seen them. But some months +ago, my cousin married Sir Hugo Mallinger’s nephew, Mr. Grandcourt, who +lived in Sir Hugo’s place at Diplow, near us.” + +“There!” exclaimed Mab, clasping her hands. “Something must come of +that. Mrs. Grandcourt, the Vandyke duchess, is your cousin?” + +“Oh, yes; I was her bridesmaid,” said Anna. “Her mamma and mine are +sisters. My aunt was much richer before last year, but then she and +mamma lost all their fortune. Papa is a clergyman, you know, so it +makes very little difference to us, except that we keep no carriage, +and have no dinner parties—and I like it better. But it was very sad +for poor Aunt Davilow, for she could not live with us, because she has +four daughters besides Gwendolen; but then, when she married Mr. +Grandcourt, it did not signify so much, because of his being so rich.” + +“Oh, this finding out relationships is delightful!” said Mab. “It is +like a Chinese puzzle that one has to fit together. I feel sure +something wonderful may be made of it, but I can’t tell what.” + +“Dear me, Mab,” said Amy, “relationships must branch out. The only +difference is, that we happen to know some of the people concerned. +Such things are going on every day.” + +“And pray, Amy, why do you insist on the number nine being so +wonderful?” said Mab. “I am sure that is happening every day. Never +mind, Miss Gascoigne; please go on. And Mr. Deronda?—have you never +seen Mr. Deronda? You _must_ bring him in.” + +“No, I have not seen him,” said Anna; “but he was at Diplow before my +cousin was married, and I have heard my aunt speaking of him to papa. +She said what you have been saying about him—only not so much: I mean, +about Mr. Deronda living with Sir Hugo Mallinger, and being so nice, +she thought. We talk a great deal about every one who comes near +Pennicote, because it is so seldom there is any one new. But I +remember, when I asked Gwendolen what she thought of Mr. Deronda, she +said, ‘Don’t mention it, Anna: but I think his hair is dark.’ That was +her droll way of answering: she was always so lively. It is really +rather wonderful that I should come to hear so much about him, all +through Mr. Hans knowing Rex, and then my having the pleasure of +knowing you,” Anna ended, looking at Mrs. Meyrick with a shy grace. + +“The pleasure is on our side too; but the wonder would have been, if +you had come to this house without hearing of Mr. Deronda—wouldn’t it, +Mirah?” said Mrs. Meyrick. + +Mirah smiled acquiescently, but had nothing to say. A confused +discontent took possession of her at the mingling of names and images +to which she had been listening. + +“My son calls Mrs. Grandcourt the Vandyke duchess,” continued Mrs. +Meyrick, turning again to Anna; “he thinks her so striking and +picturesque.” + +“Yes,” said Anna. “Gwendolen was always so beautiful—people fell +dreadfully in love with her. I thought it a pity, because it made them +unhappy.” + +“And how do you like Mr. Grandcourt, the happy lover?” said Mrs. +Meyrick, who, in her way, was as much interested as Mab in the hints +she had been hearing of vicissitude in the life of a widow with +daughters. + +“Papa approved of Gwendolen’s accepting him, and my aunt says he is +very generous,” said Anna, beginning with a virtuous intention of +repressing her own sentiments; but then, unable to resist a rare +occasion for speaking them freely, she went on—“else I should have +thought he was not very nice—rather proud, and not at all lively, like +Gwendolen. I should have thought some one younger and more lively would +have suited her better. But, perhaps, having a brother who seems to us +better than any one makes us think worse of others.” + +“Wait till you see Mr. Deronda,” said Mab, nodding significantly. +“Nobody’s brother will do after him.” + +“Our brothers _must_ do for people’s husbands,” said Kate, curtly, +“because they will not get Mr. Deronda. No woman will do for him to +marry.” + +“No woman ought to want him to marry him,” said Mab, with indignation. +“_I_ never should. Fancy finding out that he had a tailor’s bill, and +used boot-hooks, like Hans. Who ever thought of his marrying?” + +“I have,” said Kate. “When I drew a wedding for a frontispiece to +‘Hearts and Diamonds,’ I made a sort of likeness to him for the +bridegroom, and I went about looking for a grand woman who would do for +his countess, but I saw none that would not be poor creatures by the +side of him.” + +“You should have seen this Mrs. Grandcourt then,” said Mrs. Meyrick. +“Hans says that she and Mr. Deronda set each other off when they are +side by side. She is tall and fair. But you know her, Mirah—you can +always say something descriptive. What do _you_ think of Mrs. +Grandcourt?” + +“I think she is the _Princess of Eboli_ in _Don Carlos_,” said Mirah, +with a quick intensity. She was pursuing an association in her own mind +not intelligible to her hearers—an association with a certain actress +as well as the part she represented. + +“Your comparison is a riddle for me, my dear,” said Mrs. Meyrick, +smiling. + +“You said that Mrs. Grandcourt was tall and fair,” continued Mirah, +slightly paler. “That is quite true.” + +Mrs. Meyrick’s quick eye and ear detected something unusual, but +immediately explained it to herself. Fine ladies had often wounded +Mirah by caprices of manner and intention. + +“Mrs. Grandcourt had thought of having lessons of Mirah,” she said +turning to Anna. “But many have talked of having lessons, and then have +found no time. Fashionable ladies have too much work to do.” + +And the chat went on without further insistence on the _Princess of +Eboli_. That comparison escaped Mirah’s lips under the urgency of a +pang unlike anything she had felt before. The conversation from the +beginning had revived unpleasant impressions, and Mrs. Meyrick’s +suggestion of Gwendolen’s figure by the side of Deronda’s had the +stinging effect of a voice outside her, confirming her secret +conviction that this tall and fair woman had some hold on his lot. For +a long while afterward she felt as if she had had a jarring shock +through her frame. + +In the evening, putting her cheek against her brother’s shoulder as she +was sitting by him, while he sat propped up in bed under a new +difficulty of breathing, she said, + +“Ezra, does it ever hurt your love for Mr. Deronda that so much of his +life was all hidden away from you—that he is amongst persons and cares +about persons who are all so unlike us—I mean unlike you?” + +“No, assuredly no,” said Mordecai. “Rather it is a precious thought to +me that he has a preparation which I lacked, and is an accomplished +Egyptian.” Then, recollecting that his words had reference which his +sister must not yet understand, he added, “I have the more to give him, +since his treasure differs from mine. That is a blessedness in +friendship.” + +Mirah mused a little. + +“Still,” she said, “it would be a trial to your love for him if that +other part of his life were like a crowd in which he had got entangled, +so that he was carried away from you—I mean in his thoughts, and not +merely carried out of sight as he is now—and not merely for a little +while, but continually. How should you bear that! Our religion commands +us to bear. But how should you bear it?” + +“Not well, my sister—not well; but it will never happen,” said +Mordecai, looking at her with a tender smile. He thought that her heart +needed comfort on his account. + +Mirah said no more. She mused over the difference between her own state +of mind and her brother’s, and felt her comparative pettiness. Why +could she not be completely satisfied with what satisfied his larger +judgment? She gave herself no fuller reason than a painful sense of +unfitness—in what? Airy possibilities to which she could give no +outline, but to which one name and one figure gave the wandering +persistency of a blot in her vision. Here lay the vaguer source of the +hidden sadness rendered noticeable to Hans by some diminution of that +sweet ease, that ready joyousness of response in her speech and smile, +which had come with the new sense of freedom and safety, and had made +her presence like the freshly-opened daisies and clear bird-notes after +the rain. She herself regarded her uneasiness as a sort of ingratitude +and dullness of sensibility toward the great things that had been given +her in her new life; and whenever she threw more energy than usual into +her singing, it was the energy of indignation against the shallowness +of her own content. In that mood she once said, “Shall I tell you what +is the difference between you and me, Ezra? You are a spring in the +drought, and I am an acorn-cup; the waters of heaven fill me, but the +least little shake leaves me empty.” + +“Why, what has shaken thee?” said Mordecai. He fell into this antique +form of speech habitually in talking to his sister and to the Cohen +children. + +“Thoughts,” said Mirah; “thoughts that come like the breeze and shake +me—bad people, wrong things, misery—and how they might touch our +life.” + +“We must take our portion, Mirah. It is there. On whose shoulder would +we lay it, that we might be free?” + +The one voluntary sign she made of her inward care was this distant +allusion. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + + “My desolation does begin to make + A better life.” + —SHAKESPEARE: _Antony and Cleopatra._ + + +Before Deronda was summoned to a second interview with his mother, a +day had passed in which she had only sent him a message to say that she +was not yet well enough to receive him again; but on the third morning +he had a note saying, “I leave to-day. Come and see me at once.” + +He was shown into the same room as before; but it was much darkened +with blinds and curtains. The Princess was not there, but she presently +entered, dressed in a loose wrap of some soft silk, in color a dusky +orange, her head again with black lace floating about it, her arms +showing themselves bare from under her wide sleeves. Her face seemed +even more impressive in the sombre light, the eyes larger, the lines +more vigorous. You might have imagined her a sorceress who would +stretch forth her wonderful hand and arm to mix youth-potions for +others, but scorned to mix them for herself, having had enough of youth. + +She put her arms on her son’s shoulders at once, and kissed him on both +cheeks, then seated herself among her cushions with an air of assured +firmness and dignity unlike her fitfulness in their first interview, +and told Deronda to sit down by her. He obeyed, saying, “You are quite +relieved now, I trust?” + +“Yes, I am at ease again. Is there anything more that you would like to +ask me?” she said, with the matter of a queen rather than of a mother. + +“Can I find the house in Genoa where you used to live with my +grandfather?” said Deronda. + +“No,” she answered, with a deprecating movement of her arm, “it is +pulled down—not to be found. But about our family, and where my father +lived at various times—you will find all that among the papers in the +chest, better than I can tell you. My father, I told you, was a +physician. My mother was a Morteira. I used to hear all those things +without listening. You will find them all. I was born amongst them +without my will. I banished them as soon as I could.” + +Deronda tried to hide his pained feeling, and said, “Anything else that +I should desire to know from you could only be what it is some +satisfaction to your own feeling to tell me.” + +“I think I have told you everything that could be demanded of me,” said +the Princess, looking coldly meditative. It seemed as if she had +exhausted her emotion in their former interview. The fact was, she had +said to herself, “I have done it all. I have confessed all. I will not +go through it again. I will save myself from agitation.” And she was +acting out that scheme. + +But to Deronda’s nature the moment was cruel; it made the filial +yearning of his life a disappointed pilgrimage to a shrine where there +were no longer the symbols of sacredness. It seemed that all the woman +lacking in her was present in him, as he said, with some tremor in his +voice, + +“Then are we to part and I never be anything to you?” + +“It is better so,” said the Princess, in a softer, mellower voice. +“There could be nothing but hard duty for you, even if it were possible +for you to take the place of my son. You would not love me. Don’t deny +it,” she said, abruptly, putting up her hand. “I know what is the +truth. You don’t like what I did. You are angry with me. You think I +robbed you of something. You are on your grandfather’s side, and you +will always have a condemnation of me in your heart.” + +Deronda felt himself under a ban of silence. He rose from his seat by +her, preferring to stand, if he had to obey that imperious prohibition +of any tenderness. But his mother now looked up at him with a new +admiration in her glance, saying, + +“You are wrong to be angry with me. You are the better for what I did.” +After pausing a little, she added, abruptly, “And now tell me what you +shall do?” + +“Do you mean now, immediately,” said Deronda; “or as to the course of +my future life?” + +“I mean in the future. What difference will it make to you that I have +told you about your birth?” + +“A very great difference,” said Deronda, emphatically. “I can hardly +think of anything that would make a greater difference.” + +“What shall you do then?” said the Princess, with more sharpness. “Make +yourself just like your grandfather—be what he wished you—turn +yourself into a Jew like him?” + +“That is impossible. The effect of my education can never be done away +with. The Christian sympathies in which my mind was reared can never +die out of me,” said Deronda, with increasing tenacity of tone. “But I +consider it my duty—it is the impulse of my feeling—to identify +myself, as far as possible, with my hereditary people, and if I can see +any work to be done for them that I can give my soul and hand to I +shall choose to do it.” + +His mother had her eyes fixed on him with a wondering speculation, +examining his face as if she thought that by close attention she could +read a difficult language there. He bore her gaze very firmly, +sustained by a resolute opposition, which was the expression of his +fullest self. She bent toward him a little, and said, with a decisive +emphasis, + +“You are in love with a Jewess.” + +Deronda colored and said, “My reasons would be independent of any such +fact.” + +“I know better. I have seen what men are,” said the Princess, +peremptorily. “Tell me the truth. She is a Jewess who will not accept +any one but a Jew. There _are_ a few such,” she added, with a touch of +scorn. + +Deronda had that objection to answer which we all have known in +speaking to those who are too certain of their own fixed +interpretations to be enlightened by anything we may say. But besides +this, the point immediately in question was one on which he felt a +repugnance either to deny or affirm. He remained silent, and she +presently said, + +“You love her as your father loved me, and she draws you after her as I +drew him.” + +Those words touched Deronda’s filial imagination, and some tenderness +in his glance was taken by his mother as an assent. She went on with +rising passion: “But I was leading him the other way. And now your +grandfather is getting his revenge.” + +“Mother,” said Deronda, remonstrantly, “don’t let us think of it in +that way. I will admit that there may come some benefit from the +education you chose for me. I prefer cherishing the benefit with +gratitude, to dwelling with resentment on the injury. I think it would +have been right that I should have been brought up with the +consciousness that I was a Jew, but it must always have been a good to +me to have as wide an instruction and sympathy as possible. And now, +you have restored me my inheritance—events have brought a fuller +restitution than you could have made—you have been saved from robbing +my people of my service and me of my duty: can you not bring your whole +soul to consent to this?” + +Deronda paused in his pleading: his mother looked at him listeningly, +as if the cadence of his voice were taking her ear, yet she shook her +head slowly. He began again, even more urgently. + +“You have told me that you sought what you held the best for me: open +your heart to relenting and love toward my grandfather, who sought what +he held the best for you.” + +“Not for me, no,” she said, shaking her head with more absolute denial, +and folding her arms tightly. “I tell you, he never thought of his +daughter except as an instrument. Because I had wants outside his +purpose, I was to be put in a frame and tortured. If that is the right +law for the world, I will not say that I love it. If my acts were +wrong—if it is God who is exacting from me that I should deliver up +what I withheld—who is punishing me because I deceived my father and +did not warn him that I should contradict his trust—well, I have told +everything. I have done what I could. And _your_ soul consents. That is +enough. I have after all been the instrument my father wanted.—‘I +desire a grandson who shall have a true Jewish heart. Every Jew should +rear his family as if he hoped that a Deliverer might spring from it.’” + +In uttering these last sentences the Princess narrowed her eyes, waved +her head up and down, and spoke slowly with a new kind of chest-voice, +as if she were quoting unwillingly. + +“Were those my grandfather’s words?” said Deronda. + +“Yes, yes; and you will find them written. I wanted to thwart him,” +said the Princess, with a sudden outburst of the passion she had shown +in the former interview. Then she added more slowly, “You would have me +love what I have hated from the time I was so high”—here she held her +left hand a yard from the floor.—“That can never be. But what does it +matter? His yoke has been on me, whether I loved it or not. You are the +grandson he wanted. You speak as men do—as if you felt yourself wise. +What does it all mean?” + +Her tone was abrupt and scornful. Deronda, in his pained feeling, and +under the solemn urgency of the moment, had to keep a clutching +remembrance of their relationship, lest his words should become cruel. +He began in a deep entreating tone: + +“Mother, don’t say that I feel myself wise. We are set in the midst of +difficulties. I see no other way to get any clearness than by being +truthful—not by keeping back facts which may—which should carry +obligation within them—which should make the only guidance toward +duty. No wonder if such facts come to reveal themselves in spite of +concealments. The effects prepared by generations are likely to triumph +over a contrivance which would bend them all to the satisfaction of +self. Your will was strong, but my grandfather’s trust which you +accepted and did not fulfill—what you call his yoke—is the expression +of something stronger, with deeper, farther-spreading roots, knit into +the foundations of sacredness for all men. You renounced me—you still +banish me—as a son”—there was an involuntary movement of indignation +in Deronda’s voice—“But that stronger Something has determined that I +shall be all the more the grandson whom also you willed to annihilate.” + +His mother was watching him fixedly, and again her face gathered +admiration. After a moment’s silence she said, in a low, persuasive +tone, + +“Sit down again,” and he obeyed, placing himself beside her. She laid +her hand on his shoulder and went on, + +“You rebuke me. Well—I am the loser. And you are angry because I +banish you. What could you do for me but weary your own patience? Your +mother is a shattered woman. My sense of life is little more than a +sense of what was—except when the pain is present. You reproach me +that I parted with you. I had joy enough without you then. Now you are +come back to me, and I cannot make you a joy. Have you the cursing +spirit of the Jew in you? Are you not able to forgive me? Shall you be +glad to think that I am punished because I was not a Jewish mother to +you?” + +“How can you ask me that?” said Deronda, remonstrantly. “Have I not +besought you that I might now at least be a son to you? My grief is +that you have declared me helpless to comfort you. I would give up much +that is dear for the sake of soothing your anguish.” + +“You shall give up nothing,” said his mother, with the hurry of +agitation. “You shall be happy. You shall let me think of you as happy. +I shall have done you no harm. You have no reason to curse me. You +shall feel for me as they feel for the dead whom they say prayers +for—you shall long that I may be freed from all suffering—from all +punishment. And I shall see you instead of always seeing your +grandfather. Will any harm come to me because I broke his trust in the +daylight after he was gone into darkness? I cannot tell:—if you think +_Kaddish_ will help me—say it, say it. You will come between me and +the dead. When I am in your mind, you will look as you do now—always +as if you were a tender son—always—as if I had been a tender mother.” + +She seemed resolved that her agitation should not conquer her, but he +felt her hand trembling on his shoulder. Deep, deep compassion hemmed +in all words. With a face of beseeching he put his arm around her and +pressed her head tenderly under his. They sat so for some moments. Then +she lifted her head again and rose from her seat with a great sigh, as +if in that breath she were dismissing a weight of thoughts. Deronda, +standing in front of her, felt that the parting was near. But one of +her swift alternations had come upon his mother. + +“Is she beautiful?” she said, abruptly. + +“Who?” said Deronda, changing color. + +“The woman you love.” + +It was not a moment for deliberate explanation. He was obliged to say, +“Yes.” + +“Not ambitious?” + +“No, I think not.” + +“Not one who must have a path of her own?” + +“I think her nature is not given to make great claims.” + +“She is not like that?” said the Princess, taking from her wallet a +miniature with jewels around it, and holding it before her son. It was +her own in all the fire of youth, and as Deronda looked at it with +admiring sadness, she said, “Had I not a rightful claim to be something +more than a mere daughter and mother? The voice and the genius matched +the face. Whatever else was wrong, acknowledge that I had a right to be +an artist, though my father’s will was against it. My nature gave me a +charter.” + +“I do acknowledge that,” said Deronda, looking from the miniature to +her face, which even in its worn pallor had an expression of living +force beyond anything that the pencil could show. + +“Will you take the portrait?” said the Princess, more gently. “If she +is a kind woman, teach her to think of me kindly.” + +“I shall be grateful for the portrait,” said Deronda, “but—I ought to +say, I have no assurance that she whom I love will have any love for +me. I have kept silence.” + +“Who and what is she?” said the mother. The question seemed a command. + +“She was brought up as a singer for the stage,” said Deronda, with +inward reluctance. “Her father took her away early from her mother, and +her life has been unhappy. She is very young—only twenty. Her father +wished to bring her up in disregard—even in dislike of her Jewish +origin, but she has clung with all her affection to the memory of her +mother and the fellowship of her people.” + +“Ah, like you. She is attached to the Judaism she knows nothing of,” +said the Princess, peremptorily. “That is poetry—fit to last through +an opera night. Is she fond of her artist’s life—is her singing worth +anything?” + +“Her singing is exquisite. But her voice is not suited to the stage. I +think that the artist’s life has been made repugnant to her.” + +“Why, she is made for you then. Sir Hugo said you were bitterly against +being a singer, and I can see that you would never have let yourself be +merged in a wife, as your father was.” + +“I repeat,” said Deronda, emphatically—“I repeat that I have no +assurance of her love for me, of the possibility that we can ever be +united. Other things—painful issues may lie before me. I have always +felt that I should prepare myself to renounce, not cherish that +prospect. But I suppose I might feel so of happiness in general. +Whether it may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do +without it.” + +“Do you feel in that way?” said his mother, laying her hands on his +shoulders, and perusing his face, while she spoke in a low meditative +tone, pausing between her sentences. “Poor boy!——I wonder how it +would have been if I had kept you with me——whether you would have +turned your heart to the old things against mine——and we should have +quarreled——your grandfather would have been in you——and you would +have hampered my life with your young growth from the old root.” + +“I think my affection might have lasted through all our quarreling,” +said Deronda, saddened more and more, “and that would not have +hampered—surely it would have enriched your life.” + +“Not then, not then——I did not want it then——I might have been glad +of it now,” said the mother, with a bitter melancholy, “if I could have +been glad of anything.” + +“But you love your other children, and they love you?” said Deronda, +anxiously. + +“Oh, yes,” she answered, as to a question about a matter of course, +while she folded her arms again. “But,”——she added in a deeper +tone,——“I am not a loving woman. That is the truth. It is a talent to +love—I lack it. Others have loved me—and I have acted their love. I +know very well what love makes of men and women—it is subjection. It +takes another for a larger self, enclosing this one,”—she pointed to +her own bosom. “I was never willingly subject to any man. Men have been +subject to me.” + +“Perhaps the man who was subject was the happier of the two,” said +Deronda—not with a smile, but with a grave, sad sense of his mother’s +privation. + +“Perhaps—but I _was_ happy—for a few years I was happy. If I had not +been afraid of defeat and failure, I might have gone on. I +miscalculated. What then? It is all over. Another life! Men talk of +‘another life,’ as if it only began on the other side of the grave. I +have long entered on another life.” With the last words she raised her +arms till they were bare to the elbow, her brow was contracted in one +deep fold, her eyes were closed, her voice was smothered: in her dusky +flame-colored garment, she looked like a dreamed visitant from some +region of departed mortals. + +Deronda’s feeling was wrought to a pitch of acuteness in which he was +no longer quite master of himself. He gave an audible sob. His mother +opened her eyes, and letting her hands again rest on his shoulders, +said, + +“Good-bye, my son, good-bye. We shall hear no more of each other. Kiss +me.” + +He clasped his arms round her neck, and they kissed each other. + +Deronda did not know how he got out of the room. He felt an older man. +All his boyish yearnings and anxieties about his mother had vanished. +He had gone through a tragic experience which must forever solemnize +his life and deepen the significance of the acts by which he bound +himself to others. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + + “The unwilling brain + Feigns often what it would not; and we trust + Imagination with such phantasies + As the tongue dares not fashion into words; + Which have no words, their horror makes them dim + To the mind’s eye.” + —SHELLEY. + + +Madonna Pia, whose husband, feeling himself injured by her, took her to +his castle amid the swampy flats of the Maremma and got rid of her +there, makes a pathetic figure in Dante’s Purgatory, among the sinners +who repented at the last and desire to be remembered compassionately by +their fellow-countrymen. We know little about the grounds of mutual +discontent between the Siennese couple, but we may infer with some +confidence that the husband had never been a very delightful companion, +and that on the flats of the Maremma his disagreeable manners had a +background which threw them out remarkably; whence in his desire to +punish his wife to the upmost, the nature of things was so far against +him that in relieving himself of her he could not avoid making the +relief mutual. And thus, without any hardness to the poor Tuscan lady, +who had her deliverance long ago, one may feel warranted in thinking of +her with a less sympathetic interest than of the better known Gwendolen +who, instead of being delivered from her errors on earth and cleansed +from their effect in purgatory, is at the very height of her +entanglement in those fatal meshes which are woven within more closely +than without, and often make the inward torture disproportionate to +what is discernable as outward cause. + +In taking his wife with him on a yachting expedition, Grandcourt had no +intention to get rid of her; on the contrary, he wanted to feel more +securely that she was his to do as he liked with, and to make her feel +it also. Moreover, he was himself very fond of yachting: its dreamy +do-nothing absolutism, unmolested by social demands, suited his +disposition, and he did not in the least regard it as an equivalent for +the dreariness of the Maremma. He had his reasons for carrying +Gwendolen out of reach, but they were not reasons that can seem black +in the mere statement. He suspected a growing spirit of opposition in +her, and his feeling about the sentimental inclination she betrayed for +Deronda was what in another man he would have called jealousy. In +himself it seemed merely a resolution to put an end to such foolery as +must have been going on in that prearranged visit of Deronda’s which he +had divined and interrupted. + +And Grandcourt might have pleaded that he was perfectly justified in +taking care that his wife should fulfill the obligations she had +accepted. Her marriage was a contract where all the ostensible +advantages were on her side, and it was only of those advantages that +her husband should use his power to hinder her from any injurious self +committal or unsuitable behavior. He knew quite well that she had not +married him—had not overcome her repugnance to certain facts—out of +love to him personally; he had won her by the rank and luxuries he had +to give her, and these she had got: he had fulfilled his side of the +contract. + +And Gwendolen, we know, was thoroughly aware of the situation. She +could not excuse herself by saying that there had been a tacit part of +the contract on her side—namely, that she meant to rule and have her +own way. With all her early indulgence in the disposition to dominate, +she was not one of the narrow-brained women who through life regard all +their own selfish demands as rights, and every claim upon themselves as +an injury. She had a root of conscience in her, and the process of +purgatory had begun for her on the green earth: she knew that she had +been wrong. + +But now enter into the soul of this young creature as she found +herself, with the blue Mediterranean dividing her from the world, on +the tiny plank-island of a yacht, the domain of the husband to whom she +felt that she had sold herself, and had been paid the strict +price—nay, paid more than she had dared to ask in the handsome +maintenance of her mother:—the husband to whom she had sold her +truthfulness and sense of justice, so that he held them throttled into +silence, collared and dragged behind him to witness what he would, +without remonstrance. + +What had she to complain of? The yacht was of the prettiest; the cabin +fitted up to perfection, smelling of cedar, soft-cushioned, hung with +silk, expanded with mirrors; the crew such as suited an elegant toy, +one of them having even ringlets, as well as a bronze complexion and +fine teeth; and Mr. Lush was not there, for he had taken his way back +to England as soon as he had seen all and everything on board. +Moreover, Gwendolen herself liked the sea: it did not make her ill; and +to observe the rigging of the vessel and forecast the necessary +adjustments was a sort of amusement that might have gratified her +activity and enjoyment of imaginary rule; the weather was fine, and +they were coasting southward, where even the rain-furrowed, +heat-cracked clay becomes gem-like with purple shadows, and where one +may float between blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that the world +has done with sorrow. + +But what can still that hunger of the heart which sickens the eye for +beauty, and makes sweet-scented ease an oppression? What sort of Moslem +paradise would quiet the terrible fury of moral repulsion and cowed +resistance which, like an eating pain intensifying into torture, +concentrates the mind in that poisonous misery? While Gwendolen, +throned on her cushions at evening, and beholding the glory of sea and +sky softening as if with boundless love around her, was hoping that +Grandcourt in his march up and down was not going to pause near her, +not going to look at her or speak to her, some woman, under a smoky +sky, obliged to consider the price of eggs in arranging her dinner, was +listening for the music of a footstep that would remove all risk from +her foretaste of joy; some couple, bending cheek by cheek, over a bit +of work done by the one and delighted in by the other, were reckoning +the earnings that would make them rich enough for a holiday among the +furze and heather. + +Had Grandcourt the least conception of what was going on in the breast +of his wife? He conceived that she did not love him; but was that +necessary? She was under his power, and he was not accustomed to soothe +himself, as some cheerfully-disposed persons are, with the conviction +that he was very generally and justly beloved. But what lay quite away +from his conception was, that she could have any special repulsion for +him personally. How could she? He himself knew what personal repulsion +was—nobody better; his mind was much furnished with a sense of what +brutes his fellow-creatures were, both masculine and feminine; what +odious familiarities they had, what smirks, what modes of flourishing +their handkerchiefs, what costume, what lavender water, what bulging +eyes, and what foolish notions of making themselves agreeable by +remarks which were not wanted. In this critical view of mankind there +was an affinity between him and Gwendolen before their marriage, and we +know that she had been attractingly wrought upon by the refined +negations he presented to her. Hence he understood her repulsion for +Lush. But how was he to understand or conceive her present repulsion +for Henleigh Grandcourt? Some men bring themselves to believe, and not +merely maintain, the non-existence of an external world; a few others +believe themselves objects of repulsion to a woman without being told +so in plain language. But Grandcourt did not belong to this eccentric +body of thinkers. He had all his life had reason to take a flattering +view of his own attractiveness, and to place himself in fine antithesis +to the men who, he saw at once, must be revolting to a woman of taste. +He had no idea of moral repulsion, and could not have believed, if he +had been told it, that there may be a resentment and disgust which will +gradually make beauty more detestable than ugliness, through +exasperation at that outward virtue in which hateful things can flaunt +themselves or find a supercilious advantage. + +How, then, could Grandcourt divine what was going on in Gwendolen’s +breast? + +For their behavior to each other scandalized no observer—not even the +foreign maid, warranted against sea-sickness; nor Grandcourt’s own +experienced valet: still less the picturesque crew, who regarded them +as a model couple in high life. Their companionship consisted chiefly +in a well-bred silence. Grandcourt had no humorous observations at +which Gwendolen could refuse to smile, no chit-chat to make small +occasions of dispute. He was perfectly polite in arranging an +additional garment over her when needful, and in handing her any object +that he perceived her to need, and she could not fall into the +vulgarity of accepting or rejecting such politeness rudely. + +Grandcourt put up his telescope and said, “There’s a plantation of +sugar-canes at the foot of that rock; should you like to look?” + +Gwendolen said, “Yes, please,” remembering that she must try and +interest herself in sugar-canes as something outside her personal +affairs. Then Grandcourt would walk up and down and smoke for a long +while, pausing occasionally to point out a sail on the horizon, and at +last would seat himself and look at Gwendolen with his narrow immovable +gaze, as if she were part of the complete yacht; while she, conscious +of being looked at was exerting her ingenuity not to meet his eyes. At +dinner he would remark that the fruit was getting stale, and they must +put in somewhere for more; or, observing that she did not drink the +wine, he asked her if she would like any other kind better. A lady was +obliged to respond to these things suitably; and even if she had not +shrunk from quarrelling on other grounds, quarreling with Grandcourt +was impossible; she might as well have made angry remarks to a +dangerous serpent ornamentally coiled in her cabin without invitation. +And what sort of dispute could a woman of any pride and dignity begin +on a yacht? + +Grandcourt had intense satisfaction in leading his wife captive after +this fashion; it gave their life on a small scale a royal +representation and publicity in which every thing familiar was got rid +of, and every body must do what was expected of them whatever might be +their private protest—the protest (kept strictly private) adding to +the piquancy of despotism. + +To Gwendolen, who even in the freedom of her maiden time, had had very +faint glimpses of any heroism or sublimity, the medium that now thrust +itself everywhere before her view was this husband and her relation to +him. The beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often +virtually our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed +gentleman or lady whom in passing we regret to take as legal tender for +a human being, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the +minds of those who live with them—like a piece of yellow and wavy +glass that distorts form and makes color an affliction. Their trivial +sentences, their petty standards, their low suspicions, their loveless +_ennui_, may be making somebody else’s life no better than a promenade +through a pantheon of ugly idols. Gwendolen had that kind of window +before her, affecting the distant equally with the near. Some unhappy +wives are soothed by the possibility that they may become mothers; but +Gwendolen felt that to desire a child for herself would have been a +consenting to the completion of the injury she had been guilty of. She +was reduced to dread lest she should become a mother. It was not the +image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of +deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another +sort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope +came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity +of accident was a refuge from worse temptation. + +The embitterment of hatred is often as unaccountable to onlookers as +the growth of devoted love, and it not only seems but is really out of +direct relation with any outward causes to be alleged. Passion is of +the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a +predominance which determines all currents toward itself, and makes the +whole life its tributary. And the intensest form of hatred is that +rooted in fear, which compels to silence and drives vehemence into a +constructive vindictiveness, an imaginary annihilation of the detested +object, something like the hidden rites of vengeance with which the +persecuted have made a dark vent for their rage, and soothed their +suffering into dumbness. Such hidden rites went on in the secrecy of +Gwendolen’s mind, but not with soothing effect—rather with the effect +of a struggling terror. Side by side with the dread of her husband had +grown the self-dread, which urged her to flee from the pursuing images +wrought by her pent-up impulse. The vision of her past wrong-doing, and +what it had brought on her, came with a pale ghastly illumination over +every imagined deed that was a rash effort at freedom, such as she had +made in her marriage. Moreover, she had learned to see all her acts +through the impression they would make on Deronda: whatever relief +might come to her, she could not sever it from the judgment of her that +would be created in his mind. Not one word of flattery, of indulgence, +of dependence on her favor, could be fastened on by her in all their +intercourse, to weaken his restraining power over her (in this way +Deronda’s effort over himself was repaid); and amid the dreary +uncertainties of her spoiled life the possible remedies that lay in his +mind, nay, the remedy that lay in her feeling for him, made her only +hope. He seemed to her a terrible-browed angel, from whom she could not +think of concealing any deed so as to win an ignorant regard from him: +it belonged to the nature of their relation that she should be +truthful, for his power over her had begun in the raising of a +self-discontent which could be satisfied only by genuine change. But in +no concealment had she now any confidence: her vision of what she had +to dread took more decidedly than ever the form of some fiercely +impulsive deed, committed as in a dream that she would instantaneously +wake from to find the effects real though the images had been false: to +find death under her hands, but instead of darkness, daylight; instead +of satisfied hatred, the dismay of guilt; instead of freedom, the palsy +of a new terror—a white dead face from which she was forever trying to +flee and forever held back. She remembered Deronda’s words: they were +continually recurring in her thought, + +“Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of +increasing your remorse. * * * Take your fear as a safeguard. It is +like quickness of hearing. It may make consequences passionately +present to you.” + +And so it was. In Gwendolen’s consciousness temptation and dread met +and stared like two pale phantoms, each seeing itself in the +other—each obstructed by its own image; and all the while her fuller +self beheld the apparitions and sobbed for deliverance from them. + +Inarticulate prayers, no more definite than a cry, often swept out from +her into the vast silence, unbroken except by her husband’s breathing +or the plash of the wave or the creaking of the masts; but if ever she +thought of definite help, it took the form of Deronda’s presence and +words, of the sympathy he might have for her, of the direction he might +give her. It was sometimes after a white-lipped fierce-eyed temptation +with murdering fingers had made its demon-visit that these best moments +of inward crying and clinging for rescue would come to her, and she +would lie with wide-open eyes in which the rising tears seemed a +blessing, and the thought, “I will not mind if I can keep from getting +wicked,” seemed an answer to the indefinite prayer. + +So the days passed, taking with them light breezes beyond and about the +Balearic Isles, and then to Sardinia, and then with gentle change +persuading them northward again toward Corsica. But this floating, +gentle-wafted existence, with its apparently peaceful influences, was +becoming as bad as a nightmare to Gwendolen. + +“How long are we to be yachting?” she ventured to ask one day after +they had been touching at Ajaccio, and the mere fact of change in going +ashore had given her a relief from some of the thoughts which seemed +now to cling about the very rigging of the vessel, mix with the air in +the red silk cabin below, and make the smell of the sea odious. + +“What else should we do?” said Grandcourt. “I’m not tired of it. I +don’t see why we shouldn’t stay out any length of time. There’s less to +bore one in this way. And where would you go to? I’m sick of foreign +places. And we shall have enough of Ryelands. Would you rather be at +Ryelands?” + +“Oh, no,” said Gwendolen, indifferently, finding all places alike +indescribable as soon as she imagined herself and her husband in them. +“I only wondered how long you would like this.” + +“I like yachting longer than anything else,” said Grandcourt; “and I +had none last year. I suppose you are beginning to tire of it. Women +are so confoundedly whimsical. They expect everything to give way to +them.” + +“Oh, dear, no!” said Gwendolen, letting out her scorn in a flute-like +tone. “I never expect you to give way.” + +“Why should I?” said Grandcourt, with his inward voice, looking at her, +and then choosing an orange—for they were at table. + +She made up her mind to a length of yachting that she could not see +beyond; but the next day, after a squall which had made her rather ill +for the first time, he came down to her and said, + +“There’s been the devil’s own work in the night. The skipper says we +shall have to stay at Genoa for a week while things are set right.” + +“Do you mind that?” said Gwendolen, who lay looking very white amidst +her white drapery. + +“I should think so. Who wants to be broiling at Genoa?” + +“It will be a change,” said Gwendolen, made a little incautious by her +languor. + +“_I_ don’t want any change. Besides, the place is intolerable; and one +can’t move along the roads. I shall go out in a boat, as I used to do, +and manage it myself. One can get a few hours every day in that way +instead of striving in a damnable hotel.” + +Here was a prospect which held hope in it. Gwendolen thought of hours +when she would be alone, since Grandcourt would not want to take her in +the said boat, and in her exultation at this unlooked-for relief, she +had wild, contradictory fancies of what she might do with her +freedom—that “running away” which she had already innumerable times +seen to be a worse evil than any actual endurance, now finding new +arguments as an escape from her worse self. Also, visionary relief on a +par with the fancy of a prisoner that the night wind may blow down the +wall of his prison and save him from desperate devices, insinuated +itself as a better alternative, lawful to wish for. + +The fresh current of expectation revived her energies, and enabled her +to take all things with an air of cheerfulness and alacrity that made a +change marked enough to be noticed by her husband. She watched through +the evening lights to the sinking of the moon with less of awed +loneliness than was habitual to her—nay, with a vague impression that +in this mighty frame of things there might be some preparation of +rescue for her. Why not?