The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

hile standing thus, absorbed in my gloomy reverie, a gentleman’s
carriage came round the corner of the road. I did not look at it; and
had it rolled quietly by me, I should not have remembered the fact of
its appearance at all; but a tiny voice from within it roused me by
exclaiming, “Mamma, mamma, here’s Mr. Markham!”

I did not hear the reply, but presently the same voice answered, “It is
indeed, mamma—look for yourself.”

I did not raise my eyes, but I suppose mamma looked, for a clear
melodious voice, whose tones thrilled through my nerves, exclaimed,
“Oh, aunt! here’s Mr. Markham, Arthur’s friend! Stop, Richard!”

There was such evidence of joyous though suppressed excitement in the
utterance of those few words—especially that tremulous, “Oh, aunt”—that
it threw me almost off my guard. The carriage stopped immediately, and
I looked up and met the eye of a pale, grave, elderly lady surveying me
from the open window. She bowed, and so did I, and then she withdrew
her head, while Arthur screamed to the footman to let him out; but
before that functionary could descend from his box a hand was silently
put forth from the carriage window. I knew that hand, though a black
glove concealed its delicate whiteness and half its fair proportions,
and quickly seizing it, I pressed it in my own—ardently for a moment,
but instantly recollecting myself, I dropped it, and it was immediately
withdrawn.

“Were you coming to see us, or only passing by?” asked the low voice of
its owner, who, I felt, was attentively surveying my countenance from
behind the thick black veil which, with the shadowing panels, entirely
concealed her own from me.

“I—I came to see the place,” faltered I.

“The place,” repeated she, in a tone which betokened more displeasure
or disappointment than surprise.

“Will you not enter it, then?”

“If you wish it.”

“Can you doubt?”

“Yes, yes! he must enter,” cried Arthur, running round from the other
door; and seizing my hand in both his, he shook it heartily.

“Do you remember me, sir?” said he.

“Yes, full well, my little man, altered though you are,” replied I,
surveying the comparatively tall, slim young gentleman, with his
mother’s image visibly stamped upon his fair, intelligent features, in
spite of the blue eyes beaming with gladness, and the bright locks
clustering beneath his cap.

“Am I not grown?” said he, stretching himself up to his full height.

“Grown! three inches, upon my word!”

“I was seven last birthday,” was the proud rejoinder. “In seven years
more I shall be as tall as you nearly.”

“Arthur,” said his mother, “tell him to come in. Go on, Richard.”

There was a touch of sadness as well as coldness in her voice, but I
knew not to what to ascribe it. The carriage drove on and entered the
gates before us. My little companion led me up the park, discoursing
merrily all the way. Arrived at the hall-door, I paused on the steps
and looked round me, waiting to recover my composure, if possible—or,
at any rate, to remember my new-formed resolutions and the principles
on which they were founded; and it was not till Arthur had been for
some time gently pulling my coat, and repeating his invitations to
enter, that I at length consented to accompany him into the apartment
where the ladies awaited us.

Helen eyed me as I entered with a kind of gentle, serious scrutiny, and
politely asked after Mrs. Markham and Rose. I respectfully answered her
inquiries. Mrs. Maxwell begged me to be seated, observing it was rather
cold, but she supposed I had not travelled far that morning.

“Not quite twenty miles,” I answered.

“Not on foot!”

“No, Madam, by coach.”

“Here’s Rachel, sir,” said Arthur, the only truly happy one amongst us,
directing my attention to that worthy individual, who had just entered
to take her mistress’s things. She vouchsafed me an almost friendly
smile of recognition—a favour that demanded, at least, a civil
salutation on my part, which was accordingly given and respectfully
returned—she had seen the error of her former estimation of my
character.

When Helen was divested of her lugubrious bonnet and veil, her heavy
winter cloak, &c., she looked so like herself that I knew not how to
bear it. I was particularly glad to see her beautiful black hair,
unstinted still, and unconcealed in its glossy luxuriance.

“Mamma has left off her widow’s cap in honour of uncle’s marriage,”
observed Arthur, reading my looks with a child’s mingled simplicity and
quickness of observation. Mamma looked grave and Mrs. Maxwell shook her
head. “And aunt Maxwell is never going to leave off hers,” persisted
the naughty boy; but when he saw that his pertness was seriously
displeasing and painful to his aunt, he went and silently put his arm
round her neck, kissed her cheek, and withdrew to the recess of one of
the great bay-windows, where he quietly amused himself with his dog,
while Mrs. Maxwell gravely discussed with me the interesting topics of
the weather, the season, and the roads. I considered her presence very
useful as a check upon my natural impulses—an antidote to those
emotions of tumultuous excitement which would otherwise have carried me
away against my reason and my will; but just then I felt the
restraint almost intolerable, and I had the greatest difficulty in
forcing myself to attend to her remarks and answer them with ordinary
politeness; for I was sensible that Helen was standing within a few
feet of me beside the fire. I dared not look at her, but I felt her eye
was upon me, and from one hasty, furtive glance, I thought her cheek
was slightly flushed, and that her fingers, as she played with her
watch-chain, were agitated with that restless, trembling motion which
betokens high excitement.

