"If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, 'Because it was he, because it was I.' There is, beyond what I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable power that brought on this union."--MONTAIGNE: _On Friendship_.
The time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the restored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before Mirah's meeting with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick, to whom Deronda had confided everything except Mordecai's peculiar relation to himself, had been active in helping him to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not many minutes' walk from her own house, so that the brother and sister would be within reach of her motherly care. Her happy mixture of Scottish fervor and Gaelic liveliness had enabled her to keep the secret close from the girls as well as from Hans, any betrayal to them being likely to reach Mirah in some way that would raise an agitating suspicion, and spoil the important opening of that work which was to secure her independence, as we rather arbitrarily call one of the more arduous and dignified forms of our dependence. And both Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda had more reasons than they could have expressed for desiring that Mirah should be able to maintain herself. Perhaps "the little mother" was rather helped in her secrecy by some dubiousness in her sentiment about the remarkable brother described to her; and certainly if she felt any joy and anticipatory admiration, it was due to her faith in Deronda's judgment. The consumption was a sorrowful fact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was she to be very glad of an enthusiasm which, to tell the truth, she could only contemplate as Jewish pertinacity, and as rather an undesirable introduction among them all of a man whose conversation would not be more modern and encouraging than that of Scott's Covenanters? Her mind was anything but prosaic, and had her soberer share of Mab's delight in the romance of Mirah's story and of her abode with them; but the romantic or unusual in real life requires some adaptation. We sit up at night to read about Sakya-Mouni, St. Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be glad for any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still more, to reveal himself as a new relation, is quite another affair. Besides, Mrs. Meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the intensity of Mirah's feeling about Judaism would slowly subside, and be merged in the gradually deepening current of loving interchange with her new friends. In fact, her secret favorite continuation of the romance had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but something much more favorable to the hopes she discerned in Hans. And now--here was a brother who would dip Mirah's mind over again in the deepest dye of Jewish sentiment. She could not help saying to Deronda,
"I am as glad as you are that the pawnbroker is not her brother: there are Ezras and Ezras in the world; and really it is a comfort to think that all Jews are not like those shopkeepers who _will not_ let you get out of their shops: and besides, what he said to you about his mother and sister makes me bless him. I am sure he's good. But I never did like anything fanatical. I suppose I heard a little too much preaching in my youth and lost my palate for it."
"I don't think you will find that Mordecai obtrudes any preaching," said Deronda. "He is not what I should call fanatical. I call a man fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he has no sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men who are out of his own track. Mordecai is an enthusiast; I should like to keep that word for the highest order of minds--those who care supremely for grand and general benefits to mankind. He is not a strictly orthodox Jew, and is full of allowances for others; his conformity in many things is an allowance for the condition of other Jews. The people he lives with are as fond of him as possible, and they can't in the least understand his ideas."
"Oh, well, I can live up to the level of the pawnbroker's mother, and like him for what I see to be good in him; and for what I don't see the merits of I will take your word. According to your definition, I suppose one might be fanatical in worshipping common-sense; for my poor husband used to say the world would be a poor place if there were nothing but common-sense in it. However, Mirah's brother will have good bedding--that I have taken care of; and I shall have this extra window pasted up with paper to prevent draughts." (The conversation was taking place in the destined lodging.) "It is a comfort to think that the people of the house are no strangers to me--no hypocritical harpies. And when the children know, we shall be able to make the rooms much prettier."
"The next stage of the affair is to tell all to Mordecai, and get him to move--which may be a more difficult business," said Deronda.
"And will you tell Mirah before I say anything to the children?" said Mrs. Meyrick. But Deronda hesitated, and she went on in a tone of persuasive deliberation--"No, I think not. Let me tell Hans and the girls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning?"
"Yes, that will be best. But do justice to my account of Mordecai--or Ezra, as I suppose Mirah will wish to call him: don't assist their imagination by referring to Habakkuk Mucklewrath," said Deronda, smiling--Mrs. Meyrick herself having used the comparison of the Covenanters.
"Trust me, trust me," said the little mother. "I shall have to persuade them so hard to be glad, that I shall convert myself. When I am frightened I find it a good thing to have somebody to be angry with for not being brave: it warms the blood."
Deronda might have been more argumentative or persuasive about the view to be taken of Mirah's brother, if he had been less anxiously preoccupied with the more important task immediately before him, which he desired to acquit himself of without wounding the Cohens. Mordecai, by a memorable answer, had made it evident that he would be keenly alive to any inadvertance in relation to their feelings. In the interval, he had been meeting Mordecai at the _Hand and Banner_, but now after due reflection he wrote to him saying that he had particular reasons for wishing to see him in his own home the next evening, and would beg to sit with him in his workroom for an hour, if the Cohens would not regard it as an intrusion. He would call with the understanding that if there were any objection, Mordecai would accompany him elsewhere. Deronda hoped in this way to create a little expectation that would have a preparatory effect.
He was received with the usual friendliness, some additional costume in the women and children, and in all the elders a slight air of wondering which even in Cohen was not allowed to pass the bounds of silence--the guest's transactions with Mordecai being a sort of mystery which he was rather proud to think lay outside the sphere of light which enclosed his own understanding. But when Deronda said, "I suppose Mordecai is at home and expecting me," Jacob, who had profited by the family remarks, went up to his knee and said, "What do you want to talk to Mordecai about?"
"Something that is very interesting to him," said Deronda, pinching the lad's ear, "but that you can't understand."
"Can you say this?" said Jacob, immediately giving forth a string of his rote-learned Hebrew verses with a wonderful mixture of the throaty and the nasal, and nodding his small head at his hearer, with a sense of giving formidable evidence which might rather alter their mutual position.
"No, really," said Deronda, keeping grave; "I can't say anything like it."
"I thought not," said Jacob, performing a dance of triumph with his small scarlet legs, while he took various objects out of the deep pockets of his knickerbockers and returned them thither, as a slight hint of his resources; after which, running to the door of the workroom, he opened it wide, set his back against it, and said, "Mordecai, here's the young swell"--a copying of his father's phrase, which seemed to him well fitted to cap the recitation of Hebrew.
He was called back with hushes by mother and grandmother, and Deronda, entering and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had been laid down, a chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in sign of the Cohens' respect. As Mordecai rose to greet him, Deronda was struck with the air of solemn expectation in his face, such as would have seemed perfectly natural if his letter had declared that some revelation was to be made about the lost sister. Neither of them spoke, till Deronda, with his usual tenderness of manner, had drawn the vacant chair from the opposite side of the hearth and had seated himself near to Mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty,
"You are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for."
"It is true I have something very weighty to tell you--something I trust that you will rejoice in," said Deronda, on his guard against the probability that Mordecai had been preparing himself for something quite different from the fact.
"It is all revealed--it is made clear to you," said Mordecai, more eagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands. "You are even as my brother that sucked the breasts of my mother--the heritage is yours--there is no doubt to divide us."
"I have learned nothing new about myself," said Deronda. The disappointment was inevitable: it was better not to let the feeling be strained longer in a mistaken hope.
Mordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was really coming. The whole day his mind had been in a state of tension toward one fulfillment. The reaction was sickening and he closed his eyes.
"Except," Deronda went on gently, after a pause,--"except that I had really some time ago come into another sort of hidden connection with you, besides what you have spoken of as existing in your own feeling."
The eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids.
"I had made the acquaintance of one in whom you are interested."
"One who is closely related to your departed mother," Deronda went on wishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking movement in Mordecai, he added--"whom she and you held dear above all others."
Mordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on Deronda's wrist; there was a great terror in him. And Deronda divined it. A tremor was perceptible in his clear tones as he said,
"What was prayed for has come to pass: Mirah has been delivered from evil."
Mordecai's grasp relaxed a little, but he was panting with a tearless sob.
Deronda went on: "Your sister is worthy of the mother you honored."
He waited there, and Mordecai, throwing himself backward in his chair, again closed his eyes, uttering himself almost inaudibly for some minutes in Hebrew, and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence. Deronda, watching the expression in his uplifted face, could have imagined that he was speaking with some beloved object: there was a new suffused sweetness, something like that on the faces of the beautiful dead. For the first time Deronda thought he discerned a family resemblance to Mirah.
Presently when Mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. But in accounting for Mirah's flight he made the statement about the father's conduct as vague as he could, and threw the emphasis on her yearning to come to England as the place where she might find her mother. Also he kept back the fact of Mirah's intention to drown herself, and his own part in rescuing her; merely describing the home she had found with friends of his, whose interest in her and efforts for her he had shared. What he dwelt on finally was Mirah's feeling about her mother and brother; and in relation to this he tried to give every detail.
