Chapter 30
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The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all their occupations; verse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time-the pleasure arising from perfect geniality of tastes, ses, and principles.I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverehey loved their sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs—all grown aslant uhe stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom—found a charm both potent and perma. They g to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling—to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate desded, and which wouween fern- banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture- fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, ave susteo a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs:- they g to this se, I say, with a perfethusiasm of attat. I could prehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I saw the fasation of the locality. I felt the secration of its loneliness: my eye feasted oline of swell and sweep—on the wild c unicated te and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-spriurf, by brilliant bra, and mellow granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to them—so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft breeze; the rough and the hal day; the hours of sunrise and suhe moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attra as for them—wound round my faculties the same spell that entraheirs.
Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more aplished aer read than I was; but with eagerness I followed ih of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books they lehen it was full satisfa to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought; opinio opinion: we cided, in short, perfectly.
If in our trio there erior and a leader, it was Diana. Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous. In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life aainty of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my prehension. I could talk a while when the evening enced, but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana’s feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen altero her and Mary, while they souhhly the topi which I had but touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her: I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual affe—of the stro kind—was the result. They discovered I could draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service. My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary would sit and watch me by the hether: then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus occupied, and mutually eained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.
As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters did end to him. One reason of the dista observed between us was, that he was paratively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sid poor among the scattered population of his parish.
her seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when his hours of m study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his father’s old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty—I scarcely know in which light he regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful—
“And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, reparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?”
Diana and Mary’s general ao this question was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.
But besides his frequent absehere was another barrier to friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward tent, which should bet he reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist. Often, of an evening, whe at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it erturbed aing might be seen in the frequent flash and geful dilation of his eye.
I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but on my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affe for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure ione and words in which the se was maed; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silenever seek out or dwell upohousand peaceful delights they could yield.
Inunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him prea his own church at Morton. I wish I could describe that sermon: but it is past my power. I ot even render faithfully the effect it produe.
It began calm—and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end: an early felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct ats, and prompted the ner..vous language. This grew to forpressed, densed, trolled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: her were softehroughout there was a straterness; an absence of solatentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic does—ele, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each refereo these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead of feelier, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me—I know not whether equally so to others—that the eloqueo which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappoi—where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers— pure-lived, stious, zealous as he was—had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all uanding: he had no more found it, I thought, than had I with my cealed and rag regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium—regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly.
Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, aurn to the far different life and se which awaited them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependants, and who her knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and appreciated only their acquired aplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One m, bei aloh him a few minutes in the parlour, I veo approach the window-recess— which his table, chair, and desk secrated as a kind of study—and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my inquiry—for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over suatures as his—when he saved me the trouble by being the first to ence a dialogue.
Looking up as I drew near—“You have a question to ask of me?” he said.
“Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I offer myself to uake?”
“I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy here—as my sisters had evidently bee attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure—I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual fort till their approag departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.”
“And they will go in three days now?” I said.
“Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parso Morton: Hannah will apany me; and this old house will be shut up.”
I waited a few moments, expeg he would go on with the subject first broached: but he seemed to have entered arain of refle: his look denoted abstra from me and my business. I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of y one of close and anxious io me.
“What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of seg it.”
“Oh, no; si is in employment which depends only oo give, and you to accept.”
He again paused: there seemed a reluce to tinue. I grew impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager aing glance fastened on his face, veyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.
“You need be in no hurry to hear,” he said: “let me frankly tell you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father’s debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grahe row of scathed firs behind, and the patoorish soil, with the yew- trees and holly-bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole desdants of the race, two earn the dependant’s crust among strangers, and the third siders himself an alien from his native try—not only for life, but ih. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word, ‘Rise, follow Me!’”
St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a corusg radiance of glance. He resumed—
“And since I am myself poor and obscure, I offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity. You may even think it degrading— for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but I sider that no service degrades which better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer’s task of tillage is appointed him—the stier the meed his toil brings—the higher the honour. His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself.”
“Well?” I said, as he again paused—“proceed.”
He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page. The clusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding observations.
“I believe you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it for a while: not permaly, though: any more than I could permaly keep the narrow and narrowing—the tranquil, hidden office of English try incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mihough of a different kind.”
“Do explain,” I urged, when he halted once more.
“I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,—how trivial— hoing. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope ress. I established one for boys: I mean now to open a sed school firls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’s house. Her salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but suffitly, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle- factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on dition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices ected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teag will prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress?”
He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expe indignant, or at least a disdainful reje of the offer: not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it lodding—but then, pared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was indepe; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it was not ig unworthy—not mentally degrading, I made my decision.
“I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my heart.”
“But you prehend me?” he said. “It is a village school: your scholars will be only pirls—cottagers’ children—at the best, farmers’ daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all you will have to teach. What will you do with your aplishments? What, with the largest portion of your mind— ses—tastes?”
“Save them till they are wahey will keep.”
“You know what you uake, then?”
“I do.”
He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased and deeply gratified.
“And when will you ehe exercise of your fun?”
“I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, week.”
“Very well: so be it.”
He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at me. He shook his head.
“What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?” I asked.
“You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!”
“Why? What is your reason for saying so?”
“I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the maintenance of aenor in life.”
“I am not ambitious.”
He started at the word “ambitious.” He repeated, “No. What made you think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find it out?”
“I eaking of myself.”
“Well, if you are not ambitious, you are—” He paused.
“What?”
“I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have misuood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human affes and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure you ot long be tent to pass your leisure in solitude, and to devote your w hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of stimulus: any more than I be tent,” he added, with emphasis, “to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature, that God gave me, travened; my faculties, heaveowed, paralysed—made usele<cite>?</cite>ss. You hear now how I tradict myself. I, who preached te with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God’s service—I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reciled by some means.”
He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried to appear as usual; bat the sorrow they had tle against was ohat could not be entirely quered or cealed. Diana intimated that this would be a different parting from any they had ever yet known. It would probably, as far as St. John was ed, be a parting for years: it might be a parting for life.
“He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves,” she said: “natural affe and feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane; but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my sce will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe decisioainly, I ot for a moment blame him for it. It is right, noble, Christia breaks my heart!” And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work.
“We are now without father: we shall soohout home and brother,” she murmured,
At that moment a little act supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that “misfortunes never e singly,” and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a letter. He entered.
“Our uncle John is dead,” said he.
Both the sisters seemed struot shocked or appalled; the tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflig.
“Dead?” repeated Diana.
“Yes.”
She riveted a searg gaze on her brother’s face. “And what then?” she demanded, in a low voice.
“What then, Die?” he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature. “What then? Why—nothing. Read.”
He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and ha to Mary. Mary perused it in silence, aur to her brother. All three looked at each other, and all three smiled—a dreary, pensive smile enough.
“Amen! We yet live,” said Diana at last.
“At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,” remarked Mary.
“Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what might have been,” said Mr. Rivers, “and trasts it somewhat too vividly with what IS.”
He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and agai out.
For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turo me.
“Jane, you will wo us and our mysteries,” she said, “and think us hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was my mother’s brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed betweehey parted in anger, and were never reciled. My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous uakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no near kindred but ourselves and oher person, not more closely related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three m rings. He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: a a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of suews. Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do.”
This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The day I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for distant B-. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned.
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