The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

‘I should be proud to do it, Helen! – most happy – delighted beyond expression! – and if that be all the obstacle to our union, it is demolished, and you must – you shall be mine!’

And starting from my seat in a frenzy of ardour, I seized her hand and would have pressed it to my lips, but she as suddenly caught it away, exclaiming in the bitterness of intense affliction: –

‘No, no, it is not all!’

‘What is it then? You promised I should know some time, and –’

‘You shall know some time – but not now – my head aches terribly,’ she said, pressing her hand to her forehead, ‘and I must have some repose – and surely, I have had misery enough today!’ she added, almost wildly.

‘But it could not harm you to tell it,’ I persisted: ‘it would ease your mind; and I should then know how to comfort you.’

She shook her head despondingly. ‘If you knew all, you, too, would blame me – perhaps even more than I deserve – though I have cruelly wronged you,’ she added in a low murmur, as if she mused aloud.

‘You, Helen? Impossible!’

‘Yes, not willingly; for I did not know the strength and depth of your attachment – I thought – at least endeavoured to think your regard for me was as cold and fraternal as you professed it to be.’

‘Or as yours?’

‘Or as mine – ought to have been – of such a light and selfish, superficial nature that –’

‘There, indeed, you wronged me.’

‘I know I did; and sometimes, I suspected it then; but I thought, upon the whole, there could be no great harm in leaving your fancies and your hopes to dream themselves to nothing – or flutter away to some more fitting object, while your friendly sympathies remained with me; but if I had known the depth of your regard, the generous disinterested affection you seem to feel –’

‘Seem, Helen?’

‘That you do feel, then, I would have acted differently.’

‘How? You could not have given me less encouragement, or treated me with greater severity than you did! And if you think you have wronged me by giving me your friendship, and occasionally admitting me to the enjoyment of your company and conversation, when all hopes of closer intimacy were vain – as indeed you always gave me to understand – if you think you have wronged me by this, you are mistaken; for such favours, in themselves alone, are not only delightful to my heart, but purifying, exalting, ennobling to my soul; and I would rather have your friendship than the love of any other woman in the world!’

Little comforted by this, she clasped her hands upon her knee, and glancing upward, seemed, in silent anguish, to implore divine assistance; then turning to me, she calmly said –

‘Tomorrow, if you meet me on the moor about midday, I will tell you all you seek to know; and perhaps you will then see the necessity of discontinuing our intimacy – if, indeed, you do not willingly resign me as one no longer worthy of regard.’

‘I can safely answer no, to that: you cannot have such grave confessions to make – you must be trying my faith, Helen.’

‘No, no, no,’ she earnestly repeated – ‘I wish it were so! Thank Heaven;’ she added, ‘I have no great crime to confess; but I have more than you will like to hear, or, perhaps, can readily excuse, – and more than I can tell you now; so let me entreat you to leave me!’

‘I will; but answer me this one question first; – do you love me?’

‘I will not answer it!’

‘Then I will conclude you do; and so goodnight.’

She turned from me to hide the emotion she could not quite control; but I took her hand and fervently kissed it.

‘Gilbert, do leave me!’ she cried, in a tone of such thrilling anguish that I felt it would be cruel to disobey.

But I gave one look back before I closed the door, and saw her leaning forward on the table, with her hands pressed against her eyes, sobbing convulsively; yet I withdrew in silence. I felt that to obtrude my consolations on her then would only serve to aggravate her sufferings.

To tell you all the questionings and conjectures – the fears, and hopes, and wild emotions that jostled and chased each other through my mind as I descended the hill, would almost fill a volume in itself. But before I was half way down a sentiment of strong sympathy for her I had left behind me had displaced all other feelings, and seemed imperatively to draw me back: I began to think, ‘Why am I hurrying so fast in this direction? Can I find comfort or consolation – peace, certainty, contentment, all – or anything that I want at home? and can I leave all perturbation, sorrow and anxiety behind me there?’

