BOOK 7 CHAPTER 1
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The Return to the MillBETWEEN four and five oclo the afternoon of the fifth <s></s>day from that on which Stephen and Maggie had left St Oggs, Tom Tulliver was standing on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlill. He was master there now: he had half fulfilled his fathers dying wish, and by years of steady self-gover and eic work he had brought himself o the attai of more than the old respectability which had been the proud iance of the Dodsons and Tullivers. But Toms face, as he stood i still sunshine of that summer afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its bitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, as he drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the sun, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up and down the gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since Bob Jakin had e ba the steamer from Mudport and put ao all improbable suppositions of an act oer by stating that he had seen her land from a vessel with Mr Stephe. Would the news be that she was married - or robably that she was not married: Toms mind was set to the expectation of the worst that could happen - not death, but disgrace.
As he was walking with his back towards the entrae, and his face towards the rushing mill-stream, a tall dark-eyed figure, that we know well, approached the gate, and paused to look at him, with a fast-beati. Her brother was the human being of whom she had been most afraid, from her childhood upwards - afraid with that fear which springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable - with a mind that we ever mould ourselves upon, ahat we ot eo alienate from us. That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now: but her mind was unswervingly bent o<dfn>９９ｌｉｂ?</dfn>urning to her brother, as the natural refuge that had been given her. In her deep humiliation uhe retrospect of her own weakness - in her anguish at the injury she had inflicted - she almost desired to ehe severity of Toms reproof, to submit in patient sileo that harsh disapproving judgment against which she had so often rebelled: it seemed no more than just to her noas weaker than she was? She craved that outward help to her better purpose which would e from plete, submissive fession - from being in the presence of those whose looks and words would be a refle of her own sce.
Maggie had bee on her bed at York for a day with that prostrating headache which was likely to follow oerrible strain of the previous day and night. There was an expression of physical pain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with her dress so long unged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latch of the gate and walked in - slowly. Tom did not hear the gate - he was just then close upon the r dam; but he presently turned, and lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness seemed to him a firmation of his worst jectures. He paused - trembling and white with disgust and indignation.
Maggie paused too - three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his face - felt it rushing through her fibres: but she must speak.
`Tom-- she began, faintly, `I am e back to you - I am e bae - fe - to tell you everything -
`You will find no home with me, he answered with tremule. `You have disgraced us all - you have disgraced my fathers name. You have been a curse to your best friends. You have been base - deceitful - no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of you for ever. You dont belong to me.
Their mother had e to the door now. She stood paralysed by the double shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Toms words.
`Tom, said Maggie, with more ce, `I am perhaps not so guilty as you believe me to be. I never meant to give way to my feelings. I struggled against them. I was carried too far in the boat to e ba Tuesday. I came back as soon as I could.
`I t believe in you any more, said Tom, gradually passing from the tremulous excitement of the first moment to cold inflexibility. `You have been carrying on a destiion with Stephe - as you did before with another. He went to see you at my aunt Mosss; you walked aloh him in the lanes: you must have behaved as no modest girl would have doo her cousins lover, else <figure></figure>that could never have happehe people at Luckreth saw you pass - you passed all the other places: you knew what you were doing. You have been using Philip Wakem as a s to deceive Lucy - the ki friend you ever had. Go ahe return you have made her: shes ill - uo speak - my mother t go near her, lest she should remind her of you.
Maggie was half stuoo heavily pressed upon by her anguish even to dis any differeween her actual guilt and her brothers accusations - still less to vindicate herself.
`Tom, she said, crushing her hands together under her cloak, in the effort to speak again - `Whatever I have done - I repent it bitterly - I want to make amends - I will endure anything - I want to be kept from doing wrong again.
`What will keep you? said Tom, with cruel bitterness. `Nion - not your natural feelings of gratitude and honour. And he - he would deserve to be shot, if it were not - But you are ten times worse than he is. I loathe your character and your duct. You struggled with your feelings, you say. Yes! I have had feelings tle with - but I quered them. I have had a harder life than you have had; but I have found my fort in doing my duty. But I will san no such character as yours: the world shall know that I feel the differeween right and wrong. If you are in want, I will provide for you - let my mother know. But you shall not e under my roof. It is enough that I have to bear the thought of your disgrace - the sight of you is hateful to me.
Slowly Maggie was turning away, with despair in her heart. But the pohtened mothers move leaped out now, strohan all dread.
`My child! Ill go with you. Youve got a mother.
O the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stri Maggie! More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
Tom turned and walked into the house.
`e in, my child, Mrs Tulliver whispered. `Hell let you stay and sleep in my bed. He wohat, if I ask him.
`No, mother, said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. `I will never go in.
`Then wait for me outside. Ill get ready and e with you.
When his mother appeared with her bo on, Tom came out to her in the passage, and put money into her hands.
`My house is yours, mother, always, he said. `You will e a me know everything you want - you will e bae.
Poor Mrs Tulliver took the mohteo say anything. She had only clear to her the mothers instinct, that she would go with her unhappy child.
Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mothers hand, and they walked a little way in silence.
`Mother, said Maggie, at last, `we will go to Lukes cottage - Luke will take me in. He was very good to me when I was a little girl.
`Hes got no room for us, my dear, now; his wifes got so many children. I dont know where to go, if it isnt to one o your aunts - and I hardly durst, said poor Mrs Tulliver, quite destitute of mental resources in this extremity.
Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,
`Let us go to<s>藏书网</s> Bob Jakins, mother: his wife will have room for us, if they have no other lodger.
So they went on their way to St Oggs - to the old house by the river side.
Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which resisted even the new joy and pride of possessing a two months old baby - quite the liveliest of its age that had ever been born to prince or pa. He would perhaps not so thhly have uood all the dubiousness of Maggies appearah Mr Stephe on the quay at Mudport, if he had not withe effect it produced on Tom, when he went to report it; and sihen, the circumstances whi any case gave a disastrous character to her elopement, had passed beyond the more polite circles of St Oggs and had beatter of on talk, accessible to the grooms and errand boys. So that when he opehe door and saw Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness, he had no questions to ask: except one, which he dared only ask himself - where was Mr Stephe? Bob, for his part, hoped he might be in the warmest department of an asylum uood to exist iher world fentlemen who are likely to be in fallen circumstahere. The lodgings were vat, and both Mrs Jakin the larger and Mrs Jakin the less were ao make all thing fortable for `the old Missis and the young Miss - alas! that she was still `Miss. The ingenious Bob was sorely perplexed as to how this result could have e about - how Mr Stephe could have gone away from her, or could have let her go away from him when he had the ce of keeping her with him. But he was silent, and would not allow his wife to ask him a question; would not present himself in the room, lest it should appear like intrusion and a wish to pry; having the same chivalry towards dark-eyed Maggie, as in the days when he had bought her the memorable present of books.
But after a day or two Mrs Tulliver was goo the Mill again for a few hours to see to Toms household matters. Maggie had wished this: after the first violent outburst of feeling which came as soon as she had no longer any active purpose to fulfil, she was less in need of her mothers presence; she even desired to be aloh her grief. But she had been solitary only a little while in the old sitting-room that looked on the river, when there came a tap at the door, and turning round her sad face as she said, `e in, she saw Bob enter with the baby in his arms, and Mumps at his heels.
`Well go back, if it disturbs you, Miss, said Bob.
`No, said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile.
Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her.
`You see, weve got a little un, Miss, an I wanted you to look at it, an take it in your arms, if youd be so good. For we made free to after you, an it ud be better for your takin a bit o noti it.
Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive the tiny baby, while Mumps s it anxiously to ascertain that this transference was all right. Maggies heart had swelled at this a and speech of Bobs: she knew well enough that it was a way he had chosen to show his sympathy and respect.
`Sit down, Bob, she said presently, a down in silence, finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fashion, refusing to say what he wa to say.
`Bob, she said, after a few moments, looking down at the baby, and holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip from her mind and her fingers, `I have a favour to ask of you.
`Dont you speak so, Miss, said Bob, grasping the skin of Mumpss neck, `if theres anything I do for you, I should look upon it as a days earnings.
`I want you to go to Dr Kenns, and ask to speak to him, and tell him that I am here, and should be very grateful if he would e to me while my mother is away. She will not e back till evening.
`Eh, Miss - Id do it in a minute - it is but a step; but Dr Kenns wife lies dead - shes to be buried tomorrow - died the day I e from Mudport. Its all the more pity she should ha died just now, if you want him. I hardly like to go a-nigh him yet--
`O, no, Bob, said Maggie, `we must let it be - till after a few days, perhaps - when you hear that he is going about again. But perhaps he may be going out of town - to a distance, she added, with a new sense of despondency at this idea.
`Not he, Miss, said Bob. `Hell none go away. He isnt ohem gentlefolks as go to cry at waterin places when their wives die: hes got summat else to do. He looks fine an sharp after the parish - he does. He christehe little un; an he was at me to know what I did of a Sunday, as I didnt e to church. But I told him I o the travel three parts o the Sundays - An then Im so used to bein on my legs, I t sit so long on end - "an lors, sir," says I, "a pa do wi a small lowance o church: it tastes strong," says I; "theres no call to lay it on thick." Eh, Miss, how good the little un is wi you! Its like as if it knowed you: it partly does, Ill be bound - like the birds know the mornin.
Bobs tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted bondage, and might even be in danger of doing more work than was required of it. But the subjects on which he loo be informed were so steep and difficult of approach that his tongue was likely to run on along the level rather than to carry him on that uen road. He felt this, and was silent again for a little while, ruminating mu the possible forms in which he might put a question. At last he said, in a more timid voice than usual,
`Will you give me leave to ask you only ohing, Miss?
Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, `Yes, Bob, if it is about myself - not about any one else.
`Well, Miss, its this: Do you owe anybody a grudge?
`No, not any one, said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. `Why?
`O lors, Miss, said Bob, ping Mumpss neck harder than ever, `I wish you did - an ud tell me - Id leather him till I couldnt see - I would - an the Justice might do what he liked to me arter.
`O Bob, said Maggie, smiling faintly. `Youre a very good friend to me. But I shouldnt like to punish any one, even if theyd done me wrong - Ive done wrong myself too often.
This view of things uzzling to Bob and threw more obscurity than ever over what could possibly have happened between Stephen and Maggie. But further questions would have been too intrusive, even if he could have framed them suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby away again to an expet mother.
`Happen youd like Mumps for pany, Miss, he said, when he had taken the baby again. `Hes rare pany - Mumps is - he knows iverything, an makes no bother about it. If I tell him, hell lie before you an watch you - as still - just as he watches my pack. Youd better let me leave him a bit - hell get fond on you. Lor<tt>.99lib.t>s, its a fihing to hev a dumb brute fond on you; itll stick to you, an make no jaw.
`Yes, do leave him, please, said Maggie. `I think I should like to have Mumps for a friend.
`Mumps, lie down there, said Bob, pointing to a pla front of Maggie, `an niver do you stir till youre spoke to.
Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness, when his master left the room.
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