Chapter Forty-five
The Grandcourts were in Grosvenor Square in time to receive a card for the musical party at Lady Mallinger’s. It was only the third evening after their arrival, and Gwendolen made rather an absent-minded acquaintance with her new ceilings and furniture, preoccupied with the certainty that she was going to speak to Deronda again, and also to see the Miss Lapidoth who had gone through so much, and was “capable of submitting to any duty.” For Gwendolen remembered nearly every word that Deronda had said about Mirah, and repeated that phrase to herself bitterly, conscious that her own submission was very different. What she submitted to was not duty, but a yoke laid on her by an action she was ashamed of, and worn with selfish motives.
The drawing-rooms in Park Lane, white, gold, and pale crimson, were not crowded when Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt entered. Half an hour of instrumental music was being followed by an interval of movement and chat. Klesmer was there with his wife, and he generously proposed to accompany Mirah’s singing of Leo’s “O patria mia.”
He was already at the piano, and Mirah was standing there, when Gwendolen, magnificent in her pale green velvet and poisoned diamonds, was ushered to a seat of honour well in view of them. While turning her glance toward Mirah, she did not neglect to exchange a bow with Klesmer as she passed. The smile seemed to each to flash back to that morning when it had been her ambition to stand as the “little Jewess” was standing – instead of which she was one of the ordinary crowd in silk and gems, whose performance 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 seen Deronda, and while she was seated in chat with Sir Hugo, she glanced round her with careful ease, bowing a recognition here and there, and fearful lest a search for Deronda might be observed by her husband, and afterward rebuked as “damnably vulgar.” Amongst the eyes that met Gwendolen’s, forcing her into a slight bow, were those of Mr. Lush, who was standing near her husband.
At this moment, for the first time, there darted through Gwendolen the disagreeable idea that this man knew all about her husband’s life. When banished from her sight, he had sunk into the background of her thoughts; but now 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. With an effort she turned her head away from him, trying to continue her survey with an indifferent manner, till she discovered Deronda. But he was not looking toward her, and she withdrew her eyes, consoling herself with the assurance that he must have seen her come in.
He was standing by Hans Meyrick; and they were both anxious that Mirah should be heard to advantage. Deronda felt on the brink of betraying emotion. He had escaped as soon as he could from Lady Pentreath, who had said in her deep 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 what he had felt as a boy, 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 a commodity disdainfully paid for by the fashionable public. In this susceptible mood he saw the Grandcourts enter, and was immediately appealed to by Hans about “that Vandyke duchess of a beauty.” Deronda felt a momentary renewal of his first repulsion from Gwendolen, as if she and her beauty and her failings were to blame for the undervaluing of Mirah. To Hans he answered sarcastically–
“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 much more difficult.”
“Hush,” said Deronda, for the singing was going to begin.
He 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 and weeping), and the words were filled for him with an inspiring grandeur. Mirah singing this, made Mordecai more than ever one presence with her.
Her singing was equal to his wishes. During the general applause, 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. She looked toward him in the distance; but he remained where he was, while streams of admirers closed round her.
Gwendolen was taken up to be introduced by Mrs. Klesmer. Easier now about “the little Jewess,” Daniel relented toward poor Gwendolen in her splendour, and his memory went back over all the 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. He resolved not to turn away from her, but to show his regard for her past confidences at the first opportunity, in spite of Sir Hugo’s hints.
Klesmer stood near Gwendolen and Mirah for a little while, smiling at the piquant contrast of the two charming young creatures seated on the red divan.
“I must say how much I am obliged to you,” said Gwendolen to Mirah. “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, contemplating this genuine grand lady with genuine jewels.
“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 at him rather archly.
Mirah said with naïve seriousness–
“If you think I could teach you, I shall be very glad. I am anxious to teach, but I have only just begun.”
Gwendolen was 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 good taste–
“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 common awkwardness of making small talk. “He spoke of you to me with the highest praise. He seemed to know you quite well.”
“I was poor and needed help,” said Mirah, with feeling, “and Mr. Deronda has given me the best friends in the world. That is the only way he came to know 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 help feeling that her questions bordered on the rude. The only effect on Mirah, as on any mention of Deronda, was to stir her reverential gratitude towards him.
But both he and Hans, who were noticing the pair from a distance, would have felt rather indignant if they had known that Mirah had been led to represent herself in this light of neediness. However, she was prompted by the delicate feeling, which perhaps she could not have stated explicitly, that she ought not to allow anyone to assume that Deronda had a less generous interest in her than actually existed. Her answer was delightful to Gwendolen, who found Deronda’s ready compassion confirmed; and with the signals that Klesmer was about to play she moved away in much content.
With her usual alternation from resolute care of appearances to the rash indulgence of an impulse, she did not go to her former seat, but placed herself on a settee where she could only have one neighbour. She was near to Deronda: was it surprising that he came up to shake hands before the music began – and that after a little while, he sat down?
But when at the end of Klesmer’s playing there came the outburst of talk under which Gwendolen had hoped to speak freely to Deronda, she observed that Mr. Lush wa
s within hearing, leaning against the wall. Despite her flush of anger, she tried to assume 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 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, and she was getting so impatient with the presence of Mr. Lush, which prevented her from saying any word she wanted to say, that she remained silent, too. For a long while, neither Gwendolen nor Deronda looked at the other, till Lush slowly relieved the wall of his weight, and moved away.
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 niceties of word and manner,” said Deronda.
“You think I am shut out from understanding them,” said Gwendolen, with a slight tremor in her voice, which she tried 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, his voice softening. “I have had plenty of proof that you are not dense.” He smiled at her.
“But one may feel things and not be able to do anything better for all that,” said Gwendolen, not smiling in return. “I begin to think we can only get better by having people about us who raise good feelings. 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 should not have meddled,” said Deronda.
“Don’t say that,” said Gwendolen, hurriedly, feeling that this might be her only chance of speaking, 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 decide for me that I shall not be good. 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 her fan. She rose and left him, returning to her former place, while everyone settled into quiet 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 song was almost a continuance of Gwendolen’s pleading: a painful urging of something vague and difficult, and yet cruel to resist. However strange the mixture in her of resolute pride and worldliness with guileless indiscretion, he was quite sure now that the mixture existed. For all Sir Hugo’s hints, he knew that Gwendolen did not dream that he might misinterpret her. He dimly foresaw some painful collision: on the one side the grasp of Mordecai’s dying hand, 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 on him. It was as if he saw himself besought with outstretched arms and cries, while he was compelled to board a ship bound for a far-off coast. That was the feeling inspired by Mirah’s song; but when it ceased he stood up 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!”
“Quarrel?” 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 an admirably grand air. I should like to paint her and her husband.”
Deronda devoutly hoped that Hans’s impression of his dialogue with Gwendolen was no more than his usual fantasising.
And Gwendolen thought that her husband’s eyes might have been on her, extracting something to reprove – some offence against her dignity as his wife; for she was aware that she had not kept the perfect air of equability in public which was her ideal. But all Grandcourt said as they were driving home was–
“Lush will dine with us tomorrow. You will treat him civilly.”
Gwendolen’s heart began to beat violently. She wanted to retaliate with the words: “You are breaking your promise to me – your first promise.” But she dared not utter them. The prospect of a quarrel frightened her. After a pause, she said in the tone of defeat–
“I thought you did not intend him to visit 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 pledged to drop smoking 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.
George Eliot's Daniel Deronda: Abridged Page 48
