The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Deluxe Edition Anne Bronte chapter 45

Well, Halford, what do you think of all this? and while you read
it, did you ever picture to yourself what my feelings would
probably be during its perusal?  Most likely not; but I am not
going to descant upon them now:  I will only make this
acknowledgment, little honourable as it may be to human nature, and
especially to myself, - that the former half of the narrative was,
to me, more painful than the latter, not that I was at all
insensible to Mrs. Huntingdon's wrongs or unmoved by her
sufferings, but, I must confess, I felt a kind of selfish
gratification in watching her husband's gradual decline in her good
graces, and seeing how completely he extinguished all her affection
at last.  The effect of the whole, however, in spite of all my
sympathy for her, and my fury against him, was to relieve my mind
of an intolerable burden, and fill my heart with joy, as if some
friend had roused me from a dreadful nightmare.


It was now near eight o'clock in the morning, for my candle had
expired in the midst of my perusal, leaving me no alternative but
to get another, at the expense of alarming the house, or to go to
bed, and wait the return of daylight.  On my mother's account, I
chose the latter; but how willingly I sought my pillow, and how
much sleep it brought me, I leave you to imagine.


At the first appearance of dawn, I rose, and brought the manuscript
to the window, but it was impossible to read it yet.  I devoted
half an hour to dressing, and then returned to it again.  Now, with
a little difficulty, I could manage; and with intense and eager
interest, I devoured the remainder of its contents.  When it was
ended, and my transient regret at its abrupt conclusion was over, I
opened the window and put out my head to catch the cooling breeze,
and imbibe deep draughts of the pure morning air.  A splendid
morning it was; the half-frozen dew lay thick on the grass, the
swallows were twittering round me, the rooks cawing, and cows
lowing in the distance; and early frost and summer sunshine mingled
their sweetness in the air.  But I did not think of that:  a
confusion of countless thoughts and varied emotions crowded upon me
while I gazed abstractedly on the lovely face of nature.  Soon,
however, this chaos of thoughts and passions cleared away, giving
place to two distinct emotions:  joy unspeakable that my adored
Helen was all I wished to think her - that through the noisome
vapours of the world's aspersions and my own fancied convictions,
her character shone bright, and clear, and stainless as that sun I
could not bear to look on; and shame and deep remorse for my own
conduct.


Immediately after breakfast I hurried over to Wildfell Hall.
Rachel had risen many degrees in my estimation since yesterday.  I
was ready to greet her quite as an old friend; but every kindly
impulse was checked by the look of cold distrust she cast upon me
on opening the door.  The old virgin had constituted herself the
guardian of her lady's honour, I suppose, and doubtless she saw in
me another Mr. Hargrave, only the more dangerous in being more
esteemed and trusted by her mistress.


'Missis can't see any one to-day, sir - she's poorly,' said she, in
answer to my inquiry for Mrs. Graham.


'But I must see her, Rachel,' said I, placing my hand on the door
to prevent its being shut against me.


'Indeed, sir, you can't,' replied she, settling her countenance in
still more iron frigidity than before.


'Be so good as to announce me.'


'It's no manner of use, Mr. Markham; she's poorly, I tell you.'


Just in time to prevent me from committing the impropriety of
taking the citadel by storm, and pushing forward unannounced, an
inner door opened, and little Arthur appeared with his frolicsome
playfellow, the dog.  He seized my hand between both his, and
smilingly drew me forward.


'Mamma says you're to come in, Mr. Markham,' said he, 'and I am to
go out and play with Rover.'


Rachel retired with a sigh, and I stepped into the parlour and shut
the door.  There, before the fire-place, stood the tall, graceful
figure, wasted with many sorrows.  I cast the manuscript on the
table, and looked in her face.  Anxious and pale, it was turned
towards me; her clear, dark eyes were fixed on mine with a gaze so
intensely earnest that they bound me like a spell.


'Have you looked it over?' she murmured.  The spell was broken.


'I've read it through,' said I, advancing into the room, - 'and I
want to know if you'll forgive me - if you can forgive me?'


She did not answer, but her eyes glistened, and a faint red mantled
on her lip and cheek.  As I approached, she abruptly turned away,
and went to the window.  It was not in anger, I was well assured,
but only to conceal or control her emotion.  I therefore ventured
to follow and stand beside her there, - but not to speak.  She gave
me her hand, without turning her head, and murmured in a voice she
strove in vain to steady, - 'Can you forgive me?'


It might be deemed a breach of trust, I thought, to convey that
lily hand to my lips, so I only gently pressed it between my own,
and smilingly replied, - 'I hardly can.  You should have told me
this before.  It shows a want of confidence - '


'Oh, no,' cried she, eagerly interrupting me; 'it was not that.  It
was no want of confidence in you; but if I had told you anything of
my history, I must have told you all, in order to excuse my
conduct; and I might well shrink from such a disclosure, till
necessity obliged me to make it.  But you forgive me? - I have done
very, very wrong, I know; but, as usual, I have reaped the bitter
fruits of my own error, - and must reap them to the end.'


Bitter, indeed, was the tone of anguish, repressed by resolute
firmness, in which this was spoken.  Now, I raised her hand to my
lips, and fervently kissed it again and again; for tears prevented
any other reply.  She suffered these wild caresses without
resistance or resentment; then, suddenly turning from me, she paced
twice or thrice through the room.  I knew by the contraction of her
brow, the tight compression of her lips, and wringing of her hands,
that meantime a violent conflict between reason and passion was
silently passing within.  At length she paused before the empty
fire-place, and turning to me, said calmly - if that might be
called calmness which was so evidently the result of a violent
effort, - 'Now, Gilbert, you must leave me - not this moment, but
soon - and you must never come again.'


'Never again, Helen? just when I love you more than ever.'


'For that very reason, if it be so, we should not meet again.  I
thought this interview was necessary - at least, I persuaded myself
it was so - that we might severally ask and receive each other's
pardon for the past; but there can be no excuse for another.  I
shall leave this place, as soon as I have means to seek another
asylum; but our intercourse must end here.'


'End here!' echoed I; and approaching the high, carved chimney-
piece, I leant my hand against its heavy mouldings, and dropped my
forehead upon it in silent, sullen despondency.


'You must not come again,' continued she.  There was a slight
tremor in her voice, but I thought her whole manner was provokingly
composed, considering the dreadful sentence she pronounced.  'You
must know why I tell you so,' she resumed; 'and you must see that
it is better to part at once:  - if it be hard to say adieu for
ever, you ought to help me.'  She paused.  I did not answer.  'Will
you promise not to come? - if you won't, and if you do come here
again, you will drive me away before I know where to find another
place of refuge - or how to seek it.'


'Helen,' said I, turning impatiently towards her, 'I cannot discuss
the matter of eternal separation calmly and dispassionately as you
can do.  It is no question of mere expedience with me; it is a
question of life and death!'


She was silent.  Her pale lips quivered, and her fingers trembled
with agitation, as she nervously entwined them in the hair-chain to
which was appended her small gold watch - the only thing of value
she had permitted herself to keep.  I had said an unjust and cruel
thing; but I must needs follow it up with something worse.


'But, Helen!' I began in a soft, low tone, not daring to raise my
eyes to her face, 'that man is not your husband:  in the sight of
heaven he has forfeited all claim to - '  She seized my arm with a
grasp of startling energy.


'Gilbert, don't!' she cried, in a tone that would have pierced a
heart of adamant.  'For God's sake, don't you attempt these
arguments!  No fiend could torture me like this!'


'I won't, I won't!' said I, gently laying my hand on hers; almost
as much alarmed at her vehemence as ashamed of my own misconduct.


'Instead of acting like a true friend,' continued she, breaking
from me, and throwing herself into the old arm-chair, 'and helping
me with all your might - or rather taking your own part in the
struggle of right against passion - you leave all the burden to me;
- and not satisfied with that, you do your utmost to fight against
me - when you know that! - ' she paused, and hid her face in her
handkerchief.


'Forgive me, Helen!' pleaded I.  'I will never utter another word
on the subject.  But may we not still meet as friends?'


'It will not do,' she replied, mournfully shaking her head; and
then she raised her eyes to mine, with a mildly reproachful look
that seemed to say, 'You must know that as well as I.'


'Then what must we do?' cried I, passionately.  But immediately I
added in a quieter tone - 'I'll do whatever you desire; only don't
say that this meeting is to be our last.'


'And why not?  Don't you know that every time we meet the thoughts
of the final parting will become more painful?  Don't you feel that
every interview makes us dearer to each other than the last?'


The utterance of this last question was hurried and low, and the
downcast eyes and burning blush too plainly showed that she, at
least, had felt it.  It was scarcely prudent to make such an
admission, or to add - as she presently did - 'I have power to bid
you go, now:  another time it might be different,' - but I was not
base enough to attempt to take advantage of her candour.


'But we may write,' I timidly suggested.  'You will not deny me
that consolation?'


'We can hear of each other through my brother.'


'Your brother!'  A pang of remorse and shame shot through me.  She
had not heard of the injury he had sustained at my hands; and I had
not the courage to tell her.  'Your brother will not help us,' I
said:  'he would have all communion between us to be entirely at an
end.'


'And he would be right, I suppose.  As a friend of both, he would
wish us both well; and every friend would tell us it was our
interest, as well as our duty, to forget each other, though we
might not see it ourselves.  But don't be afraid, Gilbert,' she
added, smiling sadly at my manifest discomposure; 'there is little
chance of my forgetting you.  But I did not mean that Frederick
should be the means of transmitting messages between us - only that
each might know, through him, of the other's welfare; - and more
than this ought not to be:  for you are young, Gilbert, and you
ought to marry - and will some time, though you may think it
impossible now:  and though I hardly can say I wish you to forget
me, I know it is right that you should, both for your own
happiness, and that of your future wife; - and therefore I must and
will wish it,' she added resolutely.


'And you are young too, Helen,' I boldly replied; 'and when that
profligate scoundrel has run through his career, you will give your
hand to me - I'll wait till then.'


But she would not leave me this support.  Independently of the
moral evil of basing our hopes upon the death of another, who, if
unfit for this world, was at least no less so for the next, and
whose amelioration would thus become our bane and his greatest
transgression our greatest benefit, - she maintained it to be
madness:  many men of Mr. Huntingdon's habits had lived to a ripe
though miserable old age.  'And if I,' said she, 'am young in
years, I am old in sorrow; but even if trouble should fail to kill
me before vice destroys him, think, if he reached but fifty years
or so, would you wait twenty or fifteen - in vague uncertainty and
suspense - through all the prime of youth and manhood - and marry
at last a woman faded and worn as I shall be - without ever having
seen me from this day to that? - You would not,' she continued,
interrupting my earnest protestations of unfailing constancy, - 'or
if you would, you should not.  Trust me, Gilbert; in this matter I
know better than you.  You think me cold and stony-hearted, and you
may, but - '


'I don't, Helen.'


