The Mill on the Floss (72 page)

"As Miss Deane didn't know she was excluding others by inviting
me," said Philip, "I am bound to resign."

"No, indeed, you shall not," said Lucy, much vexed. "I
particularly wish for your company to-morrow. The tide will suit at
half-past ten; it will be a delicious time for a couple of hours to
row to Luckreth and walk back, before the sun gets too hot. And how
can you object to four people in a boat?" she added, looking at
Stephen.

"I don't object to the people, but the number," said Stephen,
who had recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his rudeness.
"If I voted for a fourth at all, of course it would be you, Phil.
But we won't divide the pleasure of escorting the ladies; we'll
take it alternately. I'll go the next day."

This incident had the effect of drawing Philip's attention with
freshened solicitude toward Stephen and Maggie; but when they
re-entered the house, music was proposed, and Mrs. Tulliver and Mr.
Deane being occupied with cribbage, Maggie sat apart near the table
where the books and work were placed, doing nothing, however, but
listening abstractedly to the music. Stephen presently turned to a
duet which he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing; he had
often done the same thing before; but this evening Philip thought
he divined some double intention in every word and look of
Stephen's, and watched him keenly, angry with himself all the while
for this clinging suspicion. For had not Maggie virtually denied
any ground for his doubts on her side? And she was truth itself; it
was impossible not to believe her word and glance when they had
last spoken together in the garden. Stephen might be strongly
fascinated by her (what was more natural?), but Philip felt himself
rather base for intruding on what must be his friend's painful
secret. Still he watched. Stephen, moving away from the piano,
sauntered slowly toward the table near which Maggie sat, and turned
over the newspapers, apparently in mere idleness. Then he seated
himself with his back to the piano, dragging a newspaper under his
elbow, and thrusting his hand through his hair, as if he had been
attracted by some bit of local news in the "Laceham Courier." He
was in reality looking at Maggie who had not taken the slightest
notice of his approach. She had always additional strength of
resistance when Philip was present, just as we can restrain our
speech better in a spot that we feel to be hallowed. But at last
she heard the word "dearest" uttered in the softest tone of pained
entreaty, like that of a patient who asks for something that ought
to have been given without asking. She had never heard that word
since the moments in the lane at Basset, when it had come from
Stephen again and again, almost as involuntarily as if it had been
an inarticulate cry. Philip could hear no word, but he had moved to
the opposite side of the piano, and could see Maggie start and
blush, raise her eyes an instant toward Stephen's face, but
immediately look apprehensively toward himself. It was not evident
to her that Philip had observed her; but a pang of shame, under the
sense of this concealment, made her move from her chair and walk to
her mother's side to watch the game at cribbage.

Philip went home soon after in a state of hideous doubt mingled
with wretched certainty. It was impossible for him now to resist
the conviction that there was some mutual consciousness between
Stephen and Maggie; and for half the night his irritable,
susceptible nerves were pressed upon almost to frenzy by that one
wretched fact; he could attempt no explanation that would reconcile
it with her words and actions. When, at last, the need for belief
in Maggie rose to its habitual predominance, he was not long in
imagining the truth,–she was struggling, she was banishing herself;
this was the clue to all he had seen since his return. But athwart
that belief there came other possibilities that would not be driven
out of sight. His imagination wrought out the whole story; Stephen
was madly in love with her; he must have told her so; she had
rejected him, and was hurrying away. But would he give her up,
knowing–Philip felt the fact with heart-crushing despair–that she
was made half helpless by her feeling toward him?

