The Mill on the Floss
“That’s fortunate,” said Mrs Glegg. “She can agree to the list o’
things to be bought in. It’s but right she should do her share when
it’s her own brother.”
Mrs Moss was in too much agitation to resist Mrs Tulliver’s movement,
as she drew her into the parlour automatically, without reflecting that
it was hardly kind to take her among so many persons in the first
painful moment of arrival. The tall, worn, dark-haired woman was a
strong contrast to the Dodson sisters as she entered in her shabby
dress, with her shawl and bonnet looking as if they had been hastily
huddled on, and with that entire absence of self-consciousness which
belongs to keenly felt trouble. Maggie was clinging to her arm; and Mrs
Moss seemed to notice no one else except Tom, whom she went straight up
to and took by the hand.
“Oh, my dear children,” she burst out, “you’ve no call to think well o’
me; I’m a poor aunt to you, for I’m one o’ them as take all and give
nothing. How’s my poor brother?”
“Mr Turnbull thinks he’ll get better,” said Maggie. “Sit down, aunt
Gritty. Don’t fret.”
“Oh, my sweet child, I feel torn i’ two,” said Mrs Moss, allowing
Maggie to lead her to the sofa, but still not seeming to notice the
presence of the rest. “We’ve three hundred pounds o’ my brother’s
money, and now he wants it, and you all want it, poor things!—and yet
we must be sold up to pay it, and there’s my poor children,—eight of
’em, and the little un of all can’t speak plain. And I feel as if I was
a robber. But I’m sure I’d no thought as my brother——”
The poor woman was interrupted by a rising sob.
“Three hundred pounds! oh dear, dear,” said Mrs Tulliver, who, when she
had said that her husband had done “unknown” things for his sister, had
not had any particular sum in her mind, and felt a wife’s irritation at
having been kept in the dark.
“What madness, to be sure!” said Mrs Glegg. “A man with a family! He’d
no right to lend his money i’ that way; and without security, I’ll be
bound, if the truth was known.”
Mrs Glegg’s voice had arrested Mrs Moss’s attention, and looking up,
she said:
“Yes, there _was_ security; my husband gave a note for it. We’re not
that sort o’ people, neither of us, as ’ud rob my brother’s children;
and we looked to paying back the money, when the times got a bit
better.”
“Well, but now,” said Mr Glegg, gently, “hasn’t your husband no way o’
raising this money? Because it ’ud be a little fortin, like, for these
folks, if we can do without Tulliver’s being made a bankrupt. Your
husband’s got stock; it is but right he should raise the money, as it
seems to me,—not but what I’m sorry for you, Mrs Moss.”
“Oh, sir, you don’t know what bad luck my husband’s had with his stock.
The farm’s suffering so as never was for want o’ stock; and we’ve sold
all the wheat, and we’re behind with our rent,—not but what we’d like
to do what’s right, and I’d sit up and work half the night, if it ’ud
be any good; but there’s them poor children,—four of ’em such little
uns——”
“Don’t cry so, aunt; don’t fret,” whispered Maggie, who had kept hold
of Mrs Moss’s hand.
“Did Mr Tulliver let you have the money all at once?” said Mrs
Tulliver, still lost in the conception of things which had been “going
on” without her knowledge.
“No; at twice,” said Mrs Moss, rubbing her eyes and making an effort to
restrain her tears. “The last was after my bad illness four years ago,
as everything went wrong, and there was a new note made then. What with
illness and bad luck, I’ve been nothing but cumber all my life.”
“Yes, Mrs Moss,” said Mrs Glegg, with decision, “yours is a very
unlucky family; the more’s the pity for _my_ sister.”
“I set off in the cart as soon as ever I heard o’ what had happened,”
said Mrs Moss, looking at Mrs Tulliver. “I should never ha’ stayed away
all this while, if you’d thought well to let me know. And it isn’t as
I’m thinking all about ourselves, and nothing about my brother, only
the money was so on my mind, I couldn’t help speaking about it. And my
husband and me desire to do the right thing, sir,” she added, looking
at Mr Glegg, “and we’ll make shift and pay the money, come what will,
if that’s all my brother’s got to trust to. We’ve been used to trouble,
and don’t look for much else. It’s only the thought o’ my poor children
pulls me i’ two.”
“Why, there’s this to be thought on, Mrs Moss,” said Mr Glegg, “and
it’s right to warn you,—if Tulliver’s made a bankrupt, and he’s got a
note-of-hand of your husband’s for three hundred pounds, you’ll be
obliged to pay it; th’ assignees ’ull come on you for it.”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” said Mrs Tulliver, thinking of the bankruptcy, and
not of Mrs Moss’s concern in it. Poor Mrs Moss herself listened in
trembling submission, while Maggie looked with bewildered distress at
Tom to see if _he_ showed any signs of understanding this trouble, and
caring about poor aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with his
eyes on the tablecloth.
“And if he isn’t made bankrupt,” continued Mr Glegg, “as I said before,
three hundred pounds ’ud be a little fortin for him, poor man. We don’t
know but what he may be partly helpless, if he ever gets up again. I’m
very sorry if it goes hard with you, Mrs Moss, but my opinion is,
looking at it one way, it’ll be right for you to raise the money; and
looking at it th’ other way, you’ll be obliged to pay it. You won’t
think ill o’ me for speaking the truth.”
