The Mill on the Floss (68 page)

"Oh,
I must go
," said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr.
Kenn with an expression of reliance, as if she had told him her
history in those three words. It was one of those moments of
implicit revelation which will sometimes happen even between people
who meet quite transiently,–on a mile's journey, perhaps, or when
resting by the wayside. There is always this possibility of a word
or look from a stranger to keep alive the sense of human
brotherhood.

Dr. Kenn's ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief
confidence of Maggie's was charged with meaning.

"I understand," he said; "you feel it right to go. But that will
not prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my
knowing you better, if I can be of any service to you."

He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned
away.

"She has some trouble or other at heart," he thought. "Poor
child! she looks as if she might turn out to be one of

'The souls by nature pitched too high,
By suffering plunged too low.'

"There's something wonderfully honest in those beautiful
eyes."

It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many imperfections
an excessive delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were
not absent now, any more than when she was instructing the gypsies
with a view toward achieving a royal position among them, was not
more elated on a day when she had had the tribute of so many looks
and smiles, together with that satisfactory consciousness which had
necessarily come from being taken before Lucy's chevalglass, and
made to look at the full length of her tall beauty, crowned by the
night of her massy hair. Maggie had smiled at herself then, and for
the moment had forgotten everything in the sense of her own beauty.
If that state of mind could have lasted, her choice would have been
to have Stephen Guest at her feet, offering her a life filled with
all luxuries, with daily incense of adoration near and distant, and
with all possibilities of culture at her command. But there were
things in her stronger than vanity,–passion and affection, and
long, deep memories of early discipline and effort, of early claims
on her love and pity; and the stream of vanity was soon swept along
and mingled imperceptibly with that wider current which was at its
highest force today, under the double urgency of the events and
inward impulses brought by the last week.

Philip had not spoken to her himself about the removal of
obstacles between them on his father's side,–he shrank from that;
but he had told everything to Lucy, with the hope that Maggie,
being informed through her, might give him some encouraging sign
that their being brought thus much nearer to each other was a
happiness to her. The rush of conflicting feelings was too great
for Maggie to say much when Lucy, with a face breathing playful
joy, like one of Correggio's cherubs, poured forth her triumphant
revelation; and Lucy could hardly be surprised that she could do
little more than cry with gladness at the thought of her father's
wish being fulfilled, and of Tom's getting the Mill again in reward
for all his hard striving. The details of preparation for the
bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy's attention for the next few
days, and nothing had been said by the cousins on subjects that
were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had been to the house
more than once, but Maggie had had no private conversation with
him, and thus she had been left to fight her inward battle without
interference.

But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were alone
again, resting together at home, Lucy said,–

"You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the day
after to-morrow, Maggie; write a note to her, and tell her you have
put it off at my request, and I'll send the man with it. She won't
be displeased; you'll have plenty of time to go by-and-by; and I
don't want you to go out of the way just now."

"Yes, indeed I must go, dear; I can't put it off. I wouldn't
leave aunt Gritty out for the world. And I shall have very little
time, for I'm going away to a new situation on the 25th of
June."

"Maggie!" said Lucy, almost white with astonishment.

"I didn't tell you, dear," said Maggie, making a great effort to
command herself, "because you've been so busy. But some time ago I
wrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to ask her to let me know
if she met with any situation that I could fill, and the other day
I had a letter from her telling me that I could take three orphan
pupils of hers to the coast during the holidays, and then make
trial of a situation with her as teacher. I wrote yesterday to
accept the offer."

Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was unable to
speak.

"Maggie," she said at last, "how could you be so unkind to
me–not to tell me–to take
such
a step–and now!" She
hesitated a little, and then added, "And Philip? I thought
everything was going to be so happy. Oh, Maggie, what is the
reason? Give it up; let me write. There is nothing now to keep you
and Philip apart."

"Yes," said Maggie, faintly. "There is Tom's feeling. He said I
must give him up if I married Philip. And I know he will not
change–at least not for a long while–unless something happened to
soften him."

"But I will talk to him; he's coming back this week. And this
good news about the Mill will soften him. And I'll talk to him
about Philip. Tom's always very compliant to me; I don't think he's
so obstinate."

"But I must go," said Maggie, in a distressed voice. "I must
leave some time to pack. Don't press me to stay, dear Lucy."

Lucy was silent for two or three minutes, looking away and
ruminating. At length she knelt down by her cousin, and looking up
in her face with anxious seriousness, said,–

"Maggie, is it that you don't love Philip well enough to marry
him? Tell me–trust me."

Maggie held Lucy's hands tightly in silence a little while. Her
own hands were quite cold. But when she spoke, her voice was quite
clear and distinct.

"Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it would be the
best and highest lot for me,–to make his life happy. He loved me
first. No one else could be quite what he is to me. But I can't
divide myself from my brother for life. I must go away, and wait.
Pray don't speak to me again about it."

Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said was,–

"Well, dear Maggie, at least you will go to the dance at Park
House to-morrow, and have some music and brightness, before you go
to pay these dull dutiful visits. Ah! here come aunty and the
tea."

