The Mill on the Floss

by George Eliot

  Chapter IX

  Charity in Full-Dress

  The culmination of Maggie's career as an admired member of society inSt. Ogg's was certainly the day of the bazaar, when her simple noblebeauty, clad in a white muslin of some soft-floating kind, which Isuspect must have come from the stores of aunt Pullet's wardrobe,appeared with marked distinction among the more adorned andconventional women around her. We perhaps never detect how much of oursocial demeanor is made up of artificial airs until we see a personwho is at once beautiful and simple; without the beauty, we are apt tocall simplicity awkwardness. The Miss Guests were much too well-bredto have any of the grimaces and affected tones that belong topretentious vulgarity; but their stall being next to the one whereMaggie sat, it seemed newly obvious to-day that Miss Guest held herchin too high, and that Miss Laura spoke and moved continually with aview to effect.

  All well-dressed St. Ogg's and its neighborhood were there; and itwould have been worth while to come even from a distance, to see thefine old hall, with its open roof and carved oaken rafters, and greatoaken folding-doors, and light shed down from a height on themany-colored show beneath; a very quaint place, with broad fadedstripes painted on the walls, and here and there a show of heraldicanimals of a bristly, long-snouted character, the cherished emblems ofa noble family once the seigniors of this now civic hall. A grandarch, cut in the upper wall at one end, surmounted an oaken orchestra,with an open room behind it, where hothouse plants and stalls forrefreshments were disposed; an agreeable resort for gentlemen disposedto loiter, and yet to exchange the occasional crush down below for amore commodious point of view. In fact, the perfect fitness of thisancient building for an admirable modern purpose, that made charitytruly elegant, and led through vanity up to the supply of a deficit,was so striking that hardly a person entered the room withoutexchanging the remark more than once. Near the great arch over theorchestra was the stone oriel with painted glass, which was one of thevenerable inconsistencies of the old hall; and it was close by thisthat Lucy had her stall, for the convenience of certain large plainarticles which she had taken charge of for Mrs. Kenn. Maggie hadbegged to sit at the open end of the stall, and to have the sale ofthese articles rather than of bead-mats and other elaborate productsof which she had but a dim understanding. But it soon appeared thatthe gentlemen's dressing-gowns, which were among her commodities, wereobjects of such general attention and inquiry, and excited sotroublesome a curiosity as to their lining and comparative merits,together with a determination to test them by trying on, as to makeher post a very conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities oftheir own to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once thefrivolity and bad taste of this masculine preference for goods whichany tailor could furnish; and it is possible that the emphatic noticeof various kinds which was drawn toward Miss Tulliver on this publicoccasion, threw a very strong and unmistakable light on her subsequentconduct in many minds then present. Not that anger, on account ofspurned beauty can dwell in the celestial breasts of charitableladies, but rather that the errors of persons who have once been muchadmired necessarily take a deeper tinge from the mere force ofcontrast; and also, that to-day Maggie's conspicuous position, for thefirst time, made evident certain characteristics which weresubsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing. There was somethingrather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct gaze, and something undefinablycoarse in the style of her beauty, which placed her, in the opinion ofall feminine judges, far below her cousin Miss Deane; for the ladiesof St. Ogg's had now completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claimson the admiration of Mr. Stephen Guest.

  As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph about theMill, and all the affectionate projects she was cherishing for Maggieand Philip, helped to give her the highest spirits to-day, and shefelt nothing but pleasure in the evidence of Maggie's attractiveness.It is true, she was looking very charming herself, and Stephen waspaying her the utmost attention on this public occasion jealouslybuying up the articles he had seen under her fingers in the process ofmaking, and gayly helping her to cajole the male customers into thepurchase of the most effeminate futilities. He chose to lay aside hishat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroidering; but by superficialobservers this was necessarily liable to be interpreted less as acompliment to Lucy than as a mark of coxcombry. "Guest is a greatcoxcomb," young Torry observed; "but then he is a privileged person inSt. Ogg's--he carries all before him; if another fellow did suchthings, everybody would say he made a fool of himself."

  And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie, until Lucy said,in rather a vexed undertone,--

  "See, now; all the things of Maggie's knitting will be gone, and youwill not have bought one. There are those deliciously soft warm thingsfor the wrists,--do buy them."

