`Much the same, thank you, uncle, said Tom, feeling nervous. `But I want to speak to you, please, when youre at liberty.
Their mother came in now, and Maggie rushed away, that her burst of tears, which she felt must come, might not happen till she was safe upstairs. They were very bitter tears: everybody in the world seemed so hard and unkind to Maggie: there was no indulgence, no fondness, such as she imagined when she fashioned the world afresh in her own thoughts. In books there were people who were always agreeable or tender, and delighted to do things that made one happy, and who did not show their kindness by finding fault. The world outside the books was not a happy one, Maggie felt: it seemed to be a world where people behaved the best to those they did not pretend to love and that did not belong to them. And if life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie? Nothing but poverty and the companionship of her mothers narrow griefs - perhaps of her fathers heart-cutting childish dependence. There is no hopelessness so sad as that of early youth, when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long memories, no superadded life in the life of others; though we who look on think lightly of such premature despair, as if our vision of the future lightened the blind sufferers present.
`Thats true: but people dont get much money at anything, my boy, when theyre only sixteen. Youve had a good deal of schooling, however: I suppose youre pretty well up in accounts, eh? You understand book-keeping?
`Yes, yes, you cant do amiss there. But... ah, Spence, youre back again. Well, Tom, theres nothing more to be said just now, I think, and I must go to business again. Goodby. Remember me to your mother.
Poor Tom formed no visions of the distant future as he made his way homeward; he only felt that the present was very hard. It seemed a wrong towards him that his uncle Deane had no confidence in him - did not see at once that he should acquit himself well, which Tom himself was as certain of as of the daylight. Apparently he, Tom Tulliver, was likely to be held of small account in the world, and for the first time he felt a sinking of heart under the sense that he really was very ignorant and could do very little. Who was that enviable young man, that could tell the cubic contents of things in no time, and make suggestions about Swedish bark? Swedish bark! Tom had been used to be so entirely satisfied with himself in spite of his breaking down in a demonstration and construing nunc illas promite vires, as `now promise those men: but now he suddenly felt at a disadvantage, because he knew less than some one else knew. There must be a world of things connected with that Swedish bark, which, if he only knew them, might have helped him to get on. It would have been much easier to make a figure with a spirited horse and a new saddle.
Tom bit his lips hard; he felt as if the tears were rising, and he would rather die than let them.
`In the same way? said Mr Deane, eyeing Tom with quiet deliberation. `There go two or three questions to that, Master Tom. That depends on what sort of article you are to begin with, and whether youve been put into the right mill. But Ill tell you what it is. Your poor father went the wrong way to work in giving you an education. It wasnt my business, and I didnt interfere: but it is as I thought it would be - youve had a sort of learning thats all very well for a young fellow like our Mr Stephen Guest, wholl have nothing to do but sign cheques all his life, and may as well have Latin inside his head as any other sort of stuffing.
`No, Im not harsh, said Tom, with severe decision. `Im always kind to you; and so I shall be: I shall always take care of you. But you must mind what I say.
Mr Deane tapped his box again. He had been led on by pure enthusiasm in his subject and had really forgotten what bearing this retrospective survey had on his listener. He had found occasion for saying the same thing more than once before, and was not distinctly aware that he had not his port wine before him.
`Ah! Thats good, thats good. But, you see, the best hand in the worldll not get you a better place than a copying clerks, if you know nothing of book-keeping - nothing of accounts. And a copying clerks a99lib•net cheap article. But what have you been learning at school, then?
`Well, uncle, said Tom, with a slight complaint in his tone, `thats what I should like to do. Cant I get on in the same way?
`Dear Tom! I was only joking, said Maggie, putting her cheek against his coat sleeve.
`I hope I should never do you any discredit, uncle, said Tom, hurt, as all boys are at the statement of the unpleasant truth that people feel no ground for trusting them. `I care about my own credit too much for that.
`I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some money, said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution.
