CHAPTER 7
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The Golden Gates Are PassedSO Tom went oo the fifth half year - till he was turned sixteen - at Kings Lorton, while Maggie was growing, with a rapidity which her aunts sidered highly reprehensible, at Miss Firnisss b school in the aown of Laceham on the Floss, with cousin Lucy for her panion. In her early letters to Tom she had always sent her love to Philip and asked many questions about him which were answered by brief sentences about Toms toothache, and a turf-house which he was helping to build in the garden, with other items of that kind. She aio hear Tom say in the holidays that Philip was as queer as ever again, and often cross: they were no longer very good friends, she perceived, and when she remiom that he ought always to love Philip for being so good to him when his foot was bad, he answered, `Well, it isnt my fault: I dont do anything to him. She hardly ever saw Philip during the remainder of their school life: in the Midsummer holidays he was always away at the seaside, and at Christmas she could only meet him at long intervals ireets of St Oggs. When they did meet, she reme<cite>.９9ｌｉｂ.</cite>mbered her promise to kiss him, but, as a young lady who had been at a b-school, she knew now that such a greeting was out of the question, and Philip would not expect it. The promise was void like so many other sweet, illusory promises of our childhood: void as promises made in Eden before the seasons were divided, and whearry blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach - impossible to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been passed. But when their father was actually engaged in the long-threatened lawsuit, and Wakem, as the agent at once of Pivart and Old Harry, was ag against him, even Maggie felt, with some sadness, that they were not likely ever to have any intimacy with Philip again: the very name of Wakem made her father angry, and she had once heard him say that if that crookbacked son lived to i his fathers ill-gotten gains, there would be a curse upon him. `Have as little to do with him at school as you , my lad, he said to Tom; and the and was obeyed the more easily because Mr Stelling by this time had two additional pupils; for though this gentlemans rise in the world was not of that meteor-like rapidity which the admirers of his extemporaneous eloquence had expected for a preacher whose voice demanded so wide a sphere, he had yet enough of growing prosperity to enable him to increase his expenditure in tinued disproportion to his ine.
As for Toms school course, it went on with mill-like monotony, his mind tinuing to move with a slow, half-stifled pulse in a medium of uing or unintelligible ideas. But each vacation he brought home larger and larger drawings with the satiny rendering of landscape and water-colours in vivid greens, together with manuscript books full of exercises and problems, in which the handwriting was all the finer because he gave his whole mind to it. Each vacation he brought home a new book or two, indig his progress through different stages of history, Christian doe, and Latin literature; and that passage was ir<mark>99ｌｉｂ?</mark>ely without result besides the possession of the books. Toms ear and tongue had bee aced to a great many words and phrases which are uood to be signs of an educated dition, and though he had never really applied his mind to any one of his lessons, the lessons had left a deposit of vague, fragmentary iual notions. Mr Tulliver, seeing signs of acquirement beyond the reach of his own criticism, thought it robably all right with Toms education: he observed, ihat there were no maps, and not enough `summing, but he made no formal plaint to Mr Stelling. It uzzling business, this schooling; and if he took Tom away, where could he send him with better effect?
By the time Tom had reached his last quarter at Kings Lorton, the years had made striking ges in him sihe day we saw him returning from Mr Jacobs Academy. He was a tall youth now, carrying himself without the least awkwardness, and speaking without more shyhan was a being symptom of blended diffidend pride: he wore his tailed coat and his stand-up collars, and watched the down on his lip with eager impatience looking every day at his virgin razor, with which he had provided himself in the last holidays. Philip had already left - at the Autumn quarter - that he might go to the South for the winter, for the sake of his health; and this ge helped to give Tom the uled, exulting feeling that usually belongs to the last months before leaving school. This quarter too, there was some hope of his fathers lawsuit being decided: that made the prospect of home more entirely pleasurable. For Tom, who had gathered his view of the case from his fathers versation, had no doubt that Pivart would be beaten.
Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks - a fact which did not surprise him, for his father and mother were not apt to maheir affe in unnecessary letters - when to his great surprise on the m of a dark cold day he end of November, he was told, soon after entering the study at nine oclock, that his sister was in the drawing-room. It was Mrs Stelling who had e into the study to tell him, and she left him to ehe drawing-room alone.
Maggie too was tall now, with braided and coiled hair: she was almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen; and she really looked older than he did at that moment. She had thrown off her bo, her heavy braids were pushed back from her forehead as if it would not bear that extra load, and her young face had a strangely worn look as her eyes turned anxiously towards the door. When Tom entered, she did not speak, but only went up to <details></details>him, put her arms round his ned kissed him early. He was used to various moods of hers, a no alarm at the unusual seriousness of her greeting.
`Why, how is it youre e so early this , Maggie? Did you e in the gig? said Tom, as she backed towards the sofa and drew him to her side.
`No, I came by the coach - Ive walked from the turnpike.
`But how is it youre not at school? The holidays have not begu?
`Father wanted me at home, said Maggie, with a slight trembling of the lip. `I came home three or four days ago.
`Isnt my father well? said Tom, rather anxiously.
`Not quite, said Maggie. `Hes very unhappy, Tom. The lawsuit is ended, and I came to tell you, because I thought it would be better for you to know it before you came home, and I didnt like only to send you a letter.
`My father hasnt lost? said Tom, hastily, springing from the sofa, and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust in his pockets.
`Yes, dear Tom, said Maggie, looking up at him with trembling.
Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he said--
`My father will have to pay a good deal of mohen?
`Yes, said Maggie, rather faintly.
`Well, it t be helped, said Tom, bravely, not translating the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results. `But my fathers very much vexed, I dare say? he added, looking at Maggie, and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her girlish way of taking things.
`Yes, said Maggie, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller speech by Toms freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as if the words would burst from her, `O Tom, he will lose the mill and the land, and everything. He will have nothi.
Toms eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her before he turned pale and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but sat down on the sofa again, looking vaguely out of the opposite window.
Ay about the future had never eoms mind. His father had always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful, fident air of a man who has plenty of property to fall back upon. Tom had never dreamed that his father would `fail: that was a form of misfortune which he had always heard spoken of as a deep disgrace, and disgrace was ahat he could not associate with any of his relations, least of all with his father. A proud sense of family respectability art of the very air Tom had been born and brought up in. He khere were people in St Oggs who made a show without moo support it, and he had always heard such people spoken of by his own friends with pt and reprobation: he had a strong belief, which was a life-long habit, and required no definite evideo rest on, that his father could spend a great deal of money if he chose; and since his education at Mr Stellings had given him a more expensive view of life, he had often <strike>九九藏书</strike>thought that whe older he would make a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle, and other accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to any of his poraries at St Oggs, who might sider themselves a grade above him in society, because their fathers were professional men or had large oil-mills. As to the prognostid head-shaking of his aunts and uhey had never produced the least effe him except to make him think that aunts and uncles were disagreeable society: he had heard them find fault in much the same way as along as he could remember. His father knew better than they did.
The down had e on Toms lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had been hitherto only the reprodu in ged forms of the boyish dreams in which he had lived three years ago. He was awakened now with a violent shock.
Maggie was frighte Toms pale, trembling silehere was something else to tell him - something worse. She threw her arms round him at last, and said, with a half sob,
`O Tom - dear, dear Tom, dont fret too much - try and bear it well.
Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her eing kisses, and there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed away with his hand. The a seemed to rouse him, for he shook himself and said, `I shall go home with you Maggie? Didnt my father say I was to go?
`No, Tom, father didnt wish it, said Maggie, her ay about his feeling helpio master her agitation: - What would he do wheold him all? `But mother wants you to e - poor mother - she cries so. O Tom, its very dreadful at home.
Maggies lips grew whiter, and she began to tremble almost as Tom had dohe two poor things g closer to each other - both trembling - the o an unshapen fear, the other at the image of a terrible certainty. When Maggie spoke, it was hardly above a whisper.
`And ... and ... poor father ...
Maggie could not utter it. But the suspense was intolerable to Tom. A vague idea of going to prison as a sequence of debt, was the shape his fears had begun to take.
`Wheres my father? he said, impatiently. `Tell me, Maggie.
`Hes at home, said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to that question. `But, she added, after a pause, `not himself... . He fell off his horse... . He has known nobody but me ever since... . He seems to have lost his senses... . O, father, father... .
With these last words Maggies sobs burst forth with the more violence for the previous struggle against them. Tom felt that pressure of the heart which forbids tears: he had no distinct vision of their troubles as Maggie had, who had been at home: he only felt the crushi of what seemed unmitigated misfortune. He tightened his arm almost vulsively round Maggie as she sobbed, but his face looked rigid and tearless - his eyes blank - as if a black curtain of cloud had suddenly fallen on his path.
But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly: a sihought had acted on h<details>99lib?</details>er like a startling sound.
`We must set out, Tom - we must not stay - father will miss me - we must be at the tur ten to meet the coach. She said this with hasty decision, rubbing her eyes, and rising to seize her bo.
Tom at once felt the same impulse, and rose too. `Wait a minute, Maggie, he said. `I must speak to Mr Stelling, and then well go.
He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were, but on his way he met Mr Stelling, who had heard from his wife that Maggie appeared to be in trouble when she asked for her brother, and, now that he thought the brother and sister had been alone long enough, was ing to inquire and offer his sympathy.
`Please, sir, I must go home, Tom said abruptly, as he met Mr Stelling in the passage. `I must go back with my sister directly. My fathers lost his law-suit - hes lost all his property - and hes very ill.
Mr Stelli like a kied man: he foresarobable money loss for himself, but this had no appreciable share in his feeling while he looked with grave pity at the brother and sister for whom youth and sorrow had begun together. When he knew how Maggie had e and how eager she was to get home again, he hurried their departure, only whispering something to Mrs Stelling, who had followed him, and who immediately left the room.
Tom and Maggie were standing on the door-step, ready to set out, when Mrs Stelling came with a little basket, which she hung on Maggies arm, saying, `Do remember to eat something on the way, dear. Maggies heart went out towards this woman whom she had never liked, and she kissed her silently. It was the first sign within the poor child of that new sense which is the gift of sorrow - that susceptibility to the bare offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of loving fellowship, as to haggard men among the icebergs the mere presence of an ordinary rade stirs the deep fountains of affe.
Mr Stelling put his hand on Toms shoulder and said, `God bless you, my boy: let me know how you get on. Then he pressed Maggies hand; but there were no audible good-bys. Tom had so often thought how joyful he should be the day he left school `food! And now his school years seemed like a holiday that had e to an end.
The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistin the distant road - were soon lost behind the projeg hedgerow.
They had gone forth together into their new life of sorrow, and they would never more see the sunshine undimmed by remembered cares. They had ehe thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had for ever closed behind them.
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