Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

47. CHAPTER XLVII (continued)

'I must be going mad,' cried he, 'or something - delirious, perhaps; but leave me, whoever you are. I can't bear that white face, and those eyes. For God's sake go, and send me somebody else that doesn't look like that!'

I went at once, and sent the hired nurse; but next morning I ventured to enter his chamber again, and, taking the nurse's place by his bedside, I watched him and waited on him for several hours, showing myself as little as possible, and only speaking when necessary, and then not above my breath. At first he addressed me as the nurse, but, on my crossing the room to draw up the window-blinds, in obedience to his directions, he said, 'No, it isn't nurse; it's Alice. Stay with me, do! That old hag will be the death of me.'

'I mean to stay with you,' said I. And after that he would call me Alice, or some other name almost equally repugnant to my feelings. I forced myself to endure it for a while, fearing a contradiction might disturb him too much; but when, having asked for a glass of water, while I held it to his lips, he murmured, 'Thanks, dearest!' I could not help distinctly observing, 'You would not say so if you knew me,' intending to follow that up with another declaration of my identity; but he merely muttered an incoherent reply, so I dropped it again, till some time after, when, as I was bathing his forehead and temples with vinegar and water to relieve the heat and pain in his head, he observed, after looking earnestly upon me for some minutes, 'I have such strange fancies - I can't get rid of them, and they won't let me rest; and the most singular and pertinacious of them all is your face and voice - they seem just like hers. I could swear at this moment that she was by my side.'

'She is,' said I.

'That seems comfortable,' continued he, without noticing my words; 'and while you do it, the other fancies fade away - but this only strengthens. - Go on - go on, till it vanishes, too. I can't stand such a mania as this; it would kill me!'