Chapter Thirty-nine
Momentous things happened to Deronda the very evening of that visit to the Meyricks’ house. But for the family there, the chief sequel connected with it occurred two days afterward.
About four o’clock wheels paused before the door, and there came an imperious knock with an accompanying ring. All the girls were at home: Kate was drawing, and a great length of embroidery was stretched across the front room, Mrs. Meyrick bending over it on one corner, Mab in the middle, and Amy at the other end. Mirah was acting as reader to the party, seated on a stool, and giving forth with charming distinctness a delightful Essay of Elia, over which all were smiling, when the imposing knock and ring caused them to look up in wonderment.
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Meyrick. “Is there a grand carriage, Amy?”
“No – only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman.”
When the old maid-servant opened the door, there was seen a tall and impressive figure, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: in fact, as Mrs. Meyrick read on the card, Julius Klesmer.
When he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the cottage piano, Mab thought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire family existence like an establishment of mice in the Tuileries. Klesmer’s personality, especially his way of glancing round him, immediately suggested vast areas and an audience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his consciousness. But while his grandiose air was making Mab feel herself a ridiculous toy to match the cottage piano, he was taking in his surroundings with a keen and thoroughly kind sensibility. He remembered a home no larger than this on the outskirts of Bohemia; and he addressed Mrs. Meyrick with the utmost deference.
“I hope I have not taken too great a freedom by calling, since I was in the area. Our friend, Mr. Deronda, mentioned to me a young lady here – Miss Lapidoth.”
Klesmer had really discerned Mirah on entering, but he looked round bowingly at the three sisters as if he were uncertain which was the young lady in question.
“This is Miss Lapidoth,” said Mrs. Meyrick, waving her hand toward Mirah.
“Ah,” said Klesmer, turning a radiant smile and deep bow to Mirah, who, instead of surprise, had a calm pleasure in her face. She liked the look of Klesmer, feeling sure that he would scold her, like a great musician and a kind man.
“You will not object to beginning our acquaintance by singing to me,” he added.
“I shall be very glad. It is good of you to be willing to listen,” said Mirah, moving to the piano. “Shall I accompany myself?”
“By all means,” said Klesmer, sitting, at Mrs Meyrick’s invitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. The acute little mother said to herself, “He will like her singing better if he sees her.”
All the feminine hearts except Mirah’s were beating fast with anxiety, finding Klesmer terrifying as he sat with his listening frown on. They could only comfort themselves with thinking that Prince Camaralzaman preferred Mirah’s singing to any other:– also she appeared to be doing her very best, as if she were more instead of less at ease than usual.
The song she had chosen was a fine setting of Leopardi’s grand Ode to Italy; the recitative was followed by “Ma la Gloria non vedo” – a mournful melody; then after this came a climax of devout triumph, ending in the joyous outburst of an exultant Allegro:
“Oh viva, oh viva:
Beatissimi voi
Mentre nel mondo si favelli o scriva.”
When she had ended, Klesmer said after a moment–
“That is Joseph Leo’s music.”
“Yes, he was my last master, at Vienna: so fierce and so good,” said Mirah, with a melancholy smile. “He prophesied that my voice would not do for the stage. And he was right.”
“Continue, if you please,” said Klesmer, putting out his lips and shaking his long fingers. The three girls detested him unanimously for not saying one word of praise. Mrs. Meyrick was a little alarmed.
Mirah, simply bent on doing what Klesmer desired, and imagining that he would now like to hear her sing some German, went through Prince Radzivill’s music to Gretchen’s songs in the “Faust,” one after the other without any pause. When she had finished he rose and walked the length of the small space, then walked back to the piano, where Mirah had risen from her seat and stood with her little hands crossed before her, meekly awaiting judgment. With a sudden unknitting of his brow and with beaming eyes, he stretched out his hand and said abruptly, “Let us shake hands: you are a musician.”
Mab felt herself beginning to cry, and all the three girls held Klesmer adorable. Mrs. Meyrick took a long breath.
But straightway the frown came again, as with protruded lip he said–
“Not for great tasks. No high roofs. We are no skylarks. We must be modest.” Klesmer paused. And Mab ceased to think him adorable: “as if Mirah had shown the least sign of conceit!”
Klesmer went on– “I would not advise your singing in any larger space than a private drawing-room. But you will do there. And here in London that is one of the best careers open. Lessons will follow. Will you come and sing at a private concert at my house on Wednesday?”
“Oh, I shall be grateful,” said Mirah, putting her hands together. “I would rather get my bread in that way than by anything more public. I will try to improve. What should I work at most?”
“I shall introduce you to Astorga: he is the foster-father of good singing and will give you advice.” Then addressing Mrs. Meyrick, he added, “Mrs. Klesmer will call before Wednesday, with your permission.”
“We shall feel that to be a great kindness,” said Mrs. Meyrick.
“You will sing to her,” said Klesmer, turning again to Mirah. “She is a thorough musician. Your singing will satisfy her: ‘Vor den Wissenden sich stellen;’ you know the rest?”
