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《Jane Eyre》
Preface
A preface to the first edition of “Jane Eyre” being unnecessary, I gave his sed edition demands a few words both of aowledgment and miscellaneous remark.
My thanks are due in three quarters.
To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has ined to a plain tale with few pretensions.
To the Press, for the fair field its ho suffrage has opeo an obscure aspirant.
To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unreended 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 enced me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to ence a struggling strao them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
Having thus aowledged 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 meaimorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whate99lib?ver is unusual is wrong; whose ears dete each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God oh. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distins; I would remind them of certain simple truths.
ventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is nion. 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 of Thorns.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often found them: they should not be founded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human does, 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 a to mark broadly and clearly the line of separatioween them.
The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been aced to blend them; finding it veo make external show pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the gilding, and show base metal u—to pee the sepulchre, and reveal el relics: but hate as it will, it is ied to him.
Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good ing him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of aannah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opehem to faithful sel.
There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, es 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 porophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I ot 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 denunciatioo take his warnings in time—they or their seed might re uhan his poraries have yet reised; because I regard him as the first social regeor of the day—as the very master of that w corps who would restore to rectitude the ed system of things; because I think no entator on his writings has yet found the parison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, ic 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 uhe 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 sed edition of “JANE EYRE.”
CURRER BELL.
December 21st, 1847.
o the Third藏书网 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 rests on this one work alone. If, therefore, the authorship of other works of fi has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and sequently, 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 13th, 1848.
Chapter 1
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the m; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no pany, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so peing, that further out-door 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 ing 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 sciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Geiana Reed.
The said Eliza, John, and Geiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reed on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time her quarrelling n) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be uhe y of keepi a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeav in good earo 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 tented, 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 speak pleasantly, remain silent.”
A breakfast-room adjoihe drawing-room, I slipped in there. It tained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be oored 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, proteg, 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 se of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
I returo my book—Bewick’s History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little fenerally speaking; ahere 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 southerremity, the Lindeness, or o the North Cape—
“Where the Northern O, 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?99lｉb. the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Id, Greenland, with “the vast sweep of the Arctie, and those forlions of dreary space,—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of turies of winters, glazed in Alpis above heights, surround the pole, and tre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.” Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-prehended notions that float dim through children’s brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages ected themselves with the succeeding viges, and gave significe 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 glang through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
I ot tell what se hauhe quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstos gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crest, attesting the hour of eventide.
The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.
The fiend pinning dowhief’s pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.
So was the black horhied aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped uanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly iing: as iing as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she ced 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 er attention with passages of love and adveaken 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 Bewiy knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The ９９ｌib?breakfast-room door opened.
“Boh! Madam Mope!” cried the voice of Johhen he paused: he found the room apparently empty.
“Where the dis is she!” he tinued. “Lizzy! Geo?9９ｌib.rgy! (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-plaor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or ception; 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 e here;” aing himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approad 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 lis in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He ged 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 at 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 ined 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 affe 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 twi the day, but tinually: 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 agaiher his menaces or his inflis; 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 to 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 aining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.
“That is for your impuden 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!”
Aced to John Reed’s abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to ehe blow which would certainly follow the insult.
“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked.
“I was reading.”
“Show the book.”
I returo the window ached it thence.
“You have no busio take our books; you are a depe, 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, ahe 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 iion; 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 hought thus to have declared aloud.
“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Geiana? 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 someu 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 Geiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the se, 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 2
I resisted all the way: a hing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthehe bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to eain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was scious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable te 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 shog duct, Miss Eyre, to strike a youleman, your beress’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 wiess.”
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 yarters; she would break mine directly.”
Miss Abbot turo 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 ascertaihat 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 th?e poorhouse.”
I had nothing to say to these words: they were not o me: my very first recolles of existencluded hints of the same kind. This reproay dependence had bee 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 is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them.”
“What we tell you is for yood,” 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 bee 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? e, 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 e down the ey ach you away.”
They went, shutting the door, and log it behind them.
The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a flux of visitors at Gateshead Hall re necessary to turn to at all the aodation it tained: 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 tre; the twe windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded ioons 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 terpane. Scarcely less promi was an ample cushioned easy-chair he 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 kit; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom ehe 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 tents of a certai drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parts, 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 uaker’s men; and, sihat day, a sense of dreary secration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottomahe marble ey-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken refles varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vat 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 ao see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fasated glanvoluntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than iy: and the stratle figure there gazing at me, with a white fad arms speg 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 ing out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returo my stool.
Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for plete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still brag 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 ned? 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. Geiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and i 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 iy for every fault. John no ohwarted, much less puhough 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 servatory: 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 it no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from m 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, aing myself die.
What a sternation of soul was mihat dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurre! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not ahe 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 tard with affe 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 i, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of pt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exag, handsome, romping child—though equally depe and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more platly; her children would have eained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less proo make me the scapegoat of the nursery.
Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it ast four o’clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating tinuously oaircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my ce sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my deg ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just ceiving o.
f starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault uhe cel of Gateshead Chur 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 khat 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 sidered 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 unected 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 iead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an ungenial alien permaly 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 als a fasated eye towards the dimly gleaning 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 avehe 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 voifort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with stray. This idea, solatory 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 moorating 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 ow jecture 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 ing 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 pressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lo 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 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 e.” 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 i pain one would have excused it, but she only wa 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 ot succeed iing 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 dition of perfect submission and stillhat I shall liberate you then.”
“O aunt! have pity! Five me! I ot e—let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if—”
“Silehis violence is all most repulsive:” and so, no doubt, she felt it. I recocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a pound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot havireated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantiguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me bad 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: unsciousness closed the se.
Chapter 3
The hing 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, uainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror fused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supp 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, a 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 dle burnt oable; 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 vi of prote and security, when I khat 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 scrutihe 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 physi.
“Well, who am I?” he asked.
I pronounced his name, 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 dires, and intimates that he should call again the 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 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 g; you’ll be better soon, no doubt.”
Bessie went into the housemaid’s apartment, which was near. I heard her say—
“Sarah, e and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren’t for my life be aloh that poor child to-night: she might die; it’s such a strahing 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 versation, from which I was able only too distinctly to ihe 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 dle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by dread: such dread as children only feel.
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this i 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 tive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.
day, by noon, I and dressed, and sat ed in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretess of mind: a wretess 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 go 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, acedh I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children feel, but they ot 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, trived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response.
“For ohing, 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 sed 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 ’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 ever get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.”
“Perhaps you may—who knows? Have you aions 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, w, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as ected with ragged clothes, sty 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 heroiough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.
“But are your relatives so very poor? Are they w people?”
“I ot 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 iocks, 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 ats of school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before ing to Gateshead) were somepalling, her details of certain aplishments 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 , of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a plete ge: it implied a long journey, aire separatiateshead, arao a new life.
“I should indeed like to go to school,” was the audible clusion of my musings.
“Well, well! who knows what may happen?” said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. “The child ought to have ge of air and se,” 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, ahe way out. Ierview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from after-occurrehat the apothecary veo reend my beio school; and the reendation 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- ditioned child, who always looked as if she were watg 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 unications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who sidered the match beh 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 iion 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 passionate her forlornness; but one really ot care for such a little toad as that.”
“Not a great deal, to be sure,” agreed Bessie: “at any rate, a beauty like Miss Geiana would be more moving in the same dition.”
“Yes, I doat on Miss Geiana!” 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. e, we’ll go down.” They went.
Chapter 4
From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported fereween Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a ge seemed near,—I desired and waited it in sile 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, nio take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were stantly in the drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sendio school: still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me uhe same roof with her; for her glanow more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion.
Eliza and Geiana, evidently ag acc to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and oempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against him, roused by the same se of deep ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran from me tittering execrations, and vowing I had burst his nose. I had indeed levelled at that promi 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 ination to follow up my advao purpose; but he was already with his mama. I heard him in a blubbering tone ehe 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 senting to their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no trol.
“What?” said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold posed 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 see all you do and think; and so 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 the 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 interged, dinners and evening parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety sisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Geiana, and seeing them desd to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ried; 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 a as refreshments were hao the broken hum of versation 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 pany, for in pany I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind and panionable, I should have deemed it ?a treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them uhe formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies alemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the lively regions of the kit and housekeeper’s room, generally bearing the dle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my kill the fire got low, glang round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself hauhe 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 affe, I trived 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 siy I doated on this little toy, half fang 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 paratively happy, believing it to be happy likewise.
Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the pany, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step oairs: sometimes she would e up ierval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps t 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, ki being in the world; and I wished most intehat 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 ales. She retty too, if my recolles of her fad person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear plexion; 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’clo the m: Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoo their mama; Eliza utting on her bo 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 h up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffid a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending of eggs and chis, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener about flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that funary 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 ers, ed 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, seo intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate of i—fifty or sixty per t.; whiterest she exacted every quarter, keeping her ats in a little book with anxious accuracy.
Geiana 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 iic. 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 and from Geiana 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 spa the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still arified uhe 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 asding the drive with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors in whom I was ied; it stopped in front of the house, the door-bell rang loudly, the new-er was admitted. All this being nothing to me, my vat attention soon found livelier attra in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped owigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall he casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood oable, 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 Jaake off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you washed your hands and face this m?” I gave aug before I answered, for I wahe bird to be secure of its bread: the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some oone 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 ared 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 fad hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurryio 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 desded. 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 bee 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 turhe stiff door-handle, which, for a sed or two, resisted my efforts. “What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?—a man or a woman?” The haurhe 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 standi 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 respeg 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 trary 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 io 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. “e 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 promieeth!
“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? 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 e, was objeable: “I must keep in good health, and not die.”
“How you keep in good health? Children youhan 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 dition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down owe 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 havihe occasion of disfort to your excellent beress.”
“Beress! beress!” said I inwardly: “they all call Mrs. Reed my beress; if so, a beress is a disagreeable thing.”
“Do you say your prayers night and m?” tinued 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 icles, and Job and Jonah.”
“And the Psalms? I hope you like them?”
“No, sir.”
“No? oh, shog! I have a little boy, youhan 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 thewo nuts in repense for his infant piety.”
“Psalms are not iing,” I remarked.
“That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to ge it: to give you a new and oo take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
I was about to propound a question, toug the manner in which that operation of ging my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed interposed, tellio sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the versation herself.
“Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated iter 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 superinte 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, Jahat 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 strahe 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 evideny 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,” tinued my beress; “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 ihe worldly se of pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My sed 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 bed 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. sistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate sisten all things.”
“sistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every arra ected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated aodations, 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 ity 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 iimable privilege of her ele.”
“I will sehen, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was being too irksome.”
“No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good m. I shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my good friend, the Archdea, 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 he 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 taining ‘An at of the awfully suddeh of Martha G —, a naughty child addicted to falsehood a.’”
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 watg 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 large and promi, mouth and nose suffitly regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her stitution was sound as a bell—illness never came near her; she was a, clever manager; her household ary were thhly under her trol; her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to s; she dressed well, and had a presend 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 taining the suddeh of the Liar, to whiarrative my attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said io Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their versation, was ret, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of rese fomented now within me.
Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspeheir 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 lauhem in this bluence—
“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 yirl, Geiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I.”
Mrs. Reed’s hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice tio dwell freezingly on mine.
“What more have you to say?” she asked, rather ione in which a person might address an oppo 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 tinued—
“I am glad you are ion of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never e 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 do without o of love or kindness; but I ot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me bato the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffog 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!”
Ere I had fihis reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the stra 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 se: Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rog 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 uand 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, Jahat you must allow: and now return to the here’s a dear—and lie down a little.”
“I am not your dear; I ot lie down: seo school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.”
“I will indeed seo 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 queror’s solitude. First, I smiled to myself a elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses. A child ot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; ot give its furious feelings untrolled play, as I had given mine, without experieng afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of rea. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glang, dev, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, blad blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent dition, when half-an-hour’s silend refle had showhe madness of my duct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatie it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallid 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 experiend partly from instinct, that was the way to make her repulse me with double s, thereby re-exg 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 fasating. I opehe glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, a 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-es, the gealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffeogether. I leaned against a gate, and looked into ay field where no sheep were feeding, where the shrass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most opaque sky, “onding on snaw,” opied all; thence flakes felt it 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 ain, “What shall I do?—what shall I do?”
All at once I heard a clear voice call, “Miss Jane! where are you? e to lunch!”
It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step came tripping dowh.
“You naughty little thing!” she said. “Why don’t you e when you are called?”
Bessie’s presence, pared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross. The fact is, after my flict 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, “e, Bessie! don’t scold.”
The a 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 yoing 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 plaow, e 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 se 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 ce 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 sed thoughts I sidered it better to remain silent on that head.
“And so ylad 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 wele: bend your head down.” Bessie stooped; we mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite forted. That afternoon lapsed in pead harmony; and in the evening Bessie told me some of her most ening stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.
Chapter 5
Five o’clock had hardly stru the m of the 19th of January, when Bessie brought a dle 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 perso risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children eat wheed 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, ed up some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and bo, and ing 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 m, or my cousiher; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her accly.”
“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 a out at the front door.
The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose light glanced oeps and gravel road sodden by a ret thaw. Raw and chill was the winter m: 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 annouhe ing 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 an loudly urged haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie’s neck, to which I g 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 ahe 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 mysteriions.
I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that eared to travel over hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one, a very large ohe 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 ead, a delier pe 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 ing in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie’s fireside icles. At last the guard returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my proteounted his ow, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over the “stony street” of L-.
The afternoon came o 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 try ged; great grey hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we desded 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 suddeion of motion awoke me; the coach- door en, and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her fad 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 coastantly 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; heless, I dimly dised a wall before me and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new guide: she shut and locked it behihere 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, splashi, 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 dle, but the uain light from the hearth showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany furniture: it arlour, not so spacious or splendid as the drawing-room at Gateshead, but fortable enough. I uzzling 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 artly enveloped in a shawl, her tenance was grave, her beari.
