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

me.

The first time the latter and I were alone together, after that unhappy evening, was an hour or two after breakfast on the following day, when the gentlemen were gone out, after the usual time spent in the writing of letters, the reading of newspapers, and desultory conversation. We sat silent for two or three minutes. She was busy with her work, and I was running over the columns of a paper from which I had extracted all the pith some twenty minutes before. It was a moment of painful embarrassment to me, and I thought it must be infinitely more so to her; but it seems I was mistaken. She was the first to speak; and, smiling with the coolest assurance, she began,—

‘Your husband was merry last night, Helen: is he often so?’

My blood boiled in my face; but it was better she should seem to attribute his conduct to this than to anything else.

‘No,’ replied I, ‘and never will be so again, I trust.’

‘You gave him a curtain lecture, did you?’

‘No! but I told him I disliked such conduct, and he promised me not to repeat it.’

‘I thought he looked rather subdued this morning,’ she continued; ‘and you, Helen? you’ve been weeping, I see—that’s our grand resource, you know. But doesn’t it make your eyes smart? and do you always find it to answer?’

‘I never cry for effect; nor can I conceive how any one can.’

‘Well, I don’t know: I never had occasion to try it; but I think if Lowborough were to commit such improprieties, I’d make him cry. I don’t wonder at your being angry, for I’m sure I’d give my husband a lesson he would not soon forget for a lighter offence than that. But then he never will do anything of the kind; for I keep him in too good order for that.’

‘Are you sure you don’t arrogate too much of the credit to yourself. Lord Lowborough was quite as remarkable for his abstemiousness for some time before you married him, as he is now, I have heard.’

‘Oh, about the wine you mean—yes, he’s safe enough for that. And as to looking askance to another woman, he’s safe enough for that too, while I live, for he worships the very ground I tread on.’

‘Indeed! and are you sure you deserve it?’

‘Why, as to that, I can’t say: you know we’re all fallible creatures, Helen; we none of us deserve to be worshipped. But are you sure your darling Huntingdon deserves all the love you give to him?’

I knew not what to answer to this. I was burning with anger; but I suppressed all outward manifestations of it, and only bit my lip and pretended to arrange my work.

‘At any rate,’ resumed she, pursuing her advantage, ‘you can console yourself with the assurance that you are worthy of all the love he gives to you.’

‘You flatter me,’ said I; ‘but, at least, I can try to be worthy of it.’ And then I turned the conversation.


CHAPTER XXVIII


December 25th.—Last Christmas I was a bride, with a heart overflowing with present bliss, and full of ardent hopes for the future, though not unmingled with foreboding fears. Now I am a wife: my bliss is sobered, but not destroyed; my hopes diminished, but not departed; my fears increased, but not yet thoroughly confirmed; and, thank heaven, I am a mother too. God has sent me a soul to educate for heaven, and give me a new and calmer bliss, and stronger hopes to comfort me.

Dec. 25th, 1823.—Another year is gone. My little Arthur lives and thrives. He is healthy, but not robust, full of gentle playfulness and vivacity, already affectionate, and susceptible of passions and emotions it will be long ere he can find words to express. He has won his father’s heart at last; and now my constant terror is, lest he should be ruined by that father’s thoughtless indulgence. But I must beware of my own weakness too, for I never knew till now how strong are a parent’s temptations to spoil an only child.

I have need of consolation in my son, for (to this silent paper I may confess it) I have but little in my husband. I love him still; and he loves me, in his own way—but oh, how different from the love I could have given, and once had hoped to receive! How little real sympathy there exists between us; how many of my thoughts and feelings are gloomily cloistered within my own mind; how much of my higher and better self is indeed unmarried—doomed either to harden and sour in the sunless shade of solitude, or to quite degenerate and fall away for lack of nutriment in this unwholesome soil! But, I repeat, I have no right to complain; only let me state the truth—some of the truth, at least,—and see hereafter if any darker truths will blot these pages. We have now been full two years united; the ‘romance’ of our attachment must be worn away. Surely I have now got down to the lowest gradation in Arthur’s affection, and discovered all the evils of his nature: if there be any further change, it must be for the better, as we become still more accustomed to each other; surely we shall find no lower depth than this. And, if so, I can bear it well—as well, at least, as I have borne it hitherto.

