George Eliot's Daniel Deronda: Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Among Deronda’s letters the next morning was one from Hans Meyrick, in the small, beautiful handwriting which ran in the Meyrick family.

  ‘MY DEAR DERONDA, 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, and agreeing with him in the general principle, that whatever is best is for that reason Jewish. 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 strait-laced Jew, spitting after the word Christian. I confess that I have always held lightly by your account of Mordecai; but now I have given ear to him in person, I find him really a sort of philosophical-allegorical-mystical believer, and yet so sharp that any argumentative rattler of peas in a bladder might soon be pricked into silence by him. In fact, his mind seems so broad that I find my own correct opinions lying in it quite commodiously. 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 there is really little difference between me and Maimonides. If Mirah’s ways were less distracting, and it were less of a heaven to be in her presence, I must long ago have flung myself at her feet, and requested her to tell me whether she wished me to blow my brains out. 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, and turns quickly away.

  ‘But you, with your supreme reasonableness, and self-nullification – you know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious maiden, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty. (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 no virtuous aspiration will be frustrated – all of which implies that the Jewess I prefer will prefer me.

  ‘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 young man on his knee, and pours forth some Semitic inspiration with a sublime look of melancholy devoutness. Sometimes it occurs to Jacob that Hebrew will be more edifying 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, Jacob’s features take on an extraordinary activity, as if he was walking through a menagerie and trying to imitate every animal in turn, succeeding best with the owl and the peccary. He looks 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. He brings sugar-plums to share with Mordecai, filling his own mouth to rather an embarrassing extent, and watching how Mordecai deals with a smaller supply. It is pretty, though, to see the change in him if Mirah comes in. He turns child suddenly – his age usually strikes one as being near forty. But I wish I did not imagine that Mirah gets a little sadder, and tries to hide it. It is natural enough, of course, while she has to watch the slow death of this brother, whom she worships with such 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, good upper lip – has got some rooms in town not far off, and has had a neat sister (upper lip also good) staying with him the last fortnight. I have introduced them 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 believed that nobody could be anybody’s cousin without my knowing it.

  Gascoigne wants me to go down with him to his father’s rectory in August. But I think self-interest will take me to Topping Abbey, for Sir Hugo has invited me to 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 portraits, meaning, of course that my attempts at the historic and poetic are simply pitiable. But Sir Hugo’s manner of implying that one’s gifts are not of the highest order is so exceedingly good-natured 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. Shall you by chance have an opportunity of continuing your theological discussion with the fair duchess? (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.)

  ‘One fact I have omitted – that the Klesmers on the eve of their departure have behaved magnificently, shining forth as might be expected from the planets of genius and fortune. Mirah is rich with their oriental gifts.

  ‘What luck it will be if you come back to 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 Gan Eden. You see how far I have got in Hebrew lore. If Mirah commanded, I would go to a greater depth. 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 bear that 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 irritated Deronda, with its romancing about Mirah. 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. The revelation about his birth 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, but an unusually persistent bird-dance of extravagant fancy, and he would have pitied any consequent suffering of his friend’s, if he had believed he would suffer. But he thought that Hans Meyrick’s nature was not one in which love or disappointment could strike deep roots: it was too restless, too excited by novelty, too theatrical.

  “He is playing 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 imagining any objection I could have to his outpourings about Mirah. Poor old Hans! And yet he is affectionate, and active enough in imagining what goes on in other people – but he always imagines it to fit his own inclination.”

  The news about Gwendolen suggested a disturbing sequel to his own strange parting with her. But there was one sentence in the letter which raised a more immediate anxiety. Hans’s suspicion of a hidden sadness in Mirah was not likely to be in his imagination, and Deronda wondered about its cause. Was it some event that had occurred during his absence, or only the growing fear of some event? Was it something in the new position which had been made for her? Or had Mordecai told her of those cherished hopes about Deronda, and had her sensitive nature been hurt by the idea that he had been coerced into fri
endship – been hurt by the fear that Deronda pitied Mordecai rather than regarding him as an equal? She would be pained to think that Deronda condescended to her brother.

  In this last conjecture Deronda was not wrong about how much Mirah valued being treated with equality. Her gratitude to him was all the greater because of the contrast of his behaviour with the treatment she had been used to in her former life. But he was not near the truth in guessing that Mordecai had broken his characteristic reticence. To no soul but Deronda had he yet breathed the story of their relation to each other, or his confidence that his friend was born a Jew.

