Philip coloured. He had meant to imply, would she love him as well in spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly he winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.
"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I"m very fond of you."
"But you"ll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, and then you"ll forget all about me, and not care for me any more."
"Oh, no, I shan"t forget you, I"m sure." And Maggie put her arm round his neck, and kissed him quite earnestly.
_III.--The Downfall_
When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and expensive law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver, ended in defeat. Wakem was his opponent"s lawyer.
Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off his horse, and knew n.o.body, and seemed to have lost his senses.
"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
said Maggie, on their way home from King"s Lorton. "It was the letter with that news in it that made father ill, they think."
"I believe that scoundrel"s been planning all along to ruin my father,"
said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
"I"ll make him feel for it when I"m a man. Mind you never speak to Philip again!"
For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came to him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent events.
The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction; but the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed, when Mr. Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more able to be up and about, it was proposed that he should remain and accept employment as manager of the mill for Mr. Wakem.
It was with difficulty that poor Tulliver could bring himself to accept the situation, but he saw the possibility, by much pinching, of saving money out of the thirty shillings a week salary promised by Wakem, and paying a second dividend to his creditors. The strongest influence of all was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was a boy, just as Tom had done after him.
Tom, who had at once applied to his Uncle Deane, partner in a wealthy merchant"s business, for work, and was now earning a pound a week, had protested against entertaining the proposition; he shouldn"t like his father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look nothing but mean spirited.
But Mr. Tulliver had come to a decision. The first evening of his new life downstairs, he called his family round him, and began to speak, looking first at his wife.
"I"ve made up my mind, Bessy. I"ll stop in the old place, and I"ll serve under Wakem, and I"ll serve him like an honest man; there"s no Tulliver but what"s honest, mind that, Tom. They"ll have it to throw up against me as I paid a dividend--but it wasn"t my fault--it was because there"s raskills in the world. They"ve been too many for me, and I must give in.
But I"ll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill. I"m an honest man, though I shall never hold my head up no more! I"m a tree as is broke--a tree as is broke."
He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he said, in a louder yet deeper tone, "But I won"t forgive him! I know what they say--he never meant me any harm! I shouldn"t ha" gone to law they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitrating and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing to him--I know that he"s one o" them fine gentlemen as get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he"s made beggars of "em he"ll give "em charity. I won"t forgive him! I wish he might be punished with shame till his own son "ud like to forget him.
And you mind this, Tom--you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to be my son. Now write--write it i" the Bible!"
"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie. "It"s wicked to curse and bear malice."
"It isn"t wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It"s wicked as the raskills should prosper--it"s the devil"s doing. Do as I tell you, Tom! Write."
The big Bible was open at the beginning, where many family entries were put down.
"What am I to write, father?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.
"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem, the man as had helped to ruin him, because I"d promised my wife to make her what amends I could, and because I wanted to die in th" old place where I was born, and my father was born. Put that i" the right words--you know how--and then write as I don"t forgive Wakem for all that; and for all I"ll serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him.
Write that."
There was a dead silence as Tom"s pen moved along the paper.
"Now let me hear what you"ve wrote," said Mr. Tulliver; and Tom read aloud, slowly.
"Now, write--write as you"ll remember what Wakem"s done to your father, and you"ll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign your name--Thomas Tulliver!"
"Oh, no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, trembling like a leaf. "You shouldn"t make Tom write that!"
"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom, impatiently, "I shall write it!"
_IV.--In Death They Were Not Divided_
The Red Deeps was always a favourite place to Maggie to walk in. An old stone quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now clothed with brambles and trees, and with here and there a stretch of gra.s.s which a few sheep kept close nibbled. This was the Red Deeps, and it was here in June that Maggie once more met Philip Wakem, five years after their first meeting at Mr. Stelling"s. He told her that she was much more beautiful than he had thought she would be, and a.s.sured her, in answer to the difficulties she raised as to their meeting, that there was no enmity in his father"s mind.
And Maggie went home with an inward conflict already begun, and Philip went home to do nothing but remember and hope.
In the following April they met again, after Philip had been abroad.
And now he took her hand, and asked her the simple question, "_Do_ you love me?"
"I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I love you for," Maggie answered. But she pointed out how impossible even their friendship was, if it were discovered.
Philip, on his side, refused to give up hope, and before they parted that day she had kissed him.
Tom intervened before the next visit to the Red Deeps. He had heard that Philip Wakem had been seen there with his sister, and Maggie admitted, on his questioning her, that she had told Philip that she loved him.
"Now, then, Maggie," Tom said coldly, "there are but two courses for you to take. Either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on father"s Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in private to Philip Wakem, or you refuse and I tell my father everything!"
In vain Maggie pleaded. Tom was obdurate, and she repeated the words of renunciation.
But that was not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking a mean, unmanly advantage.
"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."
Tom only replied with angry contempt, and led Maggie away. All his sister"s remonstrances he answered with cold obstinacy.
For his character in its strength was hard. Tom had laboured to one end in these years: to pay off his father"s creditors, and regain Dorlcote Mill. By his industry, and by some successful private ventures in trade, the day came when the first of the objects was realised, and Mr.
Tulliver lived to see himself free of debt.
But Mr. Tulliver"s satisfaction was short-lived. Excited by the dinner given to celebrate the payment of his creditors, he met Mr. Wakem near the mill. From angry words it came to blows, and Tulliver fell on the lawyer furiously, only ceasing from attack when Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver appeared. Wakem went off without serious injury, but Tulliver only lived through the night; the excitement had killed him.
"You must take care of her, Tom," said the dying man, turning to his daughter. "You"ll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother and me can lie together? This world"s...too many...honest man..."
At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver"s dimly lighted soul had ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world.