"It was in search of them," said Deronda, smiling, "that I turned into this house: the name Ezra Cohen was just then the most interesting name in the world to me. I confess I had fear for a long while. Perhaps you will forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder Mrs. Cohen's daughter. I cared very much what I should find Mirah's friends to be. But I had found a brother worthy of her when I knew that her Ezra was disguised under the name of Mordecai."
"Mordecai is really my name--Ezra Mordecai Cohen."
"Is there any kinship between this family and yours?" said Deronda.
"Only the kinship of Israel. My soul clings to these people, who have sheltered me and given me succor out of the affection that abides in Jewish hearts, as sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the outer air. It is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound to them in gratitude, that I may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of the Jewish million, and not put impatient knowledge in the stead of loving wisdom."
"But you don't feel bound to continue with them now there is a closer tie to draw you?" said Deronda, not without fear that he might find an obstacle to overcome. "It seems to me right now--is it not?--that you should live with your sister; and I have prepared a home to take you to in the neighborhood of her friends, that she may join you there. Pray grant me this wish. It will enable me to be with you often in the hours when Mirah is obliged to leave you. That is my selfish reason. But the chief reason is, that Mirah will desire to watch over you, and that you ought to give her the guardianship of a brother's presence. You shall have books about you. I shall want to learn of you, and to take you out to see the river and trees. And you will have the rest and comfort that you will be more and more in need of--nay, that I need for you. This is the claim I make on you, now that we have found each other."
Deronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he might have used to a venerated elder brother. Mordecai's eyes were fixed on him with a listening contemplation, and he was silent for a little while after Deronda had ceased to speak. Then he said, with an almost reproachful emphasis,
"And you would have me hold it doubtful whether you were born a Jew! Have we not from the first touched each other with invisible fibres--have we not quivered together like the leaves from a common stem with stirring from a common root? I know what I am outwardly, I am one among the crowd of poor--I am stricken, I am dying. But our souls know each other. They gazed in silence as those who have long been parted and meet again, but when they found voice they were assured, and all their speech is understanding. The life of Israel is in your veins."
Deronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. It was impossible either to deny or assent. He waited, hoping that Mordecai would presently give him a more direct answer. And after a pause of meditation he did say, firmly,
"What you wish of me I will do. And our mother--may the blessing of the Eternal be with her in our souls!--would have wished it too. I will accept what your loving kindness has prepared, and Mirah's home shall be mine." He paused a moment, and then added in a more melancholy tone, "But I shall grieve to part from these parents and the little ones. You must tell them, for my heart would fail me."
"I felt that you would want me to tell them. Shall we go now at once?" said Deronda, much relieved by this unwavering compliance.
"Yes; let us not defer it. It must be done," said Mordecai, rising with the air of a man who has to perform a painful duty. Then came, as an afterthought, "But do not dwell on my sister more than is needful."
When they entered the parlor he said to the alert Jacob, "Ask your father to come, and tell Sarah to mind the shop. My friend has something to say," he continued, turning to the elder Mrs. Cohen. It seemed part of Mordecai's eccentricity that he should call this gentleman his friend; and the two women tried to show their better manners by warm politeness in begging Deronda to seat himself in the best place.
When Cohen entered with a pen behind his ear, he rubbed his hands and said with loud satisfaction, "Well, sir! I'm glad you're doing us the honor to join our family party again. We are pretty comfortable, I think."
He looked round with shiny gladness. And when all were seated on the hearth the scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side Baby under her scarlet quilt in the corner being rocked by the young mother, and Adelaide Rebekah seated on the grandmother's knee; on the other, Jacob between his father's legs; while the two markedly different figures of Deronda and Mordecai were in the middle--Mordecai a little backward in the shade, anxious to conceal his agitated susceptibility to what was going on around him. The chief light came from the fire, which brought out the rich color on a depth of shadow, and seemed to turn into speech the dark gems of eyes that looked at each other kindly.
"I have just been telling Mordecai of an event that makes a great change in his life," Deronda began, "but I hope you will agree with me that it is a joyful one. Since he thinks of you as his best friends, he wishes me to tell you for him at once."
"Relations with money, sir?" burst in Cohen, feeling a power of divination which it was a pity to nullify by waiting for the fact.
"No; not exactly," said Deronda, smiling. "But a very precious relation wishes to be reunited to him--a very good and lovely young sister, who will care for his comfort in every way."
"Married, sir?"
"No, not married."
"But with a maintenance?"
"With talents which will secure her a maintenance. A home is already provided for Mordecai."
There was silence for a moment or two before the grandmother said in a wailing tone,
"Well, well! and so you're going away from us, Mordecai."
"And where there's no children as there is here," said the mother, catching the wail.
"No Jacob, and no Adelaide, and no Eugenie!" wailed the grandmother again.
"Ay, ay, Jacob's learning 'ill all wear out of him. He must go to school. It'll be hard times for Jacob," said Cohen, in a tone of decision.
In the wide-open ears of Jacob his father's words sounded like a doom, giving an awful finish to the dirge-like effect of the whole announcement. His face had been gathering a wondering incredulous sorrow at the notion of Mordecai's going away: he was unable to imagine the change as anything lasting; but at the mention of "hard times for Jacob" there was no further suspense of feeling, and he broke forth in loud lamentation. Adelaide Rebekah always cried when her brother cried, and now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby awaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the cradle. A great deal of hushing was necessary, and Mordecai feeling the cries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob, who in the midst of his tears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general observation. His father, who had been saying, "Never mind, old man; you shall go to the riders," now released him, and he went to Mordecai, who clasped him, and laid his cheek on the little black head without speaking. But Cohen, sensible that the master of the family must make some apology for all this weakness, and that the occasion called for a speech, addressed Deronda with some elevation of pitch, squaring his elbows and resting a hand on each knee:
"It's not as we're the people to grudge anybody's good luck, sir, or the portion of their cup being made fuller, as I may say. I'm not an envious man, and if anybody offered to set up Mordecai in a shop of my sort two doors lower down, _I_ shouldn't make wry faces about it. I'm not one of them that had need have a poor opinion of themselves, and be frightened at anybody else getting a chance. If I'm offal, let a wise man come and tell me, for I've never heard it yet. And in point of business, I'm not a class of goods to be in danger. If anybody takes to rolling me, I can pack myself up like a caterpillar, and find my feet when I'm let alone. And though, as I may say, you're taking some of our good works from us, which is property bearing interest, I'm not saying but we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good will to wish and do for Mordecai to the last; and a Jew must not be like a servant who works for reward--though I see nothing against a reward if I can get it. And as to the extra outlay in schooling, I'm neither poor nor greedy--I wouldn't hang myself for sixpence, nor half a crown neither. But the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of Mordecai. You may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. A Jewish man is bound to thank God, day by day, that he was not made a woman; but a woman has to thank God that He has made her according to His will. And we all know what He has made her--a child-bearing, tender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. Her children are mostly stout, as I think you'll say Addy's are, and she's not mushy, but her heart is tender. So you must excuse present company, sir, for not being glad all at once. And as to this young lady--for by what you say 'young lady' is the proper term"--Cohen here threw some additional emphasis into his look and tone--"we shall all be glad for Mordecai's sake by-and-by, when we cast up our accounts and see where we are."
Before Deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech, Mordecai exclaimed,
"Friends, friends! For food and raiment and shelter I would not have sought better than you have given me. You have sweetened the morsel with love; and what I thought of as a joy that would be left to me even in the last months of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad. But now I am as one who had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and used himself to making the grave his bed, when the divine command sounded in his ears, 'Arise, and go forth; the night is not yet come.' For no light matter would I have turned away from your kindness to take another's. But it has been taught us, as you know, that _the reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another_--so said Ben Azai. You have made your duty to one of the poor among your brethren a joy to you and me; and your reward shall be that you will not rest without the joy of like deeds in the time to come. And may not Jacob come and visit me?"
Mordecai had turned with this question to Deronda, who said,
"Surely that can be managed. It is no further than Brompton."
Jacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going forward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word "visit" having the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at his grandfather's, the dealer in knives. He danced away from Mordecai, and took up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands in his knickerbockers.
"Well," said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, "I hope there'll be nothing in the way of your getting _kosher_ meat, Mordecai. For you'll have to trust to those you live with."
"That's all right, that's all right, you may be sure, mother," said Cohen, as if anxious to cut off inquiry on matters in which he was uncertain of the guest's position. "So, sir," he added, turning with a look of amused enlightenment to Deronda, "it was better than learning you had to talk to Mordecai about! I wondered to myself at the time. I thought somehow there was a something."
"Mordecai will perhaps explain to you how it was that I was seeking him," said Deronda, feeling that he had better go, and rising as he spoke.