—since the weather had just been on her side. +This possibility of hoping, after her long fluctuation amid fears, was +like a first return of hunger to the long-languishing patient. + +She was waked the next morning by the casting of the anchor in the port +of Genoa—waked from a strangely-mixed dream in which she felt herself +escaping over the Mont Cenis, and wondering to find it warmer even in +the moonlight on the snow, till suddenly she met Deronda, who told her +to go back. + +In an hour or so from that dream she actually met Deronda. But it was +on the palatial staircase of the _Italia_, where she was feeling warm +in her light woolen dress and straw hat; and her husband was by her +side. + +There was a start of surprise in Deronda before he could raise his hat +and pass on. The moment did not seem to favor any closer greeting, and +the circumstances under which they had last parted made him doubtful +whether Grandcourt would be civilly inclined to him. + +The doubt might certainly have been changed into a disagreeable +certainty, for Grandcourt on this unaccountable appearance of Deronda +at Genoa of all places, immediately tried to conceive how there could +have been an arrangement between him and Gwendolen. It is true that +before they were well in their rooms, he had seen how difficult it was +to shape such an arrangement with any probability, being too +cool-headed to find it at once easily credible that Gwendolen had not +only while in London hastened to inform Deronda of the yachting +project, but had posted a letter to him from Marseilles or Barcelona, +advising him to travel to Genoa in time for the chance of meeting her +there, or of receiving a letter from her telling of some other +destination—all which must have implied a miraculous foreknowledge in +her, and in Deronda a bird-like facility in flying about and perching +idly. Still he was there, and though Grandcourt would not make a fool +of himself by fabrications that others might call preposterous, he was +not, for all that, disposed to admit fully that Deronda’s presence was, +so far as Gwendolen was concerned, a mere accident. It was a disgusting +fact; that was enough; and no doubt she was well pleased. A man out of +temper does not wait for proofs before feeling toward all things +animate and inanimate as if they were in a conspiracy against him, but +at once threshes his horse or kicks his dog in consequence. Grandcourt +felt toward Gwendolen and Deronda as if he knew them to be in a +conspiracy against him, and here was an event in league with them. What +he took for clearly certain—and so far he divined the truth—was that +Gwendolen was now counting on an interview with Deronda whenever her +husband’s back was turned. + +As he sat taking his coffee at a convenient angle for observing her, he +discerned something which he felt sure was the effect of a secret +delight—some fresh ease in moving and speaking, some peculiar meaning +in her eyes, whatever she looked on. Certainly her troubles had not +marred her beauty. Mrs. Grandcourt was handsomer than Gwendolen +Harleth: her grace and expression were informed by a greater variety of +inward experience, giving new play to her features, new attitudes in +movement and repose; her whole person and air had the nameless +something which often makes a woman more interesting after marriage +than before, less confident that all things are according to her +opinion, and yet with less of deer-like shyness—more fully a human +being. + +This morning the benefits of the voyage seemed to be suddenly revealing +themselves in a new elasticity of mien. As she rose from the table and +put her two heavily-jewelled hands on each side of her neck, according +to her wont, she had no art to conceal that sort of joyous expectation +which makes the present more bearable than usual, just as when a man +means to go out he finds it easier to be amiable to the family for a +quarter of an hour beforehand. It is not impossible that a terrier +whose pleasure was concerned would perceive those amiable signs and +know their meaning—know why his master stood in a peculiar way, talked +with alacrity, and even had a peculiar gleam in his eye, so that on the +least movement toward the door, the terrier would scuttle to be in +time. And, in dog fashion, Grandcourt discerned the signs of +Gwendolen’s expectation, interpreting them with the narrow correctness +which leaves a world of unknown feeling behind. + +“A—just ring, please, and tell Gibbs to order some dinner for us at +three,” said Grandcourt, as he too rose, took out a cigar, and then +stretched his hand toward the hat that lay near. “I’m going to send +Angus to find a little sailing-boat for us to go out in; one that I can +manage, with you at the tiller. It’s uncommonly pleasant these fine +evenings—the least boring of anything we can do.” + +Gwendolen turned cold. There was not only the cruel disappointment; +there was the immediate conviction that her husband had determined to +take her because he would not leave her out of his sight; and probably +this dual solitude in a boat was the more attractive to him because it +would be wearisome to her. They were not on the plank-island; she felt +it the more possible to begin a contest. But the gleaming content had +died out of her. There was a change in her like that of a glacier after +sunset. + +“I would rather not go in the boat,” she said. “Take some one else with +you.” + +“Very well; if you don’t go, I shall not go,” said Grandcourt. “We +shall stay suffocating here, that’s all.” + +“I can’t bear to go in a boat,” said Gwendolen, angrily. + +“That is a sudden change,” said Grandcourt, with a slight sneer. “But, +since you decline, we shall stay indoors.” + +He laid down his hat again, lit his cigar, and walked up and down the +room, pausing now and then to look out of the windows. Gwendolen’s +temper told her to persist. She knew very well now that Grandcourt +would not go without her; but if he must tyrannize over her, he should +not do it precisely in the way he would choose. She would oblige him to +stay in the hotel. Without speaking again, she passed into the +adjoining bedroom and threw herself into a chair with her anger, seeing +no purpose or issue—only feeling that the wave of evil had rushed back +upon her, and dragged her away from her momentary breathing-place. + +Presently Grandcourt came in with his hat on, but threw it off and sat +down sideways on a chair nearly in front of her, saying, in his +superficial drawl, + +“Have you come round yet? or do you find it agreeable to be out of +temper. You make things uncommonly pleasant for me.” + +“Why do you want to make them unpleasant for _me_?” said Gwendolen, +getting helpless again, and feeling the hot tears rise. + +“Now, will you be good enough to say what it is you have to complain +of?” said Grandcourt, looking into her eyes, and using his most inward +voice. “Is it that I stay indoors when you stay?” + +She could give no answer. The sort of truth that made any excuse for +her anger could not be uttered. In the conflict of despair and +humiliation she began to sob, and the tears rolled down her cheeks—a +form of agitation which she had never shown before in her husband’s +presence. + +“I hope this is useful,” said Grandcourt, after a moment or two. “All I +can say is, it’s most confoundedly unpleasant. What the devil women can +see in this kind of thing, I don’t know. _You_ see something to be got +by it, of course. All I can see is, that we shall be shut up here when +we might have been having a pleasant sail.” + +“Let us go, then,” said Gwendolen, impetuously. “Perhaps we shall be +drowned.” She began to sob again. + +This extraordinary behavior, which had evidently some relation to +Deronda, gave more definiteness to Grandcourt’s conclusions. He drew +his chair quite close in front of her, and said, in a low tone, “Just +be quiet and listen, will you?” + +There seemed to be a magical effect in this close vicinity. Gwendolen +shrank and ceased to sob. She kept her eyelids down and clasped her +hands tightly. + +“Let us understand each other,” said Grandcourt, in the same tone. “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 looking forward to, if you can’t behave properly as my +wife? There is disgrace for you, if you like to have it, but I don’t +know anything else; and as to Deronda, it’s quite clear that he hangs +back from you.” + +“It’s all false!” said Gwendolen, bitterly. “You don’t in the least +imagine what is in my mind. I have seen enough of the disgrace that +comes in that way. And you had better leave me at liberty to speak with +any one I like. It will be better for you.” + +“You will allow me to judge of that,” said Grandcourt, rising and +moving to a little distance toward the window, but standing there +playing with his whiskers as if he were awaiting something. + +Gwendolen’s words had so clear and tremendous a meaning for herself +that she thought they must have expressed it to Grandcourt, and had no +sooner uttered them than she dreaded their effect. But his soul was +garrisoned against presentiments and fears: he had the courage and +confidence that belong to domination, and he was at that moment feeling +perfectly satisfied that he held his wife with bit and bridle. By the +time they had been married a year she would cease to be restive. He +continued standing with his air of indifference, till she felt her +habitual stifling consciousness of having an immovable obstruction in +her life, like the nightmare of beholding a single form that serves to +arrest all passage though the wide country lies open. + +“What decision have you come to?” he said, presently looking at her. +“What orders shall I give?” + +“Oh, let us go,” said Gwendolen. The walls had begun to be an +imprisonment, and while there was breath in this man he would have the +mastery over her. His words had the power of thumb-screws and the cold +touch of the rock. To resist was to act like a stupid animal unable to +measure results. + +So the boat was ordered. She even went down to the quay again with him +to see it before midday. Grandcourt had recovered perfect quietude of +temper, and had a scornful satisfaction in the attention given by the +nautical groups to the _milord_, owner of the handsome yacht which had +just put in for repairs, and who being an Englishman was naturally so +at home on the sea that he could manage a sail with the same ease that +he could manage a horse. The sort of exultation he had discerned in +Gwendolen this morning she now thought that she discerned in him; and +it was true that he had set his mind on this boating, and carried out +his purpose as something that people might not expect him to do, with +the gratified impulse of a strong will which had nothing better to +exert itself upon. He had remarkable physical courage, and was proud of +it—or rather he had a great contempt for the coarser, bulkier men who +generally had less. Moreover, he was ruling that Gwendolen should go +with him. + +And when they came down again at five o’clock, equipped for their +boating, the scene was as good as a theatrical representation for all +beholders. This handsome, fair-skinned English couple, manifesting the +usual eccentricity of their nation, both of them proud, pale, and calm, +without a smile on their faces, moving like creatures who were +fulfilling a supernatural destiny—it was a thing to go out and see, a +thing to paint. The husband’s chest, back, and arms, showed very well +in his close-fitting dress, and the wife was declared to be a statue. + +Some suggestions were proffered concerning a possible change in the +breeze, and the necessary care in putting about, but Grandcourt’s +manner made the speakers understand that they were too officious, and +that he knew better than they. + +Gwendolen, keeping her impassable air, as they moved away from the +strand, felt her imagination obstinately at work. She was not afraid of +any outward dangers—she was afraid of her own wishes which were taking +shapes possible and impossible, like a cloud of demon-faces. She was +afraid of her own hatred, which under the cold iron touch that had +compelled her to-day had gathered a fierce intensity. As she sat +guiding the tiller under her husband’s eyes, doing just what he told +her, the strife within her seemed like her own effort to escape from +herself. She clung to the thought of Deronda: she persuaded herself +that he would not go away while she was there—he knew that she needed +help. The sense that he was there would save her from acting out the +evil within. And yet quick, quick, came images, plans of evil that +would come again and seize her in the night, like furies preparing the +deed that they would straightway avenge. + +They were taken out of the port and carried eastward by a gentle +breeze. Some clouds tempered the sunlight, and the hour was always +deepening toward the supreme beauty of evening. Sails larger and +smaller changed their aspect like sensitive things, and made a cheerful +companionship, alternately near and far. The grand city shone more +vaguely, the mountains looked out above it, and there was stillness as +in an island sanctuary. Yet suddenly Gwendolen let her hands fall, and +said in a scarcely audible tone, “God help me!” + +“What is the matter?” said Grandcourt, not distinguishing the words. + +“Oh, nothing,” said Gwendolen, rousing herself from her momentary +forgetfulness and resuming the ropes. + +“Don’t you find this pleasant?” said Grandcourt. + +“Very.” + +“You admit now we couldn’t have done anything better?” + +“No—I see nothing better. I think we shall go on always, like the +Flying Dutchman,” said Gwendolen wildly. + +Grandcourt gave her one of his narrow examining glances, and then said, +“If you like, we can go to Spezia in the morning, and let them take us +up there.” + +“No; I shall like nothing better than this.” + +“Very well: we’ll do the same to-morrow. But we must be turning in +soon. I shall put about.” + + + + +CHAPTER LV. + + “Ritorna a tua scienza + Che vuol, quanto la cosa e più perfetta + Più senta il bene, e cosi la doglienza.” + —DANTE. + + +When Deronda met Gwendolen and Grandcourt on the staircase, his mind +was seriously preoccupied. He had just been summoned to the second +interview with his mother. + +In two hours after his parting from her he knew that the Princess +Halm-Eberstein had left the hotel, and so far as the purpose of his +journey to Genoa was concerned, he might himself have set off on his +way to Mainz, to deliver the letter from Joseph Kalonymos, and get +possession of the family chest. But mixed mental conditions, which did +not resolve themselves into definite reasons, hindered him from +departure. Long after the farewell he was kept passive by a weight of +retrospective feeling. He lived again, with the new keenness of emotive +memory, through the exciting scenes which seemed past only in the sense +of preparation for their actual presence in his soul. He allowed +himself in his solitude to sob, with perhaps more than a woman’s +acuteness of compassion, over that woman’s life so near to his, and yet +so remote. He beheld the world changed for him by the certitude of ties +that altered the poise of hopes and fears, and gave him a new sense of +fellowship, as if under cover of the night he had joined the wrong band +of wanderers, and found with the rise of morning that the tents of his +kindred were grouped far off. He had a quivering imaginative sense of +close relation to the grandfather who had been animated by strong +impulses and beloved thoughts, which were now perhaps being roused from +their slumber within himself. And through all this passionate +meditation Mordecai and Mirah were always present, as beings who +clasped hands with him in sympathetic silence. + +Of such quick, responsive fibre was Deronda made, under that mantle of +self-controlled reserve into which early experience had thrown so much +of his young strength. + +When the persistent ringing of a bell as a signal reminded him of the +hour he thought of looking into _Bradshaw_, and making the brief +necessary preparations for starting by the next train—thought of it, +but made no movement in consequence. Wishes went to Mainz and what he +was to get possession of there—to London and the beings there who made +the strongest attachments of his life; but there were other wishes that +clung in these moments to Genoa, and they kept him where he was by that +force which urges us to linger over an interview that carries a +presentiment of final farewell or of overshadowing sorrow. Deronda did +not formally say, “I will stay over to-night, because it is Friday, and +I should like to go to the evening service at the synagogue where they +must all have gone; and besides, I may see the Grandcourts again.” But +simply, instead of packing and ringing for his bill, he sat doing +nothing at all, while his mind went to the synagogue and saw faces +there probably little different from those of his grandfather’s time, +and heard the Spanish-Hebrew liturgy which had lasted through the +seasons of wandering generations like a plant with wandering seed, that +gives the far-off lands a kinship to the exile’s home—while, also, his +mind went toward Gwendolen, with anxious remembrance of what had been, +and with a half-admitted impression that it would be hardness in him +willingly to go away at once without making some effort, in spite of +Grandcourt’s probable dislike, to manifest the continuance of his +sympathy with her since their abrupt parting. + +In this state of mind he deferred departure, ate his dinner without +sense of flavor, rose from it quickly to find the synagogue, and in +passing the porter asked if Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt were still in the +hotel, and what was the number of their apartment. The porter gave him +the number, but added that they were gone out boating. That information +had somehow power enough over Deronda to divide his thoughts with the +memories wakened among the sparse _talithim_ and keen dark faces of +worshippers whose way of taking awful prayers and invocations with the +easy familiarity which might be called Hebrew dyed Italian, made him +reflect that his grandfather, according to the Princess’s hints of his +character, must have been almost as exceptional a Jew as Mordecai. But +were not men of ardent zeal and far-reaching hope everywhere +exceptional? the men who had the visions which, as Mordecai said, were +the creators and feeders of the world—moulding and feeding the more +passive life which without them would dwindle and shrivel into the +narrow tenacity of insects, unshaken by thoughts beyond the reach of +their antennae. Something of a mournful impatience perhaps added itself +to the solicitude about Gwendolen (a solicitude that had room to grow +in his present release from immediate cares) as an incitement to hasten +from the synagogue and choose to take his evening walk toward the quay, +always a favorite haunt with him, and just now attractive with the +possibility that he might be in time to see the Grandcourts come in +from their boating. In this case, he resolved that he would advance to +greet them deliberately, and ignore any grounds that the husband might +have for wishing him elsewhere. + +The sun had set behind a bank of cloud, and only a faint yellow light +was giving its farewell kisses to the waves, which were agitated by an +active breeze. Deronda, sauntering slowly within sight of what took +place on the strand, observed the groups there concentrating their +attention on a sailing-boat which was advancing swiftly landward, being +rowed by two men. Amidst the clamorous talk in various languages, +Deronda held it the surer means of getting information not to ask +questions, but to elbow his way to the foreground and be an +unobstructed witness of what was occurring. Telescopes were being used, +and loud statements made that the boat held somebody who had been +drowned. One said it was the _milord_ who had gone out in a sailing +boat; another maintained that the prostrate figure he discerned was +_miladi_; a Frenchman who had no glass would rather say that it was +_milord_ who had probably taken his wife out to drown her, according to +the national practice—a remark which an English skipper immediately +commented on in our native idiom (as nonsense which—had undergone a +mining operation), and further dismissed by the decision that the +reclining figure was a woman. For Deronda, terribly excited by +fluctuating fears, the strokes of the oars as he watched them were +divided by swift visions of events, possible and impossible, which +might have brought about this issue, or this broken-off fragment of an +issue, with a worse half undisclosed—if this woman apparently snatched +from the waters were really Mrs. Grandcourt. + +But soon there was no longer any doubt: the boat was being pulled to +land, and he saw Gwendolen half raising herself on her hands, by her +own effort, under her heavy covering of tarpaulin and pea-jackets—pale +as one of the sheeted dead, shivering, with wet hair streaming, a wild +amazed consciousness in her eyes, as if she had waked up in a world +where some judgment was impending, and the beings she saw around were +coming to seize her. The first rower who jumped to land was also wet +through, and ran off; the sailors, close about the boat, hindered +Deronda from advancing, and he could only look on while Gwendolen gave +scared glances, and seemed to shrink with terror as she was carefully, +tenderly helped out, and led on by the strong arms of those rough, +bronzed men, her wet clothes clinging about her limbs, and adding to +the impediment of her weakness. Suddenly her wandering eyes fell on +Deronda, standing before her, and immediately, as if she had been +expecting him and looking for him, she tried to stretch out her arms, +which were held back by her supporters, saying, in a muffled voice, + +“It is come, it is come! He is dead!” + +“Hush, hush!” said Deronda, in a tone of authority; “quiet yourself.” +Then to the men who were assisting her, “I am a connection of this +lady’s husband. If you will get her on to the _Italia_ as quickly as +possible, I will undertake everything else.” + +He stayed behind to hear from the remaining boatman that her husband +had gone down irrecoverably, and that his boat was left floating empty. +He and his comrade had heard a cry, had come up in time to see the lady +jump in after her husband, and had got her out fast enough to save her +from much damage. + +After this, Deronda hastened to the hotel to assure himself that the +best medical help would be provided; and being satisfied on this point, +he telegraphed the event to Sir Hugo, begging him to come forthwith, +and also to Mr. Gascoigne, whose address at the rectory made his +nearest known way of getting the information to Gwendolen’s mother. +Certain words of Gwendolen’s in the past had come back to him with the +effectiveness of an inspiration: in moments of agitated confession she +had spoken of her mother’s presence, as a possible help, if she could +have had it. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI. + + “The pang, the curse with which they died, + Had never passed away: + I could not draw my eyes from theirs, + Nor lift them up to pray.” + —COLERIDGE. + + +Deronda did not take off his clothes that night. Gwendolen, after +insisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed, +had been perfectly quiet, and had only asked him, with a whispering, +repressed eagerness, to promise that he would come to her when she sent +for him in the morning. Still, the possibility that a change might come +over her, the danger of a supervening feverish condition, and the +suspicion that something in the late catastrophe was having an effect +which might betray itself in excited words, acted as a foreboding +within him. He mentioned to her attendant that he should keep himself +ready to be called if there were any alarming change of symptoms, +making it understood by all concerned that he was in communication with +her friends in England, and felt bound meanwhile to take all care on +her behalf—a position which it was the easier for him to assume, +because he was well known to Grandcourt’s valet, the only old servant +who had come on the late voyage. + +But when fatigue from the strangely various emotion of the day at last +sent Deronda to sleep, he remained undisturbed except by the morning +dreams, which came as a tangled web of yesterday’s events, and finally +waked him, with an image drawn by his pressing anxiety. + +Still, it was morning, and there had been no summons—an augury which +cheered him while he made his toilet, and reflected that it was too +early to send inquiries. Later, he learned that she had passed a too +wakeful night, but had shown no violent signs of agitation, and was at +last sleeping. He wondered at the force that dwelt in this creature, so +alive to dread; for he had an irresistible impression that even under +the effects of a severe physical shock she was mastering herself with a +determination of concealment. For his own part, he thought that his +sensibilities had been blunted by what he had been going through in the +meeting with his mother: he seemed to himself now to be only fulfilling +claims, and his more passionate sympathy was in abeyance. He had lately +been living so keenly in an experience quite apart from Gwendolen’s +lot, that his present cares for her were like a revisiting of scenes +familiar in the past, and there was not yet a complete revival of the +inward response to them. + +Meanwhile he employed himself in getting a formal, legally recognized +statement from the fishermen who had rescued Gwendolen. Few details +came to light. The boat in which Grandcourt had gone out had been found +drifting with its sail loose, and had been towed in. The fishermen +thought it likely that he had been knocked overboard by the flapping of +the sail while putting about, and that he had not known how to swim; +but, though they were near, their attention had been first arrested by +a cry which seemed like that of a man in distress, and while they were +hastening with their oars, they heard a shriek from the lady, and saw +her jump in. + +On re-entering the hotel, Deronda was told that Gwendolen had risen, +and was desiring to see him. He was shown into a room darkened by +blinds and curtains, where she was seated with a white shawl wrapped +round her, looking toward the opening door like one waiting uneasily. +But her long hair was gathered up and coiled carefully, and, through +all, the blue stars in her ears had kept their place: as she started +impulsively to her full height, sheathed in her white shawl, her face +and neck not less white, except for a purple line under her eyes, her +lips a little apart with the peculiar expression of one accused and +helpless, she looked like the unhappy ghost of that Gwendolen Harleth +whom Deronda had seen turning with firm lips and proud self-possession +from her losses at the gaming table. The sight pierced him with pity, +and the effects of all their past relations began to revive within him. + +“I beseech you to rest—not to stand,” said Deronda, as he approached +her; and she obeyed, falling back into her chair again. + +“Will you sit down near me?” she said. “I want to speak very low.” + +She was in a large arm-chair, and he drew a small one near to her side. +The action seemed to touch her peculiarly: turning her pale face full +upon his, which was very near, she said, in the lowest audible tone, +“You know I am a guilty woman?” + +Deronda himself turned paler as he said, “I know nothing.” He did not +dare to say more. + +“He is dead.” She uttered this with the same undertoned decision. + +“Yes,” said Deronda, in a mournful suspense which made him reluctant to +speak. + +“His face will not be seen above the water again,” said Gwendolen, in a +tone that was not louder, but of a suppressed eagerness, while she held +both her hands clenched. + +“No.” + +“Not by any one else—only by me—a dead face—I shall never get away +from it.” + +It was with an inward voice of desperate self-repression that she spoke +these last words, while she looked away from Deronda toward something +at a distance from her on the floor. She was seeing the whole +event—her own acts included—through an exaggerating medium of +excitement and horror? Was she in a state of delirium into which there +entered a sense of concealment and necessity for self-repression? Such +thoughts glanced through Deronda as a sort of hope. But imagine the +conflict of feeling that kept him silent. She was bent on confession, +and he dreaded hearing her confession. Against his better will he +shrank from the task that was laid on him: he wished, and yet rebuked +the wish as cowardly, that she could bury her secrets in her own bosom. +He was not a priest. He dreaded the weight of this woman’s soul flung +upon his own with imploring dependence. But she spoke again, hurriedly, +looking at him, + +“You will not say that I ought to tell the world? you will not say that +I ought to be disgraced? I could not do it. I could not bear it. I +cannot have my mother know. Not if I were dead. I could not have her +know. I must tell you; but you will not say that any one else should +know.” + +“I can say nothing in my ignorance,” said Deronda, mournfully, “except +that I desire to help you.” + +“I told you from the beginning—as soon as I could—I told you I was +afraid of myself.” There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in +which Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. “I +felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil +spirit—contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came +into my mind; and it got worse—all things got worse. That is why I +asked you to come to me in town. I thought then I would tell you the +worst about myself. I tried. But I could not tell everything. And _he_ +came in.” + +She paused, while a shudder passed through her; but soon went on. + +“I will tell you everything now. Do you think a woman who cried, and +prayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?” + +“Great God!” said Deronda, in a deep, shaken voice, “don’t torture me +needlessly. You have not murdered him. You threw yourself into the +water with the impulse to save him. Tell me the rest afterward. This +death was an accident that you could not have hindered.” + +“Don’t be impatient with me.” The tremor, the childlike beseeching in +these words compelled Deronda to turn his head and look at her face. +The poor quivering lips went on. “You said—you used to say—you felt +more for those who had done something wicked and were miserable; you +said they might get better—they might be scourged into something +better. If you had not spoken in that way, everything would have been +worse. I _did_ remember all you said to me. It came to me always. It +came to me at the very last—that was the reason why I—But now, if you +cannot bear with me when I tell you everything—if you turn away from +me and forsake me, what shall I do? Am I worse than I was when you +found me and wanted to make me better? All the wrong I have done was in +me then—and more—and more—if you had not come and been patient with +me. And now—will you forsake me?” + +Her hands, which had been so tightly clenched some minutes before, were +now helplessly relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair. Her +quivering lips remained parted as she ceased speaking. Deronda could +not answer; he was obliged to look away. He took one of her hands, and +clasped it as if they were going to walk together like two children: it +was the only way in which he could answer, “I will not forsake you.” +And all the while he felt as if he were putting his name to a blank +paper which might be filled up terribly. Their attitude, his adverted +face with its expression of a suffering which he was solemnly resolved +to undergo, might have told half the truth of the situation to a +beholder who had suddenly entered. + +That grasp was an entirely new experience to Gwendolen: she had never +before had from any man a sign of tenderness which her own being had +needed, and she interpreted its powerful effect on her into a promise +of inexhaustible patience and constancy. The stream of renewed strength +made it possible for her to go on as she had begun—with that fitful, +wandering confession where the sameness of experience seems to nullify +the sense of time or of order in events. She began again in a +fragmentary way, + +“All sorts of contrivances in my mind—but all so difficult. And I +fought against them—I was terrified at them—I saw his dead +face”—here her voice sank almost to a whisper close to Deronda’s +ear—“ever so long ago I saw it and I wished him to be dead. And yet it +terrified me. I was like two creatures. I could not speak—I wanted to +kill—it was as strong as thirst—and then directly—I felt beforehand +I had done something dreadful, unalterable—that would make me like an +evil spirit. And it came—it came.” + +She was silent a moment or two, as if her memory had lost itself in a +web where each mesh drew all the rest. + +“It had all been in my mind when I first spoke to you—when we were at +the Abbey. I had done something then. I could not tell you that. It was +the only thing I did toward carrying out my thoughts. They went about +over everything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams—all but +one. I did one act—and I never undid it—it is there still—as long +ago as when we were at Ryelands. There it was—something my fingers +longed for among the beautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir—small +and sharp like a long willow leaf in a silver sheath. I locked it in +the drawer of my dressing-case. I was continually haunted with it and +how I should use it. I fancied myself putting it under my pillow. But I +never did. I never looked at it again. I dared not unlock the drawer: +it had a key all to itself; and not long ago, when we were in the +yacht, I dropped the key into the deep water. It was my wish to drop it +and deliver myself. After that I began to think how I could open the +drawer without the key: and when I found we were to stay at Genoa, it +came into my mind that I could get it opened privately at the hotel. +But then, when we were going up the stairs, I met you; and I thought I +should talk to you alone and tell you this—everything I could not tell +you in town; and then I was forced to go out in the boat.” + +A sob had for the first time risen with the last words, and she sank +back in her chair. The memory of that acute disappointment seemed for +the moment to efface what had come since. Deronda did not look at her, +but he said, insistently, + +“And it has all remained in your imagination. It has gone on only in +your thought. To the last the evil temptation has been resisted?” + +There was silence. The tears had rolled down her cheeks. She pressed +her handkerchief against them and sat upright. She was summoning her +resolution; and again, leaning a little toward Deronda’s ear, she began +in a whisper, + +“No, no; I will tell you everything as God knows it. I will tell you no +falsehood; I will tell you the exact truth. What should I do else? I +used to think I could never be wicked. I thought of wicked people as if +they were a long way off me. Since then I have been wicked. I have felt +wicked. And everything has been a punishment to me—all the things I +used to wish for—it is as if they had been made red-hot. The very +daylight has often been a punishment to me. Because—you know—I ought +not to have married. That was the beginning of it. I wronged some one +else. I broke my promise. I meant to get pleasure for myself, and it +all turned to misery. I wanted to make my gain out of another’s +loss—you remember?—it was like roulette—and the money burned into +me. And I could not complain. It was as if I had prayed that another +should lose and I should win. And I had won, I knew it all—I knew I +was guilty. When we were on the sea, and I lay awake at night in the +cabin, I sometimes felt that everything I had done lay open without +excuse—nothing was hidden—how could anything be known to me only?