Books: The Mill on the Floss

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"A little plan o' nephey Tom's here," said good-natured Mr. Glegg;
"and not altogether a bad 'un, I think. A little plan for making
money; that's the right sort o' plan for young folks as have got their
fortin to make, eh, Jane?"

"But I hope it isn't a plan where he expects iverything to be done for
him by his friends; that's what the young folks think of mostly
nowadays. And pray, what has this packman got to do wi' what goes on
in our family? Can't you speak for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt
know things, as a nephey should?"

"This is Bob Jakin, aunt," said Tom, bridling the irritation that aunt
Glegg's voice always produced. "I've known him ever since we were
little boys. He's a very good fellow, and always ready to do me a
kindness. And he has had some experience in sending goods out,--a
small part of a cargo as a private speculation; and he thinks if I
could begin to do a little in the same way, I might make some money. A
large interest is got in that way."

"Large int'rest?" said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; "and what do you
call large int'rest?"

"Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid."

"Then why wasn't I let to know o' such things before, Mr. Glegg?" said
Mrs. Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep grating tone of
reproach. "Haven't you allays told me as there was no getting more nor
five per cent?"

"Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman," said Mr. Glegg. "You couldn't
go into trade, could you? You can't get more than five per cent with
security."

"But I can turn a bit o' money for you, an' welcome, mum," said Bob,
"if you'd like to risk it,--not as there's any risk to speak on. But
if you'd a mind to lend a bit o' money to Mr. Tom, he'd pay you six or
seven per zent, an' get a trifle for himself as well; an' a
good-natur'd lady like you 'ud like the feel o' the money better if
your nephey took part on it."

"What do you say, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg. "I've a notion, when I've
made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps start Tom here with a bit
of a nest-egg,--he'll pay me int'rest, you know,--an' if you've got
some little sums lyin' idle twisted up in a stockin' toe, or that----"

"Mr. Glegg, it's beyond iverything! You'll go and give information to
the tramps next, as they may come and rob me."

"Well, well, as I was sayin', if you like to join me wi' twenty
pounds, you can--I'll make it fifty. That'll be a pretty good
nest-egg, eh, Tom?"

"You're not counting on me, Mr. Glegg, I hope," said his wife. "You
could do fine things wi' my money, I don't doubt."

"Very well," said Mr. Glegg, rather snappishly, "then we'll do without
you. I shall go with you to see this Salt," he added, turning to Bob.

"And now, I suppose, you'll go all the other way, Mr. Glegg," said
Mrs. G., "and want to shut me out o' my own nephey's business. I never
said I wouldn't put money into it,--I don't say as it shall be twenty
pounds, though you're so ready to say it for me,--but he'll see some
day as his aunt's in the right not to risk the money she's saved for
him till it's proved as it won't be lost."

"Ay, that's a pleasant sort o'risk, that is," said Mr. Glegg,
indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn't avoid smiling. But Bob
stemmed the injured lady's outburst.

"Ay, mum," he said admiringly, "you know what's what--you do. An' it's
nothing but fair. _You_ see how the first bit of a job answers, an'
then you'll come down handsome. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev good
kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as the master calls it, all by my own
sharpness,--ten suvreigns it was,--wi' dousing the fire at Torry's
mill, an' it's growed an' growed by a bit an' a bit, till I'n got a
matter o' thirty pound to lay out, besides makin' my mother
comfor'ble. I should get more, on'y I'm such a soft wi' the women,--I
can't help lettin' 'em hev such good bargains. There's this bundle,
now," thumping it lustily, "any other chap 'ud make a pretty penny out
on it. But me!--lors, I shall sell 'em for pretty near what I paid for
'em."

"Have you got a bit of good net, now?" said Mrs. Glegg, in a
patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin.

"Eh, mum, not what you'd think it worth your while to look at. I'd
scorn to show it you. It 'ud be an insult to you."

"But let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. "If they're
damaged goods, they're like enough to be a bit the better quality."

"No, mum, I know my place," said Bob, lifting up his pack and
shouldering it. "I'm not going t' expose the lowness o' my trade to a
lady like you. Packs is come down i' the world; it 'ud cut you to th'
heart to see the difference. I'm at your sarvice, sir, when you've a
mind to go and see Salt."

"All in good time," said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the
dialogue. "Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?"

"No, sir; I left Stowe in my place."

"Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, drawing a
chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity.

"Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly.

"Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "but do as I tell
you."

"Eh mum, I'm loth, that I am," said Bob, slowly depositing his pack on
the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. "But what
you order shall be done" (much fumbling in pauses between the
sentences). "It's not as you'll buy a single thing on me,--I'd be
sorry for you to do it,--for think o' them poor women up i' the
villages there, as niver stir a hundred yards from home,--it 'ud be a
pity for anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it's as good as a
junketing to 'em when they see me wi' my pack, an' I shall niver pick
up such bargains for 'em again. Least ways, I've no time now, for I'm
off to Laceham. See here now," Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and
holding up a scarlet woollen Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in
the corner; "here's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two
shillin'--an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole 'i this
plain end. Lors, I think the moths an' the mildew was sent by
Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin'
women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now,
every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich, handsome ladies, like
you, mum, at five shillin' apiece,--not a farthin' less; but what does
the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no
time; an' then a packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as
live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors,
it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher!"

Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg said sharply:

"Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o' year. Put these colored
things by; let me look at your nets, if you've got 'em."

"Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be," said Bob, flinging aside the
colored things with an air of desperation. "I knowed it ud' turn
again' you to look at such paltry articles as I carry. Here's a piece
o' figured muslin now, what's the use o' you lookin' at it? You might
as well look at poor folks's victual, mum; it 'ud on'y take away your
appetite. There's a yard i' the middle on't as the pattern's all
missed,--lors, why, it's a muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha'
wore; but," added Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to
save Mrs. Glegg's eyes, "it'll be bought up by the huckster's wife at
Fibb's End,--that's where _it'll_ go--ten shillin' for the whole
lot--ten yards, countin' the damaged un--five-an'-twenty shillin' 'ud
ha' been the price, not a penny less. But I'll say no more, mum; it's
nothing to you, a piece o' muslin like that; you can afford to pay
three times the money for a thing as isn't half so good. It's nets
_you_ talked on; well, I've got a piece as 'ull serve you to make fun
on----"

"Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "It's a buff; I'm partial to
buff."

"Eh, but a _damaged_ thing," said Bob, in a tone of deprecating
disgust. "You'd do nothing with it, mum, you'd give it to the cook, I
know you would, an' it 'ud be a pity,--she'd look too much like a lady
in it; it's unbecoming for servants."

"Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs. Glegg,
authoritatively.

Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.

"See what there is over measure!" he said, holding forth the extra
half-yard, while Mrs. Glegg was busy examining the damaged yard, and
throwing her head back to see how far the fault would be lost on a
distant view.

"I'll give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down with
the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.

"Didn't I tell you now, mum, as it 'ud hurt your feelings to look at
my pack? That damaged bit's turned your stomach now; I see it has,"
said Bob, wrapping the muslin up with the utmost quickness, and
apparently about to fasten up his pack. "You're used to seein' a
different sort o' article carried by packmen, when you lived at the
stone house. Packs is come down i' the world; I told you that; _my_
goods are for common folks. Mrs. Pepper 'ull give me ten shillin' for
that muslin, an' be sorry as I didn't ask her more. Such articles
answer i' the wearin',--they keep their color till the threads melt
away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while _I'm_ a young un."

"Well, seven shilling," said Mrs. Glegg.

"Put it out o' your mind, mum, now do," said Bob. "Here's a bit o'
net, then, for you to look at before I tie up my pack, just for you to
see what my trade's come to,--spotted and sprigged, you see, beautiful
but yallow,--'s been lyin' by an' got the wrong color. I could niver
ha' bought such net, if it hadn't been yallow. Lors, it's took me a
deal o' study to know the vally o' such articles; when I begun to
carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the
same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest.
I was took in dreadful, for I'm a straightforrard chap,--up to no
tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I
should lose myself pretty quick. An' I gev five-an'-eightpence for
that piece o' net,--if I was to tell y' anything else I should be
tellin' you fibs,--an' five-an'-eightpence I shall ask of it, not a
penny more, for it's a woman's article, an' I like to 'commodate the
women. Five-an'-eightpence for six yards,--as cheap as if it was only
the dirt on it as was paid for.'"

"I don't mind having three yards of it,'" said Mrs. Glegg.