'Well, never mind:  you might if you would:  but I have not spent
my solitude in utter idleness, and I am not speaking now from the
impulse of the moment, as you do.  I have thought of all these
matters again and again; I have argued these questions with myself,
and pondered well our past, and present, and future career; and,
believe me, I have come to the right conclusion at last.  Trust my
words rather than your own feelings now, and in a few years you
will see that I was right - though at present I hardly can see it
myself,' she murmured with a sigh as she rested her head on her
hand.  'And don't argue against me any more:  all you can say has
been already said by my own heart and refuted by my reason.  It was
hard enough to combat those suggestions as they were whispered
within me; in your mouth they are ten times worse, and if you knew
how much they pain me you would cease at once, I know.  If you knew
my present feelings, you would even try to relieve them at the
expense of your own.'


'I will go - in a minute, if that can relieve you - and NEVER
return!' said I, with bitter emphasis.  'But, if we may never meet,
and never hope to meet again, is it a crime to exchange our
thoughts by letter?  May not kindred spirits meet, and mingle in
communion, whatever be the fate and circumstances of their earthly
tenements?'


'They may, they may!' cried she, with a momentary burst of glad
enthusiasm.  'I thought of that too, Gilbert, but I feared to
mention it, because I feared you would not understand my views upon
the subject.  I fear it even now - I fear any kind friend would
tell us we are both deluding ourselves with the idea of keeping up
a spiritual intercourse without hope or prospect of anything
further - without fostering vain regrets and hurtful aspirations,
and feeding thoughts that should be sternly and pitilessly left to
perish of inanition.'


'Never mind our kind friends:  if they can part our bodies, it is
enough; in God's name, let them not sunder our souls!' cried I, in
terror lest she should deem it her duty to deny us this last
remaining consolation.


'But no letters can pass between us here,' said she, 'without
giving fresh food for scandal; and when I departed, I had intended
that my new abode should be unknown to you as to the rest of the
world; not that I should doubt your word if you promised not to
visit me, but I thought you would be more tranquil in your own mind
if you knew you could not do it, and likely to find less difficulty
in abstracting yourself from me if you could not picture my
situation to your mind.  But listen,' said she, smilingly putting
up her finger to check my impatient reply:  'in six months you
shall hear from Frederick precisely where I am; and if you still
retain your wish to write to me, and think you can maintain a
correspondence all thought, all spirit - such as disembodied souls
or unimpassioned friends, at least, might hold, - write, and I will
answer you.'


'Six months!'


'Yes, to give your present ardour time to cool, and try the truth
and constancy of your soul's love for mine.  And now, enough has
been said between us.  Why can't we part at once?' exclaimed she,
almost wildly, after a moment's pause, as she suddenly rose from
her chair, with her hands resolutely clasped together.  I thought
it was my duty to go without delay; and I approached and half
extended my hand as if to take leave - she grasped it in silence.
But this thought of final separation was too intolerable:  it
seemed to squeeze the blood out of my heart; and my feet were glued
to the floor.


'And must we never meet again?' I murmured, in the anguish of my
soul.


'We shall meet in heaven.  Let us think of that,' said she in a
tone of desperate calmness; but her eyes glittered wildly, and her
face was deadly pale.


'But not as we are now,' I could not help replying.  'It gives me
little consolation to think I shall next behold you as a
disembodied spirit, or an altered being, with a frame perfect and
glorious, but not like this! - and a heart, perhaps, entirely
estranged from me.'


'No, Gilbert, there is perfect love in heaven!'


'So perfect, I suppose, that it soars above distinctions, and you
will have no closer sympathy with me than with any one of the ten
thousand thousand angels and the innumerable multitude of happy
spirits round us.'


'Whatever I am, you will be the same, and, therefore, cannot
possibly regret it; and whatever that change may be we know it must
be for the better.'


'But if I am to be so changed that I shall cease to adore you with
my whole heart and soul, and love you beyond every other creature,
I shall not be myself; and though, if ever I win heaven at all, I
must, I know, be infinitely better and happier than I am now, my
earthly nature cannot rejoice in the anticipation of such
beatitude, from which itself and its chief joy must be excluded.'


'Is your love all earthly, then?'


'No, but I am supposing we shall have no more intimate communion
with each other than with the rest.'


'If so, it will be because we love them more, and not each other
less.  Increase of love brings increase of happiness, when it is
mutual, and pure as that will be.'


'But can you, Helen, contemplate with delight this prospect of
losing me in a sea of glory?'


'I own I cannot; but we know not that it will be so; - and I do
know that to regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys
of heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that
it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter
through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping
sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals.  If
these little creatures knew how great a change awaited them, no
doubt they would regret it; but would not all such sorrow be
misplaced?  And if that illustration will not move you, here is
another:- We are children now; we feel as children, and we
understand as children; and when we are told that men and women do
not play with toys, and that our companions will one day weary of
the trivial sports and occupations that interest them and us so
deeply now, we cannot help being saddened at the thoughts of such
an alteration, because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our
own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves
shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so
fondly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join
us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other
fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with ours in higher
aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but
not less deeply relished or less truly good for that, while yet
both we and they remain essentially the same individuals as before.
But, Gilbert, can you really derive no consolation from the thought
that we may meet together where there is no more pain and sorrow,
no more striving against sin, and struggling of the spirit against
the flesh; where both will behold the same glorious truths, and
drink exalted and supreme felicity from the same fountain of light
and goodness - that Being whom both will worship with the same
intensity of holy ardour - and where pure and happy creatures both
will love with the same divine affection?  If you cannot, never
write to me!'


'Helen, I can! if faith would never fail.'


'Now, then,' exclaimed she, 'while this hope is strong within us -
'


'We will part,' I cried.  'You shall not have the pain of another
effort to dismiss me.  I will go at once; but - '


I did not put my request in words:  she understood it
instinctively, and this time she yielded too - or rather, there was
nothing so deliberate as requesting or yielding in the matter:
there was a sudden impulse that neither could resist.  One moment I
stood and looked into her face, the next I held her to my heart,
and we seemed to grow together in a close embrace from which no
physical or mental force could rend us.  A whispered 'God bless
you!' and 'Go - go!' was all she said; but while she spoke she held
me so fast that, without violence, I could not have obeyed her.  At
length, however, by some heroic effort, we tore ourselves apart,
and I rushed from the house.


I have a confused remembrance of seeing little Arthur running up
the garden-walk to meet me, and of bolting over the wall to avoid
him - and subsequently running down the steep fields, clearing the
stone fences and hedges as they came in my way, till I got
completely out of sight of the old hall and down to the bottom of
the hill; and then of long hours spent in bitter tears and
lamentations, and melancholy musings in the lonely valley, with the
eternal music in my ears, of the west wind rushing through the
overshadowing trees, and the brook babbling and gurgling along its
stony bed; my eyes, for the most part, vacantly fixed on the deep,
chequered shades restlessly playing over the bright sunny grass at
my feet, where now and then a withered leaf or two would come
dancing to share the revelry; but my heart was away up the hill in
that dark room where she was weeping desolate and alone - she whom
I was not to comfort, not to see again, till years or suffering had
overcome us both, and torn our spirits from their perishing abodes
of clay.


There was little business done that day, you may be sure.  The farm
was abandoned to the labourers, and the labourers were left to
their own devices.  But one duty must be attended to; I had not
forgotten my assault upon Frederick Lawrence; and I must see him to
apologise for the unhappy deed.  I would fain have put it off till
the morrow; but what if he should denounce me to his sister in the
meantime?  No, no!  I must ask his pardon to-day, and entreat him
to be lenient in his accusation, if the revelation must be made.  I
deferred it, however, till the evening, when my spirits were more
composed, and when - oh, wonderful perversity of human nature! -
some faint germs of indefinite hopes were beginning to rise in my
mind; not that I intended to cherish them, after all that had been
said on the subject, but there they must lie for a while, uncrushed
though not encouraged, till I had learnt to live without them.


Arrived at Woodford, the young squire's abode, I found no little
difficulty in obtaining admission to his presence.  The servant
that opened the door told me his master was very ill, and seemed to
think it doubtful whether he would be able to see me.  I was not
going to be baulked, however.  I waited calmly in the hall to be
announced, but inwardly determined to take no denial.  The message
was such as I expected - a polite intimation that Mr. Lawrence
could see no one; he was feverish, and must not be disturbed.


'I shall not disturb him long,' said I; 'but I must see him for a
moment:  it is on business of importance that I wish to speak to
him.'


'I'll tell him, sir,' said the man.  And I advanced further into
the hall and followed him nearly to the door of the apartment where
his master was - for it seemed he was not in bed.  The answer
returned was that Mr. Lawrence hoped I would be so good as to leave
a message or a note with the servant, as he could attend to no
business at present.


'He may as well see me as you,' said I; and, stepping past the
astonished footman, I boldly rapped at the door, entered, and
closed it behind me.  The room was spacious and handsomely
furnished - very comfortably, too, for a bachelor.  A clear, red
fire was burning in the polished grate:  a superannuated greyhound,
given up to idleness and good living, lay basking before it on the
thick, soft rug, on one corner of which, beside the sofa, sat a
smart young springer, looking wistfully up in its master's face -
perhaps asking permission to share his couch, or, it might be, only
soliciting a caress from his hand or a kind word from his lips.
The invalid himself looked very interesting as he lay reclining
there, in his elegant dressing-gown, with a silk handkerchief bound
across his temples.  His usually pale face was flushed and
feverish; his eyes were half closed, until he became sensible of my
presence - and then he opened them wide enough:  one hand was
thrown listlessly over the back of the sofa, and held a small
volume, with which, apparently, he had been vainly attempting to
beguile the weary hours.  He dropped it, however, in his start of
indignant surprise as I advanced into the room and stood before him
on the rug.  He raised himself on his pillows, and gazed upon me
with equal degrees of nervous horror, anger, and amazement depicted
on his countenance.


'Mr. Markham, I scarcely expected this!' he said; and the blood
left his cheek as he spoke.


'I know you didn't,' answered I; 'but be quiet a minute, and I'll
tell you what I came for.'  Unthinkingly, I advanced a step or two
nearer.  He winced at my approach, with an expression of aversion
and instinctive physical fear anything but conciliatory to my
feelings.  I stepped back, however.


'Make your story a short one,' said he, putting his hand on the
small silver bell that stood on the table beside him, 'or I shall
be obliged to call for assistance.  I am in no state to bear your
brutalities now, or your presence either.'  And in truth the
moisture started from his pores and stood on his pale forehead like
dew.


Such a reception was hardly calculated to diminish the difficulties
of my unenviable task.  It must be performed however, in some
fashion; and so I plunged into it at once, and floundered through
it as I could.


