Wildfell Hall 14

THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL

PART 14

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!’

‘According to your own account,’ said I, ‘my evil counsel has had but little effect upon her.  And as to abuse and aspersions, we are both of us far too deeply ashamed of the errors and vices of our other halves, to make them the common subject of our correspondence.  Friends as we are, we would willingly keep your failings to ourselves—even from ourselves if we could, unless by knowing them we could deliver you from them.’

‘Well, well! don’t worry me about them: you’ll never effect any good by that.  Have patience with me, and bear with my languor and crossness a little while, till I get this cursed low fever out of my veins, and then you’ll find me cheerful and kind as ever.  Why can’t you be gentle and good, as you were last time?—I’m sure I was very grateful for it.’

‘And what good did your gratitude do?  I deluded myself with the idea that you were ashamed of your transgressions, and hoped you would never repeat them again; but now you have left me nothing to hope!’

‘My case is quite desperate, is it?  A very blessed consideration, if it will only secure me from the pain and worry of my dear anxious wife’s efforts to convert me, and her from the toil and trouble of such exertions, and her sweet face and silver accents from the ruinous effects of the same.  A burst of passion is a fine rousing thing upon occasion, Helen, and a flood of tears is marvellously affecting, but, when indulged too often, they are both deuced plaguy things for spoiling one’s beauty and tiring out one’s friends.’

Thenceforth I restrained my tears and passions as much as I could.  I spared him my exhortations and fruitless efforts at conversion too, for I saw it was all in vain: God might awaken that heart, supine and stupefied with self-indulgence, and remove the film of sensual darkness from his eyes, but I could not.  His injustice and ill-humour towards his inferiors, who could not defend themselves, I still resented and withstood; but when I alone was their object, as was frequently the case, I endured it with calm forbearance, except at times, when my temper, worn out by repeated annoyances, or stung to distraction by some new instance of irrationality, gave way in spite of myself, and exposed me to the imputations of fierceness, cruelty, and impatience.  I attended carefully to his wants and amusements, but not, I own, with the same devoted fondness as before, because I could not feel it; besides, I had now another claimant on my time and care—my ailing infant, for whose sake I frequently braved and suffered the reproaches and complaints of his unreasonably exacting father.

But Arthur is not naturally a peevish or irritable man; so far from it, that there was something almost ludicrous in the incongruity of this adventitious fretfulness and nervous irritability, rather calculated to excite laughter than anger, if it were not for the intensely painful considerations attendant upon those symptoms of a disordered frame, and his temper gradually improved as his bodily health was restored, which was much sooner than would have been the case but for my strenuous exertions; for there was still one thing about him that I did not give up in despair, and one effort for his preservation that I would not remit.  His appetite for the stimulus of wine had increased upon him, as I had too well foreseen.  It was now something more to him than an accessory to social enjoyment: it was an important source of enjoyment in itself.  In this time of weakness and depression he would have made it his medicine and support, his comforter, his recreation, and his friend, and thereby sunk deeper and deeper, and bound himself down for ever in the bathos whereinto he had fallen.  But I determined this should never be, as long as I had any influence left; and though I could not prevent him from taking more than was good for him, still, by incessant perseverance, by kindness, and firmness, and vigilance, by coaxing, and daring, and determination, I succeeded in preserving him from absolute bondage to that detestable propensity, so insidious in its advances, so inexorable in its tyranny, so disastrous in its effects.

And here I must not forget that I am not a little indebted to his friend Mr. Hargrave.  About that time he frequently called at Grassdale, and often dined with us, on which occasions I fear Arthur would willingly have cast prudence and decorum to the winds, and made ‘a night of it,’ as often as his friend would have consented to join him in that exalted pastime; and if the latter had chosen to comply, he might, in a night or two, have ruined the labour of weeks, and overthrown with a touch the frail bulwark it had cost me such trouble and toil to construct.  I was so fearful of this at first, that I humbled myself to intimate to him, in private, my apprehensions of Arthur’s proneness to these excesses, and to express a hope that he would not encourage it.  He was pleased with this mark of confidence, and certainly did not betray it.  On that and every subsequent occasion his presence served rather as a check upon his host, than an incitement to further acts of intemperance; and he always succeeded in bringing him from the dining-room in good time, and in tolerably good condition; for if Arthur disregarded such intimations as ‘Well, I must not detain you from your lady,’ or ‘We must not forget that Mrs. Huntingdon is alone,’ he would insist upon leaving the table himself, to join me, and his host, however unwillingly, was obliged to follow.

Hence I learned to welcome Mr. Hargrave as a real friend to the family, a harmless companion for Arthur, to cheer his spirits and preserve him from the tedium of absolute idleness and a total isolation from all society but mine, and a useful ally to me.  I could not but feel grateful to him under such circumstances; and I did not scruple to acknowledge my obligation on the first convenient opportunity; yet, as I did so, my heart whispered all was not right, and brought a glow to my face, which he heightened by his steady, serious gaze, while, by his manner of receiving those acknowledgments, he more than doubled my misgivings.  His high delight at being able to serve me was chastened by sympathy for me and commiseration for himself—about, I know not what, for I would not stay to inquire, or suffer him to unburden his sorrows to me.  His sighs and intimations of suppressed affliction seemed to come from a full heart; but either he must contrive to retain them within it, or breathe them forth in other ears than mine: there was enough of confidence between us already.  It seemed wrong that there should exist a secret understanding between my husband’s friend and me, unknown to him, of which he was the object.  But my after-thought was, ‘If it is wrong, surely Arthur’s is the fault, not mine.’

And indeed I know not whether, at the time, it was not for him rather than myself that I blushed; for, since he and I are one, I so identify myself with him, that I feel his degradation, his failings, and transgressions as my own: I blush for him, I fear for him; I repent for him, weep, pray, and feel for him as for myself; but I cannot act for him; and hence I must be, and I am, debased, contaminated by the union, both in my own eyes and in the actual truth.  I am so determined to love him, so intensely anxious to excuse his errors, that I am continually dwelling upon them, and labouring to extenuate the loosest of his principles and the worst of his practices, till I am familiarised with vice, and almost a partaker in his sins.  Things that formerly shocked and disgusted me, now seem only natural.  I know them to be wrong, because reason and God’s word declare them to be so; but I am gradually losing that instinctive horror and repulsion which were given me by nature, or instilled into me by the precepts and example of my aunt.  Perhaps then I was too severe in my judgments, for I abhorred the sinner as well as the sin; now I flatter myself I am more charitable and considerate; but am I not becoming more indifferent and insensate too?  Fool that I was, to dream that I had strength and purity enough to save myself and him!  Such vain presumption would be rightly served, if I should perish with him in the gulf from which I sought to save him!  Yet, God preserve me from it, and him too!  Yes, poor Arthur, I will still hope and pray for you; and though I write as if you were some abandoned wretch, past hope and past reprieve, it is only my anxious fears, my strong desires that make me do so; one who loved you less would be less bitter, less dissatisfied.

His conduct has, of late, been what the world calls irreproachable; but then I know his heart is still unchanged; and I know that spring is approaching, and deeply dread the consequences.

As he began to recover the tone and vigour of his exhausted frame, and with it something of his former impatience of retirement and repose, I suggested a short residence by the sea-side, for his recreation and further restoration, and for the benefit of our little one as well.  But no: watering-places were so intolerably dull; besides, he had been invited by one of his friends to spend a month or two in Scotland for the better recreation of grouse-shooting and deer-stalking, and had promised to go.

‘Then you will leave me again, Arthur?’ said I.

‘Yes, dearest, but only to love you the better when I come back, and make up for all past offences and short-comings; and you needn’t fear me this time: there are no temptations on the mountains.  And during my absence you may pay a visit to Staningley, if you like: your uncle and aunt have long been wanting us to go there, you know; but somehow there’s such a repulsion between the good lady and me, that I never could bring myself up to the scratch.’

