Books: The Mill on the Floss

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"Oh, I suppose he is like the father; he seems to be as proud as
Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should think."

"I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo; and papa is very
fond of him: he says Tom has excellent principles. It was through him
that his father was able to pay all his debts before he died."

"Oh, ah; I've heard about that. I heard your father and mine talking
about it a little while ago, after dinner, in one of their
interminable discussions about business. They think of doing something
for young Tulliver; he saved them from a considerable loss by riding
home in some marvellous way, like Turpin, to bring them news about the
stoppage of a bank, or something of that sort. But I was rather drowsy
at the time."

Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, humming in
falsetto, "Graceful Consort," as he turned over the volume of "The
Creation," which stood open on the desk.

"Come and sing this," he said, when he saw Lucy rising.

"What, 'Graceful Consort'? I don't think it suits your voice."

"Never mind; it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip will have it,
is the grand element of good singing. I notice men with indifferent
voices are usually of that opinion."

"Philip burst into one of his invectives against 'The Creation' the
other day," said Lucy, seating herself at the piano. "He says it has a
sort of sugared complacency and flattering make-believe in it, as if
it were written for the birthday _fete_ of a German Grand-Duke."

"Oh, pooh! He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper. We are Adam and
Eve unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then,--the recitative, for the sake of
the moral. You will sing the whole duty of woman,--'And from obedience
grows my pride and happiness.'"

"Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the _tempo_, as you
will," said Lucy, beginning to play the duet.

Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in
which the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that
springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the
right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the
perfect accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted
loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate
demand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will not
care to catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee no embarrassing
dearth of remark in evenings spent with the lovely soprano. In the
provinces, too, where music was so scarce in that remote time, how
could the musical people avoid falling in love with each other? Even
political principle must have been in danger of relaxation under such
circumstances; and the violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have
been tempted to fraternize in a demoralizing way with a reforming
violoncello. In that case, the linnet-throated soprano and the
full-toned bass singing,--

"With thee delight is ever new,
With thee is life incessant bliss,"

believed what they sang all the more _because_ they sang it.

"Now for Raphael's great song," said Lucy, when they had finished the
duet. "You do the 'heavy beasts' to perfection."

"That sounds complimentary," said Stephen, looking at his watch. "By
Jove, it's nearly half-past one! Well, I can just sing this."

Stephen delivered with admirable ease the deep notes representing the
tread of the heavy beasts; but when a singer has an audience of two,
there is room for divided sentiments. Minny's mistress was charmed;
but Minny, who had intrenched himself, trembling, in his basket as
soon as the music began, found this thunder so little to his taste
that he leaped out and scampered under the remotest _chiffonnier_, as
the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of
doom.

"Adieu, 'graceful consort,'" said Stephen, buttoning his coat across
when he had done singing, and smiling down from his tall height, with
the air of rather a patronizing lover, at the little lady on the
music-stool. "My bliss is not incessant, for I must gallop home. I
promised to be there at lunch."

"You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no
consequence; I have said everything in my note."

"You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I suppose?"

"Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin Tom will
dine with us; and poor aunty will have her two children together for
the first time. It will be very pretty; I think a great deal about
it."

"But I may come the next day?"

"Oh yes! Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie; though you can
hardly be said not to have seen her, you have described her so well."

"Good-bye, then." And there was that slight pressure of the hands, and
momentary meeting of the eyes, which will often leave a little lady
with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside
immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk
up and down the room rather than to seat herself quietly at her
embroidery, or other rational and improving occupation. At least this
was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, consider it an
indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she
just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The
desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright during a few
hours of conversation may be construed as lying within the bounds of a
laudable benevolent consideration for others. And Lucy had so much of
this benevolence in her nature that I am inclined to think her small
egoisms were impregnated with it, just as there are people not
altogether unknown to you whose small benevolences have a predominant
and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, that she is walking up and
down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the
sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her
small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny
benignity, in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity
are quite lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is
because the thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle
affections and good-natured offices with which she fills her peaceful
days. Even now, her mind, with that instantaneous alternation which
makes two currents of feeling or imagination seem simultaneous, is
glancing continually from Stephen to the preparations she has only
half finished in Maggie's room. Cousin Maggie should be treated as
well as the grandest lady-visitor,--nay, better, for she should have
Lucy's best prints and drawings in her bedroom, and the very finest
bouquet of spring flowers on her table. Maggie would enjoy all that,
she was so found of pretty things! And there was poor aunt Tulliver,
that no one made any account of, she was to be surprised with the
present of a cap of superlative quality, and to have her health drunk
in a gratifying manner, for which Lucy was going to lay a plot with
her father this evening. Clearly, she had not time to indulge in long
reveries about her own happy love-affairs. With this thought she
walked toward the door, but paused there.

