The Mill on the Floss
capricious hedgerows,—such things as these are the mother-tongue of our
imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle,
inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left
behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass
to-day might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if
it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years which
still live in us, and transform our perception into love.
Chapter VI.
The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming
It was Easter week, and Mrs Tulliver’s cheesecakes were more
exquisitely light than usual. “A puff o’ wind ’ud make ’em blow about
like feathers,” Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live under a
mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or circumstances
could have been more propitious for a family party, even if it had not
been advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet about Tom’s
going to school.
“I’d as lief not invite sister Deane this time,” said Mrs Tulliver,
“for she’s as jealous and having as can be, and’s allays trying to make
the worst o’ my poor children to their aunts and uncles.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr Tulliver, “ask her to come. I never hardly get a
bit o’ talk with Deane now; we haven’t had him this six months. What’s
it matter what she says? My children need be beholding to nobody.”
“That’s what you allays say, Mr Tulliver; but I’m sure there’s nobody
o’ _your_ side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave ’em so much as a
five-pound note for a leggicy. And there’s sister Glegg, and sister
Pullet too, saving money unknown, for they put by all their own
interest and butter-money too; their husbands buy ’em everything.” Mrs
Tulliver was a mild woman, but even a sheep will face about a little
when she has lambs.
“Tchuh!” said Mr Tulliver. “It takes a big loaf when there’s many to
breakfast. What signifies your sisters’ bits o’ money when they’ve got
half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to divide it among? And your sister
Deane won’t get ’em to leave all to one, I reckon, and make the country
cry shame on ’em when they are dead?”
“I don’t know what she won’t get ’em to do,” said Mrs Tulliver, “for my
children are so awk’ard wi’ their aunts and uncles. Maggie’s ten times
naughtier when they come than she is other days, and Tom doesn’t like
’em, bless him!—though it’s more nat’ral in a boy than a gell. And
there’s Lucy Deane’s such a good child,—you may set her on a stool, and
there she’ll sit for an hour together, and never offer to get off. I
can’t help loving the child as if she was my own; and I’m sure she’s
more like _my_ child than sister Deane’s, for she’d allays a very poor
colour for one of our family, sister Deane had.”
“Well, well, if you’re fond o’ the child, ask her father and mother to
bring her with ’em. And won’t you ask their aunt and uncle Moss too,
and some o’ _their_ children?”
“Oh, dear, Mr Tulliver, why, there’d be eight people besides the
children, and I must put two more leaves i’ the table, besides reaching
down more o’ the dinner-service; and you know as well as I do as _my_
sisters and _your_ sister don’t suit well together.”
“Well, well, do as you like, Bessy,” said Mr Tulliver, taking up his
hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were more submissive than
Mrs Tulliver on all points unconnected with her family relations; but
she had been a Miss Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectable
family indeed,—as much looked up to as any in their own parish, or the
next to it. The Miss Dodsons had always been thought to hold up their
heads very high, and no one was surprised the two eldest had married so
well,—not at an early age, for that was not the practice of the Dodson
family. There were particular ways of doing everything in that family:
particular ways of bleaching the linen, of making the cowslip wine,
curing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries; so that no
daughter of that house could be indifferent to the privilege of having
been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a Watson. Funerals were
always conducted with peculiar propriety in the Dodson family: the
hat-bands were never of a blue shade, the gloves never split at the
thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, and there were always
scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family was in trouble or
sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate member, usually at
the same time, and did not shrink from uttering the most disagreeable
truths that correct family feeling dictated; if the illness or trouble
was the sufferer’s own fault, it was not in the practice of the Dodson
family to shrink from saying so. In short, there was in this family a
peculiar tradition as to what was the right thing in household
management and social demeanour, and the only bitter circumstance
attending this superiority was a painful inability to approve the
condiments or the conduct of families ungoverned by the Dodson
tradition. A female Dodson, when in “strange houses,” always ate dry
bread with her tea, and declined any sort of preserves, having no
confidence in the butter, and thinking that the preserves had probably
begun to ferment from want of due sugar and boiling. There were some
Dodsons less like the family than others, that was admitted; but in so
far as they were “kin,” they were of necessity better than those who
were “no kin.” And it is remarkable that while no individual Dodson was
satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was satisfied, not
only with him or herself, but with the Dodsons collectively. The
feeblest member of a family—the one who has the least character—is
often the merest epitome of the family habits and traditions; and Mrs
Tulliver was a thorough Dodson, though a mild one, as small-beer, so
long as it is anything, is only describable as very weak ale: and
though she had groaned a little in her youth under the yoke of her
elder sisters, and still shed occasional tears at their sisterly
reproaches, it was not in Mrs Tulliver to be an innovator on the family
ideas. She was thankful to have been a Dodson, and to have one child
who took after her own family, at least in his features and complexion,
in liking salt and in eating beans, which a Tulliver never did.
