The Mill on the Floss (54 page)

"What do you mean?" answered Philip, haughtily.

"Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you,
and I'll tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young
girl's foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings
with you. I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a
family that has a good and honest name to support."

"I deny that," interrupted Philip, impetuously. "I could never
trifle with anything that affected your sister's happiness. She is
dearer to me than she is to you; I honor her more than you can ever
honor her; I would give up my life to her."

"Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to
pretend that you didn't know it would be injurious to her to meet
you here week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make
professions of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for
her, when neither her father nor your father would ever consent to
a marriage between you? And
you
,–
you
to try and
worm yourself into the affections of a handsome girl who is not
eighteen, and has been shut out from the world by her father's
misfortunes! That's your crooked notion of honor, is it? I call it
base treachery; I call it taking advantage of circumstances to win
what's too good for you,–what you'd never get by fair means."

"It is manly of you to talk in this way to
me
," said
Philip, bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions.
"Giants have an immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse.
You are incapable even of understanding what I feel for your
sister. I feel so much for her that I could even desire to be at
friendship with
you
."

"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said Tom,
with scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you should understand
me
,–that I shall take care of
my
sister, and that
if you dare to make the least attempt to come near her, or to write
to her, or to keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny,
miserable body, that ought to have put some modesty into your mind,
shall not protect you. I'll thrash you; I'll hold you up to public
scorn. Who wouldn't laugh at the idea of
your
turning
lover to a fine girl?"

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst
out, in a convulsed voice.

"Stay, Maggie!" said Philip, making a strong effort to speak.
Then looking at Tom, "You have dragged your sister here, I suppose,
that she may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These
naturally seemed to you the right means to influence me. But you
are mistaken. Let your sister speak. If she says she is bound to
give me up, I shall abide by her wishes to the slightest word."

"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly.
"Tom threatens to tell my father, and he couldn't bear it; I have
promised, I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any
intercourse without my brother's knowledge."

"It is enough, Maggie.
I
shall not change; but I wish
you to hold yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I
can never seek for anything but good to what belongs to you."

"Yes," said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip's, "you
can talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did
you seek her good before?"

"I did,–at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend
for life,–who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than
a coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished
her affections on."

"Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and
I'll tell you what is my way. I'll save her from disobeying and
disgracing her father; I'll save her from throwing herself away on
you,–from making herself a laughing-stock,–from being flouted by a
man like
your
father, because she's not good enough for
his son. You know well enough what sort of justice and cherishing
you were preparing for her. I'm not to be imposed upon by fine
words; I can see what actions mean. Come away, Maggie."

He seized Maggie's right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her
left hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and
then hurried away.

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still
holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from
the scene of action. At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew
her hand away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into
utterance.

"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to
your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to
Philip; I detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his
deformity. You have been reproaching other people all your life;
you have been always sure you yourself are right. It is because you
have not a mind large enough to see that there is anything better
than your own conduct and your own petty aims."

"Certainly," said Tom, coolly. "I don't see that your conduct is
better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip Wakem's
conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known?
Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I've
succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any
one else?"

"I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with
vehemence: "I know I've been wrong,–often, continually. But yet,
sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have
feelings that you would be the better for, if you had them. If
you
were in fault ever, if you had done anything very
wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought you; I should not
want punishment to be heaped on you. But you have always enjoyed
punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel to me; even when
I was a little girl, and always loved you better than any one else
in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving
me. You have no pity; you have no sense of your own imperfection
and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not fitting for a
mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee. You thank
God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are great
enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of
feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere
darkness!"

"Well," said Tom, with cold scorn, "if your feelings are so much
better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than
by conduct that's likely to disgrace us all,–than by ridiculous
flights first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how
have you shown your love, that you talk of, either to me or my
father? By disobeying and deceiving us. I have a different way of
showing my affection."

"Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do
something in the world."

"Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."

"So I
will
submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be
right. I will submit even to what is unreasonable from my father,
but I will not submit to it from you. You boast of your virtues as
if they purchased you a right to be cruel and unmanly, as you've
been to-day. Don't suppose I would give up Philip Wakem in
obedience to you. The deformity you insult would make me cling to
him and care for him the more."

"Very well; that is your view of things." said Tom, more coldly
than ever; "you need say no more to show me what a wide distance
there is between us. Let us remember that in future, and be
silent."

Tom went back to St. Ogg's, to fulfill an appointment with his
uncle Deane, and receive directions about a journey on which he was
to set out the next morning.

