CHAPTER XXXVII

The Tenent of Windfell Hall

by Anne Bronte

CHAPTER XXXVII, THE TENENT OF WINDFELL HALL by Anne Bronte
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December 20th, 1825. - Another year is past; and I am weary of this
life. And yet I cannot wish to leave it: whatever afflictions
assail me here, I cannot wish to go and leave my darling in this
dark and wicked world alone, without a friend to guide him through
its weary mazes, to warn him of its thousand snares, and guard him
from the perils that beset him on every hand. I am not well fitted
to be his only companion, I know; but there is no other to supply
my place. I am too grave to minister to his amusements and enter
into his infantile sports as a nurse or a mother ought to do, and
often his bursts of gleeful merriment trouble and alarm me; I see
in them his father's spirit and temperament, and I tremble for the
consequences; and too often damp the innocent mirth I ought to
share. That father, on the contrary, has no weight of sadness on
his mind; is troubled with no fears, no scruples concerning his
son's future welfare; and at evenings especially, the times when
the child sees him the most and the oftenest, he is always
particularly jocund and open-hearted: ready to laugh and to jest
with anything or anybody but me, and I am particularly silent and
sad: therefore, of course, the child dotes upon his seemingly
joyous amusing, ever-indulgent papa, and will at any time gladly
exchange my company for his. This disturbs me greatly; not so much
for the sake of my son's affection (though I do prize that highly,
and though I feel it is my right, and know I have done much to earn
it) as for that influence over him which, for his own advantage, I
would strive to purchase and retain, and which for very spite his
father delights to rob me of, and, from motives of mere idle
egotism, is pleased to win to himself; making no use of it but to
torment me and ruin the child. My only consolation is, that he
spends comparatively little of his time at home, and, during the
months he passes in London or elsewhere, I have a chance of
recovering the ground I had lost, and overcoming with good the evil
he has wrought by his wilful mismanagement. But then it is a
bitter trial to behold him, on his return, doing his utmost to
subvert my labours and transform my innocent, affectionate,
tractable darling into a selfish, disobedient, and mischievous boy;
thereby preparing the soil for those vices he has so successfully
cultivated in his own perverted nature.

Happily, there were none of Arthur's 'friends' invited to Grassdale
last autumn: he took himself off to visit some of them instead. I
wish he would always do so, and I wish his friends were numerous
and loving enough to keep him amongst them all the year round. Mr.
Hargrave, considerably to my annoyance, did not go with him; but I
think I have done with that gentleman at last.

For seven or eight months he behaved so remarkably well, and
managed so skilfully too, that I was almost completely off my
guard, and was really beginning to look upon him as a friend, and
even to treat him as such, with certain prudent restrictions (which
I deemed scarcely necessary); when, presuming upon my unsuspecting
kindness, he thought he might venture to overstep the bounds of
decent moderation and propriety that had so long restrained him.
It was on a pleasant evening at the close of May: I was wandering
in the park, and he, on seeing me there as he rode past, made bold
to enter and approach me, dismounting and leaving his horse at the
gate. This was the first time he had ventured to come within its
inclosure since I had been left alone, without the sanction of his
mother's or sister's company, or at least the excuse of a message
from them. But he managed to appear so calm and easy, so
respectful and self-possessed in his friendliness, that, though a
little surprised, I was neither alarmed nor offended at the unusual
liberty, and he walked with me under the ash-trees and by the
water-side, and talked, with considerable animation, good taste,
and intelligence, on many subjects, before I began to think about
getting rid of him. Then, after a pause, during which we both
stood gazing on the calm, blue water - I revolving in my mind the
best means of politely dismissing my companion, he, no doubt,
pondering other matters equally alien to the sweet sights and
sounds that alone were present to his senses, - he suddenly
electrified me by beginning, in a peculiar tone, low, soft, but
perfectly distinct, to pour forth the most unequivocal expressions
of earnest and passionate love; pleading his cause with all the
bold yet artful eloquence he could summon to his aid. But I cut
short his appeal, and repulsed him so determinately, so decidedly,
and with such a mixture of scornful indignation, tempered with
cool, dispassionate sorrow and pity for his benighted mind, that he
withdrew, astonished, mortified, and discomforted; and, a few days
after, I heard that he had departed for London. He returned,
however, in eight or nine weeks, and did not entirely keep aloof
from me, but comported himself in so remarkable a manner that his
quick-sighted sister could not fail to notice the change.