When the morning came, Philip was too ill to think of keeping
his engagement to go in the boat. In his present agitation he could
decide on nothing; he could only alternate between contradictory
intentions. First, he thought he must have an interview with
Maggie, and entreat her to confide in him; then, again, he
distrusted his own interference. Had he not been thrusting himself
on Maggie all along? She had uttered words long ago in her young
ignorance; it was enough to make her hate him that these should be
continually present with her as a bond. And had he any right to ask
her for a revelation of feelings which she had evidently intended
to withhold from him? He would not trust himself to see her, till
he had assured himself that he could act from pure anxiety for her,
and not from egoistic irritation. He wrote a brief note to Stephen,
and sent it early by the servant, saying that he was not well
enough to fulfil his engagement to Miss Deane. Would Stephen take
his excuse, and fill his place?

Lucy had arranged a charming plan, which had made her quite
content with Stephen's refusal to go in the boat. She discovered
that her father was to drive to Lindum this morning at ten; Lindum
was the very place she wanted to go to, to make
purchases,–important purchases, which must by no means be put off
to another opportunity; and aunt Tulliver must go too, because she
was concerned in some of the purchases.

"You will have your row in the boat just the same, you know,"
she said to Maggie when they went out of the breakfast-room and
upstairs together; "Philip will be here at half-past ten, and it is
a delicious morning. Now don't say a word against it, you dear
dolorous thing. What is the use of my being a fairy godmother, if
you set your face against all the wonders I work for you? Don't
think of awful cousin Tom; you may disobey him a little."

Maggie did not persist in objecting. She was almost glad of the
plan, for perhaps it would bring her some strength and calmness to
be alone with Philip again; it was like revisiting the scene of a
quieter life, in which the very struggles were repose, compared
with the daily tumult of the present. She prepared herself for the
boat and at half-past ten sat waiting in the drawing-room.

The ring of the door-bell was punctual, and she was thinking
with half-sad, affectionate pleasure of the surprise Philip would
have in finding that he was to be with her alone, when she
distinguished a firm, rapid step across the hall, that was
certainly not Philip's; the door opened, and Stephen Guest
entered.

In the first moment they were both too much agitated to speak;
for Stephen had learned from the servant that the others were gone
out. Maggie had started up and sat down again, with her heart
beating violently; and Stephen, throwing down his cap and gloves,
came and sat by her in silence. She thought Philip would be coming
soon; and with great effort–for she trembled visibly–she rose to go
to a distant chair.

"He is not coming," said Stephen, in a low tone. "I am going in
the boat."

"Oh, we can't go," said Maggie, sinking into her chair again.
"Lucy did not expect–she would be hurt. Why is not Philip
come?"

"He is not well; he asked me to come instead."

"Lucy is gone to Lindum," said Maggie, taking off her bonnet
with hurried, trembling fingers. "We must not go."

"Very well," said Stephen, dreamily, looking at her, as he
rested his arm on the back of his chair. "Then we'll stay
here."

He was looking into her deep, deep eyes, far off and mysterious
at the starlit blackness, and yet very near, and timidly loving.
Maggie sat perfectly still–perhaps for moments, perhaps for
minutes–until the helpless trembling had ceased, and there was a
warm glow on her check.

"The man is waiting; he has taken the cushions," she said. "Will
you go and tell him?"

"What shall I tell him?" said Stephen, almost in a whisper. He
was looking at the lips now.

Maggie made no answer.

"Let us go," Stephen murmured entreatingly, rising, and taking
her hand to raise her too. "We shall not be long together."

And they went. Maggie felt that she was being led down the
garden among the roses, being helped with firm, tender care into
the boat, having the cushion and cloak arranged for her feet, and
her parasol opened for her (which she had forgotten), all by this
stronger presence that seemed to bear her along without any act of
her own will, like the added self which comes with the sudden
exalting influence of a strong tonic, and she felt nothing else.
Memory was excluded.

