Chapter Seventeen
On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing on the Thames. It was over a year since he had come back to England, with the understanding that his education was finished, and that he was to take his place in English society; and he had begun to read law, though only in deference to Sir Hugo’s wish, and to fence off idleness. His old love of boating had revived; he had a boat at Putney, and it was his chief holiday to row till past sunset and come in with the stars.
Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped, the bearded man with the lithe, powerful frame bore only traces of the seraphic boy. Still, even one who had never seen him since his boyhood might have recognised him, due perhaps to the gaze which Gwendolen called “dreadful,” though it had really a very mild sort of scrutiny. With his pale-brown skin and calmly penetrating eyes, he was seraphic no longer: the firm gravity of his face was thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in human dignity.
Deronda objected very strongly to the notion that his appearance might draw attention. His own face in the glass was associated with thoughts of some one whom he must be like – one about whom he continually wondered, and never dared to ask.
Near Kew Bridge, between six and seven o’clock, the river was no solitude. People were sauntering on the towing-path, and here and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been rowing fast, when, becoming aware of an approaching barge, he guided his boat aside, and paused near the river-bank. He was unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which he had been singing all the way up the river – the gondolier’s song in Rossini’s “Otello”:–
“Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.”
“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be reminded of the happy time
In misery.”
As he rested on his oar, the melodic fall of the “nella miseria” was distinctly audible on the bank. Three or four persons had paused to watch the barge passing the bridge, but probably it was only to one ear that the low singing came with any significance. Deronda saw a few yards away a figure which might have been an impersonation of the misery in his song: a girl hardly more than eighteen, of small, slim figure, with a most delicate little face, her dark curls pushed behind her ears under a large black hat, a long woollen cloak over her shoulders. Her eyes were fixed on the river with a look of immovable, statue-like despair.
This strong arrest of his attention made him cease singing: at which she changed her attitude, and, looking round with a frightened glance, met Deronda’s face. It was but a couple of moments, but that seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her look was something like a fawn’s before it turns to run away: no blush, no alarm, but only some timidity. In fact, Deronda thought that she was only half conscious of her surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her; but the next instant she had walked away to a bench under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her: poorly-dressed, melancholy women are common sights; it was only the delicate beauty of the image that was exceptional.
He began to row away and was soon far up the river; but he could not expel that pale image of unhappy girlhood. He began speculating on the tale behind her look of desolation; then smiled at his idea that interesting faces must have interesting adventures.
“I should not have forgotten the look of misery even if she had been ugly and vulgar,” he told himself. But there was no denying that the attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was as clear to him as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over the girl-tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded.
He used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken back by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn passivity which easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow light. By the time he had come back again with the tide past Richmond Bridge the sun was near setting: and the approach of his favourite hour – with its deepening stillness and darkening masses of tree between the double glow of the sky and the river – disposed him to linger. He looked for a solitary spot where he could lodge his boat against the bank to watch the sunset.
He chose a place in the bend of the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where he had a great breadth of water before him reflecting the glory of the sky, while he himself was in shadow. Lying with his hands behind his head, he could see all round him, but could not be seen by anyone at a few yards’ distance. He was forgetting everything but the view in front of him, when the sense of something moving on the opposite bank, in the willow bushes, made him glance that way.
At once he had a darting presentiment about the moving figure; and now he could see the small face with the dying sunlight upon it. Fearing to frighten her by a sudden movement, he watched her motionlessly. She looked round, and seeming to gather security from the solitude, hid her hat among the willows, and took off her woollen cloak. She seated herself and deliberately dipped the cloak in the water, holding it there, then taking it out with effort, and rising from her seat. By this time Deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening her.
He rose and plied his oar towards her. The poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery, sank down again, crouching and covering her face as if she kept a faint hope that she had not been seen. But soon he was close to her, steadying his boat against the bank, and speaking very gently–
“Don’t be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can do to help you.”
She raised her head and looked at him. But she did not speak for a few moments, while they renewed their former gaze at each other. At last she said in a low sweet voice, with an accent that suggested foreignness and yet was not foreign, “I saw you before,” and then added dreamily, “nella miseria. It was you, singing? Nessun maggior dolore.” The mere words uttered in her sweet undertones seemed to give the melody to Deronda’s ear.
“Yes,” he said, “I often sing that. But I fear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me carry you in my boat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak – let me take it.”
He would not take it without her leave. He fancied that she shrank and clutched the cloak tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him questioningly: she said, “You look good. Perhaps it is God’s command.”
“Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm come to you.”
She rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak and then letting it fall on the ground – it was too heavy for her tired arms. Her little woman’s figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands together one over the other against her waist, was unspeakably touching.
“Great God!” the words escaped Deronda like an unconscious prayer. The agitating impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred his deepest interest in the fates of women– “perhaps my mother was like this one,” he thought.
