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

“ ‘Just so!’ cried Hattersley⁠—

‘Stop, poor sinner, stop and think
Before you further go,
No longer sport upon the brink
Of everlasting woe.’

“ ‘Exactly!’ replied his lordship, with the utmost gravity. ‘And if you choose to visit the bottomless pit, I won’t go with you⁠—we must part company, for I swear I’ll not move another step towards it!⁠—What’s this?’ he said, taking up his glass of wine.

“ ‘Taste it,’ suggested I.

“ ‘This is hell broth!’ he exclaimed. ‘I renounce it forever!’ And he threw it out into the middle of the table.

“ ‘Fill again!’ said I, handing him the bottle⁠—‘and let us drink to your renunciation.’

“ ‘It’s rank poison,’ said he, grasping the bottle by the neck, ‘and I forswear it! I’ve given up gambling, and I’ll give up this too.’ He was on the point of deliberately pouring the whole contents of the bottle on to the table, but Hargrave wrested it from him. ‘On you be the curse, then!’ said he. And, backing from the room, he shouted, ‘Farewell, ye tempters!’ and vanished amid shouts of laughter and applause.

“We expected him back among us the next day; but, to our surprise, the place remained vacant: we saw nothing of him for a whole week; and we really began to think he was going to keep his word. At last, one evening, when we were most of us assembled together again, he entered, silent and grim as a ghost, and would have quietly slipped into his usual seat at my elbow, but we all rose to welcome him, and several voices were raised to ask what he would have, and several hands were busy with bottle and glass to serve him; but I knew a smoking tumbler of brandy-and-water would comfort him best, and had nearly prepared it, when he peevishly pushed it away, saying⁠—

“ ‘Do let me alone, Huntingdon! Do be quiet, all of you! I’m not come to join you: I’m only come to be with you awhile, because I can’t bear my own thoughts.’ And he folded his arms, and leant back in his chair; so we let him be. But I left the glass by him; and, after awhile, Grimsby directed my attention towards it, by a significant wink; and, on turning my head, I saw it was drained to the bottom. He made me a sign to replenish, and quietly pushed up the bottle. I willingly complied; but Lowborough detected the pantomime, and, nettled at the intelligent grins that were passing between us, snatched the glass from my hand, dashed the contents of it in Grimsby’s face, threw the empty tumbler at me, and then bolted from the room.”

“I hope he broke your head,” said I.

“No, love,” replied he, laughing immoderately at the recollection of the whole affair; “he would have done so⁠—and perhaps, spoilt my face, too, but, providentially, this forest of curls” (taking off his hat, and showing his luxuriant chestnut locks) “saved my skull, and prevented the glass from breaking, till it reached the table.”

“After that,” he continued, “Lowborough kept aloof from us a week or two longer. I used to meet him occasionally in the town; and then, as I was too good-natured to resent his unmannerly conduct, and he bore no malice against me⁠—he was never unwilling to talk to me; on the contrary, he would cling to me, and follow me anywhere but to the club, and the gaming-houses, and suchlike dangerous places of resort⁠—he was so weary of his own moping, melancholy mind. At last, I got him to come in with me to the club, on condition that I would not tempt him to drink; and, for some time, he continued to look in upon us pretty regularly of an evening⁠—still abstaining, with wonderful perseverance, from the ‘rank poison’ he had so bravely forsworn. But some of our members protested against this conduct. They did not like to have him sitting there like a skeleton at a feast, instead of contributing his quota to the general amusement, casting a cloud over all, and watching, with greedy eyes, every drop they carried to their lips⁠—they vowed it was not fair; and some of them maintained that he should either be compelled to do as others did, or expelled from the society; and swore that, next time he showed himself, they would tell him as much, and, if he did not take the warning, proceed to active measures. However, I befriended him on this occasion, and recommended them to let him be for a while, intimating that, with a little patience on our parts, he would soon come round again. But, to be sure, it was rather provoking; for, though he refused to drink like an honest Christian, it was well known to me that he kept a private bottle of laudanum about him, which he was continually soaking at⁠—or rather, holding off and on with, abstaining one day and exceeding the next⁠—just like the spirits.

“One night, however, during one of our orgies⁠—one of our high festivals, I mean⁠—he glided in, like the ghost in Macbeth, and seated himself, as usual, a little back from the table, in the chair we always placed for ‘the spectre,’ whether it chose to fill it or not. I saw by his face that he was suffering from the effects of an overdose of his insidious comforter; but nobody spoke to him, and he spoke to nobody. A few sidelong glances, and a whispered observation, that ‘the ghost was come,’ was all the notice he drew by his appearance, and we went on with our merry carousals as before, till he startled us all by suddenly drawing in his chair, and leaning forward with his elbows on the table, and exclaiming with portentous solemnity⁠—‘Well! it puzzles me what you can find to be so merry about. What you see in life I don’t know⁠—I see only the blackness of darkness, and a fearful looking for of judgment