The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

ecember 20th, 1824.—This is the third anniversary of our felicitous
union. It is now two months since our guests left us to the enjoyment
of each other’s society; and I have had nine weeks’ experience of this
new phase of conjugal life—two persons living together, as master and
mistress of the house, and father and mother of a winsome, merry little
child, with the mutual understanding that there is no love, friendship,
or sympathy between them. As far as in me lies, I endeavour to live
peaceably with him: I treat him with unimpeachable civility, give up my
convenience to his, wherever it may reasonably be done, and consult him
in a business-like way on household affairs, deferring to his pleasure
and judgment, even when I know the latter to be inferior to my own.

As for him, for the first week or two, he was peevish and low,
fretting, I suppose, over his dear Annabella’s departure, and
particularly ill-tempered to me: everything I did was wrong; I was
cold-hearted, hard, insensate; my sour, pale face was perfectly
repulsive; my voice made him shudder; he knew not how he could live
through the winter with me; I should kill him by inches. Again I
proposed a separation, but it would not do: he was not going to be the
talk of all the old gossips in the neighbourhood: he would not have it
said that he was such a brute his wife could not live with him. No; he
must contrive to bear with me.

“I must contrive to bear with you, you mean,” said I; “for so long as
I discharge my functions of steward and house-keeper, so
conscientiously and well, without pay and without thanks, you cannot
afford to part with me. I shall therefore remit these duties when my
bondage becomes intolerable.” This threat, I thought, would serve to
keep him in check, if anything would.

I believe he was much disappointed that I did not feel his offensive
sayings more acutely, for when he had said anything particularly well
calculated to hurt my feelings, he would stare me searchingly in the
face, and then grumble against my “marble heart” or my “brutal
insensibility.” If I had bitterly wept and deplored his lost affection,
he would, perhaps, have condescended to pity me, and taken me into
favour for a while, just to comfort his solitude and console him for
the absence of his beloved Annabella, until he could meet her again, or
some more fitting substitute. Thank heaven, I am not so weak as that! I
was infatuated once with a foolish, besotted affection, that clung to
him in spite of his unworthiness, but it is fairly gone now—wholly
crushed and withered away; and he has none but himself and his vices to
thank for it.

At first (in compliance with his sweet lady’s injunctions, I suppose),
he abstained wonderfully well from seeking to solace his cares in wine;
but at length he began to relax his virtuous efforts, and now and then
exceeded a little, and still continues to do so; nay, sometimes, not a
little. When he is under the exciting influence of these excesses, he
sometimes fires up and attempts to play the brute; and then I take
little pains to suppress my scorn and disgust. When he is under the
depressing influence of the after-consequences, he bemoans his
sufferings and his errors, and charges them both upon me; he knows such
indulgence injures his health, and does him more harm than good; but he
says I drive him to it by my unnatural, unwomanly conduct; it will be
the ruin of him in the end, but it is all my fault; and then I am
roused to defend myself, sometimes with bitter recrimination. This is a
kind of injustice I cannot patiently endure. Have I not laboured long
and hard to save him from this very vice? Would I not labour still to
deliver him from it if I could? but could I do so by fawning upon him
and caressing him when I know that he scorns me? Is it my fault that
I have lost my influence with him, or that he has forfeited every claim
to my regard? And should I seek a reconciliation with him, when I feel
that I abhor him, and that he despises me? and while he continues still
to correspond with Lady Lowborough, as I know he does? No, never,
never, never! he may drink himself dead, but it is NOT my fault!

Yet I do my part to save him still: I give him to understand that
drinking makes his eyes dull, and his face red and bloated; and that it
tends to render him imbecile in body and mind; and if Annabella were to
see him as often as I do, she would speedily be disenchanted; and that
she certainly will withdraw her favour from him, if he continues such
courses. Such a mode of admonition wins only coarse abuse for me—and,
indeed, I almost feel as if I deserved it, for I hate to use such
arguments; but they sink into his stupefied heart, and make him pause,
and ponder, and abstain, more than anything else I could say.

At present I am enjoying a temporary relief from his presence: he is
gone with Hargrave to join a distant hunt, and will probably not be
back before to-morrow evening. How differently I used to feel his
absence!

