The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Classics)

by Brontë, Anne

  Ten weeks was long to wait in such a miserable state of uncertainty, but courage! it must be endured; – and meantime I would continue to see Lawrence now and then, though not so often as before, and I would still pursue my habitual enquiries after his sister – if he had lately heard from her, and how she was, but nothing more.

  I did so, and the answers I received were always provokingly limited to the letter of the enquiry: She was much as usual: She made no complaints, but the tone of her last letter evinced great depression of mind: – She said she was better: – and, finally; – She said she was well, and very busy with her son’s education, and with the management of her late husband’s property and the regulation of his affairs. The rascal had never told me how that property was disposed, or whether Mr Huntingdon had died intestate or not; and I would sooner die than ask him, lest he should misconstrue into covetousness my desire to know. He never offered to show me his sister’s letters now; and I never hinted a wish to see them. February, however, was approaching; December was past, January, at length, was almost over – a few more weeks, and then, certain despair or renewal of hope would put an end to this long agony of suspense.

  But alas! it was just about that time she was called to sustain another blow in the death of her uncle – a worthless old fellow enough, in himself, I dare say, but he had always shown more kindness and affection to her than to any other creature, and she had always been accustomed to regard him as a parent. She was with him when he died, and had assisted her aunt to nurse him during the last stage of his illness. Her brother went to Staningley to attend the funeral, and told me, upon his return, that she was still there, endeavouring to cheer her aunt with her presence, and likely to remain some time. This was bad news for me, for while she continued there, I could not write to her, as I did not know the address, and would not ask it of him. But week followed week, and every time I enquired about her she was still at Staningley.

  ‘Where is Staningley?’ I asked at last.

  ‘In —shire,’ was the brief reply: and there was something so cold and dry in the manner of it, that I was effectually deterred from requesting a more definite account

  ‘When will she return to Grassdale?’ was my next question.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Confound it!’ I muttered.

  ‘Why, Markham?’ asked my companion, with an air of innocent surprise. But I did not deign to answer him, save by a look of silent, sullen contempt, at which he turned away, and contemplated the carpet with a slight smile, half pensive, half amused; but quickly looking up, he began to talk of other subjects, trying to draw me into a cheerful and friendly conversation; but I was too much irritated to discourse with him, and soon took leave.

  You see Lawrence and I somehow could not manage to get on very well together. The fact is, I believe, we were both of us a little too touchy. It is a troublesome thing Halford, this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended. I am no martyr to it now, as you can bear me witness: I have learned to be merry and wise, to be more easy with myself and more indulgent to my neighbours, and I can afford to laugh at both Lawrence and you.

  Partly from accident, partly from wilful negligence on my part (for I was really beginning to dislike him), several weeks elapsed before I saw my friend again. When we did meet, it was he that sought me out. One bright morning early in June, he came into the field where I was just commencing my hay harvest.

  ‘It is long since I saw you, Markham,’ said he after the first few words had passed between us. ‘Do you never mean to come to Woodford again?’

  ‘I called once, and you were out’

  ‘I was sorry: but that was long since; I hoped you would call again; and now, I have called, and you were out – which you generally are, or I would do myself the pleasure of calling more frequently – but being determined to see you this time, I have left my pony in the lane, and come over hedge and ditch to join you; for I am about to leave Woodford for a while, and may not have the pleasure of seeing you again for a month or two.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Grassdale first,’ said he, with a half-smile he would willingly have suppressed if he could.

  ‘To Grassdale! Is she there, then?’

  ‘Yes, but in a day or two she will leave it to accompany Mrs Maxwell to F— for the benefit of the sea air; and I shall go with them.’ (F— was at that time a quiet but respectable watering place: it is considerably more frequented now).