In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom, and he was
as far from appreciating his “kin” on the mother’s side as Maggie
herself, generally absconding for the day with a large supply of the
most portable food, when he received timely warning that his aunts and
uncles were coming,—a moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced
the gloomiest views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that
Tom always absconded without letting her into the secret, but the
weaker sex are acknowledged to be serious _impedimenta_ in cases of
flight.
On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, there
were such various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the oven
and jellies in the hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that it
was impossible to feel altogether gloomy: there was hope in the air.
Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other
marauders, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed
to carry away a sufficient load of booty.
“Tom,” said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree, eating
their jam-puffs, “shall you run away to-morrow?”
“No,” said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was eying
the third, which was to be divided between them,—“no, I sha’n’t.”
“Why, Tom? Because Lucy’s coming?”
“No,” said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the puff,
with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficult
problem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.)
“What do _I_ care about Lucy? She’s only a girl,—_she_ can’t play at
bandy.”
“Is it the tipsy-cake, then?” said Maggie, exerting her hypothetic
powers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with her eyes fixed on the
hovering knife.
“No, you silly, that’ll be good the day after. It’s the pudden. I know
what the pudden’s to be,—apricot roll-up—O my buttons!”
With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and it was in
two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed the
halves doubtfully. At last he said,—
“Shut your eyes, Maggie.”
“What for?”
“You never mind what for. Shut ’em when I tell you.”
Maggie obeyed.
“Now, which’ll you have, Maggie,—right hand or left?”
“I’ll have that with the jam run out,” said Maggie, keeping her eyes
shut to please Tom.
“Why, you don’t like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to
you fair, but I sha’n’t give it you without. Right or left,—you choose,
now. Ha-a-a!” said Tom, in a tone of exasperation, as Maggie peeped.
“You keep your eyes shut, now, else you sha’n’t have any.”
Maggie’s power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed, I fear she
cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff,
than that he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit. So
she shut her eyes quite close, till Tom told her to “say which,” and
then she said, “Left hand.”
“You’ve got it,” said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.
“What! the bit with the jam run out?”
“No; here, take it,” said Tom, firmly, handing, decidedly the best
piece to Maggie.
“Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don’t mind—I like the other; please take
this.”
“No, I sha’n’t,” said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his own
inferior piece.
Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ate
up her half puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tom
had finished first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last morsel
or two, feeling in himself a capacity for more. Maggie didn’t know Tom
was looking at her; she was seesawing on the elder-bough, lost to
almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.
“Oh, you greedy thing!” said Tom, when she had swallowed the last
morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she
ought to have considered this, and made up to him for it. He would have
refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a different
point of view before and after one’s own share of puff is swallowed.
Maggie turned quite pale. “Oh, Tom, why didn’t you ask me?”
“_I_ wasn’t going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have
thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit.”
“But I wanted you to have it; you know I did,” said Maggie, in an
injured tone.
“Yes, but I wasn’t going to do what wasn’t fair, like Spouncer. He
always takes the best bit, if you don’t punch him for it; and if you
choose the best with your eyes shut, he changes his hands. But if I go
halves, I’ll go ’em fair; only I wouldn’t be a greedy.”
With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw a
stone with a “hoigh!” as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also been
looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of his ears
and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet the
excellent dog accepted Tom’s attention with as much alacrity as if he
had been treated quite generously.
But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery which
distinguishes the human being, and places him at a proud distance from
the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave
herself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would have
given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some
of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie’s palate
was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it many times
over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with her. And
he had said he wouldn’t have it, and she ate it without thinking; how