It was agreed that he should come again and the final move be made on the next day but one; but when he was going Mordecai begged to walk with him to the end of the street, and wrapped himself in coat and comforter. It was a March evening, and Deronda did not mean to let him go far, but he understood the wish to be outside the house with him in communicative silence, after the exciting speech that had been filling the last hour. No word was spoken until Deronda had proposed parting, when he said,
"Mirah would wish to thank the Cohens for their goodness. You would wish her to do so--to come and see them, would you not?"
Mordecai did not answer immediately, but at length said,
"I cannot tell. I fear not. There is a family sorrow, and the sight of my sister might be to them as the fresh bleeding of wounds. There is a daughter and sister who will never be restored as Mirah is. But who knows the pathways? We are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers--and men in their careless deeds walk amidst invisible outstretched arms and pleadings made in vain. In my ears I have the prayers of generations past and to come. My life is as nothing to me but the beginning of fulfilment. And yet I am only another prayer--which you will fulfil."
Deronda pressed his hand, and they parted.

The time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the restored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before Mirah's meeting with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick had helped Deronda to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not far from her own house, so that the brother and sister would be within reach of her motherly care. She had kept the secret from the girls as well as from Hans, as any betrayal to them might reach Mirah and cause her agitation that would spoil the important opening of the work which was to secure her independence.
And both Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda had private reasons for desiring that Mirah should be able to maintain herself. "The little mother" felt some dubiousness about the remarkable brother described to her; and certainly if she felt any joy, it was due to her faith in Deronda's judgment. Mordecai's consumption was a sorrowful fact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was she to be glad of his antique brand of Jewish zeal? She was anything but prosaic, and had her share of Mab's delight in the romance of Mirah's story; but the romantic in real life requires some adaptation. We sit up at night to read about St. Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be glad for them to call on us the next morning, is quite another matter.
Besides, Mrs. Meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the intensity of Mirah's feeling about Judaism would slowly subside in the loving interchange with her new friends. In fact, her secret hope had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but concerned the feelings she perceived in Hans. And now, here was a brother who would dip Mirah's mind again in the deepest dye of Jewish sentiment. She could not help saying to Deronda-
"I am glad that the pawnbroker is not her brother: it is a comfort to think that all Jews are not like those shopkeepers who will not let you get out of their shops: and besides, what the brother said to you about his mother and sister makes me bless him. I am sure he's good. But I never did like anything fanatical. I suppose I heard a little too much preaching in my youth and lost my taste for it."
"I don't think you will find that Mordecai preaches," said Deronda. "He is not what I should call fanatical. I call a man fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he has no sense of proportion, and becomes unsympathetic to men who are out of his own track. Mordecai is an enthusiast; one of those who care supremely for general benefits to mankind. He is not a strictly orthodox Jew, and is full of allowances for others. The people he lives with are as fond of him as possible, though they can't in the least understand his ideas."
"Well, I will take your word for it. At least Mirah's brother will have good bedding - that I have taken care of; and I shall have this extra window pasted up to prevent draughts." (The conversation was taking place in the destined lodging.) "When the children know, we shall be able to make the rooms much prettier."
"The next stage is to tell all to Mordecai, and get him to move - which may be difficult," said Deronda.
"Let me tell Hans and the girls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning. I shall persuade them so hard to be glad, that I shall convert myself."
Deronda was anxiously preoccupied with the question of how to move Mordecai without wounding the Cohens. Mordecai had made it evident that he would be keenly alive to any injury to their feelings. After due reflection, Deronda wrote to him asking to see him in his own home the next evening for a particular purpose, if the Cohens would not regard it as an intrusion. He would call with the understanding that if there were any objection, Mordecai would accompany him elsewhere. Deronda hoped in this way to create a little preparatory expectation.
He was received with the usual friendliness, and a slight air of wondering which the Cohens did not allow to pass the bounds of silence. But when Deronda said, "I suppose Mordecai is expecting me," Jacob said, "What do you want to talk to him about?"
"Something that is very interesting to him," said Deronda, pinching the lad's ear, "but that you can't understand."
"Can you say this?" said Jacob, immediately reciting a string of his rote-learned Hebrew verses, with a sense of giving formidable evidence which might alter their mutual position.
"No," said Deronda, keeping grave; "I can't say anything like it."
"I thought not," said Jacob, performing a dance of triumph, while he took various objects out of his pockets as a hint of his resources; after which, running to the door of the workroom, he opened it wide, and said, "Mordecai, here's the young swell" - copying his father's phrase.
He was called back with hushes, and Deronda, entering and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had been laid down, a chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in sign of the Cohens' respect. As Mordecai rose to greet him, Deronda was struck with the air of solemn expectation in his face. Neither of them spoke, till Deronda had drawn the vacant chair to seat himself near to Mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty-
"You are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for."
"It is true I have something very weighty to tell you - something I trust that you will rejoice in," said Deronda, on his guard against the probability that Mordecai expected something quite different from the fact.
"It is all revealed - it is made clear to you," said Mordecai eagerly, clasping his hands. "You are as my brother - the heritage is yours - there is no doubt to divide us."
"I have learned nothing new about myself," said Deronda. The disappointment was inevitable: better not to delay it.
Mordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was really coming. All day his mind had been in a state of tension toward one fulfilment. The reaction was sickening and he closed his eyes.
"Except," Deronda went on gently,- "except that I had some time ago come into another hidden connection with you, besides the one in your own feeling."
The eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids.
"I met one in whom you are interested."
Mordecai opened his eyes and fixed them quietly on Deronda.
"One who is closely related to your departed mother," Deronda went on, wishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking movement in Mordecai, he added - "whom she and you held dear above all others."
Mordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on Deronda's wrist; there was a great terror in him. And Deronda divined it. With a tremor in his clear tones he said-
"What was prayed for has come to pass: Mirah has been delivered from evil."
Mordecai's grasp relaxed, but he was panting with a tearless sob.
Deronda went on: "Your sister is worthy of the mother you honoured." He waited, and Mordecai again closed his eyes, murmuring for some minutes in Hebrew, and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence. Deronda could have imagined that he was speaking with some beloved object: his face held a new sweetness, and for the first time Deronda thought he discerned a family resemblance to Mirah.
When Mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. But in describing Mirah's flight he made the statement about the father's conduct as vague as he could, and emphasised her yearning to come to England to find her mother. Also he kept back Mirah's intention to drown herself, and his rescue of her, merely describing the home she had found with friends of his. What he dwelt on was Mirah's feeling about her mother and brother; and about this he tried to give every detail.
"It was in search of them," said Deronda, smiling, "that I turned into this house: the name Ezra Cohen was just then the most interesting in the world to me. Perhaps you will forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder Mrs. Cohen's daughter. I cared very much what I should find Mirah's friends to be. But I found a brother worthy of her disguised under the name of Mordecai."
"Mordecai is really my name - Ezra Mordecai Cohen."
"Is there any kinship between this family and yours?" said Deronda.
"Only the kinship of Israel. My soul clings to these people, who have sheltered me out of the affection that abides in Jewish hearts. It is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound to them in gratitude, that I may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of the Jewish millions, and not put impatient knowledge in the stead of loving wisdom."
"But you don't feel bound to continue with them now there is a closer tie to draw you?" said Deronda, fearing he might find an obstacle to overcome. "It seems to me right that you should live with your sister; and I have prepared a home for you near her friends, that she may join you there. Pray grant me this wish. It will enable me to be with you often in the hours when Mirah is obliged to leave you. That is my selfish reason. But the chief reason is, that Mirah will desire to watch over you, and you ought to give her the guardianship of a brother's presence. You shall have books, and I shall want to learn from you, and take you out to see the river and trees. And you will have the rest and comfort that you will be more and more in need of. This is the claim I make on you, now that we have found each other."
Deronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he might have used to a venerated elder brother. Mordecai's eyes were fixed on him, and he was silent for a little while. Then he said, almost reproachfully-
"And you would have me doubt whether you were born a Jew! Have we not from the first touched each other like the leaves from a common stem? I am stricken, I am dying. But our souls know each other. They gazed in silence as those who have long been parted and meet again, but when they found voice they were assured, and all their speech is understanding. The life of Israel is in your veins."
Deronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. He waited, hoping for a more direct answer; and eventually Mordecai said-
"What you wish of me I will do. Our blessed mother would have wished it. I will accept what your loving kindness has prepared, and Mirah's home shall be mine." He added in a more melancholy tone, "But I shall grieve to part from this family. You must tell them, for my heart would fail me."
"I felt that you would want me to tell them. Shall we go now?" said Deronda, much relieved.
