Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (370 page)

CHAPTER XXX

On the following morning I received a few lines from him myself, confirming Hargrave’s intimations respecting his approaching return.  And he did come next week, but in a condition of body and mind even worse than before.  I did not, however, intend to pass over his derelictions this time without a remark; I found it would not do.  But the first day he was weary with his journey, and I was glad to get him back: I would not upbraid him then; I would wait till to-morrow.  Next morning he was weary still: I would wait a little longer.  But at dinner, when, after breakfasting at twelve o’clock on a bottle of soda-water and a cup of strong coffee, and lunching at two on another bottle of soda-water mingled with brandy, he was finding fault with everything on the table, and declaring we must change our cook, I thought the time was come.

‘It is the same cook as we had before you went, Arthur,’ said I.  ‘You were generally pretty well satisfied with her then.’

‘You must have been letting her get into slovenly habits, then, while I was away.  It is enough to poison one, eating such a disgusting mess!’  And he pettishly pushed away his plate, and leant back despairingly in his chair.

‘I think it is you that are changed, not she,’ said I, but with the utmost gentleness, for I did not wish to irritate him.

‘It may be so,’ he replied carelessly, as he seized a tumbler of wine and water, adding, when he had tossed it off, ‘for I have an infernal fire in my veins, that all the waters of the ocean cannot quench!’

‘What kindled it?’ I was about to ask, but at that moment the butler entered and began to take away the things.

‘Be quick, Benson; do have done with that infernal clatter!’ cried his master.  ‘And don’t bring the cheese, unless you want to make me sick outright!’

Benson, in some surprise, removed the cheese, and did his best to effect a quiet and speedy clearance of the rest; but, unfortunately, there was a rumple in the carpet, caused by the hasty pushing back of his master’s chair, at which he tripped and stumbled, causing a rather alarming concussion with the trayful of crockery in his hands, but no positive damage, save the fall and breaking of a sauce tureen; but, to my unspeakable shame and dismay, Arthur turned furiously around upon him, and swore at him with savage coarseness.  The poor man turned pale, and visibly trembled as he stooped to pick up the fragments.

‘He couldn’t help it, Arthur,’ said I; ‘the carpet caught his foot, and there’s no great harm done.  Never mind the pieces now, Benson; you can clear them away afterwards.’

Glad to be released, Benson expeditiously set out the dessert and withdrew.

‘What could you mean, Helen, by taking the servant’s part against me,’ said Arthur, as soon as the door was closed, ‘when you knew I was distracted?’

‘I did not know you were distracted, Arthur: and the poor man was quite frightened and hurt at your sudden explosion.’

‘Poor man, indeed! and do you think I could stop to consider the feelings of an insensate brute like that, when my own nerves were racked and torn to pieces by his confounded blunders?’

‘I never heard you complain of your nerves before.’

‘And why shouldn’t I have nerves as well as you?’

‘Oh, I don’t dispute your claim to their possession, but I never complain of mine.’

‘No, how should you, when you never do anything to try them?’

‘Then why do you try yours, Arthur?’

‘Do you think I have nothing to do but to stay at home and take care of myself like a woman?’

‘Is it impossible, then, to take care of yourself like a man when you go abroad?  You told me that you could, and would too; and you promised — ’

‘Come, come, Helen, don’t begin with that nonsense now; I can’t bear it.’

‘Can’t bear what? — to be reminded of the promises you have broken?’

‘Helen, you are cruel.  If you knew how my heart throbbed, and how every nerve thrilled through me while you spoke, you would spare me.  You can pity a dolt of a servant for breaking a dish; but you have no compassion for me when my head is split in two and all on fire with this consuming fever.’

He leant his head on his hand, and sighed.  I went to him and put my hand on his forehead.  It was burning indeed.

‘Then come with me into the drawing-room, Arthur; and don’t take any more wine: you have taken several glasses since dinner, and eaten next to nothing all the day.  How can that make you better?’

With some coaxing and persuasion, I got him to leave the table.  When the baby was brought I tried to amuse him with that; but poor little Arthur was cutting his teeth, and his father could not bear his complaints: sentence of immediate banishment was passed upon him on the first indication of fretfulness; and because, in the course of the evening, I went to share his exile for a little while, I was reproached, on my return, for preferring my child to my husband.  I found the latter reclining on the sofa just as I had left him.

‘Well!’ exclaimed the injured man, in a tone of pseudo-resignation.  ‘I thought I wouldn’t send for you; I thought I’d just see how long it would please you to leave me alone.’

‘I have not been very long, have I, Arthur?  I have not been an hour, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, of course, an hour is nothing to you, so pleasantly employed; but to me — ’

‘It has not been pleasantly employed,’ interrupted I.  ‘I have been nursing our poor little baby, who is very far from well, and I could not leave him till I got him to sleep.’

‘Oh, to be sure, you’re overflowing with kindness and pity for everything but me.’

‘And why should I pity you?  What is the matter with you?’

‘Well! that passes everything!  After all the wear and tear that I’ve had, when I come home sick and weary, longing for comfort, and expecting to find attention and kindness, at least from my wife, she calmly asks what is the matter with me!’

‘There is nothing the matter with you,’ returned I, ‘except what you have wilfully brought upon yourself, against my earnest exhortation and entreaty.’