“The child is very young to be sent alone,” said she, putting her dle down oable. She sidered 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, plag 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 e to sy little girl?”
I explaio 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: theouched 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-he one who went with me appeared some years youhe first impressed me by her voice, look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in plexion, though of a careworn tenance; hurried in gait and a, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an ueacher. Led by her, I passed from partment to partment, 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 ead, on each of which burnt a pair of dles, aed all round on benches, a gregation of girls of every age, from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by the dim light of the dips, their o me appeared tless, though not iy exceediy; 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 ing over their to- morrow’s task, and the hum I had heard was the bined result of their whispered repetitions.
Miss Miller sigo me to sit on a benear 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 and—
“Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!”
The tall girls went out aurned presently, each bearing a tray, with portions of something, I knew not what, arrahereon, 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 on 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 intments.
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 gla the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two octs; in ten mihe single light was extinguished, and amidst silend plete 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 relutly; 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, oands down the middle of the room. Again the bell rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order desded the stairs aered 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 vat seat. A pause of some seds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound.
A distainkled: immediately three ladies ehe room, each walked to a table and took her seat. Miss Miller assumed the fourth vat chair, which was that he 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, theais 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 dawhe iigable 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 maion of distent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those destio swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls of the first class, rose the whispered words—
“Disgusting! The pe is burnt again!”
“Silence!” ejaculated a voiot 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 oable, 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, fn-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards found, took the correspondi 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 pe is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famiself soon sis 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 beiurned for what we had not got, and a sed hymn ted, the refectory was evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and in passing the tables, I saw oeacher take a basin of the pe and taste it; she looked at the others; all their tenances e>xpressed displeasure, and one of them, the stout one, whispered—
“Abomiuff! 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 versation ran on the breakfast, whie and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the sole solation they had. Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great girls standing about her spoke with serious and sulleures. 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 cheek the general wrath; doubtless she shared in it.
A clo the schoolroom struine; Miss Miller left her circle, and standing in the middle of the room, cried—
“Sileo your seats!”
Discipline prevailed: in five mihe fused throng was resolved into order, and parative silence quelled the Babel clamour of tohe 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 a; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks bed 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, aio serve the purpose of a work- bag: all, too, wearing woollen stogs and try-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of those clad in this e 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 o a little fierce, the fner 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 on spring.
What was the matter? I had heard no iven: I uzzled. Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were agaied: but as all eyes were now turo one point, mine followed the general dire, and entered 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 ead; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss Miller approag, 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 dire was being executed, the lady sulted moved slowly up the room. I suppose I have a siderable an of veion, for I retaihe 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, acc to the fashion of those times, wheher smooth bands nor llets 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 on then as now) sho her girdle. Let the reader add, to plete the picture, refined features; a plexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words 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 superinte of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summohe first class round her, and enced giving a lesson on geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in histrammar, &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 superinte 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 m a breakfast which you could ; 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 too them, and immediately afterwards left the room.
The bread and cheese resently 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 bo, 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 rou was an i day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still soaki with the floods of yesterday. The stronger among ..he 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 peed 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 notie; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was aced; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying tet the cold whiipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger whiawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watg and thinking. My refles 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 distahe present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no jecture. I looked round the vent-like garden, and then up at the house—a large building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite he new part, taining the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stoablet over the door bore this inscription:—
“Lowood Institution.—This portion was rebuilt A.D.—, by Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this ty.” “Let yht so shine before men, that they may see yood works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”— St. Matt. v. 16.
I read these words over and ain: I felt that an explanation beloo them, and was unable fully to pee their import. I was stil..l p the signification of “Institution,” and endeav to make out a e 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 benear; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed i: from where I stood I could see the title—it was Rasselas; a hat struck me as strange, and sequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happeo look up, and I said to her directly—
“Is your book iing?” I had already formed the iion of askio lend it to me some day.
“I like it,” she answered, after a pause of a sed or two, during which she examined me.
“What is it about?” I tinued. I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a versation with a strahe step was trary 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 prehend the serious or substantial.
“You may look at it,” replied the girl, me the book.
I did so; a brief examination vinced me that the tents were less taking thale: Rasselas looked dull to my trifling taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; nht variety seemed spread over the closely-printed pages. I retur to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to relapse into her former studious mood: again I veo disturb her—
“ you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? What is Lowood Institution?”
“This house where you are e 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 her your father or your mother dead?”
“Both died before I remember.”
“Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an institution for edug 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 teag, and the deficy is supplied by subscription.”
“Who subscribes?”
“Different benevolent-minded ladies alemen 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 ao 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 oh 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 oh black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the sed 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 es from Lisle, in France, and teaches French.”
“Do you like the teachers?”
“Well enough.”
“Do you like the little blae, and the Madame —?—I ot 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-ehe house. The odour whiow 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 sist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful ortioo each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within myself whether every day’s fare would be like this.
After dinner, we immediately adjouro the schoolroom: lessons reenced, and were tiill five o’clock.
The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had versed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, ao 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 her wept nor blushed: posed, though grave, she stood, the tral mark of all eyes. “How 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 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, sisting 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 6
The day enced as befetting up and dressing by rushlight; but this m we were obliged to dispeh the ceremony of washing; the water ichers was frozen. A ge had taken pla the weather the preg 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 turhe tents 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 m the po藏书网rridge 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 bee an actor therein. At first, being little aced to learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent ge from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three o’clo the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., a me to sit in a quiet er of the schoolroom, with dires 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 endations of Miss Scatcherd on the performa was English history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the e of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some iion to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure position, Miss Scatcherd tio make her an object of stant notice: she was tinually addressing to her such phrases as the following:—
“Burns” (such it seems was her he 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 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 beehrough twice, the books were closed and the girls examihe lesson had prised part of the reign of Charles I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and ship-money, which most of them appeared uo answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns: her memory seemed to have retaihe substance of the whole lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point. I kept expeg that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention; but, instead of that, she suddenly cried out—
“You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never ed your nails this m!”
Burns made no answer: I wo her silence. “Why,” thought I, “does she not explain that she could her her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?”
My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desirio 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 returo 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 preseo 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 se of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression.
“Hardened girl!” exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; “nothing 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 ohin cheek.
The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasa fra 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 huhe loraint of the day was slaed; the schoolroom felt warmer than in the m—its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of dles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the lised uproar, the fusion of many voices gave one a wele 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 panio 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 f against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the dissolate 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 straement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the fusion to rise to clamour.
Jumping over forms, and creeping uables, 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 panionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.
“Is it still Rasselas?” I asked, ing behind her.
“Yes,” she said, “and I have just fi.”
And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. “Now,” thought I, “I perhaps get her to talk.” I sat down by her on the floor.
“What is your name besides Burns?”
“Helen.”
“Do you e a long way from here?”
“I e from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland.”
“Will you ever go back?”
“I hope so; but nobody 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 attaihat 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 eiently a smart whiobody feels but yourself, than to it a hasty a whose evil sequences will extend to all ected 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 youhan 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 ot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.”
I heard her with wonder: I could not prehend this doe of endurance; and still less could I uand or sywithout delay.
Chapter 7
My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the goldeher; it prised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwoasks. 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 insuffit to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes aed there: loved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distrag 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 m. Then the sty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely suffit to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficy of nourishmeed an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whehe famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or mehe little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the preorsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the tents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an apa 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 m service we became almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of eat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served rouween 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 remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encing 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 a of a blazing fire whe back! But, to the little o 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, ing 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 trived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.
The Sunday evening ent iing, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, ah 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 enat 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, aaken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the tre 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 archdea: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for dreading his ing: but e he did at last.
Oernoon (I had thehree weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstra to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing: I reised 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 entrahey thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same blan 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 mid 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 “ing Man,” whose information respeg my past life and versation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: now there he was.
He stood at Miss Temple’s side; he eaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful ay, expeg every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance nand pt. I listeoo; and as I happeo 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 fot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent i week; and she is not, on any at, to give out more tha 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 stogs were better looked to!—when I was here last, I went into the kit-garden and examihe clothes drying on the lihere 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 dires shall be atteo, sir,” said Miss Temple.
“And, ma’am,” he tinued, “the lauells me some of the girls have two tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit them to one.”
“I think I explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine Johnstone were io take tea with some friends at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put ouckers for the occasion.”
Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.
“Well, for o may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur too often. And there is ahing which surprised me; I find, iling ats with the housekeeper, that a lunch, sisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fht. 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 diime.”
“Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to ac them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to rehem hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little actal disappoi of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the i ought not to be ralised by replag with something more delicate the fort 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 encing them to evince fortitude uemporary 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 solations, “If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye.” Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt pe, 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 overe 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 faaturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the ess 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 ats 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?” Aending his e he poio 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 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 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 excresce—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 bay bench, I could see the looks and grimaces with which they ented on this man?uvre: it ity 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 interferehan he imagined.
He scrutihe reverse of these living medals some five mihen pronounced sentehese 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-faess 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, ered the room. They ought to have e a little sooo have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired i, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen aeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from uhe 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 ducted to seats of honour at the top of the room. It seems they had e in the carriage with their revereive, and had been dug a rummaging scrutiny of the room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questiohe laundress, aured the superinte. They now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linen and the iion of the dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and ented my attention.
Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, ed 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 ba the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to ceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehoeo slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I k was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the twments 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 fet I have a word to say respeg her.” Then aloud: how loud it seemed to me! “Let the child who broke her slate e forward!”
Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I aralysed: but the two great girls who sit 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 sel—
“Don’t be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an act; 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 vi. 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 laced there, by whom I don’t know: I was in no dition to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst’s hat he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of she 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 givehe shape that He has given to a?ll 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 Rubi assed; and that the trial, no loo 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 bees 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 yuard against her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her pany, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your verse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her as, 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 shog!” Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.
“This I learned from her beress; from the pious and charitable lady ted 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 exetlent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should iheir 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, superinte, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her.”
With this sublime clusion, 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, a no one speak to her during the remainder of the day.”
There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could n..ot 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 describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and strig my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What araordinary 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 iransit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand oool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returo her place, and smiled at me as she agai by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fiellect, of true ce; it lit up her marked lis, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a refle from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm “the untidy badge;” scarcely an ho I had heard her ned 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 imperfeature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest pla; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.
Chapter 8
Ere the half-hour ended, five o’clock struck; school was dismissed, and all were goo the refectory to tea. I now veo desd: it was deep dusk; I retired into a er and sat down on the floor. The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; rea 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 resped win affe. Already I had made visible progress: that very m 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 tio 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 ats, some one approached: I started up— again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her ing up the long, vat room; she brought my coffee and bread.
“e, 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 dition. Helen regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my agitation, though I tried hard; I tio weep aloud. She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, aed 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 oy people who have heard you called so, and the world tains 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 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 ook 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 cealed 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, a on—
“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own sce approved you, and absolved yuilt, 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 ot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affe 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 kig horse, a 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 sn hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or thaures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the raen, 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 issioo guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if s smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, reise our innoce (if i we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at sed-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a siure in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, ah is so certain arao happiness— to glory?”
I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but iranquillity she imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whe came; and when, having done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I momentarily fot my own sorrows to yield to a vague 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 approag figure, which we at once reised 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 e too.”
We went; following the superinte’s guidance, we had to thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her apartment; it tained 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 yrief 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. tio 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 beress?”
“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 . 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 te 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 rese, 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 e to see me after the fit: for I never fot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room: iailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recolle the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a sed 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 keepi her side (where I was well teo stand, for I derived a child’s pleasure from the plation of her face, her dress, her one or two ors, 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; theuro her ow: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She ensive a few mihen 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 soht. How pretty, to my eyes, did the a cups and bright teapot look, placed otle round table he fire! Hrant was the steam of the beverage, and the st of the toast! of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry) dised only a very small portion: Miss Temple dised it too.
“Barbara,” said she, “ you n 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. Harde observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr. Brocklehurst’s ow, 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 deficies for this once.”
Having invited Helen ao 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 ed 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 feaste藏书网d that evening as oar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the eai 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 versation 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 chastehe pleasure of those who looked on her and listeo her, by a trolling 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 presend kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers withihey 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 her of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiahen her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I ot 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 versed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past; of tries far away; of secrets of nature discovered uessed at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with Frenames 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 strue a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my an of veion 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 lohan me: she let her go more relutly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a sed time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.
On reag the bedroom, we heard the voiiss Scatcherd: she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns’s, and wheered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that to-morrow she should have half-a-dozen of untidily folded articles pio her shoulder.
“My things were indeed in shameful disorder,” murmured Helen to me, in a low voice: “I inteo have arrahem, but I fot.”
m, Miss Scatcherd wrote in spicuous 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, uful, 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 tinually 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 is above narrated, Miss Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that what he said went to corroborate my at. Miss Temple, having assembled the whole school, annouhat inquiry had been made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to be able to pronounce her pletely 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 panions.
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 roportioo my efforts; my memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I romoted to a higher class; ihan two months I was allowed to ence Frend drawing. I learhe 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 fot 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 h over unblown roses, of birds pig at ripe cherries, of wren’s s enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I examioo, 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 satisfa 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 exged Lowood with all its privations fateshead and its daily luxuries.
Chapter 9
But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already e; 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 uhe gentler breathings of April; the nights and ms no longer by their adian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now ehe play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it begao be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, a each m 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, uhe 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 arden: this pleasure sisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a great hill-hollow, ri verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this se looked when I viewed it laid out beh the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow!— when mists as chill as death wao 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 asuhe wood, a a raving sound through the air, often thied with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, that showed only ranks of skeletons.
