The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

arch 20th, 1824. The dreaded time is come, and Arthur is gone, as I
expected. This time he announced it his intention to make but a short
stay in London, and pass over to the Continent, where he should
probably stay a few weeks; but I shall not expect him till after the
lapse of many weeks: I now know that, with him, days signify weeks, and
weeks months.

July 30th.—He returned about three weeks ago, rather better in health,
certainly, than before, but still worse in temper. And yet, perhaps, I
am wrong: it is I that am less patient and forbearing. I am tired out
with his injustice, his selfishness and hopeless depravity. I wish a
milder word would do; I am no angel, and my corruption rises against
it. My poor father died last week: Arthur was vexed to hear of it,
because he saw that I was shocked and grieved, and he feared the
circumstance would mar his comfort. When I spoke of ordering my
mourning, he exclaimed,—

“Oh, I hate black! But, however, I suppose you must wear it awhile, for
form’s sake; but I hope, Helen, you won’t think it your bounden duty to
compose your face and manners into conformity with your funereal garb.
Why should you sigh and groan, and I be made uncomfortable, because an
old gentleman in ——shire, a perfect stranger to us both, has thought
proper to drink himself to death? There, now, I declare you’re crying!
Well, it must be affectation.”

He would not hear of my attending the funeral, or going for a day or
two, to cheer poor Frederick’s solitude. It was quite unnecessary, he
said, and I was unreasonable to wish it. What was my father to me? I
had never seen him but once since I was a baby, and I well knew he had
never cared a stiver about me; and my brother, too, was little better
than a stranger. “Besides, dear Helen,” said he, embracing me with
flattering fondness, “I cannot spare you for a single day.”

“Then how have you managed without me these many days?” said I.

“Ah! then I was knocking about the world, now I am at home, and home
without you, my household deity, would be intolerable.”

“Yes, as long as I am necessary to your comfort; but you did not say so
before, when you urged me to leave you, in order that you might get
away from your home without me,” retorted I; but before the words were
well out of my mouth, I regretted having uttered them. It seemed so
heavy a charge: if false, too gross an insult; if true, too humiliating
a fact to be thus openly cast in his teeth. But I might have spared
myself that momentary pang of self-reproach. The accusation awoke
neither shame nor indignation in him: he attempted neither denial nor
excuse, but only answered with a long, low, chuckling laugh, as if he
viewed the whole transaction as a clever, merry jest from beginning to
end. Surely that man will make me dislike him at last!

Sine as ye brew, my maiden fair,
Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill.

Yes; and I will drink it to the very dregs: and none but myself shall
know how bitter I find it!

August 20th.—We are shaken down again to about our usual position.
Arthur has returned to nearly his former condition and habits; and I
have found it my wisest plan to shut my eyes against the past and
future, as far as he at least is concerned, and live only for the
present: to love him when I can; to smile (if possible) when he smiles,
be cheerful when he is cheerful, and pleased when he is agreeable; and
when he is not, to try to make him so; and if that won’t answer, to
bear with him, to excuse him, and forgive him as well as I can, and
restrain my own evil passions from aggravating his; and yet, while I
thus yield and minister to his more harmless propensities to
self-indulgence, to do all in my power to save him from the worse.

But we shall not be long alone together. I shall shortly be called upon
to entertain the same select body of friends as we had the autumn
before last, with the addition of Mr. Hattersley and, at my special
request, his wife and child. I long to see Milicent, and her little
girl too. The latter is now above a year old; she will be a charming
playmate for my little Arthur.

September 30th.—Our guests have been here a week or two; but I have had
no leisure to pass any comments upon them till now. I cannot get over
my dislike to Lady Lowborough. It is not founded on mere personal
pique; it is the woman herself that I dislike, because I so thoroughly
disapprove of her. I always avoid her company as much as I can without
violating the laws of hospitality; but when we do speak or converse
together, it is with the utmost civility, even apparent cordiality on
her part; but preserve me from such cordiality! It is like handling
brier-roses and may-blossoms, bright enough to the eye, and outwardly
soft to the touch, but you know there are thorns beneath, and every now
and then you feel them too; and perhaps resent the injury by crushing
them in till you have destroyed their power, though somewhat to the
detriment of your own fingers.

