The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Classics)

by Brontë, Anne

  ‘And if my aunt and I had not been just returning from our morning drive, I should have seen and heard no more of you?’

  ‘I thought it would be better for both that we should not meet,’ replied I as calmly as I could, but not daring to speak above my breath from conscious inability to steady my voice, and not daring to look in her face lest my firmness should forsake me altogether ‘I thought an interview would only disturb your peace and madden me. But I am glad, now, of this opportunity of seeing you once more and knowing that you have not forgotten me, and of assuring you that I shall never cease to remember you.’

  There was a moment’s pause. Mrs Huntingdon moved away, and stood in the recess of the window. Did she regard this as an intimation that modesty alone prevented me from asking her hand? and was she considering how to repulse me with the smallest injury to my feelings? Before I could speak to relieve her from such a perplexity, she broke the silence herself by suddenly turning towards me and observing –

  ‘You might have had such an opportunity before – as far I mean as regards assuring me of your kindly recollections, and yourself of mine, if you had written to me.’

  ‘I would have done so, but I did not know your address, and did not like to ask your brother, because I thought he would object to my writing – but this would not have deterred me for a moment, if I could have ventured to believe that you expected to hear from me, or even wasted a thought upon your unhappy friend; but your silence naturally led me to conclude myself forgotten.’

  ‘Did you expect me to write to you then?’

  ‘No, Helen – Mrs Huntingdon,’ said I, blushing at the implied imputation, ‘Certainly not; but if you had sent me a message through your brother, or even asked him about me now and then –’

  ‘I did ask about you, frequently. I was not going to do more,’ continued she, smiling, ‘so long as you continued to restrict yourself to a few polite enquiries about my health.’

  ‘Your brother never told me that you had mentioned my name.’

  ‘Did you ever ask him?’

  ‘No; for I saw he did not wish to be questioned about you, or to afford the slightest encouragement or assistance to my too obstinate attachment.’ Helen did not reply. ‘And he was perfectly right,’ added I. But she remained in silence looking out upon the snowy lawn. ‘Oh, I will relieve her of my presence!’ thought I; and immediately I rose and advanced to take leave, with a most heroic resolution – but pride was at the bottom of it, or it could not have carried me through.

  ‘Are you going already?’ said she, taking the hand I offered, and not immediately letting it go.

  ‘Why should I stay any longer?’

  ‘Wait till Arthur comes, at least’

  Only too glad to obey, I stood and leant against the opposite side of the window.

  ‘You told me you were not changed,’ said my companion: ‘you are – very much so.’

  ‘No, Mrs Huntingdon, I only ought to be.’

  ‘Do you mean to maintain that you have the same regard for me that you had when last we met?’

  ‘I have, but it would be wrong to talk of it now.’

  ‘It was wrong to talk of it then, Gilbert; it would not now – unless to do so would be to violate the truth.’

  I was too much agitated to speak; but, without waiting for an answer, she turned away her glistening eye and crimson cheek, and threw up the window and looked out, whether to calm her own excited feelings or to relieve her embarrassment, – or only to pluck that beautiful half-blown Christmas rose that grew upon the little shrub without, just peeping from the snow, that had hitherto, no doubt, defended it from the frost, and was now melting away in the sun. Pluck it however, she did, and having gently dashed the glittering powder from its leaves, approached it to her lips and said, –

  ‘This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it. Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals. – Will you have it?’

  I held out my hand: I dared not speak lest my emotion should over-master me. She laid the rose across my palm, but I scarcely closed my fingers upon it, so deeply was I absorbed in thinking what might be the meaning of her words, and what I ought to do or say upon the occasion; whether to give way to my feelings or restrain them still. Misconstruing this hesitation into indifference – or reluctance even – to accept her gift, Helen suddenly snatched it from my hand, threw it out on to the snow, shut down the window with an emphasis, and withdrew to the fire.

  ‘Helen! what means this?’ I cried, electrified at this startling change in her demeanour.

  ‘You did not understand my gift,’ said she, – ‘or, what is worse, you despised it I’m sorry I gave it you; but since I did make such a mistake, the only remedy I could think of, was to take it away.’

  ‘You misunderstood me, cruelly,’ I replied, and in a minute I had opened the window again, leaped out, picked up the flower, brought it in, and presented it to her, imploring her to give it me again, and I would keep it for ever for her sake, and prize it more highly than anything in the world I possessed.

  ‘And will this content you?’ said she as she took it in her hand.

  ‘It shall,’ I answered.

  ‘There, then; take it.’

  I pressed it earnestly to my lips, and put it in my bosom, Mrs Huntingdon looking on with a half sarcastic smile.

  ‘Now, are you going?’ said she.

  ‘I will if – if I must’

  ‘You are changed,’ persisted she – ‘you are grown either very proud or very indifferent’

  ‘I am neither, Helen – Mrs Huntingdon. If you could see my heart–’

  ‘You must be one, – if not both. And why Mrs Huntingdon? – why not Helen, as before?’

  ‘Helen, then – dear Helen!’ I murmured. I was in an agony of mingled love, hope, delight, uncertainty, and suspense.