“‘Sicher ist’s in alien Fällen.’” said Mirah, promptly. And Klesmer saying “Schön!” put out his hand as a good-bye.
But imagine Mab’s feeling when suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, “That young lady is musical, I see!” She was a mere blush and sense of scorching.
“Yes,” said Mirah. “And she has a touch.”
“Oh, please, Mirah – a scramble, not a touch,” said Mab, in anguish, with a horrible fear that this dreadful divining personage might order her to sit down to the piano. But her dread turned to amazed joy when Klesmer said benignantly to Mrs. Meyrick, “Will she like to accompany Miss Lapidoth and hear the music on Wednesday?”
“There could hardly be a greater pleasure for her,” said Mrs. Meyrick.
Thereupon Klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than they had ever been bowed to before. Mrs. Meyrick left the room with him, closing the door behind her. He said in privacy, with a frowning nod–
“She will do: if she doesn’t attempt too much and her voice holds out, she can make an income. I know that is the great point: Deronda told me. You are taking care of her. She looks like a good girl.”
“She is an angel,” said the warm-hearted woman.
“No,” said Klesmer, with a playful nod; “she is a pretty Jewess. But I think she has found a guardian angel,” he ended, bowing himself out in this amiable way.
The four young creatures looked at each other mutely till the door banged and Mrs. Meyrick re-entered. Then there was an explosion. Mab clapped her hands and danced; Mrs. Meyrick kissed Mirah and blessed her; and Amy said emphatically, “We can never get her a new dress before Wednesday!” Mirah had reseated herself on the music-stool, with the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I am too happy,” she said. “I feel so full of gratitude to you all; and he was so very kind.”
“Yes, at last,” said Mab. “But he might have said something encouraging sooner. I thought him dreadfully ugly when he sat frowning, and only said, ‘Continue.’ However, I forgive him everything, now he has invited me. I wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one?”
“It was your way of list
ening, child,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “But what was that German quotation you were so ready with, Mirah – you learned puss?”
“Oh, that was not learning,” said Mirah, her tearful face breaking into an amused smile. “I said it so many times for a lesson. It means that it is safer to do anything before those who understand all about it.”
“That was why you were not frightened, I suppose,” said Amy. “But now, we have to talk about a dress for you on Wednesday.”
“I don’t want anything better than this black merino,” said Mirah.
“Here comes Hans,” said Mrs. Meyrick, as he entered. “Hans, we want your opinion about Mirah’s dress. A great event has happened. Klesmer has been here, and she is to sing at his house among grand people. She thinks this dress will do.”
“Let me see,” said Hans. Mirah in her childlike way turned toward him.
“This would be thought a very good stage-dress for me,” she said, pleadingly, “in a part where I was to come on as a poor Jewess. I almost always had a part with a plain dress.”
“That makes me think it questionable,” said Hans, who had suddenly become as fastidious and conventional on this occasion as he had thought Deronda was. “It looks too theatrical. We must not make you a role of the poor Jewess.” Hans had a secret desire to neutralize the Jewess in private life.
“But it is what I am. I shall never be anything else,” said Mirah. “I always feel myself a Jewess.”
“People don’t think of me as a Christian,” said Hans, his face creasing merrily. “They think of me as an imperfectly handsome young man and an unpromising painter.”
“You are wandering from the dress,” said Amy. “If that will not do, how are we to get another before Wednesday?”
“Indeed this will do,” said Mirah, entreatingly, looking at Hans, “even if it seems theatrical. Poor Berenice sitting on the ruins is theatrical, but I know that is just what she would do.”
“I am a scoundrel,” said Hans. “That is my invention. Nobody knows that she did that. Shall you forgive me for not saying so before?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mirah, in surprise. “You knew it was what she would be sure to do – a Jewess who had not been faithful – who was penitent. I think it is very beautiful that you should enter so into what a Jewess would feel.”
With a sense of being checkmated, Hans said decisively, “That dress will not do. She is not going to sit on ruins. You must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go to Regent Street for a black silk dress such as ladies wear. She must not be taken for an object of charity.”
“I think Mr. Deronda would like her to have a handsome dress,” said Mrs. Meyrick, deliberating.
“Of course,” said Hans, sharply. “You may take my word for what a gentleman would feel.”
“I wish to do what Mr. Deronda would like,” said Mirah, gravely; and Hans, turning on his heel, went to Kate’s table and took up one of her drawings to inspect it.
“Shouldn’t you like to draw Klesmer’s head, Hans?” said Kate. “I suppose you have often seen him?”
“Seen him!” exclaimed Hans, immediately throwing back his mane, seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were surveying an amphitheatre, while he stretched his fingers down toward the keys. But then he wheeled round, looked at Mirah and said, half timidly– “Perhaps you don’t like this mimicry; you must stop my nonsense when you don’t like it.”
Mirah smiled, but with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said– “Thank you. But you have never done anything I did not like. I hardly think he could, belonging to you,” she added, looking at Mrs. Meyrick.
In this way Hans got food for his hope. How could the rose help it when several bees in succession took its sweet odour as a sign of personal attachment?