The Mill on the Floss

by George Eliot

  Chapter I

  What Had Happened at Home

  When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was decidedagainst him, and that Pivart and Wakem were triumphant, every one whohappened to observe him at the time thought that, for so confident andhot-tempered a man, he bore the blow remarkably well. He thought sohimself; he thought he was going to show that if Wakem or anybody elseconsidered him crushed, they would find themselves mistaken. He couldnot refuse to see that the costs of this protracted suit would takemore than he possessed to pay them; but he appeared to himself to befull of expedients by which he could ward off any results but such aswere tolerable, and could avoid the appearance of breaking down in theworld. All the obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out oftheir old channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediateformation of plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and remainMr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill in spite of them. There was such a rushof projects in his brain, that it was no wonder his face was flushedwhen he came away from his talk with his attorney, Mr. Gore, andmounted his horse to ride home from Lindum. There was Furley, who heldthe mortgage on the land,--a reasonable fellow, who would see his owninterest, Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and who would be glad not onlyto purchase the whole estate, including the mill and homestead, butwould accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be willing to advance moneyto be repaid with high interest out of the profits of the business,which would be made over to him, Mr. Tulliver only taking enoughbarely to maintain himself and his family. Who would neglect such aprofitable investment? Certainly not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver haddetermined that Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity;and there are men whoses brains have not yet been dangerously heatedby the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see in their own interest ordesires a motive for other men's actions. There was no doubt (in themiller's mind) that Furley would do just what was desirable; and if hedid--why, things would not be so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and hisfamily must live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be tillthe profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances, and thatmight be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many years of life beforehim. It was clear that the costs of the suit could be paid without hisbeing obliged to turn out of his old place, and look like a ruinedman. It was certainly an awkward moment in his affairs. There was thatsuretyship for poor Riley, who had died suddenly last April, and lefthis friend saddled with a debt of two hundred and fifty pounds,--afact which had helped to make Mr. Tulliver's banking book lesspleasant reading than a man might desire toward Christmas. Well! hehad never been one of those poor-spirited sneaks who would refuse togive a helping hand to a fellow-traveller in this puzzling world. Thereally vexatious business was the fact that some months ago thecreditor who had lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glegghad become uneasy about his money (set on by Wakem, of course), andMr. Tulliver, still confident that he should gain his suit, andfinding it eminently inconvenient to raise the said sum until thatdesirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand thathe should give a bill of sale on his household furniture and someother effects, as security in lieu of the bond. It was all one, he hadsaid to himself; he should soon pay off the money, and there was noharm in giving that security any more than another. But now theconsequences of this bill of sale occurred to him in a new light, andhe remembered that the time was close at hand when it would beenforced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago he would havedeclared stoutly that he would never be beholden to his wife'sfriends; but now he told himself as stoutly that it was nothing butright and natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets and explain thething to them; they would hardly let Bessy's furniture be sold, and itmight be security to Pullet if he advanced the money,--there would,after all, be no gift or favor in the matter. Mr. Tulliver would neverhave asked for anything from so poor-spirited a fellow for himself,but Bessy might do so if she liked.

  It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the mostliable to shift their position and contradict themselves in thissudden manner; everything is easier to them than to face the simplefact that they have been thoroughly defeated, and must begin lifeanew. And Mr. Tulliver, you perceive, though nothing more than asuperior miller and maltster, was as proud and obstinate as if he hadbeen a very lofty personage, in whom such dispositions might be asource of that conspicuous, far-echoing tragedy, which sweeps thestage in regal robes, and makes the dullest chronicler sublime. Thepride and obstinacy of millers and other insignificant people, whomyou pass unnoticingly on the road every day, have their tragedy too;but it is of that unwept, hidden sort that goes on from generation togeneration, and leaves no record,--such tragedy, perhaps, as lies inthe conflicts of young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot madesuddenly hard to them, under the dreariness of a home where themorning brings no promise with it, and where the unexpectantdiscontent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the childrenlike a damp, thick air, in which all the functions of life aredepressed; or such tragedy as lies in the slow or sudden death thatfollows on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds onlya parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity ofposition is a law of life,--they can never flourish again, after asingle wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom predominanceis a law of life,--they can only sustain humiliation so long as theycan refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominatestill.

  Mr. Tulliver was still predominating, in his own imagination, as heapproached St. Ogg's, through which he had to pass on his wayhomeward. But what was it that suggested to him, as he saw the Lacehamcoach entering the town, to follow it to the coach-office, and get theclerk there to write a letter, requiring Maggie to come home the verynext day? Mr. Tulliver's own hand shook too much under his excitementfor him to write himself, and he wanted the letter to be given to thecoachman to deliver at Miss Firniss's school in the morning. There wasa craving which he would not account for to himself, to have Maggienear him, without delay,--she must come back by the coach to-morrow.

  To Mrs. Tulliver, when he got home, he would admit no difficulties,and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit waslost, by angry assertions that there was nothing to grieve about. Hesaid nothing to her that night about the bill of sale and theapplication to Mrs. Pullet, for he had kept her in ignorance of thenature of that transaction, and had explained the necessity for takingan inventory of the goods as a matter connected with his will. Thepossession of a wife conspicuously one's inferior in intellect is,like other high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and,among the rest, with the occasional necessity for using a littledeception.

