Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XXXVI. Page 1
"Rien ne pese tant qu'un secretLe porter loin est difficile aux dames:Et je sçais mesme sur ce faitBon nombre d'hommes qui sont femmes."--LA FONTAINE.
Meanwhile Deronda had been fastened and led off by Mr. Vandernoodt, whowished for a brisker walk, a cigar, and a little gossip. Since we cannottell a man his own secrets, the restraint of being in his company oftenbreeds a desire to pair off in conversation with some more ignorantperson, and Mr. Vandernoodt presently said--
"What a washed-out piece of cambric Grandcourt is! But if he is a favoriteof yours, I withdraw the remark."
"Not the least in the world," said Deronda.
"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 heforesaw that he should hear what Mr. Vandernoodt had to tell, without thecondescension 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 upperhand of him these ten years and more, and by what I can understand has itstill--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 withhim, and knew this Mrs. Glasher before she took wing. A fiery dark-eyedwoman--a noted beauty at that time--he thought she was dead. They say shehas Grandcourt under her thumb still, and it's a wonder he didn't marryher, for there's a very fine boy, and I understand Grandcourt can doabsolutely 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 shouldersand put out his lips.
"_She_ can know nothing of it," said Deronda, emphatically. But thatpositive statement was immediately followed by an inward query--"Could shehave known anything of it?"
"It's rather a piquant picture," said Mr. Vandernoodt--"Grandcourt betweentwo fiery women. For depend upon it this light-haired one has plenty ofdevil in her. I formed that opinion of her at Leubronn. It's a sort ofMedea and Creüsa business. Fancy the two meeting! Grandcourt is a new kindof Jason: I wonder what sort of a part he'll make of it. It's a dog's partat best. I think I hear Ristori now, saying, 'Jasone! Jasone!' These finewomen 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 keenfellow enough--uncommonly well built too. And if he comes into all thisproperty, the estates will bear dividing. This girl, whose friends hadcome to beggary, I understand, may think herself lucky to get him. I don'twant to be hard on a man because he gets involved in an affair of thatsort. But he might make himself more agreeable. I was telling him acapital story last night, and he got up and walked away in the middle. Ifelt inclined to kick him. Do you suppose that is inattention orinsolence, now?"
"Oh, a mixture. He generally observes the forms: but he doesn't listenmuch," said Deronda. Then, after a moment's pause, he went on, "I shouldthink there must be some exaggeration or inaccuracy in what you have heardabout this lady at Gadsmere."
"Not a bit, depend upon it; it has all lain snug of late years. Peoplehave forgotten all about it. But there the nest is, and the birds are init. And I know Grandcourt goes there. I have good evidence that he goesthere. However, that's nobody's business but his own. The affair has sunkbelow the surface."
"I wonder you could have learned so much about it," said Deronda, ratherdrily.
"Oh, there are plenty of people who knew all about it; but such storiesget packed away like old letters. They interest me. I like to know themanners of my time--contemporary gossip, not antediluvian. These Dryasdustfellows get a reputation by raking up some small scandal about Semiramisor Nitocris, and then we have a thousand and one poems written upon it byall the warblers big and little. But I don't care a straw about the _fauxpas_ 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 toespeeping out. Does that flatter your imagination?"
"Well, if she had any woes in her love, one has the satisfaction ofknowing 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 theirbareness. 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 hisown birth, his mind had perhaps never been so active in weavingprobabilities about any private affair as it had now begun to be aboutGwendolen's marriage. This unavowed relation of Grandcourt's--could shehave gained some knowledge of it, which caused her to shrink from thematch--a shrinking finally overcome by the urgence of poverty? He couldrecall almost every word she had said to him, and in certain of thesewords he seemed to discern that she was conscious of having done somewrong--inflicted some injury. His own acute experience made him alive tothe form of injury which might affect the unavowed children and theirmother. Was Mrs. Grandcourt, under all her determined show ofsatisfaction, gnawed by a double, a treble-headed grief--self-reproach,disappointment, jealousy? He dwelt especially on all the slight signs ofself-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 hadwedded her fresh hopes to old secrets! He thought he saw clearly enoughnow why Sir Hugo had never dropped any hint of this affair to him; andimmediately the image of this Mrs. Glasher became painfully associatedwith his own hidden birth. Gwendolen knowing of that woman and herchildren, marrying Grandcourt, and showing herself contented, would havebeen among the most repulsive of beings to him; but Gwendolen tasting thebitterness of remorse for having contributed to their injury was broughtvery near to his fellow-feeling. If it were so, she had got to a commonplane of understanding with him on some difficulties of life which a womanis rarely able to judge of with any justice or generosity; for, accordingto precedent, Gwendolen's view of her position might easily have been noother than that her husband's marriage with her was his entrance on thepath of virtue, while Mrs. Glasher represented his forsaken sin. AndDeronda had naturally some resentment on behalf of the Hagars andIshmaels.
