Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

42. CHAPTER XLII (continued)

'She never will; she likes me all the same, whatever I do.'

'Impossible, Mr. Hattersley! you mistake her quiet submission for affection.'

'Fire and fury - '

'Now don't burst into a tempest at that. I don't mean to say she does not love you - she does, I know, a great deal better than you deserve; but I am quite sure, that if you behave better, she will love you more, and if you behave worse, she will love you less and less, till all is lost in fear, aversion, and bitterness of soul, if not in secret hatred and contempt. But, dropping the subject of affection, should you wish to be the tyrant of her life - to take away all the sunshine from her existence, and make her thoroughly miserable?'

'Of course not; and I don't, and I'm not going to.'

'You have done more towards it than you suppose.'

'Pooh, pooh! she's not the susceptible, anxious, worriting creature you imagine: she's a little meek, peaceable, affectionate body; apt to be rather sulky at times, but quiet and cool in the main, and ready to take things as they come.'

'Think of what she was five years ago, when you married her, and what she is now.'

'I know she was a little plump lassie then, with a pretty pink and white face: now she's a poor little bit of a creature, fading and melting away like a snow-wreath. But hang it! - that's not my fault.'

'What is the cause of it then? Not years, for she's only five-and-twenty.'

'It's her own delicate health, and confound it, madam! what would you make of me? - and the children, to be sure, that worry her to death between them.'

'No, Mr. Hattersley, the children give her more pleasure than pain: they are fine, well-dispositioned children - '