  Lawrence seemed to expect me to take advantage of this circumstance to entrust him with some sort of a message to his sister; and I believe he would have undertaken to deliver it without any material objections, if I had had the sense to ask him; though of course he would not offer to do so, if I was content to let it alone. But I could not bring myself to make the request; and it was not till after he was gone, that I saw how fair an opportunity I had lost; – and then, indeed, I deeply regretted my stupidity and my foolish pride; but it was now too late to remedy the evil.

  He did not return till towards the latter end of August. He wrote to me twice or thrice from F—; but his letters were most provokingly unsatisfactory, dealing in generalities or in trifles that I cared nothing about, or replete with fancies and reflections equally unwelcome to me at the time, – saying next to nothing about his sister, and little more about himself. I would wait, however, till he came back: perhaps I could get something more out of him then. At all events, I would not write to her now, while she was with him and her aunt, who doubtless would be still more hostile to my presumptuous aspirations than himself. When she was returned to the silence and solitude of her own home it would be my fittest opportunity.

  When Lawrence came, however, he was as reserved as ever on the subject of my keen anxiety. He told me that his sister had derived considerable benefit from her stay at F—, that her son was quite well, and – alas! that both of them were gone, with Mrs Maxwell, back to Staningley; – and there they stayed at least three months. But instead of boring you with my chagrin, my expectations and disappointments, my fluctuations of dull despondency and flickering hope, my varying resolutions, now to drop it, and now to persevere – now to make a bold push, and now to let things pass and patiently abide my time, – I will employ myself in settling the business of one or two of the characters, introduced in the course of this narrative, whom I may not have occasion to mention again.

  Sometime before Mr Huntingdon’s death, Lady Lowborough eloped with another gallant to the continent, where, having lived awhile in reckless gaiety and dissipation, they quarrelled and parted. She went dashing on for a season, but years came and money went: she sunk, at length, in difficulty and debt, disgrace and misery; and died at last, as I have heard, in penury, neglect, and utter wretchedness. But this might be only a report she may be living yet for anything I, or any of her relatives or former acquaintances, can tell; for they have all lost sight of her long years ago, and would as thoroughly forget her if they could. Her husband, however, upon this second misdemeanour, immediately sought and obtained a divorce, and, not long after, married again. It was well he did, for Lord Lowborough, morose and moody as he seemed, was not the man for a bachelor’s life. No public interests, no ambitious projects, or active pursuits, – or ties of friendship even (if he had had any friends), could compensate to him for the absence of domestic comforts and endearments. He had a son and a nominal daughter, it is true, but they too painfully reminded him of their mother, and the unfortunate little Annabella was a source of perpetual bitterness to his soul. He had obliged himself to treat her with paternal kindness: he had forced himself not to hate her, and even, perhaps, to feel some degree of kindly regard for her, at last, in return for her artless and unsuspecting attachment to himself; but the bitterness of his self-condemnation for his inward feelings towards that innocent being, his constant struggles to subdue the evil promptings of his nature (for it was not a generous one), though partly guessed at by those who knew him, could be known to God and hi
s own heart alone; – so also was the hardness of his conflicts with the temptation to return to the vice of his youth, and seek oblivion for past calamities, and deadness to the present misery of a blighted heart, a joyless, friendless life, and a morbidly disconsolate mind, by yielding again to that insidious foe to health, and sense, and virtue, which had so deplorably enslaved and degraded him before.

  The second object of his choice was widely different from the first Some wondered at his taste; some even ridiculed it – but in this their folly was more apparent than his. The lady was about his own age – i.e. between thirty and forty – remarkable neither for beauty nor wealth, nor brilliant accomplishments; nor any other thing that I ever heard of, except genuine good sense, unswerving integrity, active piety, warm-hearted benevolence, and a fund of cheerful spirits. These qualities however, as you may readily imagine, combined to render her an excellent mother to the children, and an invaluable wife to his lordship. He, with his usual self-depreciation (or appreciation?) thought her a world too good for him, and while he wondered at the kindness of Providence in conferring such a gift upon him, and even at her taste in preferring him to other men, he did his best to reciprocate the good she did him, and so far succeeded that she was, and I believe still is, one of the happiest and fondest wives in England; and all who question the good taste of either partner may be thankful if their respective selections afford them half the genuine satisfaction in the end, or repay their preference with affection half as lasting and sincere.

