The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
in the midst of my perusal, leaving me no alternative but to get
another, at the expense of alarming the house, or to go to bed, and
wait the return of daylight. On my mother’s account, I chose the
latter; but how _willingly_ I sought my pillow, and how much sleep it
brought me, I leave you to imagine.
At the first appearance of dawn, I rose, and brought the manuscript to
the window, but it was impossible to read it yet. I devoted half an
hour to dressing, and then returned to it again. Now, with a little
difficulty, I could manage; and with intense and eager interest, I
devoured the remainder of its contents. When it was ended, and my
transient regret at its abrupt conclusion was over, I opened the window
and put out my head to catch the cooling breeze, and imbibe deep
draughts of the pure morning air. A splendid morning it was; the
half-frozen dew lay thick on the grass, the swallows were twittering
round me, the rooks cawing, and cows lowing in the distance; and early
frost and summer sunshine mingled their sweetness in the air. But I did
not think of that: a confusion of countless thoughts and varied
emotions crowded upon me while I gazed abstractedly on the lovely face
of nature. Soon, however, this chaos of thoughts and passions cleared
away, giving place to two distinct emotions: joy unspeakable that my
adored Helen was all I wished to think her—that through the noisome
vapours of the world’s aspersions and my own fancied convictions, her
character shone bright, and clear, and stainless as that sun I could
not bear to look on; and shame and deep remorse for my own conduct.
Immediately after breakfast I hurried over to Wildfell Hall. Rachel had
risen many degrees in my estimation since yesterday. I was ready to
greet her quite as an old friend; but every kindly impulse was checked
by the look of cold distrust she cast upon me on opening the door. The
old virgin had constituted herself the guardian of her lady’s honour, I
suppose, and doubtless she saw in me another Mr. Hargrave, only the
more dangerous in being more esteemed and trusted by her mistress.
“Missis can’t see any one to-day, sir—she’s poorly,” said she, in
answer to my inquiry for Mrs. Graham.
“But I must see her, Rachel,” said I, placing my hand on the door to
prevent its being shut against me.
“Indeed, sir, you can’t,” replied she, settling her countenance in
still more iron frigidity than before.
“Be so good as to announce me.”
“It’s no manner of use, Mr. Markham; she’s poorly, I tell you.”
Just in time to prevent me from committing the impropriety of taking
the citadel by storm, and pushing forward unannounced, an inner door
opened, and little Arthur appeared with his frolicsome playfellow, the
dog. He seized my hand between both his, and smilingly drew me forward.
“Mamma says you’re to come in, Mr. Markham,” said he, “and I am to go
out and play with Rover.”
Rachel retired with a sigh, and I stepped into the parlour and shut the
door. There, before the fire-place, stood the tall, graceful figure,
wasted with many sorrows. I cast the manuscript on the table, and
looked in her face. Anxious and pale, it was turned towards me; her
clear, dark eyes were fixed on mine with a gaze so intensely earnest
that they bound me like a spell.
“Have you looked it over?” she murmured. The spell was broken.
“I’ve read it through,” said I, advancing into the room,—“and I want to
know if you’ll forgive me—if you _can_ forgive me?”
She did not answer, but her eyes glistened, and a faint red mantled on
her lip and cheek. As I approached, she abruptly turned away, and went
to the window. It was not in anger, I was well assured, but only to
conceal or control her emotion. I therefore ventured to follow and
stand beside her there,—but not to speak. She gave me her hand, without
turning her head, and murmured in a voice she strove in vain to
steady,—
“Can _you_ forgive _me?_”
It might be deemed a breach of trust, I thought, to convey that lily
hand to my lips, so I only gently pressed it between my own, and
smilingly replied,—“I hardly can. You should have told me this before.
It shows a want of confidence—”
“Oh, no,” cried she, eagerly interrupting me; “it was not that. It was
no want of confidence in you; but if I had told you anything of my
history, I must have told you all, in order to excuse my conduct; and I
might well shrink from such a disclosure, till necessity obliged me to
make it. But you forgive me?—I have done very, very wrong, I know; but,
as usual, I have reaped the bitter fruits of my own error,—and must
reap them to the end.”
Bitter, indeed, was the tone of anguish, repressed by resolute
firmness, in which this was spoken. Now, I raised her hand to my lips,
and fervently kissed it again and again; for tears prevented any other
reply. She suffered these wild caresses without resistance or
resentment; then, suddenly turning from me, she paced twice or thrice
through the room. I knew by the contraction of her brow, the tight
compression of her lips, and wringing of her hands, that meantime a
violent conflict between reason and passion was silently passing
within. At length she paused before the empty fire-place, and turning
to me, said calmly—if that might be called calmness which was so
evidently the result of a violent effort,—
“Now, Gilbert, you must leave me—not this moment, but soon—and you must
_never come again_.”
“Never again, Helen? just when I love you more than ever.”
“For that very reason, if it be so, we should not meet again. I thought
_this_ interview was necessary—at least, I persuaded myself it was
so—that we might severally ask and receive each other’s pardon for the
past; but there can be no excuse for another. I shall leave this place,
as soon as I have means to seek another asylum; but our intercourse
must end here.”
