The Mill on the Floss
deferentially,—a tallish man, with an aquiline nose and abundant
iron-gray hair. You have never seen Mr Wakem before, and are possibly
wondering whether he was really as eminent a rascal, and as crafty,
bitter an enemy of honest humanity in general, and of Mr Tulliver in
particular, as he is represented to be in that eidolon or portrait of
him which we have seen to exist in the miller’s mind.
It is clear that the irascible miller was a man to interpret any
chance-shot that grazed him as an attempt on his own life, and was
liable to entanglements in this puzzling world, which, due
consideration had to his own infallibility, required the hypothesis of
a very active diabolical agency to explain them. It is still possible
to believe that the attorney was not more guilty toward him than an
ingenious machine, which performs its work with much regularity, is
guilty toward the rash man who, venturing too near it, is caught up by
some fly-wheel or other, and suddenly converted into unexpected
mince-meat.
But it is really impossible to decide this question by a glance at his
person; the lines and lights of the human countenance are like other
symbols,—not always easy to read without a key. On an _a priori_ view
of Wakem’s aquiline nose, which offended Mr Tulliver, there was not
more rascality than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though this
too along with his nose, might have become fraught with damnatory
meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.
“Mrs Tulliver, I think?” said Mr Wakem.
“Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was.”
“Pray be seated. You have some business with me?”
“Well, sir, yes,” said Mrs Tulliver, beginning to feel alarmed at her
own courage, now she was really in presence of the formidable man, and
reflecting that she had not settled with herself how she should begin.
Mr Wakem felt in his waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence.
“I hope, sir,” she began at last,—“I hope, sir, you’re not a-thinking
as _I_ bear you any ill-will because o’ my husband’s losing his
lawsuit, and the bailies being put in, and the linen being sold,—oh
dear!—for I wasn’t brought up in that way. I’m sure you remember my
father, sir, for he was close friends with Squire Darleigh, and we
allays went to the dances there, the Miss Dodsons,—nobody could be more
looked on,—and justly, for there was four of us, and you’re quite aware
as Mrs Glegg and Mrs Deane are my sisters. And as for going to law and
losing money, and having sales before you’re dead, I never saw anything
o’ that before I was married, nor for a long while after. And I’m not
to be answerable for my bad luck i’ marrying out o’ my own family into
one where the goings-on was different. And as for being drawn in t’
abuse you as other folks abuse you, sir, _that_ I niver was, and nobody
can say it of me.”
Mrs Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her
pocket handkerchief.
“I’ve no doubt of what you say, Mrs Tulliver,” said Mr Wakem, with cold
politeness. “But you have some question to ask me?”
“Well, sir, yes. But that’s what I’ve said to myself,—I’ve said you’d
had some nat’ral feeling; and as for my husband, as hasn’t been himself
for this two months, I’m not a-defending him, in no way, for being so
hot about th’ erigation,—not but what there’s worse men, for he never
wronged nobody of a shilling nor a penny, not willingly; and as for his
fieriness and lawing, what could I do? And him struck as if it was with
death when he got the letter as said you’d the hold upo’ the land. But
I can’t believe but what you’ll behave as a gentleman.”
“What does all this mean, Mrs Tulliver?” said Mr Wakem rather sharply.
“What do you want to ask me?”
“Why, sir, if you’ll be so good,” said Mrs Tulliver, starting a little,
and speaking more hurriedly,—“if you’ll be so good not to buy the mill
an’ the land,—the land wouldn’t so much matter, only my husband ull’ be
like mad at your having it.”
Something like a new thought flashed across Mr Wakem’s face as he said,
“Who told you I meant to buy it?”
“Why, sir, it’s none o’ my inventing, and I should never ha’ thought of
it; for my husband, as ought to know about the law, he allays used to
say as lawyers had never no call to buy anything,—either lands or
houses,—for they allays got ’em into their hands other ways. An’ I
should think that ’ud be the way with you, sir; and I niver said as
you’d be the man to do contrairy to that.”
“Ah, well, who was it that _did_ say so?” said Wakem, opening his desk,
and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost inaudible
whistle.
“Why, sir, it was Mr Glegg and Mr Deane, as have all the management;
and Mr Deane thinks as Guest & Co. ’ud buy the mill and let Mr Tulliver
work it for ’em, if you didn’t bid for it and raise the price. And it
’ud be such a thing for my husband to stay where he is, if he could get
his living: for it was his father’s before him, the mill was, and his
grandfather built it, though I wasn’t fond o’ the noise of it, when
first I was married, for there was no mills in our family,—not the
Dodson’s,—and if I’d known as the mills had so much to do with the law,
it wouldn’t have been me as ’ud have been the first Dodson to marry
one; but I went into it blindfold, that I did, erigation and
everything.”
“What! Guest & Co. would keep the mill in their own hands, I suppose,
and pay your husband wages?”
“Oh dear, sir, it’s hard to think of,” said poor Mrs Tulliver, a little
tear making its way, “as my husband should take wage. But it ’ud look
more like what used to be, to stay at the mill than to go anywhere
else; and if you’ll only think—if you was to bid for the mill and buy
it, my husband might be struck worse than he was before, and niver get
better again as he’s getting now.”