April advao 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-sunshi 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 bees 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, quiing with the quiing 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 ed colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive iion: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at oime. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who tinued well were allowed almost unlimited lise; because the medical attendant insisted on the y of frequent exercise to keep them ih: 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 si, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours’ rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with pag up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends aions able and willing to remove them from the seat of tagion. Many, already smitte 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 bee an inhabitant of Lowood, ah 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 overe the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills aiful woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opeulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, m and evening, their st of spid 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 tinued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of the se and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like gipsies, from m 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 iion; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, uo the ways of her new abode, provided with parative 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 aplished barefoot. The stone was just broad enough to aodate, fortably, anirl a that time my chosen rade—one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd, observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was witty and inal, 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 indulgenever 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 mutertai, 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 fotten her? or was I so worthless as to have grown tired of her pare society? Surely the Mary Arm Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any rad pu gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was qualified to give those who ehe privilege of her verse a taste of far higher things.
True, reader; and I knew ahis: and though I am a defective being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I ired of Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a se of attat, 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 roubled? 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 plaint was ption, not typhus: and by ption I, in my ignorance, uood something mild, which time and care would be sure to alleviate.
I was firmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twiing 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 ed up, and藏书网
er at the other extremity of the gallery, versing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then desded 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-bye, 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 chi and tarts served to divert her attention for a time. It was well I secured this fe, or both she, I, and Sophie, to whom I veyed a share of our repast, would have run a ce of getting no di all: every one downstairs was too mugaged 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 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. o 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 theill 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 or, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We desded.
Fortuhere was another entrao the drawing-room than that through the saloohey were all seated at dinner. We found the apartment vat; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and wax dles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers with which the tables were adorhe 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 versation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur.
Adèle, eared to be still uhe 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 prendrie une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, mademoiselle? Seulement pour pleter 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 faste in her sash. She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfa, as if her cup of happiness were now full. I turned my face away to ceal a smile I could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful itle Parisienne’s ear 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 p down light on the silver and glass of a magnifit dessert-service c 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 maghe moon. I rose and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads iurn, 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-reing positions on the sofas and ottomans: some bent over the tables and examihe 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 kheir 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: naive, and child-like in fad manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue sash became her well. The sed, 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 geful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily uhe shade of an azure plume, and within the circlet of a band of gems.
Mrs. el 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 fn lace, and her pearl ors, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame.
But the three most distinguished—partly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the bahe 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 dle-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 tenance. She had Romaures and a double , disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural ereess. She had, likewise, a fierd a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed’s; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its iions very pompous, very dogmatical,—very intolerable, in short. A crimso robe, and a shawl turban of some gold-wrought Indian fabrivested 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 i. First, I wished to see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax’s description; sedly, 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 perso, 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 ris 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 tinually; her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and haughty lip.
Genius is said to be self-scious. I ot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-scious—remarkably self- scious indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that sce: though, as she said, she liked flowers, “especially wild ones;” Miss Ingram had, and she ras 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 fluend with a good at.
Mary had a milder and more open tehan Blanche; softer features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard)—but Mary was defit in life: her face lacked expression, her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having oaken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its he 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 aplished, 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 oool at my feet: no; when the ladies entered, she rose, advao meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with gravity—
“Bon jour, mesdames.”
And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mog 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 eaking 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, ensced between them, chattering alternately in Frend broken English; abs not only the young ladies’ attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, aing spoilt to her heart’s tent.
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 e. The collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing: they are all ed in black; most of them are tall, some young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; and el 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 théatre.” Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary’s apathetid listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of bloour of brain.
And where is Mr. Rochester?
He es in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I try to trate my attention on those ing-needles, on the meshes of the purse I am f—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 iably 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 ge his and my relative positions? Yet now, how distant, how far estranged we were! So far estrahat I did not expect him to e 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 versing 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 trol: 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 heless.
Most true is it that “beauty is in the eye of the gazer.” My master’s colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad ay eyebrows, deep eyes, stroures, firm, grim mouth,—all energy, decision, will,—were not beautiful, acc to rule; but they were more thaiful to me; they were full of an i, an influehat quite mastered me,—that took my feelings from my own power aered them in his. I had not inteo 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 pared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,—even the military distin of el Dent, trasted with his look of native pith and genuine power? I had no sympathy in their appearaheir expressio I could imagihat 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 dles had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significe as their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester smile:- his sterures softened; his eye grew both brilliant ale, its ray both searg and sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I woo see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so peing: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise u; 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 uand the language of his tenand movements: though rank ah sever us widely, I have something in my brain a, in my blood and hat assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days sihat 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 ht than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must ceal my ses: I must smother hope; I must remember that he ot care mue. 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 on with him. I must, the tinually that we are for ever sundered:- a, while I breathe and think, I must love him.”
Coffee is hahe ladies, sihe gentlemeered, have bee lively as larks; versation waxes brisk and merry. el Dent and Mr. Eshtue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, fabulate together. Sir Gee—whom, by-the-bye, I have fotten to describe,—a very big, and very fresh-looking try 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 showihe 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 alo 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 fronts him, takiation 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 seo school.”
“I could not afford it: schools are so dear.”
“Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saerson 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 urned his eyes.
“I have not sidered the subject,” said he indifferently, looking straight before him.
“No, you men never do sider ey and on 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 goverhe word makes me nervous. I have suffered a martyrdom from their inpetend caprice. I thank Heaven I have now doh 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 remihat one of the aised race resent.
“Tant pis!” said her Ladyship, “I hope it may dood!” 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, waggiurban three times with portentous significy.
“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 nuisanot that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turables. 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 oor sickly thing, lachrymose and low-spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effe her. But poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driveo 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 proseg (or perseg) 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 be 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 liaisoween governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly—”
“Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the eion! Au reste, we all know them: danger of bad example to innoce of childhood; distras and sequent of duty on the part of the attached—mutual alliand reliance; fidehence resulting—insolence apanying—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: ge the subject.”
Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her soft, infaone: “Louisa and I used to quiz overoo; 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 i; and she was so good- natured, she would give as 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 introdu of a opic. Mr. Rochester, do you sey motion?”
“Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other.”
“Then on me be the onus ing it forward. Signior Eduardo, are you in voice to-night?”
“Donna Bianca, if you and it, I will be.”
“Then, signior, I lay on you my s to furbish up your lungs and other vocal ans, 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 seo 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 el 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, enced a brilliant prelude; talkiime. She appeared to be on her high horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed inteo 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 aage! I grant an ugly woman is a.９９ｌｉb. blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentlemehem 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 tinued after a pause whioerrupted, “I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I will suffer no petitor he throne; I shall exa 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 spirito.”
“ands 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 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!” ahe lady.
“Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns would be a suffit substitute for capital punishment.”
“Sing!” said she, and again toug the piano, she enced an apa in spirited style.
“Now is my time to slip away,” thought I: but the tohat 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 wakiion 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 er 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 o 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 e 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; teag Adèle as usual.”
“Aing 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 she 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—ihey 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 uand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don’t it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adèle. Good-night, my—” He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.
Chapter 18
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 beh its roof! All sad feelings seemed now driven from the house, all gloomy associations fotten: there was life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the gallery, once so hushed, er the front chambers, once so tenantless, without entering a smart lady’s-maid or a dandy valet.
The kit, 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 hal sunshine of the genial spriher called their octs out into the grounds. Evehat weather was broken, and tinuous rai in for some days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, in sequence of the stop put to outdaiety.
I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a ge of eai roposed: they spoke of “playing charades,” but in my ignorance I did not uand 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 entlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoo give information respeg the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; aain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked, and their tents, in the shape of bro藏书网caded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a sele was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summohe ladies round him, and was seleg certain of their o be of his party. “Miss Ingram is mine, of course,” said he: afterwards he he two Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happeo 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 el Dent, sat down on the crest of chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, me, seemed to propose that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly ived 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 Gee 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 rouhe tents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then appeared the magnifit 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 he table. They k; 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 the pantomime of a marriage. At its termination, el Dent and his party sulted in whispers for two mihen the el called out—
“Bride!” Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.
A siderable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its sed rising displayed a more elaborately prepared se than the last. The drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the dining-room, and oop of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin— which I reised as an or of the servatory—where it usually stood, surrounded by exotics, aed by gold fish—and whe must have been transported with some trouble, on at of its size a.
Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. Rochester, ed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the e exactly: he looked the very model of aern emir, a or a victim of the b. 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 i of supp a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of form aure, her plexion and her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she inteo represent.
She approached the basin, a 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, ope and showed magnifit bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks aures; the stranger fastehe 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 se illustrated. el Dent, their spokesman, demahe tableau of the whole;” whereupon the curtain again desded.
On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being cealed by a s, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal table and a kit chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax dles being all extinguished.
Amidst this sordid se, sat a man with his ched 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 ba a scuffle), the desperate and scowling tehe rough, bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a ked; to his wrists were attached fetters.
“Bridewell!” exclaimed el Dent, and the charade was solved.
A suffit interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary e, they re-ehe dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was plimenting him on his ag.
“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 gallaleman-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 being to your plexion than that ruffian’s rouge.”
“You would like a hero of the road then?”
“An English hero of the road would be the 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,” tinued 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 i 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 el Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the sultation which followed each se: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her ine 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 interged 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 ourn his eyes in my dire—because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who sed to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by ce, would withdraw it instantly as from an objeean 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 iions respeg 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 circumstahough 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 beh 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 attais; but her mind oor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforatural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was ninal: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of se; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not ioo ofterayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had ceived against little Adèle: pushing her away with some elious epithet if she happeo approach her; sometimes her from the room, and always treating her with ess and acrimony. Other eyes besides miched these maions 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 sciousness of his fair one’s defects— this obvious absence of passion in his ses towards her, that my ever-t pain arose.
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and es 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 mahe victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turo 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 oal struggle with two tigers—jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired her—aowledged 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 quiesce. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram’s efforts at fasating Mr. Rochester, to witheir repeated failure—herself unscious that they did fail; vainly fang that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-placy repelled further and further what she wished to allure—to withis, was to be at onder ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that tinually 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 ons a silent quest might have been won.
“Why she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so o him?” I asked myself. “Surely she ot truly like him, or not like him with true affe! If she did, she need not her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so uingly, 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 grimad it increased and grew kinder and menial, and warmed one like a f sunbeam. How will she mao please him when they are married? I do not think she will ma; a 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 natory of Mr. Rochester’s projearrying for i and es. It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his iion: I had thought him a man uo be influenced by motives so onpla his choice of a wife; but the longer I sidered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blamiher him or Miss Ingram for ag in ity 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 advao the husband’s oiness offered by this plan vinced 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 leo my master: I was fetting 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 aable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshhat had startled me once, were only like keen ents in a choice dish: their presence u, but their absence would be felt as paratively 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 volic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbi, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare—to divi; 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 sidered only their movements of importahe rest of the party were occupied with their own separate is and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram tio sort in solemn ferences, where they heir two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in frontiures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, acc 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 Gee Lynn, el Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or ty 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 sent, suspeheir by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and—because closely ected 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 versation.
The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoo 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 on beyond Hay, was sequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were goo the stables: the younger oogether with the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought sola 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 versation, had first murmured over some seal tunes and airs on the piano, and then, haviched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fi, the tedious hours of absehe 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 k by me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed—
“Voile, 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 g of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible o gravel. A post-chaise roag.
“What possess him to e 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 doh the animals?”
As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so he window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she藏书网 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-er entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deemihe eldest lady present.
“It appears I e at an inopportuime, 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 olite; his at, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual,—not precisely fn, but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester’s,—between thirty and forty; his plexion 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, vat life—at least so I thought.
The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till after dihat I saw him agaihen seemed quite at his ease. But I liked his physiognomy evehan before: it struck me as being at the same time uled 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 and 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, a shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold, I pared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the trast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce fal: 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 versation 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 o me, fused the fragmentary sentehat reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the strahey 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 niose,” 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 summohem to the other side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to Hay on.
I was now able to trate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-er was called Mr. Mason; then I learhat he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot try: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so he 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 bee acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend’s dislike of the burnis, the hurries, and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the ti of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores.
I these things, when an i, and a somewhat ued one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one ced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of der still sho ahe footman whht 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 iocks if she does not take herself off,” replied the magistrate.
“No—stop!” interrupted el Dent. “Don’t send her away, Eshton; we might turhing to at; better sult the ladies.” And speaking aloud, he tinued—“Ladies, you talked of going to Hay on 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, el,” cried Lady Ingram, “you would not ence such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!”
“But I ot persuade her to go away, my lady,” said the footman; “nor any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, eio be gone; but she has taken a chair in the ey- er, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to e 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 shogly 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 ce of fun.”
“My dear boys, what are you thinking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Lynn.
“I ot possibly tenany susistent proceeding,” chimed in the Dowager Ingram.
“Indeed, mama, but you —and will,” pronouhe 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 fortuold: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward.”
“My darling Blanche! recollect—”
“I do—I recollect all you suggest; and I must have my will— quick, Sam!”
“Yes—yes—yes!” cried all the juveniles, both ladies alemen. “Let her e—it will be excellent sport!”
The footman still lingered. “She looks such a rough one,” said he.
“Go!” ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the ma.
Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery as roceeding when Sam returned.
“She won’t e 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 sult 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 knoill be her first visitor.”
“I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,” said el Dent.
“Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is ing.”
Sam went aurned.
“She says, sir, that she’ll have lemen; they need not trouble themselves to e 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 brea 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 el Dent held open, and we heard her ehe library.
A parative silensued. Lady Ingram thought it “le cas” t her hands: which she did accly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered uheir breath, and looked a little frightened.
The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were ted before the library-dain opened. Miss Ingram returo 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 ess; she looked her 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 fortueller?” demahe Misses Eshton.
