The Mill on the Floss

Duet in Paradise

The well-furnished drawing-room, with the open grand piano, and the
pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-house by the side of
the Floss, is Mr Deane’s. The neat little lady in mourning, whose
light-brown ringlets are falling over the coloured embroidery with
which her fingers are busy, is of course Lucy Deane; and the fine young
man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in the
extremely abbreviated face of the “King Charles” lying on the young
lady’s feet is no other than Mr Stephen Guest, whose diamond ring,
attar of roses, and air of nonchalant leisure, at twelve o’clock in
the day, are the graceful and odoriferous result of the largest
oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St Ogg’s. There is an apparent
triviality in the action with the scissors, but your discernment
perceives at once that there is a design in it which makes it eminently
worthy of a large-headed, long-limbed young man; for you see that Lucy
wants the scissors, and is compelled, reluctant as she may be, to shake
her ringlets back, raise her soft hazel eyes, smile playfully down on
the face that is so very nearly on a level with her knee, and holding
out her little shell-pink palm, to say,—

“My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure of
persecuting my poor Minny.”

The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles, it seems,
and Hercules holds out his entrapped fingers hopelessly.

“Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way. Please draw them
off for me.”

“Draw them off with your other hand,” says Miss Lucy, roguishly.

“Oh, but that’s my left hand; I’m not left-handed.”

Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle touches from
tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr Stephen for a repetition da
capo. Accordingly, he watches for the release of the scissors, that he
may get them into his possession again.

“No, no,” said Lucy, sticking them in her band, “you shall not have my
scissors again,—you have strained them already. Now don’t set Minny
growling again. Sit up and behave properly, and then I will tell you
some news.”

“What is that?” said Stephen, throwing himself back and hanging his
right arm over the corner of his chair. He might have been sitting for
his portrait, which would have represented a rather striking young man
of five-and-twenty, with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair,
standing erect, with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of
corn, and a half-ardent, half-sarcastic glance from under his
well-marked horizontal eyebrows. “Is it very important news?”

“Yes, very. Guess.”

“You are going to change Minny’s diet, and give him three ratafias
soaked in a dessert-spoonful of cream daily?”

“Quite wrong.”

“Well, then, Dr Kenn has been preaching against buckram, and you ladies
have all been sending him a roundrobin, saying, ‘This is a hard
doctrine; who can bear it?’”

“For shame!” said Lucy, adjusting her little mouth gravely. “It is
rather dull of you not to guess my news, because it is about something
I mentioned to you not very long ago.”

“But you have mentioned many things to me not long ago. Does your
feminine tyranny require that when you say the thing you mean is one of
several things, I should know it immediately by that mark?”

“Yes, I know you think I am silly.”

“I think you are perfectly charming.”

“And my silliness is part of my charm?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But I know you like women to be rather insipid. Philip Wakem betrayed
you; he said so one day when you were not here.”

“Oh, I know Phil is fierce on that point; he makes it quite a personal
matter. I think he must be love-sick for some unknown lady,—some
exalted Beatrice whom he met abroad.”

“By the by,” said Lucy, pausing in her work, “it has just occurred to
me that I never found out whether my cousin Maggie will object to see
Philip, as her brother does. Tom will not enter a room where Philip is,
if he knows it; perhaps Maggie may be the same, and then we sha’n’t be
able to sing our glees, shall we?”

“What! is your cousin coming to stay with you?” said Stephen, with a
look of slight annoyance.

“Yes; that was my news, which you have forgotten. She’s going to leave
her situation, where she has been nearly two years, poor thing,—ever
since her father’s death; and she will stay with me a month or
two,—many months, I hope.”

“And am I bound to be pleased at that news?”

“Oh no, not at all,” said Lucy, with a little air of pique. “I am
pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why you should be pleased.
There is no girl in the world I love so well as my cousin Maggie.”

“And you will be inseparable I suppose, when she comes. There will be
no possibility of a tête-à-tête with you any more, unless you can
find an admirer for her, who will pair off with her occasionally. What
is the ground of dislike to Philip? He might have been a resource.”

“It is a family quarrel with Philip’s father. There were very painful
circumstances, I believe. I never quite understood them, or knew them
all. My uncle Tulliver was unfortunate and lost all his property, and I
think he considered Mr Wakem was somehow the cause of it. Mr Wakem
bought Dorlcote Mill, my uncle’s old place, where he always lived. You
must remember my uncle Tulliver, don’t you?”

“No,” said Stephen, with rather supercilious indifference. “I’ve always
known the name, and I dare say I knew the man by sight, apart from his
name. I know half the names and faces in the neighbourhood in that
detached, disjointed way.”