About the third week in August, Arthur set out for Scotland, and Mr. Hargrave accompanied him thither, to my private satisfaction.  Shortly after, I, with little Arthur and Rachel, went to Staningley, my dear old home, which, as well as my dear old friends its inhabitants, I saw again with mingled feelings of pleasure and pain so intimately blended that I could scarcely distinguish the one from the other, or tell to which to attribute the various tears, and smiles, and sighs awakened by those old familiar scenes, and tones, and faces.

Arthur did not come home till several weeks after my return to Grassdale; but I did not feel so anxious about him now; to think of him engaged in active sports among the wild hills of Scotland, was very different from knowing him to be immersed amid the corruptions and temptations of London.  His letters now; though neither long nor loverlike, were more regular than ever they had been before; and when he did return, to my great joy, instead of being worse than when he went, he was more cheerful and vigorous, and better in every respect.  Since that time I have had little cause to complain.  He still has an unfortunate predilection for the pleasures of the table, against which I have to struggle and watch; but he has begun to notice his boy, and that is an increasing source of amusement to him within-doors, while his fox-hunting and coursing are a sufficient occupation for him without, when the ground is not hardened by frost; so that he is not wholly dependent on me for entertainment.  But it is now January; spring is approaching; and, I repeat, I dread the consequences of its arrival.  That sweet season, I once so joyously welcomed as the time of hope and gladness, awakens now far other anticipations by its return.

CHAPTER XXXI

 

March 20th, 1824.  The dreaded time is come, and Arthur is gone, as I expected.  This time he announced it his intention to make but a short stay in London, and pass over to the Continent, where he should probably stay a few weeks; but I shall not expect him till after the lapse of many weeks: I now know that, with him, days signify weeks, and weeks months.

July 30th.—He returned about three weeks ago, rather better in health, certainly, than before, but still worse in temper.  And yet, perhaps, I am wrong: it is I that am less patient and forbearing.  I am tired out with his injustice, his selfishness and hopeless depravity.  I wish a milder word would do; I am no angel, and my corruption rises against it.  My poor father died last week: Arthur was vexed to hear of it, because he saw that I was shocked and grieved, and he feared the circumstance would mar his comfort.  When I spoke of ordering my mourning, he exclaimed,—‘Oh, I hate black!  But, however, I suppose you must wear it awhile, for form’s sake; but I hope, Helen, you won’t think it your bounden duty to compose your face and manners into conformity with your funereal garb.  Why should you sigh and groan, and I be made uncomfortable, because an old gentleman in —shire, a perfect stranger to us both, has thought proper to drink himself to death?  There, now, I declare you’re crying!  Well, it must be affectation.’

He would not hear of my attending the funeral, or going for a day or two, to cheer poor Frederick’s solitude.  It was quite unnecessary, he said, and I was unreasonable to wish it.  What was my father to me?  I had never seen him but once since I was a baby, and I well knew he had never cared a stiver about me; and my brother, too, was little better than a stranger.  ‘Besides, dear Helen,’ said he, embracing me with flattering fondness, ‘I cannot spare you for a single day.’

‘Then how have you managed without me these many days?’ said I.

‘Ah! then I was knocking about the world, now I am at home, and home without you, my household deity, would be intolerable.’

‘Yes, as long as I am necessary to your comfort; but you did not say so before, when you urged me to leave you, in order that you might get away from your home without me,’ retorted I; but before the words were well out of my mouth, I regretted having uttered them.  It seemed so heavy a charge: if false, too gross an insult; if true, too humiliating a fact to be thus openly cast in his teeth.  But I might have spared myself that momentary pang of self-reproach.  The accusation awoke neither shame nor indignation in him: he attempted neither denial nor excuse, but only answered with a long, low, chuckling laugh, as if he viewed the whole transaction as a clever, merry jest from beginning to end.  Surely that man will make me dislike him at last!

