The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

ive or six days after this Mr. Lawrence paid us the honour of a call;
and when he and I were alone together—which I contrived as soon as
possible by bringing him out to look at my cornstacks—he showed me
another letter from his sister. This one he was quite willing to submit
to my longing gaze; he thought, I suppose, it would do me good. The
only answer it gave to my message was this:—

“Mr. Markham is at liberty to make such revelations concerning me as he
judges necessary. He will know that I should wish but little to be said
on the subject. I hope he is well; but tell him he must not think of
me.”

I can give you a few extracts from the rest of the letter, for I was
permitted to keep this also—perhaps, as an antidote to all pernicious
hopes and fancies.

* * * * *

He is decidedly better, but very low from the depressing effects of his
severe illness and the strict regimen he is obliged to observe—so
opposite to all his previous habits. It is deplorable to see how
completely his past life has degenerated his once noble constitution,
and vitiated the whole system of his organization. But the doctor says
he may now be considered out of danger, if he will only continue to
observe the necessary restrictions. Some stimulating cordials he must
have, but they should be judiciously diluted and sparingly used; and I
find it very difficult to keep him to this. At first, his extreme dread
of death rendered the task an easy one; but in proportion as he feels
his acute suffering abating, and sees the danger receding, the more
intractable he becomes. Now, also, his appetite for food is beginning
to return; and here, too, his long habits of self-indulgence are
greatly against him. I watch and restrain him as well as I can, and
often get bitterly abused for my rigid severity; and sometimes he
contrives to elude my vigilance, and sometimes acts in opposition to my
will. But he is now so completely reconciled to my attendance in
general that he is never satisfied when I am not by his side. I am
obliged to be a little stiff with him sometimes, or he would make a
complete slave of me; and I know it would be unpardonable weakness to
give up all other interests for him. I have the servants to overlook,
and my little Arthur to attend to,—and my own health too, all of which
would be entirely neglected were I to satisfy his exorbitant demands. I
do not generally sit up at night, for I think the nurse who has made it
her business is better qualified for such undertakings than I am;—but
still, an unbroken night’s rest is what I but seldom enjoy, and never
can venture to reckon upon; for my patient makes no scruple of calling
me up at an hour when his wants or his fancies require my presence. But
he is manifestly afraid of my displeasure; and if at one time he tries
my patience by his unreasonable exactions, and fretful complaints and
reproaches, at another he depresses me by his abject submission and
deprecatory self-abasement when he fears he has gone too far. But all
this I can readily pardon; I know it is chiefly the result of his
enfeebled frame and disordered nerves. What annoys me the most, is his
occasional attempts at affectionate fondness that I can neither credit
nor return; not that I hate him: his sufferings and my own laborious
care have given him some claim to my regard—to my affection even, if he
would only be quiet and sincere, and content to let things remain as
they are; but the more he tries to conciliate me, the more I shrink
from him and from the future.

“Helen, what do you mean to do when I get well?” he asked this morning.
“Will you run away again?”

“It entirely depends upon your own conduct.”

“Oh, I’ll be very good.”

“But if I find it necessary to leave you, Arthur, I shall not ‘run
away’: you know I have your own promise that I may go whenever I
please, and take my son with me.”

“Oh, but you shall have no cause.” And then followed a variety of
professions, which I rather coldly checked.

“Will you not forgive me, then?” said he.

“Yes,—I have forgiven you: but I know you cannot love me as you once
did—and I should be very sorry if you were to, for I could not pretend
to return it: so let us drop the subject, and never recur to it again.
By what I have done for you, you may judge of what I will do—if it
be not incompatible with the higher duty I owe to my son (higher,
because he never forfeited his claims, and because I hope to do more
good to him than I can ever do to you); and if you wish me to feel
kindly towards you, it is deeds not words which must purchase my
affection and esteem.”

His sole reply to this was a slight grimace, and a scarcely perceptible
shrug. Alas, unhappy man! words, with him, are so much cheaper than
deeds; it was as if I had said, “Pounds, not pence, must buy the
article you want.” And then he sighed a querulous, self-commiserating
sigh, as if in pure regret that he, the loved and courted of so many
worshippers, should be now abandoned to the mercy of a harsh, exacting,
cold-hearted woman like that, and even glad of what kindness she chose
to bestow.

“It’s a pity, isn’t it?” said I; and whether I rightly divined his
musings or not, the observation chimed in with his thoughts, for he
answered—“It can’t be helped,” with a rueful smile at my penetration.

* * * * *

I have seen Esther Hargrave twice. She is a charming creature, but her
blithe spirit is almost broken, and her sweet temper almost spoiled, by
the still unremitting persecutions of her mother in behalf of her
rejected suitor—not violent, but wearisome and unremitting like a
continual dropping. The unnatural parent seems determined to make her
daughter’s life a burden, if she will not yield to her desires.

