The Mill on the Floss
Garum. Mr Pullet had _bought_ the box, to begin with, and he understood
winding it up, and knew which tune it was going to play beforehand;
altogether the possession of this unique “piece of music” was a proof
that Mr Pullet’s character was not of that entire nullity which might
otherwise have been attributed to it. But uncle Pullet, when entreated
to exhibit his accomplishment, never depreciated it by a too ready
consent. “We’ll see about it,” was the answer he always gave, carefully
abstaining from any sign of compliance till a suitable number of
minutes had passed. Uncle Pullet had a programme for all great social
occasions, and in this way fenced himself in from much painful
confusion and perplexing freedom of will.
Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie’s enjoyment when the fairy
tune began; for the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on
her mind, that Tom was angry with her; and by the time “Hush, ye pretty
warbling choir,” had been played, her face wore that bright look of
happiness, while she sat immovable with her hands clasped, which
sometimes comforted her mother with the sense that Maggie could look
pretty now and then, in spite of her brown skin. But when the magic
music ceased, she jumped up, and running toward Tom, put her arm round
his neck and said, “Oh, Tom, isn’t it pretty?”
Lest you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in Tom that
he felt any new anger toward Maggie for this uncalled-for and, to him,
inexplicable caress, I must tell you that he had his glass of cowslip
wine in his hand, and that she jerked him so as to make him spill half
of it. He must have been an extreme milksop not to say angrily, “Look
there, now!” especially when his resentment was sanctioned, as it was,
by general disapprobation of Maggie’s behaviour.
“Why don’t you sit still, Maggie?” her mother said peevishly.
“Little gells mustn’t come to see me if they behave in that way,” said
aunt Pullet.
“Why, you’re too rough, little miss,” said uncle Pullet.
Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul,
and the seven small demons all in again.
Mrs Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehaviour while the children
remained indoors, took an early opportunity of suggesting that, now
they were rested after their walk, they might go and play out of doors;
and aunt Pullet gave permission, only enjoining them not to go off the
paved walks in the garden, and if they wanted to see the poultry fed,
to view them from a distance on the horse-block; a restriction which
had been imposed ever since Tom had been found guilty of running after
the peacock, with an illusory idea that fright would make one of its
feathers drop off.
Mrs Tulliver’s thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the quarrel
with Mrs Glegg by millinery and maternal cares, but now the great theme
of the bonnet was thrown into perspective, and the children were out of
the way, yesterday’s anxieties recurred.
“It weighs on my mind so as never was,” she said, by way of opening the
subject, “sister Glegg’s leaving the house in that way. I’m sure I’d no
wish t’ offend a sister.”
“Ah,” said aunt Pullet, “there’s no accounting for what Jane ’ull do. I
wouldn’t speak of it out o’ the family, if it wasn’t to Dr Turnbull;
but it’s my belief Jane lives too low. I’ve said so to Pullet often and
often, and he knows it.”
“Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from
drinking tea with ’em,” said Mr Pullet, beginning to nurse his knee and
shelter it with his pocket handkerchief, as was his way when the
conversation took an interesting turn.
“Very like I did,” said Mrs Pullet, “for you remember when I said
things, better than I can remember myself. He’s got a wonderful memory,
Pullet has,” she continued, looking pathetically at her sister. “I
should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he always
remembers when I’ve got to take my doctor’s stuff; and I’m taking three
sorts now.”
“There’s the ‘pills as before’ every other night, and the new drops at
eleven and four, and the ’fervescing mixture ‘when agreeable,’”
rehearsed Mr Pullet, with a punctuation determined by a lozenge on his
tongue.
“Ah, perhaps it ’ud be better for sister Glegg if _she’d_ go to the
doctor sometimes, instead o’ chewing Turkey rhubarb whenever there’s
anything the matter with her,” said Mrs Tulliver, who naturally saw the
wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs Glegg.
“It’s dreadful to think on,” said aunt Pullet, raising her hands and
letting them fall again, “people playing with their own insides in that
way! And it’s flying i’ the face o’ Providence; for what are the
doctors for, if we aren’t to call ’em in? And when folks have got the
money to pay for a doctor, it isn’t respectable, as I’ve told Jane many
a time. I’m ashamed of acquaintance knowing it.”
“Well, _we’ve_ no call to be ashamed,” said Mr Pullet, “for Doctor
Turnbull hasn’t got such another patient as you i’ this parish, now old
Mrs Sutton’s gone.”
“Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?” said Mrs
Pullet. “He won’t have one sold. He says it’s nothing but right folks
should see ’em when I’m gone. They fill two o’ the long store-room
shelves a’ready; but,” she added, beginning to cry a little, “it’s well
if they ever fill three. I may go before I’ve made up the dozen o’
these last sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my room,—you’ll
remember that, sister,—but there’s nothing to show for the boluses, if
it isn’t the bills.”
