The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Classics) (69 page)

There was a pause of which Arthur thought he might venture to avail himself to introduce his handsome young setter and show me how wonderfully it was grown and improved, and to ask after the welfare of its father Sancho. Mrs Maxwell then withdrew to take off her things. Helen immediately pushed the book from her and after silently surveying her son, his friend, and his dog for a few moments, she dismissed the former from the room under pretence of wishing him to fetch his last new book to show me. The child obeyed with alacrity; but I continued caressing the dog. The silence might have lasted till its master’s return had it depended on me to break it, but, in half a minute or less, my hostess impatiently rose, and taking her former station on the rug between me and the chimney corner, earnestly exclaimed –

‘Gilbert, what
is
the matter with you? – why are you so changed? – It is a very indiscreet question I know,’ she hastened to add: ‘perhaps, a very rude one – don’t answer it if you think so – but I hate mysteries and concealments.’

‘I am not changed, Helen – unfortunately I am as keen and passionate as ever – it is not I, it is circumstances that are changed.’

‘What circumstances?
Do
tell me!’ Her cheek was blanched with the very anguish of anxiety – could it be with the fear that I had rashly pledged my faith to another?

‘I’ll tell you at once,’ said I. ‘I will confess that I came here for the purpose of seeing you (not without some monitory misgivings at my own presumption, and fears that I should be as little welcome as expected when I came), but I did not know that this estate was yours, until enlightened on the subject of your inheritance by the conversation of two fellow passengers in the last stage of my journey; and then, I saw at once the folly of the hopes I had cherished and the madness of retaining them a moment longer; and though I alighted at your gates, I determined not to enter within them; I lingered a few minutes to see the place, but was fully resolved to return to M— without seeing its mistress.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Did you ever ask him?’

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

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

‘Why should I stay any longer?’

‘Wait till Arthur comes, at least’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘It shall,’ I answered.

‘There, then; take it.’

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

‘Now, are you going?’ said she.

‘I will if – if I must’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘But have you considered the consequences?’

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

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

‘But if you
should
repent!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Where is your fidelity?’

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

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

‘Your friends will disapprove.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘
Next
spring.’

‘No, no – next autumn, perhaps.’

‘Summer, then.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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