Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (395 page)

‘Are you going already?’ said she, taking the hand I offered, and not immediately letting it go.

‘Why should I stay any longer?’

‘Wait till Arthur comes, at least.’

Only too glad to obey, I stood and leant against the opposite side of the window.

‘You told me you were not changed,’ said my companion: ‘you are — very much so.’

‘No, Mrs. Huntingdon, I only ought to be.’

‘Do you mean to maintain that you have the same regard for me that you had when last we met?’

‘I have; but it would be wrong to talk of it now.’

‘It was wrong to talk of it then, Gilbert; it would not now — unless to do so would be to violate the truth.’

I was too much agitated to speak; but, without waiting for an answer, she turned away her glistening eye and crimson cheek, and threw up the window and looked out, whether to calm her own, excited feelings, or to relieve her embarrassment, or only to pluck that beautiful half-blown Christmas-rose that grew upon the little shrub without, just peeping from the snow that had hitherto, no doubt, defended it from the frost, and was now melting away in the sun.  Pluck it, however, she did, and having gently dashed the glittering powder from its leaves, approached it to her lips and said:

‘This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it.  Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals. — Will you have it?’

I held out my hand: I dared not speak lest my emotion should overmaster me.  She laid the rose across my palm, but I scarcely closed my fingers upon it, so deeply was I absorbed in thinking what might be the meaning of her words, and what I ought to do or say upon the occasion; whether to give way to my feelings or restrain them still.  Misconstruing this hesitation into indifference — or reluctance even — to accept her gift, Helen suddenly snatched it from my hand, threw it out on to the snow, shut down the window with an emphasis, and withdrew to the fire.

‘Helen, what means this?’ I cried, electrified at this startling change in her demeanour.

‘You did not understand my gift,’ said she — ‘or, what is worse, you despised it.  I’m sorry I gave it you; but since I did make such a mistake, the only remedy I could think of was to take it away.’

‘You misunderstood me cruelly,’ I replied, and in a minute I had opened the window again, leaped out, picked up the flower, brought it in, and presented it to her, imploring her to give it me again, and I would keep it for ever for her sake, and prize it more highly than anything in the world I possessed.

‘And will this content you?’ said she, as she took it in her hand.

‘It shall,’ I answered.

‘There, then; take it.’

I pressed it earnestly to my lips, and put it in my bosom, Mrs. Huntingdon looking on with a half-sarcastic smile.

‘Now, are you going?’ said she.

‘I will if — if I must.’

‘You are changed,’ persisted she — ‘you are grown either very proud or very indifferent.’

‘I am neither, Helen — Mrs. Huntingdon.  If you could see my heart — ’

‘You must be one, — if not both.  And why Mrs. Huntingdon? — why not Helen, as before?’

‘Helen, then — dear Helen!’ I murmured.  I was in an agony of mingled love, hope, delight, uncertainty, and suspense.

‘The rose I gave you was an emblem of my heart,’ said she; ‘would you take it away and leave me here alone?’

‘Would you give me your hand too, if I asked it?’

‘Have I not said enough?’ she answered, with a most enchanting smile.  I snatched her hand, and would have fervently kissed it, but suddenly checked myself, and said, —

‘But have you considered the consequences?’

‘Hardly, I think, or I should not have offered myself to one too proud to take me, or too indifferent to make his affection outweigh my worldly goods.’

Stupid blockhead that I was! — I trembled to clasp her in my arms, but dared not believe in so much joy, and yet restrained myself to say, —

‘But if you should repent!’

‘It would be your fault,’ she replied: ‘I never shall, unless you bitterly disappoint me.  If you have not sufficient confidence in my affection to believe this, let me alone.’

‘My darling angel — my own Helen,’ cried I, now passionately kissing the hand I still retained, and throwing my left arm around her, ‘you never shall repent, if it depend on me alone.  But have you thought of your aunt?’  I trembled for the answer, and clasped her closer to my heart in the instinctive dread of losing my new-found treasure.

‘My aunt must not know of it yet,’ said she.  ‘She would think it a rash, wild step, because she could not imagine how well I know you; but she must know you herself, and learn to like you.  You must leave us now, after lunch, and come again in spring, and make a longer stay, and cultivate her acquaintance, and I know you will like each other.’

‘And then you will be mine,’ said I, printing a kiss upon her lips, and another, and another; for I was as daring and impetuous now as I had been backward and constrained before.

‘No — in another year,’ replied she, gently disengaging herself from my embrace, but still fondly clasping my hand.

‘Another year!  Oh, Helen, I could not wait so long!’

‘Where is your fidelity?’

‘I mean I could not endure the misery of so long a separation.’

‘It would not be a separation: we will write every day: my spirit shall be always with you, and sometimes you shall see me with your bodily eye.  I will not be such a hypocrite as to pretend that I desire to wait so long myself, but as my marriage is to please myself, alone, I ought to consult my friends about the time of it.’

‘Your friends will disapprove.’

