Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

40. CHAPTER XL (continued)

Here Benson entered with the candles, and there followed a brief interval of silence; I sitting still in my chair, and he standing with his back to the fire, silently triumphing in my despair.

'And so,' said he at length, 'you thought to disgrace me, did you, by running away and turning artist, and supporting yourself by the labour of your hands, forsooth? And you thought to rob me of my son, too, and bring him up to be a dirty Yankee tradesman, or a low, beggarly painter?'

'Yes, to obviate his becoming such a gentleman as his father.'

'It's well you couldn't keep your own secret - ha, ha! It's well these women must be blabbing. If they haven't a friend to talk to, they must whisper their secrets to the fishes, or write them on the sand, or something; and it's well, too, I wasn't over full to-night, now I think of it, or I might have snoozed away and never dreamt of looking what my sweet lady was about; or I might have lacked the sense or the power to carry my point like a man, as I have done.'

Leaving him to his self-congratulations, I rose to secure my manuscript, for I now remembered it had been left upon the drawing-room table, and I determined, if possible, to save myself the humiliation of seeing it in his hands again. I could not bear the idea of his amusing himself over my secret thoughts and recollections; though, to be sure, he would find little good of himself therein indited, except in the former part; and oh, I would sooner burn it all than he should read what I had written when I was such a fool as to love him!

'And by-the-by,' cried he, as I was leaving the room, 'you'd better tell that d-d old sneak of a nurse to keep out of my way for a day or two; I'd pay her her wages and send her packing to-morrow, but I know she'd do more mischief out of the house than in it.'