“Tell me,” said she, availing herself of the first pause in the
attempted conversation between her aunt and me, and speaking fast and
low, with her eyes bent on the gold chain—for I now ventured another
glance—“Tell me how you all are at Lindenhope—has nothing happened
since I left you?”

“I believe not.”

“Nobody dead? nobody married?”

“No.”

“Or—or expecting to marry?—No old ties dissolved or new ones formed? no
old friends forgotten or supplanted?”

She dropped her voice so low in the last sentence that no one could
have caught the concluding words but myself, and at the same time
turned her eyes upon me with a dawning smile, most sweetly melancholy,
and a look of timid though keen inquiry that made my cheeks tingle with
inexpressible emotions.

“I believe not,” I answered. “Certainly not, if others are as little
changed as I.” Her face glowed in sympathy with mine.

“And you really did not mean to call?” she exclaimed.

“I feared to intrude.”

“To intrude!” cried she, with an impatient gesture. “What—” but as if
suddenly recollecting her aunt’s presence, she checked herself, and,
turning to that lady, continued—“Why, aunt, this man is my brother’s
close friend, and was my own intimate acquaintance (for a few short
months at least), and professed a great attachment to my boy—and when
he passes the house, so many scores of miles from his home, he declines
to look in for fear of intruding!”

“Mr. Markham is over-modest,” observed Mrs. Maxwell.

“Over-ceremonious rather,” said her niece—“over—well, it’s no matter.”
And turning from me, she seated herself in a chair beside the table,
and pulling a book to her by the cover, began to turn over the leaves
in an energetic kind of abstraction.

“If I had known,” said I, “that you would have honoured me by
remembering me as an intimate acquaintance, I most likely should not
have denied myself the pleasure of calling upon you, but I thought you
had forgotten me long ago.”

“You judged of others by yourself,” muttered she without raising her
eyes from the book, but reddening as she spoke, and hastily turning
over a dozen leaves at once.

There was a pause, of which Arthur thought he might venture to avail
himself to introduce his handsome young setter, and show me how
wonderfully it was grown and improved, and to ask after the welfare of
its father Sancho. Mrs. Maxwell then withdrew to take off her things.
Helen immediately pushed the book from her, and after silently
surveying her son, his friend, and his dog for a few moments, she
dismissed the former from the room under pretence of wishing him to
fetch his last new book to show me. The child obeyed with alacrity; but
I continued caressing the dog. The silence might have lasted till its
master’s return, had it depended on me to break it; but, in half a
minute or less, my hostess impatiently rose, and, taking her former
station on the rug between me and the chimney corner, earnestly
exclaimed—

“Gilbert, what is the matter with you?—why are you so changed? It is
a very indiscreet question, I know,” she hastened to add: “perhaps a
very rude one—don’t answer it if you think so—but I hate mysteries and
concealments.”

“I am not changed, Helen—unfortunately I am as keen and passionate as
ever—it is not I, it is circumstances that are changed.”

“What circumstances? Do tell me!” Her cheek was blanched with the
very anguish of anxiety—could it be with the fear that I had rashly
pledged my faith to another?

“I’ll tell you at once,” said I. “I will confess that I came here for
the purpose of seeing you (not without some monitory misgivings at my
own presumption, and fears that I should be as little welcome as
expected when I came), but I did not know that this estate was yours
until enlightened on the subject of your inheritance by the
conversation of two fellow-passengers in the last stage of my journey;
and then I saw at once the folly of the hopes I had cherished, and the
madness of retaining them a moment longer; and though I alighted at
your gates, I determined not to enter within them; I lingered a few
minutes to see the place, but was fully resolved to return to M——
without seeing its mistress.”

“And if my aunt and I had not been just returning from our morning
drive, I should have seen and heard no more of you?”

“I thought it would be better for both that we should not meet,”
replied I, as calmly as I could, but not daring to speak above my
breath, from conscious inability to steady my voice, and not daring to
look in her face lest my firmness should forsake me altogether. “I
thought an interview would only disturb your peace and madden me. But I
am glad, now, of this opportunity of seeing you once more and knowing
that you have not forgotten me, and of assuring you that I shall never
cease to remember you.”