“Now, now, good people,” returned Miss Ingram, “don’t press upon me. Really yans 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 ge the house, who is in close alliah the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in haeyed fashion the sce 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 iocks to-morrow m, as he threatened.”
Miss Ingram took a book, leant ba her chair, and so deed further versation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that time she urned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappoi. 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 indifferetached undue importao whatever revelations had been made her.
Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; ahey all wished to go. A iation ehrough the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pag 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 mihey 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 nht!” 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 haste 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 ors they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that differeions had preseo them. They affirmed that she had even diviheir 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 ear petitions to be further enlightened owo last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, iurn for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and agaierated the expression of their 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 se 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 ued opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye—for the pany 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 e in.”
“No, Sam, return to the kit: I am not in the least afraid.” Nor was I; but I was a good deal ied aed.
Chapter 19
The library looked tranquil enough as I e, and the Sibyl— if Sibyl she were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the ey-er. She had on a red cloak and a black bo: or rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her . Ainguished dle stood oable; 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 entra 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 posed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy’s appearao 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 o looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beh a white band which passed under her , and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye fronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.
“Well, and you want your fortuold?” 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 impudeo 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 hem all in your trade.”
“I do; especially when I’ve ers 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 sult my art?”
“I’m not silly.”
The old e “nichered” a laugh under her bo 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 tact 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 be it to approaor will you stir oep 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 depe 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 k, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to bihem. ce laid them someart; let them be once approached and bliss results.”
“I don’t uand 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 stog-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round aur, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She ached her face to the palm, and pored over it without toug it.
“It is too fine,” said she. “I 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 tinued, “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 ing to reality,” I said, as I obeyed her. “I shall begin to put some faith in you presently.”
I k 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 fato deeper shadow: mi 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 magitern: just as little sympathetiunion passiween 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 learhem from the servants.”
“Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintah 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,” tihe strange being; “she’s a safe hand is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose fiden her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but your future school? Have you no present i in any of the pany 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 ah, 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 knoerhaps think well of.”
“I don’t know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interged a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I sider 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 sider the transa of any moment to me.”
“You don’t know the gentlemen here? You have not exged 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 m, 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 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 tinuous?”
“The eagerness of a listener quis the tongue of a narrator.” I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose straalk, voice, manner, had by this time ed me in a kind of dream. One ued sentence came from her lips after aill I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watg its ws and taking record of every pulse.
“Eagerness of a listener!” repeated she: “yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear ined to the fasating lips that took such delight iask of unig; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?”
“Grateful! I ot remember deteg gratitude in his face.”
“Deteg! 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! ly. 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 fess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?”
“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.”
“Shortly?”
“Appearances would warrant that clusion: 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, aplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know she siders the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an ho which made her look wondrous grave: the ers of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another es, with a longer or clearer rent-roll,—he’s dished—”
“But, mother, I did not e 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, orait tradicted another. ce has meted you a measure of happiness: that I know. I k 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.”
I k. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning ba 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 unscious 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 mog glahe truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only firm 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 ceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never inteo be pressed iernal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak mud smile often, and have human affe for its interlocutor. That feature too is propitious.
“I see no eo a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,—‘I live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an i９9ｌｉｂ?nward treasure born with me, which keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I ot 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 wihquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice whiterprets the dictates of sce.’
“Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my plans—right plans I deem them—and in them I have atteo the claims of sce, the sels 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—tratitude, not t tears of blood—no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, i— 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 thhly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leav.e 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 ged: her at, her gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own fa a glass—as the speey own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bo and her bandage closer about her face, and again beed me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at oiced 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 br flashed otle finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a huimes before. Again I looked at the face; which was no lourned from me—on the trary, the bo 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 unatable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me out—or in; you have been talking nonseo make me talk nonse is scarcely fair, sir.”
“Do you five me, Jane?”
“I ot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on refle, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to 藏书网five you; but it was nht.”
“Oh, you have been very correct—very careful, very sensible.”
I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a fort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and fortuellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her ao ceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace Poole—that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I sidered her. I had hought of Mr. Rochester.
“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about? What does that grave smile signify?”
“Wonder and self-gratulation, 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 dow 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 m?”
“A stranger!—no; who 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 es 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 vulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.
“Mason!—the West Indies!” he said, ione one might fancy a speaking automaton to enous single words; “Mason!—the West Indies!” he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, growing, iervals 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 o 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 recolles removed from me.”
“ 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 versation were general and animated. Mr. Mason stood he fire, talking to el 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 returo the library.
Mr. Rochester’s extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and sterook the glass from my hand.
“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said. He swallowed the tents aur 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 a 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 e?”
“Yes, sir, to fort 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 sure for my sake?”
“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do.”
“Go baow into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr. Rochester is e and wishes to see him: show him in here and then leave me.”
“Yes, sir.”
I did his behest. The pany 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 20
I had fotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down my window-blind. The sequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that spa 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 siles 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 aralysed. The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that fearful shriek could not soo it: not the widest-winged dor on the Andes could, twi 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 o seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted—
“Help! help! help!” three times rapidly.
“Will no one e?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and stampi on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:—
“Rochester! Rochester! fod’s sake, e!”
A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. Aep stamped on the fl 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 sounde?99lｉｂ?d 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 fusedly on all hands. But for the moonlight they would have been in plete darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the fusion was iricable.
“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried el Dent. “I ot find him in his bed.”
“Here! here!” was shouted iurn. “Be posed, all of you: I’m ing.”
And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a dle: he had just desded 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 ging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white ers, 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 aable, nervous person: she strued 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 bato your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she ot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodo set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in eving superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your s 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 anding, he trived to get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did not wait to be ordered baine, but retreated unnoticed, as unnoticed I had left it.
Not, however, to go to bed: on the trary, 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 iion 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. Meahe moon deed: 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.”
“e out, then, quietly.”
I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.
“I want you,” he said: “e 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 bad 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: approag 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 ess, 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 turhe key and opehe 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 cealed. This door en; a light sho of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatg sound, almost like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his dle, said to me, “Wait a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter greeted his entranoisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole’s own goblin ha! ha! She then was there. He made some sort ement 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 cealed a siderable portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was he 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 dle over him; I reised 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 dle,” 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 moistehe 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 opehe shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away blood, trig fast down.
“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason.
“Pooh! No—a mere scratch. Don’t be so overe, man: bear up! I’ll fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by m, I hope. Jane,” he tinued.
“Sir?”
“I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two hours: you will spohe 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 sequences.”
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 spoo my hand, and I proceeded to use it as he had done. He watched me a sed, then saying, “Remember!—No versation,” 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 ihird 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 alling—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 tehese 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 trig gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed dle wane on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow blader the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great et opposite—whose front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, eaclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.
Acc as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here lahere, it was now the bearded physi, 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, e noise, and a deep human groan.
Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this that lived inate in this sequestered mansion, and could her 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 fad shape, uttered the voiow of a mog demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
And this man I bent over—this onplace, quiet stranger—how had he bee 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 uhe violence or treachery done him? Why did he so quietly submit to the cealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this cealment? His guest had been ed, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he smothered in secred sank in oblivion! ly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held plete sway over the iness 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: whehen had arisen Mr. Rochester’s dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason’s arrival? Why had the mere name of this uing individual—whom his word now sufficed to trol like a child—fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak?
Oh! I could not fet his look and his paleness when ..he whispered: “Jane, I have got a blow—I have got a blow, Jane.” I could not fet 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 e? When will he e?” I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingered—as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sied: aher day nor aid arrived. I had, again and agaihe water to Mason’s white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed iual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three bined, were fast prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; ant I might not eveo him.
The dle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then approag. 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 gratihe 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. e, 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 thten 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!—ce! This day fht 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 do that stiously,” said Carter, who had now uhe 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 doh a khere have beeh 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 yuard 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, ed his tenance almost to distortion; but he only said—
“e, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don’t repeat it.”
“I wish I could fet it,” was the answer.
“You will when you are out of the try: 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 tet 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 doh you or nearly so; I’ll make you det in a trice. Jane” (he turo 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: opeop drawer of the wardrobe and take out a shirt and neck- handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble.”
I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named, aurned 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 ily, 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 e at last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your furred cloak? You ’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 o mine,—ach a cloak you will see there.”
Again I ran, and agaiurned, 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 prese 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 lory 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 get on your feet,” he said—“try.”
The patient rose.
“Carter, take him uhe 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, Jarip on before us away to the backstairs; unbolt the side-passage door, ahe 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 ing: and, Jane, if any one is about, e 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 kit still dark and silent. The side- passage door was fastened; I ope with as little noise as possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there ost-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were ing; he hen I looked carefully round and listehe stillness of early m slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawhe 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 noeared. 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 do, 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 b the orchard. I, supposing he had doh me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call “Jane!” He had opened feel portal and stood at it, waiting for me.
“e 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 ot dis 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 poio 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 oher 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 m, could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumihe wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks uhem.
“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, Jahat 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 aloh Mason?”
“I was afraid of some one ing out of the inner room.”
“But I had fastehe 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 ot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor eveo live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crad 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, wbbr>ill he hurt me— but, uionally, 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 ot give him orders in this case: I ot 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 te in yait and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing me—w 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, -handed alacrity, no lively gland animated plexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale, and would say, ‘No, sir; that is impossible: I ot do it, because it is wrong;’ and would bee 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 ar the wall, lined with ivy; it tained 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, whiust endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err iaining you, or that you err in staying.”
“No, sir; I am tent.”
“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:- suppose you were no lirl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote fn land; ceive that you there it a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose sequences 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 uilty act, which might make the perpetrator ameo the law: my word is error. The results of what you have done bee in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but her unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very fines 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 bee the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeki in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean iless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intelled blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you e 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 entered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regees: you feel better days e back—higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to reence 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 —a mere ventional impediment whieither your sce 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 le Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang iree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.
Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:
“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking aant, man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to atta for ever this gentle, gracious, genial strahereby seg his own peaind and regeion 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 wohey 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 ged tone—while his face ged too, losing all its softness and gravity, and being harsh and sarcastic—“you have noticed my tender pent for Miss Ingram: don’t you think if I married her she would regee 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 befor藏书网e me, “you are quite pale with yils: don’t you curse me for disturbing your rest?”
“Curse you? No, sir.”
“Shake hands in firmation 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 be useful, sir.”
“For instahe 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 pany? To you I 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 iables! 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 m; he was gone before sunrise: I rose at four to see him off.”
Chapter 21
Preses are strahings! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three bined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at preses 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 in) whose ws baffle mortal prehension. And signs, fht 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 day Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her little sister.
Of late I had often recalled this saying and this i; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had nht 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, ain, dabbling its hands in running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing ohe : now it led 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 ehe 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 panionship with this baby- phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was oernoon 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 m, 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 an 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 Geiana’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 ’t give you better news of them, Miss: they are very badly at present—irouble.”
“I hope no one is dead,” I said..
, glang 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 ishap: his life has been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up te ways, and his death was shog.”
“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 wome into debt and into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he returo his old panions 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 news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows!—they say he killed himself.”
I was silent: the things 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 wao say something, a making signs to my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday m, however, that Bessie uood she ronoung your name; and at last she made out the words, ‘Bring Jach 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 Geiana, and advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their mrew so restless, and said, ‘Jane, Jane,’ so many times, that at last they sented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to- morrow m.”
“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 get off?”
“Yes; and I will do it now;” and having directed him to the servants’ hall, and reended him to the care of John’s wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went in searr. 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 laying billiards with Miss Ingram. To the billiard-room I hastehe click of balls and the hum of voices resouhence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some ce to disturb so iing 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 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 appeara the moment—it was very graceful and very striking: she wore a m 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 lis.
“Does that person want you?” she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turo see who the “person” was. He made a curious grimae 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 old me that before: you always said you had ions.”
“hat would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off.”
“Why?”
“Because I oor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.”
“But Reed left children?—you must have cousins? Sir Gee 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 Geiana 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 itted suicide. The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack.”
“And what good you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would hink 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 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 e back: you will not be induced under any pretext to take up a perma resideh 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 an.”
“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 m, sir.”
“Well, you must have some money; you ’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 stiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket- book: “Here,” said he, me a was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no ge.
“I don’t want ge; you know that. Take yes.”
I deed accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as if recolleg 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.”
“e back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.”
“Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of busio you while I have the opportunity.”
“Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.”
“You have as good as informed me, sir, that yoing shortly to be married?”
“Yes; what then?”
“In that case, sir, Adèle ought to go to school: I am sure you will perceive the y 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 void a distortion of features equally fantastid 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 sn instead of ten pounds. Give me baine 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 at.”
“Little niggard!” said he, “refusing me a peiary 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 ohing.”
“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 e 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, Jaeach 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 teher. So you’ll do no more than say Farewell, Jane?”
“It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be veyed in oy 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 ence my pag.” 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 m.
I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o’clo the afternoon of the first of May: I stepped in there befoing up to the hall. It was very a: the oral windows were hung with little white curtains; the floor otless; 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 er.
“Bless you!—I knew you would e!” 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 m, and wishing you would e, but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I 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 ao wele him: afterwards she insisted on my taking off my bo 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 bae as I watched her bustling about— setting out the tea-tray with her best a, 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 aodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.
She wao 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 rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly, and I was tent. Then I went on to describe to her the gay pany that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with i: they were precisely of the kind she relished.
In such versation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my bo, &c., and, apanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall. It was also apanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked dowh I was now asding. On a dark, misty, raw m in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate atered heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly harbe 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 ag 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 rese 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 m I was first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still covered the hearth. Glang at the bookcases, I thought I could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick’s British Birds occupying their old pla the third shelf, and Gulliver’s Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not ged; but the living things had altered past reition.
Two young ladies appeared before me; oall, almost as tall as Miss Ingram—very thin too, with a sallow fad severe mien. There was something asceti her look, which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen collar, hair bed away from the temples, and the nun-like or of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblao her former self in that elongated and colourless visage.
