The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
or a woman, as one or two of my critics profess to have discovered. I
take the imputation in good part, as a compliment to the just
delineation of my female characters; and though I am bound to attribute
much of the severity of my censors to this suspicion, I make no effort
to refute it, because, in my own mind, I am satisfied that if a book is
a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels
are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at
a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything
that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be
censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a
man.
_July_ 22_nd_, 1848.
CHAPTER I
You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.
My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer in ——shire; and
I, by his express desire, succeeded him in the same quiet occupation,
not very willingly, for ambition urged me to higher aims, and
self-conceit assured me that, in disregarding its voice, I was burying
my talent in the earth, and hiding my light under a bushel. My mother
had done her utmost to persuade me that I was capable of great
achievements; but my father, who thought ambition was the surest road
to ruin, and change but another word for destruction, would listen to
no scheme for bettering either my own condition, or that of my fellow
mortals. He assured me it was all rubbish, and exhorted me, with his
dying breath, to continue in the good old way, to follow his steps, and
those of his father before him, and let my highest ambition be to walk
honestly through the world, looking neither to the right hand nor to
the left, and to transmit the paternal acres to my children in, at
least, as flourishing a condition as he left them to me.
“Well!—an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful
members of society; and if I devote my talents to the cultivation of my
farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall thereby
benefit, not only my own immediate connections and dependants, but, in
some degree, mankind at large:—hence I shall not have lived in vain.”
With such reflections as these I was endeavouring to console myself, as
I plodded home from the fields, one cold, damp, cloudy evening towards
the close of October. But the gleam of a bright red fire through the
parlour window had more effect in cheering my spirits, and rebuking my
thankless repinings, than all the sage reflections and good resolutions
I had forced my mind to frame;—for I was young then, remember—only
four-and-twenty—and had not acquired half the rule over my own spirit
that I now possess—trifling as that may be.
However, that haven of bliss must not be entered till I had exchanged
my miry boots for a clean pair of shoes, and my rough surtout for a
respectable coat, and made myself generally presentable before decent
society; for my mother, with all her kindness, was vastly particular on
certain points.
In ascending to my room I was met upon the stairs by a smart, pretty
girl of nineteen, with a tidy, dumpy figure, a round face, bright,
blooming cheeks, glossy, clustering curls, and little merry brown eyes.
I need not tell you this was my sister Rose. She is, I know, a comely
matron still, and, doubtless, no less lovely—in _your_ eyes—than on the
happy day you first beheld her. Nothing told me then that she, a few
years hence, would be the wife of one entirely unknown to me as yet,
but destined hereafter to become a closer friend than even herself,
more intimate than that unmannerly lad of seventeen, by whom I was
collared in the passage, on coming down, and well-nigh jerked off my
equilibrium, and who, in correction for his impudence, received a
resounding whack over the sconce, which, however, sustained no serious
injury from the infliction; as, besides being more than commonly thick,
it was protected by a redundant shock of short, reddish curls, that my
mother called auburn.
On entering the parlour we found that honoured lady seated in her
arm-chair at the fireside, working away at her knitting, according to
her usual custom, when she had nothing else to do. She had swept the
hearth, and made a bright blazing fire for our reception; the servant
had just brought in the tea-tray; and Rose was producing the
sugar-basin and tea-caddy from the cupboard in the black oak
side-board, that shone like polished ebony, in the cheerful parlour
twilight.
“Well! here they both are,” cried my mother, looking round upon us
without retarding the motion of her nimble fingers and glittering
needles. “Now shut the door, and come to the fire, while Rose gets the
tea ready; I’m sure you must be starved;—and tell me what you’ve been
about all day;—I like to know what my children have been about.”
“I’ve been breaking in the grey colt—no easy business that—directing
the ploughing of the last wheat stubble—for the ploughboy has not the
sense to direct himself—and carrying out a plan for the extensive and
efficient draining of the low meadowlands.”
“That’s my brave boy!—and Fergus, what have you been doing?”
“Badger-baiting.”
And here he proceeded to give a particular account of his sport, and
the respective traits of prowess evinced by the badger and the dogs; my
mother pretending to listen with deep attention, and watching his
animated countenance with a degree of maternal admiration I thought
highly disproportioned to its object.
“It’s time you should be doing something else, Fergus,” said I, as soon
as a momentary pause in his narration allowed me to get in a word.
“What _can_ I do?” replied he; “my mother won’t let me go to sea or
enter the army; and I’m determined to do nothing else—except make
myself such a nuisance to you all, that you will be thankful to get rid
of me on any terms.”
Our parent soothingly stroked his stiff, short curls. He growled, and
tried to look sulky, and then we all took our seats at the table, in
obedience to the thrice-repeated summons of Rose.
“Now take your tea,” said she; “and I’ll tell you what _I’ve_ been
doing. I’ve been to call on the Wilsons; and it’s a _thousand_ pities
you didn’t go with me, Gilbert, for Eliza Millward was there!”
