Chapter Fifty-nine
Sir Hugo Mallinger was not so prompt in starting for Genoa as Mr. Gascoigne had been, and Deronda would not depart until he had seen the baronet. Not only Grandcourt’s death, but also the late crisis in his own life made him wish to speak with his oldest friend.
So on the fifth evening Deronda waited for Sir Hugo at the station; and while he was looking forward to the sight of the kind, familiar face, he almost smiled, despite his late tragic experience, at the idea of Sir Hugo’s pleasure in being now master of his estates, able to leave them to his daughters. We should be churlish creatures if we could have no joy in our fellow-mortals’ joy; and it is, happily, possible to feel gratitude even where we discern a mistake that may have injured us, if it was made with an affectionate intention through a life-time of kindly offices.
Deronda felt that Sir Hugo had committed a falsity. But the baronet had probably had no knowledge of the mother’s breach of trust, and had assumed that she would prefer her son to be made an English gentleman, since she did not seem to care about parting from him. Daniel’s affectionate gratitude toward Sir Hugo made him wish to excuse rather than to blame him; and, with all his keen memory of the painful inward struggle he had gone through in his boyhood, he was aware also that Sir Hugo had had no idea of his distress. Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness, remote from Deronda’s large imaginative lenience toward others.
And perhaps now, after the last ten days, he was more than ever disposed to avoid that rash resentment which is close to a love of punishment. When he saw Sir Hugo’s familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, his life-long affection submerged all ground for blame.
“Well, Dan,” said Sir Hugo, grasping Deronda’s hand. He uttered no other words of greeting; there was too strong a rush of mutual consciousness. The courier having taken the baggage, they walked slowly to the hotel together.
“I didn’t hurry in setting off,” Sir Hugo said, “because I wanted to inquire into things, and so I saw your letter to Lady Mallinger before I started. How is the widow?”
“Getting calmer,” said Deronda. “She seems to be escaping the illness that one might have feared, after her plunge and terrible excitement. Her uncle and mother came two days ago, and she is being well taken care of.”
“Any prospect of an heir being born?”
“From what Mr. Gascoigne said to me, I conclude not.”
“It will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, this loss of the husband?” said Sir Hugo.
“The suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her,” said Deronda, quietly evading the question.
“I wonder whether Grandcourt gave her any notion what were the provisions of his will?” said Sir Hugo.
“Do you know what they are, sir?”
“Yes, I do,” said the baronet, quickly. “Gad! if there is no prospect of a legitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a Mrs. Glasher. You know nothing about the affair, I suppose, but she was a sort of wife to him for a good many years, and there are three older girls. The boy is to take his father’s name, and he will have more than enough: and meanwhile my beauty, the young widow, is to put up with a poor two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere. I’m perfectly disgusted with Grandcourt. I don’t know that I’m obliged to think the better of him because he’s drowned; though, so far as I’m concerned, nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”
“In my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife, not in leaving his estates to the son,” said Deronda, rather dryly.
“I say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad,” said Sir Hugo; “but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a handsome provision. She ought to have had four or five thousand a year and the London house for her life; that’s what I should have done for her. Even a wise man generally lets some folly ooze out of him in his will – my father did, I know; and if a fellow has any spite in him, he’s likely to bottle up a good deal in that sort of document. It’s quite clear Grandcourt meant that his death should put an extinguisher on his wife, if she bore him no heir.”
“And, in the other case, I suppose everything would have been reversed?” said Deronda, with some scorn.
“Precisely – Gadsmere and the two thousand. It’s queer. One nuisance is that Grandcourt has made me an executor; but seeing he was my nephew, I can’t refuse. And I hope to be of use to the widow. Lush thinks she knew about the family under the rose, and the purport of the will. But I fancy you are the man who knew most about what Mrs. Grandcourt felt – eh, Dan?” Sir Hugo did not put this question with his usual jocoseness, but with a tone of inquiry; and Deronda answered gravely–
“She was certainly not happy. They were unsuited to each other. But as to the disposal of the property, I should predict that she will be quite contented with it.”
“Then she is not much like the rest of her sex; that’s all I can say,” said Sir Hugo, with a shrug. “There must be an entanglement between your horoscope and hers – eh? When that tremendous telegram came, the first thing Lady Mallinger said was, ‘How strange that it should be Daniel who sends it!’ But I have had something of the same sort in my own life. I was once at a foreign hotel where a lady had been left by her husband without money. When I came forward to help her, who should she be but an early flame of mine? But my being there had nothing to do with her, any more than you coming to Genoa had to do with the Grandcourts.”
There was silence for a little while. They both wished to overcome a reluctance to perfect frankness on the events surrounding Daniel’s parentage. Deronda felt that he ought to wait for the first opening to come from Sir Hugo. At last the baronet turned, and said in a tone of serious feeling–
“And about the main business of your coming to Genoa, Dan? You have not been deeply pained by anything you have learned, I hope? Whatever happens to you must always be important to me.”
“Much that I have heard about the past has pained me,” answered Deronda. “And it has been painful to meet and part with my mother in her suffering state. But it is no pain to know my parentage. And there will be no change in my gratitude to you, sir, for the fatherly care and affection you have always shown me. But to know that I was born a Jew, may have a momentous influence on my life, which I am hardly able to tell you of at present.”
Deronda spoke the last sentence with a resolve that overcame some diffidence; for he was aware of the differences between Sir Hugo’s nature and his own. The baronet gave him a quick glance, and walked on. After a few moments’ silence, he said–
“I have long expected something remarkable from you, Dan; but, for God’s sake, don’t go into any eccentricities! If a man wants to be taken seriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. I only think you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic, especially if he wanted defending. You have a passion for people who are pelted, Dan. I’m sorry for them too; but so far as company goes, it’s a bad ground of selection. However, when you do make up your mind to a course that requires money, I have some sixteen thousand pounds that have been accumulating for you over and above your income. I suppose you want to go back to England as soon as you can?”
“I must go first to Mainz to get a chest of my grandfather’s, and to see a friend of his,” said Deronda. “I lingered after my mother left, instead of setting out immediately. Yet I can’t regret that I was here – else Mrs. Grandcourt would have had none but servants to act for her.”
“Yes, yes,” said Sir Hugo, with a flippancy which was an escape of some vexation; “I hope you are not going to set a dead Jew above a living Christian.”
Deronda coloured, and repressed a retort. They were just turning into the hotel.