Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (384 page)

November 3rd. — I have made some further acquaintance with my neighbours.  The fine gentleman and beau of the parish and its vicinity (in his own estimation, at least) is a young . . . .

* * * * *

Here it ended.  The rest was torn away.  How cruel, just when she was going to mention me! for I could not doubt it was your humble servant she was about to mention, though not very favourably, of course.  I could tell that, as well by those few words as by the recollection of her whole aspect and demeanour towards me in the commencement of our acquaintance.  Well!  I could readily forgive her prejudice against me, and her hard thoughts of our sex in general, when I saw to what brilliant specimens her experience had been limited.

Respecting me, however, she had long since seen her error, and perhaps fallen into another in the opposite extreme: for if, at first, her opinion of me had been lower than I deserved, I was convinced that now my deserts were lower than her opinion; and if the former part of this continuation had been torn away to avoid wounding my feelings, perhaps the latter portion had been removed for fear of ministering too much to my self-conceit.  At any rate, I would have given much to have seen it all — to have witnessed the gradual change, and watched the progress of her esteem and friendship for me, and whatever warmer feeling she might have; to have seen how much of love there was in her regard, and how it had grown upon her in spite of her virtuous resolutions and strenuous exertions to — but no, I had no right to see it: all this was too sacred for any eyes but her own, and she had done well to keep it from me.

CHAPTER XLV

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.’