The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
thoughtful of late,—I could almost think you have some secret care
preying on your spirits. _Formerly_,” said she timidly, “I could have
ventured to ask you what it was, and what I could do to comfort you: I
dare not do it now.”
“You’re very kind, Miss Eliza. When I think you can do anything to
comfort me, I’ll make bold to tell you.”
“Pray do!—I suppose I mayn’t guess what it is that troubles you?”
“There’s no necessity, for I’ll tell you plainly. The thing that
troubles me the most at present is a young lady sitting at my elbow,
and preventing me from finishing my letter, and, thereafter, repairing
to my daily business.”
Before she could reply to this ungallant speech, Rose entered the room;
and Miss Eliza rising to greet her, they both seated themselves near
the fire, where that idle lad Fergus was standing, leaning his shoulder
against the corner of the chimney-piece, with his legs crossed and his
hands in his breeches-pockets.
“Now, Rose, I’ll tell you a piece of news—I hope you have not heard it
before: for good, bad, or indifferent, one always likes to be the first
to tell. It’s about that sad Mrs. Graham—”
“Hush-sh-sh!” whispered Fergus, in a tone of solemn import. “‘We never
mention her; her name is never heard.’” And glancing up, I caught him
with his eye askance on me, and his finger pointed to his forehead;
then, winking at the young lady with a doleful shake of the head, he
whispered—“A monomania—but don’t mention it—all right but that.”
“I should be sorry to injure any one’s feelings,” returned she,
speaking below her breath. “Another time, perhaps.”
“Speak out, Miss Eliza!” said I, not deigning to notice the other’s
buffooneries: “you needn’t fear to say anything in my presence.”
“Well,” answered she, “perhaps you know already that Mrs. Graham’s
husband is not really dead, and that she had run away from him?” I
started, and felt my face glow; but I bent it over my letter, and went
on folding it up as she proceeded. “But perhaps you did _not_ know that
she is now gone back to him again, and that a perfect reconciliation
has taken place between them? Only think,” she continued, turning to
the confounded Rose, “what a fool the man must be!”
“And who gave you this piece of intelligence, Miss Eliza?” said I,
interrupting my sister’s exclamations.
“I had it from a very authentic source.”
“From whom, may I ask?”
“From one of the servants at Woodford.”
“Oh! I was not aware that you were on such intimate terms with Mr.
Lawrence’s household.”
“It was not from the man himself that I heard it, but he told it in
confidence to our maid Sarah, and Sarah told it to me.”
“In confidence, I suppose? And you tell it in confidence to us? But _I_
can tell _you_ that it is but a lame story after all, and scarcely
one-half of it true.”
While I spoke I completed the sealing and direction of my letters, with
a somewhat unsteady hand, in spite of all my efforts to retain
composure, and in spite of my firm conviction that the story _was_ a
lame one—that the supposed Mrs. Graham, most certainly, had not
_voluntarily_ gone back to her husband, or dreamt of a reconciliation.
Most likely she was gone away, and the tale-bearing servant, not
knowing what was become of her, had _conjectured_ that such was the
case, and our fair visitor had detailed it as a certainty, delighted
with such an opportunity of tormenting me. But it was possible—barely
possible—that some one might have betrayed her, and she had been taken
away by force. Determined to know the worst, I hastily pocketed my two
letters, and muttered something about being too late for the post, left
the room, rushed into the yard, and vociferously called for my horse.
No one being there, I dragged him out of the stable myself, strapped
the saddle on to his back and the bridle on to his head, mounted, and
speedily galloped away to Woodford. I found its owner pensively
strolling in the grounds.
“Is your sister gone?” were my first words as I grasped his hand,
instead of the usual inquiry after his health.
“Yes, she’s gone,” was his answer, so calmly spoken that my terror was
at once removed.
“I suppose I mayn’t know where she is?” said I, as I dismounted, and
relinquished my horse to the gardener, who, being the only servant
within call, had been summoned by his master, from his employment of
raking up the dead leaves on the lawn, to take him to the stables.
My companion gravely took my arm, and leading me away to the garden,
thus answered my question,—“She is at Grassdale Manor, in ——shire.”
“Where?” cried I, with a convulsive start.
“At Grassdale Manor.”
“How was it?” I gasped. “Who betrayed her?”
“She went of her own accord.”
“Impossible, Lawrence! She _could_ not be so frantic!” exclaimed I,
vehemently grasping his arm, as if to force him to unsay those hateful
words.
“She did,” persisted he in the same grave, collected manner as before;
“and not without reason,” he continued, gently disengaging himself from
my grasp. “Mr. Huntingdon is ill.”
“And so she went to nurse him?”
“Yes.”
“Fool!” I could not help exclaiming, and Lawrence looked up with a
rather reproachful glance. “Is he dying, then?”
“I think not, Markham.”
“And how many more nurses has he? How many ladies are there besides to
take care of him?”
“None; he was alone, or she would not have gone.”
“Oh, confound it! This is intolerable!”
“What is? That he should be alone?”
I attempted no reply, for I was not sure that this circumstance did not
partly conduce to my distraction. I therefore continued to pace the
walk in silent anguish, with my hand pressed to my forehead; then
suddenly pausing and turning to my companion, I impatiently exclaimed,
“Why did she take this infatuated step? What fiend persuaded her to
it?”
