The Mill on the Floss
“No; there I can’t agree with you,” said Stephen, shaking his head with
sarcastic gravity.
“Now, what fault can you point out in him?”
“He’s an Anglican.”
“Well, those are the right views, I think,” said Lucy, gravely.
“That settles the question in the abstract,” said Stephen, “but not
from a parliamentary point of view. He has set the Dissenters and the
Church people by the ears; and a rising senator like myself, of whose
services the country is very much in need, will find it inconvenient
when he puts up for the honour of representing St Ogg’s in Parliament.”
“Do you really think of that?” said Lucy, her eyes brightening with a
proud pleasure that made her neglect the argumentative interests of
Anglicanism.
“Decidedly, whenever old Mr Leyburn’s public spirit and gout induce him
to give way. My father’s heart is set on it; and gifts like mine, you
know”—here Stephen drew himself up, and rubbed his large white hands
over his hair with playful self-admiration—“gifts like mine involve
great responsibilities. Don’t you think so, Miss Tulliver?”
“Yes,” said Maggie, smiling, but not looking up; “so much fluency and
self-possession should not be wasted entirely on private occasions.”
“Ah, I see how much penetration you have,” said Stephen. “You have
discovered already that I am talkative and impudent. Now superficial
people never discern that, owing to my manner, I suppose.”
“She doesn’t look at me when I talk of myself,” he thought, while his
listeners were laughing. “I must try other subjects.”
Did Lucy intend to be present at the meeting of the Book Club next
week? was the next question. Then followed the recommendation to choose
Southey’s “Life of Cowper,” unless she were inclined to be
philosophical, and startle the ladies of St Ogg’s by voting for one of
the Bridgewater Treatises. Of course Lucy wished to know what these
alarmingly learned books were; and as it is always pleasant to improve
the minds of ladies by talking to them at ease on subjects of which
they know nothing, Stephen became quite brilliant in an account of
Buckland’s Treatise, which he had just been reading. He was rewarded by
seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradually get so absorbed in his
wonderful geological story that she sat looking at him, leaning forward
with crossed arms, and with an entire absence of self-consciousness, as
if he had been the snuffiest of old professors, and she a downy-lipped
alumna. He was so fascinated by the clear, large gaze that at last he
forgot to look away from it occasionally toward Lucy; but she, sweet
child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was proving to Maggie how clever
he was, and that they would certainly be good friends after all.
“I will bring you the book, shall I, Miss Tulliver?” said Stephen, when
he found the stream of his recollections running rather shallow. “There
are many illustrations in it that you will like to see.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Maggie, blushing with returning
self-consciousness at this direct address, and taking up her work
again.
“No, no,” Lucy interposed. “I must forbid your plunging Maggie in
books. I shall never get her away from them; and I want her to have
delicious do-nothing days, filled with boating and chatting and riding
and driving; that is the holiday she needs.”
“Apropos!” said Stephen, looking at his watch. “Shall we go out for a
row on the river now? The tide will suit for us to the Tofton way, and
we can walk back.”
That was a delightful proposition to Maggie, for it was years since she
had been on the river. When she was gone to put on her bonnet, Lucy
lingered to give an order to the servant, and took the opportunity of
telling Stephen that Maggie had no objection to seeing Philip, so that
it was a pity she had sent that note the day before yesterday. But she
would write another to-morrow and invite him.
“I’ll call and beat him up to-morrow,” said Stephen, “and bring him
with me in the evening, shall I? My sisters will want to call on you
when I tell them your cousin is with you. I must leave the field clear
for them in the morning.”
“Oh yes, pray bring him,” said Lucy. “And you _will_ like Maggie,
sha’n’t you?” she added, in a beseeching tone. “Isn’t she a dear,
noble-looking creature?”
“Too tall,” said Stephen, smiling down upon her, “and a little too
fiery. She is not my type of woman, you know.”
Gentlemen, you are aware, are apt to impart these imprudent confidences
to ladies concerning their unfavourable opinion of sister fair ones.
That is why so many women have the advantage of knowing that they are
secretly repulsive to men who have self-denyingly made ardent love to
them. And hardly anything could be more distinctively characteristic of
Lucy than that she both implicitly believed what Stephen said, and was
determined that Maggie should not know it. But you, who have a higher
logic than the verbal to guide you, have already foreseen, as the
direct sequence to that unfavourable opinion of Stephen’s, that he
walked down to the boathouse calculating, by the aid of a vivid
imagination, that Maggie must give him her hand at least twice in
consequence of this pleasant boating plan, and that a gentleman who
wishes ladies to look at him is advantageously situated when he is
rowing them in a boat. What then? Had he fallen in love with this
surprising daughter of Mrs Tulliver at first sight? Certainly not. Such
passions are never heard of in real life. Besides, he was in love
already, and half-engaged to the dearest little creature in the world;
and he was not a man to make a fool of himself in any way. But when one
is five-and-twenty, one has not chalk-stones at one’s finger-ends that
the touch of a handsome girl should be entirely indifferent. It was
perfectly natural and safe to admire beauty and enjoy looking at it,—at
least under such circumstances as the present. And there was really
something very interesting about this girl, with her poverty and
troubles; it was gratifying to see the friendship between the two
cousins. Generally, Stephen admitted, he was not fond of women who had
any peculiarity of character, but here the peculiarity seemed really of
a superior kind, and provided one is not obliged to marry such women,
why, they certainly make a variety in social intercourse.