  "Oh no," said Stephen, "they must be intended for imaginative persons,who can chill themselves on this warm day by thinking of the frostyCaucasus. Stern reason is my forte, you know. You must get Philip tobuy those. By the way, why doesn't he come?"

  "He never likes going where there are many people, though I enjoinedhim to come. He said he would buy up any of my goods that the rest ofthe world rejected. But now, do go and buy something of Maggie."

  "No, no; see, she has got a customer; there is old Wakem himself justcoming up."

  Lucy's eyes turned with anxious interest toward Maggie to see how shewent through this first interview, since a sadly memorable time, witha man toward whom she must have so strange a mixture of feelings; butshe was pleased to notice that Wakem had tact enough to enter at onceinto talk about the bazaar wares, and appear interested in purchasing,smiling now and then kindly at Maggie, and not calling on her to speakmuch, as if he observed that she was rather pale and tremulous.

  "Why, Wakem is making himself particularly amiable to your cousin,"said Stephen, in an undertone to Lucy; "is it pure magnanimity? Youtalked of a family quarrel."

  "Oh, that will soon be quite healed, I hope," said Lucy, becoming alittle indiscreet in her satisfaction, and speaking with an air ofsignificance. But Stephen did not appear to notice this, and as somelady-purchasers came up, he lounged on toward Maggie's end, handlingtrifles and standing aloof until Wakem, who had taken out his purse,had finished his transactions.

  "My son came with me," he overheard Wakem saying, "but he has vanishedinto some other part of the building, and has left all thesecharitable gallantries to me. I hope you'll reproach him for hisshabby conduct."

  She returned his smile and bow without speaking, and he turned away,only then observing Stephen and nodding to him. Maggie, conscious thatStephen was still there, busied herself with counting money, andavoided looking up. She had been well pleased that he had devotedhimself to Lucy to-day, and had not come near her. They had begun themorning with an indifferent salutation, and both had rejoiced in beingaloof from each other, like a patient who has actually done withouthis opium, in spite of former failures in resolution. And during thelast few days they had even been making up their minds to failures,looking to the outward events that must soon come to separate them, asa reason for dispensing with self-conquest in detail.

  Stephen moved step by step as if he were being unwillingly dragged,until he had got round the open end of the stall, and was half hiddenby a screen of draperies. Maggie went on counting her money till shesuddenly heard a deep gentle voice saying, "Aren't you very tried? Dolet me bring you something,--some fruit or jelly, mayn't I?"

  The unexpected tones shook her like a sudden accidental vibration of aharp close by her.

  "Oh no, thank you," she said faintly, and only half looking up for aninstant.

  "You look so pale," Stephen insisted, in a more entreating tone. "I'msure you're exhausted. I must disobey you, and bring something."

  "No, indeed, I couldn't take it."

  "Are you angry with me? What have I done? _Do_ look at me."

  "Pray, go away," said Maggie, looking at him helplessly, her eyesglancing immediately from him to the opposite corner of the orchestra,wh
ich was half hidden by the folds of the old faded green curtain.Maggie had no sooner uttered this entreaty than she was wretched atthe admission it implied; but Stephen turned away at once, andfollowing her upward glance, he saw Philip Wakem sealed in thehalf-hidden corner, so that he could command little more than thatangle of the hall in which Maggie sat. An entirely new though occurredto Stephen, and linking itself with what he had observed of Wakem'smanner, and with Lucy's reply to his observation, it convinced himthat there had been some former relation between Philip and Maggiebeyond that childish one of which he had heard. More than one impulsemade him immediately leave the hall and go upstairs to therefreshment-room, where, walking up to Philip, he sat down behind him,and put his hand on his shoulder.

  "Are you studying for a portrait, Phil," he said, "or for a sketch ofthat oriel window? By George, it makes a capital bit from this darkcorner, with the curtain just marking it off."

  "I have been studying expression," said Philip, curtly.

  "What! Miss Tulliver's? It's rather of the savage-moody order to-day,I think,--something of the fallen princess serving behind a counter.Her cousin sent me to her with a civil offer to get her somerefreshment, but I have been snubbed, as usual. There's naturalantipathy between us, I suppose; I have seldom the honor to pleaseher."

  "What a hypocrite you are!" said Philip, flushing angrily.