THE next day, at ten oclock, Tom was on his way to St Oggs, to see his uncle Deane, who was to come home last night, his aunt had said; and Tom had made up his mind that his uncle Deane was the right person to ask for advice about getting some employment. He was in a great way of business; he had not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg; and he had risen in the world on a scale of advancement which accorded with Toms ambition. It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain - one of those mornings when even happy people take refuge in their hopes. And Tom was very unhappy: he felt the humiliation as well as the prospective hardships of his lot with all the keenness of a proud nature; and with all his resolute dutifulness towards his father there mingled an irrepressible indignation against him which gave misfortune the less endurable aspect of a wrong. Since these were the consequences of going to law, his father was really blamable as his aunts and uncles had always said he was; and it was a significant indication of Toms character, that though he thought his aunts ought to do something more for his mother, he felt nothing like Maggies violent resentment against them for showing no eager tenderness and generosity. There were no impulses in Tom that led him to expect what did not present itself to him as a right to be demanded. Why should people give away their money plentifully to those who had not taken care of their own money? Tom saw some justice in severity - and all the more because he had confidence in himself that he should never deserve that just severity. It was very hard upon him that he should be put at this disadvantage in life by his fathers want of prudence, but he was not going to complain and to find fault with people because they did not make everything easy for him. He would ask no one to help him, more than to give him work and pay him for it. Poor Tom was not without his hopes to take refuge in under the chill damp imprisonment of the December fog which seemed only like a part of his home troubles. At sixteen, the mind that has the strongest affinity for fact cannot escape illusion and self-flattery and Tom, in sketching his future had no other guide in arranging his facts, than the suggestions of his own brave self-reliance. Both Mr Glegg and Mr Deane, he knew, had been very poor once: he did not want to save money slowly and retire on a moderate fortune like his uncle Glegg, but he would be like his uncle Deane - get a situation in some great house of business and rise fast. He had scarcely seen anything of his uncle Deane for the last three years - the two families had been getting wider apart, but for this very reason Tom was the more hopeful about applying to him. His uncle Glegg, he felt sure, would never encourage any spirited project, but he had a vague imposing idea of the resources at his uncle Deanes command. He had heard his father say, long ago, how Deane had made himself so valuable to Guest & Co. that they were glad enough to offer him a share in the business: that was what Tom resolved he would do. It was intolerable to think of being poor and looked down upon all ones life. He would provide for his mother and sister, and make every one say that he was a man of high character. He leaped over the years in this way, and in the haste of strong purpose and strong desire, did not see how they would be made up of slow days, hours, and minutes.
`You often think Im conceited, Tom, when I dont mean what I say at all in that way. I dont mean to put myself above you - I know you behaved better than I did yesterday. But you are always so harsh to me, Tom.99lib.net
`Why, let me see, how old are you? said Mr Deane, as he threw himself backward again.
By the time he had crossed the stone bridge over the Floss, and was entering St Oggs, he was thinking that he would buy his fathers mill and land again, when he was rich enough, and improve the house and live there: he should prefer it to any smarter, newer place, and he could keep as many horses and dogs as he liked.
At the Bank Tom was admitted into the private room where his uncle was, immediately after sending in his name. Mr Deane was auditing accounts, but he looked up as Tom entered and, putting out his hand, said, `Well, Tom - nothing fresh the matter at home, I hope? Hows your father?
`Ay, its been a sore chance for you, young man, hasnt it? - this lawsuit turning out against him, said the publican, with a confused beery idea of being good-natured.
Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster
`I hope youll excuse me for troubling you, uncle, said Tom, colouring, but speaking in a tone which, though tremulous, had a certain proud independence in it, `but I thought you were the best person to advise me what to do.
`Stop a bit, stop a bit: we mustnt be in too great a hurry. You must bear in mind, if I put you in a place youre a bit young for, because you happen to be my nephew, I shall be responsible for you. And theres no better reason, you know, than your being my nephew; because it remains to be seen whether youre good for anything.
Toms mouth twitched with a bitter expression as he looked at the fire.
Tom was going to speak, but Mr Deane put up his hand and said--
`Is there any place at liberty that you know of now, uncle, that I should do for? I should like to set to work at once, said Tom, with a slight tremor in his voice.
`But I dont think I could get any money at that for a long while, could I?
With the last words the resentment was rising again.