Arthur is not what is commonly called a bad man: he has many good qualities; but he is a man without self-restraint or lofty aspirations, a lover of pleasure, given up to animal enjoyments: he is not a bad husband, but his notions of matrimonial duties and comforts are not my notions. Judging from appearances, his idea of a wife is a thing to love one devotedly, and to stay at home to wait upon her husband, and amuse him and minister to his comfort in every possible way, while he chooses to stay with her; and, when he is absent, to attend to his interests, domestic or otherwise, and patiently wait his return, no matter how he may be occupied in the meantime.

Early in spring he announced his intention of going to London: his affairs there demanded his attendance, he said, and he could refuse it no longer. He expressed his regret at having to leave me, but hoped I would amuse myself with the baby till he returned.

‘But why leave me?’ I said. ‘I can go with you: I can be ready at any time.’

‘You would not take that child to town?’

‘Yes; why not?’

The thing was absurd: the air of the town would be certain to disagree with him, and with me as a nurse; the late hours and London habits would not suit me under such circumstances; and altogether he assured me that it would be excessively troublesome, injurious, and unsafe. I over-ruled his objections as well as I could, for I trembled at the thoughts of his going alone, and would sacrifice almost anything for myself, much even for my child, to prevent it; but at length he told me, plainly, and somewhat testily, that he could not do with me: he was worn out with the baby’s restless nights, and must have some repose. I proposed separate apartments; but it would not do.

‘The truth is, Arthur,’ I said at last, ‘you are weary of my company, and determined not to have me with you. You might as well have said so at once.’

He denied it; but I immediately left the room, and flew to the nursery, to hide my feelings, if I could not soothe them, there.

I was too much hurt to express any further dissatisfaction with his plans, or at all to refer to the subject again, except for the necessary arrangements concerning his departure and the conduct of affairs during his absence, till the day before he went, when I earnestly exhorted him to take care of himself and keep out of the way of temptation. He laughed at my anxiety, but assured me there was no cause for it, and promised to attend to my advice.

‘I suppose it is no use asking you to fix a day for your return?’ said I.

‘Why, no; I hardly can, under the circumstances; but be assured, love, I shall not be long away.’

‘I don’t wish to keep you a prisoner at home,’ I replied; ‘I should not grumble at your staying whole months away—if you can be happy so long without me—provided I knew you were safe; but I don’t like the idea of your being there among your friends, as you call them.’

‘Pooh, pooh, you silly girl! Do you think I can’t take care of myself?’

‘You didn’t last time. But THIS time, Arthur,’ I added, earnestly, ‘show me that you can, and teach me that I need not fear to trust you!’

He promised fair, but in such a manner as we seek to soothe a child. And did he keep his promise? No; and henceforth I can never trust his word. Bitter, bitter confession! Tears blind me while I write. It was early in March that he went, and he did not return till July. This time he did not trouble himself to make excuses as before, and his letters were less frequent, and shorter and less affectionate, especially after the first few weeks: they came slower and slower, and more terse and careless every time. But still, when I omitted writing, he complained of my neglect. When I wrote sternly and coldly, as I confess I frequently did at the last, he blamed my harshness, and said it was enough to scare him from his home: when I tried mild persuasion, he was a little more gentle in his replies, and promised to return; but I had learnt, at last, to disregard his promises.


CHAPTER XXIX


Those were four miserable months, alternating between intense anxiety, despair, and indignation, pity for him and pity for myself. And yet, through all, I was not wholly comfortless: I had my darling, sinless, inoffensive little one to console me; but even this consolation was embittered by the constantly-recurring thought, ‘How shall I teach him hereafter to respect his father, and yet to avoid his example?’

But I remembered that I had brought all these afflictions, in a manner wilfully, upon myself; and I determined to bear them without a murmur. At the same time I resolved not to give myself up to misery for the transgressions of another, and endeavoured to divert myself as much as I could; and besides the companionship of my child, and my dear, faithful Rachel, who evidently guessed my sorrows and felt for them, though she was too discreet to allude to them, I had my books and pencil, my domestic affairs, and the welfare and comfort of Arthur’s poor tenants and labourers to attend to: and I sometimes sought and obtained amusement in the company of my young friend Esther Hargrave: occasionally I rode over to see her, and once or twice I had her to spend the day with me at the Manor. Mrs. Hargrave did not visit London that season: having no daughter to marry, she thought it as well to stay at home and economise; and, for a wonder, Walter