"Yes; let us not defer it," said Mordecai, rising with the air of a man who must perform a painful duty. "But do not dwell on my sister more than is needful."
When they entered the parlour he said to the alert Jacob, "Ask your father to come. My friend has something to say," he continued, turning to the elder Mrs. Cohen. The two women politely begged Deronda to seat himself in the best place, while Cohen said with satisfaction, "Well, sir! I'm glad you're doing us the honour to join our family party again."
And when all were seated on the hearth the scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side Baby being rocked by the young mother, and Adelaide Rebekah seated on the grandmother's knee; on the other, Jacob between his father's legs; while the two markedly different figures of Deronda and Mordecai were in the middle - Mordecai shaded from the firelight, anxious to conceal his agitation.
"I have just been telling Mordecai of an event that makes a great change in his life," Deronda began, "but I hope you will agree with me that it is a joyful one. Since he thinks of you as his best friends, he wishes me to tell you at once."
"Relations with money, sir?" burst in Cohen.
"No; not exactly," said Deronda, smiling. "But a very precious relation wishes to be reunited to him - a good and lovely young sister, who will care for his comfort in every way."
"Married, sir?"
"No, not married."
"But with an income?"
"With talents which will secure her an income. A home is already provided for Mordecai."
There was silence for a moment before the grandmother wailed-
"Well! so you're going away from us, Mordecai."
"To where there's no children," said the mother, catching the wail. "No Jacob, no Adelaide, and no Eugenie!"
"Ay, Jacob's learning will wear out of him. He must go to school. It'll be hard times for Jacob," said Cohen decisively.
To Jacob these words sounded like a doom. His face had shown a wondering sorrow at the notion of Mordecai's going away: but at the mention of "hard times for Jacob" he broke forth in loud lamentation. Adelaide Rebekah always cried when her brother cried, and now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby awaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the cradle.
A great deal of hushing was necessary, and Mordecai, feeling the cries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob. His father, who had been comforting him, released him, and he went to Mordecai, who laid his cheek on the little black head without speaking. But Cohen, wishing to make some apology for all this weakness, addressed Deronda:-
"We're not people to grudge anybody's good luck, sir. I'm not an envious man, and if anybody offered to set up Mordecai in a shop of my sort two doors lower down, I shouldn't make wry faces about it. I'm not one of them that is frightened at anybody else getting a chance. And though, as I may say, you're taking some of our good works from us, which is property bearing interest, I'm not saying but we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good will to do for Mordecai to the last. And as to the extra outlay in schooling, I'm neither poor nor greedy. But the truth is, the women and children are fond of Mordecai. A Jewish man is bound to thank God, day by day, that he was not made a woman; but a woman has to thank God that He has made her according to His will. And we all know what He has made her - a child-bearing, tender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. So you must excuse present company, sir, for not being glad all at once. We shall be glad for Mordecai's sake by-and-by."
Before Deronda could answer, Mordecai exclaimed-
"Friends, friends! For food and shelter I would not have sought better than you have given me; and it would be a joy to me even in my last months to go on teaching the lad. For no light matter would I have turned away from your kindness. But the reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another - so said Ben Azai. You have made your duty a joy to you and me; and your reward shall be that you will have the joy of like deeds in time to come. And may Jacob come and visit me?"
Jacob, who had been gradually calmed, now began to see some daylight on the future, the word "visit" having the lively charm of cakes. He danced away from Mordecai, and stood in the hearth with his hands in his knickerbockers.
"Well," said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, "I hope there'll be nothing in the way of your getting kosher meat, Mordecai."
"That's all right, you may be sure, mother," said Cohen. "So, sir," he added, turning a look of amused enlightenment to Deronda, "it was more than learning that you had to talk to Mordecai about! I wondered at the time."
"Mordecai will perhaps explain to you why I was seeking him," said Deronda, rising to go.
Mordecai begged to walk with him to the end of the street, and wrapped himself in his coat. It was a March evening, and Deronda did not mean to let him go far, but he understood the wish to be outside with him in communicative silence, after the excitement of the last hour. No word was spoken until Deronda said-
"Mirah would wish to thank the Cohens for their goodness. Should she come and see them?"
Mordecai paused before saying-
"I cannot tell. I fear not. There is a family sorrow, and the sight of my sister might re-open those wounds. There is a daughter who will never be restored as Mirah is. But who knows the pathways? We are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers. In my ears I have the prayers of generations past and to come. And I am only another prayer - which you will fulfil."
Deronda pressed his hand, and they parted.


No penitence and no confessional, No priest ordains it, yet they're forced to sit Amid deep ashes of their vanished years.
Imagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of gray stone, and red-tiled, a round tower jutting at one of the corners, the mellow darkness of its conical roof surmounted by a weather-cock making an agreeable object either amidst the gleams and greenth of summer or the low-hanging clouds and snowy branches of winter: the ground shady with spreading trees: a great tree flourishing on one side, backward some Scotch firs on a broken bank where the roots hung naked, and beyond, a rookery: on the other side a pool overhung with bushes, where the water-fowl fluttered and screamed: all around, a vast meadow which might be called a park, bordered by an old plantation and guarded by stone lodges which looked like little prisons. Outside the gate the country, once entirely rural and lovely, now black with coal mines, was chiefly peopled by men and brethren with candles stuck in their hats, and with a diabolic complexion which laid them peculiarly open to suspicion in the eyes of the children at Gadsmere--Mrs. Glasher's four beautiful children, who had dwelt there for about three years. Now, in November, when the flower-beds were empty, the trees leafless, and the pool blackly shivering, one might have said that the place was sombrely in keeping with the black roads and black mounds which seemed to put the district in mourning;--except when the children were playing on the gravel with the dogs for their companions. But Mrs. Glasher, under her present circumstances, liked Gadsmere as well as she would have liked any other abode. The complete seclusion of the place, which the unattractiveness of the country secured, was exactly to her taste. When she drove her two ponies with a waggonet full of children, there were no gentry in carriages to be met, only men of business in gigs; at church there were no eyes she cared to avoid, for the curate's wife and the curate himself were either ignorant of anything to her disadvantage, or ignored it: to them she was simply a widow lady, the tenant of Gadsmere; and the name of Grandcourt was of little interest in that district compared with the names of Fletcher and Gawcome, the lessees of the collieries.
It was full ten years since the elopement of an Irish officer's beautiful wife with young Grandcourt, and a consequent duel where the bullets wounded the air only, had made some little noise. Most of those who remembered the affair now wondered what had become of that Mrs. Glasher, whose beauty and brilliancy had made her rather conspicuous to them in foreign places, where she was known to be living with young Grandcourt.
That he should have disentangled himself from that connection seemed only natural and desirable. As to her, it was thought that a woman who was understood to have forsaken her child along with her husband had probably sunk lower. Grandcourt had of course got weary of her. He was much given to the pursuit of women: but a man in his position would by this time desire to make a suitable marriage with the fair young daughter of a noble house. No one talked of Mrs. Glasher now, any more than they talked of the victim in a trial for manslaughter ten years before: she was a lost vessel after whom nobody would send out an expedition of search; but Grandcourt was seen in harbor with his colors flying, registered as seaworthy as ever.
Yet, in fact, Grandcourt had never disentangled himself from Mrs. Glasher. His passion for her had been the strongest and most lasting he had ever known; and though it was now as dead as the music of a cracked flute, it had left a certain dull disposedness, which, on the death of her husband three years before, had prompted in him a vacillating notion of marrying her, in accordance with the understanding often expressed between them during the days of his first ardor. At that early time Grandcourt would willingly have paid for the freedom to be won by a divorce; but the husband would not oblige him, not wanting to be married again himself, and not wishing to have his domestic habits printed in evidence.