  "What! because experience must have told me that I'm universallypleasing? I admit the law, but there's some disturbing force here."

  "I am going," said Philip, rising abruptly.

  "So am I--to get a breath of fresh air; this place gets oppressive. Ithink I have done suit and service long enough."

  The two friends walked downstairs together without speaking. Philipturned through the outer door into the court-yard; but Stephen,saying, "Oh, by the by, I must call in here," went on along thepassage to one of the rooms at the other end of the building, whichwere appropriated to the town library. He had the room all to himself,and a man requires nothing less than this when he wants to dash hiscap on the table, throw himself astride a chair, and stare at a highbrick wall with a frown which would not have been beneath the occasionif he had been slaying "the giant Python." The conduct that issuesfrom a moral conflict has often so close a resemblance to vice thatthe distinction escapes all outward judgments founded on a merecomparison of actions. It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen wasnot a hypocrite,--capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end;and yet his fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and thesystematic concealment of it might have made a good case in support ofPhilip's accusation.

  Meanwhile, Maggie sat at her stall cold and trembling, with thatpainful sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely repressedtears. Was her life to be always like this,--always bringing some newsource of inward strife? She heard confusedly the busy, indifferentvoices around her, and wished her mind could flow into that easybabbling current. It was at this moment that Dr. Kenn, who had quitelately come into the hall, and was now walking down the middle withhis hands behind him, taking a general view, fixed his eyes on Maggiefor the first time, and was struck with the expression of pain on herbeautiful face. She was sitting quite still, for the stream ofcustomers had lessened at this late hour in the afternoon thegentlemen had chiefly chosen the middle of the day, and Maggie's stallwas looking rather bare. This, with her absent, pained expression,finished the contrast between her and her companions, who were allbright, eager, and busy. He was strongly arrested. Her face hadnaturally drawn his attention as a new and striking one at church, andhe had been introduced to her during a short call on business at Mr.Deane's, but he had never spoken more than three words to her. Hewalked toward her now, and Maggie, perceiving some one approaching,roused herself to look up and be prepared to speak. She felt achildlike, instinctive relief from the sense of uneasiness in thisexertion, when she saw it was Dr. Kenn's face that was looking at her;that plain, middle-aged face, with a grave, penetrating kindness init, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached a firm, safestrand, but was looking with helpful pity toward the strugglers stilltossed by the waves, had an effect on Maggie at this moment which wasafterward remembered by her as if it had been a promise. Themiddle-aged, who have lived through their strongest emotions, but areyet in the time when memory is still half passionate and not merelycontemplative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whomlife has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue ofearly stumblers and victims of self-despair. Most of us, at somemoment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest of thatnatural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals, but had toscramble upward into all the difficulties of nineteen entirely withoutsuch aid, as Maggie did.

  "You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Miss Tulliver,"said Dr. Kenn.

  "It is, rather," said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed to simpleramiable denials of obvious facts.

  "But I can tell Mrs. Kenn that you have disposed of her goods veryquickly," he added; "she will be very much obliged to you."

  "Oh, I have done nothing; the gentlemen came very fast to buy thedressing-gowns and embroidered waistcoats, but I think any of theother ladies would have sold more; I didn't know what to say aboutthem."

  Dr. Kenn smiled. "I hope I'm going to have you as a permanentparishioner now, Miss Tulliver; am I? You have been at a distance fromus hitherto."

  "I have been a teacher in a school, and I'm going into anothersituation of the same kind very soon."

  "Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends, who are all inthis neighborhood, I believe."

  "Oh, _I must go_," said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr. Kenn with anexpression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in thosethree words. It was one of those moments of implicit revelation whichwill sometimes happen even between people who meet quitetransiently,--on a mile's journey, perhaps, or when resting by thewayside. There is always this possibility of a word or look from astranger to keep alive the sense of human brotherhood.

  Dr. Kenn's ear and eye took in all the signs that this briefconfidence of Maggie's was charged with meaning.

  "I understand," he said; "you feel it right to go. But that will notprevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my knowing youbetter, if I can be of any service to you."

  He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned away.

  "She has some trouble or other at heart," he thought. "Poor child! shelooks as if she might turn out to be one of

  'The souls by nature pitched too high, By suffering plunged too low.'

  "There's something wonderfully honest in those beautiful eyes."