Undeniably Deronda's growing solicitude about Gwendolen depended chieflyon her peculiar manner toward him; and I suppose neither man nor womanwould be the better for an utter insensibility to such appeals. One signthat his interest in her had changed its footing was that he dismissed anycaution against her being a coquette setting snares to involve him in avulgar flirtation, and determined that he would not again evade anyopportunity of talking to her. He had shaken off Mr. Vandernoodt, and gotinto a solitary corner in the twilight; but half an hour was long enoughto think of those possibilities in Gwendolen's position and state of mind;and on forming the determination not to avoid her, he remembered that shewas likely to be at tea with the other ladies in the drawing-room. Theconjecture was true; for Gwendolen, after resolving not to go down againfor the next four hours, began to feel, at the end of one, that inshutting herself up she missed all chances of seeing and hearing, and thather visit would only last two days more. She adjusted herself, put on herlittle air of self-possession, and going down, made herself resolutelyagreeable. Only ladies were assembled, and Lady Pentreath was amusing themwith a description of a drawing-room under the Regency, and the figurethat 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 lookfor the others. I suppose they are in the billiard-room."
"No, no; stay where you are," said Lady Pentreath. "They were all gettingtired of me; let us hear what _you_ have to say."
"That is rather an embarrassing appeal," said Deronda, drawing up a chairnear Lady Mallinger's elbow at the tea-table. "I think I had better takethe opportunity of mentioning our songstress," he added, looking at LadyMallinger--"unless you have done so."
"Oh, the little Jewess!" said Lady Mallinger. "No, I have not mentionedher. 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 LadyPentreath. "She is living with some ladies who are friends of mine--themother and sisters of a man who was my chum at Cambridge. She was on thestage at Vienna; but she wants to leave that life, and maintain herself byteaching."
"There are swarms of those people, aren't there?" said the old lady. "Areher lessons to be very cheap or very expensive? Those are the two baits Iknow of."
"There is another bait for those who hear her," said Deronda. "Her singingis something quite exceptional, I think. She has had such first-rateteaching--or rather first-rate instinct with her teaching--that you mightimagine her singing all came by nature."
"Why did she leave the stage, then?" said Lady Pentreath. "I'm too old tobelieve in first-rate people giving up first-rate chances."
"Her voice was too weak. It is a delicious voice for a room. You who putup with my singing of Schubert would be enchanted with hers," saidDeronda, looking at Mrs. Raymond. "And I imagine she would not object tosing 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 LadyMallinger. "You shall hear her then. I have not heard her myself yet; butI 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 charitablemusic."
Lady Mallinger, who was rather helpless in conversation, and felt herselfunder an engagement not to tell anything of Mirah's story, had anembarrassed smile on her face, and glanced at Deronda.
"It is a charity to those who want to have a good model of femininesinging," said Deronda. "I think everybody who has ears would benefit by alittle improvement on the ordinary style. If you heard Miss Lapidoth"--here he looked at Gwendolen--"perhaps you would revoke your resolution togive 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 alwaysinspirit me to try. I don't mean that they make me believe I can do it aswell. 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 bemore dismal if I thought music itself not good for much. Excellenceencourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of theworld."
"But then, if we can't imitate it, it only makes our own life seem thetamer," said Gwendolen, in a mood to resent encouragement founded on herown insignificance.
"That depends on the point of view, I think," said Deronda. "We shouldhave a poor life of it if we were reduced for all our pleasure to our ownperformances. A little private imitation of what is good is a sort ofprivate devotion to it, and most of us ought to practice art only in thelight of private study--preparation to understand and enjoy what the fewcan 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 atouch of sarcasm, and a turn of her neck toward Mrs. Raymond.
