diff --git a/includes/common.hpp b/includes/common.hpp new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31027c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/includes/common.hpp @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +#pragma once + +#include +#include + +struct IngestProperties { + + IngestProperties(const std::string &_filename, + const std::string &_decryption_key, + const std::vector &_utf8_columns, + const std::string &_null_value, + const int &_csv_block_size_mb) + : filename(_filename), decryption_key(_decryption_key), + utf8_columns(_utf8_columns), null_value(_null_value), + csv_block_size_mb(_csv_block_size_mb) {} + + const std::string &filename; + const std::string &decryption_key; + const std::vector &utf8_columns; + const std::string &null_value; + const int &csv_block_size_mb; +}; \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/includes/csv_arrow_ingest.hpp b/includes/csv_arrow_ingest.hpp index 9fe63c6..6b9ccf0 100644 --- a/includes/csv_arrow_ingest.hpp +++ b/includes/csv_arrow_ingest.hpp @@ -1,10 +1,7 @@ +#include "common.hpp" #include -std::shared_ptr read_encrypted_csv( - const std::string &filename, const std::string &decryption_key, - std::vector &utf8_columns, const std::string &null_value); +std::shared_ptr read_encrypted_csv(const IngestProperties &props); std::shared_ptr -read_unencrypted_csv(const std::string &filename, - std::vector &utf8_columns, - const std::string &null_value); \ No newline at end of file +read_unencrypted_csv(const IngestProperties &props); \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/includes/motherduck_destination_server.hpp b/includes/motherduck_destination_server.hpp index e6365a3..2106020 100644 --- a/includes/motherduck_destination_server.hpp +++ b/includes/motherduck_destination_server.hpp @@ -6,9 +6,15 @@ static constexpr const char *const MD_PROP_DATABASE = "motherduck_database"; static constexpr const char *const MD_PROP_TOKEN = "motherduck_token"; +static constexpr const char *const MD_PROP_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE = + "motherduck_csv_block_size"; + static constexpr const char *const CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE = "test_authentication"; +static constexpr const char *const CONFIG_TEST_NAME_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE = + "test_csv_block_size"; + class DestinationSdkImpl final : public fivetran_sdk::Destination::Service { public: DestinationSdkImpl() = default; diff --git a/src/csv_arrow_ingest.cpp b/src/csv_arrow_ingest.cpp index d5617b3..e1bcfa2 100644 --- a/src/csv_arrow_ingest.cpp +++ b/src/csv_arrow_ingest.cpp @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ #include arrow::csv::ConvertOptions -get_arrow_convert_options(std::vector &utf8_columns, +get_arrow_convert_options(const std::vector &utf8_columns, const std::string &null_value) { auto convert_options = arrow::csv::ConvertOptions::Defaults(); convert_options.null_values @@ -21,13 +21,15 @@ get_arrow_convert_options(std::vector &utf8_columns, } template -std::shared_ptr read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table( - T &input_stream, std::vector &utf8_columns, - const std::string &null_value, const std::string &filename) { +std::shared_ptr +read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table(T &input_stream, const IngestProperties &props) { auto read_options = arrow::csv::ReadOptions::Defaults(); + read_options.block_size = props.csv_block_size_mb << 20; auto parse_options = arrow::csv::ParseOptions::Defaults(); - auto convert_options = get_arrow_convert_options(utf8_columns, null_value); + parse_options.newlines_in_values = true; + auto convert_options = + get_arrow_convert_options(props.utf8_columns, props.null_value); auto maybe_table_reader = arrow::csv::TableReader::Make( arrow::io::default_io_context(), std::move(input_stream), read_options, @@ -42,7 +44,7 @@ std::shared_ptr read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table( auto maybe_table = table_reader->Read(); if (!maybe_table.ok()) { - throw std::runtime_error("Could not read CSV <" + filename + + throw std::runtime_error("Could not read CSV <" + props.filename + ">: " + maybe_table.status().message()); } auto table = std::move(maybe_table.ValueOrDie()); @@ -50,13 +52,12 @@ std::shared_ptr read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table( return table; } -std::shared_ptr read_encrypted_csv( - const std::string &filename, const std::string &decryption_key, - std::vector &utf8_columns, const std::string &null_value) { +std::shared_ptr +read_encrypted_csv(const IngestProperties &props) { std::vector plaintext = decrypt_file( - filename, - reinterpret_cast(decryption_key.c_str())); + props.filename, + reinterpret_cast(props.decryption_key.c_str())); auto buffer = std::make_shared( reinterpret_cast(plaintext.data()), plaintext.size()); auto buffer_reader = std::make_shared(buffer); @@ -78,23 +79,20 @@ std::shared_ptr read_encrypted_csv( auto compressed_input_stream = std::move(maybe_compressed_input_stream.ValueOrDie()); - return read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table(compressed_input_stream, utf8_columns, - null_value, filename); + return read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table(compressed_input_stream, props); } std::shared_ptr -read_unencrypted_csv(const std::string &filename, - std::vector &utf8_columns, - const std::string &null_value) { +read_unencrypted_csv(const IngestProperties &props) { - auto maybe_file = - arrow::io::ReadableFile::Open(filename, arrow::default_memory_pool()); + auto maybe_file = arrow::io::ReadableFile::Open(props.filename, + arrow::default_memory_pool()); if (!maybe_file.ok()) { - throw std::runtime_error("Could not open uncompressed file <" + filename + + throw std::runtime_error("Could not open uncompressed file <" + + props.filename + ">: " + maybe_file.status().message()); } auto plaintext_input_stream = std::move(maybe_file.ValueOrDie()); - return read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table(plaintext_input_stream, utf8_columns, - null_value, filename); + return read_csv_stream_to_arrow_table(plaintext_input_stream, props); } diff --git a/src/motherduck_destination_server.cpp b/src/motherduck_destination_server.cpp index 751de00..32fb7bd 100644 --- a/src/motherduck_destination_server.cpp +++ b/src/motherduck_destination_server.cpp @@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ #include #include +#include #include #include #include @@ -23,6 +24,14 @@ find_property(const google::protobuf::Map &config, return token_it->second; } +int find_optional_property( + const google::protobuf::Map &config, + const std::string &property_name, int default_value, + const std::function &parse) { + auto token_it = config.find(property_name); + return token_it == config.end() ? default_value : parse(token_it->second); +} + template std::string get_schema_name(const T *request) { std::string schema_name = request->schema_name(); if (schema_name.empty()) { @@ -99,16 +108,12 @@ void validate_file(const std::string &file_path) { } void process_file( - duckdb::Connection &con, const std::string &filename, - const std::string &decryption_key, std::vector &utf8_columns, - const std::string &null_value, + duckdb::Connection &con, IngestProperties &props, const std::function &process_view) { - validate_file(filename); - auto table = decryption_key.empty() - ? read_unencrypted_csv(filename, utf8_columns, null_value) - : read_encrypted_csv(filename, decryption_key, utf8_columns, - null_value); + validate_file(props.filename); + auto table = props.decryption_key.empty() ? read_unencrypted_csv(props) + : read_encrypted_csv(props); auto batch_reader = std::make_shared(*table); ArrowArrayStream arrow_array_stream; @@ -117,7 +122,7 @@ void process_file( if (!status.ok()) { throw std::runtime_error( "Could not convert Arrow batch reader to an array stream for file <" + - filename + ">: " + status.message()); + props.filename + ">: " + status.message()); } duckdb_connection c_con = reinterpret_cast(&con); @@ -158,6 +163,8 @@ grpc::Status DestinationSdkImpl::ConfigurationForm( token_field.set_text_field(fivetran_sdk::Password); token_field.set_required(true); + response->add_fields()->CopyFrom(token_field); + fivetran_sdk::FormField db_field; db_field.set_name(MD_PROP_DATABASE); db_field.set_label("Database Name"); @@ -165,12 +172,28 @@ grpc::Status DestinationSdkImpl::ConfigurationForm( db_field.set_text_field(fivetran_sdk::PlainText); db_field.set_required(true); - response->add_fields()->CopyFrom(token_field); response->add_fields()->CopyFrom(db_field); - auto test = response->add_tests(); - test->set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE); - test->set_label("Test Authentication"); + fivetran_sdk::FormField block_size_field; + block_size_field.set_name(MD_PROP_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE); + block_size_field.set_label( + "Maximum individual value size, in megabytes (default 1 MB)"); + block_size_field.set_description( + "This field limits the maximum length of a single field value coming " + "from the input source." + "Must be a valid numeric value"); + block_size_field.set_text_field(fivetran_sdk::PlainText); + block_size_field.set_required(false); + response->add_fields()->CopyFrom(block_size_field); + + auto block_size_test = response->add_tests(); + block_size_test->set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE); + block_size_test->set_label("Maximum value size is a valid number"); + + auto connection_test = response->add_tests(); + connection_test->set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE); + connection_test->set_label("Test Authentication"); + return ::grpc::Status(::grpc::StatusCode::OK, ""); } @@ -330,6 +353,11 @@ DestinationSdkImpl::WriteBatch(::grpc::ServerContext *context, const std::string db_name = find_property(request->configuration(), MD_PROP_DATABASE); + const int csv_block_size = find_optional_property( + request->configuration(), MD_PROP_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE, 1, + [&](const std::string &val) -> int { return std::stoi(val); }); + mdlog::info("CSV BLOCK SIZE = " + std::to_string(csv_block_size)); + table_def table_name{db_name, get_schema_name(request), request->table().name()}; std::unique_ptr con = @@ -360,33 +388,35 @@ DestinationSdkImpl::WriteBatch(::grpc::ServerContext *context, const auto decryption_key = get_encryption_key( filename, request->keys(), request->csv().encryption()); - process_file( - *con, filename, decryption_key, column_names, - request->csv().null_string(), [&](const std::string &view_name) { - upsert(*con, table_name, view_name, columns_pk, columns_regular); - }); + IngestProperties props(filename, decryption_key, column_names, + request->csv().null_string(), csv_block_size); + + process_file(*con, props, [&](const std::string &view_name) { + upsert(*con, table_name, view_name, columns_pk, columns_regular); + }); } for (auto &filename : request->update_files()) { auto decryption_key = get_encryption_key(filename, request->keys(), request->csv().encryption()); + IngestProperties props(filename, decryption_key, column_names, + request->csv().null_string(), csv_block_size); - process_file( - *con, filename, decryption_key, column_names, - request->csv().null_string(), [&](const std::string &view_name) { - update_values(*con, table_name, view_name, columns_pk, - columns_regular, request->csv().unmodified_string()); - }); + process_file(*con, props, [&](const std::string &view_name) { + update_values(*con, table_name, view_name, columns_pk, columns_regular, + request->csv().unmodified_string()); + }); } for (auto &filename : request->delete_files()) { auto decryption_key = get_encryption_key(filename, request->keys(), request->csv().encryption()); std::vector empty; - process_file(*con, filename, decryption_key, empty, - request->csv().null_string(), - [&](const std::string &view_name) { - delete_rows(*con, table_name, view_name, columns_pk); - }); + IngestProperties props(filename, decryption_key, empty, + request->csv().null_string(), csv_block_size); + + process_file(*con, props, [&](const std::string &view_name) { + delete_rows(*con, table_name, view_name, columns_pk); + }); } } catch (const std::exception &e) { @@ -403,6 +433,18 @@ DestinationSdkImpl::WriteBatch(::grpc::ServerContext *context, return ::grpc::Status(::grpc::StatusCode::OK, ""); } +void check_csv_block_size_is_numeric( + const google::protobuf::Map &config) { + auto token_it = config.find(MD_PROP_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE); + + // missing token is fine but non-numeric token isn't + if (token_it != config.end() && + token_it->second.find_first_not_of("0123456789") != std::string::npos) { + throw std::runtime_error( + "Maximum individual value size must be numeric if present"); + } +} + grpc::Status DestinationSdkImpl::Test(::grpc::ServerContext *context, const ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest *request, @@ -426,7 +468,8 @@ DestinationSdkImpl::Test(::grpc::ServerContext *context, if (request->name() == CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE) { check_connection(*con); - response->set_success(true); + } else if (request->name() == CONFIG_TEST_NAME_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE) { + check_csv_block_size_is_numeric(request->configuration()); } else { auto const msg = "Unknown test requested: <" + request->name() + ">"; mdlog::severe(msg); @@ -434,9 +477,8 @@ DestinationSdkImpl::Test(::grpc::ServerContext *context, response->set_failure(msg); return ::grpc::Status(::grpc::StatusCode::INVALID_ARGUMENT, msg); } - response->set_success(true); } catch (const std::exception &e) { - auto msg = "Authentication test for database <" + db_name + + auto msg = "Test <" + request->name() + "> for database <" + db_name + "> failed: " + std::string(e.what()); response->set_success(false); response->set_failure(msg); @@ -444,5 +486,6 @@ DestinationSdkImpl::Test(::grpc::ServerContext *context, return ::grpc::Status(::grpc::StatusCode::OK, msg); } + response->set_success(true); return ::grpc::Status(::grpc::StatusCode::OK, ""); } diff --git a/src/sql_generator.cpp b/src/sql_generator.cpp index 148b260..b705167 100644 --- a/src/sql_generator.cpp +++ b/src/sql_generator.cpp @@ -400,4 +400,4 @@ void check_connection(duckdb::Connection &con) { throw std::runtime_error("Error checking connection: " + result->GetError()); } -} \ No newline at end of file +} diff --git a/test/files/huge_books.csv b/test/files/huge_books.csv new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97bdf40 --- /dev/null +++ b/test/files/huge_books.csv @@ -0,0 +1,41322 @@ +id,text +1,"The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jane Eyre: An Autobiography + +This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online +at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, +you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located +before using this eBook. + +Title: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography + +Author: Charlotte Brontë + +Illustrator: F. H. Townsend + +Release date: March 1, 1998 [eBook #1260] + Most recently updated: May 2, 2023 + +Language: English + +Credits: David Price + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANE EYRE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY *** + + + + +JANE EYRE +AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +by Charlotte Brontë + +_ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND_ + +London +SERVICE & PATON +5 HENRIETTA STREET +1897 + +_The Illustrations_ +_in this Volume are the copyright of_ +SERVICE & PATON, _London_ + +TO +W. M. THACKERAY, ESQ., + +This Work +IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED + +BY +THE AUTHOR + + + + +PREFACE + + +A preface to the first edition of “Jane Eyre” being unnecessary, I gave +none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment +and miscellaneous remark. + +My thanks are due in three quarters. + +To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale +with few pretensions. + +To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an +obscure aspirant. + +To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical +sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended +Author. + +The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I +must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are +certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted +and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to +them, _i.e._, to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say +cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart. + +Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved +me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, +therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who +doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever +is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against +bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on +earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I +would remind them of certain simple truths. + +Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To +attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the +face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of +Thorns. + +These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct +as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be +confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human +doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be +substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat +it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly +and clearly the line of separation between them. + +The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been +accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show +pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean +shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the +gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and +reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him. + +Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning +him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah +better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped +his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel. + +There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle +delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of +society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of +Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as +prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the +satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I +think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his +sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, +were to take his warnings in time—they or their seed might yet escape a +fatal Rimoth-Gilead. + +Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because +I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his +contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first +social regenerator of the day—as the very master of that working corps +who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I +think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that +suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he +is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He +resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on +carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour +attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that +the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the +summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, +I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him—if he will accept the +tribute of a total stranger—I have dedicated this second edition of +“JANE EYRE.” + +CURRER BELL. + +_December_ 21_st_, 1847. + + + + +NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION + + +I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of “Jane Eyre” +affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to explain that +my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, +therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed +to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and consequently, +denied where it is justly due. + +This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have +been made, and to prevent future errors. + +CURRER BELL. + +_April_ 13_th_, 1848. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been +wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; +but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) +the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain +so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the +question. + +I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly +afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, +with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of +Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical +inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. + +The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama +in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and +with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor +crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the +group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me +at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover +by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to +acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive +and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it +were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for +contented, happy, little children.” + +“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked. + +“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is +something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that +manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain +silent.” + +A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It +contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care +that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the +window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; +and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in +double retirement. + +Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left +were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from +the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of +my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it +offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and +storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a +long and lamentable blast. + +I returned to my book—Bewick’s History of British Birds: the +letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet +there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not +pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of +sea-fowl; of “the solitary rocks and promontories” by them only +inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern +extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape— + +“Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, +Boils round the naked, melancholy isles +Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge +Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.” + + +Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of +Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with +“the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary +space,—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the +accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above +heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of +extreme cold.” Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: +shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through +children’s brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these +introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, +and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow +and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold +and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just +sinking. + +I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, +with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, +girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the +hour of eventide. + +The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine +phantoms. + +The fiend pinning down the thief’s pack behind him, I passed over +quickly: it was an object of terror. + +So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a +distant crowd surrounding a gallows. + +Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped +understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: +as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter +evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having +brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit +about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed’s lace frills, and crimped her +nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and +adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a +later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of +Moreland. + +With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I +feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The +breakfast-room door opened. + +“Boh! Madam Mope!” cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he +found the room apparently empty. + +“Where the dickens is she!” he continued. “Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to +his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the +rain—bad animal!” + +“It is well I drew the curtain,” thought I; and I wished fervently he +might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it +out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza +just put her head in at the door, and said at once— + +“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.” + +And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged +forth by the said Jack. + +“What do you want?” I asked, with awkward diffidence. + +“Say, ‘What do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to +come here;” and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a +gesture that I was to approach and stand before him. + +John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than +I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and +unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs +and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which +made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. +He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home +for a month or two, “on account of his delicate health.” Mr. Miles, the +master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and +sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother’s heart turned from an +opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that +John’s sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining +after home. + +John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an +antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in +the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I +had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he +came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he +inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces +or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young +master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf +on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though +he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, +however, behind her back. + +Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some +three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could +without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while +dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him +who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my +face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and +strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a +step or two from his chair. + +“That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since,” said he, +“and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look +you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!” + +Accustomed to John Reed’s abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; +my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the +insult. + +“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked. + +“I was reading.” + +“Show the book.” + +I returned to the window and fetched it thence. + +“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama +says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, +and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the +same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll +teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they _are_ mine; all the house +belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out +of the way of the mirror and the windows.” + +I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him +lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively +started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume +was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and +cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its +climax; other feelings succeeded. + +“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer—you are like a +slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!” + +I had read Goldsmith’s History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of +Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I +never thought thus to have declared aloud. + +“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, +Eliza and Georgiana? Won’t I tell mama? but first—” + +He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had +closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a +murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my +neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations +for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic +sort. I don’t very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me +“Rat! Rat!” and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and +Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came +upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: +I heard the words— + +“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!” + +“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!” + +Then Mrs. Reed subjoined— + +“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were +immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which +greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were +disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; +or rather _out_ of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious +that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange +penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my +desperation, to go all lengths. + +“Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she’s like a mad cat.” + +“For shame! for shame!” cried the lady’s-maid. “What shocking conduct, +Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your +young master.” + +“Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?” + +“No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. +There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.” + +They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, +and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a +spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly. + +“If you don’t sit still, you must be tied down,” said Bessie. “Miss +Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.” + +Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This +preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a +little of the excitement out of me. + +“Don’t take them off,” I cried; “I will not stir.” + +In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands. + +“Mind you don’t,” said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was +really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot +stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as +incredulous of my sanity. + +“She never did so before,” at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail. + +“But it was always in her,” was the reply. “I’ve told Missis often my +opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She’s an underhand +little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover.” + +Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said— + +“You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. +Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go +to the poorhouse.” + +I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very +first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This +reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very +painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in— + +“And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses +Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up +with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have +none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself +agreeable to them.” + +“What we tell you is for your good,” added Bessie, in no harsh voice, +“you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would +have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will +send you away, I am sure.” + +“Besides,” said Miss Abbot, “God will punish her: He might strike her +dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, +Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn’t have her heart for anything. Say +your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don’t +repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and +fetch you away.” + +They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them. + +The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say +never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead +Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it +contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the +mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with +curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; +the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half +shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; +the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the +walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, +the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out +of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the +piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy +Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned +easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool +before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne. + +This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, +because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was +known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came here on +Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s quiet +dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the +contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored +divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased +husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room—the +spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur. + +Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed +his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the +undertaker’s men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration +had guarded it from frequent intrusion. + +My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, +was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before +me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, +broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the +muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant +majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had +locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! +yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the +looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it +revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in +reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white +face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving +where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it +like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie’s evening +stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and +appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my +stool. + +Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour +for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted +slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a +rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal +present. + +All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifference, +all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in +my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I +always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever +condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win +any one’s favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. +Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and +insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink +cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at +her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, +much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed +the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse +vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the +conservatory: he called his mother “old girl,” too; sometimes reviled +her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her +wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was +still “her own darling.” I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil +every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, +from morning to noon, and from noon to night. + +My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no +one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had +turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded +with general opprobrium. + +“Unjust!—unjust!” said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into +precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, +instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable +oppression—as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never +eating or drinking more, and letting myself die. + +What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my +brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what +darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could +not answer the ceaseless inward question—_why_ I thus suffered; now, at +the distance of—I will not say how many years, I see it clearly. + +I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had +nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen +vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. +They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not +sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to +them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, +incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a +noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, +of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, +brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally +dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more +complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the +cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone +to make me the scapegoat of the nursery. + +Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and +the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain +still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind +howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a +stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, +self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying +ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had +I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly +was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel +of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told +did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I +dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew +that he was my own uncle—my mother’s brother—that he had taken me when +a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had +required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as +one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept +this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would +permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her +race, and unconnected with her, after her husband’s death, by any tie? +It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung +pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could +not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her +own family group. + +A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not—never doubted—that if +Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I +sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls—occasionally also +turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror—I began to +recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the +violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the +perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit, +harassed by the wrongs of his sister’s child, might quit its +abode—whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the +departed—and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and +hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a +preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed +face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in +theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I +endeavoured to stifle it—I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from +my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; +at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a +ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight +was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling +and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this +streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried +by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for +horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift +darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My +heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I +deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, +suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the +lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; +the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered. + +“Miss Eyre, are you ill?” said Bessie. + +“What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!” exclaimed Abbot. + +“Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!” was my cry. + +“What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?” again demanded +Bessie. + +“Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come.” I had now got +hold of Bessie’s hand, and she did not snatch it from me. + +“She has screamed out on purpose,” declared Abbot, in some disgust. +“And what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would have +excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her +naughty tricks.” + +“What is all this?” demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed +came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling +stormily. “Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre +should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself.” + +“Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma’am,” pleaded Bessie. + +“Let her go,” was the only answer. “Loose Bessie’s hand, child: you +cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor +artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that +tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it +is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall +liberate you then.” + +“O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it—let me be punished +some other way! I shall be killed if—” + +“Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:” and so, no doubt, she +felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked +on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous +duplicity. + +Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now +frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me +in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after +she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed +the scene. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had +a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, +crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a +hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, +uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my +faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; +lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more +tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head +against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy. + +In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite +well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery +fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the +bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near +my pillow, leaning over me. + +I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and +security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an +individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. +Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me +than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the +face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, +sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for +herself and the children she employed a physician. + +“Well, who am I?” he asked. + +I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took +it, smiling and saying, “We shall do very well by-and-by.” Then he laid +me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I +was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further +directions, and intimated that he should call again the next day, he +departed; to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat +in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all +the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness +weighed it down. + +“Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?” asked Bessie, rather +softly. + +Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be +rough. “I will try.” + +“Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?” + +“No, thank you, Bessie.” + +“Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o’clock; but you +may call me if you want anything in the night.” + +Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question. + +“Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?” + +“You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you’ll be +better soon, no doubt.” + +Bessie went into the housemaid’s apartment, which was near. I heard her +say— + +“Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren’t for my life be +alone with that poor child to-night: she might die; it’s such a strange +thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis +was rather too hard.” + +Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering +together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of +their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer +the main subject discussed. + +“Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished”—“A great +black dog behind him”—“Three loud raps on the chamber door”—“A light in +the churchyard just over his grave,” &c., &c. + +At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the +watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; ear, eye, and +mind were alike strained by dread: such dread as children only can +feel. + +No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the +red-room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the +reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful +pangs of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not +what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only +uprooting my bad propensities. + +Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by +the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my +worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness +which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt +drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to +have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone +out in the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too, was sewing in another +room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys +and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of +unwonted kindness. This state of things should have been to me a +paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand +and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such +a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them +agreeably. + +Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a +tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, +nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir +in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had +often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine +it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a +privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was +cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain +favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished +for, too late! I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, +the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and +tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word _book_ acted +as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels +from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight. +I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of +interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, +having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under +mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at +length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of +England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, +and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, +in my creed, solid parts of the earth’s surface, I doubted not that I +might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little +fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, +and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty +mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. +Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned +over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, +till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants +were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a +most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed +the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, +beside the untasted tart. + +Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed +her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds +of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana’s doll. +Meantime she sang: her song was— + +“In the days when we went gipsying, + A long time ago.” + + +I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for +Bessie had a sweet voice,—at least, I thought so. But now, though her +voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. +Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, +very lingeringly; “A long time ago” came out like the saddest cadence +of a funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really +doleful one. + +“My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; + Long is the way, and the mountains are wild; +Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary + Over the path of the poor orphan child. + +Why did they send me so far and so lonely, + Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled? +Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only + Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child. + +Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, + Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild, +God, in His mercy, protection is showing, + Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child. + +Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing, + Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled, +Still will my Father, with promise and blessing, + Take to His bosom the poor orphan child. + +There is a thought that for strength should avail me, + Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled; +Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me; + God is a friend to the poor orphan child.” + + +“Come, Miss Jane, don’t cry,” said Bessie as she finished. She might as +well have said to the fire, “don’t burn!” but how could she divine the +morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning +Mr. Lloyd came again. + +“What, already up!” said he, as he entered the nursery. “Well, nurse, +how is she?” + +Bessie answered that I was doing very well. + +“Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name +is Jane, is it not?” + +“Yes, sir, Jane Eyre.” + +“Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what +about? Have you any pain?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis +in the carriage,” interposed Bessie. + +“Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness.” + +I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, +I answered promptly, “I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate +going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.” + +“Oh fie, Miss!” said Bessie. + +The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before +him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and +grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: +he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered +me at leisure, he said— + +“What made you ill yesterday?” + +“She had a fall,” said Bessie, again putting in her word. + +“Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can’t she manage to walk at her +age? She must be eight or nine years old.” + +“I was knocked down,” was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by +another pang of mortified pride; “but that did not make me ill,” I +added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff. + +As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang +for the servants’ dinner; he knew what it was. “That’s for you, nurse,” +said he; “you can go down; I’ll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come +back.” + +Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because +punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall. + +“The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?” pursued Mr. Lloyd when +Bessie was gone. + +“I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark.” + +I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time. + +“Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?” + +“Of Mr. Reed’s ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out +there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if +they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a +candle,—so cruel that I think I shall never forget it.” + +“Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in +daylight?” + +“No: but night will come again before long: and besides,—I am +unhappy,—very unhappy, for other things.” + +“What other things? Can you tell me some of them?” + +How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was +to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their +feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they +know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, +however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my +grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a +meagre, though, as far as it went, true response. + +“For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters.” + +“You have a kind aunt and cousins.” + +Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced— + +“But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the +red-room.” + +Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box. + +“Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?” asked he. “Are +you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?” + +“It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here +than a servant.” + +“Pooh! you can’t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid +place?” + +“If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can +never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.” + +“Perhaps you may—who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?” + +“I think not, sir.” + +“None belonging to your father?” + +“I don’t know: I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might +have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about +them.” + +“If you had such, would you like to go to them?” + +I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to +children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable +poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, +scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty +for me was synonymous with degradation. + +“No; I should not like to belong to poor people,” was my reply. + +“Not even if they were kind to you?” + +I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being +kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to +be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes +nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of +the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase +liberty at the price of caste. + +“But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?” + +“I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly +set: I should not like to go a begging.” + +“Would you like to go to school?” + +Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes +spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore +backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: +John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed’s +tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie’s accounts of +school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she +had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her +details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies +were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings +of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing +and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books +they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I +listened. Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long +journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new +life. + +“I should indeed like to go to school,” was the audible conclusion of +my musings. + +“Well, well! who knows what may happen?” said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. +“The child ought to have change of air and scene,” he added, speaking +to himself; “nerves not in a good state.” + +Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling +up the gravel-walk. + +“Is that your mistress, nurse?” asked Mr. Lloyd. “I should like to +speak to her before I go.” + +Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way +out. In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I +presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to +recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt +readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject +with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was +in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, “Missis was, she dared say, glad +enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always +looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots +underhand.” Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of +infantine Guy Fawkes. + +On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot’s +communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; +that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who +considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so +irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that +after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught +the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing +town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then +prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died +within a month of each other. + +Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, “Poor Miss Jane +is to be pitied, too, Abbot.” + +“Yes,” responded Abbot; “if she were a nice, pretty child, one might +compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a +little toad as that.” + +“Not a great deal, to be sure,” agreed Bessie: “at any rate, a beauty +like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition.” + +“Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!” cried the fervent Abbot. “Little +darling!—with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet colour +as she has; just as if she were painted!—Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh +rabbit for supper.” + +“So could I—with a roast onion. Come, we’ll go down.” They went. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported +conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to +suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,—I +desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and weeks +passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion +was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at +times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since my illness, she +had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her +own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, +condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the +nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a +hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school: still I felt an +instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same +roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, +expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion. + +Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me +as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he +saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned +against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate +revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to +desist, and ran from me uttering execrations, and vowing I had burst +his nose. I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a +blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or +my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up my +advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama. I heard him in +a blubbering tone commence the tale of how “that nasty Jane Eyre” had +flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly— + +“Don’t talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she +is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your +sisters should associate with her.” + +Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at +all deliberating on my words— + +“They are not fit to associate with me.” + +Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange and +audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a +whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my +crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or utter +one syllable during the remainder of the day. + +“What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?” was my scarcely +voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my +tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: +something spoke out of me over which I had no control. + +“What?” said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed grey +eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my +arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child +or fiend. I was now in for it. + +“My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so +can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how +you wish me dead.” + +Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she +boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied +the hiatus by a homily of an hour’s length, in which she proved beyond +a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared +under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings +surging in my breast. + +November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the +New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; +presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From +every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety +consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, +and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin +frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and +afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played +below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the +jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken +hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed. When +tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the +solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I was not +miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, +for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been +kind and companionable, I should have deemed it a treat to spend the +evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable +eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, +as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off +to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper’s room, generally +bearing the candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee +till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that +nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers +sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings +as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. +To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, +and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to +find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby +as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what +absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half fancying it alive +and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my +night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively +happy, believing it to be happy likewise. + +Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, +and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs: sometimes +she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, +or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper—a bun or a +cheese-cake—then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I +had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed +me, and said, “Good night, Miss Jane.” When thus gentle, Bessie seemed +to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished +most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and +never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too +often wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good +natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a +remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge from the +impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my +recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a +slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and +good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and +indifferent ideas of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I +preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall. + +It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o’clock in the morning: +Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned +to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to +go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond: and not +less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the +money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic, and a marked +propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending of eggs and +chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener about +flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary having +orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her +parterre she wished to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hair off her +head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As to her money, +she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old +curl-paper; but some of these hoards having been discovered by the +housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, +consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate of +interest—fifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted every +quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy. + +Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and +interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, of +which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my +bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged +before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of +under-nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). Having +spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat +to put in order some picture-books and doll’s house furniture scattered +there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone +(for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her +property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other +occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the +window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through +which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and +petrified under the influence of a hard frost. + +From this window were visible the porter’s lodge and the carriage-road, +and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling +the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a +carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with +indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought +visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, +the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. All this being +nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in +the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the +twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the +casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the +table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash +to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running +upstairs into the nursery. + +“Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you +washed your hands and face this morning?” I gave another tug before I +answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash +yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the +cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied— + +“No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting.” + +“Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look +quite red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were you +opening the window for?” + +I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a +hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand, +inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands +with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a +bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the +top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the +breakfast-room. + +I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed +was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the nursery-door +upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months, I had never been +called to Mrs. Reed’s presence; restricted so long to the nursery, the +breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions, +on which it dismayed me to intrude. + +I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door, +and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable little +poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those +days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to +the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement +ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I _must_ enter. + +“Who could want me?” I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the +stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. +“What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?—a man or a +woman?” The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and +curtseying low, I looked up at—a black pillar!—such, at least, appeared +to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing +erect on the rug: the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, +placed above the shaft by way of capital. + +Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to +me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger +with the words: “This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to +you.” + +_He_, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, +and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which +twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass +voice, “Her size is small: what is her age?” + +“Ten years.” + +“So much?” was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for +some minutes. Presently he addressed me—“Your name, little girl?” + +“Jane Eyre, sir.” + +In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman; +but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all +the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim. + +“Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?” + +Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a +contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an +expressive shake of the head, adding soon, “Perhaps the less said on +that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst.” + +“Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;” and bending +from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair +opposite Mrs. Reed’s. “Come here,” he said. + +I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. +What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a +great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth! + +“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a +naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?” + +“They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer. + +“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?” + +“A pit full of fire.” + +“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for +ever?” + +“No, sir.” + +“What must you do to avoid it?” + +I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: +“I must keep in good health, and not die.” + +“How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. +I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since,—a +good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the +same could not be said of you were you to be called hence.” + +Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down +on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing myself +far enough away. + +“I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having +been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress.” + +“Benefactress! benefactress!” said I inwardly: “they all call Mrs. Reed +my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing.” + +“Do you say your prayers night and morning?” continued my interrogator. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Do you read your Bible?” + +“Sometimes.” + +“With pleasure? Are you fond of it?” + +“I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, +and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and +Job and Jonah.” + +“And the Psalms? I hope you like them?” + +“No, sir.” + +“No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six +Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a +gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: ‘Oh! +the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;’ says he, ‘I wish to be a +little angel here below;’ he then gets two nuts in recompense for his +infant piety.” + +“Psalms are not interesting,” I remarked. + +“That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to +change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of +stone and give you a heart of flesh.” + +I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that +operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed +interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the +conversation herself. + +“Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to +you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character +and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, +I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to +keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst +fault, a tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that +you may not attempt to impose on Mr. Brocklehurst.” + +Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her +nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence; however +carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my +efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. +Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I +dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new +phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I +could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and +unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. +Brocklehurst’s eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do +to remedy the injury? + +“Nothing, indeed,” thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and +hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish. + +“Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child,” said Mr. Brocklehurst; “it +is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake +burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be watched, Mrs. +Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers.” + +“I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects,” +continued my benefactress; “to be made useful, to be kept humble: as +for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at +Lowood.” + +“Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam,” returned Mr. +Brocklehurst. “Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly +appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial +care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied +how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride; and, only +the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second +daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her +return she exclaimed: ‘Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls +at Lowood look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their +long pinafores, and those little holland pockets outside their +frocks—they are almost like poor people’s children! and,’ said she, +‘they looked at my dress and mama’s, as if they had never seen a silk +gown before.’” + +“This is the state of things I quite approve,” returned Mrs. Reed; “had +I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more +exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr. +Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things.” + +“Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been +observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of +Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, +hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and +its inhabitants.” + +“Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as +a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her +position and prospects?” + +“Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants, +and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable +privilege of her election.” + +“I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I +assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was +becoming too irksome.” + +“No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall +return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my good +friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall +send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there +will be no difficulty about receiving her. Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst, +and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton Brocklehurst.” + +“I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the ‘Child’s +Guide’; read it with prayer, especially that part containing ‘An +account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G——, a naughty child +addicted to falsehood and deceit.’” + +With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn +in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed. + +Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence; she +was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be at that time some +six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, +square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not +obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much +developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and +prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light +eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, +her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell—illness +never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager; her household +and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children only at +times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, +and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire. + +Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her +figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract containing +the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my attention had been +pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs. +Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of +their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had +felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of +resentment fomented now within me. + +Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers +at the same time suspended their nimble movements. + +“Go out of the room; return to the nursery,” was her mandate. My look +or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with +extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I +came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up +to her. + +_Speak_ I must: I had been trodden on severely, and _must_ turn: but +how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I +gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence— + +“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved _you;_ but I +declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the +world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to +your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I.” + +Mrs. Reed’s hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice +continued to dwell freezingly on mine. + +“What more have you to say?” she asked, rather in the tone in which a +person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is +ordinarily used to a child. + +That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking +from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued— + +“I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt +again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown +up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I +will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me +with miserable cruelty.” + +“How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?” + +“How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the _truth_. You +think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or +kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember +how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back—into the +red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in +agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, ‘Have +mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!’ And that punishment you made me suffer +because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will +tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a +good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. _You_ are deceitful!” + + +How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth + +Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with +the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as +if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into +unhoped-for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed +looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting +up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as +if she would cry. + +“Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you +tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?” + +“No, Mrs. Reed.” + +“Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to +be your friend.” + +“Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful +disposition; and I’ll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and +what you have done.” + +“Jane, you don’t understand these things: children must be corrected +for their faults.” + +“Deceit is not my fault!” I cried out in a savage, high voice. + +“But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to +the nursery—there’s a dear—and lie down a little.” + +“I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. +Reed, for I hate to live here.” + +“I will indeed send her to school soon,” murmured Mrs. Reed _sotto +voce_; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment. + +I was left there alone—winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I +had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the +rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror’s +solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce +pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my +pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot +give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, +without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of +reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would +have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. +Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, +would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when +half-an-hour’s silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my +conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position. + +Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic +wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, +metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. +Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed’s pardon; but I +knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way +to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every +turbulent impulse of my nature. + +I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; +fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of +sombre indignation. I took a book—some Arabian tales; I sat down and +endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own +thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found +fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the +shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or +breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt +of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was +quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the +falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept +by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a +gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where +the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most +opaque sky, “onding on snaw,” canopied all; thence flakes fell at +intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without +melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over +and over again, “What shall I do?—what shall I do?” + +All at once I heard a clear voice call, “Miss Jane! where are you? Come +to lunch!” + +It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step +came tripping down the path. + +“You naughty little thing!” she said. “Why don’t you come when you are +called?” + +Bessie’s presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been +brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat +cross. The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, +I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid’s transitory anger; +and I _was_ disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart. I just +put my two arms round her and said, “Come, Bessie! don’t scold.” + +The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to +indulge in: somehow it pleased her. + +“You are a strange child, Miss Jane,” she said, as she looked down at +me; “a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to school, I +suppose?” + +I nodded. + +“And won’t you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?” + +“What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me.” + +“Because you’re such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should +be bolder.” + +“What! to get more knocks?” + +“Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that’s certain. My mother said, +when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one +of her own to be in your place.—Now, come in, and I’ve some good news +for you.” + +“I don’t think you have, Bessie.” + +“Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me! Well, but +Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going out to tea this +afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I’ll ask cook to bake you a +little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers; for +I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis intends you to leave Gateshead in +a day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like to take with +you.” + +“Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go.” + +“Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don’t be afraid +of me. Don’t start when I chance to speak rather sharply; it’s so +provoking.” + +“I don’t think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I +have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set of people to +dread.” + +“If you dread them they’ll dislike you.” + +“As you do, Bessie?” + +“I don’t dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of all +the others.” + +“You don’t show it.” + +“You little sharp thing! you’ve got quite a new way of talking. What +makes you so venturesome and hardy?” + +“Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides”—I was going to say +something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed, but on second +thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head. + +“And so you’re glad to leave me?” + +“Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I’m rather sorry.” + +“Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say +now if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn’t give it me: you’d say +you’d _rather_ not.” + +“I’ll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down.” Bessie stooped; we +mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite comforted. +That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie +told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her +sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Five o’clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of January, +when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and +nearly dressed. I had risen half-an-hour before her entrance, and had +washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light of a half-moon just +setting, whose rays streamed through the narrow window near my crib. I +was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates +at six A.M. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in +the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children +can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. +Bessie, having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled +milk and bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a +paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse +and bonnet, and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the +nursery. As we passed Mrs. Reed’s bedroom, she said, “Will you go in +and bid Missis good-bye?” + +“No, Bessie: she came to my crib last night when you were gone down to +supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or my cousins +either; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best +friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her accordingly.” + +“What did you say, Miss?” + +“Nothing: I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from her to +the wall.” + +“That was wrong, Miss Jane.” + +“It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missis has not been my friend: she +has been my foe.” + +“O Miss Jane! don’t say so!” + +“Good-bye to Gateshead!” cried I, as we passed through the hall and +went out at the front door. + +The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose +light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw. Raw +and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down +the drive. There was a light in the porter’s lodge: when we reached it, +we found the porter’s wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had +been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It +wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had +struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went +to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom. + +“Is she going by herself?” asked the porter’s wife. + +“Yes.” + +“And how far is it?” + +“Fifty miles.” + +“What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far +alone.” + +The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses and +its top laden with passengers: the guard and coachman loudly urged +haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie’s neck, to +which I clung with kisses. + +“Be sure and take good care of her,” cried she to the guard, as he +lifted me into the inside. + +“Ay, ay!” was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed +“All right,” and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie and +Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote +and mysterious regions. + +I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed +to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel over +hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one, +a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the +passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn, where the guard +wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in +an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from +the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled +with musical instruments. Here I walked about for a long time, feeling +very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and +kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having +frequently figured in Bessie’s fireside chronicles. At last the guard +returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector +mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over +the “stony street” of L——. + +The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I +began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead: we +ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills +heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a +valley, dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the +prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees. + +Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered +when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door was open, +and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her face and +dress by the light of the lamps. + +“Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?” she asked. I answered +“Yes,” and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and the coach +instantly drove away. + +I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion +of the coach: gathering my faculties, I looked about me. Rain, wind, +and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall +before me and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new +guide: she shut and locked it behind her. There was now visible a house +or houses—for the building spread far—with many windows, and lights +burning in some; we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and +were admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into +a room with a fire, where she left me alone. + +I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked +round; there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the hearth +showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany +furniture: it was a parlour, not so spacious or splendid as the +drawing-room at Gateshead, but comfortable enough. I was puzzling to +make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, +and an individual carrying a light entered; another followed close +behind. + +The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and +large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her +countenance was grave, her bearing erect. + +“The child is very young to be sent alone,” said she, putting her +candle down on the table. She considered me attentively for a minute or +two, then further added— + +“She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired: are you tired?” +she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder. + +“A little, ma’am.” + +“And hungry too, no doubt: let her have some supper before she goes to +bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time you have left your parents to +come to school, my little girl?” + +I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long they +had been dead: then how old I was, what was my name, whether I could +read, write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek gently with +her forefinger, and saying, “She hoped I should be a good child,” +dismissed me along with Miss Miller. + +The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went with +me appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her voice, +look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, +though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one +who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she looked, indeed, +what I afterwards found she really was, an under-teacher. Led by her, I +passed from compartment to compartment, from passage to passage, of a +large and irregular building; till, emerging from the total and +somewhat dreary silence pervading that portion of the house we had +traversed, we came upon the hum of many voices, and presently entered a +wide, long room, with great deal tables, two at each end, on each of +which burnt a pair of candles, and seated all round on benches, a +congregation of girls of every age, from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by +the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared countless, +though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in +brown stuff frocks of quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores. It +was the hour of study; they were engaged in conning over their +to-morrow’s task, and the hum I had heard was the combined result of +their whispered repetitions. + +Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then walking +up to the top of the long room she cried out— + +“Monitors, collect the lesson-books and put them away!” + +Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered +the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word of command— + +“Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!” + +The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray, +with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and a +pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The portions were +handed round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug +being common to all. When it came to my turn, I drank, for I was +thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and fatigue rendering +me incapable of eating: I now saw, however, that it was a thin oaten +cake shared into fragments. + +The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed +off, two and two, upstairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness, I +scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was, except that, +like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. To-night I was to be Miss +Miller’s bed-fellow; she helped me to undress: when laid down I glanced +at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two +occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished, and amidst +silence and complete darkness I fell asleep. + +The night passed rapidly: I was too tired even to dream; I only once +awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in +torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my +side. When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls +were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or +two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and +I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a +basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin +to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell +rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the +stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here prayers were +read by Miss Miller; afterwards she called out— + +“Form classes!” + +A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller +repeatedly exclaimed, “Silence!” and “Order!” When it subsided, I saw +them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs, placed at +the four tables; all held books in their hands, and a great book, like +a Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat. A pause of some +seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss +Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound. + +A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the room, each +walked to a table and took her seat; Miss Miller assumed the fourth +vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around which the +smallest of the children were assembled: to this inferior class I was +called, and placed at the bottom of it. + +Business now began: the day’s Collect was repeated, then certain texts +of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted reading of +chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time that exercise +was terminated, day had fully dawned. The indefatigable bell now +sounded for the fourth time: the classes were marshalled and marched +into another room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of +getting something to eat! I was now nearly sick from inanition, having +taken so little the day before. + +The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables +smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent +forth an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of +discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those +destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls +of the first class, rose the whispered words— + +“Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!” + +“Silence!” ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the +upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed, but of +somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table, +while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain for her +I had first seen the night before; she was not visible: Miss Miller +occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange, +foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards +found, took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace was +said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the +teachers, and the meal began. + +Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my +portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger +blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge +is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over +it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and +try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. +Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned for +what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory was +evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and in +passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge and +taste it; she looked at the others; all their countenances expressed +displeasure, and one of them, the stout one, whispered— + +“Abominable stuff! How shameful!” + +A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which +the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of time it +seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used +their privilege. The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one +and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the sole consolation they +had. Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great +girls standing about her spoke with serious and sullen gestures. I +heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced by some lips; at which +Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly; but she made no great effort +to check the general wrath; doubtless she shared in it. + +A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and +standing in the middle of the room, cried— + +“Silence! To your seats!” + +Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved +into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of +tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but +still, all seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the +room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage +they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl +visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker +about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped something like +a Highlander’s purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to +serve the purpose of a work-bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings +and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of +those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or rather young +women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the +prettiest. + +I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the +teachers—none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a +little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh +and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, +weather-beaten, and over-worked—when, as my eye wandered from face to +face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common +spring. + +What was the matter? I had heard no order given: I was puzzled. Ere I +had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes +were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and +encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at +the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at +each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss +Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received +her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud— + +“Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!” + +While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly +up the room. I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I +retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her +steps. Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; +brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling +of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on +each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in +round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither +smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the +mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish +trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then +as now) shone at her girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the +picture, refined features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately +air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can +give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple—Maria Temple, as +I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to +carry to church. + +The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her +seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the +first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the +lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history, +grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, +and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. +The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last +struck twelve. The superintendent rose— + +“I have a word to address to the pupils,” said she. + +The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it +sank at her voice. She went on— + +“You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be +hungry:—I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served +to all.” + +The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise. + +“It is to be done on my responsibility,” she added, in an explanatory +tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room. + +The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the +high delight and refreshment of the whole school. The order was now +given “To the garden!” Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings +of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze. I was similarly +equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air. + +The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to +exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one +side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of +little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to +cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers they would +doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was +wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked round +me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, +but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still +soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The stronger among the girls +ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones +herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst +these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard +frequently the sound of a hollow cough. + +As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of +me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was +accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the +verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the +cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed +me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and +thinking. My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit +record: I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life +seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague +and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture. I looked +round the convent-like garden, and then up at the house—a large +building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new. +The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by +mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a +stone tablet over the door bore this inscription:— + +LOWOOD INSTITUTION. + +This portion was rebuilt A.D. ——, by Naomi Brocklehurst, +of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county. + +“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, +and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”—St. Matt. v. 16. + + +I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation +belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import. I was +still pondering the signification of “Institution,” and endeavouring to +make out a connection between the first words and the verse of +Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my +head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a +book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I +could see the title—it was “Rasselas;” a name that struck me as +strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to +look up, and I said to her directly— + +“Is your book interesting?” I had already formed the intention of +asking her to lend it to me some day. + +“I like it,” she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during +which she examined me. + +“What is it about?” I continued. I hardly know where I found the +hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was +contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a +chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a +frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the +serious or substantial. + +“You may look at it,” replied the girl, offering me the book. + +I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less +taking than the title: “Rasselas” looked dull to my trifling taste; I +saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety +seemed spread over the closely-printed pages. I returned it to her; she +received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to +relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her— + +“Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? +What is Lowood Institution?” + +“This house where you are come to live.” + +“And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different from +other schools?” + +“It is partly a charity-school: you and I, and all the rest of us, are +charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan: are not either your +father or your mother dead?” + +“Both died before I can remember.” + +“Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and +this is called an institution for educating orphans.” + +“Do we pay no money? Do they keep us for nothing?” + +“We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each.” + +“Then why do they call us charity-children?” + +“Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the +deficiency is supplied by subscription.” + +“Who subscribes?” + +“Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood +and in London.” + +“Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?” + +“The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, +and whose son overlooks and directs everything here.” + +“Why?” + +“Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment.” + +“Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, +and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?” + +“To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr. +Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and +all our clothes.” + +“Does he live here?” + +“No—two miles off, at a large hall.” + +“Is he a good man?” + +“He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good.” + +“Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?” + +“Yes.” + +“And what are the other teachers called?” + +“The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, +and cuts out—for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and +everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she +teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; +and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to +her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from +Lisle, in France, and teaches French.” + +“Do you like the teachers?” + +“Well enough.” + +“Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ——?—I cannot +pronounce her name as you do.” + +“Miss Scatcherd is hasty—you must take care not to offend her; Madame +Pierrot is not a bad sort of person.” + +“But Miss Temple is the best—isn’t she?” + +“Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest, +because she knows far more than they do.” + +“Have you been long here?” + +“Two years.” + +“Are you an orphan?” + +“My mother is dead.” + +“Are you happy here?” + +“You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for +the present: now I want to read.” + +But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered the +house. The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely more +appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the +dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong +steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of +indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked +together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was +apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within +myself whether every day’s fare would be like this. + +After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons +recommenced, and were continued till five o’clock. + +The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with +whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss +Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the +large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree +ignominious, especially for so great a girl—she looked thirteen or +upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; +but to my surprise she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though +grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. “How can she bear it so +quietly—so firmly?” I asked of myself. “Were I in her place, it seems +to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as +if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment—beyond her +situation: of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of +day-dreams—is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, +but I am sure they do not see it—her sight seems turned in, gone down +into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not +at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is—whether +good or naughty.” + +Soon after five P.M. we had another meal, consisting of a small mug of +coffee, and half-a-slice of brown bread. I devoured my bread and drank +my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much more—I +was still hungry. Half-an-hour’s recreation succeeded, then study; then +the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed. Such +was my first day at Lowood. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight; +but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of +washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place +in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, +whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, +had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to +ice. + +Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, +I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last, and this +morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the +quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been +doubled. + +In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class, +and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me: hitherto, I had +only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now to become +an actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, +the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent change +from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three +o’clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of +muslin two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., and sent me +to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the +same. At that hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one +class still stood round Miss Scatcherd’s chair reading, and as all was +quiet, the subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the +manner in which each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or +commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English +history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: +at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the +class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to +stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure +position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant +notice: she was continually addressing to her such phrases as the +following:— + +“Burns” (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called by +their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), “Burns, you are standing on the +side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately.” “Burns, you poke +your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in.” “Burns, I insist on your +holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that attitude,” +&c. &c. + +A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the +girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles +I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and +ship-money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every +little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns: her +memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and +she was ready with answers on every point. I kept expecting that Miss +Scatcherd would praise her attention; but, instead of that, she +suddenly cried out— + +“You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never cleaned your nails this +morning!” + +Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence. + +“Why,” thought I, “does she not explain that she could neither clean +her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?” + +My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a +skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from time +to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I +could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not +pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd’s movements. When I returned +to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not +catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and going into +the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a +minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one +end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a +respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed +her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her +neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns’ +eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at +this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a +feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression. + +“Hardened girl!” exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; “nothing can correct you of +your slatternly habits: carry the rod away.” + +Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the +book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her +pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek. + +The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the +day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at +five o’clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the +long restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer +than in the morning—its fires being allowed to burn a little more +brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet +introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of +many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty. + +On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her +pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and +laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I +passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it +snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; +putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the +gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside. + +Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would +have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the +separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure +chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a +strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to +howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to +rise to clamour. + +Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of +the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found +Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the +companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers. + +“Is it still ‘Rasselas’?” I asked, coming behind her. + +“Yes,” she said, “and I have just finished it.” + +And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. + +“Now,” thought I, “I can perhaps get her to talk.” I sat down by her on +the floor. + +“What is your name besides Burns?” + +“Helen.” + +“Do you come a long way from here?” + +“I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland.” + +“Will you ever go back?” + +“I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future.” + +“You must wish to leave Lowood?” + +“No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it +would be of no use going away until I have attained that object.” + +“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?” + +“Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults.” + +“And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. +If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should +break it under her nose.” + +“Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr. +Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great +grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart +which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose +evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, +the Bible bids us return good for evil.” + +“But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand +in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: +I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.” + +“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is +weak and silly to say you _cannot bear_ what it is your fate to be +required to bear.” + +I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of +endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the +forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen +Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected +she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter +deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season. + +“You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very +good.” + +“Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss +Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in +order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my +lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot +_bear_ to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very +provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and +particular.” + +“And cross and cruel,” I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my +addition: she kept silence. + +“Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?” + +At the utterance of Miss Temple’s name, a soft smile flitted over her +grave face. + +“Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, +even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them +gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed +liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that +even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to +cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most +highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.” + +“That is curious,” said I, “it is so easy to be careful.” + +“For _you_ I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this +morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed +to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. +Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss +Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the +very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think +I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the +bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our +house;—then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; +and having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the +visionary brook, I have no answer ready.” + +“Yet how well you replied this afternoon.” + +“It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had +interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was +wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and +unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity +it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no +farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to +look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age +was tending! Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor +murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they +had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!” + +Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very +well understand her—that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject +she discussed. I recalled her to my level. + +“And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?” + +“No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something +to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is +singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is +often just what I wished to gain.” + +“Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?” + +“Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination +guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.” + +“A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I +ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who +are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own +way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but +would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we +should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to +teach the person who struck us never to do it again.” + +“You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are +but a little untaught girl.” + +“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to +please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me +unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me +affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.” + +“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and +civilised nations disown it.” + +“How? I don’t understand.” + +“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most +certainly heals injury.” + +“What then?” + +“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; +make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.” + +“What does He say?” + +“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that +hate you and despitefully use you.” + +“Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her +son John, which is impossible.” + +In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith +to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. +Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve +or softening. + +Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a +remark, but she said nothing. + +“Well,” I asked impatiently, “is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad +woman?” + +“She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes +your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely +you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep +impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage +so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you +tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it +excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity +or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with +faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we +shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when +debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, +and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle +of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the +creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be +communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through +gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the +seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to +degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another +creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in +which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it +makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. +Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the +criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I +abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, +degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me +too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.” + +Helen’s head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this +sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but +rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time +for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, +exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent— + +“Helen Burns, if you don’t go and put your drawer in order, and fold up +your work this minute, I’ll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at +it!” + +Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor +without reply as without delay. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age +either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in +habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure +in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my +lot; though these were no trifles. + +During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after +their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring +beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these +limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing +was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, +the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became +numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well +the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening, +when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, +and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of +food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we +had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this +deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on +the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an +opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their +portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious +morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing +to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the +remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the +exigency of hunger. + +Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two +miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out +cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning service we became +almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance +of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in +our ordinary meals, was served round between the services. + +At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and +hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy +summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces. + +I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our +drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, +gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, +to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, “like stalwart +soldiers.” The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves +too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others. + +How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got +back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each hearth in +the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great +girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, +wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores. + +A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of +bread—a whole, instead of a half, slice—with the delicious addition of +a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all +looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to +reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder +I was invariably obliged to part with. + +The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church +Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; +and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose +irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of +these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some +half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall +down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be +taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the +centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the +sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank +together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors’ high +stools. + +I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed +that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month +after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the +archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had +my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he did at last. + +One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting +with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, +raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just +passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and +when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose _en +masse_, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain +whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the +schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, +stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from +the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of +architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in +a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever. + +I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I +remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my +disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise +Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been +dreading the fulfilment of this promise,—I had been looking out daily +for the “Coming Man,” whose information respecting my past life and +conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: now there he was. + +He stood at Miss Temple’s side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did +not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her +eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb +turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as +I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of +what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension. + +“I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it +struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, +and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I +forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have +some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give +out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are +apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma’am! I wish the woollen +stockings were better looked to!—when I was here last, I went into the +kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a +quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of +the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to +time.” + +He paused. + +“Your directions shall be attended to, sir,” said Miss Temple. + +“And, ma’am,” he continued, “the laundress tells me some of the girls +have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit +them to one.” + +“I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine +Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last +Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the +occasion.” + +Mr. Brocklehurst nodded. + +“Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance +occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, +in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of +bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the +past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations, and I find +no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? and by +what authority?” + +“I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir,” replied Miss Temple: +“the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly +eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner-time.” + +“Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up +these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and +indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any +little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the +spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the +incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more +delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the +aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual +edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude +under the temporary privation. A brief address on those occasions would +not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the +opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; +to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord +Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow +Him; to His warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by +every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His divine +consolations, ‘If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are +ye.’ Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt +porridge, into these children’s mouths, you may indeed feed their vile +bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!” + +Mr. Brocklehurst again paused—perhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss +Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now +gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, +appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material; +especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor’s +chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified +severity. + +Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands +behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his +eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or +shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had +hitherto used— + +“Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what—_what_ is that girl with curled hair? +Red hair, ma’am, curled—curled all over?” And extending his cane he +pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so. + +“It is Julia Severn,” replied Miss Temple, very quietly. + +“Julia Severn, ma’am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, +in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she +conform to the world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable +establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?” + +“Julia’s hair curls naturally,” returned Miss Temple, still more +quietly. + +“Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these +girls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I have again +and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, +modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl’s hair must be cut off +entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far +too much of the excrescence—that tall girl, tell her to turn round. +Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall.” + +Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away +the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, +and when the first class could take in what was required of them, they +obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and +grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. +Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that, +whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the +inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined. + +He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, +then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom— + +“All those top-knots must be cut off.” + +Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate. + +“Madam,” he pursued, “I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of +this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the +flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and +sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the +young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which +vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think +of the time wasted, of—” + +Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, +now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have +heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, +silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and +seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich +plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a +profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was +enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a +false front of French curls. + +These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and +the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the top of +the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their reverend +relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room +upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioned +the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now proceeded to +address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with +the care of the linen and the inspection of the dormitories: but I had +no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and +enchanted my attention. + +Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss +Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to secure my +personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only +elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and +while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a +manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my +treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling +with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it +was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of +slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came. + +“A careless girl!” said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after—“It is +the new pupil, I perceive.” And before I could draw breath, “I must not +forget I have a word to say respecting her.” Then aloud: how loud it +seemed to me! “Let the child who broke her slate come forward!” + +Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two +great girls who sat on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me +towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his +very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel— + +“Don’t be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be +punished.” + +The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger. + +“Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite,” thought I; +and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in +my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns. + +“Fetch that stool,” said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one +from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought. + +“Place the child upon it.” + +And I was placed there, by whom I don’t know: I was in no condition to +note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the +height of Mr. Brocklehurst’s nose, that he was within a yard of me, and +that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of +silvery plumage extended and waved below me. + +Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed. + +“Ladies,” said he, turning to his family, “Miss Temple, teachers, and +children, you all see this girl?” + +Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses +against my scorched skin. + +“You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form +of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given +to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. +Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent +in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case.” + +A pause—in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel +that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be +shirked, must be firmly sustained. + +“My dear children,” pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, +“this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn +you, that this girl, who might be one of God’s own lambs, is a little +castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper +and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her +example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, +and shut her out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep +your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her +actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation +be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this +child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen +who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut—this girl +is—a liar!” + +Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in +perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts +produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, +while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger +ones whispered, “How shocking!” + +Mr. Brocklehurst resumed. + +“This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable +lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own +daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid +by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent +patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful +lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent +her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to +the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of +you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her.” + +With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button +of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to +Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the +room. Turning at the door, my judge said— + +“Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak +to her during the remainder of the day.” + +There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the +shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now +exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations +were, no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my +breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in +passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What +an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new +feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave +or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising +hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen +Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was +chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and +smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and +I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it +lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like +a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen +Burns wore on her arm “the untidy badge;” scarcely an hour ago I had +heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on +the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such +is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the +clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those +minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Ere the half-hour ended, five o’clock struck; school was dismissed, and +all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend: it +was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The +spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction +took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I +sank prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I wept: Helen Burns was +not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and +my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good, and to do so +much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect and win +affection. Already I had made visible progress: that very morning I had +reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss +Temple had smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, +and to let me learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement +two months longer: and then I was well received by my fellow-pupils; +treated as an equal by those of my own age, and not molested by any; +now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise +more? + +“Never,” I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out +this wish in broken accents, some one approached: I started up—again +Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the +long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread. + +“Come, eat something,” she said; but I put both away from me, feeling +as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. +Helen regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my +agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down +on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her +head upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I +was the first who spoke— + +“Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a +liar?” + +“Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you +called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.” + +“But what have I to do with millions? The eighty I know despise me.” + +“Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises +or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much.” + +“How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?” + +“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: +he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had +he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, +declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would +offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly +on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their +hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere +long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. +Besides, Jane”—she paused. + +“Well, Helen?” said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers +gently to warm them, and went on— + +“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own +conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be +without friends.” + +“No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if +others don’t love me I would rather die than live—I cannot bear to be +solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from +you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly +submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or +to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest—” + +“Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are +too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your +frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than +your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, +and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom +of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those +spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were +dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred +crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if +innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst +has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I +read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and +God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a +full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, +when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to +happiness—to glory?” + +I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted +there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the impression of +woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came; and when, having +done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I +momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague concern for her. + +Resting my head on Helen’s shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she +drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long thus, +when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a +rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in +through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching +figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple. + +“I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre,” said she; “I want you in my +room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too.” + +We went; following the superintendent’s guidance, we had to thread some +intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her +apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple +told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the +hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to her side. + +“Is it all over?” she asked, looking down at my face. “Have you cried +your grief away?” + +“I am afraid I never shall do that.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma’am, and everybody +else, will now think me wicked.” + +“We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue +to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.” + +“Shall I, Miss Temple?” + +“You will,” said she, passing her arm round me. “And now tell me who is +the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?” + +“Mrs. Reed, my uncle’s wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her +care.” + +“Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?” + +“No, ma’am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have +often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that +she would always keep me.” + +“Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a +criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence. +You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as +you can. Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and +exaggerate nothing.” + +I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most +moderate—most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order to +arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of my +sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than +it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of +Helen’s warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into +the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus +restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I went +on that Miss Temple fully believed me. + +In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to +see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode +of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some +degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection +the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my +wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark +and haunted chamber. + +I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence; she +then said— + +“I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply +agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from every +imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now.” + +She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well +contented to stand, for I derived a child’s pleasure from the +contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her +white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark +eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns. + +“How are you to-night, Helen? Have you coughed much to-day?” + +“Not quite so much, I think, ma’am.” + +“And the pain in your chest?” + +“It is a little better.” + +Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then she +returned to her own seat: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She +was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully— + +“But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such.” She +rang her bell. + +“Barbara,” she said to the servant who answered it, “I have not yet had +tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies.” + +And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the china cups +and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table near the fire! +How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast! +of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry) +discerned only a very small portion: Miss Temple discerned it too. + +“Barbara,” said she, “can you not bring a little more bread and butter? +There is not enough for three.” + +Barbara went out: she returned soon— + +“Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity.” + +Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr. +Brocklehurst’s own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and iron. + +“Oh, very well!” returned Miss Temple; “we must make it do, Barbara, I +suppose.” And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling, “Fortunately, I +have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once.” + +Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before +each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, +she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in +paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake. + +“I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you,” said she, +“but as there is so little toast, you must have it now,” and she +proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand. + +We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least +delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which +our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the +delicate fare she liberally supplied. + +Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we +sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between +her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear. + +Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in +her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded +deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which +chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, +by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to +Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder. + +The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of +her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something +in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, +they kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which +till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone +in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty +more singular than that of Miss Temple’s—a beauty neither of fine +colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of +movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language +flowed, from what source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart +large enough, vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, +full, fervid eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen’s +discourse on that, to me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed +hastening to live within a very brief span as much as many live during +a protracted existence. + +They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times +past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed +at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of +knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French +names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax when Miss +Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the +Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade +her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of +veneration expanding at every sounding line. She had scarcely finished +ere the bell announced bedtime! no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple +embraced us both, saying, as she drew us to her heart— + +“God bless you, my children!” + +Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more +reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her +she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from +her cheek. + +On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd: she was +examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns’s, and when we +entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that +to-morrow she should have half-a-dozen of untidily folded articles +pinned to her shoulder. + +“My things were indeed in shameful disorder,” murmured Helen to me, in +a low voice: “I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot.” + +Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece +of pasteboard the word “Slattern,” and bound it like a phylactery round +Helen’s large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore +it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved +punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, +I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of +which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, +hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the +spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the +heart. + +About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, +who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that +what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple, having +assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into +the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to +be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation. The +teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of +pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions. + +Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, +resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I toiled hard, and +my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally +tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few +weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was +allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses +of the verb _Etre_, and sketched my first cottage (whose walls, +by-the-bye, outrivalled in slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa), +on the same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in +imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread +and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I +feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the +dark; all the work of my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees, +picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet +paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking +at ripe cherries, of wren’s nests enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed +about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought, the +possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a certain +little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was +that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep. + +Well has Solomon said—“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than +a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” + +I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for +Gateshead and its daily luxuries. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring +drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; +its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, +flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to +heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and +mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood +in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: +sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a +greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, +suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each +morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out amongst the +leaves; snow-drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed +pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and +found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges. + +I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the +horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls +of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits +girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright +beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this +scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, +stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow!—when mists as chill as death +wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and +rolled down “ing” and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the +beck! That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore +asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often +thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its +banks, _that_ showed only ranks of skeletons. + +April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, +placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its +duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose +its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and +oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up +profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its +hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its +wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed +spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I enjoyed often +and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone: for this unwonted liberty +and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to +advert. + +Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it +as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream? +Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another +question. + +That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-bred +pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into +the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and +dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into an +hospital. + +Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils +to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one +time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who continued well +were allowed almost unlimited license; because the medical attendant +insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health: +and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain +them. Miss Temple’s whole attention was absorbed by the patients: she +lived in the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours’ +rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and +making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls +who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and +willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already +smitten, went home only to die: some died at the school, and were +buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay. + +While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its +frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; +while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and +the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, +that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful +woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks +had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were +in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and +crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, +their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all +useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and +then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin. + +But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of +the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like gipsies, +from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where we liked: we +lived better too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near +Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised into; the cross +housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her +successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the +ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality. Besides, +there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our +breakfast-basins were better filled; when there was no time to prepare +a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large piece +of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried +away with us to the wood, where we each chose the spot we liked best, +and dined sumptuously. + +My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry +from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading +through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone was just +broad enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me, at that +time my chosen comrade—one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd, observant +personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was +witty and original, and partly because she had a manner which set me at +my ease. Some years older than I, she knew more of the world, and could +tell me many things I liked to hear: with her my curiosity found +gratification: to my faults also she gave ample indulgence, never +imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had a turn for narrative, +I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to question; so we got on +swimmingly together, deriving much entertainment, if not much +improvement, from our mutual intercourse. + +And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet +days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as +to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I +have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only +tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I +chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was +qualified to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a +taste of far higher things. + +True, reader; and I knew and felt this: and though I am a defective +being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired of +Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of +attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated +my heart. How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times and under +all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, +which ill-humour never soured, nor irritation never troubled? But Helen +was ill at present: for some weeks she had been removed from my sight +to I knew not what room upstairs. She was not, I was told, in the +hospital portion of the house with the fever patients; for her +complaint was consumption, not typhus: and by consumption I, in my +ignorance, understood something mild, which time and care would be sure +to alleviate. + +I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming +downstairs on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by Miss +Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed to +go and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window, and +then not distinctly; for she was much wrapped up, and sat at a distance +under the verandah. + +One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with +Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves from the +others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to +ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked +after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood. When +we got back, it was after moonrise: a pony, which we knew to be the +surgeon’s, was standing at the garden door. Mary Ann remarked that she +supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at +that time of the evening. She went into the house; I stayed behind a +few minutes to plant in my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in +the forest, and which I feared would wither if I left them till the +morning. This done, I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt +so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so +warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the +morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting +these things and enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my +mind as it had never done before:— + +“How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying! +This world is pleasant—it would be dreary to be called from it, and to +have to go who knows where?” + +And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had +been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time +it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each +side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the +one point where it stood—the present; all the rest was formless cloud +and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and +plunging amid that chaos. While pondering this new idea, I heard the +front door open; Mr. Bates came out, and with him was a nurse. After +she had seen him mount his horse and depart, she was about to close the +door, but I ran up to her. + +“How is Helen Burns?” + +“Very poorly,” was the answer. + +“Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?” + +“Yes.” + +“And what does he say about her?” + +“He says she’ll not be here long.” + +This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed +the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her +own home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but +I knew instantly now! It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen +Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going +to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I +experienced a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a +desire—a necessity to see her; and I asked in what room she lay. + +“She is in Miss Temple’s room,” said the nurse. + +“May I go up and speak to her?” + +“Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; +you’ll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling.” + +The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which +led to the schoolroom: I was just in time; it was nine o’clock, and +Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed. + +It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I—not having +been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the +dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound repose—rose +softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept +from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple’s room. It was +quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light +of the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage +windows, enabled me to find it without difficulty. An odour of camphor +and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and I +passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night +should hear me. I dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I _must_ +see Helen,—I must embrace her before she died,—I must give her one last +kiss, exchange with her one last word. + +Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house below, +and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two doors, I +reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just +opposite to me was Miss Temple’s room. A light shone through the +keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded the +vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to +admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness. Indisposed to +hesitate, and full of impatient impulses—soul and senses quivering with +keen throes—I put it back and looked in. My eye sought Helen, and +feared to find death. + +Close by Miss Temple’s bed, and half covered with its white curtains, +there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under the +clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had spoken +to in the garden sat in an easy-chair asleep; an unsnuffed candle burnt +dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen: I knew afterwards +that she had been called to a delirious patient in the fever-room. I +advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but +I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still recoiled at the +dread of seeing a corpse. + +“Helen!” I whispered softly, “are you awake?” + +She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale, +wasted, but quite composed: she looked so little changed that my fear +was instantly dissipated. + +“Can it be you, Jane?” she asked, in her own gentle voice. + +“Oh!” I thought, “she is not going to die; they are mistaken: she could +not speak and look so calmly if she were.” + +I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her +cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but she +smiled as of old. + +“Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o’clock: I heard it +strike some minutes since.” + +“I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could not +sleep till I had spoken to you.” + +“You came to bid me good-bye, then: you are just in time probably.” + +“Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?” + +“Yes; to my long home—my last home.” + +“No, no, Helen!” I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour my +tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake the +nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she +whispered— + +“Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with my +quilt.” + +I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her. After a +long silence, she resumed, still whispering— + +“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be +sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die +one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is +gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me +much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss +me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not +qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should +have been continually at fault.” + +“But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?” + +“I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.” + +“Where is God? What is God?” + +“My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely +implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count +the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, +reveal Him to me.” + +“You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and +that our souls can get to it when we die?” + +“I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign +my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is +my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me.” + +“And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?” + +“You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by the same +mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane.” + +Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. “Where is that +region? Does it exist?” And I clasped my arms closer round Helen; she +seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go; I +lay with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the +sweetest tone— + +“How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a little; +I feel as if I could sleep: but don’t leave me, Jane; I like to have +you near me.” + +“I’ll stay with you, _dear_ Helen: no one shall take me away.” + +“Are you warm, darling?” + +“Yes.” + +“Good-night, Jane.” + +“Good-night, Helen.” + +She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered. + +When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I +was in somebody’s arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me through +the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for leaving my +bed; people had something else to think about; no explanation was +afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two afterwards I +learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had +found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns’s +shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was—dead. + +Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after her +death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble +tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word +“Resurgam.” + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant +existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as +many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography: I am only +bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some +degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost +in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of +connection. + +When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at +Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its +virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on +the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by +degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a +high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality +of the children’s food; the brackish, fetid water used in its +preparation; the pupils’ wretched clothing and accommodations—all these +things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result mortifying +to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution. + +Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed +largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better +situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing +introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of +a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family +connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of +treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen +of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his office of +inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with +strictness, comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness. The +school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble +institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, +for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher; and in both +capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance. + +During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because +it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education placed +within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to +excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, +especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself fully of the +advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first girl of the first +class; then I was invested with the office of teacher; which I +discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of that time I +altered. + +Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent +of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my +acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; +she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, +companion. At this period she married, removed with her husband (a +clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant +county, and consequently was lost to me. + +From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every +settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree +a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much +of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated +feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance +to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes +of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued +character. + +But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and +Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post-chaise, +shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the +hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, +and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday +granted in honour of the occasion. + +I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only to +be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my +reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the +afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned +on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming +process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple—or +rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been +breathing in her vicinity—and that now I was left in my natural +element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions. It did not +seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: +it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason +for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some years been in +Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I +remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of +hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had +courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life +amidst its perils. + +I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two +wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of +Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to +rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to +surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed +prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the +base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I +longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had travelled +that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at +twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me +first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had all +been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; +neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me. I had had +no communication by letter or message with the outer world: +school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and +faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies—such +was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I +tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired +liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it +seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and +framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, +too, seemed swept off into vague space: “Then,” I cried, half +desperate, “grant me at least a new servitude!” + +Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs. + +I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till +bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me +from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged effusion of +small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It seemed as if, +could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I +stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for my +relief. + +Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her +habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light +than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with +satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced +thought instantly revived. + +“A new servitude! There is something in that,” I soliloquised +(mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). “I know there is, +because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as +Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more +than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of +time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any +one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to +serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing +feasible? Yes—yes—the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain +active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it.” + +I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly +night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded _to +think_ again with all my might. + +“What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under +new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting anything +better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I +suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends, +who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what +is their resource?” + +I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find +a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt the pulses +throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in +chaos; and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labour, I +got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or +two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed. + +A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion +on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally to my +mind:—“Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the +_——shire Herald_.” + +“How? I know nothing about advertising.” + +Replies rose smooth and prompt now:— + +“You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a +cover directed to the editor of the _Herald_; you must put it, the +first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be +addressed to J.E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire in +about a week after you send your letter, if any are come, and act +accordingly.” + +This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind; +I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell asleep. + +With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written, enclosed, +and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it ran thus:— + +“A young lady accustomed to tuition” (had I not been a teacher two +years?) “is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family +where the children are under fourteen” (I thought that as I was barely +eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my +own age). “She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good +English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music” (in those +days, reader, this now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have +been held tolerably comprehensive). “Address, J.E., Post-office, +Lowton, ——shire.” + +This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I asked +leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to perform +some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers; +permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and +the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I visited a shop or +two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through +heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart. + +The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, +like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of a +pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A +picturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck +and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that day I thought +more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the +little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water. + +My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of +shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I +stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker’s +to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn +spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands. + +“Are there any letters for J.E.?” I asked. + +She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and +fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began +to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for +nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying +the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J.E. + +“Is there only one?” I demanded. + +“There are no more,” said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned my +face homeward: I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be back by +eight, and it was already half-past seven. + +Various duties awaited me on my arrival: I had to sit with the girls +during their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers; to see +them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers. Even when we +finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my +companion: we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I +dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately, +however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: +she was already snoring before I had finished undressing. There still +remained an inch of candle: I now took out my letter; the seal was an +initial F.; I broke it; the contents were brief. + +“If J.E., who advertised in the _——shire Herald_ of last Thursday, +possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to +give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a +situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little +girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per +annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all +particulars to the direction:— + +“Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, ——shire.” + +I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned and rather +uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstance was +satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for +myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some +scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my endeavours to +be respectable, proper, _en règle_. I now felt that an elderly lady was +no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax! I saw +her in a black gown and widow’s cap; frigid, perhaps, but not uncivil: +a model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield! that, doubtless, +was the name of her house: a neat orderly spot, I was sure; though I +failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises. +Millcote, ——shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England; +yes, I saw it; both the shire and the town. ——shire was seventy miles +nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a +recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement: +Millcote was a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A——: a busy +place enough, doubtless: so much the better; it would be a complete +change at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of +long chimneys and clouds of smoke—“but,” I argued, “Thornfield will, +probably, be a good way from the town.” + +Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out. + +Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be +confined to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achieve their +success. Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent +during the noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting +a new situation where the salary would be double what I now received +(for at Lowood I only got £15 per annum); and requested she would break +the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or some of the committee, and +ascertain whether they would permit me to mention them as references. +She obligingly consented to act as mediatrix in the matter. The next +day she laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. +Reed must be written to, as she was my natural guardian. A note was +accordingly addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that “I +might do as I pleased: she had long relinquished all interference in my +affairs.” This note went the round of the committee, and at last, after +what appeared to me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to +better my condition if I could; and an assurance added, that as I had +always conducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a +testimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that +institution, should forthwith be furnished me. + +This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwarded a +copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady’s reply, stating that she +was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period for my +assuming the post of governess in her house. + +I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly. I +had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my wants; and +the last day sufficed to pack my trunk,—the same I had brought with me +eight years ago from Gateshead. + +The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half-an-hour the carrier was +to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to repair at +an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my +black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; +sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and +now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could +not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an +instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing +to-night, a new one opening to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the +interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being +accomplished. + +“Miss,” said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering +like a troubled spirit, “a person below wishes to see you.” + +“The carrier, no doubt,” I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry. +I was passing the back-parlour or teachers’ sitting-room, the door of +which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out— + +“It’s her, I am sure!—I could have told her anywhere!” cried the +individual who stopped my progress and took my hand. + +I looked: I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly, +yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair and eyes, and +lively complexion. + +“Well, who is it?” she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half +recognised; “you’ve not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?” + +In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously: “Bessie! +Bessie! Bessie!” that was all I said; whereat she half laughed, half +cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire stood a little +fellow of three years old, in plaid frock and trousers. + +“That is my little boy,” said Bessie directly. + +“Then you are married, Bessie?” + +“Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and I’ve +a little girl besides Bobby there, that I’ve christened Jane.” + +“And you don’t live at Gateshead?” + +“I live at the lodge: the old porter has left.” + +“Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, +Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will +you?” but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother. + +“You’re not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout,” +continued Mrs. Leaven. “I dare say they’ve not kept you too well at +school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and +Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth.” + +“Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?” + +“Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there +everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his +relations were against the match; and—what do you think?—he and Miss +Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. +It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and +now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are +always quarrelling—” + +“Well, and what of John Reed?” + +“Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to +college, and he got—plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles +wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a +dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think.” + +“What does he look like?” + +“He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he +has such thick lips.” + +“And Mrs. Reed?” + +“Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she’s not +quite easy in her mind: Mr. John’s conduct does not please her—he +spends a deal of money.” + +“Did she send you here, Bessie?” + +“No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that +there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another +part of the country, I thought I’d just set off, and get a look at you +before you were quite out of my reach.” + +“I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie.” I said this laughing: +I perceived that Bessie’s glance, though it expressed regard, did in no +shape denote admiration. + +“No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a +lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty +as a child.” + +I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I +confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most +people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an +exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but +gratification. + +“I dare say you are clever, though,” continued Bessie, by way of +solace. “What can you do? Can you play on the piano?” + +“A little.” + +There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me +to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and she was +charmed. + +“The Miss Reeds could not play as well!” said she exultingly. “I always +said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?” + +“That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece.” It was a +landscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to the +superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the +committee on my behalf, and which she had framed and glazed. + +“Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any +Miss Reed’s drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies +themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?” + +“Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.” + +“And you can work on muslin and canvas?” + +“I can.” + +“Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: you will get +on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I +wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything from your father’s +kinsfolk, the Eyres?” + +“Never in my life.” + +“Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable: +and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the +Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to +Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were at school fifty +miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay: he +was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail +from London in a day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe +he was your father’s brother.” + +“What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?” + +“An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine—the butler did +tell me—” + +“Madeira?” I suggested. + +“Yes, that is it—that is the very word.” + +“So he went?” + +“Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high +with him; she called him afterwards a ‘sneaking tradesman.’ My Robert +believes he was a wine-merchant.” + +“Very likely,” I returned; “or perhaps clerk or agent to a +wine-merchant.” + +Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was +obliged to leave me: I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning +at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the +door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she +set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to +take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me +to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and +when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a +room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on +the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such +ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of +George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a +representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the +light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an +excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and +umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill +contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day: +I left Lowton at four o’clock A.M., and the Millcote town clock is now +just striking eight. + +Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil +in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some +one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden +steps the “boots” placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name +pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey +me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a +waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered +in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a +private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and +fears are troubling my thoughts. + +It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself +quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain +whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by +many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of +adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then +the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when +half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring +the bell. + +“Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?” I asked of +the waiter who answered the summons. + +“Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.” He +vanished, but reappeared instantly— + +“Is your name Eyre, Miss?” + +“Yes.” + +“Person here waiting for you.” + +I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the +inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit +street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance. + +“This will be your luggage, I suppose?” said the man rather abruptly +when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage. + +“Yes.” He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and +then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to +Thornfield. + +“A matter of six miles.” + +“How long shall we be before we get there?” + +“Happen an hour and a half.” + +He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set +off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I +was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I +leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I +meditated much at my ease. + +“I suppose,” thought I, “judging from the plainness of the servant and +carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the +better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very +miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little +girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be +able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing +one’s best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that +resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I +remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax +may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to +stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. +How far are we on our road now, I wonder?” + +I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging +by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable +magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, +on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the +district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more +populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic. + +The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk +all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two +hours; at last he turned in his seat and said— + +“You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.” + +Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower +against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow +galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About +ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we +passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a +drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed +from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped +at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went +in. + +“Will you walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her +across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a +room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, +contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for +two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable +picture presented itself to my view. + +A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair +high-backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable +little elderly lady, in widow’s cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin +apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately +and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat +demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the +beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a +new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to +overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old +lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me. + +“How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John +drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire.” + +“Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?” said I. + +“Yes, you are right: do sit down.” + +She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl +and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so +much trouble. + +“Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with +cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are +the keys of the storeroom.” + +And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and +delivered them to the servant. + +“Now, then, draw nearer to the fire,” she continued. “You’ve brought +your luggage with you, haven’t you, my dear?” + +“Yes, ma’am.” + +“I’ll see it carried into your room,” she said, and bustled out. + +“She treats me like a visitor,” thought I. “I little expected such a +reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like +what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult +too soon.” + +She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a +book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now +brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather +confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before +received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she +did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her +place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly. + +“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?” I asked, +when I had partaken of what she offered me. + +“What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,” returned the good +lady, approaching her ear to my mouth. + +I repeated the question more distinctly. + +“Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your +future pupil.” + +“Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?” + +“No,—I have no family.” + +I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss +Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to +ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time. + +“I am so glad,” she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took +the cat on her knee; “I am so glad you are come; it will be quite +pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at +any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late +years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in +winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say +alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very +decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can’t +converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due +distance, for fear of losing one’s authority. I’m sure last winter (it +was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it +rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to +the house, from November till February; and I really got quite +melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read +to me sometimes; but I don’t think the poor girl liked the task much: +she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine +and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the +commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a +child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be +quite gay.” + +My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I +drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish +that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated. + +“But I’ll not keep you sitting up late to-night,” said she; “it is on +the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you +must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I’ll show you +your bedroom. I’ve had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is +only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one +of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but +they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself.” + +I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued +with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her +candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the +hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the +way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window +was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the +bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than +a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and +gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was +glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small +dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style. + +When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened +my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie +impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, +and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, +I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I +was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my +heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where +thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my +further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so +frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it +that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I +slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it was broad day. + +The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in +between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and +a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of +Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect +on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, +one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns +and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field +offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they +expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that +month, but at an indefinite future period. + +I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no +article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still +by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful +of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I +ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my +want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not +handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and +small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed +in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and +had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these +aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could +not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a +logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very +smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least +had the merit of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted my clean white +tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. +Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with +antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all +things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth. + +Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps +of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at +some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in +a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at +a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was +of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. +Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so +little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, +stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; +the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green +fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of +the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though +considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat: +battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front +stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants +were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in +a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and +where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as +oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion’s designation. +Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so +craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but +yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield +with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the +stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent +with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of +the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a +knoll between the house and gates. + +I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet +listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the +wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was +for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady +appeared at the door. + +“What! out already?” said she. “I see you are an early riser.” I went +up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand. + +“How do you like Thornfield?” she asked. I told her I liked it very +much. + +“Yes,” she said, “it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting +out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come +and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: +great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor.” + +“Mr. Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?” + +“The owner of Thornfield,” she responded quietly. “Did you not know he +was called Rochester?” + +Of course I did not—I had never heard of him before; but the old lady +seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with +which everybody must be acquainted by instinct. + +“I thought,” I continued, “Thornfield belonged to you.” + +“To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the +housekeeper—the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the +Rochesters by the mother’s side, or at least my husband was; he was a +clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder on the hill—and +that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester’s mother +was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on +the connection—in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in +the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and +I expect nothing more.” + +“And the little girl—my pupil!” + +“She is Mr. Rochester’s ward; he commissioned me to find a governess +for her. He intended to have her brought up in ——shire, I believe. Here +she comes, with her ‘bonne,’ as she calls her nurse.” The enigma then +was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; +but a dependent like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on +the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her +and me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so +much the better—my position was all the freer. + +As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her +attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not +at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or +eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and +a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist. + +“Good morning, Miss Adela,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the +lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.” She +approached. + +“C’est là ma gouvernante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her +nurse; who answered— + +“Mais oui, certainement.” + +“Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French +language. + +“The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I +believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came +here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a +little: I don’t understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you +will make out her meaning very well, I dare say.” + +Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French +lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame +Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven +years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily—applying myself to +take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the +pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of +readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be +much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hands with +me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to +breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she +replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and +she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she +suddenly commenced chattering fluently. + +“Ah!” cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. +Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. +She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all +English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great +ship with a chimney that smoked—how it did smoke!—and I was sick, and +so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a +sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little +beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. +And Mademoiselle—what is your name?” + +“Eyre—Jane Eyre.” + +“Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, +before it was quite daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very +dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came +from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the +land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us +to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an +hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every +day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there +were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in +it, that I fed with crumbs.” + +“Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax. + +I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent +tongue of Madame Pierrot. + +“I wish,” continued the good lady, “you would ask her a question or two +about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?” + +“Adèle,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that +pretty clean town you spoke of?” + +“I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama +used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many +gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, +or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you +hear me sing now?” + +She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen +of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed +herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, +shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she +commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a +forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls +pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest +jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night +at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little +his desertion has affected her. + +The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose +the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and +jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that +point was: at least I thought so. + +Adèle sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the _naïveté_ of +her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, +Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry.” + +Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La +Fontaine.” She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to +punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness +of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had +been carefully trained. + +“Was it your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked. + +“Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’avez vous donc? lui +dit un de ces rats; parlez!’ She made me lift my hand—so—to remind me +to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?” + +“No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you +say, with whom did you live then?” + +“With Madame Frédéric and her husband: she took care of me, but she is +nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a +house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would +like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. +Rochester before I knew Madame Frédéric, and he was always kind to me +and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his +word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again +himself, and I never see him.” + +After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it +appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. +Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one +bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the +way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, +poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had +considered that these were all the governess would require for her +private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; +compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean +at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment +and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite +new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of +globes. + +I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she +had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be +injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to +her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning +had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then +proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little +sketches for her use. + +As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax +called to me: “Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose,” said +she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in +when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple +chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast +window rich in stained glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. +Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a +sideboard. + +“What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had +never before seen any half so imposing. + +“Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in +a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments +that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault.” + +She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like +it with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two +broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a +fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet +it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both +spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of +flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and +vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and +ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of +sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large +mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire. + +“In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” said I. “No dust, +no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think +they were inhabited daily.” + +“Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are +always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to +find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his +arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.” + +“Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?” + +“Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and +he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.” + +“Do you like him? Is he generally liked?” + +“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the +land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the +Rochesters time out of mind.” + +“Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is +he liked for himself?” + +“_I_ have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is +considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never +lived much amongst them.” + +“But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?” + +“Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, +perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the +world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much +conversation with him.” + +“In what way is he peculiar?” + +“I don’t know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel +it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in +jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don’t +thoroughly understand him, in short—at least, I don’t: but it is of no +consequence, he is a very good master.” + +This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and +mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a +character, or observing and describing salient points, either in +persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my +queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. +Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor—nothing more: +she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish +to gain a more definite notion of his identity. + +When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of +the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I +went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers +I thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though +dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The +furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to +time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light +entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years +old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of +palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of +venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, +on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced +embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been +coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield +Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the +hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by +no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: +shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought +old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of +strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,—all +which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of +moonlight. + +“Do the servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked. + +“No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever +sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at +Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.” + +“So I think: you have no ghost, then?” + +“None that I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling. + +“Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?” + +“I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a +violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the +reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now.” + +“Yes—‘after life’s fitful fever they sleep well,’” I muttered. “Where +are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away. + +“On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?” I +followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by +a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on +a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning +over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid +out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey +base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient +timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, +greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the +gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day’s +sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with +pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was +pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could +scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault +compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and +to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the +hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight. + +Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint +of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend +the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which +this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: +narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and +looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a +corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle. + +While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still +a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, +formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it +began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It +passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every +lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have +pointed out the door whence the accents issued. + +“Mrs. Fairfax!” I called out: for I now heard her descending the great +stairs. “Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?” + +“Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace +Poole.” + +“Did you hear it?” I again inquired. + +“Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. +Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together.” + +The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an +odd murmur. + +“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax. + +I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as +tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it +was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the +curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, +I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me +I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise. + +The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,—a woman of between +thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a +hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could +scarcely be conceived. + +“Too much noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember directions!” +Grace curtseyed silently and went in. + +“She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s +work,” continued the widow; “not altogether unobjectionable in some +points, but she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with +your new pupil this morning?” + +The conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the +light and cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the +hall, exclaiming— + +“Mesdames, vous êtes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!” + +We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to +Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer +acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to +be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of +competent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively +child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes +wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no +injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for +her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient +and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, +no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised her one inch +above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had she any +deficiency or vice which sunk her below it. She made reasonable +progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very +profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to +please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient +to make us both content in each other’s society. + +This, _par parenthèse_, will be thought cool language by persons who +entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and +the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an +idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, +to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt +a conscientious solicitude for Adèle’s welfare and progress, and a +quiet liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. +Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society +proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation +of her mind and character. + +Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, +when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the +gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adèle +played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, +I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and +having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and +hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed for a power of vision +which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, +towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen—that then I +desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of +intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, +than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, +and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the existence of other +and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to +behold. + +Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I +could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to +pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of +the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and +solitude of the spot, and allow my mind’s eye to dwell on whatever +bright visions rose before it—and, certainly, they were many and +glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, +while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of +all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a tale my +imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of +incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual +existence. + +It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with +tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they +cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and +millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many +rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life +which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but +women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, +and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they +suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely +as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged +fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making +puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and +embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, +if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced +necessary for their sex. + +When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole’s laugh: the same +peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled +me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There +were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could +not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would +come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, +go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic +reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of +porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised +by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to +which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into +conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic +reply usually cut short every effort of that sort. + +The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the +housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no +respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I +asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a +descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and +confused answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage +inquiry. + +October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs. +Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adèle, because she had a cold; and, as +Adèle seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious +occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, +deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a +fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the +library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a +letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak +and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a +pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adèle comfortably seated in +her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour fireside, and given her her +best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a +drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and +having replied to her “Revenez bientôt, ma bonne amie, ma chère Mdlle. +Jeannette,” with a kiss, I set out. + +The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked +fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the +species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was +three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the +charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding +and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for +wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now +possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best +winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a +breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a +holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel +bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the +middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, +where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred +occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had +forgotten to drop. + +This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the +middle, I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering +my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel +the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice +covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had +overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could +look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the +principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose +against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, +and sank crimson and clear behind them. I then turned eastward. + +On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but +brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in +trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile +distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs +of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and +depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and +doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed +alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote. + +A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so +far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, +which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid +mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and +strong on the foreground, efface the aërial distance of azure hill, +sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into tint. + +The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the +lane yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, +as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I +was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: +the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and +when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness +beyond what childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I +watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of +Bessie’s tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a +“Gytrash,” which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted +solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this +horse was now coming upon me. + +It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, +tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel +stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a +distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie’s +Gytrash—a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed +me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange +pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse +followed,—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human +being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was +always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the +dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace +human form. No Gytrash was this,—only a traveller taking the short cut +to Millcote. He passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a +sliding sound and an exclamation of “What the deuce is to do now?” and +a clattering tumble, arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; +they had slipped on the sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog +came bounding back, and seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing +the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which +was deep in proportion to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate +group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he could do,—there was no +other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the +traveller, by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His +efforts were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I +asked him the question— + +“Are you injured, sir?” + +I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was +pronouncing some formula which prevented him from replying to me +directly. + +“Can I do anything?” I asked again. + +“You must just stand on one side,” he answered as he rose, first to his +knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, +stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which +removed me effectually some yards’ distance; but I would not be driven +quite away till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse +was re-established, and the dog was silenced with a “Down, Pilot!” The +traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether +they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the +stile whence I had just risen, and sat down. + +I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for +I now drew near him again. + +“If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from +Thornfield Hall or from Hay.” + +“Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,—only a sprain;” and +again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an +involuntary “Ugh!” + +Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I +could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur +collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced +the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. +He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and +gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past +youth, but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. +I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, +heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus +questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I +had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. +I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, +gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in +masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither +had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have +shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is +bright but antipathetic. + +If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I +addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with +thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew +inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my +ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced— + +“I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this +solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.” + +He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my +direction before. + +“I should think you ought to be at home yourself,” said he, “if you +have a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?” + +“From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it +is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish +it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter.” + +“You live just below—do you mean at that house with the battlements?” +pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam, +bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with +the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Whose house is it?” + +“Mr. Rochester’s.” + +“Do you know Mr. Rochester?” + +“No, I have never seen him.” + +“He is not resident, then?” + +“No.” + +“Can you tell me where he is?” + +“I cannot.” + +“You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are—” He stopped, +ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple: a black +merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough +for a lady’s-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I helped +him. + +“I am the governess.” + +“Ah, the governess!” he repeated; “deuce take me, if I had not +forgotten! The governess!” and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In +two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he +tried to move. + +“I cannot commission you to fetch help,” he said; “but you may help me +a little yourself, if you will be so kind.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?” + +“No.” + +“Try to get hold of my horse’s bridle and lead him to me: you are not +afraid?” + +I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to +do it, I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the stile, and +went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the bridle, but it +was a spirited thing, and would not let me come near its head; I made +effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was mortally afraid of +its trampling fore-feet. The traveller waited and watched for some +time, and at last he laughed. + + +I was mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet + +“I see,” he said, “the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so +all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of +you to come here.” + +I came. “Excuse me,” he continued: “necessity compels me to make you +useful.” He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with +some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the bridle, he +mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing grimly as he +made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain. + +“Now,” said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, “just hand me +my whip; it lies there under the hedge.” + +I sought it and found it. + +“Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast +as you can.” + +A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then +bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished, + +“Like heath that, in the wilderness, + The wild wind whirls away.” + + +I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone +for me: it _was_ an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a +sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. +My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to +have done something; trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was +yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive. The +new face, too, was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of +memory; and it was dissimilar to all the others hanging there: firstly, +because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, +and stern. I had it still before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the +letter into the post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all +the way home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked +round and listened, with an idea that a horse’s hoofs might ring on the +causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like +Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a +pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the +moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among +the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in +the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught +a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I +hurried on. + +I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to +return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome +staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil +Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, +was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,—to slip +again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too +still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and +ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have +done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain +struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience +to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good +as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a “too easy chair” to +take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my +circumstances, as it would be under his. + +I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and +forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I +could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed +drawn from the gloomy house—from the grey hollow filled with rayless +cells, as it appeared to me—to that sky expanded before me,—a blue sea +absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; +her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which +she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, +midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for +those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart +tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them. Little things recall us to +earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon +and stars, opened a side-door, and went in. + +The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze +lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak +staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose +two-leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, +glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple +draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It +revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had scarcely caught it, +and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, amongst +which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adèle, when the door closed. + +I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax’s room; there was a fire there too, but no +candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the +rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and +white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so +like it that I went forward and said—“Pilot,” and the thing got up and +came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great +tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not +tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a candle; and I +wanted, too, to get an account of this visitant. Leah entered. + +“What dog is this?” + +“He came with master.” + +“With whom?” + +“With master—Mr. Rochester—he is just arrived.” + +“Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?” + +“Yes, and Miss Adèle; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for +a surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle +is sprained.” + +“Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?” + +“Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice.” + +“Ah! Bring me a candle will you Leah?” + +Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated +the news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with +Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I +went upstairs to take off my things. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon’s orders, went to bed early +that night; nor did he rise soon next morning. When he did come down, +it was to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were +arrived, and waiting to speak with him. + +Adèle and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily +requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lit in an +apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for +the future schoolroom. I discerned in the course of the morning that +Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it +echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the +bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in +different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through +it; it had a master: for my part, I liked it better. + +Adèle was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept +running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could +get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go +downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, +where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and +made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her “ami, +Monsieur Edouard Fairfax _de_ Rochester,” as she dubbed him (I had not +before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had +brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that +when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a +little box in whose contents she had an interest. + +“Et cela doit signifier,” said she, “qu’il y aura là dedans un cadeau +pour moi, et peut-être pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parlé +de vous: il m’a demandé le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n’était +pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pâle. J’ai dit qu’oui: +car c’est vrai, n’est-ce pas, mademoiselle?” + +I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour; the afternoon +was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. At dark I +allowed Adèle to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for, +from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals +to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. +Left alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence: +twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very +shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the +fireside. + +In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I +remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when +Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I +had been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome +thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude. + +“Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with +him in the drawing-room this evening,” said she: “he has been so much +engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before.” + +“When is his tea-time?” I inquired. + +“Oh, at six o’clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had +better change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here is +a candle.” + +“Is it necessary to change my frock?” + +“Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester +is here.” + +This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired +to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax’s aid, replaced my black stuff dress +by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, +except one of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, +I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions. + +“You want a brooch,” said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl +ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake: I put it on, +and then we went downstairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was +rather a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester’s +presence. I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept +in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose +curtain was now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond. + +Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece; +basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot—Adèle knelt +near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot +supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adèle and the dog: the fire +shone full on his face. I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty +eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of +his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for +character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; +his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no +mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in +squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the +athletic sense of the term—broad chested and thin flanked, though +neither tall nor graceful. + +Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and +myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he +never lifted his head as we approached. + +“Here is Miss Eyre, sir,” said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He +bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child. + +“Let Miss Eyre be seated,” said he: and there was something in the +forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed +further to express, “What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be +there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her.” + +I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness +would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it +by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me +under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the +freak of manner, gave me the advantage. Besides, the eccentricity of +the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go +on. + +He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved. Mrs. +Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, +and she began to talk. Kindly, as usual—and, as usual, rather trite—she +condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on +the annoyance it must have been to him with that painful sprain: then +she commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it. + +“Madam, I should like some tea,” was the sole rejoinder she got. She +hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to +arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adèle +went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch. + +“Will you hand Mr. Rochester’s cup?” said Mrs. Fairfax to me; “Adèle +might perhaps spill it.” + +I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adèle, thinking +the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out— + +“N’est-ce pas, monsieur, qu’il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre +dans votre petit coffre?” + +“Who talks of cadeaux?” said he gruffly. “Did you expect a present, +Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?” and he searched my face with eyes +that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing. + +“I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are +generally thought pleasant things.” + +“Generally thought? But what do _you_ think?” + +“I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an +answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has +it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as +to its nature.” + +“Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adèle: she demands a +‘cadeau,’ clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the +bush.” + +“Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adèle has: she can +prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom; for +she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; +but if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a +stranger, and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment.” + +“Oh, don’t fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adèle, and find +you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has no +talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement.” + +“Sir, you have now given me my ‘cadeau;’ I am obliged to you: it is the +meed teachers most covet—praise of their pupils’ progress.” + +“Humph!” said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence. + +“Come to the fire,” said the master, when the tray was taken away, and +Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adèle +was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful +books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnières. We obeyed, as in +duty bound; Adèle wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered +to amuse herself with Pilot. + +“You have been resident in my house three months?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you came from—?” + +“From Lowood school, in ——shire.” + +“Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?” + +“Eight years.” + +“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in +such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have +rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that +sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought +unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you +had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?” + +“I have none.” + +“Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?” + +“No.” + +“I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on +that stile?” + +“For whom, sir?” + +“For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did +I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on +the causeway?” + +I shook my head. “The men in green all forsook England a hundred years +ago,” said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. “And not even in +Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I +don’t think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine +on their revels more.” + +Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, +seemed wondering what sort of talk this was. + +“Well,” resumed Mr. Rochester, “if you disown parents, you must have +some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?” + +“No; none that I ever saw.” + +“And your home?” + +“I have none.” + +“Where do your brothers and sisters live?” + +“I have no brothers or sisters.” + +“Who recommended you to come here?” + +“I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement.” + +“Yes,” said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, “and +I am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make. Miss Eyre +has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful teacher +to Adèle.” + +“Don’t trouble yourself to give her a character,” returned Mr. +Rochester: “eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself. She +began by felling my horse.” + +“Sir?” said Mrs. Fairfax. + +“I have to thank her for this sprain.” + +The widow looked bewildered. + +“Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Have you seen much society?” + +“None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of +Thornfield.” + +“Have you read much?” + +“Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous or +very learned.” + +“You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in +religious forms;—Brocklehurst, who I understand directs Lowood, is a +parson, is he not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of +religieuses would worship their director.” + +“Oh, no.” + +“You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest! That +sounds blasphemous.” + +“I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling. He is +a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for +economy’s sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could +hardly sew.” + +“That was very false economy,” remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again +caught the drift of the dialogue. + +“And was that the head and front of his offending?” demanded Mr. +Rochester. + +“He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision +department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with +long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his +own inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid +to go to bed.” + +“What age were you when you went to Lowood?” + +“About ten.” + +“And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?” + +I assented. + +“Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly have +been able to guess your age. It is a point difficult to fix where the +features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case. And +now what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?” + +“A little.” + +“Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the library—I mean, +if you please.—(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, ‘Do this,’ +and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for one new +inmate.)—Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the +door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune.” + +I departed, obeying his directions. + +“Enough!” he called out in a few minutes. “You play _a little_, I see; +like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, +but not well.” + +I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued— + +“Adèle showed me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours. +I don’t know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a +master aided you?” + +“No, indeed!” I interjected. + +“Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch +for its contents being original; but don’t pass your word unless you +are certain: I can recognise patchwork.” + +“Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir.” + +I brought the portfolio from the library. + +“Approach the table,” said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adèle and +Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures. + +“No crowding,” said Mr. Rochester: “take the drawings from my hand as I +finish with them; but don’t push your faces up to mine.” + +He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid +aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him. + +“Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax,” said he, “and look at +them with Adèle;—you” (glancing at me) “resume your seat, and answer my +questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that +hand yours?” + +“Yes.” + +“And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and +some thought.” + +“I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no +other occupation.” + +“Where did you get your copies?” + +“Out of my head.” + +“That head I see now on your shoulders?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Has it other furniture of the same kind within?” + +“I should think it may have: I should hope—better.” + +He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately. + +While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and +first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects +had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual +eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand +would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a +pale portrait of the thing I had conceived. + +These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low +and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; +so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there +was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged +mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with +foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched +with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering +distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and +mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was +the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or +torn. + +The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a +hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and +above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into +the sky was a woman’s shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and +soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the +lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes +shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud +torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection +like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds +from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star. + +The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter +sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close +serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the +foreground, a head,—a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and +resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and +supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a brow +quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of +meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above +the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in +its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, +gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was “the +likeness of a kingly crown;” what it diademed was “the shape which +shape had none.” + +“Were you happy when you painted these pictures?” asked Mr. Rochester +presently. + +“I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, +was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known.” + +“That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have +been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist’s dreamland +while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them +long each day?” + +“I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at +them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of +the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply.” + +“And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?” + +“Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my +handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite +powerless to realise.” + +“Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more, +probably. You had not enough of the artist’s skill and science to give +it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar. As to +the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must +have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet +not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what +meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint +wind? There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top. Where did +you see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There! put the drawings away!” + +I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his +watch, he said abruptly— + +“It is nine o’clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adèle sit up +so long? Take her to bed.” + +Adèle went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress, +but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor +so much. + +“I wish you all good-night, now,” said he, making a movement of the +hand towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and +wished to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my +portfolio: we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so +withdrew. + +“You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax,” I +observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adèle to bed. + +“Well, is he?” + +“I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt.” + +“True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed +to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities +of temper, allowance should be made.” + +“Why?” + +“Partly because it is his nature—and we can none of us help our nature; +and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, +and make his spirits unequal.” + +“What about?” + +“Family troubles, for one thing.” + +“But he has no family.” + +“Not now, but he has had—or, at least, relatives. He lost his elder +brother a few years since.” + +“His _elder_ brother?” + +“Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of +the property; only about nine years.” + +“Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as +to be still inconsolable for his loss?” + +“Why, no—perhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings +between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward; +and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him. The old gentleman was +fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did +not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious +that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of +the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that +were not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. +Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he +considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what +the precise nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his +spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very +forgiving: he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led +an unsettled kind of life. I don’t think he has ever been resident at +Thornfield for a fortnight together, since the death of his brother +without a will left him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he +shuns the old place.” + +“Why should he shun it?” + +“Perhaps he thinks it gloomy.” + +The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs. +Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit +information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester’s trials. She +averred they were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was +chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to +drop the subject, which I did accordingly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the +mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon, +gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes +stayed to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of +horse exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these +visits, as he generally did not come back till late at night. + +During this interval, even Adèle was seldom sent for to his presence, +and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional +rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would +sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence +by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with +gentlemanlike affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, +because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb +and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me. + +One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in +order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away +early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed +me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not +accompany them. Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message +came that I and Adèle were to go downstairs. I brushed Adèle’s hair and +made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual +Quaker trim, where there was nothing to retouch—all being too close and +plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangement—we descended, +Adèle wondering whether the _petit coffre_ was at length come; for, +owing to some mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was +gratified: there it stood, a little carton, on the table when we +entered the dining-room. She appeared to know it by instinct. + +“Ma boite! ma boite!” exclaimed she, running towards it. + +“Yes, there is your ‘boite’ at last: take it into a corner, you genuine +daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it,” said the +deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the +depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. “And mind,” he +continued, “don’t bother me with any details of the anatomical process, +or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be +conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?” + +Adèle seemed scarcely to need the warning; she had already retired to a +sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the +lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery +envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed— + +“Oh ciel! Que c’est beau!” and then remained absorbed in ecstatic +contemplation. + +“Is Miss Eyre there?” now demanded the master, half rising from his +seat to look round to the door, near which I still stood. + +“Ah! well, come forward; be seated here.” He drew a chair near his own. +“I am not fond of the prattle of children,” he continued; “for, old +bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their +lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening +_tête-à-tête_ with a brat. Don’t draw that chair farther off, Miss +Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it—if you please, that is. +Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I +particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have +mine in mind; it won’t do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to +one; and blood is said to be thicker than water.” + +He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon +arrived, knitting-basket in hand. + +“Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I have +forbidden Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting +with repletion; have the goodness to serve her as auditress and +interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever +performed.” + +Adèle, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her +sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, +the waxen contents of her “boite;” pouring out, meantime, explanations +and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of. + +“Now I have performed the part of a good host,” pursued Mr. Rochester, +“put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at +liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still +a little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you +without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have +no mind to do.” + +I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat +in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, +it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly. + +We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been +lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the +large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and +ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, +save the subdued chat of Adèle (she dared not speak loud), and, filling +up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes. + +Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different +to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern—much less +gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether +with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, +in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also +more self-indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; +still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against +the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on +his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had +great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change +in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, +at least, of that feeling. + +He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the +same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze +fastened on his physiognomy. + +“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?” + +I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by +something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow +slipped from my tongue before I was aware—“No, sir.” + +“Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you,” said he: “you +have the air of a little _nonnette_; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, +as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on +the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my +face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or +makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round +rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean +by it?” + +“Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that +it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about +appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little +consequence, or something of that sort.” + +“You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, +indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of +stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under +my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have +all my limbs and all my features like any other man?” + +“Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no +pointed repartee: it was only a blunder.” + +“Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: +does my forehead not please you?” + +He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his +brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an +abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have +risen. + +“Now, ma’am, am I a fool?” + +“Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in +return whether you are a philanthropist?” + +“There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat +my head: and that is because I said I did not like the society of +children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady, I am not a +general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;” and he pointed to the +prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which, +fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a +marked breadth to the upper part of his head: “and, besides, I once had +a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as you, I was a +feeling fellow enough; partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and +unlucky; but Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded +me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as +an India-rubber ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, +and with one sentient point in the middle of the lump. Yes: does that +leave hope for me?” + +“Hope of what, sir?” + +“Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?” + +“Decidedly he has had too much wine,” I thought; and I did not know +what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he +was capable of being re-transformed? + +“You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty +any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it +is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my +physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so +puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative +to-night.” + +With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his +arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen +plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, +disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people +would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious +pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of +complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a +reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to +atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at +him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, +imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence. + +“I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night,” he +repeated, “and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier +were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none +of these can talk. Adèle is a degree better, but still far below the +mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: +you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost +forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but +to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and +recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out—to learn +more of you—therefore speak.” + +Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive +smile either. + +“Speak,” he urged. + +“What about, sir?” + +“Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner +of treating it entirely to yourself.” + +Accordingly I sat and said nothing: “If he expects me to talk for the +mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed +himself to the wrong person,” I thought. + +“You are dumb, Miss Eyre.” + +I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a +single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes. + +“Stubborn?” he said, “and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my +request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your +pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don’t wish to treat you like an +inferior: that is” (correcting himself), “I claim only such superiority +as must result from twenty years’ difference in age and a century’s +advance in experience. This is legitimate, _et j’y tiens_, as Adèle +would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, +that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and +divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one +point—cankering as a rusty nail.” + +He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel +insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so. + +“I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir—quite willing; but I cannot +introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me +questions, and I will do my best to answer them.” + +“Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to +be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the +grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and +that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many +nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly +with one set of people in one house?” + +“Do as you please, sir.” + +“That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very +evasive one. Reply clearly.” + +“I don’t think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you +are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I +have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of +your time and experience.” + +“Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won’t allow that, seeing that it would +never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, +use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, +you must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being +piqued or hurt by the tone of command. Will you?” + +I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester _is_ peculiar—he seems to +forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders. + +“The smile is very well,” said he, catching instantly the passing +expression; “but speak too.” + +“I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to +inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by +their orders.” + +“Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, +I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will +you agree to let me hector a little?” + +“No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget +it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his +dependency, I agree heartily.” + +“And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms +and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?” + +“I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one +I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a +salary.” + +“Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; +therefore, keep to yourself, and don’t venture on generalities of which +you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you +for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in +which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was +frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the +contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded +misapprehension of one’s meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not +three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered +me as you have just done. But I don’t mean to flatter you: if you are +cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: +Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: +for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have +intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points.” + +“And so may you,” I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my +mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been +spoken as well as imagined— + +“Yes, yes, you are right,” said he; “I have plenty of faults of my own: +I know it, and I don’t wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I +need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series +of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which +might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I +started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the +blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a +wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the +right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have +been as good as you—wiser—almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of +mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a +memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure—an +inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?” + +“How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?” + +“All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned +it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen—quite your equal. +Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the +better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don’t see it; +at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, +by-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at +interpreting its language). Then take my word for it,—I am not a +villain: you are not to suppose that—not to attribute to me any such +bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances +than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in +all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try +to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in +the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the +involuntary confidant of your acquaintances’ secrets: people will +instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to +tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they +will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their +indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less +comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its +manifestations.” + +“How do you know?—how can you guess all this, sir?” + +“I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were +writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been +superior to circumstances; so I should—so I should; but you see I was +not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I +turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton +excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that +I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a +level. I wish I had stood firm—God knows I do! Dread remorse when you +are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.” + +“Repentance is said to be its cure, sir.” + +“It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform—I +have strength yet for that—if—but where is the use of thinking of it, +hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is +irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and +I _will_ get it, cost what it may.” + +“Then you will degenerate still more, sir.” + +“Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I +may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the +moor.” + +“It will sting—it will taste bitter, sir.” + +“How do you know?—you never tried it. How very serious—how very solemn +you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head” +(taking one from the mantelpiece). “You have no right to preach to me, +you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are +absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries.” + +“I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought +remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence.” + +“And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered +across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather +than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing—I know that. Here +it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put +on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest +when it asks entrance to my heart.” + +“Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel.” + +“Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to +distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from +the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?” + +“I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said +the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more +misery if you listen to it.” + +“Not at all—it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the +rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don’t make yourself uneasy. +Here, come in, bonny wanderer!” + +He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his +own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, +he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being. + +“Now,” he continued, again addressing me, “I have received the +pilgrim—a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me +good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.” + +“To speak truth, sir, I don’t understand you at all: I cannot keep up +the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I +know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that +you regretted your own imperfection;—one thing I can comprehend: you +intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems +to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to +become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you +began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would +in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, +to which you might revert with pleasure.” + +“Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am +paving hell with energy.” + +“Sir?” + +“I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. +Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have +been.” + +“And better?” + +“And better—so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to +doubt me; I don’t doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives +are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes +and Persians, that both are right.” + +“They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them.” + +“They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute: +unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.” + +“That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that +it is liable to abuse.” + +“Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to +abuse it.” + +“You are human and fallible.” + +“I am: so are you—what then?” + +“The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the +divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.” + +“What power?” + +“That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,—‘Let it be +right.’” + +“‘Let it be right’—the very words: you have pronounced them.” + +“_May_ it be right then,” I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to +continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, +sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my +penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the +uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a +conviction of ignorance. + +“Where are you going?” + +“To put Adèle to bed: it is past her bedtime.” + +“You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx.” + +“Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am +certainly not afraid.” + +“You _are_ afraid—your self-love dreads a blunder.” + +“In that sense I do feel apprehensive—I have no wish to talk nonsense.” + +“If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should +mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don’t trouble +yourself to answer—I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very +merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am +naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; +controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your +limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother—or father, +or master, or what you will—to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or +move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural +with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then +your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they +dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird +through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute +captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are +still bent on going?” + +“It has struck nine, sir.” + +“Never mind,—wait a minute: Adèle is not ready to go to bed yet. My +position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room, +favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally +watched Adèle (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious +study,—reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day). +She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk +frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her +blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. ‘Il +faut que je l’essaie!’ cried she, ‘et à l’instant même!’ and she rushed +out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process: +in a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,—a +miniature of Céline Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the +rising of—But never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about +to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether +it will be realised.” + +Ere long, Adèle’s little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She +entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of +rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could +be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath +of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk +stockings and small white satin sandals. + +“Est-ce que ma robe va bien?” cried she, bounding forwards; “et mes +souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!” + +And spreading out her dress, she chasséed across the room till, having +reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe, +then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming— + +“Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonté;” then rising, +she added, “C’est comme cela que maman faisait, n’est-ce pas, +monsieur?” + +“Pre-cise-ly!” was the answer; “and, ‘comme cela,’ she charmed my +English gold out of my British breeches’ pocket. I have been green, +too, Miss Eyre,—ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you +now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left +me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain +be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that +it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but +half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as +just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle +of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I’ll +explain all this some day. Good-night.” + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one +afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adèle in the grounds: and +while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up +and down a long beech avenue within sight of her. + +He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Céline +Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a “_grande +passion_.” This passion Céline had professed to return with even +superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he +believed, as he said, that she preferred his “_taille d’athlète_” to +the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere. + +“And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the +Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; +gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, +diamonds, dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining +myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I had not, it +seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and +destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to +deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had—as I deserved to have—the +fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Céline +did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was +tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy +to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence. No,—I +exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue about +her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of +musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to +stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, +when I bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the +balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight besides, and very still and +serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and +took out a cigar,—I will take one now, if you will excuse me.” + +Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a +cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah +incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on— + +“I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was +_croquant_—(overlook the barbarism)—_croquant_ chocolate comfits, and +smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along +the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in +an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, +and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the +‘voiture’ I had given Céline. She was returning: of course my heart +thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The +carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that +is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a +cloak—an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June +evening—I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the +skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over +the balcony, I was about to murmur ‘Mon ange’—in a tone, of course, +which should be audible to the ear of love alone—when a figure jumped +from the carriage after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel +which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now +passed under the arched _porte cochère_ of the hotel. + +“You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not +ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to +experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall +waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in +which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes +and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in +the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I +tell you—and you may mark my words—you will come some day to a craggy +pass in the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up +into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to +atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave +into a calmer current—as I am now. + +“I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and +stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its +antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey +façade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet +how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a +great plague-house? How I do still abhor—” + +He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his +boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in +its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance. + +We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before +us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such +as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust, +detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the +large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which +should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something +hard and cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and +petrified his countenance: he went on— + +“During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point +with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk—a hag like one of +those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. ‘You like +Thornfield?’ she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the +air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the +house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, ‘Like it if +you can! Like it if you dare!’ + +“‘I will like it,’ said I; ‘I dare like it;’ and” (he subjoined +moodily) “I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to +goodness—yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been, +than I am; as Job’s leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the +habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will +esteem but straw and rotten wood.” + +Adèle here ran before him with her shuttlecock. “Away!” he cried +harshly; “keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!” Continuing +then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the +point whence he had abruptly diverged— + +“Did you leave the balcony, sir,” I asked, “when Mdlle. Varens +entered?” + +I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on +the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his +eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. “Oh, I had +forgotten Céline! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in +accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake +of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, +glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my +heart’s core. Strange!” he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the +point. “Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, +young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if +it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell +stories of his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like +you! But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once +before: you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made +to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I +have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable +to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I +do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. +The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, +you may refresh me.” After this digression he proceeded— + +“I remained in the balcony. ‘They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,’ +thought I: ‘let me prepare an ambush.’ So putting my hand in through +the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening +through which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, +all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers’ +whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the +pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture. Céline’s chamber-maid +entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The couple +were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there +was ‘the Varens,’ shining in satin and jewels,—my gifts of course,—and +there was her companion in an officer’s uniform; and I knew him for a +young roué of a vicomte—a brainless and vicious youth whom I had +sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I +despised him so absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake +Jealousy was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for +Céline sank under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such +a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, +however, than I, who had been her dupe. + +“They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, +mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary +than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being +perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed +energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely +as they could in their little way: especially Céline, who even waxed +rather brilliant on my personal defects—deformities she termed them. +Now it had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of +what she called my ‘_beauté mâle_:’ wherein she differed diametrically +from you, who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you +did not think me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and—” + +Adèle here came running up again. + +“Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and +wishes to see you.” + +“Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon +them; liberated Céline from my protection; gave her notice to vacate +her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded +screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an +appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. +Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in +one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the +pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the +Varens, six months before, had given me this filette Adèle, who, she +affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no +proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more +like me than she. Some years after I had broken with the mother, she +abandoned her child, and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I +acknowledged no natural claim on Adèle’s part to be supported by me, +nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that +she was quite destitute, I e’en took the poor thing out of the slime +and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the +wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to +train it; but now you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a +French opera-girl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and +protégée: you will be coming to me some day with notice that you have +found another place—that you beg me to look out for a new governess, +&c.—Eh?” + +“No: Adèle is not answerable for either her mother’s faults or yours: I +have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, +parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir—I shall +cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt +pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to +a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?” + +“Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; +and you too: it darkens.” + +But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot—ran a race +with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went +in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept +her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking +even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to +stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of +character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an +English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to +appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her +countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: +no trait, no turn of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: +if she could but have been proved to resemble him, he would have +thought more of her. + +It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, +that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had +said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance +of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman’s passion for a French +dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no +doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the +paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the +act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly +revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated +wonderingly on this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it +for the present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my +master’s manner to myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose +in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as +such. His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards +me than at the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits +of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed +welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when +summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a +cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power +to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much +for his pleasure as for my benefit. + +I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with +relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a +mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do +not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their +interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange +novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in +receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he +portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he +disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion. + +The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly +frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to +him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: +yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it +was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest +added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin +crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled +up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength. + +And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and +many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object +I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the +brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could +not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, +harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew +that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many +others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when +sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with +his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, +almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that +his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say +_former_, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some +cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better +tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as +circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny +encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for +the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot +deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have +given much to assuage it. + +Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I +could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, +and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be +happy at Thornfield. + +“Why not?” I asked myself. “What alienates him from the house? Will he +leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer +than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. +If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent +spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will +seem!” + +I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any +rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and +lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had +kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were +depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed. + +I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward +tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. +Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had +swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I +said, “Who is there?” Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear. + +All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the +kitchen-door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up +to the threshold of Mr. Rochester’s chamber: I had seen him lying there +myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. +Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again +through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it +was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely +approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing +incident enough. + +This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it +seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was +near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my +bedside—or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and +could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was +reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse +was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, “Who is +there?” + +Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery +towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut +in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still. + +“Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?” thought I. +Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I +hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the +door with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, +and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this +circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite +dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and +left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware +of a strong smell of burning. + +Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. +Rochester’s, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no +more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: +in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round +the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, +Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep. + +“Wake! wake!” I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: +the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very +sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one +was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved +them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, +brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God’s aid, +succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it. + +The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I +flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of +the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last. +Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him +fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of +water. + +“Is there a flood?” he cried. + +“No, sir,” I answered; “but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are +quenched now; I will fetch you a candle.” + +“In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?” he +demanded. “What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the +room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?” + +“I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven’s name, get up. +Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and +what it is.” + +“There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two +minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be—yes, +here is my dressing-gown. Now run!” + +I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He +took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened +and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water. + +“What is it? and who did it?” he asked. + +I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had +heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the +smoke,—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what +state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the +water I could lay hands on. + + +“What is it and who did it?” he asked + +He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more +concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had +concluded. + +“Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?” I asked. + +“Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she +do? Let her sleep unmolested.” + +“Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife.” + +“Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm +enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down +in the arm-chair: there,—I will put it on. Now place your feet on the +stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few +minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return; +be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don’t +move, remember, or call any one.” + +He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very +softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, +shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total +darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long +time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and +then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. +I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester’s displeasure by disobeying +his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, +and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. “I hope it is he,” +thought I, “and not something worse.” + +He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. “I have found it all out,” said +he, setting his candle down on the washstand; “it is as I thought.” + +“How, sir?” + +He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the +ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar +tone— + +“I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your +chamber door.” + +“No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.” + +“But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should +think, or something like it?” + +“Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,—she +laughs in that way. She is a singular person.” + +“Just so. Grace Poole—you have guessed it. She is, as you say, +singular—very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am +glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the +precise details of to-night’s incident. You are no talking fool: say +nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs” (pointing +to the bed): “and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on +the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:—in +two hours the servants will be up.” + +“Good-night, then, sir,” said I, departing. + +He seemed surprised—very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to +go. + +“What!” he exclaimed, “are you quitting me already, and in that way?” + +“You said I might go, sir.” + +“But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of +acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry +fashion. Why, you have saved my life!—snatched me from a horrible and +excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual +strangers! At least shake hands.” + +He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, then in +both his own. + +“You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a +debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been +tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: +but you: it is different;—I feel your benefits no burden, Jane.” + +He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,—but +his voice was checked. + +“Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, +in the case.” + +“I knew,” he continued, “you would do me good in some way, at some +time;—I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression +and smile did not”—(again he stopped)—“did not” (he proceeded hastily) +“strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of +natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of +truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, good-night!” + +Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look. + +“I am glad I happened to be awake,” I said: and then I was going. + +“What! you _will_ go?” + +“I am cold, sir.” + +“Cold? Yes,—and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!” But he still +retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an +expedient. + +“I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,” said I. + +“Well, leave me:” he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone. + +I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I +was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble +rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild +waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a +freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards +the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy—a counteracting +breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist +delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as +soon as day dawned. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed +this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to +meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily +expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the +schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had +the impression that he was sure to visit it that day. + +But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the +quiet course of Adèle’s studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard +some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester’s chamber, Mrs. +Fairfax’s voice, and Leah’s, and the cook’s—that is, John’s wife—and +even John’s own gruff tones. There were exclamations of “What a mercy +master was not burnt in his bed!” “It is always dangerous to keep a +candle lit at night.” “How providential that he had presence of mind to +think of the water-jug!” “I wonder he waked nobody!” “It is to be hoped +he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa,” &c. + +To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to +rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I +saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete +order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the +window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about +to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the +affair: but, on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber—a woman +sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. +That woman was no other than Grace Poole. + +There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff +gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on +her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard +forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the +paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the +countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended +victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed), +charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was +amazed—confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, +no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of +guilt, or fear of detection. She said “Good morning, Miss,” in her +usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more +tape, went on with her sewing. + +“I will put her to some test,” thought I: “such absolute +impenetrability is past comprehension.” + +“Good morning, Grace,” I said. “Has anything happened here? I thought I +heard the servants all talking together a while ago.” + +“Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep +with his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he +awoke before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to +quench the flames with the water in the ewer.” + +“A strange affair!” I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her +fixedly—“Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?” + +She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of +consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; +then she answered— + +“The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be +likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax’s room and yours are the nearest to +master’s; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get +elderly, they often sleep heavy.” She paused, and then added, with a +sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant +tone—“But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: +perhaps you may have heard a noise?” + +“I did,” said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still +polishing the panes, could not hear me, “and at first I thought it was +Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a +strange one.” + +She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her +needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure— + +“It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he +was in such danger: You must have been dreaming.” + +“I was not dreaming,” I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness +provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and +conscious eye. + +“Have you told master that you heard a laugh?” she inquired. + +“I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning.” + +“You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the +gallery?” she further asked. + +She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me +information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew +or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant +pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard. + +“On the contrary,” said I, “I bolted my door.” + +“Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before +you get into bed?” + +“Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans +accordingly!” Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied +sharply, “Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not +think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be +dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future” (and I laid marked stress on +the words) “I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture +to lie down.” + +“It will be wise so to do,” was her answer: “this neighbourhood is as +quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by +robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds’ +worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for +such a large house, there are very few servants, because master has +never lived here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he +needs little waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe +side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt +between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, +are for trusting all to Providence; but I say Providence will not +dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they are +used discreetly.” And here she closed her harangue: a long one for her, +and uttered with the demureness of a Quakeress. + +I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her +miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the +cook entered. + +“Mrs. Poole,” said she, addressing Grace, “the servants’ dinner will +soon be ready: will you come down?” + +“No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I’ll +carry it upstairs.” + +“You’ll have some meat?” + +“Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that’s all.” + +“And the sago?” + +“Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I’ll +make it myself.” + +The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for +me: so I departed. + +I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax’s account of the curtain conflagration +during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the +enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the +problem of her position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not +been given into custody that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed +from her master’s service. He had almost as much as declared his +conviction of her criminality last night: what mysterious cause +withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined me, too, to +secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman +seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependents; so +much in her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, +he dared not openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her +for it. + +Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think +that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester +in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea +could not be admitted. “Yet,” I reflected, “she has been young once; +her youth would be contemporary with her master’s: Mrs. Fairfax told me +once, she had lived here many years. I don’t think she can ever have +been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and +strength of character to compensate for the want of personal +advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: +Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very +possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him +into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret +influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he cannot shake +off, and dare not disregard?” But, having reached this point of +conjecture, Mrs. Poole’s square, flat figure, and uncomely, dry, even +coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind’s eye, that I thought, +“No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet,” suggested the +secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, “_you_ are not +beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any rate, +you have often felt as if he did; and last night—remember his words; +remember his look; remember his voice!” + +I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment +vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adèle was drawing; I bent +over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start. + +“Qu’avez-vous, mademoiselle?” said she. “Vos doigts tremblent comme la +feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!” + +“I am hot, Adèle, with stooping!” She went on sketching; I went on +thinking. + +I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been +conceiving respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself +with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was +quite a lady; and she spoke truth—I was a lady. And now I looked much +better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had more colour and more flesh, +more life, more vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener +enjoyments. + +“Evening approaches,” said I, as I looked towards the window. “I have +never heard Mr. Rochester’s voice or step in the house to-day; but +surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the +morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled +that it is grown impatient.” + +When dusk actually closed, and when Adèle left me to go and play in the +nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the +bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I +fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester’s own tread, and I turned to +the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut; +darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he +often sent for me at seven and eight o’clock, and it was yet but six. +Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many +things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace +Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if +he really believed it was she who had made last night’s hideous +attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little +mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of +vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, +and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the +verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked +well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every +propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without +fear or uneasy restraint; this suited both him and me. + +A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it +was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. Thither +I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I +imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester’s presence. + +“You must want your tea,” said the good lady, as I joined her; “you ate +so little at dinner. I am afraid,” she continued, “you are not well +to-day: you look flushed and feverish.” + +“Oh, quite well! I never felt better.” + +“Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the +teapot while I knit off this needle?” Having completed her task, she +rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I +suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast +deepening into total obscurity. + +“It is fair to-night,” said she, as she looked through the panes, +“though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a +favourable day for his journey.” + +“Journey!—Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out.” + +“Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas, +Mr. Eshton’s place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe +there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn, +Colonel Dent, and others.” + +“Do you expect him back to-night?” + +“No—nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a +week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they +are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all +that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. +Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. +Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is +a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would +not think his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in +their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his +wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look.” + +“Are there ladies at the Leas?” + +“There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young +ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, +most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or +seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a +Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the +dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit +up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of +the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of +the evening.” + +“You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?” + +“Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was +Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to +hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to +come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw +a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of +them—at least most of the younger ones—looked handsome; but Miss Ingram +was certainly the queen.” + +“And what was she like?” + +“Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive +complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. +Rochester’s: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then +she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly +arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the +glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an +amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her +breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below +her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it +contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls.” + +“She was greatly admired, of course?” + +“Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. +She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the +piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet.” + +“Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.” + +“Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.” + +“And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?” + +“A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to +listen to her;—and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but +Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably +good.” + +“And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?” + +“It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large +fortunes. Old Lord Ingram’s estates were chiefly entailed, and the +eldest son came in for everything almost.” + +“But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to +her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?” + +“Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr. +Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.” + +“What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.” + +“True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an +idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since +you began tea.” + +“No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?” + +I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. +Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the +conversation was turned into another channel. + +When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into +my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring +back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination’s +boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense. + +Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, +wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the +general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight +past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way, a +plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and +rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:— + +That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of +life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet +lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar. + +“_You_,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? _You_ gifted with the +power of pleasing him? _You_ of importance to him in any way? Go! your +folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens +of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man +of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid +dupe!—Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to +yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?—Cover your face +and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind +puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed +senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her +superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in +all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned +and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and +responded to, must lead, _ignis-fatuus_-like, into miry wilds whence +there is no extrication. + +“Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass +before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without +softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing +irregularity; write under it, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, +poor, and plain.’ + +“Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your +drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest +tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate +carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest +shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. +Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental +eye;—What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!—no +sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall +the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let +the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit +neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, +aërial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call +it ‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.’ + +“Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks +well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, ‘Mr. +Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to +strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this +indigent and insignificant plebeian?’” + +“I’ll do it,” I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew +calm, and fell asleep. + +I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in +crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory +miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face +enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was +as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task: +it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and +fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my +heart. + +Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of +wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit. +Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent +calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been +unequal to maintain, even externally. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and +still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if +he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the +Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to +come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt +and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange +chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to +experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, +and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to +order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I +cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester’s movements a matter +in which I had any cause to take a vital interest. Not that I humbled +myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just +said— + +“You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to +receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be +grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your +duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only +tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don’t make him +the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. +He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting +to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a +gift is not wanted and would be despised.” + +I went on with my day’s business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague +suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit +Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and +pondering conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not +think to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could. + +Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post +brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter. + +“It is from the master,” said she, as she looked at the direction. “Now +I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not.” + +And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking +my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I attributed to that +circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand +shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into +my saucer, I did not choose to consider. + +“Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being +busy enough now: for a little while at least,” said Mrs. Fairfax, still +holding the note before her spectacles. + +Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of +Adèle’s pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her also to +another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly— + +“Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?” + +“Indeed he is—in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and +not alone either. I don’t know how many of the fine people at the Leas +are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to +be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I +am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from +wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the +gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it.” And Mrs. +Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence +operations. + +The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought +all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged; but it +appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help; and such +scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, +such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors +and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets +and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since. +Adèle ran quite wild in the midst of it: the preparations for company +and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. +She would have Sophie to look over all her “toilettes,” as she called +frocks; to furbish up any that were “_passées_,” and to air and arrange +the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front +chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and +piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the +chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had +pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, +helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and +cheese-cakes and French pastry, to truss game and garnish +desert-dishes. + +The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for +dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to nurse +chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody—Adèle +excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my +cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of +doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I chanced to +see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept +locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in +prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along +the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her +look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,—just say a word, perhaps, +to the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a +marble mantelpiece, or take stains from papered walls, and then pass +on. She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, +smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of +porter with her, for her private solace, in her own gloomy, upper +haunt. Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her +fellow-servants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some +low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the second storey: there she sat and +sewed—and probably laughed drearily to herself,—as companionless as a +prisoner in his dungeon. + +The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except +me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one discussed +her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I +once, indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the +charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah had been saying +something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked— + +“She gets good wages, I guess?” + +“Yes,” said Leah; “I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain +of,—there’s no stinginess at Thornfield; but they’re not one fifth of +the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes every +quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has saved +enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave; but I suppose +she’s got used to the place; and then she’s not forty yet, and strong +and able for anything. It is too soon for her to give up business.” + +“She is a good hand, I daresay,” said the charwoman. + +“Ah!—she understands what she has to do,—nobody better,” rejoined Leah +significantly; “and it is not every one could fill her shoes—not for +all the money she gets.” + +“That it is not!” was the reply. “I wonder whether the master—” + +The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and +she instantly gave her companion a nudge. + +“Doesn’t she know?” I heard the woman whisper. + +Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped. All I +had gathered from it amounted to this,—that there was a mystery at +Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely +excluded. + +Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; +carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white +counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers +piled in vases: both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as +hands could make them. The hall, too, was scoured; and the great carved +clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase, were +polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard +flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases +of exotics bloomed on all sides. + +Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her +gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive the +company,—to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c. Adèle, too, would be +dressed: though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to +the party that day at least. However, to please her, I allowed Sophie +to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For myself, I +had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my +sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me,—“a +very pleasant refuge in time of trouble.” + +It had been a mild, serene spring day—one of those days which, towards +the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining over the earth +as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was +even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open. + +“It gets late,” said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. “I am +glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester mentioned; +for it is past six now. I have sent John down to the gates to see if +there is anything on the road: one can see a long way from thence in +the direction of Millcote.” She went to the window. “Here he is!” said +she. “Well, John” (leaning out), “any news?” + +“They’re coming, ma’am,” was the answer. “They’ll be here in ten +minutes.” + +Adèle flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one side, +so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen. + +The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels +were heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them came +two open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the +vehicles; two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking gentlemen; +the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour, Pilot +bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she were the +first of the party. Her purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, +her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its transparent +folds, and gleaming through them, shone rich raven ringlets. + +“Miss Ingram!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post +below. + +The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the +angle of the house, and I lost sight of it. Adèle now petitioned to go +down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she +must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, +either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr. +Rochester would be very angry, &c. “Some natural tears she shed” on +being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at +last to wipe them. + +A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen’s deep tones and +ladies’ silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and +distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of +the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests +under its roof. Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there was a +tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and +closing doors, and, for a time, a hush. + +“Elles changent de toilettes,” said Adèle; who, listening attentively, +had followed every movement; and she sighed. + +“Chez maman,” said she, “quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais +partout, au salon et à leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes +de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c’était si amusant: comme +cela on apprend.” + +“Don’t you feel hungry, Adèle?” + +“Mais oui, mademoiselle: voilà cinq ou six heures que nous n’avons pas +mangé.” + +“Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and +get you something to eat.” + +And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a back-stairs +which conducted directly to the kitchen. All in that region was fire +and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, +and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body +threatening spontaneous combustion. In the servants’ hall two coachmen +and three gentlemen’s gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the +abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new +servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about +everywhere. Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I +took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of bread, some tarts, a plate +or two and a knife and fork: with this booty I made a hasty retreat. I +had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind +me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to +issue from their chambers. I could not proceed to the schoolroom +without passing some of their doors, and running the risk of being +surprised with my cargo of victualage; so I stood still at this end, +which, being windowless, was dark: quite dark now, for the sun was set +and twilight gathering. + +Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: +each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous +through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other +extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued +vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a +bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance had left on +me an impression of high-born elegance, such as I had never before +received. + +I found Adèle peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar. +“What beautiful ladies!” cried she in English. “Oh, I wish I might go +to them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by-and-by, after +dinner?” + +“No, indeed, I don’t; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about. +Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them to-morrow: +here is your dinner.” + +She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her +attention for a time. It was well I secured this forage, or both she, +I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run +a chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much +engaged to think of us. The dessert was not carried out till after +nine; and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and +coffee-cups. I allowed Adèle to sit up much later than usual; for she +declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept +opening and shutting below, and people bustling about. Besides, she +added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was +undressed; “et alors quel dommage!” + +I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a +change I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lit, and +it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants +passing backwards and forwards. When the evening was far advanced, a +sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been +removed; Adèle and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen. +Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a +lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were. The solo over, a duet +followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the +intervals. I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was +wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to +discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; +and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in +framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words. + +The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adèle, whose head leant against my +shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and +carried her off to bed. It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies +sought their chambers. + +The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the +party to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood. They set out +early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I +witnessed both the departure and the return. Miss Ingram, as before, +was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester galloped at +her side; the two rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out this +circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me— + +“You said it was not likely they should think of being married,” said +I, “but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other +ladies.” + +“Yes, I daresay: no doubt he admires her.” + +“And she him,” I added; “look how she leans her head towards him as if +she were conversing confidentially; I wish I could see her face; I have +never had a glimpse of it yet.” + +“You will see her this evening,” answered Mrs. Fairfax. “I happened to +remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adèle wished to be introduced to the +ladies, and he said: ‘Oh! let her come into the drawing-room after +dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her.’” + +“Yes; he said that from mere politeness: I need not go, I am sure,” I +answered. + +“Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not +think you would like appearing before so gay a party—all strangers; and +he replied, in his quick way—‘Nonsense! If she objects, tell her it is +my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her +in case of contumacy.’” + +“I will not give him that trouble,” I answered. “I will go, if no +better may be; but I don’t like it. Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?” + +“No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I’ll tell you how to +manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance, +which is the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go into +the drawing-room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the +dinner-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not +stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. +Rochester see you are there and then slip away—nobody will notice you.” + +“Will these people remain long, do you think?” + +“Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more. After the Easter +recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, +will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester +will accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so +protracted a stay at Thornfield.” + +It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I +was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room. Adèle had been in a +state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the +ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the +operation of dressing her that she sobered down. Then the importance of +the process quickly steadied her, and by the time she had her curls +arranged in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put +on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens adjusted, she looked as +grave as any judge. No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: +when she was dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking +care previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she should crease +it, and assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready. This I +quickly was: my best dress (the silver-grey one, purchased for Miss +Temple’s wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was +soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We +descended. + +Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than that +through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner. We found the +apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, +and wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers +with which the tables were adorned. The crimson curtain hung before the +arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party +in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of +their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur. + +Adèle, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most +solemnising impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I +pointed out to her. I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from +a table near, endeavoured to read. Adèle brought her stool to my feet; +ere long she touched my knee. + +“What is it, Adèle?” + +“Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendre une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, +mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette.” + +“You think too much of your ‘toilette,’ Adèle: but you may have a +flower.” And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash. She +sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness +were now full. I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not +suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the +little Parisienne’s earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress. + +A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back +from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre +pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent +dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the +opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them. + +There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the +impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall; many +were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that +seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon. I rose +and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in return, the +others only stared at me. + +They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and +buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some of +them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and +ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: +the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a low but +clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names +afterwards, and may as well mention them now. + +First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had +evidently been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still. Of her +daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naïve, and child-like in +face and manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue +sash became her well. The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant +in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term +_minois chiffoné_: both sisters were fair as lilies. + +Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect, +very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful +sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, +and within the circlet of a band of gems. + +Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more lady-like. She +had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her black +satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, +pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame. + +But the three most distinguished—partly, perhaps, because the tallest +figures of the band—were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, +Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of women. +The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; +her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were +still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid +woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but +then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her +bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double chin, +disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me +not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the +chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost +preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it +reminded me of Mrs. Reed’s; she mouthed her words in speaking; her +voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,—very +intolerable, in short. A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of +some gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she thought) +with a truly imperial dignity. + +Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,—straight and tall as poplars. +Mary was too slim for her height, but Blanche was moulded like a Dian. +I regarded her, of course, with special interest. First, I wished to +see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax’s description; +secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted +of her; and thirdly—it will out!—whether it were such as I should fancy +likely to suit Mr. Rochester’s taste. + +As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture +and Mrs. Fairfax’s description. The noble bust, the sloping shoulders, +the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there;—but +her face? Her face was like her mother’s; a youthful unfurrowed +likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride. It +was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed continually; her +laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched +and haughty lip. + +Genius is said to be self-conscious. I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram +was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious +indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. +Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she +said, she liked flowers, “especially wild ones;” Miss Ingram had, and +she ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently perceived she was +(what is vernacularly termed) _trailing_ Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on +her ignorance; her _trail_ might be clever, but it was decidedly not +good-natured. She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her +voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it +well, with fluency and with a good accent. + +Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer +features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a +Spaniard)—but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression, +her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, +remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both +attired in spotless white. + +And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be +likely to make? I could not tell—I did not know his taste in female +beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty: +then she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would admire her, +I thought; and that he _did_ admire her, I already seemed to have +obtained proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to +see them together. + +You are not to suppose, reader, that Adèle has all this time been +sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies +entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and +said with gravity— + +“Bon jour, mesdames.” + +And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and +exclaimed, “Oh, what a little puppet!” + +Lady Lynn had remarked, “It is Mr. Rochester’s ward, I suppose—the +little French girl he was speaking of.” + +Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss. Amy and +Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously— + +“What a love of a child!” + +And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced +between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English; +absorbing not only the young ladies’ attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton +and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart’s content. + +At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in +the shade—if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the +window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The +collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is +very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, +some young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; +and Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of +the district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite white, his eyebrows +and whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of +a “père noble de théâtre.” Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; +like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary’s apathetic and +listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of +blood or vigour of brain. + +And where is Mr. Rochester? + +He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I +try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles, on the meshes +of the purse I am forming—I wish to think only of the work I have in my +hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my +lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall +the moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he +deemed, an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down +on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager +to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached +him at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his +and my relative positions? Yet now, how distant, how far estranged we +were! So far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to +me. I did not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at +the other side of the room, and began conversing with some of the +ladies. + +No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I +might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn +involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: +they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an +acute pleasure in looking,—a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, +with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing +man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, +yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless. + +Most true is it that “beauty is in the eye of the gazer.” My master’s +colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, +deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,—all energy, decision, +will,—were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than +beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite +mastered me,—that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them +in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought +hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and +now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, +green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me. + +I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the +Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,—even the military +distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith +and genuine power? I had no sympathy in their appearance, their +expression: yet I could imagine that most observers would call them +attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. +Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking. I saw them +smile, laugh—it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much soul +in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance as +their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester smile:—his stern features softened; +his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and +sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I +wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so +penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under +it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. “He is not +to them what he is to me,” I thought: “he is not of their kind. I +believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand +the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth +sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood +and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days +since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at +his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than +as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous +feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my +sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care +much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I +have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that +I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, +repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I +breathe and think, I must love him.” + +Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become +lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel Dent and +Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud +dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir +George—whom, by-the-bye, I have forgotten to describe,—a very big, and +very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, +coffee-cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick Lynn +has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the engravings +of a splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently +says little. The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms +on the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she glances up +at him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than she does +Mr. Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the +feet of Louisa: Adèle shares it with him: he is trying to talk French +with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche +Ingram pair? She is standing alone at the table, bending gracefully +over an album. She seems waiting to be sought; but she will not wait +too long: she herself selects a mate. + +Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as +solitary as she stands by the table: she confronts him, taking her +station on the opposite side of the mantelpiece. + +“Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?” + +“Nor am I.” + +“Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?” +(pointing to Adèle). “Where did you pick her up?” + +“I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands.” + +“You should have sent her to school.” + +“I could not afford it: schools are so dear.” + +“Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with her +just now—is she gone? Oh, no! there she is still, behind the +window-curtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as +expensive,—more so; for you have them both to keep in addition.” + +I feared—or should I say, hoped?—the allusion to me would make Mr. +Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into the +shade: but he never turned his eyes. + +“I have not considered the subject,” said he indifferently, looking +straight before him. + +“No, you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should +hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should +think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the +rest ridiculous, and all incubi—were they not, mama?” + +“Did you speak, my own?” + +The young lady thus claimed as the dowager’s special property, +reiterated her question with an explanation. + +“My dearest, don’t mention governesses; the word makes me nervous. I +have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice. I thank +Heaven I have now done with them!” + +Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady and whispered something in +her ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that +one of the anathematised race was present. + +“Tant pis!” said her Ladyship, “I hope it may do her good!” Then, in a +lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, “I noticed her; I am +a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class.” + +“What are they, madam?” inquired Mr. Rochester aloud. + +“I will tell you in your private ear,” replied she, wagging her turban +three times with portentous significancy. + +“But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now.” + +“Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I.” + +“Oh, don’t refer him to me, mama! I have just one word to say of the +whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much from +them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used +to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary +was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit. The best fun was +with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose +and low-spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and +Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her. But +poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had +driven her to extremities—spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, +tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the +ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons. Theodore, do you remember +those merry days?” + +“Yaas, to be sure I do,” drawled Lord Ingram; “and the poor old stick +used to cry out, ‘Oh you villains childs!’—and then we sermonised her on +the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, +when she was herself so ignorant.” + +“We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or +persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining—the parson in the pip, +as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling +in love with each other—at least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised +sundry tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as tokens of ‘la +belle passion,’ and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of +our discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our +dead-weights from the house. Dear mama, there, as soon as she got an +inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. +Did you not, my lady-mother?” + +“Certainly, my best. And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a +thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should +never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly—” + +“Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! _Au reste_, we all know +them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and +consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached—mutual alliance +and reliance; confidence thence resulting—insolence accompanying—mutiny +and general blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park?” + +“My lily-flower, you are right now, as always.” + +“Then no more need be said: change the subject.” + +Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her +soft, infantine tone: “Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but +she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her +out. She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa?” + +“No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her +workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured, +she would give us anything we asked for.” + +“I suppose, now,” said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, “we +shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant: in +order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a +new topic. Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion?” + +“Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other.” + +“Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Eduardo, are +you in voice to-night?” + +“Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be.” + +“Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your +lungs and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal +service.” + +“Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?” + +“A fig for Rizzio!” cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as +she moved to the piano. “It is my opinion the fiddler David must have +been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my +mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history +may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was just +the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to +gift with my hand.” + +“Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?” cried +Mr. Rochester. + +“I should say the preference lies with you,” responded Colonel Dent. + +“On my honour, I am much obliged to you,” was the reply. + +Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, +spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a +brilliant prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high +horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite +not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was +evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring +indeed. + +“Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!” exclaimed she, +rattling away at the instrument. “Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a +step beyond papa’s park gates: nor to go even so far without mama’s +permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their +pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man +had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were not the special +prerogative of woman—her legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an +ugly _woman_ is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the +_gentlemen_, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and +valour: let their motto be:—Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not +worth a fillip. Such should be my device, were I a man.” + +“Whenever I marry,” she continued after a pause which none interrupted, +“I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I +will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided +homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he +sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you.” + +“I am all obedience,” was the response. + +“Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for +that reason, sing it _con spirito_.” + +“Commands from Miss Ingram’s lips would put spirit into a mug of milk +and water.” + +“Take care, then: if you don’t please me, I will shame you by showing +how such things _should_ be done.” + +“That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to +fail.” + +“Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a +proportionate punishment.” + +“Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to +inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance.” + +“Ha! explain!” commanded the lady. + +“Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must +inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for +capital punishment.” + +“Sing!” said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an +accompaniment in spirited style. + +“Now is my time to slip away,” thought I: but the tones that then +severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester +possessed a fine voice: he did—a mellow, powerful bass, into which he +threw his own feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to +the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I waited till the last +deep and full vibration had expired—till the tide of talk, checked an +instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and +made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a +narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal +was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the +mat at the foot of the staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; +a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it +was Mr. Rochester. + +“How do you do?” he asked. + +“I am very well, sir.” + +“Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?” + +I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I +would not take that freedom. I answered— + +“I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir.” + +“What have you been doing during my absence?” + +“Nothing particular; teaching Adèle as usual.” + +“And getting a good deal paler than you were—as I saw at first sight. +What is the matter?” + +“Nothing at all, sir.” + +“Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?” + +“Not the least.” + +“Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.” + +“I am tired, sir.” + +He looked at me for a minute. + +“And a little depressed,” he said. “What about? Tell me.” + +“Nothing—nothing, sir. I am not depressed.” + +“But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words +would bring tears to your eyes—indeed, they are there now, shining and +swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the +flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig +of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night +I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect +you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don’t +neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adèle. Good-night, my—” He +stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how +different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and +solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now +driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was +life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the +gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so +tenantless, without encountering a smart lady’s-maid or a dandy valet. + +The kitchen, the butler’s pantry, the servants’ hall, the entrance +hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still +when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather +called their occupants out into the grounds. Even when that weather was +broken, and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast +over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, +in consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety. + +I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of +entertainment was proposed: they spoke of “playing charades,” but in my +ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called in, +the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the +chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch. While Mr. Rochester +and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were +running up and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was +summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in +shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the +third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of +brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace +lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a +selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the +boudoir within the drawing-room. + +Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and +was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. “Miss Ingram +is mine, of course,” said he: afterwards he named the two Misses +Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be near him, as I +had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent’s bracelet, which had got +loose. + +“Will you play?” he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I +rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return quietly to my +usual seat. + +He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which +was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs. One of +the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I +should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the +notion. + +“No,” I heard her say: “she looks too stupid for any game of the sort.” + +Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch, the +bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise +chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, +lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. +Rochester’s cloak, and holding a book in her hand. Somebody, unseen, +rang the bell merrily; then Adèle (who had insisted on being one of her +guardian’s party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents +of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then appeared the +magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her +head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. +Rochester, and together they drew near the table. They knelt; while +Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white, took up their +stations behind them. A ceremony followed, in dumb show, in which it +was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage. At its termination, +Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then +the Colonel called out— + +“Bride!” Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell. + +A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second rising +displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last. The +drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the +dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two +back within the room, appeared a large marble basin, which I recognised +as an ornament of the conservatory—where it usually stood, surrounded +by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish—and whence it must have been +transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight. + +Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. +Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes +and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he +looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the +bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was +attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the +waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her +beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of +supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of +form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the +idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was +doubtless the character she intended to represent. + +She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; +she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now +seemed to accost her; to make some request:—“She hasted, let down her +pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink.” From the bosom of his robe +he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets +and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid +the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her +looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and +the rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were +wanting. + +The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they +could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated. +Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded “the tableau of the whole;” +whereupon the curtain again descended. + +On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; +the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and +coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a +deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very +dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all +extinguished. + +Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on +his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; +though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose +from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a +scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling +hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to +his wrists were attached fetters. + +“Bridewell!” exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved. + +A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their +ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in +Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting. + +“Do you know,” said she, “that, of the three characters, I liked you in +the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a +gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!” + +“Is all the soot washed from my face?” he asked, turning it towards +her. + +“Alas! yes: the more’s the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your +complexion than that ruffian’s rouge.” + +“You would like a hero of the road then?” + +“An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian +bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate.” + +“Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour +since, in the presence of all these witnesses.” She giggled, and her +colour rose. + +“Now, Dent,” continued Mr. Rochester, “it is your turn.” And as the +other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats. Miss +Ingram placed herself at her leader’s right hand; the other diviners +filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the +actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my +attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on +the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs. +What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, +how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see +the consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to +Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards +him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against +his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged +glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle +returns in memory at this moment. + +I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I +could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to +notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would +never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his +attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with +the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious +eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object +too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt +sure he would soon marry this very lady—because I read daily in her a +proud security in his intentions respecting her—because I witnessed +hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing +rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, +captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible. + +There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though +much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to engender +jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a +woman in Miss Ingram’s. But I was not jealous: or very rarely;—the +nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word. Miss +Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the +feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very +showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant +attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing +bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted +by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to +repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an +opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did +not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were +not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to +a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adèle: pushing +her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach +her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with +coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these +manifestations of character—watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly. +Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his +intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity—this +guardedness of his—this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one’s +defects—this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, +that my ever-torturing pain arose. + +I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, +because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given +her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from +him that treasure. This was the point—this was where the nerve was +touched and teased—this was where the fever was sustained and fed: _she +could not charm him_. + +If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and +sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, +turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss +Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, +kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two +tigers—jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I +should have admired her—acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for +the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper +would have been my admiration—the more truly tranquil my quiescence. +But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram’s efforts at +fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated failure—herself +unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft +launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, +when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what +she wished to allure—to witness _this_, was to be at once under +ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint. + +Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows +that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast and fell +harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have +quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, +and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons +a silent conquest might have been won. + +“Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so +near to him?” I asked myself. “Surely she cannot truly like him, or not +like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles +so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so +elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by +merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get +nigher his heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression +from that which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting +him; but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious +arts and calculated manoeuvres; and one had but to accept it—to answer +what he asked without pretension, to address him when needful without +grimace—and it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed +one like a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when +they are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might +be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest +woman the sun shines on.” + +I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester’s project of +marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I first +discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man +unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a +wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the +parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or +Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled +into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these +principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as +I could not fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, +I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very +obviousness of the advantages to the husband’s own happiness offered by +this plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general +adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the +world would act as I wished to act. + +But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my +master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a +sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of +his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just +weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The +sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, +were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was +pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid. And +as for the vague something—was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a +designing or a desponding expression?—that opened upon a careful +observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could +fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used +to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst +volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and +seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with +throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to +shun, I longed only to dare—to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram +happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, +explore its secrets and analyse their nature. + +Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride—saw +only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their +movements of importance—the rest of the party were occupied with their +own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram +continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two +turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting +gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on +which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. +Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes +bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel +Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice +business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang +to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly +to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one +consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal +actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and—because closely connected +with him—Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party. If he was +absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal +over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a +fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation. + +The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one +day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not +likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had +proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond +Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to the +stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were +playing billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn +sought solace in a quiet game at cards. Blanche Ingram, after having +repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and +Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some +sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a +novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a +sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious +hours of absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then +the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above. + +It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the +hour to dress for dinner, when little Adèle, who knelt by me in the +drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed— + +“Voilà Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!” + +I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, +too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same time a +crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible +on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching. + +“What can possess him to come home in that style?” said Miss Ingram. +“He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out? and +Pilot was with him:—what has he done with the animals?” + +As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so +near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking +of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when +she did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The +post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman +alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it +was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger. + +“How provoking!” exclaimed Miss Ingram: “you tiresome monkey!” +(apostrophising Adèle), “who perched you up in the window to give false +intelligence?” and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in +fault. + +Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered. +He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present. + +“It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,” said he, “when my +friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long +journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate +acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns.” + +His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being +somewhat unusual,—not precisely foreign, but still not altogether +English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester’s,—between thirty and +forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a +fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination, you +detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that failed +to please. His features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was +large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant +life—at least so I thought. + +The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till +after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease. +But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as +being at the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and +had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I +never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an +unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power +in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that +aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, +even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye. + +As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the +girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him—for he occupied an +arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as +if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with +deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between +a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the +rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian. + +He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship +theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage +that “extremes meet.” + +Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times +scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make +much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary +Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that +reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the stranger; they +both called him “a beautiful man.” Louisa said he was “a love of a +creature,” and she “adored him;” and Mary instanced his “pretty little +mouth, and nice nose,” as her ideal of the charming. + +“And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!” cried Louisa,—“so +smooth—none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and +such a placid eye and smile!” + +And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other +side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to +Hay Common. + +I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, +and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then +I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came +from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so +sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the +house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated +the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I +gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted +with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend’s dislike of the burning +heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr. +Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought +the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had +never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores. + +I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat +unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as +some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the +fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still +shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, +stopped near Mr. Eshton’s chair, and said something to him in a low +voice, of which I heard only the words, “old woman,”—“quite +troublesome.” + +“Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself +off,” replied the magistrate. + +“No—stop!” interrupted Colonel Dent. “Don’t send her away, Eshton; we +might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies.” And +speaking aloud, he continued—“Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common +to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother +Bunches is in the servants’ hall at this moment, and insists upon being +brought in before ‘the quality,’ to tell them their fortunes. Would you +like to see her?” + +“Surely, colonel,” cried Lady Ingram, “you would not encourage such a +low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!” + +“But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady,” said the footman; “nor +can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating +her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and +says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in +here.” + +“What does she want?” asked Mrs. Eshton. + +“‘To tell the gentry their fortunes,’ she says, ma’am; and she swears +she must and will do it.” + +“What is she like?” inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath. + +“A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock.” + +“Why, she’s a real sorceress!” cried Frederick Lynn. “Let us have her +in, of course.” + +“To be sure,” rejoined his brother; “it would be a thousand pities to +throw away such a chance of fun.” + +“My dear boys, what are you thinking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Lynn. + +“I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,” +chimed in the Dowager Ingram. + +“Indeed, mama, but you can—and will,” pronounced the haughty voice of +Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had +sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. “I have a +curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame +forward.” + +“My darling Blanche! recollect—” + +“I do—I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will—quick, +Sam!” + +“Yes—yes—yes!” cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. “Let +her come—it will be excellent sport!” + +The footman still lingered. “She looks such a rough one,” said he. + +“Go!” ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went. + +Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery +and jests was proceeding when Sam returned. + +“She won’t come now,” said he. “She says it’s not her mission to appear +before the ‘vulgar herd’ (them’s her words). I must show her into a +room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her +one by one.” + +“You see now, my queenly Blanche,” began Lady Ingram, “she encroaches. +Be advised, my angel girl—and—” + +“Show her into the library, of course,” cut in the “angel girl.” “It is +not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean +to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?” + +“Yes, ma’am—but she looks such a tinkler.” + +“Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.” + +Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full +flow once more. + +“She’s ready now,” said the footman, as he reappeared. “She wishes to +know who will be her first visitor.” + +“I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies +go,” said Colonel Dent. + +“Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.” + +Sam went and returned. + +“She says, sir, that she’ll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble +themselves to come near her; nor,” he added, with difficulty +suppressing a titter, “any ladies either, except the young, and +single.” + +“By Jove, she has taste!” exclaimed Henry Lynn. + +Miss Ingram rose solemnly: “I go first,” she said, in a tone which +might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in +the van of his men. + +“Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause—reflect!” was her mama’s cry; but +she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which +Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library. + +A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it “le cas” to wring +her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for +her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under +their breath, and looked a little frightened. + +The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the +library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch. + +Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a +glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and +coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to +her seat, and took it in silence. + +“Well, Blanche?” said Lord Ingram. + +“What did she say, sister?” asked Mary. + +“What did you think? How do you feel? Is she a real fortune-teller?” +demanded the Misses Eshton. + +“Now, now, good people,” returned Miss Ingram, “don’t press upon me. +Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you +seem, by the importance of you all—my good mama included—ascribe to +this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the +house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a +gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of +palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is +gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in +the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened.” + +Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined +further conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all +that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, +more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She +had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, +from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, +notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance +to whatever revelations had been made her. + + +During all that time she never turned a page + +Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not +go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened +through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and +fro, till, I think, the said Sam’s calves must have ached with the +exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from +the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body. + +Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram’s had been: we heard +hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and +at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came +running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits. + +“I am sure she is something not right!” they cried, one and all. “She +told us such things! She knows all about us!” and they sank breathless +into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them. + +Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of +things they had said and done when they were mere children; described +books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that +different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had +even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the +name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of +what they most wished for. + +Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further +enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, +ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. +The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again +and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning +had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the +younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones. + +In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully +engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I +turned, and saw Sam. + +“If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young +single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she +will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you: there is +no one else for it. What shall I tell her?” + +“Oh, I will go by all means,” I answered: and I was glad of the +unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped +out of the room, unobserved by any eye—for the company were gathered in +one mass about the trembling trio just returned—and I closed the door +quietly behind me. + +“If you like, miss,” said Sam, “I’ll wait in the hall for you; and if +she frightens you, just call and I’ll come in.” + +“No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid.” Nor was +I; but I was a good deal interested and excited. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl—if +Sibyl she were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the +chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a +broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under +her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending +over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a +prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to +herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist +immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a +paragraph. + +I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with +sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as +composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the +gipsy’s appearance to trouble one’s calm. She shut her book and slowly +looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as +she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and +black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed +under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye +confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze. + +“Well, and you want your fortune told?” she said, in a voice as decided +as her glance, as harsh as her features. + +“I don’t care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to +warn you, I have no faith.” + +“It’s like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it +in your step as you crossed the threshold.” + +“Did you? You’ve a quick ear.” + +“I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.” + +“You need them all in your trade.” + +“I do; especially when I’ve customers like you to deal with. Why don’t +you tremble?” + +“I’m not cold.” + +“Why don’t you turn pale?” + +“I am not sick.” + +“Why don’t you consult my art?” + +“I’m not silly.” + +The old crone “nichered” a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then +drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke. Having +indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the +pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very +deliberately— + +“You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.” + +“Prove it,” I rejoined. + +“I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact +strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the +best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far +away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not +beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it +waits you.” + +She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking +with vigour. + +“You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a +solitary dependent in a great house.” + +“I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any +one?” + +“In my circumstances.” + +“Yes; just so, in _your_ circumstances: but find me another precisely +placed as you are.” + +“It would be easy to find you thousands.” + +“You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly +situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials +are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance +laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss +results.” + +“I don’t understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my life.” + +“If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.” + +“And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?” + +“To be sure.” + +I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she +took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she +told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the +palm, and pored over it without touching it. + +“It is too fine,” said she. “I can make nothing of such a hand as that; +almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not +written there.” + +“I believe you,” said I. + +“No,” she continued, “it is in the face: on the forehead, about the +eyes, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head.” + +“Ah! now you are coming to reality,” I said, as I obeyed her. “I shall +begin to put some faith in you presently.” + +I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a +ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as +she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined. + +“I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night,” she said, when +she had examined me a while. “I wonder what thoughts are busy in your +heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people +flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little +sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were +really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance.” + +“I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.” + +“Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with +whispers of the future?” + +“Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings +to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself.” + +“A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that +window-seat (you see I know your habits)—” + +“You have learned them from the servants.” + +“Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I +have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole—” + +I started to my feet when I heard the name. + +“You have—have you?” thought I; “there is diablerie in the business +after all, then!” + +“Don’t be alarmed,” continued the strange being; “she’s a safe hand is +Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But, +as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing +but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the +company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one +face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least +curiosity?” + +“I like to observe all the faces and all the figures.” + +“But do you never single one from the rest—or it may be, two?” + +“I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a +tale: it amuses me to watch them.” + +“What tale do you like best to hear?” + +“Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same +theme—courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe—marriage.” + +“And do you like that monotonous theme?” + +“Positively, I don’t care about it: it is nothing to me.” + +“Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, +charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, +sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you—” + +“I what?” + +“You know—and perhaps think well of.” + +“I don’t know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a +syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider +some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, +dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to +be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling +disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me.” + +“You don’t know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable +with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the house!” + +“He is not at home.” + +“A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this +morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that +circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance—blot him, +as it were, out of existence?” + +“No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme +you had introduced.” + +“I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late +so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester’s eyes that they +overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked +that?” + +“Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.” + +“No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all +the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured +with the most lively and the most continuous?” + +“The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.” I said +this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice, +manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected +sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web +of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for +weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every +pulse. + +“Eagerness of a listener!” repeated she: “yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by +the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such +delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so +willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; +you have noticed this?” + +“Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.” + +“Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not +gratitude?” + +I said nothing. + +“You have seen love: have you not?—and, looking forward, you have seen +him married, and beheld his bride happy?” + +“Humph! Not exactly. Your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes.” + +“What the devil have you seen, then?” + +“Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that +Mr. Rochester is to be married?” + +“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.” + +“Shortly?” + +“Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with +an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), +they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome, +noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not +his person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester +estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her +something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous +grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her +blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or +clearer rent-roll,—he’s dished—” + +“But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester’s fortune: I came to +hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it.” + +“Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait +contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that +I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it +carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself +to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, +is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug.” + +“Don’t keep me long; the fire scorches me.” + + +She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair + +I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in +her chair. She began muttering,— + +“The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft +and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; +impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases +to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that +signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it +will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking +glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the +charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only +confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable. + +“As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to +impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be +silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never +intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a +mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection +for its interlocutor. That feature too is propitious. + +“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow +professes to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances +require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an +inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous +delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford +to give.’ The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, +and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild +chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they +are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment +shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote +in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: +but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which +interprets the dictates of conscience.’ + +“Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have +formed my plans—right plans I deem them—and in them I have attended to +the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth +would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one +dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not +want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution—such is not my taste. I wish to +foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of +blood—no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, +in sweet—That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. +I should wish now to protract this moment _ad infinitum_; but I dare +not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I +inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my +strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; ‘the play is played out.’” + +Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream +still? The old woman’s voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and +all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass—as the speech of my +own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and +I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about +her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her +hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at +once noticed that hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my +own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically +turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping +forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times +before. Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from +me—on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the +head advanced. + +“Well, Jane, do you know me?” asked the familiar voice. + +“Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then—” + +“But the string is in a knot—help me.” + +“Break it, sir.” + +“There, then—‘Off, ye lendings!’” And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his +disguise. + +“Now, sir, what a strange idea!” + +“But well carried out, eh? Don’t you think so?” + +“With the ladies you must have managed well.” + +“But not with you?” + +“You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.” + +“What character did I act? My own?” + +“No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying +to draw me out—or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk +nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir.” + +“Do you forgive me, Jane?” + +“I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I +find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; +but it was not right.” + +“Oh, you have been very correct—very careful, very sensible.” + +I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but, +indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the +interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and +fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman +had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her +anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace +Poole—that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered +her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester. + +“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about? What does that grave smile +signify?” + +“Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire +now, I suppose?” + +“No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room +yonder are doing.” + +“Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.” + +“Sit down!—Let me hear what they said about me.” + +“I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o’clock. Oh, +are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since +you left this morning?” + +“A stranger!—no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?” + +“No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty +of installing himself here till you returned.” + +“The devil he did! Did he give his name?” + +“His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from +Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.” + +Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead +me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile +on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath. + +“Mason!—the West Indies!” he said, in the tone one might fancy a +speaking automaton to enounce its single words; “Mason!—the West +Indies!” he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, +growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly +seemed to know what he was doing. + +“Do you feel ill, sir?” I inquired. + +“Jane, I’ve got a blow; I’ve got a blow, Jane!” He staggered. + +“Oh, lean on me, sir.” + +“Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.” + +“Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.” + +He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his +own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most +troubled and dreary look. + +“My little friend!” said he, “I wish I were in a quiet island with only +you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from +me.” + +“Can I help you, sir?—I’d give my life to serve you.” + +“Jane, if aid is wanted, I’ll seek it at your hands; I promise you +that.” + +“Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do,—I’ll try, at least, to do it.” + +“Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be +at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is +doing.” + +I went. I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. +Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,—the supper was +arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood +about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their +hands. Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were +general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel +and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them. I filled a +wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she +thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the +library. + +Mr. Rochester’s extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more +firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand. + +“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said. He swallowed the +contents and returned it to me. “What are they doing, Jane?” + +“Laughing and talking, sir.” + +“They don’t look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something +strange?” + +“Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.” + +“And Mason?” + +“He was laughing too.” + +“If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, +Jane?” + +“Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.” + +He half smiled. “But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at +me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then +dropped off and left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?” + +“I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with +you.” + +“To comfort me?” + +“Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.” + +“And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?” + +“I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I +should care nothing about it.” + +“Then, you could dare censure for my sake?” + +“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; +as you, I am sure, do.” + +“Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in +his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in +here and then leave me.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight +among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him +from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went +upstairs. + +At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors +repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester’s voice, and +heard him say, “This way, Mason; this is your room.” + +He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon +asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to +let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon, +which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course +to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me +through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the +dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk—silver-white and crystal +clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn: I half rose, and stretched my +arm to draw the curtain. + +Good God! What a cry! + +The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, +a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall. + +My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed. +The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that +fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor +on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the +cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must +rest ere it could repeat the effort. + +It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And +overhead—yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling—I now heard a +struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered +voice shouted— + +“Help! help! help!” three times rapidly. + +“Will no one come?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and +stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:— + +“Rochester! Rochester! for God’s sake, come!” + +A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. +Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and +there was silence. + +I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued +from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, +terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one +looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and +ladies alike had quitted their beds; and “Oh! what is it?”—“Who is +hurt?”—“What has happened?”—“Fetch a light!”—“Is it fire?”—“Are there +robbers?”—“Where shall we run?” was demanded confusedly on all hands. +But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They +ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the +confusion was inextricable. + +“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried Colonel Dent. “I cannot find him +in his bed.” + +“Here! here!” was shouted in return. “Be composed, all of you: I’m +coming.” + +And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester +advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey. +One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss +Ingram. + +“What awful event has taken place?” said she. “Speak! let us know the +worst at once!” + +“But don’t pull me down or strangle me,” he replied: for the Misses +Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white +wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail. + +“All’s right!—all’s right!” he cried. “It’s a mere rehearsal of Much +Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.” + +And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself +by an effort, he added— + +“A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She’s an excitable, +nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or +something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, +then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is +settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to +set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in +evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your +nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames” (to the dowagers), +“you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill +gallery any longer.” + +And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to +get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did +not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as +unnoticed I had left it. + +Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself +carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that +had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had +proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not +a servant’s dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and +that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention +framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for +emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out +over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not +what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry, +struggle, and call. + +No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and +in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It +seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon +declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and +darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I +left the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I +stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door. + +“Am I wanted?” I asked. + +“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master’s. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And dressed?” + +“Yes.” + +“Come out, then, quietly.” + +I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light. + +“I want you,” he said: “come this way: take your time, and make no +noise.” + +My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a +cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the +dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and +stood at his side. + +“Have you a sponge in your room?” he asked in a whisper. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Have you any salts—volatile salts?” + +“Yes.” + +“Go back and fetch both.” + +I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, +and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his +hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; +he paused, and addressed me again. + +“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?” + +“I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.” + +I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no +faintness. + +“Just give me your hand,” he said: “it will not do to risk a fainting +fit.” + +I put my fingers into his. “Warm and steady,” was his remark: he turned +the key and opened the door. + +I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax +showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry +was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had +then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room +within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog +quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, “Wait +a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of +laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace +Poole’s own goblin ha! ha! _She_ then was there. He made some sort of +arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: +he came out and closed the door behind him. + +“Here, Jane!” he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large +bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of +the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, +dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant +back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I +recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face—the stranger, Mason: +I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in +blood. + +“Hold the candle,” said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a +basin of water from the washstand: “Hold that,” said he. I obeyed. He +took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he +asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason +shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt +of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged +away blood, trickling fast down. + +“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason. + +“Pooh! No—a mere scratch. Don’t be so overcome, man: bear up! I’ll +fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by +morning, I hope. Jane,” he continued. + +“Sir?” + +“I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an +hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it +returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that +stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to +him on any pretext—and—Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if +you speak to her: open your lips—agitate yourself—and I’ll not answer +for the consequences.” + +Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear, +either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him. +Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded +to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying, +“Remember!—No conversation,” he left the room. I experienced a strange +feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating +step ceased to be heard. + +Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic +cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and +hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes—that +was appalling—the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of +Grace Poole bursting out upon me. + +I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly +countenance—these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose—these eyes now +shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, +and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again +and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling +gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my +employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round +me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver +strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite—whose front, +divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the +twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; +while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ. + +According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here +or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his +brow; now St. John’s long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face +of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and +threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor—of Satan himself—in his +subordinate’s form. + +Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the +movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But since +Mr. Rochester’s visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but +three sounds at three long intervals,—a step creak, a momentary renewal +of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan. + +Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this, that lived +incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled +nor subdued by the owner?—what mystery, that broke out now in fire and +now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, +that, masked in an ordinary woman’s face and shape, uttered the voice, +now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey? + +And this man I bent over—this commonplace, quiet stranger—how had he +become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at +him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely +season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. +Rochester assign him an apartment below—what brought him here! And why, +now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why did +he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why +_did_ Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been +outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted +against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in +oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that +the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness +of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me +of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive +disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active +energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester’s dismay when +he heard of Mr. Mason’s arrival? Why had the mere name of this +unresisting individual—whom his word now sufficed to control like a +child—fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on +an oak? + +Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: +“Jane, I have got a blow—I have got a blow, Jane.” I could not forget +how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no +light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the +vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester. + +“When will he come? When will he come?” I cried inwardly, as the night +lingered and lingered—as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: +and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again, held the water +to Mason’s white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating +salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental +suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast +prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and +lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him. + +The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived +streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then +approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant +kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five +minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was +relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has +seemed shorter. + +Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch. + +“Now, Carter, be on the alert,” he said to this last: “I give you but +half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting +the patient downstairs and all.” + +“But is he fit to move, sir?” + +“No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must +be kept up. Come, set to work.” + +Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, +let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to +see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to +brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was +already handling. + +“Now, my good fellow, how are you?” he asked. + +“She’s done for me, I fear,” was the faint reply. + +“Not a whit!—courage! This day fortnight you’ll hardly be a pin the +worse of it: you’ve lost a little blood; that’s all. Carter, assure him +there’s no danger.” + +“I can do that conscientiously,” said Carter, who had now undone the +bandages; “only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have +bled so much—but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well +as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth +here!” + +“She bit me,” he murmured. “She worried me like a tigress, when +Rochester got the knife from her.” + +“You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at +once,” said Mr. Rochester. + +“But under such circumstances, what could one do?” returned Mason. “Oh, +it was frightful!” he added, shuddering. “And I did not expect it: she +looked so quiet at first.” + +“I warned you,” was his friend’s answer; “I said—be on your guard when +you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had +me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and +alone.” + +“I thought I could have done some good.” + +“You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but, +however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not +taking my advice; so I’ll say no more. Carter—hurry!—hurry! The sun +will soon rise, and I must have him off.” + +“Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this +other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.” + +“She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart,” said Mason. + +I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, +horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he +only said— + +“Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don’t repeat +it.” + +“I wish I could forget it,” was the answer. + +“You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish +Town, you may think of her as dead and buried—or rather, you need not +think of her at all.” + +“Impossible to forget this night!” + +“It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you were as +dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking +now. There!—Carter has done with you or nearly so; I’ll make you decent +in a trice. Jane” (he turned to me for the first time since his +re-entrance), “take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk +straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the +wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them +here; and be nimble.” + +I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles +named, and returned with them. + +“Now,” said he, “go to the other side of the bed while I order his +toilet; but don’t leave the room: you may be wanted again.” + +I retired as directed. + +“Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?” inquired Mr. +Rochester presently. + +“No, sir; all was very still.” + +“We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for +your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven +long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here, +Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your +furred cloak? You can’t travel a mile without that, I know, in this +damned cold climate. In your room?—Jane, run down to Mr. Mason’s +room,—the one next mine,—and fetch a cloak you will see there.” + +Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and +edged with fur. + +“Now, I’ve another errand for you,” said my untiring master; “you must +away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a +clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open +the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a +little glass you will find there,—quick!” + +I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels. + +“That’s well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a +dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of +an Italian charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not +a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as +now, for instance. Jane, a little water.” + +He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle +on the washstand. + +“That will do;—now wet the lip of the phial.” + +I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented +it to Mason. + +“Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or +so.” + +“But will it hurt me?—is it inflammatory?” + +“Drink! drink! drink!” + +Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was +dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and +sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed +the liquid; he then took his arm— + +“Now I am sure you can get on your feet,” he said—“try.” + +The patient rose. + +“Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; +step out—that’s it!” + +“I do feel better,” remarked Mr. Mason. + +“I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs; +unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise +you will see in the yard—or just outside, for I told him not to drive +his rattling wheels over the pavement—to be ready; we are coming: and, +Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem.” + +It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of +rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage +door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all +the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a +post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, +stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were +coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened. The +stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet +drawn over the servants’ chamber windows; little birds were just +twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped +like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the +carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all +else was still. + +The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the +surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the +chaise; Carter followed. + +“Take care of him,” said Mr. Rochester to the latter, “and keep him at +your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to +see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?” + +“The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.” + +“Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind—good-bye, +Dick.” + +“Fairfax—” + +“Well what is it?” + +“Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: +let her—” he stopped and burst into tears. + +“I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,” was the answer: he +shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away. + +“Yet would to God there was an end of all this!” added Mr. Rochester, +as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates. + +This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in +the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, +prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call +“Jane!” He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me. + +“Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,” he said; “that +house is a mere dungeon: don’t you feel it so?” + +“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.” + +“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you +see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is +slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, +and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now _here_” +(he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) “all is real, sweet, +and pure.” + +He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, +and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all +sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, +pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant +herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, +followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just +entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and +dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them. + +“Jane, will you have a flower?” + +He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to +me. + +“Thank you, sir.” + +“Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light +clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid +and balmly atmosphere?” + +“I do, very much.” + +“You have passed a strange night, Jane.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And it has made you look pale—were you afraid when I left you alone +with Mason?” + +“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.” + +“But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I should have +been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb—so near a +wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.” + +“Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?” + +“Oh yes! don’t trouble your head about her—put the thing out of your +thoughts.” + +“Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.” + +“Never fear—I will take care of myself.” + +“Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?” + +“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. +To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack +and spue fire any day.” + +“But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is +evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or +wilfully injure you.” + +“Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me—but, +unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive +me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.” + +“Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him +how to avert the danger.” + +He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it +from him. + +“If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated +in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to +him ‘Do that,’ and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him +orders in this case: I cannot say ‘Beware of harming me, Richard;’ for +it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is +possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are +my little friend, are you not?” + +“I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.” + +“Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and +mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing +me—working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, +‘_all that is right_:’ for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, +there would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no +lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, +quiet and pale, and would say, ‘No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot +do it, because it is wrong;’ and would become immutable as a fixed +star. Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare +not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you +are, you should transfix me at once.” + +“If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, +you are very safe.” + +“God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.” + +The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a +rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but +I stood before him. + +“Sit,” he said; “the bench is long enough for two. You don’t hesitate +to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?” + +I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been +unwise. + +“Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew—while all the +flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their +young ones’ breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do +their first spell of work—I’ll put a case to you, which you must +endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you +are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you +err in staying.” + +“No, sir; I am content.” + +“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a +girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from +childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive +that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from +what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life +and taint all your existence. Mind, I don’t say a _crime_; I am not +speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make +the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is _error_. The results of +what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you +take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful +nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the +very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which +you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base +associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here +and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in +heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights +feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of +voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no +matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities +which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; +and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such +society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back—higher +wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to +spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal +being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle +of custom—a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience +sanctifies nor your judgment approves?” + +He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good +spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain +aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle +Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the +tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate. + +Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query: + +“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man +justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for +ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own +peace of mind and regeneration of life?” + +“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation +should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; +philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one +you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals +for strength to amend and solace to heal.” + +“But the instrument—the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the +instrument. I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, +dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for +my cure in—” + +He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I +almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch +the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many +minutes—so long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the +tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me. + +“Little friend,” said he, in quite a changed tone—while his face +changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh +and sarcastic—“you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: +don’t you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a +vengeance?” + +He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when +he came back he was humming a tune. + +“Jane, Jane,” said he, stopping before me, “you are quite pale with +your vigils: don’t you curse me for disturbing your rest?” + +“Curse you? No, sir.” + +“Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were +warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious +chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?” + +“Whenever I can be useful, sir.” + +“For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be +able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? +To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know +her.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“She’s a rare one, is she not, Jane?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A strapper—a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair +just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! there’s +Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that +wicket.” + +As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying +cheerfully— + +“Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before +sunrise: I rose at four to see him off.