'The truth is, Lawrence,' said I, 'I have not acted quite correctly
towards you of late - especially on this last occasion; and I'm
come to - in short, to express my regret for what has been done,
and to beg your pardon.  If you don't choose to grant it,' I added
hastily, not liking the aspect of his face, 'it's no matter; only
I've done my duty - that's all.'


'It's easily done,' replied he, with a faint smile bordering on a
sneer:  'to abuse your friend and knock him on the head without any
assignable cause, and then tell him the deed was not quite correct,
but it's no matter whether he pardons it or not.'


'I forgot to tell you that it was in consequence of a mistake,' -
muttered I.  'I should have made a very handsome apology, but you
provoked me so confoundedly with your -.  Well, I suppose it's my
fault.  The fact is, I didn't know that you were Mrs. Graham's
brother, and I saw and heard some things respecting your conduct
towards her which were calculated to awaken unpleasant suspicions,
that, allow me to say, a little candour and confidence on your part
might have removed; and, at last, I chanced to overhear a part of a
conversation between you and her that made me think I had a right
to hate you.'


'And how came you to know that I was her brother?' asked he, in
some anxiety.


'She told me herself.  She told me all.  She knew I might be
trusted.  But you needn't disturb yourself about that, Mr.
Lawrence, for I've seen the last of her!'


'The last!  Is she gone, then?'


'No; but she has bid adieu to me, and I have promised never to go
near that house again while she inhabits it.'  I could have groaned
aloud at the bitter thoughts awakened by this turn in the
discourse.  But I only clenched my hands and stamped my foot upon
the rug.  My companion, however, was evidently relieved.


'You have done right,' he said, in a tone of unqualified
approbation, while his face brightened into almost a sunny
expression.  'And as for the mistake, I am sorry for both our sakes
that it should have occurred.  Perhaps you can forgive my want of
candour, and remember, as some partial mitigation of the offence,
how little encouragement to friendly confidence you have given me
of late.'


'Yes, yes - I remember it all:  nobody can blame me more than I
blame myself in my own heart; at any rate, nobody can regret more
sincerely than I do the result of my brutality, as you rightly term
it.'


'Never mind that,' said he, faintly smiling; 'let us forget all
unpleasant words on both sides, as well as deeds, and consign to
oblivion everything that we have cause to regret.  Have you any
objection to take my hand, or you'd rather not?'  It trembled
through weakness as he held it out, and dropped before I had time
to catch it and give it a hearty squeeze, which he had not the
strength to return.


'How dry and burning your hand is, Lawrence,' said I.  'You are
really ill, and I have made you worse by all this talk.'


'Oh, it is nothing; only a cold got by the rain.'


'My doing, too.'


'Never mind that.  But tell me, did you mention this affair to my
sister?'


'To confess the truth, I had not the courage to do so; but when you
tell her, will you just say that I deeply regret it, and - ?'


'Oh, never fear!  I shall say nothing against you, as long as you
keep your good resolution of remaining aloof from her.  She has not
heard of my illness, then, that you are aware of?'


'I think not.'


'I'm glad of that, for I have been all this time tormenting myself
with the fear that somebody would tell her I was dying, or
desperately ill, and she would be either distressing herself on
account of her inability to hear from me or do me any good, or
perhaps committing the madness of coming to see me.  I must
contrive to let her know something about it, if I can,' continued
he, reflectively, 'or she will be hearing some such story.  Many
would be glad to tell her such news, just to see how she would take
it; and then she might expose herself to fresh scandal.'


'I wish I had told her,' said I.  'If it were not for my promise, I
would tell her now.'


'By no means!  I am not dreaming of that; - but if I were to write
a short note, now, not mentioning you, Markham, but just giving a
slight account of my illness, by way of excuse for my not coming to
see her, and to put her on her guard against any exaggerated
reports she may hear, - and address it in a disguised hand - would
you do me the favour to slip it into the post-office as you pass?
for I dare not trust any of the servants in such a case.'


Most willingly I consented, and immediately brought him his desk.
There was little need to disguise his hand, for the poor fellow
seemed to have considerable difficulty in writing at all, so as to
be legible.  When the note was done, I thought it time to retire,
and took leave, after asking if there was anything in the world I
could do for him, little or great, in the way of alleviating his
sufferings, and repairing the injury I had done.


'No,' said he; 'you have already done much towards it; you have
done more for me than the most skilful physician could do:  for you
have relieved my mind of two great burdens - anxiety on my sister's
account, and deep regret upon your own:  for I do believe these two
sources of torment have had more effect in working me up into a
fever than anything else; and I am persuaded I shall soon recover
now.  There is one more thing you can do for me, and that is, come
and see me now and then - for you see I am very lonely here, and I
promise your entrance shall not be disputed again.'


I engaged to do so, and departed with a cordial pressure of the
hand.  I posted the letter on my way home, most manfully resisting
the temptation of dropping in a word from myself at the same time.






The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Deluxe Edition Anne Bronte chapter 46






I felt strongly tempted, at times, to enlighten my mother and
sister on the real character and circumstances of the persecuted
tenant of Wildfell Hall, and at first I greatly regretted having
omitted to ask that lady's permission to do so; but, on due
reflection, I considered that if it were known to them, it could
not long remain a secret to the Millwards and Wilsons, and such was
my present appreciation of Eliza Millward's disposition, that, if
once she got a clue to the story, I should fear she would soon find
means to enlighten Mr. Huntingdon upon the place of his wife's
retreat.  I would therefore wait patiently till these weary six
months were over, and then, when the fugitive had found another
home, and I was permitted to write to her, I would beg to be
allowed to clear her name from these vile calumnies:  at present I
must content myself with simply asserting that I knew them to be
false, and would prove it some day, to the shame of those who
slandered her.  I don't think anybody believed me, but everybody
soon learned to avoid insinuating a word against her, or even
mentioning her name in my presence.  They thought I was so madly
infatuated by the seductions of that unhappy lady that I was
determined to support her in the very face of reason; and meantime
I grow insupportably morose and misanthropical from the idea that
every one I met was harbouring unworthy thoughts of the supposed
Mrs. Graham, and would express them if he dared.  My poor mother
was quite distressed about me; but I couldn't help it - at least I
thought I could not, though sometimes I felt a pang of remorse for
my undutiful conduct to her, and made an effort to amend, attended
with some partial success; and indeed I was generally more
humanised in my demeanour to her than to any one else, Mr. Lawrence
excepted.  Rose and Fergus usually shunned my presence; and it was
well they did, for I was not fit company for them, nor they for me,
under the present circumstances.


Mrs. Huntingdon did not leave Wildfell Hall till above two months
after our farewell interview.  During that time she never appeared
at church, and I never went near the house:  I only knew she was
still there by her brother's brief answers to my many and varied
inquiries respecting her.  I was a very constant and attentive
visitor to him throughout the whole period of his illness and
convalescence; not only from the interest I took in his recovery,
and my desire to cheer him up and make the utmost possible amends
for my former 'brutality,' but from my growing attachment to
himself, and the increasing pleasure I found in his society -
partly from his increased cordiality to me, but chiefly on account
of his close connection, both in blood and in affection, with my
adored Helen.  I loved him for it better than I liked to express:
and I took a secret delight in pressing those slender white
fingers, so marvellously like her own, considering he was not a
woman, and in watching the passing changes in his fair, pale
features, and observing the intonations of his voice, detecting
resemblances which I wondered had never struck me before.  He
provoked me at times, indeed, by his evident reluctance to talk to
me about his sister, though I did not question the friendliness of
his motives in wishing to discourage my remembrance of her.


His recovery was not quite so rapid as he had expected it to be; he
was not able to mount his pony till a fortnight after the date of
our reconciliation; and the first use he made of his returning
strength was to ride over by night to Wildfell Hall, to see his
sister.  It was a hazardous enterprise both for him and for her,
but he thought it necessary to consult with her on the subject of
her projected departure, if not to calm her apprehensions
respecting his health, and the worst result was a slight relapse of
his illness, for no one knew of the visit but the inmates of the
old Hall, except myself; and I believe it had not been his
intention to mention it to me, for when I came to see him the next
day, and observed he was not so well as he ought to have been, he
merely said he had caught cold by being out too late in the
evening.


'You'll never be able to see your sister, if you don't take care of
yourself,' said I, a little provoked at the circumstance on her
account, instead of commiserating him.


'I've seen her already,' said he, quietly.


'You've seen her!' cried I, in astonishment.


'Yes.'  And then he told me what considerations had impelled him to
make the venture, and with what precautions he had made it.


'And how was she?' I eagerly asked.


'As usual,' was the brief though sad reply.


'As usual - that is, far from happy and far from strong.'


'She is not positively ill,' returned he; 'and she will recover her
spirits in a while, I have no doubt - but so many trials have been
almost too much for her.  How threatening those clouds look,'
continued he, turning towards the window.  'We shall have thunder-
showers before night, I imagine, and they are just in the midst of
stacking my corn.  Have you got yours all in yet?'


'No.  And, Lawrence, did she - did your sister mention me?'


'She asked if I had seen you lately.'


'And what else did she say?'


'I cannot tell you all she said,' replied he, with a slight smile;
'for we talked a good deal, though my stay was but short; but our
conversation was chiefly on the subject of her intended departure,
which I begged her to delay till I was better able to assist her in
her search after another home.'


'But did she say no more about me?'


'She did not say much about you, Markham.  I should not have
encouraged her to do so, had she been inclined; but happily she was
not:  she only asked a few questions concerning you, and seemed
satisfied with my brief answers, wherein she showed herself wiser
than her friend; and I may tell you, too, that she seemed to be far
more anxious lest you should think too much of her, than lest you
should forget her.'


'She was right.'


'But I fear your anxiety is quite the other way respecting her.'


'No, it is not:  I wish her to be happy; but I don't wish her to
forget me altogether.  She knows it is impossible that I should
forget her; and she is right to wish me not to remember her too
well.  I should not desire her to regret me too deeply; but I can
scarcely imagine she will make herself very unhappy about me,
because I know I am not worthy of it, except in my appreciation of
her.'


'You are neither of you worthy of a broken heart, - nor of all the
sighs, and tears, and sorrowful thoughts that have been, and I fear
will be, wasted upon you both; but, at present, each has a more
exalted opinion of the other than, I fear, he or she deserves; and
my sister's feelings are naturally full as keen as yours, and I
believe more constant; but she has the good sense and fortitude to
strive against them in this particular; and I trust she will not
rest till she has entirely weaned her thoughts - ' he hesitated.


'From me,' said I.


'And I wish you would make the like exertions,' continued he.


'Did she tell you that that was her intention?'


'No; the question was not broached between us:  there was no
necessity for it, for I had no doubt that such was her
determination.'


'To forget me?'


'Yes, Markham!  Why not?'


