The Mill on the Floss (30 page)

Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks,–a fact
which did not surprise him, for his father and mother were not apt
to manifest their affection in unnecessary letters,–when, to his
great surprise, on the morning of a dark, cold day near the end of
November, he was told, soon after entering the study at nine
o'clock, that his sister was in the drawing-room. It was Mrs.
Stelling who had come into the study to tell him, and she left him
to enter the drawing-room alone.

Maggie, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair; she was
almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen; and she really
looked older than he did at that moment. She had thrown off her
bonnet, her heavy braids were pushed back from her forehead, as if
it would not bear that extra load, and her young face had a
strangely worn look, as her eyes turned anxiously toward the door.
When Tom entered she did not speak, but only went up to him, put
her arms round his neck, and kissed him earnestly. He was used to
various moods of hers, and felt no alarm at the unusual seriousness
of her greeting.

"Why, how is it you're come so early this cold morning, Maggie?
Did you come in the gig?" said Tom, as she backed toward the sofa,
and drew him to her side.

"No, I came by the coach. I've walked from the turnpike."

"But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have not begun
yet?"

"Father wanted me at home," said Maggie, with a slight trembling
of the lip. "I came home three or four days ago."

"Isn't my father well?" said Tom, rather anxiously.

"Not quite," said Maggie. "He's very unhappy, Tom. The lawsuit
is ended, and I came to tell you because I thought it would be
better for you to know it before you came home, and I didn't like
only to send you a letter."

"My father hasn't lost?" said Tom, hastily, springing from the
sofa, and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust
into his pockets.

"Yes, dear Tom," said Maggie, looking up at him with
trembling.

Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the
floor. Then he said:

"My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then?"

"Yes," said Maggie, rather faintly.

"Well, it can't be helped," said Tom, bravely, not translating
the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results. "But my
father's very much vexed, I dare say?" he added, looking at Maggie,
and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her girlish
way of taking things.

"Yes," said Maggie, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller speech
by Tom's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as
if the words
would
burst from her: "Oh, Tom, he will lose
the mill and the land and everything; he will have nothing
left."

Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before he
turned pale, and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but sat down on
the sofa again, looking vaguely out of the opposite window.

Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind. His
father had always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had
the cheerful, confident air of a man who has plenty of property to
fall back upon. Tom had never dreamed that his father would "fail";
that
was a form of misfortune which he had always heard
spoken of as a deep disgrace, and disgrace was an idea that he
could not associate with any of his relations, least of all with
his father. A proud sense of family respectability was part of the
very air Tom had been born and brought up in. He knew there were
people in St. Ogg's who made a show without money to support it,
and he had always heard such people spoken of by his own friends
with contempt and reprobation. He had a strong belief, which was a
lifelong habit, and required no definite evidence to rest on, that
his father could spend a great deal of money if he chose; and since
his education at Mr. Stelling's had given him a more expensive view
of life, he had often thought that when he got older he would make
a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle, and
other accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to
any of his contemporaries at St. Ogg's, who might consider
themselves a grade above him in society because their fathers were
professional men, or had large oil-mills. As to the prognostics and
headshaking of his aunts and uncles, they had never produced the
least effect on him, except to make him think that aunts and uncles
were disagreeable society; he had heard them find fault in much the
same way as long as he could remember. His father knew better than
they did.

The down had come on Tom's lip, yet his thoughts and
expectations had been hitherto only the reproduction, in changed
forms, of the boyish dreams in which he had lived three years ago.
He was awakened now with a violent shock.

Maggie was frightened at Tom's pale, trembling silence. There
was something else to tell him,–something worse. She threw her arms
round him at last, and said, with a half sob:

"Oh, Tom–dear, dear Tom, don't fret too much; try and bear it
well."

Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating kisses,
and there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed
away with his hand. The action seemed to rouse him, for he shook
himself and said: "I shall go home, with you, Maggie. Didn't my
father say I was to go?"

"No, Tom, father didn't wish it," said Maggie, her anxiety about
his
feeling helping her to master her agitation. What
would
he do when she told him all? "But mother wants you
to come,–poor mother!–she cries so. Oh, Tom, it's very dreadful at
home."

Maggie's lips grew whiter, and she began to tremble almost as
Tom had done. The two poor things clung closer to each other, both
trembling,–the one at an unshapen fear, the other at the image of a
terrible certainty. When Maggie spoke, it was hardly above a
whisper.

"And–and–poor father––"

Maggie could not utter it. But the suspense was intolerable to
Tom. A vague idea of going to prison, as a consequence of debt, was
the shape his fears had begun to take.

"Where's my father?" he said impatiently. "
Tell
me,
Maggie."

"He's at home," said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to that
question. "But," she added, after a pause, "not himself–he fell off
his horse. He has known nobody but me ever since–he seems to have
lost his senses. O father, father––"

With these last words, Maggie's sobs burst forth with the more
violence for the previous struggle against them. Tom felt that
pressure of the heart which forbids tears; he had no distinct
vision of their troubles as Maggie had, who had been at home; he
only felt the crushing weight of what seemed unmitigated
misfortune. He tightened his arm almost convulsively round Maggie
as she sobbed, but his face looked rigid and tearless, his eyes
blank,–as if a black curtain of cloud had suddenly fallen on his
path.

But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly; a single thought had
acted on her like a startling sound.

