Chapter X
The Spell Seems Broken
The suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House looked dulybrilliant with lights and flowers and the personal splendors ofsixteen couples, with attendant parents and guardians. The focus ofbrilliancy was the long drawing-room, where the dancing went forward,under the inspiration of the grand piano; the library, into which itopened at one end, had the more sober illumination of maturity, withcaps and cards; and at the other end the pretty sitting-room, with aconservatory attached, was left as an occasional cool retreat. Lucy,who had laid aside her black for the first time, and had her prettyslimness set off by an abundant dress of white crape, was theacknowledged queen of the occasion for this was one of the MissGuests' thoroughly condescending parties, including no member of anyaristocracy higher than that of St. Ogg's, and stretching to theextreme limits of commercial and professional gentility.
Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgotten allthe figures--it was so many years since she had danced at school; andshe was glad to have that excuse, for it is ill dancing with a heavyheart. But at length the music wrought in her young limbs, and thelonging came; even though it was the horrible young Torry, who walkedup a second time to try and persuade her. She warned him that shecould not dance anything but a country-dance; but he, of course, waswilling to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to becomplimentary when he assured her at several intervals that it was a”great bore” that she couldn't waltz, he would have liked so much towaltz with her. But at last it was the turn of the good old-fashioneddance which has the least of vanity and the most of merriment in it,and Maggie quite forgot her troublous life in a childlike enjoyment ofthat half-rustic rhythm which seems to banish pretentious etiquette.She felt quite charitably toward young Torry, as his hand bore heralong and held her up in the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fireof young joy in them which will flame out if it can find the leastbreath to fan it; and her simple black dress, with its bit of blacklace, seemed like the dim setting of a jewel.
Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid her more thana passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward vision of her whichperpetually made part of his consciousness, had been half screened bythe image of Philip Wakem, which came across it like a blot; there wassome attachment between her and Philip; at least there was anattachment on his side, which made her feel in some bondage. Here,then, Stephen told himself, was another claim of honor which called onhim to resist the attraction that was continually threatening tooverpower him. He told himself so; and yet he had once or twice felt acertain savage resistance, and at another moment a shudderingrepugnance, to this intrusion of Philip's image, which almost made ita new incitement to rush toward Maggie and claim her for himself.Nevertheless, he had done what he meant to do this evening,--he hadkept aloof from her; he had hardly looked at her; and he had beengayly assiduous to Lucy. But now his eyes were devouring Maggie; hefelt inclined to kick young Torry out of the dance, and take hisplace. Then he wanted the dance to end that he might get rid of hispartner. The possibility that he too should dance with Maggie, andhave her hand in his so long, was beginning to possess him like athirst. But even now their hands were meeting in the dance,--weremeeting still to the very end of it, though they were far off eachother.
Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic way he gotthrough the duties of politeness in the interval, until he was freeand saw Maggie seated alone again, at the farther end of the room. Hemade his way toward her round the couples that were forming for thewaltz; and when Maggie became conscious that she was the person hesought, she felt, in spite of all the thoughts that had gone before, aglowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still brightenedwith her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set tojoy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter,--shewas ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this momentseemed a keen, vibrating consciousness poised above pleasure or pain.This one, this last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in thewarmth of the present, without those chill, eating thoughts of thepast and the future.
”They're going to waltz again,” said Stephen, bending to speak to her,with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness which young dreamscreate to themselves in the summer woods when low, cooing voices fillthe air. Such glances and tones bring the breath of poetry with theminto a room that is half stifling with glaring gas and hardflirtation.
”They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work to look on,and the room is very warm; shall we walk about a little?”
He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they walked on intothe sitting-room, where the tables were strewn with engravings for theaccommodation of visitors who would not want to look at them. But novisitors were here at this moment. They passed on into theconservatory.
”How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with the lightsamong them!” said Maggie, in a low voice. ”They look as if theybelonged to an enchanted land, and would never fade away; I couldfancy they were all made of jewels.”
She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, and Stephenmade no answer; but he was looking at her; and does not a supreme poetblend light and sound into one, calling darkness mute, and lighteloquent? Something strangely powerful there was in the light ofStephen's long gaze, for it made Maggie's face turn toward it and lookupward at it, slowly, like a flower at the ascending brightness. Andthey walked unsteadily on, without feeling that they were walking;without feeling anything but that long, grave, mutual gaze which hasthe solemnity belonging to all deep human passion. The hoveringthought that they must and would renounce each other made this momentof mute confession more intense in its rapture.
But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were obliged topause and turn. The change of movement brought a new consciousness toMaggie; she blushed deeply, turned away her head, and drew her armfrom Stephen's, going up to some flowers to smell them. Stephen stoodmotionless, and still pale.