'What have you done to Walter, Mrs. Huntingdon?' said she one
morning, when I had called at the Grove, and he had just left the
room after exchanging a few words of the coldest civility. 'He has
been so extremely ceremonious and stately of late, I can't imagine
what it is all about, unless you have desperately offended him.
Tell me what it is, that I may be your mediator, and make you
friends again.'

'I have done nothing willingly to offend him,' said I. 'If he is
offended, he can best tell you himself what it is about.'

'I'll ask him,' cried the giddy girl, springing up and putting her
head out of the window: 'he's only in the garden - Walter!'

'No, no, Esther! you will seriously displease me if you do; and I
shall leave you immediately, and not come again for months -
perhaps years.'

'Did you call, Esther?' said her brother, approaching the window
from without.

'Yes; I wanted to ask you - '

'Good-morning, Esther,' said I, talking her hand and giving it a
severe squeeze.

'To ask you,' continued she, 'to get me a rose for Mrs.
Huntingdon.' He departed. 'Mrs. Huntingdon,' she exclaimed,
turning to me and still holding me fast by the hand, 'I'm quite
shocked at you - you're just as angry, and distant, and cold as he
is: and I'm determined you shall be as good friends as ever before
you go.'

'Esther, how can you be so rude!' cried Mrs. Hargrave, who was
seated gravely knitting in her easy-chair. 'Surely, you never will
learn to conduct yourself like a lady!'

'Well, mamma, you said yourself - ' But the young lady was
silenced by the uplifted finger of her mamma, accompanied with a
very stern shake of the head.

'Isn't she cross?' whispered she to me; but, before I could add my
share of reproof, Mr. Hargrave reappeared at the window with a
beautiful moss-rose in his hand.

'Here, Esther, I've brought you the rose,' said he, extending it
towards her.

'Give it her yourself, you blockhead!' cried she, recoiling with a
spring from between us.

'Mrs. Huntingdon would rather receive it from you,' replied he, in
a very serious tone, but lowering his voice that his mother might
not hear. His sister took the rose and gave it to me.

'My brother's compliments, Mrs. Huntingdon, and he hopes you and he
will come to a better understanding by-and-by. Will that do,
Walter?' added the saucy girl, turning to him and putting her arm
round his neck, as he stood leaning upon the sill of the window -
'or should I have said that you are sorry you were so touchy? or
that you hope she will pardon your offence?'

'You silly girl! you don't know what you are talking about,'
replied he gravely.

'Indeed I don't: for I'm quite in the dark!'

'Now, Esther,' interposed Mrs. Hargrave, who, if equally benighted
on the subject of our estrangement, saw at least that her daughter
was behaving very improperly, 'I must insist upon your leaving the
room!'

'Pray don't, Mrs. Hargrave, for I'm going to leave it myself,' said
I, and immediately made my adieux.

About a week after Mr. Hargrave brought his sister to see me. He
conducted himself, at first, with his usual cold, distant, half-
stately, half-melancholy, altogether injured air; but Esther made
no remark upon it this time: she had evidently been schooled into
better manners. She talked to me, and laughed and romped with
little Arthur, her loved and loving playmate. He, somewhat to my
discomfort, enticed her from the room to have a run in the hall,
and thence into the garden. I got up to stir the fire. Mr.
Hargrave asked if I felt cold, and shut the door - a very
unseasonable piece of officiousness, for I had meditated following
the noisy playfellows if they did not speedily return. He then
took the liberty of walking up to the fire himself, and asking me
if I were aware that Mr. Huntingdon was now at the seat of Lord
Lowborough, and likely to continue there some time.

