Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

32. CHAPTER XXXII (continued)

'Off with you then! - An excellent little woman,' he remarked when she was gone, 'but a thought too soft - she almost melts in one's hands. I positively think I ill-use her sometimes, when I've taken too much - but I can't help it, for she never complains, either at the time or after. I suppose she doesn't mind it.'

'I can enlighten you on that subject, Mr. Hattersley,' said I: 'she does mind it; and some other things she minds still more, which yet you may never hear her complain of.'

'How do you know? - does she complain to you?' demanded he, with a sudden spark of fury ready to burst into a flame if I should answer "yes."

'No,' I replied; 'but I have known her longer and studied her more closely than you have done. - And I can tell you, Mr. Hattersley, that Milicent loves you more than you deserve, and that you have it in your power to make her very happy, instead of which you are her evil genius, and, I will venture to say, there is not a single day passes in which you do not inflict upon her some pang that you might spare her if you would.'

'Well - it's not my fault,' said he, gazing carelessly up at the ceiling and plunging his hands into his pockets: 'if my ongoings don't suit her, she should tell me so.'

'Is she not exactly the wife you wanted? Did you not tell Mr. Huntingdon you must have one that would submit to anything without a murmur, and never blame you, whatever you did?'

'True, but we shouldn't always have what we want: it spoils the best of us, doesn't it? How can I help playing the deuce when I see it's all one to her whether I behave like a Christian or like a scoundrel, such as nature made me? and how can I help teasing her when she's so invitingly meek and mim, when she lies down like a spaniel at my feet and never so much as squeaks to tell me that's enough?'