The altered poise which the years had brought in Mrs. Glasher was just the reverse. At first she was comparatively careless about the possibility of marriage. It was enough that she had escaped from a disagreeable husband and found a sort of bliss with a lover who had completely fascinated her--young, handsome, amorous, and living in the best style, with equipage and conversation of the kind to be expected in young men of fortune who have seen everything. She was an impassioned, vivacious woman, fond of adoration, exasperated by five years of marital rudeness; and the sense of release was so strong upon her that it stilled anxiety for more than she actually enjoyed. An equivocal position was of no importance to her then; she had no envy for the honors of a dull, disregarded wife: the one spot which spoiled her vision of her new pleasant world, was the sense that she left her three-year-old boy, who died two years afterward, and whose first tones saying "mamma" retained a difference from those of the children that came after. But now the years had brought many changes besides those in the contour of her cheek and throat; and that Grandcourt should marry her had become her dominant desire. The equivocal position which she had not minded about for herself was now telling upon her through her children, whom she loved with a devotion charged with the added passion of atonement. She had no repentance except in this direction. If Grandcourt married her, the children would be none the worse off for what had passed: they would see their mother in a dignified position, and they would be at no disadvantage with the world: her son could be made his father's heir. It was the yearning for this result which gave the supreme importance to Grandcourt's feeling for her; her love for him had long resolved itself into anxiety that he should give her the unique, permanent claim of a wife, and she expected no other happiness in marriage than the satisfaction of her maternal love and pride--including her pride for herself in the presence of her children. For the sake of that result she was prepared even with a tragic firmness to endure anything quietly in marriage; and she had acuteness enough to cherish Grandcourt's flickering purpose negatively, by not molesting him with passionate appeals and with scene-making. In her, as in every one else who wanted anything of him, his incalculable turns, and his tendency to harden under beseeching, had created a reasonable dread:--a slow discovery, of which no presentiment had been given in the bearing of a youthful lover with a fine line of face and the softest manners. But reticence had necessarily cost something to this impassioned woman, and she was the bitterer for it. There is no quailing--even that forced on the helpless and injured--which has not an ugly obverse: the withheld sting was gathering venom. She was absolutely dependent on Grandcourt; for though he had been always liberal in expenses for her, he had kept everything voluntary on his part; and with the goal of marriage before her, she would ask for nothing less. He had said that he would never settle anything except by will; and when she was thinking of alternatives for the future it often occurred to her that, even if she did not become Grandcourt's wife, he might never have a son who would have a legitimate claim on him, and the end might be that her son would be made heir to the best part of his estates. No son at that early age could promise to have more of his father's physique. But her becoming Grandcourt's wife was so far from being an extravagant notion of possibility, that even Lush had entertained it, and had said that he would as soon bet on it as on any other likelihood with regard to his familiar companion. Lush, indeed, on inferring that Grandcourt had a preconception of using his residence at Diplow in order to win Miss Arrowpoint, had thought it well to fan that project, taking it as a tacit renunciation of the marriage with Mrs. Glasher, which had long been a mark for the hovering and wheeling of Grandcourt's caprice. But both prospects had been negatived by Gwendolen's appearance on the scene; and it was natural enough for Mrs. Glasher to enter with eagerness into Lush's plan of hindering that new danger by setting up a barrier in the mind of the girl who was being sought as a bride. She entered into it with an eagerness which had passion in it as well as purpose, some of the stored-up venom delivering itself in that way.
After that, she had heard from Lush of Gwendolen's departure, and the probability that all danger from her was got rid of; but there had been no letter to tell her that the danger had returned and had become a certainty. She had since then written to Grandcourt, as she did habitually, and he had been longer than usual in answering. She was inferring that he might intend coming to Gadsmere at the time when he was actually on the way; and she was not without hope--what construction of another's mind is not strong wishing equal to?--that a certain sickening from that frustrated courtship might dispose him to slip the more easily into the old track of intention.
Grandcourt had two grave purposes in coming to Gadsmere: to convey the news of his approaching marriage in person, in order to make this first difficulty final; and to get from Lydia his mother's diamonds, which long ago he had confided to her and wished her to wear. Her person suited diamonds, and made them look as if they were worth some of the money given for them. These particular diamonds were not mountains of light--they were mere peas and haricots for the ears, neck and hair; but they were worth some thousands, and Grandcourt necessarily wished to have them for his wife. Formerly when he had asked Lydia to put them into his keeping again, simply on the ground that they would be safer and ought to be deposited at the bank, she had quietly but absolutely refused, declaring that they were quite safe; and at last had said, "If you ever marry another woman I will give them up to her: are you going to marry another woman?" At that time Grandcourt had no motive which urged him to persist, and he had this grace in him, that the disposition to exercise power either by cowing or disappointing others or exciting in them a rage which they dared not express--a disposition which was active in him as other propensities became languid--had always been in abeyance before Lydia. A severe interpreter might say that the mere facts of their relation to each other, the melancholy position of this woman who depended on his will, made a standing banquet for his delight in dominating. But there was something else than this in his forbearance toward her: there was the surviving though metamorphosed effect of the power she had had over him; and it was this effect, the fitful dull lapse toward solicitations that once had the zest now missing from life, which had again and again inclined him to espouse a familiar past rather than rouse himself to the expectation of novelty. But now novelty had taken hold of him and urged him to make the most of it.
Mrs. Glasher was seated in the pleasant room where she habitually passed her mornings with her children round her. It had a square projecting window and looked on broad gravel and grass, sloping toward a little brook that entered the pool. The top of a low, black cabinet, the old oak table, the chairs in tawny leather, were littered with the children's toys, books and garden garments, at which a maternal lady in pastel looked down from the walls with smiling indulgence. The children were all there. The three girls, seated round their mother near the widow, were miniature portraits of her--dark-eyed, delicate-featured brunettes with a rich bloom on their cheeks, their little nostrils and eyebrows singularly finished as if they were tiny women, the eldest being barely nine. The boy was seated on the carpet at some distance, bending his blonde head over the animals from a Noah's ark, admonishing them separately in a voice of threatening command, and occasionally licking the spotted ones to see if the colors would hold. Josephine, the eldest, was having her French lesson; and the others, with their dolls on their laps, sat demurely enough for images of the Madonna. Mrs. Glasher's toilet had been made very carefully--each day now she said to herself that Grandcourt might come in. Her head, which, spite of emaciation, had an ineffaceable beauty in the fine profile, crisp curves of hair, and clearly-marked eyebrows, rose impressively above her bronze-colored silk and velvet, and the gold necklace which Grandcourt had first clasped round her neck years ago. Not that she had any pleasure in her toilet; her chief thought of herself seen in the glass was, "How changed!"--but such good in life as remained to her she would keep. If her chief wish were fulfilled, she could imagine herself getting the comeliness of a matron fit for the highest rank. The little faces beside her, almost exact reductions of her own, seemed to tell of the blooming curves which had once been where now was sunken pallor. But the children kissed the pale cheeks and never found them deficient. That love was now the one end of her life.
Suddenly Mrs. Glasher turned away her head from Josephine's book and listened. "Hush, dear! I think some one is coming."
Henleigh the boy jumped up and said, "Mamma, is it the miller with my donkey?"
He got no answer, and going up to his mamma's knee repeated his question in an insistent tone. But the door opened, and the servant announced Mr. Grandcourt. Mrs. Glasher rose in some agitation. Henleigh frowned at him in disgust at his not being the miller, and the three little girls lifted up their dark eyes to him timidly. They had none of them any particular liking for this friend of mamma's--in fact, when he had taken Mrs. Glasher's hand and then turned to put his other hand on Henleigh's head, that energetic scion began to beat the friend's arm away with his fists. The little girls submitted bashfully to be patted under the chin and kissed, but on the whole it seemed better to send them into the garden, where they were presently dancing and chatting with the dogs on the gravel.
"How far are you come?" said Mrs. Glasher, as Grandcourt put away his hat and overcoat.
"From Diplow," he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her and looking at her with an unnoting gaze which she noted.
"You are tired, then."
"No, I rested at the Junction--a hideous hole. These railway journeys are always a confounded bore. But I had coffee and smoked."
Grandcourt drew out his handkerchief, rubbed his face, and in returning the handkerchief to his pocket looked at his crossed knee and blameless boot, as if any stranger were opposite to him, instead of a woman quivering with a suspense which every word and look of his was to incline toward hope or dread. But he was really occupied with their interview and what it was likely to include. Imagine the difference in rate of emotion between this woman whom the years had worn to a more conscious dependence and sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were dulling into a more neutral obstinacy.
"I expected to see you--it was so long since I had heard from you. I suppose the weeks seem longer at Gadsmere than they do at Diplow," said Mrs. Glasher. She had a quick, incisive way of speaking that seemed to go with her features, as the tone and _timbre_ of a violin go with its form.
"Yes," drawled Grandcourt. "But you found the money paid into the bank."
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. Always before--at least she fancied so--Grandcourt had taken more notice of her and the children than he did to-day.
"Yes," he resumed, playing with his whisker, and at first not looking at her, "the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace with me; generally it is slow enough. But there has been a good deal happening, as you know"--here he turned his eyes upon her.
"What do I know?" said she, sharply.
He left a pause before he said, without change of manner, "That I was thinking of marrying. You saw Miss Harleth?"
"_She_ told you that?"
The pale cheeks looked even paler, perhaps from the fierce brightness in the eyes above them.
"No. Lush told me," was the slow answer. It was as if the thumb-screw and the iron boot were being placed by creeping hands within sight of the expectant victim.