Sine as ye brew, my maiden fair,
Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill.

Yes; and I will drink it to the very dregs: and none but myself shall know how bitter I find it!

August 20th.—We are shaken down again to about our usual position.  Arthur has returned to nearly his former condition and habits; and I have found it my wisest plan to shut my eyes against the past and future, as far as he, at least, is concerned, and live only for the present: to love him when I can; to smile (if possible) when he smiles, be cheerful when he is cheerful, and pleased when he is agreeable; and when he is not, to try to make him so; and if that won’t answer, to bear with him, to excuse him, and forgive him as well as I can, and restrain my own evil passions from aggravating his; and yet, while I thus yield and minister to his more harmless propensities to self-indulgence, to do all in my power to save him from the worse.

But we shall not be long alone together.  I shall shortly be called upon to entertain the same select body of friends as we had the autumn before last, with the addition of Mr. Hattersley and, at my special request, his wife and child.  I long to see Milicent, and her little girl too.  The latter is now above a year old; she will be a charming playmate for my little Arthur.

September 30th.—Our guests have been here a week or two; but I have had no leisure to pass any comments upon them till now.  I cannot get over my dislike to Lady Lowborough.  It is not founded on mere personal pique; it is the woman herself that I dislike, because I so thoroughly disapprove of her.  I always avoid her company as much as I can without violating the laws of hospitality; but when we do speak or converse together, it is with the utmost civility, even apparent cordiality on her part; but preserve me from such cordiality!  It is like handling brier-roses and may-blossoms, bright enough to the eye, and outwardly soft to the touch, but you know there are thorns beneath, and every now and then you feel them too; and perhaps resent the injury by crushing them in till you have destroyed their power, though somewhat to the detriment of your own fingers.

Of late, however, I have seen nothing in her conduct towards Arthur to anger or alarm me.  During the first few days I thought she seemed very solicitous to win his admiration.  Her efforts were not unnoticed by him: I frequently saw him smiling to himself at her artful manoeuvres: but, to his praise be it spoken, her shafts fell powerless by his side.  Her most bewitching smiles, her haughtiest frowns were ever received with the same immutable, careless good-humour; till, finding he was indeed impenetrable, she suddenly remitted her efforts, and became, to all appearance, as perfectly indifferent as himself.  Nor have I since witnessed any symptom of pique on his part, or renewed attempts at conquest upon hers.

This is as it should be; but Arthur never will let me be satisfied with him.  I have never, for a single hour since I married him, known what it is to realise that sweet idea, ‘In quietness and confidence shall be your rest.’  Those two detestable men, Grimsby and Hattersley, have destroyed all my labour against his love of wine.  They encourage him daily to overstep the bounds of moderation, and not unfrequently to disgrace himself by positive excess.  I shall not soon forget the second night after their arrival.  Just as I had retired from the dining-room with the ladies, before the door was closed upon us, Arthur exclaimed,—‘Now then, my lads, what say you to a regular jollification?’

Milicent glanced at me with a half-reproachful look, as if I could hinder it; but her countenance changed when she heard Hattersley’s voice, shouting through door and wall,—‘I’m your man!  Send for more wine: here isn’t half enough!’

We had scarcely entered the drawing-room before we were joined by Lord Lowborough.

‘What can induce you to come so soon?’ exclaimed his lady, with a most ungracious air of dissatisfaction.

‘You know I never drink, Annabella,’ replied he seriously.

‘Well, but you might stay with them a little: it looks so silly to be always dangling after the women; I wonder you can!’

He reproached her with a look of mingled bitterness and surprise, and, sinking into a chair, suppressed a heavy sigh, bit his pale lips, and fixed his eyes upon the floor.

‘You did right to leave them, Lord Lowborough,’ said I.  ‘I trust you will always continue to honour us so early with your company.  And if Annabella knew the value of true wisdom, and the misery of folly and—and intemperance, she would not talk such nonsense—even in jest.’

He raised his eyes while I spoke, and gravely turned them upon me, with a half-surprised, half-abstracted look, and then bent them on his wife.

‘At least,’ said she, ‘I know the value of a warm heart and a bold, manly spirit.’

‘Well, Annabella,’ said he, in a deep and hollow tone, ‘since my presence is disagreeable to you, I will relieve you of it.’

‘Are you going back to them, then?’ said she, carelessly.

‘No,’ exclaimed he, with harsh and startling emphasis.  ‘I will not go back to them!  And I will never stay with them one moment longer than I think right, for you or any other tempter!  But you needn’t mind that; I shall never trouble you again by intruding my company upon you so unseasonably.’

He left the room: I heard the hall-door open and shut, and immediately after, on putting aside the curtain, I saw him pacing down the park, in the comfortless gloom of the damp, cloudy twilight.

‘It would serve you right, Annabella,’ said I, at length, ‘if Lord Lowborough were to return to his old habits, which had so nearly effected his ruin, and which it cost him such an effort to break: you would then see cause to repent such conduct as this.’

‘Not at all, my dear!  I should not mind if his lordship were to see fit to intoxicate himself every day: I should only the sooner be rid of him.’

‘Oh, Annabella!’ cried Milicent.  ‘How can you say such wicked things!  It would, indeed, be a just punishment, as far as you are concerned, if Providence should take you at your word, and make you feel what others feel, that—‘  She paused as a sudden burst of loud talking and laughter reached us from the dining-room, in which the voice of Hattersley was pre-eminently conspicuous, even to my unpractised ear.

‘What you feel at this moment, I suppose?’ said Lady Lowborough, with a malicious smile, fixing her eyes upon her cousin’s distressed countenance.

The latter offered no reply, but averted her face and brushed away a tear.  At that moment the door opened and admitted Mr. Hargrave, just a little flushed, his dark eyes sparkling with unwonted vivacity.

‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re come, Walter?’ cried his sister.  ‘But I wish you could have got Ralph to come too.’

‘Utterly impossible, dear Milicent,’ replied he, gaily.  ‘I had much ado to get away myself.  Ralph attempted to keep me by violence; Huntingdon threatened me with the eternal loss of his friendship; and Grimsby, worse than all, endeavoured to make me ashamed of my virtue, by such galling sarcasms and innuendoes as he knew would wound me the most.  So you see, ladies, you ought to make me welcome when I have braved and suffered so much for the favour of your sweet society.’  He smilingly turned to me and bowed as he finished the sentence.

‘Isn’t he handsome now, Helen!’ whispered Milicent, her sisterly pride overcoming, for the moment, all other considerations.

‘He would be,’ I returned, ‘if that brilliance of eye, and lip, and cheek were natural to him; but look again, a few hours hence.’

Here the gentleman took a seat near me at the table, and petitioned for a cup of coffee.

‘I consider this an apt illustration of heaven taken by storm,’ said he, as I handed one to him.  ‘I am in paradise, now; but I have fought my way through flood and fire to win it.  Ralph Hattersley’s last resource was to set his back against the door, and swear I should find no passage but through his body (a pretty substantial one too).  Happily, however, that was not the only door, and I effected my escape by the side entrance through the butler’s pantry, to the infinite amazement of Benson, who was cleaning the plate.’

Mr. Hargrave laughed, and so did his cousin; but his sister and I remained silent and grave.

‘Pardon my levity, Mrs. Huntingdon,’ murmured he, more seriously, as he raised his eyes to my face.  ‘You are not used to these things: you suffer them to affect your delicate mind too sensibly.  But I thought of you in the midst of those lawless roysterers; and I endeavoured to persuade Mr. Huntingdon to think of you too; but to no purpose: I fear he is fully determined to enjoy himself this night; and it will be no use keeping the coffee waiting for him or his companions; it will be much if they join us at tea.  Meantime, I earnestly wish I could banish the thoughts of them from your mind—and my own too, for I hate to think of them—yes—even of my dear friend Huntingdon, when I consider the power he possesses over the happiness of one so immeasurably superior to himself, and the use he makes of it—I positively detest the man!’

