The Mill on the Floss (71 page)

"La, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "it 'ud do your beds good to have
somebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room smells dreadful
mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything. I'm sure I thought I
should be struck with death when you took me in."

"Oh, there is Tom!" exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands. "He's
come on Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going to
keep his promise."

Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong feeling,
at this first meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill
had been opened to him; and she kept his hand, leading him to the
chair by her side. To have no cloud between herself and Tom was
still a perpetual yearning in her, that had its root deeper than
all change. He smiled at her very kindly this evening, and said,
"Well, Magsie, how's aunt Moss?"

"Come, come, sir," said Mr. Glegg putting out his hand. "Why,
you're such a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You're
come into your luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but
I wish you joy, I wish you joy. You'll get the Mill all for your
own again some day, I'll be bound. You won't stop half-way up the
hill."

"But I hope he'll bear in mind as it's his mother's family as he
owes it to," said Mrs. Glegg. "If he hadn't had them to take after,
he'd ha' been poorly off. There was never any failures, nor lawing,
nor wastefulness in our family, nor dying without wills––"

"No, nor sudden deaths," said aunt Pullet; "allays the doctor
called in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first.
And I don't know what
you
mean to do, sister Glegg, but I
mean to give him a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but
one, besides sheets. I don't say what more I shall do; but
that
I shall do, and if I should die to-morrow, Mr.
Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,–though you'll be blundering with
the keys, and never remember as that on the third shelf o' the
left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the broad ties,–not
the narrow-frilled uns,–is the key of the drawer in the Blue Room,
where the key o' the Blue Closet is. You'll make a mistake, and I
shall niver be worthy to know it. You've a memory for my pills and
draughts, wonderful,–I'll allays say that of you,–but you're lost
among the keys." This gloomy prospect of the confusion that would
ensue on her decease was very affecting to Mrs. Pullet.

"You carry it too far, Sophy,–that locking in and out," said
Mrs. Glegg, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. "You go beyond
your own family. There's nobody can say I don't lock up; but I do
what's reasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look
out what's serviceable, to make a present of to my nephey; I've got
cloth as has never been whitened, better worth having than other
people's fine holland; and I hope he'll lie down in it and think of
his aunt."

Tom thanked Mrs. Glegg, but evaded any promise to meditate
nightly on her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him
by asking about Mr. Deane's intentions concerning steam.

Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come on
Sindbad. It appeared, when it was time to go home, that the
man-servant was to ride the horse, and cousin Tom was to drive home
his mother and Lucy. "You must sit by yourself, aunty," said that
contriving young lady, "because I must sit by Tom; I've a great
deal to say to him."

In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy
could not persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with
Tom, who, she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this
rapid fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant and
flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Tom's; and she was
puzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant change on his
countenance when she gave him the history of the way in which
Philip had used his influence with his father. She had counted on
this revelation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn
Tom's heart toward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that
the elder Wakem was ready to receive Maggie with all the honors of
a daughter-in-law. Nothing was wanted, then, but for dear Tom, who
always had that pleasant smile when he looked at cousin Lucy, to
turn completely round, say the opposite of what he had always said
before, and declare that he, for his part, was delighted that all
the old grievances should be healed, and that Maggie should have
Philip with all suitable despatch; in cousin Lucy's opinion nothing
could be easier.

But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative
qualities that create severity,–strength of will, conscious
rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect,
great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control
over others,–prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies
which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary,
doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth. Let a prejudice be
bequeathed, carried in the air, adopted by hearsay, caught in
through the eye,–however it may come, these minds will give it a
habitation; it is something to assert strongly and bravely,
something to fill up the void of spontaneous ideas, something to
impose on others with the authority of conscious right; it is at
once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that will answer these
purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver's mind was
of this class; his inward criticism of his father's faults did not
prevent him from adopting his father's prejudice; it was a
prejudice against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a
meeting-point for all the disappointed feelings of family and
personal pride. Other feelings added their force to produce Tom's
bitter repugnance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him; and
notwithstanding Lucy's power over her strong-willed cousin, she got
nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a marriage; "but
of course Maggie could do as she liked,–she had declared her
determination to be independent. For Tom's part, he held himself
bound by his duty to his father's memory, and by every manly
feeling, never to consent to any relation with the Wakems."

Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation was to
fill Tom's mind with the expectation that Maggie's perverse resolve
to go into a situation again would presently metamorphose itself,
as her resolves were apt to do, into something equally perverse,
but entirely different,–a marriage with Philip Wakem.

Chapter XIII
Borne Along by the Tide

In less than a week Maggie was at St. Ogg's again,–outwardly in
much the same position as when her visit there had just begun. It
was easy for her to fill her mornings apart from Lucy without any
obvious effort; for she had her promised visits to pay to her aunt
Glegg, and it was natural that she should give her mother more than
usual of her companionship in these last weeks, especially as there
were preparations to be thought of for Tom's housekeeping. But Lucy
would hear of no pretext for her remaining away in the evenings;
she must always come from aunt Glegg's before dinner,–"else what
shall I have of you?" said Lucy, with a tearful pout that could not
be resisted.