'Oh, well!' was my only audible reply; but I internally answered, -
'No, Lawrence, you're wrong there:  she is not determined to forget
me.  It would be wrong to forget one so deeply and fondly devoted
to her, who can so thoroughly appreciate her excellencies, and
sympathise with all her thoughts, as I can do, and it would be
wrong in me to forget so excellent and divine a piece of God's
creation as she, when I have once so truly loved and known her.'
But I said no more to him on that subject.  I instantly started a
new topic of conversation, and soon took leave of my companion,
with a feeling of less cordiality towards him than usual.  Perhaps
I had no right to be annoyed at him, but I was so nevertheless.


In little more than a week after this I met him returning from a
visit to the Wilsons'; and I now resolved to do him a good turn,
though at the expense of his feelings, and perhaps at the risk of
incurring that displeasure which is so commonly the reward of those
who give disagreeable information, or tender their advice unasked.
In this, believe me, I was actuated by no motives of revenge for
the occasional annoyances I had lately sustained from him, - nor
yet by any feeling of malevolent enmity towards Miss Wilson, but
purely by the fact that I could not endure that such a woman should
be Mrs. Huntingdon's sister, and that, as well for his own sake as
for hers, I could not bear to think of his being deceived into a
union with one so unworthy of him, and so utterly unfitted to be
the partner of his quiet home, and the companion of his life.  He
had had uncomfortable suspicions on that head himself, I imagined;
but such was his inexperience, and such were the lady's powers of
attraction, and her skill in bringing them to bear upon his young
imagination, that they had not disturbed him long; and I believe
the only effectual causes of the vacillating indecision that had
preserved him hitherto from making an actual declaration of love,
was the consideration of her connections, and especially of her
mother, whom he could not abide.  Had they lived at a distance, he
might have surmounted the objection, but within two or three miles
of Woodford it was really no light matter.


'You've been to call on the Wilsons, Lawrence,' said I, as I walked
beside his pony.


'Yes,' replied he, slightly averting his face:  'I thought it but
civil to take the first opportunity of returning their kind
attentions, since they have been so very particular and constant in
their inquiries throughout the whole course of my illness.'


'It's all Miss Wilson's doing.'


'And if it is,' returned he, with a very perceptible blush, 'is
that any reason why I should not make a suitable acknowledgment?'


'It is a reason why you should not make the acknowledgment she
looks for.'


'Let us drop that subject if you please,' said he, in evident
displeasure.


'No, Lawrence, with your leave we'll continue it a while longer;
and I'll tell you something, now we're about it, which you may
believe or not as you choose - only please to remember that it is
not my custom to speak falsely, and that in this case I can have no
motive for misrepresenting the truth - '


'Well, Markham, what now?'


'Miss Wilson hates your sister.  It may be natural enough that, in
her ignorance of the relationship, she should feel some degree of
enmity against her, but no good or amiable woman would be capable
of evincing that bitter, cold-blooded, designing malice towards a
fancied rival that I have observed in her.'


'Markham!'


'Yes - and it is my belief that Eliza Millward and she, if not the
very originators of the slanderous reports that have been
propagated, were designedly the encouragers and chief disseminators
of them.  She was not desirous to mix up your name in the matter,
of course, but her delight was, and still is, to blacken your
sister's character to the utmost of her power, without risking too
greatly the exposure of her own malevolence!'


'I cannot believe it,' interrupted my companion, his face burning
with indignation.


'Well, as I cannot prove it, I must content myself with asserting
that it is so to the best of my belief; but as you would not
willingly marry Miss Wilson if it were so, you will do well to be
cautious, till you have proved it to be otherwise.'


'I never told you, Markham, that I intended to marry Miss Wilson,'
said he, proudly.


'No, but whether you do or not, she intends to marry you.'


'Did she tell you so?'


'No, but - '


'Then you have no right to make such an assertion respecting her.'
He slightly quickened his pony's pace, but I laid my hand on its
mane, determined he should not leave me yet.


'Wait a moment, Lawrence, and let me explain myself; and don't be
so very - I don't know what to call it - inaccessible as you are. -
I know what you think of Jane Wilson; and I believe I know how far
you are mistaken in your opinion:  you think she is singularly
charming, elegant, sensible, and refined:  you are not aware that
she is selfish, cold-hearted, ambitious, artful, shallow-minded - '


'Enough, Markham - enough!'


'No; let me finish:- you don't know that, if you married her, your
home would be rayless and comfortless; and it would break your
heart at last to find yourself united to one so wholly incapable of
sharing your tastes, feelings, and ideas - so utterly destitute of
sensibility, good feeling, and true nobility of soul.'


'Have you done?' asked my companion quietly.


'Yes; - I know you hate me for my impertinence, but I don't care if
it only conduces to preserve you from that fatal mistake.'


'Well!' returned he, with a rather wintry smile - 'I'm glad you
have overcome or forgotten your own afflictions so far as to be
able to study so deeply the affairs of others, and trouble your
head so unnecessarily about the fancied or possible calamities of
their future life.'


We parted - somewhat coldly again:  but still we did not cease to
be friends; and my well-meant warning, though it might have been
more judiciously delivered, as well as more thankfully received,
was not wholly unproductive of the desired effect:  his visit to
the Wilsons was not repeated, and though, in our subsequent
interviews, he never mentioned her name to me, nor I to him, - I
have reason to believe he pondered my words in his mind, eagerly
though covertly sought information respecting the fair lady from
other quarters, secretly compared my character of her with what he
had himself observed and what he heard from others, and finally
came to the conclusion that, all things considered, she had much
better remain Miss Wilson of Ryecote Farm than be transmuted into
Mrs. Lawrence of Woodford Hall.  I believe, too, that he soon
learned to contemplate with secret amazement his former
predilection, and to congratulate himself on the lucky escape he
had made; but he never confessed it to me, or hinted one word of
acknowledgment for the part I had had in his deliverance, but this
was not surprising to any one that knew him as I did.


As for Jane Wilson, she, of course, was disappointed and embittered
by the sudden cold neglect and ultimate desertion of her former
admirer.  Had I done wrong to blight her cherished hopes?  I think
not; and certainly my conscience has never accused me, from that
day to this, of any evil design in the matter.






The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Deluxe Edition Anne Bronte chapter 47






One morning, about the beginning of November, while I was inditing
some business letters, shortly after breakfast, Eliza Millward came
to call upon my sister.  Rose had neither the discrimination nor
the virulence to regard the little demon as I did, and they still
preserved their former intimacy.  At the moment of her arrival,
however, there was no one in the room but Fergus and myself, my
mother and sister being both of them absent, 'on household cares
intent'; but I was not going to lay myself out for her amusement,
whoever else might so incline:  I merely honoured her with a
careless salutation and a few words of course, and then went on
with my writing, leaving my brother to be more polite if he chose.
But she wanted to tease me.


'What a pleasure it is to find you at home, Mr. Markham!' said she,
with a disingenuously malicious smile.  'I so seldom see you now,
for you never come to the vicarage.  Papa, is quite offended, I can
tell you,' she added playfully, looking into my face with an
impertinent laugh, as she seated herself, half beside and half
before my desk, off the corner of the table.


'I have had a good deal to do of late,' said I, without looking up
from my letter.


'Have you, indeed!  Somebody said you had been strangely neglecting
your business these last few months.'


'Somebody said wrong, for, these last two months especially, I have
been particularly plodding and diligent.'


'Ah! well, there's nothing like active employment, I suppose, to
console the afflicted; - and, excuse me, Mr. Markham, but you look
so very far from well, and have been, by all accounts, so moody and
thoughtful of late, - I could almost think you have some secret
care preying on your spirits.  Formerly,' said she timidly, 'I
could have ventured to ask you what it was, and what I could do to
comfort you:  I dare not do it now.'


'You're very kind, Miss Eliza.  When I think you can do anything to
comfort me, I'll make bold to tell you.'


'Pray do! - I suppose I mayn't guess what it is that troubles you?'


'There's no necessity, for I'll tell you plainly.  The thing that
troubles me the most at present is a young lady sitting at my
elbow, and preventing me from finishing my letter, and, thereafter,
repairing to my daily business.'


Before she could reply to this ungallant speech, Rose entered the
room; and Miss Eliza rising to greet her, they both seated
themselves near the fire, where that idle lad Fergus was standing,
leaning his shoulder against the corner of the chimney-piece, with
his legs crossed and his hands in his breeches-pockets.


'Now, Rose, I'll tell you a piece of news - I hope you have not
heard it before:  for good, bad, or indifferent, one always likes
to be the first to tell.  It's about that sad Mrs. Graham - '


'Hush-sh-sh!' whispered Fergus, in a tone of solemn import.  '"We
never mention her; her name is never heard."'  And glancing up, I
caught him with his eye askance on me, and his finger pointed to
his forehead; then, winking at the young lady with a doleful shake
of the head, be whispered - 'A monomania - but don't mention it -
all right but that.'


'I should be sorry to injure any one's feelings,' returned she,
speaking below her breath.  'Another time, perhaps.'


'Speak out, Miss Eliza!' said I, not deigning to notice the other's
buffooneries:  'you needn't fear to say anything in my presence.'


'Well,' answered she, 'perhaps you know already that Mrs. Graham's
husband is not really dead, and that she had run away from him?'  I
started, and felt my face glow; but I bent it over my letter, and
went on folding it up as she proceeded.  'But perhaps you did not
know that she is now gone back to him again, and that a perfect
reconciliation has taken place between them?  Only think,' she
continued, turning to the confounded Rose, 'what a fool the man
must be!'


'And who gave you this piece of intelligence, Miss Eliza?' said I,
interrupting my sister's exclamations.


'I had it from a very authentic source.'


'From whom, may I ask?'


'From one of the servants at Woodford.'


'Oh!  I was not aware that you were on such intimate terms with Mr.
Lawrence's household.'


'It was not from the man himself that I heard it, but he told it in
confidence to our maid Sarah, and Sarah told it to me.'


'In confidence, I suppose?  And you tell it in confidence to us?
But I can tell you that it is but a lame story after all, and
scarcely one-half of it true.'


While I spoke I completed the sealing and direction of my letters,
with a somewhat unsteady hand, in spite of all my efforts to retain
composure, and in spite of my firm conviction that the story was a
lame one - that the supposed Mrs. Graham, most certainly, had not
voluntarily gone back to her husband, or dreamt of a
reconciliation.  Most likely she was gone away, and the tale-
bearing servant, not knowing what was become of her, had
conjectured that such was the case, and our fair visitor had
detailed it as a certainty, delighted with such an opportunity of
tormenting me.  But it was possible - barely possible - that some
one might have betrayed her, and she had been taken away by force.
Determined to know the worst, I hastily pocketed my two letters,
and muttered something about being too late for the post, left the
room, rushed into the yard, and vociferously called for my horse.
No one being there, I dragged him out of the stable myself,
strapped the saddle on to his back and the bridle on to his head,
mounted, and speedily galloped away to Woodford.  I found its owner
pensively strolling in the grounds.


