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

“I cannot bear it! You don’t know, Helen⁠—you can’t imagine what it is, because you haven’t it before you! and when I’m buried, you’ll return to your old ways and be as happy as ever, and all the world will go on just as busy and merry as if I had never been; while I⁠—” He burst into tears.

“You needn’t let that distress you,” I said; “we shall all follow you soon enough.”

“I wish to God I could take you with me now!” he exclaimed: “you should plead for me.”

“No man can deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him,” I replied: “it cost more to redeem their souls⁠—it cost the blood of an incarnate God, perfect and sinless in Himself, to redeem us from the bondage of the evil one:⁠—let Him plead for you.”

But I seem to speak in vain. He does not now, as formerly, laugh these blessed truths to scorn: but still he cannot trust, or will not comprehend them. He cannot linger long. He suffers dreadfully, and so do those that wait upon him. But I will not harass you with further details: I have said enough, I think, to convince you that I did well to go to him.

Poor, poor Helen! dreadful indeed her trials must have been! And I could do nothing to lessen them⁠—nay, it almost seemed as if I had brought them upon her myself by my own secret desires; and whether I looked at her husband’s sufferings or her own, it seemed almost like a judgment upon myself for having cherished such a wish.

The next day but one there came another letter. That too was put into my hands without a remark, and these are its contents:⁠—

Dec. 5th.

He is gone at last. I sat beside him all night, with my hand fast locked in his, watching the changes of his features and listening to his failing breath. He had been silent a long time, and I thought he would never speak again, when he murmured, faintly but distinctly⁠—“Pray for me, Helen!”

“I do pray for you, every hour and every minute, Arthur; but you must pray for yourself.”

His lips moved, but emitted no sound;⁠—then his looks became unsettled; and, from the incoherent, half-uttered words that escaped him from time to time, supposing him to be now unconscious, I gently disengaged my hand from his, intending to steal away for a breath of air, for I was almost ready to faint; but a convulsive movement of the fingers, and a faintly whispered “Don’t leave me!” immediately recalled me: I took his hand again, and held it till he was no more⁠—and then I fainted. It was not grief; it was exhaustion, that, till then, I had been enabled successfully to combat. Oh, Frederick! none can imagine the miseries, bodily and mental, of that deathbed! How could I endure to think that that poor trembling soul was hurried away to everlasting torment? it would drive me mad. But, thank God, I have hope⁠—not only from a vague dependence on the possibility that penitence and pardon might have reached him at the last, but from the blessed confidence that, through whatever purging fires the erring spirit may be doomed to pass⁠—whatever fate awaits it⁠—still it is not lost, and God, who hateth nothing that He hath made, will bless it in the end!

His body will be consigned on Thursday to that dark grave he so much dreaded; but the coffin must be closed as soon as possible. If you will attend the funeral, come quickly, for I need help.

Helen Huntingdon.

L

On reading this I had no reason to disguise my joy and hope from Frederick Lawrence, for I had none to be ashamed of. I felt no joy but that his sister was at length released from her afflictive, overwhelming toil⁠—no hope but that she would in time recover from the effects of it, and be suffered to rest in peace and quietness, at least, for the remainder of her life. I experienced a painful commiseration for her unhappy husband (though fully aware that he had brought every particle of his sufferings upon himself, and but too well deserved them all), and a profound sympathy for her own afflictions, and deep anxiety for the consequences of those harassing cares, those dreadful vigils, that incessant and deleterious confinement beside a living corpse⁠—for I was persuaded she had not hinted half the sufferings she had had to endure.

“You will go to her, Lawrence?” said I, as I put the letter into his hand.

“Yes, immediately.”

“That’s right! I’ll leave you, then, to prepare for your departure.”

“I’ve done that already, while you were reading the letter, and before you came; and the carriage is now coming round to the door.”

Inwardly approving his promptitude, I bade him good morning, and withdrew. He gave me a searching glance as we pressed each other’s hands at parting; but whatever he sought in my countenance, he saw there nothing but the most becoming gravity⁠—it might be mingled with a little sternness in momentary resentment at what I suspected to be passing in his mind.

Had I forgotten my own prospects, my ardent love, my pertinacious hopes? It seemed like sacrilege to revert to them now, but I had not forgotten them. It was, however, with a gloomy sense of the darkness of those prospects, the fallacy of those hopes, and the vanity of that affection, that I reflected on those things as I remounted my horse and slowly journeyed homewards. Mrs. Huntingdon was free now; it was no longer a crime to think of her⁠—but did she ever think of me? Not now⁠—of course it was not to be expected⁠—but would she when this shock was over? In all the course of her correspondence with her brother (our mutual friend, as she herself had called him) she had never mentioned me but once⁠—and that was from necessity. This alone afforded strong presumption that