“Nothing persuaded her but her own sense of duty.”
“Humbug!”
“I was half inclined to say so myself, Markham, at first. I assure you
it was not by my advice that she went, for I detest that man as
fervently as you can do,—except, indeed, that his reformation would
give me much greater pleasure than his death; but all I did was to
inform her of the circumstance of his illness (the consequence of a
fall from his horse in hunting), and to tell her that that unhappy
person, Miss Myers, had left him some time ago.”
“It was ill done! Now, when he finds the convenience of her presence,
he will make all manner of lying speeches and false, fair promises for
the future, and she will believe him, and then her condition will be
ten times worse and ten times more irremediable than before.”
“There does not appear to be much ground for such apprehensions at
present,” said he, producing a letter from his pocket. “From the
account I received this morning, I should say—”
It was _her_ writing! By an irresistible impulse I held out my hand,
and the words, “Let me see it,” involuntarily passed my lips. He was
evidently reluctant to grant the request, but while he hesitated I
snatched it from his hand. Recollecting myself, however, the minute
after, I offered to restore it.
“Here, take it,” said I, “if you don’t want me to read it.”
“No,” replied he, “you may read it if you like.”
I read it, and so may you.
Grassdale, Nov. 4th.
DEAR FREDERICK,—I know you will be anxious to hear from me, and I will
tell you all I can. Mr. Huntingdon is very ill, but not dying, or in
any immediate danger; and he is rather better at present than he was
when I came. I found the house in sad confusion: Mrs. Greaves, Benson,
every decent servant had left, and those that were come to supply their
places were a negligent, disorderly set, to say no worse—I must change
them again, if I stay. A professional nurse, a grim, hard old woman,
had been hired to attend the wretched invalid. He suffers much, and has
no fortitude to bear him through. The immediate injuries he sustained
from the accident, however, were not very severe, and would, as the
doctor says, have been but trifling to a man of temperate habits, but
with _him_ it is very different. On the night of my arrival, when I
first entered his room, he was lying in a kind of half delirium. He did
not notice me till I spoke, and then he mistook me for another.
“Is it you, Alice, come again?” he murmured. “What did you leave me
for?”
“It is I, Arthur—it is Helen, your wife,” I replied.
“My wife!” said he, with a start. “For heaven’s sake, don’t mention
her—I have none. Devil take her,” he cried, a moment after, “and you,
too! What did you do it for?”
I said no more; but observing that he kept gazing towards the foot of
the bed, I went and sat there, placing the light so as to shine full
upon me, for I thought he might be dying, and I wanted him to know me.
For a long time he lay silently looking upon me, first with a vacant
stare, then with a fixed gaze of strange growing intensity. At last he
startled me by suddenly raising himself on his elbow and demanding in a
horrified whisper, with his eyes still fixed upon me, “Who is it?”
“It is Helen Huntingdon,” said I, quietly rising at the same time, and
removing to a less conspicuous position.
“I must be going mad,” cried he, “or something—delirious, perhaps; but
leave me, whoever you are. I can’t bear that white face, and those
eyes. For God’s sake go, and send me somebody else that doesn’t look
like that!”
I went at once, and sent the hired nurse; but next morning I ventured
to enter his chamber again, and, taking the nurse’s place by his
bedside, I watched him and waited on him for several hours, showing
myself as little as possible, and only speaking when necessary, and
then not above my breath. At first he addressed me as the nurse, but,
on my crossing the room to draw up the window-blinds, in obedience to
his directions, he said, “No, it isn’t nurse; it’s Alice. Stay with me,
do! That old hag will be the death of me.”
“I mean to stay with you,” said I. And after that he would call me
Alice, or some other name almost equally repugnant to my feelings. I
forced myself to endure it for a while, fearing a contradiction might
disturb him too much; but when, having asked for a glass of water,
while I held it to his lips, he murmured, “Thanks, dearest!” I could
not help distinctly observing, “You would not say so if you knew me,”
intending to follow that up with another declaration of my identity;
but he merely muttered an incoherent reply, so I dropped it again, till
some time after, when, as I was bathing his forehead and temples with
vinegar and water to relieve the heat and pain in his head, he
observed, after looking earnestly upon me for some minutes, “I have
such strange fancies—I can’t get rid of them, and they won’t let me
rest; and the most singular and pertinacious of them all is your face
and voice—they seem just like hers. I could swear at this moment that
she was by my side.”
“She is,” said I.
“That seems comfortable,” continued he, without noticing my words; “and
while you do it, the other fancies fade away—but _this_ only
strengthens.—Go on—go on, till it vanishes, too. I can’t stand such a
mania as this; it would kill me!”
“It never will vanish,” said I, distinctly, “for it is the truth!”
“The truth!” he cried, starting, as if an asp had stung him. “You don’t
mean to say that you are really she?”
“I do; but you needn’t shrink away from me, as if I were your greatest
enemy: I am come to take care of you, and do what none of _them_ would
do.”
“For God’s sake, don’t torment me now!” cried he in pitiable agitation;
and then he began to mutter bitter curses against me, or the evil
fortune that had brought me there; while I put down the sponge and
basin, and resumed my seat at the bed-side.
“Where are they?” said he: “have they all left me—servants and all?”