Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (554 page)
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Authors: George Eliot
In a few months the shop in the market-place was again to let, and Mr. David Faux, alias Mr. Edward Freely, had gone — nobody at Grimworth knew whither. In this way the demoralization of Grimworth women was checked. Young Mrs. Steene renewed her efforts to make light mince-pies, and having at last made a batch so excellent that Mr. Steene looked at her with complacency as he ate them, and said they were the best he had ever eaten in his life, she thought less of bulbuls and renegades ever after. The secrets of the finer cookery were revived in the breasts of matronly house-wives, and daughters were again anxious to be initiated in them.
You will further, I hope, be glad to bear, that some purchases of drapery made by pretty Penny, in preparation for her marriage with Mr. Freely, came in quite as well for her wedding with young Towers as if they had been made expressly for the latter occasion. For Penny’s complexion had not altered, and blue always became it best.
Here ends the story of Mr. David Faux, confectioner, and his brother Jacob. And we see in it, I think, an admirable instance of the unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis hides herself.
This shortened version of
The Mill on the Floss
was published separately with colour illustrations to encourage children to read Eliot’s work.
CONTENTS
TOM MUST GO TO SCHOOL.
“What I want, you know,” said Mr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill — “what I want is to give Tom a good eddication. That was what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave th’ academy at Lady Day. I meant to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer.
“The two years at th’ academy ‘ud ha’ done well enough,” the miller went on, “if I’d meant to make a miller and farmer of him like myself. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up to the tricks o’ these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish. It ‘ud be a help to me wi’ these lawsuits and things.”
Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond, comely woman in a fan-shaped cap.
“Well, Mr. Tulliver,” said she, “you know best. But hadn’t I better kill a couple o’ fowl, and have th’ aunts and uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet have got to say about it? There’s a couple o’ fowl
wants
killing!”
“You may kill every fowl i’ the yard if you like, Bessy, but I shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I’m to do wi’ my own lad,” said Mr. Tulliver.
“Dear heart!” said Mrs. Tulliver, “how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? However, if Tom’s to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have calico as linen, for they’d be one as yallow as th’ other before they’d been washed half a dozen times. And then, when the box is goin’ backards and forrards, I could send the lad a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple.”
“Well, well, we won’t send him out o’ reach o’ the carrier’s cart, if other things fit in,” said Mr. Tulliver. “But you mustn’t put a spoke i’ the wheel about the washin’ if we can’t get a school near enough. But it’s an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick.”
Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his pockets, as if he hoped to find some idea there. Then he said, “I know what I’ll do, I’ll talk it over wi’ Riley. He’s coming to-morrow.”
“Well, Mr. Tulliver, I’ve put the sheets out for the best bed, and Kezia’s got ‘em hanging at the fire. They aren’t the best sheets, but they’re good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will.”
As Mrs. Tulliver spoke she drew a bright bunch of keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the clear fire.
“I think I’ve hit it, Bessy,” said Mr. Tulliver, after a short silence. “Riley’s as likely a man as any to know o’ some school; he’s had schooling himself, an’ goes about to all sorts o’ places — auctioneering and vallyin’ and that. I want Tom to be such a sort o’ man as Riley, you know — as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and a good solid knowledge o’ business too.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Tulliver, “so far as talking proper, and knowing everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair up, I shouldn’t mind the lad being brought up to that. But them fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till it’s all a mess, and then hide it with a bib; — I know Riley does. And then, if Tom’s to go and live at Mudport, like Riley, he’ll have a house with a kitchen hardly big enough to turn in, an’ niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an’ sleep up three pair o’ stairs — or four, for what I know — an’ be burnt to death before he can get down.”
“No, no,” said Mr. Tulliver; “I’ve no thoughts of his going to Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg’s, close by us, an’ live at home. I doubt Tom’s a bit slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy.”
“Yes, that he does,” said Mrs. Tulliver; “he’s wonderful for liking a deal o’ salt in his broth. That was my brother’s way, and my father’s before him.”
“It seems a bit of a pity, though,” said Mr. Tulliver, “as the lad should take after the mother’s side instead o’ the little wench. The little un takes after my side, now: she’s twice as ‘cute as Tom.”
“Yes, Mr. Tulliver, and it all runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean pinafore two hours together passes my cunning. An’ now you put me i’ mind,” continued Mrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, “I don’t know where she is now, an’ it’s pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so — there she is, wanderin’ up an’ down by the water, like a wild thing. She’ll tumble in some day.”
Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her head.
“You talk o’ ‘cuteness, Mr. Tulliver,” she said as she sat down; “but I’m sure the child’s very slow i’ some things, for if I send her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she’s gone for.”
“Pooh, nonsense!” said Mr. Tulliver. “She’s a straight, black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see; and she can read almost as well as the parson.”
“But her hair won’t curl, all I can do with it, and she’s so franzy about having it put i’ paper, and I’ve such work as never was to make her stand and have it pinched with th’ irons.”
“Cut it off — cut it off short,” said the father rashly.
“How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? She’s too big a gell — gone nine, and tall of her age — to have her hair cut short. — Maggie, Maggie,” continued the mother, as the child herself entered the room, “where’s the use o’ my telling you to keep away from the water? You’ll tumble in and be drownded some day, and then you’ll be sorry you didn’t do as mother told you.”
Maggie threw off her bonnet. Now, Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a curled crop, had had it cut too short in front to be pushed behind the ears; and as it was usually straight an hour after it had been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly tossing her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming black eyes.
