at last may, in the innocence of her heart, took a rash step. she heard her father say it was good, showery, fishing weather, and she was aware tom robinson often fished in the dewes; what was to hinder her from making a detour by the river on her way home from school, and if she saw tom near the old bridge—the pools below were specially patronized by fishers—she might go up to him and ask him frankly if he had an opening for her services, along with those of phyllis carey, in his shop? if he had, would he do her the great favour to speak to her father and mother, and ask them not to send her away to be a scholar at st. ambrose, but to let her stay and be a shop-woman in redcross?
tom robinson, at the first word of her appeal, put up his fishing-rod, slung his basket, in which there were only a couple of fish, on his back, shouldered her books, and turned and walked back
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with her, as if it was he who was seeking her company and not she his. how else was he to make the little girl who might have been his pet sister see that there was any harm in the irregular course she had pursued? how, otherwise, was she to understand that she was big enough—nearly a head taller than her sister dora—and old enough with her seventeen years, though she was still the child of the family, to render it indecorous for her to come, out of her own head, without the knowledge of anybody, to have a private interview with him on the banks of the dewes?
"'robinson's' is highly honoured," he told her, in a tone partly bantering, partly serious, and wholly friendly, "and i too should, and do, thank you for the trust in me which your proposal implies, but i am afraid it would not do, miss may."
may's fair young face fell.
"oh! i am so sorry," she said simply; "but, please, may i know why you have phyllis and will not have me?"
"the case is altogether different. mrs. carey made up her mind that miss phyllis should go into a shop—mine or another's. phyllis was not happy at home; she is not a clever, studious girl, though she is your friend and is very nice—of course all young ladies are nice. there is no comparison between you and her."
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"but why shouldn't clever people go and work in shops?" persisted may, in her half-childish way—"not that i mean i am clever; that would be too conceited. but i am sure it would be a great deal better for shops if they had the very cleverest people to work in them."
"it depends on the kind of cleverness," he told her. "with regard to one sort you are right, of course; with respect to another it would not answer, and it would be horrible waste."
she opened her brown eyes wide. "why do you waste your abilities and college education?" she asked him naïvely—"not that everybody calls it a waste; some people say 'robinson's' is the high-class shop it is, because its masters have not only been respectable people, they have always been educated men and gentlemen."
"i ought to say for myself and my predecessors that i am much obliged to 'some people' for acknowledging that," he remarked coolly.
"i beg your pardon, mr. robinson," said may humbly. "i know i have been very rude—i am constantly saying stupid things."
"not at all; and though you did, never mind—say them to me if you like," he gave her carte blanche to comfort her. "but look here, miss may, i don't wish you to make mistakes. indeed it is my duty, since i am a great deal older than you
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—old enough to be, well, your uncle i should say—to prevent it if i can."
"i don't see how you could be my uncle," said may bluntly, "when you are not more than five or six years older than annie—i have heard her say so—you are more like my brother."
the instant she mentioned the relationship to which he had aspired in vain, she felt the blood tingling to her finger-tips, and she could see him redden under the shade of his soft felt hat.
may groaned inwardly. "oh! i am a blundering goose; i wonder anybody can be so infatuated as to think me clever."
"i have not said what i wished to say," he resumed, for somehow, in spite of her forgetfulness and lack of tact, he could talk well enough to may. "i must set you right. i have not a grain of the scholar in me such as you have, neither do i believe that those who went before me had; we could never have been more than fair students. we did not go out of our way to get learning. we did what our associates and contemporaries did, that was all. i fancy i may take the small credit to us of saying that we had no objection to learn what the ancients thought, saw, and did, after we had been lugged through the latin grammar and caned into familiarity with greek verbs. we were like other men who had the same advantages.
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i honestly believe if we had anything special and individual about us it was a turn for trade. that is the only manner in which i can account for our sticking to the shop, unless we were mere money-grubbers. but all that signifies very little; what does signify is that you are not quite like other girls. what, may, do you pretend that you do not prize the roll of a sonorous passage, or the trip of an exquisite phrase in latin or greek? that it does not tickle your ears, cling to your memory, and haunt you as a theme in music haunts a composer? do you not care to go any deeper in plato or in the dramatists? is it a fact that you can bear to have heard the last of antigone, and alcestis, and electra?"
may hung her head like one accused of gross unfaithfulness, with some show of reason.