“Mamma does all she can,” said she, “to make me feel myself a burden
and incumbrance to the family, and the most ungrateful, selfish, and
undutiful daughter that ever was born; and Walter, too, is as stern and
cold and haughty as if he hated me outright. I believe I should have
yielded at once if I had known, from the beginning, how much resistance
would have cost me; but now, for very obstinacy’s sake, I will stand
out!”

“A bad motive for a good resolve,” I answered. “But, however, I know
you have better motives, really, for your perseverance: and I counsel
you to keep them still in view.”

“Trust me I will. I threaten mamma sometimes that I’ll run away, and
disgrace the family by earning my own livelihood, if she torments me
any more; and then that frightens her a little. But I will do it, in
good earnest, if they don’t mind.”

“Be quiet and patient a while,” said I, “and better times will come.”

Poor girl! I wish somebody that was worthy to possess her would come
and take her away—don’t you, Frederick?

* * * * *

If the perusal of this letter filled me with dismay for Helen’s future
life and mine, there was one great source of consolation: it was now in
my power to clear her name from every foul aspersion. The Millwards and
the Wilsons should see with their own eyes the bright sun bursting from
the cloud—and they should be scorched and dazzled by its beams;—and my
own friends too should see it—they whose suspicions had been such gall
and wormwood to my soul. To effect this I had only to drop the seed
into the ground, and it would soon become a stately, branching herb: a
few words to my mother and sister, I knew, would suffice to spread the
news throughout the whole neighbourhood, without any further exertion
on my part.

Rose was delighted; and as soon as I had told her all I thought
proper—which was all I affected to know—she flew with alacrity to put
on her bonnet and shawl, and hasten to carry the glad tidings to the
Millwards and Wilsons—glad tidings, I suspect, to none but herself and
Mary Millward—that steady, sensible girl, whose sterling worth had been
so quickly perceived and duly valued by the supposed Mrs. Graham, in
spite of her plain outside; and who, on her part, had been better able
to see and appreciate that lady’s true character and qualities than the
brightest genius among them.

As I may never have occasion to mention her again, I may as well tell
you here that she was at this time privately engaged to Richard
Wilson—a secret, I believe, to every one but themselves. That worthy
student was now at Cambridge, where his most exemplary conduct and his
diligent perseverance in the pursuit of learning carried him safely
through, and eventually brought him with hard-earned honours, and an
untarnished reputation, to the close of his collegiate career. In due
time he became Mr. Millward’s first and only curate—for that
gentleman’s declining years forced him at last to acknowledge that the
duties of his extensive parish were a little too much for those vaunted
energies which he was wont to boast over his younger and less active
brethren of the cloth. This was what the patient, faithful lovers had
privately planned and quietly waited for years ago; and in due time
they were united, to the astonishment of the little world they lived
in, that had long since declared them both born to single blessedness;
affirming it impossible that the pale, retiring bookworm should ever
summon courage to seek a wife, or be able to obtain one if he did, and
equally impossible that the plain-looking, plain-dealing, unattractive,
unconciliating Miss Millward should ever find a husband.

They still continued to live at the vicarage, the lady dividing her
time between her father, her husband, and their poor parishioners,—and
subsequently her rising family; and now that the Reverend Michael
Millward has been gathered to his fathers, full of years and honours,
the Reverend Richard Wilson has succeeded him to the vicarage of
Lindenhope, greatly to the satisfaction of its inhabitants, who had so
long tried and fully proved his merits, and those of his excellent and
well-loved partner.

If you are interested in the after fate of that lady’s sister, I can
only tell you—what perhaps you have heard from another quarter—that
some twelve or thirteen years ago she relieved the happy couple of her
presence by marrying a wealthy tradesman of L——; and I don’t envy him
his bargain. I fear she leads him a rather uncomfortable life, though,
happily, he is too dull to perceive the extent of his misfortune. I
have little enough to do with her myself: we have not met for many
years; but, I am well assured, she has not yet forgotten or forgiven
either her former lover, or the lady whose superior qualities first
opened his eyes to the folly of his boyish attachment.

As for Richard Wilson’s sister, she, having been wholly unable to
recapture Mr. Lawrence, or obtain any partner rich and elegant enough
to suit her ideas of what the husband of Jane Wilson ought to be, is
yet in single blessedness. Shortly after the death of her mother she
withdrew the light of her presence from Ryecote Farm, finding it
impossible any longer to endure the rough manners and unsophisticated
habits of her honest brother Robert and his worthy wife, or the idea of
being identified with such vulgar people in the eyes of the world, and
took lodgings in —— the county town, where she lived, and still lives,
I suppose, in a kind of close-fisted, cold, uncomfortable gentility,
doing no good to others, and but little to herself; spending her days
in fancy-work and scandal; referring frequently to her “brother the
vicar,” and her “sister, the vicar’s lady,” but never to her brother
the farmer and her sister the farmer’s wife; seeing as much company as
she can without too much expense, but loving no one and beloved by
none—a cold-hearted, supercilious, keenly, insidiously censorious old
maid.