The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
holding me fast by the hand, “I’m quite shocked at you—you’re just as
angry, and distant, and cold as he is: and I’m determined you shall be
as good friends as ever before you go.”
“Esther, how can you be so rude!” cried Mrs. Hargrave, who was seated
gravely knitting in her easy-chair. “Surely, you never _will_ learn to
conduct yourself like a lady!”
“Well, mamma, you said yourself—” But the young lady was silenced by
the uplifted finger of her mamma, accompanied with a very stern shake
of the head.
“Isn’t she cross?” whispered she to me; but, before I could add my
share of reproof, Mr. Hargrave reappeared at the window with a
beautiful moss-rose in his hand.
“Here, Esther, I’ve brought you the rose,” said he, extending it
towards her.
“Give it her yourself, you blockhead!” cried she, recoiling with a
spring from between us.
“Mrs. Huntingdon would rather receive it from you,” replied he, in a
very serious tone, but lowering his voice that his mother might not
hear. His sister took the rose and gave it to me.
“My brother’s compliments, Mrs. Huntingdon, and he hopes you and he
will come to a better understanding by-and-by. Will that do, Walter?”
added the saucy girl, turning to him and putting her arm round his
neck, as he stood leaning upon the sill of the window—“or should I have
said that you are sorry you were so touchy? or that you hope she will
pardon your offence?”
“You silly girl! you don’t know what you are talking about,” replied he
gravely.
“Indeed I don’t: for I’m quite in the dark!”
“Now, Esther,” interposed Mrs. Hargrave, who, if equally benighted on
the subject of our estrangement, saw at least that her daughter was
behaving very improperly, “I must insist upon your leaving the room!”
“Pray don’t, Mrs. Hargrave, for I’m going to leave it myself,” said I,
and immediately made my adieux.
About a week after Mr. Hargrave brought his sister to see me. He
conducted himself, at first, with his usual cold, distant,
half-stately, half-melancholy, altogether injured air; but Esther made
no remark upon it this time: she had evidently been schooled into
better manners. She talked to me, and laughed and romped with little
Arthur, her loved and loving playmate. He, somewhat to my discomfort,
enticed her from the room to have a run in the hall, and thence into
the garden. I got up to stir the fire. Mr. Hargrave asked if I felt
cold, and shut the door—a very unseasonable piece of officiousness, for
I had meditated following the noisy playfellows if they did not
speedily return. He then took the liberty of walking up to the fire
himself, and asking me if I were aware that Mr. Huntingdon was now at
the seat of Lord Lowborough, and likely to continue there some time.
“No; but it’s no matter,” I answered carelessly; and if my cheek glowed
like fire, it was rather at the question than the information it
conveyed.
“You don’t object to it?” he said.
“Not at all, if Lord Lowborough likes his company.”
“You have no love left for him, then?”
“Not the least.”
“I knew that—I knew you were too high-minded and pure in your own
nature to continue to regard one so utterly false and polluted with any
feelings but those of indignation and scornful abhorrence!”
“Is he not your friend?” said I, turning my eyes from the fire to his
face, with perhaps a slight touch of those feelings he assigned to
another.
“He _was_,” replied he, with the same calm gravity as before; “but do
not wrong me by supposing that I could continue my friendship and
esteem to a man who could so infamously, so impiously forsake and
injure one so transcendently—well, I won’t speak of it. But tell me, do
you never think of revenge?”
“Revenge! No—what good would that do?—it would make him no better, and
me no happier.”
“I don’t know how to talk to you, Mrs. Huntingdon,” said he, smiling;
“you are only half a woman—your nature must be half human, half
angelic. Such goodness overawes me; I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Then, sir, I fear you must be very much worse than you should be, if
I, a mere ordinary mortal, am, by your own confession, so vastly your
superior; and since there exists so little sympathy between us, I think
we had better each look out for some more congenial companion.” And
forthwith moving to the window, I began to look out for my little son
and his gay young friend.
“No, _I_ am the ordinary mortal, I maintain,” replied Mr. Hargrave. “I
will not allow myself to be worse than my fellows; but _you_, Madam—I
equally maintain there is nobody like you. But are you happy?” he asked
in a serious tone.
“As happy as some others, I suppose.”
“Are you as happy as you desire to be?”
“No one is so blest as that comes to on this side of eternity.”
“One thing I know,” returned he, with a deep sad sigh; “you are
immeasurably happier than I am.”
“I am very sorry for you, then,” I could not help replying.
“Are you, _indeed?_ No, for if you were you would be glad to relieve
me.”
“And so I should if I could do so without injuring myself or any
other.”
“And can you suppose that I should wish you to injure yourself? No: on
the contrary, it is your own happiness I long for more than mine. You
are miserable now, Mrs. Huntingdon,” continued he, looking me boldly in
the face. “You do not complain, but I see—and feel—and know that you
are miserable—and must remain so as long as you keep those walls of
impenetrable ice about your still warm and palpitating heart; and I am
miserable, too. Deign to smile on me and I am happy: trust me, and you
shall be happy also, for if you _are_ a woman I can make you so—and I
_will_ do it in spite of yourself!” he muttered between his teeth; “and
as for others, the question is between ourselves alone: you cannot
injure your husband, you know, and no one else has any concern in the
matter.”
