The Mill on the Floss

Chapter I

The Return to the Mill

Between four and five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth day fromthat on which Stephen and Maggie had left St. Ogg's, Tom Tulliver wasstanding on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlcote Mill. Hewas master there now; he had half fulfilled his father's dying wish,and by years of steady self-government and energetic work he hadbrought himself near to the attainment of more than the oldrespectability which had been the proud inheritance of the Dodsons andTullivers.

But Tom's face, as he stood in the hot, still sunshine of that summerafternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore itsbitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, ashe drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from thesun, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk upand down the gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since BobJakin had come back in the steamer from Mudport, and put an end to allimprobable suppositions of an accident on the water by stating that hehad seen her land from a vessel with Mr. Stephen Guest. Would the nextnews be that she was married,--or what? Probably that she was notmarried; Tom's mind was set to the expectation of the worst that couldhappen,--not death, but disgrace.

As he was walking with his back toward the entrance gate, and his facetoward the rushing mill-stream, a tall, dark-eyed figure, that we knowwell, approached the gate, and paused to look at him with afast-beating heart. Her brother was the human being of whom she hadbeen most afraid from her childhood upward; afraid with that fearwhich springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending,unmodifiable, with a mind that we can never mould ourselves upon, andyet that we cannot endure to alienate from us.

That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now; but her mind wasunswervingly bent on returning to her brother, as the natural refugethat had been given her. In her deep humiliation under the retrospectof her own weakness,--in her anguish at the injury she hadinflicted,--she almost desired to endure the severity of Tom'sreproof, to submit in patient silence to that harsh, disapprovingjudgment against which she had so often rebelled; it seemed no morethan just to her now,--who was weaker than she was? She craved thatoutward help to her better purpose which would come from complete,submissive confession from being in the presence of those whose looksand words would be a reflection of her own conscience.

Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with thatprostrating headache which was likely to follow on the terrible strainof the previous day and night. There was an expression of physicalpain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with herdress so long unchanged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latchof the gate and walked in slowly. Tom did not hear the gate; he wasjust then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently turned, andlifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and lonelinessseemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjectures. He paused,trembling and white with disgust and indignation.

Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt the hatred in hisface, felt it rushing through her fibres; but she must speak.

”Tom,” she began faintly, ”I am come back to you,--I am come backhome--for refuge--to tell you everything.”

”You will find no home with me,” he answered, with tremulous rage.”You have disgraced us all. You have disgraced my father's name. Youhave been a curse to your best friends. You have been base, deceitful;no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of youforever. You don't belong to me.”

Their mother had come to the door now. She stood paralyzed by thedouble shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Tom's words.

”Tom,” said Maggie, with more courage, ”I am perhaps not so guilty asyou believe me to be. I never meant to give way to my feelings. Istruggled against them. I was carried too far in the boat to come backon Tuesday. I came back as soon as I could.”

”I can't believe in you any more,” said Tom, gradually passing fromthe tremulous excitement of the first moment to cold inflexibility.”You have been carrying on a clandestine relation with StephenGuest,--as you did before with another. He went to see you at my auntMoss's; you walked alone with him in the lanes; you must have behavedas no modest girl would have done to her cousin's lover, else thatcould never have happened. The people at Luckreth saw you pass; youpassed all the other places; you knew what you were doing. You havebeen using Philip Wakem as a screen to deceive Lucy,--the kindestfriend you ever had. Go and see the return you have made her. She'sill; unable to speak. My mother can't go near her, lest she shouldremind her of you.”

Maggie was half stunned,--too heavily pressed upon by her anguish evento discern any difference between her actual guilt and her brother'saccusations, still less to vindicate herself.

”Tom,” she said, crushing her hands together under her cloak, in theeffort to speak again, ”whatever I have done, I repent it bitterly. Iwant to make amends. I will endure anything. I want to be kept fromdoing wrong again.”

