Daniel Deronda

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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.