The Mill on the Floss

Chapter II

Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods

When the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five hours since shehad started from home, and she was thinking with some trembling thather father had perhaps missed her, and asked for ”the little wench” invain. She thought of no other change that might have happened.

She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the house before Tom;but in the entrance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. Theparlor door was ajar; that was where the smell came from. It was verystrange; could any visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was hermother there? If so, she must be told that Tom was come. Maggie, afterthis pause of surprise, was only in the act of opening the door whenTom came up, and they both looked into the parlor together.

There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Tom had some vaguerecollection, sitting in his father's chair, smoking, with a jug andglass beside him.

The truth flashed on Tom's mind in an instant. To ”have the bailiff inthe house,” and ”to be sold up,” were phrases which he had been usedto, even as a little boy; they were part of the disgrace and misery of”failing,” of losing all one's money, and being ruined,--sinking intothe condition of poor working people. It seemed only natural thisshould happen, since his father had lost all his property, and hethought of no more special cause for this particular form ofmisfortune than the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence ofthis disgrace was so much keener an experience to Tom than the worstform of apprehension, that he felt at this moment as if his realtrouble had only just begin; it was a touch on the irritated nervecompared with its spontaneous dull aching.

”How do you do, sir?” said the man, taking the pipe out of his mouth,with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces madehim a little uncomfortable.

But Tom turned away hastily without speaking; the sight was toohateful. Maggie had not understood the appearance of this stranger, asTom had. She followed him, whispering: ”Who can it be, Tom? What isthe matter?” Then, with a sudden undefined dread lest this strangermight have something to do with a change in her father, she rushedupstairs, checking herself at the bedroom door to throw off herbonnet, and enter on tiptoe. All was silent there; her father waslying, heedless of everything around him, with his eyes closed as whenshe had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother.

”Where's my mother?” she whispered. The servant did not know.

Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom; ”Father is lying quiet; let usgo and look for my mother. I wonder where she is.”

Mrs. Tulliver was not downstairs, not in any of the bedrooms. Therewas but one room below the attic which Maggie had left unsearched; itwas the storeroom, where her mother kept all her linen and all theprecious ”best things” that were only unwrapped and brought out onspecial occasions.

Tom, preceding Maggie, as they returned along the passage, opened thedoor of this room, and immediately said, ”Mother!”

Mrs. Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One ofthe linen chests was open; the silver teapot was unwrapped from itsmany folds of paper, and the best china was laid out on the top of theclosed linen-chest; spoons and skewers and ladles were spread in rowson the shelves; and the poor woman was shaking her head and weeping,with a bitter tension of the mouth, over the mark, ”Elizabeth Dodson,”on the corner of some tablecloths she held in her lap.

She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke.

”Oh, my boy, my boy!” she said, clasping him round the neck. ”To thinkas I should live to see this day! We're ruined--everything's going tobe sold up--to think as your father should ha' married me to bring meto this! We've got nothing--we shall be beggars--we must go to theworkhouse----”

She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another tableclothon her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the pattern, whilethe children stood by in mute wretchedness, their minds quite filledfor the moment with the words ”beggars” and ”workhouse.”

”To think o' these cloths as I spun myself,” she went on, liftingthings out and turning them over with an excitement all the morestrange and piteous because the stout blond woman was usually sopassive,--if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surfacemerely,--”and Job Haxey wove 'em, and brought the piece home on hisback, as I remember standing at the door and seeing him come, before Iever thought o' marrying your father! And the pattern as I chosemyself, and bleached so beautiful, and I marked 'em so as nobody eversaw such marking,--they must cut the cloth to get it out, for it's aparticular stitch. And they're all to be sold, and go into strangepeople's houses, and perhaps be cut with the knives, and wore outbefore I'm dead. You'll never have one of 'em, my boy,” she said,looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears, ”and I meant 'em foryou. I wanted you to have all o' this pattern. Maggie could have hadthe large check--it never shows so well when the dishes are on it.”

Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reactionimmediately. His face flushed as he said:

”But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it?They'll never let your linen go, will they? Haven't you sent to them?”

”Yes, I sent Luke directly they'd put the bailies in, and your auntPullet's been--and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says yourfather's disgraced my family and made it the talk o' the country; andshe'll buy the spotted cloths for herself, because she's never had somany as she wanted o' that pattern, and they sha'n't go to strangers,but she's got more checks a'ready nor she can do with.” (Here Mrs.Tulliver began to lay back the tablecloths in the chest, folding andstroking them automatically.) ”And your uncle Glegg's been too, and hesays things must be bought in for us to lie down on, but he must talkto your aunt; and they're all coming to consult. But I know they'llnone of 'em take my chany,” she added, turning toward the cups andsaucers, ”for they all found fault with 'em when I bought 'em, 'causeo' the small gold sprig all over 'em, between the flowers. But there'snone of 'em got better chany, not even your aunt Pullet herself; and Ibought it wi' my own money as I'd saved ever since I was turnedfifteen; and the silver teapot, too,--your father never paid for 'em.And to think as he should ha' married me, and brought me to this.”

Mrs. Tulliver burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with herhandkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she saidin a deprecating way, still half sobbing, as if she were called uponto speak before she could command her voice,--

”And I _did_ say to him times and times, 'Whativer you do, don't go tolaw,' and what more could I do? I've had to sit by while my ownfortin's been spent, and what should ha' been my children's, too.You'll have niver a penny, my boy--but it isn't your poor mother'sfault.”

She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him piteously with herhelpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her,and she clung to him. For the first time Tom thought of his fatherwith some reproach. His natural inclination to blame, hitherto keptentirely in abeyance toward his father by the predisposition to thinkhim always right, simply on the ground that he was Tom Tulliver'sfather, was turned into this new channel by his mother's plaints; andwith his indignation against Wakem there began to mingle someindignation of another sort. Perhaps his father might have helpedbringing them all down in the world, and making people talk of themwith contempt, but no one should talk long of Tom Tulliver withcontempt.

The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning toassert itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against hisaunts, and the sense that he must behave like a man and take care ofhis mother.

”Don't fret, mother,” he said tenderly. ”I shall soon be able to getmoney; I'll get a situation of some sort.”

”Bless you, my boy!” said Mrs. Tulliver, a little soothed. Then,looking round sadly, ”But I shouldn't ha' minded so much if we couldha' kept the things wi' my name on 'em.”

Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The impliedreproaches against her father--her father, who was lying there in asort of living death--neutralized all her pity for griefs abouttablecloths and china; and her anger on her father's account washeightened by some egoistic resentment at Tom's silent concurrencewith her mother in shutting her out from the common calamity. She hadbecome almost indifferent to her mother's habitual depreciation ofher, but she was keenly alive to any sanction of it, however passive,that she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was by no means made up ofunalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims for herself whereshe loved strongly. She burst out at last in an agitated, almostviolent tone: ”Mother, how can you talk so; as if you cared only forthings with _your_ name on, and not for what has my father's name too;and to care about anything but dear father himself!--when he's lyingthere, and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too;you ought not to let any one find fault with my father.”

Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the room, andtook her old place on her father's bed. Her heart went out to him witha stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blamehim. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothinghad come of it but evil tempers.

Her father had always defended and excused her, and her lovingremembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would enableher to do or bear anything for his sake.

Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst,--telling _him_ as wellas his mother what it was right to do! She ought to have learnedbetter than have those hectoring, assuming manners, by this time. Buthe presently went into his father's room, and the sight there touchedhim in a way that effaced the slighter impressions of the previoushour. When Maggie saw how he was moved, she went to him and put herarm round his neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children forgoteverything else in the sense that they had one father and one sorrow.