"no, i cannot say that, mr. robinson," she owned, "i shall think and dream of them all my life. they are so grand and persecuted and sad. but there—if i do not turn my back on them and my books, i must go to st. ambrose's, there is no choice," ended may disconsolately.
"but why not go to st. ambrose's?"
"oh! you do not know, mr. robinson," protested may with fresh energy. "in the first place you are a man and cannot understand. in the second, i suppose it is because i am so silly and
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childish and cowardly," she went on incoherently. "annie always said it was cowardly; she and rose went away quite bravely and cheerfully, keeping up their own and everybody's spirits to the last. but dora and i could not do it, yet i do not know that anybody ever thought of calling our dora cowardly exactly, or silly, and childish. she was not a bit cowardly with the horrid big dog and dear little tray, you remember?—she would not let me interfere, but she would have stoned the dog herself."
"which would have been very foolish of her," said tom robinson with decision. "i should say she was timid, not cowardly—there is a broad distinction between the two conditions."
"it is just that we cannot leave home for any length of time, dora and i," said may piteously.
"so you and your sister dora cannot leave home—that is the objection, is it?" he repeated, slowly pulling his red moustache. "what do you call home? the old doctor's house or redcross?"
"both," cried may quickly; "where father and mother and the rest of us are, of course."
"but the rest of you are gone, and what if your father and mother were to go too?"
"they won't, they never will," insisted may—"not until they come to die. you were not
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meaning that? oh! you could not be so cruel, so barbarous," cried may, passionately, "when death is such a long way off, i trust. i know that god is good whether we live or die, and that we shall meet again in a better world. but we are not parted yet, and it is not wrong to pray that we may be a long time together here on this very earth, which we know so well, where we have been so happy. why, father and mother are not more than middle-aged—mother is not, and if father is older, he is as strong and hale as anybody. think how he was able to give up his carriage and attend his patients on foot last autumn without feeling it," urged the girl defiantly, in her passion of love and roused dread, which she would not admit.
"certainly," he strove to reassure her, feeling himself a savage for frightening her by his inadvertence, "i never saw anybody wear so well as dr. millar. he might be sixty or fifty—he may live to be a hundred—i hope with all my heart he will; and i shall not be astonished if i live to see it. as for mrs. millar, it is an insult to call her middle-aged. it is something quite out of keeping to come across her with such a tall daughter as you are."
"yes, i am the tallest of the four," exclaimed may complacently, diverted from the main topic,
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as he had intended her to be. "and i have not done growing yet; my last summer's frock had to be let down half an inch."
"is it possible? what are we all coming to? you will soon have to stoop to take my arm—if you ever condescend to take my arm."
"no," she denied encouragingly, "i am not so far above your shoulder now," measuring the distance with a critical eye. "i shall not grow so much as that comes to. you are bigger than father, and you would not call him a little man; you are hardly even short."
"thanks, you are too kind," said tom robinson, with the utmost gravity. "but i say, miss may, if i were you, i don't think i should do anything to vex and thwart dr. millar, though he is so strong and active—long may he continue so. you know how disappointed he would be if you were to close your books."
"i am afraid he would," said may reluctantly. "i had almost forgotten all about it for the last minute or two. but don't you think if you spoke to him as i came to ask if you would," she continued unblushingly and coaxingly, "if you were to try and show him—it would be so kind of you—how comfortable and happy i should be with phyllis carey in your shop—doing my best—indeed, i should try hard to please you and miss
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franklin, all day—and getting home every evening—he might change his mind?"
"no, he would not," said tom with conviction; "and what is more, he ought not. he would never cease to regret his shattered hopes for you—which, remember, you would have shattered—and your spoilt life."
"but your life is not spoilt?" she said wistfully, unable to resign her last hope.
"how can you tell?" he said, with a slight sharpness in his accent. then he added quickly, "no, for i am a born shopkeeper in another sense than because i am one of a nation of shopkeepers."
he gave himself a reassuring shake, and resumed briskly—"i crave leave to say, miss may, that i actually enjoy making up accounts, turning over samples, and giving orders. sometimes i hit on a good idea which the commercial world acknowledges, and then i am as proud as if i had unearthed an ancient manuscript, or found the philosopher's stone. i pulled a fellow through a difficulty the other day, and it felt like taking part in an exciting fight. i have speculated occasionally when i was fishing—paying myself a huge compliment, no doubt—whether old izaak walton felt like me about trade."