“Don’t talk o’ your going, sister,” said Mrs Tulliver; “I should have
nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was gone. And
there’s nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr Tulliver, for
sister Deane’s never o’ my side, and if she was, it’s not to be looked
for as she can speak like them as have got an independent fortin.”
“Well, your husband _is_ awk’ard, you know, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet,
good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her sister’s account
as well as her own. “He’s never behaved quite so pretty to our family
as he should do, and the children take after him,—the boy’s very
mischievous, and runs away from his aunts and uncles, and the gell’s
rude and brown. It’s your bad luck, and I’m sorry for you, Bessy; for
you was allays my favourite sister, and we allays liked the same
patterns.”
“I know Tulliver’s hasty, and says odd things,” said Mrs Tulliver,
wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; “but I’m sure
he’s never been the man, since he married me, to object to my making
the friends o’ my side o’ the family welcome to the house.”
“_I_ don’t want to make the worst of you, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet,
compassionately, “for I doubt you’ll have trouble enough without that;
and your husband’s got that poor sister and her children hanging on
him,—and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he’ll leave you poorly
off when he dies. Not as I’d have it said out o’ the family.”
This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs
Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not
help thinking that her case was a hard one, since it appeared that
other people thought it hard.
“I’m sure, sister, I can’t help myself,” she said, urged by the fear
lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, to take
comprehensive review of her past conduct. “There’s no woman strives
more for her children; and I’m sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as
I’ve had all the bedhangings taken down I did as much as the two gells
put together; and there’s the last elder-flower wine I’ve
made—beautiful! I allays offer it along with the sherry, though sister
Glegg will have it I’m so extravagant; and as for liking to have my
clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there’s nobody in
the parish can say anything against me in respect o’ backbiting and
making mischief, for I don’t wish anybody any harm; and nobody loses by
sending me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with the best o’ my
neighbours’; and the linen’s so in order as if I was to die to-morrow I
shouldn’t be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she can.”
“But it’s all o’ no use, you know, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet, holding her
head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister, “if
your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you was sold
up, and other folks bought your furniture, it’s a comfort to think as
you’ve kept it well rubbed. And there’s the linen, with your maiden
mark on, might go all over the country. It ’ud be a sad pity for our
family.” Mrs Pullet shook her head slowly.
“But what can I do, sister?” said Mrs Tulliver. “Mr Tulliver’s not a
man to be dictated to,—not if I was to go to the parson and get by
heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I’m sure I don’t
pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could
never see into men’s business as sister Glegg does.”
“Well, you’re like me in that, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet; “and I think it
’ud be a deal more becoming o’ Jane if she’d have that pier-glass
rubbed oftener,—there was ever so many spots on it last week,—instead
o’ dictating to folks as have more comings in than she ever had, and
telling ’em what they’re to do with their money. But Jane and me were
allays contrairy; she _would_ have striped things, and I like spots.
You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together i’ that.”
“Yes, Sophy,” said Mrs Tulliver, “I remember our having a blue ground
with a white spot both alike,—I’ve got a bit in a bed-quilt now; and if
you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her to make it up
with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you. You was allays a good
sister to me.”
“But the right thing ’ud be for Tulliver to go and make it up with her
himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he’s borrowed
money of her, he shouldn’t be above that,” said Mrs Pullet, whose
partiality did not blind her to principles; she did not forget what was
due to people of independent fortune.
“It’s no use talking o’ that,” said poor Mrs Tulliver, almost
peevishly. “If I was to go down on my bare knees on the gravel to
Tulliver, he’d never humble himself.”
“Well, you can’t expect me to persuade _Jane_ to beg pardon,” said Mrs
Pullet. “Her temper’s beyond everything; it’s well if it doesn’t carry
her off her mind, though there never _was_ any of our family went to a
madhouse.”
“I’m not thinking of her begging pardon,” said Mrs Tulliver. “But if
she’d just take no notice, and not call her money in; as it’s not so
much for one sister to ask of another; time ’ud mend things, and
Tulliver ’ud forget all about it, and they’d be friends again.”
Mrs Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband’s irrevocable
determination to pay in the five hundred pounds; at least such a
determination exceeded her powers of belief.
“Well, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet, mournfully, “_I_ don’t want to help you
on to ruin. I won’t be behindhand i’ doing you a good turn, if it is to
be done. And I don’t like it said among acquaintance as we’ve got
quarrels in the family. I shall tell Jane that; and I don’t mind
driving to Jane’s tomorrow, if Pullet doesn’t mind. What do you say, Mr
Pullet?”
“I’ve no objections,” said Mr Pullet, who was perfectly contented with
any course the quarrel might take, so that Mr Tulliver did not apply to
_him_ for money. Mr Pullet was nervous about his investments, and did
not see how a man could have any security for his money unless he
turned it into land.
After a little further discussion as to whether it would not be better
for Mrs Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to sister Glegg, Mrs
Pullet, observing that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer a