then, we must bear one another’s burdens.’
‘Then you must fall each into your proper place. You’ll do your business, and she, if she’s worthy of you, will do hers; but it’s your business to please yourself, and hers to please you. I’m sure your poor, dear father was as good a husband as ever lived, and after the first six months or so were over, I should as soon have expected him to fly, as to put himself out of his way to pleasure me. He always said I was a good wife, and did my duty; and he always did his — bless him! — he was steady and punctual, seldom found fault without a reason, always did justice to my good dinners, and hardly ever spoiled my cookery by delay — and that’s as much as any woman can expect of any man.’
Is it so, Halford? Is that the extent of your domestic virtues; and does your happy wife exact no more?
CHAPTER VII
Not many days after this, on a mild sunny morning — rather soft under foot; for the last fall of snow was only just wasted away, leaving yet a thin ridge, here and there, lingering on the fresh green grass beneath the hedges; but beside them already, the young primroses were peeping from among their moist, dark foliage, and the lark above was singing of summer, and hope, and love, and every heavenly thing — I was out on the hillside, enjoying these delights, and looking after the well-being of my young lambs and their mothers, when, on glancing round me, I beheld three persons ascending from the vale below. They were Eliza Millward, Fergus, and Rose; so I crossed the field to meet them; and, being told they were going to Wildfell Hall, I declared myself willing to go with them, and offering my arm to Eliza, who readily accepted it in lieu of my brother’s, told the latter he might go back, for I would accompany the ladies.
‘I beg your pardon!’ exclaimed he. ‘It’s the ladies that are accompanying me, not I them. You had all had a peep at this wonderful stranger but me, and I could endure my wretched ignorance no longer — come what would, I must be satisfied; so I begged Rose to go with me to the Hall, and introduce me to her at once. She swore she would not, unless Miss Eliza would go too; so I ran to the vicarage and fetched her; and we’ve come hooked all the way, as fond as a pair of lovers — and now you’ve taken her from me; and you want to deprive me of my walk and my visit besides. Go back to your fields and your cattle, you lubberly fellow; you’re not fit to associate with ladies and gentlemen like us, that have nothing to do but to run snooking about to our neighbours’ houses, peeping into their private corners, and scenting out their secrets, and picking holes in their coats, when we don’t find them ready made to our hands — you don’t understand such refined sources of enjoyment.’
‘Can’t you both go?’ suggested Eliza, disregarding the latter half of the speech.
‘Yes, both, to be sure!’ cried Rose; ‘the more the merrier — and I’m sure we shall want all the cheerfulness we can carry with us to that great, dark, gloomy room, with its narrow latticed windows, and its dismal old furniture — unless she shows us into her studio again.’
So we went all in a body; and the meagre old maid-servant, that opened the door, ushered us into an apartment such as Rose had described to me as the scene of her first introduction to Mrs. Graham, a tolerably spacious and lofty room, but obscurely lighted by the old-fashioned windows, the ceiling, panels, and chimney-piece of grim black oak — the latter elaborately but not very tastefully carved, — with tables and chairs to match, an old bookcase on one side of the fireplace, stocked with a motley assemblage of books, and an elderly cabinet piano on the other.
The lady was seated in a stiff, high-backed armchair, with a small round table, containing a desk and a work-basket on one side of her, and her little boy on the other, who stood leaning his elbow on her knee, and reading to her, with wonderful fluency, from a small volume that lay in her lap; while she rested her hand on his shoulder, and abstractedly played with the long, wavy curls that fell on his ivory neck. They struck me as forming a pleasing contrast to all the surrounding objects; but of course their position was immediately changed on our entrance. I could only observe the picture during the few brief seconds that Rachel held the door for our admittance.
I do not think Mrs. Graham was particularly delighted to see us: there was something indescribably chilly in her quiet, calm civility; but I did not talk much to her. Seating myself near the window, a little back from the circle, I called Arthur to me, and he and I and Sancho amused ourselves very pleasantly together, while the two young ladies baited his mother with small talk, and Fergus sat opposite with his legs crossed and his hands in his breeches-pockets, leaning back in his chair, and staring now up at the ceiling, now straight forward at his hostess (in a manner that made me strongly inclined to kick him out of the room), now whistling sotto voce to himself a snatch of a favourite air, now interrupting the conversation, or filling up a pause (as the case might be) with some most impertinent question or remark. At one time it was, — ‘It, amazes me, Mrs. Graham, how you could choose such a dilapidated, rickety old place as this to live in. If you couldn’t afford to occupy the whole house, and have it mended up, why couldn’t you take a neat little cottage?’
‘Perhaps I was too proud, Mr. Fergus,’ replied she, smiling; ‘perhaps I took a particular fancy for this romantic, old-fashioned place — but, indeed, it has many advantages over a cottage — in the first place, you see, the rooms are larger and more airy; in the second place, the unoccupied apartments, which I don’t pay for, may serve as lumber-rooms, if I have anything to put in them; and they are very useful for my little boy to run about in on rainy days when he can’t go out; and then there is the garden for him to play in, and for me to work in. You see I have effected some little improvement already,’ continued she, turning to the window. ‘There is a bed of young vegetables in that corner, and here are some snowdrops and primroses already in bloom — and there, too, is a yellow crocus just opening in the sunshine.’
‘But then how can you bear such a situation — your nearest neighbours two miles distant, and nobody looking in or passing by? Rose would go stark mad in such a place. She can’t put on life unless she sees half a dozen fresh gowns and bonnets a day — not to speak of the faces within; but you might sit watching at these windows all day long, and never see so much as an old woman carrying her eggs to market.’
‘I am not sure the loneliness of the place was not one of its chief recommendations. I take no pleasure in watching people pass the windows; and I like to be quiet.’
‘Oh! as good as to say you wish we would all of us mind our own business, and let you alone.’
‘No, I dislike an extensive acquaintance; but if I have a few friends, of course I am glad to see them occasionally. No one can be happy in eternal solitude. Therefore, Mr. Fergus, if you choose to enter my house as a friend, I will make you welcome; if not, I must confess, I would rather you kept away.’ She then turned and addressed some observation to Rose or Eliza.
‘And, Mrs. Graham,’ said he again, five minutes after, ‘we were disputing, as we came along, a question that you can readily decide for us, as it mainly regarded yourself — and, indeed, we often hold discussions about you; for some of us have nothing better to do than to talk about our neighbours’ concerns, and we, the indigenous plants of the soil, have known each other so long, and talked each other over so often, that we are quite sick of that game; so that a stranger coming amongst us makes an invaluable addition to our exhausted sources of amusement. Well, the question, or questions, you are requested to solve — ’
‘Hold your tongue, Fergus!’ cried Rose, in a fever of apprehension and wrath.
‘I won’t, I tell you. The questions you are requested to solve are these: — First, concerning your birth, extraction, and previous residence. Some will have it that you are a foreigner, and some an Englishwoman; some a native of the north country, and some of the south; some say — ’
‘Well, Mr. Fergus, I’ll tell you. I’m an Englishwoman — and I don’t see why any one should doubt it — and I was born in the country, neither in the extreme north nor south of