Daniel Deronda

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"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. Tannhaeuser, 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 _mesalliance_ 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.