'Is your sister gone?' were my first words as I grasped his hand,
instead of the usual inquiry after his health.


'Yes, she's gone,' was his answer, so calmly spoken that my terror
was at once removed.


'I suppose I mayn't know where she is?' said I, as I dismounted,
and relinquished my horse to the gardener, who, being the only
servant within call, had been summoned by his master, from his
employment of raking up the dead leaves on the lawn, to take him to
the stables.


My companion gravely took my arm, and leading me away to the
garden, thus answered my question, - 'She is at Grassdale Manor, in
-shire.'


'Where?' cried I, with a convulsive start.


'At Grassdale Manor.'


'How was it?' I gasped.  'Who betrayed her?'


'She went of her own accord.'


'Impossible, Lawrence!  She could not be so frantic!' exclaimed I,
vehemently grasping his arm, as if to force him to unsay those
hateful words.


'She did,' persisted he in the same grave, collected manner as
before; 'and not without reason,' he continued, gently disengaging
himself from my grasp.  'Mr. Huntingdon is ill.'


'And so she went to nurse him?'


'Yes.'


'Fool!' I could not help exclaiming, and Lawrence looked up with a
rather reproachful glance.  'Is he dying, then?'


'I think not, Markham.'


'And how many more nurses has he?  How many ladies are there
besides to take care of him?'


'None; he was alone, or she would not have gone.'


'Oh, confound it!  This is intolerable!'


'What is?  That he should be alone?'


I attempted no reply, for I was not sure that this circumstance did
not partly conduce to my distraction.  I therefore continued to
pace the walk in silent anguish, with my hand pressed to my
forehead; then suddenly pausing and turning to my companion, I
impatiently exclaimed, 'Why did she take this infatuated step?
What fiend persuaded her to it?'


'Nothing persuaded her but her own sense of duty.'


'Humbug!'


'I was half inclined to say so myself, Markham, at first.  I assure
you it was not by my advice that she went, for I detest that man as
fervently as you can do, - except, indeed, that his reformation
would give me much greater pleasure than his death; but all I did
was to inform her of the circumstance of his illness (the
consequence of a fall from his horse in hunting), and to tell her
that that unhappy person, Miss Myers, had left him some time ago.'


'It was ill done!  Now, when he finds the convenience of her
presence, he will make all manner of lying speeches and false, fair
promises for the future, and she will believe him, and then her
condition will be ten times worse and ten times more irremediable
than before.'


'There does not appear to be much ground for such apprehensions at
present,' said he, producing a letter from his pocket.  'From the
account I received this morning, I should say - '


It was her writing!  By an irresistible impulse I held out my hand,
and the words, 'Let me see it,' involuntarily passed my lips.  He
was evidently reluctant to grant the request, but while he
hesitated I snatched it from his hand.  Recollecting myself,
however, the minute after, I offered to restore it.


'Here, take it,' said I, 'if you don't want me to read it.'


'No,' replied he, 'you may read it if you like.'


I read it, and so may you.




Grassdale, Nov. 4th.


Dear Frederick, - I know you will be anxious to hear from me, and I
will tell you all I can.  Mr. Huntingdon is very ill, but not
dying, or in any immediate danger; and he is rather better at
present than he was when I came.  I found the house in sad
confusion:  Mrs. Greaves, Benson, every decent servant had left,
and those that were come to supply their places were a negligent,
disorderly set, to say no worse - I must change them again, if I
stay.  A professional nurse, a grim, hard old woman, had been hired
to attend the wretched invalid.  He suffers much, and has no
fortitude to bear him through.  The immediate injuries he sustained
from the accident, however, were not very severe, and would, as the
doctor says, have been but trifling to a man of temperate habits,
but with him it is very different.  On the night of my arrival,
when I first entered his room, he was lying in a kind of half
delirium.  He did not notice me till I spoke, and then he mistook
me for another.


'Is it you, Alice, come again?' he murmured.  'What did you leave
me for?'


'It is I, Arthur - it is Helen, your wife,' I replied.


'My wife!' said he, with a start.  'For heaven's sake, don't
mention her - I have none.  Devil take her,' he cried, a moment
after, 'and you, too!  What did you do it for?'


I said no more; but observing that he kept gazing towards the foot
of the bed, I went and sat there, placing the light so as to shine
full upon me, for I thought he might be dying, and I wanted him to
know me.  For a long time he lay silently looking upon me, first
with a vacant stare, then with a fixed gaze of strange growing
intensity.  At last he startled me by suddenly raising himself on
his elbow and demanding in a horrified whisper, with his eyes still
fixed upon me, 'Who is it?'


'It is Helen Huntingdon,' said I, quietly rising at the same time,
and removing to a less conspicuous position.


'I must be going mad,' cried he, 'or something - delirious,
perhaps; but leave me, whoever you are.  I can't bear that white
face, and those eyes.  For God's sake go, and send me somebody else
that doesn't look like that!'


I went at once, and sent the hired nurse; but next morning I
ventured to enter his chamber again, and, taking the nurse's place
by his bedside, I watched him and waited on him for several hours,
showing myself as little as possible, and only speaking when
necessary, and then not above my breath.  At first he addressed me
as the nurse, but, on my crossing the room to draw up the window-
blinds, in obedience to his directions, he said, 'No, it isn't
nurse; it's Alice.  Stay with me, do!  That old hag will be the
death of me.'


'I mean to stay with you,' said I.  And after that he would call me
Alice, or some other name almost equally repugnant to my feelings.
I forced myself to endure it for a while, fearing a contradiction
might disturb him too much; but when, having asked for a glass of
water, while I held it to his lips, he murmured, 'Thanks, dearest!'
I could not help distinctly observing, 'You would not say so if you
knew me,' intending to follow that up with another declaration of
my identity; but he merely muttered an incoherent reply, so I
dropped it again, till some time after, when, as I was bathing his
forehead and temples with vinegar and water to relieve the heat and
pain in his head, he observed, after looking earnestly upon me for
some minutes, 'I have such strange fancies - I can't get rid of
them, and they won't let me rest; and the most singular and
pertinacious of them all is your face and voice - they seem just
like hers.  I could swear at this moment that she was by my side.'


'She is,' said I.


'That seems comfortable,' continued he, without noticing my words;
'and while you do it, the other fancies fade away - but this only
strengthens. - Go on - go on, till it vanishes, too.  I can't stand
such a mania as this; it would kill me!'


'It never will vanish,' said I, distinctly, 'for it is the truth!'


'The truth!' he cried, starting, as if an asp had stung him.  'You
don't mean to say that you are really she?'


'I do; but you needn't shrink away from me, as if I were your
greatest enemy:  I am come to take care of you, and do what none of
them would do.'


'For God's sake, don't torment me now!' cried he in pitiable
agitation; and then he began to mutter bitter curses against me, or
the evil fortune that had brought me there; while I put down the
sponge and basin, and resumed my seat at the bed-side.


'Where are they?' said he:  'have they all left me - servants and
all?'


'There are servants within call if you want them; but you had
better lie down now and be quiet:  none of them could or would
attend you as carefully as I shall do.'


'I can't understand it at all,' said he, in bewildered perplexity.
'Was it a dream that - ' and he covered his eyes with his hands, as
if trying to unravel the mystery.


'No, Arthur, it was not a dream, that your conduct was such as to
oblige me to leave you; but I heard that you were ill and alone,
and I am come back to nurse you.  You need not fear to trust me
tell me all your wants, and I will try to satisfy them.  There is
no one else to care for you; and I shall not upbraid you now.'


'Oh! I see,' said he, with a bitter smile; 'it's an act of
Christian charity, whereby you hope to gain a higher seat in heaven
for yourself, and scoop a deeper pit in hell for me.'


'No; I came to offer you that comfort and assistance your situation
required; and if I could benefit your soul as well as your body,
and awaken some sense of contrition and - '


'Oh, yes; if you could overwhelm me with remorse and confusion of
face, now's the time.  What have you done with my son?'


'He is well, and you may see him some time, if you will compose
yourself, but not now.'


'Where is he?'


'He is safe.'


'Is he here?'


'Wherever he is, you will not see him till you have promised to
leave him entirely under my care and protection, and to let me take
him away whenever and wherever I please, if I should hereafter
judge it necessary to remove him again.  But we will talk of that
to-morrow:  you must be quiet now.'


'No, let me see him now, I promise, if it must be so.'


'No - '


'I swear it, as God is in heaven!  Now, then, let me see him.'


'But I cannot trust your oaths and promises:  I must have a written
agreement, and you must sign it in presence of a witness:  but not
to-day - to-morrow.'


'No, to-day; now,' persisted he:  and he was in such a state of
feverish excitement, and so bent upon the immediate gratification
of his wish, that I thought it better to grant it at once, as I saw
he would not rest till I did.  But I was determined my son's
interest should not be forgotten; and having clearly written out
the promise I wished Mr. Huntingdon to give upon a slip of paper, I
deliberately read it over to him, and made him sign it in the
presence of Rachel.  He begged I would not insist upon this:  it
was a useless exposure of my want of faith in his word to the
servant.  I told him I was sorry, but since he had forfeited my
confidence, he must take the consequence.  He next pleaded
inability to hold the pen.  'Then we must wait until you can hold
it,' said I.  Upon which he said he would try; but then he could
not see to write.  I placed my finger where the signature was to
be, and told him he might write his name in the dark, if he only
knew where to put it.  But he had not power to form the letters.
'In that case, you must be too ill to see the child,' said I; and
finding me inexorable, he at length managed to ratify the
agreement; and I bade Rachel send the boy.


All this may strike you as harsh, but I felt I must not lose my
present advantage, and my son's future welfare should not be
sacrificed to any mistaken tenderness for this man's feelings.
Little Arthur had not forgotten his father, but thirteen months of
absence, during which he had seldom been permitted to hear a word
about him, or hardly to whisper his name, had rendered him somewhat
shy; and when he was ushered into the darkened room where the sick
man lay, so altered from his former self, with fiercely flushed
face and wildly-gleaming eyes - he instinctively clung to me, and
stood looking on his father with a countenance expressive of far
more awe than pleasure.


'Come here, Arthur,' said the latter, extending his hand towards
him.  The child went, and timidly touched that burning hand, but
almost started in alarm, when his father suddenly clutched his arm
and drew him nearer to his side.


'Do you know me?' asked Mr. Huntingdon, intently perusing his
features.


'Yes.'


'Who am I?'


'Papa.'


'Are you glad to see me?'


'Yes.'


'You're not!' replied the disappointed parent, relaxing his hold,
and darting a vindictive glance at me.


Arthur, thus released, crept back to me and put his hand in mine.
His father swore I had made the child hate him, and abused and
cursed me bitterly.  The instant he began I sent our son out of the
room; and when he paused to breathe, I calmly assured him that he
was entirely mistaken; I had never once attempted to prejudice his
child against him.


