The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot [books to read to increase intelligence .txt] 📗
- Author: George Eliot
- Performer: 0141439629
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Tom knew that the affair his uncle had to speak of was not urgent; Mr. Deane was too shrewd and practical a man to allow either his reminiscences or his snuff to impede the progress of trade. Indeed, for the last month or two, there had been hints thrown out to Tom which enabled him to guess that he was going to hear some proposition for his own benefit. With the beginning of the last speech he had stretched out his legs, thrust his hands in his pockets, and prepared himself for some introductory diffuseness, tending to show that Mr. Deane had succeeded by his own merit, and that what he had to say to young men in general was, that if they didn’t succeed too it was because of their own demerit. He was rather surprised, then, when his uncle put a direct question to him.
“Let me see,—it’s going on for seven years now since you applied to me for a situation, eh, Tom?”
“Yes, sir; I’m three-and-twenty now,” said Tom.
“Ah, it’s as well not to say that, though; for you’d pass for a good deal older, and age tells well in business. I remember your coming very well; I remember I saw there was some pluck in you, and that was what made me give you encouragement. And I’m happy to say I was right; I’m not often deceived. I was naturally a little shy at pushing my nephew, but I’m happy to say you’ve done me credit, sir; and if I’d had a son o’ my own, I shouldn’t have been sorry to see him like you.”
Mr. Deane tapped his box and opened it again, repeating in a tone of some feeling, “No, I shouldn’t have been sorry to see him like you.”
“I’m very glad I’ve given you satisfaction, sir; I’ve done my best,” said Tom, in his proud, independent way.
“Yes, Tom, you’ve given me satisfaction. I don’t speak of your conduct as a son; though that weighs with me in my opinion of you. But what I have to do with, as a partner in our firm, is the qualities you’ve shown as a man o’ business. Ours is a fine business,—a splendid concern, sir,—and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t go on growing; there’s a growing capital, and growing outlets for it; but there’s another thing that’s wanted for the prosperity of every concern, large or small, and that’s men to conduct it,—men of the right habits; none o’ your flashy fellows, but such as are to be depended on. Now this is what Mr. Guest and I see clear enough. Three years ago we took Gell into the concern; we gave him a share in the oil-mill. And why? Why, because Gell was a fellow whose services were worth a premium. So it will always be, sir. So it was with me. And though Gell is pretty near ten years older than you, there are other points in your favor.”
Tom was getting a little nervous as Mr. Deane went on speaking; he was conscious of something he had in his mind to say, which might not be agreeable to his uncle, simply because it was a new suggestion rather than an acceptance of the proposition he foresaw.
“It stands to reason,” Mr. Deane went on, when he had finished his new pinch, “that your being my nephew weighs in your favor; but I don’t deny that if you’d been no relation of mine at all, your conduct in that affair of Pelley’s bank would have led Mr. Guest and myself to make some acknowledgment of the service you’ve been to us; and, backed by your general conduct and business ability, it has made us determine on giving you a share in the business,—a share which we shall be glad to increase as the years go on. We think that’ll be better, on all grounds, than raising your salary. It’ll give you more importance, and prepare you better for taking some of the anxiety off my shoulders by and by. I’m equal to a good deal o’ work at present, thank God; but I’m getting older,—there’s no denying that. I told Mr. Guest I would open the subject to you; and when you come back from this northern business, we can go into particulars. This is a great stride for a young fellow of three-and-twenty, but I’m bound to say you’ve deserved it.”
“I’m very grateful to Mr. Guest and you, sir; of course I feel the most indebted to you, who first took me into the business, and have taken a good deal of pains with me since.”
Tom spoke with a slight tremor, and paused after he had said this.
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Deane. “I don’t spare pains when I see they’ll be of any use. I gave myself some trouble with Gell, else he wouldn’t have been what he is.”
“But there’s one thing I should like to mention to you uncle. I’ve never spoken to you of it before. If you remember, at the time my father’s property was sold, there was some thought of your firm buying the Mill; I know you thought it would be a very good investment, especially if steam were applied.”
“To be sure, to be sure. But Wakem outbid us; he’d made up his mind to that. He’s rather fond of carrying everything over other people’s heads.”