"Why, there's but six altogether," said Bob. "No, mum, it isn't worth
your while; you can go to the shop to-morrow an' get the same pattern
ready whitened. It's on'y three times the money; what's that to a lady
like you?" He gave an emphatic tie to his bundle.

"Come, lay me out that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "Here's eight
shilling for it."

"You _will_ be jokin'," said Bob, looking up with a laughing face; "I
see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the winder."

"Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily.

"But if I let you have it for ten shillin', mum, you'll be so good as
not tell nobody. I should be a laughin'-stock; the trade 'ud hoot me,
if they knowed it. I'm obliged to make believe as I ask more nor I do
for my goods, else they'd find out I was a flat. I'm glad you don't
insist upo' buyin' the net, for then I should ha' lost my two best
bargains for Mrs. Pepper o' Fibb's End, an' she's a rare customer."

"Let me look at the net again," said Mrs. Glegg, yearning after the
cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing.

"Well, I can't deny _you_, mum," said Bob handing it out.

"Eh!, see what a pattern now! Real Laceham goods. Now, this is the
sort o' article I'm recommendin' Mr. Tom to send out. Lors, it's a
fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o' money; these Laceham goods
'ud make it breed like maggits. If I was a lady wi' a bit o'
money!--why, I know one as put thirty pounds into them goods,--a lady
wi' a cork leg, but as sharp,--you wouldn't catch _her_ runnin' her
head into a sack; _she'd_ see her way clear out o' anything afore
she'd be in a hurry to start. Well, she let out thirty pound to a
young man in the drapering line, and he laid it out i' Laceham goods,
an' a shupercargo o' my acquinetance (not Salt) took 'em out, an' she
got her eight per zent fust go off; an' now you can't hold her but she
must be sendin' out carguies wi' every ship, till she's gettin' as
rich as a Jew. Bucks her name is, she doesn't live i' this town. Now
then, mum, if you'll please to give me the net----"

"Here's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg. "But
it's a shameful price."

"Nay, mum, you'll niver say that when you're upo' your knees i' church
i' five years' time. I'm makin' you a present o' th' articles; I am,
indeed. That eightpence shaves off my profits as clean as a razor. Now
then, sir," continued Bob, shouldering his pack, "if you please, I'll
be glad to go and see about makin' Mr. Tom's fortin. Eh, I wish I'd
got another twenty pound to lay out _my_sen; I shouldn't stay to say
my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't."

"Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg," said the lady, as her husband took his hat,
"you never _will_ give me the chance o' speaking. You'll go away now,
and finish everything about this business, and come back and tell me
it's too late for me to speak. As if I wasn't my nephey's own aunt,
and the head o' the family on his mother's side! and laid by guineas,
all full weight, for him, as he'll know who to respect when I'm laid
in my coffin."

"Well, Mrs. G., say what you mean," said Mr. G., hastily.

"Well, then, I desire as nothing may be done without my knowing. I
don't say as I sha'n't venture twenty pounds, if you make out as
everything's right and safe. And if I do, Tom," concluded Mrs. Glegg,
turning impressively to her nephew, "I hope you'll allays bear it in
mind and be grateful for such an aunt. I mean you to pay me interest,
you know; I don't approve o' giving; we niver looked for that in _my_
family."

"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer having the
money only lent to me."

"Very well; that's the Dodson sperrit," said Mrs. Glegg, rising to get
her knitting with the sense that any further remark after this would
be bathos.

Salt--that eminently "briny chap"--having been discovered in a cloud
of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern, Mr. Glegg commenced inquiries
which turned out satisfactorily enough to warrant the advance of the
"nest-egg," to which aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds; and in this
modest beginning you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise
surprise you; namely, Tom's accumulation of a fund, unknown to his
father, that promised in no very long time to meet the more tardy
process of saving, and quite cover the deficit. When once his
attention had been turned to this source of gain, Tom determined to
make the most of it, and lost on opportunity of obtaining information
and extending his small enterprises. In not telling his father, he was
influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often
gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those who admire
it,--partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is seen
between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most
sacred relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise
his father with a great joy. He did not see that it would have been
better to soothe the interval with a new hope, and prevent the
delirium of a too sudden elation.

