The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

ou must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.

My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer in ——shire; and
I, by his express desire, succeeded him in the same quiet occupation,
not very willingly, for ambition urged me to higher aims, and
self-conceit assured me that, in disregarding its voice, I was burying
my talent in the earth, and hiding my light under a bushel. My mother
had done her utmost to persuade me that I was capable of great
achievements; but my father, who thought ambition was the surest road
to ruin, and change but another word for destruction, would listen to
no scheme for bettering either my own condition, or that of my fellow
mortals. He assured me it was all rubbish, and exhorted me, with his
dying breath, to continue in the good old way, to follow his steps, and
those of his father before him, and let my highest ambition be to walk
honestly through the world, looking neither to the right hand nor to
the left, and to transmit the paternal acres to my children in, at
least, as flourishing a condition as he left them to me.

“Well!—an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful
members of society; and if I devote my talents to the cultivation of my
farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall thereby
benefit, not only my own immediate connections and dependants, but, in
some degree, mankind at large:—hence I shall not have lived in vain.”

With such reflections as these I was endeavouring to console myself, as
I plodded home from the fields, one cold, damp, cloudy evening towards
the close of October. But the gleam of a bright red fire through the
parlour window had more effect in cheering my spirits, and rebuking my
thankless repinings, than all the sage reflections and good resolutions
I had forced my mind to frame;—for I was young then, remember—only
four-and-twenty—and had not acquired half the rule over my own spirit
that I now possess—trifling as that may be.

However, that haven of bliss must not be entered till I had exchanged
my miry boots for a clean pair of shoes, and my rough surtout for a
respectable coat, and made myself generally presentable before decent
society; for my mother, with all her kindness, was vastly particular on
certain points.

In ascending to my room I was met upon the stairs by a smart, pretty
girl of nineteen, with a tidy, dumpy figure, a round face, bright,
blooming cheeks, glossy, clustering curls, and little merry brown eyes.
I need not tell you this was my sister Rose. She is, I know, a comely
matron still, and, doubtless, no less lovely—in your eyes—than on the
happy day you first beheld her. Nothing told me then that she, a few
years hence, would be the wife of one entirely unknown to me as yet,
but destined hereafter to become a closer friend than even herself,
more intimate than that unmannerly lad of seventeen, by whom I was
collared in the passage, on coming down, and well-nigh jerked off my
equilibrium, and who, in correction for his impudence, received a
resounding whack over the sconce, which, however, sustained no serious
injury from the infliction; as, besides being more than commonly thick,
it was protected by a redundant shock of short, reddish curls, that my
mother called auburn.

On entering the parlour we found that honoured lady seated in her
arm-chair at the fireside, working away at her knitting, according to
her usual custom, when she had nothing else to do. She had swept the
hearth, and made a bright blazing fire for our reception; the servant
had just brought in the tea-tray; and Rose was producing the
sugar-basin and tea-caddy from the cupboard in the black oak
side-board, that shone like polished ebony, in the cheerful parlour
twilight.

“Well! here they both are,” cried my mother, looking round upon us
without retarding the motion of her nimble fingers and glittering
needles. “Now shut the door, and come to the fire, while Rose gets the
tea ready; I’m sure you must be starved;—and tell me what you’ve been
about all day;—I like to know what my children have been about.”

“I’ve been breaking in the grey colt—no easy business that—directing
the ploughing of the last wheat stubble—for the ploughboy has not the
sense to direct himself—and carrying out a plan for the extensive and
efficient draining of the low meadowlands.”

“That’s my brave boy!—and Fergus, what have you been doing?”

“Badger-baiting.”

And here he proceeded to give a particular account of his sport, and
the respective traits of prowess evinced by the badger and the dogs; my
mother pretending to listen with deep attention, and watching his
animated countenance with a degree of maternal admiration I thought
highly disproportioned to its object.

“It’s time you should be doing something else, Fergus,” said I, as soon
as a momentary pause in his narration allowed me to get in a word.

“What can I do?” replied he; “my mother won’t let me go to sea or
enter the army; and I’m determined to do nothing else—except make
myself such a nuisance to you all, that you will be thankful to get rid
of me on any terms.”

Our parent soothingly stroked his stiff, short curls. He growled, and
tried to look sulky, and then we all took our seats at the table, in
obedience to the thrice-repeated summons of Rose.

“Now take your tea,” said she; “and I’ll tell you what I’ve been
doing. I’ve been to call on the Wilsons; and it’s a thousand pities
you didn’t go with me, Gilbert, for Eliza Millward was there!”

“Well! what of her?”