"Good God! say at once that you are going to marry her," she burst out, passionately, her knees shaking and her hands tightly clasped.
"Of course, this kind of thing must happen some time or other, Lydia," said he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the pain worse.
"You didn't always see the necessity."
"Perhaps not. I see it now."
In those few under-toned words of Grandcourt's she felt as absolute a resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron door. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any appeal--shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, only to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. She did not weep nor speak; she was too hard pressed by the sudden certainty which had as much of chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. The defeated clutch of struggling hope gave her in these first moments a horrible sensation. At last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, unconscious of every thing but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead against the hard, cold glass of the window. The children, playing on the gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted them, and, running forward, stood in front of her with their sweet faces upturned expectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them off, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back in the nearest chair.
Grandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed--at the scene itself, and at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it; but the task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative necessity of arranging things so that there should be as little annoyance as possible in the future. He was leaning against the corner of the fire-place. She looked up at him and said, bitterly,
"All this is of no consequence to you. I and the children are importunate creatures. You wish to get away again and be with Miss Harleth."
"Don't make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. Lydia. It is of no use to harp on things that can't be altered. Of course, its deucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. I've taken this journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to--you and the children will be provided for as usual--and there's an end of it."
Silence. She dared not answer. This woman with the intense, eager look had had the iron of the mother's anguish in her soul, and it had made her sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and struggle. But underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and vindictiveness: she wished that the marriage might make two others wretched, besides herself. Presently he went on,
"It will be better for you. You may go on living here. But I think of by-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live where you like. There will be nothing for you to complain of then. Whatever happens, you will feel secure. Nothing could be done beforehand. Every thing has gone on in a hurry."
Grandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. He did not expect her to thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented; if it were possible for Lydia to be contented. She showed no change, and after a minute he said,
"You have never had any reason to fear that I should be illiberal. I don't care a curse about the money."
"If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us," said Lydia. The sarcasm was irrepressible.
"That's a devilishly unfair thing to say," Grandcourt replied, in a lower tone; "and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again."
"Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?" In spite of herself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other.
"There is no question about leaving the children in beggary," said Grandcourt, still in his low voice. "I advise you not to say things that you will repent of."
"I am used to repenting," said she, bitterly. "Perhaps you will repent. You have already repented of loving me."
"All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again. What friend have you besides me?"
"Quite true."
The words came like a low moan. At the same moment there flashed through her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness than that he had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness which would drive him back to her to find some memory of a time when he was young, glad, and hopeful. But no! he would go scathless; it was she that had to suffer.
With this the scorching words were ended. Grandcourt had meant to stay till evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable train earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still to speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a second surgical operation seemed to require an interval. The hours had to go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in--all this mechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of constraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind. To Lydia it was some slight relief for her stifled fury to have the children present: she felt a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it would taunt Grandcourt with his indifference to her and them--a secret darting of venom which was strongly imaginative. He acquitted himself with all the advantage of a man whose grace of bearing has long been moulded on an experience of boredom--nursed the little Antonia, who sat with her hands crossed and eyes upturned to his bald head, which struck her as worthy of observation--and propitiated Henleigh by promising him a beautiful saddle and bridle. It was only the two eldest girls who had known him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had overlaid their infantine memories with a bashfulness which Grandcourt's bearing was not likely to dissipate. He and Lydia occasionally, in the presence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they never spoke; and the stagnant thought in Grandcourt's mind all the while was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds, which obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking about them. He had an ingrained care for what he held to belong to his caste, and about property he liked to be lordly; also he had a consciousness of indignity to himself in having to ask for anything in the world. But however he might assert his independence of Mrs. Glasher's past, he had made a past for himself which was a stronger yoke than any he could impose. He must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to Gwendolen.
At last they were alone again, with the candles above them, face to face with each other. Grandcourt looked at his watch, and then said, in an apparently indifferent drawl, "There is one thing I had to mention, Lydia. My diamonds--you have them."
"Yes, I have them," she answered promptly, rising and standing with her arms thrust down and her fingers threaded, while Grandcourt sat still. She had expected the topic, and made her resolve about it. But she meant to carry out her resolve, if possible, without exasperating him. During the hours of silence she had longed to recall the words which had only widened the breach between them.
"They are in this house, I suppose?"
"No; not in this house."
"I thought you said you kept them by you."
"When I said so it was true. They are in the bank at Dudley."
"Get them away, will you? I must make an arrangement for your delivering them to some one."
"Make no arrangement. They shall be delivered to the person you intended them for. _I_ will make the arrangement."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say. I have always told you that I would give them up to your wife. I shall keep my word. She is not your wife yet."
"This is foolery," said Grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. It was too irritating that this indulgence of Lydia had given her a sort of mastery over him in spite of dependent condition.
She did not speak. He also rose now, but stood leaning against the mantle-piece with his side-face toward her.
"The diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage," he began again.
"What is your wedding-day?"
"The tenth. There is no time to be lost."
"And where do you go after the marriage?"
He did not reply except by looking more sullen. Presently he said, "You must appoint a day before then, to get them from the bank and meet me--or somebody else I will commission;--it's a great nuisance. Mention a day."
"No; I shall not do that. They shall be delivered to her safely. I shall keep my word."
"Do you mean to say," said Grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face her, "that you will not do as I tell you?"
"Yes, I mean that," was the answer that leaped out, while her eyes flashed close to him. The poor creature was immediately conscious that if her words had any effect on her own lot, the effect must be mischievous, and might nullify all the remaining advantage of her long patience. But the word had been spoken.
He was in a position the most irritating to him. He could not shake her nor touch her hostilely; and if he could, the process would not bring his mother's diamonds. He shrank from the only sort of threat that would frighten her--if she believed it. And in general, there was nothing he hated more than to be forced into anything like violence even in words: his will must impose itself without trouble. After looking at her for a moment, he turned his side-face toward her again, leaning as before, and said,
"Infernal idiots that women are!"
"Why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? I could be at the wedding if I liked, and learn in that way," said Lydia, not shrinking from the one suicidal form of threat within her power.
"Of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman," said Grandcourt, with _sotto voce_ scorn. "It is not to be supposed that you will wait to think what good will come of it--or what you owe to me."
He was in a state of disgust and embitterment quite new in the history of their relation to each other. It was undeniable that this woman, whose life he had allowed to send such deep suckers into his, had a terrible power of annoyance in her; and the rash hurry of his proceedings had left her opportunities open. His pride saw very ugly possibilities threatening it, and he stood for several minutes in silence reviewing the situation--considering how he could act upon her. Unlike himself she was of a direct nature, with certain simple strongly-colored tendencies, and there was one often-experienced effect which he thought he could count upon now. As Sir Hugo had said of him, Grandcourt knew how to play his cards upon occasion.
He did not speak again, but looked at his watch, rang the bell, and ordered the vehicle to be brought round immediately. Then he removed farther from her, walked as if in expectation of a summons, and remained silent without turning his eyes upon her.
She was suffering the horrible conflict of self-reproach and tenacity. She saw beforehand Grandcourt leaving her without even looking at her again--herself left behind in lonely uncertainty--hearing nothing from him--not knowing whether she had done her children harm--feeling that she had perhaps made him hate her;--all the wretchedness of a creature who had defeated her own motives. And yet she could not bear to give up a purpose which was a sweet morsel to her vindictiveness. If she had not been a mother she would willingly have sacrificed herself to her revenge--to what she felt to be the justice of hindering another from getting happiness by willingly giving her over to misery. The two dominant passions were at struggle. She must satisfy them both.
"Don't let us part in anger, Henleigh," she began, without changing her voice or attitude: "it is a very little thing I ask. If I were refusing to give anything up that you call yours it would be different: that would be a reason for treating me as if you hated me. But I ask such a little thing. If you will tell me where you are going on the wedding-day I will take care that the diamonds shall be delivered to her without scandal. Without scandal," she repeated entreatingly.
"Such preposterous whims make a woman odious," said Grandcourt, not giving way in look or movement. "What is the use of talking to mad people?"
"Yes, I am foolish--loneliness has made me foolish--indulge me." Sobs rose as she spoke. "If you will indulge me in this one folly I will be very meek--I will never trouble you." She burst into hysterical crying, and said again almost with a scream--"I will be very meek after that."
There was a strange mixture of acting and reality in this passion. She kept hold of her purpose as a child might tighten its hand over a small stolen thing, crying and denying all the while. Even Grandcourt was wrought upon by surprise: this capricious wish, this childish violence, was as unlike Lydia's bearing as it was incongruous with her person. Both had always had a stamp of dignity on them. Yet she seemed more manageable in this state than in her former attitude of defiance. He came close up to her again, and said, in his low imperious tone, "Be quiet, and hear what I tell you, I will never forgive you if you present yourself again and make a scene."