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are +signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has +not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, +because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist +(for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged +relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the +source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal +comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies +of Nature with man. + +When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie +Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little +child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either +to one’s self or one’s kin. The saying might have worn out of my +memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served +indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the +deathbed of her little sister. + +Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during +the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not +brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my +arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with +daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water. It +was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it +nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the +apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven +successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber. + +I did not like this iteration of one idea—this strange recurrence of +one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the +vision drew near. It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I +had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it +was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned downstairs by +a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. On repairing +thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a +gentleman’s servant: he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he +held in his hand was surrounded with a crape band. + +“I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,” he said, rising as I entered; +“but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were +at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still.” + +“Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to give +me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana’s bay pony. And how is Bessie? +You are married to Bessie?” + +“Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another +little one about two months since—we have three now—and both mother and +child are thriving.” + +“And are the family well at the house, Robert?” + +“I am sorry I can’t give you better news of them, Miss: they are very +badly at present—in great trouble.” + +“I hope no one is dead,” I said, glancing at his black dress. He too +looked down at the crape round his hat and replied— + +“Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.” + +“Mr. John?” + +“Yes.” + +“And how does his mother bear it?” + +“Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been +very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, +and his death was shocking.” + +“I heard from Bessie he was not doing well.” + +“Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate +amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and into +jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he +returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong: the +knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard. He +came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give +up all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by +his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he +was dead. How he died, God knows!—they say he killed himself.” + +I was silent: the tidings were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed— + +“Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very +stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of +poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John’s +death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a stroke. +She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather +better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making +signs to my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, +that Bessie understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she +made out the words, ‘Bring Jane—fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to +her.’ Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means +anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and +advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but +their mother grew so restless, and said, ‘Jane, Jane,’ so many times, +that at last they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can +get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow +morning.” + +“Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go.” + +“I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse: +but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?” + +“Yes; and I will do it now;” and having directed him to the servants’ +hall, and recommended him to the care of John’s wife, and the +attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester. + +He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the +stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;—yes: +she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the +billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices +resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, +and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some +courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one +I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss +Ingram’s side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: +her eyes seemed to demand, “What can the creeping creature want now?” +and when I said, in a low voice, “Mr. Rochester,” she made a movement +as if tempted to order me away. I remember her appearance at the +moment—it was very graceful and very striking: she wore a morning robe +of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair. She had +been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the +expression of her haughty lineaments. + +“Does that person want you?” she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. +Rochester turned to see who the “person” was. He made a curious +grimace—one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations—threw down his +cue and followed me from the room. + +“Well, Jane?” he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom +door, which he had shut. + +“If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.” + +“What to do?—where to go?” + +“To see a sick lady who has sent for me.” + +“What sick lady?—where does she live?” + +“At Gateshead; in ——shire.” + +“-shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for +people to see her that distance?” + +“Her name is Reed, sir—Mrs. Reed.” + +“Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.” + +“It is his widow, sir.” + +“And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?” + +“Mr. Reed was my uncle—my mother’s brother.” + +“The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said you +had no relations.” + +“None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me +off.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.” + +“But Reed left children?—you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was +talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the +veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of +the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago +in London.” + +“John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his +family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked +his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack.” + +“And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of +running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead +before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off.” + +“Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very +different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now.” + +“How long will you stay?” + +“As short a time as possible, sir.” + +“Promise me only to stay a week—” + +“I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it.” + +“At all events you _will_ come back: you will not be induced under any +pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?” + +“Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well.” + +“And who goes with you? You don’t travel a hundred miles alone.” + +“No, sir, she has sent her coachman.” + +“A person to be trusted?” + +“Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family.” + +Mr. Rochester meditated. “When do you wish to go?” + +“Early to-morrow morning, sir.” + +“Well, you must have some money; you can’t travel without money, and I +daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How much +have you in the world, Jane?” he asked, smiling. + +I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. “Five shillings, sir.” He +took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as +if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket-book: “Here,” +said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but +fifteen. I told him I had no change. + +“I don’t want change; you know that. Take your wages.” + +I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, +as if recollecting something, he said— + +“Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay +away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not +plenty?” + +“Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.” + +“Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you +while I have the opportunity.” + +“Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.” + +“You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be +married?” + +“Yes; what then?” + +“In that case, sir, Adèle ought to go to school: I am sure you will +perceive the necessity of it.” + +“To get her out of my bride’s way, who might otherwise walk over her +rather too emphatically? There’s sense in the suggestion; not a doubt +of it. Adèle, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must +march straight to—the devil?” + +“I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere.” + +“In course!” he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of +features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes. + +“And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by +you to seek a place, I suppose?” + +“No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me +in asking favours of them—but I shall advertise.” + +“You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!” he growled. “At your peril +you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten +pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it.” + +“And so have I, sir,” I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind +me. “I could not spare the money on any account.” + +“Little niggard!” said he, “refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me +five pounds, Jane.” + +“Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.” + +“Just let me look at the cash.” + +“No, sir; you are not to be trusted.” + +“Jane!” + +“Sir?” + +“Promise me one thing.” + +“I’ll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform.” + +“Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I’ll +find you one in time.” + +“I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that +I and Adèle shall be both safe out of the house before your bride +enters it.” + +“Very well! very well! I’ll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow, +then?” + +“Yes, sir; early.” + +“Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?” + +“No, sir, I must prepare for the journey.” + +“Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?” + +“I suppose so, sir.” + +“And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; +I’m not quite up to it.” + +“They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer.” + +“Then say it.” + +“Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present.” + +“What must I say?” + +“The same, if you like, sir.” + +“Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?” + +“Yes.” + +“It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like +something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands, for +instance; but no—that would not content me either. So you’ll do no more +than say Farewell, Jane?” + +“It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty +word as in many.” + +“Very likely; but it is blank and cool—‘Farewell.’” + +“How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?” I +asked myself; “I want to commence my packing.” The dinner-bell rang, +and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no +more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning. + +I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o’clock in the afternoon of +the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to the hall. It +was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little +white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were +burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat on the hearth, +nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a +corner. + +“Bless you!—I knew you would come!” exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I +entered. + +“Yes, Bessie,” said I, after I had kissed her; “and I trust I am not +too late. How is Mrs. Reed?—Alive still, I hope.” + +“Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was. The +doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she +will finally recover.” + +“Has she mentioned me lately?” + +“She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come, +but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the +house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and +wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss, +and then I will go up with you?” + +Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle +and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking off my +bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired. I was +glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my +travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when +a child. + +Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling +about—setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and +butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert +or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in +former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light +foot and good looks. + +Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit +still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at the +fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with +my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me +with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled +and obeyed her as in bygone days. + +She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of +a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, +whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he was +rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me +kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay +company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details +Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she +relished. + +In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my +bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall. +It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, +walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning +in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered +heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly +harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same +hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; +and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face +of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own +powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my +wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment +extinguished. + +“You shall go into the breakfast-room first,” said Bessie, as she +preceded me through the hall; “the young ladies will be there.” + +In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every article +of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first +introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still +covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could +distinguish the two volumes of Bewick’s British Birds occupying their +old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver’s Travels and the Arabian +Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not changed; but +the living things had altered past recognition. + +Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as +Miss Ingram—very thin too, with a sallow face and severe mien. There +was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme +plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen +collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of +a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, +though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that +elongated and colourless visage. + +The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I +remembered—the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a +full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and +regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The +hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from +her sister’s—so much more flowing and becoming—it looked as stylish as +the other’s looked puritanical. + +In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and only one; +the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent’s Cairngorm eye: the +blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and +chin—perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable +hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom. + +Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me +by the name of “Miss Eyre.” Eliza’s greeting was delivered in a short, +abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her +eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana added to her “How +d’ye do?” several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so +on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry +side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now traversing the +folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain +trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of +letting you know that they think you a “quiz” without actually saying +the words. A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, +nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, +without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed. + +A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power +over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised +to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the +semi-sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, nor +Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about; +within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more +potent than any they could raise—pains and pleasures so much more acute +and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to +inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no concern either for good or +bad. + +“How is Mrs. Reed?” I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who +thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an +unexpected liberty. + +“Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you +can see her to-night.” + +“If,” said I, “you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come, I +should be much obliged to you.” + +Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide. +“I know she had a particular wish to see me,” I added, “and I would not +defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary.” + +“Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,” remarked Eliza. I soon +rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I +would just step out to Bessie—who was, I dared say, in the kitchen—and +ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or +not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie and despatched her on my +errand, I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my +habit always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been to-day, I +should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next +morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a +foolish plan. I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, +and I must stay with her till she was better—or dead: as to her +daughters’ pride or folly, I must put it on one side, make myself +independent of it. So I addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me +a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, +had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I +met Bessie on the landing. + +“Missis is awake,” said she; “I have told her you are here: come and +let us see if she will know you.” + +I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had so +often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days. I +hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light stood +on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great +four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, +the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been +sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I +looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim +outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to +leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I +approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leant over the high-piled +pillows. + +Well did I remember Mrs. Reed’s face, and I eagerly sought the familiar +image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance +and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman +in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other +emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong +yearning to forget and forgive all injuries—to be reconciled and clasp +hands in amity. + +The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever—there was that +peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, +imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and +hate! and how the recollection of childhood’s terrors and sorrows +revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and +kissed her: she looked at me. + +“Is this Jane Eyre?” she said. + +“Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?” + +I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it +no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her +hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should +at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable +natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so +readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face +rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she +regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me—her feeling +towards me—was unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony +eye—opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears—that she was resolved +to consider me bad to the last; because to believe me good would give +her no generous pleasure: only a sense of mortification. + +I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to +subdue her—to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will. +My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their +source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat down and leaned over +the pillow. + +“You sent for me,” I said, “and I am here; and it is my intention to +stay till I see how you get on.” + +“Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things +over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and I have a +difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I wished to +say—let me see—” + +The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken +place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the +bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed +it down: she was at once irritated. + +“Sit up!” said she; “don’t annoy me with holding the clothes fast. Are +you Jane Eyre?” + +“I am Jane Eyre.” + +“I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. +Such a burden to be left on my hands—and so much annoyance as she +caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and +her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of +one’s movements! I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or +like a fiend—no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to +get her away from the house. What did they do with her at Lowood? The +fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died. She, however, did +not die: but I said she did—I wish she had died!” + +“A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?” + +“I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband’s only +sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family’s +disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her +death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby; though I +entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its +maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it—a sickly, +whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all night long—not +screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning. +Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been +his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age. He +would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the +darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed +their dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought continually to +his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep +the creature. I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out +of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all +resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like my +brothers—he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me +with letters for money! I have no more money to give him: we are +getting poor. I must send away half the servants and shut up part of +the house; or let it off. I can never submit to do that—yet how are we +to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of +mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and always loses—poor boy! He is +beset by sharpers: John is sunk and degraded—his look is frightful—I +feel ashamed for him when I see him.” + +She was getting much excited. “I think I had better leave her now,” +said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed. + +“Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards +night—in the morning she is calmer.” + +I rose. “Stop!” exclaimed Mrs. Reed, “there is another thing I wished +to say. He threatens me—he continually threatens me with his own death, +or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great +wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I am come to +a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the +money to be had?” + +Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught: she +succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more composed, +and sank into a dozing state. I then left her. + +More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with +her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor +forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on +as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold, +indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or +writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister. +Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the hour, and +take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for +occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me, +and they served me for both. + +Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to +take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in +sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened +momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of +imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a +ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad’s +head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in +a hedge-sparrow’s nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom. + +One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to +be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad +point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and +prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour +gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with +features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that +brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight +ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means +narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: +of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted +on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had +left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. +I drew them large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and +sombre; the irids lustrous and large. “Good! but not quite the thing,” +I thought, as I surveyed the effect: “they want more force and spirit;” +and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more +brilliantly—a happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a +friend’s face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young +ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the +speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content. + +“Is that a portrait of some one you know?” asked Eliza, who had +approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head, +and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in +fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was +that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. +The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that “an ugly man.” +They both seemed surprised at my skill. I offered to sketch their +portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana +produced her album. I promised to contribute a water-colour drawing: +this put her at once into good humour. She proposed a walk in the +grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a +confidential conversation: she had favoured me with a description of +the brilliant winter she had spent in London two seasons ago—of the +admiration she had there excited—the attention she had received; and I +even got hints of the titled conquest she had made. In the course of +the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft +conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, +in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day +improvised by her for my benefit. The communications were renewed from +day to day: they always ran on the same theme—herself, her loves, and +woes. It was strange she never once adverted either to her mother’s +illness, or her brother’s death, or the present gloomy state of the +family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of +past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed +about five minutes each day in her mother’s sick-room, and no more. + +Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I never +saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say +what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She +had an alarm to call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself +before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular +portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she +studied a little book, which I found, on inspection, was a Common +Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of that +volume, and she said, “the Rubric.” Three hours she gave to stitching, +with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large +enough for a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this +article, she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new +church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her +diary; two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the +regulation of her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no +conversation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed +for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any +incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity. + +She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than +usual, that John’s conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had +been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now, she said, +settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own fortune she had +taken care to secure; and when her mother died—and it was wholly +improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or +linger long—she would execute a long-cherished project: seek a +retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from +disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous +world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her. + +“Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never had +had. She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration. +Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers.” + +Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time +in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and +wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an +invitation up to town. “It would be so much better,” she said, “if she +could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all was over.” I +did not ask what she meant by “all being over,” but I suppose she +referred to the expected decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of +funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister’s +indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had +been before her. One day, however, as she put away her account-book and +unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus— + +“Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never +allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for you make +no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a +reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some +other person’s strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her +or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out +that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence +for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the +world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must +be flattered—you must have music, dancing, and society—or you languish, +you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you +independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; +share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no +stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—include +all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid +regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has +begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one +vacant moment: you have had to seek no one’s company, conversation, +sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent +being ought to do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer +you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. +Neglect it—go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling—and suffer +the results of your idiocy, however bad and insufferable they may be. I +tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat +what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my +mother’s death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is +carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate +as if we had never known each other. You need not think that because we +chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me +down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this—if the whole human +race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on +the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the +new.” + +She closed her lips. + +“You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,” +answered Georgiana. “Everybody knows you are the most selfish, +heartless creature in existence: and _I_ know your spiteful hatred +towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played +me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised above you, +to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show +your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my +prospects for ever.” Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her +nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and +assiduously industrious. + +True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were +two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably +savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy +draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and +husky a morsel for human deglutition. + +It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the +sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a +saint’s-day service at the new church—for in matters of religion she +was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge +of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to +church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were +prayers. + +I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who +lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent +attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out +of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but she had her +own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the hall. I +found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; +the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in +the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel, +re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze +on me, and then I moved away to the window. + +The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously: +“One lies there,” I thought, “who will soon be beyond the war of +earthly elements. Whither will that spirit—now struggling to quit its +material tenement—flit when at length released?” + +In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her +dying words—her faith—her doctrine of the equality of disembodied +souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered +tones—still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face +and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her +longing to be restored to her divine Father’s bosom—when a feeble voice +murmured from the couch behind: “Who is that?” + +I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I went up +to her. + +“It is I, Aunt Reed.” + +“Who—I?” was her answer. “Who are you?” looking at me with surprise and +a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. “You are quite a stranger to +me—where is Bessie?” + +“She is at the lodge, aunt.” + +“Aunt,” she repeated. “Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the +Gibsons; and yet I know you—that face, and the eyes and forehead, are +quiet familiar to me: you are like—why, you are like Jane Eyre!” + +I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my +identity. + +“Yet,” said she, “I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me. +I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists: +besides, in eight years she must be so changed.” I now gently assured +her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing +that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I +explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield. + +“I am very ill, I know,” she said ere long. “I was trying to turn +myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as +well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in +health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the +nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?” + +I assured her we were alone. + +“Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in +breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own +child; the other—” she stopped. “After all, it is of no great +importance, perhaps,” she murmured to herself: “and then I may get +better; and to humble myself so to her is painful.” + +She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed; +she seemed to experience some inward sensation—the precursor, perhaps, +of the last pang. + +“Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell +her.—Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will +see there.” + +I obeyed her directions. “Read the letter,” she said. + +It was short, and thus conceived:— + +“MADAM,— +“Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane +Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to write shortly +and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my +endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, +I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death +whatever I may have to leave. + + +I am, Madam, &c., &c., +“JOHN EYRE, Madeira.” + + +It was dated three years back. + +“Why did I never hear of this?” I asked. + +“Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand +in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, +Jane—the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you +declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the +unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very +thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with +miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus +started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an +animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes +and cursed me in a man’s voice.—Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!” + +“Dear Mrs. Reed,” said I, as I offered her the draught she required, +“think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me +for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have +passed since that day.” + +She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water +and drawn breath, she went on thus— + +“I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you to be +adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was +what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his +disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at +Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict my assertion—expose +my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my +torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, +but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.” + +“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to +regard me with kindness and forgiveness——” + +“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and one to this day I +feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be +patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out +all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.” + +“My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not +vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to +love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be +reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.” + +I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I +oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I +laid her down—for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she +drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble +fingers shrank from my touch—the glazing eyes shunned my gaze. + +“Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,” I said at last, “you have my +full and free forgiveness: ask now for God’s, and be at peace.” + +Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort +to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated +me—dying, she must hate me still. + +The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-an-hour +longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none. She was +fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at twelve +o’clock that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes, nor +were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning +that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to +look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she +dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed’s once robust and active +frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; +her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. +A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with +gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or +hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a grating anguish for _her_ +woes—not _my_ loss—and a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of +death in such a form. + +Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she +observed— + +“With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her +life was shortened by trouble.” And then a spasm constricted her mouth +for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so +did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Mr. Rochester had given me but one week’s leave of absence: yet a month +elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after +the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off +to London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. +Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister’s interment and settle +the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with +Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in +her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her +feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and +did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that +while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, “If you and I +were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence +matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into +being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, +and compel you to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I +should insist, also, on your keeping some of those drawling, +half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because +our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly +mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and +compliant on my part.” + +At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza’s turn to request me +to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, +she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day +long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling +trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication +with any one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, +and answer notes of condolence. + +One morning she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am +obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There +is some difference between living with such an one as you and with +Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one. +To-morrow,” she continued, “I set out for the Continent. I shall take +up my abode in a religious house near Lisle—a nunnery you would call +it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a +time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful +study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half +suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all +things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and +probably take the veil.” + +I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to +dissuade her from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: +“much good may it do you!” + +When we parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: +you have some sense.” + +I then returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you +have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French +convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t +much care.” + +“You are in the right,” said she; and with these words we each went our +separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or +her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an +advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that +Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the +convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she +endowed with her fortune. + +How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or +short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had +known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long +walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was +to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a +good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings +was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, +increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return +to Thornfield was yet to be tried. + +My journey seemed tedious—very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night +spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve +hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured +and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on +the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and +servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent +church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I +beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a +convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities +of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of —— +scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down +on my traveller’s bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation. + +I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not +long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim +of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had +left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in +a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make +arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new +carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed +strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had +herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly +take place. “You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it,” +was my mental comment. “I don’t doubt it.” + +The question followed, “Where was I to go?” I dreamt of Miss Ingram all +the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of +Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. +Rochester looked on with his arms folded—smiling sardonically, as it +seemed, at both her and me. + +I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I +did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed +to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving +my box in the ostler’s care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about +six o’clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a +road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented. + +It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: +the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far +from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its +blue—where blue was visible—was mild and settled, and its cloud strata +high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it—it +seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen +of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness. + +I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped +once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it +was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to +a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. +“Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,” said I; “and +little Adèle will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very +well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking +of you.” + +But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? +These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of +again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and +they added—“Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more +days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!” And then +I strangled a new-born agony—a deformed thing which I could not +persuade myself to own and rear—and ran on. + +They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the +labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their +rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field +or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the +gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather +any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy +and flowery branches across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone +steps; and I see—Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in +his hand; he is writing. + +Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a +moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I +should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the +power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: +I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the +house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me. + +“Hillo!” he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. “There you +are! Come on, if you please.” + +I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being +scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; +and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face—which I feel +rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had +resolved to conceal. But I have a veil—it is down: I may make shift yet +to behave with decent composure. + +“And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? +Yes—just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come +clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into +the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a +dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last +month?” + +“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.” + +“A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other +world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she +meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see +if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I’d as soon offer to take +hold of a blue _ignis fatuus_ light in a marsh. Truant! truant!” he +added, when he had paused an instant. “Absent from me a whole month, +and forgetting me quite, I’ll be sworn!” + +I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though +broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by +the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. +Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of +communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered +to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last +words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him +whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my +home—would that it were my home! + +He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I +inquired soon if he had not been to London. + +“Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight.” + +“Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter.” + +“And did she inform you what I went to do?” + +“Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.” + +“You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don’t think it +will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won’t look like Queen +Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I +were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, +fairy as you are—can’t you give me a charm, or a philter, or something +of that sort, to make me a handsome man?” + +“It would be past the power of magic, sir;” and, in thought, I added, +“A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; +or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty.” + +Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to +me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my +abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had +of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think +it too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling—he +shed it over me now. + +“Pass, Janet,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile: “go up +home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend’s +threshold.” + +All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to +colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to +leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast—a force turned me round. I +said—or something in me said for me, and in spite of me— + +“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad +to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only +home.” + +I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he +tried. Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. +Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and +even Sophie bid me “bon soir” with glee. This was very pleasant; there +is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and +feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort. + +I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my +ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and +coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her +knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on +the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection +seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent +prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus +sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to +take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he +supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted +daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer +sa petite maman Anglaise”—I half ventured to hope that he would, even +after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his +protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence. + +A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. +Nothing was said of the master’s marriage, and I saw no preparation +going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if +she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the +negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr. +Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he had +answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could +not tell what to make of him. + +One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no +journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure +it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was +that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a +horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a morning’s ride. I began to +cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the match was broken +off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had +changed their minds. I used to look at my master’s face to see if it +were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been +so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and +my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable +dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently +to his presence; never been kinder to me when there—and, alas! never +had I loved him so well. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant +as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our +wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the +South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest +them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round +Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees +were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply +tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows +between. + +On Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay +Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop +asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden. + +It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:—“Day its fervid fires +had wasted,” and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. +Where the sun had gone down in simple state—pure of the pomp of +clouds—spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and +furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and +wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own +charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a rising and solitary +star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the +horizon. + +I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent—that +of a cigar—stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a +handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the +orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it +was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it +out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened +it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation +from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and +terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, +led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such +honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as +if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and +fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by +the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step +is stayed—not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning +fragrance. + +Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been +yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither +of shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester’s cigar. +I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I +hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form +is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must +flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. +Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay +long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will +never see me. + +But no—eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden +as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree +branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are +laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a +knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the +dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights +on a plant at Mr. Rochester’s foot: he sees it, and bends to examine +it. + +“Now, he has his back towards me,” thought I, “and he is occupied too; +perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.” + +I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel +might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or two +distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. “I +shall get by very well,” I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown +long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly, +without turning— + +“Jane, come and look at this fellow.” + +I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind—could his shadow feel? I +started at first, and then I approached him. + +“Look at his wings,” said he, “he reminds me rather of a West Indian +insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in +England; there! he is flown.” + +The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr. +Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said— + +“Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and +surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting +with moonrise.” + +It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt +enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing +an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile +word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful +embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr. +Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to +allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts +busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself +looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any +confusion: the evil—if evil existent or prospective there was—seemed to +lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet. + +“Jane,” he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly +strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, +“Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You must have become in some degree attached to the house,—you, who +have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of +Adhesiveness?” + +“I am attached to it, indeed.” + +“And though I don’t comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired +a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adèle, too; and even +for simple dame Fairfax?” + +“Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both.” + +“And would be sorry to part with them?” + +“Yes.” + +“Pity!” he said, and sighed and paused. “It is always the way of events +in this life,” he continued presently: “no sooner have you got settled +in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and +move on, for the hour of repose is expired.” + +“Must I move on, sir?” I asked. “Must I leave Thornfield?” + +“I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you +must.” + +This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me. + +“Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes.” + +“It is come now—I must give it to-night.” + +“Then you _are_ going to be married, sir?” + +“Ex-act-ly—pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the +nail straight on the head.” + +“Soon, sir?” + +“Very soon, my—that is, Miss Eyre: and you’ll remember, Jane, the first +time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to +put my old bachelor’s neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the +holy estate of matrimony—to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short +(she’s an extensive armful: but that’s not to the point—one can’t have +too much of such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, +as I was saying—listen to me, Jane! You’re not turning your head to +look after more moths, are you? That was only a lady-clock, child, +‘flying away home.’ I wish to remind you that it was you who first said +to me, with that discretion I respect in you—with that foresight, +prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and dependent +position—that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adèle +had better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in +this suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are +far away, Janet, I’ll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; +which is such that I have made it my law of action. Adèle must go to +school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation.” + +“Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose—” I +was going to say, “I suppose I may stay here, till I find another +shelter to betake myself to:” but I stopped, feeling it would not do to +risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command. + +“In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom,” continued Mr. Rochester; +“and in the interim, I shall myself look out for employment and an +asylum for you.” + +“Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give—” + +“Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her +duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her +employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render her; +indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a +place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of the +five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O’Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, +Ireland. You’ll like Ireland, I think: they’re such warm-hearted people +there, they say.” + +“It is a long way off, sir.” + +“No matter—a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the +distance.” + +“Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier—” + +“From what, Jane?” + +“From England and from Thornfield: and—” + +“Well?” + +“From _you_, sir.” + +I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free +will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard, however; I +avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O’Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck +cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam, +destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the master at whose side +I now walked, and coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean—wealth, +caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably +loved. + +“It is a long way,” I again said. + +“It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, +Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that’s morally certain. I +never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the +country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the +little time that remains to them close to each other. Come! we’ll talk +over the voyage and the parting quietly half-an-hour or so, while the +stars enter into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the +chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit +there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destined to sit +there together.” He seated me and himself. + +“It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little +friend on such weary travels: but if I can’t do better, how is it to be +helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?” + +I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still. + +“Because,” he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to +you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string +somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a +similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little +frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of +land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be +snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding +inwardly. As for you,—you’d forget me.” + +“That I _never_ should, sir: you know—” Impossible to proceed. + +“Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!” + +In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured +no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from head to foot +with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to express an +impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come to Thornfield. + +“Because you are sorry to leave it?” + +The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was +claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right +to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes,—and +to speak. + +“I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:—I love it, because I +have lived in it a full and delightful life,—momentarily at least. I +have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been +buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of +communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, +face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in,—with an +original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. +Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I +absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of +departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.” + +“Where do you see the necessity?” he asked suddenly. + +“Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.” + +“In what shape?” + +“In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,—your bride.” + +“My bride! What bride? I have no bride!” + +“But you will have.” + +“Yes;—I will!—I will!” He set his teeth. + +“Then I must go:—you have said it yourself.” + +“No: you must stay! I swear it—and the oath shall be kept.” + +“I tell you I must go!” I retorted, roused to something like passion. +“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an +automaton?—a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel +of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from +my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I +am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as +you,—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty +and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as +it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the +medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my +spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through +the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are!” + +“As we are!” repeated Mr. Rochester—“so,” he added, enclosing me in his +arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: “so, +Jane!” + +“Yes, so, sir,” I rejoined: “and yet not so; for you are a married +man—or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you—to one +with whom you have no sympathy—whom I do not believe you truly love; +for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: +therefore I am better than you—let me go!” + +“Where, Jane? To Ireland?” + +“Yes—to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.” + +“Jane, be still; don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is +rending its own plumage in its desperation.” + +“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an +independent will, which I now exert to leave you.” + +Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him. + +“And your will shall decide your destiny,” he said: “I offer you my +hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.” + +“You play a farce, which I merely laugh at.” + +“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and +best earthly companion.” + +“For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by +it.” + +“Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still +too.” + +A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through +the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away—away—to an indefinite +distance—it died. The nightingale’s song was then the only voice of the +hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, +looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; +he at last said— + +“Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another.” + +“I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot +return.” + +“But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry.” + +I was silent: I thought he mocked me. + +“Come, Jane—come hither.” + +“Your bride stands between us.” + +He rose, and with a stride reached me. + +“My bride is here,” he said, again drawing me to him, “because my equal +is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?” + +Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for +I was still incredulous. + +“Do you doubt me, Jane?” + +“Entirely.” + +“You have no faith in me?” + +“Not a whit.” + +“Am I a liar in your eyes?” he asked passionately. “Little sceptic, you +_shall_ be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that +you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to +prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third +of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the +result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not—I +could not—marry Miss Ingram. You—you strange, you almost unearthly +thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—poor and obscure, and small and +plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.” + +“What, me!” I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness—and especially +in his incivility—to credit his sincerity: “me who have not a friend in +the world but you—if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you +have given me?” + +“You, Jane, I must have you for my own—entirely my own. Will you be +mine? Say yes, quickly.” + +“Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I want to read your countenance—turn!” + +“There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, +scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer.” + +His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were +strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes. + +“Oh, Jane, you torture me!” he exclaimed. “With that searching and yet +faithful and generous look, you torture me!” + +“How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only +feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion—they cannot torture.” + +“Gratitude!” he ejaculated; and added wildly—“Jane accept me quickly. +Say, Edward—give me my name—Edward—I will marry you.” + +“Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to +be your wife?” + +“I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.” + +“Then, sir, I will marry you.” + +“Edward—my little wife!” + +“Dear Edward!” + +“Come to me—come to me entirely now,” said he; and added, in his +deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, “Make +my happiness—I will make yours.” + +“God pardon me!” he subjoined ere long; “and man meddle not with me: I +have her, and will hold her.” + +“There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere.” + +“No—that is the best of it,” he said. And if I had loved him less I +should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but, +sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting—called to the +paradise of union—I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so +abundant a flow. Again and again he said, “Are you happy, Jane?” And +again and again I answered, “Yes.” After which he murmured, “It will +atone—it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and +comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there +not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at +God’s tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do. For the world’s +judgment—I wash my hands thereof. For man’s opinion—I defy it.” + +But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were +all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master’s face, near as I was. +And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind +roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us. + +“We must go in,” said Mr. Rochester: “the weather changes. I could have +sat with thee till morning, Jane.” + +“And so,” thought I, “could I with you.” I should have said so, +perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was +looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and +I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester’s +shoulder. + +The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds, +and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could pass the +threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking the +water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her room. +I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester. The lamp was +lit. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. + +“Hasten to take off your wet things,” said he; “and before you go, +good-night—good-night, my darling!” + +He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there +stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran +upstairs. “Explanation will do for another time,” thought I. Still, +when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even +temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every +other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder +crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as +the rain fell during a storm of two hours’ duration, I experienced no +fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course +of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that +was strength for anything. + +Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adèle came running in to +tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had +been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered +if it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality till I had +seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love and +promise. + +While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it +was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its +colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, +and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling +to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my +look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his +affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer +dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no attire had ever so +well become me, because none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood. + +I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a +brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night; and +to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and +fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A +beggar-woman and her little boy—pale, ragged objects both—were coming +up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happened to +have in my purse—some three or four shillings: good or bad, they must +partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but +nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart. + +Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad +countenance, and saying gravely—“Miss Eyre, will you come to +breakfast?” During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not +undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give explanations; and +so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened upstairs. I met +Adèle leaving the schoolroom. + +“Where are you going? It is time for lessons.” + +“Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery.” + +“Where is he?” + +“In there,” pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in, and +there he stood. + +“Come and bid me good-morning,” said he. I gladly advanced; and it was +not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that I +received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed +genial to be so well loved, so caressed by him. + +“Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty,” said he: “truly +pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my +mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek and +rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?” (I +had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they +were new-dyed, I suppose.) + +“It is Jane Eyre, sir.” + +“Soon to be Jane Rochester,” he added: “in four weeks, Janet; not a day +more. Do you hear that?” + +I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The +feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than +was consistent with joy—something that smote and stunned: it was, I +think, almost fear. + +“You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?” + +“Because you gave me a new name—Jane Rochester; and it seems so +strange.” + +“Yes, Mrs. Rochester,” said he; “young Mrs. Rochester—Fairfax +Rochester’s girl-bride.” + +“It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never +enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different +destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me +is a fairy tale—a day-dream.” + +“Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I +wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his +keeping,—heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope +to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every attention shall +be yours that I would accord a peer’s daughter, if about to marry her.” + +“Oh, sir!—never rain jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. +Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not +have them.” + +“I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet +on your forehead,—which it will become: for nature, at least, has +stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the +bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with +rings.” + +“No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and +in another strain. Don’t address me as if I were a beauty; I am your +plain, Quakerish governess.” + +“You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my +heart,—delicate and aërial.” + +“Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,—or you are +sneering. For God’s sake, don’t be ironical!” + +“I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too,” he went on, +while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I +felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. “I will +attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; +and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil.” + +“And then you won’t know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any +longer, but an ape in a harlequin’s jacket—a jay in borrowed plumes. I +would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, +as myself clad in a court-lady’s robe; and I don’t call you handsome, +sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. +Don’t flatter me.” + +He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation. “This +very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must +choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be married in +four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down +below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town. After a +brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun: +to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is +famous in old story and in modern record: she shall taste, too, of the +life of cities; and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison +with others.” + +“Shall I travel?—and with you, sir?” + +“You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and +Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you: +wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph’s foot shall step also. Ten +years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate, and +rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it healed and cleansed, with +a very angel as my comforter.” + +I laughed at him as he said this. “I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and +I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must +neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me—for you will not get +it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all +anticipate.” + +“What do you anticipate of me?” + +“For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,—a very little +while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; +and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: +but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me +again,—_like_ me, I say, not _love_ me. I suppose your love will +effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by +men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband’s ardour +extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope never to +become quite distasteful to my dear master.” + +“Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again, and +yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only _like_, but _love_ +you—with truth, fervour, constancy.” + +“Yet are you not capricious, sir?” + +“To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I +find out they have neither souls nor hearts—when they open to me a +perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, +coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, +to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not +break—at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent—I am ever +tender and true.” + +“Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever love +such an one?” + +“I love it now.” + +“But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult +standard?” + +“I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me—you +seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I +am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up +my arm to my heart. I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is +sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery +beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that +inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?” + +“I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I +was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers—” + +“You were, you little elfish—” + +“Hush, sir! You don’t talk very wisely just now; any more than those +gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married, they would +no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness +as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you will answer me a +year hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit your convenience or +pleasure to grant.” + +“Ask me something now, Janet,—the least thing: I desire to be +entreated—” + +“Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready.” + +“Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall +swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of +me.” + +“Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don’t send for the jewels, and don’t +crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace round +that plain pocket handkerchief you have there.” + +“I might as well ‘gild refined gold.’ I know it: your request is +granted then—for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my +banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift +to be withdrawn: try again.” + +“Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is +much piqued on one point.” + +He looked disturbed. “What? what?” he said hastily. “Curiosity is a +dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every +request—” + +“But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir.” + +“Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, +perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate.” + +“Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you +think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I would much +rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from your +confidence if you admit me to your heart?” + +“You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane; but +for God’s sake, don’t desire a useless burden! Don’t long for +poison—don’t turn out a downright Eve on my hands!” + +“Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked to be +conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don’t you think +I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax and +entreat—even cry and be sulky if necessary—for the sake of a mere essay +of my power?” + +“I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game is +up.” + +“Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your eyebrows +have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead resembles what, in +some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, ‘a blue-piled +thunderloft.’ That will be your married look, sir, I suppose?” + +“If that will be _your_ married look, I, as a Christian, will soon give +up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But what +had you to ask, thing,—out with it?” + +“There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great deal +better than flattery. I had rather be a _thing_ than an angel. This is +what I have to ask,—Why did you take such pains to make me believe you +wished to marry Miss Ingram?” + +“Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!” And now he unknit his black +brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if well +pleased at seeing a danger averted. “I think I may confess,” he +continued, “even although I should make you a little indignant, +Jane—and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are +indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you +mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, +by-the-bye, it was you who made me the offer.” + +“Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir—Miss Ingram?” + +“Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render +you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy +would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that +end.” + +“Excellent! Now you are small—not one whit bigger than the end of my +little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous disgrace to act +in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram’s feelings, sir?” + +“Her feelings are concentrated in one—pride; and that needs humbling. +Were you jealous, Jane?” + +“Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to know +that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will not +suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won’t she feel forsaken and +deserted?” + +“Impossible!—when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me: the +idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her flame in a +moment.” + +“You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your +principles on some points are eccentric.” + +“My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a little +awry for want of attention.” + +“Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been +vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the +bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?” + +“That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in the +world has the same pure love for me as yourself—for I lay that pleasant +unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection.” + +I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very +much—more than I could trust myself to say—more than words had power to +express. + +“Ask something more,” he said presently; “it is my delight to be +entreated, and to yield.” + +I was again ready with my request. “Communicate your intentions to Mrs. +Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall, and she was +shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me +to be misjudged by so good a woman.” + +“Go to your room, and put on your bonnet,” he replied. “I mean you to +accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for the +drive, I will enlighten the old lady’s understanding. Did she think, +Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered it well lost?” + +“I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir.” + +“Station! station!—your station is in my heart, and on the necks of +those who would insult you, now or hereafter.—Go.” + +I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax’s +parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady had been reading her +morning portion of Scripture—the Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open +before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended +by Mr. Rochester’s announcement, seemed now forgotten: her eyes, fixed +on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind +stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a +sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but +the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put +up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the +table. + +“I feel so astonished,” she began, “I hardly know what to say to you, +Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half +fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never +happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a +doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in +and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my +name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is +actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don’t +laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and +said that in a month you would be his wife.” + +“He has said the same thing to me,” I replied. + +“He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?” + +“Yes.” + +She looked at me bewildered. + +“I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters +were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always +been called careful. He means to marry you?” + +“He tells me so.” + +She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there +found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma. + +“It passes me!” she continued; “but no doubt it is true since you say +so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I really don’t know. Equality of +position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are +twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your +father.” + +“No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!” exclaimed I, nettled; “he is nothing like +my father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an +instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at +five-and-twenty.” + +“Is it really for love he is going to marry you?” she asked. + +I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose to my +eyes. + +“I am sorry to grieve you,” pursued the widow; “but you are so young, +and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. +It is an old saying that ‘all is not gold that glitters;’ and in this +case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what +either you or I expect.” + +“Why?—am I a monster?” I said: “is it impossible that Mr. Rochester +should have a sincere affection for me?” + +“No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I +daresay, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you were a sort of +pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little +uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your +guard: but I did not like to suggest even the possibility of wrong. I +knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so +discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be +trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell you what I +suffered when I sought all over the house, and could find you nowhere, +nor the master either; and then, at twelve o’clock, saw you come in +with him.” + +“Well, never mind that now,” I interrupted impatiently; “it is enough +that all was right.” + +“I hope all will be right in the end,” she said: “but believe me, you +cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance: +distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not +accustomed to marry their governesses.” + +I was growing truly irritated: happily, Adèle ran in. + +“Let me go,—let me go to Millcote too!” she cried. “Mr. Rochester +won’t: though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg him to let +me go, mademoiselle.” + +“That I will, Adèle;” and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my +gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready: they were bringing it round +to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot following +him backwards and forwards. + +“Adèle may accompany us, may she not, sir?” + +“I told her no. I’ll have no brats!—I’ll have only you.” + +“Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better.” + +“Not it: she will be a restraint.” + +He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of Mrs. +Fairfax’s warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me: something +of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I half lost the +sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to obey him, without +further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the carriage, he looked +at my face. + +“What is the matter?” he asked; “all the sunshine is gone. Do you +really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?” + +“I would far rather she went, sir.” + +“Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!” cried +he to Adèle. + +She obeyed him with what speed she might. + +“After all, a single morning’s interruption will not matter much,” said +he, “when I mean shortly to claim you—your thoughts, conversation, and +company—for life.” + +Adèle, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her +gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away into a +corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat; +so stern a neighbour was too restrictive: to him, in his present +fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any +information. + +“Let her come to me,” I entreated: “she will, perhaps, trouble you, +sir: there is plenty of room on this side.” + +He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. “I’ll send her to +school yet,” he said, but now he was smiling. + +Adèle heard him, and asked if she was to go to school “sans +mademoiselle?” + +“Yes,” he replied, “absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take +mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the +white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with +me there, and only me.” + +“She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her,” observed Adèle. + +“I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and +hillsides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adèle.” + +“She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?” + +“Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I’ll carry +her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater.” + +“Oh, qu’elle y sera mal—peu comfortable! And her clothes, they will +wear out: how can she get new ones?” + +Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. “Hem!” said he. “What would you +do, Adèle? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would a white or a +pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty +enough scarf out of a rainbow.” + +“She is far better as she is,” concluded Adèle, after musing some time: +“besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the moon. If I +were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you.” + +“She has consented: she has pledged her word.” + +“But you can’t get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is all +air; and neither you nor she can fly.” + +“Adèle, look at that field.” We were now outside Thornfield gates, and +bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where the dust was +well laid by the thunderstorm, and, where the low hedges and lofty +timber trees on each side glistened green and rain-refreshed. + +“In that field, Adèle, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight +since—the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in the orchard +meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me +on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began +to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago, and a wish I had +for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast, though daylight +was fading from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped +two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little thing with a veil of +gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at +my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I +read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to +this effect— + +“It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to +make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely +place—such as the moon, for instance—and it nodded its head towards her +horn, rising over Hay-hill: it told me of the alabaster cave and silver +vale where we might live. I said I should like to go; but reminded it, +as you did me, that I had no wings to fly. + +“‘Oh,’ returned the fairy, ‘that does not signify! Here is a talisman +will remove all difficulties;’ and she held out a pretty gold ring. +‘Put it,’ she said, ‘on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am +yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own +heaven yonder.’ She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adèle, is in my +breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon to +change it to a ring again.” + +“But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don’t care for the fairy: +you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?” + +“Mademoiselle is a fairy,” he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon +I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a +fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester “un vrai +menteur,” and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his +“contes de fée,” and that “du reste, il n’y avait pas de fées, et quand +même il y en avait:” she was sure they would never appear to him, nor +ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon. + +The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr. +Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I was +ordered to choose half-a-dozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged +leave to defer it: no—it should be gone through with now. By dint of +entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the half-dozen to +two: these however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I +watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a rich silk of +the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin. I told him in +a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and +a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never venture to wear his +choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I +persuaded him to make an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and +pearl-grey silk. “It might pass for the present,” he said; “but he +would yet see me glittering like a parterre.” + +Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a +jeweller’s shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a +sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the carriage, and +I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in the hurry of +events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten—the letter of my uncle, +John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me and make me his +legatee. “It would, indeed, be a relief,” I thought, “if I had ever so +small an independency; I never can bear being dressed like a doll by +Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with the golden shower +falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, +and tell my uncle John I am going to be married, and to whom: if I had +but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of +fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now.” And somewhat +relieved by this idea (which I failed not to execute that day), I +ventured once more to meet my master’s and lover’s eye, which most +pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted both face and gaze. He +smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a +blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold and gems had +enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, +and thrust it back to him red with the passionate pressure. + +“You need not look in that way,” I said; “if you do, I’ll wear nothing +but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I’ll be married in +this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for yourself out of +the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the +black satin.” + +He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. “Oh, it is rich to see and hear her!” +he exclaimed. “Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange +this one little English girl for the Grand Turk’s whole seraglio, +gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!” + +The Eastern allusion bit me again. “I’ll not stand you an inch in the +stead of a seraglio,” I said; “so don’t consider me an equivalent for +one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, +to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive +slave-purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend +satisfactorily here.” + +“And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of +flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?” + +“I’ll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty +to them that are enslaved—your harem inmates amongst the rest. I’ll get +admitted there, and I’ll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw +as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our +hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have +signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred.” + +“I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane.” + +“I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with +an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that +whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act, when +released, would be to violate its conditions.” + +“Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go +through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the +altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms—what will they +be?” + +“I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations. Do +you remember what you said of Céline Varens?—of the diamonds, the +cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Céline Varens. I +shall continue to act as Adèle’s governess; by that I shall earn my +board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides. I’ll furnish my +own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but—” + +“Well, but what?” + +“Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be +quit.” + +“Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven’t +your equal,” said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. “Will it +please you to dine with me to-day?” he asked, as we re-entered the +gates. + +“No, thank you, sir.” + +“And what for, ‘no, thank you?’ if one may inquire.” + +“I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should +now: till—” + +“Till what? You delight in half-phrases.” + +“Till I can’t help it.” + +“Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being the +companion of my repast?” + +“I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go on +as usual for another month.” + +“You will give up your governessing slavery at once.” + +“Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go on with +it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have been +accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you feel +disposed to see me, and I’ll come then; but at no other time.” + +“I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all +this, ‘pour me donner une contenance,’ as Adèle would say; and +unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case, nor my snuff-box. But +listen—whisper. It is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be mine +presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, +I’ll just—figuratively speaking—attach you to a chain like this” +(touching his watch-guard). “Yes, bonny wee thing, I’ll wear you in my +bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.” + +He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while he +afterwards lifted out Adèle, I entered the house, and made good my +retreat upstairs. + +He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an +occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in +a _tête-à-tête_ conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he +liked to sing—good singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, +in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either; but I delighted in +listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that +hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the +lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love +of heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and +that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was +like the present. + +“Did I like his voice?” he asked. + +“Very much.” I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of +his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e’en soothe +and stimulate it. + +“Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment.” + +“Very well, sir, I will try.” + +I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated “a +little bungler.” Being pushed unceremoniously to one side—which was +precisely what I wished—he usurped my place, and proceeded to accompany +himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the +window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees +and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following +strain:— + +“The truest love that ever heart +Felt at its kindled core, +Did through each vein, in quickened start, +The tide of being pour. + +Her coming was my hope each day, +Her parting was my pain; +The chance that did her steps delay +Was ice in every vein. + +I dreamed it would be nameless bliss, +As I loved, loved to be; +And to this object did I press +As blind as eagerly. + +But wide as pathless was the space +That lay our lives between, +And dangerous as the foamy race +Of ocean-surges green. + +And haunted as a robber-path +Through wilderness or wood; +For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath, +Between our spirits stood. + +I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; +I omens did defy: +Whatever menaced, harassed, warned, +I passed impetuous by. + +On sped my rainbow, fast as light; +I flew as in a dream; +For glorious rose upon my sight +That child of Shower and Gleam. + +Still bright on clouds of suffering dim +Shines that soft, solemn joy; +Nor care I now, how dense and grim +Disasters gather nigh. + +I care not in this moment sweet, +Though all I have rushed o’er +Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, +Proclaiming vengeance sore: + +Though haughty Hate should strike me down, +Right, bar approach to me, +And grinding Might, with furious frown, +Swear endless enmity. + +My love has placed her little hand +With noble faith in mine, +And vowed that wedlock’s sacred band +Our nature shall entwine. + +My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, +With me to live—to die; +I have at last my nameless bliss. +As I love—loved am I!” + + +He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his +full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every +lineament. I quailed momentarily—then I rallied. Soft scene, daring +demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon +of defence must be prepared—I whetted my tongue: as he reached me, I +asked with asperity, “whom he was going to marry now?” + +“That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane.” + +“Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had +talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a +pagan idea? _I_ had no intention of dying with him—he might depend on +that.” + +“Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with him! +Death was not for such as I.” + +“Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he +had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee.” + +“Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a +reconciling kiss?” + +“No: I would rather be excused.” + +Here I heard myself apostrophised as a “hard little thing;” and it was +added, “any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing +such stanzas crooned in her praise.” + +I assured him I was naturally hard—very flinty, and that he would often +find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers +rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he +should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was +yet time to rescind it. + +“Would I be quiet and talk rationally?” + +“I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I +flattered myself I was doing that now.” + +He fretted, pished, and pshawed. “Very good,” I thought; “you may fume +and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue with you, +I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I’ll not sink into a +bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I’ll keep you +from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent +aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real +mutual advantage.” + +From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then, +after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room, I +got up, and saying, “I wish you good-night, sir,” in my natural and +wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and got away. + +The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of +probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure, rather +cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently +entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and turtle-dove +sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would have pleased his +judgment, satisfied his common-sense, and even suited his taste less. + +In other people’s presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; +any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in the +evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to +send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I +appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as “love” and +“darling” on his lips: the best words at my service were “provoking +puppet,” “malicious elf,” “sprite,” “changeling,” &c. For caresses, +too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the +arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all +right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favours to +anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on +my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well. Meantime, Mr. +Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened +awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming. I +laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. “I can keep you in reasonable +check now,” I reflected; “and I don’t doubt to be able to do it +hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised.” + +Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have +pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole +world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood +between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes +between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for +His creature: of whom I had made an idol. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being +numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced—the bridal +day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. _I_, at least, +had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, +ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this +time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I +(D.V.),—or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet +I knew not. The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, +four little squares, in the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written +the direction, “Mrs. Rochester, —— Hotel, London,” on each: I could not +persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! +She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time +after eight o’clock A.M.; and I would wait to be assured she had come +into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property. It was +enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said +to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw +bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the +pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped +portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like +apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour—nine o’clock—gave out +certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. “I +will leave you by yourself, white dream,” I said. “I am feverish: I +hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.” + +It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not +only the anticipation of the great change—the new life which was to +commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, +doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me +forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause +influenced my mind more than they. + +I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened +which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but +myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester that +night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had +called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty +miles off—business it was requisite he should settle in person, +previous to his meditated departure from England. I waited now his +return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him the solution of +the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I +disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence. + +I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day +had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a +speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to +augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one +way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once +in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads +northward—the clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on +mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day. + +It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, +delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering +through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the +chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the +centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each +other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; +though community of vitality was destroyed—the sap could flow no more: +their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter’s tempests +would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might +be said to form one tree—a ruin, but an entire ruin. + +“You did right to hold fast to each other,” I said: as if the +monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me. “I think, +scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little +sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, +honest roots: you will never have green leaves more—never more see +birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of +pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of +you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.” As I looked up +at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which +filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she +seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself +again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a +second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a +wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again. + +Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples +with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn; then I +employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them +into the house and put them away in the store-room. Then I repaired to +the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, +I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a +cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some +time, and burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner: I +wheeled the table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles +brought in ready for lighting. More restless than ever, when I had +completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in +the house: a little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the +hall simultaneously struck ten. + +“How late it grows!” I said. “I will run down to the gates: it is +moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be +coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.” + +The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but +the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all +still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at +intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried +by one moving speck. + +A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked—a tear of disappointment +and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I lingered; the moon +shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of +dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale. + +“I wish he would come! I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with +hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before tea; now it +was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened? The event of +last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a warning of +disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had +enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its +meridian, and must now decline. + +“Well, I cannot return to the house,” I thought; “I cannot sit by the +fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire my limbs +than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him.” + +I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of +a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a +dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he: here he +was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the moon had +opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright: he took +his hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet him. + +“There!” he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the +saddle: “You can’t do without me, that is evident. Step on my boot-toe; +give me both hands: mount!” + +I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty kissing I +got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well +as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, “But is +there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an +hour? Is there anything wrong?” + +“No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait in +the house for you, especially with this rain and wind.” + +“Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my +cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your cheek +and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the matter?” + +“Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy.” + +“Then you have been both?” + +“Rather: but I’ll tell you all about it by-and-by, sir; and I daresay +you will only laugh at me for my pains.” + +“I’ll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare +not: my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as slippery as +an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I could not lay +a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up +a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold to seek your +shepherd, did you, Jane?” + +“I wanted you: but don’t boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now let me +get down.” + +He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he followed +me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put something dry on, +and then return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for +the staircase, to extort a promise that I would not be long: nor was I +long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I found him at supper. + +“Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the last meal +but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time.” + +I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat. + +“Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane? Is +it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?” + +“I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know +what thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal.” + +“Except me: I am substantial enough—touch me.” + +“You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.” + +He held out his hand, laughing. “Is that a dream?” said he, placing it +close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as +well as a long, strong arm. + +“Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream,” said I, as I put it down from +before my face. “Sir, have you finished supper?” + +“Yes, Jane.” + +I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again alone, I +stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master’s knee. + +“It is near midnight,” I said. + +“Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before +my wedding.” + +“I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least: I have +no wish to go to bed.” + +“Are all your arrangements complete?” + +“All, sir.” + +“And on my part likewise,” he returned, “I have settled everything; and +we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half-an-hour after our +return from church.” + +“Very well, sir.” + +“With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word—‘very well,’ +Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how +strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?” + +“I believe I am.” + +“Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel.” + +“I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this +present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may +come charged?” + +“This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or +over-fatigued.” + +“Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?” + +“Calm?—no: but happy—to the heart’s core.” + +I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was +ardent and flushed. + +“Give me your confidence, Jane,” he said: “relieve your mind of any +weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?—that +I shall not prove a good husband?” + +“It is the idea farthest from my thoughts.” + +“Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?—of the +new life into which you are passing?” + +“No.” + +“You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex +and pain me. I want an explanation.” + +“Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?” + +“I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had +happened in my absence:—nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in +short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said +something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk?—your +sensitive self-respect has been wounded?” + +“No, sir.” It struck twelve—I waited till the time-piece had concluded +its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then +I proceeded. + +“All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless +bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting +fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to +have the hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don’t +caress me now—let me talk undisturbed. Yesterday I trusted well in +Providence, and believed that events were working together for your +good and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect—the calmness of the +air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on +your journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, +thinking of you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely +missed your actual presence. I thought of the life that lay before +me—_your_ life, sir—an existence more expansive and stirring than my +own: as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs +are than the shallows of its own strait channel. I wondered why +moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like +a rose. Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went +in, Sophie called me upstairs to look at my wedding-dress, which they +had just brought; and under it in the box I found your present—the veil +which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London: +resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into +accepting something as costly. I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised +how I would tease you about your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts +to masque your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought +how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had +myself prepared as a covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was +not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither +fortune, beauty, nor connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and +heard your impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of +any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your +standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet.” + +“How well you read me, you witch!” interposed Mr. Rochester: “but what +did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find poison, +or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?” + +“No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found +nothing save Fairfax Rochester’s pride; and that did not scare me, +because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it grew dark, +the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now—wild and +high—but ‘with a sullen, moaning sound’ far more eerie. I wished you +were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair +and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went to bed, I +could not sleep—a sense of anxious excitement distressed me. The gale +still rising seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; +whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it +recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it +must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it ceased. On +sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and gusty night. I +continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, +regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During all my +first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road; total +obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge +of a little child: a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, +and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear. I +thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I +strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to +utter your name and entreat you to stop—but my movements were fettered, +and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew +farther and farther every moment.” + +“And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to +you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and think only of +real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes—I will not forget that; +and you cannot deny it. _Those_ words did not die inarticulate on your +lips. I heard them clear and soft: a thought too solemn perhaps, but +sweet as music—‘I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of +living with you, Edward, because I love you.’ Do you love me, +Jane?—repeat it.” + +“I do, sir—I do, with my whole heart.” + +“Well,” he said, after some minutes’ silence, “it is strange; but that +sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because you +said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward +gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is +too much as if some spirit were near me. Look wicked, Jane: as you know +well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me +you hate me—tease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather +be incensed than saddened.” + +“I will tease you and vex you to your heart’s content, when I have +finished my tale: but hear me to the end.” + +“I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the source +of your melancholy in a dream.” + +I shook my head. “What! is there more? But I will not believe it to be +anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on.” + +The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his +manner, surprised me: but I proceeded. + +“I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, +the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the stately front +nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very +fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the +grass-grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and +there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl, I still +carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down anywhere, +however tired were my arms—however much its weight impeded my progress, +I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the +road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and +for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous +haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones +rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the +child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I +gained the summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening +every moment. The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I sat down on +the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an +angle of the road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall +crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my +balance, fell, and woke.” + +“Now, Jane, that is all.” + +“All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a gleam +dazzled my eyes; I thought—Oh, it is daylight! But I was mistaken; it +was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a +light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before +going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard +a rustling there. I asked, ‘Sophie, what are you doing?’ No one +answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held +it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau. +‘Sophie! Sophie!’ I again cried: and still it was silent. I had risen +up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then bewilderment, came over +me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins. Mr. Rochester, this +was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax: it was +not—no, I was sure of it, and am still—it was not even that strange +woman, Grace Poole.” + +“It must have been one of them,” interrupted my master. + +“No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing +before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield +Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me.” + +“Describe it, Jane.” + +“It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair +hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was +white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell.” + +“Did you see her face?” + +“Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held +it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and +turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage +and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass.” + +“And how were they?” + +“Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was +a discoloured face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll +of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!” + +“Ghosts are usually pale, Jane.” + +“This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow +furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. +Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?” + +“You may.” + +“Of the foul German spectre—the Vampyre.” + +“Ah!—what did it do?” + +“Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and +flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.” + + +It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and +flinging both on the floor, trampled on them + +“Afterwards?” + +“It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn +approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at +my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me—she +thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my +eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost +consciousness: for the second time in my life—only the second time—I +became insensible from terror.” + +“Who was with you when you revived?” + +“No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in +water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill, +and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now, +sir, tell me who and what that woman was?” + +“The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I must be +careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made for rough +handling.” + +“Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: +the transaction actually took place.” + +“And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a +ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you +without a tear—without a kiss—without a word?” + +“Not yet.” + +“Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to +bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no +recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that.” + +“Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such: I +wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to me the +mystery of that awful visitant.” + +“And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal.” + +“But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I +looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful +aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there—on the carpet—I +saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,—the veil, torn from +top to bottom in two halves!” + +I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round +me. “Thank God!” he exclaimed, “that if anything malignant did come +near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to think +what might have happened!” + +He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I could +scarcely pant. After some minutes’ silence, he continued, cheerily— + +“Now, Janet, I’ll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half +reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman +was—must have been—Grace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself: +from all you know, you have reason so to call her—what did she do to +me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed +her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you +were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: +the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated +stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the +spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her. I see you +would ask why I keep such a woman in my house: when we have been +married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not now. Are you +satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the mystery?” + +I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one: +satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear +so—relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented +smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him. + +“Does not Sophie sleep with Adèle in the nursery?” he asked, as I lit +my candle. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And there is room enough in Adèle’s little bed for you. You must share +it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident you have +related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep +alone: promise me to go to the nursery.” + +“I shall be very glad to do so, sir.” + +“And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you go +upstairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good time +to-morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast before +eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care away, Janet. +Don’t you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen? and there is +no more beating of rain against the window-panes: look here” (he lifted +up the curtain)—“it is a lovely night!” + +It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping +before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing off +eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully. + +“Well,” said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, “how is my +Janet now?” + +“The night is serene, sir; and so am I.” + +“And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of happy +love and blissful union.” + +This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of +sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all. +With little Adèle in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood—so +tranquil, so passionless, so innocent—and waited for the coming day: +all my life was awake and astir in my frame: and as soon as the sun +rose I rose too. I remember Adèle clung to me as I left her: I remember +I kissed her as I loosened her little hands from my neck; and I cried +over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I feared my sobs +would break her still sound repose. She seemed the emblem of my past +life; and he, I was now to array myself to meet, the dread, but adored, +type of my unknown future day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Sophie came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in +accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose, +impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just +fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my hair with +a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could. + +“Stop!” she cried in French. “Look at yourself in the mirror: you have +not taken one peep.” + +So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my +usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. “Jane!” +called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the +stairs by Mr. Rochester. + +“Lingerer!” he said, “my brain is on fire with impatience, and you +tarry so long!” + +He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over, +pronounced me “fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but +the desire of his eyes,” and then telling me he would give me but ten +minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately +hired servants, a footman, answered it. + +“Is John getting the carriage ready?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Is the luggage brought down?” + +“They are bringing it down, sir.” + +“Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk +are there: return and tell me.” + +The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the +footman soon returned. + +“Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice.” + +“And the carriage?” + +“The horses are harnessing.” + +“We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the moment +we return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped on, and the +coachman in his seat.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Jane, are you ready?” + +I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait +for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the +hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was +held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly +follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester’s face was to feel that not a +second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other +bridegroom ever looked as he did—so bent up to a purpose, so grimly +resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such +flaming and flashing eyes. + +I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I +gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both +seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester’s frame. I wanted to see the +invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a +glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he +seemed breasting and resisting. + +At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of +breath. “Am I cruel in my love?” he said. “Delay an instant: lean on +me, Jane.” + +And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising +calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy +morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green +grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of +strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the mementoes +graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them, because, as they +saw us, they passed round to the back of the church; and I doubted not +they were going to enter by the side-aisle door and witness the +ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly +looking at my face, from which the blood had, I daresay, momentarily +fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I +rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the path to the +porch. + +We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white +surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two +shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: +the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault +of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails +the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the +remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the +civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife. + +Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step +behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers—a +gentleman, evidently—was advancing up the chancel. The service began. +The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then +the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly +towards Mr. Rochester, went on. + +“I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day +of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that +if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined +together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured +that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth +allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony +lawful.” + +He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever +broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the +clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his +breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched +towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, “Wilt thou have +this woman for thy wedded wife?”—when a distinct and near voice said— + +“The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment.” + +The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did +the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled +under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or +eyes, he said, “Proceed.” + +Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low +intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said— + +“I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been +asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood.” + +“The ceremony is quite broken off,” subjoined the voice behind us. “I +am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to +this marriage exists.” + +Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, +making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and +strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale, firm, +massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and +yet wild beneath! + +Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. “What is the nature of the impediment?” he +asked. “Perhaps it may be got over—explained away?” + +“Hardly,” was the answer. “I have called it insuperable, and I speak +advisedly.” + +The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, +uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly— + +“It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. +Rochester has a wife now living.” + +My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated +to thunder—my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt +frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I +looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was +colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed +nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, +without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he +only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side. + +“Who are you?” he asked of the intruder. + +“My name is Briggs, a solicitor of —— Street, London.” + +“And you would thrust on me a wife?” + +“I would remind you of your lady’s existence, sir, which the law +recognises, if you do not.” + +“Favour me with an account of her—with her name, her parentage, her +place of abode.” + +“Certainly.” Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read +out in a sort of official, nasal voice:— + +“‘I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D. —— (a date of +fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in +the county of ——, and of Ferndean Manor, in ——shire, England, was +married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, +merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at —— church, Spanish +Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register +of that church—a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard +Mason.’” + +“That—if a genuine document—may prove I have been married, but it does +not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living.” + +“She was living three months ago,” returned the lawyer. + +“How do you know?” + +“I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will +scarcely controvert.” + +“Produce him—or go to hell.” + +“I will produce him first—he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the +goodness to step forward.” + +Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, +a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the +spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame. The second +stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a +pale face looked over the solicitor’s shoulder—yes, it was Mason +himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have +often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in +its gloom; and his face flushed—olive cheek and hueless forehead +received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he +stirred, lifted his strong arm—he could have struck Mason, dashed him +on the church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his +body—but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, “Good God!” Contempt +fell cool on Mr. Rochester—his passion died as if a blight had +shrivelled it up: he only asked—“What have _you_ to say?” + +An inaudible reply escaped Mason’s white lips. + +“The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, +what have _you_ to say?” + +“Sir—sir,” interrupted the clergyman, “do not forget you are in a +sacred place.” Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, “Are you +aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman’s wife is still living?” + +“Courage,” urged the lawyer,—“speak out.” + +“She is now living at Thornfield Hall,” said Mason, in more articulate +tones: “I saw her there last April. I am her brother.” + +“At Thornfield Hall!” ejaculated the clergyman. “Impossible! I am an +old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs. +Rochester at Thornfield Hall.” + +I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester’s lips, and he muttered— + +“No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it—or of her under +that name.” He mused—for ten minutes he held counsel with himself: he +formed his resolve, and announced it— + +“Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel. +Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green (to the +clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day.” The man +obeyed. + +Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: “Bigamy is an ugly +word!—I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred +me, or Providence has checked me,—perhaps the last. I am little better +than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, +deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless +fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up:—what this +lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman +to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. +Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a +time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept +there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my +bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that +she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago,—Bertha Mason by name; +sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs +and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer +up, Dick!—never fear me!—I’d almost as soon strike a woman as you. +Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs +through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman +and a drunkard!—as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they +were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, +copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner—pure, wise, +modest: you can fancy I was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! +Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you +no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come +up to the house and visit Mrs. Poole’s patient, and _my wife_! You +shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge +whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy +with something at least human. This girl,” he continued, looking at me, +“knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all +was fair and legal; and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into +a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, +and embruted partner! Come all of you—follow!” + +Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came +after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage. + +“Take it back to the coach-house, John,” said Mr. Rochester coolly; “it +will not be wanted to-day.” + +At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adèle, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet +and greet us. + +“To the right-about—every soul!” cried the master; “away with your +congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!—they are fifteen years too +late!” + +He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still +beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We mounted the +first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey: +the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester’s master-key, admitted us +to the tapestried room, with its great bed and its pictorial cabinet. + +“You know this place, Mason,” said our guide; “she bit and stabbed you +here.” + +He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this, +too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a fire guarded +by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a +chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in +a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure +ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, +one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all +fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it +was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild +as a mane, hid its head and face. + +“Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!” said Mr. Rochester. “How are you? and how is +your charge to-day?” + +“We’re tolerable, sir, I thank you,” replied Grace, lifting the boiling +mess carefully on to the hob: “rather snappish, but not ’rageous.” + +A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the +clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet. + +“Ah! sir, she sees you!” exclaimed Grace: “you’d better not stay.” + +“Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments.” + +“Take care then, sir!—for God’s sake, take care!” + +The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and +gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,—those +bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced. + +“Keep out of the way,” said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside: “she +has no knife now, I suppose, and I’m on my guard.” + +“One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in +mortal discretion to fathom her craft.” + +“We had better leave her,” whispered Mason. + +“Go to the devil!” was his brother-in-law’s recommendation. + +“’Ware!” cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. +Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his +throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She +was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent +besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she +almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her +with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only +wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and +he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he +bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest +yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the +spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate. + +“That is _my wife_,” said he. “Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am +ever to know—such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure +hours! And _this_ is what I wished to have” (laying his hand on my +shoulder): “this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth +of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her +just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the +difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this +face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of +the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge +ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize.” + +We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some +further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he +descended the stair. + +“You, madam,” said he, “are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be +glad to hear it—if, indeed, he should be still living—when Mr. Mason +returns to Madeira.” + +“My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?” + +“Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his +house for some years. When your uncle received your letter intimating +the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, +who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to +Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; +for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the +name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed as you may +suppose, revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to +say, is now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his +disease—decline—and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will +ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate +you from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason +to lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He +referred him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful +I was not too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally +certain that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would +advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had +better remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of +Mr. Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?” he inquired of Mr. Mason. + +“No, no—let us be gone,” was the anxious reply; and without waiting to +take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall door. The +clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or +reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he too departed. + +I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to +which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in, +fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded—not to weep, +not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but—mechanically to take off +the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn +yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt +weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on +them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, +moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event +rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but _now_, _I +thought_. + +The morning had been a quiet morning enough—all except the brief scene +with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; +there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no +defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, +a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short +questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence +adduced; an open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; +then the living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all +was over. + +I was in my own room as usual—just myself, without obvious change: +nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was +the Jane Eyre of yesterday?—where was her life?—where were her +prospects? + +Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman—almost a bride, was +a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were +desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December +storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed +the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes +which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with +untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and +fragrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and +white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead—struck +with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born +in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so +blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could +never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my +master’s—which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a +suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; +it could not seek Mr. Rochester’s arms—it could not derive warmth from +his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was +blighted—confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had +been; for he was not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice +to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of +stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must +go: _that_ I perceived well. When—how—whither, I could not yet discern; +but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real +affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful +passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear even +to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind +had been my eyes! How weak my conduct! + +My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round +me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. +Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down +in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in +remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to +flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only +still throbbed life-like within me—a remembrance of God: it begot an +unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless +mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to +express them— + +“Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.” + +It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it—as I +had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips—it +came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole +consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith +death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That +bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, “the waters came into my +soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; +the floods overflowed me.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and +seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I +asked, “What am I to do?” + +But the answer my mind gave—“Leave Thornfield at once”—was so prompt, +so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words +now. “That I am not Edward Rochester’s bride is the least part of my +woe,” I alleged: “that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and +found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but +that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I +cannot do it.” + +But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold +that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be +weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw +laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the +throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in +the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her +down to unsounded depths of agony. + +“Let me be torn away, then” I cried. “Let another help me!” + +“No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall +yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: +your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.” + +I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a +judge haunted,—at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head +swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from excitement +and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for +I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected +that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask +how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adèle had +tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. “Friends +always forget those whom fortune forsakes,” I murmured, as I undrew the +bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still +dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon +recover myself. I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm +caught me. I looked up—I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a +chair across my chamber threshold. + +“You come out at last,” he said. “Well, I have been waiting for you +long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: +five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the +lock like a burglar. So you shun me?—you shut yourself up and grieve +alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You +are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the +hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a +senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I +err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but +no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood? + +“Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter—nothing poignant? +Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I +have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look. + +“Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one +little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his +bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake +slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody +blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?” + +Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such +deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy +in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole +look and mien—I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only +at my heart’s core. + +“You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?” ere long he inquired +wistfully—wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness, +the result rather of weakness than of will. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Then tell me so roundly and sharply—don’t spare me.” + +“I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water.” He heaved a sort of +shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me downstairs. At +first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my +glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, +summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber. He put wine to +my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, +and was soon myself. I was in the library—sitting in his chair—he was +quite near. “If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, +it would be well for me,” I thought; “then I should not have to make +the effort of cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. +Rochester’s. I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him—I +cannot leave him.” + +“How are you now, Jane?” + +“Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.” + +“Taste the wine again, Jane.” + +I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and +looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an inarticulate +exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast +through the room and came back; he stooped towards me as if to kiss me; +but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I turned my face away and +put his aside. + +“What!—How is this?” he exclaimed hastily. “Oh, I know! you won’t kiss +the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled and my +embraces appropriated?” + +“At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.” + +“Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer +for you—Because I have a wife already, you would reply.—I guess +rightly?” + +“Yes.” + +“If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must +regard me as a plotting profligate—a base and low rake who has been +simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare +deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect. +What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in the first place, +you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the +second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, +and besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush +out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to +upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking how _to act_—_talking_ you +consider is of no use. I know you—I am on my guard.” + +“Sir, I do not wish to act against you,” I said; and my unsteady voice +warned me to curtail my sentence. + +“Not in _your_ sense of the word, but in _mine_ you are scheming to +destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man—as a +married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have +refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to +me: to live under this roof only as Adèle’s governess; if ever I say a +friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to +me, you will say,—‘That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be +ice and rock to him;’ and ice and rock you will accordingly become.” + +I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: “All is changed about me, +sir; I must change too—there is no doubt of that; and to avoid +fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections and +associations, there is only one way—Adèle must have a new governess, +sir.” + +“Oh, Adèle will go to school—I have settled that already; nor do I mean +to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of +Thornfield Hall—this accursed place—this tent of Achan—this insolent +vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the light of the +open sky—this narrow stone hell, with its one real fiend, worse than a +legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall not stay here, nor will +I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did +how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever +saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I +feared Adèle never would have a governess to stay if she knew with what +inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the +maniac elsewhere—though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even +more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely +enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in +the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement. +Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but +to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect +assassination, even of what I most hate. + +“Concealing the mad-woman’s neighbourhood from you, however, was +something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a +upas-tree: that demon’s vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I’ll +shut up Thornfield Hall: I’ll nail up the front door and board the +lower windows: I’ll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here +with _my wife_, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for +money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to +bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when +_my wife_ is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at +night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on—” + +“Sir,” I interrupted him, “you are inexorable for that unfortunate +lady: you speak of her with hate—with vindictive antipathy. It is +cruel—she cannot help being mad.” + +“Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you +don’t know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not +because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should +hate you?” + +“I do indeed, sir.” + +“Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing +about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh +is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be +dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my +treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a +strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: +if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should +receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. +I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your +quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I +could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no +smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they +had no longer a ray of recognition for me.—But why do I follow that +train of ideas? I was talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you +know, is prepared for prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only +ask you to endure one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, +farewell to its miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair +to, which will be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from +unwelcome intrusion—even from falsehood and slander.” + +“And take Adèle with you, sir,” I interrupted; “she will be a companion +for you.” + +“What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adèle to school; and +what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own child,—a +French dancer’s bastard? Why do you importune me about her! I say, why +do you assign Adèle to me for a companion?” + +“You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are dull: +too dull for you.” + +“Solitude! solitude!” he reiterated with irritation. “I see I must come +to an explanation. I don’t know what sphynx-like expression is forming +in your countenance. _You_ are to share my solitude. Do you +understand?” + +I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was +becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking +fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot. +He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on +the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet, collected aspect. + +“Now for the hitch in Jane’s character,” he said at last, speaking more +calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. “The reel of +silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come +a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, +and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a fraction of Samson’s +strength, and break the entanglement like tow!” + +He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just +before me. + +“Jane! will you hear reason?” (he stooped and approached his lips to my +ear); “because, if you won’t, I’ll try violence.” His voice was hoarse; +his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond +and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, +and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing +with him. The present—the passing second of time—was all I had in which +to control and restrain him: a movement of repulsion, flight, fear +would have sealed my doom,—and his. But I was not afraid: not in the +least. I felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported +me. The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the +Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe. I +took hold of his clenched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and +said to him, soothingly— + +“Sit down; I’ll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have +to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable.” + +He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been +struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to repress +them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I +considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they +liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave way and +cried heartily. + +Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could +not while he was in such a passion. + +“But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had +steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I +could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes.” + +His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn, +became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder, but +I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no. + +“Jane! Jane!” he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it thrilled +along every nerve I had; “you don’t love me, then? It was only my +station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that you think +me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if +I were some toad or ape.” + +These words cut me: yet what could I do or I say? I ought probably to +have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse +at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop balm +where I had wounded. + +“I _do_ love you,” I said, “more than ever: but I must not show or +indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it.” + +“The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me, and see +me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and distant?” + +“No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see there is +but one way: but you will be furious if I mention it.” + +“Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.” + +“For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your +hair—which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face—which looks +feverish?” + +“I must leave Adèle and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole +life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange +scenes.” + +“Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about +parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new +existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married. +You shall be Mrs. Rochester—both virtually and nominally. I shall keep +only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have +in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the +Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most +innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error—to make +you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be +reasonable, or in truth I shall again become frantic.” + +His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye +blazed: still I dared to speak. + +“Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by +yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your +mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical—is false.” + +“Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man—you forget that: I am not +long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and +yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and—beware!” + +He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his +cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands. +To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: +to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do +instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity—looked for aid to +one higher than man: the words “God help me!” burst involuntarily from +my lips. + +“I am a fool!” cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. “I keep telling her I am +not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing +of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my +infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in +opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand in mine, +Janet—that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove +you are near me—and I will in a few words show you the real state of +the case. Can you listen to me?” + +“Yes, sir; for hours if you will.” + +“I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not the +eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?” + +“I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once.” + +“And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?” + +“I have understood something to that effect.” + +“Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property +together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and leaving +me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Rowland. +Yet as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I +must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought me a partner +betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old +acquaintance. He was certain his possessions were real and vast: he +made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and daughter; and he +learned from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of +thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent +out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father +said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast +of Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine +woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her +family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did +she. They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw +her alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She +flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and +accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and +envy me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being +ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no +folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, +the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its +commission. Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she +allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. +Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act!—an agony of +inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not +even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her +nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor +refinement in her mind or manners—and, I married her:—gross, +grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might +have—But let me remember to whom I am speaking. + +“My bride’s mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The +honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in +a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too—a complete dumb +idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, +whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of affection +in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his +wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore me), +will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my brother +Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty thousand +pounds, and joined in the plot against me. + +“These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of +concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, +even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious +to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable +of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I +found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of +the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be +sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately +received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and +imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled +household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her +violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, +contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself: I +eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my +repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I +felt. + +“Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some strong +words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman +upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her +character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices +sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check +them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and +what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those propensities +entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, +dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must +attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste. + +“My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years +my father died too. I was rich enough now—yet poor to hideous +indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was +associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of +me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the +doctors now discovered that _my wife_ was mad—her excesses had +prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don’t like my +narrative; you look almost sick—shall I defer the rest to another day?” + +“No, sir, finish it now; I pity you—I do earnestly pity you.” + +“Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of +tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those +who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish +hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed +with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not +your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full +at this moment—with which your eyes are now almost overflowing—with +which your heart is heaving—with which your hand is trembling in mine. +Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is +the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the +daughter have free advent—my arms wait to receive her.” + +“Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?” + +“Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect was +all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the world, +I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to be +clean in my own sight—and to the last I repudiated the contamination of +her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection with her mental +defects. Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet +saw her and heard her daily: something of her breath (faugh!) mixed +with the air I breathed; and besides, I remembered I had once been her +husband—that recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to +me; moreover, I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband +of another and better wife; and, though five years my senior (her +family and her father had lied to me even in the particular of her +age), she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as +she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless. + +“One night I had been awakened by her yells—(since the medical men had +pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)—it was a fiery +West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the +hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up +and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-steams—I could find no +refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly +round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull +like an earthquake—black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was +setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball—she threw +her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of +tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and +my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; +wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, +with such language!—no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary +than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word—the thin partitions +of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish +cries. + +“‘This life,’ said I at last, ‘is hell: this is the air—those are the +sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it +if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the +heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic’s burning eternity +I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present +one—let me break away, and go home to God!’ + +“I said this whilst I knelt down at and unlocked a trunk which +contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only +entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the +crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the +wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second. + +“A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the +open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the +air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I walked +under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its +drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of +the tropics kindled round me—I reasoned thus, Jane—and now listen; for +it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the +right path to follow. + +“The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed +leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, +dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled +with living blood—my being longed for renewal—my soul thirsted for a +pure draught. I saw hope revive—and felt regeneration possible. From a +flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea—bluer than +the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus:— + +“‘Go,’ said Hope, ‘and live again in Europe: there it is not known what +a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You +may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due +attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what +clime you will, and form what new tie you like. That woman, who has so +abused your long-suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your +honour, so blighted your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her +husband. See that she is cared for as her condition demands, and you +have done all that God and humanity require of you. Let her identity, +her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion: you are bound to +impart them to no living being. Place her in safety and comfort: +shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave her.’ + +“I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not +made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very +first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union—having already begun +to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family +character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me—I +added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous +conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make +him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to +publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself. + +“To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a +monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, +and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room, of whose secret +inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den—a +goblin’s cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as +it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be +placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she +had lucid intervals of days—sometimes weeks—which she filled up with +abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimbsy Retreat. She +and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason’s wounds that night he was +stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my +confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she +could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the +whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her +own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to +her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled +and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never +failed to take advantage of her guardian’s temporary lapses; once to +secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to +possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the +night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the +attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly +visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she then +spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought back +vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might have +happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing which +flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet visage +over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles—” + +“And what, sir,” I asked, while he paused, “did you do when you had +settled her here? Where did you go?” + +“What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o’-the-wisp. +Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the +March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its +lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent +woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield—” + +“But you could not marry, sir.” + +“I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not +my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to +tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it appeared to +me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and +be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to +understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I +was burdened.” + +“Well, sir?” + +“When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open +your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless +movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and +you wanted to read the tablet of one’s heart. But before I go on, tell +me what you mean by your ‘Well, sir?’ It is a small phrase very +frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on through +interminable talk: I don’t very well know why.” + +“I mean,—What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an event?” + +“Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?” + +“Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry +you; and what she said.” + +“I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked +her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of +Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, +then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; +occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with plenty of +money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: +no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman amongst +English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and German +gräfinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I +thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form, which announced +the realisation of my dream: but I was presently undeceived. You are +not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I +longed only for what suited me—for the antipodes of the Creole: and I +longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one whom, had I been ever +so free, I—warned as I was of the risks, the horrors, the loathings of +incongruous unions—would have asked to marry me. Disappointment made me +reckless. I tried dissipation—never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. +That was my Indian Messalina’s attribute: rooted disgust at it and her +restrained me much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on +riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it. + +“Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of +mistresses. The first I chose was Céline Varens—another of those steps +which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know +what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two +successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered +singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? +Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months. +Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible: not +one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set +her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her. But, +Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion +of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake: don’t +you?” + +“I don’t like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir. Did it +not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first with one +mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course.” + +“It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of +existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is +the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and +always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is +degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with +Céline, Giacinta, and Clara.” + +I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain +inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching +that had ever been instilled into me, as—under any pretext—with any +justification—through any temptation—to become the successor of these +poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now +in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this +conviction: it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that +it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial. + +“Now, Jane, why don’t you say ‘Well, sir?’ I have not done. You are +looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to +the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses—in a harsh, bitter frame +of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life—corroded with +disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against +all _woman_kind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, +faithful, loving woman as a mere dream), recalled by business, I came +back to England. + +“On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. +Abhorred spot! I expected no peace—no pleasure there. On a stile in Hay +Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as +negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no +presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the +arbitress of my life—my genius for good or evil—waited there in humble +guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour’s +accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender +creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed +to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly; but the thing would not go: +it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a +sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand: and aided I was. + +“When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new—a fresh sap +and sense—stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf +must return to me—that it belonged to my house down below—or I could +not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish +behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come home +that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of +you or watched for you. The next day I observed you—myself unseen—for +half-an-hour, while you played with Adèle in the gallery. It was a +snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my +room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and watch. Adèle claimed +your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied your thoughts were +elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you +talked to her and amused her a long time. When at last she left you, +you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to +pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out +at the thick-falling snow; you listened to the sobbing wind, and again +you paced gently on and dreamed. I think those day visions were not +dark: there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a +soft excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, +hypochondriac brooding: your look revealed rather the sweet musings of +youth when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up +and on to an ideal heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a +servant in the hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and +at yourself, Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very +shrewd, and seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to +say—‘My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are +absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my +brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract +to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.’ You ran +downstairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the weekly +house accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think it was. I +was vexed with you for getting out of my sight. + +“Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my +presence. An unusual—to me—a perfectly new character I suspected was +yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered +the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were +quaintly dressed—much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I found +you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by +rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined +by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of +making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or +blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing +eye to your interlocutor’s face: there was penetration and power in +each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready +and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me: I believe +you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross +master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain +pleasant ease tranquillised your manner: snarl as I would, you showed +no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you +watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious +grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what +I saw: I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long +time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an +intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making +this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while +troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its +bloom would fade—the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I did not +then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant +resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to +see whether you would seek me if I shunned you—but you did not; you +kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and easel; if by +chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as little token of +recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual expression +in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, for you +were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no +actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me, or if you ever +thought of me, and resolved to find this out. + +“I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, +and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a social +heart; it was the silent schoolroom—it was the tedium of your life—that +made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; +kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became soft in expression, +your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a +grateful happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, +at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your manner: you +glanced at me with a slight trouble—a hovering doubt: you did not know +what my caprice might be—whether I was going to play the master and be +stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often +to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out +cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young, wistful +features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to +my heart.” + +“Don’t talk any more of those days, sir,” I interrupted, furtively +dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to me; +for I knew what I must do—and do soon—and all these reminiscences, and +these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult. + +“No, Jane,” he returned: “what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, +when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?” + +I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion. + +“You see now how the case stands—do you not?” he continued. “After a +youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary +solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have +found _you_. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel. I am +bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, +lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans +to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence +about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in +one. + +“It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To +tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I +had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I +feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early +instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding +confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your +nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now—opened to you plainly +my life of agony—described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher +and worthier existence—shown to you, not my _resolution_ (that word is +weak), but my resistless _bent_ to love faithfully and well, where I am +faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to +accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane—give it me +now.” + +A pause. + +“Why are you silent, Jane?” + +I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. +Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human +being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; +and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce +love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty—“Depart!” + +“Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise—‘I will be +yours, Mr. Rochester.’” + +“Mr. Rochester, I will _not_ be yours.” + +Another long silence. + +“Jane!” recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with +grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror—for this still +voice was the pant of a lion rising—“Jane, do you mean to go one way in +the world, and to let me go another?” + +“I do.” + +“Jane” (bending towards and embracing me), “do you mean it now?” + +“I do.” + +“And now?” softly kissing my forehead and cheek. + +“I do,” extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely. + +“Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This—this is wicked. It would not be wicked +to love me.” + +“It would to obey you.” + +A wild look raised his brows—crossed his features: he rose; but he +forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I +shook, I feared—but I resolved. + +“One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are +gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For +a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to +some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for +a companion and for some hope?” + +“Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet +again there.” + +“Then you will not yield?” + +“No.” + +“Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?” His voice +rose. + +“I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.” + +“Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust +for a passion—vice for an occupation?” + +“Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it +for myself. We were born to strive and endure—you as well as I: do so. +You will forget me before I forget you.” + +“You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I +could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what +a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is +proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to +despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by +the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you +need fear to offend by living with me?” + +This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned +traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They +spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, +comply!” it said. “Think of his misery; think of his danger—look at his +state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the +recklessness following on despair—soothe him; save him; love him; tell +him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for _you_? or +who will be injured by what you do?” + +Still indomitable was the reply—“_I_ care for myself. The more +solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I +will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by +man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and +not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when +there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body +and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; +inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break +them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always +believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am +insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating +faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone +determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant +my foot.” + +I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His +fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment, +whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped +my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I +felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and +glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the +certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an +interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter—in +the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I +gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed +strength almost exhausted. + +“Never,” said he, as he ground his teeth, “never was anything at once +so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!” (And he +shook me with the force of his hold.) “I could bend her with my finger +and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I +crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing +looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage—with a stern +triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it—the savage, +beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage +will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but +the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor +of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit—with will and energy, +and virtue and purity—that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of +yourself you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, +if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like +an essence—you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, +come!” + +As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me. +The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an +idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his +fury; I must elude his sorrow: I retired to the door. + +“You are going, Jane?” + +“I am going, sir.” + +“You are leaving me?” + +“Yes.” + +“You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep +love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?” + +What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate +firmly, “I am going.” + +“Jane!” + +“Mr. Rochester!” + +“Withdraw, then,—I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. +Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a +glance on my sufferings—think of me.” + +He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. “Oh, Jane! my +hope—my love—my life!” broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a +deep, strong sob. + +I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back—walked back +as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his +face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair +with my hand. + +“God bless you, my dear master!” I said. “God keep you from harm and +wrong—direct you, solace you—reward you well for your past kindness to +me.” + +“Little Jane’s love would have been my best reward,” he answered; +“without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love: +yes—nobly, generously.” + +Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; +erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at +once quitted the room. + +“Farewell!” was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, +“Farewell for ever!” + + +That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon +as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of +childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night +was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long +ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed +glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of +the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to +clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours +she is about to sever. I watched her come—watched with the strangest +anticipation; as though some word of doom were to be written on her +disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first +penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a +white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow +earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: +immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my +heart— + +“My daughter, flee temptation.” + +“Mother, I will.” + +So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It was yet +night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes. “It +cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil,” thought I. +I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew +where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a ring. In seeking +these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. +Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was +not mine: it was the visionary bride’s who had melted in air. The other +articles I made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings +(it was all I had), I put in my pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, +pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put +on yet, and stole from my room. + +“Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!” I whispered, as I glided past her door. +“Farewell, my darling Adèle!” I said, as I glanced towards the nursery. +No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to +deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening. + +I would have got past Mr. Rochester’s chamber without a pause; but my +heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was +forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking +restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I +listened. There was a heaven—a temporary heaven—in this room for me, if +I chose: I had but to go in and to say— + +“Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till +death,” and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of +this. + +That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience +for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He +would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his +love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of +this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided +on. + +Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did +it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I +sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the +lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to +walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. +All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut +it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed +and locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that +I departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield. + +A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the +contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but often +noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps. No +reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; +not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the +past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet—so deadly +sad—that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break +down my energy. The last was an awful blank: something like the world +when the deluge was gone by. + +I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I believe +it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on +when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to +rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out +to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers +that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the +disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I +thought of drear flight and homeless wandering—and oh! with agony I +thought of what I left. I could not help it. I thought of him now—in +his room—watching the sunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would +stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it +was not too late; I could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. +As yet my flight, I was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back and be +his comforter—his pride; his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. +Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment—far worse than my abandonment—how +it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when +I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it +farther in. Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful +to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of +my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I +had no solace from self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had +injured—wounded—left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I +could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on. As to my +own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled +the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way: +fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness, beginning inwardly, +extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I lay on the ground some +minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear—or hope—that +here I should die: but I was soon up; crawling forwards on my hands and +knees, and then again raised to my feet—as eager and as determined as +ever to reach the road. + +When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and +while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up and +lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver +named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no +connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said +thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to +make it do. He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the +vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way. + +Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never +shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May +you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in +that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the +instrument of evil to what you wholly love. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me +down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for the +sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the +world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this moment +I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of the +coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it +must remain; and now, I am absolutely destitute. + +Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set +up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more obvious at +a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its summit: the +nearest town to which these point is, according to the inscription, +distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From the well-known +names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a +north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain: this I +see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there are +waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The +population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these roads: +they stretch out east, west, north, and south—white, broad, lonely; +they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and wild to +their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and I wish no +eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing, lingering +here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost. I might be +questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound incredible and +excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society at this +moment—not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures are—none +that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me. I have no +relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and +ask repose. + +I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply +furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I +turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in +a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; +the crag protected my head: the sky was over that. + +Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread +that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might +discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it +was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man. +Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep +silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took +confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, +dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection. + +What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could +do nothing and go nowhere!—when a long way must yet be measured by my +weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation—when cold +charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant +sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale +could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved! + +I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the +summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled +just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; +no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she +loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only +mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. +To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother +would lodge me without money and without price. I had one morsel of +bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed +through at noon with a stray penny—my last coin. I saw ripe bilberries +gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a +handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if +not satisfied, appeased by this hermit’s meal. I said my evening +prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch. + + +I said my evening prayers + +Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were +buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for +the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over +me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was +not, at least at the commencement of the night, cold. + +My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It +plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It +trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter +pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird +with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain +attempts to seek him. + +Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was +come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for +the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but +certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest +scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His +worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, +His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for +Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty +Milky-way. Remembering what it was—what countless systems there swept +space like a soft trace of light—I felt the might and strength of God. +Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew +that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I +turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the +Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God’s, and by God +would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere +long in sleep forgot sorrow. + +But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little +birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime +of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried—when the long +morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky—I got +up, and I looked round me. + +What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading +moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I saw +a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet +bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that +I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I was +a human being, and had a human being’s wants: I must not linger where +there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the bed I +had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but this—that my Maker had +that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and +that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with +fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil +of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all +its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be +carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the +responsibility fulfilled. I set out. + +Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now +fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my +choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done +enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost +overpowered me—might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a +stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart +and limb—I heard a bell chime—a church bell. + +I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic +hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw +a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right hand was full of +pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran +zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the +sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of +wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden waggon labouring up +the hill, and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life +and human labour were near. I must struggle on: strive to live and bend +to toil like the rest. + +About two o’clock P.M. I entered the village. At the bottom of its one +street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window. +I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could perhaps regain +a degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The +wish to have some strength and some vigour returned to me as soon as I +was amongst my fellow-beings. I felt it would be degrading to faint +with hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could +offer in exchange for one of these rolls? I considered. I had a small +silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly +tell how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did +not know whether either of these articles would be accepted: probably +they would not; but I must try. + +I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed +person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How +could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter +the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves, +the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be absurd. I only +begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in +the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She +pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely urged to weep; but +conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained +it. Soon I asked her “if there were any dressmaker or plain-workwoman +in the village?” + +“Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for.” + +I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to face +with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a resource, +without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What? I must +apply somewhere. Where? + +“Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was +wanted?” + +“Nay; she couldn’t say.” + +“What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the people +do?” + +“Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver’s +needle-factory, and at the foundry.” + +“Did Mr. Oliver employ women?” + +“Nay; it was men’s work.” + +“And what do the women do?” + +“I knawn’t,” was the answer. “Some does one thing, and some another. +Poor folk mun get on as they can.” + +She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had I +to importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently +wanted. I took leave. + +I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the +right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see an +inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to +a little distance and returning again, for an hour or more. Much +exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I turned aside +into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed, +I was again on my feet, however, and again searching something—a +resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the +top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and +brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What business had I to approach +the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it +possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve +me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young +woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a +hopeless heart and fainting frame—a voice wretchedly low and +faltering—I asked if a servant was wanted here? + +“No,” said she; “we do not keep a servant.” + +“Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?” I +continued. “I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I want +some work: no matter what.” + +But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me: +besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my character, +position, tale. She shook her head, she “was sorry she could give me no +information,” and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly: but +it shut me out. If she had held it open a little longer, I believe I +should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low. + +I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no +prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate to +a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer +inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature’s +cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a +chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude—rest no rest—while the +vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side. + +I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I +wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim +to ask—no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime, the +afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and +starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I +hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a +garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was +the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where +they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the +clergyman for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman’s function to +help—at least with advice—those who wished to help themselves. I seemed +to have something like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing then my +courage, and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I +reached the house, and knocked at the kitchen-door. An old woman +opened: I asked was this the parsonage? + +“Yes.” + +“Was the clergyman in?” + +“No.” + +“Would he be in soon?” + +“No, he was gone from home.” + +“To a distance?” + +“Not so far—happen three mile. He had been called away by the sudden +death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very likely +stay there a fortnight longer.” + +“Was there any lady of the house?” + +“Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;” and of her, +reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was +sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away. + +Once more I took off my handkerchief—once more I thought of the cakes +of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one mouthful +to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face again to +the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others +were there besides the woman I ventured the request—“Would she give me +a roll for this handkerchief?” + +She looked at me with evident suspicion: “Nay, she never sold stuff i’ +that way.” + +Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. “How +could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?” she said. + +“Would she take my gloves?” + +“No! what could she do with them?” + +Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is +enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I +can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral +degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a +recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who +repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not +be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a +well-dressed beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was +employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? +Not, certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and +who knew nothing about my character. And as to the woman who would not +take my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if +the offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me +condense now. I am sick of the subject. + +A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which +the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I +stopped and said— + +“Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry.” He cast on +me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice +from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a +beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to +his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down +and ate it. + +I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the +wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest +broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed +near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my +quarters: no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards +morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask +me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I sought +work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did +food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl about +to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig trough. “Will you give me +that?” I asked. + + +“Will you give me that?” I asked + +She stared at me. “Mother!” she exclaimed, “there is a woman wants me +to give her these porridge.” + +“Well lass,” replied a voice within, “give it her if she’s a beggar. T’ +pig doesn’t want it.” + +The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it +ravenously. + +As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, +which I had been pursuing an hour or more. + +“My strength is quite failing me,” I said in a soliloquy. “I feel I +cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night? While +the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground? +I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me? But it will be +very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this +sense of desolation—this total prostration of hope. In all likelihood, +though, I should die before morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself +to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? +Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die +of want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, +Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid!