The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
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
torment 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
every one 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. Good-night,” 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 briers—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 XIII
“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,” &c.
“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 to-day 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 inquiry, 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