40 Tenant Of Wildfell Hall - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

A romantic bedtime podcast guaranteed to help you drift off into a calm,

Relaxing sleep.

Come with me as we travel back to a time long ago where Helen Huntingdon is sacrificing everything she knows in order to protect her son.

But before we begin let us take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose then let it out on a long sigh.

It is time to relax and really let go.

Feel your shoulders melt away from your ears as you sink into the support beneath you.

Feel the pressure seep away from your cheeks as your breath drops into a natural rhythm.

There is nothing you need to be doing right now and nowhere you need to go.

We are together and it is time for sleep.

The Tenant of Wildfelm Hall Read and abridged by Stephanie Poppins Chapter 40 Hope springs eternal in the human breast March 20th Having now got rid of Mr.

Huntington for a season,

My spirits began to revive.

He left me early in February and the moment he was gone I breathed again and felt my vital energy return.

Not with a hope of escape,

He has taken care to leave me no visible chance of that,

But with a determination to make the best of existing circumstances.

Here was Arthur left to me at last and rousing from my despondent apathy I exerted all my powers to eradicate the weeds that had been fostered in his infant mind and so again the good seed they had rendered unproductive.

Thank heaven it is not a barren or a stony soil.

If weeds spring fast there,

So do better plants.

His apprehensions are more quick,

His heart more overflowing with affection than ever his father's could have been.

And it is no hopeless task to bend him to obedience and win him to love and know his own true friend as long as there is no one to counteract my efforts.

I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire,

But already that difficulty is nearly vanquished now.

Bad language seldom defiles his mouth and I have succeeded in giving him an absolute disgust for all intoxicating liquors,

Which I hope not even his father or his father's friends will be able to overcome.

He was inordinately fond of them for so young a creature,

And remembering my unfortunate father as well as his,

I dreaded the consequences of such a taste.

But if I had stinted him in his usual quantity of wine or forbidden him to taste it altogether,

That would only have increased his partiality for it and made him regard it as a greater treat than ever.

I therefore gave him quite as much as his father was accustomed to allow him,

As much indeed as he desired to have,

But into every glass I surreptitiously introduced a small quantity of tartar emetic,

Just enough to provide inevitable nausea and depression without possible sickness.

Finding such disagreeable consequences invariably to result from this indulgence,

Little Arthur soon grew weary of it,

But the more he shrank from the daily treat,

The more I pressed it upon him,

Till his reluctance was strengthened to perfect abhorrence.

When he was thoroughly disgusted with every kind of wine,

I allowed him at his own request to try brandy and water,

And then gin and water,

For the little toper was familiar with them all,

And I was determined all should be equally hateful to him.

This I have now effected,

And since he declares that taste,

The smell,

And the sight of any one of them is sufficient to make him sick,

I have given up teasing him about them,

Except now and then as objects of terror in case of misbehaviour.

I flatter myself I shall secure him from this one vice,

And for the rest,

If on his father's return I find reason to apprehend my good lessons will be destroyed,

If Mr Huntington commence again the game of teaching the child to hate and despise his mother,

I will yet deliver my son from his hands.

I have devised another scheme that might be resorted to in such a case,

And if I could but obtain my brother's consent and assistance,

I should not doubt of its success.

The old hall where he and I were born and where our mother died is now uninhabited,

Nor yet quite sunk into decay as I believe.

If I could persuade him to have one or two rooms made habitable,

And to let them to me as a stranger,

I might be able to live there with little Arthur under an assumed name,

And still support myself by my favourite art.

He should lend me the money to begin with,

And I would pay him back,

And live in lowly independence and strict seclusion,

For the house stands in a lonely place.

And the neighbourhood is thinly inhabited,

And he himself should negotiate the sale of my pictures for me.

I have arranged the whole plan in my head,

And all I want is to persuade Frederick to be of the same mind as myself.

