The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📖

my curls, and commencing with a quiet little kiss, poured forth the following complaints into my ear:—

‘Helen, you witch, do you know that you’ve entailed upon me the curses of all my friends? I wrote to them the other day, to tell them of my happy prospects, and now, instead of a bundle of congratulations, I’ve got a pocketful of bitter execrations and reproaches. There’s not one kind wish for me, or one good word for you, among them all. They say there’ll be no more fun now, no more merry days and glorious nights—and all my fault—I am the first to break up the jovial band, and others, in pure despair, will follow my example. I was the very life and prop of the community, they do me the honour to say, and I have shamefully betrayed my trust—’

‘You may join them again, if you like,’ said I, somewhat piqued at the sorrowful tone of his discourse. ‘I should be sorry to stand between any man—or body of men, and so much happiness; and perhaps I can manage to do without you, as well as your poor deserted friends.’

‘Bless you, no,’ murmured he. ‘It’s “all for love or the world well lost,” with me. Let them go to—where they belong, to speak politely. But if you saw how they abuse me, Helen, you would love me all the more for having ventured so much for your sake.’

He pulled out his crumpled letters. I thought he was going to show them to me, and told him I did not wish to see them.

‘I’m not going to show them to you, love,’ said he. ‘They’re hardly fit for a lady’s eyes—the most part of them. But look here. This is Grimsby’s scrawl—only three lines, the sulky dog! He doesn’t say much, to be sure, but his very silence implies more than all the others’ words, and the less he says, the more he thinks—and this is Hargrave’s missive. He is particularly grieved at me, because, forsooth he had fallen in love with you from his sister’s reports, and meant to have married you himself, as soon as he had sown his wild oats.’

‘I’m vastly obliged to him,’ observed I.

‘And so am I,’ said he. ‘And look at this. This is Hattersley’s—every page stuffed full of railing accusations, bitter curses, and lamentable complaints, ending up with swearing that he’ll get married himself in revenge: he’ll throw himself away on the first old maid that chooses to set her cap at him,—as if I cared what he did with himself.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘if you do give up your intimacy with these men, I don’t think you will have much cause to regret the loss of their society; for it’s my belief they never did you much good.’

‘Maybe not; but we’d a merry time of it, too, though mingled with sorrow and pain, as Lowborough knows to his cost—Ha, ha!’ and while he was laughing at the recollection of Lowborough’s troubles, my uncle came and slapped him on the shoulder.

‘Come, my lad!’ said he. ‘Are you too busy making love to my niece to make war with the pheasants?—First of October, remember! Sun shines out—rain ceased—even Boarham’s not afraid to venture in his waterproof boots; and Wilmot and I are going to beat you all. I declare, we old ’uns are the keenest sportsmen of the lot!’

‘I’ll show you what I can do to-day, however,’ said my companion. ‘I’ll murder your birds by wholesale, just for keeping me away from better company than either you or them.’

And so saying he departed; and I saw no more of him till dinner. It seemed a weary time; I wonder what I shall do without him.

It is very true that the three elder gentlemen have proved themselves much keener sportsmen than the two younger ones; for both Lord Lowborough and Arthur Huntingdon have of late almost daily neglected the shooting excursions to accompany us in our various rides and rambles. But these merry times are fast drawing to a close. In less than a fortnight the party break up, much to my sorrow, for every day I enjoy it more and more—now that Messrs. Boarham and Wilmot have ceased to tease me, and my aunt has ceased to lecture me, and I have ceased to be jealous of Annabella—and even to dislike her—and now that Mr. Huntingdon is become my Arthur, and I may enjoy his society without restraint. What shall I do without him, I repeat?


CHAPTER XXII


October 5th.—My cup of sweets is not unmingled: it is dashed with a bitterness that I cannot hide from myself, disguise it as I will. I may try to persuade myself that the sweetness overpowers it; I may call it a pleasant aromatic flavour; but say what I will, it is still there, and I cannot but taste it. I cannot shut my eyes to Arthur’s faults; and the more I love him the more they trouble me. His very heart, that I trusted so, is, I fear, less warm and generous than I thought it. At least, he gave me a specimen of his character to-day that seemed to merit a harder name than thoughtlessness. He and Lord Lowborough were accompanying Annabella and me in a long, delightful ride; he was riding by my side, as usual, and Annabella and Lord Lowborough were a little before us, the latter bending towards his companion as if in tender and confidential discourse.