The other was as certainly Geiana: but not the Geiana 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 ried 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 being—it looked as stylish as the other’s looked puritanical.
In each of the sisters there was orait of the mother—and only ohe thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent’s gorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her tour of jaw and —perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardo the teherwise so voluptuous and buxom.
Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to wele, and both addressed me by the name of “Miss Eyre.” Eliza’s greeting was delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and the down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed tet me. Geiana added to her “How d’ye do?” several onplaces about my jourhe weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and apanied by sundry side-glahat 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 bo. 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, ess of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their ses on the point, without itting them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.
A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no lohat power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt uhe total of the one and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, neiana 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 beeed than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no either food or bad.
“How is Mrs. Reed?” I asked soon, looking calmly at Geiana, who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an ued liberty.
“Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you see her to-night.”
“If,” said I, “you would just step upstairs and tell her I am e, I should be much obliged to you.”
Geiana 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 lohan is absolutely necessary.”
“Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,” remarked Eliza. I soon rose, quietly took off my bo and gloves, uninvited, and said I would just step out to Bessie—who was, I dared say, i—and ask her to ascertaiher Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie ached her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink france: re?ceived as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very m; now, it was disclosed to me all at ohat 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 indepe 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 veyed 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: e a us see if she will know you.”
I did not o 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 opehe door: a shaded light stood oable, 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 huimes beeeo ko ask pardon for offences by me unitted. I looked into a certain er near, half-expeg 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 opehe curtains a 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 vengeand hushes the promptings e 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 tet and five all injuries—to be reciled and clasp hands in amity.
The well-known face was there: sterless as ever—there was that peculiar eye whiothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menad hate! and how the recolle of childhood’s terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! A 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 tet 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 experierue pleasure. But unimpressioures 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 ohat her opinion of me—her feeling towards me—was unged and ungeable. I knew by her stony eye—opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears—that she was resolved to sider 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 iion 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 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 ged utteraold what wreck had taken pla her once vigorous frame. Turnilessly, she drew the bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a er 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 munoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her inprehensible disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her tinual, unnatural watgs 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 eed 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 screamiily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to and notice it as if it had been his own: more, ihan 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 tinually 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 tormentih letters for money? I have no more moo 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 ever submit to do that—yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my ine goes in paying the i of mes. 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 oher side of the bed.
“Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards night—in the m she is calmer.”
I rose. “Stop!” exclaimed Mrs. Reed, “there is ahing I wished to say. He threatens me—he tinually threateh his owh, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blaed face. I am e to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the moo be had?”
Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught: she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more posed, and sank into a dozing state. I the her.
More than ten days elapsed before I had again any versation with her. She tinued either delirious or lethargid the doctor forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on as well as I could with Geiana 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. Geiana would chatter nonseo her ary bird by the hour, and take no notie. 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, he window, and busy myself ig fancy viges, representing any se 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, ed with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow’s , under a wreath of hawthorn- bloom
One m I fell to sketg 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 promi forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that tave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced uhat 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 , with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted oemples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last, because they required the most careful w. 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 ford 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 fader my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turheir bae? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and tent.
“Is that a portrait of some one you know?” asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed. I respohat it was merely a fancy head, and hurried it beh 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 o myself? Geiana also advao 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 outlihen Geiana produced her album. I promised to tribute a water-colour drawing: this put her at oo good humour. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a fidential versation: 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 quest she had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft versations were reported, aimental ses represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my be. The unications 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 reminisces of past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations to e. She passed about five minutes each day in her mother’s si, 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 a 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 intular portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book, which I found, on iion, was a on Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attra of that volume, and she said, “the Rubric.” Three hours she gave to stitg, with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In ao my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a c for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two t by herself i-garden; and oo the regulation of her ats. She seemed to want no pany; no versation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any i which forced her to vary its clockwularity.
She told me one evening, when more disposed to be unicative than usual, that John’s duct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had been a source of profound affli 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 permaly secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world. I asked if Geiana would apany her.
“Of course not. Geiana and she had nothing in on: they never had had. She would not be burdened with her society for any sideration. Geiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers.”
Geiana, 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 ain 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 indolend plaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put away her at-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus—
“Geiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had nht 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 be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, uffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, ed, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a se of tinual ge aement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered—you must have music, dang, and society—or you languish, you die away. Have you no seo devise a system which will make you indepe of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into ses; to each se 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 ied to no one for helping you to get rid of one vat moment: you have had to seek no one’s pany, versation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an indepe 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. it—go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling—and suffer the results of your idiocy, however bad and insuperable 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 a 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 ced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I tell you this—if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, awo stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world, aake myself to the new.”
She closed her lips.
“You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,” answered Geiana. “Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature ience: and I know your spiteful hatred towards me: I have had a spe of it before irick 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 >ircles where you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects for ever.” Geiana 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 at of by some, but here were two natures rehe oolerably 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 humaition.
It was a wet and windy afternoon: Geiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was goo attend a saint’s-day service at the new church—for in matters ion she was a rigid formalist: her ever prevehe punctual discharge of what she sidered 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 ed, 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 e occasionally to the hall. I found the si 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 rehe fuel, re-arrahe bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
The rai strongly against the pahe 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 te—flit when at length released?”
In p the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her dying words—her faith—her doe of the equality of disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her well- remembered toill picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted fad sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her diviher’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 strao me—where is Bessie?”
“She is at the lodge, aunt.”
“Aunt,” she repeated. “Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons; a 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 nos: besides, i years she must be so ged.” I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing that I was uood, 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 ove a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of ih, burdens us at su 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 t 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 ged; she seemed to experiene 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 dires. “Read the letter,” she said.
It was short, and thus ceived:—
“Madam,—Will you have the goodo sehe address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my iion to write shortly and desire her to e to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a petency; 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, etc., etc.,
“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 thhly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not fet your due, Jahe fury with which you ourned ohe 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 fet my owions 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. Five me for my passionate language: I was a child the, nine years have passed sihat day.”
She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawh, she went on thus—
“I tell you I could not fet it; and I took my revenge: for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and fort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappoi, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and tradict 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 recolle of a deed which, but for you, I should never have beeed to it.”
“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and tard me with kindness and fiveness”
“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and oo this day I feel it impossible to uand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiest under any treatment, and ienth break out all fire and violence, I ever prehend.”
“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 early to be reciled 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 mihe 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 fiveness: ask now fod’s, a peace.”
Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to ge her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated me—dying, she must hate me still.
The nurse ered, 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 m that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look at her: Geiana, 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.>藏书网 After a silence of some minutes she observed—
“With her stitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by trouble.” And then a spasm stricted her mouth for an instant: as it passed away she turned ahe room, and so did I. her of us had dropt a tear.
Chapter 22
Mr. Rochester had give one week’s leave of absence: yet a month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the funeral, but Geiareated me to stay till she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had e down to direct his sister’s interment ale the family affairs. Geiana said she dreaded bei aloh Eliza; from her she got her sympathy in her deje, 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 pag her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, “If you and I were destio live always together, cousin, we would eters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, and pel you to aplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere plaibbr>..nts hushed in your ow. It is only because our e happens to be very transitory, and es at a peculiarly mournful season, that I sent thus to re so patient and pliant on my part.”
At last I saw Geiana 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 unication with any one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer notes of dolence.
One m she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet duct! There is some differeween living with su one as you and with Geiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no oo-morrow,” she tinued, “I set out for the ti. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle—a nunnery you would call it; there I shall be quiet and ued. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholias, and to a careful study of the ws of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the o calculated to ehe doing of all things detly and in order, I shall embrace the tes of Rome and probably take the veil.”
I her expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: “muay it do you!”
When we parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you have some sense.”
I theurned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French vent. 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 Geiana 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 vent 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 experiehe sensation. I had known what it was to e back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold loomy; and later, what it was to e back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be uo get either. her of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no mag drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attra 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 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 Geiana; I beheld ohe osure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a vent 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 aurn: laid down on my traveller’s bed, I left reminisce 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 ierim of my absehe party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fht. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was goo make arras for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strao 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 ent. “I don’t doubt it.”
The question followed, “Where was I to go?” I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night: in a vivid m dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointi 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 iler’s care, did I slip away from the Gee 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 aled, 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 s 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 oo ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a perma resting-place, or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. “Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm wele, 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 ahan they, and that he is not thinking of you.”
But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperiehese affirmed that it? leasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they added—“Hasten! hasteh 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-bony—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, aurning 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 stoeps; 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 stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I kwenty ways; for he has seen me.
“Hillo!” he cries; as up his book and his pencil. “There you are! e on, if you please.”
I suppose I do e on; though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely isant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above all, to trol the w muscles of my face— which I feel rebel ily against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to ceal. But I have a veil—it is down: I may make shift yet to behave with det posure.
“And this is Jane Eyre? Are you ing from Millcote, and on foot? Yes—just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and e clattering over street and road like a ortal, but to steal into the viage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you doh yourself this last month?”
“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.”
“A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She es 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 fetting me quite, I’ll be sworn!”
I khere would be pleasure iing 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 unig 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 fot 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 sed-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—’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 o such you are handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyoy.”
Mr. Rochester had sometimes rea..d my unspoken thoughts with an a to me inprehensible: in the present instance he took no notiy 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 on purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling—he shed it over me now.
“Pass, Ja,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile: “go up home, and stay your weary little wanderi at a friend’s threshold.”
All I had now to do was to obey him in sileno need for me to colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, a 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 yreat 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 fort.
I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my cars against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and ing 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 led close up to me, and a sense of mutual affe 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 rete e croquer sa petite maman Anglaise”—I half veo hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere uhe shelter of his prote, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.
A fht 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 su event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the ive. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going t 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.
Ohing 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 ty; but what was that distao an ardent lover? To so practised and iigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a m’s ride. I began to cherish hopes I had nht to ceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had ged 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 iable deje, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his presenever been kio me when there—and, alas! never had I loved him so well.
Chapter 23
A splendid Midsummer shone land: 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 e 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, trasted 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 goo 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, aending 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 o and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beh the horizon.
I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-know— that of a cigar—stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a hah; 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; oher, a beech avenue sed it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fes 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, ehere 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 inse: this new st is her 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 ing 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 soourn whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.
But ide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; arolls on, now lifting the gooseberry- tree brao 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 iheir 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 exami.
“Now, he has his back towards me,” thought I, “and he is occupied too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I 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, e 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 i; one does not often see se 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 wish to go to bed while su is thus at meeting with moonrise.”
It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an ahere 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 wao get me out of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour aloh 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 disc a means of extrication; but he himself looked so posed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any fusion: the evil—if evil existent or prospective there was—seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unscious and quiet.
“Jane,” he reenced, as we ehe laurel walk, and slowly strayed down in the dire of the sunk fend the horse- chestnut, “Thornfield is a pleasant pla summer, is it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You must have bee in some degree attached to the house,—you, who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the an of Adhesiveness?”
“I am attached to it, indeed.”
“And though I don’t prehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree ard for that foolish little child Adèle, too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?”
“Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affe 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 tinued presently: “no sooner have you got settled in a pleasaing-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, Ja, 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 mares.”
“It is e now—I must give it to-night.”
“Then yoing to be married, sir?”
“Ex-act-ly—pre-cise-ly: with your usual aess, you have hit the nail straight on the head.”
“Soon, sir?”
“Very soon, my—that is, Miss Eyre: and you’ll remember, Jahe first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my iion to put my old bachelor’s neto the sacred o enter into the holy estate of matrimony—to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she’s aensive armful: but that’s not to the point—one ’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 respe you—with that fht, prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and depe posit藏书网ion—that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adèle had better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur veyed in this suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Ja, I’ll try tet it: I shall notily its wisdom; which is such that I have made it my law of a. Adèle must go to school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation.”
“Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: aime, 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 loence, for my voice was not quite under and.
“In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom,” tinued Mr. Rochester; “and ierim, I shall myself look out for employment and an asylum for you.”
“Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give—”
“Oh, o apologise! I sider that when a depe does her duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her employer for any little assistance he vely render her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a place that I think will suit: it is to uake the education of the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O’Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, aught, 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 san 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 o—wealth, caste, intervened between me and what I naturally and iably loved.
“It is a long way,” I again said.
“It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, aught, Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jahat’s morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the try. 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. e! 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. e, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destio sit there together.” He seated me and himself.
“It is a long way to Ireland, Ja, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels: but if I ’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 iricably ko a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous el, and two hundred miles or so of land e broad between us, I am afraid that cord of union will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,—you’d fet 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 vulsively; 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 e to Thornfield.
“Because you are sorry to leave it?”
The vehemenotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predomio overe, 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 beerified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of union with what is bright and eid high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in,—with an inal, 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 y of departure; and it is like looking on the y of death.”
“Where do you see the y?” he asked suddenly.
“Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.”
“In what shape?”
“In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble aiful 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 stay to bee nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?—a mae without feelings? and 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 aless? 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 , ventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, aood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are!”
“As we are!” repeated Mr. Rochester—“so,” he added, enclosing me in his arms. Gatherio his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: “so, Jane!”
“Yes, so, sir,” I rejoined: “a not so; for you are a married man—or as good as a married man, ao one inferior to you—to oh whom you have no sympathy—whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you s her. I would s such a union: therefore I am better than you—let me go!”
“Where, Jao Ireland?”
“Yes—to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and 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 ensnares me; I am a free human being with an indepe will, which I 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 sed self, a earthly panion.”
“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 bbbr>e 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 dista died. The nightingale’s song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I agai. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said—
“e to my side, Jane, a us explain and uand one another.”
“I will never again e to your side: I am torn away now, and ot return.”
“But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I io marry.”
I was silent: I thought he mocked me.
“e, Jane—e hither.”