Of late, however, I have seen nothing in her conduct towards Arthur to
anger or alarm me. During the first few days I thought she seemed very
solicitous to win his admiration. Her efforts were not unnoticed by
him: I frequently saw him smiling to himself at her artful manœuvres:
but, to his praise be it spoken, her shafts fell powerless by his side.
Her most bewitching smiles, her haughtiest frowns were ever received
with the same immutable, careless good-humour; till, finding he was
indeed impenetrable, she suddenly remitted her efforts, and became, to
all appearance, as perfectly indifferent as himself. Nor have I since
witnessed any symptom of pique on his part, or renewed attempts at
conquest upon hers.

This is as it should be; but Arthur never will let me be satisfied with
him. I have never, for a single hour since I married him, known what it
is to realise that sweet idea, “In quietness and confidence shall be
your rest.” Those two detestable men, Grimsby and Hattersley, have
destroyed all my labour against his love of wine. They encourage him
daily to overstep the bounds of moderation, and not unfrequently to
disgrace himself by positive excess. I shall not soon forget the second
night after their arrival. Just as I had retired from the dining-room
with the ladies, before the door was closed upon us, Arthur
exclaimed,—“Now then, my lads, what say you to a regular
jollification?”

Milicent glanced at me with a half-reproachful look, as if I could
hinder it; but her countenance changed when she heard Hattersley’s
voice, shouting through door and wall,—

“I’m your man! Send for more wine: here isn’t half enough!”

We had scarcely entered the drawing-room before we were joined by Lord
Lowborough.

“What can induce you to come so soon?” exclaimed his lady, with a
most ungracious air of dissatisfaction.

“You know I never drink, Annabella,” replied he seriously.

“Well, but you might stay with them a little: it looks so silly to be
always dangling after the women; I wonder you can!”

He reproached her with a look of mingled bitterness and surprise, and,
sinking into a chair, suppressed a heavy sigh, bit his pale lips, and
fixed his eyes upon the floor.

“You did right to leave them, Lord Lowborough,” said I. “I trust you
will always continue to honour us so early with your company. And if
Annabella knew the value of true wisdom, and the misery of folly
and—and intemperance, she would not talk such nonsense—even in jest.”

He raised his eyes while I spoke, and gravely turned them upon me, with
a half-surprised, half-abstracted look, and then bent them on his wife.

“At least,” said she, “I know the value of a warm heart and a bold,
manly spirit.”

“Well, Annabella,” said he, in a deep and hollow tone, “since my
presence is disagreeable to you, I will relieve you of it.”

“Are you going back to them, then?” said she, carelessly.

“No,” exclaimed he, with harsh and startling emphasis. “I will not go
back to them! And I will never stay with them one moment longer than I
think right, for you or any other tempter! But you needn’t mind that; I
shall never trouble you again by intruding my company upon you so
unseasonably.”

He left the room: I heard the hall-door open and shut, and immediately
after, on putting aside the curtain, I saw him pacing down the park, in
the comfortless gloom of the damp, cloudy twilight.

“It would serve you right, Annabella,” said I, at length, “if Lord
Lowborough were to return to his old habits, which had so nearly
effected his ruin, and which it cost him such an effort to break: you
would then see cause to repent such conduct as this.”

“Not at all, my dear! I should not mind if his lordship were to see fit
to intoxicate himself every day: I should only the sooner be rid of
him.”

“Oh, Annabella!” cried Milicent. “How can you say such wicked things!
It would, indeed, be a just punishment, as far as you are concerned, if
Providence should take you at your word, and make you feel what others
feel, that—” She paused as a sudden burst of loud talking and laughter
reached us from the dining-room, in which the voice of Hattersley was
pre-eminently conspicuous, even to my unpractised ear.

“What you feel at this moment, I suppose?” said Lady Lowborough, with
a malicious smile, fixing her eyes upon her cousin’s distressed
countenance.

The latter offered no reply, but averted her face and brushed away a
tear. At that moment the door opened and admitted Mr. Hargrave, just a
little flushed, his dark eyes sparkling with unwonted vivacity.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re come, Walter?” cried his sister. “But I wish
you could have got Ralph to come too.”

“Utterly impossible, dear Milicent,” replied he, gaily. “I had much ado
to get away myself. Ralph attempted to keep me by violence; Huntingdon
threatened me with the eternal loss of his friendship; and Grimsby,
worse than all, endeavoured to make me ashamed of my virtue, by such
galling sarcasms and innuendoes as he knew would wound me the most. So
you see, ladies, you ought to make me welcome when I have braved and
suffered so much for the favour of your sweet society.” He smilingly
turned to me and bowed as he finished the sentence.