And I turned round to look at the old Hall. There was little besides the chimneys visible above my contracted horizon. I walked back to get a better view of it. When it rose in sight, I stood still a moment to look, and then continued moving towards the gloomy object of attraction. Something called me nearer – nearer still – and why not, pray? Might I not find more benefit in the contemplation of that venerable pile with the full moon in the cloudless heaven shining so calmly above it – with that warm yellow lustre peculiar to an August night – and the mistress of my soul within, than in returning to my home where all comparatively was light, and life, and cheerfulness, and therefore inimical to me in my present frame of mind, – and the more so that its inmates all were more or less imbued with that detestable belief the very thought of which made my blood boil in my veins – and how could I endure to hear it openly declared – or cautiously insinuated – which was worse? – I had had trouble enough already, with some babbling fiend that would keep whispering in my ear, ‘It may be true,’ till I had shouted aloud, ‘It is false! I defy you to make me suppose it!’

I could see the red firelight dimly gleaming from her parlour window. I went up to the garden wall, and stood leaning over it, with my eyes fixed upon the lattice, wondering what she was doing, thinking, or suffering now, and wishing I could speak to her but one word, or even catch one glimpse of her, before I went.

I had not thus looked, and wished, and wondered long, before I vaulted over the barrier, unable to resist the temptation of taking one glance through the window, just to see if she were more composed than when we parted; – and if I found her still in deep distress, perhaps I might venture to attempt a word of comfort – to utter one of the many things I should have said before, instead of aggravating her sufferings by my stupid impetuosity. I looked. Her chair was vacant: so was the room. But at that moment someone opened the outer door, and a voice – her voice – said, –

‘Come out – I want to see the moon, and breathe the evening air: they will do me good – if anything will.’

Here, then, were she and Rachel coming to take a walk in the garden. I wished myself safe back over the wall. I stood, however, in the shadow of the tall holly bush, which, standing between the window and the porch, at present screened me from observation, but did not prevent me from seeing two figures come forth into the moonlight; Mrs Graham followed by another – not Rachel, but a young man, slender and rather tall. Oh heavens, how my temples throbbed! Intense anxiety darkened my sight; but I thought – yes, and the voice confirmed it – it was Mr Lawrence.

‘You should not let it worry you so much, Helen,’ said he; ‘I will be more cautious in future; and in time –’

I did not hear the rest of the sentence; for he walked close beside her and spoke so gently that I could not catch the words. My heart was splitting with hatred; but I listened intently for her reply. I heard it plainly enough.

‘But I must leave this place, Frederick,’ she said – ‘I never can be happy here, – nor anywhere else, indeed,’ she added, with a mirthless laugh, – ‘but I cannot rest here.’

‘But where could you find a better place?’ replied he, – ‘so secluded – so near me, if you think anything of that.’

‘Yes,’ interrupted she, ‘it is all I could wish, if they could only have left me alone.’

‘But wherever you go, Helen, there will be the same sources of annoyance. I cannot consent to lose you: I must go with you, or come to you; and there are meddling fools elsewhere, as well as here.’

While thus conversing, they had sauntered slowly past me, down the walk, and I heard no more of their discourse; but I saw him put his arm round her waist, while she lovingly rested her hand on his shoulder; – and then, a tremulous darkness obscured my sight, my heart sickened and my head burned like fire, I half rushed, half staggered from the spot where horror had kept me rooted, and leaped or tumbled over the wall – I hardly know which – but I know that, afterwards, like a passionate child, I dashed myself on the ground and lay there in a paroxysm of anger and despair – how long, I cannot undertake to say; but it must have been a considerable time; for when, having partially relieved myself by a torrent of tears, and looked up at the moon, shining so calmly and carelessly on, as little influenced by my misery as I was by its peaceful radiance, and earnestly prayed for death or forgetfulness, I had risen and journeyed homewards – little regarding the way, but carried instinctively by my feet to the door – I found it bolted against me, and everyone in bed except my mother, who hastened to answer my impatient knocking, and received me with a shower of questions and rebukes.

‘Oh, Gilbert, how could you do so? Where have you been? Do come in and take your supper – I’ve got it all ready, though you don’t deserve it, for keeping me in such a fright, after the strange manner you left the house this evening. Mr Millward was quite – Bless the boy! how ill he looks! Oh, gracious! what is the matter?’

‘Nothing, nothing – give me a candle.’

‘But won’t you take some supper?’