“Your bride stands between us.”
He rose, and with a stride reached me.
“My bride is here,” he said, again drawio 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 vinced. 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 ess both from her and her mother. I would not—I could not—marry Miss Ingram. You— you strange, you almost uhly thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I eo accept me as a husband.”
“What, me!” I ejaculated, beginning in his earness—and especially in his incivility—to credit his siy: “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 owirely 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 teurn!”
“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 ws in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes
“Oh, Jane, you torture me!” he exclaimed. “With that searg a faithful and generous look, you torture me!”
“How I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be gratitude aion—they ot 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 ear? 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!”
“e to me—e 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 oo meddle, sir. I have no kio interfere.”
“No—that is the best of it,” he said. And if I had loved him less I should have thought his at 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 giveo 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 ato will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and fortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there not love in my heart, and stan my resolves? It will expiate at God’s tribunal. I know my Maker sans 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 faear 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 ges. I could have sat with thee till m, 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 oroke 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 bbr>９９ｌｉｂ?only smiled at her, and ran upstairs. “Explanation will do for aime,” thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierd frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours’ duration, I experieno fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thriy door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was fort, that was strength for anything.
Before I left my bed in the m, 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 24
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 fa the glass, a it was no longer plain: there was hope in its asped 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 affe by its expression. I took a plain but and light summer dress from my draut it on: it seemed no attire had ever so well bee, 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 m 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 ing up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happeo 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 rejoig heart.
Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad tenance, and saying gravely—“Miss Eyre, will you e 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.
“e and bid me good-m,” 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 embrad 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 m. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced g.９９ｌib.her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise: she was coquettish but not heartless; exag, 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 glan the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed; i of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; suffitly 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 iing or thhly 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 affe is engehan we give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.
She had taken an amiable caprie. She said I was like Mr. Rivers, only, certainly, she allowed, “not oh so handsome, though I was a nieat little soul enough, but he was an angel.” I was, however, good, clever, posed, and firm, like him. I was a lusus naturae, she affirmed, as a village sistress: 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 kit, she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and diary, 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 therified with delight.
“Had I dohese pictures? Did I know Frend 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 perfed radiant a model. She had then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only or 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 c it; and, as it was getting late then, I told her she must e and sit another day.
She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself apanied her 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 ing the 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 wheered into versation 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 aors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once beloo them; that even now he sidered the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an alliah the best. He ated 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 suffit pensation for the want of fortune.
It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after helpio my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid. All about me otless and bright— scoured floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself , 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, ao the more soothing, because easier occupation, of pleting 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 carmioo, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tio the shadow of the lash uhe azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these ails, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers.
“I am e 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 oable a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine produs 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 ce! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nenius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existeheir preseheir liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destru. 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 ihe hell of your own meanness.
While I was eagerly glang at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for “Marmion” it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figure spra 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 ceived an ination to do him some good, if I could.
“With all his firmness and self-trol,” thought I, “he tasks himself too far: locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, fesses, imparts nothing. I am sure it would be 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 ot discover the secret spring of your fidence, and find aure in that marble breast through which I 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 nothi,” I muttered within. “I don’t mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I’m prepared to go to siderable lengths.” I tinued, “You observed it closely and distinctly; but I have no obje to your looking at it again,” and I rose and placed it in his hand.
“A well-executed picture,” he said; “very soft, clear c; 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 you would deem worthless.”
He tio 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 mahe colour, light, expression, are perfect. It smiles!”
“Would it fort, 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 solation to have that memento in your possession? or would the sight of it bring recolles calculated to ee and distress?”
He now furtively raised his eyes: he gla 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 ascertaihat 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 ow to advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he bee 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 see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to take to yourself the inal at once.”
By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture oable before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it. I dised he was now her 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 he frank discussion of their ses and griefs more than the expahe ster- seeming stoic is human after all; and to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent sea” of their souls is often to fer ohe 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 suffit 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 tinually: 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.” Aually took out his watd laid it upoable to measure the time.
“But where is the use of going on,” I asked, “when you are probably preparing some iron blow of tradi, or f a fresh to fetter your heart?”
“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding aing, 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 iions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a arous flood—the young germs sed—delicious poison kering 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 oh 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 suffie. 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 iy, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fasating—I experie the same time a calm, uned scioushat 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 ret. 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 uook. 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 voy great work? My foundation laid oh 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 siderable pause, I said—“And Miss Oliver? Are her disappoi and sorrow of no io you?”
“Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: ihan a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will fet 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 flict. You are wasting away.”
“No. If I get a little thin, it is with ay about my prospects, yet uled—my departure, tinually procrastinated. Only this m, I received intelligehat the successor, whose arrival I have been so long expeg, ot be ready to replace me for three months to e yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six.”
“You tremble and bee flushed whenever Miss Oliver ehe schoolroom.”
Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagihat 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 unication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of ventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of fidence, and lace by their heart’s very hearthstone.
“You are inal,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit, as well as peing 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 shade before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I s the weakness. I know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the vulsion 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 fidence by storm,” he tinued, “and now it is much at your service. I am simply, in my inal state— stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity—a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affe only, of all the ses, has perma 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 i, because I sider you a spe of a diligent, orderly, eian: not because I deeply passionate what you have gohrough, or what you still ..suffer.”
“You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher,” I said.
“No. There is this differeween me aic 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 does. I advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth tion, she has cultivated my inal qualities thus:- From the minute germ, natural affe, 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 inal materials to the best at; 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 oable beside my palette. Once more he looked at the portrait.
“She IS lovely,” he murmured. “She is well he 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 aced 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 gla me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite inprehensible: a glahat 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 ience, whatever it was.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing in the world,” was the reply; and, replag 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, scrutihe paper; but saw nothing on it save a few dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I pohe mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and beiain it could not be of muent, I dismissed, and soon fot it.
Chapter 33
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 lo with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that sciousness was firmed: they maed their affe plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a pla 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 teag in their school.
Mr. Rivers came up as, havihe classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exging a few words of special farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars: as det, 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- respeg of any in Europe: sihose days I have seen paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, aed, pared with my Morton girls.
“Do you sider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?” asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. “Does not the sciousness of having done some real good in your day and geion give pleasure?”
“Doubtless.”
“And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life dev..ed to the task eing 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 . And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, a 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 ainst their arrival.”
“I uand. 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 m.”
He took it. “You give it up very gleefully,” said he; “I don’t quite uand yht-heartedness, because I ot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, urpose, what ambition in life have you now?”
“My first aim will be to down (do you prehend the full force of the expression?)—to down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my o rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, te every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go o ruin you in coals ao keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the treg that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah ao such a beating of eggs, s of currants, grating of spices, pounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other ary rites, as words vey but an ie 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 hursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a wele when they e.”
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 domestidearments and household joys.”
“Th藏书网e best things the world has!” I interrupted.
“No, Jane, no: this world is not the se of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful.”
“I mean, on the trary, 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 fort 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 tent 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 itted to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict at. 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 onplae pleasures. Don’t g so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your stand ardour for ae cause; forbear to waste them on trite tra 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 turopsy-turvy—how I could brush, and dust, and , and cook. And really, after a day or two of fusion worse founded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a jouro S- to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me carte blao effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having bee 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 y was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be ied. Dark handsome neets and curtains, an arra of some carefully selected antique ors in porcelain and bronze, new cs, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered ?he end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid vas on the passage, and carpets oairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as plete a model ht modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a spe of wintry waste a dreariness without.
The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kit was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness.
St. John arrived first. I had eed him to keep quite clear of the house till everything was arranged: and, ihe bare idea of the otion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls sufficed to scare him to estra. He found me i, watg the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approag the hearth, he asked, “If I was at last satisfied with housemaid’s work?” I answered by inviting him to apany me on a general iion 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 gohrough a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such siderable ges in so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indig 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 trary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more thought oter than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the arra 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 aced 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 attra 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 sto his fine lis fixed in study—I prehended all at ohat he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I uood, 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 prehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influe exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle aroy it; how he should mistrust its ever dug permaly to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from whiature hews her heroes—Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her querors: a steadfast bulwark freat is to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous n, 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 s would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties staghey ot develop or appear to adva is in ses of strife and danger—where ce 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 ing! they are ing!” 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 opehe door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my fader their bos, in tact first with９９ｌiｂ? 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 tenances expao the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they dema. John. At this moment he advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave eae quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of wele, 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 e.
I had lit their dles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders respeg the driver; this done, both followed me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the neery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted a vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of feeling that my arras 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 ent, 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 apas of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was e. In the very meridian of the night’s enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hanered with the intimation that “a poor lad was e, at that uime, 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 be: there’s no track at all over the bog. And then it is such a bitter night—the kee wind you ever felt. You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the m.”
But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one obje, 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 whe out. He had performed an act of duty; made aio his own strength to do and deny, and was oer terms with himself.
I am afraid the whole of the ensuiried his patie was Christmas week: we took to led 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 m till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, inal, 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 sid poor in its different districts.
One m at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked him, “If his plans were yet unged.”
“Unged and ungeable,” 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 to read at meals—he closed it, and looked up,
“Rosamond Oliver,” said he, “is about to be married tranby, one of the best ected and most estimable residents in S-, grandson ao 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 ot have known each other long.”
“But two months: they met in October at the ty ball at S-. But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the e is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: they will be married as soon as S- Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, he refitted for their reception.”
The first time I found St. John aloer this unication, 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 recolle of what I had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practi talking to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was gealed beh it. He had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he tinually made little chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was aowledged his kinswoman, and lived uhe same roof with him, I felt the distaween us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village sistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his fidence, I could hardly prehend 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, Jahe 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 querors whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not suother ruin you?”
“I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be called upon to tend for suother. The event of the flict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!” So saying, he returo 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 encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) uaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tohe 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 iy of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdraw ever and anon, it returned seargly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I wooo, at the punctual satisfa 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, h wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and ence me to aplish the task withard to the elements.
“Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her,” he would say: “she bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us. Her stitution is both sound aic;—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 plain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse ecial annoyance.
Oernoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold. His sisters were goo Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exged a translation for an exercise, I happeo look his way: there I found myself uhe influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How long it had been searg me through and through, and over and over, I ot tell: so keen was it, a so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uny.
“Jane, what are you doing?”
“Learning German.”
“I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.”
“You are not in ear?”
“In such earhat I must have it so: and I will tell you why.”
He the on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he t tet the e; 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 thhly 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 lo 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 perma. I sented. When Diana and Mary returhe 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, a aing 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 loalk 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; “e,” I came; “do this,” I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had tio 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 ; and, as was equally his , he gave me his hand. Diana, who ced to be in a frolie humour (She was not painfully trolled 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, a unfortably fused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. Joh his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piergly—he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin’s salute beloo 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 quiesce with which I underwent it, seemed to i 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 inal bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wao traio aion 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 corred classic pattern, to give to my geable greehe sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.
Not his asdancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a kering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at its source—the evil of suspense.
Perhaps you think I had fotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these ges of plad 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 bee 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 eaight to brood over it.
In the course of my necessary correspondeh Mr. Briggs about the will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester’s present residend state of health; but, as St. John had jectured, he was quite ignorant of all ing him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, eing 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 fht 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 kee ay.
I wrote again: there was a y 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 expecy, 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 apao 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 deficies, he proloill further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their aplishment: and I, like a fool, hought of resisting him—I could not resist him.
One day I had e to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappoi. Hannah had told me in the m 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 p 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 octs of the parlour: Diana ractising her musi the drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My panion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said—
“We will wait a few minutes, Jaill you are more posed.” And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk, and looking like a physi watg with the eye of s expected and fully uood crisis in a patient’s malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that m, I resumed my task, and succeeded in pleting 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 panion this m, and that must be you. Put on your things; go out by the kit-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, antagonistiy owween absolute submission aermined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volic vehemence, into the other; and as her present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood ined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedieo St. John’s dires; 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 sts of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream desding the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and clear, catg golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced ahe 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 fem—where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exged 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, auro traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in union 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 overes 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; her he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he reenced—
“Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in a Indiaman which sails oh of June.”
“God will protect you; for you have uaken 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 trol of my feeble fellow-worms: my king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strao me that all round me do not burn to enlist uhe same bao 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 petent to aplish it.”
“Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.”
“You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—te 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 pla the ranks of His chosen.”
“If they are really qualified for the task, will not their ows 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?” dema. John.
“My heart is mute,—my heart is mute,” I answered, strud thrilled.
“Then I must speak for it,” tihe deep, relentless voice. “Jane, e with me to India: e 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 Maia, had enounced, “e 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 her meror remorse. He tinued—
“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 Sn’s service.”
“I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,” I said.
He had calculated on these first objes: 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 tenance, I saw he repared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patieo last him to its close—resolved, however, that that close should be quest 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 aowledge myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal vileo 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, Jarust 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 uand a missionary life: I have udied missionary labours.”
“There I, humble as I am, give you the aid you want: I 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 uaking? I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling—no life quiing—no voice selling 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 ot aplish!”
“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 ungenial to your habits and inations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you trolled. In the calm with which you learnt you had bee 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 oo yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I reised a soul that revelled in the flame aement of sacrifice. Iractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were ied, and adopted another because it ied me; iiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I aowledge the plement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disied, faithful, stant, and ceous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself—I trust you unreservedly. As a ductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.”
My iron shroud tracted 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, paratively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, deself 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.
“I do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and aowledge that,” I meditated,—“that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the existeo 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 that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as t on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible ge in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another i in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man adopt od assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the o calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affes and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes—a 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 fi tral 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 oar—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 work as hard as he , and with as little grudging.
“sent, then, to his demand is possible: but for oem—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 ye. He prizes me as a soldier would a good on; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but I let him plete his calculations—coolly put into practice his plans—gh the wedding ceremony? 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? I bear the scioushat 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 apany him—not as his wife: I will tell him so.”
