The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Classics) (21 page)

‘And how much of our conversation did you hear?’

‘I heard quite enough, Helen. And it was well for me that I did hear it; for nothing less could have cured my infatuation. I always said and thought, that I would never believe a word against you, unless I heard it from your own lips. All the hints and affirmations of others I treated as malignant, baseless slanders; your own self-accusations I believed to be over-strained; and all that seemed unaccountable in your position, I trusted that you could account for if you chose.’

Mrs Graham had discontinued her walk. She leant against one end of the chimney-piece, opposite that near which I was standing, with her chin resting on her closed hand, her eyes – no longer burning with anger, but gleaming with restless excitement – sometimes glancing at me while I spoke, then coursing the opposite wall, or fixed upon the carpet.

‘You should have come to me, after all,’ said she, ‘and heard what I had to say in my own justification. It was ungenerous and wrong to withdraw yourself so secretly and suddenly, immediately after such ardent protestations of attachment, without ever assigning a reason for the change. You should have told me all – no matter
bow
bitterly – It would have been better than this silence.’

‘To what end should I have done so? – You could not have enlightened me farther, on the subject which alone concerned me; nor could you have made me discredit the evidence of my senses. I desired our intimacy to be discontinued at once, as you yourself had acknowledged would probably be the case if I knew all; but I did not wish to upbraid you, – though (as you also acknowledged) you had deeply wronged me – Yes; you have done me an injury you can never repair – or any other either – you have blighted the freshness and promise of youth, and made my life a wilderness! I might live a hundred years, but I could never recover from the effects of this withering blow – and never forget it! Hereafter – You smile Mrs Graham,’ said I, suddenly stopping short, checked in my passionate declamation by unutterable feelings to behold her actually
smiling
at the picture of the ruin she had wrought.

‘Did I?’ replied she, looking seriously up, ‘I was not aware of it. If I did, it was not for pleasure at the thought of the harm I had done you. – Heaven knows I have had torment enough at the bare possibility of that! – it was for joy to find that you had some depth of soul and feeling after all, and to hope that I had not been utterly mistaken in your worth. But smiles and tears are so alike with me; they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.’

She looked at me again, and seemed to expect a reply; but I continued silent

‘Would you be
very
glad,’ resumed she, ‘to find that you were mistaken in your conclusions?’

‘How can you ask it, Helen?’

‘I don’t say I can clear myself altogether,’ said she, speaking low and fast, while her heart beat visibly and her bosom heaved with excitement, – ‘but would you be glad to discover I was better than you think me?’

‘Anything, that could, in the least degree, tend to restore my former opinion of you, to excuse the regard I still feel for you, and alleviate the pangs of unutterable regret that accompany it, would be only too gladly – too eagerly received!’

Her cheeks burned and her whole frame trembled, now, with
excess of agitation. She did not speak, but flew to her desk, and, snatching thence what seemed a thick album or manuscript volume, hastily tore away a few leaves from the end,
⁴
and thrust the rest into my hand, saying, ‘You needn’t read it all; but take it home with you,’ – and hurried from the room. But when I had left the house, and was proceeding down the walk, she opened the window and called me back. It was only to say, –

‘Bring it back when you have read it; and don’t breathe a word of what it tells you to any living being – I trust to your honour.’

Before I could answer, she had closed the casement and turned away. I saw her cast herself back in the old oak chair, and cover her face with her hands. Her feelings had been wrought to a pitch that rendered it necessary to seek relief in tears.

Panting with eagerness, and struggling to suppress my hopes, I hurried home, and rushed upstairs to my room, – having first provided myself with a candle, though it was scarcely twilight yet, – then, shut and bolted the door, determined to tolerate no interruption, and sitting down before the table, opened out my prize and delivered myself up to its perusal – first, hastily turning over the leaves and snatching a sentence here and there, and then, setting myself steadily to read it through.

I have it now before me; and though you could not, of course, peruse it with half the interest that I did, I know you would not be satisfied with an abbreviation of its contents and you shall have the whole, save, perhaps, a few passages here and there of merely temporal interest to the writer, or such as would serve to encumber the story rather than elucidate it. It begins somewhat abruptly, thus – but we will reserve its commencement for another chapter, and call it, –

June 1st, 1821
¹
– We have just returned to Staningley – that is, we returned some days ago, and I am not yet settled, and feel as if I never should be. We left town sooner than was intended, in consequence of my uncle’s indisposition – I wonder what would have been the result if we had stayed the full time. I am quite ashamed of my new-sprung distaste for country life. All my former occupations seem so tedious and dull, my former amusements so insipid and unprofitable. I cannot enjoy my music, because there is no one to hear it. I cannot enjoy my walks, because there is no one to meet. I cannot enjoy my books, because they have not power to arrest my attention: my head is so haunted with the recollections of the last few weeks that I cannot attend to them. My drawing suits me best, for I can draw and think at the same time; and if my productions cannot now be seen by anyone but myself and those who do not care about them, they, possibly, may be, hereafter. But then, there is one face I am always trying to paint or to sketch, and always without success; and that vexes me. As for the owner of that face, I cannot get him out of my mind – and, indeed, I never try. I wonder whether he ever thinks of me; and I wonder whether I shall ever see him again. And then might follow a train of other wonderments – questions for time and fate to answer, concluding with: – supposing all the rest be answered in the affirmative, I wonder whether I shall ever repent it – as my aunt would tell me I should, if she knew what I was thinking about. How distinctly I remember our conversation that evening before our departure for town, when we were sitting together over the fire, my uncle having gone to bed with a slight attack of the gout.

‘Helen’, said she, after a thoughtful silence, ‘do you ever think about marriage?’

‘Yes aunt, often.’

‘And do you ever contemplate the possibility of being married yourself, or engaged, before the season is over?’