“He was a very hot-tempered man. I remember, when I was a little girl
and used to go to see my cousins, he often frightened me by talking as
if he were angry. Papa told me there was a dreadful quarrel, the very
day before my uncle’s death, between him and Mr Wakem, but it was
hushed up. That was when you were in London. Papa says my uncle was
quite mistaken in many ways; his mind had become embittered. But Tom
and Maggie must naturally feel it very painful to be reminded of these
things. They have had so much, so very much trouble. Maggie was at
school with me six years ago, when she was fetched away because of her
father’s misfortunes, and she has hardly had any pleasure since, I
think. She has been in a dreary situation in a school since uncle’s
death, because she is determined to be independent, and not live with
aunt Pullet; and I could hardly wish her to come to me then, because
dear mamma was ill, and everything was so sad. That is why I want her
to come to me now, and have a long, long holiday.”

“Very sweet and angelic of you,” said Stephen, looking at her with an
admiring smile; “and all the more so if she has the conversational
qualities of her mother.”

“Poor aunty! You are cruel to ridicule her. She is very valuable to
me, I know. She manages the house beautifully,—much better than any
stranger would,—and she was a great comfort to me in mamma’s illness.”

“Yes, but in point of companionship one would prefer that she should be
represented by her brandy-cherries and cream-cakes. I think with a
shudder that her daughter will always be present in person, and have no
agreeable proxies of that kind,—a fat, blond girl, with round blue
eyes, who will stare at us silently.”

“Oh yes!” exclaimed Lucy, laughing wickedly, and clapping her hands,
“that is just my cousin Maggie. You must have seen her!”

“No, indeed; I’m only guessing what Mrs Tulliver’s daughter must be;
and then if she is to banish Philip, our only apology for a tenor, that
will be an additional bore.”

“But I hope that may not be. I think I will ask you to call on Philip
and tell him Maggie is coming to-morrow. He is quite aware of Tom’s
feeling, and always keeps out of his way; so he will understand, if you
tell him, that I asked you to warn him not to come until I write to ask
him.”

“I think you had better write a pretty note for me to take; Phil is so
sensitive, you know, the least thing might frighten him off coming at
all, and we had hard work to get him. I can never induce him to come to
the park; he doesn’t like my sisters, I think. It is only your faëry
touch that can lay his ruffled feathers.”

Stephen mastered the little hand that was straying toward the table,
and touched it lightly with his lips. Little Lucy felt very proud and
happy. She and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the
most exquisite moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of
passion,—when each is sure of the other’s love, but no formal
declaration has been made, and all is mutual divination, exalting the
most trivial word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and
delicious as wafted jasmine scent. The explicitness of an engagement
wears off this finest edge of susceptibility; it is jasmine gathered
and presented in a large bouquet.

“But it is really odd that you should have hit so exactly on Maggie’s
appearance and manners,” said the cunning Lucy, moving to reach her
desk, “because she might have been like her brother, you know; and Tom
has not round eyes; and he is as far as possible from staring at
people.”

“Oh, I suppose he is like the father; he seems to be as proud as
Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should think.”

“I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo; and papa is very
fond of him: he says Tom has excellent principles. It was through him
that his father was able to pay all his debts before he died.”

“Oh, ah; I’ve heard about that. I heard your father and mine talking
about it a little while ago, after dinner, in one of their interminable
discussions about business. They think of doing something for young
Tulliver; he saved them from a considerable loss by riding home in some
marvellous way, like Turpin, to bring them news about the stoppage of a
bank, or something of that sort. But I was rather drowsy at the time.”

Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, humming in
falsetto, “Graceful Consort,” as he turned over the volume of “The
Creation,” which stood open on the desk.

“Come and sing this,” he said, when he saw Lucy rising.

“What, ‘Graceful Consort’? I don’t think it suits your voice.”

“Never mind; it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip will have it,
is the grand element of good singing. I notice men with indifferent
voices are usually of that opinion.”

“Philip burst into one of his invectives against ‘The Creation’ the
other day,” said Lucy, seating herself at the piano. “He says it has a
sort of sugared complacency and flattering make-believe in it, as if it
were written for the birthday fête of a German Grand-Duke.”

“Oh, pooh! He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper. We are Adam and
Eve unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then,—the recitative, for the sake of
the moral. You will sing the whole duty of woman,—‘And from obedience
grows my pride and happiness.’”

“Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the tempo, as you
will,” said Lucy, beginning to play the duet.

Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in
which the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that
springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the
right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the perfect
accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted loving
chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate demand
for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will not care to
catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee no embarrassing dearth of
remark in evenings spent with the lovely soprano. In the provinces,
too, where music was so scarce in that remote time, how could the
musical people avoid falling in love with each other? Even political
principle must have been in danger of relaxation under such
circumstances; and the violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have
been tempted to fraternise in a demoralizing way with a reforming
violoncello. In that case, the linnet-throated soprano and the
full-toned bass singing,—

“With thee delight is ever new,
With thee is life incessant bliss,”

believed what they sang all the more because they sang it.

