The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë (librera reader .txt) 📖

“Stand off, then!” said I; he stepped back. “And listen to me. I don’t like you,” I continued, as deliberately and emphatically as I could, to give the greater efficacy to my words; “and if I were divorced from my husband, or if he were dead, I would not marry you. There now! I hope you’re satisfied.”

His face grew blanched with anger.

“I am satisfied,” he replied, with bitter emphasis, “that you are the most cold-hearted, unnatural, ungrateful woman I ever yet beheld!”

“Ungrateful, sir?”

“Ungrateful.”

“No, Mr. Hargrave, I am not. For all the good you ever did me, or ever wished to do, I most sincerely thank you: for all the evil you have done me, and all you would have done, I pray God to pardon you, and make you of a better mind.” Here the door was thrown open, and Messrs. Huntingdon and Hattersley appeared without. The latter remained in the hall, busy with his ramrod and his gun; the former walked in, and stood with his back to the fire, surveying Mr. Hargrave and me, particularly the former, with a smile of insupportable meaning, accompanied as it was by the impudence of his brazen brow, and the sly, malicious, twinkle of his eye.

“Well, sir?” said Hargrave, interrogatively, and with the air of one prepared to stand on the defensive.

“Well, sir,” returned his host.

“We want to know if you are at liberty to join us in a go at the pheasants, Walter,” interposed Hattersley from without. “Come! there shall be nothing shot besides, except a puss or two; I’ll vouch for that.”

Walter did not answer, but walked to the window to collect his faculties. Arthur uttered a low whistle, and followed him with his eyes. A slight flush of anger rose to Hargrave’s cheek; but in a moment he turned calmly round, and said carelessly:

“I came here to bid farewell to Mrs. Huntingdon, and tell her I must go tomorrow.”

“Humph! You’re mighty sudden in your resolution. What takes you off so soon, may I ask?”

“Business,” returned he, repelling the other’s incredulous sneer with a glance of scornful defiance.

“Very good,” was the reply; and Hargrave walked away. Thereupon Mr. Huntingdon, gathering his coat-laps under his arms, and setting his shoulder against the mantelpiece, turned to me, and, addressing me in a low voice, scarcely above his breath, poured forth a volley of the vilest and grossest abuse it was possible for the imagination to conceive or the tongue to utter. I did not attempt to interrupt him; but my spirit kindled within me, and when he had done, I replied, “If your accusation were true, Mr. Huntingdon, how dare you blame me?”

“She’s hit it, by Jove!” cried Hattersley, rearing his gun against the wall; and, stepping into the room, he took his precious friend by the arm, and attempted to drag him away. “Come, my lad,” he muttered; “true or false, you’ve no right to blame her, you know, nor him either; after what you said last night. So come along.”

There was something implied here that I could not endure.

“Dare you suspect me, Mr. Hattersley?” said I, almost beside myself with fury.

“Nay, nay, I suspect nobody. It’s all right, it’s all right. So come along, Huntingdon, you blackguard.”

“She can’t deny it!” cried the gentleman thus addressed, grinning in mingled rage and triumph. “She can’t deny it if her life depended on it!” and muttering some more abusive language, he walked into the hall, and took up his hat and gun from the table.

“I scorn to justify myself to you!” said I. “But you,” turning to Hattersley, “if you presume to have any doubts on the subject, ask Mr. Hargrave.”

At this they simultaneously burst into a rude laugh that made my whole frame tingle to the fingers’ ends.

“Where is he? I’ll ask him myself!” said I, advancing towards them.

Suppressing a new burst of merriment, Hattersley pointed to the outer door. It was half open. His brother-in-law was standing on the front without.

“Mr. Hargrave, will you please to step this way?” said I.

He turned and looked at me in grave surprise.

“Step this way, if you please!” I repeated, in so determined a manner that he could not, or did not choose to resist its authority. Somewhat reluctantly he ascended the steps and advanced a pace or two into the hall.

“And tell those gentlemen,” I continued⁠—“these men, whether or not I yielded to your solicitations.”

“I don’t understand you, Mrs. Huntingdon.”

“You do understand me, sir; and I charge you, upon your honour as a gentleman (if you have any), to answer truly. Did I, or did I not?”

“No,” muttered he, turning away.

“Speak up, sir; they can’t hear you. Did I grant your request?”

“You did not.”

“No, I’ll be sworn she didn’t,” said Hattersley, “or he’d never look so black.”

“I’m willing to grant you the satisfaction of a gentleman, Huntingdon,” said Mr. Hargrave, calmly addressing his host, but with a bitter sneer upon his countenance.

“Go to the deuce!” replied the latter, with an impatient jerk of the head. Hargrave withdrew with a look of cold disdain, saying⁠—“You know where to find me, should you feel disposed to send a friend.”

Muttered oaths and curses were all the answer this intimation obtained.

“Now, Huntingdon, you see!” said Hattersley. “Clear as the day.”

“I don’t care what he sees,” said I, “or what he imagines; but you, Mr. Hattersley, when you hear my name belied and slandered, will you defend it?”

“I will.”

I instantly departed and shut myself into the library. What could possess me to make such a request of such a man I cannot tell; but drowning men catch at straws: they had driven me desperate between them; I hardly knew what I said. There was no other to preserve my name from being blackened and aspersed among this nest of boon companions, and through them, perhaps, into the world; and beside my abandoned wretch of a husband, the base, malignant Grimsby, and the false villain Hargrave, this boorish ruffian, coarse and brutal as he was, shone like a glowworm in the dark, among its fellow worms.

What a scene was