The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
At present I am enjoying a temporary relief from his presence: he is
gone with Hargrave to join a distant hunt, and will probably not be
back before to-morrow evening. How differently I used to feel his
absence!
Mr. Hargrave is still at the Grove. He and Arthur frequently meet to
pursue their rural sports together: he often calls upon us here, and
Arthur not unfrequently rides over to him. I do not think either of
these soi-disant friends is overflowing with love for the other; but
such intercourse serves to get the time on, and I am very willing it
should continue, as it saves me some hours of discomfort in Arthur’s
society, and gives him some better employment than the sottish
indulgence of his sensual appetites. The only objection I have to Mr.
Hargrave’s being in the neighbourhood, is that the fear of meeting him
at the Grove prevents me from seeing his sister so often as I otherwise
should; for, of late, he has conducted himself towards me with such
unerring propriety, that I have almost forgotten his former conduct. I
suppose he is striving to “win my esteem.” If he continue to act in
this way, he _may_ win it; but what then? The moment he attempts to
demand anything more, he will lose it again.
February 10th.—It is a hard, embittering thing to have one’s kind
feelings and good intentions cast back in one’s teeth. I was beginning
to relent towards my wretched partner; to pity his forlorn, comfortless
condition, unalleviated as it is by the consolations of intellectual
resources and the answer of a good conscience towards God; and to think
I ought to sacrifice my pride, and renew my efforts once again to make
his home agreeable and lead him back to the path of virtue; not by
false professions of love, and not by pretended remorse, but by
mitigating my habitual coldness of manner, and commuting my frigid
civility into kindness wherever an opportunity occurred; and not only
was I beginning to think so, but I had already begun to act upon the
thought—and what was the result? No answering spark of kindness, no
awakening penitence, but an unappeasable ill-humour, and a spirit of
tyrannous exaction that increased with indulgence, and a lurking gleam
of self-complacent triumph at every detection of relenting softness in
my manner, that congealed me to marble again as often as it recurred;
and this morning he finished the business:—I think the petrifaction is
so completely effected at last that nothing can melt me again. Among
his letters was one which he perused with symptoms of unusual
gratification, and then threw it across the table to me, with the
admonition,—
“There! read that, and take a lesson by it!”
It was in the free, dashing hand of Lady Lowborough. I glanced at the
first page; it seemed full of extravagant protestations of affection;
impetuous longings for a speedy reunion—and impious defiance of God’s
mandates, and railings against His providence for having cast their lot
asunder, and doomed them both to the hateful bondage of alliance with
those they could not love. He gave a slight titter on seeing me change
colour. I folded up the letter, rose, and returned it to him, with no
remark, but—
“Thank you, I _will_ take a lesson by it!”
My little Arthur was standing between his knees, delightedly playing
with the bright, ruby ring on his finger. Urged by a sudden, imperative
impulse to deliver my son from that contaminating influence, I caught
him up in my arms and carried him with me out of the room. Not liking
this abrupt removal, the child began to pout and cry. This was a new
stab to my already tortured heart. I would not let him go; but, taking
him with me into the library, I shut the door, and, kneeling on the
floor beside him, I embraced him, kissed him, wept over with him with
passionate fondness. Rather frightened than consoled by this, he turned
struggling from me, and cried out aloud for his papa. I released him
from my arms, and never were more bitter tears than those that now
concealed him from my blinded, burning eyes. Hearing his cries, the
father came to the room. I instantly turned away, lest he should see
and misconstrue my emotion. He swore at me, and took the now pacified
child away.
It is hard that my little darling should love him more than me; and
that, when the well-being and culture of my son is all I have to live
for, I should see my influence destroyed by one whose selfish affection
is more injurious than the coldest indifference or the harshest tyranny
could be. If I, for his good, deny him some trifling indulgence, he
goes to his father, and the latter, in spite of his selfish indolence,
will even give himself some trouble to meet the child’s desires: if I
attempt to curb his will, or look gravely on him for some act of
childish disobedience, he knows his other parent will smile and take
his part against me. Thus, not only have I the father’s spirit in the
son to contend against, the germs of his evil tendencies to search out
and eradicate, and his corrupting intercourse and example in after-life
to counteract, but already _he_ counteracts my arduous labour for the
child’s advantage, destroys my influence over his tender mind, and robs
me of his very love; I had no earthly hope but this, and he seems to
take a diabolical delight in tearing it away.
But it is wrong to despair; I will remember the counsel of the inspired
writer to him “that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his
servant, that _sitteth in darkness and hath no light;_ let him trust in
the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God!”
CHAPTER XXXVII
December 20th, 1825.—Another year is past; and I am weary of this life.
