The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
of the moment, as you do. I have thought of all these matters again and
again; I have argued these questions with myself, and pondered well our
past, and present, and future career; and, believe me, I have come to
the right conclusion at last. Trust my words rather than your own
feelings now, and in a few years you will see that I was right—though
at present I hardly can see it myself,” she murmured with a sigh as she
rested her head on her hand. “And don’t argue against me any more: all
you can say has been already said by my own heart and refuted by my
reason. It was hard enough to combat those suggestions as they were
whispered within me; in your mouth they are ten times worse, and if you
knew how much they pain me you would cease at once, I know. If you knew
my present feelings, you would even try to relieve them at the expense
of your own.”
“I will go—in a minute, if _that_ can relieve you—and NEVER return!”
said I, with bitter emphasis. “But, if we may never meet, and never
hope to meet again, is it a crime to exchange our thoughts by letter?
May not kindred spirits meet, and mingle in communion, whatever be the
fate and circumstances of their earthly tenements?”
“They may, they may!” cried she, with a momentary burst of glad
enthusiasm. “I thought of that too, Gilbert, but I feared to mention
it, because I feared you would not understand my views upon the
subject. I fear it even now—I fear any kind friend would tell us we are
_both_ deluding ourselves with the idea of keeping up a spiritual
intercourse without hope or prospect of anything further—without
fostering vain regrets and hurtful aspirations, and feeding thoughts
that should be sternly and pitilessly left to perish of inanition.”
“Never mind our kind friends: if they can part our bodies, it is
enough; in God’s name, let them not sunder our souls!” cried I, in
terror lest she should deem it her duty to deny us this last remaining
consolation.
“But no letters can pass between us here,” said she, “without giving
fresh food for scandal; and when I departed, I had intended that my new
abode should be unknown to you as to the rest of the world; not that I
should doubt your word if you promised not to visit me, but I thought
you would be more tranquil in your own mind if you knew you could not
do it, and likely to find less difficulty in abstracting yourself from
me if you could not picture my situation to your mind. But listen,”
said she, smilingly putting up her finger to check my impatient reply:
“in six months you shall hear from Frederick precisely where I am; and
if you still retain your wish to write to me, and think you can
maintain a correspondence all thought, all spirit—such as disembodied
souls or unimpassioned friends, at least, might hold,—write, and I will
answer you.”
“Six months!”
“Yes, to give your present ardour time to cool, and try the truth and
constancy of your soul’s love for mine. And now, enough has been said
between us. Why can’t we part at once?” exclaimed she, almost wildly,
after a moment’s pause, as she suddenly rose from her chair, with her
hands resolutely clasped together. I thought it was my duty to go
without delay; and I approached and half extended my hand as if to take
leave—she grasped it in silence. But this thought of final separation
was too intolerable: it seemed to squeeze the blood out of my heart;
and my feet were glued to the floor.
“And must we never meet again?” I murmured, in the anguish of my soul.
“We shall meet in heaven. Let us think of that,” said she in a tone of
desperate calmness; but her eyes glittered wildly, and her face was
deadly pale.
“But not as we are now,” I could not help replying. “It gives me little
consolation to think I shall next behold you as a disembodied spirit,
or an altered being, with a frame perfect and glorious, but not like
this!—and a heart, perhaps, entirely estranged from me.”
“No, Gilbert, there is perfect love in heaven!”
“_So_ perfect, I suppose, that it soars above distinctions, and you
will have no closer sympathy with me than with any one of the ten
thousand thousand angels and the innumerable multitude of happy spirits
round us.”
“Whatever I am, you will be the same, and, therefore, cannot possibly
regret it; and whatever that change may be we know it must be for the
better.”
“But if I am to be so changed that I shall cease to adore you with my
whole heart and soul, and love you beyond every other creature, I shall
not be myself; and though, if ever I win heaven at all, I must, I know,
be infinitely better and happier than I am now, my earthly nature
cannot rejoice in the anticipation of such beatitude, from which itself
and its chief joy must be excluded.”
“Is your love _all_ earthly, then?”
“No, but I am supposing we shall have no more intimate communion with
each other than with the rest.”
“If so, it will be because we love them more, and not each other less.
Increase of love brings increase of happiness, when it is mutual, and
pure as that will be.”
“But can _you_, Helen, contemplate with delight this prospect of losing
me in a sea of glory?”
