The Mill on the Floss (67 page)

All well-dressed St. Ogg's and its neighborhood were there; and
it would have been worth while to come even from a distance, to see
the fine old hall, with its open roof and carved oaken rafters, and
great oaken folding-doors, and light shed down from a height on the
many-colored show beneath; a very quaint place, with broad faded
stripes painted on the walls, and here and there a show of heraldic
animals of a bristly, long-snouted character, the cherished emblems
of a noble family once the seigniors of this now civic hall. A
grand arch, cut in the upper wall at one end, surmounted an oaken
orchestra, with an open room behind it, where hothouse plants and
stalls for refreshments were disposed; an agreeable resort for
gentlemen disposed to loiter, and yet to exchange the occasional
crush down below for a more commodious point of view. In fact, the
perfect fitness of this ancient building for an admirable modern
purpose, that made charity truly elegant, and led through vanity up
to the supply of a deficit, was so striking that hardly a person
entered the room without exchanging the remark more than once. Near
the great arch over the orchestra was the stone oriel with painted
glass, which was one of the venerable inconsistencies of the old
hall; and it was close by this that Lucy had her stall, for the
convenience of certain large plain articles which she had taken
charge of for Mrs. Kenn. Maggie had begged to sit at the open end
of the stall, and to have the sale of these articles rather than of
bead-mats and other elaborate products of which she had but a dim
understanding. But it soon appeared that the gentlemen's
dressing-gowns, which were among her commodities, were objects of
such general attention and inquiry, and excited so troublesome a
curiosity as to their lining and comparative merits, together with
a determination to test them by trying on, as to make her post a
very conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of their own
to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the frivolity
and bad taste of this masculine preference for goods which any
tailor could furnish; and it is possible that the emphatic notice
of various kinds which was drawn toward Miss Tulliver on this
public occasion, threw a very strong and unmistakable light on her
subsequent conduct in many minds then present. Not that anger, on
account of spurned beauty can dwell in the celestial breasts of
charitable ladies, but rather that the errors of persons who have
once been much admired necessarily take a deeper tinge from the
mere force of contrast; and also, that to-day Maggie's conspicuous
position, for the first time, made evident certain characteristics
which were subsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing. There
was something rather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct gaze, and
something undefinably coarse in the style of her beauty, which
placed her, in the opinion of all feminine judges, far below her
cousin Miss Deane; for the ladies of St. Ogg's had now completely
ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claims on the admiration of Mr.
Stephen Guest.

As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph
about the Mill, and all the affectionate projects she was
cherishing for Maggie and Philip, helped to give her the highest
spirits to-day, and she felt nothing but pleasure in the evidence
of Maggie's attractiveness. It is true, she was looking very
charming herself, and Stephen was paying her the utmost attention
on this public occasion; jealously buying up the articles he had
seen under her fingers in the process of making, and gayly helping
her to cajole the male customers into the purchase of the most
effeminate futilities. He chose to lay aside his hat and wear a
scarlet fez of her embroidering; but by superficial observers this
was necessarily liable to be interpreted less as a compliment to
Lucy than as a mark of coxcombry. "Guest is a great coxcomb," young
Torry observed; "but then he is a privileged person in St. Ogg's–he
carries all before him; if another fellow did such things,
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
you will not have bought one. There are those deliciously soft warm
things for 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 frosty Caucasus. Stern reason is my forte, you know. You must
get Philip to buy those. By the way, why doesn't he come?"

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

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

Lucy's eyes turned with anxious interest toward Maggie to see
how she went through this first interview, since a sadly memorable
time, with a man toward whom she must have so strange a mixture of
feelings; but she was pleased to notice that Wakem had tact enough
to enter at once into talk about the bazaar wares, and appear
interested in purchasing, smiling now and then kindly at Maggie,
and not calling on her to speak much, 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? You talked of a family quarrel."

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

"My son came with me," he overheard Wakem saying, "but he has
vanished into some other part of the building, and has left all
these charitable gallantries to me. I hope you'll reproach him for
his shabby conduct."