At the time of Maggie's first meeting with Philip, Tom had already
nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital; and while they
were walking by the evening light in the Red Deeps, he, by the same
evening light, was riding into Laceham, proud of being on his first
journey on behalf of Guest & Co., and revolving in his mind all the
chances that by the end of another year he should have doubled his
gains, lifted off the obloquy of debt from his father's name, and
perhaps--for he should be twenty-one--have got a new start for
himself, on a higher platform of employment. Did he not desire it? He
was quite sure that he did.

Chapter III

The Wavering Balance

I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with a
mental conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in her
interview with Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was an
opening in the rocky wall which shut in the narrow valley of
humiliation, where all her prospect was the remote, unfathomed sky;
and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were no longer out of
her reach. She might have books, converse, affection; she might hear
tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense of
exile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who was
pitiable,--clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunity
indicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service;
perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist without
some width of knowledge; _must_ she always live in this resigned
imprisonment? It was so blameless, so good a thing that there should
be friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it were
so unreasonable, so unchristian! But the severe monotonous warning
came again and again,--that she was losing the simplicity and
clearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; and that,
by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing herself
under the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she had
won strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the next
week to turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she
was resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked
forward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of the
hollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely; to the
affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the sense of
comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; to
the certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said,
which no one else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be very
hard to turn her back upon, with the sense that there would be no
other like it. Yet she said what she meant to say; she looked firm as
well as sad.

"Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give each
other up, in everything but memory. I could not see you without
concealment--stay, I know what you are going to say,--it is other
people's wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; but
concealment is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would be
bad for me, for us both. And then, if our secret were discovered,
there would be nothing but misery,--dreadful anger; and then we must
part after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to seeing
each other."

Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness of
expression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with all
his might.

But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: "Well,
Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour;
let us talk together a little while, for the last time."

He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; his
quietness made her all the more sure she had given him great pain, and
she wanted to show him how unwillingly she had given it. They walked
together hand in hand in silence.

"Let us sit down in the hollow," said Philip, "where we stood the last
time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread their
opal petals over it."

They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.

"I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie," said
Philip, "so you must let me study your face a little, while you
stay,--since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head this
way."

This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hard
of Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright black
coronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be
worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up
to it.

"I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said, smiling.
"Will it be larger than the other?"

"Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look like a tall
Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued from one of the
fir-trees, when the stems are casting their afternoon shadows on the
grass."

"You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?"

"Perhaps I do," said Philip, rather sadly; "but I think of too many
things,--sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any one
of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and
effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for
classic literature, and mediaeval literature, and modern literature; I
flutter all ways, and fly in none."

"But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,--to enjoy so
many beautiful things, when they are within your reach," said Maggie,
musingly. "It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to
have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon."

"It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other
men," said Philip, bitterly. "I might get some power and distinction
by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middling
satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I
might think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could
make life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty
that would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes,
there is one thing,--a passion answers as well as a faculty."

Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against the
consciousness that Philip's words had set her own discontent vibrating
again as it used to do.

"I understand what you mean," she said, "though I know so much less
than you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on
being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no
consequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I
think we are only like children that some one who is wiser is taking
care of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be
denied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three
years, even joy in subduing my own will."

"Yes, Maggie," said Philip, vehemently; "and you are shutting yourself
up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of
escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your
nature. Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing
endurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to be
allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation; and it is stupefaction to
remain in ignorance,--to shut up all the avenues by which the life of
your fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am not
sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. _You_ are not
resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself."

Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philip
said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediate
application it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Her
double impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker.
Philip seriously believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence
because it made an argument against the resolution that opposed his
wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the gathering tears,
touched him with a tenderer, less egotistic feeling. He took her hand
and said gently:

Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. Let
us only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite of
separation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad to
live as long as you are alive, because I shall think there may always
come a time when I can--when you will let me help you in some way."

"What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip," said Maggie,
smiling through the haze of tears. "I think you would have made as
much fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as would
have satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bear
with me, and forgive me everything. That was what I always longed that
Tom should do. I was never satisfied with a _little_ of anything. That
is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.
I never felt that I had enough music,--I wanted more instruments
playing together; I wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. Do you ever
sing now, Philip?" she added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what
went before.

"Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only middling,
like everything else in me."

"Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may_ listen to that before
I go,--something you used to sing at Lorton on a Saturday afternoon,
when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my apron over
my head to listen."

"_I_ know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands while
he sang _sotto voce_, "Love in her eyes sits playing," and then said,
"That's it, isn't it?"