  ‘The rose I gave you was an emblem of my heart,’ said she; ‘would you take it away and leave me here alone?’

  ‘Would you give me your hand too, if I asked it?’

  ‘Have I not said enough?’ she answered with a most enchanting smile. I snatched her hand and would have fervently kissed it, but suddenly checked myself and said, –

  ‘But have you considered the consequences?’

  ‘Hardly, I think, or I should not have offered myself to one too proud to take me, or too indifferent to make his affection outweigh my worldly goods.’

  Stupid blockhead that I was! – I trembled to clasp her in my arms, but dared not believe in so much joy,2 and yet restrained myself to say, –

  ‘But if you should repent!’

  ‘It would be your fault,’ she replied: ‘I never shall, unless you bitterly disappoint me. If you have not sufficient confidence in my affection to believe this, let me alone.’

  ‘My darling angel – my own Helen,’ cried I, now passionately kissing the hand I still retained, and throwing my left arm around her, ‘you never shall repent, if it depend on me alone. – But have you thought of your aunt?’ I trembled for the answer and clasped her closer to my heart in the instinctive dread of losing my new-found treasure.

  ‘My aunt must not know of it yet,’ said she. ‘She would think it a rash, wild step, because she could not imagine how well I know you; but she must know you herself, and learn to like you. You must leave us now, after lunch, and come again in spring, and make a longer stay, and cultivate her acquaintance; and I know you will like each other.’

  ‘And then you will be mine,’ said I printing a kiss upon her lips, and another, and another – for I was as daring and impetuous now as I had been backward and constrained before.

  ‘No – in another year,’ replied she, gently disengaging herself from my embrace, but still fond
ly clasping my hand.

  ‘Another year! Oh, Helen, I could not wait so long!’

  ‘Where is your fidelity?’

  ‘I mean I could not endure the misery of so long a separation.’

  ‘It would not be a separation: we will write every day; my spirit shall be always with you; and sometimes you shall see me with your bodily eye. I will not be such a hypocrite as to pretend that I desire to wait so long myself, but as my marriage is to please myself alone, I ought to consult my friends about the time of it.’

  ‘Your friends will disapprove.’

  ‘They will not greatly disapprove, dear Gilbert,’ said she, earnestly kissing my hand – ‘they cannot, when they know you – or if they could, they would not be true friends; I should not care for their estrangement. – Now are you satisfied?’ She looked up in my face with a smile of ineffable tenderness.

  ‘Can I be otherwise, with your love? And you do love me, Helen?’ said I, not doubting the fact, but wishing to hear it confirmed by her own acknowledgement.

  ‘If you loved as I do,’ she earnestly replied, ‘you would not have so nearly lost me – these scruples of false delicacy and pride would never thus have troubled you – you would have seen that the greatest worldly distinctions and discrepancies of rank, birth, and fortune are as dust in the balance compared with the unity of accordant thoughts and feelings, and truly loving, sympathizing hearts and souls.’

  ‘But this is too much happiness,’ said I, embracing her again; ‘I have not deserved it Helen – I dare not believe in such felicity: and the longer I have to wait, the greater will be my dread that something will intervene to snatch you from me – and think, a thousand things may happen in a year! – I shall be in one long fever of restless terror and impatience all the time. And besides, winter is such a dreary season.’

  ‘I thought so too,’ replied she gravely: ‘I would not be married in winter – in December, at least,’ she added with a shudder – for in that month had occurred both the ill-starred marriage that had bound her to her former husband and the terrible death that released her – ‘and therefore, I said another year in spring.’

  ‘Next spring.’

  ‘No, no – next autumn, perhaps.’

  ‘Summer, then.’

  ‘Well, the close of summer. There now! be satisfied.’

  While she was speaking, Arthur re-entered the room – good boy for keeping out so long.

  ‘Mamma, I couldn’t find the book in either of the places you told me to look for it,’ (there was a conscious something in mamma’s smile that seemed to say, ‘No, dear, I knew you could not,’) ‘but Rachel got it for me at last. Look, Mr Markham, a natural history with all kinds of birds and beasts in it, and the reading as nice as the pictures!’

  In great good-humour, I sat down to examine the book and drew the little fellow between my knees. Had he come a minute before, I should have received him less graciously, but now I affectionately stroked his curling locks, and even kissed his ivory forehead: he was my own Helen’s son, and therefore mine; and as such I have ever since regarded him. That pretty child is now a fine young man: he has realized his mother’s brightest expectations, and is at present residing in Grassdale Manor with his young wife, the merry little Helen Hattersley, of yore.

  I had not looked through half the book, before Mrs Maxwell appeared to invite me into the other room to lunch. That lady’s cool, distant manners rather chilled me at first; but I did my best to propitiate her, and not entirely without success I think, even in that first short visit; for when I talked cheerfully to her, she gradually became more kind and cordial, and when I departed she bade me a gracious adieu, hoping erelong to have the pleasure of seeing me again.

  ‘But you must not go till you have seen the conservatory, my aunt’s winter garden,’ said Helen, as I advanced to take leave of her, with as much philosophy and self-command as I could summon to my aid.

