Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LIX.
"I count myself in nothing else so happyAs in a soul remembering my good friends."--SHAKESPEARE.
Sir Hugo Mallinger was not so prompt in starting for Genoa as Mr.Gascoigne had been, and Deronda on all accounts would not take hisdeparture until he had seen the baronet. There was not only Grandcourt'sdeath, but also the late crisis in his own life to make reasons why hisoldest friend would desire to have the unrestrained communication ofspeech with him, for in writing he had not felt able to give any detailsconcerning the mother who had come and gone like an apparition. It was nottill the fifth evening that Deronda, according to telegram, waited for SirHugo at the station, where he was to arrive between eight and nine; andwhile he was looking forward to the sight of the kind, familiar face,which was part of his earliest memories, something like a smile, in spiteof his late tragic experience, might have been detected in his eyes andthe curve of his lips at the idea of Sir Hugo's pleasure in being nowmaster of his estates, able to leave them to his daughters, or at least--according to a view of inheritance which had just been strongly impressedon Deronda's imagination--to take makeshift feminine offspring asintermediate to a satisfactory heir in a grandson. We should be churlishcreatures if we could have no joy in our fellow-mortals' joy, unless itwere in agreement with our theory of righteous distribution and ourhighest ideal of human good: what sour corners our mouths would get--oureyes, what frozen glances! and all the while our own possessions anddesires would not exactly adjust themselves to our ideal. We must havesome comradeship with imperfection; and it is, happily, possible to feelgratitude even where we discern a mistake that may have been injurious,the vehicle of the mistake being an affectionate intention prosecutedthrough a life-time of kindly offices. Deronda's feeling and judgment werestrongly against the action of Sir Hugo in making himself the agent of afalsity--yes, a falsity: he could give no milder name to the concealmentunder which he had been reared. But the baronet had probably had no clearknowledge concerning the mother's breach of trust, and with his light,easy way of taking life, had held it a reasonable preference in her thather son should be made an English gentleman, seeing that she had theeccentricity of not caring to part from her child, and be to him as if shewere not. Daniel's affectionate gratitude toward Sir Hugo made him wish tofind grounds of excuse rather than blame; for it is as possible to berigid in principle and tender in blame, as it is to suffer from the sightof things hung awry, and yet to be patient with the hanger who sees amiss.If Sir Hugo in his bachelorhood had been beguiled into regarding childrenchiefly as a product intended to make life more agreeable to the full-grown, whose convenience alone was to be consulted in the disposal ofthem--why, he had shared an assumption which, if not formally avowed, wasmassively acted on at that date of the world's history; and Deronda, withall his keen memory of the painful inward struggle he had gone through inhis boyhood, was able also to remember the many signs that his experiencehad been entirely shut out from Sir Hugo's conception. Ignorant kindnessmay have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it weredirect cruelty would be an ignorant _un_kindness, the most remote fromDeronda's large imaginative lenience toward others. And perhaps now, afterthe searching scenes of the last ten days, in which the curtain had beenlifted for him from the secrets of lives unlike his own, he was more thanever disposed to check that rashness of indignation or resentment whichhas an unpleasant likeness to the love of punishing. When he saw SirHugo's familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, the life-longaffection which had been well accustomed to make excuses, flowed in andsubmerged all newer knowledge that might have seemed fresh ground forblame.
Hugo, with a serious fervor, grasping Deronda'shand. He uttered no other.
"Well, Dan," said Sir Hugo, with a serious fervor, grasping Deronda'shand. He uttered no other words of greeting; there was too strong a rushof mutual consciousness. The next thing was to give orders to the courier,and then to propose walking slowly in, the mild evening, there being nohurry to get to the hotel.
"I have taken my journey easily, and am in excellent condition," he said,as he and Deronda came out under the starlight, which was still faint withthe lingering sheen of day. "I didn't hurry in setting off, because Iwanted to inquire into things a little, and so I got sight of your letterto Lady Mallinger before I started. But now, how is the widow?"
"Getting calmer," said Deronda. "She seems to be escaping the bodilyillness that one might have feared for her, after her plunge and terribleexcitement. Her uncle and mother came two days ago, and she is being welltaken care of."
"Any prospect of an heir being born?"
"From what Mr. Gascoigne said to me, I conclude not. He spoke as if itwere a question whether the widow would have the estates for her life."
"It will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, this loss ofthe husband?" said Sir Hugo, looking round at Deronda.
"The suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her," said Deronda,quietly evading the question.
"I wonder whether Grandcourt gave her any notion what were the provisionsof his will?" said Sir Hugo.
"Do you know what they are, sir?" parried Deronda.
"Yes, I do," said the baronet, quickly. "Gad! if there is no prospect of alegitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a Mrs. Glasher;you know nothing about the affair, I suppose, but she was a sort of wifeto him for a good many years, and there are three older children--girls.The boy is to take his father's name; he is Henleigh already, and he is tobe Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt. The Mallinger will be of no use to him,I am happy to say; but the young dog will have more than enough with hisfourteen years' minority--no need to have had holes filled up with myfifty thousand for Diplow that he had no right to: and meanwhile mybeauty, the young widow, is to put up with a poor two thousand a year andthe house at Gadsmere--a nice kind of banishment for her if she chose toshut herself up there, which I don't think she will. The boy's mother hasbeen living there of late years. I'm perfectly disgusted with Grandcourt.I don't know that I'm obliged to think the better of him because he'sdrowned, though, so far as my affairs are concerned, nothing in his lifebecame him like the leaving it."
