Kezia was equal to the task. Having declared her intention of staying till the master could get about again, “wage or no wage,” she had found a certain recompense in keeping a strong hand over her mistress, scolding her for “moithering” herself, and going about all day without changing her cap, and looking as if she was “mushed.” Altogether, this time of trouble was rather a Saturnalian time to Kezia; she could scold her betters with unreproved freedom. On this particular occasion there were drying clothes to be fetched in; she wished to know if one pair of hands could do everything in-doors and out, and observed that she should have thought it would be good for Mrs Tulliver to put on her bonnet, and get a breath of fresh air by doing that needful piece of work. Poor Mrs Tulliver went submissively downstairs; to be ordered about by a servant was the last remnant of her household dignities,—she would soon have no servant to scold her. Mr Tulliver was resting in his chair a little after the fatigue of dressing, and Maggie and Tom were seated near him, when Luke entered to ask if he should help master downstairs.
“Ay, ay, Luke; stop a bit, sit down,” said Mr Tulliver pointing his stick toward a chair, and looking at him with that pursuant gaze which convalescent persons often have for those who have tended them, reminding one of an infant gazing about after its nurse. For Luke had been a constant night-watcher by his master’s bed.
“How’s the water now, eh, Luke?” said Mr Tulliver. “Dix hasn’t been choking you up again, eh?”
“No, sir, it’s all right.”
“Ay, I thought not; he won’t be in a hurry at that again, now Riley’s been to settle him. That was what I said to Riley yesterday—I said——”
Mr Tulliver leaned forward, resting his elbows on the armchair, 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 the lad and the little wench who belonged to that past.