The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
her to-morrow, to receive her further commands.”
I was glad to ascend the stern-looking stone staircase, and lie down in
the gloomy, old-fashioned bed, beside my little Arthur. He was asleep
in a minute; but, weary as I was, my excited feelings and restless
cogitations kept me awake till dawn began to struggle with the
darkness; but sleep was sweet and refreshing when it came, and the
waking was delightful beyond expression. It was little Arthur that
roused me, with his gentle kisses. He was here, then, safely clasped in
my arms, and many leagues away from his unworthy father! Broad daylight
illumined the apartment, for the sun was high in heaven, though
obscured by rolling masses of autumnal vapour.
The scene, indeed, was not remarkably cheerful in itself, either within
or without. The large bare room, with its grim old furniture, the
narrow, latticed windows, revealing the dull, grey sky above and the
desolate wilderness below, where the dark stone walls and iron gate,
the rank growth of grass and weeds, and the hardy evergreens of
preternatural forms, alone remained to tell that there had been once a
garden,—and the bleak and barren fields beyond might have struck me as
gloomy enough at another time; but now, each separate object seemed to
echo back my own exhilarating sense of hope and freedom: indefinite
dreams of the far past and bright anticipations of the future seemed to
greet me at every turn. I should rejoice with more security, to be
sure, had the broad sea rolled between my present and my former homes;
but surely in this lonely spot I might remain unknown; and then I had
my brother here to cheer my solitude with his occasional visits.
He came that morning; and I have had several interviews with him since;
but he is obliged to be very cautious when and how he comes; not even
his servants or his best friends must know of his visits to
Wildfell—except on such occasions as a landlord might be expected to
call upon a stranger tenant—lest suspicion should be excited against
me, whether of the truth or of some slanderous falsehood.
I have now been here nearly a fortnight, and, but for one disturbing
care, the haunting dread of discovery, I am comfortably settled in my
new home: Frederick has supplied me with all requisite furniture and
painting materials: Rachel has sold most of my clothes for me, in a
distant town, and procured me a wardrobe more suitable to my present
position: I have a second-hand piano, and a tolerably well-stocked
bookcase in my parlour; and my other room has assumed quite a
professional, business-like appearance already. I am working hard to
repay my brother for all his expenses on my account; not that there is
the slightest necessity for anything of the kind, but it pleases me to
do so: I shall have so much more pleasure in my labour, my earnings, my
frugal fare, and household economy, when I know that I am paying my way
honestly, and that what little I possess is legitimately all my own;
and that no one suffers for my folly—in a pecuniary way at least. I
shall make him take the last penny I owe him, if I can possibly effect
it without offending him too deeply. I have a few pictures already
done, for I told Rachel to pack up all I had; and she executed her
commission but too well—for among the rest, she put up a portrait of
Mr. Huntingdon that I had painted in the first year of my marriage. It
struck me with dismay, at the moment, when I took it from the box and
beheld those eyes fixed upon me in their mocking mirth, as if exulting
still in his power to control my fate, and deriding my efforts to
escape.
How widely different had been my feelings in painting that portrait to
what they now were in looking upon it! How I had studied and toiled to
produce something, as I thought, worthy of the original! what mingled
pleasure and dissatisfaction I had had in the result of my
labours!—pleasure for the likeness I had caught; dissatisfaction,
because I had not made it handsome enough. Now, I see no beauty in
it—nothing pleasing in any part of its expression; and yet it is far
handsomer and far more agreeable—far less repulsive I should rather
say—than he is now: for these six years have wrought almost as great a
change upon himself as on my feelings regarding him. The frame,
however, is handsome enough; it will serve for another painting. The
picture itself I have not destroyed, as I had first intended; I have
put it aside; not, I think, from any lurking tenderness for the memory
of past affection, nor yet to remind me of my former folly, but chiefly
that I may compare my son’s features and countenance with this, as he
grows up, and thus be enabled to judge how much or how little he
resembles his father—if I may be allowed to keep him with me still, and
never to behold that father’s face again—a blessing I hardly dare
reckon upon.
It seems Mr. Huntingdon is making every exertion to discover the place
of my retreat. He has been in person to Staningley, seeking redress for
his grievances—expecting to hear of his victims, if not to find them
there—and has told so many lies, and with such unblushing coolness,
that my uncle more than half believes him, and strongly advocates my
going back to him and being friends again. But my aunt knows better:
she is too cool and cautious, and too well acquainted with both my
husband’s character and my own to be imposed upon by any specious
falsehoods the former could invent. But he does not _want_ me back; he
wants my child; and gives my friends to understand that if I prefer
living apart from him, he will indulge the whim and let me do so
unmolested, and even settle a reasonable allowance on me, provided I
will immediately deliver up his son. But heaven help me! I am not going
to sell my child for gold, though it were to save both him and me from
starving: it would be better that he should die with me than that he
should live with his father.
