The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot [books to read to increase intelligence .txt] 📗

“I don’t wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said exactly what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in.”

“If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I laid my hand on the Bible. I don’t require that to bind me.”

“Do what I require,” said Tom. “I can’t trust you, Maggie. There is no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible, and say, ‘I renounce all private speech and intercourse with Philip Wakem from this time forth.’ Else you will bring shame on us all, and grief on my father; and what is the use of my exerting myself and giving up everything else for the sake of paying my father’s debts, if you are to bring madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and hold up his head once more?”

“Oh, Tom, will the debts be paid soon?” said Maggie, clasping her hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness.

“If things turn out as I expect,” said Tom. “But,” he added, his voice trembling with indignation, “while I have been contriving and working that my father may have some peace of mind before he dies,—working for the respectability of our family,—you have done all you can to destroy both.”

Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable, and in her self-blame she justified her brother.

“Tom,” she said in a low voice, “it was wrong of me; but I was so lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think enmity and hatred are wicked.”

“Nonsense!” said Tom. “Your duty was clear enough. Say no more; but promise, in the words I told you.”

“I must speak to Philip once more.”

“You will go with me now and speak to him.”

“I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on the Bible if you like.”

“Say it, then.”

Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the promise. Tom closed the book, and said, “Now let us go.”

Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was suffering in anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer, and dreading the galling words that would fall on him from Tom’s lips; but she felt it was in vain to attempt anything but submission. Tom had his terrible clutch on her conscience and her deepest dread; she writhed under the demonstrable truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and yet her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its incompleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indignation diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of an old boyish repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity was concerned in the bitter severity of the words by which he meant to do the duty of a son and a brother. Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he would have had nothing to do with them.

Maggie’s only hope was that something might, for the first time, have prevented Philip from coming. Then there would be delay,—then she might get Tom’s permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double violence when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment of suspense, she thought; Philip always met her soon after she got beyond them. But they passed across the more open green space, and entered the narrow bushy path by the mound. Another turning, and they came so close upon him that both Tom and Philip stopped suddenly within a yard of each other. There was a moment’s silence, in which Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie’s face. He saw an answer there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of the large eyes. Her imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an immediate impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble Philip bodily, crushing him and trampling on him.

“Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentleman, sir?” Tom said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as Philip’s eyes were turned on him again.

“What do you mean?” answered Philip, haughtily.

“Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you, and I’ll tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young girl’s foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings with you. I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has a good and honest name to support.”

“I deny that,” interrupted Philip, impetuously. “I could never trifle with anything that affected your sister’s happiness. She is dearer to me than she is to you; I honor her more than you can ever honor her; I would give up my life to her.”

“Don’t talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend that you didn’t know it would be injurious to her to meet you here week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when neither her father nor your father would ever consent to a marriage between you? And you,—you to try and worm yourself into the affections of a handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut out from the world by her father’s misfortunes! That’s your crooked notion of honor, is it? I call it base treachery; I call it taking advantage of circumstances to win what’s too good for you,—what you’d never get by fair means.”

“It is manly of you to talk in this way to me,” said Philip, bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. “Giants have an immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. You are incapable even of understanding what I feel for your sister. I feel so much for her that I could even desire to be at friendship with you.”

“I should be very sorry to understand your feelings,” said Tom, with scorching contempt. “What I wish is that you should understand me,—that I shall take care of my sister, and that if you dare to make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, miserable body, that ought to have put some modesty into your mind, shall not protect you. I’ll thrash you; I’ll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn’t laugh at the idea of your turning lover to a fine girl?”

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a convulsed voice.

“Stay, Maggie!” said Philip, making a strong effort to speak. Then looking at Tom, “You have dragged your sister here, I suppose, that she may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These naturally seemed to you the right means to influence me. But you are mistaken. Let your sister speak. If she says she is bound to give me up, I shall abide by her wishes to the slightest word.”

“It was for my father’s sake, Philip,” said Maggie, imploringly. “Tom threatens to tell my father, and he couldn’t bear it; I have promised, I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my brother’s knowledge.”

“It is enough, Maggie. I shall not change; but I wish you to hold yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek for anything but good to what belongs to you.”

“Yes,” said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip’s, “you can talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did you seek her good before?”

“I did,—at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend for life,—who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her affections on.”

“Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I’ll tell you what is my way. I’ll save her from disobeying and disgracing her father; I’ll save her from throwing herself away on you,—from making herself a laughing-stock,—from being flouted by a man like your father, because she’s not good enough for his son. You know well enough what sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her. I’m not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean. Come away, Maggie.”

He seized Maggie’s right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then hurried away.

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the scene of action. At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance.

“Don’t suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure you yourself are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your own petty aims.”

“Certainly,” said Tom, coolly. “I don’t see that your conduct is better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip Wakem’s conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known? Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I’ve succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any one else?”

“I don’t want to defend myself,” said Maggie, still with vehemence: “I know I’ve been wrong,—often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be the better for, if you had them. If you were in fault ever, if you had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you have always enjoyed punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel to me; even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving me. You have no pity; you have no sense of your own imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not fitting for a mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee. You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!”

“Well,” said Tom, with cold scorn, “if your feelings are so much better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by conduct that’s likely to disgrace us all,—than by ridiculous flights first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how have you shown your love, that you talk of, either to me or my father? By disobeying and deceiving us. I have a different way of showing my affection.”

“Because you are a