I—lo-lo-love you so, Tom.”
“But you’re a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I’d set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing.”
“But I didn’t mean,” said Maggie; “I couldn’t help it.”
“Yes, you could,” said Tom, “if you’d minded what you were doing. And you’re a naughty girl, and you sha’n’t go fishing with me to-morrow.”
With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.
Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two; then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she sat on the floor and laid her head against the worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she should be; and now he was cruel to her. What use was anything if Tom didn’t love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn’t she wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to Tom—had never meant to be naughty to him.
“Oh, he is cruel!” Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to be angry.
These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.
Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself—hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night—and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea that they didn’t mind her being there. If she went down again to Tom now—would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No, she would never go down if Tom didn’t come to fetch her. This resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the tub; but then the need of being loved—the strongest need in poor Maggie’s nature—began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but just then she heard a quick foot-step on the stairs.
Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the round of the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and whittling sticks without any particular reason—except that he didn’t whittle sticks at school—to think of Maggie and the effect his anger had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a practical person. But when he had been called in to tea, his father said, “Why, where’s the little wench?” and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at the same moment, said, “Where’s your little sister?”—both of them having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together all the afternoon.
“I don’t know,” said Tom. He didn’t want to “tell” of Maggie, though he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honour.
“What! hasn’t she been playing with you all this while?” said the father. “She’d been thinking o’ nothing but your coming home.”
“I haven’t seen her this two hours,” says Tom, commencing on the plumcake.
“Goodness heart; she’s got drownded!” exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising from her seat and running to the window.
“How could you let her do so?” she added, as became a fearful woman, accusing she didn’t know whom of she didn’t know what.
“Nay, nay, she’s none drownded,” said Mr. Tulliver. “You’ve been naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?”
“I’m sure I haven’t, father,” said Tom, indignantly. “I think she’s in the house.”
“Perhaps up in that attic,” said Mrs. Tulliver, “a-singing and talking to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times.”
“You go and fetch her down, Tom,” said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply—his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making him suspect that the lad had been hard upon “the little un,” else she would never have left his side. “And be good to her, do you hear? Else I’ll let you know better.”
Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man, and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand; but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve Maggie’s punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one point—namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it. Why, he wouldn’t have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; but, then, he never did deserve it.
It was Tom’s step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to beg for pity. At least her father would stroke her head and say, “Never mind, my wench.” It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love—this hunger of the heart—as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the world.
But she knew Tom’s step, and her heart began to beat violently with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs and said, “Maggie, you’re to come down.” But she rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, “Oh, Tom, please forgive me—I can’t bear it—I will always be good—always remember things—do love me—please, dear Tom!”
We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behaviour to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilised society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie’s fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved. He actually began to kiss her in return, and say—
“Don’t cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o’ cake.”
Maggie’s sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they ate together and rubbed each other’s cheeks and brows and noses together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies.
“Come along, Magsie, and have tea,” said Tom at last, when there was no more cake except what was down-stairs.
So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Maggie was trotting with her own fishing-rod in one hand and a handle of the basket in the other, stepping always, by a peculiar gift, in the muddiest places, and looking darkly radiant from under her beaver-bonnet because Tom was good to her. She had told Tom,