  The next day Mr. Tulliver was again on horseback in the afternoon, onhis way to Mr. Gore's office at St. Ogg's. Gore was to have seenFurley in the morning, and to have sounded him in relation to Mr.Tulliver's affairs. But he had not gone half-way when he met a clerkfrom Mr. Gore's office, who was bringing a letter to Mr. Tulliver. Mr.Gore had been prevented by a sudden call of business from waiting athis office to see Mr. Tulliver, according to appointment, but would beat his office at eleven to-morrow morning, and meanwhile had sent someimportant information by letter.

  "Oh!" said Mr. Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening it. "Thentell Gore I'll see him to-morrow at eleven"; and he turned his horse.

  The clerk, struck with Mr. Tulliver's glistening, excited glance,looked after him for a few moments, and then rode away. The reading ofa letter was not the affair of an instant to Mr. Tulliver; he took inthe sense of a statement very slowly through the medium of written oreven printed characters; so he had put the letter in his pocket,thinking he would open it in his armchair at home. But by-and-by itoccurred to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs.Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to keep itout of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse, took out theletter, and read it. It was only a short letter; the substance was,that Mr. Gore had ascertained, on secret, but sure authority, thatFurley had been lately much straitened
for money, and had parted withhis securities,--among the rest, the mortgage on Mr. Tulliver'sproperty, which he had transferred to----Wakem.

  In half an hour after this Mr. Tulliver's own wagoner found him lyingby the roadside insensible, with an open letter near him, and his grayhorse snuffing uneasily about him.

  When Maggie reached home that evening, in obedience to her father'scall, he was no longer insensible. About an hour before he had becomeconscious, and after vague, vacant looks around him, had mutteredsomething about "a letter," which he presently repeated impatiently.At the instance of Mr. Turnbull, the medical man, Gore's letter wasbrought and laid on the bed, and the previous impatience seemed to beallayed. The stricken man lay for some time with his eyes fixed on theletter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help. Butpresently a new wave of memory seemed to have come and swept the otheraway; he turned his eyes from the letter to the door, and afterlooking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were toodim for, he said, "The little wench."

  He repeated the words impatiently from time to time, appearingentirely unconscious of everything except this one importunate want,and giving no sign of knowing his wife or any one else; and poor Mrs.Tulliver, her feeble faculties almost paralyzed by this suddenaccumulation of troubles, went backward and forward to the gate to seeif the Laceham coach were coming, though it was not yet time.

  But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no longer the"little wench," except to her father's fond memory.

  "Oh, mother, what is the matter?" Maggie said, with pale lips, as hermother came toward her crying. She didn't think her father was ill,because the letter had come at his dictation from the office at St.Ogg's.

  But Mr. Turnbull came now to meet her; a medical man is the good angelof the troubled house, and Maggie ran toward the kind old friend, whomshe remembered as long as she could remember anything, with atrembling, questioning look.

  "Don't alarm yourself too much, my dear," he said, taking her hand."Your father has had a sudden attack, and has not quite recovered hismemory. But he has been asking for you, and it will do him good to seeyou. Keep as quiet as you can; take off your things, and come upstairswith me."

  Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which makesexistence seem simply a painful pulsation. The very quietness withwhich Mr. Turnbull spoke had frightened her susceptible imagination.Her father's eyes were still turned uneasily toward the door when sheentered and met the strange, yearning, helpless look that had beenseeking her in vain. With a sudden flash and movement, he raisedhimself in the bed; she rushed toward him, and clasped him withagonized kisses.

  Poor child! it was very early for her to know one of those suprememoments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we candread or endure, falls away from our regard as insignificant; is lost,like a trivial memory, in that simple, primitive love which knits usto the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times ofhelplessness or of anguish.

  But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on thefather's bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again in renewedinsensibility and rigidity, which lasted for many hours, and was onlybroken by a flickering return of consciousness, in which he tookpassively everything that was given to him, and seemed to have a sortof infantine satisfaction in Maggie's near presence,--suchsatisfaction as a baby has when it is returned to the nurse's lap.

  Mrs. Tulliver sent for her sisters, and there was much wailing andlifting up of hands below stairs. Both uncles and aunts saw that theruin of Bessy and her family was as complete as they had everforeboded it, and there was a general family sense that a judgment hadfallen on Mr. Tulliver, which it would be an impiety to counteract bytoo much kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely everleaving her father's bedside, where she sat opposite him with her handon his. Mrs. Tulliver wanted to have Tom fetched home, and seemed tobe thinking more of her boy even than of her husband; but the auntsand uncles opposed this. Tom was better at school, since Mr. Turnbullsaid there was no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of thesecond day, when Maggie had become more accustomed to her father'sfits of insensibility, and to the expectation that he would revivefrom them, the thought of Tom had become urgent with _her_ too; andwhen her mother sate crying at night and saying, "My poor lad--it'snothing but right he should come home," Maggie said, "Let me go forhim, and tell him, mother; I'll go to-morrow morning if father doesn'tknow me and want me. It would be so hard for Tom to come home and notknow anything about it beforehand."

  And the next morning Maggie went, as we have seen. Sitting on thecoach on their way home, the brother and sister talked to each otherin sad, interrupted whispers.

  "They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"said Maggie. "It was the letter with that news in it that made fatherill, they think."

  "I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin myfather," said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definiteconclusion. "I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you neverspeak to Philip again."

  "Oh, Tom!" said Maggie, in a tone of sad remonstrance; but she had nospirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex Tom by opposinghim.