"What's the matter, then, Minny?" she said, stooping in answer to some
whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head
against her pink cheek. "Did you think I was going without you? Come,
then, let us go and see Sinbad."

Sinbad was Lucy's chestnut horse, that she always fed with her own
hand when he was turned out in the paddock. She was fond of feeding
dependent creatures, and knew the private tastes of all the animals
about the house, delighting in the little rippling sounds of her
canaries when their beaks were busy with fresh seed, and in the small
nibbling pleasures of certain animals which, lest she should appear
too trivial, I will here call "the more familiar rodents."

Was not Stephen Guest right in his decided opinion that this slim
maiden of eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man would not be
likely to repent of marrying,--a woman who was loving and thoughtful
for other women, not giving them Judas-kisses with eyes askance on
their welcome defects, but with real care and vision for their
half-hidden pains and mortifications, with long ruminating enjoyment
of little pleasures prepared for them? Perhaps the emphasis of his
admiration did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her;
perhaps he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not
strike him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be pretty;
well, Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent. A man likes his
wife to be accomplished, gentle, affectionate, and not stupid; and
Lucy had all these qualifications. Stephen was not surprised to find
himself in love with her, and was conscious of excellent judgment in
preferring her to Miss Leyburn, the daughter of the county member,
although Lucy was only the daughter of his father's subordinate
partner; besides, he had had to defy and overcome a slight
unwillingness and disappointment in his father and sisters,--a
circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of his
own dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and independence
enough to choose the wife who was likely to make him happy, unbiassed
by any indirect considerations. He meant to choose Lucy; she was a
little darling, and exactly the sort of woman he had always admired.

Chapter II

First Impressions

"He is very clever, Maggie," said Lucy. She was kneeling on a
footstool at Maggie's feet, after placing that dark lady in the large
crimson-velvet chair. "I feel sure you will like him. I hope you
will."

"I shall be very difficult to please," said Maggie, smiling, and
holding up one of Lucy's long curls, that the sunlight might shine
through it. "A gentleman who thinks he is good enough for Lucy must
expect to be sharply criticised."

"Indeed, he's a great deal too good for me. And sometimes, when he is
away, I almost think it can't really be that he loves me. But I can
never doubt it when he is with me, though I couldn't bear any one but
you to know that I feel in that way, Maggie."

"Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give him up, since you are
not engaged," said Maggie, with playful gravity.

"I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to
think of being married soon," said Lucy, too thoroughly preoccupied to
notice Maggie's joke; "and I should like everything to go on for a
long while just as it is. Sometimes I am quite frightened lest Stephen
should say that he has spoken to papa; and from something that fell
from papa the other day, I feel sure he and Mr. Guest are expecting
that. And Stephen's sisters are very civil to me now. At first, I
think they didn't like his paying me attention; and that was natural.
It _does_ seem out of keeping that I should ever live in a great place
like the Park House, such a little insignificant thing as I am."

"But people are not expected to be large in proportion to the houses
they live in, like snails," said Maggie, laughing. "Pray, are Mr.
Guest's sisters giantesses?"

"Oh no; and not handsome,--that is, not very," said Lucy,
half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. "But _he_ is--at least he
is generally considered very handsome."

"Though you are unable to share that opinion?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Lucy, blushing pink over brow and neck. "It
is a bad plan to raise expectation; you will perhaps be disappointed.
But I have prepared a charming surprise for _him;_ I shall have a
glorious laugh against him. I shall not tell you what it is, though."

Lucy rose from her knees and went to a little distance, holding her
pretty head on one side, as if she had been arranging Maggie for a
portrait, and wished to judge of the general effect.

"Stand up a moment, Maggie."

"What is your pleasure now?" said Maggie, smiling languidly as she
rose from her chair and looked down on her slight, aerial cousin,
whose figure was quite subordinate to her faultless drapery of silk
and crape.

Lucy kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two in silence, and
then said,--

"I can't think what witchery it is in you, Maggie, that makes you look
best in shabby clothes; though you really must have a new dress now.
But do you know, last night I was trying to fancy you in a handsome,
fashionable dress, and do what I would, that old limp merino would
come back as the only right thing for you. I wonder if Marie
Antoinette looked all the grander when her gown was darned at the
elbows. Now, if _I_ were to put anything shabby on, I should be quite
unnoticeable. I should be a mere rag."

