CHAPTER 2
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St Oggs Passes JudgmentIT was soon known throughout St Oggs that Miss Tulliver was e back: she had not, then, eloped in order to be married to Mr Stephe - at all events, Mr Stephe had not married her - which came to the same thing, so far as her culpability was ed. We judge others acc to results; how else? - not knowing the process by which results are arrived at. If Miss Tulliver, after a few months of well-chosen travel, had returned as Mrs Stephe - with a post-marital trousseau and all the advantages possessed even by the most unwele wife of an only son, public opinion, which at St Oggs, as elsewhe<q>99liｂ?</q>re, always knew what to think, would have judged in strict sistency with those results. Public opinion, in these cases, is always of the feminine gender - not the world, but the worlds wife: and she would have seen, that two handsome young people - the gentleman of quite the first family in St Oggs - having found themselves in a false position, had been led into a course, which, to say the least of it, was highly injudicious, and productive of sad pain and disappoi, especially to that sweet young thing, Miss Deane. Mr Stephe had certainly not behaved well; but then, young men were liable to those sudden infatuated attats - and bad as it might seem in Mrs Stepheo admit the fai advances from her cousins lover (i had been said that she was actually eo young Wakem - old Wakem himself had mentio) still she was very young - `and a deformed young man, you know! - and young Guest so very fasating, and, they say, he positively worshipped her (to be sure, that t last!) and he ran away with her in the boat quite against her will - and what could she do? She couldnt e back then: no one would have spoken to her. And how very well that maize-coloured satie bees her plexion - it seems as if the folds in front were quite e in - several of her dresses are made so - they say, he thinks nothing too handsome to buy for her. Poor Miss Deane! She is very pitiable - but then, there was no positive e - and the air at the coast will dood. After all, if young Guest felt no more for her than that, it was better for her not to marry him. What a wonderful marriage firl like Miss Tulliver - quite romantic! Why - young Guest will put up for the bh at the ele. Nothing like erowadays! That young Wakem nearly went out of his mind - he always was rather queer; but hes gone abroad again to be out of the way - quite the best thing for a deformed young man. Miss Unit declares she will never visit Mr and Mrs Stephe - suonsense! pretending to be better than other people. Society couldnt be carried on if we inquired into private du that way - and Christianity tells us to think no evil - and my belief is, that Miss Unit had no cards sent her. But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant this extenuation of the past. Maggie had returned without a trousseau, without a husband - in that degraded and outcast dition to which error is well known to lead; and the worlds wife, with that fine instinct which is given her for the preservation of society, saw at ohat Miss Tullivers duct had been of the most aggravated kind. Could anything be more detestable? - A girl so mudebted to her friends - whose mother as well as herself had received so much kindness from the Deanes - to lay the design of winning a young mans affes away from her own cousin who had behaved like a sister to her? Winning his affes? That was not the phrase for such a girl as Miss Tulliver: it would have been more correct to say that she had been actuated by mere unwomanly boldness and unbridled passion. There was always something questionable about her. That e with young Wakem, which, they said, had been carried on for years, looked very ill: disgusting, in fact! But with a girl o<s>9９lib?</s>f that disposition! - to the worlds wife there had always been something in Miss Tullivers very physique that a refined instinct felt to be prophetic of harm. As for poor Mr Stephe, he was rather pitiable than otherwise: a young man of five and twenty is not to be too severely judged in these cases - he is really very much at the mercy of a designing bold girl. And it was clear that he had given way in spite of himself - he had shaken her off as soon as he could: iheir having parted so soon looked very bladeed - for her. To be sure he had written a letter, laying all the blame on himself, and telling the story in a romantic fashion so as to try and make her appear quite i: of course he could do that! But the refined instinct of the worlds wife was not to be deceived: providentially! - else what would bee of society? Why - her own brother had turned her from his door - he had seen enough, you might be sure, before he would do that. A truly respectable young man - Mr Tom Tulliver - quite likely to rise in the world! His sisters disgrace was naturally a heavy blow to him. It was to be hoped that she would go out of the neighbourhood - to America, or anywhere - so as to purify the air of St Oggs from the taint of her presence - extremely dangerous to daughters there! No good could happen to her: - it was only to be hoped she would repent, and that God would have mer her: He had not the care of society on His hands as the worlds wife had.
It required nearly a fht for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; i was a whole week before Stepheer came, telling his father the facts and adding that: he was gone across to Holland - had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money - was incapable of any resolution at present.
Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a monising ay, to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her duct by the world of St Oggs: ay about Stephen - Lucy - Philip - beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of reje and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had doheir worst - that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable sihe words she had heard from her brothers lips. Across all her ay for the loved and the ihose words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever rec happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by paio vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as o of penitence, and all she craved as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling: her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities that made no peace ceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge.
But she was not without practical iions: the love of independence was to an iand a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread and when other projects looked vague, she fell ba that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bobs. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; an<dfn></dfn>d somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Oggs. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her: she remembered his parting words at the bazaar, she remembered the momentary feeling of reliahat had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of fiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deao learn how Lucy was: the report was always sad - nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had e on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing: naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last, she summoned ce to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had eveo see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tullivers absehough he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion.
As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bo. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn: he was in deep grief - but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her returheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no soon9９ｌｉb.er passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bobs dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this sciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look tht or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was to for rese: no wohey will not speak to me, she thought - they are very fond of Lucy. But now she khat she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of nonchalance which he might have bestowed on a friendly bar-maid. Maggies pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith towards Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else thaributioribution may e from any voice - the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted ur at the street-er inflict it: surely help and pity are rarer things - more needful for the righteous to bestow.
She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenns study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his you child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, plag a chair fgie,
`I was ing to see you, Miss Tulliver - you have anticipated me - I am glad you did.
Maggie looked at him with her childlike direess as she had do the bazaar, and said, `I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more.
`Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave firm voice. `Think of me as oo whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you.
In rather brokeences - with some effort, at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the fidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the tents of Stepheer, and he had believed them at once, without the firmation of Maggies statement. That involuntary plaint of hers `O I must go, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward flict.
Maggie dwelt the lo on the feeling which had made her e back to her mother and brother, which made her g to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some mihere was a difficulty on his mind. He rose and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last, he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie,
`Your prompting to go to your friends - to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed - is a true prompting, to which the Chur its inal stitution and discipline responds - opening its arms to the pe - watg over its children to the last - never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the unity, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed - they hardly be said to exist in the publid: ></a>they hardly survive except in the partial, tradictory form they have taken in the narrow unities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that stitution which is aloted to human needs, I should often lose heart at the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending towards the relaxation of ties - towards the substitution of wayward choice for the adhereo obligation which has its roots in the past. Your sd your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you - what my advice to you - would be if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by terag circumstances.
Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was aire absence of effusive benevolen his mahere was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence ersevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expetly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on.
`Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully, the very unjust ceptions that will probably be formed ing your duct - ceptions which will have a baneful effect even in spite of known evideo disprove them.
`O, I do - I begin to see, said Maggie, uo repress this utterance of her ret pain. `I know I shall be insulted - I shall be thought worse than I am.
`You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touore personal pity, `that a letter is e which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right at the moment when that return was most of all difficult.
`Oh - where is he? said pgie, with a flush and tremor, that no presence could have hindered.
`He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the unication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effe her.
Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on.
`That letter, as I said, ought to suffice you to prevent false impressions ing you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experieny whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a stious struggle such as yours, are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you on the ground of an unjust judgment; because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstrus. For this reason - and for this only - I ask you to sider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, acc to your former iion. I will exert myself at oo obtain one for you.
`O, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. `I have to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer - cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy - to others - I could vihem that Im sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, `I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because - because others wish it, I will not go now.
`Well, said Dr Kenn, after some sideration, `if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and tenance you, by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep i in your peaind and welfare.
`The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be indepe, said Maggie. `I shall not want much. I go on lodging where I am.
`I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, `And in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall e to see you: I shall bear you stantly in mind.
When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stepheer, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons ed, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Oggs on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty gies stay here. Oher hand, he entered with all the prehension of a man who had known spiritual flid lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggies heart and sce which made this sent to the marriage a desecration to her: her sce must not be tampered with: the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balang of sequences. His experieold him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred: the possible issue either of an endeavour to restore the former relations with Lud Philip, or of selling submission to this irruption of a new feeling was hidden in a darkness all the more imperable because each immediate step was clogged with evil.
The great problem of the shiftiioween passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it: the question, whether the moment has e in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master key that will fit all cases. The casuists have bee a by-word of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes as are too often fatally sealed: the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, uhey are checked and enlightened by a perpetual refereo the special circumstahat mark the individual lot.
All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugo the men of maxims; because such people early dis that the mysterious plexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patehod, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that es from a hardly-earimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.
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