There was a moment’s pause. Mrs. Huntingdon moved away, and stood in
the recess of the window. Did she regard this as an intimation that
modesty alone prevented me from asking her hand? and was she
considering how to repulse me with the smallest injury to my feelings?
Before I could speak to relieve her from such a perplexity, she broke
the silence herself by suddenly turning towards me and observing—

“You might have had such an opportunity before—as far, I mean, as
regards assuring me of your kindly recollections, and yourself of mine,
if you had written to me.”

“I would have done so, but I did not know your address, and did not
like to ask your brother, because I thought he would object to my
writing; but this would not have deterred me for a moment, if I could
have ventured to believe that you expected to hear from me, or even
wasted a thought upon your unhappy friend; but your silence naturally
led me to conclude myself forgotten.”

“Did you expect me to write to you, then?”

“No, Helen—Mrs. Huntingdon,” said I, blushing at the implied
imputation, “certainly not; but if you had sent me a message through
your brother, or even asked him about me now and then—”

“I did ask about you frequently. I was not going to do more,” continued
she, smiling, “so long as you continued to restrict yourself to a few
polite inquiries about my health.”

“Your brother never told me that you had mentioned my name.”

“Did you ever ask him?”

“No; for I saw he did not wish to be questioned about you, or to afford
the slightest encouragement or assistance to my too obstinate
attachment.” Helen did not reply. “And he was perfectly right,” added
I. But she remained in silence, looking out upon the snowy lawn. “Oh, I
will relieve her of my presence,” thought I; and immediately I rose and
advanced to take leave, with a most heroic resolution—but pride was at
the bottom of it, or it could not have carried me through.

“Are you going already?” said she, taking the hand I offered, and not
immediately letting it go.

“Why should I stay any longer?”

“Wait till Arthur comes, at least.”

Only too glad to obey, I stood and leant against the opposite side of
the window.

“You told me you were not changed,” said my companion: “you are—very
much so.”

“No, Mrs. Huntingdon, I only ought to be.”

“Do you mean to maintain that you have the same regard for me that you
had when last we met?”

“I have; but it would be wrong to talk of it now.”

“It was wrong to talk of it then, Gilbert; it would not now—unless
to do so would be to violate the truth.”

I was too much agitated to speak; but, without waiting for an answer,
she turned away her glistening eye and crimson cheek, and threw up the
window and looked out, whether to calm her own, excited feelings, or to
relieve her embarrassment, or only to pluck that beautiful half-blown
Christmas-rose that grew upon the little shrub without, just peeping
from the snow that had hitherto, no doubt, defended it from the frost,
and was now melting away in the sun. Pluck it, however, she did, and
having gently dashed the glittering powder from its leaves, approached
it to her lips and said:

“This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood
through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter
has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak
winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has
not blighted it. Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a
flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.—Will you have
it?”

I held out my hand: I dared not speak lest my emotion should overmaster
me. She laid the rose across my palm, but I scarcely closed my fingers
upon it, so deeply was I absorbed in thinking what might be the meaning
of her words, and what I ought to do or say upon the occasion; whether
to give way to my feelings or restrain them still. Misconstruing this
hesitation into indifference—or reluctance even—to accept her gift,
Helen suddenly snatched it from my hand, threw it out on to the snow,
shut down the window with an emphasis, and withdrew to the fire.

“Helen, what means this?” I cried, electrified at this startling change
in her demeanour.

“You did not understand my gift,” said she—“or, what is worse, you
despised it. I’m sorry I gave it you; but since I did make such a
mistake, the only remedy I could think of was to take it away.”

“You misunderstood me cruelly,” I replied, and in a minute I had opened
the window again, leaped out, picked up the flower, brought it in, and
presented it to her, imploring her to give it me again, and I would
keep it for ever for her sake, and prize it more highly than anything
in the world I possessed.

“And will this content you?” said she, as she took it in her hand.

“It shall,” I answered.

“There, then; take it.”

I pressed it earnestly to my lips, and put it in my bosom, Mrs.
Huntingdon looking on with a half-sarcastic smile.

“Now, are you going?” said she.

“I will if—if I must.”

“You are changed,” persisted she—“you are grown either very proud or
very indifferent.”

“I am neither, Helen—Mrs. Huntingdon. If you could see my heart—”

“You must be one,—if not both. And why Mrs. Huntingdon?—why not
Helen, as before?”

“Helen, then—dear Helen!” I murmured. I was in an agony of mingled
love, hope, delight, uncertainty, and suspense.

