The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

was about the close of the month, that, yielding at length to the
urgent importunities of Rose, I accompanied her in a visit to Wildfell
Hall. To our surprise, we were ushered into a room where the first
object that met the eye was a painter’s easel, with a table beside it
covered with rolls of canvas, bottles of oil and varnish, palette,
brushes, paints, &c. Leaning against the wall were several sketches in
various stages of progression, and a few finished paintings—mostly of
landscapes and figures.

“I must make you welcome to my studio,” said Mrs. Graham; “there is no
fire in the sitting-room to-day, and it is rather too cold to show you
into a place with an empty grate.”

And disengaging a couple of chairs from the artistical lumber that
usurped them, she bid us be seated, and resumed her place beside the
easel—not facing it exactly, but now and then glancing at the picture
upon it while she conversed, and giving it an occasional touch with her
brush, as if she found it impossible to wean her attention entirely
from her occupation to fix it upon her guests. It was a view of
Wildfell Hall, as seen at early morning from the field below, rising in
dark relief against a sky of clear silvery blue, with a few red streaks
on the horizon, faithfully drawn and coloured, and very elegantly and
artistically handled.

“I see your heart is in your work, Mrs. Graham,” observed I: “I must
beg you to go on with it; for if you suffer our presence to interrupt
you, we shall be constrained to regard ourselves as unwelcome
intruders.”

“Oh, no!” replied she, throwing her brush on to the table, as if
startled into politeness. “I am not so beset with visitors but that I
can readily spare a few minutes to the few that do favour me with their
company.”

“You have almost completed your painting,” said I, approaching to
observe it more closely, and surveying it with a greater degree of
admiration and delight than I cared to express. “A few more touches in
the foreground will finish it, I should think. But why have you called
it Fernley Manor, Cumberland, instead of Wildfell Hall, ——shire?” I
asked, alluding to the name she had traced in small characters at the
bottom of the canvas.

But immediately I was sensible of having committed an act of
impertinence in so doing; for she coloured and hesitated; but after a
moment’s pause, with a kind of desperate frankness, she replied:—

“Because I have friends—acquaintances at least—in the world, from whom
I desire my present abode to be concealed; and as they might see the
picture, and might possibly recognise the style in spite of the false
initials I have put in the corner, I take the precaution to give a
false name to the place also, in order to put them on a wrong scent, if
they should attempt to trace me out by it.”

“Then you don’t intend to keep the picture?” said I, anxious to say
anything to change the subject.

“No; I cannot afford to paint for my own amusement.”

“Mamma sends all her pictures to London,” said Arthur; “and somebody
sells them for her there, and sends us the money.”

In looking round upon the other pieces, I remarked a pretty sketch of
Lindenhope from the top of the hill; another view of the old hall
basking in the sunny haze of a quiet summer afternoon; and a simple but
striking little picture of a child brooding, with looks of silent but
deep and sorrowful regret, over a handful of withered flowers, with
glimpses of dark low hills and autumnal fields behind it, and a dull
beclouded sky above.

“You see there is a sad dearth of subjects,” observed the fair artist.
“I took the old hall once on a moonlight night, and I suppose I must
take it again on a snowy winter’s day, and then again on a dark cloudy
evening; for I really have nothing else to paint. I have been told that
you have a fine view of the sea somewhere in the neighbourhood. Is it
true?—and is it within walking distance?”

“Yes, if you don’t object to walking four miles—or nearly so—little
short of eight miles, there and back—and over a somewhat rough,
fatiguing road.”

“In what direction does it lie?”

I described the situation as well as I could, and was entering upon an
explanation of the various roads, lanes, and fields to be traversed in
order to reach it, the goings straight on, and turnings to the right
and the left, when she checked me with,—

“Oh, stop! don’t tell me now: I shall forget every word of your
directions before I require them. I shall not think about going till
next spring; and then, perhaps, I may trouble you. At present we have
the winter before us, and—”

She suddenly paused, with a suppressed exclamation, started up from her
seat, and saying, “Excuse me one moment,” hurried from the room, and
shut the door behind her.

Curious to see what had startled her so, I looked towards the
window—for her eyes had been carelessly fixed upon it the moment
before—and just beheld the skirts of a man’s coat vanishing behind a
large holly-bush that stood between the window and the porch.

“It’s mamma’s friend,” said Arthur.

Rose and I looked at each other.

“I don’t know what to make of her at all,” whispered Rose.

The child looked at her in grave surprise. She straightway began to
talk to him on indifferent matters, while I amused myself with looking
at the pictures. There was one in an obscure corner that I had not
before observed. It was a little child, seated on the grass with its
lap full of flowers. The tiny features and large blue eyes, smiling
through a shock of light brown curls, shaken over the forehead as it
bent above its treasure, bore sufficient resemblance to those of the
young gentleman before me to proclaim it a portrait of Arthur Graham in
his early infancy.

In taking this up to bring it to the light, I discovered another behind
it, with its face to the wall. I ventured to take that up too. It was
the portrait of a gentleman in the full prime of youthful
manhood—handsome enough, and not badly executed; but if done by the
same hand as the others, it was evidently some years before; for there
was far more careful minuteness of detail, and less of that freshness
of colouring and freedom of handling that delighted and surprised me in
them. Nevertheless, I surveyed it with considerable interest. There was
a certain individuality in the features and expression that stamped it,
at once, a successful likeness. The bright blue eyes regarded the
spectator with a kind of lurking drollery—you almost expected to see
them wink; the lips—a little too voluptuously full—seemed ready to
break into a smile; the warmly-tinted cheeks were embellished with a
luxuriant growth of reddish whiskers; while the bright chestnut hair,
clustering in abundant, wavy curls, trespassed too much upon the
forehead, and seemed to intimate that the owner thereof was prouder of
his beauty than his intellect—as, perhaps, he had reason to be; and yet
he looked no fool.

I had not had the portrait in my hands two minutes before the fair
artist returned.

“Only some one come about the pictures,” said she, in apology for her
abrupt departure: “I told him to wait.”

“I fear it will be considered an act of impertinence,” I said “to
presume to look at a picture that the artist has turned to the wall;
but may I ask—”

“It is an act of very great impertinence, sir; and therefore I beg
you will ask nothing about it, for your curiosity will not be
gratified,” replied she, attempting to cover the tartness of her rebuke
with a smile; but I could see, by her flushed cheek and kindling eye,
that she was seriously annoyed.

“I was only going to ask if you had painted it yourself,” said I,
sulkily resigning the picture into her hands; for without a grain of
ceremony she took it from me; and quickly restoring it to the dark
corner, with its face to the wall, placed the other against it as
before, and then turned to me and laughed.

But I was in no humour for jesting. I carelessly turned to the window,
and stood looking out upon the desolate garden, leaving her to talk to
Rose for a minute or two; and then, telling my sister it was time to
go, shook hands with the little gentleman, coolly bowed to the lady,
and moved towards the door. But, having bid adieu to Rose, Mrs. Graham
presented her hand to me, saying, with a soft voice, and by no means a
disagreeable smile,—“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, Mr.
Markham. I’m sorry I offended you by my abruptness.”

When a lady condescends to apologise, there is no keeping one’s anger,
of course; so we parted good friends for once; and this time I
squeezed her hand with a cordial, not a spiteful pressure.