‘They will not greatly disapprove, dear Gilbert,’ said she, earnestly kissing my hand; ‘they cannot, when they know you, or, if they could, they would not be true friends — I should not care for their estrangement.  Now are you satisfied?’  She looked up in my face with a smile of ineffable tenderness.

‘Can I be otherwise, with your love?  And you do love me, Helen?’ said I, not doubting the fact, but wishing to hear it confirmed by her own acknowledgment.  ‘If you loved as I do,’ she earnestly replied, ‘you would not have so nearly lost me — these scruples of false delicacy and pride would never thus have troubled you — you would have seen that the greatest worldly distinctions and discrepancies of rank, birth, and fortune are as dust in the balance compared with the unity of accordant thoughts and feelings, and truly loving, sympathising hearts and souls.’

‘But this is too much happiness,’ said I, embracing her again; ‘I have not deserved it, Helen — I dare not believe in such felicity: and the longer I have to wait, the greater will be my dread that something will intervene to snatch you from me — and think, a thousand things may happen in a year! — I shall be in one long fever of restless terror and impatience all the time.  And besides, winter is such a dreary season.’

‘I thought so too,’ replied she gravely: ‘I would not be married in winter — in December, at least,’ she added, with a shudder — for in that month had occurred both the ill-starred marriage that had bound her to her former husband, and the terrible death that released her — ‘and therefore I said another year, in spring.’

‘Next spring?’

‘No, no — next autumn, perhaps.’

‘Summer, then?’

‘Well, the close of summer.  There now! be satisfied.’

While she was speaking Arthur re-entered the room — good boy for keeping out so long.

‘Mamma, I couldn’t find the book in either of the places you told me to look for it’ (there was a conscious something in mamma’s smile that seemed to say, ‘No, dear, I knew you could not’), ‘but Rachel got it for me at last.  Look, Mr. Markham, a natural history, with all kinds of birds and beasts in it, and the reading as nice as the pictures!’

In great good humour I sat down to examine the book, and drew the little fellow between my knees.  Had he come a minute before I should have received him less graciously, but now I affectionately stroked his curling looks, and even kissed his ivory forehead: he was my own Helen’s son, and therefore mine; and as such I have ever since regarded him.  That pretty child is now a fine young man: he has realised his mother’s brightest expectations, and is at present residing in Grassdale Manor with his young wife — the merry little Helen Hattersley of yore.

I had not looked through half the book before Mrs. Maxwell appeared to invite me into the other room to lunch.  That lady’s cool, distant manners rather chilled me at first; but I did my best to propitiate her, and not entirely without success, I think, even in that first short visit; for when I talked cheerfully to her, she gradually became more kind and cordial, and when I departed she bade me a gracious adieu, hoping ere long to have the pleasure of seeing me again.

‘But you must not go till you have seen the conservatory, my aunt’s winter garden,’ said Helen, as I advanced to take leave of her, with as much philosophy and self-command as I could summon to my aid.

I gladly availed myself of such a respite, and followed her into a large and beautiful conservatory, plentifully furnished with flowers, considering the season — but, of course, I had little attention to spare for them.  It was not, however, for any tender colloquy that my companion had brought me there: —

‘My aunt is particularly fond of flowers,’ she observed, ‘and she is fond of Staningley too: I brought you here to offer a petition in her behalf, that this may be her home as long as she lives, and — if it be not our home likewise — that I may often see her and be with her; for I fear she will be sorry to lose me; and though she leads a retired and contemplative life, she is apt to get low-spirited if left too much alone.’

‘By all means, dearest Helen! — do what you will with your own.  I should not dream of wishing your aunt to leave the place under any circumstances; and we will live either here or elsewhere as you and she may determine, and you shall see her as often as you like.  I know she must be pained to part with you, and I am willing to make any reparation in my power.  I love her for your sake, and her happiness shall be as dear to me as that of my own mother.’

‘Thank you, darling! you shall have a kiss for that.  Good-by.  There now — there, Gilbert — let me go — here’s Arthur; don’t astonish his infantile brain with your madness.’

* * * * *

But it is time to bring my narrative to a close.  Any one but you would say I had made it too long already.  But for your satisfaction I will add a few words more; because I know you will have a fellow-feeling for the old lady, and will wish to know the last of her history.  I did come again in spring, and, agreeably to Helen’s injunctions, did my best to cultivate her acquaintance.  She received me very kindly, having been, doubtless, already prepared to think highly of my character by her niece’s too favourable report.  I turned my best side out, of course, and we got along marvellously well together.  When my ambitious intentions were made known to her, she took it more sensibly than I had ventured to hope.  Her only remark on the subject, in my hearing, was —

‘And so, Mr. Markham, you are going to rob me of my niece, I understand.  Well!  I hope God will prosper your union, and make my dear girl happy at last.  Could she have been contented to remain single, I own I should have been better satisfied; but if she must marry again, I know of no one, now living and of a suitable age, to whom I would more willingly resign her than yourself, or who would be more likely to appreciate her worth and make, her truly happy, as far as I can tell.’

Of course I was delighted with the compliment, and hoped to show her that she was not mistaken in her favourable judgment.