The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
cause of my error, I think you blame me too severely. I told Lady
Lowborough two weeks ago, the very hour she came, that I should
certainly think it my duty to inform you if she continued to deceive
you: she gave me full liberty to do so if I should see anything
reprehensible or suspicious in her conduct; I have seen nothing; and I
trusted she had altered her course.”
He continued gazing from the window while I spoke, and did not answer,
but, stung by the recollections my words awakened, stamped his foot
upon the floor, ground his teeth, and corrugated his brow, like one
under the influence of acute physical pain.
“It was wrong, it was wrong!” he muttered at length. “Nothing can
excuse it; nothing can atone for it,—for nothing can recall those years
of cursed credulity; nothing obliterate them!—nothing, nothing!” he
repeated in a whisper, whose despairing bitterness precluded all
resentment.
“When I put the case to myself, I own it _was_ wrong,” I answered; “but
I can only now regret that I did not see it in this light before, and
that, as you say, nothing can recall the past.”
Something in my voice or in the spirit of this answer seemed to alter
his mood. Turning towards me, and attentively surveying my face by the
dim light, he said, in a milder tone than he had yet employed,—“You,
too, have suffered, I suppose.”
“I suffered much, at first.”
“When was that?”
“Two years ago; and two years hence you will be as calm as I am now,
and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man, and free to act as
you please.”
Something like a smile, but a _very_ bitter one, crossed his face for a
moment.
“You have not been happy, lately?” he said, with a kind of effort to
regain composure, and a determination to waive the further discussion
of his own calamity.
“Happy?” I repeated, almost provoked at such a question. “Could I be
so, with such a husband?”
“I have noticed a change in your appearance since the first years of
your marriage,” pursued he: “I observed it to—to that infernal demon,”
he muttered between his teeth; “and he said it was your own sour temper
that was eating away your bloom: it was making you old and ugly before
your time, and had already made his fireside as comfortless as a
convent cell. You smile, Mrs. Huntingdon; nothing moves you. I wish my
nature were as calm as yours.”
“My nature was not originally calm,” said I. “I have learned to appear
so by dint of hard lessons and many repeated efforts.”
At this juncture Mr. Hattersley burst into the room.
“Hallo, Lowborough!” he began—“Oh! I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed on
seeing me. “I didn’t know it was a _tête-à-tête_. Cheer up, man,” he
continued, giving Lord Lowborough a thump on the back, which caused the
latter to recoil from him with looks of ineffable disgust and
irritation. “Come, I want to speak with you a bit.”
“Speak, then.”
“But I’m not sure it would be quite agreeable to the lady what I have
to say.”
“Then it would not be agreeable to me,” said his lordship, turning to
leave the room.
“Yes, it would,” cried the other, following him into the hall. “If
you’ve the heart of a man, it would be the very ticket for you. It’s
just this, my lad,” he continued, rather lowering his voice, but not
enough to prevent me from hearing every word he said, though the
half-closed door stood between us. “I think you’re an ill-used man—nay,
now, don’t flare up; I don’t want to offend you: it’s only my rough way
of talking. I must speak right out, you _know_, or else not at all; and
I’m come—stop now! let me explain—I’m come to offer you my services,
for though Huntingdon is my friend, he’s a devilish scamp, as we all
know, and I’ll be _your_ friend for the nonce. I know what it is you
want, to make matters straight: it’s just to exchange a shot with him,
and then you’ll feel yourself all right again; and if an accident
happens—why, that’ll be all right too, I daresay, to a desperate fellow
like you. Come now, give me your hand, and don’t look so black upon it.
Name time and place, and I’ll manage the rest.”
“That,” answered the more low, deliberate voice of Lord Lowborough, “is
just the remedy my own heart, or the devil within it, suggested—to meet
him, and _not to sever without blood_. Whether I or he should fall, or
both, it would be an _inexpressible_ relief to me, if—”
“Just so! Well then,—”
“No!” exclaimed his lordship, with deep, determined emphasis. “Though I
hate him from my heart, and should rejoice at any calamity that could
befall him, I’ll leave him to God; and though I abhor my own life, I’ll
leave that, too, to Him that gave it.”
“But you see, in this case,” pleaded Hattersley—
“I’ll not hear you!” exclaimed his companion, hastily turning away.
“Not another word! I’ve enough to do against the fiend within me.”
“Then you’re a white-livered fool, and I wash my hands of you,”
grumbled the tempter, as he swung himself round and departed.
“Right, right, Lord Lowborough,” cried I, darting out and clasping his
burning hand, as he was moving away to the stairs. “I begin to think
the world is not worthy of you!” Not understanding this sudden
ebullition, he turned upon me with a stare of gloomy, bewildered
amazement, that made me ashamed of the impulse to which I had yielded;
but soon a more humanised expression dawned upon his countenance, and
before I could withdraw my hand, he pressed it kindly, while a gleam of
genuine feeling flashed from his eyes as he murmured, “God help us
both!”
“Amen!” responded I; and we parted.
I returned to the drawing-room, where, doubtless, my presence would be
expected by most, desired by one or two. In the ante-room was Mr.