They glided rapidly along, Stephen rowing, helped by the
backward-flowing tide, past the Tofton trees and houses; on between
the silent sunny fields and pastures, which seemed filled with a
natural joy that had no reproach for theirs. The breath of the
young, unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic dip of the oars, the
fragmentary song of a passing bird heard now and then, as if it
were only the overflowing of brimful gladness, the sweet solitude
of a twofold consciousness that was mingled into one by that grave,
untiring gaze which need not be averted,–what else could there be
in their minds for the first hour? Some low, subdued, languid
exclamation of love came from Stephen from time to time, as he went
on rowing idly, half automatically; otherwise they spoke no word;
for what could words have been but an inlet to thought? and thought
did not belong to that enchanted haze in which they were
enveloped,–it belonged to the past and the future that lay outside
the haze. Maggie was only dimly conscious of the banks, as they
passed them, and dwelt with no recognition on the villages; she
knew there were several to be passed before they reached Luckreth,
where they always stopped and left the boat. At all times she was
so liable to fits of absence, that she was likely enough to let her
waymarks pass unnoticed.

But at last Stephen, who had been rowing more and more idly,
ceased to row, laid down the oars, folded his arms, and looked down
on the water as if watching the pace at which the boat glided
without his help. This sudden change roused Maggie. She looked at
the far-stretching fields, at the banks close by, and felt that
they were entirely strange to her. A terrible alarm took possession
of her.

"Oh, have we passed Luckreth, where we were to stop?" she
exclaimed, looking back to see if the place were out of sight. No
village was to be seen. She turned around again, with a look of
distressed questioning at Stephen.

He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange, dreamy,
absent tone, "Yes, a long way."

"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Maggie, in an agony. "We shall not
get home for hours, and Lucy? O God, help me!"

She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a frightened
child; she thought of nothing but of meeting Lucy, and seeing her
look of pained surprise and doubt, perhaps of just upbraiding.

Stephen moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the clasped
hands.

"Maggie," he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, "let us
never go home again, till no one can part us,–till we are
married."

The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Maggie's sob,
and she sat quite still, wondering; as if Stephen might have seen
some possibilities that would alter everything, and annul the
wretched facts.

"See, Maggie, how everything has come without our seeking,–in
spite of all our efforts. We never thought of being alone together
again; it has all been done by others. See how the tide is carrying
us out, away from all those unnatural bonds that we have been
trying to make faster round us, and trying in vain. It will carry
us on to Torby, and we can land there, and get some carriage, and
hurry on to York and then to Scotland,–and never pause a moment
till we are bound to each other, so that only death can part us. It
is the only right thing, dearest; it is the only way of escaping
from this wretched entanglement. Everything has concurred to point
it out to us. We have contrived nothing, we have thought of nothing
ourselves."

Stephen spoke with deep, earnest pleading. Maggie listened,
passing from her startled wonderment to the yearning after that
belief that the tide was doing it all, that she might glide along
with the swift, silent stream, and not struggle any more. But
across that stealing influence came the terrible shadow of past
thoughts; and the sudden horror lest now, at last, the moment of
fatal intoxication was close upon her, called up feelings of angry
resistance toward Stephen.

"Let me go!" she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an
indignant look at him, and trying to get her hands free. "You have
wanted to deprive me of any choice. You knew we were come too far;
you have dared to take advantage of my thoughtlessness. It is
unmanly to bring me into such a position."

Stung by this reproach, he released her hands, moved back to his
former place, and folded his arms, in a sort of desperation at the
difficulty Maggie's words had made present to him. If she would not
consent to go on, he must curse himself for the embarrassment he
had led her into. But the reproach was the unendurable thing; the
one thing worse than parting with her was, that she should feel he
had acted unworthily toward her. At last he said, in a tone of
suppressed rage,–

"I didn't notice that we had passed Luckreth till we had got to
the next village; and then it came into my mind that we would go
on. I can't justify it; I ought to have told you. It is enough to
make you hate me, since you don't love me well enough to make
everything else indifferent to you, as I do you. Shall I stop the
boat and try to get you out here? I'll tell Lucy that I was mad,
and that you hate me; and you shall be clear of me forever. No one
can blame you, because I have behaved unpardonably to you."