  If you are at all interested in the fate of that low scoundrel, Grimsby, I can only tell you that he went from bad to worse, sinking from bathos to bathos of vice and villainy, consorting only with the worst members of his club and the lowest dregs of society – happily for the rest of the world – and at last met his end in a drunken brawl from the hands, it is said, of some brother scoundrel he had cheated at play.

  As for Mr Hattersley, he had never wholly forgotten his resolution to ‘come out from among them,’3 and behave like a man and a Christian, and the last illness and death of his once jolly friend Huntingdon so deeply and seriously impressed him with the evil of their former practices that he never needed another lesson of the kind. Avoiding the temptations of the town, he continued to pass his life in the country immersed in the usual pursuits of a hearty, active country gentleman; his occupations being those of farming, and breeding horses and cattle, diversified with a little hunting and shooting, and enlivened by the occasional companionship of his friends (better friends than those of his youth), and the society of his happy little wife (now cheerful and confiding as heart could wish) and his fine family of stalwart sons and blooming daughters. His father, the banker, having died some years ago and left him all his riches, he has now full scope for the exercise of his prevailing tastes, and I need not tell you that Ralph Hattersley, Esqr., is celebrated throughout the country for his noble breed of horses.

  CHAPTER 51

  AN UNEXPECTED OCCURRENCE

  We will now turn to a certain still, cold, cloudy afternoon about the commencement of December, when the first fall of snow lay thinly scattered over the blighted fields and frozen roads, or stored more thickly in the hollows of the deep cart ruts and footsteps of men and horses, impressed in the now petrified mire of last month’s drenching rains. I remember it well, for I was walking home from the vicarage, with no less remarkable a personage than Miss Eliza Millward by my side. I had been to call upon her father, – a sacrifice to civility undertaken entirely to please my mother, not myself, for I hated to go near the house; not merely on account of my antipathy to the once so bewitching Eliza, but because I had not half forgiven the old gentleman himself for his ill opinion of Mrs Huntingdon; for though now constrained to acknowledge himself mistaken in his former judgment, he still maintained that she had done wrong to leave her husband; it was a violation of her sacred duties as a wife, and a tempting of Providence by laying herself open to temptation; and nothing short of bodily ill-usage (and that of no trifling nature) could excuse such a step – nor even that, for in such a case she ought to appeal to the laws for protection.1 But it was not of him I intended to speak; it was of his daughter Eliza. Just as I was taking leave of the vicar, she entered the room, ready equipped for a walk.

  ‘I was just coming to see your sister, Mr Markham,’ said she; ‘and so if you have no objection, I’ll accompany you home. I like company when I’m walking out – don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, when it’s agreeable.’

  ‘That of course,’ rejoined the young lady, smiling archly. So we proceeded together.

  ‘Shall I find Rose at home, do you think?’ said she, as we closed the garden gate, and set our faces towards Linden-Car.

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘I trust I shall, for I’ve a little bit of news for her – if you haven’t forestalled me.’

  ‘I?’

  ‘Yes: do you know what Mr Lawrence is gone for?’ She looked up anxiously for my reply.

  ‘Is he gone?’ said I, and her face brightened.

  ‘Ah! then he hasn’t told you about his sister?’

  ‘What of her?’ I demanded, in terror lest some evil should have befallen her.

  ‘Oh, Mr Markham, how you blush!’ cried she with a tormenting laugh. ‘Ha, ha, you have not forgotten her yet! But you had better be quick about it, I can tell you, for – alas, alas! – she’s going to be married next Thursday!’

  ‘No, Miss Eliza! that’s false.’