“Oh, nothing!—I’m not going to tell you about her;—only that she’s a
nice, amusing little thing, when she is in a merry humour, and I
shouldn’t mind calling her—”

“Hush, hush, my dear! your brother has no such idea!” whispered my
mother earnestly, holding up her finger.

“Well,” resumed Rose; “I was going to tell you an important piece of
news I heard there—I have been bursting with it ever since. You know it
was reported a month ago, that somebody was going to take Wildfell
Hall—and—what do you think? It has actually been inhabited above a
week!—and we never knew!”

“Impossible!” cried my mother.

“Preposterous!!!” shrieked Fergus.

“It has indeed!—and by a single lady!”

“Good gracious, my dear! The place is in ruins!”

“She has had two or three rooms made habitable; and there she lives,
all alone—except an old woman for a servant!”

“Oh, dear! that spoils it—I’d hoped she was a witch,” observed Fergus,
while carving his inch-thick slice of bread and butter. “Nonsense,
Fergus! But isn’t it strange, mamma?”

“Strange! I can hardly believe it.”

“But you may believe it; for Jane Wilson has seen her. She went with
her mother, who, of course, when she heard of a stranger being in the
neighbourhood, would be on pins and needles till she had seen her and
got all she could out of her. She is called Mrs. Graham, and she is in
mourning—not widow’s weeds, but slightish mourning—and she is quite
young, they say,—not above five or six and twenty,—but so reserved!
They tried all they could to find out who she was and where she came
from, and, all about her, but neither Mrs. Wilson, with her
pertinacious and impertinent home-thrusts, nor Miss Wilson, with her
skilful manœuvring, could manage to elicit a single satisfactory
answer, or even a casual remark, or chance expression calculated to
allay their curiosity, or throw the faintest ray of light upon her
history, circumstances, or connections. Moreover, she was barely civil
to them, and evidently better pleased to say “good-by,” than “how do
you do.” But Eliza Millward says her father intends to call upon her
soon, to offer some pastoral advice, which he fears she needs, as,
though she is known to have entered the neighbourhood early last week,
she did not make her appearance at church on Sunday; and she—Eliza,
that is—will beg to accompany him, and is sure she can succeed in
wheedling something out of her—you know, Gilbert, she can do
anything. And we should call some time, mamma; it’s only proper, you
know.”

“Of course, my dear. Poor thing! How lonely she must feel!”

“And pray, be quick about it; and mind you bring me word how much sugar
she puts in her tea, and what sort of caps and aprons she wears, and
all about it; for I don’t know how I can live till I know,” said
Fergus, very gravely.

But if he intended the speech to be hailed as a master-stroke of wit,
he signally failed, for nobody laughed. However, he was not much
disconcerted at that; for when he had taken a mouthful of bread and
butter and was about to swallow a gulp of tea, the humour of the thing
burst upon him with such irresistible force, that he was obliged to
jump up from the table, and rush snorting and choking from the room;
and a minute after, was heard screaming in fearful agony in the garden.

As for me, I was hungry, and contented myself with silently demolishing
the tea, ham, and toast, while my mother and sister went on talking,
and continued to discuss the apparent or non-apparent circumstances,
and probable or improbable history of the mysterious lady; but I must
confess that, after my brother’s misadventure, I once or twice raised
the cup to my lips, and put it down again without daring to taste the
contents, lest I should injure my dignity by a similar explosion.

The next day my mother and Rose hastened to pay their compliments to
the fair recluse; and came back but little wiser than they went; though
my mother declared she did not regret the journey, for if she had not
gained much good, she flattered herself she had imparted some, and that
was better: she had given some useful advice, which, she hoped, would
not be thrown away; for Mrs. Graham, though she said little to any
purpose, and appeared somewhat self-opinionated, seemed not incapable
of reflection,—though she did not know where she had been all her life,
poor thing, for she betrayed a lamentable ignorance on certain points,
and had not even the sense to be ashamed of it.

“On what points, mother?” asked I.

“On household matters, and all the little niceties of cookery, and such
things, that every lady ought to be familiar with, whether she be
required to make a practical use of her knowledge or not. I gave her
some useful pieces of information, however, and several excellent
receipts, the value of which she evidently could not appreciate, for
she begged I would not trouble myself, as she lived in such a plain,
quiet way, that she was sure she should never make use of them. ‘No
matter, my dear,’ said I; ‘it is what every respectable female ought to
know;—and besides, though you are alone now, you will not be always so;
you have been married, and probably—I might say almost certainly—will
be again.’ ‘You are mistaken there, ma’am,’ said she, almost haughtily;
‘I am certain I never shall.’—But I told her I knew better.”