`A situation? said Mr Deane, and then took his pinch of snuff with elaborate justice to each nostril. Tom thought snuff-taking a most provoking habit.
`Id rather not have any employment of that sort, uncle. I dont like Latin and those things. I dont know what I could do with them unless I went as usher in a school; and I dont know them well enough for that: besides, I would as soon carry a pair of panniers. I dont want to be that sort of person. I should like to enter into some business where I can get on - a manly business, where I should have to look after things and get credit for what I did. And I shall want to keep my mother and sister.
`No, he didnt say that. He didnt quite promise me anything: he seemed to think I couldnt have a very good situation. Im too young.
`But didnt you get on in that way, uncle? said Tom, a little irritated that Mr Deane did not enter more rapidly into his views. `I mean, didnt you rise from one place to another through your abilities and good conduct?
No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the inward, that painful collisions come of it. A girl of no startling appearance, and who will never be a Sappho or a Madame Roland or anything else that the world takes wide note of, may still hold forces within her as the living plant-seed does, which will make a way for themselves, often in a shattering, violent manner.
Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St Oggs, he saw the distant future before him, as he might have seen a tempting stretch of smooth sandy beach beyond a belt of flinty shingles: he was on the grassy bank then, and thought the shingles might soon be passed. But now his feet were on the sharp stones: the belt of shingles had widened, and the stretch of sand had dwindled into narrowness.
`Ah, young gentleman, said Mr Deane, with that tendency to repress youthful hopes which stout and successful men of fifty find one of their easiest duties, `thats sooner said than done - sooner said than done.
`Oh! to turn up his nose at his fathers customers and be a fine gentleman - not much else, I think.
Tom, roused from his dream of the future to a thorough consciousness of the present, made all the greater haste to reach the warehouse offices of Guest & Co. where he expected to find his uncle Deane. But this was Mr Deanes morning at the Bank, a clerk told him, with some contempt for his ignorance: Mr Deane was not to be found in River Street on a Thursday morning.
`Ah? said Mr Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and looking at Tom with new attention. `Let us hear.
`Ah! said the grocer, `I thought I knew his features, like. He takes after his mothers family: she was a Dodson. Hes a fine, straight youth: whats he been brought up to?
`Let me see - your father had some notion of making you an engineer, I think?
Mr Deane paused and looked hard at Tom, who certainly felt some inward struggle before he could reply.
`Well, Tom, said Mr Deane, when they were alone, turning his substantial person a little in his chair, and taking out his snuff-box, `whats the business, my boy, whats the business? Mr Deane, who had heard from his wife what had passed the day before, thought Tom was come to appeal to him for some means of averting the sale.
`Thats well, if you can carry it out. But you must remember, it isnt only laying hold of a rope - you must go on pulling. Its the mistake you lads make that have got nothing either in your brains or your pocket, to think youve got a better start in the world if you stick yourselves in a place where you can keep your coats clean and have the shopwenches take you for fine gentlemen. That wasnt the way I started, young man: when I was sixteen my jacket smelt of tar, and I wasnt afraid of handling cheeses. Thats the reason I can wear good broadcloth now, and have my legs under the same table with the heads of the best firms in St Oggs.
Mr Deane tapped his snuff-box again and screwed up his mouth: he felt in the position of many estimable persons when they had read the New Tariff and found how many commodities were imported of which they knew nothing: like a cautious man of business, he was not going to speak rashly of a raw material in which he had had no experience. But the presumption was, that if it had been good for anything, so successful a man as himself would hardly have been ignorant of it. About Latin he had an opinion, and thought that in case of another war, since people would no longer wear hair powder, it would be well to put a tax upon Latin as luxury much run upon by the higher classes and not telling at all on the ship-owing department. But, for what he knew, the Horae Paulinae might be something less neutral. On the whole, this list of acquirements gave him a sort of repulsion towards poor Tom.
`Youll just step up to Torrys now, Mr Spence, will you? said Mr Deane, and the clock suddenly became less loud and deliberate in Toms ears.