And Mr. Stephen Guest had unaccountably taken to dining at Mr.
Deane's as often as possible, instead of avoiding that, as he used
to do. At first he began his mornings with a resolution that he
would not dine there, not even go in the evening, till Maggie was
away. He had even devised a plan of starting off on a journey in
this agreeable June weather; the headaches which he had constantly
been alleging as a ground for stupidity and silence were a
sufficient ostensible motive. But the journey was not taken, and by
the fourth morning no distinct resolution was formed about the
evenings; they were only foreseen as times when Maggie would still
be present for a little while,–when one more touch, one more
glance, might be snatched. For why not? There was nothing to
conceal between them; they knew, they had confessed their love, and
they had renounced each other; they were going to part. Honor and
conscience were going to divide them; Maggie, with that appeal from
her inmost soul, had decided it; but surely they might cast a
lingering look at each other across the gulf, before they turned
away never to look again till that strange light had forever faded
out of their eyes.

Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence and even
torpor of manner, so contrasted with her usual fitful brightness
and ardor, that Lucy would have had to seek some other cause for
such a change, if she had not been convinced that the position in
which Maggie stood between Philip and her brother, and the prospect
of her self-imposed wearisome banishment, were quite enough to
account for a large amount of depression. But under this torpor
there was a fierce battle of emotions, such as Maggie in all her
life of struggle had never known or foreboded; it seemed to her as
if all the worst evil in her had lain in ambush till now, and had
suddenly started up full-armed, with hideous, overpowering
strength! There were moments in which a cruel selfishness seemed to
be getting possession of her; why should not Lucy, why should not
Philip, suffer?
She
had had to suffer through many years
of her life; and who had renounced anything for her? And when
something like that fulness of existence–love, wealth, ease,
refinement, all that her nature craved–was brought within her
reach, why was she to forego it, that another might have
it,–another, who perhaps needed it less? But amidst all this new
passionate tumult there were the old voices making themselves heard
with rising power, till, from time to time, the tumult seemed
quelled.
Was
that existence which tempted her the full
existence she dreamed? Where, then, would be all the memories of
early striving; all the deep pity for another's pain, which had
been nurtured in her through years of affection and hardship; all
the divine presentiment of something higher than mere personal
enjoyment, which had made the sacredness of life? She might as well
hope to enjoy walking by maiming her feet, as hope to enjoy an
existence in which she set out by maiming the faith and sympathy
that were the best organs of her soul. And then, if pain were so
hard to
her
, what was it to others? "Ah, God! preserve me
from inflicting–give me strength to bear it." How had she sunk into
this struggle with a temptation that she would once have thought
herself as secure from as from deliberate crime? When was that
first hateful moment in which she had been conscious of a feeling
that clashed with her truth, affection, and gratitude, and had not
shaken it from her with horror, as if it had been a loathsome
thing? And yet, since this strange, sweet, subduing influence did
not, should not, conquer her,–since it was to remain simply her own
suffering,–her mind was meeting Stephen's in that thought of his,
that they might still snatch moments of mute confession before the
parting came. For was not he suffering too? She saw it daily–saw it
in the sickened look of fatigue with which, as soon as he was not
compelled to exert himself, he relapsed into indifference toward
everything but the possibility of watching her. Could she refuse
sometimes to answer that beseeching look which she felt to be
following her like a low murmur of love and pain? She refused it
less and less, till at last the evening for them both was sometimes
made of a moment's mutual gaze; they thought of it till it came,
and when it had come, they thought of nothing else.

One other thing Stephen seemed now and then to care for, and
that was to sing; it was a way of speaking to Maggie. Perhaps he
was not distinctly conscious that he was impelled to it by a secret
longing–running counter to all his self-confessed resolves–to
deepen the hold he had on her. Watch your own speech, and notice
how it is guided by your less conscious purposes, and you will
understand that contradiction in Stephen.

Philip Wakem was a less frequent visitor, but he came
occasionally in the evening, and it happened that he was there when
Lucy said, as they sat out on the lawn, near sunset,–

"Now Maggie's tale of visits to aunt Glegg is completed, I mean
that we shall go out boating every day until she goes. She has not
had half enough boating because of these tiresome visits, and she
likes it better than anything. Don't you, Maggie?"

"Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean," said
Philip, smiling at Maggie, who was lolling backward in a low
garden-chair; "else she will be selling her soul to that ghostly
boatman who haunts the Floss, only for the sake of being drifted in
a boat forever."

"Should you like to be her boatman?" said Lucy. "Because, if you
would, you can come with us and take an oar. If the Floss were but
a quiet lake instead of a river, we should be independent of any
gentleman, for Maggie can row splendidly. As it is, we are reduced
to ask services of knights and squires, who do not seem to offer
them with great alacrity."

She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up
and down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,–

"The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine."

He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so
frequently during Philip's recent visits.

"You don't seem inclined for boating," said Lucy, when he came
to sit down by her on the bench. "Doesn't rowing suit you now?"

"Oh, I hate a large party in a boat," he said, almost irritably.
"I'll come when you have no one else."

Lucy colored, fearing that Philip would be hurt; it was quite a
new thing for Stephen to speak in that way; but he had certainly
not been well of late. Philip colored too, but less from a feeling
of personal offence than from a vague suspicion that Stephen's
moodiness had some relation to Maggie, who had started up from her
chair as he spoke, and had walked toward the hedge of laurels to
look at the descending sunlight on the river.