His low-toned words seemed to reassure the hearer: she stepped close to the boat’s side, and Deronda held out his hand, hoping she would let him help her in. She had already put her tiny hand into his when some new thought struck her, and drawing back she said–
“I have nowhere to go – nobody belonging to me in all this land.”
“I will take you to a lady who has daughters,” said Deronda immediately. He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched home and cruel friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not near. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly–
“Do you belong to the theatre?”
“No; I have nothing to do with the theatre,” said Deronda decidedly. “I will take you to perfect safety with a good woman; I am sure she will be kind. Let us lose no time: you will make yourself ill.
Life may still become sweet to you. There are good people who will take care of you.”
She stepped in and sat down on the cushions.
“You had a hat,” said Deronda. “I will find it.”
He jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak, wringing it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat.
“We must carry the cloak away, to prevent anyone who may have noticed you from thinking you have drowned,” he said, cheerfully, as he got in again. “I wish I had any other garment than my coat to offer you. But shall you mind throwing it over your shoulders while we are on the water? It is quite an ordinary thing to do, when people return late and are chilly.” He held out the coat with a smile, and there came a faint melancholy smile in answer, as she put it on.
“I have some biscuits – should you like them?” said Deronda.
“No; I cannot eat. I had still some money left to buy bread.”
He began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along swiftly for many minutes without speaking. She was watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if she were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the prospect of life instead of death.
The twilight was deepening; the red flush was gone and the little stars were giving their answer one after another. The moon was rising, but was still entangled among the trees and buildings. The light was not such that he could distinctly discern her features, but they were distinctly before him nevertheless. Among his anxieties one was dominant: his first impression that her mind might be disordered, had not been quite dissipated: the project of suicide was unmistakable. He longed to begin a conversation, but hoped she would speak first. At last she did speak.
“I like to listen to the oar.”
“So do I.”
“If you had not come, I should have been dead now.”
“I cannot bear you to speak of that. I hope you will never be sorry that I came.”
“I cannot see how I shall be glad to live. The maggior dolore and the miseria have lasted longer than the tempo felice.”
Deronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he shrank from appearing to treat her with less respect because she was in distress. She went on musingly–
“I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the Eternal. I know our fathers slew their children and then slew themselves, to keep their souls pure. But now I am commanded to live. I cannot see how I shall live.”
“You will find friends. I will find them for you.”
She shook her head and said mournfully, “Not my mother and brother. I cannot find them.”
“You are English? You speak English perfectly.”
She did not answer immediately, but looked at Deronda again, with wondering timidity, as if she were unsure whether she was dreaming or awake.
“You want to know if I am English?” she said at last.
“I want to know nothing except what you like to tell me,” he said, still uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. “Perhaps it is not good for you to talk.”
“I am English-born. But I am a Jewess.”
Deronda was silent, thinking that he might have guessed this, although he could equally have guessed her to be Spanish.
“Do you despise me for it?” she said presently in low, sad tones.
“Why should I? I am not so foolish.”
“I know many Jews are bad.”
“So are many Christians. But I should not think it fair for you to despise me because of that.”
“My mother and brother were good. But I shall never find them. I am come a long way – from abroad. I ran away; but I cannot speak of it. I thought I might find my mother again – God would guide me. But then I despaired. This morning I felt as if one word kept sounding within me – Never! never! But now – I begin – to think–” her words were broken by rising sobs – “I am commanded to live – perhaps we are going to her.”
With an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. He hoped that this passionate weeping might relieve her agitation. Meanwhile he was inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present himself with her in Park Lane. No one kinder and more gentle than Lady Mallinger; but she might not be at home; and he had a shuddering sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful girl, and perhaps chilling suspicion from lady’s maid and housekeeper.
But to take her to any other shelter than a home already known to him was not to be contemplated. Another resource came to mind: he could take her to Mrs. Meyrick’s – to the small house at Chelsea, where he felt sure that he could appeal to generous hearts. Hans Meyrick was safe away in Italy, and Deronda felt the comfort of presenting himself with his charge at a house where he would be met by a motherly figure of quakerish neatness, and three girls who hardly knew of any evil beyond what lay in history-books, and would at once associate a lovely Jewess with Rebecca in “Ivanhoe.” Deronda no longer hesitated.
The rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed long. His charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and submitted like a tired child. In the cab, she dozed, her sweet head hanging helpless, first on one side, then the other.
“They are too good to have any fear about taking her in,” thought Deronda. Yet what had brought her to this desolation? He was going on a strange errand, to ask shelter for this waif. Deronda felt himself growing older this evening, and entering on a new phase in finding a life to which his own had come: perhaps as rescue; but how to make sure of that? The moment of finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation as the moment of finding an idea.