“End here!” echoed I; and approaching the high, carved chimney-piece, I
leant my hand against its heavy mouldings, and dropped my forehead upon
it in silent, sullen despondency.
“You must not come again,” continued she. There was a slight tremor in
her voice, but I thought her whole manner was provokingly composed,
considering the dreadful sentence she pronounced. “You must know why I
tell you so,” she resumed; “and you must see that it is better to part
at once:—if it be hard to say adieu for ever, you ought to help me.”
She paused. I did not answer. “Will you promise not to come?—if you
won’t, and if you do come here again, you will drive me away before I
know where to find another place of refuge—or how to seek it.”
“Helen,” said I, turning impatiently towards her, “I cannot discuss the
matter of eternal separation calmly and dispassionately as you can do.
It is no question of mere expedience with _me;_ it is a question of
life and death!”
She was silent. Her pale lips quivered, and her fingers trembled with
agitation, as she nervously entwined them in the hair-chain to which
was appended her small gold watch—the only thing of value she had
permitted herself to keep. I had said an unjust and cruel thing; but I
must needs follow it up with something worse.
“But, Helen!” I began in a soft, low tone, not daring to raise my eyes
to her face, “that man is not your husband: in the sight of heaven he
has forfeited all claim to—” She seized my arm with a grasp of
startling energy.
“_Gilbert, don’t!_” she cried, in a tone that would have pierced a
heart of adamant. “For God’s sake, don’t _you_ attempt these arguments!
No _fiend_ could torture me like this!”
“I won’t, I won’t!” said I, gently laying my hand on hers; almost as
much alarmed at her vehemence as ashamed of my own misconduct.
“Instead of acting like a true friend,” continued she, breaking from
me, and throwing herself into the old arm-chair, “and helping me with
all your might—or rather taking your own part in the struggle of right
against passion—you leave all the burden to me;—and not satisfied with
that, you do your utmost to fight against me—when you know that!—” she
paused, and hid her face in her handkerchief.
“Forgive me, Helen!” pleaded I. “I will never utter another word on the
subject. But may we not still meet as friends?”
“It will not do,” she replied, mournfully shaking her head; and then
she raised her eyes to mine, with a mildly reproachful look that seemed
to say, “You must know that as well as I.”
“Then what _must_ we do?” cried I, passionately. But immediately I
added in a quieter tone—“I’ll do whatever you desire; only _don’t_ say
that this meeting is to be our last.”
“And why not? Don’t you know that every time we meet the thoughts of
the final parting will become more painful? Don’t you _feel_ that every
interview makes us dearer to each other than the last?”
The utterance of this last question was hurried and low, and the
downcast eyes and burning blush too plainly showed that _she_, at
least, had felt it. It was scarcely prudent to make such an admission,
or to add—as she presently did—“I have power to bid you go, now:
another time it might be different,”—but I was not base enough to
attempt to take advantage of her candour.
“But we may write,” I timidly suggested. “You will not deny me that
consolation?”
“We can hear of each other through my brother.”
“Your brother!” A pang of remorse and shame shot through me. She had
not heard of the injury he had sustained at my hands; and I had not the
courage to tell her. “Your brother will not help us,” I said: “he would
have all communion between us to be entirely at an end.”
“And he would be right, I suppose. As a friend of both, he would wish
us both well; and every friend would tell us it was our interest, as
well as our duty, to forget each other, though we might not see it
ourselves. But don’t be afraid, Gilbert,” she added, smiling sadly at
my manifest discomposure; “there is little chance of my forgetting you.
But I did not mean that Frederick should be the means of transmitting
messages between us—only that each might know, through him, of the
other’s welfare;—and more than this ought not to be: for you are young,
Gilbert, and you ought to marry—and will some time, though you may
think it impossible now: and though I hardly can say I wish you to
forget me, I know it is right that you should, both for your own
happiness, and that of your future wife;—and therefore I must and will
wish it,” she added resolutely.
“And you are young too, Helen,” I boldly replied; “and when that
profligate scoundrel has run through his career, you will give your
hand to me—I’ll wait till then.”
But she would not leave me this support. Independently of the moral
evil of basing our hopes upon the death of another, who, if unfit for
this world, was at least no less so for the next, and whose
amelioration would thus become our bane and his greatest transgression
our greatest benefit,—she maintained it to be madness: many men of Mr.
Huntingdon’s habits had lived to a ripe though miserable old age. “And
if I,” said she, “am young in years, I am old in sorrow; but even if
trouble should fail to kill me before vice destroys him, think, if he
reached but fifty years or so, would you wait twenty or fifteen—in
vague uncertainty and suspense—through all the prime of youth and
manhood—and marry at last a woman faded and worn as I shall be—without
ever having seen me from this day to that?—You would not,” she
continued, interrupting my earnest protestations of unfailing
constancy,—“or if you would, you should not. Trust me, Gilbert; in this
matter I know better than you. You think me cold and stony-hearted, and
you may, but—”
“I don’t, Helen.”
“Well, never mind: you might if you would: but I have not spent my
solitude in utter idleness, and I am not speaking now from the impulse