Maggie did not fulfil Stephen’s hope by looking at him during the first
quarter of an hour; her eyes were too full of the old banks that she
knew so well. She felt lonely, cut off from Philip,—the only person who
had ever seemed to love her devotedly, as she had always longed to be
loved. But presently the rhythmic movement of the oars attracted her,
and she thought she should like to learn how to row. This roused her
from her reverie, and she asked if she might take an oar. It appeared
that she required much teaching, and she became ambitious. The exercise
brought the warm blood into her cheeks, and made her inclined to take
her lesson merrily.
“I shall not be satisfied until I can manage both oars, and row you and
Lucy,” she said, looking very bright as she stepped out of the boat.
Maggie, we know, was apt to forget the thing she was doing, and she had
chosen an inopportune moment for her remark; her foot slipped, but
happily Mr Stephen Guest held her hand, and kept her up with a firm
grasp.
“You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope?” he said, bending to look
in her face with anxiety. It was very charming to be taken care of in
that kind, graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than one’s
self. Maggie had never felt just in the same way before.
When they reached home again, they found uncle and aunt Pullet seated
with Mrs Tulliver in the drawing-room, and Stephen hurried away, asking
leave to come again in the evening.
“And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you took away,”
said Lucy. “I want Maggie to hear your best songs.”
Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would be invited to go out
with Lucy, probably to Park House, was much shocked at the shabbiness
of her clothes, which when witnessed by the higher society of St Ogg’s,
would be a discredit to the family, that demanded a strong and prompt
remedy; and the consultation as to what would be most suitable to this
end from among the superfluities of Mrs Pullet’s wardrobe was one that
Lucy as well as Mrs Tulliver entered into with some zeal. Maggie must
really have an evening dress as soon as possible, and she was about the
same height as aunt Pullet.
“But she’s so much broader across the shoulders than I am, it’s very
ill-convenient,” said Mrs Pullet, “else she might wear that beautiful
black brocade o’ mine without any alteration; and her arms are beyond
everything,” added Mrs Pullet, sorrowfully, as she lifted Maggie’s
large round arm, “She’d never get my sleeves on.”
“Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress,” said Lucy. “I don’t
mean Maggie to have long sleeves, and I have abundance of black lace
for trimming. Her arms will look beautiful.”
“Maggie’s arms _are_ a pretty shape,” said Mrs Tulliver. “They’re like
mine used to be, only mine was never brown; I wish she’d had _our_
family skin.”
“Nonsense, aunty!” said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver’s shoulder,
“you don’t understand those things. A painter would think Maggie’s
complexion beautiful.”
“Maybe, my dear,” said Mrs Tulliver, submissively. “You know better
than I do. Only when I was young a brown skin wasn’t thought well on
among respectable folks.”
“No,” said uncle Pullet, who took intense interest in the ladies’
conversation as he sucked his lozenges. “Though there was a song about
the ‘Nut-brown Maid’ too; I think she was crazy,—crazy Kate,—but I
can’t justly remember.”
“Oh dear, dear!” said Maggie, laughing, but impatient; “I think that
will be the end of _my_ brown skin, if it is always to be talked about
so much.”
Chapter III.
Confidential Moments
When Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it appeared that she was
not at all inclined to undress. She set down her candle on the first
table that presented itself, and began to walk up and down her room,
which was a large one, with a firm, regular, and rather rapid step,
which showed that the exercise was the instinctive vent of strong
excitement. Her eyes and cheeks had an almost feverish brilliancy; her
head was thrown backward, and her hands were clasped with the palms
outward, and with that tension of the arms which is apt to accompany
mental absorption.
Had anything remarkable happened?
Nothing that you are not likely to consider in the highest degree
unimportant. She had been hearing some fine music sung by a fine bass
voice,—but then it was sung in a provincial, amateur fashion, such as
would have left a critical ear much to desire. And she was conscious of
having been looked at a great deal, in rather a furtive manner, from
beneath a pair of well-marked horizontal eyebrows, with a glance that
seemed somehow to have caught the vibratory influence of the voice.
Such things could have had no perceptible effect on a thoroughly
well-educated young lady, with a perfectly balanced mind, who had had
all the advantages of fortune, training, and refined society. But if
Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably have known nothing
about her: her life would have had so few vicissitudes that it could
hardly have been written; for the happiest women, like the happiest
nations, have no history.
In poor Maggie’s highly-strung, hungry nature,—just come away from a
third-rate schoolroom, with all its jarring sounds and petty round of
tasks,—these apparently trivial causes had the effect of rousing and
exalting her imagination in a way that was mysterious to herself. It
was not that she thought distinctly of Mr Stephen Guest, or dwelt on