Frederick showed me a letter he had received from that gentleman, full
of cool impudence such as would astonish any one who did not know him,
but such as, I am convinced, none would know better how to answer than
my brother. He gave me no account of his reply, except to tell me that
he had not acknowledged his acquaintance with my place of refuge, but
rather left it to be inferred that it was quite unknown to him, by
saying it was useless to apply to him, or any other of my relations,
for information on the subject, as it appeared I had been driven to
such extremity that I had concealed my retreat even from my best
friends; but that if he _had_ known it, or should at any time be made
aware of it, most certainly Mr. Huntingdon would be the last person to
whom he should communicate the intelligence; and that he need not
trouble himself to bargain for the child, for he (Frederick) fancied he
knew enough of his sister to enable him to declare, that wherever she
might be, or however situated, no consideration would induce her to
deliver him up.
30th.—Alas! my kind neighbours will not let me alone. By some means
they have ferreted me out, and I have had to sustain visits from three
different families, all more or less bent upon discovering who and what
I am, whence I came, and why I have chosen such a home as this. Their
society is unnecessary to me, to say the least, and their curiosity
annoys and alarms me: if I gratify it, it may lead to the ruin of my
son, and if I am too mysterious it will only excite their suspicions,
invite conjecture, and rouse them to greater exertions—and perhaps be
the means of spreading my fame from parish to parish, till it reach the
ears of some one who will carry it to the Lord of Grassdale Manor.
I shall be expected to return their calls, but if, upon inquiry, I find
that any of them live too far away for Arthur to accompany me, they
must expect in vain for a while, for I cannot bear to leave him, unless
it be to go to church, and I have not attempted _that_ yet: for—it may
be foolish weakness, but I am under such constant dread of his being
snatched away, that I am never easy when he is not by my side; and I
fear these nervous terrors would so entirely disturb my devotions, that
I should obtain no benefit from the attendance. I mean, however, to
make the experiment next Sunday, and oblige myself to leave him in
charge of Rachel for a few hours. It will be a hard task, but surely no
imprudence; and the vicar has been to scold me for my neglect of the
ordinances of religion. I had no sufficient excuse to offer, and I
promised, if all were well, he should see me in my pew next Sunday; for
I do not wish to be set down as an infidel; and, besides, I know I
should derive great comfort and benefit from an occasional attendance
at public worship, if I could only have faith and fortitude to compose
my thoughts in conformity with the solemn occasion, and forbid them to
be for ever dwelling on my absent child, and on the dreadful
possibility of finding him gone when I return; and surely God in His
mercy will preserve me from so severe a trial: for my child’s own sake,
if not for mine, He will not suffer him to be torn away.
November 3rd.—I have made some further acquaintance with my neighbours.
The fine gentleman and beau of the parish and its vicinity (in his own
estimation, at least) is a young . . . .
* * * * *
Here it ended. The rest was torn away. How cruel, just when she was
going to mention me! for I could not doubt it _was_ your humble servant
she was about to mention, though not very favourably, of course. I
could tell that, as well by those few words as by the recollection of
her whole aspect and demeanour towards me in the commencement of our
acquaintance. Well! I could readily forgive her prejudice against me,
and her hard thoughts of our sex in general, when I saw to what
brilliant specimens her experience had been limited.
Respecting me, however, she had long since seen her error, and perhaps
fallen into another in the opposite extreme: for if, at first, her
opinion of me had been lower than I deserved, I was convinced that now
my deserts were lower than her opinion; and if the former part of this
continuation had been torn away to avoid wounding my feelings, perhaps
the latter portion had been removed for fear of ministering too much to
my self-conceit. At any rate, I would have given much to have seen it
all—to have witnessed the gradual change, and watched the progress of
her esteem and friendship for me, and whatever warmer feeling she might
have; to have seen how much of love there was in her regard, and how it
had grown upon her in spite of her virtuous resolutions and strenuous
exertions to—but no, I had no right to see it: all this was too sacred
for any eyes but her own, and she had done well to keep it from me.
CHAPTER XLV
Well, Halford, what do you think of all this? and while you read it,
did you ever picture to yourself what my feelings would probably be
during its perusal? Most likely not; but I am not going to descant upon
them now: I will only make this acknowledgment, little honourable as it
may be to human nature, and especially to myself,—that the former half
of the narrative was, to me, more painful than the latter, not that I
was at all insensible to Mrs. Huntingdon’s wrongs or unmoved by her
sufferings, but, I must confess, I felt a kind of selfish gratification
in watching her husband’s gradual decline in her good graces, and
seeing how completely he extinguished all her affection at last. The
effect of the whole, however, in spite of all my sympathy for her, and
my fury against him, was to relieve my mind of an intolerable burden,
and fill my heart with joy, as if some friend had roused me from a
dreadful nightmare.
It was now near eight o’clock in the morning, for my candle had expired