The Vicar Again You must suppose about three weeks passed over. Mrs Graham and I were now established friends--or brother and sister, as we rather chose to consider ourselves. She called me Gilbert, by my express desire, and I called her Helen, for I had seen that name written in her books. I seldom attempted to see her above twice a week; and still I made our meetings appear the result of accident as often as I could--for I found it necessary to be extremely careful--and, altogether, I behaved with such exceeding propriety that she never had occasion to reprove me once. Yet I could not but perceive that she was at times unhappy and dissatisfied with herself--or her position, and truly I myself was not quite contented with the latter: this assumption of brotherly nonchalance was very hard to sustain, and I often felt myself a most confounded hypocrite with it all; I saw too, or rather I felt, that, in spite of herself, `I was not indifferent to her," as the novel heroes modestly express it, and while I thankfully enjoyed my present good fortune, I could not fail to wish and hope for something better in future; but of course, I kept such dreams entirely to myself.
`Where are you going, Gilbert?' said Rose, one evening, shortly after tea, when I had been busy with the farm all day, `To take a walk,' was the reply.
`Do you always brush your hat so carefully, and do your hair so nicely, and put on such smart new gloves when you take a walk?'
`Not always.'
`You're going to Wildfell Hall, aren't you?'
`What makes you think so?'
`Because you look as if you were--but I wish you wouldn't go so often.'
`Nonsense, child! I don't go once in six weeks--what do you mean?'
`Well, but if I were you, I wouldn't have so much to do with Mrs Graham.'
`Why Rose, are you, too, giving in to the prevailing opinion?'
`No,' returned she, hesitatingly--`but I've heard so much about her lately, both at the Wilsons' and the vicarage;--and besides, mamma says, if she were a proper person, she would not be living there by herself--and don't you remember last winter, Gilbert, all that about the false name to the picture; and how she explained it--saying she had friends or acquaintances from whom she wished her present residence to be concealed, and that she was afraid of their tracing her out;--and then, how suddenly she started up and left the room when that person came--whom she took good care not to let us catch a glimpse of, and who Arthur, with such an air of mystery, told us was his mamma's friend?'
`Yes, Rose, I remember it all; and I can forgive your uncharitable conclusions; for perhaps, if I did not know her myself, I should put all these things together, and believe the same as you do; but thank God, I do know her; and I should be unworthy the name of a man, if I could believe anything that was said against her, unless I heard it from her own lips.--I should as soon believe such things of you, Rose.'
`Oh, Gilbert!'
`Well, do you think I could believe anything of the kind,--whatever the Wilsons and Millwards dared to whisper?'
`I should hope not indeed!'
`And why not?--Because I know you--well, and I know her just as well.'
`Oh, no! you know nothing of her former life; and last year at this time, you did not know that such a person existed.'
`No matter. There is' such a thing as looking through a person's eyes into the heart, and learning more of the height, and breadth, and depth of another's soul in one hour, than it might take you a lifetime to discover, if he or she were not disposed to reveal it,--or if you had not the sense to understand it.'
`Then you are going to see her this evening?'
To be sure I am!'
`But what would mamma say, Gilbert?'
`Mamma needn't know.'
`But she must know sometime,if you go on'
`Go on!--there's no going on in the matter--Mrs Graham and I are two friends--and will be; and no man breathing shall hinder it,--or has a right to interfere between us.'
`But if you knew how they talk, you would be more careful--for her sake as well as for your own. Jane Wilson thinks your visits to the old hall but another proof of her depravity--'
`Confound Jane Wilson!'
`And Eliza Millward is quite grieved about you.'
`I hope she is.'
`But I wouldn't if I were you.'
`Wouldn't what?--How do they know that I go there?'
`There's nothing hid from them: they spy out everything.'
`Oh, I never thought of this!--And so they dare to turn my friendship into food for further scandal against her!--That proves the falsehood of their other lies, at all events, if any proof were wanting.--Mind you contradict them, Rose, whenever you can.'
`But they don't speak openly to me about such things: it is only by hints and innuendoes, and by what I hear others say, that I know what they think.'