The Mill on the Floss (14 page)

As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been
yesterday; no accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was
never uncomfortable in them, so that she looked with wondering pity
at Maggie, pouting and writhing under the exasperating tucker.
Maggie would certainly have torn it off, if she had not been
checked by the remembrance of her recent humiliation about her
hair; as it was, she confined herself to fretting and twisting, and
behaving peevishly about the card-houses which they were allowed to
build till dinner, as a suitable amusement for boys and girls in
their best clothes. Tom could build perfect pyramids of houses; but
Maggie's would never bear the laying on the roof. It was always so
with the things that Maggie made; and Tom had deduced the
conclusion that no girls could ever make anything. But it happened
that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at building; she handled the
cards so lightly, and moved so gently, that Tom condescended to
admire her houses as well as his own, the more readily because she
had asked him to teach her. Maggie, too, would have admired Lucy's
houses, and would have given up her own unsuccessful building to
contemplate them, without ill temper, if her tucker had not made
her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately laughed when her
houses fell, and told her she was "a stupid."

"Don't laugh at me, Tom!" she burst out angrily; "I'm not a
stupid. I know a great many things you don't."

"Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I'd never be such a cross thing
as you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn't do so. I like Lucy
better than you;
I
wish Lucy was
my
sister."

"Then it's very wicked and cruel of you to wish so," said
Maggie, starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and
upsetting Tom's wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but
the circumstantial evidence was against her, and Tom turned white
with anger, but said nothing; he would have struck her, only he
knew it was cowardly to strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite
determined he would never do anything cowardly.

Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from the
floor and walked away, pale, from the scattered ruins of his
pagoda, and Lucy looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from its
lapping.

"Oh, Tom," said Maggie, at last, going half-way toward him, "I
didn't mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I didn't."

Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard
peas out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against
the window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim
of hitting a superannuated blue-bottle which was exposing its
imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of
Nature, who had provided Tom and the peas for the speedy
destruction of this weak individual.

Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's
persistent coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh
air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built
bird's nest without caring to show it Maggie, and peeled a willow
switch for Lucy and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy
had said, "Maggie, shouldn't
you
like one?" but Tom was
deaf.

Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail
on the stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough
to divert the mind temporarily from personal grievances. And this
was only the beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the
farmyard life was wonderful there,–bantams, speckled and
top-knotted; Friesland hens, with their feathers all turned the
wrong way; Guinea-fowls that flew and screamed and dropped their
pretty spotted feathers; pouter-pigeons and a tame magpie; nay, a
goat, and a wonderful brindled dog, half mastiff, half bull-dog, as
large as a lion. Then there were white railings and white gates all
about, and glittering weathercocks of various design, and
garden-walks paved with pebbles in beautiful patterns,–nothing was
quite common at Garum Firs; and Tom thought that the unusual size
of the toads there was simply due to the general unusualness which
characterized uncle Pullet's possessions as a gentleman farmer.
Toads who paid rent were naturally leaner. As for the house, it was
not less remarkable; it had a receding centre, and two wings with
battlemented turrets, and was covered with glittering white
stucco.

Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from the
window, and made haste to unbar and unchain the front door, kept
always in this fortified condition from fear of tramps, who might
be supposed to know of the glass case of stuffed birds in the hall,
and to contemplate rushing in and carrying it away on their heads.
Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her
sister was within hearing said, "Stop the children, for God's sake!
Bessy; don't let 'em come up the door-steps; Sally's bringing the
old mat and the duster, to rub their shoes."

Mrs. Pullet's front-door mats were by no means intended to wipe
shoes on; the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom
rebelled particularly against this shoewiping, which he always
considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as
the beginning of the disagreeables incident to a visit at aunt
Pullet's, where he had once been compelled to sit with towels
wrapped round his boots; a fact which may serve to correct the
too-hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a
great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals,–fond, that is, of
throwing stones at them.

The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions;
it was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very
handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that
the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in barbarous
times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the most spotless
virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. Sophy's weakness
about these polished stairs was always a subject of bitter
remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver ventured on no
comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy when she and the
children were safe on the landing.

"Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy," said Mrs.
Pullet, in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap.

"Has she, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with an air of much
interest. "And how do you like it?"

"It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and
putting 'em in again," said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys
from her pocket and looking at them earnestly, "but it 'ud be a
pity for you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what
may happen."

Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious
consideration, which determined her to single out a particular
key.

"I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister,"
said Mrs. Tulliver; "but I
should
like to see what sort of
a crown she's made you."

Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of
a very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she
would find a new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could only
have arisen from a too-superficial acquaintance with the habits of
the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking
something small enough to be hidden among layers of linen,–it was a
door-key.