‘No, I want to go to bed,’ said I, taking a candle and lighting it at the one she held in her hand.

‘Oh, Gilbert, how you tremble!’ exclaimed my anxious parent. ‘How white you look! – Do tell me what it is? Has anything happened?’

‘It’s nothing!’ cried I, ready to stamp with vexation because the candle would not light. Then, suppressing my irritation, I added, ‘I’ve been walking too fast, that’s all. Goodnight,’ and marched off to bed, regardless of the ‘Walking too fast! where have you been?’ that was called after me from below.

My mother followed me to the very door of my room with her questionings and advice concerning my health and my conduct; but I implored her to let me alone till morning; and she withdrew, and at length, I had the satisfaction to hear her close her own door. There was no sleep for me however, that night, as I thought; and instead of attempting to solicit it, I employed myself in rapidly pacing the chamber – having first removed my boots lest my mother should hear me. But the boards creaked, and she was watchful. I had not walked above a quarter of an hour before she was at the door again.

‘Gilbert, why are you not in bed – you said you wanted to go?’

‘Confound it! I’m going,’ said I.

‘But why are you so long about it? you must have something on your mind –’

‘For heaven’s sake, let me alone, and get to bed yourself!’

‘Can it be that Mrs Graham that distresses you so?’

‘No, no, I tell you – It’s nothing!’

‘I wish to goodness it mayn’t!’ murmured she with a sigh, as she returned to her own apartment, while I threw myself on the bed, feeling most undutifully disaffected towards her for having deprived me of what seemed the only shadow of a consolation that remained, and chained me to that wretched couch of thorns.

Never did I endure so long, so miserable a night as that. And yet, it was not wholly sleepless: towards morning my distracting thoughts began to lose all pretensions to coherency, and shape themselves into confused and feverish dreams, and, at length, there followed an interval of unconscious slumber. But then the dawn of bitter recollection that succeeded – the waking to find life a blank, and worse than a blank – teeming with torment and misery – not a mere barren wilderness, but full of thorns and briars – to find myself deceived, duped, hopeless, my affections trampled upon, my angel not an angel, and my friend a fiend incarnate – it was worse than if I had not slept at all.

It was a dull, gloomy morning, the weather had changed like my prospects, and the rain was pattering against the window. I rose nevertheless, and went out; not to look after the farm, though that would serve as my excuse, but to cool my brain, and regain, if possible, a sufficient degree of composure to meet the family at the morning meal without exciting inconvenient remarks. If I got a wetting, that, in conjunction with a pretended over-exertion before breakfast, might excuse my sudden loss of appetite; and if a cold ensued, the severer the better, it would help to account for the sullen moods and moping melancholy likely to cloud my brow for long enough.

CHAPTER 13 A Return to Duty

‘My dear Gilbert! I wish you would try to be a little more amiable,’ said my mother, one morning after some display of unjustifiable ill-humour on my part. ‘You say there is nothing the matter with you, and nothing has happened to grieve you, and yet, I never saw anyone so altered as you within these last few days: you haven’t a good word for anybody – friends and strangers, equals and inferiors – it’s all the same. I do wish you’d try to check it.’

‘Check what?’

‘Why, your strange temper. You don’t know how it spoils you. I’m sure a finer disposition than yours, by nature, could not be, if you’d let it have fair play; so you’ve no excuse that way.’

While she thus remonstrated, I took up a book, and laying it open on the table before me, pretended to be deeply absorbed in its perusal; for I was equally unable to justify myself, and unwilling to acknowledge my errors; and I wished to have nothing to say on the matter. But my excellent parent went on lecturing, and then came to coaxing, and began to stroke my hair, and I was getting to feel quite a good boy, but my mischievous brother who was idling about the room, revived my corruption by suddenly calling out: –

‘Don’t touch him, mother! he’ll bite! He’s a very tiger in human form. I’ve given him up, for my part – fairly disowned him – cast him off, root and branch. It’s as much as my life is worth to come within six yards of him. The other day he nearly fractured my skull for singing a pretty, inoffensive love song, on purpose to amuse him.’

‘Oh, Gilbert! how could you?’ exclaimed my mother.

‘I told you to hold your noise first, you know Fergus,’ said I.

