The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Helen has noticed that she and Arthur have little to converse about; they are interested in different subjects. She is horrified when he tells stories about his previous love affairs and then laughs at her reaction. She worries he is bored by their quiet lifestyle in the country. She has her correspondence, household matters, and her drawing to entertain her, but Arthur cannot entertain himself. Still, she insists she will not complain but continue to love him.

They quarrel, however, when Arthur tells her of his intrigue with the married Lady F— and shows no sense of shame for his behavior. Helen is extremely upset and locks the door of the bedroom against him. The next day she is cool to him, wanting to teach him a lesson, but Huntingdon refuses to be contrite. Helen is startled when she hears him order a carriage for London and rushes to make amends with him. She promises she loves him and has high hopes for their future.

Helen writes in her journal that she found London tiring, and Arthur sent her home after a few weeks, saying he does not want her to lose her country bloom and freshness. She longs for company. The Hargraves live nearby at the Grove, but Millicent is in town, Walter Hargrave is away, and Esther is young.

Arthur writes that Millicent Hargrave is going to marry his friend Hattersley, who insists that he wants a wife who will always let him have his own way—unlike Mrs. Huntingdon—and who will never reproach him. Millicent writes Helen that she tried to deny Hattersley’s offer, but her mother overruled her, since she wants Millicent married and out of the house. Millicent does not wish to marry a man she cannot esteem or care for, but she says, if Helen can be content with Huntingdon, she will do her best to be content with Hattersley and behave as a model wife.

Helen grows melancholy at her husband’s absence, describing the beauty of the surrounding countryside that she wishes she could enjoy with him. When he does return, worn out, she is so happy to have him back that she waits on him hand and foot, doing her best not to irritate or displease him, though she notes, “[H]ow intensely I wish he were worthy of all this care!” (237).

Their guests arrive for a house party. Lord Lowborough seems content with his marriage, but Helen does not approve of how Annabella coaxes and flatters him. She thinks Lowborough must see that his wife is not sincere. Helen feels Annabella flirts with Huntingdon out of malice but pretends not to notice. Walter Hargrave is attentive to Helen, but she refuses to encourage him.

They visit the Grove. Helen finds Mrs. Hargrave both stingy and a spendthrift, trying to keep up appearances beyond her means, manipulating her daughters to benefit her son. Helen feels Millicent has been sacrificed but hopes Esther, age 14, whom she describes as “a little merry romp […] as honest-hearted, and as guileless and simple as her sister, but with a fearless spirit of her own” (244), will resist her mother’s pressuring.

October. Helen is upset when she catches her husband with Annabella in the drawing room after dinner, holding her hand and kissing it. Huntingdon assures her it was all in jest. Helen warns him against arousing her jealousy, explaining, “[W]hen you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again” (247). She tells him it is breaking their marriage vows to steal a woman’s affections from her husband, and he says she is breaking her vows by hectoring him, and she will drive him away by being severe. He does not believe she would ever fall out of love with him, for, he says, women are constant in their affections, even if men are not. Annabella taunts Helen the next day by saying she keeps her husband in such good order that he would never behave so with another woman. She questions whether Huntingdon is worthy of Helen’s love.

December. Helen has given birth to a son, whom she describes as a gift: “God has sent me a soul to educate for heaven, and given me a new and calmer bliss, and stronger hopes to comfort me” (252). She has morbid fears that the infant might be taken from her by death, the bloom of his youth snatched away to the better soil in Heaven. At the same time, Helen writes, if she thought her innocent child would live to disappoint her hopes, to be “a slave of sin, the victim of vice and misery” (252), she would ask God to take him now. Helen vows she will guide her son to be free from his father’s errors. Huntingdon is jealous of Helen’s attachment to the child, which she thinks only proves his selfishness.

December 1823. A year has passed. Helen dotes on her child and worries she will spoil him. She still loves her husband but laments how different marriage is from her hopes. They have nothing in common and her fortune is spent paying off his debts. She feels her higher and better self is withering for lack of companionship, but she hopes they have come to their lowest point and will find a way to go on.

Earlier that spring, Huntingdon went to London again, and Helen was hurt when he insisted on going without her. He promised to return soon but did not, which leads Helen to believe she cannot trust his word. She resolves to bear all her anxiety, despair, and indignation “without a murmur” (258), interesting herself with her books and pencils, tenant matters, and visits to Esther Hargrave.

Walter Hargrave, who is home at the Grove for the summer, hints to Helen that Huntingdon is behaving very badly in London, calling him reckless, dissipated, and infatuated. Walter says virtuously that, had he Huntingdon’s blessings, he would never neglect them so. Helen lets him know his overtures are unwelcome; she dislikes him, sensing his self-righteousness and sense of self-importance. She is determined to let her husband know how wronged she feels.