”Oh, may I get this rose?” said Maggie, making a great effort to saysomething, and dissipate the burning sense of irretrievableconfession. ”I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gatherthem and smell them till they have no scent left.”
Stephen was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence together, andMaggie bent her arm a little upward toward the large half-opened rosethat had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm?The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpledelbow, and all the varied gently lessening curves, down to thedelicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in thefirm softness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor twothousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for theParthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the timewornmarble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such an arm as that, and ithad the warm tints of life.
A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted toward the arm, andshowered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.
But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at himlike a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation.
”How dare you?” She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice.”What right have I given you to insult me?”
She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on thesofa, panting and trembling.
A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of allowing amoment's happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to Philip, to her ownbetter soul. That momentary happiness had been smitten with a blight,a leprosy; Stephen thought more lightly of _her_ than he did of Lucy.
As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of theconservatory, dizzy with the conflict of passions,--love, rage, andconfused despair; despair at his want of self-mastery, and despairthat he had offended Maggie.
The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side again andentreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motivefor him, and she had not been seated more than a few minutes when hecame and stood humbly before her. But Maggie's bitter rage wasunspent.
”Leave me to myself, if you please,” she said, with impetuoushaughtiness, ”and for the future avoid me.”
Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at the other endof the room. There was the dire necessity of going back into thedancing-room again, and he was beginning to be conscious of that. Theyhad been absent so short a time, that when he went in again the waltzwas not ended.
Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the pride of hernature was stung into activity; the hateful weakness which had draggedher within reach of this wound to her self-respect had at leastwrought its own cure. The thoughts and temptations of the last monthshould all be flung away into an unvisited chamber of memory. Therewas nothing to allure her now; duty would be easy, and all the oldcalm purposes would reign peacefully once more. She re-entered thedrawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face, but witha sense of proud self-command that defied anything to agitate her. Sherefused to dance again, but she talked quite readily and calmly withevery one who addressed her. And when they got home that night, shekissed Lucy with a free heart, almost exulting in this scorchingmoment, which had delivered her from the possibility of another wordor look that would have the stamp of treachery toward that gentle,unsuspicious sister.
The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so soon as shehad expected. Her mother was to accompany her in the carriage, andhousehold business could not be dispatched hastily by Mrs. Tulliver.So Maggie, who had been in a hurry to prepare herself, had to sitwaiting, equipped for the drive, in the garden. Lucy was busy in thehouse wrapping up some bazaar presents for the younger ones at Basset,and when there was a loud ring at the door-bell, Maggie felt somealarm lest Lucy should bring out Stephen to her; it was sure to beStephen.
But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone, and seatedhimself by her on the garden-chair. It was not Stephen.
”We can just catch the tips of the Scotch firs, Maggie, from thisseat,” said Philip.
They had taken each other's hands in silence, but Maggie had looked athim with a more complete revival of the old childlike affectionatesmile than he had seen before, and he felt encouraged.
”Yes,” she said, ”I often look at them, and wish I could see the lowsunlight on the stems again. But I have never been that way butonce,--to the churchyard with my mother.”
”I have been there, I go there, continually,” said Philip. ”I havenothing but the past to live upon.”
A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to put her hand inPhilip's. They had so often walked hand in hand!
”I remember all the spots,” she said,--”just where you told me ofparticular things, beautiful stories that I had never heard ofbefore.”
”You will go there again soon, won't you, Maggie?” said Philip,getting timid. ”The Mill will soon be your brother's home again.”
”Yes; but I shall not be there,” said Maggie. ”I shall only hear ofthat happiness. I am going away again; Lucy has not told you,perhaps?”
”Then the future will never join on to the past again, Maggie? Thatbook is quite closed?”
The gray eyes that had so often looked up at her with entreatingworship, looked up at her now, with a last struggling ray of hope inthem, and Maggie met them with her large sincere gaze.
”That book never will be closed, Philip,” she said, with gravesadness; ”I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. Butthe tie to my brother is one of the strongest. I can do nothingwillingly that will divide me always from him.”
”Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever, Maggie?”said Philip, with a desperate determination to have a definite answer.
”The only reason,” said Maggie, with calm decision. And she believedit. At that moment she felt as if the enchanted cup had been dashed tothe ground. The reactionary excitement that gave her a proudself-mastery had not subsided, and she looked at the future with asense of calm choice.
They sat hand in hand without looking at each other or speaking for afew minutes; in Maggie's mind the first scenes of love and partingwere more present than the actual moment, and she was looking atPhilip in the Red Deeps.
Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy in that answerof hers; she was as open and transparent as a rock-pool. Why was henot thoroughly happy? Jealousy is never satisfied with anything shortof an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.