The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
fine stud your husband has! not large, but good. I’ve been looking at
them a bit this morning; and upon my word, Black Boss, and Grey Tom,
and that young Nimrod are the finest animals I’ve seen for many a day!”
Then followed a particular discussion of their various merits,
succeeded by a sketch of the great things _he_ intended to do in the
horse-jockey line, when his old governor thought proper to quit the
stage. “Not that I wish him to close his accounts,” added he: “the old
Trojan is welcome to keep his books open as long as he pleases for me.”
“I hope so, _indeed_, Mr. Hattersley.”
“Oh, yes! It’s only my way of talking. The event must come some time,
and so I look to the bright side of it: that’s the right plan—isn’t it,
Mrs. H.? What are you two doing here? By-the-by, where’s Lady
Lowborough?”
“In the billiard-room.”
“What a splendid creature she _is!_” continued he, fixing his eyes on
his wife, who changed colour, and looked more and more disconcerted as
he proceeded. “What a noble figure she has; and what magnificent black
eyes; and what a fine spirit of her own; and what a tongue of her own,
too, when she likes to use it. I perfectly adore her! But never mind,
Milicent: I wouldn’t have her for my wife, not if she’d a kingdom for
her dowry! I’m better satisfied with the one I have. Now _then!_ what
do you look so sulky for? don’t you believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you,” murmured she, in a tone of half sad, half sullen
resignation, as she turned away to stroke the hair of her sleeping
infant, that she had laid on the sofa beside her.
“Well, _then_, what makes you so cross? Come here, Milly, and tell me
why you can’t be satisfied with my assurance.”
She went, and putting her little hand within his arm, looked up in his
face, and said softly,—
“What does it amount to, Ralph? Only to this, that though you admire
Annabella so much, and for qualities that I don’t possess, you would
still rather have me than her for your wife, which merely proves that
you don’t think it necessary to love your wife; you are satisfied if
she can keep your house, and take care of your child. But I’m not
cross; I’m only sorry; for,” added she, in a low, tremulous accent,
withdrawing her hand from his arm, and bending her looks on the rug,
“if you don’t love me, you don’t, and it can’t be helped.”
“Very true; but who told you I didn’t? Did I say I loved Annabella?”
“You said you adored her.”
“True, but adoration isn’t love. I adore Annabella, but I don’t love
her; and I love thee, Milicent, but I don’t adore thee.” In proof of
his affection, he clutched a handful of her light brown ringlets, and
appeared to twist them unmercifully.
“Do you really, Ralph?” murmured she, with a faint smile beaming
through her tears, just putting up her hand to his, in token that he
pulled _rather_ too hard.
“To be sure I do,” responded he: “only you bother me rather,
sometimes.”
“_I_ bother you!” cried she, in very natural surprise.
“Yes, _you_—but only by your exceeding goodness. When a boy has been
eating raisins and sugar-plums all day, he longs for a squeeze of sour
orange by way of a change. And did you never, Milly, observe the sands
on the sea-shore; how nice and smooth they look, and how soft and easy
they feel to the foot? But if you plod along, for half an hour, over
this soft, easy carpet—giving way at every step, yielding the more the
harder you press,—you’ll find it rather wearisome work, and be glad
enough to come to a bit of good, firm rock, that won’t budge an inch
whether you stand, walk, or stamp upon it; and, though it be hard as
the nether millstone, you’ll find it the easier footing after all.”
“I know what you mean, Ralph,” said she, nervously playing with her
watchguard and tracing the figure on the rug with the point of her tiny
foot—“I know what you mean: but I thought you always liked to be
yielded to, and I can’t alter now.”
“I do like it,” replied he, bringing her to him by another tug at her
hair. “You mustn’t mind my talk, Milly. A man must have something to
grumble about; and if he can’t complain that his wife harries him to
death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she
wears him out with her kindness and gentleness.”
“But why complain at all, unless because you are tired and
dissatisfied?”
“To excuse my own failings, to be sure. Do you think I’ll bear all the
burden of my sins on my own shoulders, as long as there’s another ready
to help me, with none of her own to carry?”
“There is no such one on earth,” said she seriously; and then, taking
his hand from her head, she kissed it with an air of genuine devotion,
and tripped away to the door.
“What now?” said he. “Where are you going?”
“To tidy my hair,” she answered, smiling through her disordered locks;
“you’ve made it all come down.”
“Off with you then!—An excellent little woman,” he remarked when she
was gone, “but a thought too soft—she almost melts in one’s hands. I
positively think I ill-use her sometimes, when I’ve taken too much—but
I can’t help it, for she never complains, either at the time or after.
I suppose she doesn’t mind it.”
“I can enlighten you on that subject, Mr. Hattersley,” said I: “she
_does_ mind it; and some other things she minds still more, which yet
you may never hear her complain of.”
“How do you know?—does she complain to you?” demanded he, with a sudden
spark of fury ready to burst into a flame if I should answer ‘yes.’
“No,” I replied; “but I have known her longer and studied her more
closely than you have done.—And I can tell you, Mr. Hattersley, that
Milicent loves you more than you deserve, and that you have it in your
power to make her very happy, instead of which you are her evil genius,
and, I will venture to say, there is not a single day passes in which
you do not inflict upon her some pang that you might spare her if you
would.”
