Bab Bab 18 · Chapter XVIII
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Life is a various mother: now she dons
Her plumes and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs
With head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes
On lackeys who attend her; now she dwells
Grim-clad, up darksome alleys, breathes hot gin,
And screams in pauper riot.
But to these
She came a frugal matron, neat and deft,
With cheerful morning thoughts and quick device
To find the much in little.
Mrs. Meyrick’s house was not noisy: the front parlor looked on the
river, and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to
her daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the
small double room where a lamp and two candles were burning. The
candles were on a table apart for Kate, who was drawing illustrations
for a publisher; the lamp was not only for the reader but for Amy and
Mab, who were embroidering satin cushions for “the great world.”
Outside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light
through the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame;
but it is pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space
in our foggy London have been and still are the homes of a culture the
more spotlessly free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered
everything like display an impersonal question, and all the grand shows
of the world simply a spectacle which rouses petty rivalry or vain
effort after possession.
The Meyricks’ was a home of that kind: and they all clung to this
particular house in a row because its interior was filled with objects
always in the same places, which, for the mother held memories of her
marriage time, and for the young ones seemed as necessary and
uncriticised a part of their world as the stars of the Great Bear seen
from the back windows. Mrs. Meyrick had borne much stint of other
matters that she might be able to keep some engravings specially
cherished by her husband; and the narrow spaces of wall held a world
history in scenes and heads which the children had early learned by
heart. The chairs and tables were also old friends preferred to new.
But in these two little parlors with no furniture that a broker would
have cared to cheapen except the prints and piano, there was space and
apparatus for a wide-glancing, nicely-select life, opened to the
highest things in music, painting and poetry. I am not sure that in the
times of greatest scarcity, before Kate could get paid-work, these
ladies had always had a servant to light their fires and sweep their
rooms; yet they were fastidious in some points, and could not believe
that the manners of ladies in the fashionable world were so full of
coarse selfishness, petty quarreling, and slang as they are represented
to be in what are called literary photographs. The Meyricks had their
little oddities, streaks of eccentricity from the mother’s blood as
well as the father’s, their minds being like mediæval houses with
unexpected recesses and openings from this into that, flights of steps
and sudden outlooks.
But mother and daughters were all united by a triple bond—family love;
admiration for the finest work, the best action; and habitual industry.
Hans’ desire to spend some of his money in making their lives more
luxurious had been resisted by all of them, and both they and he had
been thus saved from regrets at the threatened triumphs of his yearning
for art over the attractions of secured income—a triumph that would
by-and-by oblige him to give up his fellowship. They could all afford
to laugh at his Gavarni-caricatures and to hold him blameless in
following a natural bent which their unselfishness and independence had
left without obstacle. It was enough for them to go on in their old
way, only having a grand treat of opera-going (to the gallery) when
Hans came home on a visit.
Seeing the group they made this evening, one could hardly wish them to
change their way of life. They were all alike small, and so in due
proportion to their miniature rooms. Mrs. Meyrick was reading aloud
from a French book; she was a lively little woman, half French, half
Scotch, with a pretty articulateness of speech that seemed to make
daylight in her hearer’s understanding. Though she was not yet fifty,
her rippling hair, covered by a quakerish net cap, was chiefly gray,
but her eyebrows were brown as the bright eyes below them; her black
dress, almost like a priest’s cassock with its rows of buttons, suited
a neat figure hardly five feet high. The daughters were to match the
mother, except that Mab had Hans’ light hair and complexion, with a
bossy, irregular brow, and other quaintnesses that reminded one of him.
Everything about them was compact, from the firm coils of their hair,
fastened back _à la Chinoise_, to their gray skirts in Puritan
nonconformity with the fashion, which at that time would have demanded
that four feminine circumferences should fill all the free space in the
front parlor. All four, if they had been wax-work, might have been
packed easily in a fashionable lady’s traveling trunk. Their faces
seemed full of speech, as if their minds had been shelled, after the
manner of horse-chestnuts, and become brightly visible. The only large
thing of its kind in the room was Hafiz, the Persian cat, comfortably
poised on the brown leather back of a chair, and opening his large eyes
now and then to see that the lower animals were not in any mischief.
The book Mrs. Meyrick had before her was Erckmann-Chatrian’s _Historie
d’un Conscrit_. She had just finished reading it aloud, and Mab, who
had let her work fall on the ground while she stretched her head
forward and fixed her eyes on the reader, exclaimed,
“I think that is the finest story in the world.”
“Of course, Mab!” said Amy, “it is the last you have heard. Everything
that pleases you is the best in its turn.”
“It is hardly to be called a story,” said Kate. “It is a bit of history
brought near us with a strong telescope. We can see the soldiers’
faces: no, it is more than that—we can hear everything—we can almost
hear their hearts beat.”
“I don’t care what you call it,” said Mab, flirting away her thimble.
“Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something
good, something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me
like Schiller—I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. I must
kiss you instead, little mother!” She threw her arms round her mother’s
neck.
“Whenever you are in that mood, Mab, down goes your work,” said Amy.
“It would be doing something good to finish your cushion without
soiling it.”
“Oh—oh—oh!” groaned Mab, as she stooped to pick up her work and
thimble. “I wish I had three wounded conscripts to take care of.”
“You would spill their beef tea while you were talking,” said Amy.
“Poor Mab! don’t be hard on her,” said the mother. “Give me the
embroidery now, child. You go on with your enthusiasm, and I will go on
with the pink and white poppy.”
