Mr Tulliver leaned forward, resting his elbows on the arm-chair, and looking on the ground as if in search of something - striving after vanishing images like a man struggling against a doze.Maggie looked at Tom in mute distress - their father's mind was so far off the present, which would by and by thrust itself on his wandering consciousness!Tom was almost ready to rush away, with that impatience of painful emotion which makes one of the differences between youth and maiden, man and woman.
`Father,' said Maggie, laying her hand on his, `Don't you remember that Mr Riley is dead?'
`Dead?' said Mr Tulliver, sharply, looking in her face with a strange, examining glance.
`Yes, he died of apoplexy nearly a year ago; I remember hearing you say you had to pay money for him; and he left his daughters badly off -one of them is under-teacher at Miss Firniss's where I've been to school, you know...'
`Ah?' said her father, doubtfully, still looking in her face.But as soon as Tom began to speak he turned to look at him with the same inquiring glances, as if he were rather surprised at the presence of these two young people.Whenever his mind was wandering in the far past, he fell into this oblivion of their actual faces: they were not those of lad and the little wench who belonged to that past.
`It's a long while since you had the dispute with Dix, father,' said Tom.`I remember your talking about it three years ago, before I went to school at Mr Stelling's.I've been at school there three years; don't you remember?'
Mr Tulliver threw himself backward again, losing the child-like outward glance, under a rush of new ideas which diverted him from external impressions.
`Ay, ay,' he said, after a minute or two, `I've paid a deal o' money...
I was determined my son should have a good eddication: I'd none myself, and I've felt the miss of it.And he'll want no other fortin: that's what I say...if Wakem was to get the better of me again...'
The thought of Wakem roused new vibrations, and after a moment's pause he began to look at the coat he had on, and to feel in his side-pocket.
Then he turned to Tom, and said in his old sharp way, `Where have they put Gore's letter?'
It was close at hand in a drawer, for he had often asked for it before.
`You know what there is in the letter, father?' said Tom, as he gave it to him.
`To be sure I do,' said Mr Tulliver, rather angrily, `What o' that?
If Furley can't take to the property, somebody else can: there's plenty o' people in the world besides Furley.But it's hindering - my not being well - go and tell 'em to get the horse in the gig, Luke: I can get down to St Ogg's well enough - Gore's expecting me.'
`No, dear father!' Maggie burst out, entreatingly, `it's a very long while since all that: you've been ill a great many weeks - more than two months - everything is changed.'
Mr Tulliver looked at them all three alternately with a startled gaze:
the idea that much had happened of which he knew nothing had often transiently arrested him before, but it came upon him now with entire novelty.
`Yes, father,' said Tom, in answer to the gaze.`You needn't trouble your mind about business until you are quite well: everything is settled about that for the present - about the mill and the land and the debts.'
`What's settled then?' said his father, angrily.
`Don't you take on too much about it, sir,' said Luke.`You'd ha' paid iverybody if you could - that's what I said to Master Tom - I said, you'd ha' paid iverybody, if you could.'
Good Luke felt, after the manner of contented hard working men whose lives have been spent in servitude, that sense of natural fitness in rank which made his master's downfall a tragedy to him.He was urged, in his slow way, to say something that would express his share in the family sorrow, and these words which he had used over and over again to Tom, when he wanted to decline the full payment of his fifty pounds out of the children's money, were the most ready to his tongue.They were just the words to lay the most painful hold on his master's bewildered mind.
`Paid everybody?' he said, with vehement agitation, his face flushing, and his eye lighting up.`Why...what...have they made me a bankrupt ?'
`O father, dear father!' said Maggie, who thought that terrible word really represented the fact.`Bear it well - because we love you - your children will always love you - Tom will pay them all - he says he will, when he's a man.'
She felt her father beginning to tremble - his voice trembled too, as he said, after a few moments, `Ay, my little wench, but I shall never live twice o'er.'
`But perhaps you will live to see my pay everybody, father,' said Tom, speaking with a great effort.
`Ah, my lad,' said Mr Tulliver, shaking his head slowly, `but what's broke can never be whole again: it 'ud be your doing, not mine.' Then, looking up at him, `You're only sixteen - it's an uphill fight for you - but you mustn't throw it at your father; the raskills have been too many for him.I've given you a good eddication - that'll start you.'
Something in his throat half choked the last words - the flush which had alarmed his children because it had so often preceded a recurrence of paralysis, had subsided, and his face looked pale and tremulous.Tom said nothing; he was still struggling against his inclination to rush away.
His father remained quiet a minute or two, but his mind did not seem to be wandering again.
`Have they sold me up, then?' he said, more calmly, as if he were possessed simply by the desire to know what had happened.