“Well—it’s not _my_ fault,” said he, gazing carelessly up at the
ceiling and plunging his hands into his pockets: “if my ongoings don’t
suit her, she should tell me so.”
“Is she not exactly the wife you wanted? Did you not tell Mr.
Huntingdon you must have one that would submit to anything without a
murmur, and never blame you, whatever you did?”
“True, but we shouldn’t always have what we want: it spoils the best of
us, doesn’t it? How can I help playing the deuce when I see it’s all
one to her whether I behave like a Christian or like a scoundrel, such
as nature made me? and how can I help teasing her when she’s so
invitingly meek and mim, when she lies down like a spaniel at my feet
and never so much as squeaks to tell me that’s enough?”
“If you are a tyrant by nature, the temptation is strong, I allow; but
no generous mind delights to oppress the weak, but rather to cherish
and protect.”
“I _don’t_ oppress her; but it’s so confounded flat to be always
cherishing and protecting; and then, how can I tell that I _am_
oppressing her when she ‘melts away and makes no sign’? I sometimes
think she has no feeling at all; and then I go on till she cries, and
that satisfies me.”
“Then you _do_ delight to oppress her?”
“I don’t, I tell you! only when I’m in a bad humour, or a particularly
good one, and want to afflict for the pleasure of comforting; or when
she looks flat and wants shaking up a bit. And sometimes she provokes
me by crying for nothing, and won’t tell me what it’s for; and then, I
allow, it enrages me past bearing, especially when I’m not my own man.”
“As is no doubt generally the case on such occasions,” said I. “But in
future, Mr. Hattersley, when you see her looking flat, or crying for
‘nothing’ (as you call it), ascribe it all to yourself: be assured it
is something you have done amiss, or your general misconduct, that
distresses her.”
“I don’t believe it. If it were, she should tell me so: I don’t like
that way of moping and fretting in silence, and saying nothing: it’s
not honest. How can she expect me to mend my ways at that rate?”
“Perhaps she gives you credit for having more sense than you possess,
and deludes herself with the hope that you will one day see your own
errors and repair them, if left to your own reflection.”
“None of your sneers, Mrs. Huntingdon. I _have_ the sense to see that
I’m not always quite correct, but sometimes I think that’s no great
matter, as long as I injure nobody but myself—”
“It _is_ a great matter,” interrupted I, “both to yourself (as you will
hereafter find to your cost) and to all connected with you, most
especially your wife. But, indeed, it is nonsense to talk about
injuring no one but yourself: it is impossible to injure yourself,
especially by such acts as we allude to, without injuring hundreds, if
not thousands, besides, in a greater or less, degree, either by the
evil you do or the good you leave undone.”
“And as I was saying,” continued he, “or would have said if you hadn’t
taken me up so short, I sometimes think I should do better if I were
joined to one that would always remind me when I was wrong, and give me
a motive for doing good and eschewing evil, by decidedly showing her
approval of the one and disapproval of the other.”
“If you had no higher motive than the approval of your fellow-mortal,
it would do you little good.”
“Well, but if I had a mate that would not always be yielding, and
always equally kind, but that would have the spirit to stand at bay now
and then, and honestly tell me her mind at all times, such a one as
yourself for instance. Now, if I went on with you as I do with her when
I’m in London, you’d make the house too hot to hold me at times, I’ll
be sworn.”
“You mistake me: I’m no termagant.”
“Well, all the better for that, for I can’t stand contradiction, in a
general way, and I’m as fond of my own will as another; only I think
too much of it doesn’t answer for any man.”
“Well, I would never contradict you without a cause, but certainly I
would always let you know what I thought of your conduct; and if you
oppressed me, in body, mind, or estate, you should at least have no
reason to suppose ‘I didn’t mind it.’”
“I know that, my lady; and I think if my little wife were to follow the
same plan, it would be better for us both.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“No, no, let her be; there’s much to be said on both sides, and, now I
think upon it, Huntingdon often regrets that you are not more like her,
scoundrelly dog that he is, and you see, after all, you can’t reform
_him:_ he’s _ten_ times worse than I. He’s afraid of you, to be sure;
that is, he’s always on his best behaviour in your presence—but—”
“I wonder what his worst behaviour is like, then?” I could not forbear
observing.
“Why, to tell you the truth, it’s very bad indeed—isn’t it, Hargrave?”
said he, addressing that gentleman, who had entered the room
unperceived by me, for I was now standing near the fire, with my back
to the door. “Isn’t Huntingdon,” he continued, “as great a reprobate as
ever was d—d?”
“His lady will not hear him censured with impunity,” replied Mr.
Hargrave, coming forward; “but I must say, I thank God I am not such
another.”
“Perhaps it would become you better,” said I, “to look at what you are,
and say, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’”
“You are severe,” returned he, bowing slightly and drawing himself up
with a proud yet injured air. Hattersley laughed, and clapped him on
the shoulder. Moving from under his hand with a gesture of insulted
dignity, Mr. Hargrave took himself away to the other end of the rug.
“Isn’t it a shame, Mrs. Huntingdon?” cried his brother-in-law; “I
struck Walter Hargrave when I was drunk, the second night after we
came, and he’s turned a cold shoulder on me ever since; though I asked
his pardon the very morning after it was done!”