Chapter III
A Voice from the Past
One afternoon, when the chestnuts were coming into flower, Maggie hadbrought her chair outside the front door, and was seated there with abook on her knees. Her dark eyes had wandered from the book, but theydid not seem to be enjoying the sunshine which pierced the screen ofjasmine on the projecting porch at her right, and threw leafy shadowson her pale round cheek; they seemed rather to be searching forsomething that was not disclosed by the sunshine. It had been a moremiserable day than usual; her father, after a visit of Wakem's had hada paroxysm of rage, in which for some trifling fault he had beaten theboy who served in the mill. Once before, since his illness, he had hada similar paroxysm, in which he had beaten his horse, and the scenehad left a lasting terror in Maggie's mind. The thought had risen,that some time or other he might beat her mother if she happened tospeak in her feeble way at the wrong moment. The keenest of all dreadwith her was lest her father should add to his present misfortune thewretchedness of doing something irretrievably disgraceful. Thebattered school-book of Tom's which she held on her knees could giveher no fortitude under the pressure of that dread; and again and againher eyes had filled with tears, as they wandered vaguely, seeingneither the chestnut-trees, nor the distant horizon, but only futurescenes of home-sorrow.
Suddenly she was roused by the sound of the opening gate and offootsteps on the gravel. It was not Tom who was entering, but a man ina sealskin cap and a blue plush waistcoat, carrying a pack on hisback, and followed closely by a bullterrier of brindled coat anddefiant aspect.
”Oh, Bob, it's you!” said Maggie, starting up with a smile of pleasedrecognition, for there had been no abundance of kind acts to effacethe recollection of Bob's generosity; ”I'm so glad to see you.”
”Thank you, Miss,” said Bob, lifting his cap and showing a delightedface, but immediately relieving himself of some accompanyingembarrassment by looking down at his dog, and saying in a tone ofdisgust, ”Get out wi' you, you thunderin' sawney!”
”My brother is not at home yet, Bob,” said Maggie; ”he is always atSt. Ogg's in the daytime.”
”Well, Miss,” said Bob, ”I should be glad to see Mr. Tom, but thatisn't just what I'm come for,--look here!”
Bob was in the act of depositing his pack on the door-step, and withit a row of small books fastened together with string.
Apparently, however, they were not the object to which he wished tocall Maggie's attention, but rather something which he had carriedunder his arm, wrapped in a red handkerchief.
”See here!” he said again, laying the red parcel on the others andunfolding it; ”you won't think I'm a-makin' too free, Miss, I hope,but I lighted on these books, and I thought they might make up to youa bit for them as you've lost; for I heared you speak o' picturs,--an'as for picturs, _look_ here!”
The opening of the red handkerchief had disclosed a superannuated”Keepsake” and six or seven numbers of a ”Portrait Gallery,” in royaloctavo; and the emphatic request to look referred to a portrait ofGeorge the Fourth in all the majesty of his depressed cranium andvoluminous neckcloth.
”There's all sorts o' genelmen here,” Bob went on, turning over theleaves with some excitement, ”wi' all sorts o' nones,--an' some baldan' some wi' wigs,--Parlament genelmen, I reckon. An' here,” he added,opening the ”Keepsake,”--”_here's_ ladies for you, some wi' curly hairand some wi' smooth, an' some a-smiling wi' their heads o' one side,an' some as if they were goin' to cry,--look here,--a-sittin' on theground out o' door, dressed like the ladies I'n seen get out o' thecarriages at the balls in th' Old Hall there. My eyes! I wonder whatthe chaps wear as go a-courtin' 'em! I sot up till the clock was gonetwelve last night, a-lookin' at 'em,--I did,--till they stared at meout o' the picturs as if they'd know when I spoke to 'em. But, lors! Ishouldn't know what to say to 'em. They'll be more fittin' company foryou, Miss; and the man at the book-stall, he said they bangediverything for picturs; he said they was a fust-rate article.”
”And you've bought them for me, Bob?” said Maggie, deeply touched bythis simple kindness. ”How very, very good of you! But I'm afraid yougave a great deal of money for them.”