I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate n; his face turo me: his eye beaming watchful and keearted to his feet and approached me.
“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.”
“Your answer requires a entary,” he said; “it is not clear.”
“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let us tinue 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 secrated and sealed by marriage, or it ot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? sider a moment—your strong sense will guide you.”
I did sider; 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 tinue.”
“We ot—we ot,” 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.”
“ditionally.”
“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 sistent to withdraw it. You have but oo keep in view—how the work you have uaken best be done. Simplify your plicated is, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all siderations in one purpose: that of fulfilling with effect— with power—the mission of yreat 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 influence effitly in life, aain absolutely till death.”
I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influen my marrow—his hold on my limbs.
“Seek one elsewhere than i. John: seek oted to you.”
“Oted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insignifit 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 ot—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 ot accept on His behalf a divided allegia 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 ione in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that apa. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not uood 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 ferehe analysis of his nature roceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I prehehem. I uood 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, g as I. The veil fell from his hardness aism. Havi in him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfe and took ce. I was with an equal—oh 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 gla his tenance.
His eye, bent on me, expressed at oern surprise and keen inquiry. “Is she sarcastid sarcastie!” it seemed to say. “What does this signify?”
“Do not let us fet that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long; “one of which we may her think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in ear 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 adva of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom oh 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 aal union in marriage: the only union that gives a character of perma ity 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 ination— 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, anding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and searg, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied myself in idea HIS WIFE. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his rade, all would be right: I would cross os with him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asias with him in that office; admire and emulate his ce aion and vigour; aodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition; discrimihe Christian from the man: profoundly esteem the one, and freely five the other. I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a stri yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved feelings with whimunicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mio which he never came, aiments 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 tinually low, to pel it to burn inwardly and ter a cry, though the imprisoned flame ed 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 sent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife; I arry you and bee part of you.”
“A part of me you must bee,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the whole bargain is void. How I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of een, unless she be married to me? How we be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes—and unwed?”
“Very well,” I said shortly; “uhe 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 ot introduce you as such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspis 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 ed; for you I have only a rade’s stancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s resped 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 rehe uniht even in your eyes.”
“I s your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. “I s the terfeit se you offer: yes, St. John, and I s you when you offer it.”
He looked at me fixedly, pressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he was insed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: he could and his tehhly.
“I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve s.”
I was touched by his geone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
“Five me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topi which our natures are at variaopic 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—fet it.”
“No,” said he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which 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 fht—take that space of time to sider my offer: and do not fet 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 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 dehe faith, and are worse than infidels!”
He had dourning 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 disappoi of an austere aiature, 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 obedie was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for refle aance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper tet 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 expeg 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 reciliation was to be had with him—no cheering smile enerous word: but still the Christian atient and placid; and when I asked him if he fave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing tive, not having been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down.
Chapter 34
When Mr. St. Joh, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm tinued all night. The 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 u, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a dle, 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 fot storm in music.
I heard a he wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurrie—the howling darkness—and stood before me: the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in sternation, 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 ohen 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 e?” 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 ay rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experiehe 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 duct 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 ahe 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, expeg he would say something I could at least prehend; but his hand was now at his , his finger on his lip: he was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps uncalled-fush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say—
“I wish Diana or Mary would e and live with you: it is too bad that you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your owh.”
“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, aurn to my book.”
So I she dle 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 su inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in impatience, sent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if my he liked, but talk I would.
“Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?”
“Not sihe letter I showed you a week ago.”
“There has not been any ge made about your own arras? You will not be summoo leave England soohan you expected?”
“I fear not, indeed: such ce is too good to befall me.” Baffled so far, I ged 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 m, and I shall have four new girls week from the Foundry Close—they would have e 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 ygestion?”
“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, turo me.
“Leave your book a moment, and e a little he fire,” he said.
W, and of my wonder finding no end, I plied.
“Half-an-ho,” he pursued, “I spoke of my impatieo hear the sequel of a tale: on refle, I find the matter will be better managed by my assuming the narrator’s part, and verting you into a listener. Before eng, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound somewhat haeyed 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 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 sequently 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 rown 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 friehing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-law, called (I e 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 ot say, never haviold; 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 uook the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester.”
“Mr. Rivers!” I interrupted.
“I 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 dud proposals were is a matter of pure jecture; but when aranspired 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 try had been scoured far and wide; ige of information could be gathered respeg her. Yet that she should be found is bee 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, unig 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 tell it me—what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he doing? Is he well?”
“I am ignorant of all ing 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 ao 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 ti. And iate for his severe sufferings—what object for his strong passions—had he sought there? I dared not ahe 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 pronoun 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 itted to blad white.”
And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through; from one of its partments was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily torn off: I reised 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 abstra.
“Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:” he said, “the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.—I fess I had my suspis, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once resolved into certainty. You own the name and renouhe 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 ied. Meantime, you fet 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. Johly: “a step which will offer no difficulties; you theer on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary dots.”
Here was a new card turned up! It is a fihing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigeo wealth—a very fihing; but not a matter one prehend, or sequently enjoy, all at once. And then there are other ces 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 maions are the same. One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to sider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfa rise certain grave cares, and we tain ourselves, and blood 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 rejoig 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 unner—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 itted a murder, and I had told you your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look mhast.”
“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 iers, not figures,—twenty thousand.”
I agai rather like an individual of but average gastronomical powers sitting down to feast alo a table spread with provisions for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose nout his cloak on.
“If it were not such a very wild night,” he said, “I would send Hannah down to keep you pany: 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 su out-of-the- lace, 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.” Agaich rattled.
“No; that does not satisfy me!” I exclaimed: and ihere 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.”
“Aime.”
“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 objes wrought my eagero 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 then,” he pursued, “I am cold: no fervour is 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 fiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kit, tell me what I wish to know.”
“Well, then,” he said, “I yield; if not to your earness, to your perseverance: as stone is worn by tinual 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 christe. John Eyre Rivers?”
“No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. prised in your initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I never asked for what stood. But what then? Surely—”
I stopped: I could not trust myself to eain, much less to express, the thought that rushed upohat embodied itself,— that, in a sed, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,—every ring erfect, the e plete. I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I ot 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., mert, 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 sequence of a quarrel, never fiveween him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks sio 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 posed enough. I resumed—
“Your mother was my father’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“My aunt, sequently?”
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 khem but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affe and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down o ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House kit, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of i 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 affes. This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating;—not like the ponderous gift of gold: rid wele enough in its way, but s from its weight. I noed 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 ed 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 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 ted,—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, prehend, 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 asding stars,—every o me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now be. They were under a yoke,—I could free them: they were scattered,—I could reuhem: the independehe affluence which was mine, might be theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally would be five thousand each, justiough 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 ,—it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.
How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I ot 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 posed; I sed the insinuation of helplessness and distra, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again.
“Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow,” I said, “ahem to e home directly. Diana said they would both sider themselves rich with a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well.”
“Tell me where I 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, ale down like an ordinary mortal?”
“You wander: your head bees fused. I have been too abrupt in unig 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 misuand, or rather who affeisuand.”
“Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should preheer.”
“Explain! What is there to explain? You ot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, the sum iion, 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 ahem of the fortuhat 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 es. 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 be 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 ag on first impulses; you must take days to sider such a matter, ere your word be regarded as valid.”
“Oh! if all you doubt is my siy, I am easy: you see the justice of the case?”
“I do see a certain justice; but it is trary to all . Besides, the entire fortune is yht: my uncle gai 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 sce, sider it absolutely your own.”
“With me,” said I, “it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of sce: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an opportunity of doing so. Were you tue, object, and annoy me for a year, I could not fo 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,” rejoi. John, “because you do not know what it is to possess, nor sequently to enjoy wealth: you ot form a notion of the importawenty 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 ot—”
“And you,” I interrupted, “ot at all imagihe 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 relut 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—ged with gold I never earned and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation! Close union! Intimate attat!”
“But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may be realised otherwise than by the means you plate: 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 inations 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 kihose 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 , repeat them sincerely.”
“I think I . I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know on what my affe 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 versation I have already for some time found a salutary solace. I feel I easily and naturally make room in my heart for you, as my third and you sister.”
“Thank you: that tents 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 siss 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, aook leave.
I need not narrate iail 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 ows have felt the equity of the iion; and must, besides, have been innately scious that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do—they yielded at length so far as to sent to put the affair to arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both cided 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 petency.
Chapter 35
He did not leave for Cambridge the 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 stious yet implacable man infli one who has offended him. W９９ｌｉb.ithout one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he trived to impress me momently with the vi that I ut 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 fiven me for saying I sed him and his love, but he had not fotten the words; and as long as he and I lived he never would fet them. I saw by his look, wheuro 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 versing with me: he even called me as usual each m 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 eving with what skill he could, while ag and speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of i and approval which had formerly unicated a certain austere charm to his language and mao me, he was iy bee 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 sce the fai stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. He experieno suffering from estra—no yearning after reciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they produo more effe him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kihan usual: as if afraid that mere ess would not suffitly vince me how pletely I was banished and banned, he added the force of trast; and this I am sure he did not by force, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about su, 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 tain 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 plating as I approached.
“No,>?9９lib? 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 affe than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers.”
“Of course,” he said. “Your wish is reasonable, and I am far frarding you as a stranger.”
This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough. Had I atteo 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 veed 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 requer 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 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 uhey betray an unfortuate of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man tive his fellow even until seventy-and-seven times.”
I had fihe business now. While early wishing to erase from his mind the tray former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surfaother and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in.
“Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to attempt to ciliate you: I see I have made aernal enemy of you.”
A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched oruth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I khe steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
“You utterly misinterpret my words,” I said, at once seizing his hand: “I have no iion 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 siderable pause.
“Yes, I will, as your assistant,” I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature and Gra this interval, I ot tell: only singular gleams stillated 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 ye proposing to apany 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 ce at once. “Keep to on se. 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 ot be either so dull or so ceited as to misuand my meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife.”
Agaiurned lividly pale; but, as before, trolled 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 ot 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 indepe of the Society’s aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your promise aing the band you eo join.”
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any e; 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, ion in the case. I am not uhe slightest obligation to go to India, especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, fide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am vihat, 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 itting suicide. Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know for certaiher I ot 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 go ill by some means that doubt is removed.”
“I know where your heart turns and to what it gs. The i you cherish is lawless and unsecrated. 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 fessed it by silence.
“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?”
“I must find out what is bee of him.”
“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my prayers, and to e God for you, in all earness, that you may not indeed bee a castaway. I had thought I reised in you one of the chosen. But God sees not as man sees: His will be done—”
He opehe gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was soon out of sight.
Oering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, lookihoughtful. 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 five 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 respeg you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notid i 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, a you so frequently aloh him, and keep you so tinually at his side? Mary and I had both cluded 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 sented, have you, Jane?”
“I have refused to marry him—”
“And have sequently displeased him?” she suggested.
“Deeply: he will never five me, I fear: yet I offered to apany him as his sister.”
“It was frantic folly to do so, Jahink of the task you uook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills everong, 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 ce 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 early jured 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 dea, he expressed himself shocked at my want of decy. He seemed to think I had itted an impropriety in proposing to apany 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 explaihat it is not himse..lf, 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 ed for life to a man wharded o as a useful tool?”
“Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!”
“And then,” I tinued, “though I have only sisterly affe for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I imagihe possibility of ceiving aable, stra kind of love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and versation. In that case, my lot would bee unspeakably wretched. He would not wao love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it erfluity, unrequired by him, unbeing in me. I know he would.”
“A. John is a good man,” said Diana.
“He is a good and a great man; but he fets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignifit to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he es! 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 posed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak to me, and I was certain he９9ｌｉｂ? 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 ihe help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now believed he had fiven 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 bee so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tohat 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 dle oable): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the h—told how God would e to dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, her sorrow n, 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 overeth shall i 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 burh with fire and brimstone, which is the sed death.”
Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me.
A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earness, 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 ear, wrestling with God, and resolved on a quest. 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. Earness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listeo that prayer, I wo his; then, when it tinued 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 m. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room—in pliance, 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 fht: that space, then, is yet left you for refle. If I listeo 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 ot 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—warhat ‘the night eth 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 early, mildly: his look was not, ihat of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep—or better, of a guardian angel watg 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 veion for St. John— veion s that its impetus thrust me at oo the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him— to rush doworrent 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 unscious of folly at the instant.
I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch. My refusals were fotten—my fears overy wrestlings paralysed. The Impossible—i.e., my marriage with St. John—was fast being the Possible. All was ging utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion called—Angels beed—God anded—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 sed. The dim room was full of visions.
“Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry ut ile 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 ged by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated.
“I could decide if I were but certain,” I answered: “were I but vihat it is God’s will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you here and now—e afterwards what would!”
“My I 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 khe 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 tended with my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, fervently loo do what was right; and only that. “Show me, show me the path!” I eed 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 dle 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 oo my head aremities. The feeling was not like aric 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 expet: 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 voiewhere 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 e out of the air—nor from uhe 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 ing!” I cried. “Wait for me! Oh, I will e!” 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 Glehe answer faintly back—“Where are you?” I listehe wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush.
“Down superstition!” I ented, 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 asdency. 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 and well enough, obedienever fails. I mouo 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 pee 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 36
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 knoo, but a slip of paper assed uhe 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 . I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fht. Meantime, watd 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 hourl.99ｌib.y.—Yours, ST. JOHN.”
“My spirit,” I answered mentally, “is willing to do what is right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to aplish the will of Heaven, when ohat will is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be strong enough to searquire—to grope an outlet from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty.”
