The Mill on the Floss
It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to lengthen the
daily walk which was her one indulgence; but this day and the following
she was so busy with work which must be finished that she never went
beyond the gate, and satisfied her need of the open air by sitting out
of doors. One of her frequent walks, when she was not obliged to go to
St Ogg’s, was to a spot that lay beyond what was called the “Hill,”—an
insignificant rise of ground crowned by trees, lying along the side of
the road which ran by the gates of Dorlcote Mill. Insignificant I call
it, because in height it was hardly more than a bank; but there may
come moments when Nature makes a mere bank a means toward a fateful
result; and that is why I ask you to imagine this high bank crowned
with trees, making an uneven wall for some quarter of a mile along the
left side of Dorlcote Mill and the pleasant fields behind it, bounded
by the murmuring Ripple. Just where this line of bank sloped down again
to the level, a by-road turned off and led to the other side of the
rise, where it was broken into very capricious hollows and mounds by
the working of an exhausted stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both
mounds and hollows were now clothed with brambles and trees, and here
and there by a stretch of grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled.
In her childish days Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in
very great awe, and needed all her confidence in Tom’s bravery to
reconcile her to an excursion thither,—visions of robbers and fierce
animals haunting every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which
any broken ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that
rest habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit
on a grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant
from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like
tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing
the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly
blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time, too, the dog-roses were
in their glory, and that was an additional reason why Maggie should
direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on the
first day she was free to wander at her will,—a pleasure she loved so
well, that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she thought she
ought to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it.
You may see her now, as she walks down the favourite turning and enters
the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs, her tall
figure and old lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk
shawl of some wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is sure of
being unseen she takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One
would certainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her
seventeenth year—perhaps because of the slow resigned sadness of the
glance from which all search and unrest seem to have departed; perhaps
because her broad-chested figure has the mould of early womanhood.
Youth and health have withstood well the involuntary and voluntary
hardships of her lot, and the nights in which she has lain on the hard
floor for a penance have left no obvious trace; the eyes are liquid,
the brown cheek is firm and round, the full lips are red. With her dark
colouring and jet crown surmounting her tall figure, she seems to have
a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is looking
up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of uneasiness in
looking at her,—a sense of opposing elements, of which a fierce
collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression, such as one
often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of keeping with
the resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a sudden,
passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like a damp
fire leaping out again when all seemed safe.
But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was calmly
enjoying the free air, while she looked up at the old fir-trees, and
thought that those broken ends of branches were the records of past
storms, which had only made the red stems soar higher. But while her
eyes were still turned upward, she became conscious of a moving shadow
cast by the evening sun on the grassy path before her, and looked down
with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who first raised his hat,
and then, blushing deeply, came forward to her and put out his hand.
Maggie, too, coloured with surprise, which soon gave way to pleasure.
She put out her hand and looked down at the deformed figure before her
with frank eyes, filled for the moment with nothing but the memory of
her child’s feelings,—a memory that was always strong in her. She was
the first to speak.
“You startled me,” she said, smiling faintly; “I never meet any one
here. How came you to be walking here? Did you come to meet _me?_”
It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child
again.
“Yes, I did,” said Philip, still embarrassed; “I wished to see you very
much. I watched a long while yesterday on the bank near your house to
see if you would come out, but you never came. Then I watched again
to-day, and when I saw the way you took, I kept you in sight and came
down the bank, behind there. I hope you will not be displeased with
me.”
“No,” said Maggie, with simple seriousness, walking on as if she meant
Philip to accompany her, “I’m very glad you came, for I wished very
much to have an opportunity of speaking to you. I’ve never forgotten
how good you were long ago to Tom, and me too; but I was not sure that
you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of
trouble since then, and I think _that_ makes one think more of what
happened before the trouble came.”
“I can’t believe that you have thought of me so much as I have thought
of you,” said Philip, timidly. “Do you know, when I was away, I made a
picture of you as you looked that morning in the study when you said
you would not forget me.”
Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and opened it.
Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks
hanging down behind her ears, looking into space, with strange, dreamy
eyes. It was a water-colour sketch, of real merit as a portrait.
“Oh dear,” said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure, “what a
queer little girl I was! I remember myself with my hair in that way, in
that pink frock. I really _was_ like a gypsy. I dare say I am now,” she
added, after a little pause; “am I like what you expected me to be?”
The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full, bright
glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really
did hope he liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising
again of her innate delight in admiration and love. Philip met her eyes
and looked at her in silence for a long moment, before he said quietly,
“No, Maggie.”
The light died out a little from Maggie’s face, and there was a slight
trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn away
her head, and Philip continued to look at her. Then he said slowly:
“You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be.”
“Am I?” said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She
turned her face away from him and took some steps, looking straight
before her in silence, as if she were adjusting her consciousness to
this new idea. Girls are so accustomed to think of dress as the main
ground of vanity, that, in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie
had thought more of abandoning all care for adornment than of
renouncing the contemplation of her face. Comparing herself with
elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she
could produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the
silence well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if that
sight left no room for any other wish. They had passed from among the
fir-trees, and had now come to a green hollow almost surrounded by an
amphitheatre of the pale pink dog-roses. But as the light about them
had brightened, Maggie’s face had lost its glow.
She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip
again, she said in a serious, sad voice:
“I wish we could have been friends,—I mean, if it would have been good
and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear in everything; I
may not keep anything I used to love when I was little. The old books
went; and Tom is different, and my father. It is like death. I must
part with everything I cared for when I was a child. And I must part
with you; we must never take any notice of each other again. That was
what I wanted to speak to you for. I wanted to let you know that Tom
and I can’t do as we like about such things, and that if I behave as if
I had forgotten all about you, it is not out of envy or pride—or—or any
bad feeling.”
Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on,
and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of pain
on Philip’s face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish self,
and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity.
“I know; I see all that you mean,” he said, in a voice that had become
feebler from discouragement; “I know what there is to keep us apart on
both sides. But it is not right, Maggie,—don’t you be angry with me, I
am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts,—it is not right to
sacrifice everything to other people’s unreasonable feelings. I would
give up a great deal for _my_ father; but I would not give up a
friendship or—or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish of
his that I didn’t recognise as right.”
“I don’t know,” said Maggie, musingly. “Often, when I have been angry
and discontented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to give up
anything; and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I
could think away all my duty. But no good has ever come of that; it was
an evil state of mind. I’m quite sure that whatever I might do, I
should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for myself,
rather than have made my father’s life harder to him.”
“But would it make his life harder if we were to see each other
sometimes?” said Philip. He was going to say something else, but
checked himself.
“Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t like it. Don’t ask me why, or anything about
it,” said Maggie, in a distressed tone. “My father feels so strongly
about some things. He is not at all happy.”
“No more am I,” said Philip, impetuously; “I am not happy.”
“Why?” said Maggie, gently. “At least—I ought not to ask—but I’m very,
very sorry.”
Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand still any
longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and
bushes in silence. After that last word of Philip’s, Maggie could not
bear to insist immediately on their parting.
“I’ve been a great deal happier,” she said at last, timidly, “since I
have given up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and being
discontented because I couldn’t have my own will. Our life is
determined for us; and it makes the mind very free when we give up
wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing what
is given us to do.”
“But I can’t give up wishing,” said Philip, impatiently. “It seems to
me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly
alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and
we _must_ hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them
until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to
be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and can’t produce what I
want. That is pain to me, and always _will_ be pain, until my faculties