—direct me!” + +My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had +strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The very +cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by cross-ways and +by-paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a +few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which +they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill. + +“Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented +road,” I reflected. “And far better that crows and ravens—if any ravens +there be in these regions—should pick my flesh from my bones, than that +they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper’s +grave.” + +To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to find +a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not +secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no +variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; +black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was getting, I +could still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light +and shade; for colour had faded with the daylight. + +My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge, +vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in +among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. “That is an _ignis +fatuus_,” was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It +burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. “Is +it, then, a bonfire just kindled?” I questioned. I watched to see +whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not +enlarge. “It may be a candle in a house,” I then conjectured; “but if +so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it within a +yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the door to have +it shut in my face.” + +And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground. I +lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and +died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to +the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still frost—the friendly +numbness of death—it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it; +but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence. I rose ere +long. + +The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain. I +tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it. It +led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been +impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the +height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my +faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it. + +Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I +approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the +light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of +trees—firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character +of their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I +drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out my +hand to feel the dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough stones +of a low wall—above it, something like palisades, and within, a high +and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed before +me: it was a gate—a wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it. On +each side stood a sable bush—holly or yew. + +Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house +rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone +nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared +it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out +the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small +latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the +growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered +thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set. The +aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been +deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of +foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I could see clearly a +room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with +pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a +glowing peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some +chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; +and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but +scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting a stocking. + +I noticed these objects cursorily only—in them there was nothing +extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth, +sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young, +graceful women—ladies in every point—sat, one in a low rocking-chair, +the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and +bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and +faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of +one girl—in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat. + +A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who were +they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the +table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and +cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I +gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call +them handsome—they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each +bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand +between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which +they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller +books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to +aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as silent as if all +the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so +hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock +tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the +click-click of the woman’s knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice +broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me. + +“Listen, Diana,” said one of the absorbed students; “Franz and old +Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream +from which he has awakened in terror—listen!” And in a low voice she +read something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it +was in an unknown tongue—neither French nor Latin. Whether it were +Greek or German I could not tell. + +“That is strong,” she said, when she had finished: “I relish it.” The +other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, +while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At a later +day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the +line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on +sounding brass to me—conveying no meaning:— + +“‘Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.’ Good! good!” +she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. “There you have a +dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a +hundred pages of fustian. ‘Ich wäge die Gedanken in der Schale meines +Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.’ I like it!” + +Both were again silent. + +“Is there ony country where they talk i’ that way?” asked the old +woman, looking up from her knitting. + +“Yes, Hannah—a far larger country than England, where they talk in no +other way.” + +“Well, for sure case, I knawn’t how they can understand t’ one t’other: +and if either o’ ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?” + +“We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all—for we +are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don’t speak German, and +we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.” + +“And what good does it do you?” + +“We mean to teach it some time—or at least the elements, as they say; +and then we shall get more money than we do now.” + +“Varry like: but give ower studying; ye’ve done enough for to-night.” + +“I think we have: at least I’m tired. Mary, are you?” + +“Mortally: after all, it’s tough work fagging away at a language with +no master but a lexicon.” + +“It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious +Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home.” + +“Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little +gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you +have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?” + +The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage: +soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back. + +“Ah, childer!” said she, “it fair troubles me to go into yond’ room +now: it looks so lonesome wi’ the chair empty and set back in a +corner.” + +She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked +sad now. + +“But he is in a better place,” continued Hannah: “we shouldn’t wish him +here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had.” + +“You say he never mentioned us?” inquired one of the ladies. + +“He hadn’t time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He +had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and +when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o’ ye to be sent for, +he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his +head the next day—that is, a fortnight sin’—and he went to sleep and +niver wakened: he wor a’most stark when your brother went into t’ +chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that’s t’ last o’ t’ old stock—for +ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them ’at’s gone; for +all your mother wor mich i’ your way, and a’most as book-learned. She +wor the pictur’ o’ ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father.” + +I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for +such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair +complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of +distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker +than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing +it; Mary’s pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana’s +duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck +ten. + +“Ye’ll want your supper, I am sure,” observed Hannah; “and so will Mr. +St. John when he comes in.” + +And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed +about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so +intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited +in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched +position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than +ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to +touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make them +believe in the truth of my wants and woes—to induce them to vouchsafe a +rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it +hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah +opened. + +“What do you want?” she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she +surveyed me by the light of the candle she held. + +“May I speak to your mistresses?” I said. + +“You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come +from?” + +“I am a stranger.” + +“What is your business here at this hour?” + +“I want a night’s shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of +bread to eat.” + +Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah’s face. “I’ll +give you a piece of bread,” she said, after a pause; “but we can’t take +in a vagrant to lodge. It isn’t likely.” + +“Do let me speak to your mistresses.” + +“No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about +now; it looks very ill.” + +“But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?” + +“Oh, I’ll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don’t +do wrong, that’s all. Here is a penny; now go—” + +“A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don’t +shut the door:—oh, don’t, for God’s sake!” + +“I must; the rain is driving in—” + +“Tell the young ladies. Let me see them—” + +“Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn’t +make such a noise. Move off.” + +“But I must die if I am turned away.” + +“Not you. I’m fear’d you have some ill plans agate, that bring you +about folk’s houses at this time o’ night. If you’ve any +followers—housebreakers or such like—anywhere near, you may tell them +we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, +and guns.” Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to +and bolted it within. + +This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering—a throe of true +despair—rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another +step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned—I wrung my +hands—I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last +hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation—this banishment +from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude +was gone—at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to +regain. + +“I can but die,” I said, “and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His +will in silence.” + +These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my +misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain +there—dumb and still. + +“All men must die,” said a voice quite close at hand; “but all are not +condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would +be if you perished here of want.” + +“Who or what speaks?” I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and +incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was +near—what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented +me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed +to the door. + +“Is it you, Mr. St. John?” cried Hannah. + +“Yes—yes; open quickly.” + +“Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come +in—your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad +folks about. There has been a beggar-woman—I declare she is not gone +yet!—laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say!” + +“Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your +duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and +listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case—I must at +least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the +house.” + + +Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman + +With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean, +bright kitchen—on the very hearth—trembling, sickening; conscious of an +aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two +ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing +at me. + +“St. John, who is it?” I heard one ask. + +“I cannot tell: I found her at the door,” was the reply. + +“She does look white,” said Hannah. + +“As white as clay or death,” was responded. “She will fall: let her +sit.” + +And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still +possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak. + +“Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she +is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!” + +“A mere spectre!” + +“Is she ill, or only famished?” + +“Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of +bread.” + +Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and +the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and +put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it, +and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too, +the same balm-like emotion spoke: “Try to eat.” + +“Yes—try,” repeated Mary gently; and Mary’s hand removed my sodden +bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at +first, eagerly soon. + +“Not too much at first—restrain her,” said the brother; “she has had +enough.” And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread. + +“A little more, St. John—look at the avidity in her eyes.” + +“No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now—ask her her +name.” + +I felt I could speak, and I answered—“My name is Jane Elliott.” Anxious +as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an _alias_. + +“And where do you live? Where are your friends?” + +I was silent. + +“Can we send for any one you know?” + +I shook my head. + +“What account can you give of yourself?” + +Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and +once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer +outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off +the mendicant—to resume my natural manner and character. I began once +more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account—which at +present I was far too weak to render—I said after a brief pause— + +“Sir, I can give you no details to-night.” + +“But what, then,” said he, “do you expect me to do for you?” + +“Nothing,” I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana +took the word— + +“Do you mean,” she asked, “that we have now given you what aid you +require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?” + +I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct +both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her +compassionate gaze with a smile, I said—“I will trust you. If I were a +masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your +hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me +as you like; but excuse me from much discourse—my breath is short—I +feel a spasm when I speak.” All three surveyed me, and all three were +silent. + +“Hannah,” said Mr. St. John, at last, “let her sit there at present, +and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder +of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and +talk the matter over.” + +They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned—I could not tell +which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the +genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere +long, with the servant’s aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my +dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I +thanked God—experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of +grateful joy—and slept. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very +dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but +few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small +room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on +it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been +almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time—of the change +from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one +entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could +understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could +not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible. +Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed +me. I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not +understand me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. +Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They would +whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside— + +“It is very well we took her in.” + +“Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the +morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone +through?” + +“Strange hardships, I imagine—poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer!” + +“She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of +speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, +though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine.” + +“She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like +it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy +would be agreeable.” + +Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the +hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion +to, myself. I was comforted. + +Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of +lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted +fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was +sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been +overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a +while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid +enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few words, +in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man +little accustomed to expansive comment, “Rather an unusual physiognomy; +certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.” + +“Far otherwise,” responded Diana. “To speak truth, St. John, my heart +rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit +her permanently.” + +“That is hardly likely,” was the reply. “You will find she is some +young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has +probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring +her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her +face which make me sceptical of her tractability.” He stood considering +me some minutes; then added, “She looks sensible, but not at all +handsome.” + +“She is so ill, St. John.” + +“Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of +beauty are quite wanting in those features.” + +On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise +in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, +about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with relish: the +food was good—void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned +what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and +revived: ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me. I +wished to rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired +apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I +felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the +humiliation. + +On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My +black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were +removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite +decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered +presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb +and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every +five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on +me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and +once more, clean and respectable looking—no speck of the dirt, no trace +of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left—I +crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow +low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen. + +It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous +fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most +difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been +loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds +among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: +latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in +tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled. + +“What, you have got up!” she said. “You are better, then. You may sit +you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will.” + +She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about, +examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to +me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly— + +“Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?” + +I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the +question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered +quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness— + +“You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any more +than yourself or your young ladies.” + +After a pause she said, “I dunnut understand that: you’ve like no +house, nor no brass, I guess?” + +“The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does +not make a beggar in your sense of the word.” + +“Are you book-learned?” she inquired presently. + +“Yes, very.” + +“But you’ve never been to a boarding-school?” + +“I was at a boarding-school eight years.” + +She opened her eyes wide. “Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for, then?” + +“I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are +you going to do with these gooseberries?” I inquired, as she brought +out a basket of the fruit. + +“Mak’ ’em into pies.” + +“Give them to me and I’ll pick them.” + +“Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought.” + +“But I must do something. Let me have them.” + +She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my +dress, “lest,” as she said, “I should mucky it.” + +“Ye’ve not been used to sarvant’s wark, I see by your hands,” she +remarked. “Happen ye’ve been a dressmaker?” + +“No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don’t trouble +your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we +are.” + +“Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House.” + +“And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?” + +“Nay; he doesn’t live here: he is only staying a while. When he is at +home, he is in his own parish at Morton.” + +“That village a few miles off? + +“Aye.” + +“And what is he?” + +“He is a parson.” + +I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I +had asked to see the clergyman. “This, then, was his father’s +residence?” + +“Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and +gurt (great) grandfather afore him.” + +“The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?” + +“Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name.” + +“And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?” + +“Yes.” + +“Their father is dead?” + +“Dead three weeks sin’ of a stroke.” + +“They have no mother?” + +“The mistress has been dead this mony a year.” + +“Have you lived with the family long?” + +“I’ve lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three.” + +“That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will +say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a +beggar.” + +She again regarded me with a surprised stare. “I believe,” she said, “I +was quite mista’en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats +goes about, you mun forgie me.” + +“And though,” I continued, rather severely, “you wished to turn me from +the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog.” + +“Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o’ th’ +childer nor of mysel: poor things! They’ve like nobody to tak’ care on +’em but me. I’m like to look sharpish.” + +I maintained a grave silence for some minutes. + +“You munnut think too hardly of me,” she again remarked. + +“But I do think hardly of you,” I said; “and I’ll tell you why—not so +much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an +impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I +had no ‘brass’ and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived +have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought +not to consider poverty a crime.” + +“No more I ought,” said she: “Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I +wor wrang—but I’ve clear a different notion on you now to what I had. +You look a raight down dacent little crater.” + +“That will do—I forgive you now. Shake hands.” + +She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile +illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends. + +Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she +made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details +about her deceased master and mistress, and “the childer,” as she +called the young people. + +Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and +of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged to the +Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, “aboon two +hundred year old—for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to +compare wi’ Mr. Oliver’s grand hall down i’ Morton Vale. But she could +remember Bill Oliver’s father a journeyman needlemaker; and th’ Rivers +wor gentry i’ th’ owd days o’ th’ Henrys, as onybody might see by +looking into th’ registers i’ Morton Church vestry.” Still, she +allowed, “the owd maister was like other folk—naught mich out o’ t’ +common way: stark mad o’ shooting, and farming, and sich like.” The +mistress was different. She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and +the “bairns” had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these +parts, nor ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost +from the time they could speak; and they had always been “of a mak’ of +their own.” Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a +parson; and the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places +as governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago +lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; +and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must +provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a long +while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their +father’s death; but they did so like Marsh End and Morton, and all +these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many other +grand towns; but they always said there was no place like home; and +then they were so agreeable with each other—never fell out nor +“threaped.” She did not know where there was such a family for being +united. + +Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two +ladies and their brother were now. + +“Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour +to tea.” + +They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by +the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed +through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and +calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be +able to come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me. + +“You should have waited for my leave to descend,” she said. “You still +look very pale—and so thin! Poor child!—poor girl!” + +Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She +possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face +seemed to me full of charm. Mary’s countenance was equally +intelligent—her features equally pretty; but her expression was more +reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana looked +and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was +my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like +hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to +an active will. + +“And what business have you here?” she continued. “It is not your +place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like +to be free, even to license—but you are a visitor, and must go into the +parlour.” + +“I am very well here.” + +“Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour.” + +“Besides, the fire is too hot for you,” interposed Mary. + +“To be sure,” added her sister. “Come, you must be obedient.” And still +holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room. + +“Sit there,” she said, placing me on the sofa, “while we take our +things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise +in our little moorland home—to prepare our own meals when we are so +inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing.” + +She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat +opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined, first, the +parlour, and then its occupant. + +The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet +comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were very +bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few +strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated +the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and +an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous ornament in the +room—not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a +lady’s desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table: +everything—including the carpet and curtains—looked at once well worn +and well saved. + +Mr. St. John—sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the +walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips +mutely sealed—was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue instead +of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young—perhaps from +twenty-eight to thirty—tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was +like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic +nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an +English face comes so near the antique models as did his. He might well +be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being +so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his +high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by +careless locks of fair hair. + +This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it +describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, +an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, +there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to +my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or +eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one +glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she passed in and out, in +the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on the top +of the oven. + +“Eat that now,” she said: “you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had +nothing but some gruel since breakfast.” + +I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers +now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, +fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an +unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his +gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto +kept it averted from the stranger. + +“You are very hungry,” he said. + +“I am, sir.” It is my way—it always was my way, by instinct—ever to +meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness. + +“It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the +last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the +cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still not +immoderately.” + +“I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir,” was my very +clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer. + +“No,” he said coolly: “when you have indicated to us the residence of +your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home.” + +“That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being +absolutely without home and friends.” + +The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no +suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak +particularly of the young ladies. St. John’s eyes, though clear enough +in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He +seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people’s +thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of +keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than +to encourage. + +“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that you are completely isolated from +every connection?” + +“I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess +to admittance under any roof in England.” + +“A most singular position at your age!” + +Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the +table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon +explained the quest. + +“You have never been married? You are a spinster?” + +Diana laughed. “Why, she can’t be above seventeen or eighteen years +old, St. John,” said she. + +“I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No.” + +I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating +recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw +the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by +turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the +colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had +excited forced out tears as well as colour. + +“Where did you last reside?” he now asked. + +“You are too inquisitive, St. John,” murmured Mary in a low voice; but +he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and +piercing look. + +“The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived, is +my secret,” I replied concisely. + +“Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both +from St. John and every other questioner,” remarked Diana. + +“Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you,” +he said. “And you need help, do you not?” + +“I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist +will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the +remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries +of life.” + +“I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid +you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then, tell +me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you _can_ do.” + +I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; +as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung +nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge +steadily. + +“Mr. Rivers,” I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked +at me, openly and without diffidence, “you and your sisters have done +me a great service—the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have +rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit +conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to +a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the +history of the wanderer you have harboured, as I can tell without +compromising my own peace of mind—my own security, moral and physical, +and that of others. + +“I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I +could know them. I was brought up a dependent; educated in a charitable +institution. I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where +I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacher—Lowood Orphan +Asylum, ——shire: you will have heard of it, Mr. Rivers?—the Rev. Robert +Brocklehurst is the treasurer.” + +“I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school.” + +“I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I +obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged to +leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I cannot +and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would +sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from +culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a +time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a +paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two points +in planning my departure—speed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to +leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in +my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that +brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite +destitute. I slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two +days without crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of time did +I taste food; and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and +despair almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to +perish of want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your +roof. I know all your sisters have done for me since—for I have not +been insensible during my seeming torpor—and I owe to their +spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your +evangelical charity.” + +“Don’t make her talk any more now, St. John,” said Diana, as I paused; +“she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa and sit +down now, Miss Elliott.” + +I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the _alias_: I had +forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, +noticed it at once. + +“You said your name was Jane Elliott?” he observed. + +“I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be +called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear it, it +sounds strange to me.” + +“Your real name you will not give?” + +“No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would +lead to it, I avoid.” + +“You are quite right, I am sure,” said Diana. “Now do, brother, let her +be at peace a while.” + +But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as +imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever. + +“You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality—you would +wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters’ compassion, +and, above all, with my _charity_ (I am quite sensible of the +distinction drawn, nor do I resent it—it is just): you desire to be +independent of us?” + +“I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek +work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the +meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another +essay of the horrors of homeless destitution.” + +“Indeed you _shall_ stay here,” said Diana, putting her white hand on +my head. “You _shall_,” repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative +sincerity which seemed natural to her. + +“My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you,” said Mr. St. +John, “as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a +half-frozen bird some wintry wind might have driven through their +casement. _I_ feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping +yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is +narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be +of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of +small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can +offer.” + +“She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she +_can_ do,” answered Diana for me; “and you know, St. John, she has no +choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as +you.” + +“I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a +servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better,” I answered. + +“Right,” said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. “If such is your spirit, I +promise to aid you, in my own time and way.” + +He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I +soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my +present strength would permit. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. +In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all +day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all +their occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid +them when and where they would allow me. There was a reviving pleasure +in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time—the +pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and +principles. + +I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted +me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their sequestered +home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, +its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged +firs—all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, +dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers but of the hardiest +species would bloom—found a charm both potent and permanent. They clung +to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling—to the hollow vale +into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, +and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the +wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, +or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little +mossy-faced lambs:—they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect +enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and share +both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I +felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline +of swell and sweep—on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell +by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, +and mellow granite crag. These details were just to me what they were +to them—so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast +and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of +sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for +me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them—wound round my +faculties the same spell that entranced theirs. + +Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished and +better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of +knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent +me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening +what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought; opinion met +opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly. + +If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana. +Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous. In +her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of +flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension. I +could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of +vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana’s +feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and +Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but +touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her: I +saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar +pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual +affection—of the strongest kind—was the result. They discovered I could +draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service. My +skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed +them. Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would +take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus +occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks +like days. + +As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and +rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One reason of +the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively +seldom at home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to +visiting the sick and poor among the scattered population of his +parish. + +No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or +fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his +hat, and, followed by his father’s old pointer, Carlo, go out on his +mission of love or duty—I scarcely know in which light he regarded it. +Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would +expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than +cheerful— + +“And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from +these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I +propose to myself?” + +Diana and Mary’s general answer to this question was a sigh, and some +minutes of apparently mournful meditation. + +But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to +friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even +of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in +his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental +serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every +sincere Christian and practical philanthropist. Often, of an evening, +when he sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would +cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver +himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it was +perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and +changeful dilation of his eye. + +I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight +it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a +strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection +for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was +more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the +sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for +the sake of their soothing silence—never seek out or dwell upon the +thousand peaceful delights they could yield. + +Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an +opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its calibre +when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could +describe that sermon: but it is past my power. I cannot even render +faithfully the effect it produced on me. + +It began calm—and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, +it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal +breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous +language. This grew to force—compressed, condensed, controlled. The +heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: +neither were softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an +absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic +doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each +reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. +When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened +by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed +to me—I know not whether equally so to others—that the eloquence to +which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid +dregs of disappointment—where moved troubling impulses of insatiate +yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John +Rivers—pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was—had not yet found +that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found +it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my +broken idol and lost elysium—regrets to which I have latterly avoided +referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly. + +Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor +House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited +them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, +where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty +members they were regarded only as humble dependents, and who neither +knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and appreciated only +their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their +cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said nothing +to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it +became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, +being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to +approach the window-recess—which his table, chair, and desk consecrated +as a kind of study—and I was going to speak, though not very well +knowing in what words to frame my inquiry—for it is at all times +difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as +his—when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a +dialogue. + +Looking up as I drew near—“You have a question to ask of me?” he said. + +“Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer +myself to undertake?” + +“I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you +seemed both useful and happy here—as my sisters had evidently become +attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure—I deemed +it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their +approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.” + +“And they will go in three days now?” I said. + +“Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: +Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up.” + +I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first +broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection: +his look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to +recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious +interest to me. + +“What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay +will not have increased the difficulty of securing it.” + +“Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, +and you to accept.” + +He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew +impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance +fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as +words could have done, and with less trouble. + +“You need be in no hurry to hear,” he said: “let me frankly tell you, I +have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain, +recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, +it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find +that, when I have paid my father’s debts, all the patrimony remaining +to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, +and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in +front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole +descendants of the race, two earn the dependent’s crust among +strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native +country—not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound +to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day +when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his +shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest +members he is one, shall give the word, ‘Rise, follow Me!’” + +St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, +deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of +glance. He resumed— + +“And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service +of poverty and obscurity. _You_ may even think it degrading—for I see +now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes +lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the +educated; but _I_ consider that no service degrades which can better +our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the +Christian labourer’s task of tillage is appointed him—the scantier the +meed his toil brings—the higher the honour. His, under such +circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of +the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, +Himself.” + +“Well?” I said, as he again paused—“proceed.” + +He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to +read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page. +The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his +succeeding observations. + +“I believe you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it +for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently +keep the narrow and narrowing—the tranquil, hidden office of English +country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to +repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.” + +“Do explain,” I urged, when he halted once more. + +“I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,—how trivial—how +cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, +and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the +course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to +the utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years +ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every +hope of progress. I established one for boys: I mean now to open a +second school for girls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with +a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’s house. Her +salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, +very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; +the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr. Oliver, the +proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The same +lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the +workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial +offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation +of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will +you be this mistress?” + +He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an +indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing +all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell +in what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble—but +then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding—but +then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was +independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul +like iron: it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading, I +made my decision. + +“I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my +heart.” + +“But you comprehend me?” he said. “It is a village school: your +scholars will be only poor girls—cottagers’ children—at the best, +farmers’ daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will +be all you will have to teach. What will you do with your +accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of your +mind—sentiments—tastes?” + +“Save them till they are wanted. They will keep.” + +“You know what you undertake, then?” + +“I do.” + +He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased +and deeply gratified. + +“And when will you commence the exercise of your function?” + +“I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, +next week.” + +“Very well: so be it.” + +He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at +me. He shook his head. + +“What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?” I asked. + +“You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!” + +“Why? What is your reason for saying so?” + +“I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises +the maintenance of an even tenor in life.” + +“I am not ambitious.” + +He started at the word “ambitious.” He repeated, “No. What made you +think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find +it out?” + +“I was speaking of myself.” + +“Well, if you are not ambitious, you are—” He paused. + +“What?” + +“I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have +misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human +affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure +you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to +devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of +stimulus: any more than I can be content,” he added, with emphasis, “to +live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature, that God +gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed—made +useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached +contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of +hewers of wood and drawers of water in God’s service—I, His ordained +minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and +principles must be reconciled by some means.” + +He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in +the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me. + +Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached +for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried to appear as +usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could +not be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated that this would +be a different parting from any they had ever yet known. It would +probably, as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years: it +might be a parting for life. + +“He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves,” she said: “natural +affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane; +but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in +some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my +conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe +decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It is +right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my heart!” And the tears gushed +to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work. + +“We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother,” +she murmured. + +At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by +fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that “misfortunes never +come singly,” and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip +between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a +letter. He entered. + +“Our uncle John is dead,” said he. + +Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings +appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting. + +“Dead?” repeated Diana. + +“Yes.” + +She riveted a searching gaze on her brother’s face. “And what then?” +she demanded, in a low voice. + +“What then, Die?” he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of +feature. “What then? Why—nothing. Read.” + +He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to +Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All +three looked at each other, and all three smiled—a dreary, pensive +smile enough. + +“Amen! We can yet live,” said Diana at last. + +“At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,” remarked +Mary. + +“Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what _might +have been_,” said Mr. Rivers, “and contrasts it somewhat too vividly +with what _is_.” + +He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out. + +For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me. + +“Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries,” she said, “and think +us hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a +relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was +my mother’s brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by +his advice that my father risked most of his property in the +speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them: +they parted in anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged +afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a +fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no +near kindred but ourselves and one other person, not more closely +related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would +atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter +informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, +with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, +Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning rings. He +had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp +is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news. Mary and I would +have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. +John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good it would have +enabled him to do.” + +This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further +reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day +I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it +for distant B——. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the +parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +My home, then, when I at last find a home,—is a cottage; a little room +with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted +chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and +dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same +dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; +small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the +kindness of my gentle and generous friends has increased that, by a +modest stock of such things as are necessary. + +It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little +orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth. +This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But +three of the number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a +few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the district. +At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other’s +language. Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as +ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a +disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad +little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of +gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, +refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their +hearts as in those of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these +germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office. +Much enjoyment I do not expect in the life opening before me: yet it +will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, +yield me enough to live on from day to day. + +Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in +yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to +deceive myself, I must reply—No: I felt desolate to a degree. I +felt—yes, idiot that I am—I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step +which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I +was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of +all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself +too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong—that is a great +step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I +shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, +they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the +happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my +scholars may substitute gratification for disgust. + +Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have +surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful +effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen +asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst +the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, +Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he +would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He _did_ love +me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet +homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else +shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is +what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am +I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a +slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss +one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the +next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy +mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? + +Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, +and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God +directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the +guidance! + +Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my +door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet +fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a +mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains— + +“The air was mild, the dew was balm.” + + +While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find +myself ere long weeping—and why? For the doom which had reft me from +adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate +grief and fatal fury—consequences of my departure—which might now, +perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope +of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face +aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton—I say +_lonely_, for in that bend of it visible to me there was no building +apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, +quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. +Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my head against +the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket +which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up. +A dog—old Carlo, Mr. Rivers’ pointer, as I saw in a moment—was pushing +the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leant upon it with folded +arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on +me. I asked him to come in. + +“No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters +left for you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper.” + +I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I +thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were +doubtless very visible upon it. + +“Have you found your first day’s work harder than you expected?” he +asked. + +“Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my +scholars very well.” + +“But perhaps your accommodations—your cottage—your furniture—have +disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; +but—” I interrupted— + +“My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and +commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not +absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a +carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had +nothing—I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, +a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of +my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.” + +“But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you +is dark and empty.” + +“I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less +to grow impatient under one of loneliness.” + +“Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your +good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the +vacillating fears of Lot’s wife. What you had left before I saw you, of +course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every +temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present +career steadily, for some months at least.” + +“It is what I mean to do,” I answered. St. John continued— + +“It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the +bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God +has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when +our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get—when our will +strains after a path we may not follow—we need neither starve from +inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another +nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to +taste—and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road +as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if +rougher than it. + +“A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had +made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me +to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world—for the more +exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, +author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart +of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, +a luster after power, beat under my curate’s surplice. I considered; my +life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season +of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped +existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds—my powers +heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread +their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear +which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and +eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, +were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary. + +“A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind +changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving +nothing of bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal. +My father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I +have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a +successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings +broken through or cut asunder—a last conflict with human weakness, in +which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I _will_ +overcome—and I leave Europe for the East.” + +He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, +when he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at +which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the path +leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that +grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling +sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, +sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed— + +“Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is +quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears +and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have +your back towards me now.” + +It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those +musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, +he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in +which the speaker had surprised him—his arm resting on the gate, his +face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured +deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. +There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white—a +youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after +bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long +veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect +beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as +sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure +hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies +generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm +was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and +delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely +pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which +encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow +which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such +repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, +and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the +even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the +ornament of rich, plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which, +combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as +I looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart. +Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her +usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, +with a grand-dame’s bounty. + +What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked +myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as +naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He +had already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a +humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket. + +“A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone,” he said, as he +crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot. + +“Oh, I only came home from S——” (she mentioned the name of a large town +some twenty miles distant) “this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened +your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my +bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?” +pointing to me. + +“It is,” said St. John. + +“Do you think you shall like Morton?” she asked of me, with a direct +and naïve simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like. + +“I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.” + +“Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?” + +“Quite.” + +“Do you like your house?” + +“Very much.” + +“Have I furnished it nicely?” + +“Very nicely, indeed.” + +“And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?” + +“You have indeed. She is teachable and handy.” (This then, I thought, +is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of +fortune, as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of the +planets presided over her birth, I wonder?) + +“I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes,” she added. “It will +be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr. +Rivers, I have been _so_ gay during my stay at S——. Last night, or +rather this morning, I was dancing till two o’clock. The ——th regiment +are stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most +agreeable men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and +scissor merchants to shame.” + +It seemed to me that Mr. St. John’s under lip protruded, and his upper +lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, +and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the +laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from +the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning +gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well +became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes. + +As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. “Poor +Carlo loves me,” said she. “_He_ is not stern and distant to his +friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent.” + +As she patted the dog’s head, bending with native grace before his +young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master’s face. I +saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless +emotion. Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a +man as she for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, +weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and +made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, +I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He responded +neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made him. + +“Papa says you never come to see us now,” continued Miss Oliver, +looking up. “You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this +evening, and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?” + +“It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,” answered St. +John. + +“Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when +papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no +business to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, _do_ come. Why are you so very +shy, and so very sombre?” She filled up the hiatus his silence left by +a reply of her own. + +“I forgot!” she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if +shocked at herself. “I am so giddy and thoughtless! _Do_ excuse me. It +had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for +joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is +shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and see +papa.” + +“Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night.” + +Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the +effort it cost him thus to refuse. + +“Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay +any longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening!” + +She held out her hand. He just touched it. “Good evening!” he repeated, +in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment +returned. + +“Are you well?” she asked. Well might she put the question: his face +was blanched as her gown. + +“Quite well,” he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She +went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she +tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, +never turned at all. + +This spectacle of another’s suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts +from exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her +brother “inexorable as death.” She had not exaggerated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and +faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time +elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and +their nature. Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed +to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon +found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst +the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference +rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules, +and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping +rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves +obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few +examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of +excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration. These +soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their persons +neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly +manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even +surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I +began personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I +had amongst my scholars several farmers’ daughters: young women grown, +almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught +the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of +needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them—characters +desirous of information and disposed for improvement—with whom I passed +many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then +(the farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions. There was an +enjoyment in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a +consideration—a scrupulous regard to their feelings—to which they were +not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and +benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it +made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received. + +I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, +I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with +friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the +regard of working people, is like “sitting in sunshine, calm and +sweet;” serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this +period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than +sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of +this calm, this useful existence—after a day passed in honourable +exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading +contentedly alone—I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams +many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the +stormy—dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, +with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met +Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of +being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his +hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him—the hope of passing a +lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and +fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated. Then +I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the +still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the +burst of passion. By nine o’clock the next morning I was punctually +opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties +of the day. + +Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the +school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would +canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery +servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple +habit, with her Amazon’s cap of black velvet placed gracefully above +the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can +scarcely be imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic +building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children. +She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving +his daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the +visitress pierce the young pastor’s heart. A sort of instinct seemed to +warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it; and when he was +looking quite away from the door, if she appeared at it, his cheek +would glow, and his marble-seeming features, though they refused to +relax, changed indescribably, and in their very quiescence became +expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than working muscle or +darting glance could indicate. + +Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could +not, conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she +went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly +in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, +with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, “I +love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that +keeps me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. +But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged +round it. It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed.” + +And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud +would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily +from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so +heroic and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the +world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he +would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of +her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not +bind all that he had in his nature—the rover, the aspirant, the poet, +the priest—in the limits of a single passion. He could not—he would +not—renounce his wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the +peace of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, +despite his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence. + +Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I +had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise: +she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly +selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely +spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it, +when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), +but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth; +ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she +was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex +like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly +impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for +instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I +liked my pupil Adèle; except that, for a child whom we have watched +over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an +equally attractive adult acquaintance. + +She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers, +only, certainly, she allowed, “not one-tenth so handsome, though I was +a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel.” I was, however, +good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a _lusus naturæ_, she +affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous +history, if known, would make a delightful romance. + +One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless +yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and +the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French +books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then +my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a +pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views +from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. +She was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with +delight. + +“Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a +love—what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first +school in S——. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?” + +“With pleasure,” I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at +the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then +on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only +ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with +all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, +and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring +it; and, as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit +another day. + +She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself +accompanied her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and +grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright +flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud +personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond’s +portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of +it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at +Vale Hall. + +I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant +evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and +pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he +entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong +terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he +only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, +and would soon quit it for one more suitable. + +“Indeed,” cried Rosamond, “she is clever enough to be a governess in a +high family, papa.” + +I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in +the land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers—of the Rivers family—with +great respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; +that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once +belonged to them; that even now he considered the representative of +that house might, if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He +accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have +formed the design of going out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a +valuable life away. It appeared, then, that her father would throw no +obstacle in the way of Rosamond’s union with St. John. Mr. Oliver +evidently regarded the young clergyman’s good birth, old name, and +sacred profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune. + +It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after +helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of +a penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright—scoured +floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself +neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would. + +The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got +my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier +occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver’s miniature. The head was +finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery +to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft +curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the +lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these +nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting +St. John Rivers. + +“I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,” he said. “Not, I +hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel +lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up +wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and +he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine +productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those +days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era +are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or +repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon +gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their +existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. +Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, +and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius +banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the +thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without +their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell +of your own meanness. + +While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for +“Marmion” it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall +figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up at +him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his +heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I had +then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination +to do him some good, if I could. + +“With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself +too far: locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses, +imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about +this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make +him talk.” + +I said first, “Take a chair, Mr. Rivers.” But he answered, as he always +did, that he could not stay. “Very well,” I responded, mentally, “stand +if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude +is at least as bad for you as it is for me. I’ll try if I cannot +discover the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in +that marble breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of +sympathy.” + +“Is this portrait like?” I asked bluntly. + +“Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely.” + +“You did, Mr. Rivers.” + +He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me +astonished. “Oh, that is nothing yet,” I muttered within. “I don’t mean +to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I’m prepared to go to +considerable lengths.” I continued, “You observed it closely and +distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again,” and I +rose and placed it in his hand. + +“A well-executed picture,” he said; “very soft, clear colouring; very +graceful and correct drawing.” + +“Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it +like?” + +Mastering some hesitation, he answered, “Miss Oliver, I presume.” + +“Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will +promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very +picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I +don’t wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would +deem worthless.” + +He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer +he held it, the more he seemed to covet it. “It is like!” he murmured; +“the eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. +It smiles!” + +“Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? +Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, +would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or +would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and +distress?” + +He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute, +disturbed: he again surveyed the picture. + +“That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be +judicious or wise is another question.” + +Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that +her father was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my +views than St. John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to +advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the +possessor of Mr. Oliver’s large fortune, he might do as much good with +it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to +waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered— + +“As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were +to take to yourself the original at once.” + +By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table +before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over +it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I +saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed +unapproachable—to hear it thus freely handled—was beginning to be felt +by him as a new pleasure—an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often +really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more +than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and +to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent sea” of their +souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations. + +“She likes you, I am sure,” said I, as I stood behind his chair, “and +her father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl—rather +thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself +and her. You ought to marry her.” + +“_Does_ she like me?” he asked. + +“Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you +continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so +often.” + +“It is very pleasant to hear this,” he said—“very: go on for another +quarter of an hour.” And he actually took out his watch and laid it +upon the table to measure the time. + +“But where is the use of going on,” I asked, “when you are probably +preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to +fetter your heart?” + +“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am +doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and +overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and +with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good +intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a +nectarous flood—the young germs swamped—delicious poison cankering +them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at +Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver’s feet: she is talking to me with +her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has +copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine—I am +hers—this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say +nothing—my heart is full of delight—my senses are entranced—let the +time I marked pass in peace.” + +I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood +silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid +the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth. + +“Now,” said he, “that little space was given to delirium and delusion. +I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck +voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was +burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: +her promises are hollow—her offers false: I see and know all this.” + +I gazed at him in wonder. + +“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so +wildly—with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object +of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating—I experience +at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make +me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should +discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months’ +rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.” + +“Strange indeed!” I could not help ejaculating. + +“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her +charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they +are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate +in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female +apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s wife? No!” + +“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.” + +“Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on +earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band +who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their +race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance—of substituting +peace for war—freedom for bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of +heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than +the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to +live for.” + +After a considerable pause, I said—“And Miss Oliver? Are her +disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?” + +“Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than +a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; +and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I +should do.” + +“You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are +wasting away.” + +“No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet +unsettled—my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning, +I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been +so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to +come yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six.” + +“You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the +schoolroom.” + +Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined +that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in +this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with +strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had +passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold +of confidence, and won a place by their heart’s very hearthstone. + +“You _are_ original,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave +in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to +assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them +more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance +of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I +shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I +know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the +convulsion of the soul. _That_ is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in +the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am—a cold hard man.” + +I smiled incredulously. + +“You have taken my confidence by storm,” he continued, “and now it is +much at your service. I am simply, in my original state—stripped of +that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human +deformity—a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all +the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not feeling, +is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do +more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, +industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve +great ends and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with +interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, +energetic woman: not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone +through, or what you still suffer.” + +“You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher,” I said. + +“No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I +believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a +pagan, but a Christian philosopher—a follower of the sect of Jesus. As +His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I +advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she +has cultivated my original qualities thus:—From the minute germ, +natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, +philanthropy. From the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has +reared a due sense of the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power +and renown for my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread +my Master’s kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the +cross. So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials +to the best account; pruning and training nature. But she could not +eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated ‘till this mortal shall put +on immortality.’” + +Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my +palette. Once more he looked at the portrait. + +“She _is_ lovely,” he murmured. “She is well named the Rose of the +World, indeed!” + +“And may I not paint one like it for you?” + +“_Cui bono_? No.” + +He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was +accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from +being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was +impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it +up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me, +inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance that +seemed to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and +dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, +as if to speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was. + +“What is the matter?” I asked. + +“Nothing in the world,” was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw +him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in +his glove; and, with one hasty nod and “good-afternoon,” he vanished. + +“Well!” I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, “that caps +the globe, however!” + +I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few +dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I +pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and +being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon +forgot it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm +continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and +blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost +impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent +the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting +nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the +tempest, I lit a candle, took down “Marmion,” and beginning— + +“Day set on Norham’s castled steep, +And Tweed’s fair river broad and deep, + And Cheviot’s mountains lone; +The massive towers, the donjon keep, +The flanking walls that round them sweep, + In yellow lustre shone”— + + +I soon forgot storm in music. + +I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St. +John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen +hurricane—the howling darkness—and stood before me: the cloak that +covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in +consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up +vale that night. + +“Any ill news?” I demanded. “Has anything happened?” + +“No. How very easily alarmed you are!” he answered, removing his cloak +and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again coolly +pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow +from his boots. + +“I shall sully the purity of your floor,” said he, “but you must excuse +me for once.” Then he approached the fire. “I have had hard work to get +here, I assure you,” he observed, as he warmed his hands over the +flame. “One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite +soft yet.” + +“But why are you come?” I could not forbear saying. + +“Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask +it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my +mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced +the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who +is impatient to hear the sequel.” + +He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I +began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his +was a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that +handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it +did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and +let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where +it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so +plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would say something I could at +least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his +lip: he was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his +face. A perhaps uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was +moved to say— + +“I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that +you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own +health.” + +“Not at all,” said he: “I care for myself when necessary. I am well +now. What do you see amiss in me?” + +This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed +that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I +was silenced. + +He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye +dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say +something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the +door, which was behind him. + +“No, no!” he responded shortly and somewhat testily. + +“Well,” I reflected, “if you won’t talk, you may be still; I’ll let you +alone now, and return to my book.” + +So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of “Marmion.” He soon +stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out +a morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in +silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain +to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, +in impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but +talk I would. + +“Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?” + +“Not since the letter I showed you a week ago.” + +“There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You +will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?” + +“I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me.” Baffled so +far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the school +and my scholars. + +“Mary Garrett’s mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this +morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry +Close—they would have come to-day but for the snow.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Mr. Oliver pays for two.” + +“Does he?” + +“He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas.” + +“I know.” + +“Was it your suggestion?” + +“No.” + +“Whose, then?” + +“His daughter’s, I think.” + +“It is like her: she is so good-natured.” + +“Yes.” + +Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It +aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me. + +“Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire,” he said. + +Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied. + +“Half-an-hour ago,” he pursued, “I spoke of my impatience to hear the +sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better +managed by my assuming the narrator’s part, and converting you into a +listener. Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story +will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often +regain a degree of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the +rest, whether trite or novel, it is short. + +“Twenty years ago, a poor curate—never mind his name at this +moment—fell in love with a rich man’s daughter; she fell in love with +him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends, who +consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two +years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by +side under one slab. (I have seen their grave; it formed part of the +pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old +cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in ——shire.) They left a +daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity received in her lap—cold as +that of the snow-drift I almost stuck fast in to-night. Charity carried +the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it +was reared by an aunt-in-law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of +Gateshead. You start—did you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat +scrambling along the rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn +before I had it repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted +by rats.—To proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it +was happy or not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at +the end of that time she transferred it to a place you know—being no +other than Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself. It seems +her career there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a +teacher, like yourself—really it strikes me there are parallel points +in her history and yours—she left it to be a governess: there, again, +your fates were analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a +certain Mr. Rochester.” + +“Mr. Rivers!” I interrupted. + +“I can guess your feelings,” he said, “but restrain them for a while: I +have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester’s character +I know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable +marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered +he had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent conduct +and proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event +transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was +discovered she was gone—no one could tell when, where, or how. She had +left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had +been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of +information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be +found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been +put in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. +Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is +it not an odd tale?” + +“Just tell me this,” said I, “and since you know so much, you surely +_can_ tell it me—what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he +doing? Is he well?” + +“I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never +mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have +adverted to. You should rather ask the name of the governess—the nature +of the event which requires her appearance.” + +“Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester?” + +“I suppose not.” + +“But they wrote to him?” + +“Of course.” + +“And what did he say? Who has his letters?” + +“Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from +Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed ‘Alice Fairfax.’” + +I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he +had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation +to some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for his severe +sufferings—what object for his strong passions—had he sought there? I +dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master—once almost my +husband—whom I had often called “my dear Edward!” + +“He must have been a bad man,” observed Mr. Rivers. + +“You don’t know him—don’t pronounce an opinion upon him,” I said, with +warmth. + +“Very well,” he answered quietly: “and indeed my head is otherwise +occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since you won’t ask +the governess’s name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay! I have it +here—it is always more satisfactory to see important points written +down, fairly committed to black and white.” + +And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought +through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of +paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of +ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the +portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced +in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words “JANE EYRE”—the work +doubtless of some moment of abstraction. + +“Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:” he said, “the advertisements +demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.—I confess I had my +suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once +resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the _alias_?” + +“Yes—yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr. +Rochester than you do.” + +“Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about +Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime, +you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why +Mr. Briggs sought after you—what he wanted with you.” + +“Well, what did he want?” + +“Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that +he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich—merely +that—nothing more.” + +“I!—rich?” + +“Yes, you, rich—quite an heiress.” + +Silence succeeded. + +“You must prove your identity of course,” resumed St. John presently: +“a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on +immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; +Briggs has the will and the necessary documents.” + +Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted +in a moment from indigence to wealth—a very fine thing; but not a +matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then +there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: +_this_ is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: +all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are +the same. One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing +one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to +ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave +cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn +brow. + +Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words, +Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead—my only relative; ever +since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of +one day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only +to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It +was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious—yes, I +felt that—_that_ thought swelled my heart. + +“You unbend your forehead at last,” said Mr. Rivers. “I thought Medusa +had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you +will ask how much you are worth?” + +“How much am I worth?” + +“Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of—twenty thousand pounds, I +think they say—but what is that?” + +“Twenty thousand pounds?” + +Here was a new stunner—I had been calculating on four or five thousand. +This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I +had never heard laugh before, laughed now. + +“Well,” said he, “if you had committed a murder, and I had told you +your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast.” + +“It is a large sum—don’t you think there is a mistake?” + +“No mistake at all.” + +“Perhaps you have read the figures wrong—it may be two thousand!” + +“It is written in letters, not figures,—twenty thousand.” + +I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical +powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions +for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on. + +“If it were not such a very wild night,” he said, “I would send Hannah +down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left +alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as +I: her legs are not quite so long: so I must e’en leave you to your +sorrows. Good-night.” + +He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. + +“Stop one minute!” I cried. + +“Well?” + +“It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he +knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way +place, had the power to aid in my discovery.” + +“Oh! I am a clergyman,” he said; “and the clergy are often appealed to +about odd matters.” Again the latch rattled. + +“No; that does not satisfy me!” I exclaimed: and indeed there was +something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of +allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever. + +“It is a very strange piece of business,” I added; “I must know more +about it.” + +“Another time.” + +“No; to-night!—to-night!” and as he turned from the door, I placed +myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed. + +“You certainly shall not go till you have told me all,” I said. + +“I would rather not just now.” + +“You shall!—you must!” + +“I would rather Diana or Mary informed you.” + +Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified +it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so. + +“But I apprised you that I was a hard man,” said he, “difficult to +persuade.” + +“And I am a hard woman,—impossible to put off.” + + +And I am a hard woman,—impossible to put off + +“And then,” he pursued, “I am cold: no fervour infects me.” + +“Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed +all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to +my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be +forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a +sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know.” + +“Well, then,” he said, “I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your +perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must +know some day,—as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?” + +“Of course: that was all settled before.” + +“You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?—that I was +christened St. John Eyre Rivers?” + +“No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your +initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I +never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely—” + +I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express, +the thought that rushed upon me—that embodied itself,—that, in a +second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit +themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been +lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,—every +ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the +matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot +expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must +repeat his explanation. + +“My mother’s name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who +married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq., +merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre’s +solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle’s death, +and to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman’s +orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never +forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks since, +to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything +of her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to +find her out. You know the rest.” Again he was going, but I set my back +against the door. + +“Do let me speak,” I said; “let me have one moment to draw breath and +reflect.” I paused—he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed +enough. I resumed— + +“Your mother was my father’s sister?” + +“Yes.” + +“My aunt, consequently?” + +He bowed. + +“My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his +sister’s children, as I am his brother’s child?” + +“Undeniably.” + +“You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows +from the same source?” + +“We are cousins; yes.” + +I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud +of,—one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that, +when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with +genuine affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down +on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor +House kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and +despair, were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman +who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. +Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!—wealth +to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, +bright, vivid, and exhilarating;—not like the ponderous gift of gold: +rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now +clapped my hands in sudden joy—my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled. + +“Oh, I am glad!—I am glad!” I exclaimed. + +St. John smiled. “Did I not say you neglected essential points to +pursue trifles?” he asked. “You were serious when I told you you had +got a fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited.” + +“What _can_ you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters +and don’t care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three +relations,—or two, if you don’t choose to be counted,—are born into my +world full-grown. I say again, I am glad!” + +I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the +thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle +them:—thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere +long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending +stars,—every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my +life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. +They were under a yoke,—I could free them: they were scattered,—I could +reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be +theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally +would be five thousand each, justice—enough and to spare: justice would +be done,—mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me: +now it was not a mere bequest of coin,—it was a legacy of life, hope, +enjoyment. + +How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot +tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind +me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also +advised me to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness +and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again. + +“Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow,” I said, “and tell them to come +home directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with +a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well.” + +“Tell me where I can get you a glass of water,” said St. John; “you +must really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings.” + +“Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? +Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and +settle down like an ordinary mortal?” + +“You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in +communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength.” + +“Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it +is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand.” + +“Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should +comprehend better.” + +“Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty +thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the +nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? +What I want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of +the fortune that has accrued to them.” + +“To you, you mean.” + +“I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any +other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly +ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. +I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and +Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would +please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment +and oppress me to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be +mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what +is absolutely superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no +discussion about it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the +point at once.” + +“This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such +a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid.” + +“Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice +of the case?” + +“I _do_ see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. +Besides, the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his +own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to +you. After all, justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear +conscience, consider it absolutely your own.” + +“With me,” said I, “it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of +conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an +opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a +year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught +a glimpse—that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning +to myself lifelong friends.” + +“You think so now,” rejoined St. John, “because you do not know what it +is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot form a +notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the +place it would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would +open to you: you cannot—” + +“And you,” I interrupted, “cannot at all imagine the craving I have for +fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers +or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to +admit me and own me, are you?” + +“Jane, I will be your brother—my sisters will be your sisters—without +stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights.” + +“Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes; +slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy—gorged with gold I never earned +and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation! +Close union! Intimate attachment!” + +“But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness +may be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you may +marry.” + +“Nonsense, again! Marry! I don’t want to marry, and never shall marry.” + +“That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of +the excitement under which you labour.” + +“It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse are my +inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for +love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money +speculation. And I do not want a stranger—unsympathising, alien, +different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full +fellow-feeling. Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the +words I was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them +sincerely.” + +“I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know +on what my affection for them is grounded,—respect for their worth and +admiration of their talents. You too have principle and mind: your +tastes and habits resemble Diana’s and Mary’s; your presence is always +agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already for some time +found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in +my heart for you, as my third and youngest sister.” + +“Thank you: that contents me for to-night. Now you had better go; for +if you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some +mistrustful scruple.” + +“And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?” + +“No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute.” + +He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave. + +I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments +I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My +task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved—as my +cousins saw at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on +making a just division of the property—as they must in their own hearts +have felt the equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been +innately conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what +I wished to do—they yielded at length so far as to consent to put the +affair to arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able +lawyer: both coincided in my opinion: I carried my point. The +instruments of transfer were drawn out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, +each became possessed of a competency. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of +general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care +that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens +the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we +have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual +ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many +of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness +was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. +Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their +unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass +in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour’s teaching +in their school. + +Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty +girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in +my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some +half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and +well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British +peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British +peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of +any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and Bäuerinnen; +and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, +compared with my Morton girls. + +“Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?” +asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. “Does not the consciousness of +having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?” + +“Doubtless.” + +“And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the +task of regenerating your race be well spent?” + +“Yes,” I said; “but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my +own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must +enjoy them now; don’t recall either my mind or body to the school; I am +out of it and disposed for full holiday.” + +He looked grave. “What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? +What are you going to do?” + +“To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set +Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you.” + +“Do you want her?” + +“Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a +week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival.” + +“I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It +is better so: Hannah shall go with you.” + +“Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom +key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning.” + +He took it. “You give it up very gleefully,” said he; “I don’t quite +understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what +employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are +relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have you +now?” + +“My first aim will be to _clean down_ (do you comprehend the full force +of the expression?)—to _clean down_ Moor House from chamber to cellar; +my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of +cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, +table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go +near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; +and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are +expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, +sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, +chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other +culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the +uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an +absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next +Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome +when they come.” + +St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied. + +“It is all very well for the present,” said he; “but seriously, I trust +that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little +higher than domestic endearments and household joys.” + +“The best things the world has!” I interrupted. + +“No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt +to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful.” + +“I mean, on the contrary, to be busy.” + +“Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months’ grace I allow you for +the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with +this late-found charm of relationship; but _then_, I hope you will +begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and +the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope +your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.” + +I looked at him with surprise. “St. John,” I said, “I think you are +almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, +and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?” + +“To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to +your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict +account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously—I warn you of +that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you +throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling so +tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an +adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do +you hear, Jane?” + +“Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause +to be happy, and I _will_ be happy. Goodbye!” + +Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she +was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house +turned topsy-turvy—how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. +And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was +delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had +made. I had previously taken a journey to S—— to purchase some new +furniture: my cousins having given me _carte blanche_ to effect what +alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that +purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they +were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing +again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the +spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was +necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it +to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement +of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, +new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, +answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare +parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and +crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the +stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model +of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen +of wintry waste and desert dreariness without. + +The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, +and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in +perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness. + +St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the +house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the +commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls +sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, +watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. +Approaching the hearth, he asked, “If I was at last satisfied with +housemaid’s work?” I answered by inviting him to accompany me on a +general inspection of the result of my labours. With some difficulty, I +got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I +opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he said I +must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have +effected such considerable changes in so short a time: but not a +syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his +abode. + +This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed +some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case: +no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone. + +“Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously +respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed +more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for +instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very +room?—By-the-bye, could I tell him where such a book was?” + +I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing +to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it. + +Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began +to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and +cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for +him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to +aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would +never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his +lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone—at his fine lineaments +fixed in study—I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a +good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I +understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; +I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended +how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised +over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should +mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I +saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—Christian +and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast +bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too +often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place. + +“This parlour is not his sphere,” I reflected: “the Himalayan ridge or +Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him +better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his +element: there his faculties stagnate—they cannot develop or appear to +advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger—where courage is +proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked—that he will speak +and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the +advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary’s +career—I see it now.” + +“They are coming! they are coming!” cried Hannah, throwing open the +parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. +It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had +a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened +the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a +minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary’s +soft cheek, then with Diana’s flowing curls. They laughed—kissed +me—then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked +eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened +into the house. + +They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and +chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances +expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought +in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from +the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave +each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a +while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would +soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge. + +I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give +hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. +They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; +with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases: +they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of +feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I +had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home. + +Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so +eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. +John’s taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in +their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The +event of the day—that is, the return of Diana and Mary—pleased him; but +the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee +of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In +the very meridian of the night’s enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a +rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the intimation that “a +poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see +his mother, who was drawing away.” + +“Where does she live, Hannah?” + +“Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss +all the way.” + +“Tell him I will go.” + +“I’m sure, sir, you had better not. It’s the worst road to travel after +dark that can be: there’s no track at all over the bog. And then it is +such a bitter night—the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send +word, sir, that you will be there in the morning.” + +But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without +one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o’clock: he +did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was: but he +looked happier than when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; +made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on +better terms with himself. + +I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was +Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a +sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom +of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary’s spirits like +some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from +noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, +pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, +and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke our +vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his +parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business +in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts. + +One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for +some minutes, asked him, “If his plans were yet unchanged.” + +“Unchanged and unchangeable,” was the reply. And he proceeded to inform +us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the +ensuing year. + +“And Rosamond Oliver?” suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her +lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a +gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a book in his +hand—it was his unsocial custom to read at meals—he closed it, and +looked up. + +“Rosamond Oliver,” said he, “is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one +of the best connected and most estimable residents in S——, grandson and +heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father +yesterday.” + +His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: +he was serene as glass. + +“The match must have been got up hastily,” said Diana: “they cannot +have known each other long.” + +“But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S——. But +where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where +the connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: +they will be married as soon as S—— Place, which Sir Frederic gives up +to them, can be refitted for their reception.” + +The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt +tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little +to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I +experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already +hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve +was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He +had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he +continually made little chilling differences between us, which did not +at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was +acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I +felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known +me only as the village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had +once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his +present frigidity. + +Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his +head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said— + +“You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.” + +Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a +moment’s hesitation I answered— + +“But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose +triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?” + +“I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be +called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is +decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!” So saying, he +returned to his papers and his silence. + +As our mutual happiness (_i.e._, Diana’s, Mary’s, and mine) settled +into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular +studies, St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room, +sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course +of encyclopædic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, +and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that +of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary +to his plans. + +Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and +absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the +outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing +upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: +if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it +returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I +wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit +on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly +visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day +was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his +sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their +solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to +the elements. + +“Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her,” he would say: “she +can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as +well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic;—better +calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust.” + +And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little +weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur +would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the +reverse was a special annoyance. + +One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really +had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading +Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged +a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I +found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How +long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I +cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment +superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny. + +“Jane, what are you doing?” + +“Learning German.” + +“I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.” + +“You are not in earnest?” + +“In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.” + +He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was +himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget +the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with +whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them +thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time +between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw +I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this +favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it +wanted now barely three months to his departure. + +St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every +impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved +and permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former +found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and +both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them +to such a step. He answered quietly— + +“I know it.” + +I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting +master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his +expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By +degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my +liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his +indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, +because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at +least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only +serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence +every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a +freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I +did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had +continued to neglect me. + +One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, +bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, +as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to +be in a frolicsome humour (_she_ was not painfully controlled by his +will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed— + +“St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don’t treat +her as such: you should kiss her too.” + +She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt +uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. +John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, +his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he kissed me. There are no such +things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my +ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of these classes; but +there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When +given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure +I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt +as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the +ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I +underwent it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm. + +As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt +daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my +faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to +the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted +to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to +aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to +mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give +to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his +own. + +Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of +late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat +at my heart and drained my happiness at its source—the evil of +suspense. + +Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these +changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with +me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a +sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a +tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving +to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at +Morton, I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now +at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it. + +In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the +will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester’s present +residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was +quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, +entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty +on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early +answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but +when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and +brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety. + +I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. +Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some +weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word +reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died +out, and then I felt dark indeed. + +A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer +approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished +to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did +not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too +purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying +deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and +grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, +never thought of resisting him—I could not resist him. + +One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb +was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me +in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take +it, almost certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me +at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. +The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring +over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, +my eyes filled again. + +St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my +voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only +occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the +drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day, clear, +sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, +nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said— + +“We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.” And +while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, +leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye +of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient’s +malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something +about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and +succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked +his desk, and said— + +“Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.” + +“I will call Diana and Mary.” + +“No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put +on your things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the +head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment.” + +I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my +dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, +between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always +faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, +sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither +present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to +mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John’s directions; and in +ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side +with him. + +The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents +of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending +the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and +clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the +firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf, +mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white +flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, +meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head, wound to +their very core. + +“Let us rest here,” said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers +of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck +rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the +mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag +for gem—where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the +fresh for the frowning—where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, +and a last refuge for silence. + +I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down +the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to +traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, +let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion +with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to +something. + +“And I shall see it again,” he said aloud, “in dreams when I sleep by +the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour—when another slumber +overcomes me—on the shore of a darker stream!” + +Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot’s passion for his +fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to +me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced— + +“Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman +which sails on the 20th of June.” + +“God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work,” I answered. + +“Yes,” said he, “there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an +infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to +the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my +king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to +me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,—to +join in the same enterprise.” + +“All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish +to march with the strong.” + +“I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as +are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it.” + +“Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.” + +“You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and +exhort them to the effort—to show them what their gifts are, and why +they were given—to speak Heaven’s message in their ear,—to offer them, +direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen.” + +“If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts +be the first to inform them of it?” + +I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I +trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and +rivet the spell. + +“And what does _your_ heart say?” demanded St. John. + +“My heart is mute,—my heart is mute,” I answered, struck and thrilled. + +“Then I must speak for it,” continued the deep, relentless voice. +“Jane, come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer.” + +The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard +a summons from Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of +Macedonia, had enounced, “Come over and help us!” But I was no +apostle,—I could not behold the herald,—I could not receive his call. + +“Oh, St. John!” I cried, “have some mercy!” + +I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, +knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued— + +“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not +personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for +labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall +be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s +service.” + +“I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,” I said. + +He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by +them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his +arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for +a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to +last him to its close—resolved, however, that that close should be +conquest for him. + +“Humility, Jane,” said he, “is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you +say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, +that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I, +for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge +myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my +personal vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He is just as +well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform +a great task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, +supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, +Jane—trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not +doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness.” + +“I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary +labours.” + +“There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you +your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment +to moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your +powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require +my help.” + +“But my powers—where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them. +Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light +kindling—no life quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I +wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a +rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths—the +fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!” + +“I have an answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we +first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you +in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the +village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, +labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could +perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. +In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read +a mind clear of the vice of Demas:—lucre had no undue power over you. +In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four +shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others +to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in +the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, +at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and +adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity +with which you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging energy and +unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge +the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, +disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and +very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. +As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, +your assistance will be to me invaluable.” + +My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure +step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in +making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My +work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed +itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping +hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to +think, before I again hazarded a reply. + +“Very willingly,” he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance +up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay +still. + + +He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still + +“I _can_ do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge +that,” I meditated,—“that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is +not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then? +He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign +me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is +very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but +empty land—Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what +can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing +so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting +some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. +Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life +to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly +the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble +cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void +left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, +Yes—and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: +if I go to India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval +between leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? +Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to +satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I _shall_ satisfy him—to the +finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. +If I _do_ go with him—if I _do_ make the sacrifice he urges, I will +make it absolutely: I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the +entire victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will +show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never +suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little +grudging. + +“Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one +dreadful item. It is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of +a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which +the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would +a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never +grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into +practice his plans—go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from +him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he +would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? +Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a +sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I +will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him—not as his +wife: I will tell him so.” + +I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; +his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to +his feet and approached me. + +“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.” + +“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.” + +“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let +us continue as such: you and I had better not marry.” + +He shook his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you +were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek +no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed +by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves +to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your +strong sense will guide you.” + +I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to +the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and +therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. “St. John,” I +returned, “I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so let us +continue.” + +“We cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination: +“it would not do. You have said you will go with me to India: +remember—you have said that.” + +“Conditionally.” + +“Well—well. To the main point—the departure with me from England, the +co-operation with me in my future labours—you do not object. You have +already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent +to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view—how the work you +have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, +feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one +purpose: that of fulfilling with effect—with power—the mission of your +great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother—that +is a loose tie—but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister +might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can +influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death.” + +I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on +my limbs. + +“Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.” + +“One fitted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation. Again I tell +you it is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man, with +the man’s selfish senses—I wish to mate: it is the missionary.” + +“And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not +myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For +them he has no use: I retain them.” + +“You cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half +an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of +God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept +on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.” + +“Oh! I will give my heart to God,” I said. “_You_ do not want it.” + +I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed +sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the +feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, +because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had +held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could +not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this +conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I +saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting +there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form +before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil fell from +his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these +qualities, I felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an +equal—one with whom I might argue—one whom, if I saw good, I might +resist. + +He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently +risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, +expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. “Is she sarcastic, +and sarcastic to _me!_” it seemed to say. “What does this signify?” + +“Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long; +“one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I +trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart +to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it +on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on +earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do +at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be +given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in +marriage: the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity +to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all +minor caprices—all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all +scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal +inclination—you will hasten to enter into that union at once.” + +“Shall I?” I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in +their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his +brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and +searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied +myself in idea _his wife_. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his +comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that +capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that +office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour; +accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his +ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man: +profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should +suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body +would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be +free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural +unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. +There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which +he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which +his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march +trample down: but as his wife—at his side always, and always +restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature +continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, +though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital—_this_ would be +unendurable. + +“St. John!” I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation. + +“Well?” he answered icily. + +“I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, +but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you.” + +“A part of me you must become,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the +whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with +me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we +be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage +tribes—and unwed?” + +“Very well,” I said shortly; “under the circumstances, quite as well as +if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like +yourself.” + +“It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as +such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. +And for the rest, though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a +woman’s heart and—it would not do.” + +“It would do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a +woman’s heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a +comrade’s constancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity, +fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s respect and submission to his +hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.” + +“It is what I want,” he said, speaking to himself; “it is just what I +want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane, +you would not repent marrying me—be certain of that; we _must_ be +married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of +love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your +eyes.” + +“I scorn your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and +stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the +counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when +you offer it.” + +He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. +Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: +he could command his countenance thoroughly. + +“I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I +think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.” + +I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien. + +“Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have +been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on +which our natures are at variance—a topic we should never discuss: the +very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality +were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, +abandon your scheme of marriage—forget it.” + +“No,” said he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which +can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present. +To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to +whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight—take +that space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you +reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens +to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to +be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease +and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered +with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!” + +He had done. Turning from me, he once more + +“Looked to river, looked to hill.” + + +But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy +to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in +his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an +austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected +submission—the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has +detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to +sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into +obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with +my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and +repentance. + +That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to +forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. +I—who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him—was hurt by +the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes. + +“I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,” said Diana, +“during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in +the passage expecting you—he will make it up.” + +I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather +be happy than dignified; and I ran after him—he stood at the foot of +the stairs. + +“Good-night, St. John,” said I. + +“Good-night, Jane,” he replied calmly. + +“Then shake hands,” I added. + +What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply +displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, +nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him—no +cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient +and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he +was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he +had nothing to forgive, not having been offended. + +And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me +down. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. +He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me +feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet +implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one +overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me +momently with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his +favour. + +Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness—not +that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in +his power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to +the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I +scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as +long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, +when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between +me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and +their echo toned every answer he gave me. + +He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual +each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within +him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, +in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking +apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the +spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a +certain austere charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in +reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, +blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument—nothing more. + +All this was torture to me—refined, lingering torture. It kept up a +slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which +harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how—if I were his wife, this +good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without +drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own +crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this +when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. _He_ +experienced no suffering from estrangement—no yearning after +reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears +blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more +effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or +metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as +if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how +completely I was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; +and this I am sure he did not by malice, but on principle. + +The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the +garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this +man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were +near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his +friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the +little gate; I spoke to the point at once. + +“St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be +friends.” + +“I hope we are friends,” was the unmoved reply; while he still watched +the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I +approached. + +“No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.” + +“Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all +good.” + +“I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing +any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more +of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere +strangers.” + +“Of course,” he said. “Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from +regarding you as a stranger.” + +This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling +enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should +immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly +than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin’s talent and +principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me +severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it. + +“Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you +leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?” + +He now turned quite from the moon and faced me. + +“When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to +India?” + +“You said I could not unless I married you.” + +“And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?” + +Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put +into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche +is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their +displeasure? + +“No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.” + +The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet +crash down. + +“Once more, why this refusal?” he asked. + +“Formerly,” I answered, “because you did not love me; now, I reply, +because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me. +You are killing me now.” + +His lips and cheeks turned white—quite white. + +“_I should kill you_—_I am killing you_? Your words are such as ought +not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an +unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem +inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even +until seventy-and-seven times.” + +I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from +his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that +tenacious surface another and far deeper impression: I had burnt it in. + +“Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to attempt to +conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.” + +A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched +on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew +the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung. + +“You utterly misinterpret my words,” I said, at once seizing his hand: +“I have no intention to grieve or pain you—indeed, I have not.” + +Most bitterly he smiled—most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. +“And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I +presume?” said he, after a considerable pause. + +“Yes, I will, as your assistant,” I answered. + +A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between +Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams +scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He +spoke at last. + +“I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age +proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you +in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever +again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for your +sake.” + +I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at +once. “Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You +pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked: +for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so +conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your +curate, if you like, but never your wife.” + +Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion +perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly— + +“A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me, +then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I +will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a +coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society’s +aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your +promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.” + +Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise +or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard +and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied— + +“There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. +I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with +strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, +confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go +when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate.” + +“Ah! you are afraid of yourself,” he said, curling his lip. + +“I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish +me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide. +Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will +know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it +than by leaving it.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on +which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by +some means that doubt is removed.” + +“I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you +cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have +crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. +Rochester?” + +It was true. I confessed it by silence. + +“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?” + +“I must find out what is become of him.” + +“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my prayers, and +to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed +become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen. +But God sees not as man sees: _His_ will be done—” + +He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. +He was soon out of sight. + +On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, +looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put +her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face. + +“Jane,” she said, “you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure +there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you +have on hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you +must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I +hardly know what. St. John is a strange being—” + +She paused—I did not speak: soon she resumed— + +“That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting +you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest +he never showed to any one else—to what end? I wish he loved you—does +he, Jane?” + +I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; “No, Die, not one whit.” + +“Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so +frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? +Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.” + +“He does—he has asked me to be his wife.” + +Diana clapped her hands. “That is just what we hoped and thought! And +you will marry him, Jane, won’t you? And then he will stay in England.” + +“Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a +fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils.” + +“What! He wishes you to go to India?” + +“Yes.” + +“Madness!” she exclaimed. “You would not live three months there, I am +certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you, Jane?” + +“I have refused to marry him—” + +“And have consequently displeased him?” she suggested. + +“Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany +him as his sister.” + +“It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you +undertook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the +strong, and you are weak. St. John—you know him—would urge you to +impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during +the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, +you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to +refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?” + +“Not as a husband.” + +“Yet he is a handsome fellow.” + +“And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.” + +“Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, +to be grilled alive in Calcutta.” And again she earnestly conjured me +to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother. + +“I must indeed,” I said; “for when just now I repeated the offer of +serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of +decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing +to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first hoped to +find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such.” + +“What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?” + +“You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again +explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He +has told me I am formed for labour—not for love: which is true, no +doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that +I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be +chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?” + +“Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!” + +“And then,” I continued, “though I have only sisterly affection for him +now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of +conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, +because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur +in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would +become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I +showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a +superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.” + +“And yet St. John is a good man,” said Diana. + +“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings +and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is +better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, +in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will +leave you, Diana.” And I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the +garden. + +But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he +appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak +to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial +scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed +me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his +ordinary manner—one scrupulously polite. No doubt he had invoked the +help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and +now believed he had forgiven me once more. + +For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first +chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen while +from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did his fine voice +sound at once so sweet and full—never did his manner become so +impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of +God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone—that manner a more +thrilling meaning—as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the +May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering +almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat +there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page +the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—told how God would come +to dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, +and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor +crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away. + +The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially +as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in +uttering them, his eye had turned on me. + +“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, +and he shall be my son. But,” was slowly, distinctly read, “the +fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which +burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” + +Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me. + +A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his +enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader +believed his name was already written in the Lamb’s book of life, and +he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which +the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need +of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, +and the Lamb is the light thereof. + +In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered—all his +stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and +resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; +guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh +hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were +luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of +a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: +first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it +continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the +greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard +him plead for it, could not but feel it too. + +The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early +hour in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room—in +compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my +hand, and wished him a pleasant journey. + +“Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a +fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I +listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with +me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim—to +do all things to the glory of God. My Master was long-suffering: so +will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath: +repent—resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work +while it is day—warned that ‘the night cometh when no man shall work.’ +Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life. God +give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken +from you!” + +He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken +earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding +his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering +sheep—or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is +responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; +whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be +sincere—have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt +veneration for St. John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me +at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease +struggling with him—to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf +of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by +him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I +was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of +principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So +I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet +medium of time: I was unconscious of folly at the instant. + +I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch. My refusals were +forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralysed. The +Impossible—_i.e._, my marriage with St. John—was fast becoming the +Possible. All was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion +called—Angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together like a +scroll—death’s gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that +for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. +The dim room was full of visions. + +“Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in +gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far +more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John’s wrath: I grew +pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I +yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my +former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn +prayer: it was only elevated. + +“I could decide if I were but certain,” I answered: “were I but +convinced that it is God’s will I should marry you, I could vow to +marry you here and now—come afterwards what would!” + +“My prayers are heard!” ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer +on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, +_almost_ as if he loved me (I say _almost_—I knew the difference—for I +had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love out +of the question, and thought only of duty). I contended with my inward +dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, +fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. “Show me, show me +the path!” I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever +been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader +shall judge. + +All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, +were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the room was +full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb. +Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it +through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was +not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as +startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto +had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to +wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered +on my bones. + +“What have you heard? What do you see?” asked St. John. I saw nothing, +but I heard a voice somewhere cry— + +“Jane! Jane! Jane!”—nothing more. + +“O God! what is it?” I gasped. + +I might have said, “Where is it?” for it did not seem in the room—nor +in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air—nor from +under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where, or whence, for +ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being—a known, +loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it +spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently. + +“I am coming!” I cried. “Wait for me! Oh, I will come!” I flew to the +door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into the +garden: it was void. + +“Where are you?” I exclaimed. + +The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back—“Where are +you?” I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland +loneliness and midnight hush. + +“Down superstition!” I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the +black yew at the gate. “This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft: +it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did—no miracle—but her +best.” + +I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It +was _my_ time to assume ascendency. _My_ powers were in play and in +force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave +me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy +to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber; +locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my way—a different +way to St. John’s, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to +penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in +gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgiving—took a resolve—and +lay down, unscared, enlightened—eager but for the daylight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or two +with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the +order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence. +Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my door: I +feared he would knock—no, but a slip of paper was passed under the +door. I took it up. It bore these words— + +“You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little +longer, you would have laid your hand on the Christian’s cross and the +angel’s crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this +day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into +temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is +weak. I shall pray for you hourly.—Yours, ST. JOHN.” + +“My spirit,” I answered mentally, “is willing to do what is right; and +my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, +when once that will is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be +strong enough to search—inquire—to grope an outlet from this cloud of +doubt, and find the open day of certainty.” + +It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly: rain +beat fast on my casement. I heard the front-door open, and St. John +pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden. He +took the way over the misty moors in the direction of Whitcross—there +he would meet the coach. + +“In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin,” +thought I: “I too have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have some to +see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever.” + +It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I filled the interval in +walking softly about my room, and pondering the visitation which had +given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation I +had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable +strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned +whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in _me_—not in the +external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression—a delusion? I +could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The +wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the +foundations of Paul and Silas’s prison; it had opened the doors of the +soul’s cell and loosed its bands—it had wakened it out of its sleep, +whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a +cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, +which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the +success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of +the cumbrous body. + +“Ere many days,” I said, as I terminated my musings, “I will know +something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters +have proved of no avail—personal inquiry shall replace them.” + +At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a journey, +and should be absent at least four days. + +“Alone, Jane?” they asked. + +“Yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for some +time been uneasy.” + +They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they had +believed me to be without any friends save them: for, indeed, I had +often said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they abstained +from comment, except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was well +enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I replied, that +nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate. + +It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled with no +inquiries—no surmises. Having once explained to them that I could not +now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in +the silence with which I pursued them, according to me the privilege of +free action I should under similar circumstances have accorded them. + +I left Moor House at three o’clock P.M., and soon after four I stood at +the foot of the sign-post of Whitcross, waiting the arrival of the +coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst the silence of +those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from a great +distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted +one summer evening on this very spot—how desolate, and hopeless, and +objectless! It stopped as I beckoned. I entered—not now obliged to part +with my whole fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more on +the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home. + +It was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. I had set out from Whitcross +on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday morning +the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the +midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral +hills (how mild of feature and verdant of hue compared with the stern +North-Midland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lineaments of a +once familiar face. Yes, I knew the character of this landscape: I was +sure we were near my bourne. + +“How far is Thornfield Hall from here?” I asked of the ostler. + +“Just two miles, ma’am, across the fields.” + +“My journey is closed,” I thought to myself. I got out of the coach, +gave a box I had into the ostler’s charge, to be kept till I called for +it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going: the +brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt +letters, “The Rochester Arms.” My heart leapt up: I was already on my +master’s very lands. It fell again: the thought struck it:— + +“Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you +know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, +who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have nothing to do +with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost +your labour—you had better go no farther,” urged the monitor. “Ask +information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek: +they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if +Mr. Rochester be at home.” + +The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on +it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong +doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the Hall under the +ray of her star. There was the stile before me—the very fields through +which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury +tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I +well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of +them. How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to +catch the first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I +welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill +between them! + +At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke +the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened. +Another field crossed—a lane threaded—and there were the courtyard +walls—the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. “My +first view of it shall be in front,” I determined, “where its bold +battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single +out my master’s very window: perhaps he will be standing at it—he rises +early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in +front. Could I but see him!—but a moment! Surely, in that case, I +should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell—I am not certain. +And if I did—what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be hurt by +my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I rave: perhaps +at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the +tideless sea of the south.” + +I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard—turned its angle: +there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two stone +pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep +round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with +precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet +drawn up: battlements, windows, long front—all from this sheltered +station were at my command. + +The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. +I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was very +careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and +reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my +niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in +front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it. +“What affectation of diffidence was this at first?” they might have +demanded; “what stupid regardlessness now?” + +Hear an illustration, reader. + +A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a +glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the +grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses—fancying she has stirred: he +withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again +advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he +lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of +beauty—warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their +first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and +vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, +touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, +and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he +no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter—by any movement he +can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone +dead. + +I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened +ruin. + +No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed!—to peep up at chamber +lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to listen for +doors opening—to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk! The +lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void. The +front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a shell-like wall, +very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows: +no roof, no battlements, no chimneys—all had crashed in. + +And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome +wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never +received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church +aisle. The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had +fallen—by conflagration: but how kindled? What story belonged to this +disaster? What loss, besides mortar and marble and wood-work had +followed upon it? Had life been wrecked as well as property? If so, +whose? Dreadful question: there was no one here to answer it—not even +dumb sign, mute token. + +In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated +interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late +occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void +arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the +drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and +weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters. And oh! +where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under +what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered to the grey church tower +near the gates, and I asked, “Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing +the shelter of his narrow marble house?” + +Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere but +at the inn, and thither, ere long, I returned. The host himself brought +my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to shut the door and sit +down: I had some questions to ask him. But when he complied, I scarcely +knew how to begin; such horror had I of the possible answers. And yet +the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure +for a tale of misery. The host was a respectable-looking, middle-aged +man. + +“You know Thornfield Hall, of course?” I managed to say at last. + +“Yes, ma’am; I lived there once.” + +“Did you?” Not in my time, I thought: you are a stranger to me. + +“I was the late Mr. Rochester’s butler,” he added. + +The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I had been +trying to evade. + +“The late!” I gasped. “Is he dead?” + +“I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward’s father,” he explained. I +breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words +that Mr. Edward—_my_ Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he +was!)—was at least alive: was, in short, “the present gentleman.” +Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear all that was to come—whatever +the disclosures might be—with comparative tranquillity. Since he was +not in the grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn that he was at the +Antipodes. + +“Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?” I asked, knowing, of +course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the +direct question as to where he really was. + +“No, ma’am—oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger +in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last +autumn,—Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about +harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable +property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The +fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from +Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible +spectacle: I witnessed it myself.” + +“At dead of night!” I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality +at Thornfield. “Was it known how it originated?” I demanded. + +“They guessed, ma’am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was +ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware,” he continued, +edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, “that +there was a lady—a—a lunatic, kept in the house?” + +“I have heard something of it.” + +“She was kept in very close confinement, ma’am; people even for some +years was not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw her: they +only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall; and who or what +she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had +brought her from abroad, and some believed she had been his mistress. +But a queer thing happened a year since—a very queer thing.” + +I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the +main fact. + +“And this lady?” + +“This lady, ma’am,” he answered, “turned out to be Mr. Rochester’s +wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a +young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in—” + +“But the fire,” I suggested. + +“I’m coming to that, ma’am—that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The +servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was +after her continually. They used to watch him—servants will, you know, +ma’am—and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him +thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say, +almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I’ve heard Leah, the +house-maid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was +about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen +of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were +bewitched. Well, he would marry her.” + +“You shall tell me this part of the story another time,” I said; “but +now I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. +Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in +it?” + +“You’ve hit it, ma’am: it’s quite certain that it was her, and nobody +but her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her called +Mrs. Poole—an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one +fault—a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons—_she kept a +private bottle of gin by her_, and now and then took a drop over-much. +It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was +dangerous; for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, +the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of +her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the +house, doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she +had nearly burnt her husband in his bed once: but I don’t know about +that. However, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the +room next her own, and then she got down to a lower storey, and made +her way to the chamber that had been the governess’s—(she was like as +if she knew somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at +her)—and she kindled the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in +it, fortunately. The governess had run away two months before; and for +all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing +he had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew +savage—quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but +he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent +Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but +he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life: and +she deserved it—she was a very good woman. Miss Adèle, a ward he had, +was put to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and +shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall.” + +“What! did he not leave England?” + +“Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones of +the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the +grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses—which it is my +opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he +was before that midge of a governess crossed him, you never saw, ma’am. +He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and +he was not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his +own, if ever man had. I knew him from a boy, you see: and for my part, +I have often wished that Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea before she +came to Thornfield Hall.” + +“Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out?” + +“Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning +above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped them +down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And +then they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was +standing, waving her arms, above the battlements, and shouting out till +they could hear her a mile off: I saw her and heard her with my own +eyes. She was a big woman, and had long black hair: we could see it +streaming against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and several +more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the sky-light on to the +roof; we heard him call ‘Bertha!’ We saw him approach her; and then, +ma’am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay +smashed on the pavement.” + + +The next minute she lay smashed on the pavement + +“Dead?” + +“Dead! Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were +scattered.” + +“Good God!” + +“You may well say so, ma’am: it was frightful!” + +He shuddered. + +“And afterwards?” I urged. + +“Well, ma’am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there are +only some bits of walls standing now.” + +“Were any other lives lost?” + +“No—perhaps it would have been better if there had.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Poor Mr. Edward!” he ejaculated, “I little thought ever to have seen +it! Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his first +marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one +living: but I pity him, for my part.” + +“You said he was alive?” I exclaimed. + +“Yes, yes: he is alive; but many think he had better be dead.” + +“Why? How?” My blood was again running cold. “Where is he?” I demanded. +“Is he in England?” + +“Ay—ay—he’s in England; he can’t get out of England, I fancy—he’s a +fixture now.” + +What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it. + +“He is stone-blind,” he said at last. “Yes, he is stone-blind, is Mr. +Edward.” + +I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to +ask what had caused this calamity. + +“It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a +way, ma’am: he wouldn’t leave the house till every one else was out +before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. +Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great +crash—all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly +hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one +eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the +surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed: he lost +the sight of that also. He is now helpless, indeed—blind and a +cripple.” + +“Where is he? Where does he now live?” + +“At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off: +quite a desolate spot.” + +“Who is with him?” + +“Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite broken +down, they say.” + +“Have you any sort of conveyance?” + +“We have a chaise, ma’am, a very handsome chaise.” + +“Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me to +Ferndean before dark this day, I’ll pay both you and him twice the hire +you usually demand.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, +moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. +I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and +sometimes went there. His father had purchased the estate for the sake +of the game covers. He would have let the house, but could find no +tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. +Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception +of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the +squire when he went there in the season to shoot. + +To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the +characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating +rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise +and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when +within a very short distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing +of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. +Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and +passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of +close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the forest +aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches. I +followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on +and on, it wound far and farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was +visible. + +I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness +of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I looked round +in search of another road. There was none: all was interwoven stem, +columnar trunk, dense summer foliage—no opening anywhere. + +I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; +presently I beheld a railing, then the house—scarce, by this dim light, +distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying +walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a +space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a +semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad +gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of +the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the +windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, one +step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms +had said, “quite a desolate spot.” It was as still as a church on a +week-day: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound +audible in its vicinage. + +“Can there be life here?” I asked. + +Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement—that narrow +front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the +grange. + +It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the +step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel +whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him—it was my +master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other. + +I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him—to examine +him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a sudden +meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had +no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from +hasty advance. + +His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port +was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his features +altered or sunk: not in one year’s space, by any sorrow, could his +athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted. But in his +countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding—that +reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous +to approach in his sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes +cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson. + +And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?—if you +do, you little know me. A soft hope blent with my sorrow that soon I +should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so +sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet. + +He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards +the grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused, as if +he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened his +eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and +toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was void +darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, +he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an +idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy still; for the trees +were some yards off where he stood. He relinquished the endeavour, +folded his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast +on his uncovered head. At this moment John approached him from some +quarter. + +“Will you take my arm, sir?” he said; “there is a heavy shower coming +on: had you not better go in?” + +“Let me alone,” was the answer. + +John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to +walk about: vainly,—all was too uncertain. He groped his way back to +the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door. + +I now drew near and knocked: John’s wife opened for me. “Mary,” I said, +“how are you?” + +She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried +“Is it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this lonely place?” +I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed her into the +kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them, in few +words, that I had heard all which had happened since I left Thornfield, +and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I asked John to go down to +the turn-pike-house, where I had dismissed the chaise, and bring my +trunk, which I had left there: and then, while I removed my bonnet and +shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the +Manor House for the night; and finding that arrangements to that +effect, though difficult, would not be impossible, I informed her I +should stay. Just at this moment the parlour-bell rang. + +“When you go in,” said I, “tell your master that a person wishes to +speak to him, but do not give my name.” + +“I don’t think he will see you,” she answered; “he refuses everybody.” + +When she returned, I inquired what he had said. + +“You are to send in your name and your business,” she replied. She then +proceeded to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray, together +with candles. + +“Is that what he rang for?” I asked. + +“Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is blind.” + +“Give the tray to me; I will carry it in.” + +I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The tray +shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart struck my +ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut it behind me. + +This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in +the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the +high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. +His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled +up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up +his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and +bounded towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it +on the table; then patted him, and said softly, “Lie down!” Mr. +Rochester turned mechanically to _see_ what the commotion was: but as +he _saw_ nothing, he returned and sighed. + +“Give me the water, Mary,” he said. + +I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed +me, still excited. + +“What is the matter?” he inquired. + +“Down, Pilot!” I again said. He checked the water on its way to his +lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. “This is +you, Mary, is it not?” + +“Mary is in the kitchen,” I answered. + +He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, +he did not touch me. “Who is this? Who is this?” he demanded, trying, +as it seemed, to _see_ with those sightless eyes—unavailing and +distressing attempt! “Answer me—speak again!” he ordered, imperiously +and aloud. + +“Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in +the glass,” I said. + +“_Who_ is it? _What_ is it? Who speaks?” + +“Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this +evening,” I answered. + +“Great God!—what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has +seized me?” + +“No delusion—no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, +your health too sound for frenzy.” + +“And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I _cannot_ see, but +I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever—whoever +you are—be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!” + +He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine. + +“Her very fingers!” he cried; “her small, slight fingers! If so there +must be more of her.” + +The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my +shoulder—neck—waist—I was entwined and gathered to him. + +“Is it Jane? _What_ is it? This is her shape—this is her size—” + +“And this her voice,” I added. “She is all here: her heart, too. God +bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again.” + +“Jane Eyre!—Jane Eyre,” was all he said. + +“My dear master,” I answered, “I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out—I +am come back to you.” + +“In truth?—in the flesh? My living Jane?” + +“You touch me, sir,—you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a +corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?” + +“My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her +features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; +such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to +my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus—and felt that she loved +me, and trusted that she would not leave me.” + +“Which I never will, sir, from this day.” + +“Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty +mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned—my life dark, lonely, +hopeless—my soul athirst and forbidden to drink—my heart famished and +never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will +fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before +you go—embrace me, Jane.” + +“There, sir—and there!”’ + +I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes—I swept +his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to +arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him. + +“It is you—is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?” + +“I am.” + +“And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are +not a pining outcast amongst strangers?” + +“No, sir! I am an independent woman now.” + +“Independent! What do you mean, Jane?” + +“My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds.” + +“Ah! this is practical—this is real!” he cried: “I should never dream +that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and +piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered heart; it puts life +into it.—What, Janet! Are you an independent woman? A rich woman?” + +“Quite rich, sir. If you won’t let me live with you, I can build a +house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my +parlour when you want company of an evening.” + +“But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will +look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind +lameter like me?” + +“I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own +mistress.” + +“And you will stay with me?” + +“Certainly—unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse, +your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion—to read +to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes +and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you +shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.” + +He replied not: he seemed serious—abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened +his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a little +embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities; +and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had +indeed made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me +to be his wife: an expectation, not the less certain because +unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his +own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his countenance +becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been +all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and I began +gently to withdraw myself from his arms—but he eagerly snatched me +closer. + +“No—no—Jane; you must not go. No—I have touched you, heard you, felt +the comfort of your presence—the sweetness of your consolation: I +cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself—I must have +you. The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not +signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will +take deadly vengeance on its frame.” + +“Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so.” + +“Yes—but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand +another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and +chair—to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an +affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make +sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no +doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for +you: do you think so? Come—tell me.” + +“I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your nurse, +if you think it better.” + +“But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young—you must marry +one day.” + +“I don’t care about being married.” + +“You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make +you care—but—a sightless block!” + +He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, +and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where +the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite +relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of +conversation. + +“It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you,” said I, parting his +thick and long uncut locks; “for I see you are being metamorphosed into +a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ‘faux air’ of +Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair +reminds me of eagles’ feathers; whether your nails are grown like +birds’ claws or not, I have not yet noticed.” + +“On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails,” he said, drawing the +mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. “It is a mere +stump—a ghastly sight! Don’t you think so, Jane?” + +“It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes—and the scar of +fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of +loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you.” + +“I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my +cicatrised visage.” + +“Did you? Don’t tell me so—lest I should say something disparaging to +your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, +and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?” + +“Yes; with the right eye I see a glow—a ruddy haze.” + +“And you see the candles?” + +“Very dimly—each is a luminous cloud.” + +“Can you see me?” + +“No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.” + +“When do you take supper?” + +“I never take supper.” + +“But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I daresay, +only you forget.” + +Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared +him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with +pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time +after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and +vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I +suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. +Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: +in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine. Blind as he +was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his +lineaments softened and warmed. + +After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had been, +what I had been doing, how I had found him out; but I gave him only +very partial replies: it was too late to enter into particulars that +night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord—to open no +fresh well of emotion in his heart: my sole present aim was to cheer +him. Cheered, as I have said, he was: and yet but by fits. If a +moment’s silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless, touch +me, then say, “Jane.” + +“You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?” + + +You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that? + +“I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester.” + +“Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise +on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a +hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting +John’s wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.” + +“Because I had come in, in Mary’s stead, with the tray.” + +“And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. +Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for +months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; +feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger +when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a +very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her +restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can +it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart +as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.” + +A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed +ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him in this +frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that +they were scorched, and that I would apply something which would make +them grow as broad and black as ever. + +“Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, +at some fatal moment, you will again desert me—passing like a shadow, +whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards +undiscoverable?” + +“Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?” + +“What for, Jane?” + +“Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming, +when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a fairy, but I +am sure, you are more like a brownie.” + +“Am I hideous, Jane?” + +“Very, sir: you always were, you know.” + +“Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have +sojourned.” + +“Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred times +better people; possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in +your life: quite more refined and exalted.” + +“Who the deuce have you been with?” + +“If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your +head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my +substantiality.” + +“Who have you been with, Jane?” + +“You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till +to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of +security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it. By +the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass of +water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of fried +ham.” + +“You mocking changeling—fairy-born and human-bred! You make me feel as +I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had you for his +David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the +harp.” + +“There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I’ll leave you: I +have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. +Good night.” + +“Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you +have been?” + +I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. “A good +idea!” I thought with glee. “I see I have the means of fretting him out +of his melancholy for some time to come.” + +Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering from +one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the question: +“Is Miss Eyre here?” Then: “Which room did you put her into? Was it +dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything; and when she will +come down.” + +I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast. +Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered +my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of +that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his +chair—still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines of now +habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance reminded +one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit—and alas! it was not +himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he was +dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and +careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to +the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity I could. + +“It is a bright, sunny morning, sir,” I said. “The rain is over and +gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk +soon.” + +I had wakened the glow: his features beamed. + +“Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone: +not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over +the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising +sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane’s +tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one): all the +sunshine I can feel is in her presence.” + +The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just +as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a +sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed +off the salt drops, and busied myself with preparing breakfast. + +Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the wet +and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him how +brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked +refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him in +a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse to +let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he +and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet. +He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms— + +“Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you +had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you; and, after +examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no money, nor +anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl necklace I had +given you lay untouched in its little casket; your trunks were left +corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What +could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what +did she do? Let me hear now.” + +Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I +softened considerably what related to the three days of wandering and +starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflict +unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his faithful heart +deeper than I wished. + +I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making +my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have confided in +him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he +had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too +tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me half +his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than +I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, +he was certain, more than I had confessed to him. + +“Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short,” I +answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at +Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c. The +accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due +order. Of course, St. John Rivers’ name came in frequently in the +progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately taken +up. + +“This St. John, then, is your cousin?” + +“Yes.” + +“You have spoken of him often: do you like him?” + +“He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him.” + +“A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of fifty? +Or what does it mean?” + +“St John was only twenty-nine, sir.” + +“‘_Jeune encore_,’ as the French say. Is he a person of low stature, +phlegmatic, and plain? A person whose goodness consists rather in his +guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue.” + +“He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to +perform.” + +“But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but you +shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?” + +“He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His brain +is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous.” + +“Is he an able man, then?” + +“Truly able.” + +“A thoroughly educated man?” + +“St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar.” + +“His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?