The Mill on the Floss

aggie and Lucy

By the end of the week Dr Kenn had made up his mind that there was only
one way in which he could secure to Maggie a suitable living at St
Ogg’s. Even with his twenty years’ experience as a parish priest, he
was aghast at the obstinate continuance of imputations against her in
the face of evidence. Hitherto he had been rather more adored and
appealed to than was quite agreeable to him; but now, in attempting to
open the ears of women to reason, and their consciences to justice, on
behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly found himself as powerless as he
was aware he would have been if he had attempted to influence the shape
of bonnets. Dr Kenn could not be contradicted; he was listened to in
silence; but when he left the room, a comparison of opinions among his
hearers yielded much the same result as before. Miss Tulliver had
undeniably acted in a blamable manner, even Dr Kenn did not deny that;
how, then, could he think so lightly of her as to put that favourable
interpretation on everything she had done? Even on the supposition that
required the utmost stretch of belief,—namely, that none of the things
said about Miss Tulliver were true,—still, since they had been said
about her, they had cast an odor round her which must cause her to be
shrunk from by every woman who had to take care of her own
reputation—and of Society. To have taken Maggie by the hand and said,
“I will not believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall not utter it;
my ears shall be closed against it; I, too, am an erring mortal, liable
to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest efforts; your lot has
been harder than mine, your temptation greater; let us help each other
to stand and walk without more falling,”—to have done this would have
demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge, generous trust; would have
demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in evil-speaking, that felt no
self-exaltation in condemning, that cheated itself with no large words
into the belief that life can have any moral end, any high religion,
which excludes the striving after perfect truth, justice, and love
toward the individual men and women who come across our own path. The
ladies of St Ogg’s were not beguiled by any wide speculative
conceptions; but they had their favourite abstraction, called Society,
which served to make their consciences perfectly easy in doing what
satisfied their own egoism,—thinking and speaking the worst of Maggie
Tulliver, and turning their backs upon her. It was naturally
disappointing to Dr Kenn, after two years of superfluous incense from
his feminine parishioners, to find them suddenly maintaining their
views in opposition to his; but then they maintained them in opposition
to a higher Authority, which they had venerated longer. That Authority
had furnished a very explicit answer to persons who might inquire where
their social duties began, and might be inclined to take wide views as
to the starting-point. The answer had not turned on the ultimate good
of Society, but on “a certain man” who was found in trouble by the
wayside.

Not that St Ogg’s was empty of women with some tenderness of heart and
conscience; probably it had as fair a proportion of human goodness in
it as any other small trading town of that day. But until every good
man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid,—too timid
even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings, when
these would place them in a minority. And the men at St Ogg’s were not
all brave, by any means; some of them were even fond of scandal, and to
an extent that might have given their conversation an effeminate
character, if it had not been distinguished by masculine jokes, and by
an occasional shrug of the shoulders at the mutual hatred of women. It
was the general feeling of the masculine mind at St Ogg’s that women
were not to be interfered with in their treatment of each other.

And thus every direction in which Dr Kenn had turned, in the hope of
procuring some kind recognition and some employment for Maggie, proved
a disappointment to him. Mrs James Torry could not think of taking
Maggie as a nursery governess, even temporarily,—a young woman about
whom “such things had been said,” and about whom “gentlemen joked”; and
Miss Kirke, who had a spinal complaint, and wanted a reader and
companion, felt quite sure that Maggie’s mind must be of a quality with
which she, for her part, could not risk any contact. Why did not Miss
Tulliver accept the shelter offered her by her aunt Glegg? It did not
become a girl like her to refuse it. Or else, why did she not go out of
the neighbourhood, and get a situation where she was not known? (It was
not, apparently, of so much importance that she should carry her
dangerous tendencies into strange families unknown at St Ogg’s.) She
must be very bold and hardened to wish to stay in a parish where she
was so much stared at and whispered about.

