The Mill on the Floss (58 page)

"You dear, tiny thing," said Maggie, in one of her bursts of
loving admiration, "you enjoy other people's happiness so much, I
believe you would do without any of your own. I wish I were like
you."

"I've never been tried in that way," said Lucy. "I've always
been so happy. I don't know whether I could bear much trouble; I
never had any but poor mamma's death. You
have
been tried,
Maggie; and I'm sure you feel for other people quite as much as I
do."

"No, Lucy," said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, "I don't enjoy
their happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I do
feel for them when they are in trouble; I don't think I could ever
bear to make any one
un
happy; and yet I often hate myself,
because I get angry sometimes at the sight of happy people. I think
I get worse as I get older, more selfish. That seems very
dreadful."

"Now, Maggie!" said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, "I don't
believe a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just because you
are depressed by a dull, wearisome life."

"Well, perhaps it is," said Maggie, resolutely clearing away the
clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing herself
backward in her chair. "Perhaps it comes from the school
diet,–watery rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will
give way before my mother's custards and this charming Geoffrey
Crayon."

Maggie took up the "Sketch Book," which lay by her on the
table.

"Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?" said Lucy,
going to survey the effect in the chimney-glass.

"Oh no, Mr. Guest will be obliged to go out of the room again if
he sees you in it. Pray make haste and put another on."

Lucy hurried out of the room, but Maggie did not take the
opportunity of opening her book; she let it fall on her knees,
while her eyes wandered to the window, where she could see the
sunshine falling on the rich clumps of spring flowers and on the
long hedge of laurels, and beyond, the silvery breadth of the dear
old Floss, that at this distance seemed to be sleeping in a morning
holiday. The sweet fresh garden-scent came through the open window,
and the birds were busy flitting and alighting, gurgling and
singing. Yet Maggie's eyes began to fill with tears. The sight of
the old scenes had made the rush of memories so painful that even
yesterday she had only been able to rejoice in her mother's
restored comfort and Tom's brotherly friendliness as we rejoice in
good news of friends at a distance, rather than in the presence of
a happiness which we share. Memory and imagination urged upon her a
sense of privation too keen to let her taste what was offered in
the transient present. Her future, she thought, was likely to be
worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation,
she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless
days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the
image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired
of, becoming more and more importunate. The sound of the opening
door roused her, and hastily wiping away her tears, she began to
turn over the leaves of her book.

"There is one pleasure, I know, Maggie, that your deepest
dismalness will never resist," said Lucy, beginning to speak as
soon as she entered the room. "That is music, and I mean you to
have quite a riotous feast of it. I mean you to get up your playing
again, which used to be so much better than mine, when we were at
Laceham."

"You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls'
tunes over and over to them, when I took them to practise," said
Maggie, "just for the sake of fingering the dear keys again. But I
don't know whether I could play anything more difficult now than
'Begone, dull care!'"

"I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when the
glee-men came round," said Lucy, taking up her embroidery; "and we
might have all those old glees that you used to love so, if I were
certain that you don't feel exactly as Tom does about some
things."

"I should have thought there was nothing you might be more
certain of," said Maggie, smiling.

"I ought rather to have said, one particular thing. Because if
you feel just as he does about that, we shall want our third voice.
St. Ogg's is so miserably provided with musical gentlemen. There
are really only Stephen and Philip Wakem who have any knowledge of
music, so as to be able to sing a part."

Lucy had looked up from her work as she uttered the last
sentence, and saw that there was a change in Maggie's face.

"Does it hurt you to hear the name mentioned, Maggie? If it
does, I will not speak of him again. I know Tom will not see him if
he can avoid it."

"I don't feel at all as Tom does on that subject," said Maggie,
rising and going to the window as if she wanted to see more of the
landscape. "I've always liked Philip Wakem ever since I was a
little girl, and saw him at Lorton. He was so good when Tom hurt
his foot."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Lucy. "Then you won't mind his coming
sometimes, and we can have much more music than we could without
him. I'm very fond of poor Philip, only I wish he were not so
morbid about his deformity. I suppose it
is
his deformity
that makes him so sad, and sometimes bitter. It is certainly very
piteous to see his poor little crooked body and pale face among
great, strong people."

"But, Lucy––" said Maggie, trying to arrest the prattling
stream.

"Ah, there is the door-bell. That must be Stephen," Lucy went
on, not noticing Maggie's faint effort to speak. "One of the things
I most admire in Stephen is that he makes a greater friend of
Philip than any one."

It was too late for Maggie to speak now; the drawingroom door
was opening, and Minny was already growling in a small way at the
entrance of a tall gentleman, who went up to Lucy and took her hand
with a half-polite, half-tender glance and tone of inquiry, which
seemed to indicate that he was unconscious of any other
presence.

"Let me introduce you to my cousin, Miss Tulliver," said Lucy,
turning with wicked enjoyment toward Maggie, who now approached
from the farther window. "This is Mr. Stephen Guest."

For one instant Stephen could not conceal his astonishment at
the sight of this tall, dark-eyed nymph with her jet-black coronet
of hair; the next, Maggie felt herself, for the first time in her
life, receiving the tribute of a very deep blush and a very deep
bow from a person toward whom she herself was conscious of
timidity.

