Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XLIX.
Ever in his soulThat larger justice which makes gratitudeTriumphed above resentment. 'Tis the markOf regal natures, with the wider life.And fuller capability of joy:--Not wits exultant in the strongest lensTo show you goodness vanished into pulpNever worth "thank you"--they're the devil's friars,Vowed to be poor as he in love and trust,Yet must go begging of a world that keepsSome human property.
Deronda, in parting from Gwendolen, had abstained from saying, "I shallnot see you again for a long while: I am going away," lest Grandcourtshould understand him to imply that the fact was of importance to her.
He was actually going away under circumstances so momentous to himselfthat when he set out to fulfill his promise of calling on her, he wasalready under the shadow of a solemn emotion which revived the deepestexperience of his life.
Sir Hugo had sent for him to his chambers with the note--"Comeimmediately. Something has happened:" a preparation that caused him somerelief when, on entering the baronet's study, he was received with graveaffection instead of the distress which he had apprehended.
"It is nothing to grieve you, sir?" said Deronda, in a tone rather ofrestored confidence than question, as he took the hand held out to him.There was an unusual meaning in Sir Hugo's look, and a subdued emotion inhis voice, as he said--
"No, Dan, no. Sit down. I have something to say."
Deronda obeyed, not without presentiment. It was extremely rare for SirHugo to show so much serious feeling.
"Not to grieve me, my boy, no. At least, if there is nothing in it thatwill grieve you too much. But I hardly expected that this--just this--would ever happen. There have been reasons why I have never prepared youfor it. There have been reasons why I have never told you anything aboutyour parentage. But I have striven in every way not to make that an injuryto you."
Sir Hugo paused, but Deronda could not speak. He could not say, "I havenever felt it an injury." Even if that had been true, he could not havetrusted his voice to say anything. Far more than any one but himself couldknow of was hanging on this moment when the secrecy was to be broken. SirHugo had never seen the grand face he delighted in so pale--the lipspressed together with such a look of pain. He went on with a more anxioustenderness, as if he had a new fear of wounding.
"I have acted in obedience to your mother's wishes. The secrecy was herwish. But now she desires to remove it. She desires to see you. I will putthis letter into your hands, which you can look at by-and-by. It willmerely tell you what she wishes you to do, and where you will find her."
Sir Hugo held out a letter written on foreign paper, which Deronda thrustinto his breast-pocket, with a sense of relief that he was not called onto read anything immediately. The emotion on Daniel's face had gained onthe baronet, and was visibly shaking his composure. Sir Hugo found itdifficult to say more. And Deronda's whole soul was possessed by aquestion which was the hardest in the world to utter. Yet he could notbear to delay it. This was a sacramental moment. If he let it pass, hecould not recover the influences under which it was possible to utter thewords and meet the answer. For some moments his eyes were cast down, andit seemed to both as if thoughts were in the air between them. But at lastDeronda looked at Sir Hugo, and said, with a tremulous reverence in hisvoice--dreading to convey indirectly the reproach that affection had foryears been stifling--
"Is my father also living?"
The answer came immediately in a low emphatic tone--"No."
In the mingled emotions which followed that answer it was impossible todistinguish joy from pain.
Some new light had fallen on the past for Sir Hugo too in this interview.After a silence in which Deronda felt like one whose creed is gone beforehe has religiously embraced another, the baronet said, in a tone ofconfession--
"Perhaps I was wrong, Dan, to undertake what I did. And perhaps I liked ita little too well--having you all to myself. But if you have had any painwhich I might have helped, I ask you to forgive me."
"The forgiveness has long been there," said Deronda "The chief pain hasalways been on account of some one else--whom I never knew--whom I am nowto know. It has not hindered me from feeling an affection for you whichhas made a large part of all the life I remember."
It seemed one impulse that made the two men clasp each other's hand for amoment.