The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“It is long since I saw you, Markham,” said he, after the first few
words had passed between us. “Do you never mean to come to Woodford
again?”
“I called once, and you were out.”
“I was sorry, but that was long since; I hoped you would call again,
and now _I_ have called, and _you_ were out, which you generally are,
or I would do myself the pleasure of calling more frequently; but being
determined to see you this time, I have left my pony in the lane, and
come over hedge and ditch to join you; for I am about to leave Woodford
for a while, and may not have the pleasure of seeing you again for a
month or two.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Grassdale first,” said he, with a half-smile he would willingly
have suppressed if he could.
“To Grassdale! Is she there, then?”
“Yes, but in a day or two she will leave it to accompany Mrs. Maxwell
to F—— for the benefit of the sea air, and I shall go with them.” (F——
was at that time a quiet but respectable watering-place: it is
considerably more frequented now.)
Lawrence seemed to expect me to take advantage of this circumstance to
entrust him with some sort of a message to his sister; and I believe he
would have undertaken to deliver it without any material objections, if
I had had the sense to ask him, though of course he would not _offer_
to do so, if I was content to let it alone. But I could not bring
myself to make the request, and it was not till after he was gone, that
I saw how fair an opportunity I had lost; and then, indeed, I deeply
regretted my stupidity and my foolish pride, but it was now too late to
remedy the evil.
He did not return till towards the latter end of August. He wrote to me
twice or thrice from F——, but his letters were most provokingly
unsatisfactory, dealing in generalities or in trifles that I cared
nothing about, or replete with fancies and reflections equally
unwelcome to me at the time, saying next to nothing about his sister,
and little more about himself. I would wait, however, till he came
back; perhaps I could get something more out of him then. At all
events, I would not write to her now, while she was with him and her
aunt, who doubtless would be still more hostile to my presumptuous
aspirations than himself. When she was returned to the silence and
solitude of her own home, it would be my fittest opportunity.
When Lawrence came, however, he was as reserved as ever on the subject
of my keen anxiety. He told me that his sister had derived considerable
benefit from her stay at F—— that her son was quite well, and—alas!
that both of them were gone, with Mrs. Maxwell, back to Staningley, and
there they stayed at least three months. But instead of boring you with
my chagrin, my expectations and disappointments, my fluctuations of
dull despondency and flickering hope, my varying resolutions, now to
drop it, and now to persevere—now to make a bold push, and now to let
things pass and patiently abide my time,—I will employ myself in
settling the business of one or two of the characters introduced in the
course of this narrative, whom I may not have occasion to mention
again.
Some time before Mr. Huntingdon’s death Lady Lowborough eloped with
another gallant to the Continent, where, having lived a while in
reckless gaiety and dissipation, they quarrelled and parted. She went
dashing on for a season, but years came and money went: she sunk, at
length, in difficulty and debt, disgrace and misery; and died at last,
as I have heard, in penury, neglect, and utter wretchedness. But this
might be only a report: she may be living yet for anything I or any of
her relatives or former acquaintances can tell; for they have all lost
sight of her long years ago, and would as thoroughly forget her if they
could. Her husband, however, upon this second misdemeanour, immediately
sought and obtained a divorce, and, not long after, married again. It
was well he did, for Lord Lowborough, morose and moody as he seemed,
was not the man for a bachelor’s life. No public interests, no
ambitious projects, or active pursuits,—or ties of friendship even (if
he had had any friends), could compensate to him for the absence of
domestic comforts and endearments. He had a son and a nominal daughter,
it is true, but they too painfully reminded him of their mother, and
the unfortunate little Annabella was a source of perpetual bitterness
to his soul. He had obliged himself to treat her with paternal
kindness: he had forced himself not to hate her, and even, perhaps, to
feel some degree of kindly regard for her, at last, in return for her
artless and unsuspecting attachment to himself; but the bitterness of
his self-condemnation for his inward feelings towards that innocent
being, his constant struggles to subdue the evil promptings of his
nature (for it was not a generous one), though partly guessed at by
those who knew him, could be known to God and his own heart alone;—so
also was the hardness of his conflicts with the temptation to return to
the vice of his youth, and seek oblivion for past calamities, and
deadness to the present misery of a blighted heart a joyless,
friendless life, and a morbidly disconsolate mind, by yielding again to
that insidious foe to health, and sense, and virtue, which had so
deplorably enslaved and degraded him before.
The second object of his choice was widely different from the first.
Some wondered at his taste; some even ridiculed it—but in this their
folly was more apparent than his. The lady was about his own
age—_i.e._, between thirty and forty—remarkable neither for beauty, nor
wealth, nor brilliant accomplishments; nor any other thing that I ever
heard of, except genuine good sense, unswerving integrity, active
piety, warm-hearted benevolence, and a fund of cheerful spirits. These
qualities, however, as you may readily imagine, combined to render her
an excellent mother to the children, and an invaluable wife to his
lordship. _He_, with his usual self-depreciation, thought her a world
too good for him, and while he wondered at the kindness of Providence
in conferring such a gift upon him, and even at her taste in preferring
him to other men, he did his best to reciprocate the good she did him,
and so far succeeded that she was, and I believe still is, one of the
happiest and fondest wives in England; and all who question the good
taste of either partner may be thankful if _their_ respective
selections afford them half the genuine satisfaction in the end, or
repay their preference with affection half as lasting and sincere.