“Oh dear, oh dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin’ of, to throw your bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there’s a good gell, an’ let your hair be brushed, an’ put your other pinafore on, an’ change your shoes — do, for shame; an’ come and go on with your patchwork, like a little lady.”
“O mother,” said Maggie in a very cross tone, “I don’t want to do my patchwork.”
“What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your Aunt Glegg?”
“It’s silly work,” said Maggie, with a toss of her mane — “tearing things to pieces to sew ‘em together again. And I don’t want to sew anything for my Aunt Glegg; I don’t like her.”
Exit Maggie, drawing her bonnet by the string, while Mr. Tulliver laughs audibly.
“I wonder at you as you’ll laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver,” said the mother. “An’ her aunts will have it as it’s
me
spoils her.”
THE CHOICE OF A SCHOOL.
Mr. Riley, who came next day, was a gentleman with a waxen face and fat hands. He talked with his host for some time about the water supply to Dorlcote Mill. Then after a short silence Mr. Tulliver changed the subject.
“There’s a thing I’ve got i’ my head,” said he at last, in rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and looked at his companion.
“Ah!” said Mr. Riley, in a tone of mild interest.
“It’s a very particular thing,” Mr. Tulliver went on; “it’s about my boy Tom.”
At the sound of this name Maggie, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire, with a large book open on her lap, shook her heavy hair back and looked up eagerly.
“You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer,” said Mr. Tulliver. “He’s comin’ away from the ‘cademy at Lady Day, an’ I shall let him run loose for a quarter; but after that I want to send him to a downright good school, where they’ll make a scholard of him.”
“Well,” said Mr. Riley, “there’s no greater advantage you can give him than a good education.”
“I don’t mean Tom to be a miller and farmer,” said Mr. Tulliver; “I see no fun i’ that. Why, if I made him a miller, he’d be expectin’ to take the mill an’ the land, an’ a-hinting at me as it was time for me to lay by. Nay, nay; I’ve seen enough o’ that wi’ sons.”
These words cut Maggie to the quick. Tom was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors! This was not to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang within the fender, and going up between her father’s knees said, in a half-crying, half-angry voice, —
“Father, Tom wouldn’t be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn’t.”
“What! they mustn’t say any harm o’ Tom, eh?” said Mr. Tulliver, looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then he added gently, “Go, go and see after your mother.”
“Did you ever hear the like on’t?” said Mr. Tulliver as Maggie retired. “It’s a pity but what she’d been the lad.”
Mr. Riley laughed, took a pinch of snuff, and said, —
“But your lad’s not stupid, is he?” said Mr. Riley. “I saw him, when I was here last, busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it.”
“Well, he isn’t stupid. He’s got a notion o’ things out o’ door, an’ a sort o’ common sense, and he’ll lay hold o’ things by the right handle. But he’s slow with his tongue, you see, and he reads but poorly, and can’t abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an’ you never hear him say ‘cute things like the little wench. Now, what I want is to send him to a school where they’ll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, and make a smart chap of him.”
“You’re quite in the right of it, Tulliver,” observed Mr. Riley. “Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son’s education than leave it him in your will.”
“I dare say, now, you know of a school as ‘ud be just the thing for Tom,” said Mr. Tulliver.
Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff, and waited a little before he said, —
“I know of a very fine chance for any one that’s got the necessary money, and that’s what you have, Tulliver. But if any one wanted his boy to be placed under a first-rate fellow, I know his man. He’s an Oxford man, and a parson. He’s willing to take one or two boys as pupils to fill up his time. The boys would be quite of the family — the finest thing in the world for them — under Stelling’s eye continually.”
“But do you think they’d give the poor lad twice o’ pudding?” said Mrs. Tulliver, who was now in her place again.
“And what money ‘ud he want?” said Mr. Tulliver.
“Stelling is moderate in his terms; he’s not a grasping man,” said Mr. Riley. “I’ve no doubt he’d take your boy at a hundred. I’ll write to him about it if you like.”
Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet.
“But belike he’s a bachelor,” observed Mrs. Tulliver, “an’ I’ve no opinion o’ house-keepers. It ‘ud break my heart to send Tom where there’s a housekeeper, an’ I hope you won’t think of it, Mr. Tulliver.”
“You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs. Tulliver,” said Mr. Riley, “for Stelling is married to as nice a little woman as any man need wish for a wife. There isn’t a kinder little soul in the world.”
“Father,” broke in Maggie, who had stolen to her father’s elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the chair — “father, is it a long way off where Tom is to go? Shan’t we ever go to see him?”
“I don’t know, my wench,” said the father tenderly. “Ask Mr. Riley; he knows.”
Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and said, “How far is it, please sir?”
“Oh, a long, long way off,” that gentleman answered. “You must borrow the seven-leagued boots to get to him.”
“That’s nonsense!” said Maggie, tossing her head and turning away with the tears springing to her eyes.
“Hush, Maggie, for shame of you, chattering so,” said her mother. “Come and sit down on your little stool, and hold your tongue, do. But,” added Mrs. Tulliver, who had her own alarm awakened, “is it so far off as I couldn’t wash him and mend him?”
“About fifteen miles, that’s all,” said Mr. Riley. “You can drive there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or — Stelling is a kind, pleasant man — he’d be glad to have you stay.”
“But it’s too far off for the linen, I doubt,” said Mrs. Tulliver sadly.