'No; but it's no matter,' I answered carelessly; and if my cheek
glowed like fire, it was rather at the question than the
information it conveyed.

'You don't object to it?' he said.

'Not at all, if Lord Lowborough likes his company.'

'You have no love left for him, then?'

'Not the least.'

'I knew that - I knew you were too high-minded and pure in your own
nature to continue to regard one so utterly false and polluted with
any feelings but those of indignation and scornful abhorrence!'

'Is he not your friend?' said I, turning my eyes from the fire to
his face, with perhaps a slight touch of those feelings he assigned
to another.

'He was,' replied he, with the same calm gravity as before; 'but do
not wrong me by supposing that I could continue my friendship and
esteem to a man who could so infamously, so impiously forsake and
injure one so transcendently - well, I won't speak of it. But tell
me, do you never think of revenge?'

'Revenge! No - what good would that do? - it would make him no
better, and me no happier.'

'I don't know how to talk to you, Mrs. Huntingdon,' said he,
smiling; 'you are only half a woman - your nature must be half
human, half angelic. Such goodness overawes me; I don't know what
to make of it.'

'Then, sir, I fear you must be very much worse than you should be,
if I, a mere ordinary mortal, am, by your own confession, so vastly
your superior; and since there exists so little sympathy between
us, I think we had better each look out for some more congenial
companion.' And forthwith moving to the window, I began to look
out for my little son and his gay young friend.

'No, I am the ordinary mortal, I maintain,' replied Mr. Hargrave.
'I will not allow myself to be worse than my fellows; but you,
Madam - I equally maintain there is nobody like you. But are you
happy?' he asked in a serious tone.

'As happy as some others, I suppose.'

'Are you as happy as you desire to be?'

'No one is so blest as that comes to on this side eternity.'

'One thing I know,' returned he, with a deep sad sigh; 'you are
immeasurably happier than I am.'

'I am very sorry for you, then,' I could not help replying.

'Are you, indeed? No, for if you were you would be glad to relieve
me.'

'And so I should if I could do so without injuring myself or any
other.'

'And can you suppose that I should wish you to injure yourself?
No: on the contrary, it is your own happiness I long for more than
mine. You are miserable now, Mrs. Huntingdon,' continued he,
looking me boldly in the face. 'You do not complain, but I see -
and feel - and know that you are miserable - and must remain so as
long as you keep those walls of impenetrable ice about your still
warm and palpitating heart; and I am miserable, too. Deign to
smile on me and I am happy: trust me, and you shall be happy also,
for if you are a woman I can make you so - and I will do it in
spite of yourself!' he muttered between his teeth; 'and as for
others, the question is between ourselves alone: you cannot injure
your husband, you know, and no one else has any concern in the
matter.'

'I have a son, Mr. Hargrave, and you have a mother,' said I,
retiring from the window, whither he had followed me.

'They need not know,' he began; but before anything more could be
said on either side, Esther and Arthur re-entered the room. The
former glanced at Walter's flushed, excited countenance, and then
at mine - a little flushed and excited too, I daresay, though from
far different causes. She must have thought we had been
quarrelling desperately, and was evidently perplexed and disturbed
at the circumstance; but she was too polite or too much afraid of
her brother's anger to refer to it. She seated herself on the
sofa, and putting back her bright, golden ringlets, that were
scattered in wild profusion over her face, she immediately began to
talk about the garden and her little playfellow, and continued to
chatter away in her usual strain till her brother summoned her to
depart.

'If I have spoken too warmly, forgive me,' he murmured on taking
his leave, 'or I shall never forgive myself.' Esther smiled and
glanced at me: I merely bowed, and her countenance fell. She
thought it a poor return for Walter's generous concession, and was
disappointed in her friend. Poor child, she little knows the world
she lives in!