“Perhaps it’s of no use my mentioning it at present,” Tom went on, “but I wish you to know what I have in my mind about the Mill. I’ve a strong feeling about it. It was my father’s dying wish that I should try and get it back again whenever I could; it was in his family for five generations. I promised my father; and besides that, I’m attached to the place. I shall never like any other so well. And if it should ever suit your views to buy it for the firm, I should have a better chance of fulfilling my father’s wish. I shouldn’t have liked to mention the thing to you, only you’ve been kind enough to say my services have been of some value. And I’d give up a much greater chance in life for the sake of having the Mill again,—I mean having it in my own hands, and gradually working off the price.”
Mr. Deane had listened attentively, and now looked thoughtful.
“I see, I see,” he said, after a while; “the thing would be possible if there were any chance of Wakem’s parting with the property. But that I don’t see. He’s put that young Jetsome in the place; and he had his reasons when he bought it, I’ll be bound.”
“He’s a loose fish, that young Jetsome,” said Tom. “He’s taking to drinking, and they say he’s letting the business go down. Luke told me about it,—our old miller. He says he sha’n’t stay unless there’s an alteration. I was thinking, if things went on that way, Wakem might be more willing to part with the Mill. Luke says he’s getting very sour about the way things are going on.”
“Well, I’ll turn it over, Tom. I must inquire into the matter, and go into it with Mr. Guest. But, you see, it’s rather striking out a new branch, and putting you to that, instead of keeping you where you are, which was what we’d wanted.”
“I should be able to manage more than the Mill when things were once set properly going, sir. I want to have plenty of work. There’s nothing else I care about much.”
There was something rather sad in that speech from a young man of three-and-twenty, even in uncle Deane’s business-loving ears.
“Pooh, pooh! you’ll be having a wife to care about one of these days, if you get on at this pace in the world. But as to this Mill, we mustn’t reckon on our chickens too early. However, I promise you to bear it in mind, and when you come back we’ll talk of it again. I am going to dinner now. Come and breakfast with us tomorrow morning, and say good-bye to your mother and sister before you start.”
It is evident to you now that Maggie had arrived at a moment in her life which must be considered by all prudent persons as a great opportunity for a young woman. Launched into the higher society of St. Ogg’s, with a striking person, which had the advantage of being quite unfamiliar to the majority of beholders, and with such moderate assistance of costume as you have seen foreshadowed in Lucy’s anxious colloquy with aunt Pullet, Maggie was certainly at a new starting-point in life. At Lucy’s first evening party, young Torry fatigued his facial muscles more than usual in order that “the dark-eyed girl there in the corner” might see him in all the additional style conferred by his eyeglass; and several young ladies went home intending to have short sleeves with black lace, and to plait their hair in a broad coronet at the back of their head,—“That cousin of Miss Deane’s looked so very well.” In fact, poor Maggie, with all her inward consciousness of a painful past and her presentiment of a troublous future, was on the way to become an object of some envy,—a topic of discussion in the newly established billiard-room, and between fair friends who had no secrets from each other on the subject of trimmings. The Miss Guests, who associated chiefly on terms of condescension with the families of St. Ogg’s, and were the glass of fashion there, took some exception to Maggie’s manners. She had a way of not assenting at once to the observations current in good society, and of saying that she didn’t know whether those observations were true or not, which gave her an air of gaucherie, and impeded the even flow of conversation; but it is a fact capable of an amiable interpretation that ladies are not the worst disposed toward a new acquaintance of their own sex because she has points of inferiority. And Maggie was so entirely without those pretty airs of coquetry which have the traditional reputation of driving gentlemen to despair that she won some feminine pity for being so ineffective in spite of her beauty. She had not had many advantages, poor thing! and it must be admitted there was no pretension about her; her abruptness and unevenness of manner were plainly the result of her secluded and lowly circumstances. It was only a wonder that there was no tinge of vulgarity about her, considering what the rest of poor Lucy’s relations were—an allusion which always made the Miss Guests shudder a little. It was not agreeable to think of any connection by marriage with such people as the Gleggs and the Pullets; but it was
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