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

not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but, in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result.”

“So thinks Milicent; but allow me to say I think otherwise. If I thought myself doomed to old-maidenhood, I should cease to value my life. The thoughts of living on, year after year, at the Grove⁠—a hanger-on upon mamma and Walter, a mere cumberer of the ground (now that I know in what light they would regard it), is perfectly intolerable; I would rather run away with the butler.”

“Your circumstances are peculiar, I allow; but have patience, love; do nothing rashly. Remember you are not yet nineteen, and many years are yet to pass before any one can set you down as an old maid: you cannot tell what Providence may have in store for you. And meantime, remember you have a right to the protection and support of your mother and brother, however they may seem to grudge it.”

“You are so grave, Mrs. Huntingdon,” said Esther, after a pause. “When Milicent uttered the same discouraging sentiments concerning marriage, I asked if she was happy: she said she was; but I only half believed her; and now I must put the same question to you.”

“It is a very impertinent question,” laughed I, “from a young girl to a married woman so many years her senior, and I shall not answer it.”

“Pardon me, dear madam,” said she, laughingly throwing herself into my arms, and kissing me with playful affection; but I felt a tear on my neck, as she dropped her head on my bosom and continued, with an odd mixture of sadness and levity, timidity and audacity⁠—“I know you are not so happy as I mean to be, for you spend half your life alone at Grassdale, while Mr. Huntingdon goes about enjoying himself where and how he pleases. I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company, why, it will be the worse for him, that’s all.”

“If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry⁠—or rather, you must avoid it altogether.”

XLII

September 1st.⁠—No Mr. Huntingdon yet. Perhaps he will stay among his friends till Christmas; and then, next spring, he will be off again. If he continue this plan, I shall be able to stay at Grassdale well enough⁠—that is, I shall be able to stay, and that is enough; even an occasional bevy of friends at the shooting season may be borne, if Arthur get so firmly attached to me, so well established in good sense and principles before they come that I shall be able, by reason and affection, to keep him pure from their contaminations. Vain hope, I fear! but still, till such a time of trial comes I will forbear to think of my quiet asylum in the beloved old hall.

Mr. and Mrs. Hattersley have been staying at the Grove a fortnight: and as Mr. Hargrave is still absent, and the weather was remarkably fine, I never passed a day without seeing my two friends, Milicent and Esther, either there or here. On one occasion, when Mr. Hattersley had driven them over to Grassdale in the phaeton, with little Helen and Ralph, and we were all enjoying ourselves in the garden⁠—I had a few minutes’ conversation with that gentleman, while the ladies were amusing themselves with the children.

“Do you want to hear anything of your husband, Mrs. Huntingdon?” said he.

“No, unless you can tell me when to expect him home.”

“I can’t.⁠—You don’t want him, do you?” said he, with a broad grin.

“No.”

“Well, I think you’re better without him, sure enough⁠—for my part, I’m downright weary of him. I told him I’d leave him if he didn’t mend his manners, and he wouldn’t; so I left him. You see, I’m a better man than you think me; and, what’s more, I have serious thoughts of washing my hands of him entirely, and the whole set of ’em, and comporting myself from this day forward with all decency and sobriety, as a Christian and the father of a family should do. What do you think of that?”

“It is a resolution you ought to have formed long ago.”

“Well, I’m not thirty yet; it isn’t too late, is it?”

“No; it is never too late to reform, as long as you have the sense to desire it, and the strength to execute your purpose.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve thought of it often and often before; but he’s such devilish good company, is Huntingdon, after all. You can’t imagine what a jovial good fellow he is when he’s not fairly drunk, only just primed or half-seas-over. We all have a bit of a liking for him at the bottom of our hearts, though we can’t respect him.”

“But should you wish yourself to be like him?”

“No, I’d rather be like myself, bad as I am.”

“You can’t continue as bad as you are without getting worse and more brutalised every day, and therefore more like him.”

I could not help smiling at the comical, half-angry, half-confounded look he put on at this rather unusual mode of address.

“Never mind my plain speaking,” said I; “it is from the best of motives. But tell me, should you wish your sons to be like Mr. Huntingdon⁠—or even like yourself?”

“Hang it! no.”

“Should you wish your daughter to despise you⁠—or, at least, to feel no vestige of respect for you, and no affection but what is mingled with the bitterest regret?”

“Oh, no! I couldn’t stand that.”

“And, finally, should you wish your wife to be ready to sink into the earth when she hears you mentioned; and to loathe the very sound of your voice, and shudder at your approach?”

“She never will; she likes me all the same, whatever I do.”

“Impossible, Mr. Hattersley! you mistake her quiet submission for affection.”

“Fire and fury⁠—”

“Now don’t burst into