Freedom's Dawn at Wildfell Hall — The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

On 24 October Helen, Rachel, and little Arthur rise before dawn and descend to the hall, where Benson stands ready with a light. He is the one servant let into the secret because of the boxes. Helen slips him two guineas, all she can spare, and he offers good wishes with a tear in his honest grey eye. When the park wicket closes she draws one draught of bracing air and looks back: Grassdale is dark and still, no smoke over the frosty stars, and she feels no remorse for the man she leaves. They travel as a widow in mourning, Arthur wrapped in a coarse shawl, Rachel muffled like an ordinary old woman. Prison and despair recede with every clatter of hooves. Night finds them in the last coaching town still seven miles short; a common cart shakes them over steep lanes Rachel remembers walking with Helen in her arms years before.

Wildfell Hall is a grim dark pile, but a faint red glimmer in a sound lattice answers their fear of an empty refuge. An old woman commissioned to air the house admits them to a fitted scullery-kitchen, two bedrooms, a parlour, and a smaller room Helen destines for a studio. Frederick's compliments come with the supper: he will call tomorrow as a landlord upon a stranger tenant. Sleep, when it comes, is sweet. Arthur wakes her with kisses, leagues from his father. Frederick visits with caution; even his servants must not know. Rachel sells the fine clothes in a distant town. Helen works to repay every penny, and unpacks, with dismay, the mocking portrait she painted in her first year of marriage. She will not destroy it. She keeps it to measure how much the growing boy resembles the man she hopes never to see again.

Huntingdon has already been to Staningley with unblushing lies. The uncle half believes him and would have her return; the aunt does not. He does not want his wife back. He wants the child, and will even settle an allowance if she delivers the boy. Frederick answers that wherever she is, no consideration will induce her to give him up. Neighbours then ferret her out, three families bent on learning who she is. Their curiosity alarms her more than their kindness. She dreads leaving Arthur even to go to church, yet the vicar has scolded her neglect, and she promises the pew next Sunday. The diary breaks off as she begins to mention the parish beau. Gilbert, reading, knows the rest was torn away, and admits he had no right to witness what she had kept sacred.