Mr. Hargrave had not an opportunity of meeting me again in private
for several weeks after this; but when he did meet me there was
less of pride and more of touching melancholy in his manner than
before. Oh, how he annoyed me! I was obliged at last almost
entirely to remit my visits to the Grove, at the expense of deeply
offending Mrs. Hargrave and seriously afflicting poor Esther, who
really values my society for want of better, and who ought not to
suffer for the fault of her brother. But that indefatigable foe
was not yet vanquished: he seemed to be always on the watch. I
frequently saw him riding lingeringly past the premises, looking
searchingly round him as he went - or, if I did not, Rachel did.
That sharp-sighted woman soon guessed how matters stood between us,
and descrying the enemy's movements from her elevation at the
nursery-window, she would give me a quiet intimation if she saw me
preparing for a walk when she had reason to believe he was about,
or to think it likely that he would meet or overtake me in the way
I meant to traverse. I would then defer my ramble, or confine
myself for that day to the park and gardens, or, if the proposed
excursion was a matter of importance, such as a visit to the sick
or afflicted, I would take Rachel with me, and then I was never
molested.

But one mild, sunshiny day, early in November, I had ventured forth
alone to visit the village school and a few of the poor tenants,
and on my return I was alarmed at the clatter of a horse's feet
behind me, approaching at a rapid, steady trot. There was no stile
or gap at hand by which I could escape into the fields, so I walked
quietly on, saying to myself, 'It may not be he after all; and if
it is, and if he do annoy me, it shall be for the last time, I am
determined, if there be power in words and looks against cool
impudence and mawkish sentimentality so inexhaustible as his.'

The horse soon overtook me, and was reined up close beside me. It
was Mr. Hargrave. He greeted me with a smile intended to be soft
and melancholy, but his triumphant satisfaction at having caught me
at last so shone through that it was quite a failure. After
briefly answering his salutation and inquiring after the ladies at
the Grove, I turned away and walked on; but he followed and kept
his horse at my side: it was evident he intended to be my
companion all the way.

'Well! I don't much care. If you want another rebuff, take it -
and welcome,' was my inward remark. 'Now, sir, what next?'

This question, though unspoken, was not long unanswered; after a
few passing observations upon indifferent subjects, he began in
solemn tones the following appeal to my humanity:-

'It will be four years next April since I first saw you, Mrs.
Huntingdon - you may have forgotten the circumstance, but I never
can. I admired you then most deeply, but I dared not love you. In
the following autumn I saw so much of your perfections that I could
not fail to love you, though I dared not show it. For upwards of
three years I have endured a perfect martyrdom. From the anguish
of suppressed emotions, intense and fruitless longings, silent
sorrow, crushed hopes, and trampled affections, I have suffered
more than I can tell, or you imagine - and you were the cause of
it, and not altogether the innocent cause. My youth is wasting
away; my prospects are darkened; my life is a desolate blank; I
have no rest day or night: I am become a burden to myself and
others, and you might save me by a word - a glance, and will not do
it - is this right?'

'In the first place, I don't believe you,' answered I; 'in the
second, if you will be such a fool, I can't hinder it.'

'If you affect,' replied he, earnestly, 'to regard as folly the
best, the strongest, the most godlike impulses of our nature, I
don't believe you. I know you are not the heartless, icy being you
pretend to be - you had a heart once, and gave it to your husband.
When you found him utterly unworthy of the treasure, you reclaimed
it; and you will not pretend that you loved that sensual, earthly-
minded profligate so deeply, so devotedly, that you can never love
another? I know that there are feelings in your nature that have
never yet been called forth; I know, too, that in your present
neglected lonely state you are and must be miserable. You have it
in your power to raise two human beings from a state of actual
suffering to such unspeakable beatitude as only generous, noble,
self-forgetting love can give (for you can love me if you will);
you may tell me that you scorn and detest me, but, since you have
set me the example of plain speaking, I will answer that I do not
believe you. But you will not do it! you choose rather to leave us
miserable; and you coolly tell me it is the will of God that we
should remain so. You may call this religion, but I call it wild
fanaticism!'

