The Tenant of Wildfell Hall | Page 9

enter
the church.
Their sister Jane was a young lady of some talents, and more ambition.
She had, at her own desire, received a regular boarding- school
education, superior to what any member of the family had obtained
before. She had taken the polish well, acquired considerable elegance
of manners, quite lost her provincial accent, and could boast of more
accomplishments than the vicar's daughters. She was considered a
beauty besides; but never for a moment could she number me amongst
her admirers. She was about six and twenty, rather tall and very slender,
her hair was neither chestnut nor auburn, but a most decided bright,
light red; her complexion was remarkably fair and brilliant, her head
small, neck long, chin well turned, but very short, lips thin and red,
eyes clear hazel, quick, and penetrating, but entirely destitute of poetry

or feeling. She had, or might have had, many suitors in her own rank of
life, but scornfully repulsed or rejected them all; for none but a
gentleman could please her refined taste, and none but a rich one could
satisfy her soaring ambition. One gentleman there was, from whom she
had lately received some rather pointed attentions, and upon whose
heart, name, and fortune, it was whispered, she had serious designs.
This was Mr. Lawrence, the young squire, whose family had formerly
occupied Wildfell Hall, but had deserted it, some fifteen years ago, for
a more modern and commodious mansion in the neighbouring parish.
Now, Halford, I bid you adieu for the present. This is the first
instalment of my debt. If the coin suits you, tell me so, and I'll send you
the rest at my leisure: if you would rather remain my creditor than stuff
your purse with such ungainly, heavy pieces, - tell me still, and I'll
pardon your bad taste, and willingly keep the treasure to myself.
Yours immutably,
GILBERT MARKHAM.


CHAPTER II

I perceive, with joy, my most valued friend, that the cloud of your
displeasure has passed away; the light of your countenance blesses me
once more, and you desire the continuation of my story: therefore,
without more ado, you shall have it.
I think the day I last mentioned was a certain Sunday, the latest in the
October of 1827. On the following Tuesday I was out with my dog and
gun, in pursuit of such game as I could find within the territory of
Linden-Car; but finding none at all, I turned my arms against the hawks
and carrion crows, whose depredations, as I suspected, had deprived me
of better prey. To this end I left the more frequented regions, the
wooded valleys, the corn-fields, and the meadow-lands, and proceeded
to mount the steep acclivity of Wildfell, the wildest and the loftiest
eminence in our neighbourhood, where, as you ascend, the hedges, as
well as the trees, become scanty and stunted, the former, at length,

giving place to rough stone fences, partly greened over with ivy and
moss, the latter to larches and Scotch fir-trees, or isolated blackthorns.
The fields, being rough and stony, and wholly unfit for the plough,
were mostly devoted to the posturing of sheep and cattle; the soil was
thin and poor: bits of grey rock here and there peeped out from the
grassy hillocks; bilberry-plants and heather - relics of more savage
wildness - grew under the walls; and in many of the enclosures,
ragweeds and rushes usurped supremacy over the scanty herbage; but
these were not my property.
Near the top of this hill, about two miles from Linden-Car, stood
Wildfell Hall, a superannuated mansion of the Elizabethan era, built of
dark grey stone, venerable and picturesque to look at, but doubtless,
cold and gloomy enough to inhabit, with its thick stone mullions and
little latticed panes, its time-eaten air-holes, and its too lonely, too
unsheltered situation, - only shielded from the war of wind and weather
by a group of Scotch firs, themselves half blighted with storms, and
looking as stern and gloomy as the Hall itself. Behind it lay a few
desolate fields, and then the brown heath-clad summit of the hill;
before it (enclosed by stone walls, and entered by an iron gate, with
large balls of grey granite - similar to those which decorated the roof
and gables - surmounting the gate-posts) was a garden, - once stocked
with such hard plants and flowers as could best brook the soil and
climate, and such trees and shrubs as could best endure the gardener's
torturing shears, and most readily assume the shapes he chose to give
them, - now, having been left so many years untilled and untrimmed,
abandoned to the weeds and the grass, to the frost and the wind, the
rain and the drought, it presented a very