‘Yes, but when I assured you it was no trouble, and went on with the next verse, thinking you might like it better, you clutched me by the shoulder and dashed me away, right against the wall there, with such force, that I thought I had bitten my tongue in two, and expected to see the place plastered with my brains, and when I put my hand to my head and found my skull not broken, I thought it was a miracle and no mistake. But poor fellow!’ added he, with a sentimental sigh – ‘his heart’s broken – that’s the truth of it – and his head’s –’

‘Will you be silent now?’ cried I, starting up, and eyeing the fellow so fiercely that my mother, thinking I meant to inflict some grievous bodily injury, laid her hand on my arm, and besought me to let him alone, and he walked leisurely out, with his hands in his pockets, singing provokingly – ‘Shall I because a woman’s fair,’ etc.

‘I’m not going to defile my fingers with him,’ said I, in answer to the maternal intercession. ‘I wouldn’t touch him with the tongs.’

I now recollected that I had business with Robert Wilson, concerning the purchase of a certain field adjoining my farm – a business I had been putting off from day to day; for I had no interest in anything now; and besides, I was misanthropically inclined, and, moreover, had a particular objection to meeting Jane Wilson or her mother; for though I had too good reason, now, to credit their reports concerning Mrs Graham, I did not like them a bit the better for it – or Eliza Millward either – and the thought of meeting them was the more repugnant to me, that I could not, now, defy their seeming calumnies and triumph in my own convictions as before. But today, I determined to make an effort to return to my duty. Though I found no pleasure in it, it would be less irksome than idleness – at all events it would be more profitable. If life promised no enjoyment within my vocation, at least it offered no allurements out of it; and henceforth, I would put my shoulder to the wheel and toil away, like any poor drudge of a cart-horse that was fairly broken in to its labour, and plod through life, not wholly useless if not agreeable, and uncomplaining if not contented with my lot.

Thus resolving, with a kind of sullen resignation, if such a term may be allowed, I wended my way to Ryecote Farm, scarcely expecting to find its owner within at this time of day, but hoping to learn in what part of the premises he was most likely to be found.

Absent he was, but expected home in a few minutes; and I was desired to step into the parlour and wait. Mrs Wilson was busy in the kitchen, but the room was not empty; and I scarcely checked an involuntary recoil as I entered it; for there sat Miss Wilson chattering with Eliza Millward. However, I determined to be cool and civil. Eliza seemed to have made the same resolution on her part. We had not met since the evening of the tea party; but there was no visible emotion either of pleasure or pain, no attempt at pathos, no display of injured pride: she was cool in temper, civil in demeanour. There was even an ease and cheerfulness about her air and manner that I made no pretension to; but there was a depth of malice in her too expressive eye, that plainly told me I was not forgiven; for, though she no longer hoped to win me to herself, she still hated her rival, and evidently delighted to wreak her spite on me. On the other hand, Miss Wilson was as affable and courteous as heart could wish, and though I was in no very conversable humour myself, the two ladies between them managed to keep up a pretty continuous fire of small talk. But Eliza took advantage of the first convenient pause to ask if I had lately seen Mrs Graham, in a tone of merely casual enquiry, but with a sidelong glance – intended to be playfully mischievous – really, brimful and running over with malice.

‘Not lately,’ I replied, in a careless tone, but sternly repelling her odious glances with my eyes; for I was vexed to feel the colour mounting to my forehead, despite my strenuous efforts to appear unmoved.

‘What! are you beginning to tire already? I thought so noble a creature would have power to attach you for a year at least!’

‘I would rather not speak of her now.’

‘Ah! then you are convinced at last, of your mistake – you have at length discovered that your divinity is not quite the immaculate –’

‘I desired you not to speak of her, Miss Eliza.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon! I perceive Cupid’s arrows have been too sharp for you: the wounds being more than skin-deep, are not yet healed and bleed afresh at every mention of the loved one’s name.’

‘Say rather,’ interposed Miss Wilson, ‘that Mr Markham feels that name is unworthy to be mentioned in the presence of right-minded females. I wonder Eliza, you should think of referring to that unfortunate person – you might know the mention of her would be anything but agreeable to anyone here present.’