She pressed her handkerchief against her face, and when she could speak firmly said, in the muffled voice that follows sobbing, "I will not--if you will let me have my way--I promise you not to thrust myself forward again. I have never broken my word to you--how many have you broken to me? When you gave me the diamonds to wear you were not thinking of having another wife. And I now give them up--I don't reproach you--I only ask you to let me give them up in my own way. Have I not borne it well? Everything is to be taken away from me, and when I ask for a straw, a chip--you deny it me." She had spoken rapidly, but after a little pause she said more slowly, her voice freed from its muffled tone: "I will not bear to have it denied me."
Grandcourt had a baffling sense that he had to deal with something like madness; he could only govern by giving way. The servant came to say the fly was ready. When the door was shut again Grandcourt said sullenly, "We are going to Ryelands then."
"They shall be delivered to her there," said Lydia, with decision.
"Very well, I am going." He felt no inclination even to take her hand: she had annoyed him too sorely. But now that she had gained her point, she was prepared to humble herself that she might propitiate him.
"Forgive me; I will never vex you again," she said, with beseeching looks. Her inward voice said distinctly--"It is only I who have to forgive." Yet she was obliged to ask forgiveness.
"You had better keep that promise. You have made me feel uncommonly ill with your folly," said Grandcourt, apparently choosing this statement as the strongest possible use of language.
"Poor thing!" cried Lydia, with a faint smile;--was he aware of the minor fact that he made her feel ill this morning?
But with the quick transition natural to her, she was now ready to coax him if he would let her, that they might part in some degree reconciled. She ventured to lay her hand on his shoulder, and he did not move away from her: she had so far succeeded in alarming him, that he was not sorry for these proofs of returned subjection.
"Light a cigar," she said, soothingly, taking the case from his breast-pocket and opening it.
Amidst such caressing signs of mutual fear they parted. The effect that clung and gnawed within Grandcourt was a sense of imperfect mastery.

Imagine a rambling house, built of grey stone and red-tiled, a round tower jutting at its corner: a great tree flourishing on one side, with a rookery behind it; on the other side a pool overhung with bushes, where the water-fowl fluttered and screamed: all around, a vast park, bordered by an old plantation. Outside the gate the country, once entirely rural and lovely, now black with coal mines, was chiefly peopled by men with candles stuck in their hats, whose dark faces frightened the children at Gadsmere - Mrs. Glasher's four beautiful children, who had dwelt there for three years.
Now, in November, when the trees were leafless and the pool blackly shivering, the place was sombrely in keeping with the black roads and black mounds which seemed to put the district in mourning. But Mrs. Glasher liked Gadsmere as well as she would have liked any other abode. Its complete seclusion was to her taste. When she drove her two ponies with a waggonet full of children, there were no gentry in carriages to be met, only men of business in gigs; at church there were no eyes she needed to avoid, for to the curate she was simply a widow, the tenant of Gadsmere.
It was full ten years since the elopement of an Irish officer's beautiful wife with young Grandcourt, and a consequent duel where the bullets wounded the air only. Most of those who remembered the affair now wondered what had become of the beautiful and brilliant Lydia Glasher after she had gone to live with young Grandcourt abroad.
That he should have disentangled himself from her seemed natural and desirable. As to her, it was thought that a woman who had forsaken her child along with her husband had probably sunk lower still. Grandcourt had of course got weary of her. He was much given to the pursuit of women: but a man in his position would in time desire to make a suitable marriage. No one talked of Mrs. Glasher now: she was a lost vessel after whom nobody would send out a search expedition; but Grandcourt was seen in harbour with his colours flying, as seaworthy as ever.
Yet, in fact, Grandcourt had never disentangled himself from Mrs. Glasher. His passion for her had been the strongest and most lasting he had ever known; and though it was now as dead as the music of a cracked flute, it had left a certain dull disposedness, which, on the death of her husband three years before, had made him consider marrying her, as he had wished to in the days of his first ardour. At that early time the husband would not oblige him by divorcing Mrs Glasher.
In contrast, Mrs. Glasher herself was at first careless about the possibility of marriage. It was enough that she had escaped from a disagreeable husband and found bliss with a lover who had completely fascinated her - young, handsome, amorous, and living in the best style. She was an impassioned, vivacious woman, fond of adoration, exasperated by five years of marital rudeness as a disregarded wife. The one blot on her vision of her new pleasant world, was the knowledge that she left her three-year-old boy, who died two years afterward, and whose first tones saying "mamma" retained a difference from those of the children that came after.
But now, over the changes of the years, the desire that Grandcourt should marry her had become dominant. This was on behalf of her children, whom she loved with a devotion charged with the added passion of atonement. She had no repentance except in this direction. If Grandcourt married her, the children would be none the worse off for what had passed: they would be at no disadvantage with the world if her son was made his father's heir. Her love for Grandcourt had long resolved itself into anxiety that he should marry her, and for her children's sake she was prepared to endure anything quietly in marriage. She was acute enough to cherish Grandcourt's flickering purpose by not molesting him with passionate appeals and scene-making. His incalculable turns, and his tendency to harden under beseeching, had created dread in her. But her reticence made her bitter: the withheld sting was gathering venom.
She was absolutely dependent on Grandcourt. Though he had always been liberal in expenses for her, he had said that he would never settle anything except by will; and it often occurred to her that, even if she did not become Grandcourt's wife, he might never have a legitimate son; so in the end her boy might be made heir to his estates. No son could promise to have more of his father's physique.
But her becoming Grandcourt's wife was so far from being impossible, that even Lush had thought Grandcourt was as likely to marry Mrs. Glasher as anyone else. Indeed, when Lush thought that Grandcourt had an idea of attempting to win Miss Arrowpoint, he had supported that project instead. But both prospects had been eclipsed by Gwendolen's appearance on the scene; and Mrs. Glasher entered with eagerness into Lush's plan of hindering that new danger by setting up a barrier in Gwendolen's mind.
After that, she had heard from Lush of Gwendolen's departure, and that the danger was gone; but there had been no letter to tell her that the danger had returned and had become a certainty. She had since then written to Grandcourt, as she did habitually, and he had been longer than usual in answering. She thought that he might intend coming to see her, and she hoped that a frustrated courtship might dispose him to slip the more easily into his old track.
Grandcourt had two purposes in coming to Gadsmere: to convey the news of his approaching marriage in person; and to get from Lydia his mother's diamonds, which long ago he had handed to her. These particular diamonds were not mountains of light - they were mere peas and haricots for the ears, neck and hair; but they were worth some thousands, and Grandcourt wished to have them for his wife. Formerly when he had asked Lydia to put them into his keeping again, simply on the ground that they would be safer, she had quietly but absolutely refused, declaring that they were quite safe; and had said, "If you ever marry another woman I will give them up to her."
At that time Grandcourt had no motive which urged him to persist, and he had this grace in him, that he did not like to exercise his power of cowing or disappointing her as he did with others. A severe interpreter might say that the mere facts of their relation to each other, the melancholy position of this woman who depended on his will, made a standing banquet for his delight in dominating. But there was something more: there was the memory of the power she once had over him, which inclined him to espouse a familiar past rather than rouse himself to the expectation of novelty. But now novelty had taken hold of him.
Mrs. Glasher was seated in the pleasant room where she habitually passed her mornings with her children. The window looked out on broad gravel and grass; the old oak table was littered with the children's toys and books. The three girls, seated round their mother, were miniature portraits of her - dark-eyed, delicate-featured brunettes, the eldest being barely nine. The boy was seated on the carpet, bending his blonde head over the animals from a Noah's ark, admonishing them in a voice of threatening command, and occasionally licking them to see if the colours would hold.
Mrs. Glasher had dressed carefully, for each day now she said to herself that Grandcourt might come. Her head, which though emaciated, had an ineffaceable beauty, rose impressively above her bronze-coloured silk and velvet, and the gold necklace which Grandcourt had first clasped round her neck years ago. Not that she had any pleasure in her looks; her chief thought when she looked in the glass was, "How changed!" But the children kissed the pale cheeks and never found them deficient. That love was now the one end of her life.
Suddenly Mrs. Glasher turned her head and listened. "Hush, dear! I think some one is coming."
Henleigh the boy jumped up and said, "Mamma, is it the miller with my donkey?"
He got no answer, and going up to his mamma's knee repeated his question insistently. But the door opened, and the servant announced Mr. Grandcourt.
