Part 73 (1/2)

”Her mother is dead.”

”I hope the brother is not a bad man,” said Amy.

”Nor a fellow all smiles and jewelry--a Crystal Palace a.s.syrian with a hat on,” said Hans, in the worst humor.

”Were there ever such unfeeling children?” said Mrs. Meyrick, a little strengthened by the need for opposition. ”You don't think the least bit of Mirah's joy in the matter.”

”You know, ma, Mirah hardly remembers her brother,” said Kate.

”People who are lost for twelve years should never come back again,”

said Hans. ”They are always in the way.”

”Hans!” said Mrs. Meyrick, reproachfully. ”If you had lost me for _twenty_ years, I should have thought--”

”I said twelve years,” Hans broke in. ”Anywhere about twelve years is the time at which lost relations should keep out of the way.”

”Well, but it's nice finding people--there is something to tell,” said Mab, clasping her knees. ”Did Prince Camaralzaman find him?”

Then Mrs. Meyrick, in her neat, narrative way, told all she knew without interruption. ”Mr. Deronda has the highest admiration for him,”

she ended--”seems quite to look up to him. And he says Mirah is just the sister to understand this brother.”

”Deronda is getting perfectly preposterous about those Jews,” said Hans with disgust, rising and setting his chair away with a bang. ”He wants to do everything he can to encourage Mirah in her prejudices.”

”Oh, for shame, Hans!--to speak in that way of Mr. Deronda,” said Mab.

And Mrs. Meyrick's face showed something like an under-current of expression not allowed to get to the surface.

”And now we shall never be all together,” Hans went on, walking about with his hands thrust into the pockets of his brown velveteen coat, ”but we must have this prophet Elijah to tea with us, and Mirah will think of nothing but sitting on the ruins of Jerusalem. She will be spoiled as an artist--mind that--she will get as narrow as a nun.

Everything will be spoiled--our home and everything. I shall take to drinking.”

”Oh, really, Hans,” said Kate, impatiently. ”I do think men are the most contemptible animals in all creation. Every one of them must have everything to his mind, else he is unbearable.”

”Oh, oh, oh, it's very dreadful!” cried Mab. ”I feel as if ancient Nineveh were come again.”

”I should like to know what is the good of having gone to the university and knowing everything, if you are so childish, Hans,” said Amy. ”You ought to put up with a man that Providence sends you to be kind to. _We_ shall have to put up with him.”

”I hope you will all of you like the new Lamentations of Jeremiah--'to be continued in our next'--that's all,” said Hans, seizing his wide-awake. ”It's no use being one thing more than another if one has to endure the company of those men with a fixed idea, staring blankly at you, and requiring all your remarks to be small foot-notes to their text. If you're to be under a petrifying wall, you'd better be an old boot. I don't feel myself an old boot.” Then abruptly, ”Good night, little mother,” bending to kiss her brow in a hasty, desperate manner, and condescendingly, on his way to the door, ”Good-night, girls.”

”Suppose Mirah knew how you are behaving,” said Kate. But her answer was a slam of the door. ”I _should_ like to see Mirah when Mr. Deronda tells her,” she went on to her mother. ”I know she will look so beautiful.”

But Deronda, on second thoughts, had written a letter, which Mrs.

Meyrick received the next morning, begging her to make the revelation instead of waiting for him, not giving the real reason--that he shrank from going again through a narrative in which he seemed to be making himself important and giving himself a character of general beneficence--but saying that he wished to remain with Mordecai while Mrs. Meyrick would bring Mirah on what was to be understood as a visit, so that there might be a little interval before that change of abode which he expected that Mirah herself would propose.

Deronda secretly felt some wondering anxiety how far Mordecai, after years of solitary preoccupation with ideas likely to have become the more exclusive from continual diminution of bodily strength, would allow him to feel a tender interest in his sister over and above the rendering of pious duties. His feeling for the Cohens, and especially for little Jacob, showed a persistent activity of affection; but these objects had entered into his daily life for years; and Deronda felt it noticeable that Mordecai asked no new questions about Mirah, maintaining, indeed, an unusual silence on all subjects, and appearing simply to submit to the changes that were coming over his personal life. He donned the new clothes obediently, but said afterward to Deronda, with a faint smile, ”I must keep my old garments by me for a remembrance.” And when they were seated, awaiting Mirah, he uttered no word, keeping his eyelids closed, but yet showing restless feeling in his face and hands. In fact, Mordecai was undergoing that peculiar nervous perturbation only known to those whose minds, long and habitually moving with strong impetus in one current, are suddenly compelled into a new or reopened channel. Susceptible people, whose strength has been long absorbed by dormant bias, dread an interview that imperiously revives the past, as they would dread a threatening illness. Joy may be there, but joy, too, is terrible.

Deronda felt the infection of excitement, and when he heard the ring at the door, he went out, not knowing exactly why, that he might see and greet Mirah beforehand. He was startled to find that she had on the hat and cloak in which he had first seen her--the memorable cloak that had once been wetted for a winding-sheet. She had come down-stairs equipped in this way; and when Mrs. Meyrick said, in a tone of question, ”You like to go in that dress, dear?” she answered, ”My brother is poor, and I want to look as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from me”--imagining that she should meet him in the workman's dress. Deronda could not make any remark, but felt secretly rather ashamed of his own fastidious arrangements. They shook hands silently, for Mirah looked pale and awed.

When Deronda opened the door for her, Mordecai had risen, and had his eyes turned toward it with an eager gaze. Mirah took only two or three steps, and then stood still. They looked at each other, motionless. It was less their own presence that they felt than another's; they were meeting first in memories, compared with which touch was no union.