“The rose I gave you was an emblem of my heart,” said she; “would you
take it away and leave me here alone?”

“Would you give me your hand too, if I asked it?”

“Have I not said enough?” she answered, with a most enchanting smile. I
snatched her hand, and would have fervently kissed it, but suddenly
checked myself, and said,—

“But have you considered the consequences?”

“Hardly, I think, or I should not have offered myself to one too proud
to take me, or too indifferent to make his affection outweigh my
worldly goods.”

Stupid blockhead that I was!—I trembled to clasp her in my arms, but
dared not believe in so much joy, and yet restrained myself to say,—

“But if you should repent!”

“It would be your fault,” she replied: “I never shall, unless you
bitterly disappoint me. If you have not sufficient confidence in my
affection to believe this, let me alone.”

“My darling angel—my own Helen,” cried I, now passionately kissing
the hand I still retained, and throwing my left arm around her, “you
never shall repent, if it depend on me alone. But have you thought of
your aunt?” I trembled for the answer, and clasped her closer to my
heart in the instinctive dread of losing my new-found treasure.

“My aunt must not know of it yet,” said she. “She would think it a
rash, wild step, because she could not imagine how well I know you; but
she must know you herself, and learn to like you. You must leave us
now, after lunch, and come again in spring, and make a longer stay, and
cultivate her acquaintance, and I know you will like each other.”

“And then you will be mine,” said I, printing a kiss upon her lips, and
another, and another; for I was as daring and impetuous now as I had
been backward and constrained before.

“No—in another year,” replied she, gently disengaging herself from my
embrace, but still fondly clasping my hand.

“Another year! Oh, Helen, I could not wait so long!”

“Where is your fidelity?”

“I mean I could not endure the misery of so long a separation.”

“It would not be a separation: we will write every day: my spirit shall
be always with you, and sometimes you shall see me with your bodily
eye. I will not be such a hypocrite as to pretend that I desire to wait
so long myself, but as my marriage is to please myself, alone, I ought
to consult my friends about the time of it.”

“Your friends will disapprove.”

“They will not greatly disapprove, dear Gilbert,” said she, earnestly
kissing my hand; “they cannot, when they know you, or, if they could,
they would not be true friends—I should not care for their
estrangement. Now are you satisfied?” She looked up in my face with a
smile of ineffable tenderness.

“Can I be otherwise, with your love? And you do love me, Helen?” said
I, not doubting the fact, but wishing to hear it confirmed by her own
acknowledgment.

“If you loved as I do,” she earnestly replied, “you would not have so
nearly lost me—these scruples of false delicacy and pride would never
thus have troubled you—you would have seen that the greatest worldly
distinctions and discrepancies of rank, birth, and fortune are as dust
in the balance compared with the unity of accordant thoughts and
feelings, and truly loving, sympathising hearts and souls.”

“But this is too much happiness,” said I, embracing her again; “I have
not deserved it, Helen—I dare not believe in such felicity: and the
longer I have to wait, the greater will be my dread that something will
intervene to snatch you from me—and think, a thousand things may happen
in a year!—I shall be in one long fever of restless terror and
impatience all the time. And besides, winter is such a dreary season.”

“I thought so too,” replied she gravely: “I would not be married in
winter—in December, at least,” she added, with a shudder—for in that
month had occurred both the ill-starred marriage that had bound her to
her former husband, and the terrible death that released her—“and
therefore I said another year, in spring.”

“Next spring?”

“No, no—next autumn, perhaps.”

“Summer, then?”

“Well, the close of summer. There now! be satisfied.”

While she was speaking Arthur re-entered the room—good boy for keeping
out so long.

“Mamma, I couldn’t find the book in either of the places you told me to
look for it” (there was a conscious something in mamma’s smile that
seemed to say, “No, dear, I knew you could not”), “but Rachel got it
for me at last. Look, Mr. Markham, a natural history, with all kinds of
birds and beasts in it, and the reading as nice as the pictures!”

In great good humour I sat down to examine the book, and drew the
little fellow between my knees. Had he come a minute before I should
have received him less graciously, but now I affectionately stroked his
curling locks, and even kissed his ivory forehead: he was my own
Helen’s son, and therefore mine; and as such I have ever since regarded
him. That pretty child is now a fine young man: he has realised his
mother’s brightest expectations, and is at present residing in
Grassdale Manor with his young wife—the merry little Helen Hattersley
of yore.

I had not looked through half the book before Mrs. Maxwell appeared to
invite me into the other room to lunch. That lady’s cool, distant
manners rather chilled me at first; but I did my best to propitiate
her, and not entirely without success, I think, even in that first
short visit; for when I talked cheerfully to her, she gradually became
more kind and cordial, and when I departed she bade me a gracious
adieu, hoping ere long to have the pleasure of seeing me again.