`Stop! hear what Ive got to say. You dont want to be a prentice - I know, I know - you want to make more haste - and you dont want to stand behind a counter. But if youre a copying clerk youll have to stand behind a desk, and stare at your ink and paper all day: there isnt much outlook there, and you wont be much wiser at the end of the year than at the beginning. The world isnt made of pen, ink and paper, and if youre to get on in the world, young man, you must know what the worlds made of. Now the best chance for you ud be to have a place on a wharf or in a warehouse, where youd learn the smell of things - but you wouldnt like that, Ill be bound: youd have to stand cold and wet and be shouldered about by rough fellows. Youre too fine a gentleman for that.
`Well done, Tom, well done! Thats the right spirit, and I never refuse to help anybody, if theyve a mind to do themselves justice. Theres a young man of two-and-twenty Ive got my eye on now - I shall do what I can for that young man - hes got some pith in him. But then you see hes made good use of his time - a first-rate calculator - can tell you the cubic contents of anything in no time, and put me up the other day to a new market for Swedish bark; hes uncommonly knowing in manufactures, that young fellow.
`But uncle, said Tom earnestly, `I dont see why the Latin need hinder me from getting on in business: I shall soon forget it all - it makes no difference to me. I had to do my lessons at school; but I always thought theyd never be of any use to me afterwards - I didnt care about them.
Tom reddened and passed on: he would have felt it like the handling of a bruise even if there had been the most polite and delicate reference to his position.
`You want me to help you to a situation, Mr De九九藏书ane went on, `well, Ive no fault to find with that: Im willing to do something for you. But you youngsters nowadays think youre to begin with living well and working easy - youve no notion of running afoot, before you get on horseback. Now, you must remember what you are - youre a lad of sixteen, trained to nothing particular. Theres heaps of your sort, like so many pebbles made to fit in nowhere. Well, you might be apprenticed to some business - a chemists and druggists, perhaps: your Latin might come in a bit there...
`Id better set about learning book-keeping, hadnt I, uncle? said Tom, anxious to prove his readiness to exert himself.
`No, said Tom, rather falteringly. `I was in fractions. But Mr Stelling says I write a good hand, uncle. Thats my writing, added Tom, laying on the table a copy of the list he had made yesterday.
Poor Tom! he had just come from being lectured and made to feel his inferiority: the reaction of his strong, self-asserting nature must take place somehow, and here was a case in which he could justly show himself dominant. Maggies cheek flushed and her lip quivered with conflicting resentment and affection and a certain awe as well as admiration of Toms firmer and more effective character. She did not answer immediately; very angry words rose to her lips, but they were driven back again, and she said at last,
`But didnt he speak kindly, Tom?
`Well, he said, at last, in rather a cold, sardonic tone, `youve had three years at these things - you must be pretty strong in em. Hadnt you better take up some line where theyll come in handy?
`But its always the same, Maggie, said Tom, with the little frown he put on when he was about to be justifiably severe. `Youre always setting yourself up above me and every one else. And Ive wanted to tell you about it several times. You ought not to have spoken as you did to my uncles and aunts - you should leave it to me to take care of my mother and you, and not put yourself forward. You think you know better than any one, but youre almost always wrong. I can judge much better than you can.
`O what a pity we havent got Dominie Sampson, said Maggie, who couldnt help mingling some gaiety with their sadness. `If he had taught me book-keeping by double entry and after the Italian method, as he did Lucy Bertram, I could teach you, Tom.
Mr Deane put out his hand, with an air of friendly dismissal, and Tom had not courage to ask another question, especially in the presence of Mr Spence. So he went out again into the cold damp air. He had to call at his uncle Gleggs about the money in the Savings Bank, and by the time he set out again, the mist had thickened and he could not see very far before him, but going along River Street again, he was startled when he was within two yards of the projecting side of a shop-window, by the words `Dorlcote Mill in large letters on a hand-bill, placed as if on purpose to stare at him. It was the catalogue of the sale to take place the next week - it was a reason for hurrying faster out of the town.
`You teach! Yes, I daresay. Thats always the tone you take, said Tom.
`Kindly? Pooh! whats the use of talking about that? I wouldnt care about his speaking kindly if I could get a situation. But its such a nuisance and bother - Ive been at school all this while learning Latin and things - not a bit of good to me - and now my uncle says, I must set about learning book-keeping and calculation and those things. He seems to make out Im good for nothing.