She returned his smile and bow without speaking, and he turned
away, only then observing Stephen and nodding to him. Maggie,
conscious that Stephen was still there, busied herself with
counting money, and avoided looking up. She had been well pleased
that he had devoted himself to Lucy to-day, and had not come near
her. They had begun the morning with an indifferent salutation, and
both had rejoiced in being aloof from each other, like a patient
who has actually done without his opium, in spite of former
failures in resolution. And during the last few days they had even
been making up their minds to failures, looking to the outward
events that must soon come to separate them, as a 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 hidden by a screen of draperies. Maggie went on counting her
money till she suddenly heard a deep gentle voice saying, "Aren't
you very tried? Do let me bring you something,–some fruit or jelly,
mayn't I?"

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

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

"You look so pale," Stephen insisted, in a more entreating tone.
"I'm sure 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
eyes glancing immediately from him to the opposite corner of the
orchestra, which was half hidden by the folds of the old faded
green curtain. Maggie had no sooner uttered this entreaty than she
was wretched at the admission it implied; but Stephen turned away
at once, and following her upward glance, he saw Philip Wakem
sealed in the half-hidden corner, so that he could command little
more than that angle of the hall in which Maggie sat. An entirely
new though occurred to Stephen, and linking itself with what he had
observed of Wakem's manner, and with Lucy's reply to his
observation, it convinced him that there had been some former
relation between Philip and Maggie beyond that childish one of
which he had heard. More than one impulse made him immediately
leave the hall and go upstairs to the refreshment-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 of that oriel window? By George, it makes a capital bit from
this dark corner, 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
some refreshment, but I have been snubbed, as usual. There's
natural antipathy between us, I suppose; I have seldom the honor to
please her."

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

"What! because experience must have told me that I'm universally
pleasing? 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. I think I have done suit and service long enough."

The two friends walked downstairs together without speaking.
Philip turned through the outer door into the court-yard; but
Stephen, saying, "Oh, by the by, I must call in here," went on
along the passage to one of the rooms at the other end of the
building, which were 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 his cap on the table, throw himself astride a
chair, and stare at a high brick wall with a frown which would not
have been beneath the occasion if he had been slaying "the giant
Python." The conduct that issues from a moral conflict has often so
close a resemblance to vice that the distinction escapes all
outward judgments founded on a mere comparison of actions. It is
clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a hypocrite,–capable of
deliberate doubleness for a selfish end; and yet his fluctuations
between the indulgence of a feeling and the systematic concealment
of it might have made a good case in support of Philip's
accusation.

Meanwhile, Maggie sat at her stall cold and trembling, with that
painful sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely repressed
tears. Was her life to be always like this,–always bringing some
new source of inward strife? She heard confusedly the busy,
indifferent voices around her, and wished her mind could flow into
that easy babbling current. It was at this moment that Dr. Kenn,
who had quite lately come into the hall, and was now walking down
the middle with his hands behind him, taking a general view, fixed
his eyes on Maggie for the first time, and was struck with the
expression of pain on her beautiful face. She was sitting quite
still, for the stream of customers had lessened at this late hour
in the afternoon; the gentlemen had chiefly chosen the middle of
the day, and Maggie's stall was looking rather bare. This, with her
absent, pained expression, finished the contrast between her and
her companions, who were all bright, eager, and busy. He was
strongly arrested. Her face had naturally drawn his attention as a
new and striking one at church, and he 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. He walked toward her now, and
Maggie, perceiving some one approaching, roused herself to look up
and be prepared to speak. She felt a childlike, instinctive relief
from the sense of uneasiness in this exertion, when she saw it was
Dr. Kenn's face that was looking at her; that plain, middle-aged
face, with a grave, penetrating kindness in it, seeming to tell of
a human being who had reached a firm, safe strand, but was looking
with helpful pity toward the strugglers still tossed by the waves,
had an effect on Maggie at this moment which was afterward
remembered by her as if it had been a promise. The middle-aged, who
have lived through their strongest emotions, but are yet in the
time when memory is still half passionate and not merely
contemplative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whom
life has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue of
early stumblers and victims of self-despair. Most of us, at some
moment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest of that
natural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals, but had to
scramble upward into all the difficulties of nineteen entirely
without such 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
simpler amiable denials of obvious facts.

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

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

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

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

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