  “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 quietly, and said, “I suppose it is because he treats us as if he were our brother. But he loves not to have his birth dwelt upon.”

  “He has never lived with his parents, Mr. Hans says,” continued Mirah.

  “Seek not to know such things from Mr. Hans,” said Mordecai, gravely, laying his hand on her curls. “What Daniel Deronda wishes us to know about himself is for him to tell us.”

  Mirah felt herself rebuked; 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 when she called at the Chelsea house, and 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. They made life seem like a madhouse; but Ezra 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. 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 as I do from sunlit grass and flowers after the sweet rain has fallen, and everything looks so pure and beautiful.”

  A note of melancholy in this speech caused Mrs. Meyrick to examine Mirah. She sat opposite her friend in her habitual attitude, feet and hands crossed, in apparent serenity. But Mrs. Meyrick discerned a new look of suppressed suffering in her face.

  “Is there any fresh trouble on your mind, my dear?” she said.

  Mirah hesitated before she said, “I am too ready to speak of troubles, I think. Perhaps I am too hasty and fearful.”

  “Oh, my dear, mothers are made to like trouble for their children’s sake. Is it because the singing lessons are so few? 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. “I have been a little disappointed because so many ladies said they wanted me to give 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, with the hundred pounds that Mrs. Klesmer gave me; and I should never be afraid that Ezra would be in want, because Mr. Deronda said, ‘It is the chief honour of my life that your brother will share anything with me.’”

  “But there is some other fear on your mind,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “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. It is five days ago now. I am quite sure I saw my father.”

  Mrs. Meyrick shrank into a smaller space, inwardly pelting that father with her worst epithets.

  “The year has changed him,” Mirah went on. “He had already been much altered in the time before I left him. He sometimes used to cry. He was always excited one way or the other. Ezra said that my father had taken to gambling, which makes people easily distressed, and then 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, and they were hurrying after an omnibus.”

  “He did not see you, I hope?”

  “No. I was waiting to cross near the Marble Arch. Soon he was on the omnibus and out of sight. It was a dreadful moment. My old life seemed to have come back again, worse than ever. I could not help feeling glad that he was gone without knowing that I was there. And yet it hurt me that I felt so. For where might my father be going? What may become of him? I felt weak – I don’t know how I called a cab. Then I began to think, ‘Ezra must not know.’”

  “You are afraid of grieving him?” Mrs. Meyrick asked.

  “Yes – and there is something more,” said Mirah, hesitatingly. “I want to tell you; I cannot tell anyone else. I feel shame for my father, and it is strange, but the shame is greatest before Ezra. I told him all about my life, but it hurts to know that those things about my father are in Ezra’s mind. And when the thought haunts me that my father might reappear, what seems to scorch me most is seeing my father shrinking before Ezra. I can’t help thinking that I would rather try to maintain my father in secret, if I could prevent 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 that concealment.”

  “But ought I to tell Ezra that I have seen my father?”

  “No,” Mrs. Meyrick answered, doubtfully. “I don’t think that is necessary. Your father may go away with the birds: you may never see him again. And then your brother will be spared a useless anxiety. But promise me that if your father finds you, you will let us know. Promise me that solemnly, Mirah.”

  Mirah reflected, then put her hands in Mrs. Meyrick’s, saying, “I promise. But shame for my father burns me when I think of his meeting Ezra.” She was silent a moment, and then said, with yearning compassion, “And we are his children – and he was once young – and my mother loved him. Oh! it is cruel.”

  Sorrow filled her voice. Mrs. Meyrick, with all her loving insight, did not quite understand her. She could conceive that a mother would have a clinging pity for a reprobate son, but had no patience with Mirah’s feeling on behalf of this father, whom she would prefer to see locked up.

  This was the only reason that Mirah could have stated for her hidden sadness. Of another reason she could have given no definite account: it was as dim as the sense of an approaching weather-change. Perhaps the first uneasiness was caused by Gwendolen’s behaviour on that visit which could have no other motive than the strange questioning about Deronda. The memory of that visit made Mirah aware of Deronda’s relations with a society which she glimpsed frequently without belonging to it. Her peculiar life and education had produced in her an extraordinary mixture of unworldliness and knowledge of the world’s evil, which was supplemented by her theatrical study.

