The Mill on the Floss
erigation and nonsense won’t stop my wheel; I know what belongs to
water better than that. Talk to me o’ what th’ engineers say! I say
it’s common sense, as Pivart’s dikes must do me an injury. But if
that’s their engineering, I’ll put Tom to it by-and-by, and he shall
see if he can’t find a bit more sense in th’ engineering business than
what _that_ comes to.”
Tom, looking round with some anxiety at this announcement of his
prospects, unthinkingly withdrew a small rattle he was amusing baby
Moss with, whereupon she, being a baby that knew her own mind with
remarkable clearness, instantaneously expressed her sentiments in a
piercing yell, and was not to be appeased even by the restoration of
the rattle, feeling apparently that the original wrong of having it
taken from her remained in all its force. Mrs Moss hurried away with
her into another room, and expressed to Mrs Tulliver, who accompanied
her, the conviction that the dear child had good reasons for crying;
implying that if it was supposed to be the rattle that baby clamored
for, she was a misunderstood baby. The thoroughly justifiable yell
being quieted, Mrs Moss looked at her sister-in-law and said,—
“I’m sorry to see brother so put out about this water work.”
“It’s your brother’s way, Mrs Moss; I’d never anything o’ that sort
before I was married,” said Mrs Tulliver, with a half-implied reproach.
She always spoke of her husband as “your brother” to Mrs Moss in any
case when his line of conduct was not matter of pure admiration.
Amiable Mrs Tulliver, who was never angry in her life, had yet her mild
share of that spirit without which she could hardly have been at once a
Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive toward her own
sisters, it was natural that she should be keenly conscious of her
superiority, even as the weakest Dodson, over a husband’s sister, who,
besides being poorly off, and inclined to “hang on” her brother, had
the good-natured submissiveness of a large, easy-tempered, untidy,
prolific woman, with affection enough in her not only for her own
husband and abundant children, but for any number of collateral
relations.
“I hope and pray he won’t go to law,” said Mrs Moss, “for there’s never
any knowing where that’ll end. And the right doesn’t allays win. This
Mr Pivart’s a rich man, by what I can make out, and the rich mostly get
things their own way.”
“As to that,” said Mrs Tulliver, stroking her dress down, “I’ve seen
what riches are in my own family; for my sisters have got husbands as
can afford to do pretty much what they like. But I think sometimes I
shall be drove off my head with the talk about this law and erigation;
and my sisters lay all the fault to me, for they don’t know what it is
to marry a man like your brother; how should they? Sister Pullet has
her own way from morning till night.”
“Well,” said Mrs Moss, “I don’t think I should like my husband if he
hadn’t got any wits of his own, and I had to find head-piece for him.
It’s a deal easier to do what pleases one’s husband, than to be
puzzling what else one should do.”
“If people come to talk o’ doing what pleases their husbands,” said Mrs
Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sister Glegg, “I’m sure your
brother might have waited a long while before he’d have found a wife
that ’ud have let him have his say in everything, as I do. It’s nothing
but law and erigation now, from when we first get up in the morning
till we go to bed at night; and I never contradict him; I only say,
‘Well, Mr Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you do, don’t go to
law.”
Mrs Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her
husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she
wishes, or the reverse; and on the composite impulses that were
threatening to hurry Mr Tulliver into “law,” Mrs Tulliver’s monotonous
pleading had doubtless its share of force; it might even be comparable
to that proverbial feather which has the credit or discredit of
breaking the camel’s back; though, on a strictly impartial view, the
blame ought rather to lie with the previous weight of feathers which
had already placed the back in such imminent peril that an otherwise
innocent feather could not settle on it without mischief. Not that Mrs
Tulliver’s feeble beseeching could have had this feather’s weight in
virtue of her single personality; but whenever she departed from entire
assent to her husband, he saw in her the representative of the Dodson
family; and it was a guiding principle with Mr Tulliver to let the
Dodsons know that they were not to domineer over _him_, or—more
specifically—that a male Tulliver was far more than equal to four
female Dodsons, even though one of them was Mrs Glegg.
But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson female herself
against his going to law could have heightened his disposition toward
it so much as the mere thought of Wakem, continually freshened by the
sight of the too able attorney on market-days. Wakem, to his certain
knowledge, was (metaphorically speaking) at the bottom of Pivart’s
irrigation; Wakem had tried to make Dix stand out, and go to law about
the dam; it was unquestionably Wakem who had caused Mr Tulliver to lose
the suit about the right of road and the bridge that made a
thoroughfare of his land for every vagabond who preferred an
opportunity of damaging private property to walking like an honest man
along the highroad; all lawyers were more or less rascals, but Wakem’s
rascality was of that peculiarly aggravated kind which placed itself in
opposition to that form of right embodied in Mr Tulliver’s interests
and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the injured miller
had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds, been obliged to
carry a little business to Wakem’s office on his own account. A
hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as a cucumber,—always looking so sure
of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like
him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat
hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon against Wakem.
Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie on the side of
scrupulosity; but the largest amount of winking, however significant,
is not equivalent to seeing through a stone wall; and confident as Mr
Tulliver was in his principle that water was water, and in the direct
inference that Pivart had not a leg to stand on in this affair of
irrigation, he had an uncomfortable suspicion that Wakem had more law
to show against this (rationally) irrefragable inference than Gore
could show for it. But then, if they went to law, there was a chance
for Mr Tulliver to employ Counsellor Wylde on his side, instead of
having that admirable bully against him; and the prospect of seeing a
witness of Wakem’s made to perspire and become confounded, as Mr
Tulliver’s witness had once been, was alluring to the love of
retributive justice.
Much rumination had Mr Tulliver on these puzzling subjects during his
rides on the gray horse; much turning of the head from side to side, as
the scales dipped alternately; but the probable result was still out of
sight, only to be reached through much hot argument and iteration in
domestic and social life. That initial stage of the dispute which
consisted in the narration of the case and the enforcement of Mr
Tulliver’s views concerning it throughout the entire circle of his
connections would necessarily take time; and at the beginning of
February, when Tom was going to school again, there were scarcely any
new items to be detected in his father’s statement of the case against
Pivart, or any more specific indication of the measures he was bent on
taking against that rash contravener of the principle that water was
water. Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of
progress, and Mr Tulliver’s heat was certainly more and more palpable.
If there had been no new evidence on any other point, there had been
new evidence that Pivart was as “thick as mud” with Wakem.
“Father,” said Tom, one evening near the end of the holidays, “uncle
Glegg says Lawyer Wakem _is_ going to send his son to Mr Stelling. It
isn’t true, what they said about his going to be sent to France. You
won’t like me to go to school with Wakem’s son, shall you?”
“It’s no matter for that, my boy,” said Mr Tulliver; “don’t you learn
anything bad of him, that’s all. The lad’s a poor deformed creatur, and
takes after his mother in the face; I think there isn’t much of his
father in him. It’s a sign Wakem thinks high o’ Mr Sterling, as he
sends his son to him, and Wakem knows meal from bran.”
Mr Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the fact that his son was
to have the same advantages as Wakem’s; but Tom was not at all easy on
the point. It would have been much clearer if the lawyer’s son had not
been deformed, for then Tom would have had the prospect of pitching
into him with all that freedom which is derived from a high moral
sanction.
Chapter III.
The New Schoolfellow
It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school; a day
quite in keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had not
carried in his pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch doll
for little Laura, there would have been no ray of expected pleasure to
enliven the general gloom. But he liked to think how Laura would put
out her lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugarcandy; and to give
the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagination, he took out the
parcel, made a small hole in the paper, and bit off a crystal or two,
which had so solacing an effect under the confined prospect and damp
odors of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated the process more than once
on his way.
“Well, Tulliver, we’re glad to see you again,” said Mr Stelling,
heartily. “Take off your wrappings and come into the study till dinner.
You’ll find a bright fire there, and a new companion.”
Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen
comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St Ogg’s,
but had always turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible. He
would have disliked having a deformed boy for his companion, even if
Philip had not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how a bad
man’s son could be very good. His own father was a good man, and he
would readily have fought any one who said the contrary. He was in a
state of mingled embarrassment and defiance as he followed Mr Stelling
to the study.
“Here is a new companion for you to shake hands with, Tulliver,” said
that gentleman on entering the study,—“Master Philip Wakem. I shall
leave you to make acquaintance by yourselves. You already know
something of each other, I imagine; for you are neighbours at home.”
Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and glanced at him
timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he was not
prepared to say, “How do you do?” on so short a notice.
Mr Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind him; boys’
shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders.
Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk toward Tom. He
thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him;
every one, almost, disliked looking at him; and his deformity was more
conspicuous when he walked. So they remained without shaking hands or
even speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every now
and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be drawing
absently first one object and then another on a piece of paper he had
before him. He had seated himself again, and as he drew, was thinking
what he could say to Tom, and trying to overcome his own repugnance to
making the first advances.