—priggish and +parsonic?” + +“I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, +they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike.” + +“His appearance,—I forget what description you gave of his +appearance;—a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white +neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?” + +“St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue +eyes, and a Grecian profile.” + +(Aside.) “Damn him!”—(To me.) “Did you like him, Jane?” + +“Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before.” + +I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got +hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him +respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, +immediately charm the snake. + +“Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?” +was the next somewhat unexpected observation. + +“Why not, Mr. Rochester?” + +“The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too +overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a +graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,—tall, fair, +blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan,—a +real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into the +bargain.” + +“I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like +Vulcan, sir.” + +“Well, you can leave me, ma’am: but before you go” (and he retained me +by a firmer grasp than ever), “you will be pleased just to answer me a +question or two.” He paused. + +“What questions, Mr. Rochester?” + +Then followed this cross-examination. + +“St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his +cousin?” + +“Yes.” + +“You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?” + +“Daily.” + +“He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever, for +you are a talented creature!” + +“He approved of them—yes.” + +“He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to +find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary.” + +“I don’t know about that.” + +“You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever come +there to see you?” + +“Now and then.” + +“Of an evening?” + +“Once or twice.” + +A pause. + +“How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship +was discovered?” + +“Five months.” + +“Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?” + +“Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the +window, and we by the table.” + +“Did he study much?” + +“A good deal.” + +“What?” + +“Hindostanee.” + +“And what did you do meantime?” + +“I learnt German, at first.” + +“Did he teach you?” + +“He did not understand German.” + +“Did he teach you nothing?” + +“A little Hindostanee.” + +“Rivers taught you Hindostanee?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And his sisters also?” + +“No.” + +“Only you?” + +“Only me.” + +“Did you ask to learn?” + +“No.” + +“He wished to teach you?” + +“Yes.” + +A second pause. + +“Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?” + +“He intended me to go with him to India.” + +“Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?” + +“He asked me to marry him.” + +“That is a fiction—an impudent invention to vex me.” + +“I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than +once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be.” + +“Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the +same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I +have given you notice to quit?” + +“Because I am comfortable there.” + +“No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not +with me: it is with this cousin—this St. John. Oh, till this moment, I +thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even +when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we +have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never +thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it +is useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go and marry Rivers.” + +“Shake me off, then, sir,—push me away, for I’ll not leave you of my +own accord.” + +“Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it sounds +so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget that +you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool—go—” + +“Where must I go, sir?” + +“Your own way—with the husband you have chosen.” + +“Who is that?” + +“You know—this St. John Rivers.” + +“He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do not +love him. He loves (as he _can_ love, and that is not as you love) a +beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only +because he thought I should make a suitable missionary’s wife, which +she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, +cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his +side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me—no +fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth—only a few +useful mental points.—Then I must leave you, sir, to go to him?” + +I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind +but beloved master. He smiled. + +“What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between +you and Rivers?” + +“Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a +little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than +grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I +_do_ love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, +sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to +exile the rest of me from your presence for ever.” + +Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect. + +“My seared vision! My crippled strength!” he murmured regretfully. + +I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and +wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a +minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle +down the manly cheek. My heart swelled. + +“I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in +Thornfield orchard,” he remarked ere long. “And what right would that +ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?” + +“You are no ruin, sir—no lightning-struck tree: you are green and +vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or +not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they +grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your +strength offers them so safe a prop.” + +Again he smiled: I gave him comfort. + +“You speak of friends, Jane?” he asked. + +“Yes, of friends,” I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant +more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ. He +helped me. + +“Ah! Jane. But I want a wife.” + +“Do you, sir?” + +“Yes: is it news to you?” + +“Of course: you said nothing about it before.” + +“Is it unwelcome news?” + +“That depends on circumstances, sir—on your choice.” + +“Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision.” + +“Choose then, sir—_her who loves you best_.” + +“I will at least choose—_her I love best_. Jane, will you marry me?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to +wait on?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Truly, Jane?” + +“Most truly, sir.” + +“Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!” + +“Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life—if ever I thought +a good thought—if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer—if ever +I wished a righteous wish,—I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for +me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.” + +“Because you delight in sacrifice.” + +“Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for +content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value—to press my +lips to what I love—to repose on what I trust: is that to make a +sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice.” + +And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my + deficiencies. + +Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, + than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector. + +“Hitherto I have hated to be helped—to be led: henceforth, I feel I +shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a hireling’s, +but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane’s little fingers. I +preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but +Jane’s soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me: do I suit +her?” + +“To the finest fibre of my nature, sir.” + +“The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we must +be married instantly.” + +He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising. + +“We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the +licence to get—then we marry.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its +meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at +your watch.” + +“Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I have no +use for it.” + +“It is nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, sir. Don’t you feel +hungry?” + +“The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind fine +clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip.” + +“The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still: it +is quite hot.” + +“Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment +fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it since +the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her.” + +“We will go home through the wood: that will be the shadiest way.” + +He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me. + +“Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells +with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees +not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far +more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent +flower—breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from +me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: +instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued +its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through +the valley of the shadow of death. _His_ chastisements are mighty; and +one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my +strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign +guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane—only—only of +late—I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began +to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my +Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but +very sincere. + +“Some days since: nay, I can number them—four; it was last Monday +night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced +frenzy—sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that since I +could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night—perhaps it +might be between eleven and twelve o’clock—ere I retired to my dreary +rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed good to Him, I might soon +be taken from this life, and admitted to that world to come, where +there was still hope of rejoining Jane. + +“I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open: it +soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no stars and +only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a moon. I longed +for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I +asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long +enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not soon taste bliss +and peace once more. That I merited all I endured, I acknowledged—that +I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my +heart’s wishes broke involuntarily from my lips in the words—‘Jane! +Jane! Jane!’” + +“Did you speak these words aloud?” + +“I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought me +mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy.” + +“And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?” + +“Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the strange +point. You will think me superstitious,—some superstition I have in my +blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true—true at least it is +that I heard what I now relate. + +“As I exclaimed ‘Jane! Jane! Jane!’ a voice—I cannot tell whence the +voice came, but I know whose voice it was—replied, ‘I am coming: wait +for me;’ and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the +words—‘Where are you?’ + +“I’ll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to +my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express. +Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls +dull, and dies unreverberating. ‘Where are you?’ seemed spoken amongst +mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words. Cooler and +fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow: I could have +deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In +spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in +unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to +comfort mine; for those were your accents—as certain as I live—they +were yours!” + +Reader, it was on Monday night—near midnight—that I too had received +the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which I replied to +it. I listened to Mr. Rochester’s narrative, but made no disclosure in +return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be +communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as +must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer: +and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not +the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and +pondered them in my heart. + +“You cannot now wonder,” continued my master, “that when you rose upon +me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any +other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to +silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had +melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I +thank God!” + +He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his +brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute +devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible. + +“I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered +mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead +henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!” + +Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held +it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder: being so +much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We +entered the wood, and wended homeward. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII—CONCLUSION + + +Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and +clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into +the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and +John cleaning the knives, and I said— + +“Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.” The +housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order +of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable +piece of news without incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced +by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of +wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle +with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did +for some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of +time John’s knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, +bending again over the roast, said only— + +“Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!” + +A short time after she pursued—“I seed you go out with the master, but +I didn’t know you were gone to church to be wed;” and she basted away. +John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear. + +“I telled Mary how it would be,” he said: “I knew what Mr. Edward” +(John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the +cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name)—“I +knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long +neither: and he’s done right, for aught I know. I wish you joy, Miss!” +and he politely pulled his forelock. + +“Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.” I +put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I +left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, +I caught the words— + +“She’ll happen do better for him nor ony o’ t’ grand ladies.” And +again, “If she ben’t one o’ th’ handsomest, she’s noan faâl and varry +good-natured; and i’ his een she’s fair beautiful, onybody may see +that.” + +I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had +done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary +approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just +give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and see +me. + +“She had better not wait till then, Jane,” said Mr. Rochester, when I +read her letter to him; “if she does, she will be too late, for our +honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your +grave or mine.” + +How St. John received the news, I don’t know: he never answered the +letter in which I communicated it: yet six months after he wrote to me, +without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester’s name or alluding to my +marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He +has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever +since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live +without God in the world, and only mind earthly things. + +You have not quite forgotten little Adèle, have you, reader? I had not; +I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and see her at +the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me +again moved me much. She looked pale and thin: she said she was not +happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its +course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with +me. I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this +impracticable; my time and cares were now required by another—my +husband needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more +indulgent system, and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, +and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for +anything that could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled in her +new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her +studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great +measure her French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a +pleasing and obliging companion: docile, good-tempered, and +well-principled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long +since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to +offer her. + +My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of +married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names +have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done. + +I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely +for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely +blest—blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s +life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than +I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I +know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine, any +more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our +separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is +for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We +talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more +animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, +all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in +character—perfect concord is the result. + +Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps +it was that circumstance that drew us so very near—that knit us so very +close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. +Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw +nature—he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his +behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, +river, cloud, sunbeam—of the landscape before us; of the weather round +us—and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp +on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of +conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished +to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most +exquisite, even though sad—because he claimed these services without +painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he +knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him +so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest +wishes. + +One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to +his dictation, he came and bent over me, and said—“Jane, have you a +glittering ornament round your neck?” + +I had a gold watch-chain: I answered “Yes.” + +“And have you a pale blue dress on?” + + +And have you a pale blue dress on? + +I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the +obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was +sure of it. + +He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; +and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now +see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his +way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to +him—the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his +arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they +once were—large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with +a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy. + +My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we +most love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both married: +alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we go to see +them. Diana’s husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a +good man. Mary’s is a clergyman, a college friend of her brother’s, +and, from his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection. +Both Captain Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their wives, and are loved +by them. + +As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India. He entered on +the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still. A more +resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. +Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he +labours for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he +hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber +it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but +his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim +convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the +apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says—“Whosoever will come +after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” +His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a +place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth—who +stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty +victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful. + +St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself has hitherto +sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close: his glorious +sun hastens to its setting. The last letter I received from him drew +from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy: he +anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a +stranger’s hand will write to me next, to say that the good and +faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord. +And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St. John’s last +hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope +will be sure, his faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this— + +“My Master,” he says, “has forewarned me. Daily He announces more +distinctly,—‘Surely I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly +respond,—‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’” + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANE EYRE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY *** + + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org. + +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +SECOND COPY + + +This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online +at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, +you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located +before using this eBook. + +Title: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography + +Author: Charlotte Brontë + +Illustrator: F. H. Townsend + +Release date: March 1, 1998 [eBook #1260] + Most recently updated: May 2, 2023 + +Language: English + +Credits: David Price + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANE EYRE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY *** + + + + +JANE EYRE +AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +by Charlotte Brontë + +_ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND_ + +London +SERVICE & PATON +5 HENRIETTA STREET +1897 + +_The Illustrations_ +_in this Volume are the copyright of_ +SERVICE & PATON, _London_ + +TO +W. M. THACKERAY, ESQ., + +This Work +IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED + +BY +THE AUTHOR + + + + +PREFACE + + +A preface to the first edition of “Jane Eyre” being unnecessary, I gave +none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment +and miscellaneous remark. + +My thanks are due in three quarters. + +To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale +with few pretensions. + +To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an +obscure aspirant. + +To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical +sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended +Author. + +The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I +must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are +certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted +and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to +them, _i.e._, to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say +cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart. + +Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved +me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, +therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who +doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever +is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against +bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on +earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I +would remind them of certain simple truths. + +Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To +attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the +face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of +Thorns. + +These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct +as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be +confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human +doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be +substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat +it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly +and clearly the line of separation between them. + +The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been +accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show +pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean +shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the +gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and +reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him. + +Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning +him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah +better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped +his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel. + +There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle +delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of +society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of +Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as +prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the +satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I +think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his +sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, +were to take his warnings in time—they or their seed might yet escape a +fatal Rimoth-Gilead. + +Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because +I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his +contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first +social regenerator of the day—as the very master of that working corps +who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I +think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that +suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he +is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He +resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on +carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour +attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that +the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the +summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, +I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him—if he will accept the +tribute of a total stranger—I have dedicated this second edition of +“JANE EYRE.” + +CURRER BELL. + +_December_ 21_st_, 1847. + + + + +NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION + + +I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of “Jane Eyre” +affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to explain that +my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, +therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed +to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and consequently, +denied where it is justly due. + +This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have +been made, and to prevent future errors. + +CURRER BELL. + +_April_ 13_th_, 1848. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been +wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; +but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) +the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain +so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the +question. + +I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly +afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, +with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of +Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical +inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. + +The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama +in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and +with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor +crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the +group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me +at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover +by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to +acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive +and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it +were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for +contented, happy, little children.” + +“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked. + +“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is +something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that +manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain +silent.” + +A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It +contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care +that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the +window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; +and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in +double retirement. + +Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left +were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from +the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of +my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it +offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and +storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a +long and lamentable blast. + +I returned to my book—Bewick’s History of British Birds: the +letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet +there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not +pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of +sea-fowl; of “the solitary rocks and promontories” by them only +inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern +extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape— + +“Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, +Boils round the naked, melancholy isles +Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge +Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.” + + +Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of +Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with +“the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary +space,—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the +accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above +heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of +extreme cold.” Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: +shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through +children’s brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these +introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, +and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow +and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold +and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just +sinking. + +I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, +with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, +girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the +hour of eventide. + +The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine +phantoms. + +The fiend pinning down the thief’s pack behind him, I passed over +quickly: it was an object of terror. + +So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a +distant crowd surrounding a gallows. + +Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped +understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: +as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter +evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having +brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit +about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed’s lace frills, and crimped her +nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and +adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a +later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of +Moreland. + +With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I +feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The +breakfast-room door opened. + +“Boh! Madam Mope!” cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he +found the room apparently empty. + +“Where the dickens is she!” he continued. “Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to +his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the +rain—bad animal!” + +“It is well I drew the curtain,” thought I; and I wished fervently he +might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it +out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza +just put her head in at the door, and said at once— + +“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.” + +And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged +forth by the said Jack. + +“What do you want?” I asked, with awkward diffidence. + +“Say, ‘What do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to +come here;” and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a +gesture that I was to approach and stand before him. + +John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than +I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and +unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs +and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which +made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. +He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home +for a month or two, “on account of his delicate health.” Mr. Miles, the +master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and +sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother’s heart turned from an +opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that +John’s sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining +after home. + +John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an +antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in +the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I +had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he +came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he +inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces +or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young +master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf +on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though +he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, +however, behind her back. + +Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some +three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could +without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while +dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him +who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my +face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and +strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a +step or two from his chair. + +“That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since,” said he, +“and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look +you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!” + +Accustomed to John Reed’s abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; +my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the +insult. + +“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked. + +“I was reading.” + +“Show the book.” + +I returned to the window and fetched it thence. + +“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama +says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, +and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the +same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll +teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they _are_ mine; all the house +belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out +of the way of the mirror and the windows.” + +I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him +lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively +started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume +was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and +cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its +climax; other feelings succeeded. + +“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer—you are like a +slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!” + +I had read Goldsmith’s History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of +Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I +never thought thus to have declared aloud. + +“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, +Eliza and Georgiana? Won’t I tell mama? but first—” + +He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had +closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a +murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my +neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations +for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic +sort. I don’t very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me +“Rat! Rat!” and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and +Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came +upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: +I heard the words— + +“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!” + +“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!” + +Then Mrs. Reed subjoined— + +“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were +immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which +greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were +disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; +or rather _out_ of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious +that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange +penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my +desperation, to go all lengths. + +“Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she’s like a mad cat.” + +“For shame! for shame!” cried the lady’s-maid. “What shocking conduct, +Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your +young master.” + +“Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?” + +“No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. +There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.” + +They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, +and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a +spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly. + +“If you don’t sit still, you must be tied down,” said Bessie. “Miss +Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.” + +Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This +preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a +little of the excitement out of me. + +“Don’t take them off,” I cried; “I will not stir.” + +In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands. + +“Mind you don’t,” said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was +really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot +stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as +incredulous of my sanity. + +“She never did so before,” at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail. + +“But it was always in her,” was the reply. “I’ve told Missis often my +opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She’s an underhand +little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover.” + +Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said— + +“You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. +Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go +to the poorhouse.” + +I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very +first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This +reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very +painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in— + +“And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses +Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up +with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have +none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself +agreeable to them.” + +“What we tell you is for your good,” added Bessie, in no harsh voice, +“you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would +have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will +send you away, I am sure.” + +“Besides,” said Miss Abbot, “God will punish her: He might strike her +dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, +Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn’t have her heart for anything. Say +your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don’t +repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and +fetch you away.” + +They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them. + +The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say +never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead +Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it +contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the +mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with +curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; +the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half +shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; +the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the +walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, +the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out +of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the +piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy +Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned +easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool +before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne. + +This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, +because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was +known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came here on +Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s quiet +dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the +contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored +divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased +husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room—the +spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur. + +Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed +his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the +undertaker’s men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration +had guarded it from frequent intrusion. + +My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, +was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before +me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, +broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the +muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant +majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had +locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! +yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the +looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it +revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in +reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white +face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving +where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it +like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie’s evening +stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and +appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my +stool. + +Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour +for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted +slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a +rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal +present. + +All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifference, +all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in +my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I +always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever +condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win +any one’s favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. +Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and +insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink +cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at +her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, +much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed +the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse +vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the +conservatory: he called his mother “old girl,” too; sometimes reviled +her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her +wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was +still “her own darling.” I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil +every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, +from morning to noon, and from noon to night. + +My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no +one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had +turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded +with general opprobrium. + +“Unjust!—unjust!” said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into +precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, +instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable +oppression—as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never +eating or drinking more, and letting myself die. + +What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my +brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what +darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could +not answer the ceaseless inward question—_why_ I thus suffered; now, at +the distance of—I will not say how many years, I see it clearly. + +I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had +nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen +vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. +They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not +sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to +them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, +incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a +noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, +of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, +brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally +dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more +complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the +cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone +to make me the scapegoat of the nursery. + +Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and +the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain +still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind +howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a +stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, +self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying +ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had +I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly +was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel +of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told +did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I +dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew +that he was my own uncle—my mother’s brother—that he had taken me when +a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had +required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as +one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept +this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would +permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her +race, and unconnected with her, after her husband’s death, by any tie? +It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung +pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could +not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her +own family group. + +A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not—never doubted—that if +Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I +sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls—occasionally also +turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror—I began to +recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the +violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the +perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit, +harassed by the wrongs of his sister’s child, might quit its +abode—whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the +departed—and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and +hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a +preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed +face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in +theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I +endeavoured to stifle it—I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from +my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; +at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a +ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight +was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling +and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this +streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried +by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for +horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift +darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My +heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I +deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, +suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the +lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; +the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered. + +“Miss Eyre, are you ill?” said Bessie. + +“What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!” exclaimed Abbot. + +“Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!” was my cry. + +“What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?” again demanded +Bessie. + +“Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come.” I had now got +hold of Bessie’s hand, and she did not snatch it from me. + +“She has screamed out on purpose,” declared Abbot, in some disgust. +“And what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would have +excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her +naughty tricks.” + +“What is all this?” demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed +came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling +stormily. “Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre +should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself.” + +“Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma’am,” pleaded Bessie. + +“Let her go,” was the only answer. “Loose Bessie’s hand, child: you +cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor +artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that +tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it +is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall +liberate you then.” + +“O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it—let me be punished +some other way! I shall be killed if—” + +“Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:” and so, no doubt, she +felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked +on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous +duplicity. + +Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now +frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me +in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after +she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed +the scene. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had +a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, +crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a +hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, +uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my +faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; +lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more +tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head +against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy. + +In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite +well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery +fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the +bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near +my pillow, leaning over me. + +I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and +security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an +individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. +Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me +than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the +face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, +sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for +herself and the children she employed a physician. + +“Well, who am I?” he asked. + +I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took +it, smiling and saying, “We shall do very well by-and-by.” Then he laid +me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I +was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further +directions, and intimated that he should call again the next day, he +departed; to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat +in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all +the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness +weighed it down. + +“Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?” asked Bessie, rather +softly. + +Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be +rough. “I will try.” + +“Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?” + +“No, thank you, Bessie.” + +“Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o’clock; but you +may call me if you want anything in the night.” + +Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question. + +“Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?” + +“You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you’ll be +better soon, no doubt.” + +Bessie went into the housemaid’s apartment, which was near. I heard her +say— + +“Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren’t for my life be +alone with that poor child to-night: she might die; it’s such a strange +thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis +was rather too hard.” + +Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering +together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of +their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer +the main subject discussed. + +“Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished”—“A great +black dog behind him”—“Three loud raps on the chamber door”—“A light in +the churchyard just over his grave,” &c., &c. + +At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the +watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; ear, eye, and +mind were alike strained by dread: such dread as children only can +feel. + +No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the +red-room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the +reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful +pangs of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not +what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only +uprooting my bad propensities. + +Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by +the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my +worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness +which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt +drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to +have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone +out in the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too, was sewing in another +room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys +and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of +unwonted kindness. This state of things should have been to me a +paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand +and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such +a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them +agreeably. + +Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a +tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, +nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir +in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had +often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine +it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a +privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was +cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain +favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished +for, too late! I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, +the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and +tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word _book_ acted +as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels +from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight. +I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of +interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, +having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under +mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at +length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of +England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, +and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, +in my creed, solid parts of the earth’s surface, I doubted not that I +might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little +fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, +and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty +mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. +Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned +over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, +till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants +were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a +most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed +the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, +beside the untasted tart. + +Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed +her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds +of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana’s doll. +Meantime she sang: her song was— + +“In the days when we went gipsying, + A long time ago.” + + +I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for +Bessie had a sweet voice,—at least, I thought so. But now, though her +voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. +Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, +very lingeringly; “A long time ago” came out like the saddest cadence +of a funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really +doleful one. + +“My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; + Long is the way, and the mountains are wild; +Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary + Over the path of the poor orphan child. + +Why did they send me so far and so lonely, + Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled? +Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only + Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child. + +Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, + Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild, +God, in His mercy, protection is showing, + Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child. + +Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing, + Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled, +Still will my Father, with promise and blessing, + Take to His bosom the poor orphan child. + +There is a thought that for strength should avail me, + Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled; +Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me; + God is a friend to the poor orphan child.” + + +“Come, Miss Jane, don’t cry,” said Bessie as she finished. She might as +well have said to the fire, “don’t burn!” but how could she divine the +morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning +Mr. Lloyd came again. + +“What, already up!” said he, as he entered the nursery. “Well, nurse, +how is she?” + +Bessie answered that I was doing very well. + +“Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name +is Jane, is it not?” + +“Yes, sir, Jane Eyre.” + +“Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what +about? Have you any pain?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis +in the carriage,” interposed Bessie. + +“Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness.” + +I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, +I answered promptly, “I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate +going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.” + +“Oh fie, Miss!” said Bessie. + +The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before +him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and +grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: +he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered +me at leisure, he said— + +“What made you ill yesterday?” + +“She had a fall,” said Bessie, again putting in her word. + +“Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can’t she manage to walk at her +age? She must be eight or nine years old.” + +“I was knocked down,” was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by +another pang of mortified pride; “but that did not make me ill,” I +added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff. + +As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang +for the servants’ dinner; he knew what it was. “That’s for you, nurse,” +said he; “you can go down; I’ll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come +back.” + +Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because +punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall. + +“The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?” pursued Mr. Lloyd when +Bessie was gone. + +“I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark.” + +I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time. + +“Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?” + +“Of Mr. Reed’s ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out +there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if +they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a +candle,—so cruel that I think I shall never forget it.” + +“Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in +daylight?” + +“No: but night will come again before long: and besides,—I am +unhappy,—very unhappy, for other things.” + +“What other things? Can you tell me some of them?” + +How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was +to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their +feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they +know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, +however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my +grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a +meagre, though, as far as it went, true response. + +“For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters.” + +“You have a kind aunt and cousins.” + +Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced— + +“But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the +red-room.” + +Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box. + +“Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?” asked he. “Are +you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?” + +“It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here +than a servant.” + +“Pooh! you can’t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid +place?” + +“If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can +never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.” + +“Perhaps you may—who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?” + +“I think not, sir.” + +“None belonging to your father?” + +“I don’t know: I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might +have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about +them.” + +“If you had such, would you like to go to them?” + +I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to +children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable +poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, +scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty +for me was synonymous with degradation. + +“No; I should not like to belong to poor people,” was my reply. + +“Not even if they were kind to you?” + +I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being +kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to +be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes +nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of +the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase +liberty at the price of caste. + +“But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?” + +“I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly +set: I should not like to go a begging.” + +“Would you like to go to school?” + +Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes +spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore +backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: +John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed’s +tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie’s accounts of +school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she +had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her +details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies +were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings +of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing +and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books +they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I +listened. Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long +journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new +life. + +“I should indeed like to go to school,” was the audible conclusion of +my musings. + +“Well, well! who knows what may happen?” said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. +“The child ought to have change of air and scene,” he added, speaking +to himself; “nerves not in a good state.” + +Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling +up the gravel-walk. + +“Is that your mistress, nurse?” asked Mr. Lloyd. “I should like to +speak to her before I go.” + +Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way +out. In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I +presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to +recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt +readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject +with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was +in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, “Missis was, she dared say, glad +enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always +looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots +underhand.” Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of +infantine Guy Fawkes. + +On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot’s +communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; +that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who +considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so +irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that +after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught +the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing +town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then +prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died +within a month of each other. + +Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, “Poor Miss Jane +is to be pitied, too, Abbot.” + +“Yes,” responded Abbot; “if she were a nice, pretty child, one might +compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a +little toad as that.” + +“Not a great deal, to be sure,” agreed Bessie: “at any rate, a beauty +like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition.” + +“Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!” cried the fervent Abbot. “Little +darling!—with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet colour +as she has; just as if she were painted!—Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh +rabbit for supper.” + +“So could I—with a roast onion. Come, we’ll go down.” They went. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported +conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to +suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,—I +desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and weeks +passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion +was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at +times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since my illness, she +had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her +own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, +condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the +nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a +hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school: still I felt an +instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same +roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, +expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion. + +Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me +as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he +saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned +against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate +revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to +desist, and ran from me uttering execrations, and vowing I had burst +his nose. I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a +blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or +my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up my +advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama. I heard him in +a blubbering tone commence the tale of how “that nasty Jane Eyre” had +flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly— + +“Don’t talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she +is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your +sisters should associate with her.” + +Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at +all deliberating on my words— + +“They are not fit to associate with me.” + +Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange and +audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a +whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my +crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or utter +one syllable during the remainder of the day. + +“What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?” was my scarcely +voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my +tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: +something spoke out of me over which I had no control. + +“What?” said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed grey +eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my +arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child +or fiend. I was now in for it. + +“My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so +can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how +you wish me dead.” + +Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she +boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied +the hiatus by a homily of an hour’s length, in which she proved beyond +a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared +under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings +surging in my breast. + +November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the +New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; +presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From +every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety +consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, +and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin +frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and +afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played +below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the +jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken +hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed. When +tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the +solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I was not +miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, +for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been +kind and companionable, I should have deemed it a treat to spend the +evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable +eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, +as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off +to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper’s room, generally +bearing the candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee +till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that +nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers +sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings +as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. +To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, +and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to +find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby +as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what +absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half fancying it alive +and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my +night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively +happy, believing it to be happy likewise. + +Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, +and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs: sometimes +she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, +or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper—a bun or a +cheese-cake—then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I +had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed +me, and said, “Good night, Miss Jane.” When thus gentle, Bessie seemed +to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished +most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and +never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too +often wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good +natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a +remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge from the +impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my +recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a +slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and +good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and +indifferent ideas of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I +preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall. + +It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o’clock in the morning: +Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned +to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to +go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond: and not +less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the +money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic, and a marked +propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending of eggs and +chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener about +flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary having +orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her +parterre she wished to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hair off her +head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As to her money, +she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old +curl-paper; but some of these hoards having been discovered by the +housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, +consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate of +interest—fifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted every +quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy. + +Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and +interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, of +which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my +bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged +before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of +under-nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). Having +spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat +to put in order some picture-books and doll’s house furniture scattered +there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone +(for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her +property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other +occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the +window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through +which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and +petrified under the influence of a hard frost. + +From this window were visible the porter’s lodge and the carriage-road, +and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling +the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a +carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with +indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought +visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, +the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. All this being +nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in +the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the +twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the +casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the +table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash +to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running +upstairs into the nursery. + +“Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you +washed your hands and face this morning?” I gave another tug before I +answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash +yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the +cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied— + +“No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting.” + +“Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look +quite red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were you +opening the window for?” + +I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a +hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand, +inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands +with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a +bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the +top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the +breakfast-room. + +I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed +was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the nursery-door +upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months, I had never been +called to Mrs. Reed’s presence; restricted so long to the nursery, the +breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions, +on which it dismayed me to intrude. + +I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door, +and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable little +poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those +days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to +the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement +ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I _must_ enter. + +“Who could want me?” I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the +stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. +“What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?—a man or a +woman?” The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and +curtseying low, I looked up at—a black pillar!—such, at least, appeared +to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing +erect on the rug: the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, +placed above the shaft by way of capital. + +Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to +me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger +with the words: “This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to +you.” + +_He_, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, +and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which +twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass +voice, “Her size is small: what is her age?” + +“Ten years.” + +“So much?” was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for +some minutes. Presently he addressed me—“Your name, little girl?” + +“Jane Eyre, sir.” + +In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman; +but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all +the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim. + +“Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?” + +Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a +contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an +expressive shake of the head, adding soon, “Perhaps the less said on +that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst.” + +“Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;” and bending +from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair +opposite Mrs. Reed’s. “Come here,” he said. + +I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. +What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a +great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth! + +“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a +naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?” + +“They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer. + +“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?” + +“A pit full of fire.” + +“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for +ever?” + +“No, sir.” + +“What must you do to avoid it?” + +I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: +“I must keep in good health, and not die.” + +“How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. +I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since,—a +good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the +same could not be said of you were you to be called hence.” + +Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down +on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing myself +far enough away. + +“I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having +been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress.” + +“Benefactress! benefactress!” said I inwardly: “they all call Mrs. Reed +my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing.” + +“Do you say your prayers night and morning?” continued my interrogator. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Do you read your Bible?” + +“Sometimes.” + +“With pleasure? Are you fond of it?” + +“I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, +and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and +Job and Jonah.” + +“And the Psalms? I hope you like them?” + +“No, sir.” + +“No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six +Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a +gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: ‘Oh! +the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;’ says he, ‘I wish to be a +little angel here below;’ he then gets two nuts in recompense for his +infant piety.” + +“Psalms are not interesting,” I remarked. + +“That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to +change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of +stone and give you a heart of flesh.” + +I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that +operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed +interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the +conversation herself. + +“Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to +you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character +and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, +I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to +keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst +fault, a tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that +you may not attempt to impose on Mr. Brocklehurst.” + +Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her +nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence; however +carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my +efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. +Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I +dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new +phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I +could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and +unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. +Brocklehurst’s eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do +to remedy the injury? + +“Nothing, indeed,” thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and +hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish. + +“Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child,” said Mr. Brocklehurst; “it +is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake +burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be watched, Mrs. +Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers.” + +“I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects,” +continued my benefactress; “to be made useful, to be kept humble: as +for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at +Lowood.” + +“Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam,” returned Mr. +Brocklehurst. “Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly +appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial +care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied +how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride; and, only +the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second +daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her +return she exclaimed: ‘Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls +at Lowood look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their +long pinafores, and those little holland pockets outside their +frocks—they are almost like poor people’s children! and,’ said she, +‘they looked at my dress and mama’s, as if they had never seen a silk +gown before.’” + +“This is the state of things I quite approve,” returned Mrs. Reed; “had +I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more +exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr. +Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things.” + +“Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been +observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of +Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, +hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and +its inhabitants.” + +“Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as +a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her +position and prospects?” + +“Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants, +and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable +privilege of her election.” + +“I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I +assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was +becoming too irksome.” + +“No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall +return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my good +friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall +send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there +will be no difficulty about receiving her. Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst, +and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton Brocklehurst.” + +“I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the ‘Child’s +Guide’; read it with prayer, especially that part containing ‘An +account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G——, a naughty child +addicted to falsehood and deceit.’” + +With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn +in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed. + +Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence; she +was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be at that time some +six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, +square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not +obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much +developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and +prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light +eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, +her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell—illness +never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager; her household +and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children only at +times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, +and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire. + +Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her +figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract containing +the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my attention had been +pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs. +Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of +their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had +felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of +resentment fomented now within me. + +Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers +at the same time suspended their nimble movements. + +“Go out of the room; return to the nursery,” was her mandate. My look +or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with +extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I +came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up +to her. + +_Speak_ I must: I had been trodden on severely, and _must_ turn: but +how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I +gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence— + +“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved _you;_ but I +declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the +world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to +your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I.” + +Mrs. Reed’s hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice +continued to dwell freezingly on mine. + +“What more have you to say?” she asked, rather in the tone in which a +person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is +ordinarily used to a child. + +That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking +from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued— + +“I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt +again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown +up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I +will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me +with miserable cruelty.” + +“How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?” + +“How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the _truth_. You +think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or +kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember +how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back—into the +red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in +agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, ‘Have +mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!’ And that punishment you made me suffer +because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will +tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a +good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. _You_ are deceitful!” + + +How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth + +Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with +the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as +if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into +unhoped-for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed +looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting +up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as +if she would cry. + +“Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you +tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?” + +“No, Mrs. Reed.” + +“Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to +be your friend.” + +“Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful +disposition; and I’ll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and +what you have done.” + +“Jane, you don’t understand these things: children must be corrected +for their faults.” + +“Deceit is not my fault!” I cried out in a savage, high voice. + +“But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to +the nursery—there’s a dear—and lie down a little.” + +“I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. +Reed, for I hate to live here.” + +“I will indeed send her to school soon,” murmured Mrs. Reed _sotto +voce_; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment. + +I was left there alone—winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I +had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the +rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror’s +solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce +pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my +pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot +give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, +without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of +reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would +have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. +Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, +would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when +half-an-hour’s silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my +conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position. + +Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic +wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, +metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. +Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed’s pardon; but I +knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way +to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every +turbulent impulse of my nature. + +I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; +fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of +sombre indignation. I took a book—some Arabian tales; I sat down and +endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own +thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found +fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the +shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or +breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt +of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was +quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the +falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept +by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a +gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where +the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most +opaque sky, “onding on snaw,” canopied all; thence flakes fell at +intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without +melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over +and over again, “What shall I do?—what shall I do?” + +All at once I heard a clear voice call, “Miss Jane! where are you? Come +to lunch!” + +It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step +came tripping down the path. + +“You naughty little thing!” she said. “Why don’t you come when you are +called?” + +Bessie’s presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been +brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat +cross. The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, +I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid’s transitory anger; +and I _was_ disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart. I just +put my two arms round her and said, “Come, Bessie! don’t scold.” + +The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to +indulge in: somehow it pleased her. + +“You are a strange child, Miss Jane,” she said, as she looked down at +me; “a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to school, I +suppose?” + +I nodded. + +“And won’t you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?” + +“What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me.” + +“Because you’re such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should +be bolder.” + +“What! to get more knocks?” + +“Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that’s certain. My mother said, +when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one +of her own to be in your place.—Now, come in, and I’ve some good news +for you.” + +“I don’t think you have, Bessie.” + +“Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me! Well, but +Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going out to tea this +afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I’ll ask cook to bake you a +little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers; for +I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis intends you to leave Gateshead in +a day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like to take with +you.” + +“Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go.” + +“Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don’t be afraid +of me. Don’t start when I chance to speak rather sharply; it’s so +provoking.” + +“I don’t think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I +have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set of people to +dread.” + +“If you dread them they’ll dislike you.” + +“As you do, Bessie?” + +“I don’t dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of all +the others.” + +“You don’t show it.” + +“You little sharp thing! you’ve got quite a new way of talking. What +makes you so venturesome and hardy?” + +“Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides”—I was going to say +something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed, but on second +thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head. + +“And so you’re glad to leave me?” + +“Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I’m rather sorry.” + +“Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say +now if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn’t give it me: you’d say +you’d _rather_ not.” + +“I’ll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down.” Bessie stooped; we +mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite comforted. +That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie +told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her +sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Five o’clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of January, +when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and +nearly dressed. I had risen half-an-hour before her entrance, and had +washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light of a half-moon just +setting, whose rays streamed through the narrow window near my crib. I +was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates +at six A.M. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in +the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children +can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. +Bessie, having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled +milk and bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a +paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse +and bonnet, and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the +nursery. As we passed Mrs. Reed’s bedroom, she said, “Will you go in +and bid Missis good-bye?” + +“No, Bessie: she came to my crib last night when you were gone down to +supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or my cousins +either; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best +friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her accordingly.” + +“What did you say, Miss?” + +“Nothing: I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from her to +the wall.” + +“That was wrong, Miss Jane.” + +“It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missis has not been my friend: she +has been my foe.” + +“O Miss Jane! don’t say so!” + +“Good-bye to Gateshead!” cried I, as we passed through the hall and +went out at the front door. + +The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose +light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw. Raw +and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down +the drive. There was a light in the porter’s lodge: when we reached it, +we found the porter’s wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had +been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It +wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had +struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went +to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom. + +“Is she going by herself?” asked the porter’s wife. + +“Yes.” + +“And how far is it?” + +“Fifty miles.” + +“What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far +alone.” + +The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses and +its top laden with passengers: the guard and coachman loudly urged +haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie’s neck, to +which I clung with kisses. + +“Be sure and take good care of her,” cried she to the guard, as he +lifted me into the inside. + +“Ay, ay!” was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed +“All right,” and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie and +Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote +and mysterious regions. + +I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed +to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel over +hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one, +a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the +passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn, where the guard +wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in +an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from +the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled +with musical instruments. Here I walked about for a long time, feeling +very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and +kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having +frequently figured in Bessie’s fireside chronicles. At last the guard +returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector +mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over +the “stony street” of L——. + +The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I +began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead: we +ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills +heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a +valley, dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the +prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees. + +Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered +when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door was open, +and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her face and +dress by the light of the lamps. + +“Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?” she asked. I answered +“Yes,” and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and the coach +instantly drove away. + +I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion +of the coach: gathering my faculties, I looked about me. Rain, wind, +and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall +before me and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new +guide: she shut and locked it behind her. There was now visible a house +or houses—for the building spread far—with many windows, and lights +burning in some; we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and +were admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into +a room with a fire, where she left me alone. + +I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked +round; there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the hearth +showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany +furniture: it was a parlour, not so spacious or splendid as the +drawing-room at Gateshead, but comfortable enough. I was puzzling to +make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, +and an individual carrying a light entered; another followed close +behind. + +The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and +large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her +countenance was grave, her bearing erect. + +“The child is very young to be sent alone,” said she, putting her +candle down on the table. She considered me attentively for a minute or +two, then further added— + +“She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired: are you tired?” +she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder. + +“A little, ma’am.” + +“And hungry too, no doubt: let her have some supper before she goes to +bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time you have left your parents to +come to school, my little girl?” + +I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long they +had been dead: then how old I was, what was my name, whether I could +read, write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek gently with +her forefinger, and saying, “She hoped I should be a good child,” +dismissed me along with Miss Miller. + +The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went with +me appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her voice, +look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, +though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one +who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she looked, indeed, +what I afterwards found she really was, an under-teacher. Led by her, I +passed from compartment to compartment, from passage to passage, of a +large and irregular building; till, emerging from the total and +somewhat dreary silence pervading that portion of the house we had +traversed, we came upon the hum of many voices, and presently entered a +wide, long room, with great deal tables, two at each end, on each of +which burnt a pair of candles, and seated all round on benches, a +congregation of girls of every age, from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by +the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared countless, +though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in +brown stuff frocks of quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores. It +was the hour of study; they were engaged in conning over their +to-morrow’s task, and the hum I had heard was the combined result of +their whispered repetitions. + +Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then walking +up to the top of the long room she cried out— + +“Monitors, collect the lesson-books and put them away!” + +Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered +the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word of command— + +“Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!” + +The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray, +with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and a +pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The portions were +handed round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug +being common to all. When it came to my turn, I drank, for I was +thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and fatigue rendering +me incapable of eating: I now saw, however, that it was a thin oaten +cake shared into fragments. + +The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed +off, two and two, upstairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness, I +scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was, except that, +like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. To-night I was to be Miss +Miller’s bed-fellow; she helped me to undress: when laid down I glanced +at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two +occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished, and amidst +silence and complete darkness I fell asleep. + +The night passed rapidly: I was too tired even to dream; I only once +awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in +torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my +side. When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls +were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or +two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and +I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a +basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin +to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell +rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the +stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here prayers were +read by Miss Miller; afterwards she called out— + +“Form classes!” + +A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller +repeatedly exclaimed, “Silence!” and “Order!” When it subsided, I saw +them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs, placed at +the four tables; all held books in their hands, and a great book, like +a Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat. A pause of some +seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss +Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound. + +A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the room, each +walked to a table and took her seat; Miss Miller assumed the fourth +vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around which the +smallest of the children were assembled: to this inferior class I was +called, and placed at the bottom of it. + +Business now began: the day’s Collect was repeated, then certain texts +of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted reading of +chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time that exercise +was terminated, day had fully dawned. The indefatigable bell now +sounded for the fourth time: the classes were marshalled and marched +into another room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of +getting something to eat! I was now nearly sick from inanition, having +taken so little the day before. + +The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables +smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent +forth an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of +discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those +destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls +of the first class, rose the whispered words— + +“Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!” + +“Silence!” ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the +upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed, but of +somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table, +while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain for her +I had first seen the night before; she was not visible: Miss Miller +occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange, +foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards +found, took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace was +said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the +teachers, and the meal began. + +Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my +portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger +blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge +is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over +it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and +try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. +Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned for +what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory was +evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and in +passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge and +taste it; she looked at the others; all their countenances expressed +displeasure, and one of them, the stout one, whispered— + +“Abominable stuff! How shameful!” + +A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which +the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of time it +seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used +their privilege. The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one +and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the sole consolation they +had. Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great +girls standing about her spoke with serious and sullen gestures. I +heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced by some lips; at which +Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly; but she made no great effort +to check the general wrath; doubtless she shared in it. + +A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and +standing in the middle of the room, cried— + +“Silence! To your seats!” + +Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved +into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of +tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but +still, all seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the +room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage +they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl +visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker +about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped something like +a Highlander’s purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to +serve the purpose of a work-bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings +and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of +those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or rather young +women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the +prettiest. + +I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the +teachers—none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a +little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh +and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, +weather-beaten, and over-worked—when, as my eye wandered from face to +face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common +spring. + +What was the matter? I had heard no order given: I was puzzled. Ere I +had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes +were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and +encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at +the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at +each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss +Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received +her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud— + +“Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!” + +While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly +up the room. I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I +retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her +steps. Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; +brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling +of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on +each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in +round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither +smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the +mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish +trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then +as now) shone at her girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the +picture, refined features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately +air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can +give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple—Maria Temple, as +I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to +carry to church. + +The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her +seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the +first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the +lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history, +grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, +and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. +The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last +struck twelve. The superintendent rose— + +“I have a word to address to the pupils,” said she. + +The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it +sank at her voice. She went on— + +“You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be +hungry:—I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served +to all.” + +The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise. + +“It is to be done on my responsibility,” she added, in an explanatory +tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room. + +The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the +high delight and refreshment of the whole school. The order was now +given “To the garden!” Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings +of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze. I was similarly +equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air. + +The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to +exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one +side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of +little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to +cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers they would +doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was +wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked round +me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, +but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still +soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The stronger among the girls +ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones +herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst +these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard +frequently the sound of a hollow cough. + +As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of +me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was +accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the +verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the +cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed +me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and +thinking. My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit +record: I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life +seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague +and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture. I looked +round the convent-like garden, and then up at the house—a large +building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new. +The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by +mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a +stone tablet over the door bore this inscription:— + +LOWOOD INSTITUTION. + +This portion was rebuilt A.D. ——, by Naomi Brocklehurst, +of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county. + +“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, +and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”—St. Matt. v. 16. + + +I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation +belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import. I was +still pondering the signification of “Institution,” and endeavouring to +make out a connection between the first words and the verse of +Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my +head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a +book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I +could see the title—it was “Rasselas;” a name that struck me as +strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to +look up, and I said to her directly— + +“Is your book interesting?” I had already formed the intention of +asking her to lend it to me some day. + +“I like it,” she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during +which she examined me. + +“What is it about?” I continued. I hardly know where I found the +hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was +contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a +chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a +frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the +serious or substantial. + +“You may look at it,” replied the girl, offering me the book. + +I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less +taking than the title: “Rasselas” looked dull to my trifling taste; I +saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety +seemed spread over the closely-printed pages. I returned it to her; she +received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to +relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her— + +“Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? +What is Lowood Institution?” + +“This house where you are come to live.” + +“And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different from +other schools?” + +“It is partly a charity-school: you and I, and all the rest of us, are +charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan: are not either your +father or your mother dead?” + +“Both died before I can remember.” + +“Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and +this is called an institution for educating orphans.” + +“Do we pay no money? Do they keep us for nothing?” + +“We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each.” + +“Then why do they call us charity-children?” + +“Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the +deficiency is supplied by subscription.” + +“Who subscribes?” + +“Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood +and in London.” + +“Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?” + +“The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, +and whose son overlooks and directs everything here.” + +“Why?” + +“Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment.” + +“Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, +and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?” + +“To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr. +Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and +all our clothes.” + +“Does he live here?” + +“No—two miles off, at a large hall.” + +“Is he a good man?” + +“He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good.” + +“Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?” + +“Yes.” + +“And what are the other teachers called?” + +“The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, +and cuts out—for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and +everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she +teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; +and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to +her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from +Lisle, in France, and teaches French.” + +“Do you like the teachers?” + +“Well enough.” + +“Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ——?—I cannot +pronounce her name as you do.” + +“Miss Scatcherd is hasty—you must take care not to offend her; Madame +Pierrot is not a bad sort of person.” + +“But Miss Temple is the best—isn’t she?” + +“Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest, +because she knows far more than they do.” + +“Have you been long here?” + +“Two years.” + +“Are you an orphan?” + +“My mother is dead.” + +“Are you happy here?” + +“You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for +the present: now I want to read.” + +But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered the +house. The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely more +appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the +dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong +steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of +indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked +together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was +apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within +myself whether every day’s fare would be like this. + +After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons +recommenced, and were continued till five o’clock. + +The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with +whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss +Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the +large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree +ignominious, especially for so great a girl—she looked thirteen or +upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; +but to my surprise she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though +grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. “How can she bear it so +quietly—so firmly?” I asked of myself. “Were I in her place, it seems +to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as +if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment—beyond her +situation: of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of +day-dreams—is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, +but I am sure they do not see it—her sight seems turned in, gone down +into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not +at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is—whether +good or naughty.” + +Soon after five P.M. we had another meal, consisting of a small mug of +coffee, and half-a-slice of brown bread. I devoured my bread and drank +my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much more—I +was still hungry. Half-an-hour’s recreation succeeded, then study; then +the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed. Such +was my first day at Lowood. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight; +but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of +washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place +in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, +whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, +had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to +ice. + +Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, +I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last, and this +morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the +quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been +doubled. + +In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class, +and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me: hitherto, I had +only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now to become +an actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, +the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent change +from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three +o’clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of +muslin two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., and sent me +to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the +same. At that hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one +class still stood round Miss Scatcherd’s chair reading, and as all was +quiet, the subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the +manner in which each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or +commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English +history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: +at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the +class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to +stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure +position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant +notice: she was continually addressing to her such phrases as the +following:— + +“Burns” (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called by +their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), “Burns, you are standing on the +side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately.” “Burns, you poke +your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in.” “Burns, I insist on your +holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that attitude,” +&c. &c. + +A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the +girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles +I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and +ship-money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every +little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns: her +memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and +she was ready with answers on every point. I kept expecting that Miss +Scatcherd would praise her attention; but, instead of that, she +suddenly cried out— + +“You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never cleaned your nails this +morning!” + +Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence. + +“Why,” thought I, “does she not explain that she could neither clean +her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?” + +My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a +skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from time +to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I +could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not +pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd’s movements. When I returned +to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not +catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and going into +the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a +minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one +end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a +respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed +her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her +neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns’ +eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at +this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a +feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression. + +“Hardened girl!” exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; “nothing can correct you of +your slatternly habits: carry the rod away.” + +Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the +book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her +pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek. + +The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the +day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at +five o’clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the +long restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer +than in the morning—its fires being allowed to burn a little more +brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet +introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of +many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty. + +On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her +pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and +laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I +passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it +snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; +putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the +gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside. + +Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would +have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the +separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure +chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a +strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to +howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to +rise to clamour. + +Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of +the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found +Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the +companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers. + +“Is it still ‘Rasselas’?” I asked, coming behind her. + +“Yes,” she said, “and I have just finished it.” + +And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. + +“Now,” thought I, “I can perhaps get her to talk.” I sat down by her on +the floor. + +“What is your name besides Burns?” + +“Helen.” + +“Do you come a long way from here?” + +“I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland.” + +“Will you ever go back?” + +“I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future.” + +“You must wish to leave Lowood?” + +“No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it +would be of no use going away until I have attained that object.” + +“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?” + +“Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults.” + +“And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. +If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should +break it under her nose.” + +“Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr. +Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great +grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart +which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose +evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, +the Bible bids us return good for evil.” + +“But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand +in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: +I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.” + +“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is +weak and silly to say you _cannot bear_ what it is your fate to be +required to bear.” + +I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of +endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the +forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen +Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected +she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter +deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season. + +“You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very +good.” + +“Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss +Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in +order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my +lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot +_bear_ to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very +provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and +particular.” + +“And cross and cruel,” I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my +addition: she kept silence. + +“Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?” + +At the utterance of Miss Temple’s name, a soft smile flitted over her +grave face. + +“Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, +even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them +gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed +liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that +even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to +cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most +highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.” + +“That is curious,” said I, “it is so easy to be careful.” + +“For _you_ I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this +morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed +to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. +Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss +Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the +very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think +I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the +bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our +house;—then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; +and having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the +visionary brook, I have no answer ready.” + +“Yet how well you replied this afternoon.” + +“It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had +interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was +wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and +unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity +it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no +farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to +look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age +was tending! Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor +murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they +had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!” + +Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very +well understand her—that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject +she discussed. I recalled her to my level. + +“And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?” + +“No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something +to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is +singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is +often just what I wished to gain.” + +“Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?” + +“Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination +guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.” + +“A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I +ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who +are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own +way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but +would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we +should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to +teach the person who struck us never to do it again.” + +“You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are +but a little untaught girl.” + +“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to +please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me +unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me +affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.” + +“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and +civilised nations disown it.” + +“How? I don’t understand.” + +“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most +certainly heals injury.” + +“What then?” + +“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; +make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.” + +“What does He say?” + +“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that +hate you and despitefully use you.” + +“Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her +son John, which is impossible.” + +In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith +to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. +Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve +or softening. + +Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a +remark, but she said nothing. + +“Well,” I asked impatiently, “is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad +woman?” + +“She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes +your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely +you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep +impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage +so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you +tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it +excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity +or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with +faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we +shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when +debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, +and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle +of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the +creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be +communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through +gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the +seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to +degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another +creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in +which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it +makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. +Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the +criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I +abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, +degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me +too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.” + +Helen’s head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this +sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but +rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time +for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, +exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent— + +“Helen Burns, if you don’t go and put your drawer in order, and fold up +your work this minute, I’ll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at +it!” + +Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor +without reply as without delay. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age +either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in +habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure +in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my +lot; though these were no trifles. + +During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after +their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring +beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these +limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing +was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, +the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became +numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well +the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening, +when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, +and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of +food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we +had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this +deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on +the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an +opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their +portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious +morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing +to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the +remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the +exigency of hunger. + +Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two +miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out +cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning service we became +almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance +of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in +our ordinary meals, was served round between the services. + +At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and +hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy +summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces. + +I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our +drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, +gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, +to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, “like stalwart +soldiers.” The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves +too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others. + +How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got +back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each hearth in +the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great +girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, +wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores. + +A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of +bread—a whole, instead of a half, slice—with the delicious addition of +a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all +looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to +reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder +I was invariably obliged to part with. + +The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church +Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; +and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose +irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of +these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some +half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall +down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be +taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the +centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the +sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank +together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors’ high +stools. + +I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed +that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month +after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the +archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had +my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he did at last. + +One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting +with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, +raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just +passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and +when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose _en +masse_, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain +whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the +schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, +stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from +the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of +architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in +a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever. + +I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I +remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my +disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise +Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been +dreading the fulfilment of this promise,—I had been looking out daily +for the “Coming Man,” whose information respecting my past life and +conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: now there he was. + +He stood at Miss Temple’s side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did +not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her +eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb +turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as +I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of +what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension. + +“I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it +struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, +and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I +forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have +some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give +out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are +apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma’am! I wish the woollen +stockings were better looked to!—when I was here last, I went into the +kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a +quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of +the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to +time.” + +He paused. + +“Your directions shall be attended to, sir,” said Miss Temple. + +“And, ma’am,” he continued, “the laundress tells me some of the girls +have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit +them to one.” + +“I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine +Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last +Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the +occasion.” + +Mr. Brocklehurst nodded. + +“Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance +occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, +in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of +bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the +past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations, and I find +no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? and by +what authority?” + +“I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir,” replied Miss Temple: +“the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly +eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner-time.” + +“Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up +these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and +indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any +little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the +spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the +incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more +delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the +aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual +edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude +under the temporary privation. A brief address on those occasions would +not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the +opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; +to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord +Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow +Him; to His warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by +every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His divine +consolations, ‘If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are +ye.’ Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt +porridge, into these children’s mouths, you may indeed feed their vile +bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!” + +Mr. Brocklehurst again paused—perhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss +Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now +gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, +appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material; +especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor’s +chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified +severity. + +Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands +behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his +eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or +shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had +hitherto used— + +“Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what—_what_ is that girl with curled hair? +Red hair, ma’am, curled—curled all over?” And extending his cane he +pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so. + +“It is Julia Severn,” replied Miss Temple, very quietly. + +“Julia Severn, ma’am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, +in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she +conform to the world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable +establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?” + +“Julia’s hair curls naturally,” returned Miss Temple, still more +quietly. + +“Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these +girls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I have again +and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, +modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl’s hair must be cut off +entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far +too much of the excrescence—that tall girl, tell her to turn round. +Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall.” + +Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away +the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, +and when the first class could take in what was required of them, they +obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and +grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. +Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that, +whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the +inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined. + +He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, +then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom— + +“All those top-knots must be cut off.” + +Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate. + +“Madam,” he pursued, “I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of +this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the +flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and +sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the +young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which +vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think +of the time wasted, of—” + +Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, +now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have +heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, +silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and +seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich +plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a +profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was +enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a +false front of French curls. + +These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and +the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the top of +the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their reverend +relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room +upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioned +the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now proceeded to +address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with +the care of the linen and the inspection of the dormitories: but I had +no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and +enchanted my attention. + +Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss +Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to secure my +personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only +elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and +while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a +manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my +treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling +with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it +was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of +slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came. + +“A careless girl!” said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after—“It is +the new pupil, I perceive.” And before I could draw breath, “I must not +forget I have a word to say respecting her.” Then aloud: how loud it +seemed to me! “Let the child who broke her slate come forward!” + +Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two +great girls who sat on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me +towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his +very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel— + +“Don’t be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be +punished.” + +The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger. + +“Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite,” thought I; +and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in +my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns. + +“Fetch that stool,” said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one +from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought. + +“Place the child upon it.” + +And I was placed there, by whom I don’t know: I was in no condition to +note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the +height of Mr. Brocklehurst’s nose, that he was within a yard of me, and +that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of +silvery plumage extended and waved below me. + +Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed. + +“Ladies,” said he, turning to his family, “Miss Temple, teachers, and +children, you all see this girl?” + +Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses +against my scorched skin. + +“You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form +of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given +to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. +Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent +in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case.” + +A pause—in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel +that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be +shirked, must be firmly sustained. + +“My dear children,” pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, +“this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn +you, that this girl, who might be one of God’s own lambs, is a little +castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper +and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her +example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, +and shut her out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep +your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her +actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation +be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this +child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen +who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut—this girl +is—a liar!” + +Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in +perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts +produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, +while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger +ones whispered, “How shocking!” + +Mr. Brocklehurst resumed. + +“This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable +lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own +daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid +by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent +patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful +lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent +her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to +the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of +you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her.” + +With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button +of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to +Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the +room. Turning at the door, my judge said— + +“Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak +to her during the remainder of the day.” + +There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the +shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now +exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations +were, no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my +breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in +passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What +an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new +feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave +or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising +hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen +Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was +chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and +smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and +I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it +lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like +a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen +Burns wore on her arm “the untidy badge;” scarcely an hour ago I had +heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on +the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such +is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the +clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those +minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Ere the half-hour ended, five o’clock struck; school was dismissed, and +all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend: it +was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The +spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction +took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I +sank prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I wept: Helen Burns was +not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and +my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good, and to do so +much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect and win +affection. Already I had made visible progress: that very morning I had +reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss +Temple had smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, +and to let me learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement +two months longer: and then I was well received by my fellow-pupils; +treated as an equal by those of my own age, and not molested by any; +now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise +more? + +“Never,” I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out +this wish in broken accents, some one approached: I started up—again +Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the +long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread. + +“Come, eat something,” she said; but I put both away from me, feeling +as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. +Helen regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my +agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down +on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her +head upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I +was the first who spoke— + +“Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a +liar?” + +“Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you +called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.” + +“But what have I to do with millions? The eighty I know despise me.” + +“Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises +or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much.” + +“How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?” + +“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: +he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had +he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, +declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would +offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly +on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their +hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere +long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. +Besides, Jane”—she paused. + +“Well, Helen?” said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers +gently to warm them, and went on— + +“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own +conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be +without friends.” + +“No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if +others don’t love me I would rather die than live—I cannot bear to be +solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from +you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly +submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or +to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest—” + +“Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are +too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your +frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than +your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, +and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom +of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those +spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were +dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred +crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if +innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst +has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I +read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and +God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a +full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, +when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to +happiness—to glory?” + +I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted +there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the impression of +woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came; and when, having +done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I +momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague concern for her. + +Resting my head on Helen’s shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she +drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long thus, +when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a +rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in +through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching +figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple. + +“I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre,” said she; “I want you in my +room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too.” + +We went; following the superintendent’s guidance, we had to thread some +intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her +apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple +told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the +hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to her side. + +“Is it all over?” she asked, looking down at my face. “Have you cried +your grief away?” + +“I am afraid I never shall do that.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma’am, and everybody +else, will now think me wicked.” + +“We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue +to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.” + +“Shall I, Miss Temple?” + +“You will,” said she, passing her arm round me. “And now tell me who is +the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?” + +“Mrs. Reed, my uncle’s wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her +care.” + +“Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?” + +“No, ma’am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have +often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that +she would always keep me.” + +“Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a +criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence. +You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as +you can. Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and +exaggerate nothing.” + +I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most +moderate—most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order to +arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of my +sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than +it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of +Helen’s warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into +the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus +restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I went +on that Miss Temple fully believed me. + +In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to +see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode +of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some +degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection +the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my +wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark +and haunted chamber. + +I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence; she +then said— + +“I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply +agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from every +imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now.” + +She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well +contented to stand, for I derived a child’s pleasure from the +contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her +white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark +eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns. + +“How are you to-night, Helen? Have you coughed much to-day?” + +“Not quite so much, I think, ma’am.” + +“And the pain in your chest?” + +“It is a little better.” + +Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then she +returned to her own seat: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She +was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully— + +“But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such.” She +rang her bell. + +“Barbara,” she said to the servant who answered it, “I have not yet had +tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies.” + +And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the china cups +and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table near the fire! +How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast! +of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry) +discerned only a very small portion: Miss Temple discerned it too. + +“Barbara,” said she, “can you not bring a little more bread and butter? +There is not enough for three.” + +Barbara went out: she returned soon— + +“Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity.” + +Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr. +Brocklehurst’s own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and iron. + +“Oh, very well!” returned Miss Temple; “we must make it do, Barbara, I +suppose.” And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling, “Fortunately, I +have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once.” + +Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before +each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, +she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in +paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake. + +“I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you,” said she, +“but as there is so little toast, you must have it now,” and she +proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand. + +We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least +delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which +our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the +delicate fare she liberally supplied. + +Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we +sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between +her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear. + +Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in +her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded +deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which +chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, +by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to +Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder. + +The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of +her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something +in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, +they kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which +till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone +in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty +more singular than that of Miss Temple’s—a beauty neither of fine +colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of +movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language +flowed, from what source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart +large enough, vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, +full, fervid eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen’s +discourse on that, to me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed +hastening to live within a very brief span as much as many live during +a protracted existence. + +They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times +past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed +at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of +knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French +names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax when Miss +Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the +Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade +her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of +veneration expanding at every sounding line. She had scarcely finished +ere the bell announced bedtime! no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple +embraced us both, saying, as she drew us to her heart— + +“God bless you, my children!” + +Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more +reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her +she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from +her cheek. + +On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd: she was +examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns’s, and when we +entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that +to-morrow she should have half-a-dozen of untidily folded articles +pinned to her shoulder. + +“My things were indeed in shameful disorder,” murmured Helen to me, in +a low voice: “I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot.” + +Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece +of pasteboard the word “Slattern,” and bound it like a phylactery round +Helen’s large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore +it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved +punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, +I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of +which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, +hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the +spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the +heart. + +About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, +who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that +what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple, having +assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into +the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to +be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation. The +teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of +pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions. + +Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, +resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I toiled hard, and +my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally +tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few +weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was +allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses +of the verb _Etre_, and sketched my first cottage (whose walls, +by-the-bye, outrivalled in slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa), +on the same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in +imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread +and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I +feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the +dark; all the work of my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees, +picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet +paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking +at ripe cherries, of wren’s nests enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed +about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought, the +possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a certain +little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was +that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep. + +Well has Solomon said—“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than +a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” + +I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for +Gateshead and its daily luxuries. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring +drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; +its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, +flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to +heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and +mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood +in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: +sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a +greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, +suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each +morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out amongst the +leaves; snow-drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed +pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and +found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges. + +I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the +horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls +of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits +girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright +beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this +scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, +stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow!—when mists as chill as death +wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and +rolled down “ing” and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the +beck! That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore +asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often +thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its +banks, _that_ showed only ranks of skeletons. + +April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, +placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its +duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose +its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and +oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up +profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its +hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its +wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed +spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I enjoyed often +and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone: for this unwonted liberty +and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to +advert. + +Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it +as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream? +Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another +question. + +That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-bred +pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into +the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and +dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into an +hospital. + +Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils +to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one +time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who continued well +were allowed almost unlimited license; because the medical attendant +insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health: +and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain +them. Miss Temple’s whole attention was absorbed by the patients: she +lived in the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours’ +rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and +making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls +who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and +willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already +smitten, went home only to die: some died at the school, and were +buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay. + +While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its +frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; +while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and +the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, +that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful +woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks +had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were +in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and +crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, +their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all +useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and +then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin. + +But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of +the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like gipsies, +from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where we liked: we +lived better too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near +Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised into; the cross +housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her +successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the +ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality. Besides, +there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our +breakfast-basins were better filled; when there was no time to prepare +a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large piece +of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried +away with us to the wood, where we each chose the spot we liked best, +and dined sumptuously. + +My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry +from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading +through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone was just +broad enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me, at that +time my chosen comrade—one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd, observant +personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was +witty and original, and partly because she had a manner which set me at +my ease. Some years older than I, she knew more of the world, and could +tell me many things I liked to hear: with her my curiosity found +gratification: to my faults also she gave ample indulgence, never +imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had a turn for narrative, +I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to question; so we got on +swimmingly together, deriving much entertainment, if not much +improvement, from our mutual intercourse. + +And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet +days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as +to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I +have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only +tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I +chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was +qualified to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a +taste of far higher things. + +True, reader; and I knew and felt this: and though I am a defective +being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired of +Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of +attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated +my heart. How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times and under +all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, +which ill-humour never soured, nor irritation never troubled? But Helen +was ill at present: for some weeks she had been removed from my sight +to I knew not what room upstairs. She was not, I was told, in the +hospital portion of the house with the fever patients; for her +complaint was consumption, not typhus: and by consumption I, in my +ignorance, understood something mild, which time and care would be sure +to alleviate. + +I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming +downstairs on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by Miss +Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed to +go and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window, and +then not distinctly; for she was much wrapped up, and sat at a distance +under the verandah. + +One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with +Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves from the +others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to +ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked +after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood. When +we got back, it was after moonrise: a pony, which we knew to be the +surgeon’s, was standing at the garden door. Mary Ann remarked that she +supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at +that time of the evening. She went into the house; I stayed behind a +few minutes to plant in my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in +the forest, and which I feared would wither if I left them till the +morning. This done, I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt +so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so +warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the +morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting +these things and enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my +mind as it had never done before:— + +“How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying! +This world is pleasant—it would be dreary to be called from it, and to +have to go who knows where?” + +And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had +been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time +it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each +side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the +one point where it stood—the present; all the rest was formless cloud +and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and +plunging amid that chaos. While pondering this new idea, I heard the +front door open; Mr. Bates came out, and with him was a nurse. After +she had seen him mount his horse and depart, she was about to close the +door, but I ran up to her. + +“How is Helen Burns?” + +“Very poorly,” was the answer. + +“Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?” + +“Yes.” + +“And what does he say about her?” + +“He says she’ll not be here long.” + +This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed +the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her +own home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but +I knew instantly now! It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen +Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going +to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I +experienced a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a +desire—a necessity to see her; and I asked in what room she lay. + +“She is in Miss Temple’s room,” said the nurse. + +“May I go up and speak to her?” + +“Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; +you’ll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling.” + +The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which +led to the schoolroom: I was just in time; it was nine o’clock, and +Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed. + +It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I—not having +been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the +dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound repose—rose +softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept +from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple’s room. It was +quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light +of the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage +windows, enabled me to find it without difficulty. An odour of camphor +and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and I +passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night +should hear me. I dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I _must_ +see Helen,—I must embrace her before she died,—I must give her one last +kiss, exchange with her one last word. + +Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house below, +and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two doors, I +reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just +opposite to me was Miss Temple’s room. A light shone through the +keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded the +vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to +admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness. Indisposed to +hesitate, and full of impatient impulses—soul and senses quivering with +keen throes—I put it back and looked in. My eye sought Helen, and +feared to find death. + +Close by Miss Temple’s bed, and half covered with its white curtains, +there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under the +clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had spoken +to in the garden sat in an easy-chair asleep; an unsnuffed candle burnt +dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen: I knew afterwards +that she had been called to a delirious patient in the fever-room. I +advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but +I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still recoiled at the +dread of seeing a corpse. + +“Helen!” I whispered softly, “are you awake?” + +She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale, +wasted, but quite composed: she looked so little changed that my fear +was instantly dissipated. + +“Can it be you, Jane?” she asked, in her own gentle voice. + +“Oh!” I thought, “she is not going to die; they are mistaken: she could +not speak and look so calmly if she were.” + +I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her +cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but she +smiled as of old. + +“Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o’clock: I heard it +strike some minutes since.” + +“I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could not +sleep till I had spoken to you.” + +“You came to bid me good-bye, then: you are just in time probably.” + +“Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?” + +“Yes; to my long home—my last home.” + +“No, no, Helen!” I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour my +tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake the +nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she +whispered— + +“Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with my +quilt.” + +I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her. After a +long silence, she resumed, still whispering— + +“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be +sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die +one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is +gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me +much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss +me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not +qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should +have been continually at fault.” + +“But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?” + +“I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.” + +“Where is God? What is God?” + +“My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely +implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count +the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, +reveal Him to me.” + +“You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and +that our souls can get to it when we die?” + +“I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign +my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is +my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me.” + +“And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?” + +“You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by the same +mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane.” + +Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. “Where is that +region? Does it exist?” And I clasped my arms closer round Helen; she +seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go; I +lay with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the +sweetest tone— + +“How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a little; +I feel as if I could sleep: but don’t leave me, Jane; I like to have +you near me.” + +“I’ll stay with you, _dear_ Helen: no one shall take me away.” + +“Are you warm, darling?” + +“Yes.” + +“Good-night, Jane.” + +“Good-night, Helen.” + +She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered. + +When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I +was in somebody’s arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me through +the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for leaving my +bed; people had something else to think about; no explanation was +afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two afterwards I +learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had +found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns’s +shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was—dead. + +Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after her +death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble +tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word +“Resurgam.” + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant +existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as +many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography: I am only +bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some +degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost +in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of +connection. + +When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at +Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its +virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on +the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by +degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a +high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality +of the children’s food; the brackish, fetid water used in its +preparation; the pupils’ wretched clothing and accommodations—all these +things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result mortifying +to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution. + +Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed +largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better +situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing +introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of +a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family +connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of +treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen +of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his office of +inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with +strictness, comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness. The +school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble +institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, +for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher; and in both +capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance. + +During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because +it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education placed +within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to +excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, +especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself fully of the +advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first girl of the first +class; then I was invested with the office of teacher; which I +discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of that time I +altered. + +Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent +of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my +acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; +she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, +companion. At this period she married, removed with her husband (a +clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant +county, and consequently was lost to me. + +From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every +settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree +a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much +of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated +feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance +to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes +of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued +character. + +But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and +Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post-chaise, +shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the +hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, +and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday +granted in honour of the occasion. + +I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only to +be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my +reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the +afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned +on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming +process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple—or +rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been +breathing in her vicinity—and that now I was left in my natural +element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions. It did not +seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: +it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason +for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some years been in +Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I +remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of +hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had +courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life +amidst its perils. + +I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two +wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of +Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to +rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to +surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed +prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the +base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I +longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had travelled +that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at +twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me +first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had all +been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; +neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me. I had had +no communication by letter or message with the outer world: +school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and +faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies—such +was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I +tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired +liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it +seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and +framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, +too, seemed swept off into vague space: “Then,” I cried, half +desperate, “grant me at least a new servitude!” + +Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs. + +I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till +bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me +from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged effusion of +small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It seemed as if, +could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I +stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for my +relief. + +Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her +habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light +than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with +satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced +thought instantly revived. + +“A new servitude! There is something in that,” I soliloquised +(mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). “I know there is, +because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as +Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more +than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of +time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any +one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to +serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing +feasible? Yes—yes—the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain +active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it.” + +I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly +night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded _to +think_ again with all my might. + +“What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under +new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting anything +better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I +suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends, +who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what +is their resource?” + +I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find +a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt the pulses +throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in +chaos; and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labour, I +got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or +two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed. + +A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion +on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally to my +mind:—“Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the +_——shire Herald_.” + +“How? I know nothing about advertising.” + +Replies rose smooth and prompt now:— + +“You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a +cover directed to the editor of the _Herald_; you must put it, the +first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be +addressed to J.E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire in +about a week after you send your letter, if any are come, and act +accordingly.” + +This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind; +I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell asleep. + +With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written, enclosed, +and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it ran thus:— + +“A young lady accustomed to tuition” (had I not been a teacher two +years?) “is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family +where the children are under fourteen” (I thought that as I was barely +eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my +own age). “She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good +English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music” (in those +days, reader, this now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have +been held tolerably comprehensive). “Address, J.E., Post-office, +Lowton, ——shire.” + +This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I asked +leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to perform +some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers; +permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and +the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I visited a shop or +two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through +heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart. + +The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, +like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of a +pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A +picturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck +and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that day I thought +more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the +little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water. + +My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of +shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I +stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker’s +to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn +spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands. + +“Are there any letters for J.E.?” I asked. + +She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and +fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began +to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for +nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying +the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J.E. + +“Is there only one?” I demanded. + +“There are no more,” said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned my +face homeward: I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be back by +eight, and it was already half-past seven. + +Various duties awaited me on my arrival: I had to sit with the girls +during their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers; to see +them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers. Even when we +finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my +companion: we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I +dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately, +however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: +she was already snoring before I had finished undressing. There still +remained an inch of candle: I now took out my letter; the seal was an +initial F.; I broke it; the contents were brief. + +“If J.E., who advertised in the _——shire Herald_ of last Thursday, +possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to +give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a +situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little +girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per +annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all +particulars to the direction:— + +“Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, ——shire.” + +I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned and rather +uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstance was +satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for +myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some +scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my endeavours to +be respectable, proper, _en règle_. I now felt that an elderly lady was +no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax! I saw +her in a black gown and widow’s cap; frigid, perhaps, but not uncivil: +a model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield! that, doubtless, +was the name of her house: a neat orderly spot, I was sure; though I +failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises. +Millcote, ——shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England; +yes, I saw it; both the shire and the town. ——shire was seventy miles +nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a +recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement: +Millcote was a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A——: a busy +place enough, doubtless: so much the better; it would be a complete +change at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of +long chimneys and clouds of smoke—“but,” I argued, “Thornfield will, +probably, be a good way from the town.” + +Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out. + +Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be +confined to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achieve their +success. Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent +during the noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting +a new situation where the salary would be double what I now received +(for at Lowood I only got £15 per annum); and requested she would break +the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or some of the committee, and +ascertain whether they would permit me to mention them as references. +She obligingly consented to act as mediatrix in the matter. The next +day she laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. +Reed must be written to, as she was my natural guardian. A note was +accordingly addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that “I +might do as I pleased: she had long relinquished all interference in my +affairs.” This note went the round of the committee, and at last, after +what appeared to me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to +better my condition if I could; and an assurance added, that as I had +always conducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a +testimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that +institution, should forthwith be furnished me. + +This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwarded a +copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady’s reply, stating that she +was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period for my +assuming the post of governess in her house. + +I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly. I +had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my wants; and +the last day sufficed to pack my trunk,—the same I had brought with me +eight years ago from Gateshead. + +The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half-an-hour the carrier was +to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to repair at +an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my +black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; +sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and +now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could +not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an +instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing +to-night, a new one opening to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the +interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being +accomplished. + +“Miss,” said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering +like a troubled spirit, “a person below wishes to see you.” + +“The carrier, no doubt,” I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry. +I was passing the back-parlour or teachers’ sitting-room, the door of +which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out— + +“It’s her, I am sure!—I could have told her anywhere!” cried the +individual who stopped my progress and took my hand. + +I looked: I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly, +yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair and eyes, and +lively complexion. + +“Well, who is it?” she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half +recognised; “you’ve not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?” + +In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously: “Bessie! +Bessie! Bessie!” that was all I said; whereat she half laughed, half +cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire stood a little +fellow of three years old, in plaid frock and trousers. + +“That is my little boy,” said Bessie directly. + +“Then you are married, Bessie?” + +“Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and I’ve +a little girl besides Bobby there, that I’ve christened Jane.” + +“And you don’t live at Gateshead?” + +“I live at the lodge: the old porter has left.” + +“Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, +Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will +you?” but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother. + +“You’re not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout,” +continued Mrs. Leaven. “I dare say they’ve not kept you too well at +school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and +Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth.” + +“Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?” + +“Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there +everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his +relations were against the match; and—what do you think?—he and Miss +Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. +It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and +now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are +always quarrelling—” + +“Well, and what of John Reed?” + +“Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to +college, and he got—plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles +wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a +dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think.” + +“What does he look like?” + +“He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he +has such thick lips.” + +“And Mrs. Reed?” + +“Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she’s not +quite easy in her mind: Mr. John’s conduct does not please her—he +spends a deal of money.” + +“Did she send you here, Bessie?” + +“No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that +there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another +part of the country, I thought I’d just set off, and get a look at you +before you were quite out of my reach.” + +“I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie.” I said this laughing: +I perceived that Bessie’s glance, though it expressed regard, did in no +shape denote admiration. + +“No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a +lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty +as a child.” + +I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I +confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most +people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an +exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but +gratification. + +“I dare say you are clever, though,” continued Bessie, by way of +solace. “What can you do? Can you play on the piano?” + +“A little.” + +There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me +to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and she was +charmed. + +“The Miss Reeds could not play as well!” said she exultingly. “I always +said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?” + +“That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece.” It was a +landscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to the +superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the +committee on my behalf, and which she had framed and glazed. + +“Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any +Miss Reed’s drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies +themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?” + +“Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.” + +“And you can work on muslin and canvas?” + +“I can.” + +“Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: you will get +on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I +wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything from your father’s +kinsfolk, the Eyres?” + +“Never in my life.” + +“Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable: +and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the +Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to +Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were at school fifty +miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay: he +was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail +from London in a day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe +he was your father’s brother.” + +“What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?” + +“An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine—the butler did +tell me—” + +“Madeira?” I suggested. + +“Yes, that is it—that is the very word.” + +“So he went?” + +“Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high +with him; she called him afterwards a ‘sneaking tradesman.’ My Robert +believes he was a wine-merchant.” + +“Very likely,” I returned; “or perhaps clerk or agent to a +wine-merchant.” + +Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was +obliged to leave me: I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning +at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the +door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she +set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to +take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me +to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and +when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a +room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on +the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such +ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of +George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a +representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the +light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an +excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and +umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill +contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day: +I left Lowton at four o’clock A.M., and the Millcote town clock is now +just striking eight. + +Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil +in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some +one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden +steps the “boots” placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name +pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey +me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a +waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered +in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a +private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and +fears are troubling my thoughts. + +It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself +quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain +whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by +many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of +adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then +the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when +half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring +the bell. + +“Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?” I asked of +the waiter who answered the summons. + +“Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.” He +vanished, but reappeared instantly— + +“Is your name Eyre, Miss?” + +“Yes.” + +“Person here waiting for you.” + +I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the +inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit +street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance. + +“This will be your luggage, I suppose?” said the man rather abruptly +when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage. + +“Yes.” He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and +then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to +Thornfield. + +“A matter of six miles.” + +“How long shall we be before we get there?” + +“Happen an hour and a half.” + +He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set +off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I +was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I +leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I +meditated much at my ease. + +“I suppose,” thought I, “judging from the plainness of the servant and +carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the +better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very +miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little +girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be +able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing +one’s best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that +resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I +remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax +may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to +stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. +How far are we on our road now, I wonder?” + +I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging +by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable +magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, +on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the +district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more +populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic. + +The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk +all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two +hours; at last he turned in his seat and said— + +“You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.” + +Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower +against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow +galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About +ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we +passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a +drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed +from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped +at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went +in. + +“Will you walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her +across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a +room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, +contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for +two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable +picture presented itself to my view. + +A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair +high-backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable +little elderly lady, in widow’s cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin +apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately +and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat +demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the +beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a +new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to +overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old +lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me. + +“How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John +drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire.” + +“Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?” said I. + +“Yes, you are right: do sit down.” + +She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl +and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so +much trouble. + +“Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with +cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are +the keys of the storeroom.” + +And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and +delivered them to the servant. + +“Now, then, draw nearer to the fire,” she continued. “You’ve brought +your luggage with you, haven’t you, my dear?” + +“Yes, ma’am.” + +“I’ll see it carried into your room,” she said, and bustled out. + +“She treats me like a visitor,” thought I. “I little expected such a +reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like +what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult +too soon.” + +She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a +book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now +brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather +confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before +received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she +did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her +place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly. + +“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?” I asked, +when I had partaken of what she offered me. + +“What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,” returned the good +lady, approaching her ear to my mouth. + +I repeated the question more distinctly. + +“Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your +future pupil.” + +“Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?” + +“No,—I have no family.” + +I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss +Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to +ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time. + +“I am so glad,” she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took +the cat on her knee; “I am so glad you are come; it will be quite +pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at +any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late +years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in +winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say +alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very +decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can’t +converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due +distance, for fear of losing one’s authority. I’m sure last winter (it +was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it +rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to +the house, from November till February; and I really got quite +melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read +to me sometimes; but I don’t think the poor girl liked the task much: +she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine +and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the +commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a +child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be +quite gay.” + +My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I +drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish +that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated. + +“But I’ll not keep you sitting up late to-night,” said she; “it is on +the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you +must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I’ll show you +your bedroom. I’ve had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is +only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one +of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but +they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself.” + +I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued +with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her +candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the +hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the +way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window +was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the +bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than +a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and +gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was +glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small +dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style. + +When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened +my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie +impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, +and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, +I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I +was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my +heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where +thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my +further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so +frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it +that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I +slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it was broad day. + +The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in +between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and +a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of +Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect +on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, +one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns +and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field +offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they +expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that +month, but at an indefinite future period. + +I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no +article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still +by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful +of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I +ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my +want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not +handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and +small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed +in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and +had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these +aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could +not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a +logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very +smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least +had the merit of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted my clean white +tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. +Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with +antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all +things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth. + +Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps +of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at +some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in +a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at +a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was +of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. +Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so +little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, +stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; +the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green +fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of +the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though +considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat: +battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front +stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants +were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in +a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and +where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as +oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion’s designation. +Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so +craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but +yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield +with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the +stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent +with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of +the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a +knoll between the house and gates. + +I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet +listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the +wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was +for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady +appeared at the door. + +“What! out already?” said she. “I see you are an early riser.” I went +up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand. + +“How do you like Thornfield?” she asked. I told her I liked it very +much. + +“Yes,” she said, “it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting +out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come +and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: +great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor.” + +“Mr. Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?” + +“The owner of Thornfield,” she responded quietly. “Did you not know he +was called Rochester?” + +Of course I did not—I had never heard of him before; but the old lady +seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with +which everybody must be acquainted by instinct. + +“I thought,” I continued, “Thornfield belonged to you.” + +“To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the +housekeeper—the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the +Rochesters by the mother’s side, or at least my husband was; he was a +clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder on the hill—and +that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester’s mother +was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on +the connection—in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in +the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and +I expect nothing more.” + +“And the little girl—my pupil!” + +“She is Mr. Rochester’s ward; he commissioned me to find a governess +for her. He intended to have her brought up in ——shire, I believe. Here +she comes, with her ‘bonne,’ as she calls her nurse.” The enigma then +was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; +but a dependent like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on +the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her +and me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so +much the better—my position was all the freer. + +As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her +attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not +at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or +eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and +a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist. + +“Good morning, Miss Adela,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the +lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.” She +approached. + +“C’est là ma gouvernante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her +nurse; who answered— + +“Mais oui, certainement.” + +“Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French +language. + +“The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I +believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came +here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a +little: I don’t understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you +will make out her meaning very well, I dare say.” + +Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French +lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame +Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven +years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily—applying myself to +take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the +pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of +readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be +much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hands with +me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to +breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she +replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and +she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she +suddenly commenced chattering fluently. + +“Ah!” cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. +Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. +She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all +English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great +ship with a chimney that smoked—how it did smoke!—and I was sick, and +so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a +sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little +beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. +And Mademoiselle—what is your name?” + +“Eyre—Jane Eyre.” + +“Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, +before it was quite daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very +dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came +from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the +land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us +to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an +hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every +day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there +were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in +it, that I fed with crumbs.” + +“Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax. + +I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent +tongue of Madame Pierrot. + +“I wish,” continued the good lady, “you would ask her a question or two +about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?” + +“Adèle,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that +pretty clean town you spoke of?” + +“I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama +used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many +gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, +or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you +hear me sing now?” + +She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen +of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed +herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, +shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she +commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a +forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls +pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest +jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night +at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little +his desertion has affected her. + +The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose +the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and +jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that +point was: at least I thought so. + +Adèle sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the _naïveté_ of +her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, +Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry.” + +Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La +Fontaine.” She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to +punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness +of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had +been carefully trained. + +“Was it your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked. + +“Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’avez vous donc? lui +dit un de ces rats; parlez!’ She made me lift my hand—so—to remind me +to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?” + +“No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you +say, with whom did you live then?” + +“With Madame Frédéric and her husband: she took care of me, but she is +nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a +house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would +like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. +Rochester before I knew Madame Frédéric, and he was always kind to me +and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his +word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again +himself, and I never see him.” + +After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it +appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. +Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one +bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the +way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, +poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had +considered that these were all the governess would require for her +private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; +compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean +at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment +and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite +new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of +globes. + +I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she +had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be +injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to +her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning +had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then +proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little +sketches for her use. + +As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax +called to me: “Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose,” said +she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in +when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple +chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast +window rich in stained glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. +Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a +sideboard. + +“What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had +never before seen any half so imposing. + +“Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in +a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments +that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault.” + +She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like +it with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two +broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a +fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet +it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both +spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of +flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and +vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and +ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of +sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large +mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire. + +“In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” said I. “No dust, +no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think +they were inhabited daily.” + +“Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are +always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to +find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his +arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.” + +“Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?” + +“Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and +he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.” + +“Do you like him? Is he generally liked?” + +“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the +land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the +Rochesters time out of mind.” + +“Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is +he liked for himself?” + +“_I_ have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is +considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never +lived much amongst them.” + +“But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?” + +“Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, +perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the +world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much +conversation with him.” + +“In what way is he peculiar?” + +“I don’t know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel +it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in +jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don’t +thoroughly understand him, in short—at least, I don’t: but it is of no +consequence, he is a very good master.” + +This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and +mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a +character, or observing and describing salient points, either in +persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my +queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. +Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor—nothing more: +she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish +to gain a more definite notion of his identity. + +When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of +the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I +went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers +I thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though +dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The +furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to +time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light +entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years +old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of +palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of +venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, +on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced +embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been +coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield +Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the +hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by +no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: +shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought +old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of +strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,—all +which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of +moonlight. + +“Do the servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked. + +“No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever +sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at +Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.” + +“So I think: you have no ghost, then?” + +“None that I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling. + +“Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?” + +“I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a +violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the +reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now.” + +“Yes—‘after life’s fitful fever they sleep well,’” I muttered. “Where +are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away. + +“On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?” I +followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by +a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on +a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning +over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid +out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey +base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient +timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, +greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the +gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day’s +sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with +pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was +pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could +scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault +compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and +to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the +hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight. + +Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint +of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend +the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which +this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: +narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and +looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a +corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle. + +While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still +a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, +formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it +began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It +passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every +lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have +pointed out the door whence the accents issued. + +“Mrs. Fairfax!” I called out: for I now heard her descending the great +stairs. “Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?” + +“Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace +Poole.” + +“Did you hear it?” I again inquired. + +“Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. +Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together.” + +The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an +odd murmur. + +“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax. + +I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as +tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it +was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the +curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, +I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me +I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise. + +The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,—a woman of between +thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a +hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could +scarcely be conceived. + +“Too much noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember directions!” +Grace curtseyed silently and went in. + +“She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s +work,” continued the widow; “not altogether unobjectionable in some +points, but she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with +your new pupil this morning?” + +The conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the +light and cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the +hall, exclaiming— + +“Mesdames, vous êtes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!” + +We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to +Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer +acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to +be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of +competent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively +child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes +wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no +injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for +her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient +and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, +no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised her one inch +above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had she any +deficiency or vice which sunk her below it. She made reasonable +progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very +profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to +please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient +to make us both content in each other’s society. + +This, _par parenthèse_, will be thought cool language by persons who +entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and +the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an +idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, +to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt +a conscientious solicitude for Adèle’s welfare and progress, and a +quiet liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. +Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society +proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation +of her mind and character. + +Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, +when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the +gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adèle +played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, +I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and +having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and +hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed for a power of vision +which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, +towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen—that then I +desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of +intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, +than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, +and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the existence of other +and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to +behold. + +Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I +could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to +pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of +the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and +solitude of the spot, and allow my mind’s eye to dwell on whatever +bright visions rose before it—and, certainly, they were many and +glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, +while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of +all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a tale my +imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of +incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual +existence. + +It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with +tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they +cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and +millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many +rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life +which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but +women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, +and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they +suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely +as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged +fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making +puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and +embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, +if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced +necessary for their sex. + +When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole’s laugh: the same +peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled +me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There +were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could +not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would +come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, +go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic +reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of +porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised +by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to +which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into +conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic +reply usually cut short every effort of that sort. + +The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the +housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no +respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I +asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a +descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and +confused answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage +inquiry. + +October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs. +Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adèle, because she had a cold; and, as +Adèle seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious +occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, +deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a +fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the +library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a +letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak +and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a +pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adèle comfortably seated in +her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour fireside, and given her her +best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a +drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and +having replied to her “Revenez bientôt, ma bonne amie, ma chère Mdlle. +Jeannette,” with a kiss, I set out. + +The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked +fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the +species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was +three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the +charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding +and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for +wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now +possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best +winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a +breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a +holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel +bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the +middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, +where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred +occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had +forgotten to drop. + +This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the +middle, I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering +my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel +the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice +covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had +overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could +look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the +principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose +against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, +and sank crimson and clear behind them. I then turned eastward. + +On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but +brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in +trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile +distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs +of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and +depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and +doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed +alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote. + +A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so +far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, +which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid +mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and +strong on the foreground, efface the aërial distance of azure hill, +sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into tint. + +The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the +lane yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, +as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I +was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: +the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and +when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness +beyond what childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I +watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of +Bessie’s tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a +“Gytrash,” which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted +solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this +horse was now coming upon me. + +It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, +tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel +stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a +distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie’s +Gytrash—a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed +me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange +pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse +followed,—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human +being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was +always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the +dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace +human form. No Gytrash was this,—only a traveller taking the short cut +to Millcote. He passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a +sliding sound and an exclamation of “What the deuce is to do now?” and +a clattering tumble, arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; +they had slipped on the sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog +came bounding back, and seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing +the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which +was deep in proportion to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate +group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he could do,—there was no +other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the +traveller, by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His +efforts were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I +asked him the question— + +“Are you injured, sir?” + +I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was +pronouncing some formula which prevented him from replying to me +directly. + +“Can I do anything?” I asked again. + +“You must just stand on one side,” he answered as he rose, first to his +knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, +stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which +removed me effectually some yards’ distance; but I would not be driven +quite away till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse +was re-established, and the dog was silenced with a “Down, Pilot!” The +traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether +they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the +stile whence I had just risen, and sat down. + +I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for +I now drew near him again. + +“If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from +Thornfield Hall or from Hay.” + +“Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,—only a sprain;” and +again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an +involuntary “Ugh!” + +Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I +could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur +collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced +the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. +He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and +gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past +youth, but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. +I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, +heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus +questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I +had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. +I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, +gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in +masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither +had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have +shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is +bright but antipathetic. + +If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I +addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with +thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew +inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my +ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced— + +“I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this +solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.” + +He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my +direction before. + +“I should think you ought to be at home yourself,” said he, “if you +have a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?” + +“From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it +is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish +it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter.” + +“You live just below—do you mean at that house with the battlements?” +pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam, +bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with +the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Whose house is it?” + +“Mr. Rochester’s.” + +“Do you know Mr. Rochester?” + +“No, I have never seen him.” + +“He is not resident, then?” + +“No.” + +“Can you tell me where he is?” + +“I cannot.” + +“You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are—” He stopped, +ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple: a black +merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough +for a lady’s-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I helped +him. + +“I am the governess.” + +“Ah, the governess!” he repeated; “deuce take me, if I had not +forgotten! The governess!” and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In +two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he +tried to move. + +“I cannot commission you to fetch help,” he said; “but you may help me +a little yourself, if you will be so kind.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?” + +“No.” + +“Try to get hold of my horse’s bridle and lead him to me: you are not +afraid?” + +I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to +do it, I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the stile, and +went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the bridle, but it +was a spirited thing, and would not let me come near its head; I made +effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was mortally afraid of +its trampling fore-feet. The traveller waited and watched for some +time, and at last he laughed. + + +I was mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet + +“I see,” he said, “the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so +all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of +you to come here.” + +I came. “Excuse me,” he continued: “necessity compels me to make you +useful.” He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with +some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the bridle, he +mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing grimly as he +made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain. + +“Now,” said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, “just hand me +my whip; it lies there under the hedge.” + +I sought it and found it. + +“Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast +as you can.” + +A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then +bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished, + +“Like heath that, in the wilderness, + The wild wind whirls away.” + + +I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone +for me: it _was_ an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a +sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. +My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to +have done something; trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was +yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive. The +new face, too, was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of +memory; and it was dissimilar to all the others hanging there: firstly, +because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, +and stern. I had it still before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the +letter into the post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all +the way home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked +round and listened, with an idea that a horse’s hoofs might ring on the +causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like +Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a +pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the +moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among +the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in +the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught +a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I +hurried on. + +I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to +return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome +staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil +Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, +was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,—to slip +again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too +still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and +ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have +done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain +struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience +to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good +as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a “too easy chair” to +take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my +circumstances, as it would be under his. + +I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and +forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I +could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed +drawn from the gloomy house—from the grey hollow filled with rayless +cells, as it appeared to me—to that sky expanded before me,—a blue sea +absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; +her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which +she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, +midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for +those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart +tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them. Little things recall us to +earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon +and stars, opened a side-door, and went in. + +The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze +lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak +staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose +two-leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, +glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple +draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It +revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had scarcely caught it, +and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, amongst +which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adèle, when the door closed. + +I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax’s room; there was a fire there too, but no +candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the +rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and +white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so +like it that I went forward and said—“Pilot,” and the thing got up and +came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great +tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not +tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a candle; and I +wanted, too, to get an account of this visitant. Leah entered. + +“What dog is this?” + +“He came with master.” + +“With whom?” + +“With master—Mr. Rochester—he is just arrived.” + +“Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?” + +“Yes, and Miss Adèle; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for +a surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle +is sprained.” + +“Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?” + +“Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice.” + +“Ah! Bring me a candle will you Leah?” + +Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated +the news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with +Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I +went upstairs to take off my things. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon’s orders, went to bed early +that night; nor did he rise soon next morning. When he did come down, +it was to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were +arrived, and waiting to speak with him. + +Adèle and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily +requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lit in an +apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for +the future schoolroom. I discerned in the course of the morning that +Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it +echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the +bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in +different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through +it; it had a master: for my part, I liked it better. + +Adèle was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept +running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could +get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go +downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, +where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and +made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her “ami, +Monsieur Edouard Fairfax _de_ Rochester,” as she dubbed him (I had not +before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had +brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that +when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a +little box in whose contents she had an interest. + +“Et cela doit signifier,” said she, “qu’il y aura là dedans un cadeau +pour moi, et peut-être pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parlé +de vous: il m’a demandé le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n’était +pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pâle. J’ai dit qu’oui: +car c’est vrai, n’est-ce pas, mademoiselle?” + +I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour; the afternoon +was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. At dark I +allowed Adèle to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for, +from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals +to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. +Left alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence: +twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very +shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the +fireside. + +In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I +remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when +Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I +had been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome +thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude. + +“Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with +him in the drawing-room this evening,” said she: “he has been so much +engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before.” + +“When is his tea-time?” I inquired. + +“Oh, at six o’clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had +better change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here is +a candle.” + +“Is it necessary to change my frock?” + +“Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester +is here.” + +This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired +to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax’s aid, replaced my black stuff dress +by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, +except one of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, +I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions. + +“You want a brooch,” said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl +ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake: I put it on, +and then we went downstairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was +rather a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester’s +presence. I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept +in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose +curtain was now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond. + +Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece; +basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot—Adèle knelt +near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot +supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adèle and the dog: the fire +shone full on his face. I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty +eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of +his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for +character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; +his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no +mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in +squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the +athletic sense of the term—broad chested and thin flanked, though +neither tall nor graceful. + +Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and +myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he +never lifted his head as we approached. + +“Here is Miss Eyre, sir,” said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He +bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child. + +“Let Miss Eyre be seated,” said he: and there was something in the +forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed +further to express, “What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be +there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her.” + +I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness +would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it +by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me +under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the +freak of manner, gave me the advantage. Besides, the eccentricity of +the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go +on. + +He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved. Mrs. +Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, +and she began to talk. Kindly, as usual—and, as usual, rather trite—she +condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on +the annoyance it must have been to him with that painful sprain: then +she commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it. + +“Madam, I should like some tea,” was the sole rejoinder she got. She +hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to +arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adèle +went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch. + +“Will you hand Mr. Rochester’s cup?” said Mrs. Fairfax to me; “Adèle +might perhaps spill it.” + +I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adèle, thinking +the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out— + +“N’est-ce pas, monsieur, qu’il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre +dans votre petit coffre?” + +“Who talks of cadeaux?” said he gruffly. “Did you expect a present, +Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?” and he searched my face with eyes +that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing. + +“I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are +generally thought pleasant things.” + +“Generally thought? But what do _you_ think?” + +“I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an +answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has +it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as +to its nature.” + +“Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adèle: she demands a +‘cadeau,’ clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the +bush.” + +“Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adèle has: she can +prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom; for +she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; +but if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a +stranger, and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment.” + +“Oh, don’t fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adèle, and find +you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has no +talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement.” + +“Sir, you have now given me my ‘cadeau;’ I am obliged to you: it is the +meed teachers most covet—praise of their pupils’ progress.” + +“Humph!” said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence. + +“Come to the fire,” said the master, when the tray was taken away, and +Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adèle +was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful +books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnières. We obeyed, as in +duty bound; Adèle wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered +to amuse herself with Pilot. + +“You have been resident in my house three months?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you came from—?” + +“From Lowood school, in ——shire.” + +“Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?” + +“Eight years.” + +“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in +such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have +rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that +sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought +unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you +had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?” + +“I have none.” + +“Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?” + +“No.” + +“I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on +that stile?” + +“For whom, sir?” + +“For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did +I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on +the causeway?” + +I shook my head. “The men in green all forsook England a hundred years +ago,” said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. “And not even in +Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I +don’t think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine +on their revels more.” + +Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, +seemed wondering what sort of talk this was. + +“Well,” resumed Mr. Rochester, “if you disown parents, you must have +some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?” + +“No; none that I ever saw.” + +“And your home?” + +“I have none.” + +“Where do your brothers and sisters live?” + +“I have no brothers or sisters.” + +“Who recommended you to come here?” + +“I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement.” + +“Yes,” said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, “and +I am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make. Miss Eyre +has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful teacher +to Adèle.” + +“Don’t trouble yourself to give her a character,” returned Mr. +Rochester: “eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself. She +began by felling my horse.” + +“Sir?” said Mrs. Fairfax. + +“I have to thank her for this sprain.” + +The widow looked bewildered. + +“Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Have you seen much society?” + +“None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of +Thornfield.” + +“Have you read much?” + +“Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous or +very learned.” + +“You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in +religious forms;—Brocklehurst, who I understand directs Lowood, is a +parson, is he not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of +religieuses would worship their director.” + +“Oh, no.” + +“You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest! That +sounds blasphemous.” + +“I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling. He is +a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for +economy’s sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could +hardly sew.” + +“That was very false economy,” remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again +caught the drift of the dialogue. + +“And was that the head and front of his offending?” demanded Mr. +Rochester. + +“He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision +department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with +long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his +own inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid +to go to bed.” + +“What age were you when you went to Lowood?” + +“About ten.” + +“And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?” + +I assented. + +“Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly have +been able to guess your age. It is a point difficult to fix where the +features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case. And +now what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?” + +“A little.” + +“Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the library—I mean, +if you please.—(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, ‘Do this,’ +and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for one new +inmate.)—Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the +door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune.” + +I departed, obeying his directions. + +“Enough!” he called out in a few minutes. “You play _a little_, I see; +like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, +but not well.” + +I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued— + +“Adèle showed me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours. +I don’t know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a +master aided you?” + +“No, indeed!” I interjected. + +“Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch +for its contents being original; but don’t pass your word unless you +are certain: I can recognise patchwork.” + +“Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir.” + +I brought the portfolio from the library. + +“Approach the table,” said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adèle and +Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures. + +“No crowding,” said Mr. Rochester: “take the drawings from my hand as I +finish with them; but don’t push your faces up to mine.” + +He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid +aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him. + +“Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax,” said he, “and look at +them with Adèle;—you” (glancing at me) “resume your seat, and answer my +questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that +hand yours?” + +“Yes.” + +“And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and +some thought.” + +“I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no +other occupation.” + +“Where did you get your copies?” + +“Out of my head.” + +“That head I see now on your shoulders?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Has it other furniture of the same kind within?” + +“I should think it may have: I should hope—better.” + +He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately. + +While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and +first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects +had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual +eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand +would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a +pale portrait of the thing I had conceived. + +These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low +and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; +so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there +was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged +mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with +foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched +with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering +distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and +mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was +the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or +torn. + +The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a +hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and +above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into +the sky was a woman’s shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and +soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the +lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes +shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud +torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection +like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds +from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star. + +The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter +sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close +serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the +foreground, a head,—a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and +resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and +supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a brow +quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of +meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above +the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in +its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, +gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was “the +likeness of a kingly crown;” what it diademed was “the shape which +shape had none.” + +“Were you happy when you painted these pictures?” asked Mr. Rochester +presently. + +“I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, +was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known.” + +“That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have +been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist’s dreamland +while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them +long each day?” + +“I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at +them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of +the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply.” + +“And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?” + +“Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my +handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite +powerless to realise.” + +“Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more, +probably. You had not enough of the artist’s skill and science to give +it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar. As to +the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must +have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet +not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what +meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint +wind? There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top. Where did +you see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There! put the drawings away!” + +I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his +watch, he said abruptly— + +“It is nine o’clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adèle sit up +so long? Take her to bed.” + +Adèle went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress, +but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor +so much. + +“I wish you all good-night, now,” said he, making a movement of the +hand towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and +wished to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my +portfolio: we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so +withdrew. + +“You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax,” I +observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adèle to bed. + +“Well, is he?” + +“I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt.” + +“True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed +to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities +of temper, allowance should be made.” + +“Why?” + +“Partly because it is his nature—and we can none of us help our nature; +and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, +and make his spirits unequal.” + +“What about?” + +“Family troubles, for one thing.” + +“But he has no family.” + +“Not now, but he has had—or, at least, relatives. He lost his elder +brother a few years since.” + +“His _elder_ brother?” + +“Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of +the property; only about nine years.” + +“Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as +to be still inconsolable for his loss?” + +“Why, no—perhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings +between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward; +and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him. The old gentleman was +fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did +not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious +that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of +the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that +were not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. +Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he +considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what +the precise nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his +spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very +forgiving: he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led +an unsettled kind of life. I don’t think he has ever been resident at +Thornfield for a fortnight together, since the death of his brother +without a will left him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he +shuns the old place.” + +“Why should he shun it?” + +“Perhaps he thinks it gloomy.” + +The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs. +Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit +information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester’s trials. She +averred they were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was +chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to +drop the subject, which I did accordingly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the +mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon, +gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes +stayed to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of +horse exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these +visits, as he generally did not come back till late at night. + +During this interval, even Adèle was seldom sent for to his presence, +and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional +rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would +sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence +by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with +gentlemanlike affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, +because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb +and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me. + +One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in +order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away +early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed +me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not +accompany them. Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message +came that I and Adèle were to go downstairs. I brushed Adèle’s hair and +made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual +Quaker trim, where there was nothing to retouch—all being too close and +plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangement—we descended, +Adèle wondering whether the _petit coffre_ was at length come; for, +owing to some mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was +gratified: there it stood, a little carton, on the table when we +entered the dining-room. She appeared to know it by instinct. + +“Ma boite! ma boite!” exclaimed she, running towards it. + +“Yes, there is your ‘boite’ at last: take it into a corner, you genuine +daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it,” said the +deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the +depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. “And mind,” he +continued, “don’t bother me with any details of the anatomical process, +or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be +conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?” + +Adèle seemed scarcely to need the warning; she had already retired to a +sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the +lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery +envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed— + +“Oh ciel! Que c’est beau!” and then remained absorbed in ecstatic +contemplation. + +“Is Miss Eyre there?” now demanded the master, half rising from his +seat to look round to the door, near which I still stood. + +“Ah! well, come forward; be seated here.” He drew a chair near his own. +“I am not fond of the prattle of children,” he continued; “for, old +bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their +lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening +_tête-à-tête_ with a brat. Don’t draw that chair farther off, Miss +Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it—if you please, that is. +Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I +particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have +mine in mind; it won’t do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to +one; and blood is said to be thicker than water.” + +He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon +arrived, knitting-basket in hand. + +“Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I have +forbidden Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting +with repletion; have the goodness to serve her as auditress and +interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever +performed.” + +Adèle, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her +sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, +the waxen contents of her “boite;” pouring out, meantime, explanations +and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of. + +“Now I have performed the part of a good host,” pursued Mr. Rochester, +“put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at +liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still +a little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you +without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have +no mind to do.” + +I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat +in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, +it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly. + +We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been +lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the +large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and +ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, +save the subdued chat of Adèle (she dared not speak loud), and, filling +up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes. + +Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different +to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern—much less +gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether +with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, +in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also +more self-indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; +still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against +the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on +his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had +great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change +in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, +at least, of that feeling. + +He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the +same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze +fastened on his physiognomy. + +“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?” + +I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by +something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow +slipped from my tongue before I was aware—“No, sir.” + +“Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you,” said he: “you +have the air of a little _nonnette_; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, +as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on +the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my +face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or +makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round +rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean +by it?” + +“Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that +it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about +appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little +consequence, or something of that sort.” + +“You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, +indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of +stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under +my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have +all my limbs and all my features like any other man?” + +“Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no +pointed repartee: it was only a blunder.” + +“Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: +does my forehead not please you?” + +He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his +brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an +abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have +risen. + +“Now, ma’am, am I a fool?” + +“Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in +return whether you are a philanthropist?” + +“There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat +my head: and that is because I said I did not like the society of +children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady, I am not a +general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;” and he pointed to the +prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which, +fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a +marked breadth to the upper part of his head: “and, besides, I once had +a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as you, I was a +feeling fellow enough; partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and +unlucky; but Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded +me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as +an India-rubber ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, +and with one sentient point in the middle of the lump. Yes: does that +leave hope for me?” + +“Hope of what, sir?” + +“Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?” + +“Decidedly he has had too much wine,” I thought; and I did not know +what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he +was capable of being re-transformed? + +“You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty +any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it +is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my +physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so +puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative +to-night.” + +With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his +arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen +plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, +disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people +would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious +pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of +complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a +reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to +atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at +him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, +imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence. + +“I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night,” he +repeated, “and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier +were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none +of these can talk. Adèle is a degree better, but still far below the +mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: +you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost +forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but +to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and +recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out—to learn +more of you—therefore speak.” + +Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive +smile either. + +“Speak,” he urged. + +“What about, sir?” + +“Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner +of treating it entirely to yourself.” + +Accordingly I sat and said nothing: “If he expects me to talk for the +mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed +himself to the wrong person,” I thought. + +“You are dumb, Miss Eyre.” + +I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a +single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes. + +“Stubborn?” he said, “and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my +request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your +pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don’t wish to treat you like an +inferior: that is” (correcting himself), “I claim only such superiority +as must result from twenty years’ difference in age and a century’s +advance in experience. This is legitimate, _et j’y tiens_, as Adèle +would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, +that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and +divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one +point—cankering as a rusty nail.” + +He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel +insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so. + +“I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir—quite willing; but I cannot +introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me +questions, and I will do my best to answer them.” + +“Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to +be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the +grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and +that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many +nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly +with one set of people in one house?” + +“Do as you please, sir.” + +“That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very +evasive one. Reply clearly.” + +“I don’t think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you +are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I +have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of +your time and experience.” + +“Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won’t allow that, seeing that it would +never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, +use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, +you must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being +piqued or hurt by the tone of command. Will you?” + +I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester _is_ peculiar—he seems to +forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders. + +“The smile is very well,” said he, catching instantly the passing +expression; “but speak too.” + +“I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to +inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by +their orders.” + +“Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, +I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will +you agree to let me hector a little?” + +“No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget +it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his +dependency, I agree heartily.” + +“And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms +and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?” + +“I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one +I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a +salary.” + +“Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; +therefore, keep to yourself, and don’t venture on generalities of which +you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you +for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in +which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was +frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the +contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded +misapprehension of one’s meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not +three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered +me as you have just done. But I don’t mean to flatter you: if you are +cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: +Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: +for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have +intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points.” + +“And so may you,” I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my +mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been +spoken as well as imagined— + +“Yes, yes, you are right,” said he; “I have plenty of faults of my own: +I know it, and I don’t wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I +need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series +of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which +might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I +started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the +blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a +wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the +right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have +been as good as you—wiser—almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of +mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a +memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure—an +inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?” + +“How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?” + +“All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned +it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen—quite your equal. +Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the +better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don’t see it; +at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, +by-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at +interpreting its language). Then take my word for it,—I am not a +villain: you are not to suppose that—not to attribute to me any such +bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances +than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in +all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try +to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in +the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the +involuntary confidant of your acquaintances’ secrets: people will +instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to +tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they +will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their +indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less +comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its +manifestations.” + +“How do you know?—how can you guess all this, sir?” + +“I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were +writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been +superior to circumstances; so I should—so I should; but you see I was +not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I +turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton +excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that +I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a +level. I wish I had stood firm—God knows I do! Dread remorse when you +are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.” + +“Repentance is said to be its cure, sir.” + +“It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform—I +have strength yet for that—if—but where is the use of thinking of it, +hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is +irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and +I _will_ get it, cost what it may.” + +“Then you will degenerate still more, sir.” + +“Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I +may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the +moor.” + +“It will sting—it will taste bitter, sir.” + +“How do you know?—you never tried it. How very serious—how very solemn +you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head” +(taking one from the mantelpiece). “You have no right to preach to me, +you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are +absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries.” + +“I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought +remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence.” + +“And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered +across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather +than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing—I know that. Here +it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put +on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest +when it asks entrance to my heart.” + +“Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel.” + +“Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to +distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from +the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?” + +“I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said +the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more +misery if you listen to it.” + +“Not at all—it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the +rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don’t make yourself uneasy. +Here, come in, bonny wanderer!” + +He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his +own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, +he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being. + +“Now,” he continued, again addressing me, “I have received the +pilgrim—a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me +good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.” + +“To speak truth, sir, I don’t understand you at all: I cannot keep up +the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I +know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that +you regretted your own imperfection;—one thing I can comprehend: you +intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems +to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to +become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you +began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would +in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, +to which you might revert with pleasure.” + +“Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am +paving hell with energy.” + +“Sir?” + +“I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. +Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have +been.” + +“And better?” + +“And better—so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to +doubt me; I don’t doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives +are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes +and Persians, that both are right.” + +“They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them.” + +“They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute: +unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.” + +“That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that +it is liable to abuse.” + +“Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to +abuse it.” + +“You are human and fallible.” + +“I am: so are you—what then?” + +“The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the +divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.” + +“What power?” + +“That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,—‘Let it be +right.’” + +“‘Let it be right’—the very words: you have pronounced them.” + +“_May_ it be right then,” I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to +continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, +sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my +penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the +uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a +conviction of ignorance. + +“Where are you going?” + +“To put Adèle to bed: it is past her bedtime.” + +“You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx.” + +“Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am +certainly not afraid.” + +“You _are_ afraid—your self-love dreads a blunder.” + +“In that sense I do feel apprehensive—I have no wish to talk nonsense.” + +“If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should +mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don’t trouble +yourself to answer—I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very +merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am +naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; +controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your +limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother—or father, +or master, or what you will—to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or +move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural +with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then +your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they +dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird +through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute +captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are +still bent on going?” + +“It has struck nine, sir.” + +“Never mind,—wait a minute: Adèle is not ready to go to bed yet. My +position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room, +favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally +watched Adèle (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious +study,—reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day). +She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk +frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her +blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. ‘Il +faut que je l’essaie!’ cried she, ‘et à l’instant même!’ and she rushed +out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process: +in a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,—a +miniature of Céline Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the +rising of—But never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about +to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether +it will be realised.” + +Ere long, Adèle’s little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She +entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of +rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could +be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath +of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk +stockings and small white satin sandals. + +“Est-ce que ma robe va bien?” cried she, bounding forwards; “et mes +souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!” + +And spreading out her dress, she chasséed across the room till, having +reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe, +then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming— + +“Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonté;” then rising, +she added, “C’est comme cela que maman faisait, n’est-ce pas, +monsieur?” + +“Pre-cise-ly!” was the answer; “and, ‘comme cela,’ she charmed my +English gold out of my British breeches’ pocket. I have been green, +too, Miss Eyre,—ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you +now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left +me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain +be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that +it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but +half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as +just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle +of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I’ll +explain all this some day. Good-night.” + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one +afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adèle in the grounds: and +while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up +and down a long beech avenue within sight of her. + +He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Céline +Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a “_grande +passion_.” This passion Céline had professed to return with even +superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he +believed, as he said, that she preferred his “_taille d’athlète_” to +the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere. + +“And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the +Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; +gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, +diamonds, dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining +myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I had not, it +seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and +destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to +deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had—as I deserved to have—the +fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Céline +did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was +tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy +to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence. No,—I +exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue about +her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of +musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to +stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, +when I bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the +balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight besides, and very still and +serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and +took out a cigar,—I will take one now, if you will excuse me.” + +Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a +cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah +incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on— + +“I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was +_croquant_—(overlook the barbarism)—_croquant_ chocolate comfits, and +smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along +the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in +an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, +and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the +‘voiture’ I had given Céline. She was returning: of course my heart +thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The +carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that +is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a +cloak—an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June +evening—I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the +skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over +the balcony, I was about to murmur ‘Mon ange’—in a tone, of course, +which should be audible to the ear of love alone—when a figure jumped +from the carriage after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel +which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now +passed under the arched _porte cochère_ of the hotel. + +“You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not +ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to +experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall +waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in +which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes +and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in +the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I +tell you—and you may mark my words—you will come some day to a craggy +pass in the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up +into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to +atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave +into a calmer current—as I am now. + +“I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and +stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its +antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey +façade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet +how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a +great plague-house? How I do still abhor—” + +He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his +boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in +its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance. + +We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before +us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such +as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust, +detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the +large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which +should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something +hard and cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and +petrified his countenance: he went on— + +“During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point +with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk—a hag like one of +those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. ‘You like +Thornfield?’ she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the +air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the +house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, ‘Like it if +you can! Like it if you dare!’ + +“‘I will like it,’ said I; ‘I dare like it;’ and” (he subjoined +moodily) “I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to +goodness—yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been, +than I am; as Job’s leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the +habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will +esteem but straw and rotten wood.” + +Adèle here ran before him with her shuttlecock. “Away!” he cried +harshly; “keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!” Continuing +then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the +point whence he had abruptly diverged— + +“Did you leave the balcony, sir,” I asked, “when Mdlle. Varens +entered?” + +I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on +the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his +eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. “Oh, I had +forgotten Céline! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in +accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake +of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, +glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my +heart’s core. Strange!” he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the +point. “Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, +young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if +it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell +stories of his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like +you! But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once +before: you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made +to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I +have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable +to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I +do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. +The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, +you may refresh me.” After this digression he proceeded— + +“I remained in the balcony. ‘They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,’ +thought I: ‘let me prepare an ambush.’ So putting my hand in through +the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening +through which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, +all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers’ +whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the +pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture. Céline’s chamber-maid +entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The couple +were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there +was ‘the Varens,’ shining in satin and jewels,—my gifts of course,—and +there was her companion in an officer’s uniform; and I knew him for a +young roué of a vicomte—a brainless and vicious youth whom I had +sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I +despised him so absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake +Jealousy was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for +Céline sank under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such +a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, +however, than I, who had been her dupe. + +“They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, +mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary +than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being +perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed +energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely +as they could in their little way: especially Céline, who even waxed +rather brilliant on my personal defects—deformities she termed them. +Now it had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of +what she called my ‘_beauté mâle_:’ wherein she differed diametrically +from you, who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you +did not think me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and—” + +Adèle here came running up again. + +“Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and +wishes to see you.” + +“Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon +them; liberated Céline from my protection; gave her notice to vacate +her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded +screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an +appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. +Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in +one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the +pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the +Varens, six months before, had given me this filette Adèle, who, she +affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no +proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more +like me than she. Some years after I had broken with the mother, she +abandoned her child, and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I +acknowledged no natural claim on Adèle’s part to be supported by me, +nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that +she was quite destitute, I e’en took the poor thing out of the slime +and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the +wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to +train it; but now you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a +French opera-girl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and +protégée: you will be coming to me some day with notice that you have +found another place—that you beg me to look out for a new governess, +&c.—Eh?” + +“No: Adèle is not answerable for either her mother’s faults or yours: I +have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, +parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir—I shall +cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt +pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to +a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?” + +“Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; +and you too: it darkens.” + +But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot—ran a race +with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went +in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept +her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking +even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to +stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of +character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an +English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to +appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her +countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: +no trait, no turn of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: +if she could but have been proved to resemble him, he would have +thought more of her. + +It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, +that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had +said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance +of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman’s passion for a French +dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no +doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the +paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the +act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly +revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated +wonderingly on this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it +for the present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my +master’s manner to myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose +in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as +such. His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards +me than at the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits +of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed +welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when +summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a +cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power +to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much +for his pleasure as for my benefit. + +I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with +relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a +mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do +not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their +interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange +novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in +receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he +portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he +disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion. + +The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly +frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to +him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: +yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it +was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest +added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin +crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled +up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength. + +And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and +many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object +I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the +brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could +not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, +harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew +that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many +others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when +sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with +his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, +almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that +his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say +_former_, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some +cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better +tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as +circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny +encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for +the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot +deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have +given much to assuage it. + +Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I +could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, +and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be +happy at Thornfield. + +“Why not?” I asked myself. “What alienates him from the house? Will he +leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer +than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. +If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent +spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will +seem!” + +I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any +rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and +lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had +kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were +depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed. + +I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward +tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. +Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had +swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I +said, “Who is there?” Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear. + +All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the +kitchen-door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up +to the threshold of Mr. Rochester’s chamber: I had seen him lying there +myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. +Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again +through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it +was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely +approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing +incident enough. + +This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it +seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was +near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my +bedside—or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and +could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was +reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse +was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, “Who is +there?” + +Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery +towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut +in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still. + +“Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?” thought I. +Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I +hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the +door with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, +and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this +circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite +dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and +left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware +of a strong smell of burning. + +Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. +Rochester’s, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no +more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: +in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round +the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, +Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep. + +“Wake! wake!” I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: +the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very +sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one +was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved +them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, +brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God’s aid, +succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it. + +The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I +flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of +the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last. +Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him +fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of +water. + +“Is there a flood?” he cried. + +“No, sir,” I answered; “but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are +quenched now; I will fetch you a candle.” + +“In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?” he +demanded. “What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the +room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?” + +“I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven’s name, get up. +Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and +what it is.” + +“There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two +minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be—yes, +here is my dressing-gown. Now run!” + +I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He +took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened +and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water. + +“What is it? and who did it?” he asked. + +I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had +heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the +smoke,—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what +state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the +water I could lay hands on. + + +“What is it and who did it?” he asked + +He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more +concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had +concluded. + +“Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?” I asked. + +“Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she +do? Let her sleep unmolested.” + +“Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife.” + +“Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm +enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down +in the arm-chair: there,—I will put it on. Now place your feet on the +stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few +minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return; +be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don’t +move, remember, or call any one.” + +He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very +softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, +shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total +darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long +time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and +then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. +I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester’s displeasure by disobeying +his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, +and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. “I hope it is he,” +thought I, “and not something worse.” + +He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. “I have found it all out,” said +he, setting his candle down on the washstand; “it is as I thought.” + +“How, sir?” + +He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the +ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar +tone— + +“I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your +chamber door.” + +“No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.” + +“But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should +think, or something like it?” + +“Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,—she +laughs in that way. She is a singular person.” + +“Just so. Grace Poole—you have guessed it. She is, as you say, +singular—very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am +glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the +precise details of to-night’s incident. You are no talking fool: say +nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs” (pointing +to the bed): “and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on +the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:—in +two hours the servants will be up.” + +“Good-night, then, sir,” said I, departing. + +He seemed surprised—very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to +go. + +“What!” he exclaimed, “are you quitting me already, and in that way?” + +“You said I might go, sir.” + +“But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of +acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry +fashion. Why, you have saved my life!—snatched me from a horrible and +excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual +strangers! At least shake hands.” + +He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, then in +both his own. + +“You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a +debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been +tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: +but you: it is different;—I feel your benefits no burden, Jane.” + +He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,—but +his voice was checked. + +“Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, +in the case.” + +“I knew,” he continued, “you would do me good in some way, at some +time;—I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression +and smile did not”—(again he stopped)—“did not” (he proceeded hastily) +“strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of +natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of +truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, good-night!” + +Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look. + +“I am glad I happened to be awake,” I said: and then I was going. + +“What! you _will_ go?” + +“I am cold, sir.” + +“Cold? Yes,—and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!” But he still +retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an +expedient. + +“I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,” said I. + +“Well, leave me:” he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone. + +I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I +was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble +rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild +waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a +freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards +the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy—a counteracting +breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist +delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as +soon as day dawned. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed +this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to +meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily +expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the +schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had +the impression that he was sure to visit it that day. + +But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the +quiet course of Adèle’s studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard +some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester’s chamber, Mrs. +Fairfax’s voice, and Leah’s, and the cook’s—that is, John’s wife—and +even John’s own gruff tones. There were exclamations of “What a mercy +master was not burnt in his bed!” “It is always dangerous to keep a +candle lit at night.” “How providential that he had presence of mind to +think of the water-jug!” “I wonder he waked nobody!” “It is to be hoped +he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa,” &c. + +To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to +rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I +saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete +order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the +window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about +to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the +affair: but, on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber—a woman +sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. +That woman was no other than Grace Poole. + +There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff +gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on +her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard +forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the +paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the +countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended +victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed), +charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was +amazed—confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, +no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of +guilt, or fear of detection. She said “Good morning, Miss,” in her +usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more +tape, went on with her sewing. + +“I will put her to some test,” thought I: “such absolute +impenetrability is past comprehension.” + +“Good morning, Grace,” I said. “Has anything happened here? I thought I +heard the servants all talking together a while ago.” + +“Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep +with his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he +awoke before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to +quench the flames with the water in the ewer.” + +“A strange affair!” I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her +fixedly—“Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?” + +She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of +consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; +then she answered— + +“The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be +likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax’s room and yours are the nearest to +master’s; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get +elderly, they often sleep heavy.” She paused, and then added, with a +sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant +tone—“But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: +perhaps you may have heard a noise?” + +“I did,” said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still +polishing the panes, could not hear me, “and at first I thought it was +Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a +strange one.” + +She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her +needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure— + +“It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he +was in such danger: You must have been dreaming.” + +“I was not dreaming,” I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness +provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and +conscious eye. + +“Have you told master that you heard a laugh?” she inquired. + +“I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning.” + +“You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the +gallery?” she further asked. + +She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me +information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew +or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant +pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard. + +“On the contrary,” said I, “I bolted my door.” + +“Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before +you get into bed?” + +“Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans +accordingly!” Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied +sharply, “Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not +think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be +dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future” (and I laid marked stress on +the words) “I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture +to lie down.” + +“It will be wise so to do,” was her answer: “this neighbourhood is as +quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by +robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds’ +worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for +such a large house, there are very few servants, because master has +never lived here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he +needs little waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe +side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt +between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, +are for trusting all to Providence; but I say Providence will not +dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they are +used discreetly.” And here she closed her harangue: a long one for her, +and uttered with the demureness of a Quakeress. + +I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her +miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the +cook entered. + +“Mrs. Poole,” said she, addressing Grace, “the servants’ dinner will +soon be ready: will you come down?” + +“No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I’ll +carry it upstairs.” + +“You’ll have some meat?” + +“Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that’s all.” + +“And the sago?” + +“Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I’ll +make it myself.” + +The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for +me: so I departed. + +I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax’s account of the curtain conflagration +during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the +enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the +problem of her position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not +been given into custody that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed +from her master’s service. He had almost as much as declared his +conviction of her criminality last night: what mysterious cause +withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined me, too, to +secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman +seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependents; so +much in her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, +he dared not openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her +for it. + +Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think +that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester +in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea +could not be admitted. “Yet,” I reflected, “she has been young once; +her youth would be contemporary with her master’s: Mrs. Fairfax told me +once, she had lived here many years. I don’t think she can ever have +been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and +strength of character to compensate for the want of personal +advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: +Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very +possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him +into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret +influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he cannot shake +off, and dare not disregard?” But, having reached this point of +conjecture, Mrs. Poole’s square, flat figure, and uncomely, dry, even +coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind’s eye, that I thought, +“No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet,” suggested the +secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, “_you_ are not +beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any rate, +you have often felt as if he did; and last night—remember his words; +remember his look; remember his voice!” + +I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment +vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adèle was drawing; I bent +over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start. + +“Qu’avez-vous, mademoiselle?” said she. “Vos doigts tremblent comme la +feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!” + +“I am hot, Adèle, with stooping!” She went on sketching; I went on +thinking. + +I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been +conceiving respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself +with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was +quite a lady; and she spoke truth—I was a lady. And now I looked much +better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had more colour and more flesh, +more life, more vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener +enjoyments. + +“Evening approaches,” said I, as I looked towards the window. “I have +never heard Mr. Rochester’s voice or step in the house to-day; but +surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the +morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled +that it is grown impatient.” + +When dusk actually closed, and when Adèle left me to go and play in the +nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the +bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I +fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester’s own tread, and I turned to +the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut; +darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he +often sent for me at seven and eight o’clock, and it was yet but six. +Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many +things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace +Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if +he really believed it was she who had made last night’s hideous +attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little +mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of +vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, +and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the +verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked +well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every +propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without +fear or uneasy restraint; this suited both him and me. + +A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it +was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. Thither +I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I +imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester’s presence. + +“You must want your tea,” said the good lady, as I joined her; “you ate +so little at dinner. I am afraid,” she continued, “you are not well +to-day: you look flushed and feverish.” + +“Oh, quite well! I never felt better.” + +“Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the +teapot while I knit off this needle?” Having completed her task, she +rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I +suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast +deepening into total obscurity. + +“It is fair to-night,” said she, as she looked through the panes, +“though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a +favourable day for his journey.” + +“Journey!—Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out.” + +“Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas, +Mr. Eshton’s place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe +there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn, +Colonel Dent, and others.” + +“Do you expect him back to-night?” + +“No—nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a +week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they +are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all +that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. +Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. +Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is +a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would +not think his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in +their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his +wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look.” + +“Are there ladies at the Leas?” + +“There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young +ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, +most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or +seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a +Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the +dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit +up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of +the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of +the evening.” + +“You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?” + +“Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was +Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to +hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to +come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw +a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of +them—at least most of the younger ones—looked handsome; but Miss Ingram +was certainly the queen.” + +“And what was she like?” + +“Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive +complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. +Rochester’s: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then +she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly +arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the +glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an +amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her +breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below +her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it +contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls.” + +“She was greatly admired, of course?” + +“Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. +She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the +piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet.” + +“Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.” + +“Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.” + +“And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?” + +“A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to +listen to her;—and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but +Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably +good.” + +“And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?” + +“It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large +fortunes. Old Lord Ingram’s estates were chiefly entailed, and the +eldest son came in for everything almost.” + +“But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to +her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?” + +“Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr. +Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.” + +“What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.” + +“True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an +idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since +you began tea.” + +“No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?” + +I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. +Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the +conversation was turned into another channel. + +When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into +my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring +back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination’s +boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense. + +Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, +wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the +general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight +past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way, a +plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and +rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:— + +That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of +life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet +lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar. + +“_You_,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? _You_ gifted with the +power of pleasing him? _You_ of importance to him in any way? Go! your +folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens +of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man +of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid +dupe!—Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to +yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?—Cover your face +and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind +puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed +senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her +superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in +all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned +and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and +responded to, must lead, _ignis-fatuus_-like, into miry wilds whence +there is no extrication. + +“Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass +before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without +softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing +irregularity; write under it, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, +poor, and plain.’ + +“Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your +drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest +tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate +carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest +shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. +Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental +eye;—What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!—no +sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall +the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let +the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit +neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, +aërial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call +it ‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.’ + +“Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks +well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, ‘Mr. +Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to +strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this +indigent and insignificant plebeian?’” + +“I’ll do it,” I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew +calm, and fell asleep. + +I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in +crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory +miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face +enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was +as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task: +it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and +fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my +heart. + +Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of +wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit. +Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent +calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been +unequal to maintain, even externally. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and +still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if +he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the +Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to +come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt +and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange +chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to +experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, +and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to +order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I +cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester’s movements a matter +in which I had any cause to take a vital interest. Not that I humbled +myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just +said— + +“You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to +receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be +grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your +duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only +tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don’t make him +the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. +He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting +to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a +gift is not wanted and would be despised.” + +I went on with my day’s business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague +suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit +Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and +pondering conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not +think to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could. + +Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post +brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter. + +“It is from the master,” said she, as she looked at the direction. “Now +I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not.” + +And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking +my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I attributed to that +circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand +shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into +my saucer, I did not choose to consider. + +“Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being +busy enough now: for a little while at least,” said Mrs. Fairfax, still +holding the note before her spectacles. + +Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of +Adèle’s pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her also to +another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly— + +“Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?” + +“Indeed he is—in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and +not alone either. I don’t know how many of the fine people at the Leas +are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to +be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I +am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from +wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the +gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it.” And Mrs. +Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence +operations. + +The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought +all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged; but it +appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help; and such +scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, +such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors +and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets +and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since. +Adèle ran quite wild in the midst of it: the preparations for company +and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. +She would have Sophie to look over all her “toilettes,” as she called +frocks; to furbish up any that were “_passées_,” and to air and arrange +the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front +chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and +piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the +chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had +pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, +helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and +cheese-cakes and French pastry, to truss game and garnish +desert-dishes. + +The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for +dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to nurse +chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody—Adèle +excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my +cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of +doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I chanced to +see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept +locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in +prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along +the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her +look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,—just say a word, perhaps, +to the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a +marble mantelpiece, or take stains from papered walls, and then pass +on. She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, +smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of +porter with her, for her private solace, in her own gloomy, upper +haunt. Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her +fellow-servants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some +low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the second storey: there she sat and +sewed—and probably laughed drearily to herself,—as companionless as a +prisoner in his dungeon. + +The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except +me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one discussed +her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I +once, indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the +charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah had been saying +something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked— + +“She gets good wages, I guess?” + +“Yes,” said Leah; “I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain +of,—there’s no stinginess at Thornfield; but they’re not one fifth of +the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes every +quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has saved +enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave; but I suppose +she’s got used to the place; and then she’s not forty yet, and strong +and able for anything. It is too soon for her to give up business.” + +“She is a good hand, I daresay,” said the charwoman. + +“Ah!—she understands what she has to do,—nobody better,” rejoined Leah +significantly; “and it is not every one could fill her shoes—not for +all the money she gets.” + +“That it is not!” was the reply. “I wonder whether the master—” + +The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and +she instantly gave her companion a nudge. + +“Doesn’t she know?” I heard the woman whisper. + +Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped. All I +had gathered from it amounted to this,—that there was a mystery at +Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely +excluded. + +Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; +carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white +counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers +piled in vases: both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as +hands could make them. The hall, too, was scoured; and the great carved +clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase, were +polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard +flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases +of exotics bloomed on all sides. + +Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her +gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive the +company,—to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c. Adèle, too, would be +dressed: though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to +the party that day at least. However, to please her, I allowed Sophie +to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For myself, I +had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my +sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me,—“a +very pleasant refuge in time of trouble.” + +It had been a mild, serene spring day—one of those days which, towards +the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining over the earth +as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was +even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open. + +“It gets late,” said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. “I am +glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester mentioned; +for it is past six now. I have sent John down to the gates to see if +there is anything on the road: one can see a long way from thence in +the direction of Millcote.” She went to the window. “Here he is!” said +she. “Well, John” (leaning out), “any news?” + +“They’re coming, ma’am,” was the answer. “They’ll be here in ten +minutes.” + +Adèle flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one side, +so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen. + +The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels +were heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them came +two open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the +vehicles; two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking gentlemen; +the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour, Pilot +bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she were the +first of the party. Her purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, +her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its transparent +folds, and gleaming through them, shone rich raven ringlets. + +“Miss Ingram!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post +below. + +The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the +angle of the house, and I lost sight of it. Adèle now petitioned to go +down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she +must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, +either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr. +Rochester would be very angry, &c. “Some natural tears she shed” on +being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at +last to wipe them. + +A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen’s deep tones and +ladies’ silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and +distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of +the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests +under its roof. Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there was a +tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and +closing doors, and, for a time, a hush. + +“Elles changent de toilettes,” said Adèle; who, listening attentively, +had followed every movement; and she sighed. + +“Chez maman,” said she, “quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais +partout, au salon et à leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes +de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c’était si amusant: comme +cela on apprend.” + +“Don’t you feel hungry, Adèle?” + +“Mais oui, mademoiselle: voilà cinq ou six heures que nous n’avons pas +mangé.” + +“Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and +get you something to eat.” + +And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a back-stairs +which conducted directly to the kitchen. All in that region was fire +and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, +and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body +threatening spontaneous combustion. In the servants’ hall two coachmen +and three gentlemen’s gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the +abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new +servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about +everywhere. Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I +took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of bread, some tarts, a plate +or two and a knife and fork: with this booty I made a hasty retreat. I +had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind +me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to +issue from their chambers. I could not proceed to the schoolroom +without passing some of their doors, and running the risk of being +surprised with my cargo of victualage; so I stood still at this end, +which, being windowless, was dark: quite dark now, for the sun was set +and twilight gathering. + +Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: +each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous +through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other +extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued +vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a +bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance had left on +me an impression of high-born elegance, such as I had never before +received. + +I found Adèle peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar. +“What beautiful ladies!” cried she in English. “Oh, I wish I might go +to them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by-and-by, after +dinner?” + +“No, indeed, I don’t; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about. +Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them to-morrow: +here is your dinner.” + +She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her +attention for a time. It was well I secured this forage, or both she, +I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run +a chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much +engaged to think of us. The dessert was not carried out till after +nine; and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and +coffee-cups. I allowed Adèle to sit up much later than usual; for she +declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept +opening and shutting below, and people bustling about. Besides, she +added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was +undressed; “et alors quel dommage!” + +I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a +change I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lit, and +it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants +passing backwards and forwards. When the evening was far advanced, a +sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been +removed; Adèle and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen. +Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a +lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were. The solo over, a duet +followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the +intervals. I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was +wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to +discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; +and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in +framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words. + +The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adèle, whose head leant against my +shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and +carried her off to bed. It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies +sought their chambers. + +The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the +party to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood. They set out +early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I +witnessed both the departure and the return. Miss Ingram, as before, +was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester galloped at +her side; the two rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out this +circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me— + +“You said it was not likely they should think of being married,” said +I, “but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other +ladies.” + +“Yes, I daresay: no doubt he admires her.” + +“And she him,” I added; “look how she leans her head towards him as if +she were conversing confidentially; I wish I could see her face; I have +never had a glimpse of it yet.” + +“You will see her this evening,” answered Mrs. Fairfax. “I happened to +remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adèle wished to be introduced to the +ladies, and he said: ‘Oh! let her come into the drawing-room after +dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her.’” + +“Yes; he said that from mere politeness: I need not go, I am sure,” I +answered. + +“Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not +think you would like appearing before so gay a party—all strangers; and +he replied, in his quick way—‘Nonsense! If she objects, tell her it is +my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her +in case of contumacy.’” + +“I will not give him that trouble,” I answered. “I will go, if no +better may be; but I don’t like it. Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?” + +“No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I’ll tell you how to +manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance, +which is the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go into +the drawing-room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the +dinner-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not +stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. +Rochester see you are there and then slip away—nobody will notice you.” + +“Will these people remain long, do you think?” + +“Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more. After the Easter +recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, +will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester +will accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so +protracted a stay at Thornfield.” + +It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I +was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room. Adèle had been in a +state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the +ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the +operation of dressing her that she sobered down. Then the importance of +the process quickly steadied her, and by the time she had her curls +arranged in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put +on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens adjusted, she looked as +grave as any judge. No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: +when she was dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking +care previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she should crease +it, and assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready. This I +quickly was: my best dress (the silver-grey one, purchased for Miss +Temple’s wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was +soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We +descended. + +Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than that +through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner. We found the +apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, +and wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers +with which the tables were adorned. The crimson curtain hung before the +arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party +in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of +their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur. + +Adèle, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most +solemnising impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I +pointed out to her. I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from +a table near, endeavoured to read. Adèle brought her stool to my feet; +ere long she touched my knee. + +“What is it, Adèle?” + +“Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendre une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, +mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette.” + +“You think too much of your ‘toilette,’ Adèle: but you may have a +flower.” And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash. She +sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness +were now full. I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not +suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the +little Parisienne’s earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress. + +A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back +from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre +pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent +dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the +opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them. + +There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the +impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall; many +were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that +seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon. I rose +and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in return, the +others only stared at me. + +They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and +buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some of +them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and +ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: +the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a low but +clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names +afterwards, and may as well mention them now. + +First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had +evidently been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still. Of her +daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naïve, and child-like in +face and manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue +sash became her well. The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant +in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term +_minois chiffoné_: both sisters were fair as lilies. + +Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect, +very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful +sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, +and within the circlet of a band of gems. + +Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more lady-like. She +had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her black +satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, +pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame. + +But the three most distinguished—partly, perhaps, because the tallest +figures of the band—were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, +Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of women. +The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; +her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were +still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid +woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but +then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her +bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double chin, +disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me +not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the +chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost +preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it +reminded me of Mrs. Reed’s; she mouthed her words in speaking; her +voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,—very +intolerable, in short. A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of +some gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she thought) +with a truly imperial dignity. + +Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,—straight and tall as poplars. +Mary was too slim for her height, but Blanche was moulded like a Dian. +I regarded her, of course, with special interest. First, I wished to +see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax’s description; +secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted +of her; and thirdly—it will out!—whether it were such as I should fancy +likely to suit Mr. Rochester’s taste. + +As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture +and Mrs. Fairfax’s description. The noble bust, the sloping shoulders, +the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there;—but +her face? Her face was like her mother’s; a youthful unfurrowed +likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride. It +was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed continually; her +laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched +and haughty lip. + +Genius is said to be self-conscious. I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram +was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious +indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. +Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she +said, she liked flowers, “especially wild ones;” Miss Ingram had, and +she ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently perceived she was +(what is vernacularly termed) _trailing_ Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on +her ignorance; her _trail_ might be clever, but it was decidedly not +good-natured. She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her +voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it +well, with fluency and with a good accent. + +Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer +features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a +Spaniard)—but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression, +her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, +remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both +attired in spotless white. + +And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be +likely to make? I could not tell—I did not know his taste in female +beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty: +then she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would admire her, +I thought; and that he _did_ admire her, I already seemed to have +obtained proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to +see them together. + +You are not to suppose, reader, that Adèle has all this time been +sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies +entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and +said with gravity— + +“Bon jour, mesdames.” + +And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and +exclaimed, “Oh, what a little puppet!” + +Lady Lynn had remarked, “It is Mr. Rochester’s ward, I suppose—the +little French girl he was speaking of.” + +Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss. Amy and +Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously— + +“What a love of a child!” + +And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced +between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English; +absorbing not only the young ladies’ attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton +and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart’s content. + +At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in +the shade—if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the +window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The +collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is +very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, +some young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; +and Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of +the district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite white, his eyebrows +and whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of +a “père noble de théâtre.” Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; +like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary’s apathetic and +listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of +blood or vigour of brain. + +And where is Mr. Rochester? + +He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I +try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles, on the meshes +of the purse I am forming—I wish to think only of the work I have in my +hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my +lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall +the moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he +deemed, an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down +on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager +to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached +him at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his +and my relative positions? Yet now, how distant, how far estranged we +were! So far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to +me. I did not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at +the other side of the room, and began conversing with some of the +ladies. + +No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I +might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn +involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: +they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an +acute pleasure in looking,—a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, +with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing +man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, +yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless. + +Most true is it that “beauty is in the eye of the gazer.” My master’s +colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, +deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,—all energy, decision, +will,—were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than +beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite +mastered me,—that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them +in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought +hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and +now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, +green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me. + +I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the +Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,—even the military +distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith +and genuine power? I had no sympathy in their appearance, their +expression: yet I could imagine that most observers would call them +attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. +Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking. I saw them +smile, laugh—it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much soul +in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance as +their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester smile:—his stern features softened; +his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and +sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I +wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so +penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under +it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. “He is not +to them what he is to me,” I thought: “he is not of their kind. I +believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand +the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth +sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood +and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days +since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at +his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than +as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous +feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my +sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care +much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I +have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that +I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, +repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I +breathe and think, I must love him.” + +Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become +lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel Dent and +Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud +dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir +George—whom, by-the-bye, I have forgotten to describe,—a very big, and +very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, +coffee-cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick Lynn +has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the engravings +of a splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently +says little. The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms +on the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she glances up +at him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than she does +Mr. Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the +feet of Louisa: Adèle shares it with him: he is trying to talk French +with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche +Ingram pair? She is standing alone at the table, bending gracefully +over an album. She seems waiting to be sought; but she will not wait +too long: she herself selects a mate. + +Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as +solitary as she stands by the table: she confronts him, taking her +station on the opposite side of the mantelpiece. + +“Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?” + +“Nor am I.” + +“Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?” +(pointing to Adèle). “Where did you pick her up?” + +“I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands.” + +“You should have sent her to school.” + +“I could not afford it: schools are so dear.” + +“Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with her +just now—is she gone? Oh, no! there she is still, behind the +window-curtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as +expensive,—more so; for you have them both to keep in addition.” + +I feared—or should I say, hoped?—the allusion to me would make Mr. +Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into the +shade: but he never turned his eyes. + +“I have not considered the subject,” said he indifferently, looking +straight before him. + +“No, you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should +hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should +think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the +rest ridiculous, and all incubi—were they not, mama?” + +“Did you speak, my own?” + +The young lady thus claimed as the dowager’s special property, +reiterated her question with an explanation. + +“My dearest, don’t mention governesses; the word makes me nervous. I +have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice. I thank +Heaven I have now done with them!” + +Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady and whispered something in +her ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that +one of the anathematised race was present. + +“Tant pis!” said her Ladyship, “I hope it may do her good!” Then, in a +lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, “I noticed her; I am +a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class.” + +“What are they, madam?” inquired Mr. Rochester aloud. + +“I will tell you in your private ear,” replied she, wagging her turban +three times with portentous significancy. + +“But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now.” + +“Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I.” + +“Oh, don’t refer him to me, mama! I have just one word to say of the +whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much from +them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used +to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary +was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit. The best fun was +with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose +and low-spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and +Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her. But +poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had +driven her to extremities—spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, +tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the +ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons. Theodore, do you remember +those merry days?” + +“Yaas, to be sure I do,” drawled Lord Ingram; “and the poor old stick +used to cry out, ‘Oh you villains childs!’—and then we sermonised her on +the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, +when she was herself so ignorant.” + +“We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or +persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining—the parson in the pip, +as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling +in love with each other—at least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised +sundry tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as tokens of ‘la +belle passion,’ and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of +our discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our +dead-weights from the house. Dear mama, there, as soon as she got an +inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. +Did you not, my lady-mother?” + +“Certainly, my best. And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a +thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should +never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly—” + +“Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! _Au reste_, we all know +them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and +consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached—mutual alliance +and reliance; confidence thence resulting—insolence accompanying—mutiny +and general blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park?” + +“My lily-flower, you are right now, as always.” + +“Then no more need be said: change the subject.” + +Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her +soft, infantine tone: “Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but +she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her +out. She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa?” + +“No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her +workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured, +she would give us anything we asked for.” + +“I suppose, now,” said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, “we +shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant: in +order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a +new topic. Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion?” + +“Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other.” + +“Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Eduardo, are +you in voice to-night?” + +“Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be.” + +“Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your +lungs and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal +service.” + +“Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?” + +“A fig for Rizzio!” cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as +she moved to the piano. “It is my opinion the fiddler David must have +been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my +mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history +may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was just +the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to +gift with my hand.” + +“Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?” cried +Mr. Rochester. + +“I should say the preference lies with you,” responded Colonel Dent. + +“On my honour, I am much obliged to you,” was the reply. + +Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, +spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a +brilliant prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high +horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite +not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was +evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring +indeed. + +“Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!” exclaimed she, +rattling away at the instrument. “Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a +step beyond papa’s park gates: nor to go even so far without mama’s +permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their +pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man +had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were not the special +prerogative of woman—her legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an +ugly _woman_ is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the +_gentlemen_, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and +valour: let their motto be:—Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not +worth a fillip. Such should be my device, were I a man.” + +“Whenever I marry,” she continued after a pause which none interrupted, +“I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I +will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided +homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he +sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you.” + +“I am all obedience,” was the response. + +“Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for +that reason, sing it _con spirito_.” + +“Commands from Miss Ingram’s lips would put spirit into a mug of milk +and water.” + +“Take care, then: if you don’t please me, I will shame you by showing +how such things _should_ be done.” + +“That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to +fail.” + +“Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a +proportionate punishment.” + +“Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to +inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance.” + +“Ha! explain!” commanded the lady. + +“Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must +inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for +capital punishment.” + +“Sing!” said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an +accompaniment in spirited style. + +“Now is my time to slip away,” thought I: but the tones that then +severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester +possessed a fine voice: he did—a mellow, powerful bass, into which he +threw his own feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to +the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I waited till the last +deep and full vibration had expired—till the tide of talk, checked an +instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and +made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a +narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal +was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the +mat at the foot of the staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; +a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it +was Mr. Rochester. + +“How do you do?” he asked. + +“I am very well, sir.” + +“Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?” + +I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I +would not take that freedom. I answered— + +“I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir.” + +“What have you been doing during my absence?” + +“Nothing particular; teaching Adèle as usual.” + +“And getting a good deal paler than you were—as I saw at first sight. +What is the matter?” + +“Nothing at all, sir.” + +“Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?” + +“Not the least.” + +“Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.” + +“I am tired, sir.” + +He looked at me for a minute. + +“And a little depressed,” he said. “What about? Tell me.” + +“Nothing—nothing, sir. I am not depressed.” + +“But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words +would bring tears to your eyes—indeed, they are there now, shining and +swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the +flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig +of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night +I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect +you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don’t +neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adèle. Good-night, my—” He +stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how +different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and +solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now +driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was +life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the +gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so +tenantless, without encountering a smart lady’s-maid or a dandy valet. + +The kitchen, the butler’s pantry, the servants’ hall, the entrance +hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still +when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather +called their occupants out into the grounds. Even when that weather was +broken, and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast +over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, +in consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety. + +I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of +entertainment was proposed: they spoke of “playing charades,” but in my +ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called in, +the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the +chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch. While Mr. Rochester +and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were +running up and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was +summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in +shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the +third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of +brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace +lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a +selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the +boudoir within the drawing-room. + +Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and +was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. “Miss Ingram +is mine, of course,” said he: afterwards he named the two Misses +Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be near him, as I +had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent’s bracelet, which had got +loose. + +“Will you play?” he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I +rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return quietly to my +usual seat. + +He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which +was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs. One of +the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I +should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the +notion. + +“No,” I heard her say: “she looks too stupid for any game of the sort.” + +Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch, the +bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise +chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, +lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. +Rochester’s cloak, and holding a book in her hand. Somebody, unseen, +rang the bell merrily; then Adèle (who had insisted on being one of her +guardian’s party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents +of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then appeared the +magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her +head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. +Rochester, and together they drew near the table. They knelt; while +Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white, took up their +stations behind them. A ceremony followed, in dumb show, in which it +was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage. At its termination, +Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then +the Colonel called out— + +“Bride!” Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell. + +A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second rising +displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last. The +drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the +dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two +back within the room, appeared a large marble basin, which I recognised +as an ornament of the conservatory—where it usually stood, surrounded +by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish—and whence it must have been +transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight. + +Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. +Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes +and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he +looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the +bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was +attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the +waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her +beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of +supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of +form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the +idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was +doubtless the character she intended to represent. + +She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; +she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now +seemed to accost her; to make some request:—“She hasted, let down her +pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink.” From the bosom of his robe +he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets +and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid +the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her +looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and +the rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were +wanting. + +The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they +could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated. +Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded “the tableau of the whole;” +whereupon the curtain again descended. + +On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; +the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and +coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a +deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very +dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all +extinguished. + +Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on +his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; +though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose +from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a +scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling +hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to +his wrists were attached fetters. + +“Bridewell!” exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved. + +A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their +ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in +Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting. + +“Do you know,” said she, “that, of the three characters, I liked you in +the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a +gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!” + +“Is all the soot washed from my face?” he asked, turning it towards +her. + +“Alas! yes: the more’s the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your +complexion than that ruffian’s rouge.” + +“You would like a hero of the road then?” + +“An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian +bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate.” + +“Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour +since, in the presence of all these witnesses.” She giggled, and her +colour rose. + +“Now, Dent,” continued Mr. Rochester, “it is your turn.” And as the +other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats. Miss +Ingram placed herself at her leader’s right hand; the other diviners +filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the +actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my +attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on +the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs. +What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, +how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see +the consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to +Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards +him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against +his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged +glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle +returns in memory at this moment. + +I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I +could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to +notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would +never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his +attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with +the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious +eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object +too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt +sure he would soon marry this very lady—because I read daily in her a +proud security in his intentions respecting her—because I witnessed +hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing +rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, +captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible. + +There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though +much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to engender +jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a +woman in Miss Ingram’s. But I was not jealous: or very rarely;—the +nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word. Miss +Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the +feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very +showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant +attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing +bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted +by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to +repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an +opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did +not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were +not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to +a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adèle: pushing +her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach +her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with +coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these +manifestations of character—watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly. +Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his +intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity—this +guardedness of his—this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one’s +defects—this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, +that my ever-torturing pain arose. + +I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, +because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given +her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from +him that treasure. This was the point—this was where the nerve was +touched and teased—this was where the fever was sustained and fed: _she +could not charm him_. + +If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and +sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, +turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss +Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, +kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two +tigers—jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I +should have admired her—acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for +the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper +would have been my admiration—the more truly tranquil my quiescence. +But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram’s efforts at +fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated failure—herself +unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft +launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, +when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what +she wished to allure—to witness _this_, was to be at once under +ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint. + +Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows +that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast and fell +harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have +quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, +and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons +a silent conquest might have been won. + +“Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so +near to him?” I asked myself. “Surely she cannot truly like him, or not +like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles +so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so +elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by +merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get +nigher his heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression +from that which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting +him; but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious +arts and calculated manoeuvres; and one had but to accept it—to answer +what he asked without pretension, to address him when needful without +grimace—and it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed +one like a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when +they are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might +be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest +woman the sun shines on.” + +I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester’s project of +marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I first +discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man +unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a +wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the +parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or +Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled +into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these +principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as +I could not fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, +I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very +obviousness of the advantages to the husband’s own happiness offered by +this plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general +adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the +world would act as I wished to act. + +But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my +master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a +sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of +his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just +weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The +sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, +were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was +pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid. And +as for the vague something—was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a +designing or a desponding expression?—that opened upon a careful +observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could +fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used +to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst +volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and +seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with +throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to +shun, I longed only to dare—to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram +happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, +explore its secrets and analyse their nature. + +Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride—saw +only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their +movements of importance—the rest of the party were occupied with their +own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram +continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two +turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting +gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on +which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. +Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes +bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel +Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice +business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang +to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly +to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one +consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal +actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and—because closely connected +with him—Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party. If he was +absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal +over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a +fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation. + +The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one +day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not +likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had +proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond +Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to the +stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were +playing billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn +sought solace in a quiet game at cards. Blanche Ingram, after having +repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and +Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some +sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a +novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a +sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious +hours of absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then +the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above. + +It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the +hour to dress for dinner, when little Adèle, who knelt by me in the +drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed— + +“Voilà Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!” + +I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, +too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same time a +crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible +on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching. + +“What can possess him to come home in that style?” said Miss Ingram. +“He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out? and +Pilot was with him:—what has he done with the animals?” + +As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so +near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking +of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when +she did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The +post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman +alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it +was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger. + +“How provoking!” exclaimed Miss Ingram: “you tiresome monkey!” +(apostrophising Adèle), “who perched you up in the window to give false +intelligence?” and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in +fault. + +Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered. +He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present. + +“It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,” said he, “when my +friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long +journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate +acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns.” + +His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being +somewhat unusual,—not precisely foreign, but still not altogether +English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester’s,—between thirty and +forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a +fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination, you +detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that failed +to please. His features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was +large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant +life—at least so I thought. + +The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till +after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease. +But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as +being at the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and +had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I +never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an +unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power +in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that +aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, +even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye. + +As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the +girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him—for he occupied an +arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as +if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with +deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between +a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the +rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian. + +He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship +theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage +that “extremes meet.” + +Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times +scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make +much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary +Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that +reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the stranger; they +both called him “a beautiful man.” Louisa said he was “a love of a +creature,” and she “adored him;” and Mary instanced his “pretty little +mouth, and nice nose,” as her ideal of the charming. + +“And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!” cried Louisa,—“so +smooth—none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and +such a placid eye and smile!” + +And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other +side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to +Hay Common. + +I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, +and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then +I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came +from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so +sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the +house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated +the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I +gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted +with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend’s dislike of the burning +heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr. +Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought +the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had +never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores. + +I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat +unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as +some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the +fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still +shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, +stopped near Mr. Eshton’s chair, and said something to him in a low +voice, of which I heard only the words, “old woman,”—“quite +troublesome.” + +“Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself +off,” replied the magistrate. + +“No—stop!” interrupted Colonel Dent. “Don’t send her away, Eshton; we +might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies.” And +speaking aloud, he continued—“Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common +to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother +Bunches is in the servants’ hall at this moment, and insists upon being +brought in before ‘the quality,’ to tell them their fortunes. Would you +like to see her?” + +“Surely, colonel,” cried Lady Ingram, “you would not encourage such a +low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!” + +“But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady,” said the footman; “nor +can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating +her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and +says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in +here.” + +“What does she want?” asked Mrs. Eshton. + +“‘To tell the gentry their fortunes,’ she says, ma’am; and she swears +she must and will do it.” + +“What is she like?” inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath. + +“A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock.” + +“Why, she’s a real sorceress!” cried Frederick Lynn. “Let us have her +in, of course.” + +“To be sure,” rejoined his brother; “it would be a thousand pities to +throw away such a chance of fun.” + +“My dear boys, what are you thinking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Lynn. + +“I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,” +chimed in the Dowager Ingram. + +“Indeed, mama, but you can—and will,” pronounced the haughty voice of +Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had +sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. “I have a +curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame +forward.” + +“My darling Blanche! recollect—” + +“I do—I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will—quick, +Sam!” + +“Yes—yes—yes!” cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. “Let +her come—it will be excellent sport!” + +The footman still lingered. “She looks such a rough one,” said he. + +“Go!” ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went. + +Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery +and jests was proceeding when Sam returned. + +“She won’t come now,” said he. “She says it’s not her mission to appear +before the ‘vulgar herd’ (them’s her words). I must show her into a +room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her +one by one.” + +“You see now, my queenly Blanche,” began Lady Ingram, “she encroaches. +Be advised, my angel girl—and—” + +“Show her into the library, of course,” cut in the “angel girl.” “It is +not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean +to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?” + +“Yes, ma’am—but she looks such a tinkler.” + +“Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.” + +Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full +flow once more. + +“She’s ready now,” said the footman, as he reappeared. “She wishes to +know who will be her first visitor.” + +“I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies +go,” said Colonel Dent. + +“Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.” + +Sam went and returned. + +“She says, sir, that she’ll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble +themselves to come near her; nor,” he added, with difficulty +suppressing a titter, “any ladies either, except the young, and +single.” + +“By Jove, she has taste!” exclaimed Henry Lynn. + +Miss Ingram rose solemnly: “I go first,” she said, in a tone which +might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in +the van of his men. + +“Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause—reflect!” was her mama’s cry; but +she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which +Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library. + +A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it “le cas” to wring +her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for +her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under +their breath, and looked a little frightened. + +The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the +library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch. + +Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a +glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and +coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to +her seat, and took it in silence. + +“Well, Blanche?” said Lord Ingram. + +“What did she say, sister?” asked Mary. + +“What did you think? How do you feel? Is she a real fortune-teller?” +demanded the Misses Eshton. + +“Now, now, good people,” returned Miss Ingram, “don’t press upon me. +Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you +seem, by the importance of you all—my good mama included—ascribe to +this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the +house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a +gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of +palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is +gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in +the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened.” + +Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined +further conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all +that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, +more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She +had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, +from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, +notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance +to whatever revelations had been made her. + + +During all that time she never turned a page + +Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not +go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened +through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and +fro, till, I think, the said Sam’s calves must have ached with the +exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from +the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body. + +Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram’s had been: we heard +hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and +at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came +running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits. + +“I am sure she is something not right!” they cried, one and all. “She +told us such things! She knows all about us!” and they sank breathless +into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them. + +Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of +things they had said and done when they were mere children; described +books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that +different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had +even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the +name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of +what they most wished for. + +Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further +enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, +ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. +The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again +and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning +had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the +younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones. + +In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully +engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I +turned, and saw Sam. + +“If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young +single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she +will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you: there is +no one else for it. What shall I tell her?” + +“Oh, I will go by all means,” I answered: and I was glad of the +unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped +out of the room, unobserved by any eye—for the company were gathered in +one mass about the trembling trio just returned—and I closed the door +quietly behind me. + +“If you like, miss,” said Sam, “I’ll wait in the hall for you; and if +she frightens you, just call and I’ll come in.” + +“No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid.” Nor was +I; but I was a good deal interested and excited. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl—if +Sibyl she were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the +chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a +broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under +her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending +over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a +prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to +herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist +immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a +paragraph. + +I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with +sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as +composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the +gipsy’s appearance to trouble one’s calm. She shut her book and slowly +looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as +she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and +black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed +under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye +confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze. + +“Well, and you want your fortune told?” she said, in a voice as decided +as her glance, as harsh as her features. + +“I don’t care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to +warn you, I have no faith.” + +“It’s like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it +in your step as you crossed the threshold.” + +“Did you? You’ve a quick ear.” + +“I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.” + +“You need them all in your trade.” + +“I do; especially when I’ve customers like you to deal with. Why don’t +you tremble?” + +“I’m not cold.” + +“Why don’t you turn pale?” + +“I am not sick.” + +“Why don’t you consult my art?” + +“I’m not silly.” + +The old crone “nichered” a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then +drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke. Having +indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the +pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very +deliberately— + +“You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.” + +“Prove it,” I rejoined. + +“I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact +strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the +best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far +away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not +beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it +waits you.” + +She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking +with vigour. + +“You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a +solitary dependent in a great house.” + +“I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any +one?” + +“In my circumstances.” + +“Yes; just so, in _your_ circumstances: but find me another precisely +placed as you are.” + +“It would be easy to find you thousands.” + +“You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly +situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials +are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance +laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss +results.” + +“I don’t understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my life.” + +“If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.” + +“And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?” + +“To be sure.” + +I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she +took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she +told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the +palm, and pored over it without touching it. + +“It is too fine,” said she. “I can make nothing of such a hand as that; +almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not +written there.” + +“I believe you,” said I. + +“No,” she continued, “it is in the face: on the forehead, about the +eyes, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head.” + +“Ah! now you are coming to reality,” I said, as I obeyed her. “I shall +begin to put some faith in you presently.” + +I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a +ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as +she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined. + +“I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night,” she said, when +she had examined me a while. “I wonder what thoughts are busy in your +heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people +flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little +sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were +really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance.” + +“I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.” + +“Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with +whispers of the future?” + +“Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings +to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself.” + +“A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that +window-seat (you see I know your habits)—” + +“You have learned them from the servants.” + +“Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I +have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole—” + +I started to my feet when I heard the name. + +“You have—have you?” thought I; “there is diablerie in the business +after all, then!” + +“Don’t be alarmed,” continued the strange being; “she’s a safe hand is +Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But, +as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing +but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the +company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one +face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least +curiosity?” + +“I like to observe all the faces and all the figures.” + +“But do you never single one from the rest—or it may be, two?” + +“I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a +tale: it amuses me to watch them.” + +“What tale do you like best to hear?” + +“Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same +theme—courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe—marriage.” + +“And do you like that monotonous theme?” + +“Positively, I don’t care about it: it is nothing to me.” + +“Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, +charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, +sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you—” + +“I what?” + +“You know—and perhaps think well of.” + +“I don’t know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a +syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider +some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, +dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to +be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling +disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me.” + +“You don’t know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable +with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the house!” + +“He is not at home.” + +“A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this +morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that +circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance—blot him, +as it were, out of existence?” + +“No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme +you had introduced.” + +“I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late +so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester’s eyes that they +overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked +that?” + +“Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.” + +“No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all +the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured +with the most lively and the most continuous?” + +“The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.” I said +this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice, +manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected +sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web +of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for +weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every +pulse. + +“Eagerness of a listener!” repeated she: “yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by +the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such +delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so +willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; +you have noticed this?” + +“Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.” + +“Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not +gratitude?” + +I said nothing. + +“You have seen love: have you not?—and, looking forward, you have seen +him married, and beheld his bride happy?” + +“Humph! Not exactly. Your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes.” + +“What the devil have you seen, then?” + +“Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that +Mr. Rochester is to be married?” + +“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.” + +“Shortly?” + +“Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with +an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), +they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome, +noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not +his person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester +estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her +something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous +grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her +blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or +clearer rent-roll,—he’s dished—” + +“But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester’s fortune: I came to +hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it.” + +“Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait +contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that +I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it +carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself +to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, +is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug.” + +“Don’t keep me long; the fire scorches me.” + + +She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair + +I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in +her chair. She began muttering,— + +“The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft +and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; +impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases +to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that +signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it +will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking +glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the +charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only +confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable. + +“As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to +impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be +silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never +intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a +mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection +for its interlocutor. That feature too is propitious. + +“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow +professes to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances +require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an +inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous +delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford +to give.’ The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, +and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild +chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they +are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment +shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote +in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: +but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which +interprets the dictates of conscience.’ + +“Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have +formed my plans—right plans I deem them—and in them I have attended to +the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth +would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one +dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not +want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution—such is not my taste. I wish to +foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of +blood—no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, +in sweet—That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. +I should wish now to protract this moment _ad infinitum_; but I dare +not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I +inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my +strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; ‘the play is played out.’” + +Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream +still? The old woman’s voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and +all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass—as the speech of my +own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and +I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about +her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her +hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at +once noticed that hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my +own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically +turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping +forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times +before. Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from +me—on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the +head advanced. + +“Well, Jane, do you know me?” asked the familiar voice. + +“Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then—” + +“But the string is in a knot—help me.” + +“Break it, sir.” + +“There, then—‘Off, ye lendings!’” And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his +disguise. + +“Now, sir, what a strange idea!” + +“But well carried out, eh? Don’t you think so?” + +“With the ladies you must have managed well.” + +“But not with you?” + +“You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.” + +“What character did I act? My own?” + +“No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying +to draw me out—or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk +nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir.” + +“Do you forgive me, Jane?” + +“I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I +find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; +but it was not right.” + +“Oh, you have been very correct—very careful, very sensible.” + +I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but, +indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the +interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and +fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman +had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her +anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace +Poole—that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered +her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester. + +“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about? What does that grave smile +signify?” + +“Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire +now, I suppose?” + +“No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room +yonder are doing.” + +“Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.” + +“Sit down!—Let me hear what they said about me.” + +“I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o’clock. Oh, +are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since +you left this morning?” + +“A stranger!—no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?” + +“No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty +of installing himself here till you returned.” + +“The devil he did! Did he give his name?” + +“His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from +Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.” + +Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead +me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile +on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath. + +“Mason!—the West Indies!” he said, in the tone one might fancy a +speaking automaton to enounce its single words; “Mason!—the West +Indies!” he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, +growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly +seemed to know what he was doing. + +“Do you feel ill, sir?” I inquired. + +“Jane, I’ve got a blow; I’ve got a blow, Jane!” He staggered. + +“Oh, lean on me, sir.” + +“Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.” + +“Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.” + +He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his +own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most +troubled and dreary look. + +“My little friend!” said he, “I wish I were in a quiet island with only +you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from +me.” + +“Can I help you, sir?—I’d give my life to serve you.” + +“Jane, if aid is wanted, I’ll seek it at your hands; I promise you +that.” + +“Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do,—I’ll try, at least, to do it.” + +“Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be +at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is +doing.” + +I went. I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. +Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,—the supper was +arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood +about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their +hands. Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were +general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel +and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them. I filled a +wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she +thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the +library. + +Mr. Rochester’s extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more +firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand. + +“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said. He swallowed the +contents and returned it to me. “What are they doing, Jane?” + +“Laughing and talking, sir.” + +“They don’t look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something +strange?” + +“Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.” + +“And Mason?” + +“He was laughing too.” + +“If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, +Jane?” + +“Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.” + +He half smiled. “But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at +me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then +dropped off and left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?” + +“I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with +you.” + +“To comfort me?” + +“Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.” + +“And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?” + +“I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I +should care nothing about it.” + +“Then, you could dare censure for my sake?” + +“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; +as you, I am sure, do.” + +“Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in +his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in +here and then leave me.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight +among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him +from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went +upstairs. + +At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors +repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester’s voice, and +heard him say, “This way, Mason; this is your room.” + +He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon +asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to +let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon, +which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course +to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me +through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the +dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk—silver-white and crystal +clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn: I half rose, and stretched my +arm to draw the curtain. + +Good God! What a cry! + +The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, +a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall. + +My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed. +The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that +fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor +on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the +cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must +rest ere it could repeat the effort. + +It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And +overhead—yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling—I now heard a +struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered +voice shouted— + +“Help! help! help!” three times rapidly. + +“Will no one come?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and +stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:— + +“Rochester! Rochester! for God’s sake, come!” + +A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. +Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and +there was silence. + +I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued +from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, +terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one +looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and +ladies alike had quitted their beds; and “Oh! what is it?”—“Who is +hurt?”—“What has happened?”—“Fetch a light!”—“Is it fire?”—“Are there +robbers?”—“Where shall we run?” was demanded confusedly on all hands. +But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They +ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the +confusion was inextricable. + +“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried Colonel Dent. “I cannot find him +in his bed.” + +“Here! here!” was shouted in return. “Be composed, all of you: I’m +coming.” + +And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester +advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey. +One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss +Ingram. + +“What awful event has taken place?” said she. “Speak! let us know the +worst at once!” + +“But don’t pull me down or strangle me,” he replied: for the Misses +Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white +wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail. + +“All’s right!—all’s right!” he cried. “It’s a mere rehearsal of Much +Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.” + +And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself +by an effort, he added— + +“A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She’s an excitable, +nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or +something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, +then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is +settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to +set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in +evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your +nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames” (to the dowagers), +“you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill +gallery any longer.” + +And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to +get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did +not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as +unnoticed I had left it. + +Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself +carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that +had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had +proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not +a servant’s dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and +that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention +framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for +emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out +over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not +what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry, +struggle, and call. + +No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and +in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It +seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon +declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and +darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I +left the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I +stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door. + +“Am I wanted?” I asked. + +“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master’s. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And dressed?” + +“Yes.” + +“Come out, then, quietly.” + +I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light. + +“I want you,” he said: “come this way: take your time, and make no +noise.” + +My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a +cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the +dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and +stood at his side. + +“Have you a sponge in your room?” he asked in a whisper. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Have you any salts—volatile salts?” + +“Yes.” + +“Go back and fetch both.” + +I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, +and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his +hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; +he paused, and addressed me again. + +“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?” + +“I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.” + +I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no +faintness. + +“Just give me your hand,” he said: “it will not do to risk a fainting +fit.” + +I put my fingers into his. “Warm and steady,” was his remark: he turned +the key and opened the door. + +I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax +showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry +was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had +then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room +within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog +quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, “Wait +a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of +laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace +Poole’s own goblin ha! ha! _She_ then was there. He made some sort of +arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: +he came out and closed the door behind him. + +“Here, Jane!” he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large +bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of +the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, +dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant +back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I +recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face—the stranger, Mason: +I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in +blood. + +“Hold the candle,” said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a +basin of water from the washstand: “Hold that,” said he. I obeyed. He +took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he +asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason +shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt +of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged +away blood, trickling fast down. + +“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason. + +“Pooh! No—a mere scratch. Don’t be so overcome, man: bear up! I’ll +fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by +morning, I hope. Jane,” he continued. + +“Sir?” + +“I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an +hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it +returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that +stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to +him on any pretext—and—Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if +you speak to her: open your lips—agitate yourself—and I’ll not answer +for the consequences.” + +Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear, +either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him. +Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded +to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying, +“Remember!—No conversation,” he left the room. I experienced a strange +feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating +step ceased to be heard. + +Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic +cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and +hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes—that +was appalling—the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of +Grace Poole bursting out upon me. + +I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly +countenance—these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose—these eyes now +shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, +and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again +and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling +gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my +employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round +me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver +strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite—whose front, +divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the +twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; +while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ. + +According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here +or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his +brow; now St. John’s long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face +of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and +threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor—of Satan himself—in his +subordinate’s form. + +Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the +movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But since +Mr. Rochester’s visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but +three sounds at three long intervals,—a step creak, a momentary renewal +of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan. + +Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this, that lived +incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled +nor subdued by the owner?—what mystery, that broke out now in fire and +now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, +that, masked in an ordinary woman’s face and shape, uttered the voice, +now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey? + +And this man I bent over—this commonplace, quiet stranger—how had he +become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at +him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely +season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. +Rochester assign him an apartment below—what brought him here! And why, +now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why did +he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why +_did_ Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been +outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted +against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in +oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that +the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness +of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me +of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive +disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active +energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester’s dismay when +he heard of Mr. Mason’s arrival? Why had the mere name of this +unresisting individual—whom his word now sufficed to control like a +child—fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on +an oak? + +Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: +“Jane, I have got a blow—I have got a blow, Jane.” I could not forget +how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no +light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the +vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester. + +“When will he come? When will he come?” I cried inwardly, as the night +lingered and lingered—as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: +and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again, held the water +to Mason’s white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating +salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental +suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast +prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and +lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him. + +The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived +streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then +approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant +kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five +minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was +relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has +seemed shorter. + +Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch. + +“Now, Carter, be on the alert,” he said to this last: “I give you but +half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting +the patient downstairs and all.” + +“But is he fit to move, sir?” + +“No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must +be kept up. Come, set to work.” + +Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, +let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to +see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to +brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was +already handling. + +“Now, my good fellow, how are you?” he asked. + +“She’s done for me, I fear,” was the faint reply. + +“Not a whit!—courage! This day fortnight you’ll hardly be a pin the +worse of it: you’ve lost a little blood; that’s all. Carter, assure him +there’s no danger.” + +“I can do that conscientiously,” said Carter, who had now undone the +bandages; “only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have +bled so much—but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well +as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth +here!” + +“She bit me,” he murmured. “She worried me like a tigress, when +Rochester got the knife from her.” + +“You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at +once,” said Mr. Rochester. + +“But under such circumstances, what could one do?” returned Mason. “Oh, +it was frightful!” he added, shuddering. “And I did not expect it: she +looked so quiet at first.” + +“I warned you,” was his friend’s answer; “I said—be on your guard when +you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had +me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and +alone.” + +“I thought I could have done some good.” + +“You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but, +however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not +taking my advice; so I’ll say no more. Carter—hurry!—hurry! The sun +will soon rise, and I must have him off.” + +“Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this +other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.” + +“She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart,” said Mason. + +I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, +horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he +only said— + +“Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don’t repeat +it.” + +“I wish I could forget it,” was the answer. + +“You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish +Town, you may think of her as dead and buried—or rather, you need not +think of her at all.” + +“Impossible to forget this night!” + +“It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you were as +dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking +now. There!—Carter has done with you or nearly so; I’ll make you decent +in a trice. Jane” (he turned to me for the first time since his +re-entrance), “take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk +straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the +wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them +here; and be nimble.” + +I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles +named, and returned with them. + +“Now,” said he, “go to the other side of the bed while I order his +toilet; but don’t leave the room: you may be wanted again.” + +I retired as directed. + +“Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?” inquired Mr. +Rochester presently. + +“No, sir; all was very still.” + +“We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for +your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven +long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here, +Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your +furred cloak? You can’t travel a mile without that, I know, in this +damned cold climate. In your room?—Jane, run down to Mr. Mason’s +room,—the one next mine,—and fetch a cloak you will see there.” + +Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and +edged with fur. + +“Now, I’ve another errand for you,” said my untiring master; “you must +away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a +clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open +the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a +little glass you will find there,—quick!” + +I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels. + +“That’s well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a +dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of +an Italian charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not +a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as +now, for instance. Jane, a little water.” + +He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle +on the washstand. + +“That will do;—now wet the lip of the phial.” + +I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented +it to Mason. + +“Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or +so.” + +“But will it hurt me?—is it inflammatory?” + +“Drink! drink! drink!” + +Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was +dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and +sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed +the liquid; he then took his arm— + +“Now I am sure you can get on your feet,” he said—“try.” + +The patient rose. + +“Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; +step out—that’s it!” + +“I do feel better,” remarked Mr. Mason. + +“I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs; +unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise +you will see in the yard—or just outside, for I told him not to drive +his rattling wheels over the pavement—to be ready; we are coming: and, +Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem.” + +It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of +rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage +door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all +the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a +post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, +stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were +coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened. The +stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet +drawn over the servants’ chamber windows; little birds were just +twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped +like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the +carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all +else was still. + +The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the +surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the +chaise; Carter followed. + +“Take care of him,” said Mr. Rochester to the latter, “and keep him at +your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to +see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?” + +“The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.” + +“Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind—good-bye, +Dick.” + +“Fairfax—” + +“Well what is it?” + +“Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: +let her—” he stopped and burst into tears. + +“I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,” was the answer: he +shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away. + +“Yet would to God there was an end of all this!” added Mr. Rochester, +as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates. + +This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in +the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, +prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call +“Jane!” He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me. + +“Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,” he said; “that +house is a mere dungeon: don’t you feel it so?” + +“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.” + +“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you +see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is +slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, +and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now _here_” +(he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) “all is real, sweet, +and pure.” + +He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, +and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all +sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, +pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant +herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, +followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just +entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and +dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them. + +“Jane, will you have a flower?” + +He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to +me. + +“Thank you, sir.” + +“Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light +clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid +and balmly atmosphere?” + +“I do, very much.” + +“You have passed a strange night, Jane.