“Uncle,” said Tom, looking up suddenly from his meditative view of the
tablecloth, “I don’t think it would be right for my aunt Moss to pay
the money if it would be against my father’s will for her to pay it;
would it?”
Mr Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he said: “Why, no,
perhaps not, Tom; but then he’d ha’ destroyed the note, you know. We
must look for the note. What makes you think it ’ud be against his
will?”
“Why,” said Tom, colouring, but trying to speak firmly, in spite of a
boyish tremor, “I remember quite well, before I went to school to Mr
Stelling, my father said to me one night, when we were sitting by the
fire together, and no one else was in the room——”
Tom hesitated a little, and then went on.
“He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said: ‘I’ve always
been good to my sister, though she married against my will, and I’ve
lent Moss money; but I shall never think of distressing him to pay it;
I’d rather lose it. My children must not mind being the poorer for
that.’ And now my father’s ill, and not able to speak for himself, I
shouldn’t like anything to be done contrary to what he said to me.”
“Well, but then, my boy,” said Uncle Glegg, whose good feeling led him
to enter into Tom’s wish, but who could not at once shake off his
habitual abhorrence of such recklessness as destroying securities, or
alienating anything important enough to make an appreciable difference
in a man’s property, “we should have to make away wi’ the note, you
know, if we’re to guard against what may happen, supposing your
father’s made bankrupt——”
“Mr Glegg,” interrupted his wife, severely, “mind what you’re saying.
You’re putting yourself very forrard in other folks’s business. If you
speak rash, don’t say it was my fault.”
“That’s such a thing as I never heared of before,” said uncle Pullet,
who had been making haste with his lozenge in order to express his
amazement,—“making away with a note! I should think anybody could set
the constable on you for it.”
“Well, but,” said Mrs Tulliver, “if the note’s worth all that money,
why can’t we pay it away, and save my things from going away? We’ve no
call to meddle with your uncle and aunt Moss, Tom, if you think your
father ’ud be angry when he gets well.”
Mrs Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and was
straining her mind after original ideas on the subject.
“Pooh, pooh, pooh! you women don’t understand these things,” said uncle
Glegg. “There’s no way o’ making it safe for Mr and Mrs Moss but
destroying the note.”
“Then I hope you’ll help me do it, uncle,” said Tom, earnestly. “If my
father shouldn’t get well, I should be very unhappy to think anything
had been done against his will that I could hinder. And I’m sure he
meant me to remember what he said that evening. I ought to obey my
father’s wish about his property.”
Even Mrs Glegg could not withhold her approval from Tom’s words; she
felt that the Dodson blood was certainly speaking in him, though, if
his father had been a Dodson, there would never have been this wicked
alienation of money. Maggie would hardly have restrained herself from
leaping on Tom’s neck, if her aunt Moss had not prevented her by
herself rising and taking Tom’s hand, while she said, with rather a
choked voice:
“You’ll never be the poorer for this, my dear boy, if there’s a God
above; and if the money’s wanted for your father, Moss and me ’ull pay
it, the same as if there was ever such security. We’ll do as we’d be
done by; for if my children have got no other luck, they’ve got an
honest father and mother.”
“Well,” said Mr Glegg, who had been meditating after Tom’s words, “we
shouldn’t be doing any wrong by the creditors, supposing your father
_was_ bankrupt. I’ve been thinking o’ that, for I’ve been a creditor
myself, and seen no end o’ cheating. If he meant to give your aunt the
money before ever he got into this sad work o’ lawing, it’s the same as
if he’d made away with the note himself; for he’d made up his mind to
be that much poorer. But there’s a deal o’ things to be considered,
young man,” Mr Glegg added, looking admonishingly at Tom, “when you
come to money business, and you may be taking one man’s dinner away to
make another man’s breakfast. You don’t understand that, I doubt?”
“Yes, I do,” said Tom, decidedly. “I know if I owe money to one man,
I’ve no right to give it to another. But if my father had made up his
mind to give my aunt the money before he was in debt, he had a right to
do it.”
“Well done, young man! I didn’t think you’d been so sharp,” said uncle
Glegg, with much candor. “But perhaps your father _did_ make away with
the note. Let us go and see if we can find it in the chest.”
“It’s in my father’s room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty,” whispered
Maggie.
Chapter IV.
A Vanishing Gleam
Mr Tulliver, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity which had
recurred at intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his
horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition that the exits and
entrances into his room were not felt to be of great importance. He had
lain so still, with his eyes closed, all this morning, that Maggie told
her aunt Moss she must not expect her father to take any notice of
them.
They entered very quietly, and Mrs Moss took her seat near the head of
the bed, while Maggie sat in her old place on the bed, and put her hand
on her father’s without causing any change in his face.
Mr Glegg and Tom had also entered, treading softly, and were busy
selecting the key of the old oak chest from the bunch which Tom had
brought from his father’s bureau. They succeeded in opening the
chest,—which stood opposite the foot of Mr Tulliver’s bed,—and propping
the lid with the iron holder, without much noise.
“There’s a tin box,” whispered Mr Glegg; “he’d most like put a small
thing like a note in there. Lift it out, Tom; but I’ll just lift up
these deeds,—they’re the deeds o’ the house and mill, I suppose,—and
see what there is under ’em.”
Mr Glegg had lifted out the parchments, and had fortunately drawn back
a little, when the iron holder gave way, and the heavy lid fell with a
loud bang that resounded over the house.
Perhaps there was something in that sound more than the mere fact of
the strong vibration that produced the instantaneous effect on the