"was he in trade?" inquired may, with some
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surprise. "i know he wrote the complete angler, and was a friend of dr. donne's and george herbert's, and is very much thought of to this day."
"deservedly," said tom robinson emphatically. "yes, i am proud to say, he was a hosier to begin with, and a linen-draper to end with—well-to-do in both lines. they say his first wife, whom he married while he was still in business, was a niece of the archbishop of canterbury of the day, and his second wife, whom he married after he had retired to live on his earnings, was a half-sister of good bishop ken's; but i do not pretend to vouch for the truth of these statements. now, about your father. i cannot do what you ask—i cannot in conscience. will you ever forgive me, 'little may'—that is what your father and mother and your sisters call you sometimes to this day, ain't it? and it is what i should have called you if i had been—your uncle say? shall we be no longer friends?" he demanded ruefully.
"of course we shall," said may, with a suspicion of petulance. "you are not bound to do what i bid you—i never thought that; and you are father and mother's friend—how could i help being your friend?"
"don't try to help it," he charged her.
tom robinson went farther than not feeling bound to do what may begged of him, he was
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constrained to remonstrate in another quarter to prevent trouble and disappointment to all concerned. he screwed up his courage, and everybody knows he was a modest man, and called at the old doctor's house for the express purpose. he had called seldom during the past year—just often enough to keep up the form of visiting—to show that he was not the surly boor, without self-respect or consideration for the millars, which he would have been if he had dropped all intercourse with the family because one of them had refused to marry him. but though he had begged for dora's friendship when he could not have her love, and had meant what he said, the wound was too recent for him to act as if nothing had happened. in addition to the pain and self-consciousness, there was a traditional atmosphere of agitation and alarm, a kind of conventional awkwardness, together with an anxious countenance, and protection sedulously afforded by the initiated and interested spectators to tom and dora, which, like many other instances of countenance and protection, went far towards doing the mischief they were intended to prevent.
tom saw through the punctilious feints and solemn stratagems clearly; dora did the same as plainly. indeed the two would have been idiots if they could have escaped from the discomfiting
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perception of the care which was taken of them and their feelings, and the fact that every eye was upon them.
the sole result was to render the couple more wretchedly uncomfortable than if they had been set aside and sentenced to the company of each other and of no one else for a bad five minutes every day of their lives.
another unhappy consequence of their being thus elaborately spared and shielded was, that when by some unfortunate chance the tactics failed, the couple felt as flurried and guilty as if they had contrived the fruitless accident to serve their own nefarious ends.
tom robinson called on the millars between four and five the day after may had made her raid upon him, expecting to find what was left of the family gathering together for afternoon tea. he had the ulterior design of drawing may's father and mother apart, and letting them judge for themselves the advisability of her going up at once to st. ambrose's, before her whole heart and mind were disastrously set against her natural and honourable destiny. he was distinctly put out by finding dora alone. as for dora, she told a faltering tale of her father's having been called away to a poor patient who was a pensioner of her mother's, and of mrs. millar's having walked over to stokeleigh
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with him to see what she could do for old hannah lightfoot; while may was spending the afternoon with the hewetts at the rectory.
he hesitated whether to go or stay under the circumstances, but he hated to beat an ignominious retreat, as if he thought that she thought he could not be beside her for a quarter of an hour without making an ass of himself again and pestering her. why should he not accept the cup of tea which she faintly offered from the hands that visibly trembled with nervousness? when he came to consider it, why should he not transact his business with dora? she was as deeply interested as anybody, unless the culprit herself; she probably knew better what may was foolishly planning than either their father or mother did, and would convey to them the necessary information.
as for dora, she was thinking in a restless fever, "i hope—i hope he does not see how much i mind being alone with him. it is just because i am not used to it. how i wish somebody would come in,—not mother, perhaps, for she would start and look put out herself, and sit down without so much as getting rid of her sunshade; and, oh dear, not may, for she would stare, and i do not know what on earth she would think—some wild absurdity, i dare say; anyhow, she would look exactly what she thought."
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"look here, miss dora," he said abruptly; "you don't think your sister may ought to renounce the object of her education hitherto, and your father's views for her, in order to do like miss phyllis carey? you are aware that may has become enamoured of phyllis carey's example, and is bent on following in her footsteps; but it won't do, and i have told her so. i trust nobody suspects me of encouraging young ladies to become shop-women," he added, with a slightly foolish laugh, "as old actors used to be accused of decoying young men of rank and fashion into going on the stage, and recruiting sergeants of beguiling country bumpkins into taking the king's shilling."
