第83章

`Why, how is it you're come so early this cold morning, Maggie? Did you come in the gig?' said Tom, as she backed towards the sofa and drew him to her side.

`No, I came by the coach - I've walked from the turnpike.'

`But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have not begun yet?'

`Father wanted me at home,' said Maggie, with a slight trembling of the lip.`I came home three or four days ago.'

`Isn't my father well?' said Tom, rather anxiously.

`Not quite,' said Maggie.`He's very unhappy, Tom.The lawsuit is ended, and I came to tell you, because I thought it would be better for you to know it before you came home, and I didn't like only to send you a letter.'

`My father hasn't lost?' said Tom, hastily, springing from the sofa, and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust in his pockets.

`Yes, dear Tom,' said Maggie, looking up at him with trembling.

Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the floor.Then he said--`My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then?'

`Yes,' said Maggie, rather faintly.

`Well, it can't be helped,' said Tom, bravely, not translating the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results.`But my father's very much vexed, I dare say?' he added, looking at Maggie, and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her girlish way of taking things.

`Yes,' said Maggie, again faintly.Then, urged to fuller speech by Tom's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as if the words would burst from her, `O Tom, he will lose the mill and the land, and everything.He will have nothing left.'

Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her before he turned pale and trembled visibly.He said nothing, but sat down on the sofa again, looking vaguely out of the opposite window.

Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind.His father had always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful, confident air of a man who has plenty of property to fall back upon.Tom had never dreamed that his father would `fail:' that was a form of misfortune which he had always heard spoken of as a deep disgrace, and disgrace was an idea that he could not associate with any of his relations, least of all with his father.A proud sense of family respectability was part of the very air Tom had been born and brought up in.He knew there were people in St Ogg's who made a show without money to support it, and he had always heard such people spoken of by his own friends with contempt and reprobation:

he had a strong belief, which was a life-long habit, and required no definite evidence to rest on, that his father could spend a great deal of money if he chose; and since his education at Mr Stelling's had given him a more expensive view of life, he had often thought that when he got older he would make a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle, and other accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to any of his contemporaries at St Ogg's, who might consider themselves a grade above him in society, because their fathers were professional men or had large oil-mills.As to the prognostics and head-shaking of his aunts and uncles, they had never produced the least effect on him except to make him think that aunts and uncles were disagreeable society: he had heard them find fault in much the same way as along as he could remember.His father knew better than they did.

The down had come on Tom's lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had been hitherto only the reproduction in changed forms of the boyish dreams in which he had lived three years ago.He was awakened now with a violent shock.

Maggie was frightened at Tom's pale, trembling silence.There was something else to tell him - something worse.She threw her arms round him at last, and said, with a half sob, `O Tom - dear, dear Tom, don't fret too much - try and bear it well.'

Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating kisses, and there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed away with his hand.

The action seemed to rouse him, for he shook himself and said, `I shall go home with you Maggie? Didn't my father say I was to go?'