The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (sci fi books to read TXT) 📕

I should answer. But he did not speak again till I rose to make the tea, and then it was only to say he should not take any. He continued lounging on the sofa, and alternately closing his eyes and looking at his watch and at me, till bedtime, when I rose, and took my candle and retired.

“Helen!” cried he, the moment I had left the room. I turned back, and stood awaiting his commands.

“What do you want, Arthur?” I said at length.

“Nothing,” replied he. “Go!”

I went, but hearing him mutter something as I was closing the door, I turned again. It sounded very like “confounded slut,” but I was quite willing it should be something else.

“Were you speaking, Arthur?” I asked.

“No,” was the answer, and I shut the door and departed. I saw nothing more of him till the following morning at breakfast, when he came down a full hour after the usual time.

“You’re very late,” was my morning’s salutation.

“You needn’t have waited for me,” was his; and he walked up to the window again. It was just such weather as yesterday.

“Oh, this confounded rain!” he muttered. But, after studiously regarding it for a minute or two, a bright idea, seemed to strike him, for he suddenly exclaimed, “But I know what I’ll do!” and then returned and took his seat at the table. The letter-bag was already there, waiting to be opened. He unlocked it and examined the contents, but said nothing about them.

“Is there anything for me?” I asked.

“No.”

He opened the newspaper and began to read.

“You’d better take your coffee,” suggested I; “it will be cold again.”

“You may go,” said he, “if you’ve done; I don’t want you.”

I rose and withdrew to the next room, wondering if we were to have another such miserable day as yesterday, and wishing intensely for an end of these mutually inflicted torments. Shortly after I heard him ring the bell and give some orders about his wardrobe that sounded as if he meditated a long journey. He then sent for the coachman, and I heard something about the carriage and the horses, and London, and seven o’clock tomorrow morning, that startled and disturbed me not a little.

“I must not let him go to London, whatever comes of it,” said I to myself; “he will run into all kinds of mischief, and I shall be the cause of it. But the question is, How am I to alter his purpose? Well, I will wait awhile, and see if he mentions it.”

I waited most anxiously, from hour to hour; but not a word was spoken, on that or any other subject, to me. He whistled and talked to his dogs, and wandered from room to room, much the same as on the previous day. At last I began to think I must introduce the subject myself, and was pondering how to bring it about, when John unwittingly came to my relief with the following message from the coachman:

“Please, sir, Richard says one of the horses has got a very bad cold, and he thinks, sir, if you could make it convenient to go the day after tomorrow, instead of tomorrow, he could physic it today, so as⁠—”

“Confound his impudence!” interjected the master.

“Please, sir, he says it would be a deal better if you could,” persisted John, “for he hopes there’ll be a change in the weather shortly, and he says it’s not likely, when a horse is so bad with a cold, and physicked and all⁠—”

“Devil take the horse!” cried the gentleman. “Well, tell him I’ll think about it,” he added, after a moment’s reflection. He cast a searching glance at me, as the servant withdrew, expecting to see some token of deep astonishment and alarm; but, being previously prepared, I preserved an aspect of stoical indifference. His countenance fell as he met my steady gaze, and he turned away in very obvious disappointment, and walked up to the fireplace, where he stood in an attitude of undisguised dejection, leaning against the chimneypiece with his forehead sunk upon his arm.

“Where do you want to go, Arthur?” said I.

“To London,” replied he, gravely.

“What for?” I asked.

“Because I cannot be happy here.”

“Why not?”

“Because my wife doesn’t love me.”

“She would love you with all her heart, if you deserved it.”

“What must I do to deserve it?”

This seemed humble and earnest enough; and I was so much affected, between sorrow and joy, that I was obliged to pause a few seconds before I could steady my voice to reply.

“If she gives you her heart,” said I, “you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away.”

He now turned round, and stood facing me, with his back to the fire. “Come, then, Helen, are you going to be a good girl?” said he.

This sounded rather too arrogant, and the smile that accompanied it did not please me. I therefore hesitated to reply. Perhaps my former answer had implied too much: he had heard my voice falter, and might have seen me brush away a tear.

“Are you going to forgive me, Helen?” he resumed, more humbly.

“Are you penitent?” I replied, stepping up to him and smiling in his face.

“Heartbroken!” he answered, with a rueful countenance, yet with a merry smile just lurking within his eyes and about the corners of his mouth; but this could not repulse me, and I flew into his arms. He fervently embraced me, and though I shed a torrent of tears, I think I never was happier in my life than at that moment.

“Then you won’t go to London, Arthur?” I said, when the first transport of tears and kisses had subsided.

“No, love⁠—unless you will go with me.”

“I will, gladly,” I answered, “if you think the change will amuse you, and if you will put off the journey till next week.”

He readily consented, but said there was no need of much preparation, as he should not be for