“I have a son, Mr. Hargrave, and you have a mother,” said I, retiring
from the window, whither he had followed me.
“They need not know,” he began; but before anything more could be said
on either side, Esther and Arthur re-entered the room. The former
glanced at Walter’s flushed, excited countenance, and then at mine—a
little flushed and excited too, I daresay, though from far different
causes. She must have thought we had been quarrelling desperately, and
was evidently perplexed and disturbed at the circumstance; but she was
too polite or too much afraid of her brother’s anger to refer to it.
She seated herself on the sofa, and putting back her bright, golden
ringlets, that were scattered in wild profusion over her face, she
immediately began to talk about the garden and her little playfellow,
and continued to chatter away in her usual strain till her brother
summoned her to depart.
“If I have spoken too warmly, forgive me,” he murmured on taking his
leave, “or I shall never forgive myself.” Esther smiled and glanced at
me: I merely bowed, and her countenance fell. She thought it a poor
return for Walter’s generous concession, and was disappointed in her
friend. Poor child, she little knows the world she lives in!
Mr. Hargrave had not an opportunity of meeting me again in private for
several weeks after this; but when he did meet me there was less of
pride and more of touching melancholy in his manner than before. Oh,
_how_ he annoyed me! I was obliged at last almost entirely to remit my
visits to the Grove, at the expense of deeply offending Mrs. Hargrave
and seriously afflicting poor Esther, who really values my society for
want of better, and who ought not to suffer for the fault of her
brother. But that indefatigable foe was not yet vanquished: he seemed
to be always on the watch. I frequently saw him riding lingeringly past
the premises, looking searchingly round him as he went—or, if _I_ did
not, Rachel did. That sharp-sighted woman soon guessed how matters
stood between us, and descrying the enemy’s movements from her
elevation at the nursery-window, she would give me a quiet intimation
if she saw me preparing for a walk when she had reason to believe he
was about, or to think it likely that he would meet or overtake me in
the way I meant to traverse. I would then defer my ramble, or confine
myself for that day to the park and gardens, or, if the proposed
excursion was a matter of importance, such as a visit to the sick or
afflicted, I would take Rachel with me, and then I was never molested.
But one mild, sunshiny day, early in November, I had ventured forth
alone to visit the village school and a few of the poor tenants, and on
my return I was alarmed at the clatter of a horse’s feet behind me,
approaching at a rapid, steady trot. There was no stile or gap at hand
by which I could escape into the fields, so I walked quietly on, saying
to myself, “It may not be he after all; and if it is, and if he _do_
annoy me, it shall be for the last time, I am determined, if there be
power in words and looks against cool impudence and mawkish
sentimentality so inexhaustible as his.”
The horse soon overtook me, and was reined up close beside me. It _was_
Mr. Hargrave. He greeted me with a smile intended to be soft and
melancholy, but his triumphant satisfaction at having caught me at last
so shone through that it was quite a failure. After briefly answering
his salutation and inquiring after the ladies at the Grove, I turned
away and walked on; but he followed and kept his horse at my side: it
was evident he intended to be my companion all the way.
“Well! I don’t much care. If you want another rebuff, take it—and
welcome,” was my inward remark. “Now, sir, what next?”
This question, though unspoken, was not long unanswered; after a few
passing observations upon indifferent subjects, he began in solemn
tones the following appeal to my humanity:—
“It will be four years next April since I first saw you, Mrs.
Huntingdon—_you_ may have forgotten the circumstance, but _I_ never
can. I admired you then most deeply, but I dared not love you. In the
following autumn I saw so much of your perfections that I could not
fail to love you, though I dared not show it. For upwards of three
years I have endured a perfect martyrdom. From the anguish of
suppressed emotions, intense and fruitless longings, silent sorrow,
crushed hopes, and trampled affections, I have suffered more than I can
tell, or you imagine—and you were the cause of it, and not altogether
the innocent cause. My youth is wasting away; my prospects are
darkened; my life is a desolate blank; I have no rest day or night: I
am become a burden to myself and others, and you might save me by a
word—a glance, and will not do it—is this right?”
“In the first place, _I_ don’t believe _you_,” answered I; “in the
second, if you will be such a fool, I can’t hinder it.”
“If you affect,” replied he, earnestly, “to regard as folly the best,
the strongest, the most godlike impulses of our nature, I don’t believe
you. I know you are not the heartless, icy being you pretend to be—you
had a heart once, and gave it to your husband. When you found him
utterly unworthy of the treasure, you reclaimed it; and you will not
_pretend_ that you loved that sensual, earthly-minded profligate so
deeply, so devotedly, that you can never love another? I know that
there are feelings in your nature that have never yet been called
forth; I know, too, that in your present neglected lonely state you are
and _must_ be miserable. You have it in your power to raise two human
beings from a state of actual suffering to such unspeakable beatitude
as only generous, noble, self-forgetting love can give (for you _can_
love me if you will); you may tell me that you scorn and detest me,
but, since you have set me the example of plain speaking, I will answer
that _I do not believe you!_ But you will not do it! you choose rather