‘Now, Helen,’ said he emphatically, half rising from his recumbent posture, ‘if you bother me with another word, I’ll ring the bell and order six bottles of wine, and, by heaven, I’ll drink them dry before I stir from this place!’

I said no more, but sat down before the table and drew a book towards me.

‘Do let me have quietness at least!’ continued he, ‘if you deny me every other comfort;’ and sinking back into his former position, with an impatient expiration between a sigh and a groan, he languidly closed his eyes, as if to sleep.

What the book was that lay open on the table before me, I cannot tell, for I never looked at it.  With an elbow on each side of it, and my hands clasped before my eyes, I delivered myself up to silent weeping.  But Arthur was not asleep: at the first slight sob, he raised his head and looked round, impatiently exclaiming, ‘What are you crying for, Helen?  What the deuce is the matter now?’

‘I’m crying for you, Arthur,’ I replied, speedily drying my tears; and starting up, I threw myself on my knees before him, and clasping his nerveless hand between my own, continued: ‘Don’t you know that you are a part of myself?  And do you think you can injure and degrade yourself, and I not feel it?’

‘Degrade myself, Helen?’

‘Yes, degrade!  What have you been doing all this time?’

‘You’d better not ask,’ said he, with a faint smile.

‘And you had better not tell; but you cannot deny that you have degraded yourself miserably.  You have shamefully wronged yourself, body and soul, and me too; and I can’t endure it quietly, and I won’t!’

‘Well, don’t squeeze my hand so frantically, and don’t agitate me so, for heaven’s sake!  Oh, Hattersley! you were right: this woman will be the death of me, with her keen feelings and her interesting force of character.  There, there, do spare me a little.’

‘Arthur, you must repent!’ cried I, in a frenzy of desperation, throwing my arms around him and burying my face in his bosom.  ‘You shall say you are sorry for what you have done!’

‘Well, well, I am.’

‘You are not! you’ll do it again.’

‘I shall never live to do it again if you treat me so savagely,’ replied he, pushing me from him.  ‘You’ve nearly squeezed the breath out of my body.’  He pressed his hand to his heart, and looked really agitated and ill.

‘Now get me a glass of wine,’ said he, ‘to remedy what you’ve done, you she tiger!  I’m almost ready to faint.’

I flew to get the required remedy.  It seemed to revive him considerably.

‘What a shame it is,’ said I, as I took the empty glass from his hand, ‘for a strong young man like you to reduce yourself to such a state!’

‘If you knew all, my girl, you’d say rather, “What a wonder it is you can bear it so well as you do!”  I’ve lived more in these four months, Helen, than you have in the whole course of your existence, or will to the end of your days, if they numbered a hundred years; so I must expect to pay for it in some shape.’

‘You will have to pay a higher price than you anticipate, if you don’t take care: there will be the total loss of your own health, and of my affection too, if that is of any value to you.’

‘What! you’re at that game of threatening me with the loss of your affection again, are you?  I think it couldn’t have been very genuine stuff to begin with, if it’s so easily demolished.  If you don’t mind, my pretty tyrant, you’ll make me regret my choice in good earnest, and envy my friend Hattersley his meek little wife: she’s quite a pattern to her sex, Helen.  He had her with him in London all the season, and she was no trouble at all.  He might amuse himself just as he pleased, in regular bachelor style, and she never complained of neglect; he might come home at any hour of the night or morning, or not come home at all; be sullen, sober, or glorious drunk; and play the fool or the madman to his own heart’s desire, without any fear or botheration.  She never gives him a word of reproach or complaint, do what he will.  He says there’s not such a jewel in all England, and swears he wouldn’t take a kingdom for her.’

‘But he makes her life a curse to her.’

‘Not he!  She has no will but his, and is always contented and happy as long as he is enjoying himself.’

‘In that case she is as great a fool as he is; but it is not so.  I have several letters from her, expressing the greatest anxiety about his proceedings, and complaining that you incite him to commit those extravagances — one especially, in which she implores me to use my influence with you to get you away from London, and affirms that her husband never did such things before you came, and would certainly discontinue them as soon as you departed and left him to the guidance of his own good sense.’

‘The detestable little traitor!  Give me the letter, and he shall see it as sure as I’m a living man.’

‘No, he shall not see it without her consent; but if he did, there is nothing there to anger him, nor in any of the others.  She never speaks a word against him: it is only anxiety for him that she expresses.  She only alludes to his conduct in the most delicate terms, and makes every excuse for him that she can possibly think of; and as for her own misery, I rather feel it than see it expressed in her letters.’

‘But she abuses me; and no doubt you helped her.’

‘No; I told her she over-rated my influence with you, that I would gladly draw you away from the temptations of the town if I could, but had little hope of success, and that I thought she was wrong in supposing that you enticed Mr. Hattersley or any one else into error.  I had myself held the contrary opinion at one time, but I now believed that you mutually corrupted each other; and, perhaps, if she used a little gentle but serious remonstrance with her husband, it might be of some service; as, though he was more rough-hewn than mine, I believed he was of a less impenetrable material.’

‘And so that is the way you go on — heartening each other up to mutiny, and abusing each other’s partners, and throwing out implications against your own, to the mutual gratification of both!’