This new experience was very agreeable to her, so agreeable that
it almost effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a
new brightness in her eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek,
as she seated herself.

"I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the day
before yesterday," said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of triumph. She
enjoyed her lover's confusion; the advantage was usually on his
side.

"This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss
Tulliver," said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stooping to
play with Minny, only looking at Maggie furtively. "She said you
had light hair and blue eyes."

"Nay, it was you who said so," remonstrated Lucy. "I only
refrained from destroying your confidence in your own
second-sight."

"I wish I could always err in the same way," said Stephen, "and
find reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions."

"Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said
Maggie, "and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the
circumstances."

She flashed a slightly defiant look at him; it was clear to her
that he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand.
Lucy had said he was inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had
mentally supplied the addition, "and rather conceited."

"An alarming amount of devil there," was Stephen's first
thought. The second, when she had bent over her work, was, "I wish
she would look at me again." The next was to answer,–

"I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be
true. A man is occasionally grateful when he says 'Thank you.' It's
rather hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all
the world declines a disagreeable invitation, don't you think so,
Miss Tulliver?"

"No," said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; "if we
use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking,
because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like
old banners, or every-day clothes, hung up in a sacred place."

"Then my compliment ought to be eloquent," said Stephen, really
not quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, "seeing
that the words were so far beneath the occasion."

"No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of
indifference," said Maggie, flushing a little.

Lucy was rather alarmed; she thought Stephen and Maggie were not
going to like each other. She had always feared lest Maggie should
appear too old and clever to please that critical gentleman. "Why,
dear Maggie," she interposed, "you have always pretended that you
are too fond of being admired; and now, I think, you are angry
because some one ventures to admire you."

"Not at all," said Maggie; "I like too well to feel that I am
admired, but compliments never make me feel that."

"I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver," said
Stephen.

"Thank you; that will be a proof of respect."

Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take
nothing as a matter of course, and had never in her life spoken
from the lips merely, so that she must necessarily appear absurd to
more experienced ladies, from the excessive feeling she was apt to
throw into very trivial incidents. But she was even conscious
herself of a little absurdity in this instance. It was true she had
a theoretic objection to compliments, and had once said impatiently
to Philip that she didn't see why women were to be told with a
simper that they were beautiful, any more than old men were to be
told that they were venerable; still, to be so irritated by a
common practice in the case of a stranger like Mr. Stephen Guest,
and to care about his having spoken slightingly of her before he
had seen her, was certainly unreasonable, and as soon as she was
silent she began to be ashamed of herself. It did not occur to her
that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which
preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glowing
warmth an innocent drop of cold water may fall upon us as a sudden
smart.

Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the previous
conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began
to talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the
bazaar was at length to take place, so that there might be some
hope of seeing her rain the influence of her eyes on objects more
grateful than those worsted flowers that were growing under her
fingers.

"Some day next month, I believe," said Lucy. "But your sisters
are doing more for it than I am; they are to have the largest
stall."

"Ah yes; but they carry on their manufactures in their own
sitting-room, where I don't intrude on them. I see you are not
addicted to the fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss Tulliver,"
said Stephen, looking at Maggie's plain hemming.

"No," said Maggie, "I can do nothing more difficult or more
elegant than shirt-making."

"And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie," said Lucy,
"that I think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show as
fancy-work. Your exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me, you
used to dislike that sort of work so much in old days."

"It is a mystery easily explained, dear," said Maggie, looking
up quietly. "Plain sewing was the only thing I could get money by,
so I was obliged to try and do it well."

Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a
little. She did not quite like that Stephen should know that;
Maggie need not have mentioned it. Perhaps there was some pride in
the confession,–the pride of poverty that will not be ashamed of
itself. But if Maggie had been the queen of coquettes she could
hardly have invented a means of giving greater piquancy to her
beauty in Stephen's eyes; I am not sure that the quiet admission of
plain sewing and poverty would have done alone, but assisted by the
beauty, they made Maggie more unlike other women even than she had
seemed at first.

"But I can knit, Lucy," Maggie went on, "if that will be of any
use for your bazaar."

"Oh yes, of infinite use. I shall set you to work with scarlet
wool to-morrow. But your sister is the most enviable person,"
continued Lucy, turning to Stephen, "to have the talent of
modelling. She is doing a wonderful bust of Dr. Kenn entirely from
memory."

"Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near together,
and the corners of the mouth very far apart, the likeness can
hardly fail to be striking in St. Ogg's."

"Now that is very wicked of you," said Lucy, looking rather
hurt. "I didn't think you would speak disrespectfully of Dr.
Kenn."

"I say anything disrespectful of Dr. Kenn? Heaven forbid! But I
am not bound to respect a libellous bust of him. I think Kenn one
of the finest fellows in the world. I don't care much about the
tall candlesticks he has put on the communion-table, and I
shouldn't like to spoil my temper by getting up to early prayers
every morning. But he's the only man I ever knew personally who
seems to me to have anything of the real apostle in him,–a man who
has eight hundred a-year and is contented with deal furniture and
boiled beef because he gives away two-thirds of his income. That
was a very fine thing of him,–taking into his house that poor lad
Grattan, who shot his mother by accident. He sacrifices more time
than a less busy man could spare, to save the poor fellow from
getting into a morbid state of mind about it. He takes the lad out
with him constantly, I see."