CHAPTER 2
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Mrs Tullivers Teraphim, or Household GodsWHEN the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five hours since she had started from home, and she was thinking with some trembling that her father had perhaps missed her and asked for `the little wen vain. She thought of no other ge that might have happened. She hurried along the gravel walk aered the house before Tom, but irance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. The parlour door was ajar - that was where the smell came from. It was very strange: could any visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was her mother there? If so, she must be told that Tom was e. Maggie, after this pause of surprise was only i of opening the door when Tom came up and they both looked in the parlether. There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose fa had some vague recolle, sitting in his fathers chair, smoking, with a jug and glass beside him.
The truth flashed on Toms mind in an instant. To `have the bailiff in the house, and `to be sold up, were phrases which he had beeo, even as a little boy: they were part of the disgrad misery of `failing, of losing all ones money and being ruined - sinking into the dition of poor w people. It seemed only natural this should happen since his father had lost all his property, ahought of no more special cause for this particular form of misfortuhan the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of this disgrace was so much keener an experieo Tom than the worst form of apprehension, that he felt at this moment as if his real trouble had only just begun: it was a tou the irritated nerve pared with its spontaneous dull ag.
`How do you do, sir? said the man, taking the pipe out of his mouth with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces made him a little unfortable.
But Tom turned away hastily without speaking: the sight<bdi></bdi> was too hateful. Maggie had not uood the appearance of this stranger, as Tom had: she followed him, whispering `Who it be, Tom? What is the matter? Then with a sudden undefined dread lest this stranger might have something to do with a ge in her father, she rushed upstairs, cheg herself at the bedroom door to throw off her bo, aer on tiptoe. All was silent there: her father was lying, heedless of everything around him, with his eyes closed as when she had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother.
`Wheres my mother? she whispered. The servant did not know.
Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom, `Father is lying quiet: let us go and look for my mother; I wonder where she is.
Mrs Tulliver was not downstairs - not in any of the bedrooms. There was but one room be<var>.99ｌｉb?</var>low the attic which Maggie had left unsearched: it was the store-room where her mother kept all her linen and all the precious `best things that were only uned and brought out on special occasions. Tom, preg Maggie as they returned along the passage, opehe door of this room and immediately said, `Mother!
Mrs Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One of the lines en: the silver tea-pot was uned from its many folds of paper, and the best a was laid out oop of the closed line; spoons and skewers and ladles were spread in rows on the shelves; and the poor woman was shaking her head and weeping with a bitter tension of the mouth, over the mark `Elizabeth Dodson on the er of some table cloths she held in her lap.
She dropped them and started up as Tom spoke.
`O my boy, my boy, she said, clasping him round the neck. `To think as I should live to see this day! Were ruined... everythings going to be sold up... to think as your father should ha married me t me to this! Weve got nothing... we shall be beggars... we must go to the workhouse...
She kissed him, theed herself again, and took aable cloth on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the pattern, while the children stood by in mute wretess - their minds quite filled for the moment with the words `beggars and `workhouse.
`To think o these cloths as I spun myself, she went on, lifting things out and turning them over with aement all the more strange and piteous because the stout lymphatian was usually so passive: - if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface merely - `and Job Haxey wove em, and brought the piee on his back, as I remember standing at the door and seeing him e, before I ever thought o marrying your father! And the pattern as I yself - and bleached so beautiful - and I marked em so as nobody ever saw such marking - they must cut the cloth to get it out, for its a particular stitch. And theyre all to be sold - and go inte peoples houses, and perhaps be cut with the knives, and wore out before Im dead. Youll never have one of em, my boy, she said, looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears, `and I meant em for you. I wanted you to have all o this pattern. Maggie could ha had the large check - it never shows so well when the dishes are on it.
Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reamediately. His face flushed as he said.
`But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it? Theyll never let your linen go, will they? Havent you sent to them?
`Yes, I sent Luke directly theyd put the bailies in, and your aunt Pullets been - and O dear, O dear, she cries so, and says your fathers disgraced my family and made it the talk o the try: and shell buy the spotted cloths for herself because shes never has so many as she wahat <mark>.99lib.</mark>pattern, and they shant go ters, but shes got more checks aready nor she do with. (Here Mrs Tulliver began to lay back the table cloths in the chest, folding and stroking them automatically.) `And your uncle Gleggs been too, and he says things must be bought in for us to lie down on, but he must talk to your aunt; and theyre all ing to sult... . But I know theyll none of em take my y she added, turning towards the cups and saucers - `for they all found fault with em when I bought em, cause o the small gold sprig all over em, between the flowers. But theres none of em got better y, not even your aunt Pullet herself, - and I bought it wi my own money as Id saved ever since I was turned fifteen, and the silver tea-pot, too - your father never paid for em. And to think as he should ha married me and brought me to this.
Mrs Tulliver burst out g afresh, and she sobbed with her handkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she said in a depreg way, still half sobbing as if she were called upon to speak before she could and her voice,
`And I did say to him times and times, `Whativer you do, dont go to law - and what more could I do? Ive had to sit by while my own fortins bee, and what should ha been my childrens too. Youll have niver a penny, my boy... but it isnt your poor mothers fault.
She put out one arm towards Tom, looking up at him piteously with her helpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her and she g to him. For the first time Tom thought of his father with some reproach. His natural ination to blame, - hitherto kept entirely in abeyaowards his father by the predisposition to think him always right, simply on the ground that he was Tom Tullivers father - was turned into this new el by his mothers plaints, and with his indignation against Wakem there began to mingle some indignation of another sort. Perhaps his father might have helped bringing them all down in the world, and making people talk of them with pt: but no one should talk long of Tom Tulliver with pt. The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to assert itself, urged by the double stimulus of rese against his aunts, and the sehat he must behave like a man and take care of his mother.
`Dont fret, mother, he said, tenderly. `I shall soon be able to get money: Ill get a situation of some sort.
`Bless you, my boy! said Mrs Tulliver, a little soothed. Then, looking round sadly, `But I shouldnt ha minded<big>.99lib.</big> so much if we could ha kept the things wi my name on em.
Maggie had withis se with gathering ahe implied reproaches against her father - her father who was lying there in a sort of livih, ralised all her pity friefs about table cloths and a, and her anger on her fathers at was heightened by some egoistic rese at Toms silent curreh her mother in shutting her out from the on calamity. She had bee almost indifferent to her mothers habitual depreciation of her, but she was keenly alive to any san of it, however passive, that she might suspe Tom. Pgie was by no means made up of unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims for herself where she loved strongly. She burst out, at last, in an agitated, almost violent tone, `Mother, how you talk so? As if you cared only for things with your name on, and not for what has my fathers <bdi>9９liｂ?</bdi>oo. And to care about anything but dear father himself! - when hes lying there and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too - you ought not to let any one find fault with my father.
Maggie, almost chocked with mingled grief and anger, left the room, and took her old pla her fathers bed. Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement tha the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame: she had been blamed all her life, and nothing had e of it but evil tempers. Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving remembrance of his tenderness was a force withihat would enable her to do or bear anything for his sake.
Tom was a little shocked at Maggies outburst - telling him as well as his mother what it was right to do! She ought to have learned better than have those hect, assuming manners by this time. But he presently went into his fathers room and the sight there touched him in a way that effaced the slighter impressions of the previous hour. When Maggie saw how he was moved, she went to him and put her arm round his neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children fot everything else in the sehat they had oher and one sorrow.
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