The Mill on the Floss

by George Eliot

  Chapter VIII

  Wakem in a New Light

  Before three days had passed after the conversation you have justoverheard between Lucy and her father she had contrived to have aprivate interview with Philip during a visit of Maggie's to her auntGlegg. For a day and a night Philip turned over in his mind withrestless agitation all that Lucy had told him in that interview, tillhe had thoroughly resolved on a course of action. He thought he sawbefore him now a possibility of altering his position with respect toMaggie, and removing at least one obstacle between them. He laid hisplan and calculated all his moves with the fervid deliberation of achess-player in the days of his first ardor, and was amazed himself athis sudden genius as a tactician. His plan was as bold as it wasthoroughly calculated. Having watched for a moment when his father hadnothing more urgent on his hands than the newspaper, he went behindhim, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said,--

  "Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and look at my newsketches? I've arranged them now."

  "I'm getting terrible stiff in the joints, Phil, for climbing thosestairs of yours," said Wakem, looking kindly at his son as he laiddown his paper. "But come along, then."

  "This is a nice place for you, isn't it, Phil?--a capital light thatfrom the roof, eh?" was, as usual, the first thing he said on enteringthe painting-room. He liked to remind himself and his son too that hisfatherly indulgence had provided the accommodation. He had been a goodfather. Emily would have nothing to reproach him with there, if shecame back again from her grave.

  "Come, come," he said, putting his double eye-glass over his nose, andseating himself to take a general view while he rested, "you've got afamous show here. Upon my word, I don't see that your things aren't asgood as that London artist's--what's his name--that Leyburn gave somuch money for."

  Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated himself on hispainting-stool, and had taken a lead pencil in his hand, with which hewas making strong marks to counteract the sense of tremulousness. Hewatched his father get up, and walk slowly round, good-naturedlydwelling on the pictures much longer than his amount of genuine tastefor landscape would have prompted, till he stopped before a stand onwhich two pictures were placed,--one much larger than the other, thesmaller one in a leather case.

  "Bless me! what have you here?" said Wakem, startled by a suddentransition from landscape to portrait. "I thought you'd left offfigures. Who are these?"

  "They are the same person," said Philip, with calm promptness, "atdifferent ages."

  "And what person?" said Wakem, sharply fixing his eyes with a growinglook of suspicion on the larger picture.

  "Miss Tulliver. The small one is something like what she was when Iwas at school with her brother at King's Lorton the larger one is notquite so good a likeness of what she was when I came from abroad."

  Wakem turned round fiercely, with a flushed face, letting hiseye-glass fall, and looking at his son with a savage expression for amoment, as if he was ready to strike that daring feebleness from thestool. But he threw himself into the armchair again, and thrust hishands into his trouser-pockets, still looking angrily at his son,however. Philip did not return the look, but sat quietly watching thepoint of his pencil.

  "And do you mean to say, then, that you have had any acquaintance withher since you came from abroad?" said Wakem, at last, with that vaineffort which rage always makes to throw as much punishment as itdesires to inflict into words and tones, since blows are forbidden.

  "Yes; I saw a great deal of her for a whole year before her father'sdeath. We met often in that thicket--the Red Deeps--near DorlcoteMill. I love her dearly; I shall never love any other woman. I havethought of her ever since she was a little girl."

  "Go on, sir! And you have corresponded with her all this while?"

  "No. I never told her I loved her till just before we parted, and shepromised her brother not to see me again or to correspond with me. Iam not sure that she loves me or would consent to marry me. But if shewould consent,--if she _did_ love me well enough,--I should marryher."

  "And this is the return you make me for all the indulgences I'veheaped on you?" said Wakem, getting white, and beginning to trembleunder an enraged sense of impotence before Philip's calm defiance andconcentration of purpose.

  "No, father," said Philip, looking up at him for the first time; "Idon't regard it as a return. You have been an indulgent father to me;but I have always felt that it was because you had an affectionatewish to give me as much happiness as my unfortunate lot would admit,not that it was a debt you expected me to pay by sacrificing all mychances of happiness to satisfy feelings of yours which I can nevershare."