"Oh, quite," said Maggie, with mock gravity. "You would be liable to
be swept out of the room with the cobwebs and carpet-dust, and to find
yourself under the grate, like Cinderella. Mayn't I sit down now?"

"Yes, now you may," said Lucy, laughing. Then, with an air of serious
reflection, unfastening her large jet brooch, "But you must change
brooches, Maggie; that little butterfly looks silly on you."

"But won't that mar the charming effect of my consistent shabbiness?"
said Maggie, seating herself submissively, while Lucy knelt again and
unfastened the contemptible butterfly. "I wish my mother were of your
opinion, for she was fretting last night because this is my best
frock. I've been saving my money to pay for some lessons; I shall
never get a better situation without more accomplishments."

Maggie gave a little sigh.

"Now, don't put on that sad look again," said Lucy, pinning the large
brooch below Maggie's fine throat. "You're forgetting that you've left
that dreary schoolroom behind you, and have no little girls' clothes
to mend."

"Yes," said Maggie. "It is with me as I used to think it would be with
the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have
got so stupid with the habit of turning backward and forward in that
narrow space that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One
gets a bad habit of being unhappy."

"But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will make you
lose that bad habit," said Lucy, sticking the black butterfly absently
in her own collar, while her eyes met Maggie's affectionately.

"You dear, tiny thing," said Maggie, in one of her bursts of loving
admiration, "you enjoy other people's happiness so much, I believe you
would do without any of your own. I wish I were like you."

"I've never been tried in that way," said Lucy. "I've always been so
happy. I don't know whether I could bear much trouble; I never had any
but poor mamma's death. You _have_ been tried, Maggie; and I'm sure
you feel for other people quite as much as I do."

"No, Lucy," said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, "I don't enjoy their
happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I do feel for
them when they are in trouble; I don't think I could ever bear to make
any one _un_happy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry
sometimes at the sight of happy people. I think I get worse as I get
older, more selfish. That seems very dreadful."

"Now, Maggie!" said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, "I don't believe
a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just because you are
depressed by a dull, wearisome life."

"Well, perhaps it is," said Maggie, resolutely clearing away the
clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing herself
backward in her chair. "Perhaps it comes from the school diet,--watery
rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will give way before
my mother's custards and this charming Geoffrey Crayon."

Maggie took up the "Sketch Book," which lay by her on the table.

"Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?" said Lucy, going
to survey the effect in the chimney-glass.

"Oh no, Mr. Guest will be obliged to go out of the room again if he
sees you in it. Pray make haste and put another on."

Lucy hurried out of the room, but Maggie did not take the opportunity
of opening her book; she let it fall on her knees, while her eyes
wandered to the window, where she could see the sunshine falling on
the rich clumps of spring flowers and on the long hedge of laurels,
and beyond, the silvery breadth of the dear old Floss, that at this
distance seemed to be sleeping in a morning holiday. The sweet fresh
garden-scent came through the open window, and the birds were busy
flitting and alighting, gurgling and singing. Yet Maggie's eyes began
to fill with tears. The sight of the old scenes had made the rush of
memories so painful that even yesterday she had only been able to
rejoice in her mother's restored comfort and Tom's brotherly
friendliness as we rejoice in good news of friends at a distance,
rather than in the presence of a happiness which we share. Memory and
imagination urged upon her a sense of privation too keen to let her
taste what was offered in the transient present. Her future, she
thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of
contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing;
she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder;
she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for,
and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate. The sound of the
opening door roused her, and hastily wiping away her tears, she began
to turn over the leaves of her book.

"There is one pleasure, I know, Maggie, that your deepest dismalness
will never resist," said Lucy, beginning to speak as soon as she
entered the room. "That is music, and I mean you to have quite a
riotous feast of it. I mean you to get up your playing again, which
used to be so much better than mine, when we were at Laceham."

"You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls' tunes over
and over to them, when I took them to practise," said Maggie, "just
for the sake of fingering the dear keys again. But I don't know
whether I could play anything more difficult now than 'Begone, dull
care!'"

"I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when the glee-men
came round," said Lucy, taking up her embroidery; "and we might have
all those old glees that you used to love so, if I were certain that
you don't feel exactly as Tom does about some things."

"I should have thought there was nothing you might be more certain
of," said Maggie, smiling.

"I ought rather to have said, one particular thing. Because if you
feel just as he does about that, we shall want our third voice. St.
Ogg's is so miserably provided with musical gentlemen. There are
really only Stephen and Philip Wakem who have any knowledge of music,
so as to be able to sing a part."

Lucy had looked up from her work as she uttered the last sentence, and
saw that there was a change in Maggie's face.

