Chapter 16

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    I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night: I wao hear his voice agai feared to meet his eye. During the early part of the m, I momentarily expected his ing; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had the impression that he was sure to visit it that day.

    But the m passed just as usual: nothing happeo interrupt the quiet course of Adèle’s studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester’s chamber, Mrs. Fairfax’s voice, and Leah’s, and the cook’s—that is, John’s wife—and even John’s own gruff tohere were exclamations of “What a mercy master was not burnt in his bed!” “It is always dangerous to keep a dle lit at night.” “How providential that he had presenind to think of the water-jug!” “I wonder he waked nobody!” “It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa,” &c.

    To much fabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing aing thts; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw through the open door that all was agaiored to plete order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about to address her, for I wished to know what at had been given of the affair: but, on advang, I saw a sed person in the chamber—a woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. That woman was no other than Grace Poole.

    There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was i on her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard forehead, and in her onplace features, was nothiher of the paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the tenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed), charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was amazed—founded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, sciousness of guilt, or fear of dete. She said “Good m, Miss,” in her usual phlegmatid brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing.

    “I will put her to some test,” thought I: “such absolute imperability is past prehension.”

    “Good m, Grace,” I said. “Has anything happened here? I thought I heard the servants all talking together a while ago.”

    “Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his dle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and trived to quench the flames with the water in the ewer.

    “A strange affair!” I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her fixedly—“Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?”

    She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of sciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then she answered—

    “The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax’s room and yours are the o master’s; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often sleep heavy.” She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and signifit tone—“But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard a noise?”

    “I did,” said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could not hear me, “and at first I thought it ilot: but Pilot ot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one.”

    She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfeposure—

    “It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he was in such danger: You must have been dreaming.”

    “I was not dreaming,” I said, with some warmth, for her brazen ess provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and scious eye.

    “Have you told master that you heard a laugh?” she inquired.

    “I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this m.”

    “You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the gallery?” sh<samp>..</samp>e further asked.

    She appeared to be cross-questionitempting to draw from me information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard.

    “On the trary,” said I, “I bolted my door.”

    “Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before you get into bed?”

    “Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans accly!” Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied sharply, “Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future” (and I laid marked stress on the words) “I shall take good care to make all secure before I veo lie down.”

    “It will be wise so to do,” was her answer: “this neighbourhood is as quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by robbers si was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds’ worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for such a large house, there are very few servants, because master has never lived here much; and when he does e, being a bachelor, he needs little waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, are for trusting all to Providence; but I say Providence will not dispeh the means, though He often blesses them when they are used discreetly.” And here she closed her harangue: a long one for her, and uttered with the demureness of a Quakeress.

    I still stood absolutely dumfou peared to me her miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook entered.

    “Mrs. Poole,” said she, addressing Grace, “the servants’ dinner will soon be ready: will you e down?”

    “No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I’ll carry it upstairs.”

    “You’ll have some meat?”

    “Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that’s all.”

    “And the sago?”

    “Never mind it at present: I shall be ing down before teatime: I’ll make it myself.”

    The cook here turo me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me: so I departed.

    I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax’s at of the curtain flagration during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in p the problem of her position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into custody that m, or, at the very least, dismissed from her master’s service. He had almost as much as decla<mark>?</mark>red his vi of her criminality last night: what mysterious cause withheld him from acg her? Why had he enjoined me, too, to secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of the mea of his dependants; so mu her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, he dared not openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her for it.

    Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have beeed to think that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea could not be admitted. “Yet,” I reflected, “she has been young once; her youth would be porary with her master’s: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years. I don’t think she  ever have beey; but, fht I know, she may possess inality and strength of character to pensate for the want of personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and etric: Grace is etric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden arong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his as a secret influehe result of his own indiscretion, which he ot shake off, and dare not disregard?” But, having reached this point of jecture, Mrs. Poole’s square, flat figure, and unely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind’s eye, that I thought, “No; impossible! my supposition ot be correct. Yet,” suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our ows, “you are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any rate, you have ofte as if he did; and last night—remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice!”

    I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adèle was drawing; I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.

    “Qu’ avez-vous, mademoiselle?” said she. “Vos doigts tremblent e la feuille, et vos joues ses: mais, rouges e des cerises!”

    “I am hot, Adèle, with stooping!” She went og; I went on thinking.