Hattersley, railing against Lord Lowborough’s poltroonery before a
select audience, viz. Mr. Huntingdon, who was lounging against the
table, exulting in his own treacherous villainy, and laughing his
victim to scorn, and Mr. Grimsby, standing by, quietly rubbing his
hands and chuckling with fiendish satisfaction.
In the drawing-room I found Lady Lowborough, evidently in no very
enviable state of mind, and struggling hard to conceal her discomposure
by an overstrained affectation of unusual cheerfulness and vivacity,
very uncalled-for under the circumstances, for she had herself given
the company to understand that her husband had received unpleasant
intelligence from home, which necessitated his immediate departure, and
that he had suffered it so to bother his mind that it had brought on a
bilious headache, owing to which, and the preparations he judged
necessary to hasten his departure, she believed they would not have the
pleasure of seeing him to-night. However, she asserted, it was only a
business concern, and so she did not intend it should trouble _her._
She was just saying this as I entered, and she darted upon me such a
glance of hardihood and defiance as at once astonished and revolted me.
“But I _am_ troubled,” continued she, “and vexed too, for I think it my
duty to accompany his lordship, and of course I am very sorry to part
with all my kind friends so unexpectedly and so soon.”
“And yet, Annabella,” said Esther, who was sitting beside her, “I never
saw you in better spirits in my life.”
“Precisely so, my love: because I wish to make the best of your
society, since it appears this is to be the last night I am to enjoy it
till heaven knows when; and I wish to leave a good impression on you
all,”—she glanced round, and seeing her aunt’s eye fixed upon her,
rather too scrutinizingly, as she probably thought, she started up and
continued: “To which end I’ll give you a song—shall I, aunt? shall I,
Mrs. Huntingdon? shall I ladies and gentlemen all? Very well. I’ll do
my best to amuse you.”
She and Lord Lowborough occupied the apartments next to mine. I know
not how _she_ passed the night, but I lay awake the greater part of it
listening to his heavy step pacing monotonously up and down his
dressing-room, which was nearest my chamber. Once I heard him pause and
throw something out of the window with a passionate ejaculation; and in
the morning, after they were gone, a keen-bladed clasp-knife was found
on the grass-plot below; a razor, likewise, was snapped in two and
thrust deep into the cinders of the grate, but partially corroded by
the decaying embers. So strong had been the temptation to end his
miserable life, so determined his resolution to resist it.
My heart bled for him as I lay listening to that ceaseless tread.
Hitherto I had thought too much of myself, too little of him: now I
forgot my own afflictions, and thought only of his; of the ardent
affection so miserably wasted, the fond faith so cruelly betrayed,
the—no, I will not attempt to enumerate his wrongs—but I hated his wife
and my husband more intensely than ever, and not for my sake, but for
his.
They departed early in the morning, before any one else was down,
except myself, and just as I was leaving my room Lord Lowborough was
descending to take his place in the carriage, where his lady was
already ensconced; and Arthur (or Mr. Huntingdon, as I prefer calling
him, for the other is my child’s name) had the gratuitous insolence to
come out in his dressing-gown to bid his “friend” good-by.
“What, going already, Lowborough!” said he. “Well, good-morning.” He
smilingly offered his hand.
I think the other would have knocked him down, had he not instinctively
started back before that bony fist quivering with rage and clenched
till the knuckles gleamed white and glistening through the skin.
Looking upon him with a countenance livid with furious hate, Lord
Lowborough muttered between his closed teeth a deadly execration he
would not have uttered had he been calm enough to choose his words, and
departed.
“I call that an unchristian spirit now,” said the villain. “But I’d
never give up an old friend for the sake of a wife. You may have mine
if you like, and I call that handsome; I can do no more than offer
restitution, can I?”
But Lowborough had gained the bottom of the stairs, and was now
crossing the hall; and Mr. Huntingdon, leaning over the banisters,
called out, “Give my love to Annabella! and I wish you both a happy
journey,” and withdrew, laughing, to his chamber.
He subsequently expressed himself rather glad she was gone. “She was so
deuced imperious and exacting,” said he. “Now I shall be my own man
again, and feel rather more at my ease.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
My greatest source of uneasiness, in this time of trial, was my son,
whom his father and his father’s friends delighted to encourage in all
the embryo vices a little child can show, and to instruct in all the
evil habits he could acquire—in a word, to “make a man of him” was one
of their staple amusements; and I need say no more to justify my alarm
on his account, and my determination to deliver him at any hazard from
the hands of such instructors. I first attempted to keep him always
with me, or in the nursery, and gave Rachel particular injunctions
never to let him come down to dessert as long as these “gentlemen”
stayed; but it was no use: these orders were immediately countermanded
and overruled by his father; he was not going to have the little fellow
moped to death between an old nurse and a cursed fool of a mother. So
the little fellow came down every evening in spite of his cross mamma,
and learned to tipple wine like papa, to swear like Mr. Hattersley, and
to have his own way like a man, and sent mamma to the devil when she
tried to prevent him. To see such things done with the roguish naïveté
of that pretty little child, and hear such things spoken by that small
infantile voice, was as peculiarly piquant and irresistibly droll to
them as it was inexpressibly distressing and painful to me; and when he