  "I think most sons would share their father's feelings in this case,"said Wakem, bitterly. "The girl's father was an ignorant mad brute,who was within an inch of murdering me. The whole town knows it. Andthe brother is just as insolent, only in a cooler way. He forbade herseeing you, you say; he'll break every bone in your body, for yourgreater happiness, if you don't take care. But you seem to have madeup your mind; you have counted the consequences, I suppose. Of courseyou are independent of me; you can marry this girl to-morrow, if youlike; you are a man of five-and-twenty,--you can go your way, and Ican go mine. We need have no more to do with each other."

  Wakem rose and walked toward the door, but something held him back,and instead of leaving the room, he walked up and down it. Philip wasslow to reply, and when he spoke, his tone had a more incisivequietness and clearness than ever.

  "No; I can't marry Miss Tulliver, even if she would have me, if I haveonly my own resources to maintain her with. I have been brought up tono profession. I can't offer her poverty as well as deformity."

  "Ah, _there_ is a reason for your clinging to me, doubtless," saidWakem, still bitterly, though Philip's last words had given him apang; they had stirred a feeling which had been a habit for a quarterof a century. He threw himself into the chair again.

  "I expected all this," said Philip. "I know these scenes are oftenhappening between father and son. If I were like other men of my age,I might answer your angry words by still angrier; we might part; Ishould marry the woman I love, and have a chance of being as happy asthe rest. But if it will be a satisfaction to you to annihilate thevery object of everything you've done for me, you have an advantageover most fathers; you can completely deprive me of the only thingthat would make my life worth having."

  Philip paused, but his father was silent.

  "You know best what satisfaction you would have, beyond that ofgratifying a ridiculous rancor worthy only of wandering savages."

  "Ridiculous rancor!" Wakem burst out. "What do you mean? Damn it! is aman to be horsewhipped by a boor and love him for it? Besides, there'sthat cold, proud devil of a son, who said a word to me I shall notforget when we had the settling. He would be as pleasant a mark for abullet as I know, if he were worth the expense."

  "I don't mean your resentment toward them," said Philip, who had hisreasons for some sympathy with this view of Tom, "though a feeling ofrevenge is not worth much, that you should care to keep it. I meanyour extending the enmity to a helpless girl, who has too much senseand goodness to share their narrow prejudices. _She_ has never enteredinto the family quarrels."

  "What does that signify? We don't ask what a woman does; we ask whomshe belongs to. It's altogether a degrading thing to you, to think ofmarrying old Tulliver's daughter."

  For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of hisself-control, and colored with anger.

  "Miss Tulliver," he said, with bitter incisiveness, "has the onlygrounds of rank that anything but vulgar folly can suppose to belongto the middle class; she is thoroughly refined, and her friends,whatever else they may be, are respected for irreproachable honor andintegrity. All St. Ogg's, I fancy, would pronounce her to be more thanmy equal."

  Wakem darted a glance of fierce question at his son but Philip wasnot looking at him, and with a certain penitent consciousness went on,in a few moments, as if in amplification of his
last words,--

  "Find a single person in St. Ogg's who will not tell you that abeautiful creature like her would be throwing herself away on apitiable object like me."

  "Not she!" said Wakem, rising again, and forgetting everything else ina burst of resentful pride, half fatherly, half personal. "It would bea deuced fine match for her. It's all stuff about an accidentaldeformity, when a girl's really attached to a man."

  "But girls are not apt to get attached under those circumstances,"said Philip.

  "Well, then," said Wakem, rather brutally, trying to recover hisprevious position, "if she doesn't care for you, you might have sparedyourself the trouble of talking to me about her, and you might havespared me the trouble of refusing my consent to what was never likelyto happen."

  Wakem strode to the door, and without looking round again, banged itafter him.

  Philip was not without confidence that his father would be ultimatelywrought upon as he had expected, by what had passed; but the scene hadjarred upon his nerves, which were as sensitive as a woman's. Hedetermined not to go down to dinner; he couldn't meet his father againthat day. It was Wakem's habit, when he had no company at home, to goout in the evening, often as early as half-past seven; and as it wasfar on in the afternoon now, Philip locked up his room and went outfor a long ramble, thinking he would not return until his father wasout of the house again. He got into a boat, and went down the river toa favorite village, where he dined, and lingered till it was lateenough for him to return. He had never had any sort of quarrel withhis father before, and had a sickening fear that this contest, justbegun, might go on for weeks; and what might not happen in that time?He would not allow himself to define what that involuntary questionmeant. But if he could once be in the position of Maggie's accepted,acknowledged lover, there would be less room for vague dread. He wentup to his painting-room again, and threw himself with a sense offatigue into the armchair, looking round absently at the views ofwater and rock that were ranged around, till he fell into a doze, inwhich he fancied Maggie was slipping down a glistening, green, slimychannel of a waterfall, and he was looking on helpless, till he wasawakened by what seemed a sudden, awful crash.