  ‘Do you charge me with a falsehood, sir?’

  ‘You are misinformed.’

  ‘Am I? Do you know better then?’

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘What makes you look so pale then?’ said she, smiling with delight at my emotion. ‘Is it anger at poor me for telling such a fib? Well, I only “tell the tale as ‘twas told to me:”21 don’t vouch for the truth of it; but at the same time, I don’t see what reason Sarah should have for deceiving me, or her informant for deceiving her, and that was what she told me the footman told her: – that Mrs Huntingdon was going to be married on Thursday, and Mr Lawrence was gone to the wedding. She did tell me the name of die gentleman, but I’ve forgotten that. Perhaps you can assist me to remember it. Is there not someone that lives near – or frequently visits the neighbourhood, that has long been attached to her? a Mr — oh dear! – Mr —’

  ‘Hargrave?’ suggested I, with a bitter smile.

  ‘You’re right!’ cried she, ‘that was the very name.’

  ‘Impossible, Miss Eliza!!’ I exclaimed in a tone that made her start.

  ‘Well, you know, that’s what they told me,’ said she, composedly staring me in the face. And then she broke out into a long shrill laugh that put me to my wits’ end with fury.

  ‘Really, you must excuse me,’ cried she: ‘I know it’s very rude, but ha, ha, ha! – did you think to marry her yourself? Dear, dear, what a pity! ha, ha, ha! – Gracious, Mr Markham! are you going to faint? O mercy! shall I call this man? Here, Jacob –’ But checking the word on her lips, I seized her arm and gave it, I think, a pretty severe squeeze, for she shrank into herself with a faint cry of pain or terror; but the spirit within her was not subdued: instantly rallying, she continued, with well feigned concern –

  ‘What can I do for you? Will you have some water – some brandy? – I dare say they have some in the public house down there, if you’ll let me run.’

  ‘Have done with this nonsense!’ cried I sternly. She looked confounded – almost frightened again, for a moment. ‘You know I hate such jests,’ I continued.

  ‘Jests indeed! I wasn’t jesting!

  ‘You were laughing, at all events; and I don’t like to be laughed at,’ returned I, making violent efforts to speak with proper dignity and composure, and to say nothing but what was coherent and sensible. ‘And since you are in such a merry mood, Miss Eliza, you must be good enough company for yourself; and therefore I shall leave you to finish your walk alone – for, now I think of it, I have business
elsewhere; so good evening.’

  With that I left her (smothering her malicious laughter) and turned aside into the fields, springing up the bank, and pushing through the nearest gap in the hedge. Determined at once to prove the truth – or rather the falsehood of her story, I hastened to Woodford as fast as my legs could carry me – first, veering round by a circuitous course, but the moment I was out of sight of my fair tormentor, cutting away across the country, just as a bird might fly – over pasture-land and fallow, and stubble, and lane – clearing hedges and ditches, and hurdles, till I came to the young squire’s gates. Never till now had I known the full fervour of my love – the full strength of my hopes, not wholly crushed even in my hours of deepest despondency, always tenaciously clinging to the thought that one day she might be mine – or if not that, at least that something of my memory, some slight remembrance of our friendship and our love would be forever cherished in her heart. I marched up to the door, determined if I saw the master, to question him boldly concerning his sister, to wait and hesitate no longer, but cast false delicacy and stupid pride behind my back, and know my fate at once.

  ‘Is Mr Lawrence at home?’ I eagerly asked of the servant that opened the door.

  ‘No sir, master went yesterday,’ replied he, looking very alert.

  ‘Went where?’

  ‘To Grassdale, sir – wasn’t you aware, sir? He’s very close, is master,’ said the fellow with a foolish, simpering grin. ‘I suppose, sir –’

  But I turned and left him, without waiting to hear what he supposed. I was not going to stand there to expose my tortured feelings to the insolent laughter and impertinent curiosity of a fellow like that.