'I did indeed desire him to forget you,' I said, 'and especially to
forget the lessons you taught him; and for that cause, and to
lessen the danger of discovery, I own I have generally discouraged
his inclination to talk about you; but no one can blame me for
that, I think.'


The invalid only replied by groaning aloud, and rolling his head on
a pillow in a paroxysm of impatience.


'I am in hell, already!' cried he.  'This cursed thirst is burning
my heart to ashes!  Will nobody -?'


Before he could finish the sentence I had poured out a glass of
some acidulated, cooling drink that was on the table, and brought
it to him.  He drank it greedily, but muttered, as I took away the
glass, - 'I suppose you're heaping coals of fire on my head, you
think?'


Not noticing this speech, I asked if there was anything else I
could do for him.


'Yes; I'll give you another opportunity of showing your Christian
magnanimity,' sneered he:  'set my pillow straight, and these
confounded bed-clothes.'  I did so.  'There:  now get me another
glass of that slop.'  I complied.  'This is delightful, isn't it?'
said he with a malicious grin, as I held it to his lips; 'you never
hoped for such a glorious opportunity?'


'Now, shall I stay with you?' said I, as I replaced the glass on
the table:  'or will you be more quiet if I go and send the nurse?'


'Oh, yes, you're wondrous gentle and obliging!  But you've driven
me mad with it all!' responded he, with an impatient toss.


'I'll leave you, then,' said I; and I withdrew, and did not trouble
him with my presence again that day, except for a minute or two at
a time, just to see how he was and what he wanted.


Next morning the doctor ordered him to be bled; and after that he
was more subdued and tranquil.  I passed half the day in his room
at different intervals.  My presence did not appear to agitate or
irritate him as before, and he accepted my services quietly,
without any bitter remarks:  indeed, he scarcely spoke at all,
except to make known his wants, and hardly then.  But on the
morrow, that is to say, in proportion as he recovered from the
state of exhaustion and stupefaction, his ill-nature appeared to
revive.


'Oh, this sweet revenge!' cried he, when I had been doing all I
could to make him comfortable and to remedy the carelessness of his
nurse.  'And you can enjoy it with such a quiet conscience too,
because it's all in the way of duty.'


'It is well for me that I am doing my duty,' said I, with a
bitterness I could not repress, 'for it is the only comfort I have;
and the satisfaction of my own conscience, it seems, is the only
reward I need look for!'


He looked rather surprised at the earnestness of my manner.


'What reward did you look for?' he asked.


'You will think me a liar if I tell you; but I did hope to benefit
you:  as well to better your mind as to alleviate your present
sufferings; but it appears I am to do neither; your own bad spirit
will not let me.  As far as you are concerned, I have sacrificed my
own feelings, and all the little earthly comfort that was left me,
to no purpose; and every little thing I do for you is ascribed to
self-righteous malice and refined revenge!'


'It's all very fine, I daresay,' said he, eyeing me with stupid
amazement; 'and of course I ought to be melted to tears of
penitence and admiration at the sight of so much generosity and
superhuman goodness; but you see I can't manage it.  However, pray
do me all the good you can, if you do really find any pleasure in
it; for you perceive I am almost as miserable just now as you need
wish to see me.  Since you came, I confess, I have had better
attendance than before, for these wretches neglected me shamefully,
and all my old friends seem to have fairly forsaken me.  I've had a
dreadful time of it, I assure you:  I sometimes thought I should
have died:  do you think there's any chance?'


'There's always a chance of death; and it is always well to live
with such a chance in view.'


'Yes, yes! but do you think there's any likelihood that this
illness will have a fatal termination?'


'I cannot tell; but, supposing it should, how are you prepared to
meet the event?'


'Why, the doctor told me I wasn't to think about it, for I was sure
to get better if I stuck to his regimen and prescriptions.'


'I hope you may, Arthur; but neither the doctor nor I can speak
with certainty in such a case; there is internal injury, and it is
difficult to know to what extent.'


'There now! you want to scare me to death.'


'No; but I don't want to lull you to false security.  If a
consciousness of the uncertainty of life can dispose you to serious
and useful thoughts, I would not deprive you of the benefit of such
reflections, whether you do eventually recover or not.  Does the
idea of death appal you very much?'


'It's just the only thing I can't bear to think of; so if you've
any - '


'But it must come some time,' interrupted I, 'and if it be years
hence, it will as certainly overtake you as if it came to-day, -
and no doubt be as unwelcome then as now, unless you - '


'Oh, hang it! don't torment me with your preachments now, unless
you want to kill me outright.  I can't stand it, I tell you.  I've
sufferings enough without that.  If you think there's danger, save
me from it; and then, in gratitude, I'll hear whatever you like to
say.'


I accordingly dropped the unwelcome topic.  And now, Frederick, I
think I may bring my letter to a close.  From these details you may
form your own judgment of the state of my patient, and of my own
position and future prospects.  Let me hear from you soon, and I
will write again to tell you how we get on; but now that my
presence is tolerated, and even required, in the sick-room, I shall
have but little time to spare between my husband and my son, - for
I must not entirely neglect the latter:  it would not do to keep
him always with Rachel, and I dare not leave him for a moment with
any of the other servants, or suffer him to be alone, lest he
should meet them.  If his father get worse, I shall ask Esther
Hargrave to take charge of him for a time, till I have reorganised
the household at least; but I greatly prefer keeping him under my
own eye.


I find myself in rather a singular position:  I am exerting my
utmost endeavours to promote the recovery and reformation of my
husband, and if I succeed, what shall I do?  My duty, of course, -
but how?  No matter; I can perform the task that is before me now,
and God will give me strength to do whatever He requires hereafter.
Good-by, dear Frederick.


HELEN HUNTINGDON.




'What do you think of it?' said Lawrence, as I silently refolded
the letter.


'It seems to me,' returned I, 'that she is casting her pearls
before swine.  May they be satisfied with trampling them under
their feet, and not turn again and rend her!  But I shall say no
more against her:  I see that she was actuated by the best and
noblest motives in what she has done; and if the act is not a wise
one, may heaven protect her from its consequences!  May I keep this
letter, Lawrence? - you see she has never once mentioned me
throughout - or made the most distant allusion to me; therefore,
there can be no impropriety or harm in it.'


'And, therefore, why should you wish to keep it?'


'Were not these characters written by her hand? and were not these
words conceived in her mind, and many of them spoken by her lips?'


'Well,' said he.  And so I kept it; otherwise, Halford, you could
never have become so thoroughly acquainted with its contents.


'And when you write,' said I, 'will you have the goodness to ask
her if I may be permitted to enlighten my mother and sister on her
real history and circumstance, just so far as is necessary to make
the neighbourhood sensible of the shameful injustice they have done
her?  I want no tender messages, but just ask her that, and tell
her it is the greatest favour she could do me; and tell her - no,
nothing more.  You see I know the address, and I might write to her
myself, but I am so virtuous as to refrain.'


'Well, I'll do this for you, Markham.'


'And as soon as you receive an answer, you'll let me know?'


'If all be well, I'll come myself and tell you immediately.'






The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Deluxe Edition Anne Bronte chapter 48






Five or six days after this Mr. Lawrence paid us the honour of a
call; and when he and I were alone together - which I contrived as
soon as possible by bringing him out to look at my cornstacks - he
showed me another letter from his sister.  This one he was quite
willing to submit to my longing gaze; he thought, I suppose, it
would do me good.  The only answer it gave to my message was this:-


'Mr. Markham is at liberty to make such revelations concerning me
as he judges necessary.  He will know that I should wish but little
to be said on the subject.  I hope he is well; but tell him he must
not think of me.'


I can give you a few extracts from the rest of the letter, for I
was permitted to keep this also - perhaps, as an antidote to all
pernicious hopes and fancies.


* * * * *


He is decidedly better, but very low from the depressing effects of
his severe illness and the strict regimen he is obliged to observe
- so opposite to all his previous habits.  It is deplorable to see
how completely his past life has degenerated his once noble
constitution, and vitiated the whole system of his organization.
But the doctor says he may now be considered out of danger, if he
will only continue to observe the necessary restrictions.  Some
stimulating cordials he must have, but they should be judiciously
diluted and sparingly used; and I find it very difficult to keep
him to this.  At first, his extreme dread of death rendered the
task an easy one; but in proportion as he feels his acute suffering
abating, and sees the danger receding, the more intractable he
becomes.  Now, also, his appetite for food is beginning to return;
and here, too, his long habits of self-indulgence are greatly
against him.  I watch and restrain him as well as I can, and often
get bitterly abused for my rigid severity; and sometimes he
contrives to elude my vigilance, and sometimes acts in opposition
to my will.  But he is now so completely reconciled to my
attendance in general that he is never satisfied when I am not by
his side.  I am obliged to be a little stiff with him sometimes, or
he would make a complete slave of me; and I know it would be
unpardonable weakness to give up all other interests for him.  I
have the servants to overlook, and my little Arthur to attend to, -
and my own health too, all of which would be entirely neglected
were I to satisfy his exorbitant demands.  I do not generally sit
up at night, for I think the nurse who has made it her business is
better qualified for such undertakings than I am; - but still, an
unbroken night's rest is what I but seldom enjoy, and never can
venture to reckon upon; for my patient makes no scruple of calling
me up at an hour when his wants or his fancies require my presence.
But he is manifestly afraid of my displeasure; and if at one time
he tries my patience by his unreasonable exactions, and fretful
complaints and reproaches, at another he depresses me by his abject
submission and deprecatory self-abasement when he fears he has gone
too far.  But all this I can readily pardon; I know it is chiefly
the result of his enfeebled frame and disordered nerves.  What
annoys me the most, is his occasional attempts at affectionate
fondness that I can neither credit nor return; not that I hate him:
his sufferings and my own laborious care have given him some claim
to my regard - to my affection even, if he would only be quiet and
sincere, and content to let things remain as they are; but the more
he tries to conciliate me, the more I shrink from him and from the
future.


'Helen, what do you mean to do when I get well?' he asked this
morning.  'Will you run away again?'


'It entirely depends upon your own conduct.'


'Oh, I'll be very good.'


'But if I find it necessary to leave you, Arthur, I shall not "run
away":  you know I have your own promise that I may go whenever I
please, and take my son with me.'


'Oh, but you shall have no cause.'  And then followed a variety of
professions, which I rather coldly checked.


'Will you not forgive me, then?' said he.


'Yes, - I have forgiven you:  but I know you cannot love me as you
once did - and I should be very sorry if you were to, for I could
not pretend to return it:  so let us drop the subject, and never
recur to it again.  By what I have done for you, you may judge of
what I will do - if it be not incompatible with the higher duty I
owe to my son (higher, because he never forfeited his claims, and
because I hope to do more good to him than I can ever do to you);
and if you wish me to feel kindly towards you, it is deeds not
words which must purchase my affection and esteem.'