“Some romantic young widow, I suppose,” said I, “come there to end her
days in solitude, and mourn in secret for the dear departed—but it
won’t last long.”

“No, I think not,” observed Rose; “for she didn’t seem very
disconsolate after all; and she’s excessively pretty—handsome
rather—you must see her, Gilbert; you will call her a perfect beauty,
though you could hardly pretend to discover a resemblance between her
and Eliza Millward.”

“Well, I can imagine many faces more beautiful than Eliza’s, though not
more charming. I allow she has small claims to perfection; but then, I
maintain that, if she were more perfect, she would be less
interesting.”

“And so you prefer her faults to other people’s perfections?”

“Just so—saving my mother’s presence.”

“Oh, my dear Gilbert, what nonsense you talk!—I know you don’t mean it;
it’s quite out of the question,” said my mother, getting up, and
bustling out of the room, under pretence of household business, in
order to escape the contradiction that was trembling on my tongue.

After that Rose favoured me with further particulars respecting Mrs.
Graham. Her appearance, manners, and dress, and the very furniture of
the room she inhabited, were all set before me, with rather more
clearness and precision than I cared to see them; but, as I was not a
very attentive listener, I could not repeat the description if I would.

The next day was Saturday; and, on Sunday, everybody wondered whether
or not the fair unknown would profit by the vicar’s remonstrance, and
come to church. I confess I looked with some interest myself towards
the old family pew, appertaining to Wildfell Hall, where the faded
crimson cushions and lining had been unpressed and unrenewed so many
years, and the grim escutcheons, with their lugubrious borders of rusty
black cloth, frowned so sternly from the wall above.

And there I beheld a tall, lady-like figure, clad in black. Her face
was towards me, and there was something in it which, once seen, invited
me to look again. Her hair was raven black, and disposed in long glossy
ringlets, a style of coiffure rather unusual in those days, but always
graceful and becoming; her complexion was clear and pale; her eyes I
could not see, for, being bent upon her prayer-book, they were
concealed by their drooping lids and long black lashes, but the brows
above were expressive and well defined; the forehead was lofty and
intellectual, the nose, a perfect aquiline and the features, in
general, unexceptionable—only there was a slight hollowness about the
cheeks and eyes, and the lips, though finely formed, were a little too
thin, a little too firmly compressed, and had something about them that
betokened, I thought, no very soft or amiable temper; and I said in my
heart—“I would rather admire you from this distance, fair lady, than be
the partner of your home.”

Just then she happened to raise her eyes, and they met mine; I did not
choose to withdraw my gaze, and she turned again to her book, but with
a momentary, indefinable expression of quiet scorn, that was
inexpressibly provoking to me.

“She thinks me an impudent puppy,” thought I. “Humph!—she shall change
her mind before long, if I think it worth while.”

But then it flashed upon me that these were very improper thoughts for
a place of worship, and that my behaviour, on the present occasion, was
anything but what it ought to be. Previous, however, to directing my
mind to the service, I glanced round the church to see if any one had
been observing me;—but no,—all, who were not attending to their
prayer-books, were attending to the strange lady,—my good mother and
sister among the rest, and Mrs. Wilson and her daughter; and even Eliza
Millward was slily glancing from the corners of her eyes towards the
object of general attraction. Then she glanced at me, simpered a
little, and blushed, modestly looked at her prayer-book, and
endeavoured to compose her features.

Here I was transgressing again; and this time I was made sensible of it
by a sudden dig in the ribs, from the elbow of my pert brother. For the
present, I could only resent the insult by pressing my foot upon his
toes, deferring further vengeance till we got out of church.

Now, Halford, before I close this letter, I’ll tell you who Eliza
Millward was: she was the vicar’s younger daughter, and a very engaging
little creature, for whom I felt no small degree of partiality;—and she
knew it, though I had never come to any direct explanation, and had no
definite intention of so doing, for my mother, who maintained there was
no one good enough for me within twenty miles round, could not bear the
thoughts of my marrying that insignificant little thing, who, in
addition to her numerous other disqualifications, had not twenty pounds
to call her own. Eliza’s figure was at once slight and plump, her face
small, and nearly as round as my sister’s,—complexion, something
similar to hers, but more delicate and less decidedly blooming,—nose,
retroussé,—features, generally irregular; and, altogether, she was
rather charming than pretty. But her eyes—I must not forget those
remarkable features, for therein her chief attraction lay—in outward
aspect at least;—they were long and narrow in shape, the irids black,
or very dark brown, the expression various, and ever changing, but
always either preternaturally—I had almost said diabolically—wicked,
or irresistibly bewitching—often both. Her voice was gentle and
childish, her tread light and soft as that of a cat:—but her manners
more frequently resembled those of a pretty playful kitten, that is now
pert and roguish, now timid and demure, according to its own sweet
will.

