The Mill on the Floss
frame of the prostrate man, and for the time completely shook off the
obstruction of paralysis. The chest had belonged to his father and his
father’s father, and it had always been rather a solemn business to
visit it. All long-known objects, even a mere window fastening or a
particular door-latch, have sounds which are a sort of recognised voice
to us,—a voice that will thrill and awaken, when it has been used to
touch deep-lying fibres. In the same moment, when all the eyes in the
room were turned upon him, he started up and looked at the chest, the
parchments in Mr Glegg’s hand, and Tom holding the tin box, with a
glance of perfect consciousness and recognition.
“What are you going to do with those deeds?” he said, in his ordinary
tone of sharp questioning whenever he was irritated. “Come here, Tom.
What do you do, going to my chest?”
Tom obeyed, with some trembling; it was the first time his father had
recognised him. But instead of saying anything more to him, his father
continued to look with a growing distinctness of suspicion at Mr Glegg
and the deeds.
“What’s been happening, then?” he said sharply. “What are you meddling
with my deeds for? Is Wakem laying hold of everything? Why don’t you
tell me what you’ve been a-doing?” he added impatiently, as Mr Glegg
advanced to the foot of the bed before speaking.
“No, no, friend Tulliver,” said Mr Glegg, in a soothing tone. “Nobody’s
getting hold of anything as yet. We only came to look and see what was
in the chest. You’ve been ill, you know, and we’ve had to look after
things a bit. But let’s hope you’ll soon be well enough to attend to
everything yourself.”
Mr Tulliver looked around him meditatively, at Tom, at Mr Glegg, and at
Maggie; then suddenly appearing aware that some one was seated by his
side at the head of the bed he turned sharply round and saw his sister.
“Eh, Gritty!” he said, in the half-sad, affectionate tone in which he
had been wont to speak to her. “What! you’re there, are you? How could
you manage to leave the children?”
“Oh, brother!” said good Mrs Moss, too impulsive to be prudent, “I’m
thankful I’m come now to see you yourself again; I thought you’d never
know us any more.”
“What! have I had a stroke?” said Mr Tulliver, anxiously, looking at Mr
Glegg.
“A fall from your horse—shook you a bit,—that’s all, I think,” said Mr
Glegg. “But you’ll soon get over it, let’s hope.”
Mr Tulliver fixed his eyes on the bed-clothes, and remained silent for
two or three minutes. A new shadow came over his face. He looked up at
Maggie first, and said in a lower tone, “You got the letter, then, my
wench?”
“Yes, father,” she said, kissing him with a full heart. She felt as if
her father were come back to her from the dead, and her yearning to
show him how she had always loved him could be fulfilled.
“Where’s your mother?” he said, so preoccupied that he received the
kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have received it.
“She’s downstairs with my aunts, father. Shall I fetch her?”
“Ay, ay; poor Bessy!” and his eyes turned toward Tom as Maggie left the
room.
“You’ll have to take care of ’em both if I die, you know, Tom. You’ll
be badly off, I doubt. But you must see and pay everybody. And
mind,—there’s fifty pound o’ Luke’s as I put into the business,—he gave
me a bit at a time, and he’s got nothing to show for it. You must pay
him first thing.”
Uncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more concerned
than ever, but Tom said firmly:
“Yes, father. And haven’t you a note from my uncle Moss for three
hundred pounds? We came to look for that. What do you wish to be done
about it, father?”
“Ah! I’m glad you thought o’ that, my lad,” said Mr Tulliver. “I allays
meant to be easy about that money, because o’ your aunt. You mustn’t
mind losing the money, if they can’t pay it,—and it’s like enough they
can’t. The note’s in that box, mind! I allays meant to be good to you,
Gritty,” said Mr Tulliver, turning to his sister; “but you know you
aggravated me when you would have Moss.”
At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who came in much
agitated by the news that her husband was quite himself again.
“Well, Bessy,” he said, as she kissed him, “you must forgive me if
you’re worse off than you ever expected to be.
But it’s the fault o’ the law,—it’s none o’ mine,” he added angrily.
“It’s the fault o’ raskills. Tom, you mind this: if ever you’ve got the
chance, you make Wakem smart. If you don’t, you’re a good-for-nothing
son. You might horse-whip him, but he’d set the law on you,—the law’s
made to take care o’ raskills.”
Mr Tulliver was getting excited, and an alarming flush was on his face.
Mr Glegg wanted to say something soothing, but he was prevented by Mr
Tulliver’s speaking again to his wife. “They’ll make a shift to pay
everything, Bessy,” he said, “and yet leave you your furniture; and
your sisters’ll do something for you—and Tom’ll grow up—though what
he’s to be I don’t know—I’ve done what I could—I’ve given him a
eddication—and there’s the little wench, she’ll get married—but it’s a
poor tale——”
The sanative effect of the strong vibration was exhausted, and with the
last words the poor man fell again, rigid and insensible. Though this
was only a recurrence of what had happened before, it struck all
present as if it had been death, not only from its contrast with the
completeness of the revival, but because his words had all had
reference to the possibility that his death was near. But with poor
Tulliver death was not to be a leap; it was to be a long descent under
thickening shadows.