‘Those two will get the start of us, Helen, if we don’t look sharp,’ observed Huntingdon. ‘They’ll make a match of it, as sure as can be. That Lowborough’s fairly besotted. But he’ll find himself in a fix when he’s got her, I doubt.’

‘And she’ll find herself in a fix when she’s got him,’ said I, ‘if what I’ve heard of him is true.’

‘Not a bit of it. She knows what she’s about; but he, poor fool, deludes himself with the notion that she’ll make him a good wife, and because she has amused him with some rodomontade about despising rank and wealth in matters of love and marriage, he flatters himself that she’s devotedly attached to him; that she will not refuse him for his poverty, and does not court him for his rank, but loves him for himself alone.’

‘But is not he courting her for her fortune?’

‘No, not he. That was the first attraction, certainly; but now he has quite lost sight of it: it never enters his calculations, except merely as an essential without which, for the lady’s own sake, he could not think of marrying her. No; he’s fairly in love. He thought he never could be again, but he’s in for it once more. He was to have been married before, some two or three years ago; but he lost his bride by losing his fortune. He got into a bad way among us in London: he had an unfortunate taste for gambling; and surely the fellow was born under an unlucky star, for he always lost thrice where he gained once. That’s a mode of self-torment I never was much addicted to. When I spend my money I like to enjoy the full value of it: I see no fun in wasting it on thieves and blacklegs; and as for gaining money, hitherto I have always had sufficient; it’s time enough to be clutching for more, I think, when you begin to see the end of what you have. But I have sometimes frequented the gaming-houses just to watch the on-goings of those mad votaries of chance—a very interesting study, I assure you, Helen, and sometimes very diverting: I’ve had many a laugh at the boobies and bedlamites. Lowborough was quite infatuated—not willingly, but of necessity,—he was always resolving to give it up, and always breaking his resolutions. Every venture was the ‘just once more:’ if he gained a little, he hoped to gain a little more next time, and if he lost, it would not do to leave off at that juncture; he must go on till he had retrieved that last misfortune, at least: bad luck could not last for ever; and every lucky hit was looked upon as the dawn of better times, till experience proved the contrary. At length he grew desperate, and we were daily on the look-out for a case of _felo-de-se_—no great matter, some of us whispered, as his existence had ceased to be an acquisition to our club. At last, however, he came to a check. He made a large stake, which he determined should be the last, whether he lost or won. He had often so determined before, to be sure, and as often broken his determination; and so it was this time. He lost; and while his antagonist smilingly swept away the stakes, he turned chalky white, drew back in silence, and wiped his forehead. I was present at the time; and while he stood with folded arms and eyes fixed on the ground, I knew well enough what was passing in his mind.

‘“Is it to be the last, Lowborough?” said I, stepping up to him.

‘“The last but one,” he answered, with a grim smile; and then, rushing back to the table, he struck his hand upon it, and, raising his voice high above all the confusion of jingling coins and muttered oaths and curses in the room, he swore a deep and solemn oath that, come what would, this trial should be the last, and imprecated unspeakable curses on his head if ever he should shuffle a card or rattle a dice-box again. He then doubled his former stake, and challenged any one present to play against him. Grimsby instantly presented himself. Lowborough glared fiercely at him, for Grimsby was almost as celebrated for his luck as he was for his ill-fortune. However, they fell to work. But Grimsby had much skill and little scruple, and whether he took advantage of the other’s trembling, blinded eagerness to deal unfairly by him, I cannot undertake to say; but Lowborough lost again, and fell dead sick.

‘“You’d better try once more,” said Grimsby, leaning across the table. And then he winked at me.

‘“I’ve nothing to try with,” said the poor devil, with a ghastly smile.

‘“Oh, Huntingdon will lend you what you want,” said the other.

‘“No; you heard my oath,” answered Lowborough, turning away in quiet despair. And I took him by the arm and led him out.

‘“Is it to be the last, Lowborough?” I asked, when I got him into the street.

‘“The last,” he answered, somewhat against my expectation. And I took him home—that is, to our club—for he was as submissive as a child—and plied him with brandy-and-water till he began to look rather brighter—rather more alive, at least.

‘“Huntingdon, I’m ruined!” said he, taking the third glass from my hand—he had drunk the others in dead silence.

‘“Not you,” said I. “You’ll find a man can live without his money as merrily as a tortoise without its head, or a wasp without its body.”

‘“But I’m in debt,” said he—“deep in debt. And I can never, never get out of it.”

‘“Well, what of that? Many a better man than you has lived and died in debt; and they can’t put you in prison, you know, because