The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot [rocket ebook reader txt] 📗

for an instant, like a lovely wild animal timid and struggling under caresses, and then turned sharp round toward home again.

“And after all,” he went on, in an impatient tone, trying to defeat his own scruples as well as hers, “I am breaking no positive engagement; if Lucy’s affections had been withdrawn from me and given to someone else, I should have felt no right to assert a claim on her. If you are not absolutely pledged to Philip, we are neither of us bound.”

“You don’t believe that; it is not your real feeling,” said Maggie, earnestly. “You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the feelings and expectations we have raised in other minds. Else all pledges might be broken, when there was no outward penalty. There would be no such thing as faithfulness.”

Stephen was silent; he could not pursue that argument; the opposite conviction had wrought in him too strongly through his previous time of struggle. But it soon presented itself in a new form.

“The pledge can’t be fulfilled,” he said, with impetuous insistence. “It is unnatural; we can only pretend to give ourselves to anyone else. There is wrong in that too; there may be misery in it for them as well as for us. Maggie, you must see that; you do see that.”

He was looking eagerly at her face for the least sign of compliance; his large, firm, gentle grasp was on her hand. She was silent for a few moments, with her eyes fixed on the ground; then she drew a deep breath, and said, looking up at him with solemn sadness⁠—

“Oh, it is difficult⁠—life is very difficult! It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling; but then, such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us⁠—the ties that have made others dependent on us⁠—and would cut them in two. If life were quite easy and simple, as it might have been in Paradise, and we could always see that one being first toward whom⁠—I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love comes, love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each other. But I see⁠—I feel it is not so now; there are things we must renounce in life; some of us must resign love. Many things are difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing quite clearly⁠—that I must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by sacrificing others. Love is natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and memory are natural too. And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them. I should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love would be poisoned. Don’t urge me; help me⁠—help me, because I love you.”

Maggie had become more and more earnest as she went on; her face had become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of appealing love. Stephen had the fibre of nobleness in him that vibrated to her appeal; but in the same moment⁠—how could it be otherwise?⁠—that pleading beauty gained new power over him.

“Dearest,” he said, in scarcely more than a whisper, while his arm stole round her, “I’ll do, I’ll bear anything you wish. But⁠—one kiss⁠—one⁠—the last⁠—before we part.”

One kiss, and then a long look, until Maggie said tremulously, “Let me go⁠—let me make haste back.”

She hurried along, and not another word was spoken. Stephen stood still and beckoned when they came within sight of Willy and the horse, and Maggie went on through the gate. Mrs. Moss was standing alone at the door of the old porch; she had sent all the cousins in, with kind thoughtfulness. It might be a joyful thing that Maggie had a rich and handsome lover, but she would naturally feel embarrassed at coming in again; and it might not be joyful. In either case Mrs. Moss waited anxiously to receive Maggie by herself. The speaking face told plainly enough that, if there was joy, it was of a very agitating, dubious sort.

“Sit down here a bit, my dear.” She drew Maggie into the porch, and sat down on the bench by her; there was no privacy in the house.

“Oh, aunt Gritty, I’m very wretched! I wish I could have died when I was fifteen. It seemed so easy to give things up then; it is so hard now.”

The poor child threw her arms round her aunt’s neck, and fell into long, deep sobs.

XII A Family Party

Maggie left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week, and went to Garum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Pullet according to agreement. In the meantime very unexpected things had happened, and there was to be a family party at Garum to discuss and celebrate a change in the fortunes of the Tullivers, which was likely finally to carry away the shadow of their demerits like the last limb of an eclipse, and cause their hitherto obscured virtues to shine forth in full-rounded splendor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come into office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of high appreciation and full-blown eulogy; in many respectable families throughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable meet with a similar cordiality of recognition, which in its fine freedom from the coercion of any antecedents, suggests the hopeful possibility that we may some day without any notice find ourselves in full millennium, with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longer show their teeth with any but the blandest intentions.

Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg; for she longed to have some undisturbed talk with Maggie about the wonderful news. It seemed, did it not? said Lucy, with her prettiest air of wisdom, as if everything, even other people’s misfortunes (poor creatures!) were conspiring now to make poor dear aunt Tulliver, and cousin Tom,