—it +was not my own knowledge, it was God’s that had entered into me, and +even the stillness—everything held a punishment for me—everything but +you. I always thought that you would not want me to be punished—you +would have tried and helped me to be better. And only thinking of that +helped me. You will not change—you will not want to punish me now?” + +Again a sob had risen. + +“God forbid!” groaned Deronda. But he sat motionless. + +This long wandering with the conscious-stricken one over her past was +difficult to bear, but he dared not again urge her with a question. He +must let her mind follow its own need. She unconsciously left intervals +in her retrospect, not clearly distinguishing between what she said and +what she had only an inward vision of. Her next words came after such +an interval. + +“That all made it so hard when I was forced to go in the boat. Because +when I saw you it was an unexpected joy, and I thought I could tell you +everything—about the locked-up drawer and what I had not told you +before. And if I had told you, and knew it was in your mind, it would +have less power over me. I hoped and trusted in that. For after all my +struggles and my crying, the hatred and rage, the temptation that +frightened me, the longing, the thirst for what I dreaded, always came +back. And that disappointment—when I was quite shut out from speaking +to you, and was driven to go in the boat—brought all the evil back, as +if I had been locked in a prison with it and no escape. Oh, it seems so +long ago now since I stepped into that boat! I could have given up +everything in that moment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to +strike him dead.” + +Some of the compressed fierceness that she was recalling seemed to find +its way into her undertoned utterance. After a little silence she said, +with agitated hurry, + +“If he were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here—and +yet I cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have borne +contempt. I ought to have gone away—gone and wandered like a beggar +rather than stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there +was something I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill _me_ +if I resisted his will. But now—his dead face is there, and I cannot +bear it.” + +Suddenly loosing Deronda’s hand, she started up, stretching her arms to +their full length upward, and said with a sort of moan, + +“I have been a cruel woman! What can _I_ do but cry for help? _I_ am +sinking. Die—die—you are forsaken—go down, go down into darkness. +Forsaken—no pity—_I_ shall be forsaken.” + +She sank in her chair again and broke into sobs. Even Deronda had no +place in her consciousness at that moment. He was completely unmanned. +Instead of finding, as he had imagined, that his late experience had +dulled his susceptibility to fresh emotion, it seemed that the lot of +this young creature, whose swift travel from her bright rash girlhood +into this agony of remorse he had had to behold in helplessness, +pierced him the deeper because it came close upon another sad +revelation of spiritual conflict: he was in one of those moments when +the very anguish of passionate pity makes us ready to choose that we +will know pleasure no more, and live only for the stricken and +afflicted. He had risen from his seat while he watched that terrible +outburst—which seemed the more awful to him because, even in this +supreme agitation, she kept the suppressed voice of one who confesses +in secret. At last he felt impelled to turn his back toward her and +walk to a distance. + +But presently there was stillness. Her mind had opened to the sense +that he had gone away from her. When Deronda turned round to approach +her again, he saw her face bent toward him, her eyes dilated, her lips +parted. She was an image of timid forlorn beseeching—too timid to +entreat in words while he kept himself aloof from her. Was she forsaken +by him—now—already? But his eyes met hers sorrowfully—met hers for +the first time fully since she had said, “You know I am a guilty +woman,” and that full glance in its intense mournfulness seemed to say, +“I know it, but I shall all the less forsake you.” He sat down by her +side again in the same attitude—without turning his face toward her +and without again taking her hand. + +Once more Gwendolen was pierced, as she had been by his face of sorrow +at the Abbey, with a compunction less egoistic than that which urged +her to confess, and she said, in a tone of loving regret, + +“I make you very unhappy.” + +Deronda gave an indistinct “Oh,” just shrinking together and changing +his attitude a little. Then he had gathered resolution enough to say +clearly, “There is no question of being happy or unhappy. What I most +desire at this moment is what will most help you. Tell me all you feel +it a relief to tell.” + +Devoted as these words were, they widened his spiritual distance from +her, and she felt it more difficult to speak: she had a vague need of +getting nearer to that compassion which seemed to be regarding her from +a halo of superiority, and the need turned into an impulse to humble +herself more. She was ready to throw herself on her knees before him; +but no—her wonderfully mixed consciousness held checks on that +impulse, and she was kept silent and motionless by the pressure of +opposing needs. Her stillness made Deronda at last say, + +“Perhaps you are too weary. Shall I go away, and come again whenever +you wish it?” + +“No, no,” said Gwendolen—the dread of his leaving her bringing back +her power of speech. She went on with her low-toned eagerness, “I want +to tell you what it was that came over me in that boat. I was full of +rage at being obliged to go—full of rage—and I could do nothing but +sit there like a galley slave. And then we got away—out of the +port—into the deep—and everything was still—and we never looked at +each other, only he spoke to order me—and the very light about me +seemed to hold me a prisoner and force me to sit as I did. It came over +me that when I was a child I used to fancy sailing away into a world +where people were not forced to live with any one they did not like—I +did not like my father-in-law to come home. And now, I thought, just +the opposite had come to me. I had stepped into a boat, and my life was +a sailing and sailing away—gliding on and no help—always into +solitude with _him_, away from deliverance. And because I felt more +helpless than ever, my thoughts went out over worse things—I longed +for worse things—I had cruel wishes—I fancied impossible ways of—I +did not want to die myself; I was afraid of our being drowned together. +If it had been any use I should have prayed—I should have prayed that +something might befall him. I should have prayed that he might sink out +of my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way of killing him there, but +I did, I did kill him in my thoughts.” + +She sank into silence for a minute, submerged by the weight of memory +which no words could represent. + +“But yet, all the while I felt that I was getting more wicked. And what +had been with me so much, came to me just then—what you once +said—about dreading to increase my wrong-doing and my remorse—I +should hope for nothing then. It was all like a writing of fire within +me. Getting wicked was misery—being shut out forever from knowing what +you—what better lives were. That had always been coming back to me +then—but yet with a despair—a feeling that it was no use—evil wishes +were too strong. I remember then letting go the tiller and saying ‘God +help me!’ But then I was forced to take it again and go on; and the +evil longings, the evil prayers came again and blotted everything else +dim, till, in the midst of them—I don’t know how it was—he was +turning the sail—there was a gust—he was struck—I know nothing—I +only know that I saw my wish outside me.” + +She began to speak more hurriedly, and in more of a whisper. + +“I saw him sink, and my heart gave a leap as if it were going out of +me. I think I did not move. I kept my hands tight. It was long enough +for me to be glad, and yet to think it was no use—he would come up +again. And he _was_ come—farther off—the boat had moved. It was all +like lightning. ‘The rope!’ he called out in a voice—not his own—I +hear it now—and I stooped for the rope—I felt I must—I felt sure he +could swim, and he would come back whether or not, and I dreaded him. +That was in my mind—he would come back. But he was gone down again, +and I had the rope in my hand—no, there he was again—his face above +the water—and he cried again—and I held my hand, and my heart said, +‘Die!’—and he sank; and I felt ‘It is done—I am wicked, I am +lost!—and I had the rope in my hand—I don’t know what I thought—I +was leaping away from myself—I would have saved him then. I was +leaping from my crime, and there it was—close to me as I fell—there +was the dead face—dead, dead. It can never be altered. That was what +happened. That was what I did. You know it all. It can never be +altered.” + +She sank back in her chair, exhausted with the agitation of memory and +speech. Deronda felt the burden on his spirit less heavy than the +foregoing dread. The word “guilty” had held a possibility of +interpretations worse than the fact; and Gwendolen’s confession, for +the very reason that her conscience made her dwell on the determining +power of her evil thoughts, convinced him the more that there had been +throughout a counterbalancing struggle of her better will. It seemed +almost certain that her murderous thought had had no outward +effect—that, quite apart from it, the death was inevitable. Still, a +question as to the outward effectiveness of a criminal desire dominant +enough to impel even a momentary act, cannot alter our judgment of the +desire; and Deronda shrank from putting that question forward in the +first instance. He held it likely that Gwendolen’s remorse aggravated +her inward guilt, and that she gave the character of decisive action to +what had been an inappreciably instantaneous glance of desire. But her +remorse was the precious sign of a recoverable nature; it was the +culmination of that self-disapproval which had been the awakening of a +new life within her; it marked her off from the criminals whose only +regret is failure in securing their evil wish. Deronda could not utter +one word to diminish that sacred aversion to her worst self—that +thorn-pressure which must come with the crowning of the sorrowful +better, suffering because of the worse. All this mingled thought and +feeling kept him silent; speech was too momentous to be ventured on +rashly. There were no words of comfort that did not carry some +sacrilege. If he had opened his lips to speak, he could only have +echoed, “It can never be altered—it remains unaltered, to alter other +things.” But he was silent and motionless—he did not know how +long—before he turned to look at her, and saw her sunk back with +closed eyes, like a lost, weary, storm-beaten white doe, unable to rise +and pursue its unguided way. He rose and stood before her. The movement +touched her consciousness, and she opened her eyes with a slight +quivering that seemed like fear. + +“You must rest now. Try to rest: try to sleep. And may I see you again +this evening—to-morrow—when you have had some rest? Let us say no +more now.” + +The tears came, and she could not answer except by a slight movement of +the head. Deronda rang for attendance, spoke urgently of the necessity +that she should be got to rest, and then left her. + + + + +CHAPTER LVII. + + “The unripe grape, the ripe, and the dried. All things are changes, + not into nothing, but into that which is not at present.”—MARCUS + AURELIUS. + + Deeds are the pulse of Time, his beating life, + And righteous or unrighteous, being done, + Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself + Be laid in darkness, and the universe + Quiver and breathe upon no mirror more. + + +In the evening she sent for him again. It was already near the hour at +which she had been brought in from the sea the evening before, and the +light was subdued enough with blinds drawn up and windows open. She was +seated gazing fixedly on the sea, resting her cheek on her hand, +looking less shattered than when he had left her, but with a deep +melancholy in her expression which as Deronda approached her passed +into an anxious timidity. She did not put out her hand, but said, “How +long ago it is!” Then, “Will you sit near me again a little while?” + +He placed himself by her side as he had done before, and seeing that +she turned to him with that indefinable expression which implies a wish +to say something, he waited for her to speak. But again she looked +toward the window silently, and again turned with the same expression, +which yet did not issue in speech. There was some fear hindering her, +and Deronda, wishing to relieve her timidity, averted his face. +Presently he heard her cry imploringly, + +“You will not say that any one else should know?” + +“Most decidedly not,” said Deronda. “There is no action that ought to +be taken in consequence. There is no injury that could be righted in +that way. There is no retribution that any mortal could apportion +justly.” + +She was so still during a pause that she seemed to be holding her +breath before she said, + +“But if I had not had that murderous will—that moment—if I had thrown +the rope on the instant—perhaps it would have hindered death?” + +“No—I think not,” said Deronda, slowly. “If it were true that he could +swim, he must have been seized with cramp. With your quickest, utmost +effort, it seems impossible that you could have done anything to save +him. That momentary murderous will cannot, I think, have altered the +course of events. Its effect is confined to the motives in your own +breast. Within ourselves our evil will is momentous, and sooner or +later it works its way outside us—it may be in the vitiation that +breeds evil acts, but also it may be in the self-abhorrence that stings +us into better striving.” + +“I am saved from robbing others—there are others—they will have +everything—they will have what they ought to have. I knew that some +time before I left town. You do not suspect me of wrong desires about +those things?” She spoke hesitatingly. + +“I had not thought of them,” said Deronda; “I was thinking too much of +the other things.” + +“Perhaps you don’t quite know the beginning of it all,” said Gwendolen, +slowly, as if she were overcoming her reluctance. “There was some one +else he ought to have married. And I knew it, and I told her I would +not hinder it. And I went away—that was when you first saw me. But +then we became poor all at once, and I was very miserable, and I was +tempted. I thought, ‘I shall do as I like and make everything right.’ I +persuaded myself. And it was all different. It was all dreadful. Then +came hatred and wicked thoughts. That was how it all came. I told you I +was afraid of myself. And I did what you told me—I did try to make my +fear a safeguard. I thought of what would be if I—I felt what would +come—how I should dread the morning—wishing it would be always +night—and yet in the darkness always seeing something—seeing death. +If you did not know how miserable I was, you might—but now it has all +been no use. I can care for nothing but saving the rest from +knowing—poor mamma, who has never been happy.” + +There was silence again before she said with a repressed sob—“You +cannot bear to look at me any more. You think I am too wicked. You do +not believe that I can become any better—worth anything—worthy +enough—I shall always be too wicked to—” The voice broke off helpless. + +Deronda’s heart was pierced. He turned his eyes on her poor beseeching +face and said, “I believe that you may become worthier than you have +ever yet been—worthy to lead a life that may be a blessing. No evil +dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, +and make no effort to escape from. You _have_ made efforts—you will go +on making them.” + +“But you were the beginning of them. You must not forsake me,” said +Gwendolen, leaning with her clasped hands on the arm of her chair and +looking at him, while her face bore piteous traces of the +life-experience concentrated in the twenty-four hours—that new +terrible life lying on the other side of the deed which fulfills a +criminal desire. “I will bear any penance. I will lead any life you +tell me. But you must not forsake me. You must be near. If you had been +near me—if I could have said everything to you, I should have been +different. You will not forsake me?” + +“It could never be my impulse to forsake you,” said Deronda promptly, +with that voice which, like his eyes, had the unintentional effect of +making his ready sympathy seem more personal and special than it really +was. And in that moment he was not himself quite free from a foreboding +of some such self-committing effect. His strong feeling for this +stricken creature could not hinder rushing images of future difficulty. +He continued to meet her appealing eyes as he spoke, but it was with +the painful consciousness that to her ear his words might carry a +promise which one day would seem unfulfilled: he was making an +indefinite promise to an indefinite hope. Anxieties, both immediate and +distant, crowded on his thought, and it was under their influence that, +after a moment’s silence, he said, + +“I expect Sir Hugo Mallinger to arrive by to-morrow night at least; and +I am not without hope that Mrs. Davilow may shortly follow him. Her +presence will be the greatest comfort to you—it will give you a motive +to save her from unnecessary pain?” + +“Yes, yes—I will try. And you will not go away?” + +“Not till after Sir Hugo has come.” + +“But we shall all go to England?” + +“As soon as possible,” said Deronda, not wishing to enter into +particulars. + +Gwendolen looked toward the window again with an expression which +seemed like a gradual awakening to new thoughts. The twilight was +perceptibly deepening, but Deronda could see a movement in her eyes and +hands such as accompanies a return of perception in one who has been +stunned. + +“You will always be with Sir Hugo now!” she said presently, looking at +him. “You will always live at the Abbey—or else at Diplow?” + +“I am quite uncertain where I shall live,” said Deronda, coloring. + +She was warned by his changed color that she had spoken too rashly, and +fell silent. After a little while she began, again looking away, + +“It is impossible to think how my life will go on. I think now it would +be better for me to be poor and obliged to work.” + +“New promptings will come as the days pass. When you are among your +friends again, you will discern new duties,” said Deronda. “Make it a +task now to get as well and calm—as much like yourself as you can, +before—” He hesitated. + +“Before my mother comes,” said Gwendolen. “Ah! I must be changed. I +have not looked at myself. Should you have known me,” she added, +turning toward him, “if you had met me now?—should you have known me +for the one you saw at Leubronn?” + +“Yes, I should have known you,” said Deronda, mournfully. “The outside +change is not great. I should have seen at once that it was you, and +that you had gone through some great sorrow.” + +“Don’t wish now that you had never seen me; don’t wish that,” said +Gwendolen, imploringly, while the tears gathered. + +“I should despise myself for wishing it,” said Deronda. “How could I +know what I was wishing? We must find our duties in what comes to us, +not in what we imagine might have been. If I took to foolish wishing of +that sort, I should wish—not that I had never seen you, but that I had +been able to save you from this.” + +“You have saved me from worse,” said Gwendolen, in a sobbing voice. “I +should have been worse if it had not been for you. If you had not been +good, I should have been more wicked than I am.” + +“It will be better for me to go now,” said Deronda, worn in spirit by +the perpetual strain of this scene. “Remember what we said of your +task—to get well and calm before other friends come.” + +He rose as he spoke, and she gave him her hand submissively. But when +he had left her she sank on her knees, in hysterical crying. The +distance between them was too great. She was a banished soul—beholding +a possible life which she had sinned herself away from. + +She was found in this way, crushed on the floor. Such grief seemed +natural in a poor lady whose husband had been drowned in her presence. + + + + +BOOK VIII.—FRUIT AND SEED. + + +CHAPTER LVIII. + + + “Much adoe there was, God wot; + He wold love and she wold not.” + —NICHOLAS BRETON. + + +Extension, we know, is a very imperfect measure of things; and the +length of the sun’s journeying can no more tell us how life has +advanced than the acreage of a field can tell us what growths may be +active within it. A man may go south, and, stumbling over a bone, may +meditate upon it till he has found a new starting-point for anatomy; or +eastward, and discover a new key to language telling a new story of +races; or he may head an expedition that opens new continental +pathways, get himself maimed in body, and go through a whole heroic +poem of resolve and endurance; and at the end of a few months he may +come back to find his neighbors grumbling at the same parish grievance +as before, or to see the same elderly gentleman treading the pavement +in discourse with himself, shaking his head after the same percussive +butcher’s boy, and pausing at the same shop-window to look at the same +prints. If the swiftest thinking has about the pace of a greyhound, the +slowest must be supposed to move, like the limpet, by an apparent +sticking, which after a good while is discerned to be a slight +progression. Such differences are manifest in the variable intensity +which we call human experience, from the revolutionary rush of change +which makes a new inner and outer life, to that quiet recurrence of the +familiar, which has no other epochs than those of hunger and the +heavens. + +Something of this contrast was seen in the year’s experience which had +turned the brilliant, self-confident Gwendolen Harleth of the Archery +Meeting into the crushed penitent impelled to confess her unworthiness +where it would have been her happiness to be held worthy; while it had +left her family in Pennicote without deeper change than that of some +outward habits, and some adjustment of prospects and intentions to +reduced income, fewer visits, and fainter compliments. The rectory was +as pleasant a home as before: and the red and pink peonies on the lawn, +the rows of hollyhocks by the hedges, had bloomed as well this year as +last: the rector maintained his cheerful confidence in the good will of +patrons and his resolution to deserve it by diligence in the +fulfillment of his duties, whether patrons were likely to hear of it or +not; doing nothing solely with an eye to promotion except, perhaps, the +writing of two ecclesiastical articles, which having no signature, were +attributed to some one else, except by the patrons who had a special +copy sent them, and these certainly knew the author but did not read +the articles. The rector, however, chewed no poisonous cud of suspicion +on this point: he made marginal notes on his own copies to render them +a more interesting loan, and was gratified that the Archdeacon and +other authorities had nothing to say against the general tenor of his +argument. Peaceful authorship!—living in the air of the fields and +downs, and not in the thrice-breathed breath of criticism—bringing no +Dantesque leanness; rather, assisting nutrition by complacency, and +perhaps giving a more suffusive sense of achievement than the +production of a whole _Divina Commedia_. Then there was the father’s +recovered delight in his favorite son, which was a happiness +outweighing the loss of eighteen hundred a year. Of whatever nature +might be the hidden change wrought in Rex by the disappointment of his +first love, it was apparently quite secondary to that evidence of more +serious ambition which dated from the family misfortune; indeed, Mr. +Gascoigne was inclined to regard the little affair which had caused him +so much anxiety the year before as an evaporation of superfluous +moisture, a kind of finish to the baking process which the human dough +demands. Rex had lately come down for a summer visit to the rectory, +bringing Anna home, and while he showed nearly the old liveliness with +his brothers and sisters, he continued in his holiday the habits of the +eager student, rising early in the morning and shutting himself up +early in the evenings to carry on a fixed course of study. + +“You don’t repent the choice of the law as a profession, Rex?” said his +father. + +“There is no profession I would choose before it,” said Rex. “I should +like to end my life as a first-rate judge, and help to draw up a code. +I reverse the famous dictum. I should say, ‘Give me something to do +with making the laws, and let who will make the songs.’” + +“You will have to stow in an immense amount of rubbish, I +suppose—that’s the worst of it,” said the rector. + +“I don’t see that law-rubbish is worse than any other sort. It is not +so bad as the rubbishy literature that people choke their minds with. +It doesn’t make one so dull. Our wittiest men have often been lawyers. +Any orderly way of looking at things as cases and evidence seems to me +better than a perpetual wash of odds and ends bearing on nothing in +particular. And then, from a higher point of view, the foundations and +the growth of law make the most interesting aspects of philosophy and +history. Of course there will be a good deal that is troublesome, +drudging, perhaps exasperating. But the great prizes in life can’t be +won easily—I see that.” + +“Well, my boy, the best augury of a man’s success in his profession is +that he thinks it the finest in the world. But I fancy it so with most +work when a man goes into it with a will. Brewitt, the blacksmith, said +to me the other day that his ’prentice had no mind to his trade; ‘and +yet, sir,’ said Brewitt, ‘what would a young fellow have if he doesn’t +like the blacksmithing?” + +The rector cherished a fatherly delight, which he allowed to escape him +only in moderation. Warham, who had gone to India, he had easily borne +parting with, but Rex was that romance of later life which a man +sometimes finds in a son whom he recognizes as superior to himself, +picturing a future eminence for him according to a variety of famous +examples. It was only to his wife that he said with decision: “Rex will +be a distinguished man, Nancy, I am sure of it—as sure as Paley’s +father was about his son.” + +“Was Paley an old bachelor?” said Mrs. Gascoigne. + +“That is hardly to the point, my dear,” said the rector, who did not +remember that irrelevant detail. And Mrs. Gascoigne felt that she had +spoken rather weakly. + +This quiet trotting of time at the rectory was shared by the group who +had exchanged the faded dignity of Offendene for the low white house +not a mile off, well enclosed with evergreens, and known to the +villagers, as “Jodson’s.” Mrs. Davilow’s delicate face showed only a +slight deepening of its mild melancholy, her hair only a few more +silver lines, in consequence of the last year’s trials; the four girls +had bloomed out a little from being less in the shade; and the good +Jocosa preserved her serviceable neutrality toward the pleasures and +glories of the world as things made for those who were not “in a +situation.” + +The low narrow drawing-room, enlarged by two quaint projecting windows, +with lattices wide open on a July afternoon to the scent of monthly +roses, the faint murmurs of the garden, and the occasional rare sound +of hoofs and wheels seeming to clarify the succeeding silence, made +rather a crowded, lively scene, Rex and Anna being added to the usual +group of six. Anna, always a favorite with her younger cousins, had +much to tell of her new experience, and the acquaintances she had made +in London, and when on her first visit she came alone, many questions +were asked her about Gwendolen’s house in Grosvenor Square, what +Gwendolen herself had said, and what any one else had said about +Gwendolen. Had Anna been to see Gwendolen after she had known about the +yacht? No:—an answer which left speculation free concerning everything +connected with that interesting unknown vessel beyond the fact that +Gwendolen had written just before she set out to say that Mr. +Grandcourt and she were going yachting on the Mediterranean, and again +from Marseilles to say that she was sure to like the yachting, the +cabins were very elegant, and she would probably not send another +letter till she had written quite a long diary filled with _dittos_. +Also, this movement of Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt had been mentioned in +“the newspaper;” so that altogether this new phase of Gwendolen’s +exalted life made a striking part of the sisters’ romance, the +book-devouring Isabel throwing in a corsair or two to make an adventure +that might end well. + +But when Rex was present, the girls, according to instructions, never +started this fascinating topic, and to-day there had only been animated +descriptions of the Meyricks and their extraordinary Jewish friends, +which caused some astonished questioning from minds to which the idea +of live Jews, out of a book, suggested a difference deep enough to be +almost zoological, as of a strange race in Pliny’s Natural History that +might sleep under the shade of its own ears. Bertha could not imagine +what Jews believed now; and she had a dim idea that they rejected the +Old Testament since it proved the New; Miss Merry thought that Mirah +and her brother could “never have been properly argued with,” and the +amiable Alice did not mind what the Jews believed, she was sure she +“couldn’t bear them.” Mrs. Davilow corrected her by saying that the +great Jewish families who were in society were quite what they ought to +be both in London and Paris, but admitted that the commoner unconverted +Jews were objectionable; and Isabel asked whether Mirah talked just as +they did, or whether you might be with her and not find out that she +was a Jewess. + +Rex, who had no partisanship with the Israelites, having made a +troublesome acquaintance with the minutiae of their ancient history in +the form of “cram,” was amusing himself by playfully exaggerating the +notion of each speaker, while Anna begged them all to understand that +he was only joking, when the laughter was interrupted by the bringing +in of a letter for Mrs. Davilow. A messenger had run with it in great +haste from the rectory. It enclosed a telegram, and as Mrs. Davilow +read and re-read it in silence and agitation, all eyes were turned on +her with anxiety, but no one dared to speak. Looking up at last and +seeing the young faces “painted with fear,” she remembered that they +might be imagining something worse than the truth, something like her +own first dread which made her unable to understand what was written, +and she said, with a sob which was half relief, + +“My dears, Mr. Grandcourt—” She paused an instant, and then began +again, “Mr. Grandcourt is drowned.” + +Rex started up as if a missile had been suddenly thrown into the room. +He could not help himself, and Anna’s first look was at him. But then, +gathering some self-command while Mrs. Davilow was reading what the +rector had written on the enclosing paper, he said, + +“Can I do anything, aunt? Can I carry any word to my father from you?” + +“Yes, dear. Tell him I will be ready—he is very good. He says he will +go with me to Genoa—he will be here at half-past six. Jocosa and +Alice, help me to get ready. She is safe—Gwendolen is safe—but she +must be ill. I am sure she must be very ill. Rex, dear—Rex and +Anna—go and and tell your father I will be quite ready. I would not +for the world lose another night. And bless him for being ready so +soon. I can travel night and day till we get there.” + +Rex and Anna hurried away through the sunshine which was suddenly +solemn to them, without uttering a word to each other: she chiefly +possessed by solicitude about any reopening of his wound, he struggling +with a tumultuary crowd of thoughts that were an offence against his +better will. The tumult being undiminished when they were at the +rectory gate, he said, + +“Nannie, I will leave you to say everything to my father. If he wants +me immediately, let me know. I shall stay in the shrubbery for ten +minutes—only ten minutes.” + +Who has been quite free from egoistic escapes of the imagination, +picturing desirable consequences on his own future in the presence of +another’s misfortune, sorrow, or death? The expected promotion or +legacy is the common type of a temptation which makes speech and even +prayer a severe avoidance of the most insistent thoughts, and sometimes +raises an inward shame, a self-distaste that is worse than any other +form of unpleasant companionship. In Rex’s nature the shame was +immediate, and overspread like an ugly light all the hurrying images of +what might come, which thrust themselves in with the idea that +Gwendolen was again free—overspread them, perhaps, the more +persistently because every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified by +a more substantial obstacle. Before the vision of “Gwendolen free” rose +the impassable vision of “Gwendolen rich, exalted, courted;” and if in +the former time, when both their lives were fresh, she had turned from +his love with repugnance, what ground was there for supposing that her +heart would be more open to him in the future? + +These thoughts, which he wanted to master and suspend, were like a +tumultuary ringing of opposing chimes that he could not escape from by +running. During the last year he had brought himself into a state of +calm resolve, and now it seemed that three words had been enough to +undo all that difficult work, and cast him back into the wretched +fluctuations of a longing which he recognized as simply perturbing and +hopeless. And at this moment the activity of such longing had an +untimeliness that made it repulsive to his better self. Excuse poor +Rex; it was not much more than eighteen months since he had been laid +low by an archer who sometimes touches his arrow with a subtle, +lingering poison. The disappointment of a youthful passion has effects +as incalculable as those of small-pox which may make one person plain +and a genius, another less plain and more foolish, another plain +without detriment to his folly, and leave perhaps the majority without +obvious change. Everything depends—not on the mere fact of +disappointment, but—on the nature affected and the force that stirs +it. In Rex’s well-endowed nature, brief as the hope had been, the +passionate stirring had gone deep, and the effect of disappointment was +revolutionary, though fraught with a beneficent new order which +retained most of the old virtues; in certain respects he believed that +it had finally determined the bias and color of his life. Now, however, +it seemed that his inward peace was hardly more than that of republican +Florence, and his heart no better than the alarm-bell that made work +slack and tumult busy. + +Rex’s love had been of that sudden, penetrating, clinging sort which +the ancients knew and sung, and in singing made a fashion of talk for +many moderns whose experience has by no means a fiery, demonic +character. To have the consciousness suddenly steeped with another’s +personality, to have the strongest inclinations possessed by an image +which retains its dominance in spite of change and apart from +worthiness—nay, to feel a passion which clings faster for the tragic +pangs inflicted by a cruel, reorganized unworthiness—is a phase of +love which in the feeble and common-minded has a repulsive likeness to +his blind animalism insensible to the higher sway of moral affinity or +heaven-lit admiration. But when this attaching force is present in a +nature not of brutish unmodifiableness, but of a human dignity that can +risk itself safely, it may even result in a devotedness not unfit to be +called divine in a higher sense than the ancient. Phlegmatic +rationality stares and shakes its head at these unaccountable +prepossessions, but they exist as undeniably as the winds and waves, +determining here a wreck and there a triumphant voyage. + +This sort of passion had nested in the sweet-natured, strong Rex, and +he had made up his mind to its companionship, as if it had been an +object supremely dear, stricken dumb and helpless, and turning all the +future of tenderness into a shadow of the past. But he had also made up +his mind that his life was not to be pauperized because he had had to +renounce one sort of joy; rather, he had begun life again with a new +counting-up of the treasures that remained to him, and he had even felt +a release of power such as may come from ceasing to be afraid of your +own neck. + +And now, here he was pacing the shrubbery, angry with himself that the +sense of irrevocableness in his lot, which ought in reason to have been +as strong as ever, had been shaken by a change of circumstances that +could make no change in relation to him. He told himself the truth +quite roughly, + +“She would never love me; and that is not the question—I could never +approach her as a lover in her present position. I am exactly of no +consequence at all, and am not likely to be of much consequence till my +head is turning gray. But what has that to do with it? She would not +have me on any terms, and I would not ask her. It is a meanness to be +thinking about it now—no better than lurking about the battle-field to +strip the dead; but there never was more gratuitous sinning. I have +nothing to gain there—absolutely nothing. Then why can’t I face the +facts, and behave as they demand, instead of leaving my father to +suppose that there are matters he can’t speak to me about, though I +might be useful in them?” + +The last thought made one wave with the impulse that sent Rex walking +firmly into the house and through the open door of the study, where he +saw his father packing a traveling-desk. + +“Can I be of any use, sir?” said Rex, with rallied courage, as his +father looked up at him. + +“Yes, my boy; when I’m gone, just see to my letters, and answer where +necessary, and send me word of everything. Dymock will manage the +parish very well, and you will stay with your mother, or, at least, go +up and down again, till I come back, whenever that may be.” + +“You will hardly be very long, sir, I suppose,” said Rex, beginning to +strap a railway rug. “You will perhaps bring my cousin back to +England?” He forced himself to speak of Gwendolen for the first time, +and the rector noticed the epoch with satisfaction. + +“That depends,” he answered, taking the subject as a matter-of-course +between them. “Perhaps her mother may stay there with her, and I may +come back very soon. This telegram leaves us in ignorance which is +rather anxious. But no doubt the arrangements of the will lately made +are satisfactory, and there may possibly be an heir yet to be born. In +any case, I feel confident that Gwendolen will be liberally—I should +expect, splendidly—provided for.” + +“It must have been a great shock for her,” said Rex, getting more +resolute after the first twinge had been borne. “I suppose he was a +devoted husband.” + +“No doubt of it,” said the rector, in his most decided manner. “Few men +of his position would have come forward as he did under the +circumstances.” + +Rex had never seen Grandcourt, had never been spoken to about him by +any one of the family, and knew nothing of Gwendolen’s flight from her +suitor to Leubronn. He only knew that Grandcourt, being very much in +love with her, had made her an offer in the first weeks of her sudden +poverty, and had behaved very handsomely in providing for her mother +and sisters. That was all very natural and what Rex himself would have +liked to do. Grandcourt had been a lucky fellow, and had had some +happiness before he got drowned. Yet Rex wondered much whether +Gwendolen had been in love with the successful suitor, or had only +forborne to tell him that she hated being made love to. + + + + +CHAPTER LIX. + + “I count myself in nothing else so happy + As in a soul remembering my good friends.” + —SHAKESPEARE. + + +Sir Hugo Mallinger was not so prompt in starting for Genoa as Mr. +Gascoigne had been, and Deronda on all accounts would not take his +departure until he had seen the baronet. There was not only +Grandcourt’s death, but also the late crisis in his own life to make +reasons why his oldest friend would desire to have the unrestrained +communication of speech with him, for in writing he had not felt able +to give any details concerning the mother who had come and gone like an +apparition. It was not till the fifth evening that Deronda, according +to telegram, waited for Sir Hugo at the station, where he was to arrive +between eight and nine; and while he was looking forward to the sight +of the kind, familiar face, which was part of his earliest memories, +something like a smile, in spite of his late tragic experience, might +have been detected in his eyes and the curve of his lips at the idea of +Sir Hugo’s pleasure in being now master of his estates, able to leave +them to his daughters, or at least—according to a view of inheritance +which had just been strongly impressed on Deronda’s imagination—to +take makeshift feminine offspring as intermediate to a satisfactory +heir in a grandson. We should be churlish creatures if we could have no +joy in our fellow-mortals’ joy, unless it were in agreement with our +theory of righteous distribution and our highest ideal of human good: +what sour corners our mouths would get—our eyes, what frozen glances! +and all the while our own possessions and desires would not exactly +adjust themselves to our ideal. We must have some comradeship with +imperfection; and it is, happily, possible to feel gratitude even where +we discern a mistake that may have been injurious, the vehicle of the +mistake being an affectionate intention prosecuted through a life-time +of kindly offices. Deronda’s feeling and judgment were strongly against +the action of Sir Hugo in making himself the agent of a falsity—yes, a +falsity: he could give no milder name to the concealment under which he +had been reared. But the baronet had probably had no clear knowledge +concerning the mother’s breach of trust, and with his light, easy way +of taking life, had held it a reasonable preference in her that her son +should be made an English gentleman, seeing that she had the +eccentricity of not caring to part from her child, and be to him as if +she were not. Daniel’s affectionate gratitude toward Sir Hugo made him +wish to find grounds of excuse rather than blame; for it is as possible +to be rigid in principle and tender in blame, as it is to suffer from +the sight of things hung awry, and yet to be patient with the hanger +who sees amiss. If Sir Hugo in his bachelorhood had been beguiled into +regarding children chiefly as a product intended to make life more +agreeable to the full-grown, whose convenience alone was to be +consulted in the disposal of them—why, he had shared an assumption +which, if not formally avowed, was massively acted on at that date of +the world’s history; and Deronda, with all his keen memory of the +painful inward struggle he had gone through in his boyhood, was able +also to remember the many signs that his experience had been entirely +shut out from Sir Hugo’s conception. Ignorant kindness may have the +effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty +would be an ignorant _un_kindness, the most remote from Deronda’s large +imaginative lenience toward others. And perhaps now, after the +searching scenes of the last ten days, in which the curtain had been +lifted for him from the secrets of lives unlike his own, he was more +than ever disposed to check that rashness of indignation or resentment +which has an unpleasant likeness to the love of punishing. When he saw +Sir Hugo’s familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, the +life-long affection which had been well accustomed to make excuses, +flowed in and submerged all newer knowledge that might have seemed +fresh ground for blame. + +“Well, Dan,” said Sir Hugo, with a serious fervor, grasping Deronda’s +hand. He uttered no other words of greeting; there was too strong a +rush of mutual consciousness. The next thing was to give orders to the +courier, and then to propose walking slowly in the mild evening, there +being no hurry to get to the hotel. + +“I have taken my journey easily, and am in excellent condition,” he +said, as he and Deronda came out under the starlight, which was still +faint with the lingering sheen of day. “I didn’t hurry in setting off, +because I wanted to inquire into things a little, and so I got sight of +your letter to Lady Mallinger before I started. But now, how is the +widow?” + +“Getting calmer,” said Deronda. “She seems to be escaping the bodily +illness that one might have feared for her, after her plunge and +terrible excitement. Her uncle and mother came two days ago, and she is +being well taken care of.” + +“Any prospect of an heir being born?” + +“From what Mr. Gascoigne said to me, I conclude not. He spoke as if it +were a question whether the widow would have the estates for her life.” + +“It will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, this loss +of the husband?” said Sir Hugo, looking round at Deronda. + +“The suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her,” said +Deronda, quietly evading the question. + +“I wonder whether Grandcourt gave her any notion what were the +provisions of his will?” said Sir Hugo. + +“Do you know what they are, sir?” parried Deronda. + +“Yes, I do,” said the baronet, quickly. “Gad! if there is no prospect +of a legitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a Mrs. +Glasher; you know nothing about the affair, I suppose, but she was a +sort of wife to him for a good many years, and there are three older +children—girls. The boy is to take his father’s name; he is Henleigh +already, and he is to be Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt. The Mallinger +will be of no use to him, I am happy to say; but the young dog will +have more than enough with his fourteen years’ minority—no need to +have had holes filled up with my fifty thousand for Diplow that he had +no right to: and meanwhile my beauty, the young widow, is to put up +with a poor two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere—a nice kind +of banishment for her if she chose to shut herself up there, which I +don’t think she will. The boy’s mother has been living there of late +years. I’m perfectly disgusted with Grandcourt. I don’t know that I’m +obliged to think the better of him because he’s drowned, though, so far +as my affairs are concerned, nothing in his life became him like the +leaving it.” + +“In my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife—not in leaving +his estates to the son,” said Deronda, rather dryly. + +“I say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad,” said Sir Hugo; +“but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a +handsome provision, such as she could live on in a style fitted to the +rank he had raised her to. She ought to have had four or five thousand +a year and the London house for her life; that’s what I should have +done for her. I suppose, as she was penniless, her friends couldn’t +stand out for a settlement, else it’s ill trusting to the will a man +may make after he’s married. Even a wise man generally lets some folly +ooze out of him in his will—my father did, I know; and if a fellow has +any spite or tyranny in him, he’s likely to bottle off a good deal for +keeping in that sort of document. It’s quite clear Grandcourt meant +that his death should put an extinguisher on his wife, if she bore him +no heir.” + +“And, in the other case, I suppose everything would have been +reversed—illegitimacy would have had the extinguisher?” said Deronda, +with some scorn. + +“Precisely—Gadsmere and the two thousand. It’s queer. One nuisance is +that Grandcourt has made me an executor; but seeing he was the son of +my only brother, I can’t refuse to act. And I shall mind it less if I +can be of any use to the widow. Lush thinks she was not in ignorance +about the family under the rose, and the purport of the will. He hints +that there was no very good understanding between the couple. But I +fancy you are the man who knew most about what Mrs. Grandcourt felt or +did not feel—eh, Dan?” Sir Hugo did not put this question with his +usual jocoseness, but rather with a lowered tone of interested inquiry; +and Deronda felt that any evasion would be misinterpreted. He answered +gravely, + +“She was certainly not happy. They were unsuited to each other. But as +to the disposal of the property—from all I have seen of her, I should +predict that she will be quite contented with it.” + +“Then she is not much like the rest of her sex; that’s all I can say,” +said Sir Hugo, with a slight shrug. “However, she ought to be something +extraordinary, for there must be an entanglement between your horoscope +and hers—eh? When that tremendous telegram came, the first thing Lady +Mallinger said was, ‘How very strange that it should be Daniel who +sends it!’ But I have had something of the same sort in my own life. I +was once at a foreign hotel where a lady had been left by her husband +without money. When I heard of it, and came forward to help her, who +should she be but an early flame of mine, who had been fool enough to +marry an Austrian baron with a long mustache and short affection? But +it was an affair of my own that called me there—nothing to do with +knight-errantry, any more than you coming to Genoa had to do with the +Grandcourts.” + +There was silence for a little while. Sir Hugo had begun to talk of the +Grandcourts as the less difficult subject between himself and Deronda; +but they were both wishing to overcome a reluctance to perfect +frankness on the events which touched their relation to each other. +Deronda felt that his letter, after the first interview with his +mother, had been rather a thickening than a breaking of the ice, and +that he ought to wait for the first opening to come from Sir Hugo. Just +when they were about to lose sight of the port, the baronet turned, and +pausing as if to get a last view, said in a tone of more serious +feeling—“And about the main business of your coming to Genoa, Dan? You +have not been deeply pained by anything you have learned, I hope? There +is nothing that you feel need change your position in any way? You +know, whatever happens to you must always be of importance to me.” + +“I desire to meet your goodness by perfect confidence, sir,” said +Deronda. “But I can’t answer those questions truly by a simple yes or +no. Much that I have heard about the past has pained me. And it has +been a pain to meet and part with my mother in her suffering state, as +I have been compelled to do. But it is no pain—it is rather a clearing +up of doubts for which I am thankful, to know my parentage. As to the +effect on my position, there will be no change in my gratitude to you, +sir, for the fatherly care and affection you have always shown me. But +to know that I was born a Jew, may have a momentous influence on my +life, which I am hardly able to tell you of at present.” + +Deronda spoke the last sentence with a resolve that overcame some +diffidence. He felt that the differences between Sir Hugo’s nature and +his own would have, by-and-by, to disclose themselves more markedly +than had ever yet been needful. The baronet gave him a quick glance, +and turned to walk on. After a few moments’ silence, in which he had +reviewed all the material in his memory which would enable him to +interpret Deronda’s words, he said, + +“I have long expected something remarkable from you, Dan; but, for +God’s sake, don’t go into any eccentricities! I can tolerate any man’s +difference of opinion, but let him tell it me without getting himself +up as a lunatic. At this stage of the world, if a man wants to be taken +seriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. Don’t misunderstand me. I +am not suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. I +only think you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic, +especially if he wanted defending. You have a passion for people who +are pelted, Dan. I’m sorry for them too; but so far as company goes, +it’s a bad ground of selection. However, I don’t ask you to anticipate +your inclination in anything you have to tell me. When you make up your +mind to a course that requires money, I have some sixteen thousand +pounds that have been accumulating for you over and above what you have +been having the interest of as income. And now I am come, I suppose you +want to get back to England as soon as you can?” + +“I must go first to Mainz to get away a chest of my grandfather’s, and +perhaps to see a friend of his,” said Deronda. “Although the chest has +been lying there these twenty years, I have an unreasonable sort of +nervous eagerness to get it away under my care, as if it were more +likely now than before that something might happen to it. And perhaps I +am the more uneasy, because I lingered after my mother left, instead of +setting out immediately. Yet I can’t regret that I was here—else Mrs. +Grandcourt would have had none but servants to act for her.” + +“Yes, yes,” said Sir Hugo, with a flippancy which was an escape of some +vexation hidden under his more serious speech; “I hope you are not +going to set a dead Jew above a living Christian.” + +Deronda colored, and repressed a retort. They were just turning into +the _Italia_. + + + + +CHAPTER LX. + + “But I shall say no more of this at this time; for this is to be felt + and not to be talked of; and they who never touched it with their + fingers may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their hearts and be never + the wiser.”—JEREMY TAYLOR. + + The Roman Emperor in the legend put to death ten learned Israelites to + avenge the sale of Joseph by his brethren. And there have always been + enough of his kidney, whose piety lies in punishing who can see the + justice of grudges but not of gratitude. For you shall never convince + the stronger feeling that it hath not the stronger reason, or incline + him who hath no love to believe that there is good ground for loving. + As we may learn from the order of word-making, wherein _love_ + precedeth _lovable_. + + +When Deronda presented his letter at the banking-house in the _Schuster +Strasse_ at Mainz, and asked for Joseph Kalonymos, he was presently +shown into an inner room, where, seated at a table arranging open +letters, was the white-bearded man whom he had seen the year before in +the synagogue at Frankfort. He wore his hat—it seemed to be the same +old felt hat as before—and near him was a packed portmanteau with a +wrap and overcoat upon it. On seeing Deronda enter he rose, but did not +advance or put out his hand. Looking at him with small penetrating eyes +which glittered like black gems in the midst of his yellowish face and +white hair, he said in German, + +“Good! It is now you who seek me, young man.” + +“Yes; I seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather’s,” said +Deronda, “and I am under an obligation to you for giving yourself much +trouble on my account.” He spoke without difficulty in that liberal +German tongue which takes many strange accents to its maternal bosom. + +Kalonymos now put out his hand and said cordially, “So you are no +longer angry at being something more than an Englishman?” + +“On the contrary. I thank you heartily for helping to save me from +remaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the +chest that my grandfather left in trust for me.” + +“Sit down, sit down,” said Kalonymos, in a quick undertone, seating +himself again, and pointing to a chair near him. Then deliberately +laying aside his hat and showing a head thickly covered, with white +hair, he stroked and clutched his beard while he looked examiningly at +the young face before him. The moment wrought strongly on Deronda’s +imaginative susceptibility: in the presence of one linked still in +zealous friendship with the grandfather whose hope had yearned toward +him when he was unborn, and who, though dead, was yet to speak with him +in those written memorials which, says Milton, “contain a potency of +life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are,” he +seemed to himself to be touching the electric chain of his own +ancestry; and he bore the scrutinizing look of Kalonymos with a +delighted awe, something like what one feels in the solemn +commemoration of acts done long ago but still telling markedly on the +life of to-day. Impossible for men of duller fibre—men whose +affection is not ready to diffuse itself through the wide travel of +imagination, to comprehend, perhaps even to credit this sensibility of +Deronda’s; but it subsisted, like their own dullness, notwithstanding +their lack of belief in it—and it gave his face an expression which +seemed very satisfactory to the observer. + +He said in Hebrew, quoting from one of the fine hymns in the Hebrew +liturgy, “As thy goodness has been great to the former generations, +even so may it be to the latter.” Then after pausing a little he began, +“Young man, I rejoice that I was not yet set off again on my travels, +and that you are come in time for me to see the image of my friend as +he was in his youth—no longer perverted from the fellowship of your +people—no longer shrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who +seemed to be claiming you as a Jew. You come with thankfulness yourself +to claim the kindred and heritage that wicked contrivance would have +robbed you of. You come with a willing soul to declare, ‘I am the +grandson of Daniel Charisi.’ Is it not so?” + +“Assuredly it is,” said Deronda. “But let me say that I should at no +time have been inclined to treat a Jew with incivility simply because +he was a Jew. You can understand that I shrank from saying to a +stranger, ‘I know nothing of my mother.’” + +“A sin, a sin!” said Kalonymos, putting up his hand and closing his +eyes in disgust. “A robbery of our people—as when our youths and +maidens were reared for the Roman Edom. But it is frustrated. I have +frustrated it. When Daniel Charisi—may his Rock and his Redeemer guard +him!—when Daniel Charisi was a stripling and I was a lad little above +his shoulder, we made a solemn vow always to be friends. He said, ‘Let +us bind ourselves with duty, as if we were sons of the same mother.’ +That was his bent from first to last—as he said, to fortify his soul +with bonds. It was a saying of his, ‘Let us bind love with duty; for +duty is the love of law; and law is the nature of the Eternal.’ So we +bound ourselves. And though we were much apart in our later life, the +bond has never been broken. When he was dead, they sought to rob him; +but they could not rob him of me. I rescued that remainder of him which +he had prized and preserved for his offspring. And I have restored to +him the offspring they had robbed him of. I will bring you the chest +forthwith.” + +Kalonymos left the room for a few minutes, and returned with a clerk +who carried the chest, set it down on the floor, drew off a leather +cover, and went out again. It was not very large, but was made heavy by +ornamental bracers and handles of gilt iron. The wood was beautifully +incised with Arabic lettering. + +“So!” said Kalonymos, returning to his seat. “And here is the curious +key,” he added, taking it from a small leathern bag. “Bestow it +carefully. I trust you are methodic and wary.” He gave Deronda the +monitory and slightly suspicious look with which age is apt to commit +any object to the keeping of youth. + +“I shall be more careful of this than of any other property,” said +Deronda, smiling and putting the key in his breast-pocket. “I never +before possessed anything that was a sign to me of so much cherished +hope and effort. And I shall never forget that the effort was partly +yours. Have you time to tell me more of my grandfather? Or shall I be +trespassing in staying longer?” + +“Stay yet a while. In an hour and eighteen minutes I start for +Trieste,” said Kalonymos, looking at his watch, “and presently my sons +will expect my attention. Will you let me make you known to them, so +that they may have the pleasure of showing hospitality to my friend’s +grandson? They dwell here in ease and luxury, though I choose to be a +wanderer.” + +“I shall be glad if you will commend me to their acquaintance for some +future opportunity,” said Deronda. “There are pressing claims calling +me to England—friends who may be much in need of my presence. I have +been kept away from them too long by unexpected circumstances. But to +know more of you and your family would be motive enough to bring me +again to Mainz.” + +“Good! Me you will hardly find, for I am beyond my threescore years and +ten, and I am a wanderer, carrying my shroud with me. But my sons and +their children dwell here in wealth and unity. The days are changed for +us since Karl the Great fetched my ancestors from Italy to bring some +tincture of knowledge to our rough German brethren. I and my +contemporaries have had to fight for it too. Our youth fell on evil +days; but this we have won; we increase our wealth in safety, and the +learning of all Germany is fed and fattened by Jewish brains—though +they keep not always their Jewish hearts. Have you been left altogether +ignorant of your people’s life, young man?” + +“No,” said Deronda, “I have lately, before I had any true suspicion of +my parentage, been led to study everything belonging to their history +with more interest than any other subject. It turns out that I have +been making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little.” He was +anxious less the time should be consumed before this circuitous course +of talk could lead them back to the topic he most cared about. Age does +not easily distinguish between what it needs to express and what youth +needs to know—distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and +keenly active as Joseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the +wrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to +Beyrout: he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious +observation. But Deronda’s last sentence answered its purpose. + +“So—you would perhaps have been such a man as he if your education had +not hindered; for you are like him in features:—yet not altogether, +young man. He had an iron will in his face: it braced up everybody +about him. When he was quite young he had already got one deep upright +line in his brow. I see none of that in you. Daniel Charisi used to +say, ‘Better, a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy +than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.’ +What he despised most was indifference. He had longer reasons than I +can give you.” + +“Yet his knowledge was not narrow?” said Deronda, with a tacit +reference to the usual excuse for indecision—that it comes from +knowing too much. + +“Narrow? no,” said Kalonymos, shaking his head with a compassionate +smile “From his childhood upward, he drank in learning as easily as the +plant sucks up water. But he early took to medicine and theories about +life and health. He traveled to many countries, and spent much of his +substance in seeing and knowing. What he used to insist on was that the +strength and wealth of mankind depended on the balance of separateness +and communication, and he was bitterly against our people losing +themselves among the Gentiles; ‘It’s no better,’ said he, ‘than the +many sorts of grain going back from their variety into sameness.’ He +mingled all sorts of learning; and in that he was like our Arabic +writers in the golden time. We studied together, but he went beyond me. +Though we were bosom friends, and he poured himself out to me, we were +as different as the inside and outside of the bowl. I stood up for two +notions of my own: I took Charisi’s sayings as I took the shape of the +trees: they were there, not to be disputed about. It came to the same +thing in both of us; we were both faithful Jews, thankful not to be +Gentiles. And since I was a ripe man, I have been what I am now, for +all but age—loving to wander, loving transactions, loving to behold all +things, and caring nothing about hardship. Charisi thought continually +of our people’s future: he went with all his soul into that part of our +religion: I, not. So we have freedom, I am content. Our people wandered +before they were driven. Young man when I am in the East, I lie much on +deck and watch the greater stars. The sight of them satisfies me. I +know them as they rise, and hunger not to know more. Charisi was +satisfied with no sight, but pieced it out with what had been before +and what would come after. Yet we loved each other, and as he said, he +bound our love with duty; we solemnly pledged ourselves to help and +defend each other to the last. I have fulfilled my pledge.” Here +Kalonymos rose, and Deronda, rising also, said, + +“And in being faithful to him you have caused justice to be done to me. +It would have been a robbery of me too that I should never have known +of the inheritance he had prepared for me. I thank you with my whole +soul.” + +“Be worthy of him, young man. What is your vocation?” This question was +put with a quick abruptness which embarrassed Deronda, who did not feel +it quite honest to allege his law-reading as a vocation. He answered, + +“I cannot say that I have any.” + +“Get one, get one. The Jew must be diligent. You will call yourself a +Jew and profess the faith of your fathers?” said Kalonymos, putting his +hand on Deronda’s shoulder and looking sharply in his face. + +“I shall call myself a Jew,” said Deronda, deliberately, becoming +slightly paler under the piercing eyes of his questioner. “But I will +not say that I shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have +believed. Our fathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief +and learned of other races. But I think I can maintain my grandfather’s +notion of separateness with communication. I hold that my first duty is +to my own people, and if there is anything to be done toward restoring +or perfecting their common life, I shall make that my vocation.” + +It happened to Deronda at that moment, as it has often happened to +others, that the need for speech made an epoch in resolve. His respect +for the questioner would not let him decline to answer, and by the +necessity to answer he found out the truth for himself. + +“Ah, you argue and you look forward—you are Daniel Charisi’s +grandson,” said Kalonymos, adding a benediction in Hebrew. + +With that they parted; and almost as soon as Deronda was in London, the +aged man was again on shipboard, greeting the friendly stars without +any eager curiosity. + + + + +CHAPTER LXI. + + “Within the gentle heart Love shelters him, + As birds within the green shade of the grove. + Before the gentle heart, in Nature’s scheme, + Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.” + —GUIDO GUINICELLI (_Rossetti’s Translation_). + + +There was another house besides the white house at Pennicote, another +breast besides Rex Gascoigne’s, in which the news of Grandcourt’s death +caused both strong agitation and the effort to repress it. + +It was Hans Meyrick’s habit to send or bring in the _Times_ for his +mother’s reading. She was a great reader of news, from the +widest-reaching politics to the list of marriages; the latter, she +said, giving her the pleasant sense of finishing the fashionable novels +without having read them, and seeing the heroes and heroines happy +without knowing what poor creatures they were. On a Wednesday, there +were reasons why Hans always chose to bring the paper, and to do so +about the time that Mirah had nearly ended giving Mab her weekly +lesson, avowing that he came then because he wanted to hear Mirah sing. +But on the particular Wednesday now in question, after entering the +house as quietly as usual with his latch-key, he appeared in the +parlor, shaking the _Times_ aloft with a crackling noise, in +remorseless interruption of Mab’s attempt to render _Lascia ch’io +pianga_ with a remote imitation of her teacher. Piano and song ceased +immediately; Mirah, who had been playing the accompaniment, +involuntarily started up and turned round, the crackling sound, after +the occasional trick of sounds, having seemed to her something +thunderous; and Mab said, + +“O-o-o, Hans! why do you bring a more horrible noise than my singing?” + +“What on earth is the wonderful news?” said Mrs. Meyrick, who was the +only other person in the room. “Anything about Italy—anything about +the Austrians giving up Venice?” + +“Nothing about Italy, but something from Italy,” said Hans, with a +peculiarity in his tone and manner which set his mother interpreting. +Imagine how some of us feel and behave when an event, not disagreeable +seems to be confirming and carrying out our private constructions. We +say, “What do you think?” in a pregnant tone to some innocent person +who has not embarked his wisdom in the same boat with ours, and finds +our information flat. + +“Nothing bad?” said Mrs. Meyrick anxiously, thinking immediately of +Deronda; and Mirah’s heart had been already clutched by the same +thought. + +“Not bad for anybody we care much about,” said Hans, quickly; “rather +uncommonly lucky, I think. I never knew anybody die conveniently +before. Considering what a dear gazelle I am, I am constantly wondering +to find myself alive.” + +“Oh me, Hans!” said Mab, impatiently, “if you must talk of yourself, +let it be behind your own back. What _is_ it that has happened?” + +“Duke Alfonso is drowned, and the Duchess is alive, that’s all,” said +Hans, putting the paper before Mrs. Meyrick, with his finger against a +paragraph. “But more than all is—Deronda was at Genoa in the same +hotel with them, and he saw her brought in by the fishermen who had got +her out of the water time enough to save her from any harm. It seems +they saw her jump in after her husband, which was a less judicious +action than I should have expected of the Duchess. However Deronda is a +lucky fellow in being there to take care of her.” + +Mirah had sunk on the music stool again, with her eyelids down and her +hands tightly clasped; and Mrs. Meyrick, giving up the paper to Mab, +said, + +“Poor thing! she must have been fond of her husband to jump in after +him.” + +“It was an inadvertence—a little absence of mind,” said Hans, creasing +his face roguishly, and throwing himself into a chair not far from +Mirah. “Who can be fond of a jealous baritone, with freezing glances, +always singing asides?—that was the husband’s _rôle_, depend upon it. +Nothing can be neater than his getting drowned. The Duchess is at +liberty now to marry a man with a fine head of hair, and glances that +will melt instead of freezing her. And I shall be invited to the +wedding.” + +Here Mirah started from her sitting posture, and fixing her eyes on +Hans, with an angry gleam in them, she said, in a deeply-shaken voice +of indignation, + +“Mr. Hans, you ought not to speak in that way. Mr. Deronda would not +like you to speak so. Why will you say he is lucky—why will you use +words of that sort about life and death—when what is life to one is +death to another? How do you know it would be lucky if he loved Mrs. +Grandcourt? It might be a great evil to him. She would take him away +from my brother—I know she would. Mr. Deronda would not call that +lucky to pierce my brother’s heart.” + +All three were struck with the sudden transformation. Mirah’s face, +with a look of anger that might have suited Ithuriel, pale, even to the +lips that were usually so rich of tint, was not far from poor Hans, who +sat transfixed, blushing under it as if he had been a girl, while he +said, nervously, + +“I am a fool and a brute, and I withdraw every word. I’ll go and hang +myself like Judas—if it’s allowable to mention him.” Even in Hans’s +sorrowful moments, his improvised words had inevitably some drollery. + +But Mirah’s anger was not appeased: how could it be? She had burst into +indignant speech as creatures in intense pain bite and make their teeth +meet even through their own flesh, by way of making their agony +bearable. She said no more, but, seating herself at the piano, pressed +the sheet of music before her, as if she thought of beginning to play +again. + +It was Mab who spoke, while Mrs. Meyrick’s face seemed to reflect some +of Hans’ discomfort. + +“Mirah is quite right to scold you, Hans. You are always taking Mr. +Deronda’s name in vain. And it is horrible, joking in that way about +his marrying Mrs. Grandcourt. Men’s minds must be very black, I think,” +ended Mab, with much scorn. + +“Quite true, my dear,” said Hans, in a low tone, rising and turning on +his heel to walk toward the back window. + +“We had better go on, Mab; you have not given your full time to the +lesson,” said Mirah, in a higher tone than usual. “Will you sing this +again, or shall I sing it to you?” + +“Oh, please sing it to me,” said Mab, rejoiced to take no more notice +of what had happened. + +And Mirah immediately sang _Lascia ch’io pianga_, giving forth its +melodious sobs and cries with new fullness and energy. Hans paused in +his walk and leaned against the mantel-piece, keeping his eyes +carefully away from his mother’s. When Mirah had sung her last note and +touched the last chord, she rose and said, “I must go home now. Ezra +expects me.” + +She gave her hand silently to Mrs. Meyrick and hung back a little, not +daring to look at her, instead of kissing her, as usual. But the little +mother drew Mirah’s face down to hers, and said, soothingly, “God bless +you, my dear.” Mirah felt that she had committed an offense against +Mrs. Meyrick by angrily rebuking Hans, and mixed with the rest of her +suffering was the sense that she had shown something like a proud +ingratitude, an unbecoming assertion of superiority. And her friend had +divined this compunction. + +Meanwhile Hans had seized his wide-awake, and was ready to open the +door. + +“Now, Hans,” said Mab, with what was really a sister’s tenderness +cunningly disguised, “you are not going to walk home with Mirah. I am +sure she would rather not. You are so dreadfully disagreeable to-day.” + +“I shall go to take care of her, if she does not forbid me,” said Hans, +opening the door. + +Mirah said nothing, and when he had opened the outer door for her and +closed it behind him, he walked by her side unforbidden. She had not +the courage to begin speaking to him again—conscious that she had +perhaps been unbecomingly severe in her words to him, yet finding only +severer words behind them in her heart. Besides, she was pressed upon +by a crowd of thoughts thrusting themselves forward as interpreters of +that consciousness which still remained unaltered to herself. + +Hans, on his side, had a mind equally busy. Mirah’s anger had waked in +him a new perception, and with it the unpleasant sense that he was a +dolt not to have had it before. Suppose Mirah’s heart were entirely +preoccupied with Deronda in another character than that of her own and +her brother’s benefactor; the supposition was attended in Hans’s mind +with anxieties which, to do him justice, were not altogether selfish. +He had a strong persuasion, which only direct evidence to the contrary +could have dissipated, and that was that there was a serious attachment +between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt; he had pieced together many +fragments of observation, and gradually gathered knowledge, completed +by what his sisters had heard from Anna Gascoigne, which convinced him +not only that Mrs. Grandcourt had a passion for Deronda, but also, +notwithstanding his friend’s austere self-repression, that Deronda’s +susceptibility about her was the sign of concealed love. Some men, +having such a conviction, would have avoided allusions that could have +roused that susceptibility; but Hans’s talk naturally fluttered toward +mischief, and he was given to a form of experiment on live animals +which consisted in irritating his friends playfully. His experiments +had ended in satisfying him that what he thought likely was true. + +On the other hand, any susceptibility Deronda had manifested about a +lover’s attentions being shown to Mirah, Hans took to be sufficiently +accounted for by the alleged reason, namely, her dependent position; +for he credited his friend with all possible unselfish anxiety for +those whom he could rescue and protect. And Deronda’s insistence that +Mirah would never marry one who was not a Jew necessarily seemed to +exclude himself, since Hans shared the ordinary opinion, which he knew +nothing to disturb, that Deronda was the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger. + +Thus he felt himself in clearness about the state of Deronda’s +affections; but now, the events which really struck him as concurring +toward the desirable union with Mrs. Grandcourt, had called forth a +flash of revelation from Mirah—a betrayal of her passionate feeling on +this subject which had made him melancholy on her account as well as +his own—yet on the whole less melancholy than if he had imagined +Deronda’s hopes fixed on her. It is not sublime, but it is common, for +a man to see the beloved object unhappy because his rival loves +another, with more fortitude and a milder jealousy than if he saw her +entirely happy in his rival. At least it was so with the mercurial +Hans, who fluctuated between the contradictory states of feeling, +wounded because Mirah was wounded, and of being almost obliged to +Deronda for loving somebody else. It was impossible for him to give +Mirah any direct sign of the way in which he had understood her anger, +yet he longed that his speechless companionship should be eloquent in a +tender, penitent sympathy which is an admissible form of wooing a +bruised heart. + +Thus the two went side by side in a companionship that yet seemed an +agitated communication, like that of two chords whose quick vibrations +lie outside our hearing. But when they reached the door of Mirah’s +home, and Hans said “Good-bye,” putting out his hand with an appealing +look of penitence, she met the look with melancholy gentleness, and +said, “Will you not come in and see my brother?” + +Hans could not but interpret this invitation as a sign of pardon. He +had not enough understanding of what Mirah’s nature had been wrought +into by her early experience, to divine how the very strength of her +late excitement had made it pass more quickly into the resolute +acceptance of pain. When he had said, “If you will let me,” and they +went in together, half his grief was gone, and he was spinning a little +romance of how his devotion might make him indispensable to Mirah in +proportion as Deronda gave his devotion elsewhere. This was quite fair, +since his friend was provided for according to his own heart; and on +the question of Judaism Hans felt thoroughly fortified:—who ever heard +in tale or history that a woman’s love went in the track of her race +and religion? Moslem and Jewish damsels were always attracted toward +Christians, and now if Mirah’s heart had gone forth too precipitately +toward Deronda, here was another case in point. Hans was wont to make +merry with his own arguments, to call himself a Giaour, and antithesis +the sole clue to events; but he believed a little in what he laughed +at. And thus his bird-like hope, constructed on the lightest +principles, soared again in spite of heavy circumstances. + +They found Mordecai looking singularly happy, holding a closed letter +in his hand, his eyes glowing with a quiet triumph which in his +emaciated face gave the idea of a conquest over assailing death. After +the greeting between him and Hans, Mirah put her arm round her +brother’s neck and looked down at the letter in his hand, without the +courage to ask about it, though she felt sure that it was the cause of +his happiness. + +“A letter from Daniel Deronda,” said Mordecai, answering her look. +“Brief—only saying that he hopes soon to return. Unexpected claims +have detained him. The promise of seeing him again is like the bow in +the cloud to me,” continued Mordecai, looking at Hans; “and to you it +must be a gladness. For who has two friends like him?” + +While Hans was answering Mirah slipped away to her own room; but not to +indulge in any outburst of the passion within her. If the angels, once +supposed to watch the toilet of women, had entered the little chamber +with her and let her shut the door behind them, they would only have +seen her take off her hat, sit down and press her hands against her +temples as if she had suddenly reflected that her head ached; then rise +to dash cold water on her eyes and brow and hair till her backward +curls were full of crystal beads, while she had dried her brow and +looked out like a freshly-opened flower from among the dewy tresses of +the woodland; then give deep sighs of relief, and putting on her little +slippers, sit still after that action for a couple of minutes, which +seemed to her so long, so full of things to come, that she rose with an +air of recollection, and went down to make tea. + +Something of the old life had returned. She had been used to remember +that she must learn her part, must go to rehearsal, must act and sing +in the evening, must hide her feelings from her father; and the more +painful her life grew, the more she had been used to hide. The force of +her nature had long found its chief action in resolute endurance, and +to-day the violence of feeling which had caused the first jet of anger +had quickly transformed itself into a steady facing of trouble, the +well-known companion of her young years. But while she moved about and +spoke as usual, a close observer might have discerned a difference +between this apparent calm, which was the effect of restraining energy, +and the sweet genuine calm of the months when she first felt a return +of her infantine happiness. + +Those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of +calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at +the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will +alter the course of the storm. Mirah felt no such surprise when +familiar Sorrow came back from brief absence, and sat down with her +according to the old use and wont. And this habit of expecting trouble +rather than joy, hindered her from having any persistent belief in +opposition to the probabilities which were not merely suggested by +Hans, but were supported by her own private knowledge and long-growing +presentiment. An attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt, to end +in their future marriage, had the aspect of a certainty for her +feeling. There had been no fault in him: facts had ordered themselves +so that there was a tie between him and this woman who belonged to +another world than hers and Ezra’s—nay, who seemed another sort of +being than Deronda, something foreign that would be a disturbance in +his life instead of blending with it. Well, well—but if it could have +been deferred so as to make no difference while Ezra was there! She did +not know all the momentousness of the relation between Deronda and her +brother, but she had seen, and instinctively felt enough to forebode +its being incongruous with any close tie to Mrs. Grandcourt; at least +this was the clothing that Mirah first gave to her mortal repugnance. +But in the still, quick action of her consciousness, thoughts went on +like changing states of sensation unbroken by her habitual acts; and +this inward language soon said distinctly that the mortal repugnance +would remain even if Ezra were secured from loss. + +“What I have read about and sung about and seen acted, is happening to +me—this that I am feeling is the love that makes jealousy;” so +impartially Mirah summed up the charge against herself. But what +difference could this pain of hers make to any one else? It must remain +as exclusively her own, and hidden, as her early yearning and devotion +to her lost mother. But unlike that devotion, it was something that she +felt to be a misfortune of her nature—a discovery that what should +have been pure gratitude and reverence had sunk into selfish pain, that +the feeling she had hitherto delighted to pour out in words was +degraded into something she was ashamed to betray—an absurd longing +that she who had received all and given nothing should be of importance +where she was of no importance—an angry feeling toward another woman +who possessed the good she wanted. But what notion, what vain reliance +could it be that had lain darkly within her and was now burning itself +into sight as disappointment and jealousy? It was as if her soul had +been steeped in poisonous passion by forgotten dreams of deep sleep, +and now flamed out in this unaccountable misery. For with her waking +reason she had never entertained what seemed the wildly unfitting +thought that Deronda could love her. The uneasiness she had felt before +had been comparatively vague and easily explained as part of a general +regret that he was only a visitant in her and her brother’s world, from +which the world where his home lay was as different as a portico with +lights and lacqueys was different from the door of a tent, where the +only splendor came from the mysterious inaccessible stars. But her +feeling was no longer vague: the cause of her pain—the image of Mrs. +Grandcourt by Deronda’s side, drawing him farther and farther into the +distance, was as definite as pincers on her flesh. In the Psyche-mould +of Mirah’s frame there rested a fervid quality of emotion, sometimes +rashly supposed to require the bulk of a Cleopatra; her impressions had +the thoroughness and tenacity that give to the first selection of +passionate feeling the character of a life-long faithfulness. And now a +selection had declared itself, which gave love a cruel heart of +jealousy: she had been used to a strong repugnance toward certain +objects that surrounded her, and to walk inwardly aloof from them while +they touched her sense. And now her repugnance concentrated itself on +Mrs. Grandcourt, of whom she involuntarily conceived more evil than she +knew. “I could bear everything that used to be—but this is worse—this +is worse,—I used not to have horrible feelings!” said the poor child +in a loud whisper to her pillow. Strange that she should have to pray +against any feeling which concerned Deronda! + +But this conclusion had been reached through an evening spent in +attending to Mordecai, whose exaltation of spirit in the prospect of +seeing his friend again, disposed him to utter many thoughts aloud to +Mirah, though such communication was often interrupted by intervals +apparently filled with an inward utterance that animated his eyes and +gave an occasional silent action to his lips. One thought especially +occupied him. + +“Seest thou, Mirah,” he said once, after a long silence, “the _Shemah_, +wherein we briefly confess the divine Unity, is the chief devotional +exercise of the Hebrew; and this made our religion the fundamental +religion for the whole world; for the divine Unity embraced as its +consequence the ultimate unity of mankind. See, then—the nation which +has been scoffed at for its separateness, has given a binding theory to +the human race. Now, in complete unity a part possesses the whole as +the whole possesses every part: and in this way human life is tending +toward the image of the Supreme Unity: for as our life becomes more +spiritual by capacity of thought, and joy therein, possession tends to +become more universal, being independent of gross material contact; so +that in a brief day the soul of man may know in fuller volume the good +which has been and is, nay, is to come, than all he could possess in a +whole life where he had to follow the creeping paths of the senses. In +this moment, my sister, I hold the joy of another’s future within me: a +future which these eyes will not see, and which my spirit may not then +recognize as mine. I recognize it now, and love it so, that I can lay +down this poor life upon its altar and say: ‘Burn, burn indiscernibly +into that which shall be, which is my love and not me.’ Dost thou +understand, Mirah?” + +“A little,” said Mirah, faintly, “but my mind is too poor to have felt +it.” + +“And yet,” said Mordecai, rather insistently, “women are specially +framed for the love which feels possession in renouncing, and is thus a +fit image of what I mean. Somewhere in the later _Midrash_, I think, is +the story of a Jewish maiden who loved a Gentile king so well, that +this was what she did:—she entered into prison and changed clothes +with the woman who was beloved by the king, that she might deliver that +woman from death by dying in her stead, and leave the king to be happy +in his love which was not for her. This is the surpassing love, that +loses self in the object of love.” + +“No, Ezra, no,” said Mirah, with low-toned intensity, “that was not it. +She wanted the king when she was dead to know what she had done, and +feel that she was better than the other. It was her strong self, +wanting to conquer, that made her die.” + +Mordecai was silent a little, and then argued, + +“That might be, Mirah. But if she acted so, believing the king would +never know.” + +“You can make the story so in your mind, Ezra, because you are great, +and like to fancy the greatest that could be. But I think it was not +really like that. The Jewish girl must have had jealousy in her heart, +and she wanted somehow to have the first place in the king’s mind. That +is what she would die for.” + +“My sister, thou hast read too many plays, where the writers delight in +showing the human passions as indwelling demons, unmixed with the +relenting and devout elements of the soul. Thou judgest by the plays, +and not by thy own heart, which is like our mother’s.” + +Mirah made no answer. + + + + +CHAPTER LXII. + + “Das Glück ist eine leichte Dirne, + Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort; + Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirne + Und küsst dich rasch und flattert fort + + Frau Unglück hat im Gegentheile + Dich liebefest an’s Herz gedrückt; + Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile, + Setzt sich zu dir an’s Bett und strickt.” + —HEINE. + + +Something which Mirah had lately been watching for as the fulfilment of +a threat, seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which +had lately come back, bringing abundant luggage. + +Turning out of Knightsbridge, after singing at a charitable morning +concert in a wealthy house, where she had been recommended by Klesmer, +and where there had been the usual groups outside to see the departing +company, she began to feel herself dogged by footsteps that kept an +even pace with her own. Her concert dress being simple black, over +which she had thrown a dust cloak, could not make her an object of +unpleasant attention, and render walking an imprudence; but this +reflection did not occur to Mirah: another kind of alarm lay uppermost +in her mind. She immediately thought of her father, and could no more +look round than if she had felt herself tracked by a ghost. To turn and +face him would be voluntarily to meet the rush of emotions which +beforehand seemed intolerable. If it were her father he must mean to +claim recognition, and he would oblige her to face him. She must wait +for that compulsion. She walked on, not quickening her pace—of what +use was that?—but picturing what was about to happen as if she had the +full certainty that the man behind her was her father; and along with +her picturing went a regret that she had given her word to Mrs. Meyrick +not to use any concealment about him. The regret at last urged her, at +least, to try and hinder any sudden betrayal that would cause her +brother an unnecessary shock. Under the pressure of this motive, she +resolved to turn before she reached her own door, and firmly will the +encounter instead of merely submitting to it. She had already reached +the entrance of the small square where her home lay, and had made up +her mind to turn, when she felt her embodied presentiment getting +closer to her, then slipping to her side, grasping her wrist, and +saying, with a persuasive curl of accent, “Mirah!” + +She paused at once without any start; it was the voice she expected, +and she was meeting the expected eyes. Her face was as grave as if she +had been looking at her executioner, while his was adjusted to the +intention of soothing and propitiating her. Once a handsome face, with +bright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined, and had that peculiar +impress of impudent suavity which comes from courting favor while +accepting disrespect. He was lightly made and active, with something of +youth about him which made the signs of age seem a disguise; and in +reality he was hardly fifty-seven. His dress was shabby, as when she +had seen him before. The presence of this unreverend father now, more +than ever, affected Mirah with the mingled anguish of shame and grief, +repulsion and pity—more than ever, now that her own world was changed +into one where there was no comradeship to fence him from scorn and +contempt. + +Slowly, with a sad, tremulous voice, she said, “It is you, father.” + +“Why did you run away from me, child?” he began with rapid speech which +was meant to have a tone of tender remonstrance, accompanied with +various quick gestures like an abbreviated finger-language. “What were +you afraid of? You knew I never made you do anything against your will. +It was for your sake I broke up your engagement in the Vorstadt, +because I saw it didn’t suit you, and you repaid me by leaving me to +the bad times that came in consequence. I had made an easier engagement +for you at the Vorstadt Theater in Dresden: I didn’t tell you, because +I wanted to take you by surprise. And you left me planted +there—obliged to make myself scarce because I had broken contract. +That was hard lines for me, after I had given up everything for the +sake of getting you an education which was to be a fortune to you. What +father devoted himself to his daughter more than I did to you? You know +how I bore that disappointment in your voice, and made the best of it: +and when I had nobody besides you, and was getting broken, as a man +must who has had to fight his way with his brains—you chose that time +to leave me. Who else was it you owed everything to, if not to me? and +where was your feeling in return? For what my daughter cared, I might +have died in a ditch.” + +Lapidoth stopped short here, not from lack of invention, but because he +had reached a pathetic climax, and gave a sudden sob, like a woman’s, +taking out hastily an old yellow silk handkerchief. He really felt that +his daughter had treated him ill—a sort of sensibility which is +naturally strong in unscrupulous persons, who put down what is owing to +them, without any _per contra_. Mirah, in spite of that sob, had energy +enough not to let him suppose that he deceived her. She answered more +firmly, though it was the first time she had ever used accusing words +to him. + +“You know why I left you, father; and I had reason to distrust you, +because I felt sure that you had deceived my mother. If I could have +trusted you, I would have stayed with you and worked for you.” + +“I never meant to deceive your mother, Mirah,” said Lapidoth, putting +back his handkerchief, but beginning with a voice that seemed to +struggle against further sobbing. “I meant to take you back to her, but +chances hindered me just at the time, and then there came information +of her death. It was better for you that I should stay where I was, and +your brother could take care of himself. Nobody had any claim on me but +you. I had word of your mother’s death from a particular friend, who +had undertaken to manage things for me, and I sent him over money to +pay expenses. There’s one chance to be sure—” Lapidoth had quickly +conceived that he must guard against something unlikely, yet +possible—“he may have written me lies for the sake of getting the +money out of me.” + +Mirah made no answer; she could not bear to utter the only true one—“I +don’t believe one word of what you say”—and she simply showed a wish +that they should walk on, feeling that their standing still might draw +down unpleasant notice. Even as they walked along, their companionship +might well have made a passer-by turn back to look at them. The figure +of Mirah, with her beauty set off by the quiet, careful dress of an +English lady, made a strange pendant to this shabby, foreign-looking, +eager, and gesticulating man, who withal had an ineffaceable jauntiness +of air, perhaps due to the bushy curls of his grizzled hair, the +smallness of his hands and feet, and his light walk. + +“You seem to have done well for yourself, Mirah? _You_ are in no want, +I see,” said the father, looking at her with emphatic examination. + +“Good friends who found me in distress have helped me to get work,” +said Mirah, hardly knowing what she actually said, from being occupied +with what she would presently have to say. “I give lessons. I have sung +in private houses. I have just been singing at a private concert.” She +paused, and then added, with significance, “I have very good friends, +who know all about me.” + +“And you would be ashamed they should see your father in this plight? +No wonder. I came to England with no prospect, but the chance of +finding you. It was a mad quest; but a father’s heart is +superstitious—feels a loadstone drawing it somewhere or other. I might +have done very well, staying abroad: when I hadn’t you to take care of, +I could have rolled or settled as easily as a ball; but it’s hard being +lonely in the world, when your spirit’s beginning to break. And I +thought my little Mirah would repent leaving her father when she came +to look back. I’ve had a sharp pinch to work my way; I don’t know what +I shall come down to next. Talents like mine are no use in this +country. When a man’s getting out at elbows nobody will believe in him. +I couldn’t get any decent employ with my appearance. I’ve been obliged +to get pretty low for a shilling already.” + +Mirah’s anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father’s sinking into a +further degradation, which she was bound to hinder if she could. But +before she could answer his string of inventive sentences, delivered +with as much glibness as if they had been learned by rote, he added +promptly, + +“Where do you live, Mirah?” + +“Here, in this square. We are not far from the house.” + +“In lodgings?” + +“Yes.” + +“Any one to take care of you?” + +“Yes,” said Mirah again, looking full at the keen face which was turned +toward hers—“my brother.” + +The father’s eyelids fluttered as if the lightning had come across +them, and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. But he said, +after a just perceptible pause: “Ezra? How did you know—how did you +find him?” + +“That would take long to tell. Here we are at the door. My brother +would not wish me to close it on you.” + +Mirah was already on the doorstep, but had her face turned toward her +father, who stood below her on the pavement. Her heart had begun to +beat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of +Ezra; and already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom +she had been used to obey—in this sight of him standing below her, +with a perceptible shrinking from the admission which he had been +indirectly asking for, she had a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic +humiliation and shame—the stabbed heart of reverence—which belongs to +a nature intensely filial. + +“Stay a minute, _Liebchen_,” said Lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone; +“what sort of man has Ezra turned out?” + +“A good man—a wonderful man,” said Mirah, with slow emphasis, trying +to master the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went +on. She felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration +of himself which awaited him. “But he was very poor when my friends +found him for me—a poor workman. Once—twelve years ago—he was strong +and happy, going to the East, which he loved to think of; and my mother +called him back because—because she had lost me. And he went to her, +and took care of her through great trouble, and worked for her till she +died—died in grief. And Ezra, too, had lost his health and strength. +The cold had seized him coming back to my mother, because she was +forsaken. For years he has been getting weaker—always poor, always +working—but full of knowledge, and great-minded. All who come near him +honor him. To stand before him is like standing before a prophet of +God”—Mirah ended with difficulty, her heart throbbing—“falsehoods are +no use.” + +She had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she +spoke the last words—unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration +that gathered in his face. But he was none the less quick in invention +and decision. + +“Mirah, _Liebchen_,” he said, in the old caressing way, “shouldn’t you +like me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me? +If I had a little sum of money, I could fit myself out and come home to +you as your father ought, and then I could offer myself for some decent +place. With a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad +enough to have me. I could offer myself for a courier, if I didn’t look +like a broken-down mountebank. I should like to be with my children, +and forget and forgive. But you have never seen your father look like +this before. If you had ten pounds at hand—or I could appoint you to +bring it me somewhere—I could fit myself out by the day after +to-morrow.” + +Mirah felt herself under a temptation which she must try to overcome. +She answered, obliging herself to look at him again, + +“I don’t like to deny you what you ask, father; but I have given a +promise not to do things for you in secret. It _is_ hard to see you +looking needy; but we will bear that for a little while; and then you +can have new clothes, and we can pay for them.” Her practical sense +made her see now what was Mrs. Meyrick’s wisdom in exacting a promise +from her. + +Lapidoth’s good humor gave way a little. He said, with a sneer, “You +are a hard and fast young lady—you have been learning useful +virtues—keeping promises not to help your father with a pound or two +when you are getting money to dress yourself in silk—your father who +made an idol of you, and gave up the best part of his life to providing +for you.” + +“It seems cruel—I know it seems cruel,” said Mirah, feeling this a +worse moment than when she meant to drown herself. Her lips were +suddenly pale. “But, father, it is more cruel to break the promises +people trust in. That broke my mother’s heart—it has broken Ezra’s +life. You and I must eat now this bitterness from what has been. Bear +it. Bear to come in and be cared for as you are.” + +“To-morrow, then,” said Lapidoth, almost turning on his heel away from +this pale, trembling daughter, who seemed now to have got the +inconvenient world to back her; but he quickly turned on it again, with +his hands feeling about restlessly in his pockets, and said, with some +return to his appealing tone, “I’m a little cut up with all this, +Mirah. I shall get up my spirits by to-morrow. If you’ve a little money +in your pocket, I suppose it isn’t against your promise to give me a +trifle—to buy a cigar with.” + +Mirah could not ask herself another question—could not do anything +else than put her cold trembling hands in her pocket for her +_portemonnaie_ and hold it out. Lapidoth grasped it at once, pressed +her fingers the while, said, “Good-bye, my little girl—to-morrow +then!” and left her. He had not taken many steps before he looked +carefully into all the folds of the purse, found two half-sovereigns +and odd silver, and, pasted against the folding cover, a bit of paper +on which Ezra had inscribed, in a beautiful Hebrew character, the name +of his mother, the days of her birth, marriage, and death, and the +prayer, “May Mirah be delivered from evil.” It was Mirah’s liking to +have this little inscription on many articles that she used. The father +read it, and had a quick vision of his marriage day, and the bright, +unblamed young fellow he was at that time; teaching many things, but +expecting by-and-by to get money more easily by writing; and very fond +of his beautiful bride Sara—crying when she expected him to cry, and +reflecting every phase of her feeling with mimetic susceptibility. +Lapidoth had traveled a long way from that young self, and thought of +all that this inscription signified with an unemotional memory, which +was like the ocular perception of a touch to one who has lost the sense +of touch, or like morsels on an untasting palate, having shape and +grain, but no flavor. Among the things we may gamble away in a lazy +selfish life is the capacity for ruth, compunction, or any unselfish +regret—which we may come to long for as one in slow death longs to +feel laceration, rather than be conscious of a widening margin where +consciousness once was. Mirah’s purse was a handsome one—a gift to +her, which she had been unable to reflect about giving away—and +Lapidoth presently found himself outside of his reverie, considering +what the purse would fetch in addition to the sum it contained, and +what prospect there was of his being able to get more from his daughter +without submitting to adopt a penitential form of life under the eyes +of that formidable son. On such a subject his susceptibilities were +still lively. + +Meanwhile Mirah had entered the house with her power of reticence +overcome by the cruelty of her pain. She found her brother quietly +reading and sifting old manuscripts of his own, which he meant to +consign to Deronda. In the reaction from the long effort to master +herself, she fell down before him and clasped his knees, sobbing, and +crying, “Ezra, Ezra!” + +He did not speak. His alarm for her spending itself on conceiving the +cause of her distress, the more striking from the novelty in her of +this violent manifestation. But Mirah’s own longing was to be able to +speak and tell him the cause. Presently she raised her hand, and still +sobbing, said brokenly, + +“Ezra, my father! our father! He followed me. I wanted him to come in. +I said you would let him come in. And he said No, he would not—not +now, but to-morrow. And he begged for money from me. And I gave him my +purse, and he went away.” + +Mirah’s words seemed to herself to express all the misery she felt in +them. Her brother found them less grievous than his preconceptions, and +said gently, “Wait for calm, Mirah, and then tell me all,”—putting off +her hat and laying his hands tenderly on her head. She felt the +soothing influence, and in a few minutes told him as exactly as she +could all that had happened. + +“He will not come to-morrow,” said Mordecai. Neither of them said to +the other what they both thought, namely, that he might watch for +Mirah’s outgoings and beg from her again. + +“Seest thou,” he presently added, “our lot is the lot of Israel. The +grief and the glory are mingled as the smoke and the flame. It is +because we children have inherited the good that we feel the evil. +These things are wedded for us, as our father was wedded to our mother.” + +The surroundings were of Brompton, but the voice might have come from a +Rabbi transmitting the sentences of an elder time to be registered in +_Babli_—by which (to our ears) affectionate-sounding diminutive is +meant the voluminous Babylonian Talmud. “The Omnipresent,” said a +Rabbi, “is occupied in making marriages.” The levity of the saying lies +in the ear of him who hears it; for by marriages the speaker meant all +the wondrous combinations of the universe whose issue makes our good +and evil. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIII. + + “Moses, trotz seiner Befeindung der Kunst, dennoch selber ein großer + Künstler war und den wahren Künstlergeist besaß. Nur war dieser + Künstlergeist bei ihm, wie bei seinen ägyptischen Landsleuten, nur + auf das Kolossale und Unverwüstliche gerichtet. Aber nicht wie die + Ägypter formierte er seine Kunstwerke aus Backstein und Granit, + sondern er baute Menschenpyramiden, er meisselte Menschenobelisken, + er nahm einen armen Hirtenstamm und schuf daraus ein Volk, das + ebenfalls den Jahrhunderten trotzen sollte . . . er schuf + Israel!”—HEINE: _Geständnisse_. + + +Imagine the difference in Deronda’s state of mind when he left England +and when he returned to it. He had set out for Genoa in total +uncertainty how far the actual bent of his wishes and affections would +be encouraged—how far the claims revealed to him might draw him into +new paths, far away from the tracks his thoughts had lately been +pursuing with a consent of desire which uncertainty made dangerous. He +came back with something like a discovered charter warranting the +inherited right that his ambition had begun to yearn for: he came back +with what was better than freedom—with a duteous bond which his +experience had been preparing him to accept gladly, even if it had been +attended with no promise of satisfying a secret passionate longing +never yet allowed to grow into a hope. But now he dared avow to himself +the hidden selection of his love. Since the hour when he left the house +at Chelsea in full-hearted silence under the effect of Mirah’s farewell +look and words—their exquisite appealingness stirring in him that +deep-laid care for womanhood which had begun when his own lip was like +a girl’s—her hold on his feeling had helped him to be blameless in +word and deed under the difficult circumstances we know of. There +seemed no likelihood that he could ever woo this creature who had +become dear to him amidst associations that forbade wooing; yet she had +taken her place in his soul as a beloved type—reducing the power of +other fascination and making a difference in it that became deficiency. +The influence had been continually strengthened. It had lain in the +course of poor Gwendolen’s lot that her dependence on Deronda tended to +rouse in him the enthusiasm of self-martyring pity rather than of +personal love, and his less constrained tenderness flowed with the +fuller stream toward an indwelling image in all things unlike +Gwendolen. Still more, his relation to Mordecai had brought with it a +new nearness to Mirah which was not the less agitating because there +was no apparent change in his position toward her; and she had +inevitably been bound up in all the thoughts that made him shrink from +an issue disappointing to her brother. This process had not gone on +unconsciously in Deronda: he was conscious of it as we are of some +covetousness that it would be better to nullify by encouraging other +thoughts than to give it the insistency of confession even to +ourselves: but the jealous fire had leaped out at Hans’s pretensions, +and when his mother accused him of being in love with a Jewess any +evasion suddenly seemed an infidelity. His mother had compelled him to +a decisive acknowledgment of his love, as Joseph Kalonymos had +compelled him to a definite expression of his resolve. This new state +of decision wrought on Deronda with a force which surprised even +himself. There was a release of all the energy which had long been +spent in self-checking and suppression because of doubtful conditions; +and he was ready to laugh at his own impetuosity when, as he neared +England on his way from Mainz, he felt the remaining distance more and +more of an obstruction. It was as if he had found an added soul in +finding his ancestry—his judgment no longer wandering in the mazes of +impartial sympathy, but choosing, with that partiality which is man’s +best strength, the closer fellowship that makes sympathy +practical—exchanging that bird’s eye reasonableness which soars to +avoid preference and loses all sense of quality for the generous +reasonableness of drawing shoulder to shoulder with men of like +inheritance. He wanted now to be again with Mordecai, to pour forth +instead of restraining his feeling, to admit agreement and maintain +dissent, and all the while to find Mirah’s presence without the +embarrassment of obviously seeking it, to see her in the light of a new +possibility, to interpret her looks and words from a new +starting-point. He was not greatly alarmed about the effect of Hans’s +attentions, but he had a presentiment that her feeling toward himself +had from the first lain in a channel from which it was not likely to be +diverted into love. To astonish a woman by turning into her lover when +she has been thinking of you merely as a Lord Chancellor is what a man +naturally shrinks from: he is anxious to create an easier transition. + +What wonder that Deronda saw no other course than to go straight from +the London railway station to the lodgings in that small square in +Brompton? Every argument was in favor of his losing no time. He had +promised to run down the next day to see Lady Mallinger at the Abbey, +and it was already sunset. He wished to deposit the precious chest with +Mordecai, who would study its contents, both in his absence and in +company with him; and that he should pay this visit without pause would +gratify Mordecai’s heart. Hence, and for other reasons, it gratified +Deronda’s heart. The strongest tendencies of his nature were rushing in +one current—the fervent affectionateness which made him delight in +meeting the wish of beings near to him, and the imaginative need of +some far-reaching relation to make the horizon of his immediate, daily +acts. It has to be admitted that in this classical, romantic, +world-historic position of his, bringing as it were from its +hiding-place his hereditary armor, he wore—but so, one must suppose, +did the most ancient heroes, whether Semitic or Japhetic—the summer +costume of his contemporaries. He did not reflect that the drab tints +were becoming to him, for he rarely went to the expense of such +thinking; but his own depth of coloring, which made the becomingness, +got an added radiance in the eyes, a fleeting and returning glow in the +skin, as he entered the house wondering what exactly he should find. He +made his entrance as noiseless as possible. + +It was the evening of that same afternoon on which Mirah had had the +interview with her father. Mordecai, penetrated by her grief, and also +the sad memories which the incident had awakened, had not resumed his +task of sifting papers: some of them had fallen scattered on the floor +in the first moments of anxiety, and neither he nor Mirah had thought +of laying them in order again. They had sat perfectly still together, +not knowing how long; while the clock ticked on the mantel-piece, and +the light was fading, Mirah, unable to think of the food that she ought +to have been taking, had not moved since she had thrown off her +dust-cloak and sat down beside Mordecai with her hand in his, while he +had laid his head backward, with closed eyes and difficult breathing, +looking, Mirah thought, as he would look when the soul within him could +no longer live in its straitened home. The thought that his death might +be near was continually visiting her when she saw his face in this way, +without its vivid animation; and now, to the rest of her grief, was +added the regret that she had been unable to control the violent +outburst which had shaken him. She sat watching him—her oval cheeks +pallid, her eyes with the sorrowful brilliancy left by young tears, her +curls in as much disorder as a just-awakened child’s—watching that +emaciated face, where it might have been imagined that a veil had been +drawn never to be lifted, as if it were her dead joy which had left her +strong enough to live on in sorrow. And life at that moment stretched +before Mirah with more than a repetition of former sadness. The shadow +of the father was there, and more than that, a double bereavement—of +one living as well as one dead. + +But now the door was opened, and while none entered, a well-known voice +said: “Daniel Deronda—may he come in?” + +“Come! come!” said Mordecai, immediately rising with an irradiated face +and opened eyes—apparently as little surprised as if he had seen +Deronda in the morning, and expected this evening visit; while Mirah +started up blushing with confused, half-alarmed expectation. + +Yet when Deronda entered, the sight of him was like the clearness after +rain: no clouds to come could hinder the cherishing beam of that +moment. As he held out his right hand to Mirah, who was close to her +brother’s left, he laid his other hand on Mordecai’s right shoulder, +and stood so a moment, holding them both at once, uttering no word, but +reading their faces, till he said anxiously to Mirah, “Has anything +happened?—any trouble?” + +“Talk not of trouble now,” said Mordecai, saving her from the need to +answer. “There is joy in your face—let the joy be ours.” + +Mirah thought, “It is for something he cannot tell us.” But they all +sat down, Deronda drawing a chair close in front of Mordecai. + +“That is true,” he said, emphatically. “I have a joy which will remain +to us even in the worst trouble. I did not tell you the reason of my +journey abroad, Mordecai, because—never mind—I went to learn my +parentage. And you were right. I am a Jew.” + +The two men clasped hands with a movement that seemed part of the flash +from Mordecai’s eyes, and passed through Mirah like an electric shock. +But Deronda went on without pause, speaking from Mordecai’s mind as +much as from his own, + +“We have the same people. Our souls have the same vocation. We shall +not be separated by life or by death.” + +Mordecai’s answer was uttered in Hebrew, and in no more than a loud +whisper. It was in the liturgical words which express the religious +bond: “Our God and the God of our fathers.” + +The weight of feeling pressed too strongly on that ready-winged speech +which usually moved in quick adaptation to every stirring of his fervor. + +Mirah fell on her knees by her brother’s side, and looked at his now +illuminated face, which had just before been so deathly. The action was +an inevitable outlet of the violent reversal from despondency to a +gladness which came over her as solemnly as if she had been beholding a +religious rite. For the moment she thought of the effect on her own +life only through the effect on her brother. + +“And it is not only that I am a Jew,” Deronda went on, enjoying one of +those rare moments when our yearnings and our acts can be completely +one, and the real we behold is our ideal good; “but I come of a strain +that has ardently maintained the fellowship of our race—a line of +Spanish Jews that has borne many students and men of practical power. +And I possess what will give us a sort of communion with them. My +grandfather, Daniel Charisi, preserved manuscripts, family records +stretching far back, in the hope that they would pass into the hands of +his grandson. And now his hope is fulfilled, in spite of attempts to +thwart it by hiding my parentage from me. I possess the chest +containing them, with his own papers, and it is down below in this +house. I mean to leave it with you, Mordecai, that you may help me to +study the manuscripts. Some of them I can read easily enough—those in +Spanish and Italian. Others are in Hebrew, and, I think, Arabic; but +there seem to be Latin translations. I was only able to look at them +cursorily while I stayed at Mainz. We will study them together.” + +Deronda ended with that bright smile which, beaming out from the +habitual gravity of his face, seemed a revelation (the reverse of the +continual smile that discredits all expression). But when this happy +glance passed from Mordecai to rest on Mirah, it acted like a little +too much sunshine, and made her change her attitude. She had knelt +under an impulse with which any personal embarrassment was incongruous, +and especially any thoughts about how Mrs. Grandcourt might stand to +this new aspect of things—thoughts which made her color under +Deronda’s glance, and rise to take her seat again in her usual posture +of crossed hands and feet, with the effort to look as quiet as +possible. Deronda, equally sensitive, imagined that the feeling of +which he was conscious, had entered too much into his eyes, and had +been repugnant to her. He was ready enough to believe that any +unexpected manifestation might spoil her feeling toward him—and then +his precious relation to brother and sister would be marred. If Mirah +could have no love for him, any advances of love on his part would make +her wretched in that continual contact with him which would remain +inevitable. + +While such feelings were pulsating quickly in Deronda and Mirah, +Mordecai, seeing nothing in his friend’s presence and words but a +blessed fulfillment, was already speaking with his old sense of +enlargement in utterance, + +“Daniel, from the first, I have said to you, we know not all the +pathways. Has there not been a meeting among them, as of the operations +in one soul, where an idea being born and breathing draws the elements +toward it, and is fed and glows? For all things are bound together in +that Omnipresence which is the place and habitation of the world, and +events are of a glass wherethrough our eyes see some of the pathways. +And if it seems that the erring and unloving wills of men have helped +to prepare you, as Moses was prepared, to serve your people the better, +that depends on another order than the law which must guide our +footsteps. For the evil will of man makes not a people’s good except by +stirring the righteous will of man; and beneath all the clouds with +which our thought encompasses the Eternal, this is clear—that a people +can be blessed only by having counsellors and a multitude whose will +moves in obedience to the laws of justice and love. For see, now, it +was your loving will that made a chief pathway, and resisted the effect +of evil; for, by performing the duties of brotherhood to my sister, and +seeking out her brother in the flesh, your soul has been prepared to +receive with gladness this message of the Eternal, ‘behold the +multitude of your brethren.’” + +“It is quite true that you and Mirah have been my teachers,” said +Deronda. “If this revelation had been made to me before I knew you +both, I think my mind would have rebelled against it. Perhaps I should +have felt then—‘If I could have chosen, I would not have been a Jew.’ +What I feel now is—that my whole being is a consent to the fact. But +it has been the gradual accord between your mind and mine which has +brought about that full consent.” + +At the moment Deronda was speaking, that first evening in the book-shop +was vividly in his remembrance, with all the struggling aloofness he +had then felt from Mordecai’s prophetic confidence. It was his nature +to delight in satisfying to the utmost the eagerly-expectant soul, +which seemed to be looking out from the face before him, like the +long-enduring watcher who at last sees the mountain signal-flame; and +he went on with fuller fervor, + +“It is through your inspiration that I have discerned what may be my +life’s task. It is you who have given shape to what, I believe, was an +inherited yearning—the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts in many +ancestors—thoughts that seem to have been intensely present in my +grandfather. Suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe +brought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inherited genius for +painting, and born blind—the ancestral life would lie within them as a +dim longing for unknown objects and sensations, and the spell-bound +habit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly-wrought +musical instrument, never played on, but quivering throughout in uneasy +mysterious meanings of its intricate structure that, under the right +touch, gives music. Something like that, I think, has been my +experience. Since I began to read and know, I have always longed for +some ideal task, in which I might feel myself the heart and brain of a +multitude—some social captainship, which would come to me as a duty, +and not be striven for as a personal prize. You have raised the image +of such a task for me—to bind our race together in spite of heresy. +You have said to me—‘Our religion united us before it divided us—it +made us a people before it made Rabbanites and Karaites.’ I mean to try +what can be done with that union—I mean to work in your spirit. +Failure will not be ignoble, but it would be ignoble for me not to try.” + +“Even as my brother that fed at the breasts of my mother,” said +Mordecai, falling back in his chair with a look of exultant repose, as +after some finished labor. + +To estimate the effect of this ardent outpouring from Deronda we must +remember his former reserve, his careful avoidance of premature assent +or delusive encouragement, which gave to this decided pledge of himself +a sacramental solemnity, both for his own mind and Mordecai’s. On Mirah +the effect was equally strong, though with a difference: she felt a +surprise which had no place in her brother’s mind, at Deronda’s +suddenly revealed sense of nearness to them: there seemed to be a +breaking of day around her which might show her other facts unlike her +forebodings in the darkness. But after a moment’s silence Mordecai +spoke again, + +“It has begun already—the marriage of our souls. It waits but the +passing away of this body, and then they who are betrothed shall unite +in a stricter bond, and what is mine shall be thine. Call nothing mine +that I have written, Daniel; for though our masters delivered rightly +that everything should be quoted in the name of him that said it—and +their rule is good—yet it does not exclude the willing marriage which +melts soul into soul, and makes thought fuller as the clear waters are +made fuller, where the fullness is inseparable and the clearness is +inseparable. For I have judged what I have written, and I desire the +body that I gave my thought to pass away as this fleshly body will +pass; but let the thought be born again from our fuller soul which +shall be called yours.” + +“You must not ask me to promise that,” said Deronda, smiling. “I must +be convinced first of special reasons for it in the writings +themselves. And I am too backward a pupil yet. That blent transmission +must go on without any choice of ours; but what we can’t hinder must +not make our rule for what we ought to choose. I think our duty is +faithful tradition where we can attain it. And so you would insist for +any one but yourself. Don’t ask me to deny my spiritual parentage, when +I am finding the clue of my life in the recognition of natural +parentage.” + +“I will ask for no promise till you see the reason,” said Mordecai. +“You have said the truth: I would obey the Master’s rule for another. +But for years my hope, nay, my confidence, has been, not that the +imperfect image of my thought, which is an ill-shaped work of the +youthful carver who has seen a heavenly pattern, and trembles in +imitating the vision—not that this should live, but that my vision and +passion should enter into yours—yea, into yours; for he whom I longed +for afar, was he not you whom I discerned as mine when you came near? +Nevertheless, you shall judge. For my soul is satisfied.” Mordecai +paused, and then began in a changed tone, reverting to previous +suggestions from Deronda’s disclosure: “What moved your parents——?” +but he immediately checked himself, and added, “Nay, I ask not that you +should tell me aught concerning others, unless it is your pleasure.” + +“Some time—gradually—you will know all,” said Deronda. “But now tell +me more about yourselves, and how the time has passed since I went +away. I am sure there has been some trouble. Mirah has been in distress +about something.” + +He looked at Mirah, but she immediately turned to her brother, +appealing to him to give the difficult answer. She hoped he would not +think it necessary to tell Deronda the facts about her father on such +an evening as this. Just when Deronda had brought himself so near, and +identified himself with her brother, it was cutting to her that he +should hear of this disgrace clinging about them, which seemed to have +become partly his. To relieve herself she rose to take up her hat and +cloak, thinking she would go to her own room: perhaps they would speak +more easily when she had left them. But meanwhile Mordecai said, + +“To-day there has been a grief. A duty which seemed to have gone far +into the distance, has come back and turned its face upon us, and +raised no gladness—has raised a dread that we must submit to. But for +the moment we are delivered from any visible yoke. Let us defer +speaking of it as if this evening which is deepening about us were the +beginning of the festival in which we must offer the first fruits of +our joy, and mingle no mourning with them.” + +Deronda divined the hinted grief, and left it in silence, rising as he +saw Mirah rise, and saying to her, “Are you going? I must leave almost +immediately—when I and Mrs. Adam have mounted the precious chest, and +I have delivered the key to Mordecai—no, Ezra,—may I call him Ezra +now? I have learned to think of him as Ezra since I have heard you call +him so.” + +“Please call him Ezra,” said Mirah, faintly, feeling a new timidity +under Deronda’s glance and near presence. Was there really something +different about him, or was the difference only in her feeling? The +strangely various emotions of the last few hours had exhausted her; she +was faint with fatigue and want of food. Deronda, observing her pallor +and tremulousness, longed to show more feeling, but dared not. She put +out her hand with an effort to smile, and then he opened the door for +her. That was all. + +A man of refined pride shrinks from making a lover’s approaches to a +woman whose wealth or rank might make them appear presumptuous or +low-motived; but Deronda was finding a more delicate difficulty in a +position which, superficially taken, was the reverse of that—though to +an ardent reverential love, the loved woman has always a kind of wealth +and rank which makes a man keenly susceptible about the aspect of his +addresses. Deronda’s difficulty was what any generous man might have +felt in some degree; but it affected him peculiarly through his +imaginative sympathy with a mind in which gratitude was strong. Mirah, +he knew, felt herself bound to him by deep obligations, which to her +sensibilities might give every wish of his the aspect of a claim; and +an inability to fulfill it would cause her a pain continually revived +by their inevitable communion in care of Ezra. Here were fears not of +pride only, but of extreme tenderness. Altogether, to have the +character of a benefactor seemed to Deronda’s anxiety an insurmountable +obstacle to confessing himself a lover, unless in some inconceivable +way it could be revealed to him that Mirah’s heart had accepted him +beforehand. And the agitation on his own account, too, was not small. + +Even a man who has practised himself in love-making till his own +glibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the +lover’s awe—may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered +sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and +needles after numbness: how much more may that energetic timidity +possess a man whose inward history has cherished his susceptibilities +instead of dulling them, and has kept all the language of passion fresh +and rooted as the lovely leafage about the hill-side spring! + +As for Mirah her dear head lay on its pillow that night with its former +suspicions thrown out of shape but still present, like an ugly story +which had been discredited but not therefore dissipated. All that she +was certain of about Deronda seemed to prove that he had no such +fetters upon him as she had been allowing herself to believe in. His +whole manner as well as his words implied that there were no hidden +bonds remaining to have any effect in determining his future. But +notwithstanding this plainly reasonable inference, uneasiness still +clung about Mirah’s heart. Deronda was not to blame, but he had an +importance for Mrs. Grandcourt which must give her some hold on him. +And the thought of any close confidence between them stirred the little +biting snake that had long lain curled and harmless in Mirah’s gentle +bosom. + +But did she this evening feel as completely as before that her jealousy +was no less remote from any possibility for herself personally than if +her human soul had been lodged in the body of a fawn that Deronda had +saved from the archers? Hardly. Something indefinable had happened and +made a difference. The soft warm rain of blossoms which had fallen just +where she was—did it really come because she was there? What spirit +was there among the boughs? + + + + +CHAPTER LXIV. + + “Questa montagna è tale, + Che sempre al cominciar di sotto è grave. + E quanto uom più va su e men fa male.” + —DANTE: _Il Purgatorio_. + + +It was not many days after her mother’s arrival that Gwendolen would +consent to remain at Genoa. Her desire to get away from that gem of the +sea, helped to rally her strength and courage. For what place, though +it were the flowery vale of Enna, may not the inward sense turn into a +circle of punishment where the flowers are no better than a crop of +flame-tongues burning the soles of our feet? + +“I shall never like to see the Mediterranean again,” said Gwendolen, to +her mother, who thought that she quite understood her child’s +feeling—even in her tacit prohibition of any express reference to her +late husband. + +Mrs. Davilow, indeed, though compelled formally to regard this time as +one of severe calamity, was virtually enjoying her life more than she +had ever done since her daughter’s marriage. It seemed that her darling +was brought back to her not merely with all the old affection, but with +a conscious cherishing of her mother’s nearness, such as we give to a +possession that we have been on the brink of losing. + +“Are you there, mamma?” cried Gwendolen, in the middle of the night (a +bed had been made for her mother in the same room with hers), very much +as she would have done in her early girlhood, if she had felt +frightened in lying awake. + +“Yes, dear; can I do anything for you?” + +“No, thank you; only I like so to know you are there. Do you mind my +waking you?” (This question would hardly have been Gwendolen’s in her +early girlhood.) + +“I was not asleep, darling.” + +“It seemed not real that you were with me. I wanted to make it real. I +can bear things if you are with me. But you must not lie awake, anxious +about me. You must be happy now. You must let me make you happy now at +last—else what shall I do?” + +“God bless you, dear; I have the best happiness I can have, when you +make much of me.” + +But the next night, hearing that she was sighing and restless Mrs. +Davilow said, “Let me give you your sleeping-draught, Gwendolen.” + +“No, mamma, thank you; I don’t want to sleep.” + +“It would be so good for you to sleep more, my darling.” + +“Don’t say what would be good for me, mamma,” Gwendolen answered, +impetuously. “You don’t know what would be good for me. You and my +uncle must not contradict me and tell me anything is good for me when I +feel it is not good.” + +Mrs. Davilow was silent, not wondering that the poor child was +irritable. Presently Gwendolen said, + +“I was always naughty to you, mamma.” + +“No, dear, no.” + +“Yes, I was,” said Gwendolen insistently. “It is because I was always +wicked that I am miserable now.” + +She burst into sobs and cries. The determination to be silent about all +the facts of her married life and its close, reacted in these escapes +of enigmatic excitement. + +But dim lights of interpretation were breaking on the mother’s mind +through the information that came from Sir Hugo to Mr. Gascoigne, and, +with some omissions, from Mr. Gascoigne to herself. The good-natured +baronet, while he was attending to all decent measures in relation to +his nephew’s death, and the possible washing ashore of the body, +thought it the kindest thing he could do to use his present friendly +intercourse with the rector as an opportunity for communicating with +him, in the mildest way, the purport of Grandcourt’s will, so as to +save him the additional shock that would be in store for him if he +carried his illusions all the way home. Perhaps Sir Hugo would have +been communicable enough without that kind motive, but he really felt +the motive. He broke the unpleasant news to the rector by degrees: at +first he only implied his fear that the widow was not so splendidly +provided for as Mr. Gascoigne, nay, as the baronet himself had +expected; and only at last, after some previous vague reference to +large claims on Grandcourt, he disclosed the prior relations which, in +the unfortunate absence of a legitimate heir, had determined all the +splendor in another direction. + +The rector was deeply hurt, and remembered, more vividly than he had +ever done before, how offensively proud and repelling the manners of +the deceased had been toward him—remembered also that he himself, in +that interesting period just before the arrival of the new occupant at +Diplow, had received hints of former entangling dissipations, and an +undue addiction to pleasure, though he had not foreseen that the +pleasure which had probably, so to speak, been swept into private +rubbish-heaps, would ever present itself as an array of live +caterpillars, disastrous to the green meat of respectable people. But +he did not make these retrospective thoughts audible to Sir Hugo, or +lower himself by expressing any indignation on merely personal grounds, +but behaved like a man of the world who had become a conscientious +clergyman. His first remark was, + +“When a young man makes his will in health, he usually counts on living +a long while. Probably Mr. Grandcourt did not believe that this will +would ever have its present effect.” After a moment, he added, “The +effect is painful in more ways than one. Female morality is likely to +suffer from this marked advantage and prominence being given to +illegitimate offspring.” + +“Well, in point of fact,” said Sir Hugo, in his comfortable way, “since +the boy is there, this was really the best alternative for the disposal +of the estates. Grandcourt had nobody nearer than his cousin. And it’s +a chilling thought that you go out of this life only for the benefit of +a cousin. A man gets a little pleasure in making his will, if it’s for +the good of his own curly heads; but it’s a nuisance when you’re giving +the bequeathing to a used-up fellow like yourself, and one you don’t +care two straws for. It’s the next worse thing to having only a life +interest in your estates. No; I forgive Grandcourt for that part of his +will. But, between ourselves, what I don’t forgive him for, is the +shabby way he has provided for your niece—_our_ niece, I will say—no +better a position than if she had been a doctor’s widow. Nothing grates +on me more than that posthumous grudgingness toward a wife. A man ought +to have some pride and fondness for his widow. _I_ should, I know. I +take it as a test of a man, that he feels the easier about his death +when he can think of his wife and daughters being comfortable after it. +I like that story of the fellows in the Crimean war, who were ready to +go to the bottom of the sea if their widows were provided for.” + +“It has certainly taken me by surprise,” said Mr. Gascoigne, “all the +more because, as the one who stood in the place of father to my niece, +I had shown my reliance on Mr. Grandcourt’s apparent liberality in +money matters by making no claims for her beforehand. That seemed to me +due to him under the circumstances. Probably you think me blamable.” + +“Not blamable exactly. I respect a man for trusting another. But take +my advice. If you marry another niece, though it may be to the +Archbishop of Canterbury, bind him down. Your niece can’t be married +for the first time twice over. And if he’s a good fellow, he’ll wish to +be bound. But as to Mrs. Grandcourt, I can only say that I feel my +relation to her all the nearer because I think that she has not been +well treated. And I hope you will urge her to rely on me as a friend.” + +Thus spake the chivalrous Sir Hugo, in his disgust at the young and +beautiful widow of a Mallinger Grandcourt being left with only two +thousand a year and a house in a coal-mining district. To the rector +that income naturally appeared less shabby and less accompanied with +mortifying privations; but in this conversation he had devoured a much +keener sense than the baronet’s of the humiliation cast over his niece, +and also over her nearest friends, by the conspicuous publishing of her +husband’s relation to Mrs. Glasher. And like all men who are good +husbands and fathers, he felt the humiliation through the minds of the +women who would be chiefly affected by it; so that the annoyance of +first hearing the facts was far slighter than what he felt in +communicating them to Mrs. Davilow, and in anticipating Gwendolen’s +feeling whenever her mother saw fit to tell her of them. For the good +rector had an innocent conviction that his niece was unaware of Mrs. +Glasher’s existence, arguing with masculine soundness from what maidens +and wives were likely to know, do, and suffer, and having had a most +imperfect observation of the particular maiden and wife in question. +Not so Gwendolen’s mother, who now thought that she saw an explanation +of much that had been enigmatic in her child’s conduct and words before +and after her engagement, concluding that in some inconceivable way +Gwendolen had been informed of this left-handed marriage and the +existence of the children. She trusted to opportunities that would +arise in moments of affectionate confidence before and during their +journey to England, when she might gradually learn how far the actual +state of things was clear to Gwendolen, and prepare her for anything +that might be a disappointment. But she was spared from devices on the +subject. + +“I hope you don’t expect that I am going to be rich and grand, mamma,” +said Gwendolen, not long after the rector’s communication; “perhaps I +shall have nothing at all.” + +She was dressed, and had been sitting long in quiet meditation. Mrs. +Davilow was startled, but said, after a moment’s reflection, + +“Oh yes, dear, you will have something. Sir Hugo knows all about the +will.” + +“That will not decide,” said Gwendolen, abruptly. + +“Surely, dear: Sir Hugo says you are to have two thousand a year and +the house at Gadsmere.” + +“What I have will depend on what I accept,” said Gwendolen. “You and my +uncle must not attempt to cross me and persuade me about this. I will +do everything I can do to make you happy, but in anything about my +husband I must not be interfered with. Is eight hundred a year enough +for you, mamma?” + +“More than enough, dear. You must not think of giving me so much.” Mrs. +Davilow paused a little, and then said, “Do you know who is to have the +estates and the rest of the money?” + +“Yes,” said Gwendolen, waving her hand in dismissal of the subject. “I +know everything. It is all perfectly right, and I wish never to have it +mentioned.” + +The mother was silent, looked away, and rose to fetch a fan-screen, +with a slight flush on her delicate cheeks. Wondering, imagining, she +did not like to meet her daughter’s eyes, and sat down again under a +sad constraint. What wretchedness her child had perhaps gone through, +which yet must remain as it always had been, locked away from their +mutual speech. But Gwendolen was watching her mother with that new +divination which experience had given her; and in tender relenting at +her own peremptoriness, said, “Come and sit nearer to me, mamma, and +don’t be unhappy.” + +Mrs. Davilow did as she was told, but bit her lips in the vain attempt +to hinder smarting tears. Gwendolen leaned toward her caressingly and +said, “I mean to be very wise; I do, really. And good—oh, so good to +you, dear, old, sweet mamma, you won’t know me. Only you must not cry.” + +The resolve that Gwendolen had in her mind was that she would ask +Deronda whether she ought to accept any of her husband’s money—whether +she might accept what would enable her to provide for her mother. The +poor thing felt strong enough to do anything that would give her a +higher place in Deronda’s mind. + +An invitation that Sir Hugo pressed on her with kind urgency was that +she and Mrs. Davilow should go straight with him to Park Lane, and make +his house their abode as long as mourning and other details needed +attending to in London. Town, he insisted, was just then the most +retired of places; and he proposed to exert himself at once in getting +all articles belonging to Gwendolen away from the house in Grosvenor +Square. No proposal could have suited her better than this of staying a +little while in Park Lane. It would be easy for her there to have an +interview with Deronda, if she only knew how to get a letter into his +hands, asking him to come to her. During the journey, Sir Hugo, having +understood that she was acquainted with the purport of her husband’s +will, ventured to talk before her and to her about her future +arrangements, referring here and there to mildly agreeable prospects as +matters of course, and otherwise shedding a decorous cheerfulness over +her widowed position. It seemed to him really the more graceful course +for a widow to recover her spirits on finding that her husband had not +dealt as handsomely by her as he might have done; it was the testator’s +fault if he compromised all her grief at his departure by giving a +testamentary reason for it, so that she might be supposed to look sad, +not because he had left her, but because he had left her poor. The +baronet, having his kindliness doubly fanned by the favorable wind on +his fortunes and by compassion for Gwendolen, had become quite fatherly +in his behavior to her, called her “my dear,” and in mentioning +Gadsmere to Mr. Gascoigne, with its various advantages and +disadvantages, spoke of what “we” might do to make the best of that +property. Gwendolen sat by in pale silence while Sir Hugo, with his +face turned toward Mrs. Davilow or Mr. Gascoigne, conjectured that Mrs. +Grandcourt might perhaps prefer letting Gadsmere to residing there +during any part of the year, in which case he thought that it might be +leased on capital terms to one of the fellows engaged with the coal: +Sir Hugo had seen enough of the place to know that it was as +comfortable and picturesque a box as any man need desire, providing his +desires were circumscribed within a coal area. + +“_I_ shouldn’t mind about the soot myself,” said the baronet, with that +dispassionateness which belongs to the potential mood. “Nothing is more +healthy. And if one’s business lay there, Gadsmere would be a paradise. +It makes quite a feature in Scrogg’s history of the county, with the +little tower and the fine piece of water—the prettiest print in the +book.” + +“A more important place than Offendene, I suppose?” said Mr. Gascoigne. + +“Much,” said the baronet, decisively. “I was there with my poor +brother—it is more than a quarter of a century ago, but I remember it +very well. The rooms may not be larger, but the grounds are on a +different scale.” + +“Our poor dear Offendene is empty after all,” said Mrs. Davilow. “When +it came to the point, Mr. Haynes declared off, and there has been no +one to take it since. I might as well have accepted Lord Brackenshaw’s +kind offer that I should remain in it another year rent-free: for I +should have kept the place aired and warmed.” + +“I hope you’ve something snug instead,” said Sir Hugo. + +“A little too snug,” said Mr. Gascoigne, smiling at his sister-in-law. +“You are rather thick upon the ground.” + +Gwendolen had turned with a changed glance when her mother spoke of +Offendene being empty. This conversation passed during one of the long +unaccountable pauses often experienced in foreign trains at some +country station. There was a dreamy, sunny stillness over the hedgeless +fields stretching to the boundary of poplars; and to Gwendolen the talk +within the carriage seemed only to make the dreamland larger with an +indistinct region of coal-pits, and a purgatorial Gadsmere which she +would never visit; till at her mother’s words, this mingled, dozing +view seemed to dissolve and give way to a more wakeful vision of +Offendene and Pennicote under their cooler lights. She saw the gray +shoulders of the downs, the cattle-specked fields, the shadowy +plantations with rutted lanes where the barked timber lay for a wayside +seat, the neatly-clipped hedges on the road from the parsonage to +Offendene, the avenue where she was gradually discerned from the +window, the hall-door opening, and her mother or one of the troublesome +sisters coming out to meet her. All that brief experience of a quiet +home which had once seemed a dullness to be fled from, now came back to +her as a restful escape, a station where she found the breath of +morning and the unreproaching voice of birds after following a lure +through a long Satanic masquerade, which she had entered on with an +intoxicated belief in its disguises, and had seen the end of in +shrieking fear lest she herself had become one of the evil spirits who +were dropping their human mummery and hissing around her with serpent +tongues. + +In this way Gwendolen’s mind paused over Offendene and made it the +scene of many thoughts; but she gave no further outward sign of +interest in this conversation, any more than in Sir Hugo’s opinion on +the telegraphic cable or her uncle’s views of the Church Rate Abolition +Bill. What subjects will not our talk embrace in leisurely +day-journeying from Genoa to London? Even strangers, after glancing +from China to Peru and opening their mental stores with a liberality +threatening a mutual impression of poverty on any future meeting, are +liable to become excessively confidential. But the baronet and the +rector were under a still stronger pressure toward cheerful +communication: they were like acquaintances compelled to a long drive +in a mourning-coach who having first remarked that the occasion is a +melancholy one, naturally proceed to enliven it by the most +miscellaneous discourse. “I don’t mind telling _you_,” said Sir Hugo to +the rector, in mentioning some private details; while the rector, +without saying so, did not mind telling the baronet about his sons, and +the difficulty of placing them in the world. By the dint of discussing +all persons and things within driving-reach of Diplow, Sir Hugo got +himself wrought to a pitch of interest in that former home, and of +conviction that it was his pleasant duty to regain and strengthen his +personal influence in the neighborhood, that made him declare his +intention of taking his family to the place for a month or two before +the autumn was over; and Mr. Gascoigne cordially rejoiced in that +prospect. Altogether, the journey was continued and ended with mutual +liking between the male fellow-travellers. + +Meanwhile Gwendolen sat by like one who had visited the spirit-world +and was full to the lips of an unutterable experience that threw a +strange unreality over all the talk she was hearing of her own and the +world’s business; and Mrs. Davilow was chiefly occupied in imagining +what her daughter was feeling, and in wondering what was signified by +her hinted doubt whether she would accept her husband’s bequest. +Gwendolen in fact had before her the unsealed wall of an immediate +purpose shutting off every other resolution. How to scale the wall? She +wanted again to see and consult Deronda, that she might secure herself +against any act he would disapprove. Would her remorse have maintained +its power within her, or would she have felt absolved by secrecy, if it +had not been for that outer conscience which was made for her by +Deronda? It is hard to say how much we could forgive ourselves if we +were secure from judgment by another whose opinion is the +breathing-medium of all our joy—who brings to us with close pressure +and immediate sequence that judgment of the Invisible and Universal +which self-flattery and the world’s tolerance would easily melt and +disperse. In this way our brother may be in the stead of God to us, and +his opinion which has pierced even to the joints and marrow, may be our +virtue in the making. That mission of Deronda to Gwendolen had begun +with what she had felt to be his judgment of her at the gaming-table. +He might easily have spoiled it:—much of our lives is spent in marring +our own influence and turning others’ belief in us into a widely +concluding unbelief which they call knowledge of the world, while it is +really disappointment in you or me. Deronda had not spoiled his mission. + +But Gwendolen had forgotten to ask him for his address in case she +wanted to write, and her only way of reaching him was through Sir Hugo. +She was not in the least blind to the construction that all witnesses +might put on her giving signs of dependence on Deronda, and her seeking +him more than he sought her: Grandcourt’s rebukes had sufficiently +enlightened her pride. But the force, the tenacity of her nature had +thrown itself into that dependence, and she would no more let go her +hold on Deronda’s help, or deny herself the interview her soul needed, +because of witnesses, than if she had been in prison in danger of being +condemned to death. When she was in Park Lane and knew that the baronet +would be going down to the Abbey immediately (just to see his family +for a couple of days and then return to transact needful business for +Gwendolen), she said to him without any air of hesitation, while her +mother was present, + +“Sir Hugo, I wish to see Mr. Deronda again as soon as possible. I don’t +know his address. Will you tell it me, or let him know that I want to +see him?” + +A quick thought passed across Sir Hugo’s face, but made no difference +to the ease with which he said, “Upon my word, I don’t know whether +he’s at his chambers or the Abbey at this moment. But I’ll make sure of +him. I’ll send a note now to his chambers telling him to come, and if +he’s at the Abbey I can give him your message and send him up at once. +I am sure he will want to obey your wish,” the baronet ended, with +grave kindness, as if nothing could seem to him more in the appropriate +course of things than that she should send such a message. + +But he was convinced that Gwendolen had a passionate attachment to +Deronda, the seeds of which had been laid long ago, and his former +suspicion now recurred to him with more strength than ever, that her +feeling was likely to lead her into imprudences—in which kind-hearted +Sir Hugo was determined to screen and defend her as far as lay in his +power. To him it was as pretty a story as need be that this fine +creature and his favorite Dan should have turned out to be formed for +each other, and that the unsuitable husband should have made his exit +in such excellent time. Sir Hugo liked that a charming woman should be +made as happy as possible. In truth, what most vexed his mind in this +matter at present was a doubt whether the too lofty and inscrutable Dan +had not got some scheme or other in his head, which would prove to be +dearer to him than the lovely Mrs. Grandcourt, and put that +neatly-prepared marriage with her out of the question. It was among the +usual paradoxes of feeling that Sir Hugo, who had given his fatherly +cautions to Deronda against too much tenderness in his relations with +the bride, should now feel rather irritated against him by the +suspicion that he had not fallen in love as he ought to have done. Of +course all this thinking on Sir Hugo’s part was eminently premature, +only a fortnight or so after Grandcourt’s death. But it is the trick of +thinking to be either premature or behind-hand. + +However, he sent the note to Deronda’s chambers, and it found him there. + + + + +CHAPTER LXV. + + “O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, + Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!” + —MILTON. + + +Deronda did not obey Gwendolen’s new summons without some agitation. +Not his vanity, but his keen sympathy made him susceptible to the +danger that another’s heart might feel larger demands on him than he +would be able to fulfill; and it was no longer a matter of argument +with him, but of penetrating consciousness, that Gwendolen’s soul clung +to his with a passionate need. We do not argue the existence of the +anger or the scorn that thrills through us in a voice; we simply feel +it, and it admits of no disproof. Deronda felt this woman’s destiny +hanging on his over a precipice of despair. Any one who knows him +cannot wonder at his inward confession, that if all this had happened +little more than a year ago, he would hardly have asked himself whether +he loved her; the impetuous determining impulse which would have moved +him would have been to save her from sorrow, to shelter her life +forevermore from the dangers of loneliness, and carry out to the last +the rescue he had begun in that monitory redemption of the necklace. +But now, love and duty had thrown other bonds around him, and that +impulse could no longer determine his life; still, it was present in +him as a compassionate yearning, a painful quivering at the very +imagination of having again and again to meet the appeal of her eyes +and words. The very strength of the bond, the certainty of the resolve, +that kept him asunder from her, made him gaze at her lot apart with the +more aching pity. + +He awaited her coming in the back drawing-room—part of that white and +crimson space where they had sat together at the musical party, where +Gwendolen had said for the first time that her lot depended on his not +forsaking her, and her appeal had seemed to melt into the melodic +cry—_Per pietà non dirmi addio_. But the melody had come from Mirah’s +dear voice. + +Deronda walked about this room, which he had for years known by heart, +with a strange sense of metamorphosis in his own life. The familiar +objects around him, from Lady Mallinger’s gently smiling portrait to +the also human and urbane faces of the lions on the pilasters of the +chimney-piece, seemed almost to belong to a previous state of existence +which he was revisiting in memory only, not in reality; so deep and +transforming had been the impressions he had lately experienced, so new +were the conditions under which he found himself in the house he had +been accustomed to think of as a home—standing with his hat in his +hand awaiting the entrance of a young creature whose life had also been +undergoing a transformation—a tragic transformation toward a wavering +result, in which he felt with apprehensiveness that his own action was +still bound up. + +But Gwendolen was come in, looking changed; not only by her mourning +dress, but by a more satisfied quietude of expression than he had seen +in her face at Genoa. Her satisfaction was that Deronda was there; but +there was no smile between them as they met and clasped hands; each was +full of remembrance—full of anxious prevision. She said, “It was good +of you to come. Let us sit down,” immediately seating herself in the +nearest chair. He placed himself opposite to her. + +“I asked you to come because I want you to tell me what I ought to do,” +she began, at once. “Don’t be afraid of telling me what you think is +right, because it seems hard. I have made up my mind to do it. I was +afraid once of being poor; I could not bear to think of being under +other people; and that was why I did something—why I married. I have +borne worse things now. I think I could bear to be poor, if you think I +ought. Do you know about my husband’s will?” + +“Yes, Sir Hugo told me,” said Deronda, already guessing the question +she had to ask. + +“Ought I to take anything he has left me? I will tell you what I have +been thinking,” said Gwendolen, with a more nervous eagerness. “Perhaps +you may not quite know that I really did think a good deal about my +mother when I married. I _was_ selfish, but I did love her, and feel +about her poverty; and what comforted me most at first, when I was +miserable, was her being better off because I had married. The thing +that would be hardest to me now would be to see her in poverty again; +and I have been thinking that if I took enough to provide for her, and +no more—nothing for myself—it would not be wrong; for I was very +precious to my mother—and he took me from her—and he meant—and if +she had known—” + +Gwendolen broke off. She had been preparing herself for this interview +by thinking of hardly anything else than this question of right toward +her mother; but the question had carried with it thoughts and reasons +which it was impossible for her to utter, and these perilous +remembrances swarmed between her words, making her speech more and more +agitated and tremulous. She looked down helplessly at her hands, now +unladen of all rings except her wedding-ring. + +“Do not hurt yourself by speaking of that,” said Deronda, tenderly. +“There is no need; the case is very simple. I think I can hardly judge +wrongly about it. You consult me because I am the only person to whom +you have confided the most painful part of your experience: and I can +understand your scruples.” He did not go on immediately, waiting for +her to recover herself. The silence seemed to Gwendolen full of the +tenderness that she heard in his voice, and she had courage to lift up +her eyes and look at him as he said, “You are conscious of something +which you feel to be a crime toward one who is dead. You think that you +have forfeited all claim as a wife. You shrink from taking what was +his. You want to keep yourself from profiting by his death. Your +feeling even urges you to some self-punishment—some scourging of the +self that disobeyed your better will—the will that struggled against +temptation. I have known something of that myself. Do I understand you?” + +“Yes—at least, I want to be good—not like what I have been,” said +Gwendolen. “I will try to bear what you think I ought to bear. I have +tried to tell you the worst about myself. What ought I to do?” + +“If no one but yourself were concerned in this question of income,” +said Deronda, “I should hardly dare to urge you against any remorseful +prompting; but I take as a guide now, your feeling about Mrs. Davilow, +which seems to me quite just. I cannot think that your husband’s dues +even to yourself are nullified by any act you have committed. He +voluntarily entered into your life, and affected its course in what is +always the most momentous way. But setting that aside, it was due from +him in his position that he should provide for your mother, and he of +course understood that if this will took effect she would share the +provision he had made for you.” + +“She has had eight hundred a year. What I thought of was to take that +and leave the rest,” said Gwendolen. She had been so long inwardly +arguing for this as a permission, that her mind could not at once take +another attitude. + +“I think it is not your duty to fix a limit in that way,” said Deronda. +“You would be making a painful enigma for Mrs. Davilow; an income from +which you shut yourself out must be embittered to her. And your own +course would become too difficult. We agreed at Genoa that the burden +on your conscience is one what no one ought to be admitted to the +knowledge of. The future beneficence of your life will be best +furthered by your saving all others from the pain of that knowledge. In +my opinion you ought simply to abide by the provisions of your +husband’s will, and let your remorse tell only on the use that you will +make of your monetary independence.” + +In uttering the last sentence Deronda automatically took up his hat +which he had laid on the floor beside him. Gwendolen, sensitive to his +slightest movement, felt her heart giving a great leap, as if it too +had a consciousness of its own, and would hinder him from going: in the +same moment she rose from her chair, unable to reflect that the +movement was an acceptance of his apparent intention to leave her; and +Deronda, of course, also rose, advancing a little. + +“I will do what you tell me,” said Gwendolen, hurriedly; “but what else +shall I do?” No other than these simple words were possible to her; and +even these were too much for her in a state of emotion where her proud +secrecy was disenthroned: as the childlike sentences fell from her +lips they reacted on her like a picture of her own helplessness, and +she could not check the sob which sent the large tears to her eyes. +Deronda, too, felt a crushing pain; but imminent consequences were +visible to him, and urged him to the utmost exertion of conscience. +When she had pressed her tears away, he said, in a gently questioning +tone, + +“You will probably be soon going with Mrs. Davilow into the country.” + +“Yes, in a week or ten days.” Gwendolen waited an instant, turning her +eyes vaguely toward the window, as if looking at some imagined +prospect. “I want to be kind to them all—they can be happier than I +can. Is that the best I can do?” + +“I think so. It is a duty that cannot be doubtful,” said Deronda. He +paused a little between his sentences, feeling a weight of anxiety on +all his words. “Other duties will spring from it. Looking at your life +as a debt may seem the dreariest view of things at a distance; but it +cannot really be so. What makes life dreary is the want of motive: but +once beginning to act with that penitential, loving purpose you have in +your mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions—there will be +newly-opening needs—continually coming to carry you on from day to +day. You will find your life growing like a plant.” + +Gwendolen turned her eyes on him with the look of one athirst toward +the sound of unseen waters. Deronda felt the look as if she had been +stretching her arms toward him from a forsaken shore. His voice took an +affectionate imploringness when he said, + +“This sorrow, which has cut down to the root, has come to you while you +are so young—try to think of it not as a spoiling of your life, but as +a preparation for it. Let it be a preparation——” Any one overhearing +his tones would have thought he was entreating for his own happiness. +“See! you have been saved from the worst evils that might have come +from your marriage, which you feel was wrong. You have had a vision of +injurious, selfish action—a vision of possible degradation; think that +a severe angel, seeing you along the road of error, grasped you by the +wrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. And it has +come to you in your spring-time. Think of it as a preparation. You can, +you will, be among the best of women, such as make others glad that +they were born.” + +The words were like the touch of a miraculous hand to Gwendolen. +Mingled emotions streamed through her frame with a strength that seemed +the beginning of a new existence, having some new power or other which +stirred in her vaguely. So pregnant is the divine hope of moral +recovery with the energy that fulfills it. So potent in us is the +infused action of another soul, before which we bow in complete love. +But the new existence seemed inseparable from Deronda: the hope seemed +to make his presence permanent. It was not her thought, that he loved +her, and would cling to her—a thought would have tottered with +improbability; it was her spiritual breath. For the first time since +that terrible moment on the sea a flush rose and spread over her cheek, +brow and neck, deepened an instant or two, and then gradually +disappeared. She did not speak. + +Deronda advanced and put out his hand, saying, “I must not weary you.” + +She was startled by the sense that he was going, and put her hand in +his, still without speaking. + +“You look ill yet—unlike yourself,” he added, while he held her hand. + +“I can’t sleep much,” she answered, with some return of her dispirited +manner. “Things repeat themselves in me so. They come back—they will +all come back,” she ended, shudderingly, a chill fear threatening her. + +“By degrees they will be less insistent,” said Deronda. He could not +drop her hand or move away from her abruptly. + +“Sir Hugo says he shall come to stay at Diplow,” said Gwendolen, +snatching at previously intended words which had slipped away from her. +“You will come too.” + +“Probably,” said Deronda, and then feeling that the word was cold, he +added, correctively, “Yes, I shall come,” and then released her hand, +with the final friendly pressure of one who has virtually said good-bye. + +“And not again here, before I leave town?” said Gwendolen, with timid +sadness, looking as pallid as ever. + +What could Deronda say? “If I can be of any use—if you wish +me—certainly I will.” + +“I must wish it,” said Gwendolen, impetuously; “you know I must wish +it. What strength have I? Who else is there?” Again a sob was rising. + +Deronda felt a pang, which showed itself in his face. He looked +miserable as he said, “I will certainly come.” + +Gwendolen perceived the change in his face; but the intense relief of +expecting him to come again could not give way to any other feeling, +and there was a recovery of the inspired hope and courage in her. + +“Don’t be unhappy about me,” she said, in a tone of affectionate +assurance. “I shall remember your words—every one of them. I shall +remember what you believe about me; I shall try.” + +She looked at him firmly, and put out her hand again as if she had +forgotten what had passed since those words of his which she promised +to remember. But there was no approach to a smile on her lips. She had +never smiled since her husband’s death. When she stood still and in +silence, she looked like a melancholy statue of the Gwendolen whose +laughter had once been so ready when others were grave. + +It is only by remembering the searching anguish which had changed the +aspect of the world for her that we can understand her behavior to +Deronda—the unreflecting openness, nay, the importunate pleading, with +which she expressed her dependence on him. Considerations such as would +have filled the minds of indifferent spectators could not occur to her, +any more than if flames had been mounting around her, and she had flung +herself into his open arms and clung about his neck that he might carry +her into safety. She identified him with the struggling regenerative +process in her which had begun with his action. Is it any wonder that +she saw her own necessity reflected in his feeling? She was in that +state of unconscious reliance and expectation which is a common +experience with us when we are preoccupied with our own trouble or our +own purposes. We diffuse our feeling over others, and count on their +acting from our motives. Her imagination had not been turned to a +future union with Deronda by any other than the spiritual tie which had +been continually strengthening; but also it had not been turned toward +a future separation from him. Love-making and marriage—how could they +now be the imagery in which poor Gwendolen’s deepest attachment could +spontaneously clothe itself? Mighty Love had laid his hand upon her; +but what had he demanded of her? Acceptance of rebuke—the hard task of +self-change—confession—endurance. If she cried toward him, what then? +She cried as the child cries whose little feet have fallen +backward—cried to be taken by the hand, lest she should lose herself. + +The cry pierced Deronda. What position could have been more difficult +for a man full of tenderness, yet with clear foresight? He was the only +creature who knew the real nature of Gwendolen’s trouble: to withdraw +himself from any appeal of hers would be to consign her to a dangerous +loneliness. He could not reconcile himself to the cruelty of apparently +rejecting her dependence on him; and yet in the nearer or farther +distance he saw a coming wrench, which all present strengthening of +their bond would make the harder. + +He was obliged to risk that. He went once and again to Park Lane before +Gwendolen left; but their interviews were in the presence of Mrs. +Davilow, and were therefore less agitating. Gwendolen, since she had +determined to accept her income, had conceived a project which she +liked to speak of: it was to place her mother and sisters with herself +in Offendene again, and, as she said, piece back her life unto that +time when they first went there, and when everything was happiness +about her, only she did not know it. The idea had been mentioned to Sir +Hugo, who was going to exert himself about the letting of Gadsmere for +a rent which would more than pay the rent of Offendene. All this was +told to Deronda, who willingly dwelt on a subject that seemed to give +some soothing occupation to Gwendolen. He said nothing and she asked +nothing, of what chiefly occupied himself. Her mind was fixed on his +coming to Diplow before the autumn was over; and she no more thought of +the Lapidoths—the little Jewess and her brother—as likely to make a +difference in her destiny, than of the fermenting political and social +leaven which was making a difference in the history of the world. In +fact poor Gwendolen’s memory had been stunned, and all outside the +lava-lit track of her troubled conscience, and her effort to get +deliverance from it, lay for her in dim forgetfulness. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVI. + + + “One day still fierce ’mid many a day struck calm.” + —BROWNING: _The King and the Book_. + + +Meanwhile Ezra and Mirah, whom Gwendolen did not include in her +thinking about Deronda, were having their relation to him drawn closer +and brought into fuller light. + +The father Lapidoth had quitted his daughter at the doorstep, ruled by +that possibility of staking something in play or betting which +presented itself with the handling of any sum beyond the price of +staying actual hunger, and left no care for alternative prospects or +resolutions. Until he had lost everything he never considered whether +he would apply to Mirah again or whether he would brave his son’s +presence. In the first moment he had shrunk from encountering Ezra as +he would have shrunk from any other situation of disagreeable +constraint; and the possession of Mirah’s purse was enough to banish +the thought of future necessities. The gambling appetite is more +absolutely dominant than bodily hunger, which can be neutralized by an +emotional or intellectual excitation; but the passion for watching +chances—the habitual suspensive poise of the mind in actual or +imaginary play—nullifies the susceptibility of other excitation. In +its final, imperious stage, it seems the unjoyous dissipation of +demons, seeking diversion on the burning marl of perdition. + +But every form of selfishness, however abstract and unhuman, requires +the support of at least one meal a day; and though Lapidoth’s appetite +for food and drink was extremely moderate, he had slipped into a +shabby, unfriendly form of life in which the appetite could not be +satisfied without some ready money. When, in a brief visit at a house +which announced “Pyramids” on the window-blind, he had first doubled +and trebled and finally lost Mirah’s thirty shillings, he went out with +her empty purse in his pocket, already balancing in his mind whether he +should get another immediate stake by pawning the purse, or whether he +should go back to her giving himself a good countenance by restoring +the purse, and declaring that he had used the money in paying a score +that was standing against him. Besides, among the sensibilities still +left strong in Lapidoth was the sensibility to his own claims, and he +appeared to himself to have a claim on any property his children might +possess, which was stronger than the justice of his son’s resentment. +After all, to take up his lodging with his children was the best thing +he could do; and the more he thought of meeting Ezra the less he winced +from it, his imagination being more wrought on by the chances of his +getting something into his pocket with safety and without exertion, +than by the threat of a private humiliation. Luck had been against him +lately; he expected it to turn—and might not the turn begin with some +opening of supplies which would present itself through his daughter’s +affairs and the good friends she had spoken of? Lapidoth counted on the +fascination of his cleverness—an old habit of mind which early +experience had sanctioned: and it is not only women who are unaware of +their diminished charm, or imagine that they can feign not to be worn +out. + +The result of Lapidoth’s rapid balancing was that he went toward the +little square in Brompton with the hope that, by walking about and +watching, he might catch sight of Mirah going out or returning, in +which case his entrance into the house would be made easier. But it was +already evening—the evening of the day next to that which he had first +seen her; and after a little waiting, weariness made him reflect that +he might ring, and if she were not at home he might ask the time at +which she was expected. But on coming near the house he knew that she +was at home: he heard her singing. + +Mirah, seated at the piano, was pouring forth “_Herz, mein Herz_,” +while Ezra was listening with his eyes shut, when Mrs. Adam opened the +door, and said in some embarrassment, + +“A gentleman below says he is your father, miss.” + +“I will go down to him,” said Mirah, starting up immediately and +looking at her brother. + +“No, Mirah, not so,” said Ezra, with decision. “Let him come up, Mrs. +Adam.” + +Mirah stood with her hands pinching each other, and feeling sick with +anxiety, while she continued looking at Ezra, who had also risen, and +was evidently much shaken. But there was an expression in his face +which she had never seen before; his brow was knit, his lips seemed +hardened with the same severity that gleamed from his eye. + +When Mrs. Adam opened the door to let in the father, she could not help +casting a look at the group, and after glancing from the younger man to +the elder, said to herself as she closed the door, “Father, sure +enough.” The likeness was that of outline, which is always most +striking at the first moment; the expression had been wrought into the +strongest contrasts by such hidden or inconspicuous differences as can +make the genius of a Cromwell within the outward type of a father who +was no more than a respectable parishioner. + +Lapidoth had put on a melancholy expression beforehand, but there was +some real wincing in his frame as he said, + +“Well, Ezra, my boy, you hardly know me after so many years.” + +“I know you—too well—father,” said Ezra, with a slow biting solemnity +which made the word father a reproach. + +“Ah, you are not pleased with me. I don’t wonder at it. Appearances +have been against me. When a man gets into straits he can’t do just as +he would by himself or anybody else, _I_’ve suffered enough, I know,” +said Lapidoth, quickly. In speaking he always recovered some glibness +and hardihood; and now turning toward Mirah, he held out her purse, +saying, “Here’s your little purse, my dear. I thought you’d be anxious +about it because of that bit of writing. I’ve emptied it, you’ll see, +for I had a score to pay for food and lodging. I knew you would like me +to clear myself, and here I stand—without a single farthing in my +pocket—at the mercy of my children. You can turn me out if you like, +without getting a policeman. Say the word, Mirah; say, ‘Father, I’ve +had enough of you; you made a pet of me, and spent your all on me, when +I couldn’t have done without you; but I can do better without you +now,’—say that, and I’m gone out like a spark. I shan’t spoil your +pleasure again.” The tears were in his voice as usual, before he had +finished. + +“You know I could never say it, father,” answered Mirah, with not the +less anguish because she felt the falsity of everything in his speech +except the implied wish to remain in the house. + +“Mirah, my sister, leave us!” said Ezra, in a tone of authority. + +She looked at her brother falteringly, beseechingly—in awe of his +decision, yet unable to go without making a plea for this father who +was like something that had grown in her flesh with pain. She went +close to her brother, and putting her hand in his, said, in a low +voice, but not so low as to be unheard by Lapidoth, “Remember, +Ezra—you said my mother would not have shut him out.” + +“Trust me, and go,” said Ezra. + +She left the room, but after going a few steps up the stairs, sat down +with a palpitating heart. If, because of anything her brother said to +him, he went away— + +Lapidoth had some sense of what was being prepared for him in his son’s +mind, but he was beginning to adjust himself to the situation and find +a point of view that would give him a cool superiority to any attempt +at humiliating him. This haggard son, speaking as from a sepulchre, had +the incongruity which selfish levity learns to see in suffering, and +until the unrelenting pincers of disease clutch its own flesh. Whatever +preaching he might deliver must be taken for a matter of course, as a +man finding shelter from hail in an open cathedral might take a little +religious howling that happened to be going on there. + +Lapidoth was not born with this sort of callousness: he had achieved it. + +“This home that we have here,” Ezra began, “is maintained partly by the +generosity of a beloved friend who supports me, and partly by the +labors of my sister, who supports herself. While we have a home we will +not shut you out from it. We will not cast you out to the mercy of your +vices. For you are our father, and though you have broken your bond, we +acknowledge ours. But I will never trust you. You absconded with money, +leaving your debts unpaid; you forsook my mother; you robbed her of her +little child and broke her heart; you have become a gambler, and where +shame and conscience were there sits an insatiable desire; you were +ready to sell my sister—you had sold her, but the price was denied +you. The man who has done these things must never expect to be trusted +any more. We will share our food with you—you shall have a bed, and +clothing. We will do this duty to you, because you are our father. But +you will never be trusted. You are an evil man: you made the misery of +our mother. That such a man is our father is a brand on our flesh which +will not cease smarting. But the Eternal has laid it upon us; and +though human justice were to flog you for crimes, and your body fell +helpless before the public scorn, we would still say, ‘This is our +father; make way, that we may carry him out of your sight.’” + +Lapidoth, in adjusting himself to what was coming, had not been able to +foresee the exact intensity of the lightning or the exact course it +would take—that it would not fall outside his frame but through it. He +could not foresee what was so new to him as this voice from the soul of +his son. It touched that spring of hysterical excitability which Mirah +used to witness in him when he sat at home and sobbed. As Ezra ended, +Lapidoth threw himself into a chair and cried like a woman, burying his +face against the table—and yet, strangely, while this hysterical +crying was an inevitable reaction in him under the stress of his son’s +words, it was also a conscious resource in a difficulty; just as in +early life, when he was a bright-faced curly young man, he had been +used to avail himself of this subtly-poised physical susceptibility to +turn the edge of resentment or disapprobation. + +Ezra sat down again and said nothing—exhausted by the shock of his own +irrepressible utterance, the outburst of feelings which for years he +had borne in solitude and silence. His thin hands trembled on the arms +of the chair; he would hardly have found voice to answer a question; he +felt as if he had taken a step toward beckoning Death. Meanwhile +Mirah’s quick expectant ear detected a sound which her heart +recognized: she could not stay out of the room any longer. But on +opening the door her immediate alarm was for Ezra, and it was to his +side that she went, taking his trembling hand in hers, which he pressed +and found support in; but he did not speak or even look at her. The +father with his face buried was conscious that Mirah had entered, and +presently lifted up his head, pressed his handkerchief against his +eyes, put out his hand toward her, and said with plaintive hoarseness, +“Good-bye, Mirah; your father will not trouble you again. He deserves +to die like a dog by the roadside, and he will. If your mother had +lived, she would have forgiven me—thirty-four years ago I put the ring +on her finger under the _Chuppa_, and we were made one. She would have +forgiven me, and we should have spent our old age together. But I +haven’t deserved it. Good-bye.” + +He rose from the chair as he said the last “good-bye.” Mirah had put +her hand in his and held him. She was not tearful and grieving, but +frightened and awe-struck, as she cried out, + +“No, father, no!” Then turning to her brother, “Ezra, you have not +forbidden him?—Stay, father, and leave off wrong things. Ezra, I +cannot bear it. How can I say to my father, ‘Go and die!’” + +“I have not said it,” Ezra answered, with great effort. “I have said, +stay and be sheltered.” + +“Then you will stay, father—and be taken care of—and come with me,” +said Mirah, drawing him toward the door. + +This was really what Lapidoth wanted. And for the moment he felt a sort +of comfort in recovering his daughter’s dutiful attendance, that made a +change of habits seem possible to him. She led him down to the parlor +below, and said, + +“This is my sitting-room when I am not with Ezra, and there is a +bedroom behind which shall be yours. You will stay and be good, +father. Think that you are come back to my mother, and that she has +forgiven you—she speaks to you through me.” Mirah’s tones were +imploring, but she could not give one of her former caresses. + +Lapidoth quickly recovered his composure, began to speak to Mirah of +the improvement in her voice, and other easy subjects, and when Mrs. +Adam came to lay out his supper, entered into converse with her in +order to show her that he was not a common person, though his clothes +were just now against him. + +But in his usual wakefulness at night, he fell to wondering what money +Mirah had by her, and went back over old Continental hours at +_Roulette_, reproducing the method of his play, and the chances that +had frustrated it. He had had his reasons for coming to England, but +for most things it was a cursed country. + +These were the stronger visions of the night with Lapidoth, and not the +worn frame of his ireful son uttering a terrible judgment. Ezra did +pass across the gaming-table, and his words were audible; but he passed +like an insubstantial ghost, and his words had the heart eaten out of +them by numbers and movements that seemed to make the very tissue of +Lapidoth’s consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVII. + + The godhead in us wrings our noble deeds + From our reluctant selves. + + +It was an unpleasant surprise to Deronda when he returned from the +Abbey to find the undesirable father installed in the lodgings at +Brompton. Mirah had felt it necessary to speak of Deronda to her +father, and even to make him as fully aware as she could of the way in +which the friendship with Ezra had begun, and of the sympathy which had +cemented it. She passed more lightly over what Deronda had done for +her, omitting altogether the rescue from drowning, and speaking of the +shelter she had found in Mrs. Meyrick’s family so as to leave her +father to suppose that it was through these friends Deronda had become +acquainted with her. She could not persuade herself to more +completeness in her narrative: she could not let the breath of her +father’s soul pass over her relation to Deronda. And Lapidoth, for +reasons, was not eager in his questioning about the circumstances of +her flight and arrival in England. But he was much interested in the +fact of his children having a beneficent friend apparently high in the +world. + +It was the brother who told Deronda of this new condition added to +their life. “I am become calm in beholding him now,” Ezra ended, “and I +try to think it possible that my sister’s tenderness, and the daily +tasting a life of peace, may win him to remain aloof from temptation. I +have enjoined her, and she has promised, to trust him with no money. I +have convinced her that he will buy with it his own destruction.” + +Deronda first came on the third day from Lapidoth’s arrival. The new +clothes for which he had been measured were not yet ready, and wishing +to make a favorable impression, he did not choose to present himself in +the old ones. He watched for Deronda’s departure, and, getting a view +of him from the window, was rather surprised at his youthfulness, which +Mirah had not mentioned, and which he had somehow thought out of the +question in a personage who had taken up a grave friendship and hoary +studies with the sepulchral Ezra. Lapidoth began to imagine that +Deronda’s real or chief motive must be that he was in love with Mirah. +And so much the better; for a tie to Mirah had more promise of +indulgence for her father than a tie to Ezra: and Lapidoth was not +without the hope of recommending himself to Deronda, and of softening +any hard prepossessions. He was behaving with much amiability, and +trying in all ways at his command to get himself into easy +domestication with his children—entering into Mirah’s music, showing +himself docile about smoking, which Mrs. Adam could not tolerate in her +parlor, and walking out in the square with his German pipe, and the +tobacco with which Mirah supplied him. He was too acute to offer any +present remonstrance against the refusal of money, which Mirah told him +that she must persist in as a solemn duty promised to her brother. He +was comfortable enough to wait. + +The next time Deronda came, Lapidoth, equipped in his new clothes, and +satisfied with his own appearance, was in the room with Ezra, who was +teaching himself, as a part of his severe duty, to tolerate his +father’s presence whenever it was imposed. Deronda was cold and +distant, the first sight of this man, who had blighted the lives of his +wife and children, creating in him a repulsion that was even a physical +discomfort. But Lapidoth did not let himself be discouraged, asked +leave to stay and hear the reading of papers from the old chest, and +actually made himself useful in helping to decipher some difficult +German manuscript. This led him to suggest that it might be desirable +to make a transcription of the manuscript, and he offered his services +for this purpose, and also to make copies of any papers in Roman +characters. Though Ezra’s young eyes he observed were getting weak, his +own were still strong. Deronda accepted the offer, thinking that +Lapidoth showed a sign of grace in the willingness to be employed +usefully; and he saw a gratified expression in Ezra’s face, who, +however, presently said, “Let all the writing be done here; for I +cannot trust the papers out of my sight, lest there be an accident by +burning or otherwise.” Poor Ezra felt very much as if he had a convict +on leave under his charge. Unless he saw his father working, it was not +possible to believe that he would work in good faith. But by this +arrangement he fastened on himself the burden of his father’s presence, +which was made painful not only through his deepest, longest +associations, but also through Lapidoth’s restlessness of temperament, +which showed itself the more as he become familiarized with his +situation, and lost any awe he had felt of his son. The fact was, he +was putting a strong constraint on himself in confining his attention +for the sake of winning Deronda’s favor; and like a man in an +uncomfortable garment he gave himself relief at every opportunity, +going out to smoke, or moving about and talking, or throwing himself +back in his chair and remaining silent, but incessantly carrying on a +dumb language of facial movement or gesticulation: and if Mirah were in +the room, he would fall into his old habit of talk with her, gossiping +about their former doings and companions, or repeating quirks and +stories, and plots of the plays he used to adapt, in the belief that he +could at will command the vivacity of his earlier time. All this was a +mortal infliction to Ezra; and when Mirah was at home she tried to +relieve him, by getting her father down into the parlor and keeping +watch over him there. What duty is made of a single difficult resolve? +The difficulty lies in the daily unflinching support of consequences +that mar the blessed return of morning with the prospect of irritation +to be suppressed or shame to be endured. And such consequences were +being borne by these, as by many other heroic children of an unworthy +father—with the prospect, at least to Mirah, of their stretching +onward through the solid part of life. + +Meanwhile Lapidoth’s presence had raised a new impalpable partition +between Deronda and Mirah—each of them dreading the soiling inferences +of his mind, each of them interpreting mistakenly the increased reserve +and diffidence of the other. But it was not very long before some light +came to Deronda. + +As soon as he could, after returning from his brief visit to the Abbey, +he had called at Hans Meyrick’s rooms, feeling it, on more grounds than +one, a due of friendship that Hans should be at once acquainted with +the reasons of his late journey, and the changes of intention it had +brought about. Hans was not there; he was said to be in the country for +a few days; and Deronda, after leaving a note, waited a week, rather +expecting a note in return. But receiving no word, and fearing some +freak of feeling in the incalculably susceptible Hans, whose proposed +sojourn at the Abbey he knew had been deferred, he at length made a +second call, and was admitted into the painting-room, where he found +his friend in a light coat, without a waistcoat, his long hair still +wet from a bath, but with a face looking worn and wizened—anything but +country-like. He had taken up his palette and brushes, and stood before +his easel when Deronda entered, but the equipment and attitude seemed +to have been got up on short notice. + +As they shook hands, Deronda said, “You don’t look much as if you had +been in the country, old fellow. Is it Cambridge you have been to?” + +“No,” said Hans, curtly, throwing down his palette with the air of one +who has begun to feign by mistake; then pushing forward a chair for +Deronda, he threw himself into another, and leaned backward with his +hands behind his head, while he went on, “I’ve been to +I-don’t-know-where—No man’s land—and a mortally unpleasant country it +is.” + +“You don’t mean to say you have been drinking, Hans,” said Deronda, who +had seated himself opposite, in anxious survey. + +“Nothing so good. I’ve been smoking opium. I always meant to do it some +time or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it; and having +found myself just now rather out of other bliss, I thought it judicious +to seize the opportunity. But I pledge you my word I shall never tap a +cask of that bliss again. It disagrees with my constitution.” + +“What has been the matter? You were in good spirits enough when you +wrote to me.” + +“Oh, nothing in particular. The world began to look seedy—a sort of +cabbage-garden with all the cabbages cut. A malady of genius, you may +be sure,” said Hans, creasing his face into a smile; “and, in fact, I +was tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot +London weather.” + +“Nothing else? No real vexation?” said Deronda. + +Hans shook his head. + +“I came to tell you of my own affairs, but I can’t do it with a good +grace if you are to hide yours.” + +“Haven’t an affair in the world,” said Hans, in a flighty way, “except +a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man. Besides, as it is the first time in +our lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs, you are +only beginning to pay a pretty long debt.” + +Deronda felt convinced that Hans was behaving artificially, but he +trusted to a return of the old frankness by-and-by if he gave his own +confidence. + +“You laughed at the mystery of my journey to Italy, Hans,” he began. +“It was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. I +had never known anything about my parents, and I really went to Genoa +to meet my mother. My father has been long dead—died when I was an +infant. My mother was the daughter of an eminent Jew; my father was her +cousin. Many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a +probability before I set out. I was so far prepared for the result that +I was glad of it—glad to find myself a Jew.” + +“You must not expect me to look surprised, Deronda,” said Hans, who had +changed his attitude, laying one leg across the other and examining the +heel of his slipper. + +“You knew it?” + +“My mother told me. She went to the house the morning after you had +been there—brother and sister both told her. You may imagine we can’t +rejoice as they do. But whatever you are glad of, I shall come to be +glad of in the end—_when_ exactly the end may be I can’t predict,” +said Hans, speaking in a low tone, which was as usual with him as it +was to be out of humor with his lot, and yet bent on making no fuss +about it. + +“I quite understand that you can’t share my feeling,” said Deronda; +“but I could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new +light over my future. I have taken up some of Mordecai’s ideas, and I +mean to try and carry them out, so far as one man’s efforts can go. I +dare say I shall by and by travel to the East and be away for some +years.” + +Hans said nothing, but rose, seized his palette and began to work his +brush on it, standing before his picture with his back to Deronda, who +also felt himself at a break in his path embarrassed by Hans’s +embarrassment. + +Presently Hans said, again speaking low, and without turning, “Excuse +the question, but does Mrs. Grandcourt know of all this?” + +“No; and I must beg of you, Hans,” said Deronda, rather angrily, “to +cease joking on that subject. Any notions you have are wide of the +truth—are the very reverse of the truth.” + +“I am no more inclined to joke than I shall be at my own funeral,” said +Hans. “But I am not at all sure that you are aware what are my notions +on that subject.” + +“Perhaps not,” said Deronda. “But let me say, once for all, that in +relation to Mrs. Grandcourt, I never have had, and never shall have the +position of a lover. If you have ever seriously put that interpretation +on anything you have observed, you are supremely mistaken.” + +There was silence a little while, and to each the silence was like an +irritating air, exaggerating discomfort. + +“Perhaps I have been mistaken in another interpretation, also,” said +Hans, presently. + +“What is that?” + +“That you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another +woman, who is neither wife nor widow.” + +“I can’t pretend not to understand you, Meyrick. It is painful that our +wishes should clash. I hope you will tell me if you have any ground for +supposing that you would succeed.” + +“That seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, Deronda,” said +Hans, with some irritation. + +“Why superfluous?” + +“Because you are perfectly convinced on the subject—and probably have +had the very best evidence to convince you.” + +“I will be more frank with you than you are with me,” said Deronda, +still heated by Hans’ show of temper, and yet sorry for him. “I have +never had the slightest evidence that I should succeed myself. In fact, +I have very little hope.” + +Hans looked round hastily at his friend, but immediately turned to his +picture again. + +“And in our present situation,” said Deronda, hurt by the idea that +Hans suspected him of insincerity, and giving an offended emphasis to +his words, “I don’t see how I can deliberately make known my feeling to +her. If she could not return it, I should have embittered her best +comfort; for neither she nor I can be parted from her brother, and we +should have to meet continually. If I were to cause her that sort of +pain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, I should be no better than +a mischievous animal.” + +“I don’t know that I have ever betrayed _my_ feeling to her,” said +Hans, as if he were vindicating himself. + +“You mean that we are on a level, then; you have no reason to envy me.” + +“Oh, not the slightest,” said Hans, with bitter irony. “You have +measured my conceit and know that it out-tops all your advantages.” + +“I am a nuisance to you, Meyrick. I am sorry, but I can’t help it,” +said Deronda, rising. “After what passed between us before, I wished to +have this explanation; and I don’t see that any pretensions of mine +have made a real difference to you. They are not likely to make any +pleasant difference to myself under present circumstances. Now the +father is there—did you know that the father is there?” + +“Yes. If he were not a Jew I would permit myself to damn him—with +faint praise, I mean,” said Hans, but with no smile. + +“She and I meet under greater constraint than ever. Things might go on +in this way for two years without my getting any insight into her +feeling toward me. That is the whole state of affairs, Hans. Neither +you nor I have injured the other, that I can see. We must put up with +this sort of rivalry in a hope that is likely enough to come to +nothing. Our friendship can bear that strain, surely.” + +“No, it can’t,” said Hans, impetuously, throwing down his tools, +thrusting his hands into his coat-pockets, and turning round to face +Deronda, who drew back a little and looked at him with amazement. Hans +went on in the same tone, + +“Our friendship—my friendship—can’t bear the strain of behaving to +you like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness. For you +_are_ the happiest dog in the world. If Mirah loves anybody better than +her brother, _you are the man_.” + +Hans turned on his heel and threw himself into his chair, looking up at +Deronda with an expression the reverse of tender. Something like a +shock passed through Deronda, and, after an instant, he said, + +“It is a good-natured fiction of yours, Hans.” + +“I am not in a good-natured mood. I assure you I found the fact +disagreeable when it was thrust on me—all the more, or perhaps all the +less, because I believed then that your heart was pledged to the +duchess. But now, confound you! you turn out to be in love in the right +place—a Jew—and everything eligible.” + +“Tell me what convinced you—there’s a good fellow,” said Deronda, +distrusting a delight that he was unused to. + +“Don’t ask. Little mother was witness. The upshot is, that Mirah is +jealous of the duchess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the +better. There! I’ve cleared off a score or two, and may be allowed to +swear at you for getting what you deserve—which is just the very best +luck I know of.” + +“God bless you, Hans!” said Deronda, putting out his hand, which the +other took and wrung in silence. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVIII. + + “All thoughts, all passions, all delights, + Whatever stirs this mortal frame, + All are but ministers of Love, + And feed his sacred flame.” + —COLERIDGE. + + +Deronda’s eagerness to confess his love could hardly have had a +stronger stimulus than Hans had given it in his assurance that Mirah +needed relief from jealousy. He went on his next visit to Ezra with the +determination to be resolute in using—nay, in requesting—an +opportunity of private conversation with her. If she accepted his love, +he felt courageous about all other consequences, and as her betrothed +husband he would gain a protective authority which might be a desirable +defense for her in future difficulties with her father. Deronda had not +observed any signs of growing restlessness in Lapidoth, or of +diminished desire to recommend himself; but he had forebodings of some +future struggle, some mortification, or some intolerable increase of +domestic disquietude in which he might save Ezra and Mirah from being +helpless victims. + +His forebodings would have been strengthened if he had known what was +going on in the father’s mind. That amount of restlessness, that +desultoriness of attention, which made a small torture to Ezra, was to +Lapidoth an irksome submission to restraint, only made bearable by his +thinking of it as a means of by-and-by securing a well-conditioned +freedom. He began with the intention of awaiting some really good +chance, such as an opening for getting a considerable sum from Deronda; +but all the while he was looking about curiously, and trying to +discover where Mirah deposited her money and her keys. The imperious +gambling desire within him, which carried on its activity through every +other occupation, and made a continuous web of imagination that held +all else in its meshes, would hardly have been under the control of a +contracted purpose, if he had been able to lay his hands on any sum +worth capturing. But Mirah, with her practical clear-sightedness, +guarded against any frustration of the promise she had given to Ezra, +by confiding all money, except what she was immediately in want of, to +Mrs. Meyrick’s care, and Lapidoth felt himself under an irritating +completeness of supply in kind as in a lunatic asylum where everything +was made safe against him. To have opened a desk or drawer of Mirah’s, +and pocketed any bank-notes found there, would have been to his mind a +sort of domestic appropriation which had no disgrace in it; the degrees +of liberty a man allows himself with other people’s property being +often delicately drawn, even beyond the boundary where the law begins +to lay its hold—which is the reason why spoons are a safer investment +than mining shares. Lapidoth really felt himself injuriously treated by +his daughter, and thought that he ought to have had what he wanted of +her other earnings as he had of her apple-tart. But he remained +submissive; indeed, the indiscretion that most tempted him, was not any +insistence with Mirah, but some kind of appeal to Deronda. Clever +persons who have nothing else to sell can often put a good price on +their absence, and Lapidoth’s difficult search for devices forced upon +him the idea that his family would find themselves happier without him, +and that Deronda would be willing to advance a considerable sum for the +sake of getting rid of him. But, in spite of well-practiced hardihood, +Lapidoth was still in some awe of Ezra’s imposing friend, and deferred +his purpose indefinitely. + +On this day, when Deronda had come full of a gladdened consciousness, +which inevitably showed itself in his air and speech, Lapidoth was at a +crisis of discontent and longing that made his mind busy with schemes +of freedom, and Deronda’s new amenity encouraged them. This +preoccupation was at last so strong as to interfere with his usual +show of interest in what went forward, and his persistence in sitting +by even when there was reading which he could not follow. After sitting +a little while, he went out to smoke and walk in the square, and the +two friends were all the easier. Mirah was not at home, but she was +sure to be in again before Deronda left, and his eyes glowed with a +secret anticipation: he thought that when he saw her again he should +see some sweetness of recognition for himself to which his eyes had +been sealed before. There was an additional playful affectionateness in +his manner toward Ezra. + +“This little room is too close for you, Ezra,” he said, breaking off +his reading. “The week’s heat we sometimes get here is worse than the +heat in Genoa, where one sits in the shaded coolness of large rooms. +You must have a better home now. I shall do as I like with you, being +the stronger half.” He smiled toward Ezra, who said, + +“I am straitened for nothing except breath. But you, who might be in a +spacious palace, with the wide green country around you, find this a +narrow prison. Nevertheless, I cannot say, ‘Go.’” + +“Oh, the country would be a banishment while you are here,” said +Deronda, rising and walking round the double room, which yet offered no +long promenade, while he made a great fan of his handkerchief. “This is +the happiest room in the world to me. Besides, I will imagine myself in +the East, since I am getting ready to go there some day. Only I will +not wear a cravat and a heavy ring there,” he ended emphatically, +pausing to take off those superfluities and deposit them on a small +table behind Ezra, who had the table in front of him covered with books +and papers. + +“I have been wearing my memorable ring ever since I came home,” he went +on, as he reseated himself. “But I am such a Sybarite that I constantly +put it off as a burden when I am doing anything. I understand why the +Romans had summer rings—_if_ they had them. Now then, I shall get on +better.” + +They were soon absorbed in their work again. Deronda was reading a +piece of rabbinical Hebrew under Ezra’s correction and comment, and +they took little notice when Lapidoth re-entered and took a seat +somewhat in the background. + +His rambling eyes quickly alighted on the ring that sparkled on the bit +of dark mahogany. During his walk, his mind had been occupied with the +fiction of an advantageous opening for him abroad, only requiring a sum +of ready money, which, on being communicated to Deronda in private, +might immediately draw from him a question as to the amount of the +required sum: and it was this part of his forecast that Lapidoth found +the most debatable, there being a danger in asking too much, and a +prospective regret in asking too little. His own desire gave him no +limit, and he was quite without guidance as to the limit of Deronda’s +willingness. But now, in the midst of these airy conditions preparatory +to a receipt which remained indefinite, this ring, which on Deronda’s +finger had become familiar to Lapidoth’s envy, suddenly shone detached +and within easy grasp. Its value was certainly below the smallest of +the imaginary sums that his purpose fluctuated between; but then it was +before him as a solid fact, and his desire at once leaped into the +thought (not yet an intention) that if he were quietly to pocket that +ring and walk away he would have the means of comfortable escape from +present restraint, without trouble, and also without danger; for any +property of Deronda’s (available without his formal consent) was all +one with his children’s property, since their father would never be +prosecuted for taking it. The details of this thinking followed each +other so quickly that they seemed to rise before him as one picture. +Lapidoth had never committed larceny; but larceny is a form of +appropriation for which people are punished by law; and, take this ring +from a virtual relation, who would have been willing to make a much +heavier gift, would not come under the head of larceny. Still, the +heavier gift was to be preferred, if Lapidoth could only make haste +enough in asking for it, and the imaginary action of taking the ring, +which kept repeating itself like an inward tune, sank into a rejected +idea. He satisfied his urgent longing by resolving to go below, and +watch for the moment of Deronda’s departure, when he would ask leave to +join him in his walk and boldly carry out his meditated plan. He rose +and stood looking out of the window, but all the while he saw what lay +beyond him—the brief passage he would have to make to the door close +by the table where the ring was. However he was resolved to go down; +but—by no distinct change of resolution, rather by a dominance of +desire, like the thirst of the drunkard—it so happened that in passing +the table his fingers fell noiselessly on the ring, and he found +himself in the passage with the ring in his hand. It followed that he +put on his hat and quitted the house. The possibility of again throwing +himself on his children receded into the indefinite distance, and +before he was out on the square his sense of haste had concentrated +itself on selling the ring and getting on shipboard. + +Deronda and Ezra were just aware of his exit; that was all. But, +by-and-by, Mirah came in and made a real interruption. She had not +taken off her hat; and when Deronda rose and advanced to shake hands +with her, she said, in a confusion at once unaccountable and +troublesome to herself, + +“I only came in to see that Ezra had his new draught. I must go +directly to Mrs. Meyrick’s to fetch something.” + +“Pray allow me to walk with you,” said Deronda urgently. “I must not +tire Ezra any further; besides my brains are melting. I want to go to +Mrs. Meyrick’s: may I go with you?” + +“Oh, yes,” said Mirah, blushing still more, with the vague sense of +something new in Deronda, and turning away to pour out Ezra’s draught; +Ezra meanwhile throwing back his head with his eyes shut, unable to get +his mind away from the ideas that had been filling it while the reading +was going on. Deronda for a moment stood thinking of nothing but the +walk, till Mirah turned round again and brought the draught, when he +suddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravat, and +saying—“Pray excuse my dishabille—I did not mean you to see it,” he +went to the little table, took up his cravat, and exclaimed with a +violent impulse of surprise, “Good heavens, where is my ring gone?” +beginning to search about on the floor. + +Ezra looked round the corner of his chair. Mirah, quick as thought, +went to the spot where Deronda was seeking, and said, “Did you lay it +down?” + +“Yes,” said Deronda, still unvisited by any other explanation than that +the ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernable on the +variegated carpet. He was moving the bits of furniture near, and +searching in all possible and impossible places with hand and eyes. + +But another explanation had visited Mirah and taken the color from her +cheeks. She went to Ezra’s ear and whispered “Was my father here?” He +bent his head in reply, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding. +She darted back to the spot where Deronda was still casting down his +eyes in that hopeless exploration which we are apt to carry on over a +space we have examined in vain. “You have not found it?” she said, +hurriedly. + +He, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught alarm from it and +answered, “I perhaps put it in my pocket,” professing to feel for it +there. + +She watched him and said, “It is not there?