Dr Kenn, having great natural firmness, began, in the presence of this
opposition, as every firm man would have done, to contract a certain
strength of determination over and above what would have been called
forth by the end in view. He himself wanted a daily governess for his
younger children; and though he had hesitated in the first instance to
offer this position to Maggie, the resolution to protest with the
utmost force of his personal and priestly character against her being
crushed and driven away by slander, was now decisive. Maggie gratefully
accepted an employment that gave her duties as well as a support; her
days would be filled now, and solitary evenings would be a welcome
rest. She no longer needed the sacrifice her mother made in staying
with her, and Mrs Tulliver was persuaded to go back to the Mill.

But now it began to be discovered that Dr Kenn, exemplary as he had
hitherto appeared, had his crotchets, possibly his weaknesses. The
masculine mind of St Ogg’s smiled pleasantly, and did not wonder that
Kenn liked to see a fine pair of eyes daily, or that he was inclined to
take so lenient a view of the past; the feminine mind, regarded at that
period as less powerful, took a more melancholy view of the case. If Dr
Kenn should be beguiled into marrying that Miss Tulliver! It was not
safe to be too confident, even about the best of men; an apostle had
fallen, and wept bitterly afterwards; and though Peter’s denial was not
a close precedent, his repentance was likely to be.

Maggie had not taken her daily walks to the Rectory for many weeks,
before the dreadful possibility of her some time or other becoming the
Rector’s wife had been talked of so often in confidence, that ladies
were beginning to discuss how they should behave to her in that
position. For Dr Kenn, it had been understood, had sat in the
schoolroom half an hour one morning, when Miss Tulliver was giving her
lessons,—nay, he had sat there every morning; he had once walked home
with her,—he almost always walked home with her,—and if not, he went
to see her in the evening. What an artful creature she was! What a
mother for those children! It was enough to make poor Mrs Kenn turn
in her grave, that they should be put under the care of this girl only
a few weeks after her death. Would he be so lost to propriety as to
marry her before the year was out? The masculine mind was sarcastic,
and thought not.

The Miss Guests saw an alleviation to the sorrow of witnessing a folly
in their Rector; at least their brother would be safe; and their
knowledge of Stephen’s tenacity was a constant ground of alarm to them,
lest he should come back and marry Maggie. They were not among those
who disbelieved their brother’s letter; but they had no confidence in
Maggie’s adherence to her renunciation of him; they suspected that she
had shrunk rather from the elopement than from the marriage, and that
she lingered in St Ogg’s, relying on his return to her. They had always
thought her disagreeable; they now thought her artful and proud; having
quite as good grounds for that judgment as you and I probably have for
many strong opinions of the same kind. Formerly they had not altogether
delighted in the contemplated match with Lucy, but now their dread of a
marriage between Stephen and Maggie added its momentum to their genuine
pity and indignation on behalf of the gentle forsaken girl, in making
them desire that he should return to her. As soon as Lucy was able to
leave home, she was to seek relief from the oppressive heat of this
August by going to the coast with the Miss Guests; and it was in their
plans that Stephen should be induced to join them. On the very first
hint of gossip concerning Maggie and Dr Kenn, the report was conveyed
in Miss Guest’s letter to her brother.

Maggie had frequent tidings through her mother, or aunt Glegg, or Dr
Kenn, of Lucy’s gradual progress toward recovery, and her thoughts
tended continually toward her uncle Deane’s house; she hungered for an
interview with Lucy, if it were only for five minutes, to utter a word
of penitence, to be assured by Lucy’s own eyes and lips that she did
not believe in the willing treachery of those whom she had loved and
trusted. But she knew that even if her uncle’s indignation had not
closed his house against her, the agitation of such an interview would
have been forbidden to Lucy. Only to have seen her without speaking
would have been some relief; for Maggie was haunted by a face cruel in
its very gentleness; a face that had been turned on hers with glad,
sweet looks of trust and love from the twilight time of memory; changed
now to a sad and weary face by a first heart-stroke. And as the days
passed on, that pale image became more and more distinct; the picture
grew and grew into more speaking definiteness under the avenging hand
of remorse; the soft hazel eyes, in their look of pain, were bent
forever on Maggie, and pierced her the more because she could see no
anger in them. But Lucy was not yet able to go to church, or any place
where Maggie could see her; and even the hope of that departed, when
the news was told her by aunt Glegg, that Lucy was really going away in
a few days to Scarborough with the Miss Guests, who had been heard to
say that they expected their brother to meet them there.