  It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many imperfections anexcessive delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were notabsent now, any more than when she was instructing the gypsies with aview toward achieving a royal position among them, was not more elatedon a day when she had had the tribute of so many looks and smiles,together with that satisfactory consciousness which had necessarilycome from being taken before Lucy's chevalglass, and made to look atthe full length of her tall beauty, crowned by the night of her massyhair. Maggie had smiled at herself then, and for the moment hadforgotten everything in the sense of her own beauty. If that state ofmind could have lasted, her choice would have been to have StephenGuest at her feet, offering her a life filled with all luxuries, withdaily incense of adoration near and distant, and with allpossibilities of culture at her command. But there were things in herstronger than vanity,--passion and affection, and long, deep memoriesof early discipline and effort, of early claims on her love and pity;and the stream of vanity was soon swept along and mingledimperceptibly with that wider current which was at its highest forcetoday, under the double urgency of the events and inward impulsesbrought by the last week.

  Philip had not spoken to her himself about the removal of obstaclesbetween them on his father's side,--he shrank from that; but he hadtold everything to Lucy, with the hope that Maggie, being infor
medthrough her, might give him some encouraging sign that their beingbrought thus much nearer to each other was a happiness to her. Therush of conflicting feelings was too great for Maggie to say much whenLucy, with a face breathing playful joy, like one of Correggio'scherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation and Lucy could hardlybe surprised that she could do little more than cry with gladness atthe thought of her father's wish being fulfilled, and of Tom's gettingthe Mill again in reward for all his hard striving. The details ofpreparation for the bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy's attention forthe next few days, and nothing had been said by the cousins onsubjects that were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had been tothe house more than once, but Maggie had had no private conversationwith him, and thus she had been left to fight her inward battlewithout interference.

  But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were aloneagain, resting together at home, Lucy said,--

  "You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the day afterto-morrow, Maggie; write a note to her, and tell her you have put itoff at my request, and I'll send the man with it. She won't bedispleased; you'll have plenty of time to go by-and-by; and I don'twant you to go out of the way just now."

  "Yes, indeed I must go, dear; I can't put it off. I wouldn't leaveaunt Gritty out for the world. And I shall have very little time, forI'm going away to a new situation on the 25th of June."

  "Maggie!" said Lucy, almost white with astonishment.

  "I didn't tell you, dear," said Maggie, making a great effort tocommand herself, "because you've been so busy. But some time ago Iwrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to ask her to let me know ifshe met with any situation that I could fill, and the other day I hada letter from her telling me that I could take three orphan pupils ofhers to the coast during the holidays, and then make trial of asituation with her as teacher. I wrote yesterday to accept the offer."

  Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was unable to speak.

  "Maggie," she said at last, "how could you be so unkind to me--not totell me--to take _such_ a step--and now!" She hesitated a little, andthen added, "And Philip? I thought everything was going to be sohappy. Oh, Maggie, what is the reason? Give it up; let me write. Thereis nothing now to keep you and Philip apart."

  "Yes," said Maggie, faintly. "There is Tom's feeling. He said I mustgive him up if I married Philip. And I know he will not change--atleast not for a long while--unless something happened to soften him."

  "But I will talk to him; he's coming back this week. And this goodnews about the Mill will soften him. And I'll talk to him aboutPhilip. Tom's always very compliant to me; I don't think he's soobstinate."

  "But I must go," said Maggie, in a distressed voice. "I must leavesome time to pack. Don't press me to stay, dear Lucy."

  Lucy was silent for two or three minutes, looking away and ruminating.At length she knelt down by her cousin, and looking up in her facewith anxious seriousness, said,--

  "Maggie, is it that you don't love Philip well enough to marry him?Tell me--trust me."

  Maggie held Lucy's hands tightly in silence a little while. Her ownhands were quite cold. But when she spoke, her voice was quite clearand distinct.

  "Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it would be the bestand highest lot for me,--to make his life happy. He loved me first. Noone else could be quite what he is to me. But I can't divide myselffrom my brother for life. I must go away, and wait. Pray don't speakto me again about it."

  Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said was,--

  "Well, dear Maggie, at least you will go to the dance at Park Houseto-morrow, and have some music and brightness, before you go to paythese dull dutiful visits. Ah! here come aunty and the tea."