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And it has made you look pale—were you afraid when I left you alone +with Mason?” + +“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.” + +“But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I should have +been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb—so near a +wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.” + +“Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?” + +“Oh yes! don’t trouble your head about her—put the thing out of your +thoughts.” + +“Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.” + +“Never fear—I will take care of myself.” + +“Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?” + +“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. +To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack +and spue fire any day.” + +“But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is +evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or +wilfully injure you.” + +“Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me—but, +unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive +me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.” + +“Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him +how to avert the danger.” + +He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it +from him. + +“If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated +in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to +him ‘Do that,’ and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him +orders in this case: I cannot say ‘Beware of harming me, Richard;’ for +it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is +possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are +my little friend, are you not?” + +“I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.” + +“Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and +mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing +me—working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, +‘_all that is right_:’ for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, +there would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no +lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, +quiet and pale, and would say, ‘No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot +do it, because it is wrong;’ and would become immutable as a fixed +star. Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare +not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you +are, you should transfix me at once.” + +“If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, +you are very safe.” + +“God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.” + +The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a +rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but +I stood before him. + +“Sit,” he said; “the bench is long enough for two. You don’t hesitate +to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?” + +I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been +unwise. + +“Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew—while all the +flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their +young ones’ breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do +their first spell of work—I’ll put a case to you, which you must +endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you +are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you +err in staying.” + +“No, sir; I am content.” + +“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a +girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from +childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive +that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from +what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life +and taint all your existence. Mind, I don’t say a _crime_; I am not +speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make +the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is _error_. The results of +what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you +take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful +nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the +very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which +you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base +associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here +and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in +heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights +feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of +voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no +matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities +which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; +and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such +society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back—higher +wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to +spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal +being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle +of custom—a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience +sanctifies nor your judgment approves?” + +He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good +spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain +aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle +Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the +tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate. + +Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query: + +“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man +justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for +ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own +peace of mind and regeneration of life?” + +“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation +should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; +philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one +you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals +for strength to amend and solace to heal.” + +“But the instrument—the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the +instrument. I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, +dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for +my cure in—” + +He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I +almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch +the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many +minutes—so long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the +tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me. + +“Little friend,” said he, in quite a changed tone—while his face +changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh +and sarcastic—“you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: +don’t you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a +vengeance?” + +He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when +he came back he was humming a tune. + +“Jane, Jane,” said he, stopping before me, “you are quite pale with +your vigils: don’t you curse me for disturbing your rest?” + +“Curse you? No, sir.” + +“Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were +warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious +chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?” + +“Whenever I can be useful, sir.” + +“For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be +able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? +To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know +her.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“She’s a rare one, is she not, Jane?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A strapper—a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair +just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! there’s +Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that +wicket.” + +As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying +cheerfully— + +“Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before +sunrise: I rose at four to see him off.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are +signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has +not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, +because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist +(for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged +relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the +source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal +comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies +of Nature with man. + +When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie +Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little +child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either +to one’s self or one’s kin. The saying might have worn out of my +memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served +indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the +deathbed of her little sister. + +Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during +the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not +brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my +arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with +daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water. It +was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it +nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the +apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven +successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber. + +I did not like this iteration of one idea—this strange recurrence of +one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the +vision drew near. It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I +had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it +was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned downstairs by +a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. On repairing +thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a +gentleman’s servant: he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he +held in his hand was surrounded with a crape band. + +“I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,” he said, rising as I entered; +“but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were +at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still.” + +“Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to give +me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana’s bay pony. And how is Bessie? +You are married to Bessie?” + +“Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another +little one about two months since—we have three now—and both mother and +child are thriving.” + +“And are the family well at the house, Robert?” + +“I am sorry I can’t give you better news of them, Miss: they are very +badly at present—in great trouble.” + +“I hope no one is dead,” I said, glancing at his black dress. He too +looked down at the crape round his hat and replied— + +“Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.” + +“Mr. John?” + +“Yes.” + +“And how does his mother bear it?” + +“Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been +very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, +and his death was shocking.” + +“I heard from Bessie he was not doing well.” + +“Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate +amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and into +jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he +returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong: the +knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard. He +came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give +up all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by +his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he +was dead. How he died, God knows!—they say he killed himself.” + +I was silent: the tidings were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed— + +“Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very +stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of +poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John’s +death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a stroke. +She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather +better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making +signs to my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, +that Bessie understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she +made out the words, ‘Bring Jane—fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to +her.’ Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means +anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and +advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but +their mother grew so restless, and said, ‘Jane, Jane,’ so many times, +that at last they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can +get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow +morning.” + +“Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go.” + +“I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse: +but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?” + +“Yes; and I will do it now;” and having directed him to the servants’ +hall, and recommended him to the care of John’s wife, and the +attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester. + +He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the +stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;—yes: +she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the +billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices +resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, +and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some +courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one +I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss +Ingram’s side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: +her eyes seemed to demand, “What can the creeping creature want now?” +and when I said, in a low voice, “Mr. Rochester,” she made a movement +as if tempted to order me away. I remember her appearance at the +moment—it was very graceful and very striking: she wore a morning robe +of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair. She had +been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the +expression of her haughty lineaments. + +“Does that person want you?” she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. +Rochester turned to see who the “person” was. He made a curious +grimace—one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations—threw down his +cue and followed me from the room. + +“Well, Jane?” he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom +door, which he had shut. + +“If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.” + +“What to do?—where to go?” + +“To see a sick lady who has sent for me.” + +“What sick lady?—where does she live?” + +“At Gateshead; in ——shire.” + +“-shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for +people to see her that distance?” + +“Her name is Reed, sir—Mrs. Reed.” + +“Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.” + +“It is his widow, sir.” + +“And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?” + +“Mr. Reed was my uncle—my mother’s brother.” + +“The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said you +had no relations.” + +“None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me +off.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.” + +“But Reed left children?—you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was +talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the +veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of +the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago +in London.” + +“John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his +family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked +his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack.” + +“And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of +running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead +before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off.” + +“Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very +different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now.” + +“How long will you stay?” + +“As short a time as possible, sir.” + +“Promise me only to stay a week—” + +“I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it.” + +“At all events you _will_ come back: you will not be induced under any +pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?” + +“Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well.” + +“And who goes with you? You don’t travel a hundred miles alone.” + +“No, sir, she has sent her coachman.” + +“A person to be trusted?” + +“Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family.” + +Mr. Rochester meditated. “When do you wish to go?” + +“Early to-morrow morning, sir.” + +“Well, you must have some money; you can’t travel without money, and I +daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How much +have you in the world, Jane?” he asked, smiling. + +I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. “Five shillings, sir.” He +took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as +if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket-book: “Here,” +said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but +fifteen. I told him I had no change. + +“I don’t want change; you know that. Take your wages.” + +I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, +as if recollecting something, he said— + +“Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay +away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not +plenty?” + +“Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.” + +“Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you +while I have the opportunity.” + +“Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.” + +“You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be +married?” + +“Yes; what then?” + +“In that case, sir, Adèle ought to go to school: I am sure you will +perceive the necessity of it.” + +“To get her out of my bride’s way, who might otherwise walk over her +rather too emphatically? There’s sense in the suggestion; not a doubt +of it. Adèle, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must +march straight to—the devil?” + +“I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere.” + +“In course!” he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of +features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes. + +“And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by +you to seek a place, I suppose?” + +“No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me +in asking favours of them—but I shall advertise.” + +“You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!” he growled. “At your peril +you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten +pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it.” + +“And so have I, sir,” I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind +me. “I could not spare the money on any account.” + +“Little niggard!” said he, “refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me +five pounds, Jane.” + +“Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.” + +“Just let me look at the cash.” + +“No, sir; you are not to be trusted.” + +“Jane!” + +“Sir?” + +“Promise me one thing.” + +“I’ll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform.” + +“Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I’ll +find you one in time.” + +“I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that +I and Adèle shall be both safe out of the house before your bride +enters it.” + +“Very well! very well! I’ll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow, +then?” + +“Yes, sir; early.” + +“Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?” + +“No, sir, I must prepare for the journey.” + +“Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?” + +“I suppose so, sir.” + +“And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; +I’m not quite up to it.” + +“They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer.” + +“Then say it.” + +“Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present.” + +“What must I say?” + +“The same, if you like, sir.” + +“Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?” + +“Yes.” + +“It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like +something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands, for +instance; but no—that would not content me either. So you’ll do no more +than say Farewell, Jane?” + +“It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty +word as in many.” + +“Very likely; but it is blank and cool—‘Farewell.’” + +“How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?” I +asked myself; “I want to commence my packing.” The dinner-bell rang, +and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no +more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning. + +I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o’clock in the afternoon of +the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to the hall. It +was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little +white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were +burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat on the hearth, +nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a +corner. + +“Bless you!—I knew you would come!” exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I +entered. + +“Yes, Bessie,” said I, after I had kissed her; “and I trust I am not +too late. How is Mrs. Reed?—Alive still, I hope.” + +“Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was. The +doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she +will finally recover.” + +“Has she mentioned me lately?” + +“She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come, +but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the +house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and +wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss, +and then I will go up with you?” + +Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle +and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking off my +bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired. I was +glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my +travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when +a child. + +Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling +about—setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and +butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert +or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in +former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light +foot and good looks. + +Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit +still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at the +fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with +my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me +with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled +and obeyed her as in bygone days. + +She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of +a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, +whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he was +rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me +kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay +company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details +Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she +relished. + +In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my +bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall. +It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, +walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning +in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered +heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly +harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same +hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; +and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face +of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own +powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my +wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment +extinguished. + +“You shall go into the breakfast-room first,” said Bessie, as she +preceded me through the hall; “the young ladies will be there.” + +In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every article +of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first +introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still +covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could +distinguish the two volumes of Bewick’s British Birds occupying their +old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver’s Travels and the Arabian +Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not changed; but +the living things had altered past recognition. + +Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as +Miss Ingram—very thin too, with a sallow face and severe mien. There +was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme +plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen +collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of +a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, +though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that +elongated and colourless visage. + +The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I +remembered—the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a +full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and +regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The +hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from +her sister’s—so much more flowing and becoming—it looked as stylish as +the other’s looked puritanical. + +In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and only one; +the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent’s Cairngorm eye: the +blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and +chin—perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable +hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom. + +Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me +by the name of “Miss Eyre.” Eliza’s greeting was delivered in a short, +abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her +eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana added to her “How +d’ye do?” several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so +on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry +side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now traversing the +folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain +trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of +letting you know that they think you a “quiz” without actually saying +the words. A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, +nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, +without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed. + +A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power +over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised +to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the +semi-sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, nor +Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about; +within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more +potent than any they could raise—pains and pleasures so much more acute +and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to +inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no concern either for good or +bad. + +“How is Mrs. Reed?” I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who +thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an +unexpected liberty. + +“Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you +can see her to-night.” + +“If,” said I, “you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come, I +should be much obliged to you.” + +Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide. +“I know she had a particular wish to see me,” I added, “and I would not +defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary.” + +“Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,” remarked Eliza. I soon +rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I +would just step out to Bessie—who was, I dared say, in the kitchen—and +ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or +not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie and despatched her on my +errand, I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my +habit always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been to-day, I +should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next +morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a +foolish plan. I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, +and I must stay with her till she was better—or dead: as to her +daughters’ pride or folly, I must put it on one side, make myself +independent of it. So I addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me +a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, +had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I +met Bessie on the landing. + +“Missis is awake,” said she; “I have told her you are here: come and +let us see if she will know you.” + +I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had so +often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days. I +hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light stood +on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great +four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, +the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been +sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I +looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim +outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to +leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I +approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leant over the high-piled +pillows. + +Well did I remember Mrs. Reed’s face, and I eagerly sought the familiar +image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance +and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman +in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other +emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong +yearning to forget and forgive all injuries—to be reconciled and clasp +hands in amity. + +The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever—there was that +peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, +imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and +hate! and how the recollection of childhood’s terrors and sorrows +revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and +kissed her: she looked at me. + +“Is this Jane Eyre?” she said. + +“Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?” + +I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it +no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her +hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should +at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable +natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so +readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face +rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she +regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me—her feeling +towards me—was unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony +eye—opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears—that she was resolved +to consider me bad to the last; because to believe me good would give +her no generous pleasure: only a sense of mortification. + +I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to +subdue her—to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will. +My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their +source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat down and leaned over +the pillow. + +“You sent for me,” I said, “and I am here; and it is my intention to +stay till I see how you get on.” + +“Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things +over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and I have a +difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I wished to +say—let me see—” + +The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken +place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the +bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed +it down: she was at once irritated. + +“Sit up!” said she; “don’t annoy me with holding the clothes fast. Are +you Jane Eyre?” + +“I am Jane Eyre.” + +“I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. +Such a burden to be left on my hands—and so much annoyance as she +caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and +her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of +one’s movements! I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or +like a fiend—no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to +get her away from the house. What did they do with her at Lowood? The +fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died. She, however, did +not die: but I said she did—I wish she had died!” + +“A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?” + +“I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband’s only +sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family’s +disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her +death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby; though I +entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its +maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it—a sickly, +whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all night long—not +screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning. +Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been +his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age. He +would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the +darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed +their dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought continually to +his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep +the creature. I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out +of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all +resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like my +brothers—he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me +with letters for money! I have no more money to give him: we are +getting poor. I must send away half the servants and shut up part of +the house; or let it off. I can never submit to do that—yet how are we +to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of +mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and always loses—poor boy! He is +beset by sharpers: John is sunk and degraded—his look is frightful—I +feel ashamed for him when I see him.” + +She was getting much excited. “I think I had better leave her now,” +said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed. + +“Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards +night—in the morning she is calmer.” + +I rose. “Stop!” exclaimed Mrs. Reed, “there is another thing I wished +to say. He threatens me—he continually threatens me with his own death, +or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great +wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I am come to +a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the +money to be had?” + +Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught: she +succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more composed, +and sank into a dozing state. I then left her. + +More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with +her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor +forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on +as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold, +indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or +writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister. +Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the hour, and +take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for +occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me, +and they served me for both. + +Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to +take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in +sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened +momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of +imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a +ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad’s +head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in +a hedge-sparrow’s nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom. + +One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to +be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad +point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and +prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour +gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with +features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that +brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight +ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means +narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: +of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted +on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had +left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. +I drew them large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and +sombre; the irids lustrous and large. “Good! but not quite the thing,” +I thought, as I surveyed the effect: “they want more force and spirit;” +and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more +brilliantly—a happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a +friend’s face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young +ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the +speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content. + +“Is that a portrait of some one you know?” asked Eliza, who had +approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head, +and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in +fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was +that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. +The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that “an ugly man.” +They both seemed surprised at my skill. I offered to sketch their +portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana +produced her album. I promised to contribute a water-colour drawing: +this put her at once into good humour. She proposed a walk in the +grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a +confidential conversation: she had favoured me with a description of +the brilliant winter she had spent in London two seasons ago—of the +admiration she had there excited—the attention she had received; and I +even got hints of the titled conquest she had made. In the course of +the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft +conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, +in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day +improvised by her for my benefit. The communications were renewed from +day to day: they always ran on the same theme—herself, her loves, and +woes. It was strange she never once adverted either to her mother’s +illness, or her brother’s death, or the present gloomy state of the +family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of +past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed +about five minutes each day in her mother’s sick-room, and no more. + +Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I never +saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say +what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She +had an alarm to call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself +before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular +portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she +studied a little book, which I found, on inspection, was a Common +Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of that +volume, and she said, “the Rubric.” Three hours she gave to stitching, +with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large +enough for a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this +article, she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new +church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her +diary; two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the +regulation of her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no +conversation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed +for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any +incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity. + +She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than +usual, that John’s conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had +been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now, she said, +settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own fortune she had +taken care to secure; and when her mother died—and it was wholly +improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or +linger long—she would execute a long-cherished project: seek a +retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from +disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous +world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her. + +“Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never had +had. She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration. +Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers.” + +Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time +in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and +wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an +invitation up to town. “It would be so much better,” she said, “if she +could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all was over.” I +did not ask what she meant by “all being over,” but I suppose she +referred to the expected decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of +funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister’s +indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had +been before her. One day, however, as she put away her account-book and +unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus— + +“Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never +allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for you make +no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a +reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some +other person’s strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her +or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out +that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence +for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the +world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must +be flattered—you must have music, dancing, and society—or you languish, +you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you +independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; +share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no +stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—include +all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid +regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has +begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one +vacant moment: you have had to seek no one’s company, conversation, +sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent +being ought to do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer +you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. +Neglect it—go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling—and suffer +the results of your idiocy, however bad and insufferable they may be. I +tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat +what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my +mother’s death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is +carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate +as if we had never known each other. You need not think that because we +chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me +down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this—if the whole human +race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on +the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the +new.” + +She closed her lips. + +“You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,” +answered Georgiana. “Everybody knows you are the most selfish, +heartless creature in existence: and _I_ know your spiteful hatred +towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played +me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised above you, +to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show +your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my +prospects for ever.” Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her +nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and +assiduously industrious. + +True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were +two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably +savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy +draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and +husky a morsel for human deglutition. + +It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the +sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a +saint’s-day service at the new church—for in matters of religion she +was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge +of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to +church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were +prayers. + +I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who +lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent +attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out +of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but she had her +own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the hall. I +found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; +the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in +the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel, +re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze +on me, and then I moved away to the window. + +The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously: +“One lies there,” I thought, “who will soon be beyond the war of +earthly elements. Whither will that spirit—now struggling to quit its +material tenement—flit when at length released?” + +In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her +dying words—her faith—her doctrine of the equality of disembodied +souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered +tones—still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face +and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her +longing to be restored to her divine Father’s bosom—when a feeble voice +murmured from the couch behind: “Who is that?” + +I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I went up +to her. + +“It is I, Aunt Reed.” + +“Who—I?” was her answer. “Who are you?” looking at me with surprise and +a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. “You are quite a stranger to +me—where is Bessie?” + +“She is at the lodge, aunt.” + +“Aunt,” she repeated. “Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the +Gibsons; and yet I know you—that face, and the eyes and forehead, are +quiet familiar to me: you are like—why, you are like Jane Eyre!” + +I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my +identity. + +“Yet,” said she, “I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me. +I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists: +besides, in eight years she must be so changed.” I now gently assured +her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing +that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I +explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield. + +“I am very ill, I know,” she said ere long. “I was trying to turn +myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as +well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in +health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the +nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?” + +I assured her we were alone. + +“Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in +breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own +child; the other—” she stopped. “After all, it is of no great +importance, perhaps,” she murmured to herself: “and then I may get +better; and to humble myself so to her is painful.” + +She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed; +she seemed to experience some inward sensation—the precursor, perhaps, +of the last pang. + +“Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell +her.—Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will +see there.” + +I obeyed her directions. “Read the letter,” she said. + +It was short, and thus conceived:— + +“MADAM,— +“Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane +Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to write shortly +and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my +endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, +I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death +whatever I may have to leave. + + +I am, Madam, &c., &c., +“JOHN EYRE, Madeira.” + + +It was dated three years back. + +“Why did I never hear of this?” I asked. + +“Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand +in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, +Jane—the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you +declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the +unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very +thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with +miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus +started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an +animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes +and cursed me in a man’s voice.—Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!” + +“Dear Mrs. Reed,” said I, as I offered her the draught she required, +“think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me +for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have +passed since that day.” + +She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water +and drawn breath, she went on thus— + +“I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you to be +adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was +what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his +disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at +Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict my assertion—expose +my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my +torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, +but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.” + +“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to +regard me with kindness and forgiveness——” + +“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and one to this day I +feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be +patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out +all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.” + +“My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not +vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to +love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be +reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.” + +I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I +oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I +laid her down—for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she +drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble +fingers shrank from my touch—the glazing eyes shunned my gaze. + +“Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,” I said at last, “you have my +full and free forgiveness: ask now for God’s, and be at peace.” + +Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort +to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated +me—dying, she must hate me still. + +The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-an-hour +longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none. She was +fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at twelve +o’clock that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes, nor +were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning +that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to +look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she +dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed’s once robust and active +frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; +her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. +A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with +gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or +hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a grating anguish for _her_ +woes—not _my_ loss—and a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of +death in such a form. + +Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she +observed— + +“With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her +life was shortened by trouble.” And then a spasm constricted her mouth +for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so +did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Mr. Rochester had given me but one week’s leave of absence: yet a month +elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after +the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off +to London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. +Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister’s interment and settle +the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with +Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in +her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her +feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and +did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that +while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, “If you and I +were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence +matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into +being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, +and compel you to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I +should insist, also, on your keeping some of those drawling, +half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because +our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly +mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and +compliant on my part.” + +At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza’s turn to request me +to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, +she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day +long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling +trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication +with any one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, +and answer notes of condolence. + +One morning she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am +obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There +is some difference between living with such an one as you and with +Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one. +To-morrow,” she continued, “I set out for the Continent. I shall take +up my abode in a religious house near Lisle—a nunnery you would call +it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a +time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful +study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half +suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all +things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and +probably take the veil.” + +I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to +dissuade her from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: +“much good may it do you!” + +When we parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: +you have some sense.” + +I then returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you +have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French +convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t +much care.” + +“You are in the right,” said she; and with these words we each went our +separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or +her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an +advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that +Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the +convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she +endowed with her fortune. + +How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or +short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had +known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long +walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was +to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a +good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings +was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, +increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return +to Thornfield was yet to be tried. + +My journey seemed tedious—very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night +spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve +hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured +and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on +the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and +servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent +church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I +beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a +convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities +of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of —— +scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down +on my traveller’s bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation. + +I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not +long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim +of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had +left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in +a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make +arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new +carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed +strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had +herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly +take place. “You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it,” +was my mental comment. “I don’t doubt it.” + +The question followed, “Where was I to go?” I dreamt of Miss Ingram all +the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of +Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. +Rochester looked on with his arms folded—smiling sardonically, as it +seemed, at both her and me. + +I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I +did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed +to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving +my box in the ostler’s care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about +six o’clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a +road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented. + +It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: +the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far +from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its +blue—where blue was visible—was mild and settled, and its cloud strata +high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it—it +seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen +of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness. + +I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped +once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it +was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to +a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. +“Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,” said I; “and +little Adèle will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very +well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking +of you.” + +But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? +These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of +again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and +they added—“Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more +days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!” And then +I strangled a new-born agony—a deformed thing which I could not +persuade myself to own and rear—and ran on. + +They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the +labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their +rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field +or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the +gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather +any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy +and flowery branches across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone +steps; and I see—Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in +his hand; he is writing. + +Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a +moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I +should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the +power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: +I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the +house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me. + +“Hillo!” he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. “There you +are! Come on, if you please.” + +I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being +scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; +and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face—which I feel +rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had +resolved to conceal. But I have a veil—it is down: I may make shift yet +to behave with decent composure. + +“And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? +Yes—just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come +clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into +the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a +dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last +month?” + +“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.” + +“A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other +world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she +meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see +if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I’d as soon offer to take +hold of a blue _ignis fatuus_ light in a marsh. Truant! truant!” he +added, when he had paused an instant. “Absent from me a whole month, +and forgetting me quite, I’ll be sworn!” + +I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though +broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by +the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. +Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of +communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered +to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last +words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him +whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my +home—would that it were my home! + +He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I +inquired soon if he had not been to London. + +“Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight.” + +“Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter.” + +“And did she inform you what I went to do?” + +“Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.” + +“You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don’t think it +will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won’t look like Queen +Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I +were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, +fairy as you are—can’t you give me a charm, or a philter, or something +of that sort, to make me a handsome man?” + +“It would be past the power of magic, sir;” and, in thought, I added, +“A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; +or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty.” + +Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to +me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my +abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had +of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think +it too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling—he +shed it over me now. + +“Pass, Janet,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile: “go up +home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend’s +threshold.” + +All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to +colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to +leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast—a force turned me round. I +said—or something in me said for me, and in spite of me— + +“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad +to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only +home.” + +I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he +tried. Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. +Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and +even Sophie bid me “bon soir” with glee. This was very pleasant; there +is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and +feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort. + +I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my +ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and +coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her +knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on +the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection +seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent +prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus +sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to +take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he +supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted +daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer +sa petite maman Anglaise”—I half ventured to hope that he would, even +after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his +protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence. + +A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. +Nothing was said of the master’s marriage, and I saw no preparation +going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if +she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the +negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr. +Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he had +answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could +not tell what to make of him. + +One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no +journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure +it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was +that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a +horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a morning’s ride. I began to +cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the match was broken +off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had +changed their minds. I used to look at my master’s face to see if it +were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been +so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and +my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable +dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently +to his presence; never been kinder to me when there—and, alas! never +had I loved him so well. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant +as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our +wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the +South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest +them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round +Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees +were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply +tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows +between. + +On Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay +Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop +asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden. + +It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:—“Day its fervid fires +had wasted,” and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. +Where the sun had gone down in simple state—pure of the pomp of +clouds—spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and +furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and +wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own +charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a rising and solitary +star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the +horizon. + +I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent—that +of a cigar—stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a +handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the +orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it +was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it +out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened +it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation +from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and +terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, +led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such +honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as +if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and +fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by +the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step +is stayed—not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning +fragrance. + +Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been +yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither +of shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester’s cigar. +I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I +hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form +is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must +flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. +Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay +long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will +never see me. + +But no—eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden +as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree +branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are +laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a +knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the +dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights +on a plant at Mr. Rochester’s foot: he sees it, and bends to examine +it. + +“Now, he has his back towards me,” thought I, “and he is occupied too; +perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.” + +I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel +might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or two +distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. “I +shall get by very well,” I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown +long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly, +without turning— + +“Jane, come and look at this fellow.” + +I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind—could his shadow feel? I +started at first, and then I approached him. + +“Look at his wings,” said he, “he reminds me rather of a West Indian +insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in +England; there! he is flown.” + +The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr. +Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said— + +“Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and +surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting +with moonrise.” + +It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt +enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing +an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile +word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful +embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr. +Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to +allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts +busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself +looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any +confusion: the evil—if evil existent or prospective there was—seemed to +lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet. + +“Jane,” he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly +strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, +“Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You must have become in some degree attached to the house,—you, who +have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of +Adhesiveness?” + +“I am attached to it, indeed.” + +“And though I don’t comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired +a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adèle, too; and even +for simple dame Fairfax?” + +“Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both.” + +“And would be sorry to part with them?” + +“Yes.” + +“Pity!” he said, and sighed and paused. “It is always the way of events +in this life,” he continued presently: “no sooner have you got settled +in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and +move on, for the hour of repose is expired.” + +“Must I move on, sir?” I asked. “Must I leave Thornfield?” + +“I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you +must.” + +This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me. + +“Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes.” + +“It is come now—I must give it to-night.” + +“Then you _are_ going to be married, sir?” + +“Ex-act-ly—pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the +nail straight on the head.” + +“Soon, sir?” + +“Very soon, my—that is, Miss Eyre: and you’ll remember, Jane, the first +time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to +put my old bachelor’s neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the +holy estate of matrimony—to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short +(she’s an extensive armful: but that’s not to the point—one can’t have +too much of such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, +as I was saying—listen to me, Jane! You’re not turning your head to +look after more moths, are you? That was only a lady-clock, child, +‘flying away home.’ I wish to remind you that it was you who first said +to me, with that discretion I respect in you—with that foresight, +prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and dependent +position—that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adèle +had better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in +this suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are +far away, Janet, I’ll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; +which is such that I have made it my law of action. Adèle must go to +school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation.” + +“Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose—” I +was going to say, “I suppose I may stay here, till I find another +shelter to betake myself to:” but I stopped, feeling it would not do to +risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command. + +“In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom,” continued Mr. Rochester; +“and in the interim, I shall myself look out for employment and an +asylum for you.” + +“Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give—” + +“Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her +duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her +employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render her; +indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a +place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of the +five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O’Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, +Ireland. You’ll like Ireland, I think: they’re such warm-hearted people +there, they say.” + +“It is a long way off, sir.” + +“No matter—a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the +distance.” + +“Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier—” + +“From what, Jane?” + +“From England and from Thornfield: and—” + +“Well?” + +“From _you_, sir.” + +I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free +will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard, however; I +avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O’Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck +cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam, +destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the master at whose side +I now walked, and coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean—wealth, +caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably +loved. + +“It is a long way,” I again said. + +“It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, +Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that’s morally certain. I +never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the +country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the +little time that remains to them close to each other. Come! we’ll talk +over the voyage and the parting quietly half-an-hour or so, while the +stars enter into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the +chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit +there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destined to sit +there together.” He seated me and himself. + +“It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little +friend on such weary travels: but if I can’t do better, how is it to be +helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?” + +I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still. + +“Because,” he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to +you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string +somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a +similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little +frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of +land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be +snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding +inwardly. As for you,—you’d forget me.” + +“That I _never_ should, sir: you know—” Impossible to proceed. + +“Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!” + +In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured +no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from head to foot +with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to express an +impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come to Thornfield. + +“Because you are sorry to leave it?” + +The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was +claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right +to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes,—and +to speak. + +“I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:—I love it, because I +have lived in it a full and delightful life,—momentarily at least. I +have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been +buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of +communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, +face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in,—with an +original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. +Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I +absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of +departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.” + +“Where do you see the necessity?” he asked suddenly. + +“Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.” + +“In what shape?” + +“In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,—your bride.” + +“My bride! What bride? I have no bride!” + +“But you will have.” + +“Yes;—I will!—I will!” He set his teeth. + +“Then I must go:—you have said it yourself.” + +“No: you must stay! I swear it—and the oath shall be kept.” + +“I tell you I must go!” I retorted, roused to something like passion. +“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an +automaton?—a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel +of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from +my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I +am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as +you,—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty +and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as +it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the +medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my +spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through +the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are!” + +“As we are!” repeated Mr. Rochester—“so,” he added, enclosing me in his +arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: “so, +Jane!” + +“Yes, so, sir,” I rejoined: “and yet not so; for you are a married +man—or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you—to one +with whom you have no sympathy—whom I do not believe you truly love; +for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: +therefore I am better than you—let me go!” + +“Where, Jane? To Ireland?” + +“Yes—to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.” + +“Jane, be still; don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is +rending its own plumage in its desperation.” + +“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an +independent will, which I now exert to leave you.” + +Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him. + +“And your will shall decide your destiny,” he said: “I offer you my +hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.” + +“You play a farce, which I merely laugh at.” + +“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and +best earthly companion.” + +“For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by +it.” + +“Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still +too.” + +A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through +the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away—away—to an indefinite +distance—it died. The nightingale’s song was then the only voice of the +hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, +looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; +he at last said— + +“Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another.” + +“I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot +return.” + +“But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry.” + +I was silent: I thought he mocked me. + +“Come, Jane—come hither.” + +“Your bride stands between us.” + +He rose, and with a stride reached me. + +“My bride is here,” he said, again drawing me to him, “because my equal +is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?” + +Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for +I was still incredulous. + +“Do you doubt me, Jane?” + +“Entirely.” + +“You have no faith in me?” + +“Not a whit.” + +“Am I a liar in your eyes?” he asked passionately. “Little sceptic, you +_shall_ be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that +you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to +prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third +of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the +result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not—I +could not—marry Miss Ingram. You—you strange, you almost unearthly +thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—poor and obscure, and small and +plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.” + +“What, me!” I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness—and especially +in his incivility—to credit his sincerity: “me who have not a friend in +the world but you—if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you +have given me?” + +“You, Jane, I must have you for my own—entirely my own. Will you be +mine? Say yes, quickly.” + +“Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I want to read your countenance—turn!” + +“There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, +scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer.” + +His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were +strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes. + +“Oh, Jane, you torture me!” he exclaimed. “With that searching and yet +faithful and generous look, you torture me!” + +“How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only +feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion—they cannot torture.” + +“Gratitude!” he ejaculated; and added wildly—“Jane accept me quickly. +Say, Edward—give me my name—Edward—I will marry you.” + +“Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to +be your wife?” + +“I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.” + +“Then, sir, I will marry you.” + +“Edward—my little wife!” + +“Dear Edward!” + +“Come to me—come to me entirely now,” said he; and added, in his +deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, “Make +my happiness—I will make yours.” + +“God pardon me!” he subjoined ere long; “and man meddle not with me: I +have her, and will hold her.” + +“There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere.” + +“No—that is the best of it,” he said. And if I had loved him less I +should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but, +sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting—called to the +paradise of union—I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so +abundant a flow. Again and again he said, “Are you happy, Jane?” And +again and again I answered, “Yes.” After which he murmured, “It will +atone—it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and +comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there +not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at +God’s tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do. For the world’s +judgment—I wash my hands thereof. For man’s opinion—I defy it.” + +But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were +all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master’s face, near as I was. +And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind +roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us. + +“We must go in,” said Mr. Rochester: “the weather changes. I could have +sat with thee till morning, Jane.” + +“And so,” thought I, “could I with you.” I should have said so, +perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was +looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and +I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester’s +shoulder. + +The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds, +and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could pass the +threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking the +water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her room. +I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester. The lamp was +lit. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. + +“Hasten to take off your wet things,” said he; “and before you go, +good-night—good-night, my darling!” + +He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there +stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran +upstairs. “Explanation will do for another time,” thought I. Still, +when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even +temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every +other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder +crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as +the rain fell during a storm of two hours’ duration, I experienced no +fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course +of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that +was strength for anything. + +Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adèle came running in to +tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had +been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered +if it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality till I had +seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love and +promise. + +While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it +was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its +colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, +and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling +to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my +look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his +affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer +dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no attire had ever so +well become me, because none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood. + +I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a +brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night; and +to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and +fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A +beggar-woman and her little boy—pale, ragged objects both—were coming +up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happened to +have in my purse—some three or four shillings: good or bad, they must +partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but +nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart. + +Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad +countenance, and saying gravely—“Miss Eyre, will you come to +breakfast?” During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not +undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give explanations; and +so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened upstairs. I met +Adèle leaving the schoolroom. + +“Where are you going? It is time for lessons.” + +“Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery.” + +“Where is he?” + +“In there,” pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in, and +there he stood. + +“Come and bid me good-morning,” said he. I gladly advanced; and it was +not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that I +received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed +genial to be so well loved, so caressed by him. + +“Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty,” said he: “truly +pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my +mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek and +rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?” (I +had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they +were new-dyed, I suppose.) + +“It is Jane Eyre, sir.” + +“Soon to be Jane Rochester,” he added: “in four weeks, Janet; not a day +more. Do you hear that?” + +I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The +feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than +was consistent with joy—something that smote and stunned: it was, I +think, almost fear. + +“You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?” + +“Because you gave me a new name—Jane Rochester; and it seems so +strange.” + +“Yes, Mrs. Rochester,” said he; “young Mrs. Rochester—Fairfax +Rochester’s girl-bride.” + +“It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never +enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different +destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me +is a fairy tale—a day-dream.” + +“Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I +wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his +keeping,—heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope +to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every attention shall +be yours that I would accord a peer’s daughter, if about to marry her.” + +“Oh, sir!—never rain jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. +Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not +have them.” + +“I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet +on your forehead,—which it will become: for nature, at least, has +stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the +bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with +rings.” + +“No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and +in another strain. Don’t address me as if I were a beauty; I am your +plain, Quakerish governess.” + +“You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my +heart,—delicate and aërial.” + +“Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,—or you are +sneering. For God’s sake, don’t be ironical!” + +“I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too,” he went on, +while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I +felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. “I will +attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; +and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil.” + +“And then you won’t know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any +longer, but an ape in a harlequin’s jacket—a jay in borrowed plumes. I +would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, +as myself clad in a court-lady’s robe; and I don’t call you handsome, +sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. +Don’t flatter me.” + +He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation. “This +very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must +choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be married in +four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down +below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town. After a +brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun: +to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is +famous in old story and in modern record: she shall taste, too, of the +life of cities; and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison +with others.” + +“Shall I travel?—and with you, sir?” + +“You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and +Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you: +wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph’s foot shall step also. Ten +years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate, and +rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it healed and cleansed, with +a very angel as my comforter.” + +I laughed at him as he said this. “I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and +I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must +neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me—for you will not get +it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all +anticipate.” + +“What do you anticipate of me?” + +“For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,—a very little +while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; +and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: +but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me +again,—_like_ me, I say, not _love_ me. I suppose your love will +effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by +men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband’s ardour +extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope never to +become quite distasteful to my dear master.” + +“Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again, and +yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only _like_, but _love_ +you—with truth, fervour, constancy.” + +“Yet are you not capricious, sir?” + +“To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I +find out they have neither souls nor hearts—when they open to me a +perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, +coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, +to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not +break—at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent—I am ever +tender and true.” + +“Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever love +such an one?” + +“I love it now.” + +“But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult +standard?” + +“I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me—you +seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I +am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up +my arm to my heart. I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is +sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery +beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that +inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?” + +“I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I +was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers—” + +“You were, you little elfish—” + +“Hush, sir! You don’t talk very wisely just now; any more than those +gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married, they would +no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness +as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you will answer me a +year hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit your convenience or +pleasure to grant.” + +“Ask me something now, Janet,—the least thing: I desire to be +entreated—” + +“Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready.” + +“Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall +swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of +me.” + +“Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don’t send for the jewels, and don’t +crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace round +that plain pocket handkerchief you have there.” + +“I might as well ‘gild refined gold.’ I know it: your request is +granted then—for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my +banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift +to be withdrawn: try again.” + +“Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is +much piqued on one point.” + +He looked disturbed. “What? what?” he said hastily. “Curiosity is a +dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every +request—” + +“But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir.” + +“Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, +perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate.” + +“Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you +think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I would much +rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from your +confidence if you admit me to your heart?” + +“You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane; but +for God’s sake, don’t desire a useless burden! Don’t long for +poison—don’t turn out a downright Eve on my hands!” + +“Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked to be +conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don’t you think +I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax and +entreat—even cry and be sulky if necessary—for the sake of a mere essay +of my power?” + +“I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game is +up.” + +“Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your eyebrows +have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead resembles what, in +some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, ‘a blue-piled +thunderloft.’ That will be your married look, sir, I suppose?” + +“If that will be _your_ married look, I, as a Christian, will soon give +up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But what +had you to ask, thing,—out with it?” + +“There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great deal +better than flattery. I had rather be a _thing_ than an angel. This is +what I have to ask,—Why did you take such pains to make me believe you +wished to marry Miss Ingram?” + +“Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!” And now he unknit his black +brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if well +pleased at seeing a danger averted. “I think I may confess,” he +continued, “even although I should make you a little indignant, +Jane—and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are +indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you +mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, +by-the-bye, it was you who made me the offer.” + +“Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir—Miss Ingram?” + +“Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render +you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy +would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that +end.” + +“Excellent! Now you are small—not one whit bigger than the end of my +little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous disgrace to act +in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram’s feelings, sir?” + +“Her feelings are concentrated in one—pride; and that needs humbling. +Were you jealous, Jane?” + +“Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to know +that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will not +suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won’t she feel forsaken and +deserted?” + +“Impossible!—when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me: the +idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her flame in a +moment.” + +“You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your +principles on some points are eccentric.” + +“My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a little +awry for want of attention.” + +“Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been +vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the +bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?” + +“That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in the +world has the same pure love for me as yourself—for I lay that pleasant +unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection.” + +I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very +much—more than I could trust myself to say—more than words had power to +express. + +“Ask something more,” he said presently; “it is my delight to be +entreated, and to yield.” + +I was again ready with my request. “Communicate your intentions to Mrs. +Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall, and she was +shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me +to be misjudged by so good a woman.” + +“Go to your room, and put on your bonnet,” he replied. “I mean you to +accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for the +drive, I will enlighten the old lady’s understanding. Did she think, +Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered it well lost?” + +“I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir.” + +“Station! station!—your station is in my heart, and on the necks of +those who would insult you, now or hereafter.—Go.” + +I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax’s +parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady had been reading her +morning portion of Scripture—the Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open +before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended +by Mr. Rochester’s announcement, seemed now forgotten: her eyes, fixed +on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind +stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a +sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but +the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put +up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the +table. + +“I feel so astonished,” she began, “I hardly know what to say to you, +Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half +fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never +happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a +doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in +and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my +name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is +actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don’t +laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and +said that in a month you would be his wife.” + +“He has said the same thing to me,” I replied. + +“He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?” + +“Yes.” + +She looked at me bewildered. + +“I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters +were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always +been called careful. He means to marry you?” + +“He tells me so.” + +She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there +found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma. + +“It passes me!” she continued; “but no doubt it is true since you say +so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I really don’t know. Equality of +position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are +twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your +father.” + +“No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!” exclaimed I, nettled; “he is nothing like +my father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an +instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at +five-and-twenty.” + +“Is it really for love he is going to marry you?” she asked. + +I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose to my +eyes. + +“I am sorry to grieve you,” pursued the widow; “but you are so young, +and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. +It is an old saying that ‘all is not gold that glitters;’ and in this +case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what +either you or I expect.” + +“Why?—am I a monster?” I said: “is it impossible that Mr. Rochester +should have a sincere affection for me?” + +“No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I +daresay, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you were a sort of +pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little +uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your +guard: but I did not like to suggest even the possibility of wrong. I +knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so +discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be +trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell you what I +suffered when I sought all over the house, and could find you nowhere, +nor the master either; and then, at twelve o’clock, saw you come in +with him.” + +“Well, never mind that now,” I interrupted impatiently; “it is enough +that all was right.” + +“I hope all will be right in the end,” she said: “but believe me, you +cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance: +distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not +accustomed to marry their governesses.” + +I was growing truly irritated: happily, Adèle ran in. + +“Let me go,—let me go to Millcote too!” she cried. “Mr. Rochester +won’t: though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg him to let +me go, mademoiselle.” + +“That I will, Adèle;” and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my +gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready: they were bringing it round +to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot following +him backwards and forwards. + +“Adèle may accompany us, may she not, sir?” + +“I told her no. I’ll have no brats!—I’ll have only you.” + +“Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better.” + +“Not it: she will be a restraint.” + +He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of Mrs. +Fairfax’s warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me: something +of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I half lost the +sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to obey him, without +further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the carriage, he looked +at my face. + +“What is the matter?” he asked; “all the sunshine is gone. Do you +really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?” + +“I would far rather she went, sir.” + +“Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!” cried +he to Adèle. + +She obeyed him with what speed she might. + +“After all, a single morning’s interruption will not matter much,” said +he, “when I mean shortly to claim you—your thoughts, conversation, and +company—for life.” + +Adèle, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her +gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away into a +corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat; +so stern a neighbour was too restrictive: to him, in his present +fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any +information. + +“Let her come to me,” I entreated: “she will, perhaps, trouble you, +sir: there is plenty of room on this side.” + +He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. “I’ll send her to +school yet,” he said, but now he was smiling. + +Adèle heard him, and asked if she was to go to school “sans +mademoiselle?” + +“Yes,” he replied, “absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take +mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the +white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with +me there, and only me.” + +“She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her,” observed Adèle. + +“I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and +hillsides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adèle.” + +“She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?” + +“Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I’ll carry +her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater.” + +“Oh, qu’elle y sera mal—peu comfortable! And her clothes, they will +wear out: how can she get new ones?” + +Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. “Hem!” said he. “What would you +do, Adèle? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would a white or a +pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty +enough scarf out of a rainbow.” + +“She is far better as she is,” concluded Adèle, after musing some time: +“besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the moon. If I +were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you.” + +“She has consented: she has pledged her word.” + +“But you can’t get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is all +air; and neither you nor she can fly.” + +“Adèle, look at that field.” We were now outside Thornfield gates, and +bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where the dust was +well laid by the thunderstorm, and, where the low hedges and lofty +timber trees on each side glistened green and rain-refreshed. + +“In that field, Adèle, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight +since—the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in the orchard +meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me +on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began +to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago, and a wish I had +for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast, though daylight +was fading from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped +two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little thing with a veil of +gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at +my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I +read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to +this effect— + +“It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to +make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely +place—such as the moon, for instance—and it nodded its head towards her +horn, rising over Hay-hill: it told me of the alabaster cave and silver +vale where we might live. I said I should like to go; but reminded it, +as you did me, that I had no wings to fly. + +“‘Oh,’ returned the fairy, ‘that does not signify! Here is a talisman +will remove all difficulties;’ and she held out a pretty gold ring. +‘Put it,’ she said, ‘on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am +yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own +heaven yonder.’ She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adèle, is in my +breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon to +change it to a ring again.” + +“But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don’t care for the fairy: +you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?” + +“Mademoiselle is a fairy,” he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon +I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a +fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester “un vrai +menteur,” and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his +“contes de fée,” and that “du reste, il n’y avait pas de fées, et quand +même il y en avait:” she was sure they would never appear to him, nor +ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon. + +The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr. +Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I was +ordered to choose half-a-dozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged +leave to defer it: no—it should be gone through with now. By dint of +entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the half-dozen to +two: these however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I +watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a rich silk of +the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin. I told him in +a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and +a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never venture to wear his +choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I +persuaded him to make an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and +pearl-grey silk. “It might pass for the present,” he said; “but he +would yet see me glittering like a parterre.” + +Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a +jeweller’s shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a +sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the carriage, and +I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in the hurry of +events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten—the letter of my uncle, +John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me and make me his +legatee. “It would, indeed, be a relief,” I thought, “if I had ever so +small an independency; I never can bear being dressed like a doll by +Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with the golden shower +falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, +and tell my uncle John I am going to be married, and to whom: if I had +but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of +fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now.” And somewhat +relieved by this idea (which I failed not to execute that day), I +ventured once more to meet my master’s and lover’s eye, which most +pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted both face and gaze. He +smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a +blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold and gems had +enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, +and thrust it back to him red with the passionate pressure. + +“You need not look in that way,” I said; “if you do, I’ll wear nothing +but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I’ll be married in +this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for yourself out of +the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the +black satin.” + +He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. “Oh, it is rich to see and hear her!” +he exclaimed. “Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange +this one little English girl for the Grand Turk’s whole seraglio, +gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!” + +The Eastern allusion bit me again. “I’ll not stand you an inch in the +stead of a seraglio,” I said; “so don’t consider me an equivalent for +one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, +to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive +slave-purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend +satisfactorily here.” + +“And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of +flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?” + +“I’ll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty +to them that are enslaved—your harem inmates amongst the rest. I’ll get +admitted there, and I’ll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw +as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our +hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have +signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred.” + +“I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane.” + +“I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with +an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that +whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act, when +released, would be to violate its conditions.” + +“Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go +through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the +altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms—what will they +be?” + +“I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations. Do +you remember what you said of Céline Varens?—of the diamonds, the +cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Céline Varens. I +shall continue to act as Adèle’s governess; by that I shall earn my +board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides. I’ll furnish my +own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but—” + +“Well, but what?” + +“Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be +quit.” + +“Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven’t +your equal,” said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. “Will it +please you to dine with me to-day?” he asked, as we re-entered the +gates. + +“No, thank you, sir.” + +“And what for, ‘no, thank you?’ if one may inquire.” + +“I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should +now: till—” + +“Till what? You delight in half-phrases.” + +“Till I can’t help it.” + +“Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being the +companion of my repast?” + +“I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go on +as usual for another month.” + +“You will give up your governessing slavery at once.” + +“Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go on with +it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have been +accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you feel +disposed to see me, and I’ll come then; but at no other time.” + +“I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all +this, ‘pour me donner une contenance,’ as Adèle would say; and +unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case, nor my snuff-box. But +listen—whisper. It is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be mine +presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, +I’ll just—figuratively speaking—attach you to a chain like this” +(touching his watch-guard). “Yes, bonny wee thing, I’ll wear you in my +bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.” + +He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while he +afterwards lifted out Adèle, I entered the house, and made good my +retreat upstairs. + +He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an +occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in +a _tête-à-tête_ conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he +liked to sing—good singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, +in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either; but I delighted in +listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that +hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the +lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love +of heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and +that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was +like the present. + +“Did I like his voice?” he asked. + +“Very much.” I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of +his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e’en soothe +and stimulate it. + +“Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment.” + +“Very well, sir, I will try.” + +I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated “a +little bungler.” Being pushed unceremoniously to one side—which was +precisely what I wished—he usurped my place, and proceeded to accompany +himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the +window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees +and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following +strain:— + +“The truest love that ever heart +Felt at its kindled core, +Did through each vein, in quickened start, +The tide of being pour. + +Her coming was my hope each day, +Her parting was my pain; +The chance that did her steps delay +Was ice in every vein. + +I dreamed it would be nameless bliss, +As I loved, loved to be; +And to this object did I press +As blind as eagerly. + +But wide as pathless was the space +That lay our lives between, +And dangerous as the foamy race +Of ocean-surges green. + +And haunted as a robber-path +Through wilderness or wood; +For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath, +Between our spirits stood. + +I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; +I omens did defy: +Whatever menaced, harassed, warned, +I passed impetuous by. + +On sped my rainbow, fast as light; +I flew as in a dream; +For glorious rose upon my sight +That child of Shower and Gleam. + +Still bright on clouds of suffering dim +Shines that soft, solemn joy; +Nor care I now, how dense and grim +Disasters gather nigh. + +I care not in this moment sweet, +Though all I have rushed o’er +Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, +Proclaiming vengeance sore: + +Though haughty Hate should strike me down, +Right, bar approach to me, +And grinding Might, with furious frown, +Swear endless enmity. + +My love has placed her little hand +With noble faith in mine, +And vowed that wedlock’s sacred band +Our nature shall entwine. + +My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, +With me to live—to die; +I have at last my nameless bliss. +As I love—loved am I!” + + +He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his +full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every +lineament. I quailed momentarily—then I rallied. Soft scene, daring +demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon +of defence must be prepared—I whetted my tongue: as he reached me, I +asked with asperity, “whom he was going to marry now?” + +“That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane.” + +“Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had +talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a +pagan idea? _I_ had no intention of dying with him—he might depend on +that.” + +“Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with him! +Death was not for such as I.” + +“Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he +had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee.” + +“Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a +reconciling kiss?” + +“No: I would rather be excused.” + +Here I heard myself apostrophised as a “hard little thing;” and it was +added, “any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing +such stanzas crooned in her praise.” + +I assured him I was naturally hard—very flinty, and that he would often +find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers +rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he +should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was +yet time to rescind it. + +“Would I be quiet and talk rationally?” + +“I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I +flattered myself I was doing that now.” + +He fretted, pished, and pshawed. “Very good,” I thought; “you may fume +and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue with you, +I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I’ll not sink into a +bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I’ll keep you +from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent +aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real +mutual advantage.” + +From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then, +after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room, I +got up, and saying, “I wish you good-night, sir,” in my natural and +wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and got away. + +The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of +probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure, rather +cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently +entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and turtle-dove +sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would have pleased his +judgment, satisfied his common-sense, and even suited his taste less. + +In other people’s presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; +any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in the +evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to +send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I +appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as “love” and +“darling” on his lips: the best words at my service were “provoking +puppet,” “malicious elf,” “sprite,” “changeling,” &c. For caresses, +too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the +arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all +right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favours to +anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on +my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well. Meantime, Mr. +Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened +awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming. I +laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. “I can keep you in reasonable +check now,” I reflected; “and I don’t doubt to be able to do it +hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised.” + +Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have +pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole +world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood +between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes +between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for +His creature: of whom I had made an idol. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being +numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced—the bridal +day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. _I_, at least, +had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, +ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this +time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I +(D.V.),—or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet +I knew not. The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, +four little squares, in the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written +the direction, “Mrs. Rochester, —— Hotel, London,” on each: I could not +persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! +She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time +after eight o’clock A.M.; and I would wait to be assured she had come +into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property. It was +enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said +to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw +bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the +pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped +portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like +apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour—nine o’clock—gave out +certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. “I +will leave you by yourself, white dream,” I said. “I am feverish: I +hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.” + +It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not +only the anticipation of the great change—the new life which was to +commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, +doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me +forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause +influenced my mind more than they. + +I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened +which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but +myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester that +night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had +called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty +miles off—business it was requisite he should settle in person, +previous to his meditated departure from England. I waited now his +return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him the solution of +the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I +disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence. + +I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day +had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a +speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to +augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one +way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once +in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads +northward—the clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on +mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day. + +It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, +delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering +through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the +chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the +centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each +other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; +though community of vitality was destroyed—the sap could flow no more: +their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter’s tempests +would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might +be said to form one tree—a ruin, but an entire ruin. + +“You did right to hold fast to each other,” I said: as if the +monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me. “I think, +scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little +sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, +honest roots: you will never have green leaves more—never more see +birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of +pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of +you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.” As I looked up +at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which +filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she +seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself +again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a +second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a +wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again. + +Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples +with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn; then I +employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them +into the house and put them away in the store-room. Then I repaired to +the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, +I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a +cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some +time, and burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner: I +wheeled the table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles +brought in ready for lighting. More restless than ever, when I had +completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in +the house: a little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the +hall simultaneously struck ten. + +“How late it grows!” I said. “I will run down to the gates: it is +moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be +coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.” + +The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but +the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all +still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at +intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried +by one moving speck. + +A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked—a tear of disappointment +and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I lingered; the moon +shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of +dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale. + +“I wish he would come! I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with +hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before tea; now it +was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened? The event of +last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a warning of +disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had +enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its +meridian, and must now decline. + +“Well, I cannot return to the house,” I thought; “I cannot sit by the +fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire my limbs +than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him.” + +I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of +a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a +dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he: here he +was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the moon had +opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright: he took +his hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet him. + +“There!” he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the +saddle: “You can’t do without me, that is evident. Step on my boot-toe; +give me both hands: mount!” + +I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty kissing I +got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well +as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, “But is +there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an +hour? Is there anything wrong?” + +“No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait in +the house for you, especially with this rain and wind.” + +“Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my +cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your cheek +and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the matter?” + +“Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy.” + +“Then you have been both?” + +“Rather: but I’ll tell you all about it by-and-by, sir; and I daresay +you will only laugh at me for my pains.” + +“I’ll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare +not: my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as slippery as +an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I could not lay +a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up +a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold to seek your +shepherd, did you, Jane?” + +“I wanted you: but don’t boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now let me +get down.” + +He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he followed +me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put something dry on, +and then return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for +the staircase, to extort a promise that I would not be long: nor was I +long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I found him at supper. + +“Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the last meal +but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time.” + +I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat. + +“Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane? Is +it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?” + +“I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know +what thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal.” + +“Except me: I am substantial enough—touch me.” + +“You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.” + +He held out his hand, laughing. “Is that a dream?” said he, placing it +close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as +well as a long, strong arm. + +“Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream,” said I, as I put it down from +before my face. “Sir, have you finished supper?” + +“Yes, Jane.” + +I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again alone, I +stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master’s knee. + +“It is near midnight,” I said. + +“Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before +my wedding.” + +“I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least: I have +no wish to go to bed.” + +“Are all your arrangements complete?” + +“All, sir.” + +“And on my part likewise,” he returned, “I have settled everything; and +we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half-an-hour after our +return from church.” + +“Very well, sir.” + +“With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word—‘very well,’ +Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how +strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?” + +“I believe I am.” + +“Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel.” + +“I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this +present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may +come charged?” + +“This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or +over-fatigued.” + +“Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?” + +“Calm?—no: but happy—to the heart’s core.” + +I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was +ardent and flushed. + +“Give me your confidence, Jane,” he said: “relieve your mind of any +weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?—that +I shall not prove a good husband?” + +“It is the idea farthest from my thoughts.” + +“Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?—of the +new life into which you are passing?” + +“No.” + +“You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex +and pain me. I want an explanation.” + +“Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?” + +“I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had +happened in my absence:—nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in +short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said +something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk?—your +sensitive self-respect has been wounded?” + +“No, sir.” It struck twelve—I waited till the time-piece had concluded +its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then +I proceeded. + +“All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless +bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting +fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to +have the hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don’t +caress me now—let me talk undisturbed. Yesterday I trusted well in +Providence, and believed that events were working together for your +good and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect—the calmness of the +air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on +your journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, +thinking of you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely +missed your actual presence. I thought of the life that lay before +me—_your_ life, sir—an existence more expansive and stirring than my +own: as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs +are than the shallows of its own strait channel. I wondered why +moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like +a rose. Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went +in, Sophie called me upstairs to look at my wedding-dress, which they +had just brought; and under it in the box I found your present—the veil +which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London: +resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into +accepting something as costly. I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised +how I would tease you about your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts +to masque your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought +how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had +myself prepared as a covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was +not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither +fortune, beauty, nor connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and +heard your impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of +any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your +standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet.” + +“How well you read me, you witch!” interposed Mr. Rochester: “but what +did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find poison, +or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?” + +“No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found +nothing save Fairfax Rochester’s pride; and that did not scare me, +because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it grew dark, +the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now—wild and +high—but ‘with a sullen, moaning sound’ far more eerie. I wished you +were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair +and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went to bed, I +could not sleep—a sense of anxious excitement distressed me. The gale +still rising seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; +whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it +recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it +must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it ceased. On +sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and gusty night. I +continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, +regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During all my +first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road; total +obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge +of a little child: a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, +and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear. I +thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I +strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to +utter your name and entreat you to stop—but my movements were fettered, +and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew +farther and farther every moment.” + +“And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to +you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and think only of +real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes—I will not forget that; +and you cannot deny it. _Those_ words did not die inarticulate on your +lips. I heard them clear and soft: a thought too solemn perhaps, but +sweet as music—‘I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of +living with you, Edward, because I love you.’ Do you love me, +Jane?—repeat it.” + +“I do, sir—I do, with my whole heart.” + +“Well,” he said, after some minutes’ silence, “it is strange; but that +sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because you +said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward +gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is +too much as if some spirit were near me. Look wicked, Jane: as you know +well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me +you hate me—tease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather +be incensed than saddened.” + +“I will tease you and vex you to your heart’s content, when I have +finished my tale: but hear me to the end.” + +“I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the source +of your melancholy in a dream.” + +I shook my head. “What! is there more? But I will not believe it to be +anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on.” + +The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his +manner, surprised me: but I proceeded. + +“I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, +the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the stately front +nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very +fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the +grass-grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and +there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl, I still +carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down anywhere, +however tired were my arms—however much its weight impeded my progress, +I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the +road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and +for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous +haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones +rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the +child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I +gained the summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening +every moment. The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I sat down on +the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an +angle of the road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall +crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my +balance, fell, and woke.” + +“Now, Jane, that is all.” + +“All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a gleam +dazzled my eyes; I thought—Oh, it is daylight! But I was mistaken; it +was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a +light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before +going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard +a rustling there. I asked, ‘Sophie, what are you doing?’ No one +answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held +it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau. +‘Sophie! Sophie!’ I again cried: and still it was silent. I had risen +up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then bewilderment, came over +me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins. Mr. Rochester, this +was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax: it was +not—no, I was sure of it, and am still—it was not even that strange +woman, Grace Poole.” + +“It must have been one of them,” interrupted my master. + +“No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing +before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield +Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me.” + +“Describe it, Jane.” + +“It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair +hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was +white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell.” + +“Did you see her face?” + +“Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held +it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and +turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage +and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass.” + +“And how were they?” + +“Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was +a discoloured face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll +of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!” + +“Ghosts are usually pale, Jane.” + +“This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow +furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. +Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?” + +“You may.” + +“Of the foul German spectre—the Vampyre.” + +“Ah!—what did it do?” + +“Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and +flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.” + + +It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and +flinging both on the floor, trampled on them + +“Afterwards?” + +“It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn +approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at +my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me—she +thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my +eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost +consciousness: for the second time in my life—only the second time—I +became insensible from terror.” + +“Who was with you when you revived?” + +“No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in +water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill, +and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now, +sir, tell me who and what that woman was?” + +“The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I must be +careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made for rough +handling.” + +“Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: +the transaction actually took place.” + +“And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a +ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you +without a tear—without a kiss—without a word?” + +“Not yet.” + +“Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to +bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no +recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that.” + +“Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such: I +wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to me the +mystery of that awful visitant.” + +“And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal.” + +“But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I +looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful +aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there—on the carpet—I +saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,—the veil, torn from +top to bottom in two halves!” + +I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round +me. “Thank God!” he exclaimed, “that if anything malignant did come +near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to think +what might have happened!” + +He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I could +scarcely pant. After some minutes’ silence, he continued, cheerily— + +“Now, Janet, I’ll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half +reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman +was—must have been—Grace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself: +from all you know, you have reason so to call her—what did she do to +me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed +her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you +were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: +the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated +stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the +spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her. I see you +would ask why I keep such a woman in my house: when we have been +married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not now. Are you +satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the mystery?” + +I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one: +satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear +so—relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented +smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him. + +“Does not Sophie sleep with Adèle in the nursery?” he asked, as I lit +my candle. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And there is room enough in Adèle’s little bed for you. You must share +it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident you have +related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep +alone: promise me to go to the nursery.” + +“I shall be very glad to do so, sir.” + +“And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you go +upstairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good time +to-morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast before +eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care away, Janet. +Don’t you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen? and there is +no more beating of rain against the window-panes: look here” (he lifted +up the curtain)—“it is a lovely night!” + +It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping +before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing off +eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully. + +“Well,” said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, “how is my +Janet now?” + +“The night is serene, sir; and so am I.” + +“And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of happy +love and blissful union.” + +This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of +sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all. +With little Adèle in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood—so +tranquil, so passionless, so innocent—and waited for the coming day: +all my life was awake and astir in my frame: and as soon as the sun +rose I rose too. I remember Adèle clung to me as I left her: I remember +I kissed her as I loosened her little hands from my neck; and I cried +over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I feared my sobs +would break her still sound repose. She seemed the emblem of my past +life; and he, I was now to array myself to meet, the dread, but adored, +type of my unknown future day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Sophie came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in +accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose, +impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just +fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my hair with +a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could. + +“Stop!” she cried in French. “Look at yourself in the mirror: you have +not taken one peep.” + +So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my +usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. “Jane!” +called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the +stairs by Mr. Rochester. + +“Lingerer!” he said, “my brain is on fire with impatience, and you +tarry so long!” + +He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over, +pronounced me “fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but +the desire of his eyes,” and then telling me he would give me but ten +minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately +hired servants, a footman, answered it. + +“Is John getting the carriage ready?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Is the luggage brought down?” + +“They are bringing it down, sir.” + +“Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk +are there: return and tell me.” + +The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the +footman soon returned. + +“Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice.” + +“And the carriage?” + +“The horses are harnessing.” + +“We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the moment +we return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped on, and the +coachman in his seat.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Jane, are you ready?” + +I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait +for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the +hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was +held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly +follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester’s face was to feel that not a +second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other +bridegroom ever looked as he did—so bent up to a purpose, so grimly +resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such +flaming and flashing eyes. + +I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I +gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both +seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester’s frame. I wanted to see the +invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a +glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he +seemed breasting and resisting. + +At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of +breath. “Am I cruel in my love?” he said. “Delay an instant: lean on +me, Jane.” + +And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising +calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy +morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green +grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of +strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the mementoes +graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them, because, as they +saw us, they passed round to the back of the church; and I doubted not +they were going to enter by the side-aisle door and witness the +ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly +looking at my face, from which the blood had, I daresay, momentarily +fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I +rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the path to the +porch. + +We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white +surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two +shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: +the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault +of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails +the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the +remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the +civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife. + +Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step +behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers—a +gentleman, evidently—was advancing up the chancel. The service began. +The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then +the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly +towards Mr. Rochester, went on. + +“I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day +of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that +if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined +together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured +that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth +allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony +lawful.” + +He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever +broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the +clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his +breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched +towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, “Wilt thou have +this woman for thy wedded wife?”—when a distinct and near voice said— + +“The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment.” + +The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did +the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled +under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or +eyes, he said, “Proceed.” + +Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low +intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said— + +“I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been +asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood.” + +“The ceremony is quite broken off,” subjoined the voice behind us. “I +am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to +this marriage exists.” + +Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, +making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and +strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale, firm, +massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and +yet wild beneath! + +Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. “What is the nature of the impediment?” he +asked. “Perhaps it may be got over—explained away?” + +“Hardly,” was the answer. “I have called it insuperable, and I speak +advisedly.” + +The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, +uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly— + +“It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. +Rochester has a wife now living.” + +My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated +to thunder—my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt +frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I +looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was +colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed +nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, +without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he +only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side. + +“Who are you?” he asked of the intruder. + +“My name is Briggs, a solicitor of —— Street, London.” + +“And you would thrust on me a wife?” + +“I would remind you of your lady’s existence, sir, which the law +recognises, if you do not.” + +“Favour me with an account of her—with her name, her parentage, her +place of abode.” + +“Certainly.” Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read +out in a sort of official, nasal voice:— + +“‘I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D. —— (a date of +fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in +the county of ——, and of Ferndean Manor, in ——shire, England, was +married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, +merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at —— church, Spanish +Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register +of that church—a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard +Mason.’” + +“That—if a genuine document—may prove I have been married, but it does +not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living.” + +“She was living three months ago,” returned the lawyer. + +“How do you know?” + +“I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will +scarcely controvert.” + +“Produce him—or go to hell.” + +“I will produce him first—he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the +goodness to step forward.” + +Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, +a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the +spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame. The second +stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a +pale face looked over the solicitor’s shoulder—yes, it was Mason +himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have +often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in +its gloom; and his face flushed—olive cheek and hueless forehead +received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he +stirred, lifted his strong arm—he could have struck Mason, dashed him +on the church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his +body—but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, “Good God!” Contempt +fell cool on Mr. Rochester—his passion died as if a blight had +shrivelled it up: he only asked—“What have _you_ to say?” + +An inaudible reply escaped Mason’s white lips. + +“The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, +what have _you_ to say?” + +“Sir—sir,” interrupted the clergyman, “do not forget you are in a +sacred place.” Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, “Are you +aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman’s wife is still living?” + +“Courage,” urged the lawyer,—“speak out.” + +“She is now living at Thornfield Hall,” said Mason, in more articulate +tones: “I saw her there last April. I am her brother.” + +“At Thornfield Hall!” ejaculated the clergyman. “Impossible! I am an +old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs. +Rochester at Thornfield Hall.” + +I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester’s lips, and he muttered— + +“No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it—or of her under +that name.” He mused—for ten minutes he held counsel with himself: he +formed his resolve, and announced it— + +“Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel. +Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green (to the +clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day.” The man +obeyed. + +Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: “Bigamy is an ugly +word!—I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred +me, or Providence has checked me,—perhaps the last. I am little better +than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, +deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless +fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up:—what this +lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman +to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. +Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a +time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept +there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my +bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that +she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago,—Bertha Mason by name; +sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs +and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer +up, Dick!—never fear me!—I’d almost as soon strike a woman as you. +Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs +through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman +and a drunkard!—as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they +were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, +copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner—pure, wise, +modest: you can fancy I was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! +Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you +no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come +up to the house and visit Mrs. Poole’s patient, and _my wife_! You +shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge +whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy +with something at least human. This girl,” he continued, looking at me, +“knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all +was fair and legal; and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into +a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, +and embruted partner! Come all of you—follow!” + +Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came +after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage. + +“Take it back to the coach-house, John,” said Mr. Rochester coolly; “it +will not be wanted to-day.” + +At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adèle, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet +and greet us. + +“To the right-about—every soul!” cried the master; “away with your +congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!—they are fifteen years too +late!” + +He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still +beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We mounted the +first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey: +the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester’s master-key, admitted us +to the tapestried room, with its great bed and its pictorial cabinet. + +“You know this place, Mason,” said our guide; “she bit and stabbed you +here.” + +He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this, +too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a fire guarded +by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a +chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in +a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure +ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, +one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all +fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it +was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild +as a mane, hid its head and face. + +“Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!” said Mr. Rochester. “How are you? and how is +your charge to-day?” + +“We’re tolerable, sir, I thank you,” replied Grace, lifting the boiling +mess carefully on to the hob: “rather snappish, but not ’rageous.” + +A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the +clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet. + +“Ah! sir, she sees you!” exclaimed Grace: “you’d better not stay.” + +“Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments.” + +“Take care then, sir!—for God’s sake, take care!” + +The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and +gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,—those +bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced. + +“Keep out of the way,” said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside: “she +has no knife now, I suppose, and I’m on my guard.” + +“One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in +mortal discretion to fathom her craft.” + +“We had better leave her,” whispered Mason. + +“Go to the devil!” was his brother-in-law’s recommendation. + +“’Ware!” cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. +Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his +throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She +was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent +besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she +almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her +with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only +wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and +he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he +bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest +yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the +spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate. + +“That is _my wife_,” said he. “Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am +ever to know—such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure +hours! And _this_ is what I wished to have” (laying his hand on my +shoulder): “this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth +of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her +just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the +difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this +face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of +the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge +ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize.” + +We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some +further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he +descended the stair. + +“You, madam,” said he, “are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be +glad to hear it—if, indeed, he should be still living—when Mr. Mason +returns to Madeira.” + +“My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?” + +“Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his +house for some years. When your uncle received your letter intimating +the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, +who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to +Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; +for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the +name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed as you may +suppose, revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to +say, is now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his +disease—decline—and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will +ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate +you from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason +to lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He +referred him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful +I was not too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally +certain that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would +advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had +better remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of +Mr. Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?” he inquired of Mr. Mason. + +“No, no—let us be gone,” was the anxious reply; and without waiting to +take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall door. The +clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or +reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he too departed. + +I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to +which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in, +fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded—not to weep, +not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but—mechanically to take off +the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn +yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt +weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on +them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, +moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event +rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but _now_, _I +thought_. + +The morning had been a quiet morning enough—all except the brief scene +with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; +there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no +defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, +a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short +questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence +adduced; an open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; +then the living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all +was over. + +I was in my own room as usual—just myself, without obvious change: +nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was +the Jane Eyre of yesterday?—where was her life?—where were her +prospects? + +Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman—almost a bride, was +a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were +desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December +storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed +the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes +which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with +untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and +fragrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and +white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead—struck +with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born +in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so +blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could +never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my +master’s—which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a +suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; +it could not seek Mr. Rochester’s arms—it could not derive warmth from +his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was +blighted—confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had +been; for he was not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice +to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of +stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must +go: _that_ I perceived well. When—how—whither, I could not yet discern; +but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real +affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful +passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear even +to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind +had been my eyes! How weak my conduct! + +My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round +me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. +Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down +in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in +remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to +flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only +still throbbed life-like within me—a remembrance of God: it begot an +unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless +mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to +express them— + +“Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.” + +It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it—as I +had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips—it +came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole +consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith +death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That +bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, “the waters came into my +soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; +the floods overflowed me.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and +seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I +asked, “What am I to do?” + +But the answer my mind gave—“Leave Thornfield at once”—was so prompt, +so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words +now. “That I am not Edward Rochester’s bride is the least part of my +woe,” I alleged: “that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and +found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but +that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I +cannot do it.” + +But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold +that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be +weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw +laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the +throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in +the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her +down to unsounded depths of agony. + +“Let me be torn away, then” I cried. “Let another help me!” + +“No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall +yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: +your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.” + +I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a +judge haunted,—at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head +swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from excitement +and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for +I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected +that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask +how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adèle had +tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. “Friends +always forget those whom fortune forsakes,” I murmured, as I undrew the +bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still +dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon +recover myself. I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm +caught me. I looked up—I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a +chair across my chamber threshold. + +“You come out at last,” he said. “Well, I have been waiting for you +long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: +five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the +lock like a burglar. So you shun me?—you shut yourself up and grieve +alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You +are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the +hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a +senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I +err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but +no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood? + +“Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter—nothing poignant? +Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I +have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look. + +“Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one +little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his +bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake +slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody +blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?” + +Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such +deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy +in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole +look and mien—I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only +at my heart’s core. + +“You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?” ere long he inquired +wistfully—wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness, +the result rather of weakness than of will. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Then tell me so roundly and sharply—don’t spare me.” + +“I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water.” He heaved a sort of +shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me downstairs. At +first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my +glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, +summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber. He put wine to +my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, +and was soon myself. I was in the library—sitting in his chair—he was +quite near. “If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, +it would be well for me,” I thought; “then I should not have to make +the effort of cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. +Rochester’s. I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him—I +cannot leave him.” + +“How are you now, Jane?” + +“Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.” + +“Taste the wine again, Jane.” + +I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and +looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an inarticulate +exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast +through the room and came back; he stooped towards me as if to kiss me; +but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I turned my face away and +put his aside. + +“What!—How is this?” he exclaimed hastily. “Oh, I know! you won’t kiss +the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled and my +embraces appropriated?” + +“At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.” + +“Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer +for you—Because I have a wife already, you would reply.—I guess +rightly?” + +“Yes.” + +“If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must +regard me as a plotting profligate—a base and low rake who has been +simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare +deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect. +What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in the first place, +you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the +second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, +and besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush +out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to +upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking how _to act_—_talking_ you +consider is of no use. I know you—I am on my guard.” + +“Sir, I do not wish to act against you,” I said; and my unsteady voice +warned me to curtail my sentence. + +“Not in _your_ sense of the word, but in _mine_ you are scheming to +destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man—as a +married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have +refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to +me: to live under this roof only as Adèle’s governess; if ever I say a +friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to +me, you will say,—‘That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be +ice and rock to him;’ and ice and rock you will accordingly become.” + +I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: “All is changed about me, +sir; I must change too—there is no doubt of that; and to avoid +fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections and +associations, there is only one way—Adèle must have a new governess, +sir.” + +“Oh, Adèle will go to school—I have settled that already; nor do I mean +to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of +Thornfield Hall—this accursed place—this tent of Achan—this insolent +vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the light of the +open sky—this narrow stone hell, with its one real fiend, worse than a +legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall not stay here, nor will +I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did +how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever +saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I +feared Adèle never would have a governess to stay if she knew with what +inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the +maniac elsewhere—though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even +more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely +enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in +the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement. +Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but +to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect +assassination, even of what I most hate. + +“Concealing the mad-woman’s neighbourhood from you, however, was +something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a +upas-tree: that demon’s vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I’ll +shut up Thornfield Hall: I’ll nail up the front door and board the +lower windows: I’ll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here +with _my wife_, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for +money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to +bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when +_my wife_ is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at +night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on—” + +“Sir,” I interrupted him, “you are inexorable for that unfortunate +lady: you speak of her with hate—with vindictive antipathy. It is +cruel—she cannot help being mad.” + +“Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you +don’t know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not +because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should +hate you?” + +“I do indeed, sir.” + +“Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing +about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh +is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be +dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my +treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a +strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: +if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should +receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. +I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your +quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I +could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no +smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they +had no longer a ray of recognition for me.—But why do I follow that +train of ideas? I was talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you +know, is prepared for prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only +ask you to endure one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, +farewell to its miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair +to, which will be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from +unwelcome intrusion—even from falsehood and slander.” + +“And take Adèle with you, sir,” I interrupted; “she will be a companion +for you.” + +“What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adèle to school; and +what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own child,—a +French dancer’s bastard? Why do you importune me about her! I say, why +do you assign Adèle to me for a companion?” + +“You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are dull: +too dull for you.” + +“Solitude! solitude!” he reiterated with irritation. “I see I must come +to an explanation. I don’t know what sphynx-like expression is forming +in your countenance. _You_ are to share my solitude. Do you +understand?” + +I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was +becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking +fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot. +He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on +the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet, collected aspect. + +“Now for the hitch in Jane’s character,” he said at last, speaking more +calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. “The reel of +silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come +a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, +and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a fraction of Samson’s +strength, and break the entanglement like tow!” + +He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just +before me. + +“Jane! will you hear reason?” (he stooped and approached his lips to my +ear); “because, if you won’t, I’ll try violence.” His voice was hoarse; +his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond +and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, +and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing +with him. The present—the passing second of time—was all I had in which +to control and restrain him: a movement of repulsion, flight, fear +would have sealed my doom,—and his. But I was not afraid: not in the +least. I felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported +me. The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the +Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe. I +took hold of his clenched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and +said to him, soothingly— + +“Sit down; I’ll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have +to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable.” + +He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been +struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to repress +them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I +considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they +liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave way and +cried heartily. + +Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could +not while he was in such a passion. + +“But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had +steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I +could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes.” + +His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn, +became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder, but +I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no. + +“Jane! Jane!” he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it thrilled +along every nerve I had; “you don’t love me, then? It was only my +station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that you think +me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if +I were some toad or ape.” + +These words cut me: yet what could I do or I say? I ought probably to +have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse +at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop balm +where I had wounded. + +“I _do_ love you,” I said, “more than ever: but I must not show or +indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it.” + +“The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me, and see +me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and distant?” + +“No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see there is +but one way: but you will be furious if I mention it.” + +“Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.” + +“For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your +hair—which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face—which looks +feverish?” + +“I must leave Adèle and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole +life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange +scenes.” + +“Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about +parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new +existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married. +You shall be Mrs. Rochester—both virtually and nominally. I shall keep +only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have +in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the +Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most +innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error—to make +you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be +reasonable, or in truth I shall again become frantic.” + +His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye +blazed: still I dared to speak. + +“Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by +yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your +mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical—is false.” + +“Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man—you forget that: I am not +long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and +yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and—beware!” + +He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his +cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands. +To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: +to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do +instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity—looked for aid to +one higher than man: the words “God help me!” burst involuntarily from +my lips. + +“I am a fool!” cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. “I keep telling her I am +not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing +of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my +infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in +opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand in mine, +Janet—that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove +you are near me—and I will in a few words show you the real state of +the case. Can you listen to me?” + +“Yes, sir; for hours if you will.” + +“I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not the +eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?” + +“I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once.” + +“And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?” + +“I have understood something to that effect.” + +“Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property +together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and leaving +me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Rowland. +Yet as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I +must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought me a partner +betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old +acquaintance. He was certain his possessions were real and vast: he +made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and daughter; and he +learned from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of +thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent +out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father +said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast +of Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine +woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her +family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did +she. They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw +her alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She +flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and +accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and +envy me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being +ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no +folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, +the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its +commission. Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she +allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. +Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act!—an agony of +inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not +even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her +nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor +refinement in her mind or manners—and, I married her:—gross, +grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might +have—But let me remember to whom I am speaking. + +“My bride’s mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The +honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in +a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too—a complete dumb +idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, +whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of affection +in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his +wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore me), +will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my brother +Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty thousand +pounds, and joined in the plot against me. + +“These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of +concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, +even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious +to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable +of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I +found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of +the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be +sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately +received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and +imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled +household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her +violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, +contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself: I +eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my +repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I +felt. + +“Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some strong +words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman +upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her +character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices +sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check +them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and +what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those propensities +entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, +dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must +attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste. + +“My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years +my father died too. I was rich enough now—yet poor to hideous +indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was +associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of +me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the +doctors now discovered that _my wife_ was mad—her excesses had +prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don’t like my +narrative; you look almost sick—shall I defer the rest to another day?” + +“No, sir, finish it now; I pity you—I do earnestly pity you.” + +“Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of +tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those +who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish +hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed +with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not +your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full +at this moment—with which your eyes are now almost overflowing—with +which your heart is heaving—with which your hand is trembling in mine. +Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is +the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the +daughter have free advent—my arms wait to receive her.” + +“Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?” + +“Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect was +all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the world, +I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to be +clean in my own sight—and to the last I repudiated the contamination of +her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection with her mental +defects. Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet +saw her and heard her daily: something of her breath (faugh!) mixed +with the air I breathed; and besides, I remembered I had once been her +husband—that recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to +me; moreover, I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband +of another and better wife; and, though five years my senior (her +family and her father had lied to me even in the particular of her +age), she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as +she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless. + +“One night I had been awakened by her yells—(since the medical men had +pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)—it was a fiery +West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the +hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up +and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-steams—I could find no +refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly +round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull +like an earthquake—black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was +setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball—she threw +her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of +tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and +my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; +wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, +with such language!—no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary +than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word—the thin partitions +of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish +cries. + +“‘This life,’ said I at last, ‘is hell: this is the air—those are the +sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it +if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the +heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic’s burning eternity +I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present +one—let me break away, and go home to God!’ + +“I said this whilst I knelt down at and unlocked a trunk which +contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only +entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the +crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the +wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second. + +“A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the +open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the +air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I walked +under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its +drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of +the tropics kindled round me—I reasoned thus, Jane—and now listen; for +it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the +right path to follow. + +“The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed +leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, +dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled +with living blood—my being longed for renewal—my soul thirsted for a +pure draught. I saw hope revive—and felt regeneration possible. From a +flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea—bluer than +the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus:— + +“‘Go,’ said Hope, ‘and live again in Europe: there it is not known what +a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You +may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due +attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what +clime you will, and form what new tie you like. That woman, who has so +abused your long-suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your +honour, so blighted your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her +husband. See that she is cared for as her condition demands, and you +have done all that God and humanity require of you. Let her identity, +her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion: you are bound to +impart them to no living being. Place her in safety and comfort: +shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave her.’ + +“I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not +made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very +first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union—having already begun +to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family +character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me—I +added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous +conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make +him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to +publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself. + +“To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a +monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, +and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room, of whose secret +inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den—a +goblin’s cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as +it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be +placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she +had lucid intervals of days—sometimes weeks—which she filled up with +abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimbsy Retreat. She +and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason’s wounds that night he was +stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my +confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she +could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the +whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her +own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to +her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled +and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never +failed to take advantage of her guardian’s temporary lapses; once to +secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to +possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the +night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the +attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly +visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she then +spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought back +vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might have +happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing which +flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet visage +over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles—” + +“And what, sir,” I asked, while he paused, “did you do when you had +settled her here? Where did you go?” + +“What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o’-the-wisp. +Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the +March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its +lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent +woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield—” + +“But you could not marry, sir.” + +“I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not +my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to +tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it appeared to +me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and +be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to +understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I +was burdened.” + +“Well, sir?” + +“When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open +your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless +movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and +you wanted to read the tablet of one’s heart. But before I go on, tell +me what you mean by your ‘Well, sir?’ It is a small phrase very +frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on through +interminable talk: I don’t very well know why.” + +“I mean,—What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an event?” + +“Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?” + +“Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry +you; and what she said.” + +“I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked +her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of +Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, +then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; +occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with plenty of +money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: +no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman amongst +English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and German +gräfinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I +thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form, which announced +the realisation of my dream: but I was presently undeceived. You are +not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I +longed only for what suited me—for the antipodes of the Creole: and I +longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one whom, had I been ever +so free, I—warned as I was of the risks, the horrors, the loathings of +incongruous unions—would have asked to marry me. Disappointment made me +reckless. I tried dissipation—never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. +That was my Indian Messalina’s attribute: rooted disgust at it and her +restrained me much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on +riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it. + +“Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of +mistresses. The first I chose was Céline Varens—another of those steps +which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know +what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two +successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered +singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? +Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months. +Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible: not +one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set +her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her. But, +Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion +of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake: don’t +you?” + +“I don’t like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir. Did it +not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first with one +mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course.” + +“It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of +existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is +the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and +always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is +degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with +Céline, Giacinta, and Clara.” + +I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain +inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching +that had ever been instilled into me, as—under any pretext—with any +justification—through any temptation—to become the successor of these +poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now +in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this +conviction: it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that +it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial. + +“Now, Jane, why don’t you say ‘Well, sir?’ I have not done. You are +looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to +the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses—in a harsh, bitter frame +of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life—corroded with +disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against +all _woman_kind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, +faithful, loving woman as a mere dream), recalled by business, I came +back to England. + +“On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. +Abhorred spot! I expected no peace—no pleasure there. On a stile in Hay +Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as +negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no +presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the +arbitress of my life—my genius for good or evil—waited there in humble +guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour’s +accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender +creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed +to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly; but the thing would not go: +it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a +sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand: and aided I was. + +“When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new—a fresh sap +and sense—stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf +must return to me—that it belonged to my house down below—or I could +not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish +behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come home +that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of +you or watched for you. The next day I observed you—myself unseen—for +half-an-hour, while you played with Adèle in the gallery. It was a +snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my +room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and watch. Adèle claimed +your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied your thoughts were +elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you +talked to her and amused her a long time. When at last she left you, +you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to +pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out +at the thick-falling snow; you listened to the sobbing wind, and again +you paced gently on and dreamed. I think those day visions were not +dark: there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a +soft excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, +hypochondriac brooding: your look revealed rather the sweet musings of +youth when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up +and on to an ideal heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a +servant in the hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and +at yourself, Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very +shrewd, and seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to +say—‘My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are +absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my +brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract +to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.’ You ran +downstairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the weekly +house accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think it was. I +was vexed with you for getting out of my sight. + +“Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my +presence. An unusual—to me—a perfectly new character I suspected was +yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered +the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were +quaintly dressed—much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I found +you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by +rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined +by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of +making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or +blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing +eye to your interlocutor’s face: there was penetration and power in +each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready +and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me: I believe +you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross +master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain +pleasant ease tranquillised your manner: snarl as I would, you showed +no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you +watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious +grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what +I saw: I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long +time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an +intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making +this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while +troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its +bloom would fade—the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I did not +then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant +resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to +see whether you would seek me if I shunned you—but you did not; you +kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and easel; if by +chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as little token of +recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual expression +in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, for you +were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no +actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me, or if you ever +thought of me, and resolved to find this out. + +“I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, +and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a social +heart; it was the silent schoolroom—it was the tedium of your life—that +made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; +kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became soft in expression, +your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a +grateful happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, +at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your manner: you +glanced at me with a slight trouble—a hovering doubt: you did not know +what my caprice might be—whether I was going to play the master and be +stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often +to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out +cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young, wistful +features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to +my heart.” + +“Don’t talk any more of those days, sir,” I interrupted, furtively +dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to me; +for I knew what I must do—and do soon—and all these reminiscences, and +these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult. + +“No, Jane,” he returned: “what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, +when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?” + +I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion. + +“You see now how the case stands—do you not?” he continued. “After a +youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary +solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have +found _you_. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel. I am +bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, +lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans +to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence +about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in +one. + +“It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To +tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I +had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I +feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early +instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding +confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your +nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now—opened to you plainly +my life of agony—described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher +and worthier existence—shown to you, not my _resolution_ (that word is +weak), but my resistless _bent_ to love faithfully and well, where I am +faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to +accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane—give it me +now.” + +A pause. + +“Why are you silent, Jane?” + +I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. +Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human +being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; +and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce +love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty—“Depart!” + +“Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise—‘I will be +yours, Mr. Rochester.’” + +“Mr. Rochester, I will _not_ be yours.” + +Another long silence. + +“Jane!” recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with +grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror—for this still +voice was the pant of a lion rising—“Jane, do you mean to go one way in +the world, and to let me go another?” + +“I do.” + +“Jane” (bending towards and embracing me), “do you mean it now?” + +“I do.” + +“And now?” softly kissing my forehead and cheek. + +“I do,” extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely. + +“Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This—this is wicked. It would not be wicked +to love me.” + +“It would to obey you.” + +A wild look raised his brows—crossed his features: he rose; but he +forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I +shook, I feared—but I resolved. + +“One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are +gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For +a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to +some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for +a companion and for some hope?” + +“Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet +again there.” + +“Then you will not yield?” + +“No.” + +“Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?” His voice +rose. + +“I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.” + +“Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust +for a passion—vice for an occupation?” + +“Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it +for myself. We were born to strive and endure—you as well as I: do so. +You will forget me before I forget you.” + +“You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I +could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what +a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is +proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to +despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by +the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you +need fear to offend by living with me?” + +This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned +traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They +spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, +comply!” it said. “Think of his misery; think of his danger—look at his +state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the +recklessness following on despair—soothe him; save him; love him; tell +him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for _you_? or +who will be injured by what you do?” + +Still indomitable was the reply—“_I_ care for myself. The more +solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I +will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by +man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and +not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when +there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body +and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; +inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break +them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always +believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am +insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating +faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone +determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant +my foot.” + +I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His +fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment, +whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped +my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I +felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and +glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the +certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an +interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter—in +the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I +gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed +strength almost exhausted. + +“Never,” said he, as he ground his teeth, “never was anything at once +so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!” (And he +shook me with the force of his hold.) “I could bend her with my finger +and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I +crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing +looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage—with a stern +triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it—the savage, +beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage +will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but +the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor +of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit—with will and energy, +and virtue and purity—that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of +yourself you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, +if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like +an essence—you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, +come!” + +As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me. +The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an +idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his +fury; I must elude his sorrow: I retired to the door. + +“You are going, Jane?” + +“I am going, sir.” + +“You are leaving me?” + +“Yes.” + +“You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep +love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?” + +What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate +firmly, “I am going.” + +“Jane!” + +“Mr. Rochester!” + +“Withdraw, then,—I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. +Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a +glance on my sufferings—think of me.” + +He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. “Oh, Jane! my +hope—my love—my life!” broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a +deep, strong sob. + +I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back—walked back +as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his +face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair +with my hand. + +“God bless you, my dear master!” I said. “God keep you from harm and +wrong—direct you, solace you—reward you well for your past kindness to +me.” + +“Little Jane’s love would have been my best reward,” he answered; +“without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love: +yes—nobly, generously.” + +Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; +erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at +once quitted the room. + +“Farewell!” was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, +“Farewell for ever!” + + +That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon +as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of +childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night +was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long +ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed +glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of +the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to +clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours +she is about to sever. I watched her come—watched with the strangest +anticipation; as though some word of doom were to be written on her +disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first +penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a +white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow +earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: +immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my +heart— + +“My daughter, flee temptation.” + +“Mother, I will.” + +So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It was yet +night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes. “It +cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil,” thought I. +I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew +where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a ring. In seeking +these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. +Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was +not mine: it was the visionary bride’s who had melted in air. The other +articles I made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings +(it was all I had), I put in my pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, +pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put +on yet, and stole from my room. + +“Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!” I whispered, as I glided past her door. +“Farewell, my darling Adèle!” I said, as I glanced towards the nursery. +No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to +deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening. + +I would have got past Mr. Rochester’s chamber without a pause; but my +heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was +forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking +restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I +listened. There was a heaven—a temporary heaven—in this room for me, if +I chose: I had but to go in and to say— + +“Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till +death,” and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of +this. + +That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience +for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He +would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his +love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of +this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided +on. + +Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did +it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I +sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the +lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to +walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. +All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut +it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed +and locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that +I departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield. + +A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the +contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but often +noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps. No +reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; +not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the +past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet—so deadly +sad—that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break +down my energy. The last was an awful blank: something like the world +when the deluge was gone by. + +I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I believe +it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on +when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to +rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out +to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers +that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the +disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I +thought of drear flight and homeless wandering—and oh! with agony I +thought of what I left. I could not help it. I thought of him now—in +his room—watching the sunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would +stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it +was not too late; I could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. +As yet my flight, I was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back and be +his comforter—his pride; his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. +Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment—far worse than my abandonment—how +it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when +I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it +farther in. Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful +to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of +my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I +had no solace from self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had +injured—wounded—left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I +could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on. As to my +own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled +the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way: +fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness, beginning inwardly, +extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I lay on the ground some +minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear—or hope—that +here I should die: but I was soon up; crawling forwards on my hands and +knees, and then again raised to my feet—as eager and as determined as +ever to reach the road. + +When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and +while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up and +lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver +named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no +connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said +thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to +make it do. He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the +vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way. + +Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never +shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May +you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in +that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the +instrument of evil to what you wholly love. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me +down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for the +sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the +world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this moment +I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of the +coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it +must remain; and now, I am absolutely destitute. + +Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set +up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more obvious at +a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its summit: the +nearest town to which these point is, according to the inscription, +distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From the well-known +names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a +north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain: this I +see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there are +waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The +population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these roads: +they stretch out east, west, north, and south—white, broad, lonely; +they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and wild to +their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and I wish no +eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing, lingering +here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost. I might be +questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound incredible and +excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society at this +moment—not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures are—none +that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me. I have no +relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and +ask repose. + +I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply +furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I +turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in +a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; +the crag protected my head: the sky was over that. + +Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread +that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might +discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it +was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man. +Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep +silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took +confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, +dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection. + +What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could +do nothing and go nowhere!