If you are at all interested in the fate of that low scoundrel,
Grimsby, I can only tell you that he went from bad to worse, sinking
from bathos to bathos of vice and villainy, consorting only with the
worst members of his club and the lowest dregs of society—happily for
the rest of the world—and at last met his end in a drunken brawl, from
the hands, it is said, of some brother scoundrel he had cheated at
play.
As for Mr. Hattersley, he had never wholly forgotten his resolution to
“come out from among them,” and behave like a man and a Christian, and
the last illness and death of his once jolly friend Huntingdon so
deeply and seriously impressed him with the evil of their former
practices, that he never needed another lesson of the kind. Avoiding
the temptations of the town, he continued to pass his life in the
country, immersed in the usual pursuits of a hearty, active, country
gentleman; his occupations being those of farming, and breeding horses
and cattle, diversified with a little hunting and shooting, and
enlivened by the occasional companionship of his friends (better
friends than those of his youth), and the society of his happy little
wife (now cheerful and confiding as heart could wish), and his fine
family of stalwart sons and blooming daughters. His father, the banker,
having died some years ago and left him all his riches, he has now full
scope for the exercise of his prevailing tastes, and I need not tell
you that Ralph Hattersley, Esq., is celebrated throughout the country
for his noble breed of horses.
CHAPTER LI
We will now turn to a certain still, cold, cloudy afternoon about the
commencement of December, when the first fall of snow lay thinly
scattered over the blighted fields and frozen roads, or stored more
thickly in the hollows of the deep cart-ruts and footsteps of men and
horses impressed in the now petrified mire of last month’s drenching
rains. I remember it well, for I was walking home from the vicarage
with no less remarkable a personage than Miss Eliza Millward by my
side. I had been to call upon her father,—a sacrifice to civility
undertaken entirely to please my mother, not myself, for I hated to go
near the house; not merely on account of my antipathy to the once so
bewitching Eliza, but because I had not half forgiven the old gentleman
himself for his ill opinion of Mrs. Huntingdon; for though now
constrained to acknowledge himself mistaken in his former judgment, he
still maintained that she had done wrong to leave her husband; it was a
violation of her sacred duties as a wife, and a tempting of Providence
by laying herself open to temptation; and nothing short of bodily
ill-usage (and that of no trifling nature) could excuse such a step—nor
even that, for in such a case she ought to appeal to the laws for
protection. But it was not of him I intended to speak; it was of his
daughter Eliza. Just as I was taking leave of the vicar, she entered
the room, ready equipped for a walk.
“I was just coming to see your sister, Mr. Markham,” said she; “and so,
if you have no objection, I’ll accompany you home. I like company when
I’m walking out—don’t you?”
“Yes, when it’s agreeable.”
“That of course,” rejoined the young lady, smiling archly.
So we proceeded together.
“Shall I find Rose at home, do you think?” said she, as we closed the
garden gate, and set our faces towards Linden-Car.
“I believe so.”
“I trust I shall, for I’ve a little bit of news for her—if you haven’t
forestalled me.”
“I?”
“Yes: do you know what Mr. Lawrence is gone for?” She looked up
anxiously for my reply.
“_Is_ he gone?” said I; and her face brightened.
“Ah! then he hasn’t told you about his sister?”
“What of _her?_” I demanded in terror, lest some evil should have
befallen her.
“Oh, Mr. Markham, how you blush!” cried she, with a tormenting laugh.
“Ha, ha, you have not forgotten her yet. But you had better be quick
about it, I can tell you, for—alas, alas!—she’s going to be married
next Thursday!”
“No, Miss Eliza, that’s false.”
“Do you charge me with a falsehood, sir?”
“You are misinformed.”
“Am I? Do you know better, then?”
“I think I do.”
“What makes you look so pale then?” said she, smiling with delight at
my emotion. “Is it anger at poor me for telling such a fib? Well, I
only ‘tell the tale as ’twas told to me:’ I don’t vouch for the truth
of it; but at the same time, I don’t see what reason Sarah should have
for deceiving me, or her informant for deceiving her; and that was what
she told me the footman told her:—that Mrs. Huntingdon was going to be
married on Thursday, and Mr. Lawrence was gone to the wedding. She did
tell me the name of the gentleman, but I’ve forgotten that. Perhaps you
can assist me to remember it. Is there not some one that lives near—or
frequently visits the neighbourhood, that has long been attached to
her?—a Mr.—oh, dear! Mr.—”
“Hargrave?” suggested I, with a bitter smile.
“You’re right,” cried she; “that was the very name.”
“Impossible, Miss Eliza!” I exclaimed, in a tone that made her start.
“Well, you know, that’s what they told me,” said she, composedly
staring me in the face. And then she broke out into a long shrill laugh
that put me to my wit’s end with fury.