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diff --git a/old/8drda10.txt b/old/8drda10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f634725 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8drda10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31276 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot +#7 in our series by George Eliot + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Daniel Deronda + +Author: George Eliot + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7469] +[This file was first posted on May 5, 2003] +[Date last updated: October 20, 2005] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL DERONDA *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Soulard, Tiffany Vergon +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +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 guilt 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 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 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. Weiner 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-sighed 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 +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 fireplace, 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 folk +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 Winchester, 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 _tete-à-tete_ 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 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; and 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 stlliness 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," 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 preeminence? 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 throws 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 goodbye 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, pigued 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--crying 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 +southwest 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 resources 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 arches 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 back-ground; 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 _tete-à-tete_ 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 mid- +day 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 fore-finger, +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 fore-finger 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 not 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 We 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 to 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 _tete-à-tete_ 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, +riot 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 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 it's 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 how--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 +thereby 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 let 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 purls 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 old 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 incur 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 am used 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 ham. 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 mare 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 +armchair. "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 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 shan'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-rate-*ness in himself simply as +a fact, not as a marvel necessarily to be accounted for by a superiority. +Still Mr. Eraser'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 Mahomet 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 vote 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 truth the poet sings, + That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." + --TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_. + + +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 began 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": +[Footnote: 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 allyes, 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 Phoebe 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 every-day +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, _tete-à-tete_ 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 a 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's 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 daughter's," 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 Arrowpoint's 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, Jefferies 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 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 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 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 knicknacks 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 insistance-- + +"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 nationality 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 +_protégé_, 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 mid-day 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 back-ground, 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 depreciatory 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 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 licentiae_, 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 moeurs_; 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 tomorrow." 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 tomorrow 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." + +If 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 undercurrent 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 no 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 needle-work, 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 ear-rings, 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, +who 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 baldly," 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 bed-room 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 lifelong +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 checks 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, depreciatingly. + +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 _tete-à-tete_ 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 back-ground 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 +naïvely 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 _tete-à- +tete_? 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 like 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 ledges +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 widow, 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 under-toned 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 back-ground, 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 Dinlow 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 that 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 both 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 authentic 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, so that we can remember her together. 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 Han'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 Rotton 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 Jewlery 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 secondhand 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 elnen Hund. + * * * * * + Aber jeden Freitag Abend, + In der Dämmrungstunde, plötzlich + Weicht der Zauber, und der Hund + Wird aufs Neu' ein menschlich Wesen." + --HEINE: _Prinzessin Sabbaz_. + + +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 how +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 corkscrew 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 Ryeland's, +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 +backgrounds, 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 found 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 +human flesh like that might be, wrapped round with fine raiment, her ears +pierced for gems, her head held loftily, her mouth all smiling pretence, +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 _tete-à-tete_ +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 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 gurgoyle, 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 _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 _tete-à-tete_ 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 pillard 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 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 +nulified 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 slowing 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 martial 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 pese 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 exultation 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 hear +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 move 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 it 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 +waterfowl, 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 censors 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 metal 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 were 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 Marts 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, and 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 _narthex_ 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 Cabbalists, 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 ear-rings 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 alien 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-östlicker 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 we're 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 Joseph 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 alien Fällen.'" + +said Mirah, promptly. And Klesmer saying "Schön!" put out his hand again +as a good-bye. + +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. + 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 tie 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 undercurrent 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 if 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-bye. + + + + +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 to 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 and 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 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 track like--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 Stutenleiter 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 +encumbrance. 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 work-room 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 "talking +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 Englishman: 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 tonight 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 philosophising." + +"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 prejudicies 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 fireplace, 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 Englishman +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 Judaea, 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's 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 taken 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 insistance 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 it 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 today 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. It 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 Sirious 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 a 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 +breath 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 dè tuoi! L'armi, qua l'armi: io solo + Combatteró, procomberó sol io"-- +[Footnote: 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 god-like 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 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 XLXL + + "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 +Gallic 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 LXVII. + + "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 + Caesar 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 +Mallinger's, 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 allusions 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 counter-balancing 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 resist ed 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 hew 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 pretence 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 seeded 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 hand-writing 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 insistance 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 + Cà che di piefermti 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 lining 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 coërcion 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 your 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 antedeluvian 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 hint +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 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 insistance 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 +unmost, 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 or 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 jealously. 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 Ryeland's?" + +"Oh, no," said Gwendolen, indifferently, finding all places alike +undescribable 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 yatching 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 is 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 vuoi, quanto la cosa e più perfetta + Più senta if 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 sacred 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 fisherman 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 to 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 hint 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 LVI + + "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 Hugh 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 mained 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 GUNICELLI (_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 lifelong 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 Gluck ist eine leichte Dirne, + Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort; + Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirn + Und kusst dich rasch und flattert fort + + Frau Ungluck hat im Gegentheile + Dich liebefest an's Herz gedruckt; + Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile, + Setzt sich zu dir ans 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 Bafeindung der Kunst, dennoch selber ein grosser + Künstler war und den wahren Künstlergeist besass. Nur war dieser + Künstlergeist bei ihm, wie bei seinen ägyptischen Landsleuteu, nurauf + das Colossale und Unverwustliche gerichtet. Aber nicht vie die + Aegypter formirte er seine Kunstwerke aus Backstem und Granit, sondern + er baute Menchen-pyramiden, er meisselte Menschen Obelisken, ernahm + einen armen Hirtenstamm und Schuf daraus ein Volk, das ebenfalls den + Jahrhahunderten, trotzen sollte * * * er Schuf Israel."--HEINE: + _Gestandnisse_. + + +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 mantelpiece, 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 e tale, + Che sempre al cominciar di sotto a grave. + E quanto uom piu 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 child-like sentences fell from her lips +they re-acted 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 of 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 bed-room +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 Ladipoth'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 +insistance 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 pre-occupation +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 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 she 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 lie 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 today. 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 has, 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 forgot 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 relenting 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 of Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL DERONDA *** + +This file should be named 8drda10.txt or 8drda10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8drda11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8drda10a.txt + +Produced by Anne Soulard, Tiffany Vergon +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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