“Well, ma, I think you are more caustic than Amy,” said Kate, while she
drew her head back to look at her drawing.
“Oh—oh—oh!” cried Mab again, rising and stretching her arms. “I wish
something wonderful would happen. I feel like the deluge. The waters of
the great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened. I
must sit down and play the scales.”
Mab was opening the piano while the others were laughing at this
climax, when a cab stopped before the house, and there forthwith came a
quick rap of the knocker.
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Meyrick, starting up, “it is after ten, and Phœbe
is gone to bed.” She hastened out, leaving the parlor door open.
“Mr. Deronda!” The girls could hear this exclamation from their mamma.
Mab clasped her hands, saying in a loud whisper, “There now! something
_is_ going to happen.” Kate and Amy gave up their work in amazement.
But Deronda’s tone in reply was so low that they could not hear his
words, and Mrs. Meyrick immediately closed the parlor door.
“I know I am trusting to your goodness in a most extraordinary way,”
Deronda went on, after giving his brief narrative; “but you can imagine
how helpless I feel with a young creature like this on my hands. I
could not go with her among strangers, and in her nervous state I
should dread taking her into a house full of servants. I have trusted
to your mercy. I hope you will not think my act unwarrantable.”
“On the contrary. You have honored me by trusting me. I see your
difficulty. Pray bring her in. I will go and prepare the girls.”
While Deronda went back to the cab, Mrs. Meyrick turned into the parlor
again and said: “Here is somebody to take care of instead of your
wounded conscripts, Mab: a poor girl who was going to drown herself in
despair. Mr. Deronda found her only just in time to save her. He
brought her along in his boat, and did not know what else it would be
safe to do with her, so he has trusted us and brought her here. It
seems she is a Jewess, but quite refined, he says—knowing Italian and
music.”
The three girls, wondering and expectant, came forward and stood near
each other in mute confidence that they were all feeling alike under
this appeal to their compassion. Mab looked rather awe-stricken, as if
this answer to her wish were something preternatural.
Meanwhile Deronda going to the door of the cab where the pale face was
now gazing out with roused observation, said, “I have brought you to
some of the kindest people in the world: there are daughters like you.
It is a happy home. Will you let me take you to them?”
She stepped out obediently, putting her hand in his and forgetting her
hat; and when Deronda led her into the full light of the parlor where
the four little women stood awaiting her, she made a picture that would
have stirred much duller sensibilities than theirs. At first she was a
little dazed by the sudden light, and before she had concentrated her
glance he had put her hand into the mother’s. He was inwardly rejoicing
that the Meyricks were so small: the dark-curled head was the highest
among them. The poor wanderer could not be afraid of these gentle faces
so near hers: and now she was looking at each of them in turn while the
mother said, “You must be weary, poor child.”
“We will take care of you—we will comfort you—we will love you,”
cried Mab, no longer able to restrain herself, and taking the small
right hand caressingly between both her own. This gentle welcoming
warmth was penetrating the bewildered one: she hung back just enough to
see better the four faces in front of her, whose good will was being
reflected in hers, not in any smile, but in that undefinable change
which tells us that anxiety is passing in contentment. For an instant
she looked up at Deronda, as if she were referring all this mercy to
him, and then again turning to Mrs. Meyrick, said with more
collectedness in her sweet tones than he had heard before,
“I am a stranger. I am a Jewess. You might have thought I was wicked.”
“No, we are sure you are good,” burst out Mab.
“We think no evil of you, poor child. You shall be safe with us,” said
Mrs. Meyrick. “Come now and sit down. You must have some food, and then
you must go to rest.”
The stranger looked up again at Deronda, who said,
“You will have no more fears with these friends? You will rest
to-night?”
“Oh, I should not fear. I should rest. I think these are the
ministering angels.”
Mrs. Meyrick wanted to lead her to seat, but again hanging back gently,
the poor weary thing spoke as if with a scruple at being received
without a further account of herself.
“My name is Mirah Lapidoth. I am come a long way, all the way from
Prague by myself. I made my escape. I ran away from dreadful things. I
came to find my mother and brother in London. I had been taken from my
mother when I was little, but I thought I could find her again. I had
trouble—the houses were all gone—I could not find her. It has been a
long while, and I had not much money. That is why I am in distress.”
“Our mother will be good to you,” cried Mab. “See what a nice little
mother she is!”
“Do sit down now,” said Kate, moving a chair forward, while Amy ran to
get some tea.
Mirah resisted no longer, but seated herself with perfect grace,
crossing her little feet, laying her hands one over the other on her
lap, and looking at her friends with placid reverence; whereupon Hafiz,
who had been watching the scene restlessly came forward with tail erect
and rubbed himself against her ankles. Deronda felt it time to go.
“Will you allow me to come again and inquire—perhaps at five
to-morrow?” he said to Mrs. Meyrick.
“Yes, pray; we shall have had time to make acquaintance then.”
“Good-bye,” said Deronda, looking down at Mirah, and putting out his
hand. She rose as she took it, and the moment brought back to them both
strongly the other moment when she had first taken that outstretched
hand. She lifted her eyes to his and said with reverential fervor, “The
God of our fathers bless you and deliver you from all evil as you have
delivered me. I did not believe there was any man so good. None before
have thought me worthy of the best. You found me poor and miserable,
yet you have given me the best.”
Deronda could not speak, but with silent adieux to the Meyricks,
hurried away.
BOOK III.—MAIDENS CHOOSING.