"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs.
Pullet.

"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who
saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.

"Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be safer
for 'em to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em
behind."

So they went in procession along the bright and slippery
corridor, dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window which
rose above the closed shutter; it was really quite solemn. Aunt
Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still
more solemn than the passage,–a darkened room, in which the outer
light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of
furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded stood
with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and
Maggie's heart beat rapidly.

Aunt Pullet half-opened the shutter and then unlocked the
wardrobe, with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in
keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious
scent of rose-leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the process
of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to
assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax
to Maggie, who would have preferred something more strikingly
preternatural. But few things could have been more impressive to
Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some moments,
and then said emphatically, "Well, sister, I'll never speak against
the full crowns again!"

It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt
something was due to it.

"You'd like to see it on, sister?" she said sadly. "I'll open
the shutter a bit further."

"Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," said Mrs.
Tulliver.

Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp
with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the more
mature and judicious women of those times, and placing the bonnet
on her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that
Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view.

"I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on
this left side, sister; what do you think?" said Mrs. Pullet.

Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and
turned her head on one side. "Well, I think it's best as it is; if
you meddled with it, sister, you might repent."

"That's true," said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and
looking at it contemplatively.

"How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?" said
Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility
of getting a humble imitation of this
chef-d'œuvre
made
from a piece of silk she had at home.

Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then
whispered, "Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best
bonnet at Garum Church, let the next best be whose it would."

She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation for
returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed
to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.

"Ah," she said at last, "I may never wear it twice, sister; who
knows?"

"Don't talk o' that sister," answered Mrs. Tulliver. "I hope
you'll have your health this summer."

"Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon
after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we
can't think o' wearing crape less nor half a year for him."

"That
would
be unlucky," said Mrs. Tulliver, entering
thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. "There's
never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year,
especially when the crowns are so chancy,–never two summers
alike."

"Ah, it's the way i' this world," said Mrs. Pullet, returning
the bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a
silence characterized by head-shaking, until they had all issued
from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then,
beginning to cry, she said, "Sister, if you should never see that
bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it
you this day."

Mrs. Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was a
woman of sparse tears, stout and healthy; she couldn't cry so much
as her sister Pullet did, and had often felt her deficiency at
funerals. Her effort to bring tears into her eyes issued in an odd
contraction of her face. Maggie, looking on attentively, felt that
there was some painful mystery about her aunt's bonnet which she
was considered too young to understand; indignantly conscious, all
the while, that she could have understood that, as well as
everything else, if she had been taken into confidence.

When they went down, uncle Pullet observed, with some acumen,
that he reckoned the missis had been showing her bonnet,–that was
what had made them so long upstairs. With Tom the interval had
seemed still longer, for he had been seated in irksome constraint
on the edge of a sofa directly opposite his uncle Pullet, who
regarded him with twinkling gray eyes, and occasionally addressed
him as "Young sir."

"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a standing
question with uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish,
rubbed his hands across his face, and answered, "I don't know." It
was altogether so embarrassing to be seated
tête-à-tête
with uncle Pullet, that Tom could not even look at the prints on
the walls, or the flycages, or the wonderful flower-pots; he saw
nothing but his uncle's gaiters. Not that Tom was in awe of his
uncle's mental superiority; indeed, he had made up his mind that he
didn't want to be a gentleman farmer, because he shouldn't like to
be such a thin-legged, silly fellow as his uncle Pullet,–a
molly-coddle, in fact. A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign
of overmastering reverence; and while you are making encouraging
advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of
your age and wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you extremely queer.
The only consolation I can suggest to you is, that the Greek boys
probably thought the same of Aristotle. It is only when you have
mastered a restive horse, or thrashed a drayman, or have got a gun
in your hand, that these shy juniors feel you to be a truly
admirable and enviable character. At least, I am quite sure of Tom
Tulliver's sentiments on these points. In very tender years, when
he still wore a lace border under his outdoor cap, he was often
observed peeping through the bars of a gate and making minatory
gestures with his small forefinger while he scolded the sheep with
an inarticulate burr, intended to strike terror into their
astonished minds; indicating thus early that desire for mastery
over the inferior animals, wild and domestic, including
cockchafers, neighbors' dogs, and small sisters, which in all ages
has been an attribute of so much promise for the fortunes of our
race. Now, Mr. Pullet never rode anything taller than a low pony,
and was the least predatory of men, considering firearms dangerous,
as apt to go off of themselves by nobody's particular desire. So
that Tom was not without strong reasons when, in confidential talk
with a chum, he had described uncle Pullet as a nincompoop, taking
care at the same time to observe that he was a very "rich
fellow."