"In my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife--not in leaving hisestates to the son," said Deronda, rather dryly.
"I say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad," said Sir Hugo;"but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a handsomeprovision, such as she could live on in a style fitted to the rank he hadraised her to. She ought to have had four or five thousand a year and theLondon house for her life; that's what I should have done for her. Isuppose, as she was penniless, her friends couldn't stand out for asettlement, else it's ill trusting to the will a man may make after he'smarried. Even a wise man generally lets some folly ooze out of him in hiswill--my father did, I know; and if a fellow has any spite or tyranny inhim, he's likely to bottle off a good deal for keeping in that sort ofdocument. It's quite clear Grandcourt meant that his death should put anextinguisher on his wife, if she bore him no heir."
"And, in the other case, I suppose everything would have been reversed--illegitimacy would have had the extinguisher?" said Deronda, with somescorn.
"Precisely--Gadsmere and the two thousand. It's queer. One nuisance isthat Grandcourt has made me an executor; but seeing he was the son of myonly brother, I can't refuse to act. And I shall mind it less if I can beof any use to the widow. Lush thinks she was not in ignorance about thefamily under the rose, and the purport of the will. He hints that therewas no very good understanding between the couple. But I fancy you are theman who knew most about what Mrs. Grandcourt felt or did not feel--eh,Dan?" Sir Hugo did not put this question with his usual jocoseness, butrather with a lowered tone of interested inquiry; and Deronda felt thatany evasion would be misinterpreted. He answered gravely--
"She was certainly not happy. They were unsuited to each other. But as tothe disposal of the property--from all I have seen of her, I shouldpredict that she will be quite contented with it."
"Then she is not much like the rest of her sex; that's all I can say,"said Sir Hugo, with a slight shrug. "However, she ought to be somethingextraordinary, for there must be an entanglement between your horoscopeand hers--eh? When that tremendous telegram came, the first thing LadyMallinger said was, 'How very strange that it should be Daniel who sendsit!' But I have had something of the same sort in my own life. I was onceat a foreign hotel where a lady had been left by her husband withoutmoney. When I heard of it, and came forward to help her, who should she bebut an early flame of mine, who had been fool enough to marry an Austrianbaron with a long mustache and short affection? But it was an affair of myown that called me there--nothing to do with knight-errantry, any morethan you coming to Genoa had to do with the Grandcourts."
There was silence for a little while. Sir Hugo had begun to talk of theGrandcourts as the less difficult subject between himself and Deronda; butthey were both wishing to overcome a reluctance to perfect frankness onthe events which touched their relation to each other. Deronda felt thathis letter, after the first interview with his mother, had been rather athickening than a breaking of the ice, and that he ought to wait for thefirst opening to come from Sir Hugo. Just when they were about to losesight of the port, the baronet turned, and pausing as if to get a lastview, said in a tone of more serious feeling--"And about the mainbusiness of your coming to Genoa, Dan? You have not been deeply pained byanything you have learned, I hope? There is nothing that you feel needchange your position in any way? You know, whatever happens to you mustalways be of importance to me."
"I desire to meet your goodness by perfect confidence, sir," said Deronda."But I can't answer those questions truly by a simple yes or no. Much thatI have heard about the past has pained me. And it has been a pain to meetand part with my mother in her suffering state, as I have been compelledto do, But it is no pain--it is rather a clearing up of doubts for which Iam thankful, to know my parentage. As to the effect on my position, therewill be no change in my gratitude to you, sir, for the fatherly care andaffection you have always shown me. But to know that I was born a Jew, mayhave a momentous influence on my life, which I am hardly able to tell youof at present."
Deronda spoke the last sentence with a resolve that overcame somediffidence. He felt that the differences between Sir Hugo's nature and hisown would have, by-and-by, to disclose themselves more markedly than hadever yet been needful. The baronet gave him a quick glance, and turned towalk on. After a few moments' silence, in which he had reviewed all thematerial in his memory which would enable him to interpret Deronda'swords, he said--
"I have long expected something remarkable from you, Dan; but, for God'ssake, don't go into any eccentricities! I can tolerate any man'sdifference of opinion, but let him tell it me without getting himself upas a lunatic. At this stage of the world, if a man wants to be takenseriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. Don't misunderstand me. I amnot suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. I onlythink you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic, especially if hewanted defending. You have a passion for people who are pelted, Dan. I'msorry for them too; but so far as company goes, it's a bad ground ofselection. However, I don't ask you to anticipate your inclination inanything you have to tell me. When you make up your mind to a course thatrequires money, I have some sixteen thousand pounds that have beenaccumulating for you over and above what you have been having the interestof as income. And now I am come, I suppose you want to get back to Englandas soon as you can?"
"I must go first to Mainz to get away a chest of my grandfather's, andperhaps to see a friend of his," said Deronda. "Although the chest hasbeen lying there these twenty years, I have an unreasonable sort ofnervous eagerness to get it away under my care, as if it were more likelynow than before that something might happen to it. And perhaps I am themore uneasy, because I lingered after my mother left, instead of settingout immediately. Yet I can't regret that I was here--else Mrs. Grandcourtwould have had none but servants to act for her."
"Yes, yes," said Sir Hugo, with a flippancy which was an escape of somevexation hidden under his more serious speech; "I hope you are not goingto set a dead Jew above a living Christian."
said Deronda,quietly evading the question.will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, .
Deronda colored, and repressed a retort. They were just turning into the_Italia_.