“Isn’t he handsome now, Helen!” whispered Milicent, her sisterly
pride overcoming, for the moment, all other considerations.

“He would be,” I returned, “if that brilliance of eye, and lip, and
cheek were natural to him; but look again, a few hours hence.”

Here the gentleman took a seat near me at the table, and petitioned for
a cup of coffee.

“I consider this an apt illustration of heaven taken by storm,” said
he, as I handed one to him. “I am in paradise, now; but I have fought
my way through flood and fire to win it. Ralph Hattersley’s last
resource was to set his back against the door, and swear I should find
no passage but through his body (a pretty substantial one too).
Happily, however, that was not the only door, and I effected my escape
by the side entrance through the butler’s pantry, to the infinite
amazement of Benson, who was cleaning the plate.”

Mr. Hargrave laughed, and so did his cousin; but his sister and I
remained silent and grave.

“Pardon my levity, Mrs. Huntingdon,” murmured he, more seriously, as he
raised his eyes to my face. “You are not used to these things: you
suffer them to affect your delicate mind too sensibly. But I thought of
you in the midst of those lawless roysterers; and I endeavoured to
persuade Mr. Huntingdon to think of you too; but to no purpose: I fear
he is fully determined to enjoy himself this night; and it will be no
use keeping the coffee waiting for him or his companions; it will be
much if they join us at tea. Meantime, I earnestly wish I could banish
the thoughts of them from your mind—and my own too, for I hate to think
of them—yes—even of my dear friend Huntingdon, when I consider the
power he possesses over the happiness of one so immeasurably superior
to himself, and the use he makes of it—I positively detest the man!”

“You had better not say so to me, then,” said I; “for, bad as he is, he
is part of myself, and you cannot abuse him without offending me.”

“Pardon me, then, for I would sooner die than offend you. But let us
say no more of him for the present, if you please.”

At last they came; but not till after ten, when tea, which had been
delayed for more than half an hour, was nearly over. Much as I had
longed for their coming, my heart failed me at the riotous uproar of
their approach; and Milicent turned pale, and almost started from her
seat, as Mr. Hattersley burst into the room with a clamorous volley of
oaths in his mouth, which Hargrave endeavoured to check by entreating
him to remember the ladies.

“Ah! you do well to remind me of the ladies, you dastardly deserter,”
cried he, shaking his formidable fist at his brother-in-law. “If it
were not for them, you well know, I’d demolish you in the twinkling of
an eye, and give your body to the fowls of heaven and the lilies of the
fields!” Then, planting a chair by Lady Lowborough’s side, he stationed
himself in it, and began to talk to her with a mixture of absurdity and
impudence that seemed rather to amuse than to offend her; though she
affected to resent his insolence, and to keep him at bay with sallies
of smart and spirited repartee.

Meantime Mr. Grimsby seated himself by me, in the chair vacated by
Hargrave as they entered, and gravely stated that he would thank me for
a cup of tea: and Arthur placed himself beside poor Milicent,
confidentially pushing his head into her face, and drawing in closer to
her as she shrank away from him. He was not so noisy as Hattersley, but
his face was exceedingly flushed: he laughed incessantly, and while I
blushed for all I saw and heard of him, I was glad that he chose to
talk to his companion in so low a tone that no one could hear what he
said but herself.

“What fools they are!” drawled Mr. Grimsby, who had been talking away,
at my elbow, with sententious gravity all the time; but I had been too
much absorbed in contemplating the deplorable state of the other
two—especially Arthur—to attend to him.

“Did you ever hear such nonsense as they talk, Mrs. Huntingdon?” he
continued. “I’m quite ashamed of them for my part: they can’t take so
much as a bottle between them without its getting into their heads—”

“You are pouring the cream into your saucer, Mr. Grimsby.”

“Ah! yes, I see, but we’re almost in darkness here. Hargrave, snuff
those candles, will you?”

“They’re wax; they don’t require snuffing,” said I.

“‘The light of the body is the eye,’” observed Hargrave, with a
sarcastic smile. “‘If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be
full of light.’”