‘You had better not say so to me, then,’ said I; ‘for, bad as he is, he is part of myself, and you cannot abuse him without offending me.’

‘Pardon me, then, for I would sooner die than offend you.  But let us say no more of him for the present, if you please.’

At last they came; but not till after ten, when tea, which had been delayed for more than half an hour, was nearly over.  Much as I had longed for their coming, my heart failed me at the riotous uproar of their approach; and Milicent turned pale, and almost started from her seat, as Mr. Hattersley burst into the room with a clamorous volley of oaths in his mouth, which Hargrave endeavoured to check by entreating him to remember the ladies.

‘Ah! you do well to remind me of the ladies, you dastardly deserter,’ cried he, shaking his formidable fist at his brother-in-law.  ‘If it were not for them, you well know, I’d demolish you in the twinkling of an eye, and give your body to the fowls of heaven and the lilies of the fields!’  Then, planting a chair by Lady Lowborough’s side, he stationed himself in it, and began to talk to her with a mixture of absurdity and impudence that seemed rather to amuse than to offend her; though she affected to resent his insolence, and to keep him at bay with sallies of smart and spirited repartee.

Meantime Mr. Grimsby seated himself by me, in the chair vacated by Hargrave as they entered, and gravely stated that he would thank me for a cup of tea: and Arthur placed himself beside poor Milicent, confidentially pushing his head into her face, and drawing in closer to her as she shrank away from him.  He was not so noisy as Hattersley, but his face was exceedingly flushed: he laughed incessantly, and while I blushed for all I saw and heard of him, I was glad that he chose to talk to his companion in so low a tone that no one could hear what he said but herself.

‘What fools they are!’ drawled Mr. Grimsby, who had been talking away, at my elbow, with sententious gravity all the time; but I had been too much absorbed in contemplating the deplorable state of the other two—especially Arthur—to attend to him.

‘Did you ever hear such nonsense as they talk, Mrs. Huntingdon?’ he continued.  ‘I’m quite ashamed of them for my part: they can’t take so much as a bottle between them without its getting into their heads—’

‘You are pouring the cream into your saucer, Mr. Grimsby.’

‘Ah! yes, I see, but we’re almost in darkness here.  Hargrave, snuff those candles, will you?’

‘They’re wax; they don’t require snuffing,’ said I.

‘“The light of the body is the eye,”’ observed Hargrave, with a sarcastic smile.  ‘“If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”’

Grimsby repulsed him with a solemn wave of the hand, and then turning to me, continued, with the same drawling tones and strange uncertainty of utterance and heavy gravity of aspect as before: ‘But as I was saying, Mrs. Huntingdon, they have no head at all: they can’t take half a bottle without being affected some way; whereas I—well, I’ve taken three times as much as they have to-night, and you see I’m perfectly steady.  Now that may strike you as very singular, but I think I can explain it: you see their brains—I mention no names, but you’ll understand to whom I allude—their brains are light to begin with, and the fumes of the fermented liquor render them lighter still, and produce an entire light-headedness, or giddiness, resulting in intoxication; whereas my brains, being composed of more solid materials, will absorb a considerable quantity of this alcoholic vapour without the production of any sensible result—’

‘I think you will find a sensible result produced on that tea,’ interrupted Mr. Hargrave, ‘by the quantity of sugar you have put into it.  Instead of your usual complement of one lump, you have put in six.’

‘Have I so?’ replied the philosopher, diving with his spoon into the cup, and bringing up several half-dissolved pieces in confirmation of the assertion.  ‘Hum!  I perceive.  Thus, Madam, you see the evil of absence of mind—of thinking too much while engaged in the common concerns of life.  Now, if I had had my wits about me, like ordinary men, instead of within me like a philosopher, I should not have spoiled this cup of tea, and been constrained to trouble you for another.’

