The Mill on the Floss (32 page)

"Oh, my boy, my boy!" she said, clasping him round the neck. "To
think as I should live to see this day! We're ruined–everything's
going to be sold up–to think as your father should ha' married me
to bring me to this! We've got nothing–we shall be beggars–we must
go to the workhouse––"

She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another
tablecloth on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the
pattern, while the children stood by in mute wretchedness, their
minds quite filled for the moment with the words "beggars" and
"workhouse."

"To think o' these cloths as I spun myself," she went on,
lifting things out and turning them over with an excitement all the
more strange and piteous because the stout blond woman was usually
so passive,–if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface
merely,–"and Job Haxey wove 'em, and brought the piece home on his
back, as I remember standing at the door and seeing him come,
before I ever thought o' marrying your father! And the pattern as I
chose myself, and bleached so beautiful, and I marked 'em so as
nobody ever saw such marking,–they must cut the cloth to get it
out, for it's a particular stitch. And they're all to be sold, and
go into strange people's houses, and perhaps be cut with the
knives, and wore out before I'm dead. You'll never have one of 'em,
my boy," she said, looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears,
"and I meant 'em for you. I wanted you to have all o' this pattern.
Maggie could have had the large check–it never shows so well when
the dishes are on it."

Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction
immediately. His face flushed as he said:

"But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about
it? They'll never let your linen go, will they? Haven't you sent to
them?"

"Yes, I sent Luke directly they'd put the bailies in, and your
aunt Pullet's been–and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says
your father's disgraced my family and made it the talk o' the
country; and she'll buy the spotted cloths for herself, because
she's never had so many as she wanted o' that pattern, and they
sha'n't go to strangers, but she's got more checks a'ready nor she
can do with." (Here Mrs. Tulliver began to lay back the tablecloths
in the chest, folding and stroking them automatically.) "And your
uncle Glegg's been too, and he says things must be bought in for us
to lie down on, but he must talk to your aunt; and they're all
coming to consult. But I know they'll none of 'em take my chany,"
she added, turning toward the cups and saucers, "for they all found
fault with 'em when I bought 'em, 'cause o' the small gold sprig
all over 'em, between the flowers. But there's none of 'em got
better chany, not even your aunt Pullet herself; and I bought it
wi' my own money as I'd saved ever since I was turned fifteen; and
the silver teapot, too,–your father never paid for 'em. And to
think as he should ha' married me, and brought me to this."

Mrs. Tulliver burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with her
handkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she
said in a deprecating way, still half sobbing, as if she were
called upon to speak before she could command her voice,–

"And I
did
say to him times and times, 'Whativer you
do, don't go to law,' and what more could I do? I've had to sit by
while my own fortin's been spent, and what should ha' been my
children's, too. You'll have niver a penny, my boy–but it isn't
your poor mother's fault."

She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him piteously with
her helpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and
kissed her, and she clung to him. For the first time Tom thought of
his father with some reproach. His natural inclination to blame,
hitherto kept entirely in abeyance toward his father by the
predisposition to think him always right, simply on the ground that
he was Tom Tulliver's father, was turned into this new channel by
his mother's plaints; and with his indignation against Wakem there
began to mingle some indignation of another sort. Perhaps his
father might have helped bringing them all down in the world, and
making people talk of them with contempt, but no one should talk
long of Tom Tulliver with contempt.

The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to
assert itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against
his aunts, and the sense that he must behave like a man and take
care of his mother.

"Don't fret, mother," he said tenderly. "I shall soon be able to
get money; I'll get a situation of some sort."

"Bless you, my boy!" said Mrs. Tulliver, a little soothed. Then,
looking round sadly, "But I shouldn't ha' minded so much if we
could ha' kept the things wi' my name on 'em."

Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The
implied reproaches against her father–her father, who was lying
there in a sort of living death–neutralized all her pity for griefs
about tablecloths and china; and her anger on her father's account
was heightened by some egoistic resentment at Tom's silent
concurrence with her mother in shutting her out from the common
calamity. She had become almost indifferent to her mother's
habitual depreciation of her, but she was keenly alive to any
sanction of it, however passive, that she might suspect in Tom.
Poor Maggie was by no means made up of unalloyed devotedness, but
put forth large claims for herself where she loved strongly. She
burst out at last in an agitated, almost violent tone: "Mother, how
can you talk so; as if you cared only for things with
your
name on, and not for what has my father's name too; and to care
about anything but dear father himself!–when he's lying there, and
may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too; you
ought not to let any one find fault with my father."

Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the
room, and took her old place on her father's bed. Her heart went
out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that
people would blame him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed all
her life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.

Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving
remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would
enable her to do or bear anything for his sake.

Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst,–telling
him
as well as his mother what it was right to do! She
ought to have learned better than have those hectoring, assuming
manners, by this time. But he presently went into his father's
room, and the sight there touched him in a way that effaced the
slighter impressions of the previous hour. When Maggie saw how he
was moved, she went to him and put her arm round his neck as he sat
by the bed, and the two children forgot everything else in the
sense that they had one father and one sorrow.

Chapter III
The Family Council

It was at eleven o'clock the next morning that the aunts and
uncles came to hold their consultation. The fire was lighted in the
large parlor, and poor Mrs. Tulliver, with a confused impression
that it was a great occasion, like a funeral, unbagged the
bell-rope tassels, and unpinned the curtains, adjusting them in
proper folds, looking round and shaking her head sadly at the
polished tops and legs of the tables, which sister Pullet herself
could not accuse of insufficient brightness.