—you put it on the table,” +with a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it +in his pocket; and immediately she rushed out of the room. Deronda +followed her—she was gone into the sitting-room below to look for her +father—she opened the door of the bedroom to see if he were there—she +looked where his hat usually hung—she turned with her hands clasped +tight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. Then +she looked up at Deronda, who had not dared to speak to her in her +white agitation. She looked up at him, unable to utter a word—the look +seemed a tacit acceptance of the humiliation she felt in his presence. +But he, taking her clasped hands between both his, said, in a tone of +reverent adoration, + +“Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours—that we can +have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your +grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman. +Say you will not reject me—say you will take me to share all things +with you. Say you will promise to be my wife—say it now. I have been +in doubt so long—I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and +always I may prove to you that I love you with complete love.” + +The change in Mirah had been gradual. She had not passed at once from +anguish to the full, blessed consciousness that, in this moment of +grief and shame, Deronda was giving her the highest tribute man can +give to woman. With the first tones and the first words, she had only a +sense of solemn comfort, referring this goodness of Deronda’s to his +feeling for Ezra. But by degrees the rapturous assurance of unhoped-for +good took possession of her frame: her face glowed under Deronda’s as +he bent over her; yet she looked up still with intense gravity, as when +she had first acknowledged with religious gratitude that he had thought +her “worthy of the best;” and when he had finished, she could say +nothing—she could only lift up her lips to his and just kiss them, as +if that were the simplest “yes.” They stood then, only looking at each +other, he holding her hands between his—too happy to move, meeting so +fully in their new consciousness that all signs would have seemed to +throw them farther apart, till Mirah said in a whisper: “Let us go and +comfort Ezra.” + + + + +CHAPTER LXIX. + + “The human nature unto which I felt + That I belonged, and reverenced with love, + Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit + Diffused through time and space, with aid derived + Of evidence from monuments, erect, + Prostrate, or leaning toward their common rest + In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime + Of vanished nations.” + —WORDSWORTH: _The Prelude_. + + +Sir Hugo carried out his plan of spending part of the autumn at Diplow, +and by the beginning of October his presence was spreading some +cheerfulness in the neighborhood, among all ranks and persons +concerned, from the stately home of Brackenshaw and Quetcham to the +respectable shop-parlors in Wanchester. For Sir Hugo was a man who +liked to show himself and be affable, a Liberal of good lineage, who +confided entirely in reform as not likely to make any serious +difference in English habits of feeling, one of which undoubtedly is +the liking to behold society well fenced and adorned with hereditary +rank. Hence he made Diplow a most agreeable house, extending his +invitations to old Wanchester solicitors and young village curates, but +also taking some care in the combination of the guests, and not feeding +all the common poultry together, so that they should think their meal +no particular compliment. Easy-going Lord Brackenshaw, for example, +would not mind meeting Robinson the attorney, but Robinson would have +been naturally piqued if he had been asked to meet a set of people who +passed for his equals. On all these points Sir Hugo was well informed +enough at once to gain popularity for himself and give pleasure to +others—two results which eminently suited his disposition. The rector +of Pennicote now found a reception at Diplow very different from the +haughty tolerance he had undergone during the reign of Grandcourt. It +was not that the baronet liked Mr. Gascoigne; it was that he desired to +keep up a marked relation of friendliness with him on account of Mrs. +Grandcourt, for whom Sir Hugo’s chivalry had become more and more +engaged. Why? The chief reason was one that he could not fully +communicate, even to Lady Mallinger—for he would not tell what he +thought one woman’s secret to another, even though the other was his +wife—which shows that his chivalry included a rare reticence. + +Deronda, after he had become engaged to Mirah, felt it right to make a +full statement of his position and purposes to Sir Hugo, and he chose +to make it by letter. He had more than a presentiment that his fatherly +friend would feel some dissatisfaction, if not pain, at this turn of +his destiny. In reading unwelcome news, instead of hearing it, there is +the advantage that one avoids a hasty expression of impatience which +may afterward be repented of. Deronda dreaded that verbal collision +which makes otherwise pardonable feeling lastingly offensive. + +And Sir Hugo, though not altogether surprised, was thoroughly vexed. +His immediate resource was to take the letter to Lady Mallinger, who +would be sure to express an astonishment which her husband could argue +against as unreasonable, and in this way divide the stress of his +discontent. And in fact when she showed herself astonished and +distressed that all Daniel’s wonderful talents, and the comfort of +having him in the house, should have ended in his going mad in this way +about the Jews, the baronet could say, + +“Oh, nonsense, my dear! depend upon it, Dan will not make a fool of +himself. He has large notions about Judaism—political views which you +can’t understand. No fear but Dan will keep himself head uppermost.” + +But with regard to the prospective marriage she afforded him no +counter-irritant. The gentle lady observed, without rancor, that she +had little dreamed of what was coming when she had Mirah to sing at her +musical party and give lessons to Amabel. After some hesitation, +indeed, she confessed it _had_ passed through her mind that after a +proper time Daniel might marry Mrs. Grandcourt—because it seemed so +remarkable that he should be at Genoa just at that time—and although +she herself was not fond of widows she could not help thinking that +such a marriage would have been better than his going altogether with +the Jews. But Sir Hugo was so strongly of the same opinion that he +could not correct it as a feminine mistake; and his ill-humor at the +disproof of his disagreeable conclusions on behalf of Gwendolen was +left without vent. He desired Lady Mallinger not to breathe a word +about the affair till further notice, saying to himself, “If it is an +unkind cut to the poor thing (meaning Gwendolen), the longer she is +without knowing it the better, in her present nervous state. And she +will best learn it from Dan himself.” Sir Hugo’s conjectures had worked +so industriously with his knowledge, that he fancied himself well +informed concerning the whole situation. + +Meanwhile his residence with his family at Diplow enabled him to +continue his fatherly attentions to Gwendolen; and in these Lady +Mallinger, notwithstanding her small liking for widows, was quite +willing to second him. + +The plan of removal to Offendene had been carried out; and Gwendolen, +in settling there, maintained a calm beyond her mother’s hopes. She was +experiencing some of that peaceful melancholy which comes from the +renunciation of demands for self, and from taking the ordinary good of +existence, and especially kindness, even from a dog, as a gift above +expectation. Does one who has been all but lost in a pit of darkness +complain of the sweet air and the daylight? There is a way of looking +at our life daily as an escape, and taking the quiet return of morn and +evening—still more the star-like out-glowing of some pure +fellow-feeling, some generous impulse breaking our inward darkness—as +a salvation that reconciles us to hardship. Those who have a +self-knowledge prompting such self-accusation as Hamlet’s, can +understand this habitual feeling of rescue. And it was felt by +Gwendolen as she lived through and through again the terrible history +of her temptations, from their first form of illusory self-pleasing +when she struggled away from the hold of conscience, to their latest +form of an urgent hatred dragging her toward its satisfaction, while +she prayed and cried for the help of that conscience which she had once +forsaken. She was now dwelling on every word of Deronda’s that pointed +to her past deliverance from the worst evil in herself, and the worst +infliction of it on others, and on every word that carried a force to +resist self-despair. + +But she was also upborne by the prospect of soon seeing him again: she +did not imagine him otherwise than always within her reach, her supreme +need of him blinding her to the separateness of his life, the whole +scene of which she filled with his relation to her—no unique +preoccupation of Gwendolen’s, for we are all apt to fall into this +passionate egoism of imagination, not only toward our fellow-men, but +toward God. And the future which she turned her face to with a willing +step was one where she would be continually assimilating herself to +some type that he would hold before her. Had he not first risen on her +vision as a corrective presence which she had recognized in the +beginning with resentment, and at last with entire love and trust? She +could not spontaneously think of an end to that reliance, which had +become to her imagination like the firmness of the earth, the only +condition of her walking. + +And Deronda was not long before he came to Diplow, which was a more +convenient distance from town than the Abbey. He had wished to carry +out a plan for taking Ezra and Mirah to a mild spot on the coast, while +he prepared another home which Mirah might enter as his bride, and +where they might unitedly watch over her brother. But Ezra begged not +to be removed, unless it were to go with them to the East. All outward +solicitations were becoming more and more of a burden to him; but his +mind dwelt on the possibility of this voyage with a visionary joy. +Deronda, in his preparations for the marriage, which he hoped might not +be deferred beyond a couple of months, wished to have fuller +consultation as to his resources and affairs generally with Sir Hugo, +and here was a reason for not delaying his visit to Diplow. But he +thought quite as much of another reason—his promise to Gwendolen. The +sense of blessedness in his own lot had yet an aching anxiety at his +heart: this may be held paradoxical, for the beloved lover is always +called happy, and happiness is considered as a well-fleshed +indifference to sorrow outside it. But human experience is usually +paradoxical, if that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk +or even current philosophy. It was no treason to Mirah, but a part of +that full nature which made his love for her the more worthy, that his +joy in her could hold by its side the care for another. For what is +love itself, for the one we love best?—an enfolding of immeasurable +cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love. + +Deronda came twice to Diplow, and saw Gwendolen twice—and yet he went +back to town without having told her anything about the change in his +lot and prospects. He blamed himself; but in all momentous +communication likely to give pain we feel dependent on some preparatory +turn of words or associations, some agreement of the other’s mood with +the probable effect of what we have to impart. In the first interview +Gwendolen was so absorbed in what she had to say to him, so full of +questions which he must answer, about the arrangement of her life, what +she could do to make herself less ignorant, how she could be kindest to +everybody, and make amends for her selfishness and try to be rid of it, +that Deronda utterly shrank from waiving her immediate wants in order +to speak of himself, nay, from inflicting a wound on her in these +moments when she was leaning on him for help in her path. In the second +interview, when he went with new resolve to command the conversation +into some preparatory track, he found her in a state of deep +depression, overmastered by some distasteful miserable memories which +forced themselves on her as something more real and ample than any new +material out of which she could mould her future. She cried +hysterically, and said that he would always despise her. He could only +seek words of soothing and encouragement: and when she gradually +revived under them, with that pathetic look of renewed childlike +interest which we see in eyes where the lashes are still beaded with +tears, it was impossible to lay another burden on her. + +But time went on, and he felt it a pressing duty to make the difficult +disclosure. Gwendolen, it was true, never recognized his having any +affairs; and it had never even occurred to her to ask him why he +happened to be at Genoa. But this unconsciousness of hers would make a +sudden revelation of affairs that were determining his course in life +all the heavier blow to her; and if he left the revelation to be made +by different persons, she would feel that he had treated her with cruel +inconsiderateness. He could not make the communication in writing: his +tenderness could not bear to think of her reading his virtual farewell +in solitude, and perhaps feeling his words full of a hard gladness for +himself and indifference for her. He went down to Diplow again, feeling +that every other peril was to be incurred rather than that of returning +and leaving her still in ignorance. + +On this third visit Deronda found Hans Meyrick installed with his easel +at Diplow, beginning his picture of the three daughters sitting on a +bank, “in the Gainsborough style,” and varying his work by rambling to +Pennicote to sketch the village children and improve his acquaintance +with the Gascoignes. Hans appeared to have recovered his vivacity, but +Deronda detected some feigning in it, as we detect the artificiality of +a lady’s bloom from its being a little too high-toned and steadily +persistent (a “Fluctuating Rouge” not having yet appeared among the +advertisements). Also with all his grateful friendship and admiration +for Deronda, Hans could not help a certain irritation against him, such +as extremely incautious, open natures are apt to feel when the breaking +of a friend’s reserve discloses a state of things not merely +unsuspected but the reverse of what had been hoped and ingeniously +conjectured. It is true that poor Hans had always cared chiefly to +confide in Deronda, and had been quite incurious as to any confidence +that might have been given in return; but what outpourer of his own +affairs is not tempted to think any hint of his friend’s affairs is an +egotistic irrelevance? That was no reason why it was not rather a sore +reflection to Hans that while he had been all along naively opening his +heart about Mirah, Deronda had kept secret a feeling of rivalry which +now revealed itself as the important determining fact. Moreover, it is +always at their peril that our friends turn out to be something more +than we were aware of. Hans must be excused for these promptings of +bruised sensibility, since he had not allowed them to govern his +substantial conduct: he had the consciousness of having done right by +his fortunate friend; or, as he told himself, “his metal had given a +better ring than he would have sworn to beforehand.” For Hans had +always said that in point of virtue he was a _dilettante_: which meant +that he was very fond of it in other people, but if he meddled with it +himself he cut a poor figure. Perhaps in reward of his good behavior he +gave his tongue the more freedom; and he was too fully possessed by the +notion of Deronda’s happiness to have a conception of what he was +feeling about Gwendolen, so that he spoke of her without hesitation. + +“When did you come down, Hans?” said Deronda, joining him in the +grounds where he was making a study of the requisite bank and trees. + +“Oh, ten days ago; before the time Sir Hugo fixed. I ran down with Rex +Gascoigne and stayed at the rectory a day or two. I’m up in all the +gossip of these parts; I know the state of the wheelwright’s interior, +and have assisted at an infant school examination. Sister Anna, with +the good upper lip, escorted me, else I should have been mobbed by +three urchins and an idiot, because of my long hair and a general +appearance which departs from the Pennicote type of the beautiful. +Altogether, the village is idyllic. Its only fault is a dark curate +with broad shoulders and broad trousers who ought to have gone into the +heavy drapery line. The Gascoignes are perfect—besides being related +to the Vandyke duchess. I caught a glimpse of her in her black robes at +a distance, though she doesn’t show to visitors.” + +“She was not staying at the rectory?” said Deronda. + +“No; but I was taken to Offendene to see the old house, and as a +consequence I saw the duchess’ family. I suppose you have been there +and know all about them?” + +“Yes, I have been there,” said Deronda, quietly. + +“A fine old place. An excellent setting for a widow with romantic +fortunes. And she seems to have had several romances. I think I have +found out that there was one between her and my friend Rex.” + +“Not long before her marriage, then?” said Deronda, really interested, +“for they had only been a year at Offendene. How came you to know +anything of it?” + +“Oh—not ignorant of what it is to be a miserable devil, I learn to +gloat on the signs of misery in others. I found out that Rex never goes +to Offendene, and has never seen the duchess since she came back; and +Miss Gascoigne let fall something in our talk about charade-acting—for +I went through some of my nonsense to please the young ones—something +that proved to me that Rex was once hovering about his fair cousin +close enough to get singed. I don’t know what was her part in the +affair. Perhaps the duke came in and carried her off. That is always +the way when an exceptionally worthy young man forms an attachment. I +understand now why Gascoigne talks of making the law his mistress and +remaining a bachelor. But these are green resolves. Since the duke did +not get himself drowned for your sake, it may turn out to be for my +friend Rex’s sake. Who knows?” + +“Is it absolutely necessary that Mrs. Grandcourt should marry again?” +said Deronda, ready to add that Hans’s success in constructing her +fortunes hitherto had not been enough to warrant a new attempt. + +“You monster!” retorted Hans, “do you want her to wear weeds for _you_ +all her life—burn herself in perpetual suttee while you are alive and +merry?” + +Deronda could say nothing, but he looked so much annoyed that Hans +turned the current of his chat, and when he was alone shrugged his +shoulders a little over the thought that there really had been some +stronger feeling between Deronda and the duchess than Mirah would like +to know of. “Why didn’t she fall in love with me?” thought Hans, +laughing at himself. “She would have had no rivals. No woman ever +wanted to discuss theology with me.” + +No wonder that Deronda winced under that sort of joking with a +whip-lash. It touched sensibilities that were already quivering with +the anticipation of witnessing some of that pain to which even Hans’s +light words seemed to give more reality:—any sort of recognition by +another giving emphasis to the subject of our anxiety. And now he had +come down with the firm resolve that he would not again evade the +trial. The next day he rode to Offendene. He had sent word that he +intended to call and to ask if Gwendolen could receive him; and he +found her awaiting him in the old drawing-room where some chief crises +of her life had happened. She seemed less sad than he had seen her +since her husband’s death; there was no smile on her face, but a placid +self-possession, in contrast with the mood in which he had last found +her. She was all the more alive to the sadness perceptible in Deronda; +and they were no sooner seated—he at a little distance opposite to +her—than she said: + +“You were afraid of coming to see me, because I was so full of grief +and despair the last time. But I am not so to-day. I have been sorry +ever since. I have been making it a reason why I should keep up my hope +and be as cheerful as I can, because I would not give you any pain +about me.” + +There was an unwonted sweetness in Gwendolen’s tone and look as she +uttered these words that seemed to Deronda to infuse the utmost cruelty +into the task now laid upon him. But he felt obliged to make his answer +a beginning of the task. + +“I _am_ in some trouble to-day,” he said, looking at her rather +mournfully; “but it is because I have things to tell you which you will +almost think it a want of confidence on my part not to have spoken of +before. They are things affecting my own life—my own future. I shall +seem to have made an ill return to you for the trust you have placed in +me—never to have given you an idea of events that make great changes +for me. But when we have been together we have hardly had time to enter +into subjects which at the moment were really less pressing to me than +the trials you have been going through.” There was a sort of timid +tenderness in Deronda’s deep tones, and he paused with a pleading look, +as if it had been Gwendolen only who had conferred anything in her +scenes of beseeching and confession. + +A thrill of surprise was visible in her. Such meaning as she found in +his words had shaken her, but without causing fear. Her mind had flown +at once to some change in his position with regard to Sir Hugo and Sir +Hugo’s property. She said, with a sense of comfort from Deronda’s way +of asking her pardon, + +“You never thought of anything but what you could do to help me; and I +was so troublesome. How could you tell me things?” + +“It will perhaps astonish you,” said Deronda, “that I have only quite +lately known who were my parents.” + +Gwendolen was not astonished: she felt the more assured that her +expectations of what was coming were right. Deronda went on without +check. + +“The reason why you found me in Italy was that I had gone there to +learn that—in fact, to meet my mother. It was by her wish that I was +brought up in ignorance of my parentage. She parted with me after my +father’s death, when I was a little creature. But she is now very ill, +and she felt that the secrecy ought not to be any longer maintained. +Her chief reason had been that she did not wish me to know I was a Jew.” + +“_A Jew_!” Gwendolen exclaimed, in a low tone of amazement, with an +utterly frustrated look, as if some confusing potion were creeping +through her system. + +Deronda colored, and did not speak, while Gwendolen, with her eyes +fixed on the floor, was struggling to find her way in the dark by the +aid of various reminiscences. She seemed at last to have arrived at +some judgment, for she looked up at Deronda again and said, as if +remonstrating against the mother’s conduct, + +“What difference need that have made?” + +“It has made a great difference to me that I have known it,” said +Deronda, emphatically; but he could not go on easily—the distance +between her ideas and his acted like a difference of native language, +making him uncertain what force his words would carry. + +Gwendolen meditated again, and then said feelingly, “I hope there is +nothing to make you mind. _You_ are just the same as if you were not a +Jew.” + +She meant to assure him that nothing of that external sort could affect +the way in which she regarded him, or the way in which he could +influence her. Deronda was a little helped by this misunderstanding. + +“The discovery was far from being painful to me,” he said, “I had been +gradually prepared for it, and I was glad of it. I had been prepared +for it by becoming intimate with a very remarkable Jew, whose ideas +have attracted me so much that I think of devoting the best part of my +life to some effort at giving them effect.” + +Again Gwendolen seemed shaken—again there was a look of frustration, +but this time it was mingled with alarm. She looked at Deronda with +lips childishly parted. It was not that she had yet connected his words +with Mirah and her brother, but that they had inspired her with a +dreadful presentiment of mountainous travel for her mind before it +could reach Deronda’s. Great ideas in general which she had attributed +to him seemed to make no great practical difference, and were not +formidable in the same way as these mysteriously-shadowed particular +ideas. He could not quite divine what was going on within her; he could +only seek the least abrupt path of disclosure. + +“That is an object,” he said, after a moment, “which will by-and-by +force me to leave England for some time—for some years. I have +purposes which will take me to the East.” + +Here was something clearer, but all the more immediately agitating. +Gwendolen’s lips began to tremble. “But you will come back?” she said, +tasting her own tears as they fell, before she thought of drying them. + +Deronda could not sit still. He rose, and went to prop himself against +the corner of the mantel-piece, at a different angle from her face. But +when she had pressed her handkerchief against her cheeks, she turned +and looked up at him, awaiting an answer. + +“If I live,” said Deronda—“_some time_.” + +They were both silent. He could not persuade himself to say more unless +she led up to it by a question; and she was apparently meditating +something that she had to say. + +“What are you going to do?” she asked, at last, very mildly. “Can I +understand the ideas, or am I too ignorant?” + +“I am going to the East to become better acquainted with the condition +of my race in various countries there,” said Deronda, gently—anxious +to be as explanatory as he could on what was the impersonal part of +their separateness from each other. “The idea that I am possessed with +is that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a +nation again, giving them a national center, such as the English have, +though they too are scattered over the face of the globe. That is a +task which presents itself to me as a duty; I am resolved to begin it, +however feebly. I am resolved to devote my life to it. At the least, I +may awaken a movement in other minds, such as has been awakened in my +own.” + +There was a long silence between them. The world seemed getting larger +round poor Gwendolen, and she more solitary and helpless in the midst. +The thought that he might come back after going to the East, sank +before the bewildering vision of these wild-stretching purposes in +which she felt herself reduced to a mere speck. There comes a terrible +moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger +destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other +neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives—where +the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an +invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and gray fathers know +nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls +forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the +shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. Then it is as if the +Invisible Power that had been the object of lip-worship and +lip-resignation became visible, according to the imagery of the Hebrew +poet, making the flames his chariot, and riding on the wings of the +wind, till the mountains smoke and the plains shudder under the rolling +fiery visitations. Often the good cause seems to lie prostrate under +the thunder of unrelenting force, the martyrs live reviled, they die, and +no angel is seen holding forth the crown and the palm branch. Then it +is that the submission of the soul to the Highest is tested, and even +in the eyes of frivolity life looks out from the scene of human +struggle with the awful face of duty, and a religion shows itself which +is something else than a private consolation. + +That was the sort of crisis which was at this moment beginning in +Gwendolen’s small life: she was for the first time feeling the pressure +of a vast mysterious movement, for the first time being dislodged from +her supremacy in her own world, and getting a sense that her horizon +was but a dipping onward of an existence with which her own was +revolving. All the troubles of her wifehood and widowhood had still +left her with the implicit impression which had accompanied her from +childhood, that whatever surrounded her was somehow specially for her, +and it was because of this that no personal jealousy had been roused in +her relation to Deronda: she could not spontaneously think of him as +rightfully belonging to others more than to her. But here had come a +shock which went deeper than personal jealousy—something spiritual and +vaguely tremendous that thrust her away, and yet quelled all her anger +into self-humiliation. + +There had been a long silence. Deronda had stood still, even thankful +for an interval before he needed to say more, and Gwendolen had sat +like a statue with her wrists lying over each other and her eyes +fixed—the intensity of her mental action arresting all other +excitation. At length something occurred to her that made her turn her +face to Deronda and say in a trembling voice, + +“Is that all you can tell me?” + +The question was like a dart to him. “The Jew whom I mentioned just +now,” he answered, not without a certain tremor in his tones too, “the +remarkable man who has greatly influenced my mind, has not perhaps been +totally unheard of by you. He is the brother of Miss Lapidoth, whom you +have often heard sing.” + +A great wave of remembrance passed through Gwendolen and spread as a +deep, painful flush over neck and face. It had come first at the scene +of that morning when she had called on Mirah, and heard Deronda’s voice +reading, and been told, without then heeding it, that he was reading +Hebrew with Mirah’s brother. + +“He is very ill—very near death now,” Deronda went on, nervously, and +then stopped short. He felt that he must wait. Would she divine the +rest? + +“Did she tell you that I went to her?” said Gwendolen, abruptly, +looking up at him. + +“No,” said Deronda. “I don’t understand you.” + +She turned away her eyes again, and sat thinking. Slowly the color +dried out of face and neck, and she was as pale as before—with that +almost withered paleness which is seen after a painful flush. At last +she said—without turning toward him—in a low, measured voice, as if +she were only thinking aloud in preparation for future speech, + +“But _can_ you marry?” + +“Yes,” said Deronda, also in a low voice. “I am going to marry.” + +At first there was no change in Gwendolen’s attitude: she only began to +tremble visibly; then she looked before her with dilated eyes, as at +something lying in front of her, till she stretched her arms out +straight, and cried with a smothered voice, + +“I said I should be forsaken. I have been a cruel woman. And I am +forsaken.” + +Deronda’s anguish was intolerable. He could not help himself. He seized +her outstretched hands and held them together, and kneeled at her feet. +She was the victim of his happiness. + +“I am cruel, too, I am cruel,” he repeated, with a sort of groan, +looking up at her imploringly. + +His presence and touch seemed to dispel a horrible vision, and she met +his upward look of sorrow with something like the return of +consciousness after fainting. Then she dwelt on it with that growing +pathetic movement of the brow which accompanies the revival of some +tender recollection. The look of sorrow brought back what seemed a very +far-off moment—the first time she had ever seen it, in the library at +the Abbey. Sobs rose, and great tears fell fast. Deronda would not let +her hands go—held them still with one of his, and himself pressed her +handkerchief against her eyes. She submitted like a half-soothed child, +making an effort to speak, which was hindered by struggling sobs. At +last she succeeded in saying, brokenly, + +“I said—I said—it should be better—better with me—for having known +you.” + +His eyes too were larger with tears. She wrested one of her hands from +his, and returned his action, pressing his tears away. + +“We shall not be quite parted,” he said. “I will write to you always, +when I can, and you will answer?” + +He waited till she said in a whisper, “I will try.” + +“I shall be more with you than I used to be,” Deronda said with gentle +urgency, releasing her hands and rising from his kneeling posture. “If +we had been much together before, we should have felt our differences +more, and seemed to get farther apart. Now we can perhaps never see +each other again. But our minds may get nearer.” + +Gwendolen said nothing, but rose too, automatically. Her withered look +of grief, such as the sun often shines on when the blinds are drawn up +after the burial of life’s joy, made him hate his own words: they +seemed to have the hardness of easy consolation in them. She felt that +he was going, and that nothing could hinder it. The sense of it was +like a dreadful whisper in her ear, which dulled all other +consciousness; and she had not known that she was rising. + +Deronda could not speak again. He thought that they must part in +silence, but it was difficult to move toward the parting, till she +looked at him with a sort of intention in her eyes, which helped him. +He advanced to put out his hand silently, and when she had placed hers +within it, she said what her mind had been laboring with, + +“You have been very good to me. I have deserved nothing. I will +try—try to live. I shall think of you. What good have I been? Only +harm. Don’t let me be harm to _you_. It shall be the better for me—” + +She could not finish. It was not that she was sobbing, but that the +intense effort with which she spoke made her too tremulous. The burden +of that difficult rectitude toward him was a weight her frame tottered +under. + +She bent forward to kiss his cheek, and he kissed hers. Then they +looked at each other for an instant with clasped hands, and he turned +away. + +When he was quite gone, her mother came in and found her sitting +motionless. + +“Gwendolen, dearest, you look very ill,” she said, bending over her and +touching her cold hands. + +“Yes, mamma. But don’t be afraid. I am going to live,” said Gwendolen, +bursting out hysterically. + +Her mother persuaded her to go to bed, and watched by her. Through the +day and half the night she fell continually into fits of shrieking, but +cried in the midst of them to her mother, “Don’t be afraid. I shall +live. I mean to live.” + +After all, she slept; and when she waked in the morning light, she +looked up fixedly at her mother and said tenderly, “Ah, poor mamma! You +have been sitting up with me. Don’t be unhappy. I shall live. I shall +be better.” + + + + +CHAPTER LXX. + + In the checkered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled + as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same + moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the + green cluster and another treads the winepress. Nay, in each of our + lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until himself + gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields. + + +Among the blessings of love there is hardly one more exquisite than the +sense that in uniting the beloved life to ours we can watch over its +happiness, bring comfort where hardship was, and over memories of +privation and suffering open the sweetest fountains of joy. Deronda’s +love for Mirah was strongly imbued with that blessed protectiveness. +Even with infantine feet she had begun to tread among thorns; and the +first time he had beheld her face it had seemed to him the girlish +image of despair. + +But now she was glowing like a dark-tipped yet delicate ivory-tinted +flower in the warm sunlight of content, thinking of any possible grief +as part of that life with Deronda, which she could call by no other +name than good. And he watched the sober gladness which gave new beauty +to her movements; and her habitual attitudes of repose, with a delight +which made him say to himself that it was enough of personal joy for +him to save her from pain. She knew nothing of Hans’s struggle or of +Gwendolen’s pang; for after the assurance that Deronda’s hidden love +had been for her, she easily explained Gwendolen’s eager solicitude +about him as part of a grateful dependence on his goodness, such as she +herself had known. And all Deronda’s words about Mrs. Grandcourt +confirmed that view of their relation, though he never touched on it +except in the most distant manner. Mirah was ready to believe that he +had been a rescuing angel to many besides herself. The only wonder was, +that she among them all was to have the bliss of being continually by +his side. + +So, when the bridal veil was around Mirah it hid no doubtful +tremors—only a thrill of awe at the acceptance of a great gift which +required great uses. And the velvet canopy never covered a more goodly +bride and bridegroom, to whom their people might more wisely wish +offspring; more truthful lips never touched the sacrament +marriage-wine; the marriage-blessing never gathered stronger promise of +fulfillment than in the integrity of their mutual pledge. Naturally, +they were married according to the Jewish rite. And since no religion +seems yet to have demanded that when we make a feast we should invite +only the highest rank of our acquaintances, few, it is to be hoped, +will be offended to learn that among the guests at Deronda’s little +wedding-feast was the entire Cohen family, with the one exception of +the baby who carried on her teething intelligently at home. How could +Mordecai have borne that those friends of his adversity should have +been shut out from rejoicing in common with him? + +Mrs. Meyrick so fully understood this that she had quite reconciled +herself to meeting the Jewish pawnbroker, and was there with her three +daughters—all of them enjoying the consciousness that Mirah’s marriage +to Deronda crowned a romance which would always make a sweet memory to +them. For which of them, mother or girls, had not had a generous part +in it—giving their best in feeling and in act to her who needed? If +Hans could have been there, it would have been better; but Mab had +already observed that men must suffer for being so inconvenient; +suppose she, Kate, and Amy had all fallen in love with Mr. +Deronda?—but being women they were not so ridiculous. + +The Meyricks were rewarded for conquering their prejudices by hearing a +speech from Mr. Cohen, which had the rare quality among speeches of not +being quite after the usual pattern. Jacob ate beyond his years, and +contributed several small whinnying laughs as a free accompaniment of +his father’s speech, not irreverently, but from a lively sense that his +family was distinguishing itself; while Adelaide Rebekah, in a new +Sabbath frock, maintained throughout a grave air of responsibility. + +Mordecai’s brilliant eyes, sunken in their large sockets, dwelt on the +scene with the cherishing benignancy of a spirit already lifted into an +aloofness which nullified only selfish requirements and left sympathy +alive. But continually, after his gaze had been traveling round on the +others, it returned to dwell on Deronda with a fresh gleam of trusting +affection. + +The wedding-feast was humble, but Mirah was not without splendid +wedding-gifts. As soon as the betrothal had been known, there were +friends who had entertained graceful devices. Sir Hugo and Lady +Mallinger had taken trouble to provide a complete equipment for Eastern +travel, as well as a precious locket containing an inscription—“_To +the bride of our dear Daniel Deronda all blessings. H. and L. M._” The +Klesmers sent a perfect watch, also with a pretty inscription. + +But something more precious than gold and gems came to Deronda from the +neighborhood of Diplow on the morning of his marriage. It was a letter +containing these words: + + Do not think of me sorrowfully on your wedding-day. I have remembered + your words—that I may live to be one of the best of women, who + make others glad that they were born. I do not yet see how that can + be, but you know better than I. If it ever comes true, it will be + because you helped me. I only thought of myself, and I made you + grieve. It hurts me now to think of your grief. You must not grieve + any more for me. It is better—it shall be better with me because I + have known you. + + GWENDOLEN GRANDCOURT. + +The preparations for the departure of all three to the East began at +once; for Deronda could not deny Ezra’s wish that they should set out +on the voyage forthwith, so that he might go with them, instead of +detaining them to watch over him. He had no belief that Ezra’s life +would last through the voyage, for there were symptoms which seemed to +show that the last stage of his malady had set in. But Ezra himself had +said, “Never mind where I die, so that I am with you.” + +He did not set out with them. One morning early he said to Deronda, “Do +not quit me to-day. I shall die before it is ended.” + +He chose to be dressed and sit up in his easy chair as usual, Deronda +and Mirah on each side of him, and for some hours he was unusually +silent, not even making the effort to speak, but looking at them +occasionally with eyes full of some restful meaning, as if to assure +them that while this remnant of breathing-time was difficult, he felt +an ocean of peace beneath him. + +It was not till late in the afternoon, when the light was falling, that +he took a hand of each in his and said, looking at Deronda, “Death is +coming to me as the divine kiss which is both parting and +reunion—which takes me from your bodily eyes and gives me full +presence in your soul. Where thou goest, Daniel, I shall go. Is it not +begun? Have I not breathed my soul into you? We shall live together.” + +He paused, and Deronda waited, thinking that there might be another +word for him. But slowly and with effort Ezra, pressing on their hands, +raised himself and uttered in Hebrew the confession of the divine +Unity, which long for generations has been on the lips of the dying +Israelite. + +He sank back gently into his chair, and did not speak again. But it was +some hours before he had ceased to breathe, with Mirah’s and Deronda’s +arms around him. + + “Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail + Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, + Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair, + And what may quiet us in a death so noble.” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL DERONDA *** + +***** This file should be named 7469-0.txt or 7469-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/6/7469/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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