‘Sometimes; but I don’t think it at all likely that I
ever
shall.’

‘Why so?’

‘Because I imagine there must be only a very, very few men in the world, that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one, he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me.’

‘That is no argument at all. It may be very true – and I hope
is
true, that there are very few men whom you could choose to marry, of yourself – It is not, indeed, to be supposed that you would
wish
to marry
any
one, till you were asked:
²
a girl’s affections should never be won unsought. But when they
are
sought – when the citadel of the heart is fairly besieged, it is apt to surrender sooner than the owner is aware of, and often against her better judgment, and in opposition to all her preconceived ideas of what she could have loved, unless she be extremely careful and discreet. Now I want to warn you, Helen, of these things, and to exhort you to be watchful and circumspect from the very commencement of your career, and not to suffer your heart to be stolen from you by the first foolish or unprincipled person that covets the possession of it. – You know, my dear, you are only just eighteen; there is plenty of time before you, and neither your uncle nor I are in any hurry to get you off our hands; and, I may venture to say, there will be no lack of suitors; for you can boast a good family, a pretty considerable fortune and expectations, and, I may as well tell you likewise – for if I don’t others will – that you have a fair share of beauty, besides – and I hope you may never have cause to regret it! –’

‘I hope not, aunt; but why should you fear it?’

‘Because, my dear, beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.’

‘Have
you
been troubled in that way, aunt?’

‘No, Helen,’ said she, with reproachful gravity, ‘but I know many that have; and some, through carelessness, have been the wretched victims of deceit; and some, through weakness, have fallen into snares and temptations terrible to relate.’

‘Well, I shall be neither careless nor weak.’

‘Remember Peter, Helen! Don’t boast, but
watch
?
³
Keep a guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlet, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness. Receive, coldly and dispassionately, every attention, till you have ascertained and duly considered the worth of the aspirant; and let your affections be consequent upon approbation alone. First study; then approve; then love. Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourse. – These are nothing – and worse than nothing – snares and wiles of the tempter, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction. Principle is the first thing, after all; and next to that, good sense, respectability, and moderate wealth. If you should marry the handsomest, and most accomplished and superficially agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you, if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate,
⁴
or even an impracticable fool.’

‘But what are all the poor fools and reprobates to do, aunt? If everybody followed your advice the world would soon come to an end.’

‘Never fear, my dear! the male fools and reprobates will never want for partners while there are so many of the other sex to match them; but do
you
follow my advice. And this is no subject for jesting, Helen, I am sorry to see you treat the matter in that light way. Believe me,
matrimony is a serious thing’
And she spoke it
so
seriously that one might have fancied she had known it to her cost; but I asked no more impertinent questions, and merely answered, –

‘I know it is; and I know there is truth and sense in what you say; but you need not fear me, for I not only should think it
wrong
to marry a man that was deficient in sense or in principle, but I should never be
tempted
to do it; for I could not like him, if he were ever so handsome and ever so charming in other respects; I should hate him
– despise him – pity him – anything but love him. My affections not only
ought
to be founded on approbation, but they will and must be so: for without approving I cannot love. It is needless to say I ought to be able to respect and honour the man I marry as
well
as love him, for I cannot love him without. So set your mind at rest.’

‘I hope it may be so,’ answered she.

‘I
know
it is so,’ persisted I.

‘You have not been tried yet, Helen: we can but hope,’ said she, in her cold, cautious way.

I was vexed at her incredulity; but I am not sure her doubts were entirely without sagacity; I fear I have found it much easier to remember her advice than to profit by it – Indeed, I have sometimes been led to question the soundness of her doctrines on those subjects. Her counsels may be good, as far as they go – in the main points, at least; – but there are some things she has overlooked in her calculations. I wonder if
she
was ever in love.

I commenced my career – or my first campaign, as my uncle calls it – kindling with bright hopes and fancies – chiefly raised by this conversation – and full of confidence in my own discretion. At first, I was delighted with the novelty and excitement of our London life; but, soon, I began to weary of its mingled turbulence and constraint, and sigh for the freshness and freedom of home. My new acquaintances, both male and female, disappointed my expectations, and vexed and depressed me by turns; for I soon grew tired of studying their peculiarities, and laughing at their foibles – particularly as I was obliged to keep my criticisms to myself, for my aunt would not hear them – and they – the ladies especially – appeared so provokingly mindless, and heartless, and artificial. The gentlemen seemed better, but perhaps it was because I knew them less, perhaps, because they flattered me; but I did not fall in love with any of them, and if their attentions pleased me one moment, they provoked me the next, because they put me out of humour with myself, by revealing my vanity and making me fear I was becoming like some of the ladies I so heartily despised.

There was one elderly gentleman that annoyed me very much; a rich old friend of my uncle’s who, I believe, thought I could not do
better than marry him; but, besides being old, he was ugly and disagreeable, – and wicked, I am sure, though my aunt scolded me for saying so; but she allowed he was no saint. And there was another, less hateful, but still
more
tiresome, because she favoured him, and was always thrusting him upon me, and sounding his praises in my ears, Mr Boarham, by name,
⁵
Bore’em as I prefer spelling it, for a terrible bore he was: I shudder still, at the remembrance of his voice, drone, drone, drone, in my ear, while he sat beside me, prosing away by the half-hour together, and beguiling himself with the notion that he was improving my mind by useful information, or, impressing his dogmas upon me, and reforming my errors of judgment, or perhaps, that he was talking down to my level, and amusing me with entertaining discourse. Yet he was a decent man enough, in the main, I dare say; and if he had kept his distance, I never would have hated him. As it was, it was almost impossible to help it; for he not only bothered me with the infliction of his own presence, but he kept me from the enjoyment of more agreeable society.