The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Dear Frederick, – I know you will be anxious to hear from me, and I will tell you all I can. Mr. Huntingdon is very ill, but not dying, or in any immediate danger; and he is rather better at present than he was when I came. I found the house in sad confusion: Mrs. Greaves, Benson, every decent servant had left, and those that were come to supply their places were a negligent, disorderly set, to say no worse - I must change them again, if I stay. A professional nurse, a grim, hard old woman, had been hired to attend the wretched invalid. He suffers much, and has no fortitude to bear him through. The immediate injuries he sustained from the accident, however, were not very severe, and would, as the doctor says, have been but trifling to a man of temperate habits, but with him it is very different. On the night of my arrival, when I first entered his room, he was lying in a kind of half delirium. He did not notice me till I spoke, and then he mistook me for another.

'Is it you, Alice, come again?' he murmured. 'What did you leave me for?'

'It is I, Arthur - it is Helen, your wife,' I replied.

'My wife!' said he, with a start. - 'For Heaven's sake, don't mention her! - I have none. - Devil take her,' he cried, a moment after, - 'and you, too! What did you do it for?'

I said no more; but observing that he kept gazing towards the foot of the bed, I went and sat there, placing the light so as to shine full upon me, for I thought he might be dying, and I wanted him to know me. For a long time he lay silently looking upon me, first with a vacant stare, then with a fixed gaze of strange growing intensity. At last he startled me by suddenly raising himself on his elbow and demanding in a horrified whisper, with his eyes still fixed upon me, - 'Who is it?'

'It is Helen Huntingdon,' said I, quietly rising at the same time, and removing to a less conspicuous position.

'I must be going mad,' cried he, - 'or something - delirious, perhaps - but leave me, whoever you are - I can't bear that white face, and those eyes - for God's sake go, and send me somebody else that doesn't look like that!'

I went at once, and sent the hired nurse; but next morning I ventured to enter his chamber again, and, taking the nurse's place by his bedside, I watched him and waited on him for several hours, showing myself as little as possible, and only speaking when necessary, and then not above my breath. At first he addressed me as the nurse, but, on my crossing the room to draw up the window-blinds, in obedience to his directions, he said -

'No, it isn't nurse; it's Alice. Stay with me, do! That old hag will be the death of me.'

'I mean to stay with you,' said I. And after that he would call me Alice - or some other name almost equally repugnant to my feelings. I forced myself to endure it for a while, fearing a contradiction might disturb him too much; but when, having asked for a glass of water, while I held it to his lips, he murmured, 'Thanks, dearest!' - I could not help distinctly observing, 'You would not say so if you knew me,' intending to follow that up with another declaration of my identity; but he merely muttered an incoherent reply, so I dropped it again, till some time after, when, as I was bathing his forehead and temples with vinegar and water to relieve the heat and pain in his head, he observed, after looking earnestly upon me for some minutes -

'I have such strange fancies - I can't get rid of them, and they won't let me rest; and the most singular and pertinacious of them all is your face and voice; they seem just like hers. I could swear at this moment that she was by my side.'

'She is,' said I.

'That seems comfortable,' continued he, without noticing my words; 'and while you do it, the other fancies fade away - but this only strengthens. Go on - go on, till it vanishes, too. I can't stand such a mania as this; it would kill me!'

'It never will vanish,' said I, distinctly, 'for it is the truth!'

'The truth!' he cried, starting, as if an asp had stung him. 'You don't mean to say that you are really she?'

'I do; but you needn't shrink away from me, as if I were your greatest enemy: I am come to take care of you, and do what none of them would do.'

'For God's sake, don't torment me now!' cried he in pitiable agitation; and then he began to mutter bitter curses against me, or the evil fortune that had brought me there; while I put down the sponge and basin, and resumed my seat at the bed-side.

'Where are they?' said he - 'have they all left me - servants and all?'

'There are servants within call if you want them; but you had better lie down now and be quiet: none of them could or would attend you as carefully as I shall do.'

'I can't understand it at all,' said he, in bewildered perplexity. 'Was it a dream that - ' and he covered his eyes with his hands, as if trying to unravel the mystery.