He is coming to see me soon,

And then I will make the proposal to him,

Having first enlightened him upon my circumstances sufficiently to excuse the project.

Already I believe he knows much more of my situation than I have told him.

I can tell this by the air of tender sadness pervading his letters,

And by the fact of his so seldom mentioning my husband,

And generally convincing a kind of covert bitterness when he does refer to him,

As well as by the circumstances of his never coming to see me when Mr.

Huntington is at home.

But he has never openly expressed any disapprobation of him or sympathy for me,

He has never asked any questions or said anything to invite my confidence.

Had he done so,

I should probably have had but few concealments from him.

Perhaps he feels hurt at my reserve.

Frederick is a strange being.

I wish we knew each other better.

He used to spend a month at Stanningley every year before I was married,

But since our father's death I have only seen him once,

When he came for a few days while Mr.

Huntington was away.

He shall stay many days this time,

And there shall be more candour and cordiality between us than ever there was before,

Since our early childhood.

My heart clings to him more than ever,

And my soul is sick of solitude.

April 16th.

Frederick is come and gone.

He would not stay above a fortnight.

The time passed quickly but very,

Very happily,

And it has done me good.

I must have had a bad disposition,

For my misfortunes have soured and embittered me exceedingly.

I was beginning insensibly to cherish very unaiming and unkind words.

I have many unalienable feelings against my fellow mortals,

The male part of them especially,

But it is a comfort to see there is at least one among them worthy to be trusted and esteemed,

And doubtless there are more,

Though I have never known them,

Unless I accept poor Lord Lowborough,

And he was bad enough in his day.

But what would Frederick have been if he'd have lived in the world and mingled from his childhood with such men as these of my acquaintance?

And what will Arthur be with all his natural sweetness of disposition,

If I do not save him from that world and those companions?

I mentioned my fears to Frederick and introduced the subject of my plan of rescue on the evening after his arrival,

When I presented my little son to his uncle.

"'He is like you,

Frederick,

' said I,

In some of his moods.

"'I sometimes think he resembles you more than his father,

And I am glad of it.

' "'You flatter me,

Helen,

' replied he,

Stroking the child's soft wavy locks.

"'No,

You will think it no compliment when I tell you I would rather have him resemble Benson than his father.

' "'Frederick slightly elevated his eyebrows,

But he said nothing.

"'Do you know what sort of man Mr Huntington is?

' said I.

"'I think I have an idea.

"'Have you so clear an idea that you can hear without surprise or disapproval that I meditate escaping with that child to some secret asylum where we can live in peace and never see him again?

' "'Is it really so?

' "'If you have not,

' continued I,

"'I'll tell you something more about him.

' And I gave a sketch of his general conduct and a more particular account of his behaviour with regard to his child,

And I explained my apprehensions on the latter's account and my determination to deliver him from his father's indulgence.

"'Frederick was exceedingly indignant against Mr Huntington and very much grieved for me.

"'But still he looked upon my project as wild and impracticable.

"'He deemed my fears for Arthur disproportion to the circumstances "'and opposed so many objections to my plan and devised so many milder methods "'for ameliorating my condition that I was obliged to enter into fervor to do so.

"'To convince him my husband was utterly incorrigible "'and that nothing could persuade him to give up his son,

Whatever became of me.

"'He being as fully determined the child should not leave him as I was not to leave the child,

"'and that in fact nothing would answer to this "'unless I fled the country as I had intended before.

"'To obviate that,

Frederick at length consented to have one wing of the old hall "'put into a habitable condition as a place of refuge against a time of need.

"'But he hoped I would not take advantage of it "'unless circumstances should render it really necessary,

"'which I was ready enough to promise,

For though for my own sake "'such a hermitage appears like paradise itself compared with my present situation,

"'yet for my friend's sake,

For Millicent and Esther,

My sisters in heart and affection,

"'for the poor tenants of Grassedale,

And above all for my aunt,

"'I will stay here if I possibly can.

'