Her sister, Mary, was several years older, several inches taller, and
of a larger, coarser build—a plain, quiet, sensible girl, who had
patiently nursed their mother, through her last long, tedious illness,
and been the housekeeper, and family drudge, from thence to the present
time. She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by
all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected
by everybody else.

The Reverend Michael Millward himself was a tall, ponderous elderly
gentleman, who placed a shovel hat above his large, square,
massive-featured face, carried a stout walking-stick in his hand, and
incased his still powerful limbs in knee-breeches and gaiters,—or black
silk stockings on state occasions. He was a man of fixed principles,
strong prejudices, and regular habits, intolerant of dissent in any
shape, acting under a firm conviction that his opinions were always
right, and whoever differed from them must be either most deplorably
ignorant, or wilfully blind.

In childhood, I had always been accustomed to regard him with a feeling
of reverential awe—but lately, even now, surmounted, for, though he had
a fatherly kindness for the well-behaved, he was a strict
disciplinarian, and had often sternly reproved our juvenile failings
and peccadilloes; and moreover, in those days, whenever he called upon
our parents, we had to stand up before him, and say our catechism, or
repeat, “How doth the little busy bee,” or some other hymn, or—worse
than all—be questioned about his last text, and the heads of the
discourse, which we never could remember. Sometimes, the worthy
gentleman would reprove my mother for being over-indulgent to her sons,
with a reference to old Eli, or David and Absalom, which was
particularly galling to her feelings; and, very highly as she respected
him, and all his sayings, I once heard her exclaim, “I wish to goodness
he had a son himself! He wouldn’t be so ready with his advice to other
people then;—he’d see what it is to have a couple of boys to keep in
order.”

He had a laudable care for his own bodily health—kept very early hours,
regularly took a walk before breakfast, was vastly particular about
warm and dry clothing, had never been known to preach a sermon without
previously swallowing a raw egg—albeit he was gifted with good lungs
and a powerful voice,—and was, generally, extremely particular about
what he ate and drank, though by no means abstemious, and having a mode
of dietary peculiar to himself,—being a great despiser of tea and such
slops, and a patron of malt liquors, bacon and eggs, ham, hung beef,
and other strong meats, which agreed well enough with his digestive
organs, and therefore were maintained by him to be good and wholesome
for everybody, and confidently recommended to the most delicate
convalescents or dyspeptics, who, if they failed to derive the promised
benefit from his prescriptions, were told it was because they had not
persevered, and if they complained of inconvenient results therefrom,
were assured it was all fancy.

I will just touch upon two other persons whom I have mentioned, and
then bring this long letter to a close. These are Mrs. Wilson and her
daughter. The former was the widow of a substantial farmer, a
narrow-minded, tattling old gossip, whose character is not worth
describing. She had two sons, Robert, a rough countrified farmer, and
Richard, a retiring, studious young man, who was studying the classics
with the vicar’s assistance, preparing for college, with a view to
enter the church.

Their sister Jane was a young lady of some talents, and more ambition.
She had, at her own desire, received a regular boarding-school
education, superior to what any member of the family had obtained
before. She had taken the polish well, acquired considerable elegance
of manners, quite lost her provincial accent, and could boast of more
accomplishments than the vicar’s daughters. She was considered a beauty
besides; but never for a moment could she number me amongst her
admirers. She was about six and twenty, rather tall and very slender,
her hair was neither chestnut nor auburn, but a most decided bright,
light red; her complexion was remarkably fair and brilliant, her head
small, neck long, chin well turned, but very short, lips thin and red,
eyes clear hazel, quick, and penetrating, but entirely destitute of
poetry or feeling. She had, or might have had, many suitors in her own
rank of life, but scornfully repulsed or rejected them all; for none
but a gentleman could please her refined taste, and none but a rich one
could satisfy her soaring ambition. One gentleman there was, from whom
she had lately received some rather pointed attentions, and upon whose
heart, name, and fortune, it was whispered, she had serious designs.
This was Mr. Lawrence, the young squire, whose family had formerly
occupied Wildfell Hall, but had deserted it, some fifteen years ago,
for a more modern and commodious mansion in the neighbouring parish.

Now, Halford, I bid you adieu for the present. This is the first
instalment of my debt. If the coin suits you, tell me so, and I’ll send
you the rest at my leisure: if you would rather remain my creditor than
stuff your purse with such ungainly, heavy pieces,—tell me still, and
I’ll pardon your bad taste, and willingly keep the treasure to myself.

Yours immutably,
GILBERT MARKHAM.