The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Gilbert refuses to believe the rumors about Mrs. Graham, but his mother suggests there must be something in her conduct to provide the basis for suspicion. On a visit to Wildfell, Mrs. Graham picks a moss rose from the garden and asks Gilbert to give it to Rose. He asks if he might have one for himself, thinking if she gives him one, she must care for him and that “[his] hour of victory was come” (110). She tells him that if he cannot remain merely her friend, they must become strangers. Gilbert accosts Lawrence as he is riding to Wildfell and demands to know his business. Lawrence refuses to tell him, and Gilbert goes home full of wrath.

Gilbert and Helen are on first-name terms, but Gilbert hopes to win her love. Rose feels reservations about Gilbert’s attachment to Mrs. Graham, who continues to be the subject of gossip. Reverend Millward visits Mrs. Graham to chastise her for her behavior and reports that she offered no defense for her actions, and in fact brushed aside his concerns. When the reverend prompts Mrs. Markham to forbid Rose to consort with her, and then lectures Gilbert, Gilbert leaves for Wildfell Hall.

Upon reaching the Hall, Gilbert sits with Helen before the fire in some agitation of mind, for though he longs to tell her how he feels and “disburden [his] full heart of the feelings that had so long oppressed it” (119), he fears a rash declaration may cause her to spurn him once and for all. Mrs. Graham perceives his feelings and expresses regret that she let them develop. Gilbert promises that his love for her has been “purifying, exalting, ennobling to [his] soul,” (122) and he would rather have her friendship than the love of any other woman. She asks him to meet her on the moor the next day, where she will tell him all he wishes to know.

Feeling guilty that he leaves her weeping, Gilbert returns to the Hall and, as he approaches, sees Helen and Lawrence outside together. Their conversation reveals that they mean something to one another: Lawrence puts his arm around her waist, and she leans her head on his shoulder. Gilbert goes home livid and paces his room most of the night, much to his mother’s consternation.

Gilbert is cross with his family but resolves to put aside his battered feelings and tend to his responsibilities with the farm. Eliza teases him that his interest in Mrs. Graham appears to have waned. When he sees Helen walking across a cornfield, Gilbert turns and walks away, though young Arthur calls to him.

Gilbert sets out for the nearby market town and is overtaken by Lawrence on the road. When Lawrence chides him for how he is behaving, Gilbert lashes out and strikes the man on the head with the handle of his riding whip. The blow knocks Lawrence from his horse, and Gilbert rides away in a fury. Out of guilt he returns and attempts to help, but Lawrence does not wish for his assistance. Gilbert leaves Lawrence sitting on the damp bank beside the road, holding a cloth to his bleeding head. When Gilbert returns from town, Rose informs him that Lawrence had an accident and is ill at home. Gilbert wonders what Lawrence will say about his injuries, but he feels little remorse.

Gilbert is on the hill with the reapers, taking advantage of a clear day, when Arthur and Helen approach him. He greets her coldly, and she says she guesses he has listened to the gossip, which means he is not the man she thought he was. She wishes he had let her speak her side of things. Resentful but curious, Gilbert follows her to the Hall and reveals that he saw her with Lawrence. He says he could live a hundred years and never recover from the blow she has dealt him.

Overcome with strong feeling, Helen asks if he would be glad to learn he was mistaken in his assumption about her relationship with Lawrence. She takes a journal from her desk, tears out a few pages at the end, and gives it to Gilbert, asking him to bring it back when he has read it and not speak a word about its contents to another living soul. His hopes revived, Gilbert takes the journal home to read it, and then tells his reader he will share the whole of it.