How could this be borne? I rose and was about to clap my hat upon my head and burst away, in wrathful indignation, from the house; but recollecting – just in time to save my dignity – the folly of such a proceeding, and how it would only give my fair tormentors a merry laugh at my expense, for the sake of one I acknowledged in my own heart to be unworthy of the slightest sacrifice – though the ghost of my former reverence and love so hung about me still, that I could not bear to hear her name aspersed by others – I merely walked to the window, and having spent a few seconds in vengeably biting my lips, and sternly repressing the passionate heavings of my chest, I observed to Miss Wilson, that I could see nothing of her brother, and added that as my time was precious, it would perhaps be better to call again tomorrow, at some time when I should be sure to find him at home.

‘Oh no!’ said she, ‘if you wait a minute, he will be sure to come; for he has business at L—’ (that was our market town) ‘and will require a little refreshment before he goes.’

I submitted accordingly, with the best grace I could; and happily, I had not long to wait. Mr Wilson soon arrived, and, indisposed for business as I was at that moment, and little as I cared for the field or its owner, I forced my attention to the matter in hand, with very creditable determination, and quickly concluded the bargain – perhaps more to the thrifty farmer’s satisfaction, than he cared to acknowledge. Then, leaving him to the discussion of his substantial ‘refreshment,’ I gladly quitted the house, and went to look after my reapers.

Leaving them busy at work on the side of the valley, I ascended the hill, intending to visit a cornfield in the more elevated regions, and see when it would be ripe for the sickle. But I did not visit it that day; for, as I approached, I beheld at no great distance Mrs Graham and her son coming down in the opposite direction. They saw me; and Arthur, already, was running to meet me; but I immediately turned back and walked steadily homeward; for I had fully determined never to encounter his mother again; and regardless of the shrill voice in my ear, calling upon me to ‘wait a moment,’ I pursued the even tenor of my way; and he soon relinquished the pursuit as hopeless, or was called away by his mother. At all events, when I looked back, five minutes after, not a trace of either was to be seen.

This incident agitated and disturbed me most unaccountably – unless you would account for it by saying that Cupid’s arrows not only had been too sharp for me, but they were barbed and deeply rooted, and I had not yet been able to wrench them from my heart. However that be, I was rendered doubly miserable for the remainder of the day.

CHAPTER 14 An Assault

Next morning, I bethought me, I, too, had business at L—; so I mounted my horse and set forth on the expedition, soon after breakfast. It was a dull, drizzly day; but that was no matter: it was all the more suitable to my frame of mind. It was likely to be a lonely journey; for it was no market-day, and the road I traversed was little frequented at any other time; but that suited me all the better too.

As I trotted along, however, chewing the cud of – bitter fancies, I heard another horse at no great distance behind me; but I never conjectured who the rider might be – or troubled my head about him, till on slackening my pace to ascend a gentle acclivity – or rather suffering my horse to slacken its pace into a lazy walk; for, lost in my own reflections, I was letting it jog on as leisurely as it thought proper – I lost ground, and my fellow traveller overtook me. He accosted me by name; for it was no stranger – it was Mr Lawrence! Instinctively the fingers of my whip-hand tingled, and grasped their charge with convulsive energy; but I restrained the impulse, and answering his salutation with a nod, attempted to push on; but he pushed on beside me and began to talk about the weather and the crops. I gave the briefest possible answers to his queries and observations, and fell back. He fell back too, and asked if my horse was lame. I replied, with a look – at which he placidly smiled.

I was as much astonished as exasperated at this singular pertinacity and imperturbable assurance on his part. I had thought the circumstances of our last meeting would have left such an impression on his mind as to render him cold and distant ever after: instead of that he appeared not only to have forgotten all former offences, but to be impenetrable to all present incivilities. Formerly, the slightest hint, or mere fancied coldness in tone or glance, had sufficed to repulse him: now, positive rudeness could not drive him away. Had he heard of my disappointment; and was he come to witness the result, and triumph in my despair? I grasped my whip with more determined energy than before – but still forbore to raise it, and rode on in silence, waiting for some more tangible cause of offence, before I opened the floodgates of my soul, and poured out the dammed-up fury that was foaming and swelling within.