It was the first of June; yet the m was overcast and chilly: rai fast on my casement. I heard the front-door open, and St. John pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the gardeook the way over the misty moors in the dire 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 coaeet 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 p the visitation which had given my plans their prese. I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable stran9９ｌｉb?geness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whe came, as vainly as before: it seemed i iernal world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression—a delusion? I could not ceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had e like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas’s prison; it had opehe doors of the soul’s cell and loosed its bands—it had wake out of its sleep, whe sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a y startled ear, and in my quaki and through my spirit, whieither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, indepe 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 annouo Diana and Mary that I was going a journey, and should be absent at least four days.
“Alone, Jahey 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 ent, 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 ay of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate.
It was easy to make my further arras; for I was troubled with no inquiries—no surmises. Having once explaio them that I could not now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in the sileh which I pursued them, acc to me the privilege of free a 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 a hills, I heard it approach from a great dista 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 beed. I entered—n..
ot now obliged to part with my whole fortune as the price of its aodation. 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 m the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the midst of sery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral hills (how mild of feature and verdant of hue pared with the stern North-Midland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lis of a once familiar face. Yes, I khe 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 an, 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 el, fht 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 give you all you seek: they solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home.”
The suggestion was sensible, a I could not force myself to a 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 uhe 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 trag and sc me, on the m 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 weled sirees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them!
At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud g broke the m stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened. Another field crossed—a lahreaded—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 si 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 ot 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 give me? I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watg the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or oideless sea of the south.”
I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard—turs ahere was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two stone pillars ed 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 an?d.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have sidered 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—fang 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, i. 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 siouch 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 utter—by any movement he 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 blaed ruin.
o cower behind a gate-post, io peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! o 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 well- like wall, very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows: no roof, no battlements, no eys—all had crashed in.
And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome wild. No wohat letters addressed to people here had never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church aisle. The grim blaess of the stoold by what fate the Hall had fallen—by flagration: but how kindled? What story beloo 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 oo a—not even dumb sign, mute token.
In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidehat the calamity was not of late occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter raien in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there betweeones and fallen rafters. And oh! where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily wao the grey church tower he 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 returhe 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 plied, I scarcely knew how to begin; such horror had I of the possible answers. Ahe 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 mao say at last.
“Yes, ma’am; I lived there once.”
“Did you?” Not in my time, I thought: you are a strao 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!” gasped. “Is he dead?”
“I mean the preseleman, 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 preseleman.” Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear all that was to e—whatever the disclosures might be—with parative 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! su 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 wit myself.”
“At dead of night!” I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield. “Was it known how it inated?” I demanded.
“They guessed, ma’am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware,” he tinued, edging his chair a little he 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 fi, ma’am: people even for some years was not absolutely certain of her existeno 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 jecture. 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 ira way. There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in—”
“But the fire,” I suggested.
“I’m ing to that, ma’am—that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so mu love as he was: he was after her tinually. They used to watch him—servants will, you know, ma’am—a 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, whelemen 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 aime,” 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, arustworthy, but for one fault—a fault on 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 ing 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 her own, and the 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 kihe 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 disappoi: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alooo. 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, ut to school. He broke off acquaintah 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 rag, as some are, and he was not so very handsome; but he had a ce 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, a 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 asd 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 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 beeer 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 he 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 ’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 summorength to ask what had caused this calamity.
“It was all his own ce, 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 uhe 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 veyance?”
“We have a chaise, ma’am, a very handsome chaise.”
“Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy drive me to Ferndean before dark this day, I’ll pay both you and him twice the hire you usually demand.”
Chapter 37
The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of siderable 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 , in sequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. Ferhen remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the aodation 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 tinued small peing rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise and driver with the double remuion I had promised. Even when within a very short distance of the manor- house, you could see nothing of it, so thid 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 on the twilight of close-rarees. There was a grass-grown track desding the forest aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches. I followed it, expeg soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it would far and farther: no sign of habitatirounds was visible.
I thought I had taken a wrong dire 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, nar trunk, dense summer foliage—no opening anywhere.
I proceeded: at last my ehe 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 deg 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 presewo pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, oep 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 chur a week-day: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its viage.
“ 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 oep; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had reised 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 suddeing, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had no difficulty iraining my voice from exclamation, my step from hasty advance.
His form was of the same strong and stalwart tour as ever: his port was still erect, his heir was still raven blaor 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 tenance I saw a ge: that looked desperate.? and brooding—that reminded me of some wronged aered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approa his sullehe caged eagle, whose ged eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.
And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocit..y?—if you do, you little know me. A soft hope blest with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly sealed beh it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet.
He desded the oep, 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 vacy 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 ing 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 uain. 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, e at this late hour to this lonely place?” I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed her into the kit, where John now sat by a good fire. I explaio them, in few words, that I had heard all which had happened since I left Thornfield, and that I was e 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 bo and shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could be aodated at the Manor House for the night; and finding that arras 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.”
Wheurned, 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 dles.
“Is that what he rang for?” I asked.
“Yes: he always has dles 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 opehe door for me, and shut it behind me.
This parlour looked gloomy: a ed handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the bli of the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being iently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bouowards me: he almost khe tray from my hands. I set it oable; then patted him, and said softly, “Lie down!” Mr. Rochester turned meically to see what the otion 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 i,” 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 demarying, 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 e over me? What sweet madness has seized me?”
“No delusion—no madness: your mind, sir, is to for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy.”
“And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I ot 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 ot live!”
He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and priso 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 e 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 vat like air, am I?”
“My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I ot 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—ahat 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 ay mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned—my life dark, lonely, hopeless—my soul athirst and forbidden to drink—my heart famished and o be fed. Gentle, soft dream, ling 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 vi of the reality of all this seized him.
“It is you—is it, Jane? You are e bae then?”
“I am.”
“And you do not lie dead in some ditder some stream? And you are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?”
“No, sir! I am an indepe woman now.”
“Indepe! 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, Ja! Are you an indepe woman? A rian?”
“If you won’t let me live with you, I build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may e and sit in my parlour when you want pany 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 indepe, 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 panion—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 ventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my insiderateness. 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 esg him and his tenance being more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and erhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and I begaly 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 fort of your presehe sweetness of your solation: I ot 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 vengean its frame.”
“Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so.”
“Yes—but you uand ohing by staying with me; and I uand 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 affeate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffie no doubt. I suppose I should ertain fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? e—tell me.”
“I will think what you like, sir: I am tent to be only your nurse, if you think it better.”
“But you ot always be my nurse, Ja: you are young—you must marry one day.”
“I don’t care about being married.”
“You should care, Ja: 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 trary, became more cheerful, and took fresh ce: these last wave 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 versation.
“It is time some one uook to rehumanise you,” said I, parting his thid long uncut locks; “for I see you are beiamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ‘faux air’ of Nebuezzar 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 her 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. you tell when there is a good fire?”
“Yes; with the right eye I see a glow—a ruddy haze.”
“And you see the dles?”
“Very dimly—each is a luminous cloud.”
“ you see me?”
“No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.”
“When do you take supper?”
“I ake supper.”
“But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I daresay, only you fet.”
Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared him, likewise, a fortable 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 harassiraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I erfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to sole or revive him. Delightful sciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presehhly lived; and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lis 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 touo 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: a but by fits. If a moment’s silence broke the versation, he would turless, touch me, then say, “Jane.”
“You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?”
“I stiously believe so, Mr. Rochester.”
“Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my loh? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expeg John’s wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.”
“Because I had e in, in Mary’s stead, with the tray.”
“And there is entment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expeg nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I fot 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 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 onplace, 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, benefit spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will agai me—passing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable?
“Have you a pocket-b about you, sir?”
“What for, Jane?”
“Just to b 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 wiess has not been taken out of you, wherever you have sojourned.”
“Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a huimes better people; possessed of ideas and views you never eained in your life: quite more refined aed.”
“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 eain 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 mog geling—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 det. 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 e.”
Very early the m 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: “Whi did you put her into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything; and when she will e down.”
I came down as soon as I thought there rospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered my prese was mournful, io withe subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair—still, but not at rest: expet evidently; the lines of now habitual sadness marking his stroures. His tenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit— and alas! it was not himself that could now kihe lustre of animated expression: he was depe 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 m, 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 wakehe glow: his features beamed.
“Oh, you are ihere, my skylark! e to me. You are not gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an ho, singing high over the wood: but its song had no musie, any more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody oh is trated in my Jaoo my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one): all the sunshine I feel is in her presence.”
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, ed to a perch, should be forced to e a sparrow to bee its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with preparing breakfast.
Most of the m ent 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, wheed, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he and I were happier han 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, ascertaihat 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 siderably what related to the three days of wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflinecessary 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 iion. I should have fided 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 stitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss iurn, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had fessed 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 obtaihe office of sistress, &c. The accession of fortuhe 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 dohat 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-ducted 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, phlegmatid plain. A person whose goodness sists rather in his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue.”
“He is untiringly active. Great aed 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 shoul藏书网d think not impressible, but vigorous.”
“Is he an able man, then?”
“Truly able.”
“A thhly educated man?”
“St. John is an aplished 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, alemanlike.”
“His appearance,—I fet 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 Gre 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 somewhat ued observation.
“Why not, Mr. Rochester?”
“The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming trast. Your words have delied very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,—tall, fair, blue-eyed, and with a Gre profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vul,—a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into the bargain.”
“I hought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like Vul, sir.”
“Well, you leave me, ma’am: but before you go” (aained 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 sistress 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 aplishments are not ordinary.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You had a little cottage he school, you say: did he ever e 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 he 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 uand 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 sed 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 fi—an impudent iion 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 leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remaiinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?”
“Because I am fortable there.”
“No, Jane, you are not fortable 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 hought that while I was m 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 fet that you have formed a ie. But I am not a fool—go—”
“Where must I go, sir?”
“Your oith 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 love, and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wao 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 indulgene—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 g 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 wao 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 tent. 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 scared vision! My crippled strength!” he murmured regretfully.
I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wao speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from uhe sealed eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.
“I am er 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: yreen 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 fort.
“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 o you?”
“Of course: you said nothing about it before.”
“Is it unwele 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 be oh.”
“Because you delight in sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for tent. 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, theainly I delight in sacrifice.”
“And to bear with my infirmities, Jao overlook my deficies.”
“Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I 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: heh, 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 lonelio the stant attendance of servants; but Jane’s soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me: do I suit her?”
“To the fi 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 bee one flesh without any delay, Jahere is but the lice to get—then we marry.”
“Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far deed from its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at your watch.”
“Fasten it into yirdle, Ja, and keep it henceforward: I have no use for it.”
“It is nearly four o’clo 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 sihe 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 benefit 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 i 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 thie: 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 roud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over tn guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane—only—only of late—I began to see and aowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentahe wish for recilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere.
“Some days sinay, I umber 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 sooaken from this life, and admitted to that world to e, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.
“I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which en: it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no stars and only by a vague, luminous haze, khe presence of a moon. I longed for thee, Ja! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I asked of God, at on anguish and humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not soon taste bliss and peace more. That I merited all I endured, I aowledged—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 pronouhem with such frantiergy.”
“And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?”
“Yes; but the time is of no sequence: what followed is the strange point. You will think me superstitious,—some superstition I have in my blood, and always had: heless, this is true— true at least it is that I heard what I now relate.
“As I exclaimed ‘Jane! Jane! Jane!’ a voice—I ot tell whehe voice came, but I know whose voice it was—replied, ‘I am ing: wait for me;’ and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the words—‘Where are you?’
“I’ll tell you, if I , the idea, the picture these words opeo 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 se, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in unscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to ine; for those were your ats—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 listeo Mr. Rochester’s narrative, but made no disclosure iurn. The ce struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be unicated 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 proo gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and pohem in my heart.
“You ot now wonder,” tinued my master, “that when you rose upon me so uedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere void vision, something that would melt to silend 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 e my Redeemer to give me strength to lead heh a purer life than I have doherto!”
Theretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, the pass round my shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We ehe wood, and wended homeward.
Chapter 38—CONCLUSION
Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. Whe back from church, I went into the kit of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John ing the knives, and I said—
“Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this m.” The housekeeper and her husband were both of that det phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely unicate 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 chis 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 agaihe 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 goo church to be wed;” and she basted away. John, when I turo 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 loher: and he’s dht, fht 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 kit. 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 faal 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 annouhat she would just give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would e 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 yrave or mine.”
How St. John received the news, I don’t know: he never answered the letter in which I unicated 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 mihly things.
You have not quite fotten 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 establishmeoo strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with me. I meant to bee her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were now required by another—my husband hem all. So I sought out a school ducted on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit of my visiting her of?ten, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that could tribute to her fort: she sooled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress iudies. 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 panion: 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 respeg my experienarried life, and one brief gla 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 oh. I hold myself supremely blest—blest bey藏书网ond what language express; because I am my husband’s life as fully is he is mine. No woman was ever o 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; sequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in pany. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my fidence is bestowed on him, all his fidence is devoted to me; recisely suited in character—perfect cord is the result.
Mr. Rochester tinued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that circumstahat drew us so very hat 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 loamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of dug him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there leasure 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 an profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.
One m at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came a over me, and said—“Jane, have you a glittering or round your neck?”
I had a gold watch-: I answered “Yes.”
“And have you a pale blue dress on?”
I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fahe obscurity clouding one eye was being less dense; and that now he was sure of it.
He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an emi oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He ot now see very distinctly: he ot read or write much; but he 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 ut into his arms, he could see that the boy had ied his own eyes, as they once were—large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, aowledged 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 e 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 attais and principles, worthy of the e. 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 oh he had marked for himself; he pursues it still. A more resolute, iigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, aed, 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 exag; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrireatheart, who guards his pilgrim voy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exa of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says—“Whosoever will e 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 pla 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 eves human tears, a filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible . I know that a stranger’s hand will write to me , 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 e quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond,—‘Amen; even so e, Lord Jesus!’”天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》