"has may spoken to you about it?" cried dora, startled out of her engrossing private reflections. "what a child she is! i am sorry she has troubled you; she ought not to have done that. i hope you will excuse her."
"don't speak of it," he said a little stiffly, as he put down his cup and signified he would have no more tea.
"and you said no," remarked dora, with an involuntary fall of her voice reflecting the sinking of her heart. "of course you could not do otherwise. it was a foolish notion. i am afraid phyllis carey is enough of a nuisance to miss franklin
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—and other people. it is hard that you should be bothered by these girls. only i suspect poor 'little may' will be most dreadfully, unreasonably disappointed;" and there was an attempt to smile and a quiver of the soft lips which she could not hide.
"i am not bothered, and i hate to disappoint your sister,—i trust you understand that," he said quickly and earnestly. "but it would be sacrificing her and overturning your father's arrangements for her—disappointing what i am sure are among his dearest wishes."
she did not ask, like may, why he did not count himself sacrificed. she only said shyly and wistfully, "i knew it was out of the question, but if it had not been so, or if there had been any other way, it would have been such a boon to poor may not to be torn from home." at the harrowing picture thus conjured up her voice fairly shook, and the tears started into her dovelike eyes.
"home," he said impatiently, "is not everything; at least, not the home from which every boy must go, as a matter of course. 'torn from home' in order to go to school! surely the first part of the sentence is tall language."
"it is neither too tall nor too strong where may is concerned," said dora, rousing herself to plead may's cause. "she has not been away from home
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and from father—especially from mother, and one or other of the rest of us, for longer than a week since she was born."
"then the sooner she begins the better for her," he said brutally, as it sounded to himself, to the loving, shrinking girl he was addressing.
"she has always been the little one, the pet," urged dora; "she will not know what to do without some of us to take care of her and be good to her."
"but she must go away some day," he continued his remonstrance. "how old is your sister?"
"she was seventeen last christmas," dora answered shamefacedly.
"why, many a woman is married before she is may's age," he protested. "many a woman has left her native country, gone among strangers, and had to maintain her independence and dignity unaided, by the time she was seventeen. queen charlotte was not more than sixteen when she landed in england and married george the third."
dora could not help laughing, as he meant her to do. "may and queen charlotte! they are as far removed as fire and water. but," she answered meekly, "i know the princess royal was no older when she went to berlin; and poor marie antoinette was a great deal younger, as may
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would have reminded me if she had been here, in the old days when she travelled from vienna to paris. but there—it is all so different. they were princesses from whom a great deal is expected, and the princess royal was the eldest instead of the youngest of the queen's children."
"does seniority make so great a difference?" he said, with an inflection of his voice which she noticed, though he hastened to make her forget it by speaking again gravely the next minute. "should may not learn to stand alone? would it not be dwarfing and cramping her, all her life probably, to give way to her now. can it ever be too early to acquire self-reliance, and is it not one of the most necessary lessons for a responsible human being to learn? besides, 'ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute.' it is only the first wrench which will hurt her. she will find plenty of fresh interests and congenial occupations at st. ambrose's. in a week, a fortnight, she will not miss you too much."
dora shook her head incredulously. it was little he knew of may, with her fond family attachments, and her helplessness when left to herself in common things.
"follow my advice, miss dora," he said, rising to take his leave, "don't aid and abet miss may in seeking to shirk her obligations. unques
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tionably the one nearest to her at present is that she should go to st. ambrose's. don't prevent her from beginning to think and act for herself—not like a charming child, but in the light of her dawning womanhood."
he gave a swift glance round him as he spoke, and a recollection which had been in the background of both their thoughts during the whole of the interview, flashed into the foreground. it was of that day a year ago, a breezy spring day like this, when, as it seemed, there were the same jonquils in the jar on the chimney-piece, and the same cherry-blossom seen through the window against the blue sky, and he had asked her with his heart on his lips, and the happiness of his life at stake, to be his wife, and she had told him, with agitation and distress almost equal to his, that he could never be anything to her. he caught her half-averted eyes, and felt the whole scene was present with her as with him once more, and the consciousness brought back all his old shyness and reserve, and hurried his leave-taking. the slightest touch to her hand, and he had bowed himself out and was gone.
"how silly he must think me," dora reflected, walking up and down the empty room in perturbation, "both about poor 'little may,' and about remembering the last time we were alone together.