And yet I cannot wish to leave it: whatever afflictions assail me here,
I cannot wish to go and leave my darling in this dark and wicked world
alone, without a friend to guide him through its weary mazes, to warn
him of its thousand snares, and guard him from the perils that beset
him on every hand. I am not well fitted to be his only companion, I
know; but there is no other to supply my place. I am too grave to
minister to his amusements and enter into his infantile sports as a
nurse or a mother ought to do, and often his bursts of gleeful
merriment trouble and alarm me; I see in them his father’s spirit and
temperament, and I tremble for the consequences; and too often damp the
innocent mirth I ought to share. That father, on the contrary, has no
weight of sadness on his mind; is troubled with no fears, no scruples
concerning his son’s future welfare; and at evenings especially, the
times when the child sees him the most and the oftenest, he is always
particularly jocund and open-hearted: ready to laugh and to jest with
anything or anybody but me, and I am particularly silent and sad:
therefore, of course, the child dotes upon his seemingly joyous
amusing, ever-indulgent papa, and will at any time gladly exchange my
company for his. This disturbs me greatly; not so much for the sake of
my son’s affection (though I do prize that highly, and though I feel it
is my right, and know I have done much to earn it) as for that
influence over him which, for his own advantage, I would strive to
purchase and retain, and which for very spite his father delights to
rob me of, and, from motives of mere idle egotism, is pleased to win to
himself; making no use of it but to torment me and ruin the child. My
only consolation is, that he spends comparatively little of his time at
home, and, during the months he passes in London or elsewhere, I have a
chance of recovering the ground I had lost, and overcoming with good
the evil he has wrought by his wilful mismanagement. But then it is a
bitter trial to behold him, on his return, doing his utmost to subvert
my labours and transform my innocent, affectionate, tractable darling
into a selfish, disobedient, and mischievous boy; thereby preparing the
soil for those vices he has so successfully cultivated in his own
perverted nature.
Happily, there were none of Arthur’s “friends” invited to Grassdale
last autumn: he took himself off to visit some of them instead. I wish
he would always do so, and I wish his friends were numerous and loving
enough to keep him amongst them all the year round. Mr. Hargrave,
considerably to my annoyance, did not go with him; but I think I have
done with that gentleman at last.
For seven or eight months he behaved so remarkably well, and managed so
skilfully too, that I was almost completely off my guard, and was
really beginning to look upon him as a friend, and even to treat him as
such, with certain prudent restrictions (which I deemed scarcely
necessary); when, presuming upon my unsuspecting kindness, he thought
he might venture to overstep the bounds of decent moderation and
propriety that had so long restrained him. It was on a pleasant evening
at the close of May: I was wandering in the park, and he, on seeing me
there as he rode past, made bold to enter and approach me, dismounting
and leaving his horse at the gate. This was the first time he had
ventured to come within its inclosure since I had been left alone,
without the sanction of his mother’s or sister’s company, or at least
the excuse of a message from them. But he managed to appear so calm and
easy, so respectful and self-possessed in his friendliness, that,
though a little surprised, I was neither alarmed nor offended at the
unusual liberty, and he walked with me under the ash-trees and by the
water-side, and talked, with considerable animation, good taste, and
intelligence, on many subjects, before I began to think about getting
rid of him. Then, after a pause, during which we both stood gazing on
the calm, blue water—I revolving in my mind the best means of politely
dismissing my companion, he, no doubt, pondering other matters equally
alien to the sweet sights and sounds that alone were present to his
senses,—he suddenly electrified me by beginning, in a peculiar tone,
low, soft, but perfectly distinct, to pour forth the most unequivocal
expressions of earnest and passionate love; pleading his cause with all
the bold yet artful eloquence he could summon to his aid. But I cut
short his appeal, and repulsed him so determinately, so decidedly, and
with such a mixture of scornful indignation, tempered with cool,
dispassionate sorrow and pity for his benighted mind, that he withdrew,
astonished, mortified, and discomforted; and, a few days after, I heard
that he had departed for London. He returned, however, in eight or nine
weeks, and did not entirely keep aloof from me, but comported himself
in so remarkable a manner that his quick-sighted sister could not fail
to notice the change.
“What have you done to Walter, Mrs. Huntingdon?” said she one morning,
when I had called at the Grove, and he had just left the room after
exchanging a few words of the coldest civility. “He has been so
extremely ceremonious and stately of late, I can’t imagine what it is
all about, unless you have desperately offended him. Tell me what it
is, that I may be your mediator, and make you friends again.”
“I have done nothing willingly to offend him,” said I. “If he is
offended, he can best tell you himself what it is about.”
“I’ll ask him,” cried the giddy girl, springing up and putting her head
out of the window: “he’s only in the garden—Walter!”
“No, no, Esther! you will seriously displease me if you do; and I shall
leave you immediately, and not come again for months—perhaps years.”
“Did you call, Esther?” said her brother, approaching the window from
without.
“Yes; I wanted to ask you—”
“Good-morning, Esther,” said I, taking her hand and giving it a severe
squeeze.
“To ask you,” continued she, “to get me a rose for Mrs. Huntingdon.” He
departed. “Mrs. Huntingdon,” she exclaimed, turning to me and still