“I own I cannot; but we know not that it will be so;—and I do know that
to regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of heaven, is
as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day
quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving
at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or
basking in their sunny petals. If these little creatures knew how great
a change awaited them, no doubt they would regret it; but would not all
such sorrow be misplaced? And if that illustration will not move you,
here is another:—We are children now; we feel as children, and we
understand as children; and when we are told that men and women do not
play with toys, and that our companions will one day weary of the
trivial sports and occupations that interest them and us so deeply now,
we cannot help being saddened at the thoughts of such an alteration,
because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our own minds will become
so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as
trifling those objects and pursuits we now so fondly cherish, and that,
though our companions will no longer join us in those childish
pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and
mingle their souls with ours in higher aims and nobler occupations
beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less
truly good for that, while yet both we and they remain essentially the
same individuals as before. But, Gilbert, can you really derive no
consolation from the thought that we may meet together where there is
no more pain and sorrow, no more striving against sin, and struggling
of the spirit against the flesh; where both will behold the same
glorious truths, and drink exalted and supreme felicity from the same
fountain of light and goodness—that Being whom both will worship with
the same intensity of holy ardour—and where pure and happy creatures
both will love with the same divine affection? If you cannot, never
write to me!”
“Helen, I can! if faith would never fail.”
“Now, then,” exclaimed she, “while this hope is strong within us—”
“We will part,” I cried. “You shall not have the pain of another effort
to dismiss me. I will go at once; but—”
I did not put my request in words: she understood it instinctively, and
_this_ time she yielded too—or rather, there was nothing so deliberate
as requesting or yielding in the matter: there was a sudden impulse
that neither could resist. One moment I stood and looked into her face,
the next I held her to my heart, and we seemed to grow together in a
close embrace from which no physical or mental force could rend us. A
whispered “God bless you!” and “Go—go!” was all she said; but while she
spoke she held me so fast that, without violence, I could not have
obeyed her. At length, however, by some heroic effort, we tore
ourselves apart, and I rushed from the house.
I have a confused remembrance of seeing little Arthur running up the
garden-walk to meet me, and of bolting over the wall to avoid him—and
subsequently running down the steep fields, clearing the stone fences
and hedges as they came in my way, till I got completely out of sight
of the old hall and down to the bottom of the hill; and then of long
hours spent in bitter tears and lamentations, and melancholy musings in
the lonely valley, with the eternal music in my ears, of the west wind
rushing through the overshadowing trees, and the brook babbling and
gurgling along its stony bed; my eyes, for the most part, vacantly
fixed on the deep, chequered shades restlessly playing over the bright
sunny grass at my feet, where now and then a withered leaf or two would
come dancing to share the revelry; but my heart was away up the hill in
that dark room where she was weeping desolate and alone—she whom I was
not to comfort, not to see again, till years or suffering had overcome
us both, and torn our spirits from their perishing abodes of clay.
There was little business done that day, you may be sure. The farm was
abandoned to the labourers, and the labourers were left to their own
devices. But one duty must be attended to; I had not forgotten my
assault upon Frederick Lawrence; and I must see him to apologise for
the unhappy deed. I would fain have put it off till the morrow; but
what if he should denounce me to his sister in the meantime? No, no! I
must ask his pardon to-day, and entreat him to be lenient in his
accusation, if the revelation must be made. I deferred it, however,
till the evening, when my spirits were more composed, and when—oh,
wonderful perversity of human nature!—some faint germs of indefinite
hopes were beginning to rise in my mind; not that I intended to cherish
them, after all that had been said on the subject, but there they must
lie for a while, uncrushed though not encouraged, till I had learnt to
live without them.
Arrived at Woodford, the young squire’s abode, I found no little
difficulty in obtaining admission to his presence. The servant that
opened the door told me his master was very ill, and seemed to think it
doubtful whether he would be able to see me. I was not going to be
baulked, however. I waited calmly in the hall to be announced, but
inwardly determined to take no denial. The message was such as I
expected—a polite intimation that Mr. Lawrence could see no one; he was
feverish, and must not be disturbed.
“I shall not disturb him long,” said I; “but I must see him for a
moment: it is on business of importance that I wish to speak to him.”
“I’ll tell him, sir,” said the man. And I advanced further into the
hall and followed him nearly to the door of the apartment where his
master was—for it seemed he was not in bed. The answer returned was
that Mr. Lawrence hoped I would be so good as to leave a message or a
note with the servant, as he could attend to no business at present.
“He may as well see me as you,” said I; and, stepping past the
astonished footman, I boldly rapped at the door, entered, and closed it
behind me. The room was spacious and handsomely furnished—very
comfortably, too, for a bachelor. A clear, red fire was burning in the
polished grate: a superannuated greyhound, given up to idleness and
good living, lay basking before it on the thick, soft rug, on one
corner of which, beside the sofa, sat a smart young springer, looking
wistfully up in its master’s face—perhaps asking permission to share
his couch, or, it might be, only soliciting a caress from his hand or a
kind word from his lips. The invalid himself looked very interesting as
he lay reclining there, in his elegant dressing-gown, with a silk