"Does it hurt you to hear the name mentioned, Maggie? If it does, I
will not speak of him again. I know Tom will not see him if he can
avoid it."

"I don't feel at all as Tom does on that subject," said Maggie, rising
and going to the window as if she wanted to see more of the landscape.
"I've always liked Philip Wakem ever since I was a little girl, and
saw him at Lorton. He was so good when Tom hurt his foot."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Lucy. "Then you won't mind his coming
sometimes, and we can have much more music than we could without him.
I'm very fond of poor Philip, only I wish he were not so morbid about
his deformity. I suppose it _is_ his deformity that makes him so sad,
and sometimes bitter. It is certainly very piteous to see his poor
little crooked body and pale face among great, strong people."

"But, Lucy----" said Maggie, trying to arrest the prattling stream.

"Ah, there is the door-bell. That must be Stephen," Lucy went on, not
noticing Maggie's faint effort to speak. "One of the things I most
admire in Stephen is that he makes a greater friend of Philip than any
one."

It was too late for Maggie to speak now; the drawingroom door was
opening, and Minny was already growling in a small way at the entrance
of a tall gentleman, who went up to Lucy and took her hand with a
half-polite, half-tender glance and tone of inquiry, which seemed to
indicate that he was unconscious of any other presence.

"Let me introduce you to my cousin, Miss Tulliver," said Lucy, turning
with wicked enjoyment toward Maggie, who now approached from the
farther window. "This is Mr. Stephen Guest."

For one instant Stephen could not conceal his astonishment at the
sight of this tall, dark-eyed nymph with her jet-black coronet of
hair; the next, Maggie felt herself, for the first time in her life,
receiving the tribute of a very deep blush and a very deep bow from a
person toward whom she herself was conscious of timidity.

This new experience was very agreeable to her, so agreeable that it
almost effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a new
brightness in her eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek, as she
seated herself.

"I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the day before
yesterday," said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of triumph. She enjoyed her
lover's confusion; the advantage was usually on his side.

"This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss Tulliver,"
said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stooping to play with
Minny, only looking at Maggie furtively. "She said you had light hair
and blue eyes."

"Nay, it was you who said so," remonstrated Lucy. "I only refrained
from destroying your confidence in your own second-sight."

"I wish I could always err in the same way," said Stephen, "and find
reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions."

"Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said Maggie,
"and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the
circumstances."

She flashed a slightly defiant look at him; it was clear to her that
he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand. Lucy had
said he was inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had mentally supplied
the addition, "and rather conceited."

"An alarming amount of devil there," was Stephen's first thought. The
second, when she had bent over her work, was, "I wish she would look
at me again." The next was to answer,--

"I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true.
A man is occasionally grateful when he says 'Thank you.' It's rather
hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world
declines a disagreeable invitation, don't you think so, Miss
Tulliver?"

"No," said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; "if we use
common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because
they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners,
or every-day clothes, hung up in a sacred place."

"Then my compliment ought to be eloquent," said Stephen, really not
quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, "seeing that
the words were so far beneath the occasion."

"No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of
indifference," said Maggie, flushing a little.

Lucy was rather alarmed; she thought Stephen and Maggie were not going
to like each other. She had always feared lest Maggie should appear
too old and clever to please that critical gentleman. "Why, dear
Maggie," she interposed, "you have always pretended that you are too
fond of being admired; and now, I think, you are angry because some
one ventures to admire you."

"Not at all," said Maggie; "I like too well to feel that I am admired,
but compliments never make me feel that."

"I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver," said
Stephen.

"Thank you; that will be a proof of respect."

Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take nothing
as a matter of course, and had never in her life spoken from the lips
merely, so that she must necessarily appear absurd to more experienced
ladies, from the excessive feeling she was apt to throw into very
trivial incidents. But she was even conscious herself of a little
absurdity in this instance. It was true she had a theoretic objection
to compliments, and had once said impatiently to Philip that she
didn't see why women were to be told with a simper that they were
beautiful, any more than old men were to be told that they were
venerable; still, to be so irritated by a common practice in the case
of a stranger like Mr. Stephen Guest, and to care about his having
spoken slightingly of her before he had seen her, was certainly
unreasonable, and as soon as she was silent she began to be ashamed of
herself. It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the
pleasanter emotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied
with a sense of glowing warmth an innocent drop of cold water may fall
upon us as a sudden smart.

Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the previous
conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began to
talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the bazaar
was at length to take place, so that there might be some hope of
seeing her rain the influence of her eyes on objects more grateful
than those worsted flowers that were growing under her fingers.