‘That is the sugar-basin, Mr. Grimsby.  Now you have spoiled the sugar too; and I’ll thank you to ring for some more, for here is Lord Lowborough at last; and I hope his lordship will condescend to sit down with us, such as we are, and allow me to give him some tea.’

His lordship gravely bowed in answer to my appeal, but said nothing.  Meantime, Hargrave volunteered to ring for the sugar, while Grimsby lamented his mistake, and attempted to prove that it was owing to the shadow of the urn and the badness of the lights.

Lord Lowborough had entered a minute or two before, unobserved by anyone but me, and had been standing before the door, grimly surveying the company.  He now stepped up to Annabella, who sat with her back towards him, with Hattersley still beside her, though not now attending to her, being occupied in vociferously abusing and bullying his host.

‘Well, Annabella,’ said her husband, as he leant over the back of her chair, ‘which of these three “bold, manly spirits” would you have me to resemble?’

‘By heaven and earth, you shall resemble us all!’ cried Hattersley, starting up and rudely seizing him by the arm.  ‘Hallo, Huntingdon!’ he shouted—‘I’ve got him!  Come, man, and help me!  And d—n me, if I don’t make him drunk before I let him go!  He shall make up for all past delinquencies as sure as I’m a living soul!’

There followed a disgraceful contest: Lord Lowborough, in desperate earnest, and pale with anger, silently struggling to release himself from the powerful madman that was striving to drag him from the room.  I attempted to urge Arthur to interfere in behalf of his outraged guest, but he could do nothing but laugh.

‘Huntingdon, you fool, come and help me, can’t you!’ cried Hattersley, himself somewhat weakened by his excesses.

‘I’m wishing you God-speed, Hattersley,’ cried Arthur, ‘and aiding you with my prayers: I can’t do anything else if my life depended on it!  I’m quite used up.  Oh—oh!’ and leaning back in his seat, he clapped his hands on his sides and groaned aloud.

‘Annabella, give me a candle!’ said Lowborough, whose antagonist had now got him round the waist and was endeavouring to root him from the door-post, to which he madly clung with all the energy of desperation.

‘I shall take no part in your rude sports!’ replied the lady coldly drawing back.  ‘I wonder you can expect it.’  But I snatched up a candle and brought it to him.  He took it and held the flame to Hattersley’s hands, till, roaring like a wild beast, the latter unclasped them and let him go.  He vanished, I suppose to his own apartment, for nothing more was seen of him till the morning.  Swearing and cursing like a maniac, Hattersley threw himself on to the ottoman beside the window.  The door being now free, Milicent attempted to make her escape from the scene of her husband’s disgrace; but he called her back, and insisted upon her coming to him.

‘What do you want, Ralph?’ murmured she, reluctantly approaching him.

‘I want to know what’s the matter with you,’ said he, pulling her on to his knee like a child.  ‘What are you crying for, Milicent?—Tell me!’

‘I’m not crying.’

‘You are,’ persisted he, rudely pulling her hands from her face.  ‘How dare you tell such a lie!’

‘I’m not crying now,’ pleaded she.

‘But you have been, and just this minute too; and I will know what for.  Come, now, you shall tell me!’

‘Do let me alone, Ralph!  Remember, we are not at home.’

‘No matter: you shall answer my question!’ exclaimed her tormentor; and he attempted to extort the confession by shaking her, and remorselessly crushing her slight arms in the gripe of his powerful fingers.

‘Don’t let him treat your sister in that way,’ said I to Mr. Hargrave.

‘Come now, Hattersley, I can’t allow that,’ said that gentleman, stepping up to the ill-assorted couple.  ‘Let my sister alone, if you please.’

And he made an effort to unclasp the ruffian’s fingers from her arm, but was suddenly driven backward, and nearly laid upon the floor by a violent blow on the chest, accompanied with the admonition, ‘Take that for your insolence! and learn to interfere between me and mine again.’

‘If you were not drunk, I’d have satisfaction for that!’ gasped Hargrave, white and breathless as much from passion as from the immediate effects of the blow.