Mrs. Glasher rose in some agitation. Henleigh frowned at him in disgust at his not being the miller, and the three little girls lifted up their dark eyes to him timidly. They had none of them any particular liking for this friend of mamma's - in fact, when he put his hand on Henleigh's head, the boy began to beat the arm away with his fists. The little girls submitted bashfully to be patted under the chin, but on the whole it seemed better to send them into the garden, where they were presently dancing and chatting with the dogs on the gravel.
"How far have you come?" said Mrs. Glasher.
"From Diplow," he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her. She noted his unseeing gaze.
"You are tired, then."
"No, I rested at the Junction - a hideous hole. These railway journeys are always a confounded bore."
Grandcourt rubbed his face, and looked at his crossed knee and blameless boot, as if a stranger sat opposite him, instead of a woman quivering with suspense. Imagine the difference in emotion between this woman whom the years had worn to sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were dulling into obstinacy.
"I expected to see you - it was so long since I had heard from you," said Mrs. Glasher. She had a quick, incisive way of speaking.
"Yes," drawled Grandcourt. "But you found the money paid into the bank."
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. Always before, Grandcourt had taken more notice of her and the children than he did to-day.
"Yes," he resumed, playing with his whisker, "the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace. But there has been a good deal happening, as you know." Here he turned his eyes upon her.
"What do I know?" said she, sharply.
He left a pause before he said, without change of manner, "That I was thinking of marrying. You saw Miss Harleth?"
"She told you that?" The pale cheeks looked even paler.
"No. Lush told me," was the slow answer. It was as if the thumb-screw was being placed by creeping hands within sight of the expectant victim.
"Good God! say at once that you are going to marry her," she burst out passionately, her hands tightly clasped.
"Of course, it must happen some time or other, Lydia," said he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the pain worse.
"You didn't always see the necessity."
"Perhaps not. I see it now."
In those few words she felt as absolute a resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at an iron door. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any appeal - shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, only to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. She did not weep nor speak. At last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, unconscious of everything but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead against the hard, cold glass of the window. The children, playing on the gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted them, and, running forward, stood in front of her with their sweet faces upturned expectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them off, and overcome, sank back in the nearest chair.
Grandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed - at the scene itself, and at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it; but the task had to be gone through. She looked up at him and said bitterly-
"The children and I are of no consequence to you. You wish to get away again and be with Miss Harleth."
"Don't make the affair more disagreeable than it need be, Lydia. It's deucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. You must make your mind up to it - you and the children will be provided for as usual - and there's an end of it."
She dared not answer. This intense woman had the iron of a mother's anguish in her soul, and it had made her capable of a repression harder than shrieking and struggle. But underneath the silence there was vindictive hatred: she wished that the marriage might make them wretched. He went on-
"You may go on living here. But I think of by-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live where you like. You will have nothing to complain of. I don't care a curse about the money."
"If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us," said Lydia.
"That's a devilishly unfair thing to say," Grandcourt replied, in a lower tone; "and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again."
"Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?" she said in spite of herself.
"There is no question about leaving the children in beggary," said Grandcourt, still in his low voice. "Do not say things that you will repent of."
"I am used to repenting," said she, bitterly. "Perhaps you will repent. You have already repented of loving me."
"All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again. What friend have you besides me?"
"Quite true."
The words came like a low moan. Through her mind flashed the wish that he might feel a misery and loneliness which would drive him back to her. But no! he would go unscathed; it was she that had to suffer.
With this the scorching words were ended. Although Grandcourt still had to speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, like a second surgical operation it seemed to require an interval. The hours had to go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in - all this mechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary constraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels. Lydia felt a savage glory in her children's loveliness, as if it would taunt Grandcourt with his indifference.
He acquitted himself with bored grace - nursed the little Antonia, who sat with her eyes upturned to his bald head - and propitiated Henleigh by promising him a beautiful saddle and bridle. It was only the two eldest girls who had known him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had overlaid their memories with bashfulness.
He and Lydia occasionally, in the presence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they never spoke; and the thought in Grandcourt's mind all the while was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds, which obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking about them. He did not like to ask for anything; but he must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to Gwendolen.
At last they were alone again. Grandcourt looked at his watch, and said, in an apparently indifferent drawl, "There is one thing I had to mention, Lydia. My diamonds - you have them."
"Yes, I have them," she answered promptly, rising and standing with her fingers threaded. She had expected the topic, and made her resolve; but she meant to carry it out, if possible, without exasperating him.
"They are in this house, I suppose?"
"No; they are in the bank at Dudley."
"Get them away, will you? I must make an arrangement for your delivering them to some one."
"Make no arrangement. They shall be delivered to the person you intended them for."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say. I have always told you that I would give them up to your wife. I shall keep my word. She is not your wife yet."
"This is foolery," said Grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. It was too irritating that Lydia had any sort of mastery over him in spite of her dependence. "The diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage."
"What is your wedding-day?"
"The tenth. There is no time to be lost."
"And where do you go after the marriage?"
He did not reply except by looking more sullen. Presently he said, "You must get them from the bank before then and meet me; it's a great nuisance."
"No; I shall not do that. They shall be delivered to her safely. I shall keep my word."
"Do you mean to say," said Grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face her, "that you will not do as I tell you?"
"Yes, I mean that." The poor creature was immediately conscious that the effect of her words on her own position must be mischievous. But the words had been spoken.
He was highly irritated, but he shrank from the only sort of threat that would frighten her - if she believed it. And there was nothing he hated more than to be forced into anything like violence even in words: his will must impose itself without trouble. After a moment, he said-
"Infernal idiots that women are!"
"Why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? I could be at the wedding if I liked, and learn in that way," said Lydia, using the one suicidal form of threat within her power.
"Of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman," said Grandcourt, with sotto voce scorn. He was in a state of disgust and embitterment quite new in their relationship. This woman had a terrible power of annoyance; and the rash hurry of his proceedings had left opportunities open. He stood for several minutes in silence reviewing the situation - considering how he could act upon her. Unlike himself, she was of a direct nature, and there was one often-experienced effect which he thought he could count upon now.
He did not speak again, but looked at his watch, rang the bell, and ordered the vehicle to be brought round. Then he walked away silently without turning his eyes upon her.
She was suffering the horrible conflict of self-reproach and tenacity. She imagined Grandcourt leaving her without even looking at her again - herself left behind in lonely uncertainty - hearing nothing - not knowing whether she had done her children harm - feeling that she had perhaps made him hate her, and defeated her own motives. And yet she could not bear to give up a sweet revenge.
"Don't let us part in anger, Henleigh," she began: "it is a very little thing I ask. If you tell me where you are going on the wedding-day I will take care that the diamonds shall be delivered to her without scandal. Without scandal," she repeated entreatingly.
"Such preposterous whims make a woman odious," said Grandcourt, not giving way in look or movement. "What is the use of talking to mad people?"
"Yes, I am foolish - loneliness has made me foolish - indulge me." Sobs rose as she spoke. "If you will indulge me in this one folly I will never trouble you." She burst into hysterical crying, and said almost with a scream- "I will be very meek."
There was a strange mixture of acting and reality in this passion. She kept hold of her purpose as a child might tighten its hand over a small stolen thing, crying and denying all the while. Even Grandcourt was surprised: this childish caprice was unlike the normally dignified Lydia. He came close up to her, and said, in his low imperious tone, "Be quiet. I will never forgive you if you present yourself and make a scene."
She pressed her handkerchief against her face, and said, in a muffled voice, "If you let me have my way, I promise not to thrust myself forward again. I have never broken my word to you - how many have you broken to me? I don't reproach you - I only ask you to let me give up the diamonds in my own way. Have I not borne it well? Everything is to be taken away from me, and when I ask for a straw, you deny it me. I will not bear to have it denied me."
Grandcourt had a baffling sense that he had to deal with something like madness; he could only govern by giving way. He said sullenly, "We are going to Ryelands."
"They shall be delivered to her there," said Lydia. Now that she had gained her point, she was prepared to humble herself. "Forgive me; I will never vex you again," she said beseechingly.
"You had better keep that promise. You have made me feel uncommonly ill with your folly," said Grandcourt, apparently choosing this statement as the strongest possible use of language.
"Poor thing!" cried Lydia, with a faint smile. She was now ready to coax him if he would let her, so that they might part in some degree reconciled. She ventured to lay her hand on his shoulder, and he did not move away. She had so far succeeded in alarming him, that he was not sorry for these proofs of returned subjection.
"Light a cigar," she said, soothingly, taking the case from his breast-pocket.
Amidst such caressing signs of mutual fear they parted. The effect that clung and gnawed within Grandcourt was a sense of his imperfect mastery.

Book 4 - GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE | Chapter 30