”Not me!” said Bob. ”I'd ha' gev three times the money if they'll makeup to you a bit for them as was sold away from you, Miss. For I'nniver forgot how you looked when you fretted about the books bein'gone; it's stuck by me as if it was a pictur hingin' before me. An'when I see'd the book open upo' the stall, wi' the lady lookin' out ofit wi' eyes a bit like your'n when you was frettin',--you'll excuse mytakin' the liberty, Miss,--I thought I'd make free to buy it for you,an' then I bought the books full o' genelmen to match; an' then”--hereBob took up the small stringed packet of books--”I thought you mightlike a bit more print as well as the picturs, an' I got these for asayso,--they're cram-full o' print, an' I thought they'd do no harmcomin' along wi' these bettermost books. An' I hope you won't say menay, an' tell me as you won't have 'em, like Mr. Tom did wi' thesuvreigns.”
”No, indeed, Bob,” said Maggie, ”I'm very thankful to you for thinkingof me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don't think any one ever didsuch a kind thing for me before. I haven't many friends who care forme.”
”Hev a dog, Miss!--they're better friends nor any Christian,” saidBob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with theintention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness intalking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said ofhimself, ”his tongue overrun him” when he began to speak. ”I can'tgive you Mumps, 'cause he'd break his heart to go away from me--eh,Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff?” (Mumps declined to expresshimself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of histail.) ”But I'd get you a pup, Miss, an' welcome.”
”No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn't keep a dog of myown.”
”Eh, that's a pity; else there's a pup,--if you didn't mind about itnot being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show,--anuncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi' her bark nor halfthe chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There'sone chap carries pots,--a poor, low trade as any on the road,--hesays, 'Why Toby's nought but a mongrel; there's nought to look at inher.' But I says to him, 'Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel?There wasn't much pickin' o' _your_ feyther an' mother, to look atyou.' Not but I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't abide to seeone cur grinnin' at another. I wish you good evenin', Miss,” said Bob,abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that histongue was acting in an undisciplined manner.
”Won't you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob?”said Maggie.
”Yes, Miss, thank you--another time. You'll give my duty to him, ifyou please. Eh, he's a fine growed chap, Mr. Tom is; he took togrowin' i' the legs, an' _I_ didn't.”
The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehowgone wrong.
”You don't call Mumps a cur, I suppose?” said Maggie, divining thatany interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master.
”No, Miss, a fine way off that,” said Bob, with pitying smile; ”Mumpsis as fine a cross as you'll see anywhere along the Floss, an' I'nbeen up it wi' the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look athim; but you won't catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much,--he mindshis own business, he does.”
The expression of Mump's face, which seemed to be tolerating thesuperfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatoryof this high praise.
”He looks dreadfully surly,” said Maggie. ”Would he let me pat him?”
”Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does.He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi' gingerbread; he'd smell a thief agood deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to himby th' hour together, when I'm walking i' lone places, and if I'n donea bit o' mischief, I allays tell him. I'n got no secrets but whatMumps knows 'em. He knows about my big thumb, he does.”
”Your big thumb--what's that, Bob?” said Maggie.
”That's what it is, Miss,” said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularlybroad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. ”Ittells i' measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, 'causeit's light for my pack, an' it's dear stuff, you see, so a big thumbtells. I clap my thumb at the end o' the yard and cut o' the hitherside of it, and the old women aren't up to't.”
”But Bob,” said Maggie, looking serious, ”that's cheating; I don'tlike to hear you say that.”
”Don't you, Miss?” said Bob regretfully. ”Then I'm sorry I said it.But I'm so used to talking to Mumps, an' he doesn't mind a bit o'cheating, when it's them skinflint women, as haggle an' haggle, an''ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an' 'ud niver asktheirselves how I got my dinner out on't. I niver cheat anybody asdoesn't want to cheat me, Miss,--lors, I'm a honest chap, I am; only Imust hev a bit o' sport, an' now I don't go wi' th' ferrets, I'n gotno varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you goodevening, Miss.”
”Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And comeagain to see Tom.”
”Yes, Miss,” said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half roundhe said, ”I'll leave off that trick wi' my big thumb, if you don'tthink well on me for it, Miss; but it 'ud be a pity, it would. Icouldn't find another trick so good,--an' what 'ud be the use o'havin' a big thumb? It might as well ha' been narrow.”
Maggie, thus exalted into Bob's exalting Madonna, laughed in spite ofherself; at which her worshipper's blue eyes twinkled too, and underthese favoring auspices he touched his cap and walked away.