Chapter X
The Spell Seems Broken

The suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House looked
duly brilliant with lights and flowers and the personal splendors
of sixteen couples, with attendant parents and guardians. The focus
of brilliancy was the long drawing-room, where the dancing went
forward, under the inspiration of the grand piano; the library,
into which it opened at one end, had the more sober illumination of
maturity, with caps and cards; and at the other end the pretty
sitting-room, with a conservatory attached, was left as an
occasional cool retreat. Lucy, who had laid aside her black for the
first time, and had her pretty slimness set off by an abundant
dress of white crape, was the acknowledged queen of the occasion;
for this was one of the Miss Guests' thoroughly condescending
parties, including no member of any aristocracy higher than that of
St. Ogg's, and stretching to the extreme limits of commercial and
professional gentility.

Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgotten
all the figures–it was so many years since she had danced at
school; and she was glad to have that excuse, for it is ill dancing
with a heavy heart. But at length the music wrought in her young
limbs, and the longing came; even though it was the horrible young
Torry, who walked up a second time to try and persuade her. She
warned him that she could not dance anything but a country-dance;
but he, of course, was willing to wait for that high felicity,
meaning only to be complimentary when he assured her at several
intervals that it was a "great bore" that she couldn't waltz, he
would have liked so much to waltz with her. But at last it was the
turn of the good old-fashioned dance which has the least of vanity
and the most of merriment in it, and Maggie quite forgot her
troublous life in a childlike enjoyment of that half-rustic rhythm
which seems to banish pretentious etiquette. She felt quite
charitably toward young Torry, as his hand bore her along and held
her up in the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fire of young joy
in them which will flame out if it can find the least breath to fan
it; and her simple black dress, with its bit of black lace, seemed
like the dim setting of a jewel.

Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid her
more than a passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward vision
of her which perpetually made part of his consciousness, had been
half screened by the image of Philip Wakem, which came across it
like a blot; there was some attachment between her and Philip; at
least there was an attachment on his side, which made her feel in
some bondage. Here, then, Stephen told himself, was another claim
of honor which called on him to resist the attraction that was
continually threatening to overpower him. He told himself so; and
yet he had once or twice felt a certain savage resistance, and at
another moment a shuddering repugnance, to this intrusion of
Philip's image, which almost made it a new incitement to rush
toward Maggie and claim her for himself. Nevertheless, he had done
what he meant to do this evening,–he had kept aloof from her; he
had hardly looked at her; and he had been gayly assiduous to Lucy.
But now his eyes were devouring Maggie; he felt inclined to kick
young Torry out of the dance, and take his place. Then he wanted
the dance to end that he might get rid of his partner. The
possibility that he too should dance with Maggie, and have her hand
in his so long, was beginning to possess him like a thirst. But
even now their hands were meeting in the dance,–were meeting still
to the very end of it, though they were far off each other.

Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic way he
got through the duties of politeness in the interval, until he was
free and saw Maggie seated alone again, at the farther end of the
room. He made his way toward her round the couples that were
forming for the waltz; and when Maggie became conscious that she
was the person he sought, she felt, in spite of all the thoughts
that had gone before, a glowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and
cheeks were still brightened with her childlike enthusiasm in the
dance; her whole frame was set to joy and tenderness; even the
coming pain could not seem bitter,–she was ready to welcome it as a
part of life, for life at this moment seemed a keen, vibrating
consciousness poised above pleasure or pain. This one, this last
night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the
present, without those chill, eating thoughts of the past and the
future.

"They're going to waltz again," said Stephen, bending to speak
to her, with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness which young
dreams create to themselves in the summer woods when low, cooing
voices fill the air. Such glances and tones bring the breath of
poetry with them into a room that is half stifling with glaring gas
and hard flirtation.

"They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work to look
on, and the room is very warm; shall we walk about a little?"

He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they walked
on into the sitting-room, where the tables were strewn with
engravings for the accommodation of visitors who would not want to
look at them. But no visitors were here at this moment. They passed
on into the conservatory.

"How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with the
lights among them!" said Maggie, in a low voice. "They look as if
they belonged to an enchanted land, and would never fade away; I
could fancy they were all made of jewels."

She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, and
Stephen made no answer; but he was looking at her; and does not a
supreme poet blend light and sound into one, calling darkness mute,
and light eloquent? Something strangely powerful there was in the
light of Stephen's long gaze, for it made Maggie's face turn toward
it and look upward at it, slowly, like a flower at the ascending
brightness. And they walked unsteadily on, without feeling that
they were walking; without feeling anything but that long, grave,
mutual gaze which has the solemnity belonging to all deep human
passion. The hovering thought that they must and would renounce
each other made this moment of mute confession more intense in its
rapture.

But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were
obliged to pause and turn. The change of movement brought a new
consciousness to Maggie; she blushed deeply, turned away her head,
and drew her arm from Stephen's, going up to some flowers to smell
them. Stephen stood motionless, and still pale.

"Oh, may I get this rose?" said Maggie, making a great effort to
say something, and dissipate the burning sense of irretrievable
confession. "I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gather
them and smell them till they have no scent left."

Stephen was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence
together, and Maggie bent her arm a little upward toward the large
half-opened rose that had attracted her. Who has not felt the
beauty of a woman's arm? The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness
that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the varied gently lessening
curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost
imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A woman's arm touched the
soul of a great sculptor two thousand years ago, so that he wrought
an image of it for the Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps
lovingly the timeworn marble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such
an arm as that, and it had the warm tints of life.