Mr Turnbull was sent for; but when he heard what had passed, he said
this complete restoration, though only temporary, was a hopeful sign,
proving that there was no permanent lesion to prevent ultimate
recovery.
Among the threads of the past which the stricken man had gathered up,
he had omitted the bill of sale; the flash of memory had only lit up
prominent ideas, and he sank into forgetfulness again with half his
humiliation unlearned.
But Tom was clear upon two points,—that his uncle Moss’s note must be
destroyed; and that Luke’s money must be paid, if in no other way, out
of his own and Maggie’s money now in the savings bank. There were
subjects, you perceive, on which Tom was much quicker than on the
niceties of classical construction, or the relations of a mathematical
demonstration.
Chapter V.
Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster
The next day, at ten o’clock, Tom was on his way to St Ogg’s, to see
his uncle Deane, who was to come home last night, his aunt had said;
and Tom had made up his mind that his uncle Deane was the right person
to ask for advice about getting some employment. He was in a great way
of business; he had not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg; and he had
risen in the world on a scale of advancement which accorded with Tom’s
ambition.
It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain,—one of
those mornings when even happy people take refuge in their hopes. And
Tom was very unhappy; he felt the humiliation as well as the
prospective hardships of his lot with all the keenness of a proud
nature; and with all his resolute dutifulness toward his father there
mingled an irrepressible indignation against him which gave misfortune
the less endurable aspect of a wrong. Since these were the consequences
of going to law, his father was really blamable, as his aunts and
uncles had always said he was; and it was a significant indication of
Tom’s character, that though he thought his aunts ought to do something
more for his mother, he felt nothing like Maggie’s violent resentment
against them for showing no eager tenderness and generosity. There were
no impulses in Tom that led him to expect what did not present itself
to him as a right to be demanded. Why should people give away their
money plentifully to those who had not taken care of their own money?
Tom saw some justice in severity; and all the more, because he had
confidence in himself that he should never deserve that just severity.
It was very hard upon him that he should be put at this disadvantage in
life by his father’s want of prudence; but he was not going to complain
and to find fault with people because they did not make everything easy
for him. He would ask no one to help him, more than to give him work
and pay him for it. Poor Tom was not without his hopes to take refuge
in under the chill damp imprisonment of the December fog, which seemed
only like a part of his home troubles. At sixteen, the mind that has
the strongest affinity for fact cannot escape illusion and
self-flattery; and Tom, in sketching his future, had no other guide in
arranging his facts than the suggestions of his own brave
self-reliance. Both Mr Glegg and Mr Deane, he knew, had been very poor
once; he did not want to save money slowly and retire on a moderate
fortune like his uncle Glegg, but he would be like his uncle Deane—get
a situation in some great house of business and rise fast. He had
scarcely seen anything of his uncle Deane for the last three years—the
two families had been getting wider apart; but for this very reason Tom
was the more hopeful about applying to him. His uncle Glegg, he felt
sure, would never encourage any spirited project, but he had a vague
imposing idea of the resources at his uncle Deane’s command. He had
heard his father say, long ago, how Deane had made himself so valuable
to Guest & Co. that they were glad enough to offer him a share in the
business; that was what Tom resolved _he_ would do. It was intolerable
to think of being poor and looked down upon all one’s life. He would
provide for his mother and sister, and make every one say that he was a
man of high character. He leaped over the years in this way, and, in
the haste of strong purpose and strong desire, did not see how they
would be made up of slow days, hours, and minutes.
By the time he had crossed the stone bridge over the Floss and was
entering St Ogg’s, he was thinking that he would buy his father’s mill
and land again when he was rich enough, and improve the house and live
there; he should prefer it to any smarter, newer place, and he could
keep as many horses and dogs as he liked.
Walking along the street with a firm, rapid step, at this point in his
reverie he was startled by some one who had crossed without his notice,
and who said to him in a rough, familiar voice:
“Why, Master Tom, how’s your father this morning?” It was a publican of
St Ogg’s, one of his father’s customers.
Tom disliked being spoken to just then; but he said civilly, “He’s
still very ill, thank you.”
“Ay, it’s been a sore chance for you, young man, hasn’t it,—this
lawsuit turning out against him?” said the publican, with a confused,
beery idea of being good-natured.
Tom reddened and passed on; he would have felt it like the handling of
a bruise, even if there had been the most polite and delicate reference
to his position.
“That’s Tulliver’s son,” said the publican to a grocer standing on the
adjacent door-step.
“Ah!” said the grocer, “I thought I knew his features. He takes after
his mother’s family; she was a Dodson. He’s a fine, straight youth;
what’s he been brought up to?”
“Oh! to turn up his nose at his father’s customers, and be a fine
gentleman,—not much else, I think.”
Tom, roused from his dream of the future to a thorough consciousness of
the present, made all the greater haste to reach the warehouse offices
of Guest & Co., where he expected to find his uncle Deane. But this was
Mr Deane’s morning at the bank, a clerk told him, and with some
contempt for his ignorance; Mr Deane was not to be found in River
Street on a Thursday morning.
At the bank Tom was admitted into the private room where his uncle was,