A Mother's Desperate Strategy — The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

With Huntingdon away from early February, Helen's spirits revive enough to reclaim little Arthur from his father's teaching. She calls the child's heart fertile soil and works patiently to uproot weeds and sow good seed again, giving him an absolute disgust for intoxicating liquors she hopes even Huntingdon's friends cannot undo. Through strategy rather than scenes of conflict she bends him back toward obedience and affection while no one counters her in the house. She tells Esther she must refuse marriage without love, likening a loveless match to selling oneself into slavery, and warns that a husband's pleasures shared with no one else is a bar impossible for most marriages to meet. Helen has arranged an escape through her brother Frederick: she will persuade him to make a few rooms habitable at their mother's deserted birthplace, where she can live under an assumed name, support herself by painting, and keep Arthur safe in strict seclusion while Frederick negotiates sales of her work. Frederick is due to visit soon and she has planned every detail in her head. The chapter closes on Esther's bright, half-naive confidence that her own marriage will be nothing like Helen's lonely life at Grassdale. Esther embraces Helen with playful affection but Helen feels a tear on her neck and knows the girl senses her unhappiness beneath the laughter.