‘Go to the devil!’ responded his brother-in-law.  ‘Now, Milicent, tell me what you were crying for.’

‘I’ll tell you some other time,’ murmured she, ‘when we are alone.’

‘Tell me now!’ said he, with another shake and a squeeze that made her draw in her breath and bite her lip to suppress a cry of pain.

‘I’ll tell you, Mr. Hattersley,’ said I.  ‘She was crying from pure shame and humiliation for you; because she could not bear to see you conduct yourself so disgracefully.’

‘Confound you, Madam!’ muttered he, with a stare of stupid amazement at my ‘impudence.’  ‘It was not that—was it, Milicent?’

She was silent.

‘Come, speak up, child!’

‘I can’t tell now,’ sobbed she.

‘But you can say “yes” or “no” as well as “I can’t tell.”—Come!’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, hanging her head, and blushing at the awful acknowledgment.

‘Curse you for an impertinent hussy, then!’ cried he, throwing her from him with such violence that she fell on her side; but she was up again before either I or her brother could come to her assistance, and made the best of her way out of the room, and, I suppose, up-stairs, without loss of time.

The next object of assault was Arthur, who sat opposite, and had, no doubt, richly enjoyed the whole scene.

‘Now, Huntingdon,’ exclaimed his irascible friend, ‘I will not have you sitting there and laughing like an idiot!’

‘Oh, Hattersley,’ cried he, wiping his swimming eyes—‘you’ll be the death of me.’

‘Yes, I will, but not as you suppose: I’ll have the heart out of your body, man, if you irritate me with any more of that imbecile laughter!—What! are you at it yet?—There! see if that’ll settle you!’ cried Hattersley, snatching up a footstool and hurting it at the head of his host; but he as well as missed his aim, and the latter still sat collapsed and quaking with feeble laughter, with tears running down his face: a deplorable spectacle indeed.

Hattersley tried cursing and swearing, but it would not do: he then took a number of books from the table beside him, and threw them, one by one, at the object of his wrath; but Arthur only laughed the more; and, finally, Hattersley rushed upon him in a frenzy and seizing him by the shoulders, gave him a violent shaking, under which he laughed and shrieked alarmingly.  But I saw no more: I thought I had witnessed enough of my husband’s degradation; and leaving Annabella and the rest to follow when they pleased, I withdrew, but not to bed.  Dismissing Rachel to her rest, I walked up and down my room, in an agony of misery for what had been done, and suspense, not knowing what might further happen, or how or when that unhappy creature would come up to bed.

At last he came, slowly and stumblingly ascending the stairs, supported by Grimsby and Hattersley, who neither of them walked quite steadily themselves, but were both laughing and joking at him, and making noise enough for all the servants to hear.  He himself was no longer laughing now, but sick and stupid.  I will write no more about that.

Such disgraceful scenes (or nearly such) have been repeated more than once.  I don’t say much to Arthur about it, for, if I did, it would do more harm than good; but I let him know that I intensely dislike such exhibitions; and each time he has promised they should never again be repeated.  But I fear he is losing the little self-command and self-respect he once possessed: formerly, he would have been ashamed to act thus—at least, before any other witnesses than his boon companions, or such as they.  His friend Hargrave, with a prudence and self-government that I envy for him, never disgraces himself by taking more than sufficient to render him a little ‘elevated,’ and is always the first to leave the table after Lord Lowborough, who, wiser still, perseveres in vacating the dining-room immediately after us: but never once, since Annabella offended him so deeply, has he entered the drawing-room before the rest; always spending the interim in the library, which I take care to have lighted for his accommodation; or, on fine moonlight nights, in roaming about the grounds.  But I think she regrets her misconduct, for she has never repeated it since, and of late she has comported herself with wonderful propriety towards him, treating him with more uniform kindness and consideration than ever I have observed her to do before.  I date the time of this improvement from the period when she ceased to hope and strive for Arthur’s admiration.

To be continued

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