Only those who have known what hardest inward conflict is, can know
what Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the evening after hearing
that news from Mrs Glegg,—only those who have known what it is to dread
their own selfish desires as the watching mother would dread the
sleeping-potion that was to still her own pain.

She sat without candle in the twilight, with the window wide open
toward the river; the sense of oppressive heat adding itself
undistinguishably to the burthen of her lot. Seated on a chair against
the window, with her arm on the windowsill she was looking blankly at
the flowing river, swift with the backward-rushing tide, struggling to
see still the sweet face in its unreproaching sadness, that seemed now
from moment to moment to sink away and be hidden behind a form that
thrust itself between, and made darkness. Hearing the door open, she
thought Mrs Jakin was coming in with her supper, as usual; and with
that repugnance to trivial speech which comes with languor and
wretchedness, she shrank from turning round and saying she wanted
nothing; good little Mrs Jakin would be sure to make some well-meant
remarks. But the next moment, without her having discerned the sound of
a footstep, she felt a light hand on her shoulder, and heard a voice
close to her saying, “Maggie!”

The face was there,—changed, but all the sweeter; the hazel eyes were
there, with their heart-piercing tenderness.

“Maggie!” the soft voice said. “Lucy!” answered a voice with a sharp
ring of anguish in it; and Lucy threw her arms round Maggie’s neck, and
leaned her pale cheek against the burning brow.

“I stole out,” said Lucy, almost in a whisper, while she sat down close
to Maggie and held her hand, “when papa and the rest were away. Alice
is come with me. I asked her to help me. But I must only stay a little
while, because it is so late.”

It was easier to say that at first than to say anything else. They sat
looking at each other. It seemed as if the interview must end without
more speech, for speech was very difficult. Each felt that there would
be something scorching in the words that would recall the irretrievable
wrong. But soon, as Maggie looked, every distinct thought began to be
overflowed by a wave of loving penitence, and words burst forth with a
sob.

“God bless you for coming, Lucy.”

The sobs came thick on each other after that.

“Maggie, dear, be comforted,” said Lucy now, putting her cheek against
Maggie’s again. “Don’t grieve.” And she sat still, hoping to soothe
Maggie with that gentle caress.

“I didn’t mean to deceive you, Lucy,” said Maggie, as soon as she could
speak. “It always made me wretched that I felt what I didn’t like you
to know. It was because I thought it would all be conquered, and you
might never see anything to wound you.”

“I know, dear,” said Lucy. “I know you never meant to make me unhappy.
It is a trouble that has come on us all; you have more to bear than I
have—and you gave him up, when—you did what it must have been very hard
to do.”

They were silent again a little while, sitting with clasped hands, and
cheeks leaned together.

“Lucy,” Maggie began again, “he struggled too. He wanted to be true
to you. He will come back to you. Forgive him—he will be happy then——”

These words were wrung forth from Maggie’s deepest soul, with an effort
like the convulsed clutch of a drowning man. Lucy trembled and was
silent.

A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, the maid, who entered
and said,—

“I daren’t stay any longer, Miss Deane. They’ll find it out, and
there’ll be such anger at your coming out so late.”

Lucy rose and said, “Very well, Alice,—in a minute.”

“I’m to go away on Friday, Maggie,” she added, when Alice had closed
the door again. “When I come back, and am strong, they will let me do
as I like. I shall come to you when I please then.”

“Lucy,” said Maggie, with another great effort, “I pray to God
continually that I may never be the cause of sorrow to you any more.”

She pressed the little hand that she held between hers, and looked up
into the face that was bent over hers. Lucy never forgot that look.

“Maggie,” she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity of
confession in it, “you are better than I am. I can’t——”

She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped each other
again in a last embrace.