The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot (rom com books to read .txt) 📗

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.”

“Oh, I must go,” said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr. Kenn with an expression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in those three words. It was one of those moments of implicit revelation which will sometimes happen even between people who meet quite transiently,—on a mile’s journey, perhaps, or when resting by the wayside. There is always this possibility of a word or look from a stranger to keep alive the sense of human brotherhood.

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

“I understand,” he said; “you feel it right to go. But that will not prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my knowing you better, 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! she looks 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 an excessive delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were not absent now, any more than when she was instructing the gypsies with a view toward achieving a royal position among them, was not more elated on a day when she had had the tribute of so many looks and smiles, together with that satisfactory consciousness which had necessarily come from being taken before Lucy’s chevalglass, and made to look at the full length of her tall beauty, crowned by the night of her massy hair. Maggie had smiled at herself then, and for the moment had forgotten everything in the sense of her own beauty. If that state of mind could have lasted, her choice would have been to have Stephen Guest at her feet, offering her a life filled with all luxuries, with daily incense of adoration near and distant, and with all possibilities of culture at her command. But there were things in her stronger than vanity,—passion and affection, and long, deep memories of early discipline and effort, of early claims on her love and pity; and the stream of vanity was soon swept along and mingled imperceptibly with that wider current which was at its highest force today, under the double urgency of the events and inward impulses brought by the last week.

Philip had not spoken to her himself about the removal of obstacles between them on his father’s side,—he shrank from that; but he had told everything to Lucy, with the hope that Maggie, being informed through her, might give him some encouraging sign that their being brought thus much nearer to each other was a happiness to her. The rush of conflicting feelings was too great for Maggie to say much when Lucy, with a face breathing playful joy, like one of Correggio’s cherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation; and Lucy could hardly be surprised that she could do little more than cry with gladness at the thought of her father’s wish being fulfilled, and of Tom’s getting the Mill again in reward for all his hard striving. The details of preparation for the bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy’s attention for the next few days, and nothing had been said by the cousins on subjects that were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had been to the house more than once, but Maggie had had no private conversation with him, and thus she had been left to fight her inward battle without interference.

But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were alone again, resting together at home, Lucy said,—

“You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the day after tomorrow, Maggie; write a note to her, and tell her you have put it off at my request, and I’ll send the man with it. She won’t be displeased; you’ll have plenty of time to go by-and-by; and I don’t want you to go out of the way just now.”

“Yes, indeed I must go, dear; I can’t put it off. I wouldn’t leave aunt Gritty out for the world. And I shall have very little time, for I’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 to command herself, “because you’ve been so busy. But some time ago I wrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to ask her to let me know if she met with any situation that I could fill, and the other day I had a letter from her telling me that I could take three orphan pupils of hers to the coast during the holidays, and then make trial of a situation 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 to tell me—to take such a step—and now!” She hesitated a little, and then added, “And Philip? I thought everything was going to be so happy. Oh, Maggie, what is the reason? Give it up; let me write. There is nothing now to keep you and Philip apart.”

“Yes,” said Maggie, faintly. “There is Tom’s feeling. He said I must give him up if I married Philip. And I know he will not change—at least 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 good news about the Mill will soften him. And I’ll talk to him about Philip. Tom’s always very compliant to me; I don’t think he’s so obstinate.”

“But I must go,” said Maggie, in a distressed voice. “I must leave some 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 face with 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 own hands were quite cold. But when she spoke, her voice was quite clear and distinct.

“Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it would be the best and highest lot for me,—to make his life happy. He loved me first. No one else could be quite what he is to me. But I can’t divide myself from my brother for life. I must go away, and wait. Pray don’t speak to 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 House tomorrow, and have some music and brightness, before you go to pay these dull dutiful visits. Ah! here come aunty and the tea.”