  I gladly availed myself of such a respite, and followed her into a large and beautiful conservatory, plentifully furnished with flowers, considering the season – but of course, I had little attention to spare for them. It was not however for any tender colloquy that my companion had brought me there: –

  ‘My aunt is particularly fond of flowers,’ she observed, ‘and she is fond of Staningley too: I brought you here to offer a petition in her behalf that this may be her home as long as she lives, and – if it be not our home likewise – that I may often see her and be with her; for I fear she will be sorry to lose me; and, though she leads a retired and contemplative life, she is apt to get low-spirited if left too much alone.’

  ‘By all means, dearest Helen! – do what you will with your own. I should not dream of wishing your aunt to leave the place under any circumstances; and we will live either here or elsewhere as you and she may determine, and you shall see her as often as you like. I know she must be pained to part with you, and I am willing to make any reparation in my power. I love her for your sake, and her happiness shall be as dear to me as that of my own mother.’

  ‘Thank you, darling! you shall have a kiss for that Goodbye. There now – there Gilbert – let me go – here’s Arthur, don’t astonish his infantile brain with your madness.’

  But it is time to bring my narrative to a close – anyone but you would say I had made it too long already; but for your satisfaction, I will add a few words more; because I know you will have a fellow-feeling for the old lady, and will wish to know the last of her history. I did come again in spring, and agreeably to Helen’s injunctions, did my best to cultivate her acquaintance. She received me very kindly, having been doubtless already prepared to think highly of my character, by her niece’s too favourable report. I turned my best side out of course, and we got along marvellously well together. When my ambitious intentions were made known to her, she took it more sensibly than I had ventured to hope. Her only remark on the subject, in my hearing, was –

  ‘And so Mr Markham, you are going to rob me of my niece I understand. Well! I hope God will prosper your union, and make my dear girl happy at last. Could she have been contented to remain single, I own I should have been better satisfied; but if she must marry again, I know of no one, now living and of a suitable age, to whom I would more willingly resign her than yourself, or who would be more likely to appreciate her worth and make her truly happy, as far as I can tell.’

  Of course I was delighted with the compliment, and hoped to show her she was not mistaken in her favourable judgment.

  ‘I have, however one request to offer,’ continued she. ‘It seems I am still to look on Staningley as my home: I wish you to make it yours likewise, for Helen is attached to the place and to me – as I am to her. There are painful associations connected with Grassdale, which she cannot easily overcome; and I shall not molest you with my company or interference here: I am a very quiet person, and shall keep my own apartments and attend to my own concerns, and only see you now and then.’

  Of course I most readily consented to this; and we lived in the greatest harmony with our dear aunt until the day of her death, which melancholy event took place a few years after – melancholy, not to herself (for it came quietly upon her, and she was glad to reach her journey’s end), but only to the few loving friends and grateful dependants she left behind.

  To return, however, to my own affairs: I was married in summer, on a glorious August morning. It took the whole eight months, and all Helen’s kindness and goodness to boot, to overcome my mother’s prejudices against my bride elect, and to reconcile her to the idea of my leaving Linden-Car3 and living so far away. Yet she was gratified at her son’s good fortune after all, and proudly attributed it all to his own superior merits and endowments. I bequeathed the farm to Fergus,4 with better hopes of its prosperity than I should have had a year ago under similar circumstances; for he had lately fallen in love with the vicar of L—’s eldest daughter, a lady whose superiority had roused his latent virtues and stimulated him to the most surprising exertions
, not only to gain her affection and esteem, and to obtain a fortune sufficient to enable him to aspire to her hand, but to render himself worthy of her, in his own eyes, as well as in those of her parents; and in the end he was successful, as you already know. As for myself, I need not tell you how happily my Helen and I have lived and loved together, and how blessed we still are in each other’s society, and in the promising young scions that are growing up about us. We are just now looking forward to the advent of you and Rose, for the time of your annual visit draws nigh, when you must leave your dusty, smoky, noisy, toiling, striving city for a season of invigorating relaxation and social retirement with us.

  Till then, farewell,

  GILBERT MARKHAM

  Staningley, June 10th, 1847.5

  THE END

  NOTES

  All biblical references are to the Authorized Version (1611). Shakespeare references are to the Arden Shakespeare. References to novels are (unless otherwise indicated) made to Penguin editions. Anne Brontë’s poetry is referred to in the edition, The Poems of Anne Brontë, ed. Edward Chitham (Macmillan, 1979); Emily Bronte’s poetry is referred to in C. W. Hatfield’s edition, The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë (Columbia University Press, 1941). References to John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress are to the edition by Roger Sharrock (Penguin, 196J); references to John Milton’s Paradise Lost are to the edition by Alastair Fowler (Longman, 1968).

  The following abbreviations have been used to frequently cited works: CH: The Brontes: The Critical Heritage, ed. Miriam Allott (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974).

  Hargreaves: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, ed. G. D. Hargreaves and introduced by Winifred Gérin (Penguin, 1979).

  OED: The Oxford English Dictionary, ed. Sir James Murray et al. (OUP, 1888– 1928).