Mr. Hargrave is still at the Grove. He and Arthur frequently meet to
pursue their rural sports together: he often calls upon us here, and
Arthur not unfrequently rides over to him. I do not think either of
these soi-disant friends is overflowing with love for the other; but
such intercourse serves to get the time on, and I am very willing it
should continue, as it saves me some hours of discomfort in Arthur’s
society, and gives him some better employment than the sottish
indulgence of his sensual appetites. The only objection I have to Mr.
Hargrave’s being in the neighbourhood, is that the fear of meeting him
at the Grove prevents me from seeing his sister so often as I otherwise
should; for, of late, he has conducted himself towards me with such
unerring propriety, that I have almost forgotten his former conduct. I
suppose he is striving to “win my esteem.” If he continue to act in
this way, he may win it; but what then? The moment he attempts to
demand anything more, he will lose it again.

February 10th.—It is a hard, embittering thing to have one’s kind
feelings and good intentions cast back in one’s teeth. I was beginning
to relent towards my wretched partner; to pity his forlorn, comfortless
condition, unalleviated as it is by the consolations of intellectual
resources and the answer of a good conscience towards God; and to think
I ought to sacrifice my pride, and renew my efforts once again to make
his home agreeable and lead him back to the path of virtue; not by
false professions of love, and not by pretended remorse, but by
mitigating my habitual coldness of manner, and commuting my frigid
civility into kindness wherever an opportunity occurred; and not only
was I beginning to think so, but I had already begun to act upon the
thought—and what was the result? No answering spark of kindness, no
awakening penitence, but an unappeasable ill-humour, and a spirit of
tyrannous exaction that increased with indulgence, and a lurking gleam
of self-complacent triumph at every detection of relenting softness in
my manner, that congealed me to marble again as often as it recurred;
and this morning he finished the business:—I think the petrifaction is
so completely effected at last that nothing can melt me again. Among
his letters was one which he perused with symptoms of unusual
gratification, and then threw it across the table to me, with the
admonition,—

“There! read that, and take a lesson by it!”

It was in the free, dashing hand of Lady Lowborough. I glanced at the
first page; it seemed full of extravagant protestations of affection;
impetuous longings for a speedy reunion—and impious defiance of God’s
mandates, and railings against His providence for having cast their lot
asunder, and doomed them both to the hateful bondage of alliance with
those they could not love. He gave a slight titter on seeing me change
colour. I folded up the letter, rose, and returned it to him, with no
remark, but—

“Thank you, I will take a lesson by it!”

My little Arthur was standing between his knees, delightedly playing
with the bright, ruby ring on his finger. Urged by a sudden, imperative
impulse to deliver my son from that contaminating influence, I caught
him up in my arms and carried him with me out of the room. Not liking
this abrupt removal, the child began to pout and cry. This was a new
stab to my already tortured heart. I would not let him go; but, taking
him with me into the library, I shut the door, and, kneeling on the
floor beside him, I embraced him, kissed him, wept over with him with
passionate fondness. Rather frightened than consoled by this, he turned
struggling from me, and cried out aloud for his papa. I released him
from my arms, and never were more bitter tears than those that now
concealed him from my blinded, burning eyes. Hearing his cries, the
father came to the room. I instantly turned away, lest he should see
and misconstrue my emotion. He swore at me, and took the now pacified
child away.

It is hard that my little darling should love him more than me; and
that, when the well-being and culture of my son is all I have to live
for, I should see my influence destroyed by one whose selfish affection
is more injurious than the coldest indifference or the harshest tyranny
could be. If I, for his good, deny him some trifling indulgence, he
goes to his father, and the latter, in spite of his selfish indolence,
will even give himself some trouble to meet the child’s desires: if I
attempt to curb his will, or look gravely on him for some act of
childish disobedience, he knows his other parent will smile and take
his part against me. Thus, not only have I the father’s spirit in the
son to contend against, the germs of his evil tendencies to search out
and eradicate, and his corrupting intercourse and example in after-life
to counteract, but already he counteracts my arduous labour for the
child’s advantage, destroys my influence over his tender mind, and robs
me of his very love; I had no earthly hope but this, and he seems to
take a diabolical delight in tearing it away.

But it is wrong to despair; I will remember the counsel of the inspired
writer to him “that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his
servant, that sitteth in darkness and hath no light; let him trust in
the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God!”