George Eliot's Daniel Deronda: Abridged by Emma Laybourn
Chapter Sixty-eight
Deronda went on his next visit to Ezra eager to confess his love and determined to request a private conversation with Mirah. If she accepted him, he would be able to protect her in any difficulties with her father. Deronda had forebodings of some future struggle in which he might save Ezra and Mirah from being helpless victims.
His forebodings would have been strengthened if he had known what was going on in the father’s mind. Lapidoth’s submission to restraint was only made bearable to him by his thinking of it as a means of by-and-by securing freedom. He intended to await an opening for getting a large sum from Deronda; but meanwhile he was trying to discover where Mirah kept her money and her keys. The imperious desire to gamble, which was present through every other occupation, would hardly have been under his control if he had been able to lay his hands on any sum. But Mirah, with her practical clear-sightedness, confided all money to Mrs. Meyrick’s care.
If Lapidoth had found and pocketed any bank-notes of Mirah’s, he would have considered it a sort of domestic appropriation which held no disgrace; for he really felt himself badly treated by his daughter, and thought that he ought to have what he wanted of her earnings. However, he was most tempted to approach Deronda, whom he felt might be willing to advance a considerable sum for the sake of getting rid of him. But Lapidoth was still in some awe of Ezra’s imposing friend, and deferred this approach.
When Deronda came, full of a gladdened consciousness, Lapidoth was at a crisis of discontent that made his mind busy with schemes of freedom. He was so restless that he could not show any interest in what went forward; and at last he went out to smoke and walk in the square. The two friends were all the easier. Mirah was not at home, but she was sure to be in again before Deronda left, and his eyes glowed with a secret anticipation: and there was a playful affectionateness in his manner toward Ezra.
“This little room is too close for you, Ezra,” he said, breaking off his reading. “You must have a better home now. I shall do as I like with you, being the stronger half.” He smiled at Ezra, who said–
“I lack nothing except breath. But you, who might have the wide green country around you, find this a narrow prison.”
“The country would be a banishment while you are here,” said Deronda, rising and walking round the room, while he made a fan of his handkerchief. “This is the happiest room in the world to me. I will imagine myself in the East, since I am getting ready to go there some day. Only I will not wear a cravat and a heavy ring there,” he ended, pausing to take these off and put them on a small table behind Ezra.
“I have been wearing my memorial ring ever since I came home,” he went on, as he reseated himself. “But it is a burden when I am doing anything. Now I shall get on better.”
They were soon absorbed in their work again. Deronda was reading a piece of rabbinical Hebrew under Ezra’s correction, and they took little notice when Lapidoth re-entered and sat in the background.
His rambling eyes quickly alighted on the ring that sparkled on the dark mahogany. During his walk, he had been creating a fiction about an advantageous opening for him abroad, only requiring a sum of ready money, which Deronda might supply. Lapidoth had been debating how large a sum; he did not know the limit of Deronda’s willingness.
But now, in the midst of these airy fantasies, this ring, which Lapidoth had seen with envy on Deronda’s finger, suddenly shone detached and within easy grasp. Its value was certainly below the imaginary sums in his head: but it was before him as a solid fact, and his desire at once leaped into the thought that if he were quietly to pocket that ring and walk away he would have the means of comfortable escape without trouble, and also without danger; for any property of Deronda’s was all one with his children’s property, since their father would never be prosecuted for taking it. The details of this thinking followed each other so quickly that they seemed to rise before him as one picture.
Still, the gift was to be preferred, if Lapidoth could only make haste enough in asking for it, and the imaginary action of taking the ring, which kept repeating itself like an inward tune, sank into a rejected idea. He resolved to go below, and watch for the moment of Deronda’s departure, when he would ask leave to join him in his walk and boldly carry out his plan. He rose and stood looking out of the window, but all the while he saw the brief passage to the door past the table where the ring was. However, he was resolved to go down; but – by no distinct change of resolution – it so happened that in passing the table his fingers fell noiselessly on the ring, and he found himself in the passage with the ring in his hand. It followed that he put on his hat and quitted the house. The possibility of again throwing himself on his children receded into the indefinite distance, and before he was out of the square his sense of haste had concentrated itself on selling the ring and getting on shipboard.
Deronda and Ezra were aware of his exit; that was all. But, by-and-by, Mirah came in and made a real interruption. She had not taken off her hat; and when Deronda rose to shake hands with her, she said, in a confusion at once unaccountable and troublesome to herself–
“I only came to see that Ezra had his medicine. I must go directly to Mrs. Meyrick’s.”
“Pray allow me to walk with you,” said Deronda urgently. “I must not tire Ezra any further; besides, my brains are melting. I want to go to Mrs. Meyrick’s: may I go with you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mirah, blushing still more, with the vague sense of something new in Deronda, and turning away to pour out Ezra’s draught.
Deronda suddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravat, and saying– “Pray excuse my dishabille,” he went to the little table, took up his cravat, and exclaimed in surprise, “Good heavens, where is my ring gone?” beginning to search about on the floor.
Ezra looked round, quick as thought, went to the spot where Deronda was seeking, and said, “Did you lay it down?”
“Yes,” said Deronda, still assuming that the ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernible on the variegated carpet. He was moving the bits of furniture nearby.
But another explanation had taken the colour from Mirah’s cheeks. She went to Ezra’s ear and whispered “Was my father here?” He nodded, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding. She darted back to the spot where Deronda was still hunting in vain. “You have not found it?” she said, hurriedly.
He, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught her alarm and answered, “Perhaps I put it in my pocket.”
“You put it on the table,” she said, with a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it in his pocket; and immediately she rushed out of the room. Deronda followed her: she was gone into the sitting-room below to look for her father – she opened the door of his bedroom – she looked where his hat usually hung – she turned with her hands clasped tight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. Then she looked up at Deronda, unable to utter a word in her humiliation. But he, taking her clasped hands between his, said, in a tone of reverent adoration–
“Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours – that we can have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman. Say you will take me to share all things with you. Say you will promise to be my wife. I have been in doubt so long – I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and always I may prove to you that I love you with complete love.”
The change in Mirah was gradual. She did not pass at once from anguish to the full, blessed consciousness that, in this moment of grief and shame, Deronda was giving her the highest tribute man can give to woman. With the first words, she had only a sense of comfort, referring this goodness of Deronda’s to his feeling for Ezra. But by degrees the rapturous assurance of love took possession of her: her face glowed under Deronda’s as he bent over her; yet she looked up still with intense gravity, as when she had first acknowledged with gratitude that he had thou