“But you must not go till you have seen the conservatory, my aunt’s
winter garden,” said Helen, as I advanced to take leave of her, with as
much philosophy and self-command as I could summon to my aid.

I gladly availed myself of such a respite, and followed her into a
large and beautiful conservatory, plentifully furnished with flowers,
considering the season—but, of course, I had little attention to spare
for them. It was not, however, for any tender colloquy that my
companion had brought me there:—

“My aunt is particularly fond of flowers,” she observed, “and she is
fond of Staningley too: I brought you here to offer a petition in her
behalf, that this may be her home as long as she lives, and—if it be
not our home likewise—that I may often see her and be with her; for I
fear she will be sorry to lose me; and though she leads a retired and
contemplative life, she is apt to get low-spirited if left too much
alone.”

“By all means, dearest Helen!—do what you will with your own. I should
not dream of wishing your aunt to leave the place under any
circumstances; and we will live either here or elsewhere as you and she
may determine, and you shall see her as often as you like. I know she
must be pained to part with you, and I am willing to make any
reparation in my power. I love her for your sake, and her happiness
shall be as dear to me as that of my own mother.”

“Thank you, darling! you shall have a kiss for that. Good-by. There
now—there, Gilbert—let me go—here’s Arthur; don’t astonish his
infantile brain with your madness.”

* * * * *

But it is time to bring my narrative to a close. Any one but you would
say I had made it too long already. But for your satisfaction I will
add a few words more; because I know you will have a fellow-feeling for
the old lady, and will wish to know the last of her history. I did come
again in spring, and, agreeably to Helen’s injunctions, did my best to
cultivate her acquaintance. She received me very kindly, having been,
doubtless, already prepared to think highly of my character by her
niece’s too favourable report. I turned my best side out, of course,
and we got along marvellously well together. When my ambitious
intentions were made known to her, she took it more sensibly than I had
ventured to hope. Her only remark on the subject, in my hearing, was—

“And so, Mr. Markham, you are going to rob me of my niece, I
understand. Well! I hope God will prosper your union, and make my dear
girl happy at last. Could she have been contented to remain single, I
own I should have been better satisfied; but if she must marry again, I
know of no one, now living and of a suitable age, to whom I would more
willingly resign her than yourself, or who would be more likely to
appreciate her worth and make, her truly happy, as far as I can tell.”

Of course I was delighted with the compliment, and hoped to show her
that she was not mistaken in her favourable judgment.

“I have, however, one request to offer,” continued she. “It seems I am
still to look on Staningley as my home: I wish you to make it yours
likewise, for Helen is attached to the place and to me—as I am to her.
There are painful associations connected with Grassdale, which she
cannot easily overcome; and I shall not molest you with my company or
interference here: I am a very quiet person, and shall keep my own
apartments, and attend to my own concerns, and only see you now and
then.”

Of course I most readily consented to this; and we lived in the
greatest harmony with our dear aunt until the day of her death, which
melancholy event took place a few years after—melancholy, not to
herself (for it came quietly upon her, and she was glad to reach her
journey’s end), but only to the few loving friends and grateful
dependents she left behind.

To return, however, to my own affairs: I was married in summer, on a
glorious August morning. It took the whole eight months, and all
Helen’s kindness and goodness to boot, to overcome my mother’s
prejudices against my bride-elect, and to reconcile her to the idea of
my leaving Linden Grange and living so far away. Yet she was gratified
at her son’s good fortune after all, and proudly attributed it all to
his own superior merits and endowments. I bequeathed the farm to
Fergus, with better hopes of its prosperity than I should have had a
year ago under similar circumstances; for he had lately fallen in love
with the Vicar of L——’s eldest daughter—a lady whose superiority had
roused his latent virtues, and stimulated him to the most surprising
exertions, not only to gain her affection and esteem, and to obtain a
fortune sufficient to aspire to her hand, but to render himself worthy
of her, in his own eyes, as well as in those of her parents; and in the
end he was successful, as you already know. As for myself, I need not
tell you how happily my Helen and I have lived together, and how
blessed we still are in each other’s society, and in the promising
young scions that are growing up about us. We are just now looking
forward to the advent of you and Rose, for the time of your annual
visit draws nigh, when you must leave your dusty, smoky, noisy,
toiling, striving city for a season of invigorating relaxation and
social retirement with us.

Till then, farewell,
GILBERT MARKHAM.

Staningley, June 10th, 1847.

THE END