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i dare say he is right about may, though men never do understand what girls feel. if she should fall ill, and break her heart, and die of home-sickness—such things have happened before now—i wonder what he would say then about her learning to stand alone? very likely he would assert that st. ambrose's is not st. petersburg, or even shetland or the scilly isles. it is not far away, and if she were not well or happy, she could come back in half a day, as the other girls could come down from london. but then he would despise her, for as quiet and good-natured as he is, and though people have said that he himself had no proper pride in consenting to have a shop. and i don't think may could bear contempt from anybody whom she had ever looked on as a friend. men are hard—the best of them are, and they don't understand. he is kind—i am sure he means it all in kindness; but he is not yielding; he is as masterful as when he dragged the dogs to the edge of the bank and let them drop into the dewes for their good. he will never be turned from what he thinks right. i wish he had not guessed what i could not help remembering—he was quick enough in doing that; and i could not tell him that i did not imagine for a moment—i was not so foolish—that he was under the same delusion he suffered from twelve months
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ago. if he had been oftener here in the interval, and we had met and been together naturally as we used to be, sometimes, i should have forgotten all about it, and so would he, no doubt. but how could i help thinking of it when there has always been such a point made of mother or some one else being present when he called? i am certain it is quite unnecessary and a great mistake. he will not speak to me again as he spoke that day. there is no danger of his running away with me," dora told herself with an unsteady laugh. "i hope he is not under the impression that i did not think and act for myself when i was forced to do it. because, although they all knew about it, and of course annie and the others teased me about 'robinson's,' and the colour of his hair, and his size, father and mother told me to decide for myself, and i did not hesitate for a moment. i could no more have borne to leave them all of my own free will than may could. surely it was proof positive i did not like him in that way," dora represented to herself with the greatest emphasis.
tom robinson was marching home with his hands in his pockets and his hat drawn over his eyes. "how hard she must think me—little short of a pragmatical, supercilious brute—not to do my best to keep 'little may' at home, where the child
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wants to be. i asked her to let me call myself her friend, and this is the first specimen of my friendship! she will take precious good care not to ask for another. she will be horribly dull left by herself without one girl companion, only the old people. these sisters were so happy together—i liked to see them, perhaps all the more because i had neither brothers nor sisters of my own—i thought it was an assurance of what they might be in other relations of life. i suppose she will tackle that little spitfire of a dog which i inflicted on them. may will lay her parting injunctions on dora to plague herself perpetually with the monster, and these will be like dying words to dora, she will sooner die herself than intermit a single harassing attention. and it will be impossible for her to avoid many deprivations. there are more partings to be faced in the future. millar is an old man, even if he could hope to pay up the bank's calls and make some provision for his widow and daughters. it was a pity poor dora could not care for me, when there need have been no partings where we two were concerned, save that material separation of death which is quoted in the marriage service. she would not have believed, nor i either, that it could touch the spiritual side of the question and the love which is worth having, that is god-like and belongs to immor
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tality. i might have done what i could if dora had married me, so far as the other girls would have let me, to serve as a buffer between the family and the adversity which i am afraid not all their high spirit and gallant fight will hold entirely at bay. it was not to be, and there is an end on't. i wonder where i found the heart, and the cheek too for that matter, to bully dora about may, though, heaven knows, i spoke no more than the truth. well, she has her revenge, and i am punished for it. it cut me up at the time to hurt her, and the recollection of having contradicted and pained so sweet and gentle a creature is very much as if i had dealt a lamb a blow or wrung a pigeon's neck—on principle."
half an hour afterwards mrs. millar bustled into her drawing-room with an expression of mingled annoyance and excited expectation on her still comely face.
"my dear dora, i am so sorry; he gave his name to jane, and she has told me who has been calling in my absence. i wish i had not left you by yourself. but who was to guess that tom robinson would call this afternoon? it must have been exceedingly disagreeable for you."
"i don't know," said dora, vaguely and desperately; "we must meet sometimes when there is nobody by, if we continue to live in the same
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town. i wish you would not mind it for me, mother, and keep on trying to avoid such accidents, for i really think it makes them worse when they do happen."
"very well, my dear, you know your own feelings best," said mrs. millar, a little puzzled. in her day it was reckoned no more than what was due to maidenly delicacy and social propriety to preserve a respectful distance between a rejected man and his rejector. as if the gentleman might, as dora had said, carry off the lady by force, or shoot her or himself with the pistol hidden in his breast!
