The Mill on the Floss (48 page)

Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun; Philip
went home to do nothing but remember and hope. You can hardly help
blaming him severely. He was four or five years older than Maggie,
and had a full consciousness of his feeling toward her to aid him
in foreseeing the character his contemplated interviews with her
would bear in the opinion of a third person. But you must not
suppose that he was capable of a gross selfishness, or that he
could have been satisfied without persuading himself that he was
seeking to infuse some happiness into Maggie's life,–seeking this
even more than any direct ends for himself. He could give her
sympathy; he could give her help. There was not the slightest
promise of love toward him in her manner; it was nothing more than
the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown him when she was twelve.
Perhaps she would never love him; perhaps no woman ever
could
love him. Well, then, he would endure that; he
should at least have the happiness of seeing her, of feeling some
nearness to her. And he clutched passionately the possibility that
she
might
love him; perhaps the feeling would grow, if she
could come to associate him with that watchful tenderness which her
nature would be so keenly alive to. If any woman could love him,
surely Maggie was that woman; there was such wealth of love in her,
and there was no one to claim it all. Then, the pity of it, that a
mind like hers should be withering in its very youth, like a young
forest-tree, for want of the light and space it was formed to
flourish in! Could he not hinder that, by persuading her out of her
system of privation? He would be her guardian angel; he would do
anything, bear anything, for her sake–except not seeing her.

Chapter II
Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb

While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within
her own soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain
shadows forever rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier
warfare, grappling with more substantial obstacles, and gaining
more definite conquests. So it has been since the days of Hecuba,
and of Hector, Tamer of horses; inside the gates, the women with
streaming hair and uplifted hands offering prayers, watching the
world's combat from afar, filling their long, empty days with
memories and fears; outside, the men, in fierce struggle with
things divine and human, quenching memory in the stronger light of
purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of wounds in the
hurrying ardor of action.

From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth of
whom you would prophesy failure in anything he had thoroughly
wished; the wagers are likely to be on his side, notwithstanding
his small success in the classics. For Tom had never desired
success in this field of enterprise; and for getting a fine
flourishing growth of stupidity there is nothing like pouring out
on a mind a good amount of subjects in which it feels no interest.
But now Tom's strong will bound together his integrity, his pride,
his family regrets, and his personal ambition, and made them one
force, concentrating his efforts and surmounting discouragements.
His uncle Deane, who watched him closely, soon began to conceive
hopes of him, and to be rather proud that he had brought into the
employment of the firm a nephew who appeared to be made of such
good commercial stuff. The real kindness of placing him in the
warehouse first was soon evident to Tom, in the hints his uncle
began to throw out, that after a time he might perhaps be trusted
to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm various
vulgar commodities with which I need not shock refined ears in this
place; and it was doubtless with a view to this result that Mr.
Deane, when he expected to take his wine alone, would tell Tom to
step in and sit with him an hour, and would pass that hour in much
lecturing and catechising concerning articles of export and import,
with an occasional excursus of more indirect utility on the
relative advantages to the merchants of St. Ogg's of having goods
brought in their own and in foreign bottoms,–a subject on which Mr.
Deane, as a ship-owner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he
got warmed with talk and wine.

Already, in the second year, Tom's salary was raised; but all,
except the price of his dinner and clothes, went home into the tin
box; and he shunned comradeship, lest it should lead him into
expenses in spite of himself. Not that Tom was moulded on the
spoony type of the Industrious Apprentice; he had a very strong
appetite for pleasure,–would have liked to be a Tamer of horses and
to make a distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dispensing
treats and benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and
being pronounced one of the finest young fellows of those parts;
nay, he determined to achieve these things sooner or later; but his
practical shrewdness told him that the means to such achievements
could only lie for him in present abstinence and self-denial; there
were certain milestones to be passed, and one of the first was the
payment of his father's debts. Having made up his mind on that
point, he strode along without swerving, contracting some rather
saturnine sternness, as a young man is likely to do who has a
premature call upon him for self-reliance. Tom felt intensely that
common cause with his father which springs from family pride, and
was bent on being irreproachable as a son; but his growing
experience caused him to pass much silent criticism on the rashness
and imprudence of his father's past conduct; their dispositions
were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed little radiance during
his few home hours. Maggie had an awe of him, against which she
struggled as something unfair to her consciousness of wider
thoughts and deeper motives; but it was of no use to struggle. A
character at unity with itself–that performs what it intends,
subdues every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the
distinctly possible–is strong by its very negations.

You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious unlikeness to
his father was well fitted to conciliate the maternal aunts and
uncles; and Mr. Deane's favorable reports and predictions to Mr.
Glegg concerning Tom's qualifications for business began to be
discussed amongst them with various acceptance. He was likely, it
appeared, to do the family credit without causing it any expense
and trouble. Mrs. Pullet had always thought it strange if Tom's
excellent complexion, so entirely that of the Dodsons, did not
argue a certainty that he would turn out well; his juvenile errors
of running down the peacock, and general disrespect to his aunts,
only indicating a tinge of Tulliver blood which he had doubtless
outgrown. Mr. Glegg, who had contracted a cautious liking for Tom
ever since his spirited and sensible behavior when the execution
was in the house, was now warming into a resolution to further his
prospects actively,–some time, when an opportunity offered of doing
so in a prudent manner, without ultimate loss; but Mrs. Glegg
observed that she was not given to speak without book, as some
people were; that those who said least were most likely to find
their words made good; and that when the right moment came, it
would be seen who could do something better than talk. Uncle
Pullet, after silent meditation for a period of several lozenges,
came distinctly to the conclusion, that when a young man was likely
to do well, it was better not to meddle with him.

Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any one but
himself, though, with a natural sensitiveness toward all
indications of favorable opinion, he was glad to see his uncle
Glegg look in on him sometimes in a friendly way during business
hours, and glad to be invited to dine at his house, though he
usually preferred declining on the ground that he was not sure of
being punctual. But about a year ago, something had occurred which
induced Tom to test his uncle Glegg's friendly disposition.

Bob Jakin, who rarely returned from one of his rounds without
seeing Tom and Maggie, awaited him on the bridge as he was coming
home from St. Ogg's one evening, that they might have a little
private talk. He took the liberty of asking if Mr. Tom had ever
thought of making money by trading a bit on his own account.
Trading, how? Tom wished to know. Why, by sending out a bit of a
cargo to foreign ports; because Bob had a particular friend who had
offered to do a little business for him in that way in Laceham
goods, and would be glad to serve Mr. Tom on the same footing. Tom
was interested at once, and begged for full explanation, wondering
he had not thought of this plan before.

He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that
might change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that
he at once determined to mention the matter to his father, and get
his consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to
the purchase of a small cargo. He would rather not have consulted
his father, but he had just paid his last quarter's money into the
tin box, and there was no other resource. All the savings were
there; for Mr. Tulliver would not consent to put the money out at
interest lest he should lose it. Since he had speculated in the
purchase of some corn, and had lost by it, he could not be easy
without keeping the money under his eye.

Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on the
hearth with his father that evening, and Mr. Tulliver listened,
leaning forward in his arm-chair and looking up in Tom's face with
a sceptical glance. His first impulse was to give a positive
refusal, but he was in some awe of Tom's wishes, and since he had
the sense of being an "unlucky" father, he had lost some of his old
peremptoriness and determination to be master. He took the key of
the bureau from his pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and
fetched down the tin box,–slowly, as if he were trying to defer the
moment of a painful parting. Then he seated himself against the
table, and opened the box with that little padlock-key which he
fingered in his waistcoat pocket in all vacant moments. There they
were, the dingy bank-notes and the bright sovereigns, and he
counted them out on the table–only a hundred and sixteen pounds in
two years, after all the pinching.

"How much do you want, then?" he said, speaking as if the words
burnt his lips.

"Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?" said
Tom.

Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his
hand over it, said:

"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year."

"Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little
money we get. And in this way we might double our savings."

"Ay, my lad," said the father, keeping his hand on the money,
"but you might lose it,–you might lose a year o' my life,–and I
haven't got many."

Tom was silent.

"And you know I wouldn't pay a dividend with the first hundred,
because I wanted to see it all in a lump,–and when I see it, I'm
sure on't. If you trust to luck, it's sure to be against me. It's
Old Harry's got the luck in his hands; and if I lose one year, I
shall never pick it up again; death 'ull o'ertake me."

Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few
minutes before he said:

"I'll give it up, father, since you object to it so
strongly."

But, unwilling to abandon the scheme altogether, he determined
to ask his uncle Glegg to venture twenty pounds, on condition of
receiving five per cent. of the profits. That was really a very
small thing to ask. So when Bob called the next day at the wharf to
know the decision, Tom proposed that they should go together to his
uncle Glegg's to open the business; for his diffident pride clung
to him, and made him feel that Bobs' tongue would relieve him from
some embarrassment.

Mr. Glegg, at the pleasant hour of four in the afternoon of a
hot August day, was naturally counting his wall-fruit to assure
himself that the sum total had not varied since yesterday. To him
entered Tom, in what appeared to Mr. Glegg very questionable
companionship,–that of a man with a pack on his back,–for Bob was
equipped for a new journey,–and of a huge brindled bull-terrier,
who walked with a slow, swaying movement from side to side, and
glanced from under his eye-lids with a surly indifference which
might after all be a cover to the most offensive designs.

Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which had been assisting him in counting
the fruit, made these suspicious details alarmingly evident to
him.

"Heigh! heigh! keep that dog back, will you?" he shouted,
snatching up a stake and holding it before him as a shield when the
visitors were within three yards of him.

"Get out wi' you, Mumps," said Bob, with a kick. "He's as quiet
as a lamb, sir,"–an observation which Mumps corroborated by a low
growl as he retreated behind his master's legs.

"Why, what ever does this mean, Tom?" said Mr. Glegg. "Have you
brought information about the scoundrels as cut my trees?" If Bob
came in the character of "information," Mr. Glegg saw reasons for
tolerating some irregularity.

"No, sir," said Tom; "I came to speak to you about a little
matter of business of my own."

"Ay–well; but what has this dog got to do with it?" said the old
gentleman, getting mild again.

"It's my dog, sir," said the ready Bob. "An' it's me as put Mr.
Tom up to the bit o' business; for Mr. Tom's been a friend o' mine
iver since I was a little chap; fust thing iver I did was
frightenin' the birds for th' old master. An' if a bit o' luck
turns up, I'm allays thinkin' if I can let Mr. Tom have a pull at
it. An' it's a downright roarin' shame, as when he's got the chance
o' making a bit o' money wi' sending goods out,–ten or twelve per
zent clear, when freight an' commission's paid,–as he shouldn't lay
hold o' the chance for want o' money. An' when there's the Laceham
goods,–lors! they're made o' purpose for folks as want to send out
a little carguy; light, an' take up no room,–you may pack twenty
pound so as you can't see the passill; an' they're manifacturs as
please fools, so I reckon they aren't like to want a market. An'
I'd go to Laceham an' buy in the goods for Mr. Tom along wi' my
own. An' there's the shupercargo o' the bit of a vessel as is goin'
to take 'em out. I know him partic'lar; he's a solid man, an' got a
family i' the town here. Salt, his name is,–an' a briny chap he is
too,–an' if you don't believe me, I can take you to him."