Maggie went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant
remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close barred, in bitter
tears. Then, when the first burst of unsatisfied anger was gone by,
came the recollection of that quiet time before the pleasure which
had ended in to-day's misery had perturbed the clearness and
simplicity of her life. She used to think in that time that she had
made great conquests, and won a lasting stand on serene heights
above worldly temptations and conflict. And here she was down again
in the thick of a hot strife with her own and others' passions.
Life was not so short, then, and perfect rest was not so near as
she had dreamed when she was two years younger. There was more
struggle for her, and perhaps more falling. If she had felt that
she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had been entirely right, she
could sooner have recovered more inward harmony; but now her
penitence and submission were constantly obstructed by resentment
that would present itself to her no otherwise than as a just
indignation. Her heart bled for Philip; she went on recalling the
insults that had been flung at him with so vivid a conception of
what he had felt under them, that it was almost like a sharp bodily
pain to her, making her beat the floor with her foot and tighten
her fingers on her palm.

And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious of a
certain dim background of relief in the forced separation from
Philip? Surely it was only because the sense of a deliverance from
concealment was welcome at any cost.

Chapter VI
The Hard-Won Triumph

Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest
moment in all the year,–the great chestnuts in blossom, and the
grass all deep and daisied,–Tom Tulliver came home to it earlier
than usual in the evening, and as he passed over the bridge, he
looked with the old deep-rooted affection at the respectable red
brick house, which always seemed cheerful and inviting outside, let
the rooms be as bare and the hearts as sad as they might inside.
There is a very pleasant light in Tom's blue-gray eyes as he
glances at the house-windows; that fold in his brow never
disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it seems to imply a strength
of will that may possibly be without harshness, when the eyes and
mouth have their gentlest expression. His firm step becomes
quicker, and the corners of his mouth rebel against the compression
which is meant to forbid a smile.

The eyes in the parlor were not turned toward the bridge just
then, and the group there was sitting in unexpectant silence,–Mr.
Tulliver in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride, and ruminating
with a worn look, fixed chiefly on Maggie, who was bending over her
sewing while her mother was making the tea.

They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known
foot.

"Why, what's up now, Tom?" said his father. "You're a bit
earlier than usual."

"Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well,
mother!"

Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual
good-humor with him. Hardly a word or look had passed between him
and Maggie in all the three weeks; but his usual
incommunicativeness at home prevented this from being noticeable to
their parents.

"Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, "do you know
exactly how much money there is in the tin box?"

"Only a hundred and ninety-three pound," said Mr. Tulliver.
"You've brought less o' late; but young fellows like to have their
own way with their money. Though I didn't do as I liked before
I
was of age." He spoke with rather timid discontent.

"Are you quite sure that's the sum, father?" said Tom. "I wish
you would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down. I think you
have perhaps made a mistake."

"How should I make a mistake?" said his father, sharply. "I've
counted it often enough; but I can fetch it, if you won't believe
me."

It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy
life, to fetch the tin box and count the money.

"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw her
moving when his father was gone upstairs.

"And isn't Maggie to go?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "because somebody
must take away the things."

"Just as she likes," said Tom indifferently.

That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped with the
sudden conviction that Tom was going to tell their father the debts
could be paid; and Tom would have let her be absent when that news
was told! But she carried away the tray and came back immediately.
The feeling of injury on her own behalf could not predominate at
that moment.

Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when the tin
box was set down and opened, and the red evening light falling on
them made conspicuous the worn, sour gloom of the dark-eyed father
and the suppressed joy in the face of the fair-complexioned son.
The mother and Maggie sat at the other end of the table, the one in
blank patience, the other in palpitating expectation.

Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on the
table, and then said, glancing sharply at Tom:

"There now! you see I was right enough."

He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency.

"There's more nor three hundred wanting; it'll be a fine while
before
I
can save that. Losing that forty-two pound wi'
the corn was a sore job. This world's been too many for me. It's
took four year to lay
this
by; it's much if I'm above
ground for another four year. I must trusten to you to pay 'em," he
went on, with a trembling voice, "if you keep i' the same mind now
you're coming o' age. But you're like enough to bury me first."

He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for some
assurance.

"No, father," said Tom, speaking with energetic decision, though
there was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you will live to
see the debts all paid. You shall pay them with your own hand."

His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness or
resolution. A slight electric shock seemed to pass through Mr.
Tulliver, and he kept his eyes fixed on Tom with a look of eager
inquiry, while Maggie, unable to restrain herself, rushed to her
father's side and knelt down by him. Tom was silent a little while
before he went on.