    I hasteo drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been ceiving respeg Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I pared myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and she spoke truth—I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had more colour and more flesh, more life, more vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.

    “Evening approaches,” said I, as I looked towards the window. “I have never heard Mr. Rochester’s voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the m; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient.”

    When dusk actually closed, and when Adèle left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the bell t below; I listened for Leah ing up with a message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester’s own tread, and I turo the door, expeg it to open and admit him. The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he ofte for me at seven a o’clock, and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappoio- night, when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wao ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night’s hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept her wiess a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I khe pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct alrevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; oreme brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy restraint; this suited both him and me.

    A tread creaked oairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. Thither I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I imagined, o Mr. Rochester’s presence.

    “You must want your tea,” said the good lady, as I joined her; “you ate so little at dinner. I am afraid,” she tinued, “you are not well to-day: you look flushed and feverish.”

    “Oh, quite well! I never felt better.”

    “Then you must prove it by eving a good appetite; will you fill the teapot while I knit off this needle?” Having pleted her task, she rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity.

    “It is fair to-night,” said she, as she looked through the panes, “though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for his journey.”

    “Journey!—Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out.”

    “Oh, he set of the moment he had breakfasted! He is goo the Leas, Mr. Eshton’s place, ten miles oher side Millcote. I believe there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir Gee Lynn, el Dent, and others.”

    “Do you expect him back to-night?”

    “No—nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are so surrounded by elegand gaiety, so well provided with all that  please aertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would not think his appearance calculated to reend him particularly in their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look.”

    “Are there ladies at the Leas?”

    “There are Mrs. Eshton ahree daughters—very elegant young ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies aleme—all of the first ty families; and Miss Ingram was sidered the belle of the evening.”

    “You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?”

    “Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to e in, and I sat down in a quiet er and watched them. I never saw a more splendid se: the ladies were magnifitly dressed; most of them—at least most of the younger ones—looked handsome; but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen.”

    “And what was she like?”

    “Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive plexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. Rochester’s: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then she had such a fine head of hair; raven-blad so beingly arranged: a  of thick plaits behind, and in front the lo, the glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an amber-coloured scarf assed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and desding in long, fringed ends below her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it trasted well with the jetty mass of her curls.”

    “She was greatly admired, of course?”

    “Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her aplishments. She was on<u>..</u>e of the ladies who sang: a gentleman apanied her on the piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet.”

    “Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.”

    “Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.”

    “And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?”

    “A very rid powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to listen to her;—and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good.”

    “And this beautiful and aplished lady, she is not yet married?”

    “It appears not: I faneither she nor her sister have very large fortunes. Old Lord Ingram’s estates were chiefly entailed, and the eldest son came in for everything almost.”

    “But I wonder hy nobleman entleman has taken a fancy to her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?”

    “Oh! yes. But you see there is a siderable differen age: Mr. Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.”

    “What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.”

    “True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would eain an idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since you began tea.”

    “No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?”

    I was about again to revert to the probability of a unioween Mr. Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the versation was turned into another el.

    When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examis thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured t back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination’s boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of on sense.

    Arraig my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, ses I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fht past; Reason having e forward and told, in her own quiet lain, unvarale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:—

    That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself o lies, and swallowed poison as if it were ar.

    “You,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with the power of pleasing him? You of importao him in any way? Go! your folly sis me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to a depe and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe!—Could not even self- i make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this m the brief se of last night?—Cover your fad be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who ot possibly io marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kihin them, which, if uurned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and respoo, must lead, ignis-fatus-like, into miry wilds whehere is rication.

    “Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your senteomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening o; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write u, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disected, poor, and plain.’

    “Afterwards, take a pieooth ivory—you have one prepared in your drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, fi, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delie carefully the loveliest face you  imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, acc to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ris, the oriental eye;—What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!—iment!—! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lis, the Gre ned bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit her diam nold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aerial lad glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it ‘Blanche, an aplished lady of rank.’

    “Whenever, in future, you should ce to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and pare them: say, ‘Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this i and insignifit plebeian?’”

    “I’ll do it,” I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.

    I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and ihan a fht I had pleted an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely faough, and when pared with the real head in chalk, the trast was as great as self-trol could desire. I derived be from the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given ford fixedo the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart.

    Ere long, I had reason to gratulate myself on the course of wholesome disciplio which I had thus forced my feelings to submit. Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a det calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to maintain, eveernally.

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