Arthur returns home in a bad temper and nursing what appears to be a hangover. He shouts at the butler for dropping a tray, and Helen sorrows to see him degrading himself for, she says, she is a part of him. When she warns him that his behavior is straining her affection for him, he says “[I]t couldn’t have been very genuine stuff to begin with, if it’s so easily demolished” (269). He compares Helen to Millicent Hattersley, who, no matter his behavior, never reproaches her husband or makes a single complaint. Helen replies that Millicent is quite pained by her husband’s behavior, and Huntingdon says he wishes Helen would stop her own anxious efforts to convert him.

Thereafter, Helen tries to refrain from chastising him and still attend to his wants, but her fondness is lessening. She also notes Huntingdon’s increased use of alcohol and intervenes to prevent him “from absolute bondage to that detestable propensity” (272), perceiving the impact on his health. She asks Walter Hargrave, who frequently dines with them, to keep Huntingdon from drinking too much. Helen is determined to love him and behave like a proper wife, but she feels his behavior and his failings degrade her.

In August, Huntingdon goes on a hunting trip to Scotland and Helen visits her aunt at Staningley. Her aunt guesses at Helen’s unhappiness even though Helen tries to paint a rosy picture of her marriage. Helen does not wish to disappoint her aunt, who reared her so lovingly after Helen’s mother died. The winter is quiet, but Helen dreads the approach of spring, a season she once enjoyed, for that is when her husband leaves her for London.

March 1824. Arthur leaves for London without Helen, urging her to visit her father and brother. He promises not to indulge so much, for he has noticed some gray hairs and a thicker waistline. The roguish twinkle of his eye and his laugh no longer move Helen as they once did. When he returns in July, Helen complains in her journal of “his injustice, his selfishness and hopeless depravity” (279). He objects when she wants to wear black to mourn her father’s death. Helen still tries to love her husband and bear with him, but it is difficult.

In September, guests arrive. Hattersley and Grimsby encourage Huntingdon to drink to excess. One evening, when Lord Lowborough leaves them to join the ladies, his wife scolds him for being unmanly. Walter Hargrave reports that he reminded Huntingdon to restrain himself for Helen’s sake, but Huntingdon refused and said insulting things about Helen.

The men come into the drawing room quite drunk and rambunctious. They try to make Lowborough take wine, and he scalds Hattersley with a candle to get out of his grip. Hattersley then attacks his wife and shakes her, demanding to know why she is crying, though Millicent weakly protests that he should not behave so before the others. When Walter objects to this treatment of his sister, Hattersley strikes Walter. Huntingdon laughs through it all.

These disgraceful scenes, as Helen calls them, continue. She notes her husband’s inability to correct his behavior, no matter how often he vows to reform, and she thinks “he is losing the little self-command and self-respect he once possessed” (291).

Helen and Millicent play outside with the children and discuss how they both hope Millicent’s sister Esther might remain a happy, carefree girl and never know disappointment in marriage. Millicent insists she is contented in her marriage and would not exchange her husband. Helen thinks there is yet a chance that Hattersley might reform his habits, but she also thinks if Millicent would try to encourage him, “there would be more chance of his reclamation, and he would be likely to treat her better, and love her more, in the end” (295). Helen informs Hattersley that Millicent minds his ill-treatment, and Hattersley says he would like his wife to speak her mind with him and show a bit more backbone instead of yielding to him all the time.

Both Hargrave and Hattersley hint to Helen that Huntingdon behaves 10 times worse than the two of them combined. Walter tells Helen he has a painful disclosure to make that might dent her “superhuman purity” (304), but Helen suspects he is trying to sow division between her and her husband and she refuses to listen.

Helen overhears Hattersley and Grimsby complaining that Huntingdon is preoccupied with a woman and not with them. Her heart overflowing with affection and hopes of renewal, Helen goes outside to find her husband walking in the shrubbery. At first, he embraces her, but then expresses shock when he recognizes her and tells her to go back inside at once. The next morning, Helen notices that her ladies’ maid, Rachel, has been crying. Rachel says she dislikes the master’s ways and that Helen should turn Lady Lowborough out of the house.

That night, when others go out to take a walk, Walter Hargrave challenges Helen to a chess game and exults when he beats her. He questions why both Annabella and Huntingdon are out walking. Helen goes outside to the shrubbery and witnesses her husband kissing Annabella.

Helen is devastated by this discovery of their affair. When she confronts her husband, he responds with insolence but no shame. Helen asks to take her child and leave, but he refuses. She then insists they will be husband and wife in name only, and he agrees to this.