“Now for Raphael’s great song,” said Lucy, when they had finished the
duet. “You do the ‘heavy beasts’ to perfection.”

“That sounds complimentary,” said Stephen, looking at his watch. “By
Jove, it’s nearly half-past one! Well, I can just sing this.”

Stephen delivered with admirable ease the deep notes representing the
tread of the heavy beasts; but when a singer has an audience of two,
there is room for divided sentiments. Minny’s mistress was charmed; but
Minny, who had intrenched himself, trembling, in his basket as soon as
the music began, found this thunder so little to his taste that he
leaped out and scampered under the remotest chiffonnier, as the most
eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of doom.

“Adieu, ‘graceful consort,’” said Stephen, buttoning his coat across
when he had done singing, and smiling down from his tall height, with
the air of rather a patronizing lover, at the little lady on the
music-stool. “My bliss is not incessant, for I must gallop home. I
promised to be there at lunch.”

“You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no consequence;
I have said everything in my note.”

“You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I suppose?”

“Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin Tom will
dine with us; and poor aunty will have her two children together for
the first time. It will be very pretty; I think a great deal about it.”

“But I may come the next day?”

“Oh yes! Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie; though you can
hardly be said not to have seen her, you have described her so well.”

“Good-bye, then.” And there was that slight pressure of the hands, and
momentary meeting of the eyes, which will often leave a little lady
with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside
immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk up
and down the room rather than to seat herself quietly at her
embroidery, or other rational and improving occupation. At least this
was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, consider it an
indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she
just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The
desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright during a few
hours of conversation may be construed as lying within the bounds of a
laudable benevolent consideration for others. And Lucy had so much of
this benevolence in her nature that I am inclined to think her small
egoisms were impregnated with it, just as there are people not
altogether unknown to you whose small benevolences have a predominant
and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, that she is walking up and
down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the sense
that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her small
world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny benignity,
in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity are quite
lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is because the
thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle affections and
good-natured offices with which she fills her peaceful days. Even now,
her mind, with that instantaneous alternation which makes two currents
of feeling or imagination seem simultaneous, is glancing continually
from Stephen to the preparations she has only half finished in Maggie’s
room. Cousin Maggie should be treated as well as the grandest
lady-visitor,—nay, better, for she should have Lucy’s best prints and
drawings in her bedroom, and the very finest bouquet of spring flowers
on her table. Maggie would enjoy all that, she was so found of pretty
things! And there was poor aunt Tulliver, that no one made any account
of, she was to be surprised with the present of a cap of superlative
quality, and to have her health drunk in a gratifying manner, for which
Lucy was going to lay a plot with her father this evening. Clearly, she
had not time to indulge in long reveries about her own happy
love-affairs. With this thought she walked toward the door, but paused
there.

“What’s the matter, then, Minny?” she said, stooping in answer to some
whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head against
her pink cheek. “Did you think I was going without you? Come, then, let
us go and see Sinbad.”

Sinbad was Lucy’s chestnut horse, that she always fed with her own hand
when he was turned out in the paddock. She was fond of feeding
dependent creatures, and knew the private tastes of all the animals
about the house, delighting in the little rippling sounds of her
canaries when their beaks were busy with fresh seed, and in the small
nibbling pleasures of certain animals which, lest she should appear too
trivial, I will here call “the more familiar rodents.”

Was not Stephen Guest right in his decided opinion that this slim
maiden of eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man would not be likely
to repent of marrying,—a woman who was loving and thoughtful for other
women, not giving them Judas-kisses with eyes askance on their welcome
defects, but with real care and vision for their half-hidden pains and
mortifications, with long ruminating enjoyment of little pleasures
prepared for them? Perhaps the emphasis of his admiration did not fall
precisely on this rarest quality in her; perhaps he approved his own
choice of her chiefly because she did not strike him as a remarkable
rarity. A man likes his wife to be pretty; well, Lucy was pretty, but
not to a maddening extent. A man likes his wife to be accomplished,
gentle, affectionate, and not stupid; and Lucy had all these
qualifications. Stephen was not surprised to find himself in love with
her, and was conscious of excellent judgment in preferring her to Miss
Leyburn, the daughter of the county member, although Lucy was only the
daughter of his father’s subordinate partner; besides, he had had to
defy and overcome a slight unwillingness and disappointment in his
father and sisters,—a circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable
consciousness of his own dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense
and independence enough to choose the wife who was likely to make him
happy, unbiassed by any indirect considerations. He meant to choose
Lucy; she was a little darling, and exactly the sort of woman he had
always admired.