  It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have dozed morethan a few moments, for there was no perceptible change in the eveninglight. It was his father who entered; and when Philip moved to vacatethe chair for him, he said,--

  "Sit still. I'd rather walk about."

  He stalked up and down the room once or twice, and then, standingopposite Philip with his hands thrust in his side pockets, he said, asif continuing a conversation that had not been broken off,--

  "But this girl seems to have been fond of you, Phil, else she wouldn'thave met you in that way."

  Philip's heart was beating rapidly, and a transient flush passed overhis face like a gleam. It was not quite easy to speak at once.

  "She liked me at King's Lorton, when she was a little girl, because Iused to sit with her brother a great deal when he had hurt his foot.She had kept that in her memory, and thought of me as a friend of along while ago. She didn't think of me as a lover when she met me."

  "Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she say then?" saidWakem, walking about again.

  "She said she _did_ love me then."

  "Confound it, then; what else do you want? Is she a jilt?"

  "She was very young then," said Philip, hesitatingly. "I'm afraid shehardly knew what she felt. I'm afraid our long separation, and theidea that events must always divide us, may have made a difference."

  "But she's in the town. I've seen her at church. Haven't you spoken toher since you came back?"

  "Yes, at Mr. Deane's. But I couldn't renew my proposals to her onseveral grounds. One obstacle would be removed if you would give yourconsent,--if you would be willing to think of her as a daughter-in-law."

  Wakem was silent a little while, pausing before Maggie's picture.

  "She's not the sort of woman your mother was, though, Phil," he said,at last. "I saw her at church,--she's handsomer than this,--deucedfine eyes and fine figure, I saw; but rather dangerous andunmanageable, eh?"

  "She's very tender and affectionate, and so simple,--without the airsand petty contrivances other women have."

  "Ah?" said Wakem. Then looking round at his son, "But your motherlooked gentler; she had that brown wavy hair and gray eyes, likeyours. You can't remember her very well. It was a thousand pities I'dno likeness of her."

  "Then, shouldn't you be glad for me to have the same sort ofhappiness, father, to sweeten my life for me? There can never beanother tie so strong to you as that which began eight-and-twentyyears ago, when you married my mother, and you have been tightening itever since."

  "Ah, Phil, you're the only fellow that knows the best of me," saidWakem, giving his hand to his son. "We must keep together if we can.And now, what am I to do? You must come downstairs and tell me. Am Ito go and call on this dark-eyed damsel?"

  The barrier once thrown down in this way, Philip could talk freely tohis father of their entire relation with the Tullivers,--of the desireto get the mill and land back into the family, and of its transfer toGuest & Co. as an intermediate step. He could venture now to bepersuasive and urgent, and his father yielded with more readiness thanhe had calculated on.

  "_I_ don't care about the mill," he said at last, with a sort of angrycompliance. "I've had an infernal deal of bother lately about themill. Let them pay me for my improvements, that's all. But there's onething you needn't ask me. I shall have no direct transactions withyoung Tulliver. If you like to swallow him for his sister's sake, youmay; but I've no sauce that will make him go down."

  I leave you to imagine the agreeable feelings with which Philip wentto Mr. Deane the next day, to say that Mr. Wakem was ready to open thenegotiations, and Lucy's pretty triumph as she appealed to her fatherwhether she had not proved her great business abilities. Mr. Deane wasrather puzzled, and suspected that there had been something "going on"among the young people to which he wanted a clew. But to men of Mr.Deane's stamp, what goes on among the young people is as extraneous tothe real business of life as what goes on among the birds andbutterflies, until it can be shown to have a malign bearing onmonetary affairs. And in this case the bearing appeared to be entirelypropitious.