His sole reply to this was a slight grimace, and a scarcely
perceptible shrug.  Alas, unhappy man! words, with him, are so much
cheaper than deeds; it was as if I had said, 'Pounds, not pence,
must buy the article you want.'  And then he sighed a querulous,
self-commiserating sigh, as if in pure regret that he, the loved
and courted of so many worshippers, should be now abandoned to the
mercy of a harsh, exacting, cold-hearted woman like that, and even
glad of what kindness she chose to bestow.


'It's a pity, isn't it?' said I; and whether I rightly divined his
musings or not, the observation chimed in with his thoughts, for he
answered - 'It can't be helped,' with a rueful smile at my
penetration.


* * * * *


I have I seen Esther Hargrave twice.  She is a charming creature,
but her blithe spirit is almost broken, and her sweet temper almost
spoiled, by the still unremitting persecutions of her mother in
behalf of her rejected suitor - not violent, but wearisome and
unremitting like a continual dropping.  The unnatural parent seems
determined to make her daughter's life a burden, if she will not
yield to her desires.


'Mamma does all she can,' said she, 'to make me feel myself a
burden and incumbrance to the family, and the most ungrateful,
selfish, and undutiful daughter that ever was born; and Walter,
too, is as stern and cold and haughty as if he hated me outright.
I believe I should have yielded at once if I had known, from the
beginning, how much resistance would have cost me; but now, for
very obstinacy's sake, I will stand out!'


'A bad motive for a good resolve,' I answered.  'But, however, I
know you have better motives, really, for your perseverance:  and I
counsel you to keep them still in view.'


'Trust me I will.  I threaten mamma sometimes that I'll run away,
and disgrace the family by earning my own livelihood, if she
torments me any more; and then that frightens her a little.  But I
will do it, in good earnest, if they don't mind.'


'Be quiet and patient a while,' said I, 'and better times will
come.'


Poor girl!  I wish somebody that was worthy to possess her would
come and take her away - don't you, Frederick?


* * * * *


If the perusal of this letter filled me with dismay for Helen's
future life and mine, there was one great source of consolation:
it was now in my power to clear her name from every foul aspersion.
The Millwards and the Wilsons should see with their own eyes the
bright sun bursting from the cloud - and they should be scorched
and dazzled by its beams; - and my own friends too should see it -
they whose suspicions had been such gall and wormwood to my soul.
To effect this I had only to drop the seed into the ground, and it
would soon become a stately, branching herb:  a few words to my
mother and sister, I knew, would suffice to spread the news
throughout the whole neighbourhood, without any further exertion on
my part.


Rose was delighted; and as soon as I had told her all I thought
proper - which was all I affected to know - she flew with alacrity
to put on her bonnet and shawl, and hasten to carry the glad
tidings to the Millwards and Wilsons - glad tidings, I suspect, to
none but herself and Mary Millward - that steady, sensible girl,
whose sterling worth had been so quickly perceived and duly valued
by the supposed Mrs. Graham, in spite of her plain outside; and
who, on her part, had been better able to see and appreciate that
lady's true character and qualities than the brightest genius among
them.


As I may never have occasion to mention her again, I may as well
tell you here that she was at this time privately engaged to
Richard Wilson - a secret, I believe, to every one but themselves.
That worthy student was now at Cambridge, where his most exemplary
conduct and his diligent perseverance in the pursuit of learning
carried him safely through, and eventually brought him with hard-
earned honours, and an untarnished reputation, to the close of his
collegiate career.  In due time he became Mr. Millward's first and
only curate - for that gentleman's declining years forced him at
last to acknowledge that the duties of his extensive parish were a
little too much for those vaunted energies which he was wont to
boast over his younger and less active brethren of the cloth.  This
was what the patient, faithful lovers had privately planned and
quietly waited for years ago; and in due time they were united, to
the astonishment of the little world they lived in, that had long
since declared them both born to single blessedness; affirming it
impossible that the pale, retiring bookworm should ever summon
courage to seek a wife, or be able to obtain one if he did, and
equally impossible that the plain-looking, plain-dealing,
unattractive, unconciliating Miss Millward should ever find a
husband.


They still continued to live at the vicarage, the lady dividing her
time between her father, her husband, and their poor parishioners,
- and subsequently her rising family; and now that the Reverend
Michael Millward has been gathered to his fathers, full of years
and honours, the Reverend Richard Wilson has succeeded him to the
vicarage of Linden-hope, greatly to the satisfaction of its
inhabitants, who had so long tried and fully proved his merits, and
those of his excellent and well-loved partner.


If you are interested in the after fate of that lady's sister, I
can only tell you - what perhaps you have heard from another
quarter - that some twelve or thirteen years ago she relieved the
happy couple of her presence by marrying a wealthy tradesman of L-;
and I don't envy him his bargain.  I fear she leads him a rather
uncomfortable life, though, happily, he is too dull to perceive the
extent of his misfortune.  I have little enough to do with her
myself:  we have not met for many years; but, I am well assured,
she has not yet forgotten or forgiven either her former lover, or
the lady whose superior qualities first opened his eyes to the
folly of his boyish attachment.


As for Richard Wilson's sister, she, having been wholly unable to
recapture Mr. Lawrence, or obtain any partner rich and elegant
enough to suit her ideas of what the husband of Jane Wilson ought
to be, is yet in single blessedness.  Shortly after the death of
her mother she withdrew the light of her presence from Ryecote
Farm, finding it impossible any longer to endure the rough manners
and unsophisticated habits of her honest brother Robert and his
worthy wife, or the idea of being identified with such vulgar
people in the eyes of the world, and took lodgings in - the county
town, where she lived, and still lives, I suppose, in a kind of
close-fisted, cold, uncomfortable gentility, doing no good to
others, and but little to herself; spending her days in fancy-work
and scandal; referring frequently to her 'brother the vicar,' and
her 'sister, the vicar's lady,' but never to her brother the farmer
and her sister the farmer's wife; seeing as much company as she can
without too much expense, but loving no one and beloved by none -
a cold-hearted, supercilious, keenly, insidiously censorious old
maid.






The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Deluxe Edition Anne Bronte chapter 49






Though Mr. Lawrence's health was now quite re-established, my
visits to Woodford were as unremitting as ever; though often less
protracted than before.  We seldom talked about Mrs. Huntingdon;
but yet we never met without mentioning her, for I never sought his
company but with the hope of hearing something about her, and he
never sought mine at all, because he saw me often enough without.
But I always began to talk of other things, and waited first to see
if he would introduce the subject.  If he did not, I would casually
ask, 'Have you heard from your sister lately?'  If he said 'No,'
the matter was dropped:  if he said 'Yes,' I would venture to
inquire, 'How is she?' but never 'How is her husband?' though I
might be burning to know; because I had not the hypocrisy to
profess any anxiety for his recovery, and I had not the face to
express any desire for a contrary result.  Had I any such desire? -
I fear I must plead guilty; but since you have heard my confession,
you must hear my justification as well  - a few of the excuses, at
least, wherewith I sought to pacify my own accusing conscience.


In the first place, you see, his life did harm to others, and
evidently no good to himself; and though I wished it to terminate,
I would not have hastened its close if, by the lifting of a finger,
I could have done so, or if a spirit had whispered in my ear that a
single effort of the will would be enough, - unless, indeed, I had
the power to exchange him for some other victim of the grave, whose
life might be of service to his race, and whose death would be
lamented by his friends.  But was there any harm in wishing that,
among the many thousands whose souls would certainly be required of
them before the year was over, this wretched mortal might be one?
I thought not; and therefore I wished with all my heart that it
might please heaven to remove him to a better world, or if that
might not be, still to take him out of this; for if he were unfit
to answer the summons now, after a warning sickness, and with such
an angel by his side, it seemed but too certain that he never would
be - that, on the contrary, returning health would bring returning
lust and villainy, and as he grew more certain of recovery, more
accustomed to her generous goodness, his feelings would become more
callous, his heart more flinty and impervious to her persuasive
arguments - but God knew best.  Meantime, however, I could not but
be anxious for the result of His decrees; knowing, as I did, that
(leaving myself entirely out of the question), however Helen might
feel interested in her husband's welfare, however she might deplore
his fate, still while he lived she must be miserable.


A fortnight passed away, and my inquiries were always answered in
the negative.  At length a welcome 'yes' drew from me the second
question.  Lawrence divined my anxious thoughts, and appreciated my
reserve.  I feared, at first, he was going to torture me by
unsatisfactory replies, and either leave me quite in the dark
concerning what I wanted to know, or force me to drag the
information out of him, morsel by morsel, by direct inquiries.
'And serve you right,' you will say; but he was more merciful; and
in a little while he put his sister's letter into my hand.  I
silently read it, and restored it to him without comment or remark.
This mode of procedure suited him so well, that thereafter he
always pursued the plan of showing me her letters at once, when
'inquired' after her, if there were any to show - it was so much
less trouble than to tell me their contents; and I received such
confidences so quietly and discreetly that he was never induced to
discontinue them.


But I devoured those precious letters with my eyes, and never let
them go till their contents were stamped upon my mind; and when I
got home, the most important passages were entered in my diary
among the remarkable events of the day.


The first of these communications brought intelligence of a serious
relapse in Mr. Huntingdon's illness, entirely the result of his own
infatuation in persisting in the indulgence of his appetite for
stimulating drink.  In vain had she remonstrated, in vain she had
mingled his wine with water:  her arguments and entreaties were a
nuisance, her interference was an insult so intolerable that, at
length, on finding she had covertly diluted the pale port that was
brought him, he threw the bottle out of window, swearing he would
not be cheated like a baby, ordered the butler, on pain of instant
dismissal, to bring a bottle of the strongest wine in the cellar,
and affirming that he should have been well long ago if he had been
let to have his own way, but she wanted to keep him weak in order
that she might have him under her thumb - but, by the Lord Harry,
he would have no more humbug - seized a glass in one hand and the
bottle in the other, and never rested till he had drunk it dry.
Alarming symptoms were the immediate result of this 'imprudence,'
as she mildly termed it - symptoms which had rather increased than
diminished since; and this was the cause of her delay in writing to
her brother.  Every former feature of his malady had returned with
augmented virulence:  the slight external wound, half healed, had
broken out afresh; internal inflammation had taken place, which
might terminate fatally if not soon removed.  Of course, the
wretched sufferer's temper was not improved by this calamity - in
fact, I suspect it was well nigh insupportable, though his kind
nurse did not complain; but she said she had been obliged at last
to give her son in charge to Esther Hargrave, as her presence was
so constantly required in the sick-room that she could not possibly
attend to him herself; and though the child had begged to be
allowed to continue with her there, and to help her to nurse his
papa, and though she had no doubt he would have been very good and
quiet, she could not think of subjecting his young and tender
feelings to the sight of so much suffering, or of allowing him to
witness his father's impatience, or hear the dreadful language he
was wont to use in his paroxysms of pain or irritation.