'There is another life both for you and for me,' said I. 'If it be
the will of God that we should sow in tears now, it is only that we
may reap in joy hereafter. It is His will that we should not
injure others by the gratification of our own earthly passions; and
you have a mother, and sisters, and friends who would be seriously
injured by your disgrace; and I, too, have friends, whose peace of
mind shall never be sacrificed to my enjoyment, or yours either,
with my consent; and if I were alone in the world, I have still my
God and my religion, and I would sooner die than disgrace my
calling and break my faith with heaven to obtain a few brief years
of false and fleeting happiness - happiness sure to end in misery
even here - for myself or any other!'

'There need be no disgrace, no misery or sacrifice in any quarter,'
persisted he. 'I do not ask you to leave your home or defy the
world's opinion.' But I need not repeat all his arguments. I
refuted them to the best of my power; but that power was
provokingly small, at the moment, for I was too much flurried with
indignation - and even shame - that he should thus dare to address
me, to retain sufficient command of thought and language to enable
me adequately to contend against his powerful sophistries.
Finding, however, that he could not be silenced by reason, and even
covertly exulted in his seeming advantage, and ventured to deride
those assertions I had not the coolness to prove, I changed my
course and tried another plan.

'Do you really love me?' said I, seriously, pausing and looking him
calmly in the face.

'Do I love you!' cried he.

'Truly?' I demanded.

His countenance brightened; he thought his triumph was at hand. He
commenced a passionate protestation of the truth and fervour of his
attachment, which I cut short by another question:-

'But is it not a selfish love? Have you enough disinterested
affection to enable you to sacrifice your own pleasure to mine?'

'I would give my life to serve you.'

'I don't want your life; but have you enough real sympathy for my
afflictions to induce you to make an effort to relieve them, at the
risk of a little discomfort to yourself?'

'Try me, and see.'

'If you have, never mention this subject again. You cannot recur
to it in any way without doubling the weight of those sufferings
you so feelingly deplore. I have nothing left me but the solace of
a good conscience and a hopeful trust in heaven, and you labour
continually to rob me of these. If you persist, I must regard you
as my deadliest foe.'

'But hear me a moment - '

'No, sir! You said you would give your life to serve me; I only
ask your silence on one particular point. I have spoken plainly;
and what I say I mean. If you torment me in this way any more, I
must conclude that your protestations are entirely false, and that
you hate me in your heart as fervently as you profess to love me!'

He bit his lip, and bent his eyes upon the ground in silence for a
while.

'Then I must leave you,' said he at length, looking steadily upon
me, as if with the last hope of detecting some token of
irrepressible anguish or dismay awakened by those solemn words. 'I
must leave you. I cannot live here, and be for ever silent on the
all-absorbing subject of my thoughts and wishes.'

'Formerly, I believe, you spent but little of your time at home,' I
answered; 'it will do you no harm to absent yourself again, for a
while - if that be really necessary.'

'If that be really possible,' he muttered; 'and can you bid me go
so coolly? Do you really wish it?'

'Most certainly I do. If you cannot see me without tormenting me
as you have lately done, I would gladly say farewell and never see
you more.'

He made no answer, but, bending from his horse, held out his hand
towards me. I looked up at his face, and saw therein such a look
of genuine agony of soul, that, whether bitter disappointment, or
wounded pride, or lingering love, or burning wrath were uppermost,
I could not hesitate to put my hand in his as frankly as if I bade
a friend farewell. He grasped it very hard, and immediately put
spurs to his horse and galloped away. Very soon after, I learned
that he was gone to Paris, where he still is; and the longer he
stays there the better for me.

I thank God for this deliverance!