  Some of that imaginative knowledge began now to weave itself around Mrs. Grandcourt; and though Mirah would allow nothing to affect her reverence for Deronda, she could not avoid a new, painfully vivid association of his life with a different world, where he might become involved with a woman like Gwendolen, who was increasingly repugnant to her. If she had felt any unease that Deronda’s deepest care might not be for her, nor even for her brother, she would have rebuked herself by telling herself that she was only one person who had shared his kindness; and his attachment to Mordecai would be short, and surely others would follow.

  But her uneasiness had not reached that point of self-recognition in which she thought of him as her possible lover. That had never entered her mind. Likewise, Mrs. Meyrick and the girls were so impressed by his mission as her deliverer that they would have held it an offence for him to have any other relation toward her. But Mirah’s disturbance was owing precisely to this innocence of the Meyricks. The first occasion could hardly have been more trivial, but it prepared her for what happened afterward.

  It was when Anna Gascoigne, visiting the Meyricks, was led to speak of Gwendolen. The visit had been arranged so that Anna might see Mirah; the three girls were at home with their mother, and there was naturally much talk among six femi
nine creatures. Anna Gascoigne felt herself at home with the Meyrick girls, who knew what it was to have a brother, and to be regarded as of minor importance in the world, although they seemed to her alarmingly clever. Mirah had lately come in, and there was a complete bouquet of young faces around the tea-table. Hafiz, seated aloft with large eyes on the alert, regarded 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 have not seen them,” said Anna, a little flushed. “But some months ago, my cousin married Sir Hugo Mallinger’s nephew, Mr. Grandcourt, who lived near us.”

  “There!” exclaimed Mab, clasping her hands. “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. But it was very sad for poor Aunt Davilow, who has four daughters besides Gwendolen; but then, when Gwendolen 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. And Mr. Deronda? – have you never seen Mr. Deronda?”

  “No,” said Anna; “but I have heard my aunt speaking of him to papa, about him living with Sir Hugo Mallinger, and being so nice. 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. It is really rather wonderful that Mr. Hans should know Rex, and I have the pleasure of knowing you,” Anna ended, with 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 but said nothing, feeling a confused discontent.

  “My son calls Mrs. Grandcourt the Vandyke duchess,” continued Mrs. Meyrick to Anna; “he thinks her so striking.”

  “Yes, Gwendolen was always 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?” said Mrs. Meyrick.

  “Papa approved of Gwendolen’s accepting him, and my aunt says he is very generous,” said Anna, with a virtuous intention of repressing her own feelings; but then, unable to resist a rare occasion for speaking freely, she went on – “else I should have thought he was not very nice – rather proud, and not lively, like Gwendolen. But, perhaps, having a brother who seems to us better than anyone makes us think worse of others.”

  “Wait till you see Mr. Deronda,” said Mab, nodding significantly. “Nobody’s brother will do after him. Who would ever think of his marrying?”

  “I have,” said Kate. “When I drew a wedding for a frontispiece, I made a likeness of him for the bridegroom, and I looked for a grand woman who would do for his countess, but I saw none that would match 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 – what do you think of Mrs. Grandcourt?”

  “I think she is the Princess of Eboli in Don Carlos,” said Mirah, thinking of an association unintelligible to her hearers.

  “Your comparison is a riddle, 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. “Mrs. Grandcourt had thought of having lessons of Mirah,” she told 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 mention of the Princess of Eboli. That comparison escaped Mirah’s lips under the urgency of a pang unlike anything she had felt before. The conversation had confirmed her secret conviction that this woman had some hold on Deronda’s 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 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 hidden from you – that he cares for persons so unlike us?”

  “Assuredly no,” said Mordecai. “Rather it is a precious thought to me that he has a preparation which I lacked.”

  Mirah mused a little. “Still,” she said, “it would try your love for him if he became entangled in that other part of his life, and were carried away from you. How should you bear that?”

  “Not well, my sister – but it will never happen,” said Mordecai, with a tender smile.

  Mirah said no more. She felt petty compared to her brother. Why could she not be satisfied with what satisfied his larger judgment? She felt a painful sense of unfitness – but in what? One name and one figure had the wandering persistency of a blot in her vision. Here lay the vaguer source of the hidden sadness noted by Hans, some diminution of that ready joy which had come with her new sense of freedom and safety.

  She thought herself ungrateful, and threw all the more energy into her singing – the energy of indignation against herself. In that mood she said, “Shall I tell you 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.

  “Thoughts,” said Mirah; “thoughts that come like the breeze and shake me.”

  This was the only voluntary sign she made of her inward care.