The latter (continued she) most deeply regrets the step that has
occasioned his relapse; but, as usual, he throws the blame upon me.
If I had reasoned with him like a rational creature, he says, it
never would have happened; but to be treated like a baby or a fool
was enough to put any man past his patience, and drive him to
assert his independence even at the sacrifice of his own interest.
He forgets how often I had reasoned him 'past his patience' before.
He appears to be sensible of his danger; but nothing can induce him
to behold it in the proper light.  The other night, while I was
waiting on him, and just as I had brought him a draught to assuage
his burning thirst, he observed, with a return of his former
sarcastic bitterness, 'Yes, you're mighty attentive now!  I suppose
there's nothing you wouldn't do for me now?'


'You know,' said I, a little surprised at his manner, 'that I am
willing to do anything I can to relieve you.'


'Yes, now, my immaculate angel; but when once you have secured your
reward, and find yourself safe in heaven, and me howling in hell-
fire, catch you lifting a finger to serve me then!  No, you'll look
complacently on, and not so much as dip the tip of your finger in
water to cool my tongue!'


'If so, it will be because of the great gulf over which I cannot
pass; and if I could look complacently on in such a case, it would
be only from the assurance that you were being purified from your
sins, and fitted to enjoy the happiness I felt. - But are you
determined, Arthur, that I shall not meet you in heaven?'


'Humph!  What should I do there, I should like to know?'


'Indeed, I cannot tell; and I fear it is too certain that your
tastes and feelings must be widely altered before you can have any
enjoyment there.  But do you prefer sinking, without an effort,
into the state of torment you picture to yourself?'


'Oh, it's all a fable,' said he, contemptuously.


'Are you sure, Arthur? are you quite sure?  Because, if there is
any doubt, and if you should find yourself mistaken after all, when
it is too late to turn - '


'It would be rather awkward, to be sure,' said he; 'but don't
bother me now - I'm not going to die yet.  I can't and won't,' he
added vehemently, as if suddenly struck with the appalling aspect
of that terrible event.  'Helen, you must save me!'  And he
earnestly seized my hand, and looked into my face with such
imploring eagerness that my heart bled for him, and I could not
speak for tears.


* * * * *


The next letter brought intelligence that the malady was fast
increasing; and the poor sufferer's horror of death was still more
distressing than his impatience of bodily pain.  All his friends
had not forsaken him; for Mr. Hattersley, hearing of his danger,
had come to see him from his distant home in the north.  His wife
had accompanied him, as much for the pleasure of seeing her dear
friend, from whom she had been parted so long, as to visit her
mother and sister.


Mrs. Huntingdon expressed herself glad to see Milicent once more,
and pleased to behold her so happy and well.  She is now at the
Grove, continued the letter, but she often calls to see me.  Mr.
Hattersley spends much of his time at Arthur's bed-side.  With more
good feeling than I gave him credit for, he evinces considerable
sympathy for his unhappy friend, and is far more willing than able
to comfort him.  Sometimes he tries to joke and laugh with him, but
that will not do; sometimes he endeavours to cheer him with talk
about old times, and this at one time may serve to divert the
sufferer from his own sad thoughts; at another, it will only plunge
him into deeper melancholy than before; and then Hattersley is
confounded, and knows not what to say, unless it be a timid
suggestion that the clergyman might be sent for.  But Arthur will
never consent to that:  he knows he has rejected the clergyman's
well-meant admonitions with scoffing levity at other times, and
cannot dream of turning to him for consolation now.


Mr. Hattersley sometimes offers his services instead of mine, but
Arthur will not let me go:  that strange whim still increases, as
his strength declines - the fancy to have me always by his side.  I
hardly ever leave him, except to go into the next room, where I
sometimes snatch an hour or so of sleep when he is quiet; but even
then the door is left ajar, that he may know me to be within call.
I am with him now, while I write, and I fear my occupation annoys
him; though I frequently break off to attend to him, and though Mr.
Hattersley is also by his side.  That gentleman came, as he said,
to beg a holiday for me, that I might have a run in the park, this
fine frosty morning, with Milicent and Esther and little Arthur,
whom he had driven over to see me.  Our poor invalid evidently felt
it a heartless proposition, and would have felt it still more
heartless in me to accede to it.  I therefore said I would only go
and speak to them a minute, and then come back.  I did but exchange
a few words with them, just outside the portico, inhaling the
fresh, bracing air as I stood, and then, resisting the earnest and
eloquent entreaties of all three to stay a little longer, and join
them in a walk round the garden, I tore myself away and returned to
my patient.  I had not been absent five minutes, but he reproached
me bitterly for my levity and neglect.  His friend espoused my
cause.


'Nay, nay, Huntingdon,' said he, 'you're too hard upon her; she
must have food and sleep, and a mouthful of fresh air now and then,
or she can't stand it, I tell you.  Look at her, man! she's worn to
a shadow already.'


'What are her sufferings to mine?' said the poor invalid.  'You
don't grudge me these attentions, do you, Helen?'


'No, Arthur, if I could really serve you by them.  I would give my
life to save you, if I might.'


'Would you, indeed?  No!'


'Most willingly I would.'


'Ah! that's because you think yourself more fit to die!'


There was a painful pause.  He was evidently plunged in gloomy
reflections; but while I pondered for something to say that might
benefit without alarming him, Hattersley, whose mind had been
pursuing almost the same course, broke silence with, 'I say,
Huntingdon, I would send for a parson of some sort:  if you didn't
like the vicar, you know, you could have his curate, or somebody
else.'


'No; none of them can benefit me if she can't,' was the answer.
And the tears gushed from his eyes as he earnestly exclaimed, 'Oh,
Helen, if I had listened to you, it never would have come to this!
and if I had heard you long ago - oh, God! how different it would
have been!'


'Hear me now, then, Arthur,' said I, gently pressing his hand.


'It's too late now,' said he despondingly.  And after that another
paroxysm of pain came on; and then his mind began to wander, and we
feared his death was approaching:  but an opiate was administered:
his sufferings began to abate, he gradually became more composed,
and at length sank into a kind of slumber.  He has been quieter
since; and now Hattersley has left him, expressing a hope that he
shall find him better when he calls to-morrow.


'Perhaps I may recover,' he replied; 'who knows?  This may have
been the crisis.  What do you think, Helen?'  Unwilling to depress
him, I gave the most cheering answer I could, but still recommended
him to prepare for the possibility of what I inly feared was but
too certain.  But he was determined to hope.  Shortly after he
relapsed into a kind of doze, but now he groans again.


There is a change.  Suddenly he called me to his side, with such a
strange, excited manner, that I feared he was delirious, but he was
not.  'That was the crisis, Helen!' said he, delightedly.  'I had
an infernal pain here - it is quite gone now.  I never was so easy
since the fall - quite gone, by heaven!' and he clasped and kissed
my hand in the very fulness of his heart; but finding I did not
participate his joy, he quickly flung it from him, and bitterly
cursed my coldness and insensibility.  How could I reply?  Kneeling
beside him, I took his hand and fondly pressed it to my lips - for
the first time since our separation - and told him, as well as
tears would let me speak, that it was not that that kept me silent:
it was the fear that this sudden cessation of pain was not so
favourable a symptom as he supposed.  I immediately sent for the
doctor:  we are now anxiously awaiting him.  I will tell you what
he says.  There is still the same freedom from pain, the same
deadness to all sensation where the suffering was most acute.


My worst fears are realised:  mortification has commenced.  The
doctor has told him there is no hope.  No words can describe his
anguish.  I can write no more.


* * * * *


The next was still more distressing in the tenor of its contents.
The sufferer was fast approaching dissolution - dragged almost to
the verge of that awful chasm he trembled to contemplate, from
which no agony of prayers or tears could save him.  Nothing could
comfort him now; Hattersley's rough attempts at consolation were
utterly in vain.  The world was nothing to him:  life and all its
interests, its petty cares and transient pleasures, were a cruel
mockery.  To talk of the past was to torture him with vain remorse;
to refer to the future was to increase his anguish; and yet to be
silent was to leave him a prey to his own regrets and
apprehensions.  Often he dwelt with shuddering minuteness on the
fate of his perishing clay - the slow, piecemeal dissolution
already invading his frame:  the shroud, the coffin, the dark,
lonely grave, and all the horrors of corruption.


'If I try,' said his afflicted wife, 'to divert him from these
things - to raise his thoughts to higher themes, it is no better:-
"Worse and worse!" he groans.  "If there be really life beyond the
tomb, and judgment after death, how can I face it?" - I cannot do
him any good; he will neither be enlightened, nor roused, nor
comforted by anything I say; and yet he clings to me with
unrelenting pertinacity - with a kind of childish desperation, as
if I could save him from the fate he dreads.  He keeps me night and
day beside him.  He is holding my left hand now, while I write; he
has held it thus for hours:  sometimes quietly, with his pale face
upturned to mine:  sometimes clutching my arm with violence - the
big drops starting from his forehead at the thoughts of what he
sees, or thinks he sees, before him.  If I withdraw my hand for a
moment it distresses him.


'"Stay with me, Helen," he says; "let me hold you so:  it seems as
if harm could not reach me while you are here.  But death will come
- it is coming now - fast, fast! - and - oh, if I could believe
there was nothing after!"


'"Don't try to believe it, Arthur; there is joy and glory after, if
you will but try to reach it!"


'"What, for me?" he said, with something like a laugh.  "Are we not
to be judged according to the deeds done in the body?  Where's the
use of a probationary existence, if a man may spend it as he
pleases, just contrary to God's decrees, and then go to heaven with
the best - if the vilest sinner may win the reward of the holiest
saint, by merely saying, "I repent!"'


'"But if you sincerely repent - "


'"I can't repent; I only fear."


'"You only regret the past for its consequences to yourself?"


'"Just so - except that I'm sorry to have wronged you, Nell,
because you're so good to me."


'"Think of the goodness of God, and you cannot but be grieved to
have offended Him."


'"What is God? - I cannot see Him or hear Him. - God is only an
idea."


'"God is Infinite Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness - and LOVE; but
if this idea is too vast for your human faculties - if your mind
loses itself in its overwhelming infinitude, fix it on Him who
condescended to take our nature upon Him, who was raised to heaven
even in His glorified human body, in whom the fulness of the
Godhead shines."


'But he only shook his head and sighed.  Then, in another paroxysm
of shuddering horror, he tightened his grasp on my hand and arm,
and, groaning and lamenting, still clung to me with that wild,
desperate earnestness so harrowing to my soul, because I know I
cannot help him.  I did my best to soothe and comfort him.


'"Death is so terrible," he cried, "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
looked 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 death-bed!  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.