“Well! what of her?”
“Oh, nothing!—I’m not going to tell you about her;—only that she’s a
nice, amusing little thing, when she is in a merry humour, and I
shouldn’t mind calling her—”
“Hush, hush, my dear! your brother has no such idea!” whispered my
mother earnestly, holding up her finger.
“Well,” resumed Rose; “I was going to tell you an important piece of
news I heard there—I have been bursting with it ever since. You know it
was reported a month ago, that somebody was going to take Wildfell
Hall—and—what do you think? It has actually been inhabited above a
week!—and we never knew!”
“Impossible!” cried my mother.
“Preposterous!!!” shrieked Fergus.
“It has indeed!—and by a single lady!”
“Good gracious, my dear! The place is in ruins!”
“She has had two or three rooms made habitable; and there she lives,
all alone—except an old woman for a servant!”
“Oh, dear! that spoils it—I’d hoped she was a witch,” observed Fergus,
while carving his inch-thick slice of bread and butter. “Nonsense,
Fergus! But isn’t it strange, mamma?”
“Strange! I can hardly believe it.”
“But you may believe it; for Jane Wilson has seen her. She went with
her mother, who, of course, when she heard of a stranger being in the
neighbourhood, would be on pins and needles till she had seen her and
got all she could out of her. She is called Mrs. Graham, and she is in
mourning—not widow’s weeds, but slightish mourning—and she is quite
young, they say,—not above five or six and twenty,—but _so_ reserved!
They tried all they could to find out who she was and where she came
from, and, all about her, but neither Mrs. Wilson, with her
pertinacious and impertinent home-thrusts, nor Miss Wilson, with her
skilful manœuvring, could manage to elicit a single satisfactory
answer, or even a casual remark, or chance expression calculated to
allay their curiosity, or throw the faintest ray of light upon her
history, circumstances, or connections. Moreover, she was barely civil
to them, and evidently better pleased to say “good-by,” than “how do
you do.” But Eliza Millward says her father intends to call upon her
soon, to offer some pastoral advice, which he fears she needs, as,
though she is known to have entered the neighbourhood early last week,
she did not make her appearance at church on Sunday; and she—Eliza,
that is—will beg to accompany him, and is sure _she_ can succeed in
wheedling something out of her—you know, Gilbert, _she_ can do
anything. And _we_ should call some time, mamma; it’s only proper, you
know.”
“Of course, my dear. Poor thing! How lonely she must feel!”
“And pray, be quick about it; and mind you bring me word how much sugar
she puts in her tea, and what sort of caps and aprons she wears, and
all about it; for I don’t know how I can live till I know,” said
Fergus, very gravely.
But if he intended the speech to be hailed as a master-stroke of wit,
he signally failed, for nobody laughed. However, he was not much
disconcerted at that; for when he had taken a mouthful of bread and
butter and was about to swallow a gulp of tea, the humour of the thing
burst upon him with such irresistible force, that he was obliged to
jump up from the table, and rush snorting and choking from the room;
and a minute after, was heard screaming in fearful agony in the garden.
As for me, I was hungry, and contented myself with silently demolishing
the tea, ham, and toast, while my mother and sister went on talking,
and continued to discuss the apparent or non-apparent circumstances,
and probable or improbable history of the mysterious lady; but I must
confess that, after my brother’s misadventure, I once or twice raised
the cup to my lips, and put it down again without daring to taste the
contents, lest I should injure my dignity by a similar explosion.
The next day my mother and Rose hastened to pay their compliments to
the fair recluse; and came back but little wiser than they went; though
my mother declared she did not regret the journey, for if she had not
gained much good, she flattered herself she had imparted some, and that
was better: she had given some useful advice, which, she hoped, would
not be thrown away; for Mrs. Graham, though she said little to any
purpose, and appeared somewhat self-opinionated, seemed not incapable
of reflection,—though she did not know where she had been all her life,
poor thing, for she betrayed a lamentable ignorance on certain points,
and had not even the sense to be ashamed of it.
“On what points, mother?” asked I.
“On household matters, and all the little niceties of cookery, and such
things, that every lady ought to be familiar with, whether she be
required to make a practical use of her knowledge or not. I gave her
some useful pieces of information, however, and several excellent
receipts, the value of which she evidently could not appreciate, for
she begged I would not trouble myself, as she lived in such a plain,
quiet way, that she was sure she should never make use of them. ‘No
matter, my dear,’ said I; ‘it is what every respectable female ought to
know;—and besides, though you are alone now, you will not be always so;
you _have_ been married, and probably—I might say almost certainly—will
be again.’ ‘You are mistaken there, ma’am,’ said she, almost haughtily;
‘I am certain I never shall.’—But I told her _I_ knew better.”
“Some romantic young widow, I suppose,” said I, “come there to end her
days in solitude, and mourn in secret for the dear departed—but it
won’t last long.”
“No, I think not,” observed Rose; “for she didn’t seem _very_