Grimsby repulsed him with a solemn wave of the hand, and then turning
to me, continued, with the same drawling tones and strange uncertainty
of utterance and heavy gravity of aspect as before: “But as I was
saying, Mrs. Huntingdon, they have no head at all: they can’t take half
a bottle without being affected some way; whereas I—well, I’ve taken
three times as much as they have to-night, and you see I’m perfectly
steady. Now that may strike you as very singular, but I think I can
explain it: you see their brains—I mention no names, but you’ll
understand to whom I allude—their brains are light to begin with, and
the fumes of the fermented liquor render them lighter still, and
produce an entire light-headedness, or giddiness, resulting in
intoxication; whereas my brains, being composed of more solid
materials, will absorb a considerable quantity of this alcoholic vapour
without the production of any sensible result—”

“I think you will find a sensible result produced on that tea,”
interrupted Mr. Hargrave, “by the quantity of sugar you have put into
it. Instead of your usual complement of one lump, you have put in six.”

“Have I so?” replied the philosopher, diving with his spoon into the
cup, and bringing up several half-dissolved pieces in confirmation of
the assertion. “Hum! I perceive. Thus, Madam, you see the evil of
absence of mind—of thinking too much while engaged in the common
concerns of life. Now, if I had had my wits about me, like ordinary
men, instead of within me like a philosopher, I should not have spoiled
this cup of tea, and been constrained to trouble you for another.”

“That is the sugar-basin, Mr. Grimsby. Now you have spoiled the sugar
too; and I’ll thank you to ring for some more, for here is Lord
Lowborough at last; and I hope his lordship will condescend to sit down
with us, such as we are, and allow me to give him some tea.”

His lordship gravely bowed in answer to my appeal, but said nothing.
Meantime, Hargrave volunteered to ring for the sugar, while Grimsby
lamented his mistake, and attempted to prove that it was owing to the
shadow of the urn and the badness of the lights.

Lord Lowborough had entered a minute or two before, unobserved by
anyone but me, and had been standing before the door, grimly surveying
the company. He now stepped up to Annabella, who sat with her back
towards him, with Hattersley still beside her, though not now attending
to her, being occupied in vociferously abusing and bullying his host.

“Well, Annabella,” said her husband, as he leant over the back of her
chair, “which of these three ‘bold, manly spirits’ would you have me to
resemble?”

“By heaven and earth, you shall resemble us all!” cried Hattersley,
starting up and rudely seizing him by the arm. “Hallo, Huntingdon!” he
shouted—“I’ve got him! Come, man, and help me! And d—n me, if I don’t
make him drunk before I let him go! He shall make up for all past
delinquencies as sure as I’m a living soul!”

There followed a disgraceful contest: Lord Lowborough, in desperate
earnest, and pale with anger, silently struggling to release himself
from the powerful madman that was striving to drag him from the room. I
attempted to urge Arthur to interfere in behalf of his outraged guest,
but he could do nothing but laugh.

“Huntingdon, you fool, come and help me, can’t you!” cried Hattersley,
himself somewhat weakened by his excesses.

“I’m wishing you God-speed, Hattersley,” cried Arthur, “and aiding you
with my prayers: I can’t do anything else if my life depended on it!
I’m quite used up. Oh—oh!” and leaning back in his seat, he clapped his
hands on his sides and groaned aloud.

“Annabella, give me a candle!” said Lowborough, whose antagonist had
now got him round the waist and was endeavouring to root him from the
door-post, to which he madly clung with all the energy of desperation.

“I shall take no part in your rude sports!” replied the lady coldly
drawing back. “I wonder you can expect it.”

But I snatched up a candle and brought it to him. He took it and held
the flame to Hattersley’s hands, till, roaring like a wild beast, the
latter unclasped them and let him go. He vanished, I suppose to his own
apartment, for nothing more was seen of him till the morning. Swearing
and cursing like a maniac, Hattersley threw himself on to the ottoman
beside the window. The door being now free, Milicent attempted to make
her escape from the scene of her husband’s disgrace; but he called her
back, and insisted upon her coming to him.

“What do you want, Ralph?” murmured she, reluctantly approaching him.

“I want to know what’s the matter with you,” said he, pulling her on to
his knee like a child. “What are you crying for, Milicent?—Tell me!”

“I’m not crying.”

“You are,” persisted he, rudely pulling her hands from her face. “How
dare you tell such a lie!”

“I’m not crying now,” pleaded she.

“But you have been, and just this minute too; and I will know what
for. Come, now, you shall tell me!”

“Do let me alone, Ralph! Remember, we are not at home.”

“No matter: you shall answer my question!” exclaimed her tormentor;
and he attempted to extort the confession by shaking her, and
remorselessly crushing her slight arms in the gripe of his powerful
fingers.

“Don’t let him treat your sister in that way,” said I to Mr. Hargrave.

“Come now, Hattersley, I can’t allow that,” said that gentleman,
stepping up to the ill-assorted couple. “Let my sister alone, if you
please.”

And he made an effort to unclasp the ruffian’s fingers from her arm,
but was suddenly driven backward, and nearly laid upon the floor by a
violent blow on the chest, accompanied with the admonition, “Take that
for your insolence! and learn to interfere between me and mine again.”

“If you were not drunk, I’d have satisfaction for that!” gasped
Hargrave, white and breathless as much from passion as from the
immediate effects of the blow.

“Go to the devil!” responded his brother-in-law. “Now, Milicent, tell
me what you were crying for.”

“I’ll tell you some other time,” murmured she, “when we are alone.”

“Tell me now!” said he, with another shake and a squeeze that made her
draw in her breath and bite her lip to suppress a cry of pain.

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Hattersley,” said I. “She was crying from pure
shame and humiliation for you; because she could not bear to see you
conduct yourself so disgracefully.”

“Confound you, Madam!” muttered he, with a stare of stupid amazement at
my “impudence.” “It was not that—was it, Milicent?”

She was silent.

“Come, speak up, child!”

“I can’t tell now,” sobbed she.

“But you can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as well as ‘I can’t tell.’—Come!”

“Yes,” she whispered, hanging her head, and blushing at the awful
acknowledgment.

“Curse you for an impertinent hussy, then!” cried he, throwing her from
him with such violence that she fell on her side; but she was up again
before either I or her brother could come to her assistance, and made
the best of her way out of the room, and, I suppose, up-stairs, without
loss of time.

The next object of assault was Arthur, who sat opposite, and had, no
doubt, richly enjoyed the whole scene.

“Now, Huntingdon,” exclaimed his irascible friend, “I WILL NOT have you
sitting there and laughing like an idiot!”

“Oh, Hattersley,” cried he, wiping his swimming eyes—“you’ll be the
death of me.”

“Yes, I will, but not as you suppose: I’ll have the heart out of your
body, man, if you irritate me with any more of that imbecile
laughter!—What! are you at it yet?—There! see if that’ll settle you!”
cried Hattersley, snatching up a footstool and hurting it at the head
of his host; but he as well as missed his aim, and the latter still sat
collapsed and quaking with feeble laughter, with tears running down his
face: a deplorable spectacle indeed.

Hattersley tried cursing and swearing, but it would not do: he then
took a number of books from the table beside him, and threw them, one
by one, at the object of his wrath; but Arthur only laughed the more;
and, finally, Hattersley rushed upon him in a frenzy and seizing him by
the shoulders, gave him a violent shaking, under which he laughed and
shrieked alarmingly. But I saw no more: I thought I had witnessed
enough of my husband’s degradation; and leaving Annabella and the rest
to follow when they pleased, I withdrew, but not to bed. Dismissing
Rachel to her rest, I walked up and down my room, in an agony of misery
for what had been done, and suspense, not knowing what might further
happen, or how or when that unhappy creature would come up to bed.

At last he came, slowly and stumblingly ascending the stairs, supported
by Grimsby and Hattersley, who neither of them walked quite steadily
themselves, but were both laughing and joking at him, and making noise
enough for all the servants to hear. He himself was no longer laughing
now, but sick and stupid. I will write no more about that.

Such disgraceful scenes (or nearly such) have been repeated more than
once. I don’t say much to Arthur about it, for, if I did, it would do
more harm than good; but I let him know that I intensely dislike such
exhibitions; and each time he has promised they should never again be
repeated. But I fear he is losing the little self-command and
self-respect he once possessed: formerly, he would have been ashamed to
act thus—at least, before any other witnesses than his boon companions,
or such as they. His friend Hargrave, with a prudence and
self-government that I envy for him, never disgraces himself by
taking more than sufficient to render him a little “elevated,” and is
always the first to leave the table after Lord Lowborough, who, wiser
still, perseveres in vacating the dining-room immediately after us: but
never once, since Annabella offended him so deeply, has he entered the
drawing-room before the rest; always spending the interim in the
library, which I take care to have lighted for his accommodation; or,
on fine moonlight nights, in roaming about the grounds. But I think she
regrets her misconduct, for she has never repeated it since, and of
late she has comported herself with wonderful propriety towards him,
treating him with more uniform kindness and consideration than ever I
have observed her to do before. I date the time of this improvement
from the period when she ceased to hope and strive for Arthur’s
admiration.