The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke's grand dirgeover them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many ayouth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touchso much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with thepack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyedmaiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her nameas he pricked on to the fight.
That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie's face, and perhapsonly made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was toodispirited even to like answering questions about Bob's present ofbooks, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them downthere and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look atthem just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, andthought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers.
Maggie's sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepenedwith the brightness of advancing spring. All the favorite outdoornooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with herparents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with thehome-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Everyaffection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an achingnerve to her. There was no music for her any more,--no piano, noharmonized voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with theirpassionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibrationthrough her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing lefther now but her little collection of school-books, which she turnedover with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were allbarren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with_more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends oflong threads that snapped immediately. And now--without the indirectcharm of school-emulation--Telemaque was mere bran; so were the hard,dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavor in them, nostrength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented withabsorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott's novels and allByron's poems!--then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enoughto dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they werehardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but nodream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of thishard, real life,--the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dullbreakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordidtasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness ofweary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love;the cruel sense that Tom didn't mind what she thought or felt, andthat they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of allpleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others,--shewanted some key that would enable her to understand, and inunderstanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on heryoung heart. If she had been taught ”real learning and wisdom, such asgreat men knew,” she thought she should have held the secrets of life;if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise menknew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sagesand poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, asa general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provisionagainst the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield.
In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgottenTom's school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But shefound the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones whichhad been well thumbed,--the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus,a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich's Logic, and theexasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be aconsiderable step in masculine wisdom,--in that knowledge which mademen contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning foreffectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now andthen rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to seeherself honored for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child,with her soul's hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began tonibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, fillingher vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism,and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding wasquite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or twoshe went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking ofheart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and foundit a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of herearly resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and thenlook off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or tothe reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustledforth on its anxious, awkward flight,--with a startled sense that therelation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remotefor her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and theeager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow,when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fixthemselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill withtears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studieswould all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she faintedunder its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward herfather and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be;toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always bysome thwarting difference,--would flow out over her affections andconscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that itwas not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would bebusy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of somethingless sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man--Walter Scott,perhaps--and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and hewould surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision,her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and,surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would saycomplainingly, ”Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself?” The voicepierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besidesher own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it andforsaking it.
This afternoon, the sight of Bob's cheerful freckled face had givenher discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of thehardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen oflarger wants than others seemed to feel,--that she had to endure thiswide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that wasgreatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been likeBob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who hadsomething to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose,and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her headagainst the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter,and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble asif she had been the only girl in the civilized world of that day whohad come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitablestruggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-wontreasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid upfor the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature andfalse history, with much futile information about Saxon and otherkings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledgeof the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing thehabits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submissionand dependence, becomes religion,--as lonely in her trouble as ifevery other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched overby elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need waskeen and impulse strong.
At last Maggie's eyes glanced down on the books that lay on thewindow-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlesslythe leaves of the ”Portrait Gallery,” but she soon pushed this asideto examine the little row of books tied together with string.”Beauties of the Spectator,” ”Rasselas,” ”Economy of Human Life,””Gregory's Letters,”--she knew the sort of matter that was inside allthese; the ”Christian Year,”--that seemed to be a hymnbook, and shelaid it down again; but _Thomas a Kempis?_--the name had come acrossher in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every oneknows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitaryin the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with somecuriosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and somehand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strongpen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leafto leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: ”Know that the love ofthyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thouseekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy ownwill and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; forin everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there willbe some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which waysoever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; andeverywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt haveinward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest tomount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay theaxe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hiddeninordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthlygood. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost alldependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil beingonce overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace andtranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of themthat have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievouslyafflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest thereforeto call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayestthe easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not littleunto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessedare those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, andlisten not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those earswhich hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but untothe Truth, which teacheth inwardly.”
A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as ifshe had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, tellingof beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. Shewent on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed topoint, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listenwhile a low voice said;
”Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thyrest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things areto be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things passaway, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them,lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all hissubstance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances,yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, heis yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very ferventdevotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is mostnecessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leavehimself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing ofself-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say thesame, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy muchinward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations,and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee,and inordinate love shall die.”
Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to seea sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life thatwould enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublimeheight to be reached without the help of outward things; here wasinsight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirelywithin her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard.It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of aproblem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixingher heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessityof the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility ofshifting the position from which she looked at the gratification ofher own desires,--of taking her stand out of herself, and looking ather own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. Sheread on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues withthe invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of allstrength; returning to it after she had been called away, and readingtill the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of animagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in thedeepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entiredevotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemedto her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long beencraving in vain. She had not perceived--how could she until she hadlived longer?--the inmost truth of the old monk's out-pourings, thatrenunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggiewas still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she hadfound the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, ofmysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ageswas the direct communication of a human soul's belief and experience,and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message.
I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, forwhich you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles tothis day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensivesermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they werebefore. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart'sprompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish,struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teachendurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones.And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs andhuman consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt andsuffered and renounced,--in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown andtonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashionof speech different from ours,--but under the same silent far-offheavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, thesame failures, the same weariness.
In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fallinto a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of goodsociety, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremelymoderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligiblebut such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But thengood society has its claret and its velvet carpets, itsdinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its faery ball-rooms;rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; hasto keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday,and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the besthouses,--how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? Butgood society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of veryexpensive production requiring nothing less than a wide and arduousnational life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, crampingitself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weavingunder more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread oversheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey orchalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This widenational life is based entirely on emphasis,--the emphasis of want,which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenanceof good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in achill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by longcorridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriadsof souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in thisunpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculativeminds,--just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch whenanything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect Frenchsprings excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol,and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but therest require something that good society calls ”enthusiasm,” somethingthat will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes;something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbsache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something,clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignationfor ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and thenthat sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from anexperience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by beingbrought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice thatMaggie, with her girl's face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort anda hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faithfor herself without the aid of established authorities and appointedguides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. Fromwhat you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw someexaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into herself-renunciation her own life was still a drama for her, in whichshe demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity.And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility bybeing excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high aflight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbledin the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plainsewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tinbox, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal ofself-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St. Ogg's,instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could seenothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, inTom's reproof of her for this unnecessary act. ”I don't like _my_sister to do such things,” said Tom, ”_I'll_ take care that the debtsare paid, without your lowering yourself in that way.” Surely therewas some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness andself-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross,overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom's rebuke as one of heroutward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in herlong night-watchings,--to her who had always loved him so; and thenshe strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing.That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment ofegoism,--the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branchesgrow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, andself-blame, where there are no leafy honors to be gathered and worn.
The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich--that wrinkled fruit of thetree of knowledge--had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned herback on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In herfirst ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that shehad risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, shewould have burned them, believing that she would never repent. Sheread so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas aKempis, and the ”Christian Year” (no longer rejected as a”hymn-book”), that they filled her mind with a continual stream ofrhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all natureand life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material forher mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, makingshirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called ”plain,”--byno means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like hada capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mentalwandering.
Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one mighthave been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers,notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yetshone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself asadded loveliness with the gradually enriched color and outline of herblossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort ofpuzzled wonder that Maggie should be ”growing up so good”; it wasamazing that this once ”contrairy” child was become so submissive, sobackward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her workand find her mother's eyes fixed upon her; they were watching andwaiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got someneedful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, browngirl,--the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow heranxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish tohave no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her motherabout her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaitedinto a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashionof those antiquated times.
”Let your mother have that bit o' pleasure, my dear,” said Mrs.Tulliver; ”I'd trouble enough with your hair once.”
So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheertheir long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showeda queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, tolook at herself in the glass. Mrs. Tulliver liked to call the father'sattention to Maggie's hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had abrusk reply to give.
”I knew well enough what she'd be, before now,--it's nothing new tome. But it's a pity she isn't made o' commoner stuff; she'll be thrownaway, I doubt,--there'll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her.”
And Maggie's graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patientlyenough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly whenthey were alone together about trouble being turned into a blessing.He took it all as part of his daughter's goodness, which made hismisfortunes the sadder to him because they damaged her chance in life.In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unsatisfiedvindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings; Mr. Tulliver didnot want spiritual consolation--he wanted to shake off the degradationof debt, and to have his revenge.
Book V
_Wheat and Tares_