Mr. Deane was not coming, he was away on business; but Mrs.
Deane appeared punctually in that handsome new gig with the head to
it, and the livery-servant driving it, which had thrown so clear a
light on several traits in her character to some of her female
friends in St. Ogg's. Mr. Deane had been advancing in the world as
rapidly as Mr. Tulliver had been going down in it; and in Mrs.
Deane's house the Dodson linen and plate were beginning to hold
quite a subordinate position, as a mere supplement to the handsomer
articles of the same kind, purchased in recent years,–a change
which had caused an occasional coolness in the sisterly intercourse
between her and Mrs. Glegg, who felt that Susan was getting "like
the rest," and there would soon be little of the true Dodson spirit
surviving except in herself, and, it might be hoped, in those
nephews who supported the Dodson name on the family land, far away
in the Wolds.

People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than
those immediately under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous,
when we consider the remote geographical position of the
Ethiopians, and how very little the Greeks had to do with them, to
inquire further why Homer calls them "blameless."

Mrs. Deane was the first to arrive; and when she had taken her
seat in the large parlor, Mrs. Tulliver came down to her with her
comely face a little distorted, nearly as it would have been if she
had been crying. She was not a woman who could shed abundant tears,
except in moments when the prospect of losing her furniture became
unusually vivid, but she felt how unfitting it was to be quite calm
under present circumstances.

"Oh, sister, what a world this is!" she exclaimed as she
entered; "what trouble, oh dear!"

Mrs. Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small
well-considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them
afterward to her husband, and asking him if she had not spoken very
properly.

"Yes, sister," she said deliberately, "this is a changing world,
and we don't know to-day what may happen tomorrow. But it's right
to be prepared for all things, and if trouble's sent, to remember
as it isn't sent without a cause. I'm very sorry for you as a
sister, and if the doctor orders jelly for Mr. Tulliver, I hope
you'll let me know. I'll send it willingly; for it is but right he
should have proper attendance while he's ill."

"Thank you, Susan," said Mrs. Tulliver, rather faintly,
withdrawing her fat hand from her sister's thin one. "But there's
been no talk o' jelly yet." Then after a moment's pause she added,
"There's a dozen o' cut jelly-glasses upstairs–I shall never put
jelly into 'em no more."

Her voice was rather agitated as she uttered the last words, but
the sound of wheels diverted her thoughts. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg were
come, and were almost immediately followed by Mr. and Mrs.
Pullet.

Mrs. Pullet entered crying, as a compendious mode, at all times,
of expressing what were her views of life in general, and what, in
brief, were the opinions she held concerning the particular case
before her.

Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which
appeared to have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy
form of burial; a costume selected with the high moral purpose of
instilling perfect humility into Bessy and her children.

"Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire?" said her husband,
unwilling to take the more comfortable seat without offering it to
her.

"You see I've seated myself here, Mr. Glegg," returned this
superior woman; "
you
can roast yourself, if you like."

"Well," said Mr. Glegg, seating himself good-humoredly, "and
how's the poor man upstairs?"

"Dr. Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning," said Mrs.
Tulliver; "he took more notice, and spoke to me; but he's never
known Tom yet,–looks at the poor lad as if he was a stranger,
though he said something once about Tom and the pony. The doctor
says his memory's gone a long way back, and he doesn't know Tom
because he's thinking of him when he was little. Eh dear, eh
dear!"

"I doubt it's the water got on his brain," said aunt Pullet,
turning round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way at the
pier-glass. "It's much if he ever gets up again; and if he does,
he'll most like be childish, as Mr. Carr was, poor man! They fed
him with a spoon as if he'd been a babby for three year. He'd quite
lost the use of his limbs; but then he'd got a Bath chair, and
somebody to draw him; and that's what you won't have, I doubt,
Bessy."

"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "if I understand
right, we've come together this morning to advise and consult about
what's to be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon the family,
and not to talk o' people as don't belong to us. Mr. Carr was none
of our blood, nor noways connected with us, as I've ever
heared."

"Sister Glegg," said Mrs. Pullet, in a pleading tone, drawing on
her gloves again, and stroking the fingers in an agitated manner,
"if you've got anything disrespectful to say o' Mr. Carr, I do beg
of you as you won't say it to me.
I
know what he was," she
added, with a sigh; "his breath was short to that degree as you
could hear him two rooms off."

"Sophy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with indignant disgust, "you
do
talk o' people's complaints till it's quite undecent.
But I say again, as I said before, I didn't come away from home to
talk about acquaintances, whether they'd short breath or long. If
we aren't come together for one to hear what the other 'ull do to
save a sister and her children from the parish,
I
shall go
back.
One
can't act without the other, I suppose; it isn't
to be expected as
I
should do everything."

"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "I don't see as you've been so
very forrard at doing. So far as I know, this is the first time as
here you've been, since it's been known as the bailiff's in the
house; and I was here yesterday, and looked at all Bessy's linen
and things, and I told her I'd buy in the spotted tablecloths. I
couldn't speak fairer; for as for the teapot as she doesn't want to
go out o' the family, it stands to sense I can't do with two silver
teapots, not if it
hadn't
a straight spout, but the
spotted damask I was allays fond on."

"I wish it could be managed so as my teapot and chany and the
best castors needn't be put up for sale," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
beseechingly, "and the sugar-tongs the first things ever I
bought."