"We must set out, Tom, we must not stay. Father will miss me; we
must be at the turnpike at ten to meet the coach." She said this
with hasty decision, rubbing her eyes, and rising to seize her
bonnet.

Tom at once felt the same impulse, and rose too. "Wait a minute,
Maggie," he said. "I must speak to Mr. Stelling, and then we'll
go."

He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were; but on
his way he met Mr. Stelling, who had heard from his wife that
Maggie appeared to be in trouble when she asked for her brother,
and now that he thought the brother and sister had been alone long
enough, was coming to inquire and offer his sympathy.

"Please, sir, I must go home," Tom said abruptly, as he met Mr.
Stelling in the passage. "I must go back with my sister directly.
My father's lost his lawsuit–he's lost all his property–and he's
very ill."

Mr. Stelling felt like a kind-hearted man; he foresaw a probable
money loss for himself, but this had no appreciable share in his
feeling, while he looked with grave pity at the brother and sister
for whom youth and sorrow had begun together. When he knew how
Maggie had come, and how eager she was to get home again, he
hurried their departure, only whispering something to Mrs.
Stelling, who had followed him, and who immediately left the
room.

Tom and Maggie were standing on the door-step, ready to set out,
when Mrs. Stelling came with a little basket, which she hung on
Maggie's arm, saying: "Do remember to eat something on the way,
dear." Maggie's heart went out toward this woman whom she had never
liked, and she kissed her silently. It was the first sign within
the poor child of that new sense which is the gift of sorrow,–that
susceptibility to the bare offices of humanity which raises them
into a bond of loving fellowship, as to haggard men among the
ice-bergs the mere presence of an ordinary comrade stirs the deep
fountains of affection.

Mr. Stelling put his hand on Tom's shoulder and said: "God bless
you, my boy; let me know how you get on." Then he pressed Maggie's
hand; but there were no audible good-byes. Tom had so often thought
how joyful he should be the day he left school "for good"! And now
his school years seemed like a holiday that had come to an end.

The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the
distant road,–were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow.

They had gone forth together into their life of sorrow, and they
would never more see the sunshine undimmed by remembered cares.
They had entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of
their childhood had forever closed behind them.

Book III
The Downfall

Chapter I
What Had Happened at Home

When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the law-suit was
decided against him, and that Pivart and Wakem were triumphant,
every one who happened to observe him at the time thought that, for
so confident and hot-tempered a man, he bore the blow remarkably
well. He thought so himself; he thought he was going to show that
if Wakem or anybody else considered him crushed, they would find
themselves mistaken. He could not refuse to see that the costs of
this protracted suit would take more than he possessed to pay them;
but he appeared to himself to be full of expedients by which he
could ward off any results but such as were tolerable, and could
avoid the appearance of breaking down in the world. All the
obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of their old
channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate formation of
plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and remain Mr.
Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill in spite of them. There was such a rush
of projects in his brain, that it was no wonder his face was
flushed when he came away from his talk with his attorney, Mr.
Gore, and mounted his horse to ride home from Lindum. There was
Furley, who held the mortgage on the land,–a reasonable fellow, who
would see his own interest, Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and who
would be glad not only to purchase the whole estate, including the
mill and homestead, but would accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be
willing to advance money to be repaid with high interest out of the
profits of the business, which would be made over to him, Mr.
Tulliver only taking enough barely to maintain himself and his
family. Who would neglect such a profitable investment? Certainly
not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver had determined that Furley should meet
his plans with the utmost alacrity; and there are men whoses brains
have not yet been dangerously heated by the loss of a lawsuit, who
are apt to see in their own interest or desires a motive for other
men's actions. There was no doubt (in the miller's mind) that
Furley would do just what was desirable; and if he did–why, things
would not be so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and his family must
live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be till the
profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances, and that
might be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many years of life
before him. It was clear that the costs of the suit could be paid
without his being obliged to turn out of his old place, and look
like a ruined man. It was certainly an awkward moment in his
affairs. There was that suretyship for poor Riley, who had died
suddenly last April, and left his friend saddled with a debt of two
hundred and fifty pounds,–a fact which had helped to make Mr.
Tulliver's banking book less pleasant reading than a man might
desire toward Christmas. Well! he had never been one of those
poor-spirited sneaks who would refuse to give a helping hand to a
fellow-traveller in this puzzling world. The really vexatious
business was the fact that some months ago the creditor who had
lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glegg had become
uneasy about his money (set on by Wakem, of course), and Mr.
Tulliver, still confident that he should gain his suit, and finding
it eminently inconvenient to raise the said sum until that
desirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand
that he should give a bill of sale on his household furniture and
some other effects, as security in lieu of the bond. It was all
one, he had said to himself; he should soon pay off the money, and
there was no harm in giving that security any more than another.
But now the consequences of this bill of sale occurred to him in a
new light, and he remembered that the time was close at hand when
it would be enforced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago
he would have declared stoutly that he would never be beholden to
his wife's friends; but now he told himself as stoutly that it was
nothing but right and natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets
and explain the thing to them; they would hardly let Bessy's
furniture be sold, and it might be security to Pullet if he
advanced the money,–there would, after all, be no gift or favor in
the matter. Mr. Tulliver would never have asked for anything from
so poor-spirited a fellow for himself, but Bessy might do so if she
liked.