"I don't know," answered the independent lady; "I must hear more of herbefore I say that."
"It may have been a bitter disappointment to her that her voice failed herfor the stage," said Juliet Fenn, sympathetically.
"I suppose she's past her best, though," said the deep voice of LadyPentreath.
"On the contrary, she has not reached it," said Deronda. "She is barelytwenty."
"And very pretty," interposed Lady Mallinger, with an amiable wish to helpDeronda. "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 LadyClementina to set her on my nine granddaughters," said Lady Pentreath;"and I hope she'll convince eight of them that they have not voice enoughto sing anywhere but at church. My notion is, that many of our girlsnowadays want lessons not to sing."
"I have had my lessons in that," said Gwendolen, looking at Deronda. "Yousee Lady Pentreath is on my side."
, I withdraw the remark."least.
While she was speaking, Sir Hugo entered with some of the other gentlemen,including Grandcourt, and standing against the group at the low tea-tablesaid--
"What imposition is Deronda putting on you, ladies--slipping in among youby 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 theseyoung people. You and I, who heard Catalani in her prime, are not soeasily astonished."
Sir Hugo listened with his good-humored smile as he took a cup of tea fromhis wife, and then said, "Well, you know, a Liberal is bound to think thatthere have been singers since Catalani's time."
"Ah, you are younger than I am. I dare say you are one of the men who ranafter Alcharisi. But she married off and left you all in the lurch."
"Yes, yes; it's rather too bad when these great singers marry themselvesinto silence before they have a crack in their voices. And the husband isa public robber. I remember Leroux saying, 'A man might as well take downa fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the steppes," said SirHugo, setting down his cup and turning away, while Deronda, who had movedfrom his place to make room for others, and felt that he was not inrequest, sat down a little apart. Presently he became aware that, in thegeneral dispersion of the group, Gwendolen had extricated herself from theattentions of Mr. Vandernoodt and had walked to the piano, where she stoodapparently examining the music which lay on the desk. Will any one besurprised at Deronda's concluding that she wished him to join her? Perhapsshe wanted to make amends for the unpleasant tone of resistance with whichshe had met his recommendation of Mirah, for he had noticed that her firstimpulse often was to say what she afterward wished to retract. He went toher side and said--
"Are you relenting about the music and looking for something to play orsing?"
"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 youadmire her so much,--that is, of course, when we go to town. I meanlessons in rejoicing at her excellence and my own deficiency," saidGwendolen, 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 haveseen nothing in her that I could wish to be different. She has had anunhappy life. Her troubles began in early childhood, and she has grown upamong very painful surroundings. But I think you will say that noadvantages 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 thebrink 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--thatit was good to live," he answered, quietly. "She is full of piety, andseems capable of submitting to anything when it takes the form of duty."
"Those people are not to be pitied," said Gwendolen, impatiently. "I haveno sympathy with women who are always doing right. I don't believe intheir great sufferings." Her fingers moved quickly among the edges of themusic.
"It is true," said Deronda, "that the consciousness of having done wrongis something deeper, more bitter. I suppose we faulty creatures can neverfeel so much for the irreproachable as for those who are bruised in thestruggle with their own faults. It is a very ancient story, that of thelost sheep--but it comes up afresh every day."
"That is a way of speaking--it is not acted upon, it is not real," saidGwendolen, bitterly. "You admire Miss Lapidoth because you think herblameless, perfect. And you know you would despise a woman who had donesomething you thought very wrong."
"That would depend entirely upon her own view of what she had done," saidDeronda.
"You would be satisfied if she were very wretched, I suppose," saidGwendolen, impetuously.
"No, not satisfied--full of sorrow for her. It was not a mere way ofspeaking. I did not mean to say that the finer nature is not moreadorable; I meant that those who would be comparatively uninterestingbeforehand may become worthier of sympathy when they do something thatawakens in them a keen remorse. Lives are enlarged in different ways. Idare say some would never get their eyes opened if it were not for aviolent shock from the consequences of their own actions. And when theyare suffering in that way one must care for them more than, for thecomfortably self-satisfied." Deronda forgot everything but his vision ofwhat Gwendolen's experience had probably been, and urged by compassion lethis eyes and voice express as much interest as they would.
Gwendolen had slipped on to the music-stool, and looked up at him withpain 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.