—when a long way must yet be measured by my +weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation—when cold +charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant +sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale +could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved! + +I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the +summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled +just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; +no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she +loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only +mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. +To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother +would lodge me without money and without price. I had one morsel of +bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed +through at noon with a stray penny—my last coin. I saw ripe bilberries +gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a +handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if +not satisfied, appeased by this hermit’s meal. I said my evening +prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch. + + +I said my evening prayers + +Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were +buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for +the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over +me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was +not, at least at the commencement of the night, cold. + +My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It +plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It +trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter +pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird +with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain +attempts to seek him. + +Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was +come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for +the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but +certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest +scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His +worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, +His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for +Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty +Milky-way. Remembering what it was—what countless systems there swept +space like a soft trace of light—I felt the might and strength of God. +Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew +that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I +turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the +Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God’s, and by God +would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere +long in sleep forgot sorrow. + +But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little +birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime +of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried—when the long +morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky—I got +up, and I looked round me. + +What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading +moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I saw +a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet +bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that +I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I was +a human being, and had a human being’s wants: I must not linger where +there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the bed I +had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but this—that my Maker had +that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and +that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with +fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil +of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all +its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be +carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the +responsibility fulfilled. I set out. + +Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now +fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my +choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done +enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost +overpowered me—might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a +stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart +and limb—I heard a bell chime—a church bell. + +I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic +hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw +a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right hand was full of +pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran +zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the +sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of +wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden waggon labouring up +the hill, and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life +and human labour were near. I must struggle on: strive to live and bend +to toil like the rest. + +About two o’clock P.M. I entered the village. At the bottom of its one +street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window. +I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could perhaps regain +a degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The +wish to have some strength and some vigour returned to me as soon as I +was amongst my fellow-beings. I felt it would be degrading to faint +with hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could +offer in exchange for one of these rolls? I considered. I had a small +silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly +tell how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did +not know whether either of these articles would be accepted: probably +they would not; but I must try. + +I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed +person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How +could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter +the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves, +the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be absurd. I only +begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in +the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She +pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely urged to weep; but +conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained +it. Soon I asked her “if there were any dressmaker or plain-workwoman +in the village?” + +“Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for.” + +I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to face +with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a resource, +without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What? I must +apply somewhere. Where? + +“Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was +wanted?” + +“Nay; she couldn’t say.” + +“What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the people +do?” + +“Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver’s +needle-factory, and at the foundry.” + +“Did Mr. Oliver employ women?” + +“Nay; it was men’s work.” + +“And what do the women do?” + +“I knawn’t,” was the answer. “Some does one thing, and some another. +Poor folk mun get on as they can.” + +She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had I +to importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently +wanted. I took leave. + +I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the +right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see an +inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to +a little distance and returning again, for an hour or more. Much +exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I turned aside +into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed, +I was again on my feet, however, and again searching something—a +resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the +top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and +brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What business had I to approach +the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it +possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve +me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young +woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a +hopeless heart and fainting frame—a voice wretchedly low and +faltering—I asked if a servant was wanted here? + +“No,” said she; “we do not keep a servant.” + +“Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?” I +continued. “I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I want +some work: no matter what.” + +But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me: +besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my character, +position, tale. She shook her head, she “was sorry she could give me no +information,” and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly: but +it shut me out. If she had held it open a little longer, I believe I +should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low. + +I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no +prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate to +a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer +inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature’s +cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a +chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude—rest no rest—while the +vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side. + +I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I +wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim +to ask—no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime, the +afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and +starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I +hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a +garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was +the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where +they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the +clergyman for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman’s function to +help—at least with advice—those who wished to help themselves. I seemed +to have something like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing then my +courage, and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I +reached the house, and knocked at the kitchen-door. An old woman +opened: I asked was this the parsonage? + +“Yes.” + +“Was the clergyman in?” + +“No.” + +“Would he be in soon?” + +“No, he was gone from home.” + +“To a distance?” + +“Not so far—happen three mile. He had been called away by the sudden +death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very likely +stay there a fortnight longer.” + +“Was there any lady of the house?” + +“Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;” and of her, +reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was +sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away. + +Once more I took off my handkerchief—once more I thought of the cakes +of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one mouthful +to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face again to +the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others +were there besides the woman I ventured the request—“Would she give me +a roll for this handkerchief?” + +She looked at me with evident suspicion: “Nay, she never sold stuff i’ +that way.” + +Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. “How +could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?” she said. + +“Would she take my gloves?” + +“No! what could she do with them?” + +Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is +enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I +can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral +degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a +recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who +repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not +be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a +well-dressed beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was +employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? +Not, certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and +who knew nothing about my character. And as to the woman who would not +take my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if +the offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me +condense now. I am sick of the subject. + +A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which +the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I +stopped and said— + +“Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry.” He cast on +me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice +from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a +beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to +his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down +and ate it. + +I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the +wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest +broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed +near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my +quarters: no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards +morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask +me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I sought +work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did +food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl about +to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig trough. “Will you give me +that?” I asked. + + +“Will you give me that?” I asked + +She stared at me. “Mother!” she exclaimed, “there is a woman wants me +to give her these porridge.” + +“Well lass,” replied a voice within, “give it her if she’s a beggar. T’ +pig doesn’t want it.” + +The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it +ravenously. + +As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, +which I had been pursuing an hour or more. + +“My strength is quite failing me,” I said in a soliloquy. “I feel I +cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night? While +the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground? +I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me? But it will be +very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this +sense of desolation—this total prostration of hope. In all likelihood, +though, I should die before morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself +to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? +Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die +of want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, +Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid!—direct me!” + +My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had +strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The very +cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by cross-ways and +by-paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a +few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which +they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill. + +“Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented +road,” I reflected. “And far better that crows and ravens—if any ravens +there be in these regions—should pick my flesh from my bones, than that +they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper’s +grave.” + +To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to find +a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not +secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no +variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; +black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was getting, I +could still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light +and shade; for colour had faded with the daylight. + +My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge, +vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in +among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. “That is an _ignis +fatuus_,” was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It +burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. “Is +it, then, a bonfire just kindled?” I questioned. I watched to see +whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not +enlarge. “It may be a candle in a house,” I then conjectured; “but if +so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it within a +yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the door to have +it shut in my face.” + +And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground. I +lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and +died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to +the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still frost—the friendly +numbness of death—it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it; +but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence. I rose ere +long. + +The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain. I +tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it. It +led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been +impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the +height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my +faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it. + +Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I +approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the +light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of +trees—firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character +of their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I +drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out my +hand to feel the dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough stones +of a low wall—above it, something like palisades, and within, a high +and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed before +me: it was a gate—a wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it. On +each side stood a sable bush—holly or yew. + +Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house +rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone +nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared +it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out +the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small +latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the +growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered +thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set. The +aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been +deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of +foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I could see clearly a +room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with +pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a +glowing peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some +chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; +and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but +scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting a stocking. + +I noticed these objects cursorily only—in them there was nothing +extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth, +sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young, +graceful women—ladies in every point—sat, one in a low rocking-chair, +the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and +bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and +faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of +one girl—in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat. + +A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who were +they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the +table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and +cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I +gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call +them handsome—they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each +bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand +between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which +they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller +books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to +aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as silent as if all +the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so +hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock +tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the +click-click of the woman’s knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice +broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me. + +“Listen, Diana,” said one of the absorbed students; “Franz and old +Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream +from which he has awakened in terror—listen!” And in a low voice she +read something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it +was in an unknown tongue—neither French nor Latin. Whether it were +Greek or German I could not tell. + +“That is strong,” she said, when she had finished: “I relish it.” The +other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, +while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At a later +day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the +line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on +sounding brass to me—conveying no meaning:— + +“‘Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.’ Good! good!” +she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. “There you have a +dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a +hundred pages of fustian. ‘Ich wäge die Gedanken in der Schale meines +Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.’ I like it!” + +Both were again silent. + +“Is there ony country where they talk i’ that way?” asked the old +woman, looking up from her knitting. + +“Yes, Hannah—a far larger country than England, where they talk in no +other way.” + +“Well, for sure case, I knawn’t how they can understand t’ one t’other: +and if either o’ ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?” + +“We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all—for we +are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don’t speak German, and +we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.” + +“And what good does it do you?” + +“We mean to teach it some time—or at least the elements, as they say; +and then we shall get more money than we do now.” + +“Varry like: but give ower studying; ye’ve done enough for to-night.” + +“I think we have: at least I’m tired. Mary, are you?” + +“Mortally: after all, it’s tough work fagging away at a language with +no master but a lexicon.” + +“It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious +Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home.” + +“Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little +gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you +have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?” + +The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage: +soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back. + +“Ah, childer!” said she, “it fair troubles me to go into yond’ room +now: it looks so lonesome wi’ the chair empty and set back in a +corner.” + +She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked +sad now. + +“But he is in a better place,” continued Hannah: “we shouldn’t wish him +here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had.” + +“You say he never mentioned us?” inquired one of the ladies. + +“He hadn’t time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He +had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and +when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o’ ye to be sent for, +he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his +head the next day—that is, a fortnight sin’—and he went to sleep and +niver wakened: he wor a’most stark when your brother went into t’ +chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that’s t’ last o’ t’ old stock—for +ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them ’at’s gone; for +all your mother wor mich i’ your way, and a’most as book-learned. She +wor the pictur’ o’ ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father.” + +I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for +such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair +complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of +distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker +than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing +it; Mary’s pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana’s +duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck +ten. + +“Ye’ll want your supper, I am sure,” observed Hannah; “and so will Mr. +St. John when he comes in.” + +And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed +about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so +intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited +in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched +position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than +ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to +touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make them +believe in the truth of my wants and woes—to induce them to vouchsafe a +rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it +hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah +opened. + +“What do you want?” she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she +surveyed me by the light of the candle she held. + +“May I speak to your mistresses?” I said. + +“You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come +from?” + +“I am a stranger.” + +“What is your business here at this hour?” + +“I want a night’s shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of +bread to eat.” + +Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah’s face. “I’ll +give you a piece of bread,” she said, after a pause; “but we can’t take +in a vagrant to lodge. It isn’t likely.” + +“Do let me speak to your mistresses.” + +“No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about +now; it looks very ill.” + +“But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?” + +“Oh, I’ll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don’t +do wrong, that’s all. Here is a penny; now go—” + +“A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don’t +shut the door:—oh, don’t, for God’s sake!” + +“I must; the rain is driving in—” + +“Tell the young ladies. Let me see them—” + +“Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn’t +make such a noise. Move off.” + +“But I must die if I am turned away.” + +“Not you. I’m fear’d you have some ill plans agate, that bring you +about folk’s houses at this time o’ night. If you’ve any +followers—housebreakers or such like—anywhere near, you may tell them +we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, +and guns.” Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to +and bolted it within. + +This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering—a throe of true +despair—rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another +step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned—I wrung my +hands—I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last +hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation—this banishment +from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude +was gone—at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to +regain. + +“I can but die,” I said, “and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His +will in silence.” + +These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my +misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain +there—dumb and still. + +“All men must die,” said a voice quite close at hand; “but all are not +condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would +be if you perished here of want.” + +“Who or what speaks?” I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and +incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was +near—what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented +me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed +to the door. + +“Is it you, Mr. St. John?” cried Hannah. + +“Yes—yes; open quickly.” + +“Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come +in—your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad +folks about. There has been a beggar-woman—I declare she is not gone +yet!—laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say!” + +“Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your +duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and +listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case—I must at +least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the +house.” + + +Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman + +With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean, +bright kitchen—on the very hearth—trembling, sickening; conscious of an +aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two +ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing +at me. + +“St. John, who is it?” I heard one ask. + +“I cannot tell: I found her at the door,” was the reply. + +“She does look white,” said Hannah. + +“As white as clay or death,” was responded. “She will fall: let her +sit.” + +And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still +possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak. + +“Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she +is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!” + +“A mere spectre!” + +“Is she ill, or only famished?” + +“Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of +bread.” + +Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and +the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and +put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it, +and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too, +the same balm-like emotion spoke: “Try to eat.” + +“Yes—try,” repeated Mary gently; and Mary’s hand removed my sodden +bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at +first, eagerly soon. + +“Not too much at first—restrain her,” said the brother; “she has had +enough.” And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread. + +“A little more, St. John—look at the avidity in her eyes.” + +“No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now—ask her her +name.” + +I felt I could speak, and I answered—“My name is Jane Elliott.” Anxious +as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an _alias_. + +“And where do you live? Where are your friends?” + +I was silent. + +“Can we send for any one you know?” + +I shook my head. + +“What account can you give of yourself?” + +Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and +once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer +outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off +the mendicant—to resume my natural manner and character. I began once +more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account—which at +present I was far too weak to render—I said after a brief pause— + +“Sir, I can give you no details to-night.” + +“But what, then,” said he, “do you expect me to do for you?” + +“Nothing,” I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana +took the word— + +“Do you mean,” she asked, “that we have now given you what aid you +require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?” + +I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct +both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her +compassionate gaze with a smile, I said—“I will trust you. If I were a +masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your +hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me +as you like; but excuse me from much discourse—my breath is short—I +feel a spasm when I speak.” All three surveyed me, and all three were +silent. + +“Hannah,” said Mr. St. John, at last, “let her sit there at present, +and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder +of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and +talk the matter over.” + +They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned—I could not tell +which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the +genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere +long, with the servant’s aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my +dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I +thanked God—experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of +grateful joy—and slept. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very +dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but +few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small +room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on +it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been +almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time—of the change +from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one +entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could +understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could +not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible. +Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed +me. I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not +understand me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. +Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They would +whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside— + +“It is very well we took her in.” + +“Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the +morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone +through?” + +“Strange hardships, I imagine—poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer!” + +“She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of +speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, +though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine.” + +“She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like +it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy +would be agreeable.” + +Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the +hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion +to, myself. I was comforted. + +Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of +lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted +fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was +sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been +overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a +while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid +enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few words, +in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man +little accustomed to expansive comment, “Rather an unusual physiognomy; +certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.” + +“Far otherwise,” responded Diana. “To speak truth, St. John, my heart +rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit +her permanently.” + +“That is hardly likely,” was the reply. “You will find she is some +young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has +probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring +her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her +face which make me sceptical of her tractability.” He stood considering +me some minutes; then added, “She looks sensible, but not at all +handsome.” + +“She is so ill, St. John.” + +“Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of +beauty are quite wanting in those features.” + +On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise +in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, +about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with relish: the +food was good—void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned +what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and +revived: ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me. I +wished to rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired +apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I +felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the +humiliation. + +On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My +black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were +removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite +decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered +presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb +and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every +five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on +me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and +once more, clean and respectable looking—no speck of the dirt, no trace +of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left—I +crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow +low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen. + +It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous +fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most +difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been +loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds +among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: +latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in +tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled. + +“What, you have got up!” she said. “You are better, then. You may sit +you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will.” + +She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about, +examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to +me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly— + +“Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?” + +I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the +question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered +quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness— + +“You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any more +than yourself or your young ladies.” + +After a pause she said, “I dunnut understand that: you’ve like no +house, nor no brass, I guess?” + +“The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does +not make a beggar in your sense of the word.” + +“Are you book-learned?” she inquired presently. + +“Yes, very.” + +“But you’ve never been to a boarding-school?” + +“I was at a boarding-school eight years.” + +She opened her eyes wide. “Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for, then?” + +“I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are +you going to do with these gooseberries?” I inquired, as she brought +out a basket of the fruit. + +“Mak’ ’em into pies.” + +“Give them to me and I’ll pick them.” + +“Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought.” + +“But I must do something. Let me have them.” + +She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my +dress, “lest,” as she said, “I should mucky it.” + +“Ye’ve not been used to sarvant’s wark, I see by your hands,” she +remarked. “Happen ye’ve been a dressmaker?” + +“No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don’t trouble +your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we +are.” + +“Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House.” + +“And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?” + +“Nay; he doesn’t live here: he is only staying a while. When he is at +home, he is in his own parish at Morton.” + +“That village a few miles off? + +“Aye.” + +“And what is he?” + +“He is a parson.” + +I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I +had asked to see the clergyman. “This, then, was his father’s +residence?” + +“Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and +gurt (great) grandfather afore him.” + +“The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?” + +“Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name.” + +“And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?” + +“Yes.” + +“Their father is dead?” + +“Dead three weeks sin’ of a stroke.” + +“They have no mother?” + +“The mistress has been dead this mony a year.” + +“Have you lived with the family long?” + +“I’ve lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three.” + +“That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will +say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a +beggar.” + +She again regarded me with a surprised stare. “I believe,” she said, “I +was quite mista’en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats +goes about, you mun forgie me.” + +“And though,” I continued, rather severely, “you wished to turn me from +the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog.” + +“Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o’ th’ +childer nor of mysel: poor things! They’ve like nobody to tak’ care on +’em but me. I’m like to look sharpish.” + +I maintained a grave silence for some minutes. + +“You munnut think too hardly of me,” she again remarked. + +“But I do think hardly of you,” I said; “and I’ll tell you why—not so +much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an +impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I +had no ‘brass’ and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived +have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought +not to consider poverty a crime.” + +“No more I ought,” said she: “Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I +wor wrang—but I’ve clear a different notion on you now to what I had. +You look a raight down dacent little crater.” + +“That will do—I forgive you now. Shake hands.” + +She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile +illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends. + +Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she +made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details +about her deceased master and mistress, and “the childer,” as she +called the young people. + +Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and +of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged to the +Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, “aboon two +hundred year old—for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to +compare wi’ Mr. Oliver’s grand hall down i’ Morton Vale. But she could +remember Bill Oliver’s father a journeyman needlemaker; and th’ Rivers +wor gentry i’ th’ owd days o’ th’ Henrys, as onybody might see by +looking into th’ registers i’ Morton Church vestry.” Still, she +allowed, “the owd maister was like other folk—naught mich out o’ t’ +common way: stark mad o’ shooting, and farming, and sich like.” The +mistress was different. She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and +the “bairns” had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these +parts, nor ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost +from the time they could speak; and they had always been “of a mak’ of +their own.” Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a +parson; and the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places +as governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago +lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; +and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must +provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a long +while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their +father’s death; but they did so like Marsh End and Morton, and all +these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many other +grand towns; but they always said there was no place like home; and +then they were so agreeable with each other—never fell out nor +“threaped.” She did not know where there was such a family for being +united. + +Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two +ladies and their brother were now. + +“Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour +to tea.” + +They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by +the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed +through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and +calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be +able to come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me. + +“You should have waited for my leave to descend,” she said. “You still +look very pale—and so thin! Poor child!—poor girl!” + +Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She +possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face +seemed to me full of charm. Mary’s countenance was equally +intelligent—her features equally pretty; but her expression was more +reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana looked +and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was +my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like +hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to +an active will. + +“And what business have you here?” she continued. “It is not your +place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like +to be free, even to license—but you are a visitor, and must go into the +parlour.” + +“I am very well here.” + +“Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour.” + +“Besides, the fire is too hot for you,” interposed Mary. + +“To be sure,” added her sister. “Come, you must be obedient.” And still +holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room. + +“Sit there,” she said, placing me on the sofa, “while we take our +things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise +in our little moorland home—to prepare our own meals when we are so +inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing.” + +She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat +opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined, first, the +parlour, and then its occupant. + +The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet +comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were very +bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few +strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated +the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and +an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous ornament in the +room—not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a +lady’s desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table: +everything—including the carpet and curtains—looked at once well worn +and well saved. + +Mr. St. John—sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the +walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips +mutely sealed—was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue instead +of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young—perhaps from +twenty-eight to thirty—tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was +like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic +nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an +English face comes so near the antique models as did his. He might well +be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being +so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his +high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by +careless locks of fair hair. + +This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it +describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, +an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, +there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to +my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or +eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one +glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she passed in and out, in +the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on the top +of the oven. + +“Eat that now,” she said: “you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had +nothing but some gruel since breakfast.” + +I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers +now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, +fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an +unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his +gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto +kept it averted from the stranger. + +“You are very hungry,” he said. + +“I am, sir.” It is my way—it always was my way, by instinct—ever to +meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness. + +“It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the +last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the +cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still not +immoderately.” + +“I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir,” was my very +clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer. + +“No,” he said coolly: “when you have indicated to us the residence of +your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home.” + +“That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being +absolutely without home and friends.” + +The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no +suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak +particularly of the young ladies. St. John’s eyes, though clear enough +in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He +seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people’s +thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of +keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than +to encourage. + +“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that you are completely isolated from +every connection?” + +“I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess +to admittance under any roof in England.” + +“A most singular position at your age!” + +Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the +table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon +explained the quest. + +“You have never been married? You are a spinster?” + +Diana laughed. “Why, she can’t be above seventeen or eighteen years +old, St. John,” said she. + +“I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No.” + +I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating +recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw +the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by +turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the +colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had +excited forced out tears as well as colour. + +“Where did you last reside?” he now asked. + +“You are too inquisitive, St. John,” murmured Mary in a low voice; but +he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and +piercing look. + +“The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived, is +my secret,” I replied concisely. + +“Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both +from St. John and every other questioner,” remarked Diana. + +“Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you,” +he said. “And you need help, do you not?” + +“I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist +will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the +remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries +of life.” + +“I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid +you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then, tell +me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you _can_ do.” + +I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; +as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung +nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge +steadily. + +“Mr. Rivers,” I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked +at me, openly and without diffidence, “you and your sisters have done +me a great service—the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have +rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit +conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to +a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the +history of the wanderer you have harboured, as I can tell without +compromising my own peace of mind—my own security, moral and physical, +and that of others. + +“I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I +could know them. I was brought up a dependent; educated in a charitable +institution. I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where +I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacher—Lowood Orphan +Asylum, ——shire: you will have heard of it, Mr. Rivers?—the Rev. Robert +Brocklehurst is the treasurer.” + +“I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school.” + +“I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I +obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged to +leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I cannot +and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would +sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from +culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a +time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a +paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two points +in planning my departure—speed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to +leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in +my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that +brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite +destitute. I slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two +days without crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of time did +I taste food; and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and +despair almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to +perish of want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your +roof. I know all your sisters have done for me since—for I have not +been insensible during my seeming torpor—and I owe to their +spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your +evangelical charity.” + +“Don’t make her talk any more now, St. John,” said Diana, as I paused; +“she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa and sit +down now, Miss Elliott.” + +I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the _alias_: I had +forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, +noticed it at once. + +“You said your name was Jane Elliott?” he observed. + +“I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be +called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear it, it +sounds strange to me.” + +“Your real name you will not give?” + +“No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would +lead to it, I avoid.” + +“You are quite right, I am sure,” said Diana. “Now do, brother, let her +be at peace a while.” + +But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as +imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever. + +“You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality—you would +wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters’ compassion, +and, above all, with my _charity_ (I am quite sensible of the +distinction drawn, nor do I resent it—it is just): you desire to be +independent of us?” + +“I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek +work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the +meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another +essay of the horrors of homeless destitution.” + +“Indeed you _shall_ stay here,” said Diana, putting her white hand on +my head. “You _shall_,” repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative +sincerity which seemed natural to her. + +“My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you,” said Mr. St. +John, “as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a +half-frozen bird some wintry wind might have driven through their +casement. _I_ feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping +yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is +narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be +of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of +small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can +offer.” + +“She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she +_can_ do,” answered Diana for me; “and you know, St. John, she has no +choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as +you.” + +“I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a +servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better,” I answered. + +“Right,” said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. “If such is your spirit, I +promise to aid you, in my own time and way.” + +He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I +soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my +present strength would permit. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. +In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all +day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all +their occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid +them when and where they would allow me. There was a reviving pleasure +in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time—the +pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and +principles. + +I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted +me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their sequestered +home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, +its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged +firs—all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, +dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers but of the hardiest +species would bloom—found a charm both potent and permanent. They clung +to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling—to the hollow vale +into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, +and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the +wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, +or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little +mossy-faced lambs:—they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect +enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and share +both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I +felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline +of swell and sweep—on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell +by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, +and mellow granite crag. These details were just to me what they were +to them—so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast +and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of +sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for +me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them—wound round my +faculties the same spell that entranced theirs. + +Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished and +better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of +knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent +me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening +what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought; opinion met +opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly. + +If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana. +Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous. In +her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of +flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension. I +could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of +vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana’s +feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and +Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but +touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her: I +saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar +pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual +affection—of the strongest kind—was the result. They discovered I could +draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service. My +skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed +them. Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would +take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus +occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks +like days. + +As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and +rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One reason of +the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively +seldom at home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to +visiting the sick and poor among the scattered population of his +parish. + +No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or +fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his +hat, and, followed by his father’s old pointer, Carlo, go out on his +mission of love or duty—I scarcely know in which light he regarded it. +Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would +expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than +cheerful— + +“And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from +these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I +propose to myself?” + +Diana and Mary’s general answer to this question was a sigh, and some +minutes of apparently mournful meditation. + +But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to +friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even +of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in +his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental +serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every +sincere Christian and practical philanthropist. Often, of an evening, +when he sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would +cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver +himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it was +perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and +changeful dilation of his eye. + +I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight +it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a +strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection +for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was +more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the +sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for +the sake of their soothing silence—never seek out or dwell upon the +thousand peaceful delights they could yield. + +Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an +opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its calibre +when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could +describe that sermon: but it is past my power. I cannot even render +faithfully the effect it produced on me. + +It began calm—and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, +it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal +breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous +language. This grew to force—compressed, condensed, controlled. The +heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: +neither were softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an +absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic +doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each +reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. +When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened +by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed +to me—I know not whether equally so to others—that the eloquence to +which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid +dregs of disappointment—where moved troubling impulses of insatiate +yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John +Rivers—pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was—had not yet found +that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found +it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my +broken idol and lost elysium—regrets to which I have latterly avoided +referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly. + +Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor +House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited +them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, +where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty +members they were regarded only as humble dependents, and who neither +knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and appreciated only +their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their +cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said nothing +to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it +became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, +being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to +approach the window-recess—which his table, chair, and desk consecrated +as a kind of study—and I was going to speak, though not very well +knowing in what words to frame my inquiry—for it is at all times +difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as +his—when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a +dialogue. + +Looking up as I drew near—“You have a question to ask of me?” he said. + +“Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer +myself to undertake?” + +“I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you +seemed both useful and happy here—as my sisters had evidently become +attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure—I deemed +it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their +approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.” + +“And they will go in three days now?” I said. + +“Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: +Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up.” + +I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first +broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection: +his look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to +recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious +interest to me. + +“What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay +will not have increased the difficulty of securing it.” + +“Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, +and you to accept.” + +He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew +impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance +fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as +words could have done, and with less trouble. + +“You need be in no hurry to hear,” he said: “let me frankly tell you, I +have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain, +recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, +it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find +that, when I have paid my father’s debts, all the patrimony remaining +to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, +and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in +front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole +descendants of the race, two earn the dependent’s crust among +strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native +country—not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound +to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day +when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his +shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest +members he is one, shall give the word, ‘Rise, follow Me!’” + +St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, +deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of +glance. He resumed— + +“And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service +of poverty and obscurity. _You_ may even think it degrading—for I see +now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes +lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the +educated; but _I_ consider that no service degrades which can better +our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the +Christian labourer’s task of tillage is appointed him—the scantier the +meed his toil brings—the higher the honour. His, under such +circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of +the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, +Himself.” + +“Well?” I said, as he again paused—“proceed.” + +He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to +read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page. +The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his +succeeding observations. + +“I believe you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it +for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently +keep the narrow and narrowing—the tranquil, hidden office of English +country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to +repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.” + +“Do explain,” I urged, when he halted once more. + +“I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,—how trivial—how +cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, +and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the +course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to +the utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years +ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every +hope of progress. I established one for boys: I mean now to open a +second school for girls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with +a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’s house. Her +salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, +very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; +the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr. Oliver, the +proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The same +lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the +workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial +offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation +of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will +you be this mistress?” + +He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an +indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing +all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell +in what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble—but +then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding—but +then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was +independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul +like iron: it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading, I +made my decision. + +“I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my +heart.” + +“But you comprehend me?” he said. “It is a village school: your +scholars will be only poor girls—cottagers’ children—at the best, +farmers’ daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will +be all you will have to teach. What will you do with your +accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of your +mind—sentiments—tastes?” + +“Save them till they are wanted. They will keep.” + +“You know what you undertake, then?” + +“I do.” + +He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased +and deeply gratified. + +“And when will you commence the exercise of your function?” + +“I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, +next week.” + +“Very well: so be it.” + +He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at +me. He shook his head. + +“What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?” I asked. + +“You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!” + +“Why? What is your reason for saying so?” + +“I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises +the maintenance of an even tenor in life.” + +“I am not ambitious.” + +He started at the word “ambitious.” He repeated, “No. What made you +think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find +it out?” + +“I was speaking of myself.” + +“Well, if you are not ambitious, you are—” He paused. + +“What?” + +“I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have +misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human +affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure +you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to +devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of +stimulus: any more than I can be content,” he added, with emphasis, “to +live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature, that God +gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed—made +useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached +contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of +hewers of wood and drawers of water in God’s service—I, His ordained +minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and +principles must be reconciled by some means.” + +He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in +the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me. + +Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached +for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried to appear as +usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could +not be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated that this would +be a different parting from any they had ever yet known. It would +probably, as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years: it +might be a parting for life. + +“He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves,” she said: “natural +affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane; +but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in +some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my +conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe +decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It is +right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my heart!” And the tears gushed +to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work. + +“We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother,” +she murmured. + +At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by +fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that “misfortunes never +come singly,” and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip +between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a +letter. He entered. + +“Our uncle John is dead,” said he. + +Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings +appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting. + +“Dead?” repeated Diana. + +“Yes.” + +She riveted a searching gaze on her brother’s face. “And what then?” +she demanded, in a low voice. + +“What then, Die?” he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of +feature. “What then? Why—nothing. Read.” + +He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to +Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All +three looked at each other, and all three smiled—a dreary, pensive +smile enough. + +“Amen! We can yet live,” said Diana at last. + +“At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,” remarked +Mary. + +“Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what _might +have been_,” said Mr. Rivers, “and contrasts it somewhat too vividly +with what _is_.” + +He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out. + +For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me. + +“Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries,” she said, “and think +us hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a +relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was +my mother’s brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by +his advice that my father risked most of his property in the +speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them: +they parted in anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged +afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a +fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no +near kindred but ourselves and one other person, not more closely +related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would +atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter +informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, +with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, +Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning rings. He +had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp +is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news. Mary and I would +have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. +John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good it would have +enabled him to do.” + +This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further +reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day +I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it +for distant B——. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the +parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +My home, then, when I at last find a home,—is a cottage; a little room +with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted +chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and +dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same +dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; +small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the +kindness of my gentle and generous friends has increased that, by a +modest stock of such things as are necessary. + +It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little +orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth. +This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But +three of the number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a +few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the district. +At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other’s +language. Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as +ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a +disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad +little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of +gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, +refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their +hearts as in those of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these +germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office. +Much enjoyment I do not expect in the life opening before me: yet it +will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, +yield me enough to live on from day to day. + +Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in +yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to +deceive myself, I must reply—No: I felt desolate to a degree. I +felt—yes, idiot that I am—I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step +which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I +was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of +all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself +too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong—that is a great +step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I +shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, +they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the +happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my +scholars may substitute gratification for disgust. + +Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have +surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful +effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen +asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst +the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, +Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he +would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He _did_ love +me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet +homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else +shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is +what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am +I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a +slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss +one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the +next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy +mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? + +Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, +and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God +directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the +guidance! + +Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my +door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet +fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a +mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains— + +“The air was mild, the dew was balm.” + + +While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find +myself ere long weeping—and why? For the doom which had reft me from +adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate +grief and fatal fury—consequences of my departure—which might now, +perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope +of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face +aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton—I say +_lonely_, for in that bend of it visible to me there was no building +apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, +quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. +Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my head against +the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket +which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up. +A dog—old Carlo, Mr. Rivers’ pointer, as I saw in a moment—was pushing +the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leant upon it with folded +arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on +me. I asked him to come in. + +“No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters +left for you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper.” + +I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I +thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were +doubtless very visible upon it. + +“Have you found your first day’s work harder than you expected?” he +asked. + +“Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my +scholars very well.” + +“But perhaps your accommodations—your cottage—your furniture—have +disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; +but—” I interrupted— + +“My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and +commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not +absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a +carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had +nothing—I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, +a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of +my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.” + +“But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you +is dark and empty.” + +“I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less +to grow impatient under one of loneliness.” + +“Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your +good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the +vacillating fears of Lot’s wife. What you had left before I saw you, of +course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every +temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present +career steadily, for some months at least.” + +“It is what I mean to do,” I answered. St. John continued— + +“It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the +bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God +has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when +our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get—when our will +strains after a path we may not follow—we need neither starve from +inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another +nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to +taste—and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road +as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if +rougher than it. + +“A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had +made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me +to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world—for the more +exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, +author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart +of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, +a luster after power, beat under my curate’s surplice. I considered; my +life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season +of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped +existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds—my powers +heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread +their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear +which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and +eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, +were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary. + +“A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind +changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving +nothing of bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal. +My father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I +have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a +successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings +broken through or cut asunder—a last conflict with human weakness, in +which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I _will_ +overcome—and I leave Europe for the East.” + +He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, +when he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at +which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the path +leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that +grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling +sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, +sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed— + +“Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is +quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears +and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have +your back towards me now.” + +It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those +musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, +he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in +which the speaker had surprised him—his arm resting on the gate, his +face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured +deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. +There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white—a +youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after +bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long +veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect +beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as +sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure +hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies +generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm +was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and +delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely +pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which +encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow +which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such +repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, +and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the +even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the +ornament of rich, plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which, +combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as +I looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart. +Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her +usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, +with a grand-dame’s bounty. + +What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked +myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as +naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He +had already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a +humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket. + +“A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone,” he said, as he +crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot. + +“Oh, I only came home from S——” (she mentioned the name of a large town +some twenty miles distant) “this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened +your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my +bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?” +pointing to me. + +“It is,” said St. John. + +“Do you think you shall like Morton?” she asked of me, with a direct +and naïve simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like. + +“I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.” + +“Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?” + +“Quite.” + +“Do you like your house?” + +“Very much.” + +“Have I furnished it nicely?” + +“Very nicely, indeed.” + +“And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?” + +“You have indeed. She is teachable and handy.” (This then, I thought, +is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of +fortune, as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of the +planets presided over her birth, I wonder?) + +“I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes,” she added. “It will +be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr. +Rivers, I have been _so_ gay during my stay at S——. Last night, or +rather this morning, I was dancing till two o’clock. The ——th regiment +are stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most +agreeable men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and +scissor merchants to shame.” + +It seemed to me that Mr. St. John’s under lip protruded, and his upper +lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, +and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the +laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from +the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning +gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well +became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes. + +As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. “Poor +Carlo loves me,” said she. “_He_ is not stern and distant to his +friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent.” + +As she patted the dog’s head, bending with native grace before his +young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master’s face. I +saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless +emotion. Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a +man as she for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, +weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and +made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, +I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He responded +neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made him. + +“Papa says you never come to see us now,” continued Miss Oliver, +looking up. “You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this +evening, and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?” + +“It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,” answered St. +John. + +“Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when +papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no +business to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, _do_ come. Why are you so very +shy, and so very sombre?” She filled up the hiatus his silence left by +a reply of her own. + +“I forgot!” she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if +shocked at herself. “I am so giddy and thoughtless! _Do_ excuse me. It +had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for +joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is +shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and see +papa.” + +“Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night.” + +Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the +effort it cost him thus to refuse. + +“Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay +any longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening!” + +She held out her hand. He just touched it. “Good evening!” he repeated, +in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment +returned. + +“Are you well?” she asked. Well might she put the question: his face +was blanched as her gown. + +“Quite well,” he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She +went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she +tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, +never turned at all. + +This spectacle of another’s suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts +from exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her +brother “inexorable as death.” She had not exaggerated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and +faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time +elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and +their nature. Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed +to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon +found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst +the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference +rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules, +and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping +rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves +obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few +examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of +excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration. These +soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their persons +neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly +manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even +surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I +began personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I +had amongst my scholars several farmers’ daughters: young women grown, +almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught +the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of +needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them—characters +desirous of information and disposed for improvement—with whom I passed +many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then +(the farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions. There was an +enjoyment in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a +consideration—a scrupulous regard to their feelings—to which they were +not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and +benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it +made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received. + +I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, +I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with +friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the +regard of working people, is like “sitting in sunshine, calm and +sweet;” serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this +period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than +sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of +this calm, this useful existence—after a day passed in honourable +exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading +contentedly alone—I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams +many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the +stormy—dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, +with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met +Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of +being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his +hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him—the hope of passing a +lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and +fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated. Then +I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the +still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the +burst of passion. By nine o’clock the next morning I was punctually +opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties +of the day. + +Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the +school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would +canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery +servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple +habit, with her Amazon’s cap of black velvet placed gracefully above +the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can +scarcely be imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic +building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children. +She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving +his daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the +visitress pierce the young pastor’s heart. A sort of instinct seemed to +warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it; and when he was +looking quite away from the door, if she appeared at it, his cheek +would glow, and his marble-seeming features, though they refused to +relax, changed indescribably, and in their very quiescence became +expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than working muscle or +darting glance could indicate. + +Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could +not, conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she +went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly +in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, +with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, “I +love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that +keeps me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. +But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged +round it. It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed.” + +And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud +would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily +from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so +heroic and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the +world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he +would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of +her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not +bind all that he had in his nature—the rover, the aspirant, the poet, +the priest—in the limits of a single passion. He could not—he would +not—renounce his wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the +peace of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, +despite his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence. + +Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I +had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise: +she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly +selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely +spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it, +when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), +but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth; +ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she +was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex +like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly +impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for +instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I +liked my pupil Adèle; except that, for a child whom we have watched +over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an +equally attractive adult acquaintance. + +She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers, +only, certainly, she allowed, “not one-tenth so handsome, though I was +a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel.” I was, however, +good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a _lusus naturæ_, she +affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous +history, if known, would make a delightful romance. + +One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless +yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and +the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French +books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then +my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a +pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views +from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. +She was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with +delight. + +“Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a +love—what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first +school in S——. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?” + +“With pleasure,” I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at +the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then +on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only +ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with +all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, +and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring +it; and, as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit +another day. + +She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself +accompanied her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and +grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright +flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud +personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond’s +portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of +it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at +Vale Hall. + +I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant +evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and +pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he +entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong +terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he +only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, +and would soon quit it for one more suitable. + +“Indeed,” cried Rosamond, “she is clever enough to be a governess in a +high family, papa.” + +I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in +the land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers—of the Rivers family—with +great respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; +that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once +belonged to them; that even now he considered the representative of +that house might, if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He +accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have +formed the design of going out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a +valuable life away. It appeared, then, that her father would throw no +obstacle in the way of Rosamond’s union with St. John. Mr. Oliver +evidently regarded the young clergyman’s good birth, old name, and +sacred profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune. + +It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after +helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of +a penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright—scoured +floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself +neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would. + +The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got +my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier +occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver’s miniature. The head was +finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery +to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft +curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the +lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these +nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting +St. John Rivers. + +“I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,” he said. “Not, I +hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel +lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up +wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and +he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine +productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those +days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era +are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or +repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon +gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their +existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. +Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, +and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius +banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the +thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without +their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell +of your own meanness. + +While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for +“Marmion” it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall +figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up at +him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his +heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I had +then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination +to do him some good, if I could. + +“With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself +too far: locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses, +imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about +this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make +him talk.” + +I said first, “Take a chair, Mr. Rivers.” But he answered, as he always +did, that he could not stay. “Very well,” I responded, mentally, “stand +if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude +is at least as bad for you as it is for me. I’ll try if I cannot +discover the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in +that marble breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of +sympathy.” + +“Is this portrait like?” I asked bluntly. + +“Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely.” + +“You did, Mr. Rivers.” + +He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me +astonished. “Oh, that is nothing yet,” I muttered within. “I don’t mean +to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I’m prepared to go to +considerable lengths.” I continued, “You observed it closely and +distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again,” and I +rose and placed it in his hand. + +“A well-executed picture,” he said; “very soft, clear colouring; very +graceful and correct drawing.” + +“Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it +like?” + +Mastering some hesitation, he answered, “Miss Oliver, I presume.” + +“Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will +promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very +picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I +don’t wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would +deem worthless.” + +He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer +he held it, the more he seemed to covet it. “It is like!” he murmured; +“the eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. +It smiles!” + +“Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? +Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, +would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or +would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and +distress?” + +He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute, +disturbed: he again surveyed the picture. + +“That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be +judicious or wise is another question.” + +Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that +her father was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my +views than St. John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to +advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the +possessor of Mr. Oliver’s large fortune, he might do as much good with +it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to +waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered— + +“As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were +to take to yourself the original at once.” + +By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table +before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over +it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I +saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed +unapproachable—to hear it thus freely handled—was beginning to be felt +by him as a new pleasure—an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often +really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more +than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and +to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent sea” of their +souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations. + +“She likes you, I am sure,” said I, as I stood behind his chair, “and +her father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl—rather +thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself +and her. You ought to marry her.” + +“_Does_ she like me?” he asked. + +“Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you +continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so +often.” + +“It is very pleasant to hear this,” he said—“very: go on for another +quarter of an hour.” And he actually took out his watch and laid it +upon the table to measure the time. + +“But where is the use of going on,” I asked, “when you are probably +preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to +fetter your heart?” + +“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am +doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and +overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and +with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good +intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a +nectarous flood—the young germs swamped—delicious poison cankering +them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at +Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver’s feet: she is talking to me with +her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has +copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine—I am +hers—this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say +nothing—my heart is full of delight—my senses are entranced—let the +time I marked pass in peace.” + +I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood +silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid +the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth. + +“Now,” said he, “that little space was given to delirium and delusion. +I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck +voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was +burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: +her promises are hollow—her offers false: I see and know all this.” + +I gazed at him in wonder. + +“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so +wildly—with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object +of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating—I experience +at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make +me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should +discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months’ +rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.” + +“Strange indeed!” I could not help ejaculating. + +“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her +charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they +are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate +in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female +apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s wife? No!” + +“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.” + +“Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on +earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band +who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their +race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance—of substituting +peace for war—freedom for bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of +heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than +the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to +live for.” + +After a considerable pause, I said—“And Miss Oliver? Are her +disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?” + +“Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than +a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; +and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I +should do.” + +“You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are +wasting away.” + +“No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet +unsettled—my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning, +I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been +so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to +come yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six.” + +“You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the +schoolroom.” + +Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined +that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in +this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with +strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had +passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold +of confidence, and won a place by their heart’s very hearthstone. + +“You _are_ original,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave +in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to +assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them +more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance +of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I +shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I +know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the +convulsion of the soul. _That_ is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in +the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am—a cold hard man.” + +I smiled incredulously. + +“You have taken my confidence by storm,” he continued, “and now it is +much at your service. I am simply, in my original state—stripped of +that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human +deformity—a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all +the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not feeling, +is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do +more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, +industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve +great ends and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with +interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, +energetic woman: not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone +through, or what you still suffer.” + +“You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher,” I said. + +“No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I +believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a +pagan, but a Christian philosopher—a follower of the sect of Jesus. As +His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I +advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she +has cultivated my original qualities thus:—From the minute germ, +natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, +philanthropy. From the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has +reared a due sense of the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power +and renown for my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread +my Master’s kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the +cross. So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials +to the best account; pruning and training nature. But she could not +eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated ‘till this mortal shall put +on immortality.’” + +Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my +palette. Once more he looked at the portrait. + +“She _is_ lovely,” he murmured. “She is well named the Rose of the +World, indeed!” + +“And may I not paint one like it for you?” + +“_Cui bono_? No.” + +He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was +accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from +being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was +impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it +up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me, +inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance that +seemed to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and +dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, +as if to speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was. + +“What is the matter?” I asked. + +“Nothing in the world,” was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw +him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in +his glove; and, with one hasty nod and “good-afternoon,” he vanished. + +“Well!” I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, “that caps +the globe, however!” + +I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few +dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I +pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and +being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon +forgot it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm +continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and +blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost +impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent +the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting +nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the +tempest, I lit a candle, took down “Marmion,” and beginning— + +“Day set on Norham’s castled steep, +And Tweed’s fair river broad and deep, + And Cheviot’s mountains lone; +The massive towers, the donjon keep, +The flanking walls that round them sweep, + In yellow lustre shone”— + + +I soon forgot storm in music. + +I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St. +John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen +hurricane—the howling darkness—and stood before me: the cloak that +covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in +consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up +vale that night. + +“Any ill news?” I demanded. “Has anything happened?” + +“No. How very easily alarmed you are!” he answered, removing his cloak +and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again coolly +pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow +from his boots. + +“I shall sully the purity of your floor,” said he, “but you must excuse +me for once.” Then he approached the fire. “I have had hard work to get +here, I assure you,” he observed, as he warmed his hands over the +flame. “One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite +soft yet.” + +“But why are you come?” I could not forbear saying. + +“Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask +it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my +mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced +the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who +is impatient to hear the sequel.” + +He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I +began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his +was a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that +handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it +did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and +let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where +it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so +plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would say something I could at +least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his +lip: he was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his +face. A perhaps uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was +moved to say— + +“I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that +you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own +health.” + +“Not at all,” said he: “I care for myself when necessary. I am well +now. What do you see amiss in me?” + +This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed +that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I +was silenced. + +He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye +dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say +something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the +door, which was behind him. + +“No, no!” he responded shortly and somewhat testily. + +“Well,” I reflected, “if you won’t talk, you may be still; I’ll let you +alone now, and return to my book.” + +So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of “Marmion.” He soon +stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out +a morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in +silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain +to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, +in impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but +talk I would. + +“Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?” + +“Not since the letter I showed you a week ago.” + +“There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You +will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?” + +“I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me.” Baffled so +far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the school +and my scholars. + +“Mary Garrett’s mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this +morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry +Close—they would have come to-day but for the snow.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Mr. Oliver pays for two.” + +“Does he?” + +“He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas.” + +“I know.” + +“Was it your suggestion?” + +“No.” + +“Whose, then?” + +“His daughter’s, I think.” + +“It is like her: she is so good-natured.” + +“Yes.” + +Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It +aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me. + +“Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire,” he said. + +Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied. + +“Half-an-hour ago,” he pursued, “I spoke of my impatience to hear the +sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better +managed by my assuming the narrator’s part, and converting you into a +listener. Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story +will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often +regain a degree of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the +rest, whether trite or novel, it is short. + +“Twenty years ago, a poor curate—never mind his name at this +moment—fell in love with a rich man’s daughter; she fell in love with +him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends, who +consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two +years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by +side under one slab. (I have seen their grave; it formed part of the +pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old +cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in ——shire.) They left a +daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity received in her lap—cold as +that of the snow-drift I almost stuck fast in to-night. Charity carried +the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it +was reared by an aunt-in-law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of +Gateshead. You start—did you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat +scrambling along the rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn +before I had it repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted +by rats.—To proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it +was happy or not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at +the end of that time she transferred it to a place you know—being no +other than Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself. It seems +her career there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a +teacher, like yourself—really it strikes me there are parallel points +in her history and yours—she left it to be a governess: there, again, +your fates were analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a +certain Mr. Rochester.” + +“Mr. Rivers!” I interrupted. + +“I can guess your feelings,” he said, “but restrain them for a while: I +have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester’s character +I know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable +marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered +he had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent conduct +and proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event +transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was +discovered she was gone—no one could tell when, where, or how. She had +left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had +been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of +information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be +found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been +put in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. +Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is +it not an odd tale?” + +“Just tell me this,” said I, “and since you know so much, you surely +_can_ tell it me—what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he +doing? Is he well?” + +“I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never +mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have +adverted to. You should rather ask the name of the governess—the nature +of the event which requires her appearance.” + +“Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester?” + +“I suppose not.” + +“But they wrote to him?” + +“Of course.” + +“And what did he say? Who has his letters?” + +“Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from +Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed ‘Alice Fairfax.’” + +I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he +had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation +to some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for his severe +sufferings—what object for his strong passions—had he sought there? I +dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master—once almost my +husband—whom I had often called “my dear Edward!” + +“He must have been a bad man,” observed Mr. Rivers. + +“You don’t know him—don’t pronounce an opinion upon him,” I said, with +warmth. + +“Very well,” he answered quietly: “and indeed my head is otherwise +occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since you won’t ask +the governess’s name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay! I have it +here—it is always more satisfactory to see important points written +down, fairly committed to black and white.” + +And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought +through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of +paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of +ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the +portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced +in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words “JANE EYRE”—the work +doubtless of some moment of abstraction. + +“Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:” he said, “the advertisements +demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.—I confess I had my +suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once +resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the _alias_?” + +“Yes—yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr. +Rochester than you do.” + +“Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about +Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime, +you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why +Mr. Briggs sought after you—what he wanted with you.” + +“Well, what did he want?” + +“Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that +he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich—merely +that—nothing more.” + +“I!—rich?” + +“Yes, you, rich—quite an heiress.” + +Silence succeeded. + +“You must prove your identity of course,” resumed St. John presently: +“a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on +immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; +Briggs has the will and the necessary documents.” + +Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted +in a moment from indigence to wealth—a very fine thing; but not a +matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then +there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: +_this_ is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: +all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are +the same. One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing +one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to +ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave +cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn +brow. + +Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words, +Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead—my only relative; ever +since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of +one day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only +to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It +was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious—yes, I +felt that—_that_ thought swelled my heart. + +“You unbend your forehead at last,” said Mr. Rivers. “I thought Medusa +had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you +will ask how much you are worth?” + +“How much am I worth?” + +“Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of—twenty thousand pounds, I +think they say—but what is that?” + +“Twenty thousand pounds?” + +Here was a new stunner—I had been calculating on four or five thousand. +This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I +had never heard laugh before, laughed now. + +“Well,” said he, “if you had committed a murder, and I had told you +your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast.” + +“It is a large sum—don’t you think there is a mistake?” + +“No mistake at all.” + +“Perhaps you have read the figures wrong—it may be two thousand!” + +“It is written in letters, not figures,—twenty thousand.” + +I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical +powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions +for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on. + +“If it were not such a very wild night,” he said, “I would send Hannah +down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left +alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as +I: her legs are not quite so long: so I must e’en leave you to your +sorrows. Good-night.” + +He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. + +“Stop one minute!” I cried. + +“Well?” + +“It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he +knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way +place, had the power to aid in my discovery.” + +“Oh! I am a clergyman,” he said; “and the clergy are often appealed to +about odd matters.” Again the latch rattled. + +“No; that does not satisfy me!” I exclaimed: and indeed there was +something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of +allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever. + +“It is a very strange piece of business,” I added; “I must know more +about it.” + +“Another time.” + +“No; to-night!—to-night!” and as he turned from the door, I placed +myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed. + +“You certainly shall not go till you have told me all,” I said. + +“I would rather not just now.” + +“You shall!—you must!” + +“I would rather Diana or Mary informed you.” + +Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified +it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so. + +“But I apprised you that I was a hard man,” said he, “difficult to +persuade.” + +“And I am a hard woman,—impossible to put off.” + + +And I am a hard woman,—impossible to put off + +“And then,” he pursued, “I am cold: no fervour infects me.” + +“Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed +all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to +my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be +forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a +sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know.” + +“Well, then,” he said, “I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your +perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must +know some day,—as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?” + +“Of course: that was all settled before.” + +“You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?—that I was +christened St. John Eyre Rivers?” + +“No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your +initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I +never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely—” + +I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express, +the thought that rushed upon me—that embodied itself,—that, in a +second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit +themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been +lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,—every +ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the +matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot +expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must +repeat his explanation. + +“My mother’s name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who +married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq., +merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre’s +solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle’s death, +and to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman’s +orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never +forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks since, +to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything +of her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to +find her out. You know the rest.” Again he was going, but I set my back +against the door. + +“Do let me speak,” I said; “let me have one moment to draw breath and +reflect.” I paused—he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed +enough. I resumed— + +“Your mother was my father’s sister?” + +“Yes.” + +“My aunt, consequently?” + +He bowed. + +“My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his +sister’s children, as I am his brother’s child?” + +“Undeniably.” + +“You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows +from the same source?” + +“We are cousins; yes.” + +I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud +of,—one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that, +when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with +genuine affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down +on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor +House kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and +despair, were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman +who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. +Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!—wealth +to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, +bright, vivid, and exhilarating;—not like the ponderous gift of gold: +rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now +clapped my hands in sudden joy—my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled. + +“Oh, I am glad!—I am glad!” I exclaimed. + +St. John smiled. “Did I not say you neglected essential points to +pursue trifles?” he asked. “You were serious when I told you you had +got a fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited.” + +“What _can_ you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters +and don’t care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three +relations,—or two, if you don’t choose to be counted,—are born into my +world full-grown. I say again, I am glad!” + +I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the +thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle +them:—thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere +long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending +stars,—every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my +life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. +They were under a yoke,—I could free them: they were scattered,—I could +reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be +theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally +would be five thousand each, justice—enough and to spare: justice would +be done,—mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me: +now it was not a mere bequest of coin,—it was a legacy of life, hope, +enjoyment. + +How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot +tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind +me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also +advised me to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness +and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again. + +“Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow,” I said, “and tell them to come +home directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with +a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well.” + +“Tell me where I can get you a glass of water,” said St. John; “you +must really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings.” + +“Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? +Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and +settle down like an ordinary mortal?” + +“You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in +communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength.” + +“Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it +is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand.” + +“Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should +comprehend better.” + +“Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty +thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the +nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? +What I want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of +the fortune that has accrued to them.” + +“To you, you mean.” + +“I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any +other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly +ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. +I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and +Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would +please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment +and oppress me to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be +mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what +is absolutely superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no +discussion about it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the +point at once.” + +“This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such +a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid.” + +“Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice +of the case?” + +“I _do_ see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. +Besides, the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his +own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to +you. After all, justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear +conscience, consider it absolutely your own.” + +“With me,” said I, “it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of +conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an +opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a +year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught +a glimpse—that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning +to myself lifelong friends.” + +“You think so now,” rejoined St. John, “because you do not know what it +is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot form a +notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the +place it would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would +open to you: you cannot—” + +“And you,” I interrupted, “cannot at all imagine the craving I have for +fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers +or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to +admit me and own me, are you?” + +“Jane, I will be your brother—my sisters will be your sisters—without +stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights.” + +“Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes; +slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy—gorged with gold I never earned +and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation! +Close union! Intimate attachment!” + +“But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness +may be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you may +marry.” + +“Nonsense, again! Marry! I don’t want to marry, and never shall marry.” + +“That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of +the excitement under which you labour.” + +“It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse are my +inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for +love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money +speculation. And I do not want a stranger—unsympathising, alien, +different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full +fellow-feeling. Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the +words I was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them +sincerely.” + +“I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know +on what my affection for them is grounded,—respect for their worth and +admiration of their talents. You too have principle and mind: your +tastes and habits resemble Diana’s and Mary’s; your presence is always +agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already for some time +found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in +my heart for you, as my third and youngest sister.” + +“Thank you: that contents me for to-night. Now you had better go; for +if you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some +mistrustful scruple.” + +“And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?” + +“No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute.” + +He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave. + +I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments +I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My +task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved—as my +cousins saw at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on +making a just division of the property—as they must in their own hearts +have felt the equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been +innately conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what +I wished to do—they yielded at length so far as to consent to put the +affair to arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able +lawyer: both coincided in my opinion: I carried my point. The +instruments of transfer were drawn out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, +each became possessed of a competency. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of +general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care +that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens +the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we +have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual +ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many +of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness +was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. +Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their +unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass +in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour’s teaching +in their school. + +Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty +girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in +my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some +half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and +well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British +peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British +peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of +any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and Bäuerinnen; +and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, +compared with my Morton girls. + +“Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?” +asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. “Does not the consciousness of +having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?” + +“Doubtless.” + +“And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the +task of regenerating your race be well spent?” + +“Yes,” I said; “but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my +own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must +enjoy them now; don’t recall either my mind or body to the school; I am +out of it and disposed for full holiday.” + +He looked grave. “What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? +What are you going to do?” + +“To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set +Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you.” + +“Do you want her?” + +“Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a +week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival.” + +“I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It +is better so: Hannah shall go with you.” + +“Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom +key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning.” + +He took it. “You give it up very gleefully,” said he; “I don’t quite +understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what +employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are +relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have you +now?” + +“My first aim will be to _clean down_ (do you comprehend the full force +of the expression?)—to _clean down_ Moor House from chamber to cellar; +my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of +cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, +table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go +near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; +and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are +expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, +sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, +chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other +culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the +uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an +absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next +Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome +when they come.” + +St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied. + +“It is all very well for the present,” said he; “but seriously, I trust +that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little +higher than domestic endearments and household joys.” + +“The best things the world has!” I interrupted. + +“No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt +to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful.” + +“I mean, on the contrary, to be busy.” + +“Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months’ grace I allow you for +the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with +this late-found charm of relationship; but _then_, I hope you will +begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and +the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope +your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.” + +I looked at him with surprise. “St. John,” I said, “I think you are +almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, +and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?” + +“To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to +your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict +account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously—I warn you of +that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you +throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling so +tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an +adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do +you hear, Jane?” + +“Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause +to be happy, and I _will_ be happy. Goodbye!” + +Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she +was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house +turned topsy-turvy—how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. +And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was +delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had +made. I had previously taken a journey to S—— to purchase some new +furniture: my cousins having given me _carte blanche_ to effect what +alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that +purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they +were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing +again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the +spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was +necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it +to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement +of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, +new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, +answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare +parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and +crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the +stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model +of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen +of wintry waste and desert dreariness without. + +The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, +and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in +perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness. + +St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the +house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the +commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls +sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, +watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. +Approaching the hearth, he asked, “If I was at last satisfied with +housemaid’s work?” I answered by inviting him to accompany me on a +general inspection of the result of my labours. With some difficulty, I +got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I +opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he said I +must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have +effected such considerable changes in so short a time: but not a +syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his +abode. + +This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed +some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case: +no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone. + +“Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously +respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed +more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for +instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very +room?—By-the-bye, could I tell him where such a book was?” + +I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing +to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it. + +Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began +to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and +cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for +him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to +aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would +never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his +lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone—at his fine lineaments +fixed in study—I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a +good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I +understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; +I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended +how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised +over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should +mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I +saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—Christian +and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast +bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too +often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place. + +“This parlour is not his sphere,” I reflected: “the Himalayan ridge or +Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him +better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his +element: there his faculties stagnate—they cannot develop or appear to +advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger—where courage is +proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked—that he will speak +and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the +advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary’s +career—I see it now.” + +“They are coming! they are coming!” cried Hannah, throwing open the +parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. +It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had +a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened +the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a +minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary’s +soft cheek, then with Diana’s flowing curls. They laughed—kissed +me—then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked +eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened +into the house. + +They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and +chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances +expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought +in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from +the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave +each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a +while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would +soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge. + +I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give +hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. +They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; +with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases: +they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of +feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I +had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home. + +Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so +eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. +John’s taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in +their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The +event of the day—that is, the return of Diana and Mary—pleased him; but +the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee +of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In +the very meridian of the night’s enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a +rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the intimation that “a +poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see +his mother, who was drawing away.” + +“Where does she live, Hannah?” + +“Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss +all the way.” + +“Tell him I will go.” + +“I’m sure, sir, you had better not. It’s the worst road to travel after +dark that can be: there’s no track at all over the bog. And then it is +such a bitter night—the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send +word, sir, that you will be there in the morning.” + +But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without +one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o’clock: he +did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was: but he +looked happier than when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; +made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on +better terms with himself. + +I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was +Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a +sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom +of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary’s spirits like +some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from +noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, +pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, +and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke our +vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his +parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business +in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts. + +One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for +some minutes, asked him, “If his plans were yet unchanged.” + +“Unchanged and unchangeable,” was the reply. And he proceeded to inform +us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the +ensuing year. + +“And Rosamond Oliver?” suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her +lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a +gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a book in his +hand—it was his unsocial custom to read at meals—he closed it, and +looked up. + +“Rosamond Oliver,” said he, “is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one +of the best connected and most estimable residents in S——, grandson and +heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father +yesterday.” + +His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: +he was serene as glass. + +“The match must have been got up hastily,” said Diana: “they cannot +have known each other long.” + +“But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S——. But +where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where +the connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: +they will be married as soon as S—— Place, which Sir Frederic gives up +to them, can be refitted for their reception.” + +The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt +tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little +to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I +experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already +hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve +was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He +had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he +continually made little chilling differences between us, which did not +at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was +acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I +felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known +me only as the village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had +once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his +present frigidity. + +Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his +head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said— + +“You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.” + +Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a +moment’s hesitation I answered— + +“But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose +triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?” + +“I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be +called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is +decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!” So saying, he +returned to his papers and his silence. + +As our mutual happiness (_i.e._, Diana’s, Mary’s, and mine) settled +into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular +studies, St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room, +sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course +of encyclopædic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, +and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that +of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary +to his plans. + +Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and +absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the +outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing +upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: +if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it +returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I +wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit +on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly +visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day +was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his +sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their +solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to +the elements. + +“Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her,” he would say: “she +can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as +well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic;—better +calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust.” + +And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little +weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur +would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the +reverse was a special annoyance. + +One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really +had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading +Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged +a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I +found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How +long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I +cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment +superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny. + +“Jane, what are you doing?” + +“Learning German.” + +“I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.” + +“You are not in earnest?” + +“In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.” + +He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was +himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget +the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with +whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them +thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time +between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw +I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this +favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it +wanted now barely three months to his departure. + +St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every +impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved +and permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former +found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and +both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them +to such a step. He answered quietly— + +“I know it.” + +I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting +master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his +expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By +degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my +liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his +indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, +because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at +least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only +serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence +every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a +freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I +did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had +continued to neglect me. + +One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, +bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, +as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to +be in a frolicsome humour (_she_ was not painfully controlled by his +will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed— + +“St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don’t treat +her as such: you should kiss her too.” + +She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt +uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. +John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, +his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he kissed me. There are no such +things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my +ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of these classes; but +there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When +given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure +I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt +as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the +ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I +underwent it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm. + +As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt +daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my +faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to +the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted +to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to +aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to +mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give +to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his +own. + +Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of +late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat +at my heart and drained my happiness at its source—the evil of +suspense. + +Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these +changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with +me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a +sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a +tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving +to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at +Morton, I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now +at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it. + +In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the +will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester’s present +residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was +quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, +entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty +on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early +answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but +when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and +brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety. + +I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. +Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some +weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word +reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died +out, and then I felt dark indeed. + +A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer +approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished +to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did +not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too +purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying +deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and +grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, +never thought of resisting him—I could not resist him. + +One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb +was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me +in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take +it, almost certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me +at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. +The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring +over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, +my eyes filled again. + +St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my +voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only +occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the +drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day, clear, +sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, +nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said— + +“We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.” And +while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, +leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye +of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient’s +malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something +about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and +succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked +his desk, and said— + +“Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.” + +“I will call Diana and Mary.” + +“No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put +on your things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the +head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment.” + +I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my +dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, +between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always +faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, +sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither +present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to +mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John’s directions; and in +ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side +with him. + +The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents +of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending +the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and +clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the +firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf, +mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white +flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, +meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head, wound to +their very core. + +“Let us rest here,” said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers +of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck +rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the +mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag +for gem—where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the +fresh for the frowning—where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, +and a last refuge for silence. + +I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down +the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to +traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, +let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion +with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to +something. + +“And I shall see it again,” he said aloud, “in dreams when I sleep by +the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour—when another slumber +overcomes me—on the shore of a darker stream!” + +Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot’s passion for his +fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to +me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced— + +“Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman +which sails on the 20th of June.” + +“God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work,” I answered. + +“Yes,” said he, “there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an +infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to +the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my +king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to +me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,—to +join in the same enterprise.” + +“All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish +to march with the strong.” + +“I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as +are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it.” + +“Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.” + +“You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and +exhort them to the effort—to show them what their gifts are, and why +they were given—to speak Heaven’s message in their ear,—to offer them, +direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen.” + +“If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts +be the first to inform them of it?” + +I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I +trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and +rivet the spell. + +“And what does _your_ heart say?” demanded St. John. + +“My heart is mute,—my heart is mute,” I answered, struck and thrilled. + +“Then I must speak for it,” continued the deep, relentless voice. +“Jane, come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer.” + +The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard +a summons from Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of +Macedonia, had enounced, “Come over and help us!” But I was no +apostle,—I could not behold the herald,—I could not receive his call. + +“Oh, St. John!” I cried, “have some mercy!” + +I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, +knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued— + +“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not +personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for +labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall +be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s +service.” + +“I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,” I said. + +He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by +them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his +arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for +a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to +last him to its close—resolved, however, that that close should be +conquest for him. + +“Humility, Jane,” said he, “is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you +say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, +that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I, +for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge +myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my +personal vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He is just as +well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform +a great task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, +supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, +Jane—trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not +doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness.” + +“I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary +labours.” + +“There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you +your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment +to moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your +powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require +my help.” + +“But my powers—where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them. +Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light +kindling—no life quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I +wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a +rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths—the +fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!” + +“I have an answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we +first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you +in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the +village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, +labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could +perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. +In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read +a mind clear of the vice of Demas:—lucre had no undue power over you. +In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four +shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others +to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in +the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, +at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and +adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity +with which you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging energy and +unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge +the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, +disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and +very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. +As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, +your assistance will be to me invaluable.” + +My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure +step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in +making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My +work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed +itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping +hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to +think, before I again hazarded a reply. + +“Very willingly,” he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance +up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay +still. + + +He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still + +“I _can_ do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge +that,” I meditated,—“that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is +not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then? +He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign +me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is +very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but +empty land—Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what +can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing +so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting +some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. +Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life +to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly +the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble +cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void +left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, +Yes—and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: +if I go to India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval +between leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? +Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to +satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I _shall_ satisfy him—to the +finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. +If I _do_ go with him—if I _do_ make the sacrifice he urges, I will +make it absolutely: I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the +entire victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will +show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never +suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little +grudging. + +“Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one +dreadful item. It is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of +a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which +the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would +a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never +grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into +practice his plans—go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from +him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he +would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? +Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a +sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I +will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him—not as his +wife: I will tell him so.” + +I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; +his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to +his feet and approached me. + +“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.” + +“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.” + +“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let +us continue as such: you and I had better not marry.” + +He shook his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you +were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek +no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed +by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves +to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your +strong sense will guide you.” + +I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to +the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and +therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. “St. John,” I +returned, “I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so let us +continue.” + +“We cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination: +“it would not do. You have said you will go with me to India: +remember—you have said that.” + +“Conditionally.” + +“Well—well. To the main point—the departure with me from England, the +co-operation with me in my future labours—you do not object. You have +already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent +to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view—how the work you +have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, +feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one +purpose: that of fulfilling with effect—with power—the mission of your +great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother—that +is a loose tie—but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister +might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can +influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death.” + +I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on +my limbs. + +“Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.” + +“One fitted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation. Again I tell +you it is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man, with +the man’s selfish senses—I wish to mate: it is the missionary.” + +“And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not +myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For +them he has no use: I retain them.” + +“You cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half +an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of +God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept +on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.” + +“Oh! I will give my heart to God,” I said. “_You_ do not want it.” + +I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed +sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the +feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, +because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had +held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could +not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this +conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I +saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting +there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form +before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil fell from +his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these +qualities, I felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an +equal—one with whom I might argue—one whom, if I saw good, I might +resist. + +He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently +risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, +expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. “Is she sarcastic, +and sarcastic to _me!_” it seemed to say. “What does this signify?” + +“Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long; +“one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I +trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart +to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it +on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on +earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do +at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be +given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in +marriage: the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity +to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all +minor caprices—all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all +scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal +inclination—you will hasten to enter into that union at once.” + +“Shall I?” I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in +their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his +brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and +searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied +myself in idea _his wife_. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his +comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that +capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that +office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour; +accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his +ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man: +profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should +suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body +would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be +free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural +unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. +There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which +he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which +his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march +trample down: but as his wife—at his side always, and always +restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature +continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, +though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital—_this_ would be +unendurable. + +“St. John!” I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation. + +“Well?” he answered icily. + +“I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, +but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you.” + +“A part of me you must become,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the +whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with +me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we +be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage +tribes—and unwed?” + +“Very well,” I said shortly; “under the circumstances, quite as well as +if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like +yourself.” + +“It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as +such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. +And for the rest, though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a +woman’s heart and—it would not do.” + +“It would do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a +woman’s heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a +comrade’s constancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity, +fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s respect and submission to his +hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.” + +“It is what I want,” he said, speaking to himself; “it is just what I +want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane, +you would not repent marrying me—be certain of that; we _must_ be +married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of +love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your +eyes.” + +“I scorn your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and +stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the +counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when +you offer it.” + +He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. +Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: +he could command his countenance thoroughly. + +“I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I +think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.” + +I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien. + +“Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have +been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on +which our natures are at variance—a topic we should never discuss: the +very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality +were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, +abandon your scheme of marriage—forget it.” + +“No,” said he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which +can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present. +To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to +whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight—take +that space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you +reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens +to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to +be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease +and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered +with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!” + +He had done. Turning from me, he once more + +“Looked to river, looked to hill.” + + +But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy +to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in +his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an +austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected +submission—the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has +detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to +sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into +obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with +my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and +repentance. + +That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to +forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. +I—who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him—was hurt by +the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes. + +“I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,” said Diana, +“during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in +the passage expecting you—he will make it up.” + +I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather +be happy than dignified; and I ran after him—he stood at the foot of +the stairs. + +“Good-night, St. John,” said I. + +“Good-night, Jane,” he replied calmly. + +“Then shake hands,” I added. + +What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply +displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, +nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him—no +cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient +and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he +was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he +had nothing to forgive, not having been offended. + +And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me +down. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. +He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me +feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet +implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one +overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me +momently with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his +favour. + +Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness—not +that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in +his power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to +the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I +scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as +long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, +when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between +me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and +their echo toned every answer he gave me. + +He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual +each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within +him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, +in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking +apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the +spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a +certain austere charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in +reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, +blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument—nothing more. + +All this was torture to me—refined, lingering torture. It kept up a +slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which +harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how—if I were his wife, this +good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without +drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own +crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this +when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. _He_ +experienced no suffering from estrangement—no yearning after +reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears +blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more +effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or +metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as +if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how +completely I was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; +and this I am sure he did not by malice, but on principle. + +The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the +garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this +man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were +near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his +friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the +little gate; I spoke to the point at once. + +“St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be +friends.” + +“I hope we are friends,” was the unmoved reply; while he still watched +the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I +approached. + +“No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.” + +“Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all +good.” + +“I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing +any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more +of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere +strangers.” + +“Of course,” he said. “Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from +regarding you as a stranger.” + +This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling +enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should +immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly +than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin’s talent and +principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me +severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it. + +“Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you +leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?” + +He now turned quite from the moon and faced me. + +“When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to +India?” + +“You said I could not unless I married you.” + +“And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?” + +Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put +into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche +is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their +displeasure? + +“No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.” + +The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet +crash down. + +“Once more, why this refusal?” he asked. + +“Formerly,” I answered, “because you did not love me; now, I reply, +because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me. +You are killing me now.” + +His lips and cheeks turned white—quite white. + +“_I should kill you_—_I am killing you_? Your words are such as ought +not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an +unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem +inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even +until seventy-and-seven times.” + +I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from +his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that +tenacious surface another and far deeper impression: I had burnt it in. + +“Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to attempt to +conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.” + +A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched +on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew +the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung. + +“You utterly misinterpret my words,” I said, at once seizing his hand: +“I have no intention to grieve or pain you—indeed, I have not.” + +Most bitterly he smiled—most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. +“And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I +presume?” said he, after a considerable pause. + +“Yes, I will, as your assistant,” I answered. + +A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between +Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams +scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He +spoke at last. + +“I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age +proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you +in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever +again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for your +sake.” + +I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at +once. “Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You +pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked: +for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so +conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your +curate, if you like, but never your wife.” + +Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion +perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly— + +“A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me, +then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I +will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a +coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society’s +aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your +promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.” + +Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise +or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard +and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied— + +“There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. +I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with +strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, +confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go +when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate.” + +“Ah! you are afraid of yourself,” he said, curling his lip. + +“I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish +me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide. +Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will +know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it +than by leaving it.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on +which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by +some means that doubt is removed.” + +“I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you +cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have +crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. +Rochester?” + +It was true. I confessed it by silence. + +“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?” + +“I must find out what is become of him.” + +“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my prayers, and +to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed +become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen. +But God sees not as man sees: _His_ will be done—” + +He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. +He was soon out of sight. + +On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, +looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put +her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face. + +“Jane,” she said, “you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure +there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you +have on hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you +must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I +hardly know what. St. John is a strange being—” + +She paused—I did not speak: soon she resumed— + +“That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting +you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest +he never showed to any one else—to what end? I wish he loved you—does +he, Jane?” + +I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; “No, Die, not one whit.” + +“Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so +frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? +Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.” + +“He does—he has asked me to be his wife.” + +Diana clapped her hands. “That is just what we hoped and thought! And +you will marry him, Jane, won’t you? And then he will stay in England.” + +“Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a +fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils.” + +“What! He wishes you to go to India?” + +“Yes.” + +“Madness!” she exclaimed. “You would not live three months there, I am +certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you, Jane?” + +“I have refused to marry him—” + +“And have consequently displeased him?” she suggested. + +“Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany +him as his sister.” + +“It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you +undertook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the +strong, and you are weak. St. John—you know him—would urge you to +impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during +the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, +you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to +refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?” + +“Not as a husband.” + +“Yet he is a handsome fellow.” + +“And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.” + +“Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, +to be grilled alive in Calcutta.” And again she earnestly conjured me +to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother. + +“I must indeed,” I said; “for when just now I repeated the offer of +serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of +decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing +to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first hoped to +find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such.” + +“What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?” + +“You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again +explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He +has told me I am formed for labour—not for love: which is true, no +doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that +I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be +chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?” + +“Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!” + +“And then,” I continued, “though I have only sisterly affection for him +now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of +conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, +because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur +in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would +become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I +showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a +superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.” + +“And yet St. John is a good man,” said Diana. + +“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings +and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is +better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, +in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will +leave you, Diana.” And I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the +garden. + +But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he +appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak +to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial +scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed +me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his +ordinary manner—one scrupulously polite. No doubt he had invoked the +help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and +now believed he had forgiven me once more. + +For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first +chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen while +from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did his fine voice +sound at once so sweet and full—never did his manner become so +impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of +God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone—that manner a more +thrilling meaning—as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the +May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering +almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat +there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page +the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—told how God would come +to dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, +and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor +crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away. + +The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially +as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in +uttering them, his eye had turned on me. + +“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, +and he shall be my son. But,” was slowly, distinctly read, “the +fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which +burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” + +Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me. + +A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his +enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader +believed his name was already written in the Lamb’s book of life, and +he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which +the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need +of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, +and the Lamb is the light thereof. + +In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered—all his +stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and +resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; +guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh +hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were +luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of +a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: +first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it +continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the +greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard +him plead for it, could not but feel it too. + +The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early +hour in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room—in +compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my +hand, and wished him a pleasant journey. + +“Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a +fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I +listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with +me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim—to +do all things to the glory of God. My Master was long-suffering: so +will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath: +repent—resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work +while it is day—warned that ‘the night cometh when no man shall work.’ +Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life. God +give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken +from you!” + +He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken +earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding +his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering +sheep—or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is +responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; +whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be +sincere—have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt +veneration for St. John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me +at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease +struggling with him—to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf +of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by +him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I +was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of +principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So +I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet +medium of time: I was unconscious of folly at the instant. + +I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch. My refusals were +forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralysed. The +Impossible—_i.e._, my marriage with St. John—was fast becoming the +Possible. All was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion +called—Angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together like a +scroll—death’s gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that +for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. +The dim room was full of visions. + +“Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in +gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far +more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John’s wrath: I grew +pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I +yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my +former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn +prayer: it was only elevated. + +“I could decide if I were but certain,” I answered: “were I but +convinced that it is God’s will I should marry you, I could vow to +marry you here and now—come afterwards what would!” + +“My prayers are heard!” ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer +on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, +_almost_ as if he loved me (I say _almost_—I knew the difference—for I +had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love out +of the question, and thought only of duty). I contended with my inward +dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, +fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. “Show me, show me +the path!” I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever +been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader +shall judge. + +All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, +were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the room was +full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb. +Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it +through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was +not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as +startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto +had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to +wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered +on my bones. + +“What have you heard? What do you see?” asked St. John. I saw nothing, +but I heard a voice somewhere cry— + +“Jane! Jane! Jane!”—nothing more. + +“O God! what is it?” I gasped. + +I might have said, “Where is it?” for it did not seem in the room—nor +in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air—nor from +under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where, or whence, for +ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being—a known, +loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it +spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently. + +“I am coming!” I cried. “Wait for me! Oh, I will come!” I flew to the +door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into the +garden: it was void. + +“Where are you?” I exclaimed. + +The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back—“Where are +you?” I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland +loneliness and midnight hush. + +“Down superstition!” I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the +black yew at the gate. “This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft: +it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did—no miracle—but her +best.” + +I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It +was _my_ time to assume ascendency. _My_ powers were in play and in +force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave +me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy +to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber; +locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my way—a different +way to St. John’s, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to +penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in +gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgiving—took a resolve—and +lay down, unscared, enlightened—eager but for the daylight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or two +with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the +order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence. +Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my door: I +feared he would knock—no, but a slip of paper was passed under the +door. I took it up. It bore these words— + +“You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little +longer, you would have laid your hand on the Christian’s cross and the +angel’s crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this +day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into +temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is +weak. I shall pray for you hourly.—Yours, ST. JOHN.” + +“My spirit,” I answered mentally, “is willing to do what is right; and +my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, +when once that will is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be +strong enough to search—inquire—to grope an outlet from this cloud of +doubt, and find the open day of certainty.” + +It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly: rain +beat fast on my casement. I heard the front-door open, and St. John +pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden. He +took the way over the misty moors in the direction of Whitcross—there +he would meet the coach. + +“In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin,” +thought I: “I too have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have some to +see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever.” + +It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I filled the interval in +walking softly about my room, and pondering the visitation which had +given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation I +had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable +strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned +whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in _me_—not in the +external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression—a delusion? I +could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The +wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the +foundations of Paul and Silas’s prison; it had opened the doors of the +soul’s cell and loosed its bands—it had wakened it out of its sleep, +whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a +cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, +which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the +success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of +the cumbrous body. + +“Ere many days,” I said, as I terminated my musings, “I will know +something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters +have proved of no avail—personal inquiry shall replace them.” + +At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a journey, +and should be absent at least four days. + +“Alone, Jane?” they asked. + +“Yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for some +time been uneasy.” + +They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they had +believed me to be without any friends save them: for, indeed, I had +often said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they abstained +from comment, except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was well +enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I replied, that +nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate. + +It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled with no +inquiries—no surmises. Having once explained to them that I could not +now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in +the silence with which I pursued them, according to me the privilege of +free action I should under similar circumstances have accorded them. + +I left Moor House at three o’clock P.M., and soon after four I stood at +the foot of the sign-post of Whitcross, waiting the arrival of the +coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst the silence of +those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from a great +distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted +one summer evening on this very spot—how desolate, and hopeless, and +objectless! It stopped as I beckoned. I entered—not now obliged to part +with my whole fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more on +the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home. + +It was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. I had set out from Whitcross +on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday morning +the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the +midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral +hills (how mild of feature and verdant of hue compared with the stern +North-Midland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lineaments of a +once familiar face. Yes, I knew the character of this landscape: I was +sure we were near my bourne. + +“How far is Thornfield Hall from here?” I asked of the ostler. + +“Just two miles, ma’am, across the fields.” + +“My journey is closed,” I thought to myself. I got out of the coach, +gave a box I had into the ostler’s charge, to be kept till I called for +it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going: the +brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt +letters, “The Rochester Arms.” My heart leapt up: I was already on my +master’s very lands. It fell again: the thought struck it:— + +“Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you +know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, +who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have nothing to do +with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost +your labour—you had better go no farther,” urged the monitor. “Ask +information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek: +they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if +Mr. Rochester be at home.” + +The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on +it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong +doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the Hall under the +ray of her star. There was the stile before me—the very fields through +which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury +tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I +well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of +them. How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to +catch the first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I +welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill +between them! + +At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke +the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened. +Another field crossed—a lane threaded—and there were the courtyard +walls—the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. “My +first view of it shall be in front,” I determined, “where its bold +battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single +out my master’s very window: perhaps he will be standing at it—he rises +early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in +front. Could I but see him!—but a moment! Surely, in that case, I +should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell—I am not certain. +And if I did—what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be hurt by +my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I rave: perhaps +at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the +tideless sea of the south.” + +I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard—turned its angle: +there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two stone +pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep +round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with +precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet +drawn up: battlements, windows, long front—all from this sheltered +station were at my command. + +The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. +I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was very +careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and +reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my +niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in +front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it. +“What affectation of diffidence was this at first?” they might have +demanded; “what stupid regardlessness now?” + +Hear an illustration, reader. + +A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a +glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the +grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses—fancying she has stirred: he +withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again +advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he +lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of +beauty—warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their +first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and +vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, +touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, +and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he +no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter—by any movement he +can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone +dead. + +I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened +ruin. + +No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed!—to peep up at chamber +lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to listen for +doors opening—to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk! The +lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void. The +front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a shell-like wall, +very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows: +no roof, no battlements, no chimneys—all had crashed in. + +And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome +wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never +received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church +aisle. The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had +fallen—by conflagration: but how kindled? What story belonged to this +disaster? What loss, besides mortar and marble and wood-work had +followed upon it? Had life been wrecked as well as property? If so, +whose? Dreadful question: there was no one here to answer it—not even +dumb sign, mute token. + +In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated +interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late +occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void +arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the +drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and +weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters. And oh! +where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under +what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered to the grey church tower +near the gates, and I asked, “Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing +the shelter of his narrow marble house?” + +Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere but +at the inn, and thither, ere long, I returned. The host himself brought +my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to shut the door and sit +down: I had some questions to ask him. But when he complied, I scarcely +knew how to begin; such horror had I of the possible answers. And yet +the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure +for a tale of misery. The host was a respectable-looking, middle-aged +man. + +“You know Thornfield Hall, of course?” I managed to say at last. + +“Yes, ma’am; I lived there once.” + +“Did you?” Not in my time, I thought: you are a stranger to me. + +“I was the late Mr. Rochester’s butler,” he added. + +The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I had been +trying to evade. + +“The late!” I gasped. “Is he dead?” + +“I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward’s father,” he explained. I +breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words +that Mr. Edward—_my_ Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he +was!)—was at least alive: was, in short, “the present gentleman.” +Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear all that was to come—whatever +the disclosures might be—with comparative tranquillity. Since he was +not in the grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn that he was at the +Antipodes. + +“Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?” I asked, knowing, of +course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the +direct question as to where he really was. + +“No, ma’am—oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger +in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last +autumn,—Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about +harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable +property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The +fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from +Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible +spectacle: I witnessed it myself.” + +“At dead of night!” I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality +at Thornfield. “Was it known how it originated?” I demanded. + +“They guessed, ma’am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was +ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware,” he continued, +edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, “that +there was a lady—a—a lunatic, kept in the house?” + +“I have heard something of it.” + +“She was kept in very close confinement, ma’am; people even for some +years was not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw her: they +only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall; and who or what +she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had +brought her from abroad, and some believed she had been his mistress. +But a queer thing happened a year since—a very queer thing.” + +I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the +main fact. + +“And this lady?” + +“This lady, ma’am,” he answered, “turned out to be Mr. Rochester’s +wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a +young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in—” + +“But the fire,” I suggested. + +“I’m coming to that, ma’am—that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The +servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was +after her continually. They used to watch him—servants will, you know, +ma’am—and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him +thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say, +almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I’ve heard Leah, the +house-maid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was +about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen +of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were +bewitched. Well, he would marry her.” + +“You shall tell me this part of the story another time,” I said; “but +now I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. +Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in +it?” + +“You’ve hit it, ma’am: it’s quite certain that it was her, and nobody +but her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her called +Mrs. Poole—an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one +fault—a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons—_she kept a +private bottle of gin by her_, and now and then took a drop over-much. +It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was +dangerous; for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, +the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of +her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the +house, doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she +had nearly burnt her husband in his bed once: but I don’t know about +that. However, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the +room next her own, and then she got down to a lower storey, and made +her way to the chamber that had been the governess’s—(she was like as +if she knew somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at +her)—and she kindled the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in +it, fortunately. The governess had run away two months before; and for +all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing +he had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew +savage—quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but +he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent +Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but +he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life: and +she deserved it—she was a very good woman. Miss Adèle, a ward he had, +was put to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and +shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall.” + +“What! did he not leave England?” + +“Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones of +the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the +grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses—which it is my +opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he +was before that midge of a governess crossed him, you never saw, ma’am. +He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and +he was not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his +own, if ever man had. I knew him from a boy, you see: and for my part, +I have often wished that Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea before she +came to Thornfield Hall.” + +“Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out?” + +“Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning +above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped them +down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And +then they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was +standing, waving her arms, above the battlements, and shouting out till +they could hear her a mile off: I saw her and heard her with my own +eyes. She was a big woman, and had long black hair: we could see it +streaming against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and several +more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the sky-light on to the +roof; we heard him call ‘Bertha!’ We saw him approach her; and then, +ma’am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay +smashed on the pavement.” + + +The next minute she lay smashed on the pavement + +“Dead?” + +“Dead! Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were +scattered.” + +“Good God!” + +“You may well say so, ma’am: it was frightful!” + +He shuddered. + +“And afterwards?” I urged. + +“Well, ma’am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there are +only some bits of walls standing now.” + +“Were any other lives lost?” + +“No—perhaps it would have been better if there had.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Poor Mr. Edward!” he ejaculated, “I little thought ever to have seen +it! Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his first +marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one +living: but I pity him, for my part.” + +“You said he was alive?” I exclaimed. + +“Yes, yes: he is alive; but many think he had better be dead.” + +“Why? How?” My blood was again running cold. “Where is he?” I demanded. +“Is he in England?” + +“Ay—ay—he’s in England; he can’t get out of England, I fancy—he’s a +fixture now.” + +What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it. + +“He is stone-blind,” he said at last. “Yes, he is stone-blind, is Mr. +Edward.” + +I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to +ask what had caused this calamity. + +“It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a +way, ma’am: he wouldn’t leave the house till every one else was out +before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. +Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great +crash—all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly +hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one +eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the +surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed: he lost +the sight of that also. He is now helpless, indeed—blind and a +cripple.” + +“Where is he? Where does he now live?” + +“At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off: +quite a desolate spot.” + +“Who is with him?” + +“Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite broken +down, they say.” + +“Have you any sort of conveyance?” + +“We have a chaise, ma’am, a very handsome chaise.” + +“Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me to +Ferndean before dark this day, I’ll pay both you and him twice the hire +you usually demand.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, +moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. +I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and +sometimes went there. His father had purchased the estate for the sake +of the game covers. He would have let the house, but could find no +tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. +Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception +of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the +squire when he went there in the season to shoot. + +To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the +characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating +rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise +and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when +within a very short distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing +of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. +Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and +passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of +close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the forest +aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches. I +followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on +and on, it wound far and farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was +visible. + +I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness +of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I looked round +in search of another road. There was none: all was interwoven stem, +columnar trunk, dense summer foliage—no opening anywhere. + +I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; +presently I beheld a railing, then the house—scarce, by this dim light, +distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying +walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a +space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a +semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad +gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of +the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the +windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, one +step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms +had said, “quite a desolate spot.” It was as still as a church on a +week-day: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound +audible in its vicinage. + +“Can there be life here?” I asked. + +Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement—that narrow +front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the +grange. + +It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the +step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel +whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him—it was my +master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other. + +I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him—to examine +him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a sudden +meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had +no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from +hasty advance. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test/integration/test_server.cpp b/test/integration/test_server.cpp index aa13a0f..e762e71 100644 --- a/test/integration/test_server.cpp +++ b/test/integration/test_server.cpp @@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ bool REQUIRE_FAIL(const grpc::Status &status, #define REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(result) REQUIRE(NO_FAIL((result))) -TEST_CASE("ConfigurationForm", "[integration]") { +TEST_CASE("ConfigurationForm", "[integration][config]") { DestinationSdkImpl service; ::fivetran_sdk::ConfigurationFormRequest request; ::fivetran_sdk::ConfigurationFormResponse response; @@ -45,12 +45,18 @@ TEST_CASE("ConfigurationForm", "[integration]") { auto status = service.ConfigurationForm(nullptr, &request, &response); REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); - REQUIRE(response.fields_size() == 2); + REQUIRE(response.fields_size() == 3); REQUIRE(response.fields(0).name() == "motherduck_token"); REQUIRE(response.fields(1).name() == "motherduck_database"); - REQUIRE(response.tests_size() == 1); - REQUIRE(response.tests(0).name() == CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE); - REQUIRE(response.tests(0).label() == "Test Authentication"); + REQUIRE(response.fields(2).name() == "motherduck_csv_block_size"); + REQUIRE(response.fields(2).label() == + "Maximum individual value size, in megabytes (default 1 MB)"); + + REQUIRE(response.tests_size() == 2); + REQUIRE(response.tests(0).name() == CONFIG_TEST_NAME_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE); + REQUIRE(response.tests(0).label() == "Maximum value size is a valid number"); + REQUIRE(response.tests(1).name() == CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE); + REQUIRE(response.tests(1).label() == "Test Authentication"); } TEST_CASE("DescribeTable fails when database missing", "[integration]") { @@ -184,7 +190,7 @@ TEST_CASE("CreateTable, DescribeTable for existing table, AlterTable", } } -TEST_CASE("Test fails when database missing", "[integration]") { +TEST_CASE("Test fails when database missing", "[integration][configtest]") { DestinationSdkImpl service; ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest request; @@ -196,10 +202,11 @@ TEST_CASE("Test fails when database missing", "[integration]") { REQUIRE_FAIL(status, "Missing property motherduck_database"); } -TEST_CASE("Test fails when token is missing", "[integration]") { +TEST_CASE("Test fails when token is missing", "[integration][configtest]") { DestinationSdkImpl service; ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest request; + request.set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE); (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = TEST_DATABASE_NAME; @@ -207,7 +214,7 @@ TEST_CASE("Test fails when token is missing", "[integration]") { auto status = service.Test(nullptr, &request, &response); REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); - auto expected_message = "Authentication test for database <" + + auto expected_message = "Test for database <" + TEST_DATABASE_NAME + "> failed: Missing " "property motherduck_token"; @@ -215,10 +222,12 @@ TEST_CASE("Test fails when token is missing", "[integration]") { REQUIRE(response.failure() == expected_message); } -TEST_CASE("Test endpoint fails when token is bad", "[integration]") { +TEST_CASE("Test endpoint fails when token is bad", + "[integration][configtest]") { DestinationSdkImpl service; ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest request; + request.set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_AUTHENTICATE); (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = TEST_DATABASE_NAME; (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_token"] = "12345"; @@ -233,8 +242,9 @@ TEST_CASE("Test endpoint fails when token is bad", "[integration]") { Catch::Matchers::ContainsSubstring("UNAUTHENTICATED")); } -TEST_CASE("Test endpoint succeeds when everything is in order", - "[integration]") { +TEST_CASE( + "Test endpoint authentication test succeeds when everything is in order", + "[integration][configtest]") { DestinationSdkImpl service; ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest request; @@ -251,6 +261,71 @@ TEST_CASE("Test endpoint succeeds when everything is in order", REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); } +TEST_CASE("Test endpoint block size validation succeeds when optional block " + "size is missing", + "[integration][configtest]") { + DestinationSdkImpl service; + + ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest request; + auto token = std::getenv("motherduck_token"); + REQUIRE(token); + request.set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE); + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = + TEST_DATABASE_NAME; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_token"] = token; + + ::fivetran_sdk::TestResponse response; + + auto status = service.Test(nullptr, &request, &response); + REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); +} + +TEST_CASE("Test endpoint block size validation succeeds when optional block " + "size is a valid number", + "[integration][configtest]") { + DestinationSdkImpl service; + + ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest request; + auto token = std::getenv("motherduck_token"); + REQUIRE(token); + request.set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE); + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = + TEST_DATABASE_NAME; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_token"] = token; + (*request.mutable_configuration())[MD_PROP_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE] = "5"; + + ::fivetran_sdk::TestResponse response; + + auto status = service.Test(nullptr, &request, &response); + REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); +} + +TEST_CASE("Test endpoint block size validation fails when optional block size " + "is not a valid number", + "[integration][configtest]") { + DestinationSdkImpl service; + + ::fivetran_sdk::TestRequest request; + auto token = std::getenv("motherduck_token"); + REQUIRE(token); + request.set_name(CONFIG_TEST_NAME_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE); + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = + TEST_DATABASE_NAME; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_token"] = token; + (*request.mutable_configuration())[MD_PROP_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE] = "lizard"; + + ::fivetran_sdk::TestResponse response; + + auto status = service.Test(nullptr, &request, &response); + REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); + REQUIRE_FALSE(response.success()); + + auto expected_message = + "Test for database <" + TEST_DATABASE_NAME + + "> failed: Maximum individual value size must be numeric if present"; + REQUIRE(response.failure() == expected_message); +} + template void define_test_table(T &request, const std::string &table_name) { request.mutable_table()->set_name(table_name); @@ -795,6 +870,100 @@ TEST_CASE("CreateTable with JSON column", "[integration]") { } } +template +void make_book_table(T &request, const std::string &table_name) { + + request.mutable_table()->set_name(table_name); + auto col0 = request.mutable_table()->add_columns(); + col0->set_name("id"); + col0->set_type(::fivetran_sdk::DataType::INT); + col0->set_primary_key(true); + + auto col1 = request.mutable_table()->add_columns(); + col1->set_name("text"); + col1->set_type(::fivetran_sdk::DataType::STRING); +} + +TEST_CASE("Table with large json row", "[integration][write-batch]") { + DestinationSdkImpl service; + + const std::string table_name = + "huge_book_" + std::to_string(Catch::rngSeed()); + auto token = std::getenv("motherduck_token"); + REQUIRE(token); + + { + // Create Table + ::fivetran_sdk::CreateTableRequest request; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_token"] = token; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = + TEST_DATABASE_NAME; + make_book_table(request, table_name); + ::fivetran_sdk::CreateTableResponse response; + auto status = service.CreateTable(nullptr, &request, &response); + REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); + } + + auto con = get_test_connection(token); + { + // fail when default block_size is used + ::fivetran_sdk::WriteBatchRequest request; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_token"] = token; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = + TEST_DATABASE_NAME; + + make_book_table(request, table_name); + + const std::string filename = "huge_books.csv"; + const std::string filepath = TEST_RESOURCES_DIR + filename; + + request.add_replace_files(filepath); + + ::fivetran_sdk::WriteBatchResponse response; + auto status = service.WriteBatch(nullptr, &request, &response); + REQUIRE_FALSE(status.ok()); + CHECK_THAT(status.error_message(), + Catch::Matchers::ContainsSubstring( + "straddling object straddles two block boundaries")); + } + + { + // check no rows were inserted + auto res = con->Query("SELECT count(*) FROM " + table_name); + REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(res); + REQUIRE(res->RowCount() == 1); + REQUIRE(res->GetValue(0, 0) == 0); + } + + { + // succeed when block_size is increased + ::fivetran_sdk::WriteBatchRequest request; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_token"] = token; + (*request.mutable_configuration())["motherduck_database"] = + TEST_DATABASE_NAME; + (*request.mutable_configuration())[MD_PROP_CSV_BLOCK_SIZE] = "2"; + + make_book_table(request, table_name); + + const std::string filename = "huge_books.csv"; + const std::string filepath = TEST_RESOURCES_DIR + filename; + + request.add_replace_files(filepath); + + ::fivetran_sdk::WriteBatchResponse response; + auto status = service.WriteBatch(nullptr, &request, &response); + REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(status); + } + + { + // check one row was inserted + auto res = con->Query("SELECT count(*) FROM " + table_name); + REQUIRE_NO_FAIL(res); + REQUIRE(res->RowCount() == 1); + REQUIRE(res->GetValue(0, 0) == 1); + } +} + TEST_CASE("Truncate nonexistent table should succeed", "[integration]") { DestinationSdkImpl service;