”What _will_ keep you?” said Tom, with cruel bitterness. ”Notreligion not your natural feelings of gratitude and honor. And he--hewould deserve to be shot, if it were not----But you are ten timesworse than he is. I loathe your character and your conduct. Youstruggled with your feelings, you say. Yes! _I_ have had feelings tostruggle with; but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than youhave had; but I have found _my_ comfort in doing my duty. But I willsanction no such character as yours; the world shall know that _I_feel the difference between right and wrong. If you are in want, Iwill provide for you; let my mother know. But you shall not come undermy roof. It is enough that I have to bear the thought of yourdisgrace; the sight of you is hateful to me.”

Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart. But the poorfrightened mother's love leaped out now, stronger than all dread.

”My child! I'll go with you. You've got a mother.”

Oh, the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken Maggie! Morehelpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that willnot forsake us.

Tom turned and walked into the house.

”Come in, my child,” Mrs. Tulliver whispered. ”He'll let you stay andsleep in my bed. He won't deny that if I ask him.”

”No, mother,” said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. ”I will nevergo in.”

”Then wait for me outside. I'll get ready and come with you.”

When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came out to her inthe passage, and put money into her hands.

”My house is yours, mother, always,” he said. ”You will come and letme know everything you want; you will come back to me.”

Poor Mrs. Tulliver took the money, too frightened to say anything. Theonly thing clear to her was the mother's instinct that she would gowith her unhappy child.

Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mother's hand andthey walked a little way in silence.

”Mother,” said Maggie, at last, ”we will go to Luke's cottage. Lukewill take me in. He was very good to me when I was a little girl.”

”He's got no room for us, my dear, now; his wife's got so manychildren. I don't know where to go, if it isn't to one o' your aunts;and I hardly durst,” said poor Mrs. Tulliver, quite destitute ofmental resources in this extremity.

Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,--

”Let us go to Bob Jakin's, mother; his wife will have room for us, ifthey have no other lodger.”

So they went on their way to St. Ogg's, to the old house by theriver-side.

Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which resisted eventhe new joy and pride of possessing a two-months'-old baby, quite theliveliest of its age that had ever been born to prince or packman. Hewould perhaps not so thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness ofMaggie's appearance with Mr. Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport ifhe had not witnessed the effect it produced on Tom when he went toreport it; and since then, the circumstances which in any case gave adisastrous character to her elopement had passed beyond the morepolite circles of St. Ogg's, and had become matter of common talk,accessible to the grooms and errand-boys. So that when he opened thedoor and saw Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness,he had no questions to ask except one which he dared only askhimself,--where was Mr. Stephen Guest? Bob, for his part, hoped hemight be in the warmest department of an asylum understood to exist inthe other world for gentlemen who are likely to be in fallencircumstances there.

The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs. Jakin the larger and Mrs.Jakin the less were commanded to make all things comfortable for ”theold Missis and the young Miss”; alas that she was still ”Miss!” Theingenious Bob was sorely perplexed as to how this result could havecome about; how Mr. Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, orcould have let her go away from him, when he had the chance of keepingher with him. But he was silent, and would not allow his wife to askhim a question would not present himself in the room, lest it shouldappear like intrusion and a wish to pry; having the same chivalrytoward dark-eyed Maggie as in the days when he had bought her thememorable present of books.

But after a day or two Mrs. Tulliver was gone to the Mill again for afew hours to see to Tom's household matters. Maggie had wished this;after the first violent outburst of feeling which came as soon as shehad no longer any active purpose to fulfil, she was less in need ofher mother's presence; she even desired to be alone with her grief.But she had been solitary only a little while in the old sitting-roomthat looked on the river, when there came a tap at the door, andturning round her sad face as she said ”Come in,” she saw Bob enter,with the baby in his arms and Mumps at his heels.

”We'll go back, if it disturbs you, Miss,” said Bob.

”No,” said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile.

Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her.

”You see, we've got a little un, Miss, and I want'd you to look at it,and take it in your arms, if you'd be so good. For we made free toname it after you, and it 'ud be better for your takin' a bit o'notice on it.”

Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive the tinybaby, while Mumps snuffed at it anxiously, to ascertain that thistransference was all right. Maggie's heart had swelled at this actionand speech of Bob's; she knew well enough that it was a way he hadchosen to show his sympathy and respect.

”Sit down, Bob,” she said presently, and he sat down in silence,finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fashion, refusing tosay what he wanted it to say.

”Bob,” she said, after a few moments, looking down at the baby, andholding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip from her mind andher fingers, ”I have a favor to ask of you.”

”Don't you speak so, Miss,” said Bob, grasping the skin of Mumps'sneck; ”if there's anything I can do for you, I should look upon it asa day's earnings.”

”I want you to go to Dr. Kenn's, and ask to speak to him, and tell himthat I am here, and should be very grateful if he would come to mewhile my mother is away. She will not come back till evening.”

”Eh, Miss, I'd do it in a minute,--it is but a step,--but Dr. Kenn'swife lies dead; she's to be buried to-morrow; died the day I come fromMudport. It's all the more pity she should ha' died just now, if youwant him. I hardly like to go a-nigh him yet.”

”Oh no, Bob,” said Maggie, ”we must let it be,--till after a few days,perhaps, when you hear that he is going about again. But perhaps hemay be going out of town--to a distance,” she added, with a new senseof despondency at this idea.

”Not he, Miss,” said Bob. ”_He'll_ none go away. He isn't one o' themgentlefolks as go to cry at waterin'-places when their wives die; he'sgot summat else to do. He looks fine and sharp after the parish, hedoes. He christened the little un; an' he was _at_ me to know what Idid of a Sunday, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was upo'the travel three parts o' the Sundays,--an' then I'm so used to bein'on my legs, I can't sit so long on end,--'an' lors, sir,' says I, 'apackman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church; it tastes strong,' saysI; 'there's no call to lay it on thick.' Eh, Miss, how good the littleun is wi' you! It's like as if it knowed you; it partly does, I'll bebound,--like the birds know the mornin'.”

Bob's tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted bondage, andmight even be in danger of doing more work than was required of it.But the subjects on which he longed to be informed were so steep anddifficult of approach, that his tongue was likely to run on along thelevel rather than to carry him on that unbeaten road. He felt this,and was silent again for a little while, ruminating much on thepossible forms in which he might put a question. At last he said, in amore timid voice than usual,--

”Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss?”

Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, ”Yes, Bob, if it isabout myself--not about any one else.”

”Well, Miss, it's this. _Do_ you owe anybody a grudge?”

”No, not any one,” said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. ”Why?”

”Oh, lors, Miss,” said Bob, pinching Mumps's neck harder than ever. ”Iwish you did, an' tell me; I'd leather him till I couldn't see--Iwould--an' the Justice might do what he liked to me arter.”

”Oh, Bob,” said Maggie, smiling faintly, ”you're a very good friend tome. But I shouldn't like to punish any one, even if they'd done mewrong; I've done wrong myself too often.”

This view of things was puzzling to Bob, and threw more obscurity thanever over what could possibly have happened between Stephen andMaggie. But further questions would have been too intrusive, even ifhe could have framed them suitably, and he was obliged to carry babyaway again to an expectant mother.

”Happen you'd like Mumps for company, Miss,” he said when he had takenthe baby again. ”He's rare company, Mumps is; he knows iverything, an'makes no bother about it. If I tell him, he'll lie before you an'watch you, as still,--just as he watches my pack. You'd better let meleave him a bit; he'll get fond on you. Lors, it's a fine thing to heva dumb brute fond on you; it'll stick to you, an' make no jaw.”

”Yes, do leave him, please,” said Maggie. ”I think I should like tohave Mumps for a friend.”

”Mumps, lie down there,” said Bob, pointing to a place in front ofMaggie, ”and niver do you stir till you're spoke to.”

Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness when hismaster left the room.