“Well, but if I bought the mill, and allowed your husband to act as my
manager in the same way, how then?” said Mr Wakem.
“Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the very mill
stood still to beg and pray of him. For your name’s like poison to him,
it’s so as never was; and he looks upon it as you’ve been the ruin of
him all along, ever since you set the law on him about the road through
the meadow,—that’s eight year ago, and he’s been going on ever since—as
I’ve allays told him he was wrong——”
“He’s a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool!” burst out Mr Wakem, forgetting
himself.
“Oh dear, sir!” said Mrs Tulliver, frightened at a result so different
from the one she had fixed her mind on; “I wouldn’t wish to contradict
you, but it’s like enough he’s changed his mind with this illness,—he’s
forgot a many things he used to talk about. And you wouldn’t like to
have a corpse on your mind, if he was to die; and they _do_ say as it’s
allays unlucky when Dorlcote Mill changes hands, and the water might
all run away, and _then_—not as I’m wishing you any ill-luck, sir, for
I forgot to tell you as I remember your wedding as if it was yesterday;
Mrs Wakem was a Miss Clint, I know _that;_ and my boy, as there isn’t a
nicer, handsomer, straighter boy nowhere, went to school with your
son——”
Mr Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his clerks.
“You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs Tulliver; I have business
that must be attended to; and I think there is nothing more necessary
to be said.”
“But if you _would_ bear it in mind, sir,” said Mrs Tulliver, rising,
“and not run against me and my children; and I’m not denying Mr
Tulliver’s been in the wrong, but he’s been punished enough, and
there’s worse men, for it’s been giving to other folks has been his
fault. He’s done nobody any harm but himself and his family,—the more’s
the pity,—and I go and look at the bare shelves every day, and think
where all my things used to stand.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll bear it in mind,” said Mr Wakem, hastily, looking
toward the open door.
“And if you’d please not to say as I’ve been to speak to you, for my
son ’ud be very angry with me for demeaning myself, I know he would,
and I’ve trouble enough without being scolded by my children.”
Poor Mrs Tulliver’s voice trembled a little, and she could make no
answer to the attorney’s “good morning,” but curtsied and walked out in
silence.
“Which day is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold? Where’s the bill?”
said Mr Wakem to his clerk when they were alone.
“Next Friday is the day,—Friday at six o’clock.”
“Oh, just run to Winship’s the auctioneer, and see if he’s at home. I
have some business for him; ask him to come up.”
Although, when Mr Wakem entered his office that morning, he had had no
intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind was already made up.
Mrs Tulliver had suggested to him several determining motives, and his
mental glance was very rapid; he was one of those men who can be prompt
without being rash, because their motives run in fixed tracks, and they
have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.
To suppose that Wakem had the same sort of inveterate hatred toward
Tulliver that Tulliver had toward him would be like supposing that a
pike and a roach can look at each other from a similar point of view.
The roach necessarily abhors the mode in which the pike gets his
living, and the pike is likely to think nothing further even of the
most indignant roach than that he is excellent good eating; it could
only be when the roach choked him that the pike could entertain a
strong personal animosity. If Mr Tulliver had ever seriously injured or
thwarted the attorney, Wakem would not have refused him the distinction
of being a special object of his vindictiveness. But when Mr Tulliver
called Wakem a rascal at the market dinner-table, the attorneys’
clients were not a whit inclined to withdraw their business from him;
and if, when Wakem himself happened to be present, some jocose
cattle-feeder, stimulated by opportunity and brandy, made a thrust at
him by alluding to old ladies’ wills, he maintained perfect _sang
froid_, and knew quite well that the majority of substantial men then
present were perfectly contented with the fact that “Wakem was Wakem”;
that is to say, a man who always knew the stepping-stones that would
carry him through very muddy bits of practice. A man who had made a
large fortune, had a handsome house among the trees at Tofton, and
decidedly the finest stock of port-wine in the neighbourhood of St
Ogg’s, was likely to feel himself on a level with public opinion. And I
am not sure that even honest Mr Tulliver himself, with his general view
of law as a cockpit, might not, under opposite circumstances, have seen
a fine appropriateness in the truth that “Wakem was Wakem”; since I
have understood from persons versed in history, that mankind is not
disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their
victory is on the right side. Tulliver, then, could be no obstruction
to Wakem; on the contrary, he was a poor devil whom the lawyer had
defeated several times; a hot-tempered fellow, who would always give
you a handle against him. Wakem’s conscience was not uneasy because he
had used a few tricks against the miller; why should he hate that
unsuccessful plaintiff, that pitiable, furious bull entangled in the
meshes of a net?
Still, among the various excesses to which human nature is subject,
moralists have never numbered that of being too fond of the people who
openly revile us. The successful Yellow candidate for the borough of
Old Topping, perhaps, feels no pursuant meditative hatred toward the
Blue editor who consoles his subscribers with vituperative rhetoric
against Yellow men who sell their country, and are the demons of
private life; but he might not be sorry, if law and opportunity
favoured, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his favourite