Tom disliked being spoken to just then, but he said civilly, `Hes still very ill, thank you.
Maggie in her brown frock with her eyes reddened and her heavy hair pushed back, looking from the bed where her father lay, to the dull walls of this sad chamber which was the centre of her world, was a creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad: thirsty for all knowledge: with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her: with a blind, unconscious yearning for something that would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life and give her soul a sense of home in it.
`Sixteen - I mean, I am going in seventeen, said Tom, hoping his uncle noticed how much beard he had.
`Ay, ay, sir, said Mr Deane, spreading himself in his chair a little, and entering with great readiness into a retrospect of his own career. `But Ill tell you how I got on: it wasnt by getting astride a stick and thinking it would turn into a horse if I sat on it long enough. I kept my eyes and ears open, sir, and I wasnt too fond of my own back, and I made my masters interest my own. Why, with only looking into what went on in the mill, I found out how there was a waste of five hundred a year that might be hindered. Why, sir, I hadnt more schooling to begin with than a charity boy but I saw pretty soon that I couldnt get on far without mastering accounts, and I learned em between working hours, after Id been unlading. Look here-- Mr Deane opened a book, and pointed to the page - `I write a good hand enough, and Ill match anybody at all sorts of reckoning by the head, and I got it all by hard work, and paid for it out of my own earnings - often out of my own dinner and supper. And I looked into the nature of all the things we had to do with in the business, and picked up knowledge as I went about my work, and turned it over in my head. Why, Im no mechanic - I never pretended to be, but Ive thought of a thing or two that the mechanics never thought of, and its made a fine difference in our returns. And there isnt an article shipped or unshipped at our wharf but I know the quality of it. If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself - thats where it is.
`Ay, ay, thats all very well, said Mr Deane, `but it doesnt alter what I was going to say. Your Latin and rigmarole may soon dry off you, but youll be but a bare stick, after that. Besides its whitened your hands and taken the rough work out of you. And what do you know? Why, you know nothing about book-keeping to begin with, and not so much of reckoning as a common shopman. Youll have to begin at a low round of the ladder, let me tell you, if you mean to get on in life. Its no use forgetting the education your fathers been paying for, if you dont give yourself a new un.
Tom coloured and burst out, with new energy,
Walking along the street with a firm, rapid step at this point in his reverie he was startled by some one who had crossed without his notice, and who said to him in a rough, familiar voice,
Uncle Deane tapped his box, and seemed to expand a little under his waistcoat and gold chain, as he squared his shoulders in the chair.
`Thats Tullivers son, said the publican to a grocer standing on the adjacent door-step.
`What did my uncle Deane say, Tom? said Maggie, putting her arm through Toms as he was warming himself rather drearily by the kitchen fire. `Did he say he would give you a situation?
`We learned Latin, said Tom, pausing a little between each item, as if he were turning over the books in his school-desk to assist his memory, `a good deal of Latin; and the last year I did Themes, one week in Latin and one in English; and Greek and Roman History; and Euclid; and I began Algebra, but I felt it off again; and we had one day every week for Arithmetic. Then I used to have drawing lessons; and there were several other books we either read or learned out of, English Poetry, and Horae Paulinae, and Blairs Rhetoric, the last Half.
`I would rather do what will be best for me in the end, Sir: I would put up with what was disagreeable.
`Why, Master Tom, hows your father this morning? It was a publican of St Oggs - one of his fathers customers.
`Sit down, sit down, said Mr Deane, relapsing into his accounts, in which he and the managing clerk remained so absorbed for the next half hour that Tom began to wonder whether he should have to sit in this way till the bank closed - there seemed so little tendency towards a conclusion in the quiet monotonous procedure of these sleek, prosperous men of business. Would his uncle give him a place in the bank? it would be very dull, prosy work, he thought writing there, forever, to the loud ticking of a time-piece. He preferred some other way of getting rich. But at last there was a change: his uncle took a pen and wrote something with a flourish at the end.
Mr Deane had not occupied himself with methods of education, and had no precise conception of what went forward in expensive schools.